I remember how furious some right-wingers, and one in particular calling himself “Doc,” got when I posted an entry called “Should Christians Rethink Earthcentricity?” Among other brilliant things, this “Doc” character promised he sees me all the time and would be watching me. Part bully, part coward, part scared little boy, and par for the course when it comes to comments from the religious and the right.

Don’t believe me? Watch any YouTube video about atheism, and for as long as you can stand the hatred and illiteracy, read the comments. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

There, see?

By the Way… Matthew 6:5-6… “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.

“But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

So recently there is bad news for the young Earth creationists and their ilk, and is another nail in the coffin of all religions, all of which, and I’m talking to you, are demonstrably false. Untrue. Wrong.

It can be temping to pick on certain religions sometimes, since their tenets are so alien to some of us, but they all start from one basic premise, that the world is magic or comes from magic, so it doesn’t matter if there are golden parchments or bridges made of paper, it’s all false.

Anyway, the bad news for them is this: the scientific research community is constantly discovering exoplanets. As of this writing, there are 1815.

Every time we look harder and more rationally at the Universe, the Earth seems less and less like the center of it all, and within that, the bronze-age fairy tales told by religion seem even sillier than ever. The problem, as you may have divined, is that some of these worlds must support life, and some of that life is going to be sentient, and absolutely none of this life will have Jesus. No where in your holy book does it make any mention of the Christ appearing anywhere but here on earth.

But don’t you worry, Bubba. The preacher man’ll know just how to ‘splain this. He’ll tell ya that science is the devil’s work, or that the work of Satan is all around us, or that “science” (using air quotes when spoken out loud) “can’t be sure” of their findings because it’s “just” a theory.

I’ve got to give them that. It’s true. Science does author theories. A theory is an idea or set of ideas that is intended to explain facts or events.

Religion is not a theory, thus is not an idea or set of ideas that is intended to explain facts or events.