I've chosen spirituality over religion, and my little one-person congregation is very peaceful. My goal every day is to be the best person I'm capable of being at any given time, and sometimes it's a real struggle. But for struggles, I'd have to say David's far surpass my own, and I'm awed that he was able to get on top of the challenges that life has dealt him. Life in the "real world" is tough enough without the bonus butt-kicking some people endure.

Speak your truth, whatever it is, and love yourself for it!

Ditto! Spiritual but not religious. Its very interesting because I have noticed that often the spiritual non-religious types are more englightened, accepting, open and forgiving than the hardcore religious types who claim to be these things. This is a generalization of course, but something I personally have noticed in my own encounters. Religion is inherenlty corrupt. Of my 650 + friends on Facebook, less than 10% of them claim a religious affiliation. Most are between the ages of 25 and 45. We're moving away from that old skool model of life.

I think you can still believe in God (or a force greater than ourselves - science even) without being religious. Religion just doesn't seem relevant to modern life. We've surpassed it and more people seem to be noticing that. We've evolved and have become more enlightened as a race.

Great interview Morgana! David is totally someone I'd love to go for a beer with! Intellectual and unafraid. Dangerous combo!

I respect people who are unafraid to challenge the norms of our often backwards society! Rock on!

Where can I read David's writing or keep up to date with his films?

Thank you for reading and commenting. Selina, David is a Brooster @ David M Payne,

So many of us are explorers and pioneers. We are writers, jesters, artists, hecklers, hackers, hobbyists, mockers, poets, philosophers, scientists, filmmakers, and kids that play on-line games. It is in our nature to question conventions and be tempted by not only the simple but also the intricate. For us it is sport or simple curiosity. We don’t always do it to rebel or disrupt. We are not iconoclasts, social misfits or people that defy social “norms” for the sake of defiance. We do it because we are following a natural impulse. Our motivations are as simple as because its there, we can, we love a challenge, and we treasure our freedom to do so. We read voraciously. We take things apart and put them back together just to see how they work. We more often than not find ways to put things together not only more efficiently but also more compassionately.

Ahhh cool he's a Brooster! :) That's awesome.

Great interview Morgana. Totally agree with the thoughts about religion being one of the biggest cons around, it's such a complete utter money making scam, one of the biggest corrupt businesses known to man. When religious people say to atheists "prove that there is no god" well i dont believe so the onus isnt on me to prove anything, it is up to the god believers to prove that there is a god. I've never really got the "not religious but spiritual" thing either...what does it mean exactly??? Someone enlighten me...

Garry, for me it mainly means having an intensely personal and strong spiritual connection to God, or the Universe, or whatever name one chooses, without letting religion (the money-making machine) get in between. I'm doing my best to stay connected all the time, not only for an hour a week. I'm still a work in progress, but I Am working, and there Is progress, and I'm having the time of my life.! (If you now feel enlightened, that will be $35, cash, money order, check or credit card accepted.)

Anything that cuts out the religous money making machine is good with me....$35????? I'll say 14 hail marys and 143 our fathers...that was usually my torture after confession as a child

I've also chosen spirituality over religion. I prefer Dr. David Bohm's Wholeness And The Holomovement. Religion is too mainstream, hypocritical and corporate for me.

Thank you again for the comments. I regard human nature as fundamentally virtuous and believe that all individuals are capable of high moral development, and of reform. I see humankind is undergoing gradual moral evolution transforming the individual and society simultaneously. While conflict is sometimes inevitable, in fact not always undesirable, violence as the result of conflict I do not regard as inevitable. Simply put, human beings do have the capacity to resolve conflict nonviolently. This resolution might be difficult, but it is not impossible. That is an example of practical idealism. Gandhi said that “No religion which is narrow and which cannot satisfy the test of reason, will survive the coming reconstruction of society in which the values will have changed and character, not possession of wealth, title or birth will be the test of merit.” Gandhi, a Hindu, was murdered by a Hindu backed by the Right-wing upper caste Hindus of Poona.

The welfare of human beings, not of systems or institutions, is the ultimate consideration I believe of all religions and political parties. That requires:

• Political decentralization, to prevent massive concentrations of political power in the hands of too few; rather, to distribute it in the hands of many. Political order takes the form of a direct, participatory democracy, operating in a tier structure from the base town-level tier upward through the district and state levels to the national and international level.

• Economic decentralization, to prevent massive concentrations of economic power in the hands of too few, and again, to distribute it in the hands of many. Therefore towns, which are anyway geographically decentralized, become the basic economic units.

• The minimization of competition and exploitation in the economic sphere, and instead, the encouragement of cooperation.

• Production on the basis of need rather than greed, concentrating where India is concerned first on the eradication of poverty.

• Recognition of the dignity of labor and the greater purity of rural life.
• The practice of extensive self-reliance by individuals, towns, regions, Staes, and a nation.

• Absence of oppression on the basis of race, caste, class, language, gender, secularity, sexual orientation, or religion.

• A deep respect for nature, necessitating an economic system based upon the preservation rather than destruction of the natural environment.

Loved it.

Dear Christian Right,

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's law. I have learned a great deal from you, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind him that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the specific laws and how to best follow them.

Leviticus 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighbouring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Indonesians, but not New Zealanders. Can you clarify? Why can't I own New Zealanders?

My uncle, a farmer, blatantly violates Leviticus 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). I have also heard him curse and blaspheme. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? (Leviticus 24:10-16). Couldn't I just smite them?

When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odour for the Lord (Lev. 1:9). The problem is my neighbours. They claim the odour is not pleasing to them. How should I deal with this?

I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as it suggests in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

I know that no man is allowed contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Lev. 15:19-24). The problem is, how do men tell? They have tried asking, but most women take offense.

I have a neighbour who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?

A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev. 10:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this?

Lev. 20:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?

I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.

A Fan

Even if the evils caused by religion were relevant to the question of the existence of God, we do not know whether religion is a net force for evil, despite the documented horrors. Apologists have pointed to the moral codes which have been inculcated by religions and which have distanced us from the dog-eat-dog ethos of most of the other representatives of the animal kingdom. Ivan said in The Brothers Karamazov, “If God did not exist, all things would be permitted” (or what amounts to the same thing, if He ceased to command belief).

This is not true, of course, since humans have other powerful sources of altruistic concern for their fellows, although one can see why so many have been impressed by this assertion. However, the jury must still be out over the net benefit, because we cannot run the course of history twice, once with and once without religion, to determine whether religion has overall made us treat each other worse. Or, come to that, whether religion has blocked progress in understanding nature and making the world more comfortable to live in and life more bearable, or vice versa.

Notwithstanding the obstacles religious institutions have sometimes placed in the way of scientific advance, it can be equally argued that it fostered scientific inquiry in other ways: monotheism may have inspired the search for unifying laws of nature; and many deeply pious scientists – Newton and Faraday being obvious examples – saw their inquiries as an expression of their love of God. It would be a travesty to reduce the relationship between religion and science to emblematic clashes such as over the heliocentric solar system or against the inanities of the creationists.

Some people often make the claim that Adolph Hitler adhered to Atheism, Humanism or some ancient Nordic pagan mythology. None of these fanciful and wrong ideas hold. Although one of Adolph Hitler's henchmen, Alfred Rosenberg, did undertake a campaign of Nordic mythological propaganda, Hitler and most of his henchmen did not believe in it .

Many American books, television documentaries, and Sunday sermons that preach of Hitler's "evil" have eliminated Hitler's god for their Christian audiences, but one only has to read from his own writings to appreciate that Hitler's God equals the same God of the Christian Bible. Hitler held many hysterical beliefs which not only include, God and Providence but also Fate, Social Darwinism, and ideological politics. He spoke, unashamedly, about God, fanaticism, idealism, dogma, and the power of propaganda. Hitler held strong faith in all his convictions. He justified his fight for the German people and against Jews by using Godly and Biblical reasoning. Indeed, one of his most revealing statements makes this quite clear:

"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."

Although Adolph Hitler did not practice religion in a churchly sense, he certainly believed in the Bible's God. Raised as Catholic he went to a monastery school and, interestingly, walked everyday past a stone arch which was carved the monastery's coat of arms which included a swastika. As a young boy, Hitler's most ardent goal was to become a priest. Much of his philosophy came from the Bible, and more influentially, from the Christian Social movement. (The German Christian Social movement, remarkably, resembles the Christian Right movement in America today.) Many have questioned Hitler's stand on Christianity. Although he fought against certain Catholic priests who opposed him for political reasons, his belief in God and country never left him. Many Christians throughout history have opposed Christian priests for various reasons; this does not necessarily make one against one's own Christian beliefs. Nor did the Vatican's Pope & bishops ever disown him; in fact they blessed him! As evidence to his claimed Christianity, he said:

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.

-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)

Hitler's anti-Semitism grew out of his Christian education. Christian Austria and Germany in his time took for granted the belief that Jews held an inferior status to Aryan Christians. Jewish hatred did not spring from Hitler, it came from the preaching of Catholic priests and Protestant ministers throughout Germany for hundreds of years. The Protestant leader, Martin Luther, himself, held a livid hatred for Jews and their Jewish religion. In his book, "On the Jews and their Lies," Luther set the standard for Jewish hatred in Protestant Germany up until World War II. Hitler expressed a great admiration for Martin Luther.

Hitler did not have to parade his belief in God, as so many American Christians do now. Nor did he have to justify his Godly belief against an Atheist movement. He took his beliefs for granted just as most Germans did at that time. His thrust aimed at politics, not religion. But through his political and religious reasoning he established in 1933, a German Reich Christian Church, uniting the Protestant churches to instill faith in a national German Christianity.

Future generations should and must remember that Adolph Hitler could not have come into power without the support of the Protestant and Catholic churches and the German Christian populace.

Hitler "spoke, unashamedly, about God, fanaticism, idealism, dogma, and the power of propaganda. Hitler held strong faith in all his convictions. He justified his fight for the German people and against Jews by using Godly and Biblical reasoning. Indeed, one of his most revealing statements makes this quite clear:

"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."

Quitter Sarah Palin came to mind while reading that.

lol - Palin's limited intellect doesn't equate quitter though. She still stands by she resigned. Palin doesn't know resigning and quitting are the same thing.