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Monday, April 7, 2014

Atheism is the rational acceptance of reality…concerning religion…

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1. FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIAN REALITY: No religious belief pusher can provide irrefutable, independently verifiable evidence, that their claimed god exists…</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ATHEIST POSITION: <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Atheists point out that no religious belief pusher can provide irrefutable, independently verifiable evidence, that their god exists</em></strong>. <strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">An atheist has no onus to disprove an unproven and unprovable god claim! The total verifiable evidence for god…any god…is zero.</em></strong></div>
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2. FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIAN REALITY: To fill their god evidence vacuum, after many previous iterations, belief pushers finally produced a contested, inconsistently interpreted and understood, but somewhat official book, to standardize god belief stories and rules. This attempt at uniformity backfires as thousands of varieties of Christianity result, based on that one very book, and belief pushers cannot agree which rules apply today, and which are obsolete</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ATHEIST POSITION: <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Atheists point out no god story book would be necessary, if a real active god existed in reality, and, the religious rule book is manipulated and applied inconsistently by belief pushers, to invariably excuse the leaders and oppress minorities.</em></strong></div>
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3. FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIAN REALITY: No belief pusher can prove that their unprovable god inspired their religious stories and subjectively applied rule book</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ATHEIST POSITION: <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Atheists point out that no belief pusher can prove their unprovable god inspired their religious stories and </em></strong><strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">subjectively applied rule book</em></strong></div>
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4. FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIAN REALITY: In their god stories, god was physically present on earth, and dramatically active…not so in reality.</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ATHEIST POSITION: <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Atheists point out no belief pusher can prove their story book god exists in reality, or did anything written in the stories. Many of the god stories have been scientifically proven to be false, so even if only allegorical, the stories and rules book proves no god inspired them, as otherwise, their god spreads false information…to teach morality?!?</em></strong></div>
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5. FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIAN REALITY: Belief pushers are divided over what their god is like, or has done, or which stories should be taken literally, or dismissed as allegorical</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ATHEIST POSITION: <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Atheists point out belief pushers are divided over what their god is like, or has done, or which god stories should be taken literally, and which only allegorically…and which rules to follow and which to ignore…indicating that the belief pusher’s god is unprovable, and therefore man made fantasy</em></strong></div>
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6. FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIAN REALITY: Belief pushers claim their god stories teach morality</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ATHEIST POSITION: <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Atheists point out that few belief pushers read all their god stories and rules book, and ignore all the nasty stories and rules. As the god stories and rule book is full of immorality, bigotry, genocide, slavery, rape pillage and plunder, war and oppression, it is not useful to teach morality, as the many self-aggrandizing religious institutions and dishonest and abusing clergy, and their covering up superiors, demonstrate.</em></strong></div>
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7. FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIAN REALITY: Religious belief pushers make outrageous god claims without a shred of verifiable evidence…”my god is real”…”my god healed me”…”my god got me my job”…”I’m going to live with god in paradise”…</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ATHEIST POSITION: <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Atheists point out religion is based on outrageous dishonesty, unsupportable, unprovable, and  unsubstantiatable claims…which conditions their followers to be blatantly dishonest as well…</em></strong></div>
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8. FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIAN REALITY: Belief pushers claim god did this or that…says this or that…thinks one thing or another…without verifiable proof…in other words, they want people to blindly believe <strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">them</strong>, without question</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ATHEIST POSITION: <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Atheists say…prove it…I don’t believe you…you are just making that up…</em></strong></div>
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9. FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIAN REALITY: Belief pushers want to force their beliefs onto everyone else, traditionally through threat of death or violence, as outlined in their religious stories and rules book, or by legislation</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ATHEIST POSITION: <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Atheists point out that everyone has the freedom to believe in myths or not, but they do not have the freedom to force their unverifiable religious opinions onto anyone else…</em></strong></div>

Atheism is the rational acceptance of reality…concerning religion…

1. FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIAN REALITY: No religious belief pusher can provide irrefutable, independently verifiable evidence, that thei...

Monday, March 31, 2014

Top 5 misconceptions about evolution

Top 5 misconceptions about evolution

Friday, March 21, 2014

GENESIS IS FIGURATIVE

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<b>Anonymous asked: Excuse me, but GENESIS IS FIGURATIVE but you can't say that creating the universe is an easy task. It's perfectly possible that a god or gods did it- it's as un-empirically provable as the multiverse or some of the other theories.</b></div>
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It’s amazing how ruffled people become when I respond to blatant ignorance and religious dogma</div>
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However, let me respond appropriately to this. Sliding past the obvious ridiculousness that I said anything regarding the universe being an easy task, or that it’s im/possible that the universe was manifested via some divine method we have yet to understand….here’s my two cents:</div>
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I have to deal and be patient throughout my daily life regarding religion or well, basically anything this blog consists of, because my family and most of the local community is daft of any kind of approach to intelligent conversation with respect to the actual questions being asked of today’s scientists. Critical thinking and the scientific method are just simply not conveyed as they should be throughout our school system, which hasn’t changed much since my parents and their parents were children in school. That’s a major problem, and it has affected my entire life while living amidst a religious fundamentalist family in America, where this type of infectious ignorance is prevalent.</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Let me at least state this clearly because I don’t think I ever have: <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I’m not ‘against’ religion the way acclaimed atheists and/or - ‘militant atheists’ - are. I understand the historic significance of religion throughout various cultures, I do appreciate the means by which our ancestors attempted to connect with the world around them, and from a neuroscientific point of view, the benefits of religious activity (‘practice’, participation, call it what you will) which have been demonstrated to parallel the effects on our psychology/stress/overall health via meditation.</em> </strong></div>
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But on the other hand, I justifiably feel, at this point in human history, with all we’ve gained, the concept of ‘freedom of religion’ is a farce and should be tarred and feathered in the (proverbial) town square of intellectuality.</div>
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-6wXZXOUV8&list=PL73E5E40315EA40FE&feature=share&index=6" style="border: 0px; color: #238db1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 1px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Freedom of religion and separation of church and state both are a slap in the face to human intellect and our ability to skeptically interrogate the natural world to a level of understanding that serves as a means to truly feel “at home” in the universe.</strong></a> Not in a metaphysical, pseudoscientific, new age sense, but a real, cognitive understanding of our place within the conglomeration of life on Earth and why the quest for life elsewhere is a monumental undertaking by our species, let alone ANY form of life. </div>
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Religion, ‘organized’ or otherwise, (looking at you, Christianity) and any/all perpetuation of Biblical scripture (along with the other cultures it’s infected) is a slap in the face to human intelligence. If you haven’t learned by now that <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U7jfPUhgeg&list=PL73E5E40315EA40FE&feature=share&index=16" style="border: 0px; color: #238db1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 1px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">you were created due to collapsing clouds of interstellar gas</strong></a>, you’re not using this beautiful digital archive of an evolving library called ‘the internet’ the right way, or <a href="http://youtu.be/BnoH95tITic" style="border: 0px; color: #238db1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 1px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">you are simply asking the wrong questions</strong></a>.</div>
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<a href="http://youtu.be/CqibqD4fJZs" style="border: 0px; color: #238db1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 1px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I encourage all who hold scripture to the highest form of intellectual superiority to put down the Bible and educate yourself about reality before you become disoriented with all of the knowledge we’ve gained during and since the publication of this book which misinforms you about - everything.</strong></a> I promote and stimulate curiosity with my son, teaching him how - <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">not what</em> - to think. It’s best to continue your own education before you find yourself lost in a world you don’t fully understand and cannot possibly be able to communicate properly to your children or loved ones in general.</div>
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<a href="http://youtu.be/R9abLyHTKFI" style="border: 0px; color: #238db1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 1px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The spiritual feelings so sought after in religion can of course be attained and more through science literacy.</strong></a> It’s a never ending persistence of wonder and awe. The best part being, it’s seeing everything for what it actually is, not what you may wish it to be. <a href="http://youtu.be/ZjYPPjoxuhU" style="border: 0px; color: #238db1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 1px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Take a look around you. Read more on things you haven’t been thoroughly educated on. Start with the creation and origins of religion. Or humans. Or life. Or the universe. Or what we understand about stars and what they are. You’ll never look at anything the same way again.</strong></a></div>
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Let’s not forget that Neil deGrasse Tyson made a pretty poignant statement which bears repeating: <a href="http://youtu.be/ytaf30wuLbQ" style="border: 0px; color: #238db1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 1px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"…God is an ever-receding pocket of ignorance…"</strong></a> that steadily has no place in our world due to a superimposed deity/deities having a severe lack of control over anything, not to mention none of the gods created by humans over our chronological history should be taken seriously, nor trusted. Black holes ring a bell? Blazars? Or on a more local level: disease? Plague? Volcanoes maybe?</div>
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<a href="http://youtu.be/SX0QLV8x700" style="border: 0px; color: #238db1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 1px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We have a 13.8 billion year legacy in the universe and a 3.8 billion year lineage on this Earth.</strong></a> It’s the height of human arrogance to forsake this knowledge to feel better in the short term about the seeming incomprehension of science due to the way in which our society has been arranged up to the present moment, forcing on us feelings of loneliness, separation, or insignificance, with the mere empty promise of a divine unseen being to rescue us.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://youtu.be/BaWyNZxJqwg" style="border: 0px; color: #238db1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 1px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We provide our own meaning</strong></a>. Start today. Learn more. And don’t look back. <a href="http://youtu.be/M_SpQY85AlM" style="border: 0px; color: #238db1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 1px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The world is a thrilling place when you realize you have to work for the answers</strong></a>; and the payoff is a more worthy and healthy brain to carry around.</span></div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"And we, we who embody the local eyes, and ears, and thoughts, and feelings of the cosmos — we’ve begun at last to wonder about our origins. Star stuff contemplating the stars, organized collections of 10 billion billion billion atoms contemplating the evolution of matter — tracing that long path by which it arrived at consciousness here on the planet Earth and, perhaps, throughout the cosmos."</em> — <a href="http://youtu.be/Msxr65Yazqg" style="border: 0px; color: #238db1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 1px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Carl Sagan</a></strong></div>
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GENESIS IS FIGURATIVE

Anonymous asked: Excuse me, but GENESIS IS FIGURATIVE but you can't say that creating the universe is an easy task. It's perfectly ...

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

THREE MAJOR REASONS WHY RELIGION STILL EXISTS

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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hence there are 3 major reasons why religion still exists:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">1) Early childhood indoctrination</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">2) Fear, leading to a need for hope regardless of how empty and false it may be</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">3) Laziness and lack of confidence All other reasons branch of from these 3.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Setting aside the fact that some religions aren’t bad for people, this is accurate when considering the Abrahamic religions and other harmful religions. It’s funny because I was just thinking about the dazed eyes of a deeply religious Christian I know; it’s really a scary thing to witness. You can physically see that brainwashing we all talk about. To be fair, he was raised in a deeply conservative home and doesn’t possess the ability to think outside the religious box. But it’s that very thing that stems from the first. One thing I’d probably add to this list is an aggressive marketing campaign, which we all know as proselytism. Without coverts, there’s no growth; without growth, there isn’t that false assurance that what one believes is the truth due to the numbers said religion boasts.</span></div>

THREE MAJOR REASONS WHY RELIGION STILL EXISTS

Hence there are 3 major reasons why religion still exists: 1) Early childhood indoctrination 2) Fear, leading to a need for ...

Saturday, March 8, 2014

Thomas Paine

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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Two men are regarded as having contributed equally to the successful outcome of the American War of Independence. George Washington in directing the movement of the soldiers and another man whose words in a time of crisis inspired those soldiers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This man’s first Crisis pamphlet, which Washington ordered to be read to the troops, begins with these words “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he who stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered.” With Washington’s troops near disintegration, Thomas Paine, a man about whom few people have heard or know what he did, published those words in mid-winter on 19th December 1776.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">He was the first person to use the phrase “The United States of America”, so let us recall the life and work of a man dedicated to liberty and reason.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">He was born on 29th January 1737 in Thetford, Norfolk, England. His father was a Quaker and his mother an Anglican. He attended the Thetford Grammar School and received a good education despite being withdrawn at age 13. After completing his apprenticeship as a stay maker, (his father’s trade) he went on a six-month voyage on a privateer which netted him £30, about two years or more pay. He used this to pay for an extended stay in London where he attended scientific lectures and bought a globe to assist.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">He became an exciseman. He married Mary Lambert in 1759, but she died in 1760 possibly in childbirth. Mary’s father had been an exciseman and Thomas may have been influenced by this to seek a post in the Excise. He was appointed first to Grantham then Alford, both in Lincolnshire but dismissed for fraud. Later it turned out that his supervisor was responsible and he was dismissed. Paine petitioned for his job back and was appointed to Lewes in Sussex.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">He married Elizabeth Ollive in 1771 but they separated in 1774. He was asked to draw up a petition arguing for better pay and conditions for Excisemen but Parliament refused to accept it. He was dismissed for neglecting his duties. Paine arrived in Philadelphia in November 1774 and secured work as co-editor of The Pennsylvania Magazine. He wrote and published poems and other articles anonymously (or under noms de plume): such works as his scathing denunciation of the slave trade, which he signed “Justice and Humanity”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">There was fighting against the British troops at Lexington and Concord in mid 1775. On 10th January 1776 Paine published the pamphlet Common Sense, showing why America should become independent of Britain, emphasising how unjust and foolish was the monarchical system of government. This publication paved the way for the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson has always been credited with having written the Declaration of Independence but evidence now available reveals that Thomas Paine produced the draft for this document. In Common Sense he argues that a manifesto be published which could be sent to other nations and would tell why America was forced to break ties with Britain. The causes which impel the separation are proclaimed in Common Sense.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">On 11th June 1776 Congress voted for such a document. A committee of five was appointed but at the last moment one was obliged to answer a call to his home and Jefferson took his place. Paine produced a draft, of which the John Adams family still retains a copy. This carries a clause to end slavery and this clause was omitted from the Declaration. Had it been included, the Civil War, ninety years later, would not have been fought. Why was this clause significant? Because slavery appalled Paine but Jefferson, at his death, still owned 200 slaves and any draft from him would not have included this clause.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The phrasing in the draft and the peculiar use of capitals and the spelling of words brand it as the work of Thomas Paine. It was condensed, mutilated and then submitted to Congress by the chairman of the Committee, Thomas Jefferson. It is far easier to modify a draft on hand than to start with blank paper and, in twenty days, produce such a Declaration of Independence.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It was typical of the integrity of Paine that he never openly claimed the credit, although it was hinted. Paine enlisted, served as aide-de-camp to General Nathaniel Green and wrote a total of 16 ‘Crisis Papers’. In 1777 Congress appointed him Secretary to the Committee of Foreign Affairs, in which position he was obliged to reveal that Silas Deane was taking personal profit from war aid from France. Paine was dismissed but subsequent investigation proved that he was correct.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">He was appointed Clerk of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania in November 1779 and that body, in March 1780, was the first to pass an Act for the abolition of slavery. The preamble is attributed to Thomas Paine. As Clerk, Paine was able to observe the suffering of the American soldiers because of the lack of supplies, and he took $500 from his own salary of $1690 for a fund, which led to the foundation of the Bank of America. In his pamphlet Public Good he called for a Convention to update the Articles of Confederation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In 1781, together with John Laurens, he went to France, where Louis XVI “loaded him with favours” which were instrumental in Washington’s final victory. For this service Paine received neither payment nor acknowledgment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">George Washington endorsed a petition to Congress for financial assistance but Paine’s opponents buried it until December 1784 when a payment of $3000 was made, an amount less than the cost of his journey to France. However, Pennsylvania gave him $500 and New York presented him with a 277-acre farm at New Rochelle, so he was able to concentrate on his plans for a 500-foot iron arch bridge and other inventions. Later he was granted patents in Britain for his bridge. At least one was built but he was cheated out of any remuneration therefrom.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In 1786 Paine’s principles of a republican government, as opposed to monarchical rule, were enshrined in the Constitution, in which the term “sovereign” has “subject” for its correlation. This concept was later rejected by the Eleventh Amendment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Paine returned to Europe in mid 1787 and spent time in both France and England, where he was recognised and feted as the author of Common Sense. Paine’s vision of a Europe without kings was enhanced by the French Revolution and by his being asked to take part in the writing of the French Constitution, which included many of his concepts, such as the abolition of slavery.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The degree of honour accorded Paine was shown when M de Lafayette gave him the key to the destroyed Bastille for presentation to President Washington and later Paine was elected to the French National Convention.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In England he warned Prime Minister William Pitt against involvement in a war against France over Holland. When, in November 1790, Edmund Burke published Reflections on the Revolution in France, Paine was outraged and replied with his celebrated Rights of Man. Paine published Rights of Man Part 2 in February 1792.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In this work he analysed the reasons for the political discontent in Europe and spoke out against the evils of arbitrary governments, poverty, illiteracy, unemployment and war. He argued against hereditary rights, in favour of republics over monarchies and advocated a progressive income tax to finance education, relief for the poor, aged pensions and public works for the unemployed. The ruling class of Britain was outraged. The books were banned and the publisher jailed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In May 1792 Paine was issued with a Royal Proclamation for ‘seditious writing’. He left for Dover where the Collector of Customs subjected him to a thorough search. Among his letters were those from the Secretary of State in America and from President Washington. When the Collector began to read, Paine’s friend Frost retrieved the letter and rebuked him for reading such a private letter. Frost then read aloud the last sentence above Washington’s signature “….and as no man can feel a greater interest in the happiness of mankind than I do, it is the firm wish of my heart that the enlightened policy of the present age may diffuse to all men those blessings to which they are entitled and lay the foundation of happiness for future generations.” The letters were returned and Paine and his friends sailed to France. Twenty minutes later the order for Paine’s arrest reached Dover.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">On 18th December 1792 Thomas Paine was charged at The Guildhall, London, that he “being a person of a wicked, malicious and seditious disposition” etc “did publish that the crown of this kingdom was contrary to the rights of the inhabitants” and so forth. The Attorney-General, who prosecuted, said that he would not read out the many “false, wicked and scandalous assertions” but would read only a few more, such as “to inherit a crown is to inherit the people, as if they were flocks and herds.” The famous Thomas Erskine defended Paine but the carefully selected jury, which received two guineas each and a free dinner for a conviction and nothing otherwise, decided to return a verdict of guilty. Laws were passed to restrict free speech and publication.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">He returned to France to take up his Convention seat with the applause of the crowd and through triumphant arches. He recommended the end of the monarchical system. He strongly opposed the killing of Louis XVI and this was used against him when Robespierre gained power.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Paine realised that killing Louis could lead to invasion by the European countries that had ties to the deposed monarch. Some of the nobility appealed to William Pitt for money to secure the life of Louis but Pitt refused to attempt to save the life of America’s friend. If Louis and his family had been banished to America, as Paine proposed, how different the history of Europe would have been.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The political scene in France was determined by specific parties and when Robespierre came to power Paine was arrested and imprisoned on 28th December 1793. He was just able to arrange for the publication of The Age of Reason before his incarceration. Anticipating his arrest, he had finished this work six hours previously. His reason for writing it was “lest we lose sight of morality, of humanity and of the theology that is true.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Paine became very ill in the Luxembourg prison, while outside France suffered the Reign of Terror and prisoners were taken away daily to the guillotine. Paine wrote letters to try to secure his release but was frustrated by the American Minister in France, Gouverneur Morris, who was his enemy and stood to gain by his death.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Morris wrote to Secretary, Thomas Jefferson, “Lest I forget it, I must mention that Thomas Paine is in prison, where he amuses himself with a pamphlet against Jesus Christ.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Each day a chalk mark was made on the outside of the doors of those to be taken to the guillotine. Because Paine was so ill, his door was left open during the day and so the chalk-mark was made on the inside, but his door was closed when the condemned were collected. The next day Robespierre was removed from power but Paine was not released until 4th November 1794.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">James Monroe was the new American Minister in Paris. The Age of Reason Part 2 was written while Paine was being nursed back to health by Mrs. Monroe at the Monroes’ home in Paris. It was in James Monroe’s house he now read what were reported as his dying words before his execution. They were a rejection of all his words and principles. When his health improved he was readmitted to the National Convention.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In the pamphlet The Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance dated 8th April 1796, Paine predicted the suspension of the Bank of England that occurred the next year. The proceeds of this pamphlet he devoted to the relief of the prisoners in Newgate prison held for debts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In 1797 he published Agrarian Justice, which attacked the inequality of property ownership.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">His pamphlet entitled Maritime Compact was published in 1800. It includes ten articles for the security of neutral commerce to be signed by the nations entering the “Unarmed Association” which he proposed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Paine was consulted by Napoleon Bonaparte but this dialogue ended when Napoleon rejected republican principles and declared himself Emperor.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As Britain exercised control over the sea routes, Paine delayed returning to America until September 1802.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">During this time, he maintained cordial relationships with several families, including the Bonnevilles and Sir Robert Smith, for whose wife he wrote the poem The Castle in the Air as a tribute to her kindness during his imprisonment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">On 30th October of the same year, Paine landed at Baltimore to a mixed welcome of praise and abuse.[1] On 25th December he wrote to Jefferson suggesting the purchase of Louisiana and how it should be done. Jefferson replied that he also was contemplating such a purchase.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Paine was a deist and it was his conception of the nature of a perfect god which was the basis of his attack on the Bible, on “Christianity” and all book-based religions. Of course his statements could not be allowed to go unchallenged. The Bishop of Llandaff made an attempt at a challenge but sank the Church deeper into the quicksand, for Paine’s observations were devastating and have never been proved to be faulty or false. Religious leaders, such as Bishop Spong, are slowly recognising the validity of The Age of Reason, but they can only go so far without admitting that Christianity is morally bankrupt and completely fraudulent.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Church has never forgiven Paine, has continued to oppose his principles and has downplayed his enormous contribution to human rights and to the living standards which are recognised today.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Bonnevilles migrated to the United States and a complete file of Paine’s writings and letters were given to Madame Bonneville to assist in proposed folio works. She became a Roman Catholic convert and the project never proceeded. This invaluable collection was destroyed in a fire.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Paine was ostracised and died on 8th June 1809. He could well be described as the Creator of Modern Democracy but the Christian world rewarded Paine with abuse and vilification. Theodore Roosevelt described Thomas Paine as a “filthy little atheist” – three lies in three words. He was not filthy, was five feet ten inches tall with broad shoulders and was a deist.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The tide is turning. On 30th January 1937 The Times of London referred to him as “the English Voltaire” and on 18th May 1962 his bust was placed in the New York University Hall of Fame.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Atheists honour Thomas Paine for his contributions to the concepts of liberty and equality of citizens before the law, and for his condemnation of the Bible and Christianity.</span></div>

Thomas Paine

Two men are regarded as having contributed equally to the successful outcome of the American War of Independence. George Washington...

Friday, March 7, 2014

Is Islam Incompatible with Western Values?

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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Islam is not tolerant and peaceful.</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Islam is not a religion, nor is it a cult. In its fullest form, it is a complete, total way of living. Islam has religious, legal, political, economic, social, and military aspirations. The religious element is a mask for all of the other components. Islamisation begins when there are sufficient Muslims in a country to agitate for their religious privileges. When inclusive, tolerant, and culturally diverse societies agree to Muslim demands, some of the other components creep in as well.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As long as the Muslim population remains around or under 2% in any Western country, they will for the most part be regarded as a peace-loving minority. As they become more populous, they will begin to proselytize to other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups. They then will petition the government to allow them to rule themselves under Sharia Law, in places such as Sparkbrook in Birmingham, Manningham in Bradford and Tower Hamlets, London.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Today’s 1.5 billion Muslims make up 22% of the world’s population. Their birth rates dwarf the birth rates of Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, and all other affiliated believers or non-believers.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As they increase the size of their population, Muslims become militant as a means of complaining about their conditions. Any non-Muslim action that offends them results in uprisings and threats. Take for example what happened in Denmark with the Jyllands-Posten newspaper cartoons of Mohammed and of course the persecution of Salman Rushdie in the UK.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Islam has shown its propensity for violence right from its early days. It reacts with violence, committed in the name of Allah, at the slightest provocation. A cartoon, a book, a chat room comment. Even the death of a terrorist, by security services, before he or she can detonate their bombs prompts a violent response.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In Pakistan, blasphemy is punishable by death and is frequently carried out, not by the state, but by angry mobs objecting to some slight against Islam, the prophet or Allah. Two Government ministers were murdered for suggesting that the blasphemy law should be repealed. A young  girl with learning difficulties was ‘framed’ by someone in her community who accused her of burning pages of the Qur’an. She was arrested, tried and sentenced to death. Eventually she was released but then hounded out of her village and has had to seek refuge abroad.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>The slaughter by Islamic terrorists continues on a daily basis. </b></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In Nigeria, Boko Haram, after having enforced Sharia Law on the northern part of the country is seeking to extend this to the south. Africa is now the main fighting ground outside the middle east for al-Qaeda and its affiliated organisations.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">When a visitor comes to your house it is beholden of them to respect your views and way of life. Islam does not do this. It demands that we introduce halal food into schools, very often without telling non-Muslims that this is what their children are eating. It demands that we accept that women should be free to walk around veiled and then expect us to communicate with them.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="http://myatheistbeliefs.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/religious_belief_in_north_america1.png" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #743399; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This country is a country of immigrants. In the last 100 years we have seen people arrive here from all corners of the earth: Africans, Caribeans, Chinese, Indians, Eastern Europeans and many other variants, and nearly 3 million Muslims in less than 20 years. Unfortunately, it is this latter group that has been the focus of so much attention and communal disharmony.</span></span></div>

Is Islam Incompatible with Western Values?

Islam is not tolerant and peaceful. Islam is not a religion, nor is it a cult. In its fullest form, it is a complete, total way of l...

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Was the early universe a better environment for life to evolve?

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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Harvard astronomer <a href="https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/" style="-webkit-transition: all 0.2s; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Avi Loeb</a> has <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1312.0613" style="-webkit-transition: all 0.2s; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">published a paper</a> about how life might have flourished when our 13.8-billion-year-old universe was a mere 15 million years old. Back then, the whole universe was warmer — which means liquid water could exist even on planets that were distant from their stars.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Writes Loeb in the abstract for the paper:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In the redshift range 100<(1+z)<110, the cosmic microwave background (CMB) had a temperature of 273-300K (0-30 degrees Celsius), allowing early rocky planets (if any existed) to have liquid water chemistry on their surface and be habitable, irrespective of their distance from a star. In the standard LCDM cosmology, the first star-forming halos within our Hubble volume started collapsing at these redshifts, allowing the chemistry of life to possibly begin when the Universe was merely 15 million years old. The possibility of life starting when the average matter density was a million times bigger than it is today argues against the anthropic explanation for the low value of the cosmological constant.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Though we often think of the early universe as inhospitable, Loeb notes that if rocky planets existed, it would have been a great time to live on them. No matter where they were in the universe, they would have been bathed in constant warmth, with no need to depend on a star for energy. And the warmth would have made surface water a liquid, too, which would help life as we know it to develop.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Of course there is that little matter of matter density being “a million times bigger than it is today.” Hard to say whether that would be a problem or not for the development of life. It certainly would have made our view of the heavens a lot different, and brighter.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The sad part about contemplating Loeb’s idea is that it makes you wonder whether the universe was teeming with life back then, and we’re merely the sad outliers who happened to evolve in the post-life era. All our potential friends in the universe might have lived (and eventually died out) billions of years ago.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Just a side comment.  I find it very sad that Young Earthers can’t read and be fascinated by this kind of thing.</span></b></div>
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Was the early universe a better environment for life to evolve?

Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb has published a paper about how life might have flourished when our 13.8-billion-year-old universe was...

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