Almost fooled me. I thought it looked familiar. It's a great book and sometimes I reread some of the contributers.

I'll be sure to remember the phrase "red in tooth and claw", a poetic way of pointing out the brute fact that many animals must kill and eat (in some instances it's eat then kill) other animals in order to survive. But let's also remember that innocent children die agonizing deaths from bone cancer, starvation, and numerous other horrors. I agree that the idea of one characteristic of existence accenting the other is equally valid from both directions. But a third and perhaps more valid way to view the issue is that the universe is simply INDIFFERENT & RANDOM. It then is upon us humans to do what we can to make it less so. Religion was perhaps the primitive but flawed attempt to do this. But more and more of us now know better.

Many religions have, as part and parcel of their inherent structure, a moral code-for example, the Ten Commandments, or the New Testament exhortation to "Love thy neighbor as thyself."

The problem, with such a social contract, as with any contract, is the question of enforcement. A subject may obey a king, because the king has soldiers, and can inter, or even kill, transgressors. The question then becomes, who enforces the king's moral behavior?

Before the advent of wide-spread democracy (a revolutionary, excuse the pun, concept at the time), there was a social NEED for an all-inclusive moral enforcer. Think of Heaven and Hell as a cosmic "determent" policy-one whose enforcement we invested in an absolute entity, because our NEED was absolute.

Voltaire was being sincere when he said: "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him". While I don't agree, one cannot argue with the evidence that supports the idea that religion serves a FUNCTION in many societies. Justifying the underpinning of why this function is necessarily supernatural, is where we run into trouble-we no longer need fanciful descriptions of why things are, the rainbow is not the goddess Iris, nor a covenant to not destroy the world, just light refraction in raindrops in the sky.

Life and death are one string. Old proverb.

What I can't understand is the appeal of an eternal life with a puppet pulling the strings. Why is everyone so afraid of death? I look at it as a non birth. We just cease to exist. Only our memories live on for a very brief time. And our dna for centuries as long as we have a blood relative no matter how far removed.

Or maybe we're all just animals, trying to live our lives.

Sometimes I think I'm in hell now but that can't be right because if this were hell there would be no end. We would all just be tortured forever and ever. OK.

If there is a god he's a cruel sick bastard. If you don't believe it just read the bible.

The only real and true god is known as "Loki." A true psychopath .

I've heard some doubting Thiests and Agnostics musing that maybe there is a god..but that he is a sadist...

The justification of our imagination and the gusto we present and the gullibility we accept seem to be the point. We as nonbelievers must just be a lot less gullible.

I guess no comment is as good as I can get with this one.

I simply to not get arguing for a good or an evil god. Heaven or hell. Humans have wrestled with these questions from the beginning.

SMH