Thank you Martin for your sympathy (The Civilized States of America and Jesusland) [page withdrawn - I like Americans now]. I, unfortunately, reside in Dumbfuckistan. More frightening perhaps is the fact that I live in the Dumbfuckiest part of Jesusland, Texas.

I am moving to California as soon as I can...

Love your site

I think that your piece on the Royal Family is uttely proposterous! Have you no respect? No pride for your country? The Royal Family is one of the heart and core thing about being British! You say that we were once a republic, yes we were and during that time the country was in a dire state, if you kow anything about history you should know that at least, it's teh reason we have the gun happy Americans who fled due to the tyranity of Oliver Cromwell, Of course we must be happy about that, otherwise we wouldn't have the wonderful George Bush, who thinks of 'greta ideas like bombing innocent people for oil. The Commonwelath was acquired by the expansion of the British Empire throught the rest of the world done through command of the Monarch. I by no stretch of the imagination am claiming that they are perfect as you so poignantly showd, they are human after all. There is nothing wrong with having class, for you can have allthe money in the world and not have it, give the poor man money and that doesn't mean that he will automatically have class! I merely am stating that you are yet to even consider the counter of your arguement and I think it utterly morally repundant that you should criticise something so upstanding in the infrastructure of a great realm such as England.

With Hope taht you cahng your mind;

Kimberlene

i just got to ask why you have to be so negitive and why you feel like you have to spend so much time on this when you can do more for people and your self through other ways besided debating and arguing

i'll pray for you too man take it easy and i think that it is good to question and debate but maybe not this much just my oppnion

stan

martin, this is really bad what you're doing. But let me introduce myself. My name is Lori, i work as a perfume consultant and as a result do occasional modelling work. I'm also doing my bachalor of nursing and i live in sydney. I went to your site because i was looking for some information for an assignment i was doing and came across something that was so much worse.

Honestly, i think you're a really bad person. What you are doing on this site is bringing out the hatred of this world. You don't have to agree with the Bible, but what you do need to do is respect it. There are so many people out there that would happily kick the shit through yo if they saw you on the street for what you have said. Making your site 'contraversial' may get you higher site-ratings but what is set to come to you is something that is so much worse that getting worldly attention because of your 'contraversial site'. Saying the Bible is a joke? mmm... that's real mature martin.

Whether you like it or not i will be praying. I know there's a God and i know inside you do too. I just hope when the time comes that God is merciful to you because there would be nothing worse than not being saved.

Have a nice day martin

Lori

Here's a bit of praise for your thoughts.

Having just watched a cable channel program about failed inventions, including flying cars, I was interested to see if anyone is still pursuing this looney invention, and...yikes!...they are! In a BIG, multi-million-dollar way, at that!

So congratulations for having the courage to set the record straight. The concept of allowing the same idiot drivers who now menace our highways to suddenly take flight is beyond stupid, it's criminally irresponsible. No urban area government must ever let this nightmare vision come to pass. It is just plain stupid and senseless.

But what distressed me most, in looking at some flying-car websites, was the mention that NASA has apparently been spending our tax money to facilitate the development of GPS-style flying-car guidance systems. Nothing like trying to make a dangerously insane idea appear sane by throwing lots of our government money and technology at it!

Thanks for being a voice of reason.

Regards,

Chuck McKibben

Hello Martin,

Thank you for authoring the Faith/Superstition article - great observations. (I love that line about being "economical with the truth" ! :) ).

As an interesting addition, I want to share with you the Dutch translation for the words 'faith' and 'superstition'.

faith = geloof (n)
superstition = bijgeloof (n)

also:
to believe = geloof (v).
superstitious = bijgeloovig (adj)

The prefix "bij" means "extra" or "additional". Another example of this prefix is "bijwerkinging", which means 'side effects' (ie: medicine). Or very literallly, "additional workings".
Therefore, next to the root word the literal translation back to English would be "extra faith", or "additional faith". German has a very similar word: abergläubisch.

The word likely dates from a time when it went without saying that people believed in traditional faith structures, and anything superstitious was additional, and next to the primary faith. I'm not sure if I can find any meaning to be found in this, but I found it interesting nonetheless.

As a result of the article I asked myself what the difference between faith and superstition is. I can only think that "Faith" has an organised body supporting it which is often recognised by the state and therefore offers legitimacy, which "superstition" (bad luck on Friday the 13th, don't walk under ladders..) does not.

I found your list of examples very interesting ("leap of faith", "leap of superstition"). Such a list is driven by language. I struggled to find words/phrases in the Dutch language which use such references to 'geloof'/faith, and couldn't find in the frequency that they present themselves in English.

keep up the great work,
best regards,
RG
Utrecht, Netherlands.

Hey Martin,

I just wanted to say a big thank you for your site, over the last several months I’ve read much of it and I keep checking for updates. Recently I’ve decided be open about my atheism despite living in the Bible Belt and trying to convince myself for about a year and a half that I could be a Christian. What a waste of time that was.

I’ve got a lot of Christian friends and feel like they are great people, but that doesn’t mean that I can keep pretending like I’m one of them. Anyway, I’ve been very inspired by your site and will keep checking it out.

I plan on spending the rest of my life learning and letting folks know that they can take back the ideas that religions try to own exclusively: morality, love, meaningful relationships, joy, i.e. the good things in life.

Take care,

Ruquay

I’ve just been reading a few pages of your site. Particularly the IQ versus presidential candidate chart made me laugh. I’ve been thinking of emigrating to Florida, but you’re putting me off…

If I ever get “the talk” from a faith-blinded Christian again, I’ll just link him to your site. You say it ten times better than I ever could. The world would be a much better place if the mass media was as enlightened as you.

Keep it up.

Regards,

H. Wright

Re: is islam a threat for modern world?

to Star

the writer of the original article with that name on this site i say i donot want to spend u time or to argue or to responce back to me ,

but all i want is to ask u self the following questions and find the real logic answers that the strate forword mind accepts

1-did u ever live in any middle east or Arab or Islamic country?

2-did u ever touch u self the way the Moslem people treat the foren or treat each other?

3-what ever u religion (from u name it sounds to be Jewish) did u ever studied Islam and compare it to yours, who told u that yours is the right thing, was u there when both profit Moussa (Moushe as u call) and profit Mohamed so that u can say that was right and that was wrong, even though did u ever had the chance to go into the mind of any one of them to say if he really gets his words from god through (Wahi) inspiration or from his own, who told u that what u have been told by u fathers and ancestors is the Wright thing ,because it is u religion and it is what we found the fathers do well this would be the answer of any one when u talk to him about his religion so before u criticize the others religion and say it is a bad one then tell us first about yours and how did u discover that it is the Wright thing because it says kill burn and destroy ?is that what fulfills u desires ?then this could never be the words of god

please judge Islam through the same logical circuits of u use to judge your religion an I’m sure u know the truth may be even better than me but the pride prevents u from telling the truth.

Please renounce From the hall world and be braver than him

Please go find any other religion to hang around with and dont be a chance taker to judge islam from my last letter and and transform my words into another meanings i never ment in my intier life

what is u religion?