Pad Your Pipe, Young Man!

You’ve all by now heard that the Pope says condoms are okay.  Well…except for use as birth control.  But if you’re a prostitute it’s okay to use condoms to prevent spreading sexually transmitted infections. Not that prostitution is okay, no, no, no – that’s still a sin.  But it’s not as big of a sin as prostituting AND spreading disease.

This evening on NPR I heard the most precious analogy detailing the Pope’s true intentions of his recent comments.  I believe that the analogy comes from Father Joseph Fessio, S.J. who wrote an article for Reuters on the topic:

Muggers are using steel pipes to attack people and the injuries are severe. Some muggers use padded pipes to reduce the injuries, while still disabling the victim enough for the mugging. The Pope says that the intention of reducing injury (in the act of mugging) could be a first step toward greater moral responsibility. [snip] Of course, one may morally use padded pipes in some circumstances, e.g., as insulated pipes so that hot water flowing through them doesn’t cool as fast. And one may use condoms morally in some cases, e.g. as water balloons.

The Father is using an analogy involving padded pipes to describe condom use?

And dude also just said that using condoms as water balloons is moral???  Quick, spread the word to Christian frat houses across the land!

Bwahahaha!

But in all seriousness, the Catholic church is still telling women and families how to plan their lives, and as Greta Christina recently discussed at Skepticon 3, espousing the idea that God cares about who you have sex with and how.  I think that Father Fessio captures the big picture perfectly:

In sum, the Pope did not “justify” condom use in any circumstances. And Church teaching remains the same as it has always been—both before and after the Pope’s statements.

Yup.

Pad Your Pipe, Young Man!
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Hey Homos, Quite Picking on Christians.

‘Cuz you all are.  Don’t you know that when don’t let others threaten you, deny you civil rights and discriminate against you, that you’re infringing on their intellectual and religious freedom?

Cardinal Giacomo Biffi is bummed out that a woman lost her position on an adoption panel because she was turning away gay couples because they were…gay. 

“Is it still permitted … to be faithful and consistent disciples of the teaching of Christ … or must we prepare ourselves for a new form of persecution, promoted by homosexual activists, by their ideological accomplices, and even by those whose task it should be to defend the intellectual freedom of all, including Christians?”

If you define being persecuted as being called on your shit when you discriminate against someone because they are different from you, or because they don’t honor your supposedly personal beliefs, then…yeah, prepare yourself for “persecution”. 

But you know what isn’t going to happen?  Those doing the “persecuting” aren’t going to try to interfere in your love life, your children’s life, your access to health care, your ability to serve in the military, your  ability to marry, visit your partner in the hospital, challenge your bequeathment wishes…  oh, right. 

Who is persecuting whom, again?

Story via RichardDawkins.net

Hey Homos, Quite Picking on Christians.

Being Born Again is too difficult

I’m sitting here going through my camera phone photos when I find this gem from Friday night.  I think this post is located on the SW corner of Lyndale and Lake.

Does anyone know the significance of the 2/28/12 date?  I tried Mark 2:28, but I don’t think “Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.” is relevant.  And everyone knows that the end of the world isn’t until 12/21/2012.

 

 

 

Being Born Again is too difficult

Xmas Wars

This is not an SNL skit or other parody group’s work.  This is fo’ real.

This movie will be loved by some people, but in the light of recent events and the us vs them mentality going on with the Ground Zero “Mosque”, the planned burning of the Koran,  the Pope’s visit to UK, Tea Party candidates calling for less church-state separation, et cetera, et cetera, I think the majority of people will see this for this movie for the divisive piece of crap that it looks to be.  And since this Christmas with a Capital C is straight-to-DVD, I don’t think the majority of the mainstream will ever even know about this movie.

Go go gadget optimism!

And to be clear, Christmas with a Capital C is the movie’s official title.  But I think How the Atheist Stole Christmas is more appropriate and filled with truthiness.  Or, as Balk from The Awl suggested Bullshit Resentments Fomented To Somehow Convince The Practitioners Of America’s Most Widely-Followed Faith That They Are Under Siege: The Movie

Via BlagHag, Joe My God, and a gazillon billion other rationality, atheism and skeptical websites.

Oh, and check out the movie’s namesake – a video about Go Fish, the Christian rock band that wrote and performed the song “Christmas with a Capital C”.  It’s pretty great when the lead singer says that Christmas didn’t used to be about religion, it was about culture and everyone used to participated in the holiday even if they disagreed with the religion because it was good for all of us.  Say what?  And I love the part where they make fun of people who say Happy Holidays by lisping the “s” and speaking in a soft voice (read: speaking like The Gays).  It’s FAB-ulous!

Xmas Wars

JFK Separation of Church and State

Thanks to Freethought Radio (9/11/10 episode) for reminding me of this wonderful speech, given by John F. Kennedy to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in Houston, Texas on September 12, 1960. 

This is just one excerpt, but there is a wonderful page completely devoted to this speech at the American Rhetoric website*, where you can find the speech in its entirety, as well as video, audio and several different downloadable document types of JFK’s speech.

“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the President — should he be Catholic — how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference, and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him, or the people who might elect him.

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accept instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials, and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.”

~~~~~

The American Rhetoric website has an awesome tagline: “Rationalize rhetoric and it speaks to your mind; personify her and she speaks to your soul.”

JFK Separation of Church and State

Godless Morning Reading

Who doesn’t love a little god with their Corn Pops and grapefruit juice?

Two excellent (and decently short) articles from The Guardian.  Via the Religious Kooks and Other Superstitious Nonsense Facebook page.

Is God scraping the barrel for miracles? – Martin Robbins.  As Mr. Robbins puts it:

God used to be able to part seas and flood planets. By the end of the Old Testament he was turning people into pillars of salt and Aaron’s rod into a snake. At the time of Jesus, God our omnipotent deity was basically down to party tricks, and now, what, easing an old man’s backache for a few months?

Sex and death lie at the poisoned heart of religion – Polly Toynbee.  This article has a more serious tone to it.  Toynbee explains how the church’s controlling grip on reproduction, our bodies and sexuality,  and how we perceive and handle death are the seat of the church’s power.  My favorite snippet from the article:

As Ben Goldacre pointed out in this paper on Saturday, while this pope claims condoms “aggravate the problem” of HIV/Aids, two million die a year. Ann Widdecombe’s riposte that the Catholic church runs more Aids clinics than any single nation was like suggesting the Spanish Inquisition ran the best rehab clinics for torture victims.

And now for something on the lighter side: This video of Steve Martin performing “Atheists Ain’t Got No Songs” with the Steep Canyon Rangers at MerleFest 2010 has been out for a while, but it’s always good fun.

Godless Morning Reading

Atheism: Brutal Truth vs. Getting Along

One of the things that is hard for me to get my head around as a burgeoning skeptic is the the internally divisive nature of atheism.  Some atheists are hardliners in their rejection of religion and theism, and others are personally atheistic while tolerating religious belief and practice in others.  At first it appeared to me to be an atheist vs. humanist philosophy: both rely on secular reasoning and believe that religion is a divisive force, but atheists are much more anti-theist whereas humanists focus less on critiquing religion and more on “getting along”. 

But it ain’t that simple, is it?  Atheism and Humanism are not exclusive philosophies, and one is not better, or more good, or more focused on helping our fellow human beings than the other.  Austin Cline has written a little about this in his blog entry Humanism vs. Atheism, and he criticizes those who would identify humanists as tolerant and atheists as roundly intolerant. 

But the New Atheists are intolerant of religion.  From Wikipedia: “What the New Atheists share is a belief that religion should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises.”  New Atheists believe that religions and theism are the source of much that is wrong in life, and that the world would be a better place if religion were to disappear from our cultures.  They believe that together we can make the world a less religious place, that through visibility of the issues we can get religion out of our governments, our legal arenas, our law enforcement.  They’re often loud, unapologetic and thus they become the target of mockery and even threats from religious extremists.  But they are not intolerant human beings, they are intolerant of  this one thing – religion – in our world.

Then there are atheists who, I suppose like myself as I currently am, say go on, go ahead, do your thing.  Atheists who regard their atheism as a private “belief”, not really anyone else’s business, just as others’ religious beliefs aren’t theirs. For a while I rather liked the term apatheist – one who regards the existence of a deity as a relatively meaningless and irrelevant question.  But I’ve come to think that with all of the crappy crap associated with religion and religious belief, and the majority of people who participate in religion, apatheism is also too simple of a road (just as apathy itself is too simple of a road for most of life).

From a 2006 WIRED magazine article, The Church of the Non-Believers, by Gary Wolf, in which he describes the attitudes of some of his friends:

Most of these people call themselves agnostic, but they don’t harbor much suspicion that God is real. They tell me they reject atheism not out of piety but out of politeness. As one said, “Atheism is like telling somebody, ‘The very thing you hinge your life on, I totally dismiss.'”

I’ve spoken with atheists who think this type of soft-spoken, private atheism is naive.  One woman told me that we haven’t earned private atheism yet, that it’s a luxury that we can’t afford, that we need to raise our voices up to decry the persecution of non-believers.  I had one jerk tell me that by being a “private atheist” I was like “one of those” silent dissenting Germans during the Holocaust and then he quoted the First They Came For… poem to me.  He actually quoted four verses of the poem to me.  Really?  REALLY?

I thought Gary Wolf’s WIRED magazine article was very informational, and a thought out, sincere exploration of the type of atheistic activism proposed by the New Atheists.  The article opens with this:

My friends, I must ask you an important question today: Where do you stand on God?

It’s a question you may prefer not to be asked. But I’m afraid I have no choice. We find ourselves, this very autumn, three and a half centuries after the intellectual martyrdom of Galileo, caught up in a struggle of ultimate importance, when each one of us must make a commitment. It is time to declare our position.

This is the challenge posed by the New Atheists. We are called upon, we lax agnostics, we noncommittal nonbelievers, we vague deists who would be embarrassed to defend antique absurdities like the Virgin Birth or the notion that Mary rose into heaven without dying, or any other blatant myth; we are called out, we fence-sitters, and told to help exorcise this debilitating curse: the curse of faith.

The New Atheists will not let us off the hook simply because we are not doctrinaire believers. They condemn not just belief in God but respect for belief in God. Religion is not only wrong; it’s evil. Now that the battle has been joined, there’s no excuse for shirking.

I think New Atheists see the bigger picture, they see the possibility of a world without religion and they’re willing to fight for it.  Perhaps less active “private” atheists see the world and their neighbors that are in front of them now and they want to get along in daily life, not be part of a revolution.

I participated in Boobquake (an activist response), but I also don’t take my neighbor to task for sending her kids to bible camp (a getting along in daily life response).  As with most things in life, there is no one instruction book or recipe that you can use across all situations.

The following writing from PZ Myers (Pharyngula) is what inspired my post today.  It is an excerpt from his post “Sunday Sacrilege: The Joke“.

Unfortunately, right now, I see the atheist community needlessly split between two poles. There are the softies who complain that believers don’t deserve ridicule, that hard truths and blunt speech and laughing at fervently held beliefs simply hardens hearts and drives people away, so we have to be sensitive and avoid confrontation; logic and gentle persuasion will win the day. Then there are the hard-edged ones (the current favored term for these is “dicks”) who point out that you can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into, and that those fond beliefs are being used to hurt people, and must be strongly criticized and mocked. And that, really, religion is a clown circus, and asking us not to point and laugh is unnatural and dishonest.

Both sides are wrong, and both sides are right, and there sure aren’t many people standing at either extreme. You can reason some people out of indoctrination, and slow and patient instruction can win people over to atheism. I know some of them; they write to me and tell me that something I said actually led them to think through their position. But shock also works. Ultimately, people hold their religious beliefs for emotional reasons; deep down, fear and comfort, disgust and empathy are the tools religion uses to manipulate natural human desires. We would be idiots to shun emotional appeals, and it would also play into the ridiculous Spock stereotype of atheists as cold dead soulless people who substitute math for passion.

Sometimes you can reason people out of deeply held beliefs. But it helps if first you stir their discontent with those beliefs, if you wake them up to the fact that they look ridiculous…and that yes, there is a whole group of people who are laughing at them.

It’s another form of sacrilege, to make believers and belief the butt of the joke — and oh, they do hate that. It’s an entirely human response…so use it.

I appreciate PZ’s viewpoint.  It helps me get a better grip on the “why” behind the New Atheists’ “brutal truth” approach to their intolerance of religion.  PZ makes an argument for ridicule, but he also points out that ridicule won’t win ’em all.  I think he’s saying that ridicule has a time and place, and in certain situations can be an effective tool.  But then again, with great tools comes great responsibility to not be a tool.

Tough balance…

~~~~~

Six Days ’til Italy!

A sunflower field in Spoleto, Perugia, Umbria, Italy

Atheism: Brutal Truth vs. Getting Along

CONvergence 2010: Day 3

CONvergence Day 3 – Saturday

First, the outfits!  I pulled out a bunch of things that I don’t get to wear very often – my snazzy cocktail dress, glass bead necklaces, and a black/blue bob wig that I bought for a Halloween costume years ago.  The hubby had a much more deliberate dieselpunk costume – barnstormer cap, goggles, and beige military-style dress including fancy brown army boots.

 

Saturday was chock-full of panels!

11:00 am – Losing My Religion
This was a huge panel, and had about 25 attendees.  Panelists included Jen M, Ted Meissner, David Walbridge, Maria Walters, PZ Myers, Carrie Iwan, Debbie Goddard, Jennifer Ouellete, Lyra Lynx and Bug Girl.  Panelists shared where they were coming from (where they were raised along the range of a heavily religious upbringing to not exposed to religion in their youth or life), and how they dealt with “outing” themselves as atheists or agnostics to family, friends and coworkers, if they chose to do so. 

It was interesting to hear the different perspectives of how “safe” people felt about identifying as atheistic at work.   On the one hand you have someone like PZ Myers – a tenured professor with the ability to be as vocal as he wants to be about his atheism.  Then you have someone like Jen M.  who has a very real fear that she might lose her job if her boss were to find out that she’s an atheist.  Some of the panelists were in the middle – it wouldn’t be the end of the world if their coworkers found out, but they treat their atheism as personal and don’t share their beliefs casually.  One audience member commented that while he didn’t personally care if he was outed, he did worry about the financial ramifications being an out atheist might have on his small-town business. 

Best lines from this session:  
From Debbie Goddard, about not being true to yourself – “It eats at your soul that doesn’t exist.”

From PZ Myers: “We have to stop sacrificing our integrity on the altar of ‘let’s get along’.”

12:30 pm – Profanity as a Fraking Function of Language
Panelists included Kelly Murphy, M.K.Melin, Hilary Moon Murphy, Rebecca Marjesdatter.  This was a somewhat academic discussion about the types, definitions, where, when and whys of profanity.  The moderator could easily have split the slides into a full semester class!  The “Whys”  of using profanity included catharsis, abuse, social bonding and intensification.  She presented a section called “English Profanity Classification”, which was split into religion-related, scatalogical, sexual referents, animal names, euphemisms, foreign language words as swears, and starting a swear but finishing with a non-swear (shhhhhh….ugar!).

The tie-in to the SciFi group came in during the second half of the talk.  We came up with a few books, shows and movies that used cursing or swearing:

Firefly – Gorram and chinese language cursing.  Gorram being a “replacement” for “Goddamn”?
Harry Potter – the kids swear in a very kid-like manner – “Damn” sounds just shocking coming from Harry Potter!  At least the first time…
Battlestar Galactica – “Frak, frakin” – Classic replacement word.
Star Trek –  Data saying “shit”
Pirates of Darkwater – “Noishatot!” – Made-up curse words.
Warner Brothers – Yosemite Sam “rashafrashin…”, Donald Duck “Sufferin’ succotash!”
DC Comics – “Bastich” – combination of “bastard” and “bitch”
Red Dwarf – “Smeg”
Frostflower and Thorn – “You don’t have the tits for that” and “Fathermilker” (A very matriarchal, female-dominated society) By the way, “fathermilker” was the one that caught the greatest number of people in the audience unaware during the entire panel. It was unexpected and could be a universal insult, a corollary to motherf****r. Before you read too much into the astrick-ing – I’m just trying to keep this entry out of the NSFW category.

The moderator said that one of her main disappointments with swearing/cursing in scifi fantasy is when authors don’t use imagination, logic or art when employing profanity.  She asked the writers in the audience to consider these factors when writing profanity into a story:

Offensiveness vs. Offendedness – who’s sending the message and who’s receiving it?  For whom is the profferred profanity intended? And how do these factors affect offensiveness and offendedness: Setting, Gender, Age, Race, Culture, Personality, Power, Class, Occupation, Religion, Sexual Orientation, Relationship.

2 pm – Women as Skeptical Activists
Panelists: Rebecca Watson, Maria Walters, Jennifer Newport, Debbie Goddard, Carrie Iwan, Pamela Gay

The main theme that came out of this panel was Role Models, Role Models, Role Models!  One of the speakers offered up the idea that while being a woman in the fields of science and skepticism may not necessarily put one at a disadvantage for hiring or promotion (although there is still a wage gap in many parts of the US), women are still in the minority. 

The panel discussed studies which have shown that when women are seen as role models in positions of power and respect, more girls and women do better on tests, decide to go into male-dominated professions and excel in those professions.  Also presented was the importance of introducing a woman’s perspective to help minimize “male priviledge”.  Gender bias still exists – just because we got the “big” wins – namely, the right to vote and the perception that women can do as well in business, academics and politics as men, doesn’t mean that all gender bias issues have been solved (brought up were breast-feeding in public, maternity leave, wage, employment in the “upper echeleons”).

Advice for women in the audience trying to distinguish themselves in the skeptical movement and blogging community: Find your niche!  Avoid being a generalist, be the go-to person for a certain topic. 

Pseudoscience targeted at women (pregnany, childrearing, weight loss, fertility) was briefly discussed.

3:30 pm – Evolution Mythbusters
Panelists: Ted Meissner (mod), PZ Myers, Bug Girl, Gred Laden

Favorite misconceptions:

Bug Girl – The false idea that bumblebees shouldn’t be able to fly.

Greg Laden – Greg was rather winding in his answer, but I believe this was the crux of his statements:  The false idea that animal behaviors are genetic and thus subject to evolutionary forces and anything outside of this is a violation of evolutionary theory, and thus evolution is false. 

PZ Myers – The idea that all features of humaness are a product of selection, when in fact, very few are.  Again, I hope I summarized this correctly.  This led into a discussion of the human immune system, the “broken” Vitamin C gene and lactose-intolerance.

Most fascinating part of evolution:

Bug Girl – Sex!  Separation of species.

Greg Laden – The emergence of complicated systems from simple beginnings.

PZ Myers – Development, how evolution affects form by affecting development.

My favorite statements from the panel:

  • “Nothing makes sense except in the light of evolution”.  An oldie, but goodie.
  • Science is more than just memorizing facts; it’s a way of thinking.
  • Regarding willful ignorance: When a creationist studen tries to disrupt the teaching of evolution, that’s not honest inquiry.
  • The “theory” of evolution is to intelligent design as the “theory” of gravity is to intelligent pushing.  This one came from an audience member sitting near me. 
  • Biggest challenges to the teaching of evolution?  Media, culture, religion.
  • ~~~~~

    Phew!  So I was pretty much done with panels after these four machine-gun style sessions.  I stopped briefly by the Seamstress Guild cabana, checked my email, facebook and blog at the hotel computers, and then went to the Dealer’s Room where I bought my first Surly-Ramics jewelry!  I found a “Science” necklace and a “Geek” hairclip for myself, and a yellow hairclip for my sister that has Darwin’s first “tree of life” diagram on the button. 

     

     

    The hubby and I went to the Masquerade at 7pm and saw all sorts of fantastic and horrific (i.e., fantasy and horror, not well-done and poorly-made!) costumes.  I like the way CONvergence does Masquerade – it’s a runway-style show and a costume competition, but there are three levels or categories: Novice, Journeyman and Master.  This way, the professional costumers can compete among themselves but present alongside the noob who gets up in a cloak and wig.  My favorite costume set was a Master-level group who presented as the entire cast of The Guild.

    Afterwards the Hubby and I had dinner at TGIFridays across the parking lot and then bummed around some of the party rooms, cabanas and CONsuite until 12pm when we went to see The Dregs – fun!  They played the classic Zombies in the Shire AND the Zombie Chicken song!  The performance was very casual and silly.  There may or may not have been a bottle containing some brown liquid that passed back and forth between band members and the audience, one of the lead singers was taking pics and posting to facebook between songs, and there was a lot of verbal bashing back and forth between the performers.  So a fantastic time was had by all. 

    Afterwards – exhaustion and home.  This ended up being our last day of CONvergence.  There was only one panel that I wanted to see on Sunday, and we decided that we didn’t care too much about closing ceremonies, so we decided to get a head start on con drop before going back to work.  It was a beautiful day, so we ended up renting a “deuce coup” at Minnehaha Falls, going to the Mall of America for some people watching and lunch, and a spending a quiet night at home with a movie (Paul Giamatti’s Cold Souls). 

    Thus endeth CONvergence 2010.

    CONvergence 2010: Day 3

    On Being Non-Religious

    I sneezed as I was leaving the YMCA this morning.  A woman in front of me turned around, smiled and said “May God bless you, and Jesus Christ also.”  I was a little taken aback, and I said “Wow, you don’t hear that much.”  She smiled and told me, “I like people to know I mean it.  So many people say ‘Bless you’, but they don’t think about what it means.”  Bemused, I smiled and we went our separate ways.

    I’m not overly religious, but I’m not overly zealous about my non-religious ways.  I don’t get offended if someone invites me to church, or says “Bless you” when I sneeze (even “May God bless you, and Jesus Christ also”).  Whatever.  The average person is usually acting out of concern for my welfare and means me well.  Hey, I probably believe your religion is mumbo jumbo – rules and ceremonies created in the brains of men and then called laws of a higher being – but as long as you’re not using your religion to hurt anyone or to force people to act or think a certain way, or trying to change history or current politics, or wasting my time or my money – you have fun with that.  Unfortunately, I haven’t found many religions that meet all of those requirements, but if you’re a religious person who meets these requirements, then we can hang.  

     I read a few blogs that are listed on the Atheist Nexuus, I love the FFRF, I am a proponent of the separation of church and state, and I get upset when religion is used in the abuse of human or civil rights.   And while I do identify as a-theistic, I cringe a little when I’m cornered into saying I’m An Atheist.  In the past when I have identified as An Atheist to other Atheists, I’ve been expected to be able to discuss – in detail – why I’m calling myself an Atheist and to share in religion-mocking or book title dropping (I’ll get around to Dennett’s Breaking the Spell and Dawkin’s The God Delusion one of these days, I promise!  They’re on my shelf!  I’ve been busy.).  I’m not well-versed in religions or theology – I just don’t care to spend a lot of time learning much about either of these things.  Thus I don’t have many hard arguments against religions or religious ideology, and I certainly don’t have any arguments – or the desire – to talk anyone out of their beliefs.  The few times I have identifed as An Atheist to a person of religion I’ve been treated to some form of concern, eye-rolling, or hostility – no exceptions.  If they’re not disgusted they want to convert me…or at least they want me to do some “soul-searching”.  By the way, this is a poor argument if the atheist under scrutiny doesn’t believe in a soul.  Can’t you just see it?  “Hey, I’ll search it, but first you have to prove to me that it exists.”

    I was raised in a fairly non-religious family – we attended Episcopal services for a little while.  I served as an alter girl – swinging the incense, ringing the bells, holding the wine glass and the plate with the communion wafers.  I got to be in charge of something and wear a uniform, and it was all good fun.  I was part of a youth group, which was great because I saw my first professional musical – Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat – as a result of that.  Looking back, probably the most offensive thing about my religious upbringing was that I went through confirmation classes.  What a joke!  As a society we say a person must be 18 years old before they are allowed to vote in elections or sign contracts, but you’re allowed – encouraged! – to commit your earthly life and eternal soul (should you believe in one) to a religion as a child before you have the ability to reason or think critically.  Seriously…that’s messed up. 

    It does seem like my reasons for being atheistic are a more defensible than many people’s reasons for being theistic.  The specific reasons for my lack of belief are numerous, but here are my biggest ones: If there is a God, She/He/It’s obviously not interacting with the world or people in any predictable manner, so why should I cater to or attempt to influence a diety’s actions or mood?  For what other reason would I attend church or pray? I can meditate if I need peace, and I can be good and respect my fellow human beings without the middleman. Should I be concerned for the afterlife or my eternal soul’s final destination?  Please!  Every religion has a different take on how we should act in order to send our soul to where we think it should go.  To deeply believe that any Afterlife is “true” and that it’s “more true” that someone else’s…how presumptuous. 

    I don’t want to spend my limited time on Earth trying to understand things that can’t be made sense of.  

    Strive to be nice to self, to others and to be happy.  Be concerned with this life

    I’ll work within these “rules” and fill out the rest from there.

    *******

    Sneezing woman photo source

    On Being Non-Religious

    Teabaggin’ for Geezus

    I’m off to the gym (mmm…hot tub…), then brunch with some friends at the Independent in Uptown, followed by a shift at the bookstore.

    Two outta three ain’t bad.

    Today, I bring you the satirical stylings of Edward Currant.  WARNING: This video is mean, a little rude, and dare I say vicious and relentless?  But, gently readers, know that none of these things are done idly!  The attitude of the video helps drive home it’s underlying message: Evangelical religious right wing politics are very, very scary…and funny in their ridiculousness…funny in a make-you-want-to-cry kind of way.

    Edward Currant is well known for his no-holds-barred videos lambasting religious silliness and right-wing extremism.  However, if you like that kind of stuff, enjoy!  Oh, and make sure to watch for the hand-reading glance ala Sarah Palin!

    Teabaggin’ for Geezus