Tristan Emmanuel is a Canadian fundamentalist Christian minister who has strongly condemned Bill Maher for his “blasphemy” by  calling “god” a murderer for having drowned every man, woman and child, except his friend Noah and family during the "flood”, according to an article by Travis Gettys In THE RAW STORY publication.

According to Travis, Emmanuel said:  “Back then Maher would have faced stiff penalties for his slanderous crimes against God and country, and the reasons were clear: slander the ultimate authority of a nation — God — and you ridicule the very foundation of its laws, values, public institutions and leadership.”

Tristan Emmanuel would like to burn people at the stake again, or bring in the blasphemy laws such as exists in Muslim areas in Asia. Maher does not believe there is a god so he is legitimately making fun of people who believe in a fantasy. If Tristan believed in Santa Claus he would call any insult to Santa Claus blasphemy and burn people at the stake for that.Tristan also declared that "The ultimate authority of a nation is god", no it is the people of the nation and not "god" Who's god? His? There are many different religions in this country so who's God are we going to give the "Ultimate authority". (Bring in Sharia Law?) Of course he believes his god is the only real GOD. The fact that any religion thinks their "god' is the correct one, and all others are wrong, strongly suggests that they are ALL wrong. “But mark my word, a day of reckoning is coming,” he continued. “If we are unwilling to hold blasphemers accountable, the almighty judge of the world will.”

If Tristan would follow his own dogma, he would forgive and "love" Maher, after pointing out that, in his opinion, Maher is wrong to deny the existence of a god. Mr. Emmanuel is actually a dangerous man. Some of his followers might be incited to do something terrible, such as murder (the murder of  Dr. George Tiller, Pro Choice Advocate, by anti-Abortionist Scott Roeder, in 2009, comes to mind)

"If we are unwilling to hold blasphemers accountable" indicates that Tristan is not willing to wait until "the almighty judge of the world will". Inciting others should be the crime here. I suggest strongly that he reads Matthew 7:1 if he so strongly believes in his bible. I am sure he can find bible quotes to defend his position because the bible is full of inconsistencies so one can find support for anything one wants somewhere in the holy book.

The problem is that there are millions of people who believe in the fundamentalist  sections of the Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Muslim, Judaism) and unelected "delusional and insane" religious leaders have many followers who are willing to act upon their teachings. We only ignore them at our peril.

There is the ongoing debate about abortion. Pro-abortionist have been called “murderers” by religious fundamentalist who insist that they are correct. They believe that they are messengers of god. It is not possible to argue with this kind of people but others, believers and non-believers want to have a reasonable debate on the matter. That it is wrong to kill babies, is probably a position that all normal thinking people can agree with, the point of contention is: when does a bunch of cells becomes a baby. Historically up to the nineteenth century, the common "knowledge" was the very ancient belief that a baby became a human when the first breath entered the baby. Our medical knowledge has drastically expanded since so we have to set a new standard and that sums up the debate.
The debate for religious people has become, when does the baby become an independent soul or spirit. Let me go back to what soul means: the spiritual or immaterial part of a human being or animal, according to the dictionary. Soul is equivalent to spirit. Spirit is also regarded as Ghost (The Holy Ghost) The word Spirit comes from the latin “spiritus” meaning Breath. You will see many references in the bible as well as other literature to Breath meaning Spirit, start with Genesis when God blew into Adams nose to make him human. Don't take my word for it, do the research your self, there are tons of material available to anyone on the net and in any library. Many religions have the same idea, most probably from common origin in the distant past when humans realized that the air was THE life force that made life possible. It entered the body at the time of birth and it left the body at death. One could live without water and food for a while but the lack of air was nearly instantaneous deadly. The breath (spirit, soul, ghost) gave life. It was part of the Great Spirit (the wind, look it up as well if you are willing to do the research, before you reject this reasoning because It doesn't fit into your belief or your biases). The individual spirit then joined the Great Spirit again upon death. Thus the belief, in many religions in an immaterial substance (air easily qualified as such) as the life force is understandable. The belief that the baby received its soul (spirit, life force) upon taking it first breath was prevalent for ages until medical knowledge advanced the understanding of what actually happened in the womb. Up until recently, relatively speaking, killing babies before they took their first breath was not considered murder and was practiced in some places on unwanted babies. In some remote places in Asia or China this is still practiced, I heard, but I haven’t been able to confirm that rumor. Medical knowledge has changed that ancient point of view and now we are faced with the dilemma of determining that point, when does life begin. Religious people state the problem in their terms: when does the soul enter the potential human being formed. Some, but not all, insist that the soul enters at the point that the sperm enters the egg. Non-believers are also divided at when a fetus becomes thoroughly human.  Religious people tend to be more rigid and tend to believe that they have the God given answer and therefor cannot be argued with. Others with a more open mind will want some arguments on when abortion should be allowed and when not. Eventually, it will be settled by the lawmakers we elect, and by the courts interpretation of our laws. That’s how things work in a democracy. In some parts of the world there is a consensus of no abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and not revealing the sex of the fetus until that time to prevent sex selection as the reason of abortion. It’s not ideal but it’s a start. To outright ban abortion rather than regulate it is much more problematic. That is basic what the “the soul enters at the moment of conception” would mean.  Abortion (just like prostitution) will always be with us, and prohibition will never work, so must be regulated and different parts of the world need different solutions, there will be no “rule” that fits all circumstances. Now lets have a decent debate without the one side calling the other side murderers. If that’s the only thing you have to say, and “know” you are absolutely right, “so help you god’, stay out of the debate, you are not convincing any one and do not make a contribution to help solve the problem,

The bible is a great historical book, and like all historical books we can learn how religion has influenced humanity, some times positively but also negatively. It is interesting that Religion utilizes the Fear of God to control their flock. A big part of the fear of the Christian religion, by convincing us that the original sin condemns us, is that we need to be “saved”. On the 6th day God created mankind in his own image (Genesis1:27) Then he rested (Ge.2-3) Next he created Adam from the dust of the ground after the seventh day. Adam then begot Eve and they sinned , therefor only the offspring of Adam & Eve have the original sin. The rest of Humanity, created on the 6th day, were free of the original sin “and God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). Later he changed his mind about these sin-less people, created in his own image (genesis 6; 1-7). God didn’t like these people (didn’t like his own image?), so he killed them all off during the great flood and only sinners (descendants of Adam & Eve) were saved on the ark.

A plausible explanation of the difference between Genesis 1 and 2 is that they reflect two different earlier creation stories which the writer (Moses) of Genesis recorded, one that does not contain the Adam/Eve story and one that does. The bible is written by many different people, in different times and often do reflect older stories and tales as I have outlined on other pages on the website.

Genesis 1 King James Version (KJV)
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Genesis 2 King James Version (KJV)
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens,
5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
8 And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
Genesis 6 King James Version (KJV)
6 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
3 And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
6 And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
7 And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

I read your website that seems to conclude that God is an imaginary figure and that Morals can be established without a supernatural being, dictating it to humans.
Well you have your opinion  and I have mine, let’s leave it at that.

No, I cannot leave it at that. There is a difference between “opinions” and “conclusions”. I have concluded that gods are in all cases, imaginary beings, resembling ancient emperors, after lots of reading, studying and researching, because there is no correlation between all the Gods that mankind has imagined. They are all completely different as we would expect them to be when many different cultures have had different ideas. Yes, there is a slight common thread between different religions but that is easily explained by the fact that all of humanity came from the same original group in Africa (see “in the beginning”).  The concept of  “spirit” is likely one of the oldest ideas that survived. If there was one God who inspired people to write his morals down than there should be one version only in the whole world distributed to all mankind since the beginning.

In North America, the majority religions are Abrahamic ones: Christian, Jewish and Muslim , so most comments I get are related to the Bible, Koran or Talmud with the Bible getting top  billing.  The Bible supporters are the most vocal in denying my take on the origin of religion, quoting bible texts  (often out of context) as “proof” that my conclusions are erroneous, well, pardon me if I cannot accept these kind of arguments. The Bible is a great historic book but there are many others and to single the Bible out as the only true word of god is an opinion and an arrogant one, to say the least. This word of god, has not been available to all humanity before the bible was written and it condemns any one to eternal hell even if one never had a chance to hear this “Word of God“ because they were born in a different “tribe” or in a different time period. So don’t give me the “ You have your opinion and I have mine” sop. You can question my “conclusions” anytime but they are based on research and logic and certainly are not just “opinions

Religion and astrology are actually closely related. The 3 wise men, who followed the star of Bethlehem, were astrologers. Science has replaced astrology with astronomy, although many still believe in astrology (including some Christians) and creationism has been replaced by evolution. Although some people still cling to the imagined supernatural, creationism will die a natural death when science evolves, just like the Flat Earth Society did. Actually there is still a remnant left. (Check Wikipedia).  FES was founded by an Englishman, named Samual Shenton in 1956. Later led by Charles K. Johnson, and was based in Lancaster, California. The society became inactive after Johnson's death, but was resurrected (I didn't realize that. I thought it was totally gone) in 2004 by its new president Daniel Shelton. The ideas of the Society are widely viewed by accomplished scientist as Pseudoscientific, just like creationism is. I guess that Daniel Shenton realized that there is money to be made by exploiting the gullible, same as with creationist' s book writers and publishers. Mega churches also are in the business of raising BIG money and are exempt from income tax while the churches invoke the Bible to encourage their members to contribute 10% of their income (Tithe). These contributions do also lower the income tax for the contributor.  Churches do use the roads, use Fire and Police and all other public services and should therefor not be tax exempt. No wonder the leaders of those churches are promoting religion because not only can they gather a lot of tax free money as well have an extraordinary influence on the political process without having to be elected.

As for those Church Leaders who are found of saying that The USA was ”founded” on Christian Principles, when trying to impose their “morals” upon he rest of the population, I am quoting the founders, who advocated the separation of Church and State.

John Adams said, in the Treaty of Tripoli, “The Government of the United States is not in any sense founded upon the Christian religion.” He also said, “It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.”

James Madison said, “Every new and successful example of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters is of importance.”

Thomas Jefferson said, “In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. It is error alone that needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.”