I couldn't even finish reading it. If he thinks the Bible is boring, he should try taking a good hard look at the "plank in his own eye" on that one. I hit the phrase "consciousness-lowering" and then everything after that became sort of blurry. I mean, at least the Bible has violence and sex and natural disasters and all other kinds of crazy cool and interesting things going on. He sounds to me like he's just rambling about whatever drivel he read in the latest Reader's Digest.
Anyway, I did give it the good college try for the next several paragraphs, then quit entirely when I reached the part about "toilet-bowl time management," which he says is "flushing much of your precious life down the drain with little or nothing to show for it."
At that point I realized, "Oh jeez, that's what I'm doing RIGHT NOW!" So I stopped. Best advice in the whole column.
He reads like a secular Jack Chick.
The New Atheists are not intellectually formitable. In fact you will find after 5 minutes of taking to them you will long for a more rational conversation with one the Chick Comic crowd.
Maybe I'll look around on his site, because as my wife said, "What happened to him?" He was a Catholic, and now he is bitterly anti-...everything. Did someone hurt him, or did he just hit college and suddenly realize in some nietzschean philosophy course that everything he had believed was a lie? As Mark says, he is determined to see nothing good...he is willfully ignorant of the truths of the Church.
Change a few words and that could easily be "10 Reasons why you shouldn't be an atheist".
I'd also add another:
#11 Atheism makes you boringly unoriginal
Since the inception of Christianity, atheists have used the same arguments to attack religion, yet atheists remain an overwhelming minority. Quit boring your friends at parties and making yourself look like a fool on the internet.
If you can't find a new angle on atheism, stop rehashing exhausted arguments.
Ok, I read or scanned most of it. It's hilarious. My favorite parts:
Leave the mythology behind, and learn to think for yourself. Your intellect is a better instrument of spiritual growth than any religious teachings.
Which of course applies directly to the article. I love it when people say "Don't listen to them! Think for yourself! Listen TO ME!"
You’re smart enough to realize that earth is probably a lot older than 10,000 years and that pre-marital (or non-marital) sex is a lot of fun, but some B.S. still gets through.
It all comes back to sex, doesn't it?
And my most favorite of all:
Religions offer a suite of special services to generate additional income. They’ll spout some gibberish while feeding you a crusty wafer, pronounce you bonded to a fellow human being, snip some of your excess skin, pour water on your head, proclaim your manhood, cast out your demons, pronounce your transgressions forgiven, and so on. When they can’t think of anything else, they make up some drivel like confirming you’re still loyal to them. The bill may read “suggested donation,” but it’s still a bill.
Hmm... let's see what's at the bottom of the article ...
"If you find this site helpful, please leave a donation for Steve so you can enjoy the spirit of giving too."
Of course, our intellectual giant has clay feet:
Steve's wife, Erin Pavlina, is a psychic medium who shares her first-hand experiences with lucid dreaming, astral projection, and connecting with spirits.
He's New Age.
"I especially remember listening to a lot of bad sermons; most priests are hideously poor speakers. Maybe it’s because they drink alcohol while on duty."
If a sentence like this one appears in piece of prose, it's a pretty good indicator that you're reading crap. This pathetic excuse for a joke even ignores the pattern of the Mass (homily before Eucharist).
Perhaps the devil prefers foolish and ignorant heralds to spread his message. It takes a disproportionate amount of time to dispel jumbled idiocy.
I seems like he thinks latching onto any idea and thinking it is true would open you up to most of those objections. There is some truth there. Choosing to believe something does have risks.But then again not choosing to beleive anything is pretty problematic as well.
"If he didn’t smite me by now, it’s a safe bet you’ll slide beneath the radar as well. And if that doesn’t work, you can borrow my fake ID. I’ve been baptized and confirmed, and I’m the son of an altar boy and the nephew of a priest, so I’m sure I’ll be fine."
I bet he never had a theologically or philosophically serious conversation with that uncle. Either that, or he's a nutty liberal priest.
Some of his freefloating anger might be because of this....
One of my Catholic high school teachers was later revealed to be a repeat child molester… written up in the newspaper and everything. I didn’t see any suspicious behavior at the time, and to be totally honest, I actually liked that teacher and was shocked to learn of his extracurricular activities. He was shuffled from one location to another by those who knew about his appetite for young flesh.
....without realizing just how common this sort of thing is in public schools as well.
Well, note he says, "While some religious beliefs can be empowering,"
non serviam can cause much of this.
Please tell me you aren't still practicing the religion you happened to be born into? Surely you've outgrown your baby clothes by now. Isn't it time you also outgrew your baby religion?
What do you bet that this guy's native language is English? But he's still speaking English. Isn't it time he also outgrew his baby language?
Lord God, save me from the sin of rage.
I would disagree with your characterization of this guy as "slick," unless it's in the slippery and stupid sense of the word.
The whole thing is hilarious, from his "trademarked" slogan at the top: "Personal Development for Smart People." Gotta make sure that "intellectual property" is protected! People will be lining up to steal that one 
And why is it that people like this feel so compelled to self-identify as smart, anyway? (Couldn't be that they're subconsciously concerned that others might see them differently, could it?) Certainly intellectual midgets like Pope B16 are ALWAYS reminding people how bright they are...
So he opens this essay by praising the search for "spirituality" (but only if it has nothing to do with God, who doesn't exist. So why bother to be spiritual?
Then he ends it by invoking his Catholic "credentials"...which according to his own previous screed are meaningless. So why bring them up?
Overall, a real hoot. Especially the donation button to "share the giving"
Come to think of it, that's another one in the buses always plunge category. Sex offenders are always "shuffled" from one place to another.
Nothing in this world, not even the Nazis, not even Satan is simply and purely evil
Godwin's law! Godwin's law!
+J.M.J+
>>>Please tell me you aren't still practicing the religion you happened to be born into? Surely you've outgrown your baby clothes by now. Isn't it time you also outgrew your baby religion?
Well, some of us happened to leave the religion we happened to be born into, only to decide later on to return after studying the facts. How provincial of him to assume that all who currently practice "the religion they happened to be born into" do so unthinkingly, with no intellectual reasoning behind it.
In Jesu et Maria,
And some of us have spent years reading and learning more about the religion we were born into. I've read the bible, I've read the CCC, I've read C.S. Lewis, Chesterton, some Augustine, some Thomas Aquinas etc etc. I've also read Bernard Shaw, Wells and many other non or anti religious types (can't remember as many of the names though).
The religious material I've read tends to be the most mind stretching stuff I read. I'm not still Catholic because I haven't thought about it.
I admit that as a teen and young adult, I was Catholic mostly because of those who I respected and admired (my first piece of independent reasoning was on the lines of reasoning that wisdom lies as much on figuring out who to trust as it does on being an 'independent' reasoner) but as I've become older and hopefully wiser I've found more reasons to follow my religion instead of less. Much has to be lived to be understood.
"Godwin's law! Godwin's law!"
...doesn't apply here, FWIW, since Nazis are not used as a point of comparison, only to illustrate a principle.
Also, the widely bandied corollary of Godwin's law that assumes that the person who makes a Nazi analogy "loses" (though the law itself doesn't say this) implies that the loser compares the opposing position to Nazism.
Mark didn't do this. He cited Nazis as a control group in the opposite side's evaluation of Christians. In other words, his point wasn't "Those guys are as bad as Nazis!" It was more like "That guy says we're worse than Nazis are!" Different thing.
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