The following photo would be enough to get me kicked out of just about any freshers’ fair in Britain:
Jesus -n- Mo
So these are two lovely rocks from the Skykomish River, and I’ve named them Jesus and Mo because it seems many religious people have not yet learned to be reasonable adults. I know, I know, this comes as quite the shock to those of us in countries where the religious majorities are oh so sensible. But for those who have not yet learned that one group’s sacred thingies are other groups’ not-at-all sacred thingies, it seems random things will need to have the names of mythological folks plastered to them until the dumbfuckery stops. Continue reading “In Solidarity With Students, I Present Jesus -n- Mo”→
All right, I’m appalled. I had a friend whose gradual slide deeper and deeper into Christian faith (Baptist, I believe) meant we gradually drifted apart. We’re still Facebook friends, and occasionally I see his updates. He’s got two young beautiful children – and is doing his best to raise them in the faith.
I don’t think he realizes how horrific that is, even though he just linked to an article explaining why.
The author dismisses the heroic Bible stories taught in Sunday School. All those messages of loyalty and goodness, he sez, are just awful. Total lies! Jesus is only a postscript! Of course it’s causing kids to leave the faith! Because what they need to hear, apparently, what’ll keep their butts glued to the pews, is this: Continue reading “Perhaps Because It’s Horrific Bullshit?”→
Smart people I know and love frequently pop out with some sort of “I believe in God” statement. If it’s not God, it’s some other gods or goddesses or numinous something-or-other(s), or an unspecified spiritual component to the universe. It’s like people can’t conceive of an existence without the supernatural.
I used to be that way. I have distant memories of that desire to find the entity behind it all, to relate to something far larger and smarter than me. I remember thinking I’d never want to live in a world without magic. I wanted to believe. Needed to. Desperately.
I can’t wait for the Mormon missionaries to show up at my door again. Usually, I don’t have the patience to deal with people trying to sell me religion – I’ve got kittehs to play with, rocks to pound, posts to write, food to savor… Who wants to spend a glorious summer afternoon arguing religion with two scrubbed (in mind and body) young people when you could be lounging on the patio with book, cat, and drink?
Me!
After two books and a website, I’m eagerly scanning the horizon for those poor innocent folks. I might even invest in two extra patio chairs so we can lounge outside with the Book of Mormon, the cat (granted neither are allergic), and drinks (non-alcoholic, of course. See – I can be accommodationist, too!).
“Dana!” I hear you cry in my vivid imagination, “what can possibly lead to such a dramatic change?!”
I shall tell you. What’s more, I shall arm you with fascinating, often funny, reading, and questions guaranteed to make missionaries sweat more than the weather warrants.
Ho, hum, another day, another dumbfuck claiming atheists have no basis for morality. I see Avi’s given them a right proper fisking. Good thing he’s a good writer, because this shallow shite’s points look like they came off an apologetics-for-assclowns site. Oh, my heck, does our Avi have patience. I’d’ve chucked this garbage in the trash after the first paragraph. This is just so century before last – ooo, what’s this? Continue reading “Someone’s Been Living in an Alternate Reality Again”→
I’m tired of hearing people prattle on about “God is Love” and what loving, moral people religion makes. It isn’t true. It’s manifestly not true. What religion does is takes otherwise decent human beings and turns them into sanctimonious shits, when it’s not busy enabling evil. “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction,” Blaise Pascal said once. This is truth.
Let me just state this now, for the believers: I do not want to hear, “But that’s not True Christianity!” I do not want to hear, “But I’m not that kind of person.” The first is a bloody stupid No True Scotsman fallacy, and you should be better than that. The second is beside the point. And don’t even begin to tell me how the majority of Christians are wonderful people who would never, ever do the things I’m about to show you Christians have done. Stop playing defense for the home team for a moment. Sit down on the sidelines and listen.*
I thought we were in trouble. Guy P. Harrison’s introduction to his new book 50 Simple Questions for Every Christian set alarm bells a-ringing. “This book is not an attack on Christian people,” the first line says. Fair enough. But then there were all sorts of weaselly, mealy-mouthed words that seemed to shout “Retreat!” “Humble and far less threatening,” forsooth. “Clichéd and cartoonish angry atheist attack on crazy Christians,” indeed! “No interest in scoring debate points,” even so! “Proud to say I’ve walked away on friendly terms,” for fuck’s sake. Despite assurances punches would not be pulled, I was positive I was in for 324 pages of forelock-tugging, bowing and scraping deference to Christianity. This looked like it was going to be one of those kumbaya books, and I almost packed it up and sent it back to Prometheus Books with a note saying, “No. I can’t do this.” Continue reading “50 “Simple” Questions, Me Arse”→
Really, you only seem to notice women when you can use them to conveniently bludgeon religions. You’re super-concerned about how women are treated in the Muslim world because Islam. You call the Judeo-Christian god a “misogynistic…bully,” because hey, great point of attack, amirite? So women might get the idea you’re on their side, but when it counts, when we’re fighting against sexism and misogyny in the atheist community, you “Dear Muslima” us. When it comes to abortion rights, you’re more for pigs and parasites than you are women. You don’t see us, actual human beings with fundamental rights to bodily autonomy and respect. You see a rhetorical device. And you don’t even seem to be aware you’re doing it. I hope you’re not. I hope you’re not the kind of man who would deliberately erase a woman from the picture. But unintententional or no, that’s precisely what you’re doing.
How the religious right (and, later in pregnancy, people like Richard Dawkins) view pregnant women. All they can see is a fetus.
Here is a moment: sitting at a picnic table in blazing sunshine and a mild breeze on the most beautiful day of the year. A red-tailed hawk soars in effortless circles overhead. There are chickadees around – I can hear them – and other birds whose calls I don’t know carry on conversations all around. The house is almost clean, the laundry done. There was a pleasant ramble up along North Creek earlier, and then a drive up to the top of the ridge for a view of the Cascades and the Olympics, covered in snow. The sun brought out the best in the blueschist wall. And the cat is at home, lazing in the sun, perfectly content.
Kitteh in the sun.
I circle back around to this moment, where a jay (Steller’s, I think) has just landed in the tree beside me with a scolding raucous cry. A squirrel climbs branches just barely outlined with tiny yellow-green new leaves. A seagull’s plaintive cry sounds nearby. This is now, and the city sounds of cars and chattering children fade to insignificance.
Life is a series of moments, strung together, and some of them are so close to perfect that I’m left baffled by people who reach for a heaven. Imagination, I understand. Imaginary worlds are fun: I’ve rambled with the Doctor today, with Rose and Amy, snippets of scenes dancing, sparkling like water in the sun. My main character and I had a long discussion about how we were going to describe something there are no human words for, while I rambled around with the camera looking for opportunities to turn nature into art.
Blossoms and twigs against sky.
Somewhere in the city, there are people carving and painting and sculpting and designing; people creating beautiful things from fabrics and thread and yarn. Someone’s arranging rocks and plants just so in a yard. Someone’s smithing words. Someone’s telling a story with the motion of their body. People are imagining things that will add measures of delight to their lives and the lives of those who see, hear, touch, taste or smell what they’ve created. And nature, with its clouds of flowering trees and its creatures and its colors, is busy being art without intention or imagination.
Some folks think a higher power did this, inspired this, directed this. I think that subtracts rather than adds. Never mind the distinct lack of evidence. Giving the credit to a God rather than the natural forces and the people who have created this beauty cheapens the effect. Gods make it tawdry. Let the gods stay in stories, created by human minds, told by human voices. They belong there, not here. Not in this moment, whole and complete and unintentional.
Very tiny snail
I think that’s why I like those old Zen masters so much. No gods, no desire for them. No quest for enlightenment. Where do you go for it? Right here. This moment. Supernatural power in chopping wood and carrying water. Zazen in going to the market and cooking a meal. Every moment, extraordinary without ever being anything other than perfectly ordinary. Why look somewhere else when it’s right here? Why rely on a god when there’s no god required?
Stories, now. Stories are good. We need stories, we humans. We need imagination and creativity, because we wouldn’t get anywhere without them. Sometimes people seem to think that if you dispense with gods, you can’t tell stories anymore. Nothing could be further from the truth. Getting rid of gods means freeing your mind from shackles, arbitrary rules, lists of forbidden things. We can go anywhere, now. Some of those places are dangerous and we should use caution. But we’re free.
North Creek running free and clear.
We can soar outside of reality for a time, if we like, but we discover that reality is intriguing. Beautiful and terrible, far more so than any gods we can imagine. It takes a lot of creativity to puzzle it out. It takes even more to change it. Imagination is required to see a way to the truth. Small-t truth, subject to modification as further truths are discovered. Nothing is more adventurous than science. Ultimately, I think it tells the best stories, stories that are even more extraordinary as we realize they’re true. Continents collide, stars create the bits that could become us, simple chemistry leads to these myriad forms that have been singing in my ears all this while… No, a god is surplus to requirements. An airy nothing, in a universe full of spectacular something.
Let the gods be enjoyed as stories, told by people to people.
Let this perfect moment be enjoyed just as it is.
The Olympic Mountains
(Written during a remarkably lovely Easter weekend.)
