Oct 15 2007

Atheists and Anger

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I want to talk about atheists and anger.

This has been a hard piece to write, and it may be a hard one to read. I’m not going to be as polite and good-tempered as I usually am in this blog; this piece is about anger, and for once I’m going to fucking well let myself be angry.

But I think it’s important. One of the most common criticisms lobbed at the newly-vocal atheist community is, “Why do you have to be so angry?” So I want to talk about:

1. Why atheists are angry;

2. Why our anger is valid, valuable, and necessary;

And 3. Why it’s completely fucked-up to try to take our anger away from us.

So let’s start with why we’re angry. Or rather — because this is my blog and I don’t presume to speak for all atheists — why I’m angry.

*****

I’m angry that according to a recent Gallup poll, only 45 percent of Americans would vote for an atheist for President.

I’m angry that atheist conventions have to have extra security, including hand-held metal detectors and bag searches, because of fatwas and death threats.

I’m angry that atheist soldiers — in the U.S. armed forces — have had prayer ceremonies pressured on them and atheist meetings broken up by Christian superior officers, in direct violation of the First Amendment. I’m angry that evangelical Christian groups are being given exclusive access to proselytize on military bases — again in the U.S. armed forces, again in direct violation of the First Amendment. I’m angry that atheist soldiers who are complaining about this are being harassed and are even getting death threats from Christian soldiers and superior officers — yet again, in the U.S. armed forces. And I’m angry that Christians still say smug, sanctimonious things like, “there are no atheists in foxholes.” You know why you’re not seeing atheists in foxholes? Because believers are threatening to shoot them if they come out.

I’m angry that the 41st President of the United States, George Herbert Walker Bush, said of atheists, in my lifetime, “No, I don’t know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God.” My President. No, I didn’t vote for him, but he was still my President, and he still said that my lack of religious belief meant that I shouldn’t be regarded as a citizen.

I’m angry that it took until 1961 for atheists to be guaranteed the right to serve on juries, testify in court, or hold public office in every state in the country.

I’m angry that almost half of Americans believe in creationism. And not a broad, “God had a hand in evolution” creationism, but a strict, young-earth, “God created man pretty much in his present form at one time within the last 10,000 years” creationism.

And on that topic: I’m angry that school boards all across this country are still — 82 years after the Scopes trial — having to spend time and money and resources on the fight to have evolution taught in the schools. School boards are not exactly loaded with time and money and resources, and any of the time/ money/ resources that they’re spending fighting this stupid fight is time/ money/ resources that they’re not spending, you know, teaching.

I’m angry that women are dying of AIDS in Africa and South America because the Catholic Church has convinced them that using condoms makes baby Jesus cry.

I’m angry that women are having septic abortions — or are being forced to have unwanted children who they resent and mistreat — because religious organizations have gotten laws passed making abortion illegal or inaccessible.

I’m angry about what happened to Galileo. Still. And I’m angry that it took the Catholic Church until 1992 to apologize for it.

I get angry when advice columnists tell their troubled letter-writers to talk to their priest or minister or rabbi… when there is absolutely no legal requirement that a religious leader have any sort of training in counseling or therapy.

And I get angry when religious leaders offer counseling and advice to troubled people — sex advice, relationship advice, advice on depression and stress, etc. — not based on any evidence about what actually does and does not work in people’s brains and lives, but on the basis of what their religious doctrine tells them God wants for us.

I’m angry at preachers who tell women in their flock to submit to their husbands because it’s the will of God, even when their husbands are beating them within an inch of their lives.

I’m angry that so many believers treat prayer as a sort of cosmic shopping list for God. I’m angry that believers pray to win sporting events, poker hands, beauty pageants, and more. As if they were the center of the universe, as if God gives a shit about who wins the NCAA Final Four — and as if the other teams/ players/ contestants weren’t praying just as hard.

I’m especially angry that so many believers treat prayer as a cosmic shopping list when it comes to health and illness. I’m angry that this belief leads to the revolting conclusion that God deliberately makes people sick so they’ll pray to him to get better. And I’m angry that they foist this belief on sick and dying children — in essence teaching them that, if they don’t get better, it’s their fault. That they didn’t pray hard enough, or they didn’t pray right, or God just doesn’t love them enough.

And I get angry when other believers insist that the cosmic shopping list isn’t what religion and prayer are really about; that their own sophisticated theology is the true understanding of God. I get angry when believers insist that the shopping list is a straw man, an outmoded form of religion and prayer that nobody takes seriously, and it’s absurd for atheists to criticize it.

I get angry when believers use terrible, grief-soaked tragedies as either opportunities to toot their own horns and talk about how wonderful their God and their religion are… or as opportunities to attack and demonize atheists and secularism.

I’m angry at the Sunday school teacher who told comic artist Craig Thompson that he couldn’t draw in heaven. And I’m angry that she said it with the complete conviction of authority… when in fact she had no basis whatsoever for that assertion. How the hell did she know what Heaven was like? How could she possibly know that you could sing in heaven but not draw? And why the hell would you say something that squelching and dismissive to a talented child?

I’m angry that Mother Teresa took her personal suffering and despair at her lost faith in God, and turned it into an obsession that led her to treat suffering as a beautiful gift from Christ to humanity, a beautiful offering from humanity to God, and a necessary part of spiritual salvation. And I’m angry that this obsession apparently led her to offer grotesquely inadequate medical care and pain relief at her hospitals and hospices, in essence taking her personal crisis of faith out on millions of desperately poor and helpless people.

I’m angry at the trustee of the local Presbyterian church who told his teenage daughter that he didn’t actually believe in God or religion, but that it was important to keep up his work because without religion there would be no morality in the world.

I’m angry that so many parents and religious leaders terrorize children — who (a) have brains that are hard-wired to trust adults and believe what they’re told, and (b) are very literal-minded — with vivid, traumatizing stories of eternal burning and torture to ensure that they’ll be too frightened to even question religion.

I’m angrier when religious leaders explicitly tell children — and adults, for that matter — that the very questioning of religion and the existence of hell is a dreadful sin, one that will guarantee them that hell is where they’ll end up.

I’m angry that children get taught by religion to hate and fear their bodies and their sexuality. And I’m especially angry that female children get taught by religion to hate and fear their femaleness, and that queer children get taught by religion to hate and fear their queerness.

I’m angry about the Muslim girl in the public school who was told — by her public-school, taxpayer-paid teacher — that the red stripes on Christmas candy canes represented Christ’s blood, that she had to believe in and be saved by Jesus Christ or she’d be condemned to hell, and that if she didn’t, there was no place for her in his classroom. And I’m angry that he told her not to come back to his class when she didn’t convert.

I’m angry — enraged — at the priests who molest children and tell them it’s God’s will. I’m enraged at the Catholic Church that consciously, deliberately, repeatedly, for years, acted to protect priests who molested children, and consciously and deliberately acted to keep it a secret, placing the Church’s reputation as a higher priority than, for fuck’s sake, children not being molested. And I’m enraged that the Church is now trying to argue, in court, that protecting child-molesting priests from prosecution, and shuffling those priests from diocese to diocese so they can molest kids in a whole new community that doesn’t yet suspect them, is a Constitutionally protected form of free religious expression.

I’m angry about 9/11.

And I’m angry that Jerry Falwell blamed 9/11 on pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays and lesbians, the ACLU, and the People For the American Way. I’m angry that the theology of a wrathful God exacting revenge against pagans and abortionists by sending radical Muslims to blow up a building full of secretaries and investment bankers… this was a theology held by a powerful, widely-respected religious leader with millions of followers.

I’m angry that, when my dad had a stroke and went into a nursing home, the staff asked my brother, “Is he a Baptist or a Catholic?” And I’m not just angry on behalf of my atheist dad. I’m angry on behalf of all the Jews, all the Buddhists, all the Muslims, all the neo-Pagans, whose families almost certainly got asked that same question. That question is enormously disrespectful, not just of my dad’s atheism, but of everyone at that nursing home who wasn’t a Baptist or a Catholic.

I’m angry about Ingrid’s grandparents. I’m angry that their fundamentalism was such a huge source of strife and unhappiness in her family, that it alienated them so drastically from their children and grandchildren. I’m angry that they tried to cram it down Ingrid’s throat, to the point that she’s still traumatized by it. And I’m angry that their religion, which if nothing else should have been a comfort to them in their old age, was instead a source of anguish and despair — because they knew their children and grandchildren were all going to be burned and tortured forever in Hell, and how could Heaven be Heaven if their children and grandchildren were being eternally burned and tortured in Hell?

I’m angry that Ingrid and I can’t get legally married in this country — or get legally married in another country and have it recognized by this one — largely because religious leaders oppose it. And I’m angry that both religious and political leaders have discovered that they can score big points exploiting people’s fears about sexuality in a changing world, fanning the flames of those fears… and giving people a religious excuse for why their fears are justified.

I’m angry that huge swaths of public policy in this country — not just on same-sex marriage, but on abortion and stem-cell research and sex education in schools — are being based, not on evidence of which policies do and don’t work and what is and isn’t true about the world, but on religious texts written hundreds or thousands of years ago, and on their own personal feelings about how those texts should be interpreted, with no supporting evidence whatsoever — and no apparent concept of why any evidence should be needed.

I get angry when believers trumpet every good thing that’s ever been done in the name of religion as a reason why religion is a force for good… and then, when confronted with the horrible evils done in religion’s name, say that those evils weren’t done because of religion, were done because of politics of greed or fear or whatever, would have been done anyway even without religion, and shouldn’t be counted as religion’s fault. (Of course, to be fair, I also get angry when atheists do the opposite: chalk up every evil thing done in the name of religion as a black mark on religion’s record, but then insist that the good things were done for other reasons and would have been done anyway, etc. Neither side gets to have it both ways.)

I’m angry at the believers who put decals on their cars with a Faith fish eating a Darwin fish… and who think that’s clever, who think that religious faith really should triumph over science and evidence. I’m angry at believers who have so little respect for the physical world their God supposedly created that they feel perfectly content to ignore the mountains of physical evidence piling up around them about that real world; perfectly content to see that world as somehow less real and true than their personal opinions about God.

(Note: The litany of specific grievances is now more than halfway over. Analysis of why anger is necessary and valuable is coming up soon. Promise.)

I get angry when religious leaders opportunistically use religion, and people’s trust and faith in religion, to steal, cheat, lie, manipulate the political process, take sexual advantage of their followers, and generally behave like the scum of the earth. I get angry when it happens over and over and over again. And I get angry when people see this happening and still say that atheism is bad because, without religion, people would have no basis for morality or ethics, and no reason not to just do whatever they wanted.

I get angry when religious believers make arguments against atheism — and make accusations against atheists — without having bothered to talk to any atheists or read any atheist writing. I get angry when they trot out the same old “Atheism is a nihilistic philosophy, with no joy or meaning to life and no basis for morality or ethics”… when if they spent ten minutes in the atheist blogosphere, they would discover countless atheists who experience great joy and meaning in their lives, and are intensely concerned about right and wrong.

I get angry when believers use the phrase “atheist fundamentalist” without apparently knowing what the word “fundamentalist” means. Call people pig-headed, call them stubborn, call them snarky, call them intolerant even. But unless you can point to the text to which these “fundamentalist” atheists literally and strictly adhere without question, then please shut the hell up about us being fundamentalist.

I get angry when religious believers base their entire philosophy of life on what is, at best, a hunch; when they ignore or reject or rationalize any evidence that contradicts that hunch or calls it into question… and then accuse atheists of being close-minded and ignoring the obvious truth.

And I get angry when believers glorify religious faith without evidence as a positive virtue, a character trait that makes people good and noble… and then continue to accuse atheists of being close-minded and ignoring the obvious truth.

I get angry when believers say that they can know the truth — the greatest truth of all about the nature of the universe, namely the source of all existence — simply by sitting quietly and listening to their heart… and then accuse atheists of being arrogant. (This isn’t just arrogant towards atheists and naturalists, either. It’s arrogant towards people of other religions who have sat just as quietly, listened to their hearts with just as much sincerity, and come to completely opposite conclusions about God and the soul and the universe.)

And I get angry when believers say that the entire unimaginable enormity of the universe was made solely and specifically for the human race — when atheists, by contrast, say that humanity is a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, an infinitesimal eyeblink in the vastness of time and space — and yet again, believers accuse atheists of being arrogant.

I get angry when believers say things like, “Yes, of course, the human mind isn’t perfect, we see what we expect to see, we see faces and patterns and intention when they aren’t necessarily there… but that couldn’t be happening with me. The patterns I see in my life… they couldn’t possibly be coincidence or confirmation bias. I’m definitely seeing the hand of God.” (And then, once again, those same believers accuse atheists of being close-minded and only seeing what we want to see.)

I get angry when believers treat the gaps in science and scientific knowledge as somehow proof of the existence of God. I get angry when, despite a thousands-of-years-old pattern of supernatural explanations being consistently and repeatedly replaced with natural ones, they still think every single unexplained phenomenon can be best explained by God. And I’m angry that, whenever a gap in our knowledge does get filled in, believers either try to suppress it (see above re: evolution in the schools), or else say, “Okay, that part of the world isn’t supernatural… but what about this gap over here? Can you explain that, Mr. Smarty-Pants Scientist? You can’t! It must be God!”

I get angry when believers say at the beginning of an argument that their belief is based on reason and evidence, and at the end of the argument say things like, “It just seems that way to me,” or, “I feel it in my heart”… as if that were a clincher. I mean, couldn’t they have said that at the beginning of the argument, and not wasted my fucking time? My time is valuable and increasingly limited, and I have better things to do with it than debating with people who pretend to care about evidence and reason but ultimately don’t.

I’m angry that I have to know more about their fucking religion than the believers do. I get angry when believers say things about the tenets and texts of their religion that are flatly untrue, and I have to correct them on it.

I get angry when believers treat any criticism of their religion — i.e., pointing out that their religion is a hypothesis about the world and a philosophy of it, and asking it to stand up on its own in the marketplace of ideas — as insulting and intolerant. I get angry when believers accuse atheists of being intolerant for saying things like, “I don’t agree with you,” “I think you’re mistaken about that,” “That doesn’t make any sense,” “I think that position is morally indefensible,” and “What evidence do you have to support that?”

And on that point: I get angry when Christians in the United States — members of the single most powerful and influential religious group in the country, in the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world — act like beleaguered victims, martyrs being thrown to the lions all over again, whenever anyone criticizes them or they don’t get their way.

I get angry when believers respond to some or all of these offenses by saying, “Well, that’s not the true faith. Hating queers/ rejecting science/ stifling questions and dissent… that’s not the true faith. People who do that aren’t real (Christians/ Jews/ Muslims/ Hindus/ etc.).” As if they had a fucking pipeline to God. As if they had any reason at all to think that they know for sure what God wants, and that the billions of others who disagree with them just obviously have it wrong. (Besides — I’m an atheist. The “They just aren’t doing religion right” argument is not going to cut it with me. I don’t think any of you have it right. To me, it all looks like something that people just made up.)

On that topic: I get angry when religious believers insist that their interpretation of their religion and religious text is the right one, and that fellow believers with an opposite interpretation clearly have it wrong. I get angry when believers insist that the parts about Jesus’s prompt return and all prayers being answered are obviously not meant literally… but the parts about hell and damnation and gay sex being an abomination, that’s real. And I get angry when believers insist that the parts about hell and damnation and gay sex being an abomination aren’t meant literally, but the parts about caring for the poor are really what God meant. How the hell do they know which parts of the Bible/ Torah/ Koran/ Bhagavad-Gita/ whatever God really meant, and which parts he didn’t? And if they don’t know, if they’re just basing it on their own moral instincts and their own perceptions of the world, then on what basis are they thinking that God and their sacred texts have anything to do with it at all? What right do they have to act as if their opinion is the same as God’s and he’s totally backing them up on it?

And I get angry when believers act as if these offenses aren’t important, because “Not all believers act like that. I don’t act like that.” As if that fucking matters. This stuff is a major way that religion plays out in our world, and it makes me furious to hear religious believers try to minimize it because it’s not how it happens to play out for them. It’s like a white person responding to an African-American describing their experience of racism by saying, “But I’m not a racist.” If you’re not a racist, then can you shut the hell up for ten seconds and listen to the black people talk? And if you’re not bigoted against atheists and are sympathetic to us, then can you shut the hell up for ten seconds and let us tell you about what the world is like for us, without getting all defensive about how it’s not your fault? When did this international conversation about atheism and religious oppression become all about you and your hurt feelings?

But perhaps most of all, I get angry — sputteringly, inarticulately, pulse-racingly angry — when believers chide atheists for being so angry. “Why do you have to be so angry all the time?” “All that anger is so off-putting.” “If atheism is so great, then why are so many of you so angry?”

Which brings me to the other part of this little rant: Why atheist anger is not only valid, but valuable and necessary.

*****

There’s actually a simple, straightforward answer to this question:

Because anger is always necessary.

Because anger has driven every major movement for social change in this country, and probably in the world. The labor movement, the civil rights movement, the women’s suffrage movement, the modern feminist movement, the gay rights movement, the anti-war movement in the Sixties, the anti-war movement today, you name it… all of them have had, as a major driving force, a tremendous amount of anger. Anger over injustice, anger over mistreatment and brutality, anger over helplessness.

I mean, why the hell else would people bother to mobilize social movements? Social movements are hard. They take time, they take energy, they sometimes take serious risk of life and limb, community and career. Nobody would fucking bother if they weren’t furious about something.

So when you tell an atheist (or for that matter, a woman or a queer or a person of color or whatever) not to be so angry, you are, in essence, telling us to disempower ourselves. You’re telling us to lay down one of the single most powerful tools we have at our disposal. You’re telling us to lay down a tool that no social change movement has ever been able to do without. You’re telling us to be polite and diplomatic, when history shows that polite diplomacy in a social change movement works far, far better when it’s coupled with passionate anger. In a battle between David and Goliath, you’re telling David to put down his slingshot and just… I don’t know. Gnaw Goliath on the ankles or something.

I’ll acknowledge that anger is a difficult tool in a social movement. A dangerous one even. It can make people act rashly; it can make it harder to think clearly; it can make people treat potential allies as enemies. In the worst-case scenario, it can even lead to violence. Anger is valid, it’s valuable, it’s necessary… but it can also misfire, and badly.

But unless we’re actually endangering or harming somebody, it is not up to believers to tell atheists when we should and should not use this tool. It is not up to believers to tell atheists that we’re going too far with the anger and need to calm down. Any more than it’s up to white people to say it to black people, or men to say it to women, or straights to say it to queers. When it comes from believers, it’s not helpful. It’s patronizing. It comes across as another attempt to defang us and shut us up. And it’s just going to make us angrier.

And when believers tell passionate, angry atheists that extremism is never right and the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle, they’re making a big, big mistake. Not just because they’re making us want to spit in their eye. They’re making a mistake because they’re simply mistaken. Read this piece from Daylight Atheism on The Golden Mean. Read the quotes from the abolitionist movement, the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, the American Revolution. And then come tell me that the moderate position is usually the right one.

And you know what else? I think we need to have some goddamn perspective about this anger business. I mean, I look at organized Christianity in this country — not just the religious right, but some more “moderate” churches as well — interfering with AIDS prevention efforts, trying to get their theology into the public schools, actively trying to prevent me and Ingrid from getting legally married, and pulling all the other shit I talk about in this piece.

And I look at atheists sometimes being mean-spirited and snarky in blogs and books and magazines.

And I think, Can we please have some goddamn perspective?

Because the other thing I’m angry about is the fact that, in this piece, I’ve touched on — maybe — a hundredth of everything that angers me about religion. This piece barely scratches the surface. I know, almost without a doubt, that within five minutes of hitting “Post” and putting this piece on my blog, I’ll think of six different things that I’d wished I’d put in. I could write an entire book about everything that angers me about religion — other people certainly have — and still not be finished.

Are you really looking at all of this shit I’m talking about, a millennia-old history of abuse and injustice, deceit and willful ignorance — and then on the other hand, looking at a couple of years of atheists being snarky on the Internet — and seeing the two as somehow equivalent? Or worse, seeing the snarky atheists as the greater problem?

If you’re doing that, then with all due respect, you can blow me.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled attempts at civility.
Addendum: If you’re having trouble commenting, seeing your comment, or reading the other comments on this post, please read this. Thanks.

Addendum 2: I’ve written a reply to the most common themes that are coming up in the comments here. If you’re going to comment on this post, you might want to check it out first.

Addendum 3, 11/9/11: Yes, I realize that the pie chart on the Gallup Poll thing is wrong. The 45% number is correct — follow the link — but when I made the pie chart to illustrated it, I goofed it. I would have corrected it, but enough people have commented on it that I thought it best to leave it alone.)

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1

Sid Schwab

October 15, 2007 at 8:49 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I used to answer medical questions on a couple of online fora, and would occasionally wander into their religion areas. I’d point to the huge inconsistencies in the arguments that god is omniscient and omni-powerful… and that most christians argue that the reason to do good is to reap eternal reward or avoid eternal punishment — a damn selfish reason. I’d point out that a god that would create humans imperfect — as christians say — means that he deliberately did so knowing most couldn’t follow his rules and would therefore boil in oil for eternity. Give them life for the blink of an eye, set up some rules that billions can’t follow, burn them for a trillion years times a trillion. Sort of a pervert, seems to me. And that if you believe in the power of prayer, you must also believe that god is fallable or capricious or both. Anyhow, one person with whom I was making these arguments said I’d caused him to question his faith. So I stopped posting there. Made me feel bad. Now, if people truly keep their religion to themselves, it’s ok by me. But as it’s becoming more and more public, and the effect is to dumn down our entire country and to poison our politics to the point of hopelessness, as the effect of “religion” is to perpetuate hate for entire classes of people, it’s time to start talking again. You give it a heck of a start.
2

Shannon Brown

October 15, 2007 at 10:15 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

All this anger is well-directed, as far as I’m concerned. I think emotions are the body’s way of telling us that something is not right and needs to be corrected. You’re right, if there was no anger, nothing would change. Anger is a very useful force, but gets a bad name from people who can’t be angry without being blatantly aggressive and destructive.
As for the previous comment, congratulations to the author for getting someone to question their faith. I have spiritual beliefs, but they are completely different from what they were twenty years ago, and will probably be different twenty years from now. It seems to me that having one concrete set of beliefs and attitudes for a lifetime would feel very confining and boring, whether those beliefs included spiritual aspects or not. (This is not a dig at athiesm. The happy atheists that I know have evolved their beliefs over the course of a lifetime, and their ethics and philosophies continue to evolve.) I just wonder, as a person who welcomes new information and perspectives, what it must be like to be so insecure in one’s beliefs that questioning them brings about a crisis.
3

c4bl3fl4m3

October 15, 2007 at 12:15 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

This is a fantastic and, honestly, sometimes emotionally difficult piece to read. As an agnostic spiritual humanist, as someone who feels spirituality but doesn’t buy into religion, I’m also angry about a ton of these things. But some of them, I think I understand why theists fear your anger. (Specifically: “I get angry when believers treat any criticism of their religion — i.e., pointing out that their religion is a hypothesis about the world and a philosophy of it, and asking it to stand up on its own in the marketplace of ideas — as insulting and intolerant.”)
It’s because they’re afraid that atheists are going to take away their faith from them. Not change their minds, so much, but rather not allow them to have the faith, the spirituality, that gives so much to their lives.
I’m all about people believing or not believing what they want, as long as they don’t force it on other people, and as long as it harms noone. I understand how important it is to point out the flaws and fallacies in religion for people who accept their religion as right not just for themselves but for everyone. But when you try to point out these things to someone who wants to mind their own business with their religion, it feels like you’re out to take their religion away from them by proving them wrong. It feels like you want to dissolve that which gives them joy and hope by proving it illogical and irrelevant. As someone who recognizes the fallacies of religion, but still has extremely powerful emotional response via spirituality, which can be triggered by the trappings of religion, it feels like, when people argue with what works for us, you’re out to take that away from people who feel it. I believe some people are wired to want religion, to need it, to crave it, and others aren’t. Of course, I have no formal data to back this up, but I’d love to see a study done on it. As long as those people don’t force their views on other people, what’s wrong with having religion or faith? (Now, agreed, quite a few people of faith DO try to force it on other people, and I’m right up there with you, fighting back.)
And I think the outside world needs to ask: what is it that you, the atheists, want? We (at least, now) know WHY you’re angry… but, in the words of social movements, what are your demands? What is it that you’d like to see changed? Is it a world without belief, without religion? (I doubt it… few atheists that at least I know are that militant or “hardcore”.) Is it mere acknowledgment of your existence? Is it a greater sensitivity and awareness in our relations and laws? What is it that atheists want?
For surely you don’t WANT to be angry. (Well, maybe some do. Anger can be quite intoxicating.) You’ve been forced into anger, at the breaking point, so that you can get your needs met.
What is it that atheists really want?
4

Pi Guy

October 15, 2007 at 6:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

You’re beautiful when you’re angry!
I kid, I kid. But you make an incredible point: we aren’t going to convince the godheads that they’re wrong – about the things that you’ve noted and more – by, as you say, gnawing on their ankles.
Awesome post!
5

J. J. Ramsey

October 15, 2007 at 7:24 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

“Are you really looking at all of this shit I’m talking about, a millennia-old history of abuse and injustice, deceit and willful ignorance — and then on the other hand, looking at a couple of years of atheists being snarky on the Internet — and seeing the two as somehow equivalent?”
No. Repeating pseudohistory about beliefs in Mithras or Osiris isn’t nearly as dangerous or far-reaching as the pseudohistory of creationism. Quote-mining John Adams to make him look like an atheist isn’t quite as pernicious as quote-mining him to making him look like an orthodox Christian. An implausible slandering of a majority as cretins or nuts is far less of a hazard as an slander of a minority, like atheists, that is treated as fact. But it is still pseudohistory. It is still quote-mining. It is still slander. And two wrongs do not make a right.
6

miz_geek

October 15, 2007 at 7:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Me, too.
7

Eclectic

October 15, 2007 at 7:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Er.. Galileo was treated with kid gloves. His long-standing friendship with then-pope Urban VIII certainly helped, although calling him a simpleton in print didn’t. But he had very good reason to fear, because Giordano Bruno had been burned at the stake for heresy a few years earlier.
I really wish people would remember remember Bruno a little more.
8

miz_geek

October 15, 2007 at 7:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Me, too.
9

J. J. Ramsey

October 15, 2007 at 7:42 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

c4bl3fl4m3: “What is it that atheists really want?”
Depends. For some atheists, the agenda is to be treated like human beings and accepted as first-class citizens. For others, it is to knock back the influence of religion or get rid of it altogether. For yet others, it is the promotion of evidence-based thinking over trust in handed-down traditions that are less than trustworthy.
10

Eclectic

October 15, 2007 at 7:57 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

And good point about dogma. I’ve never read more than snippets the damned thing, but even I know that the catholic bible and the protestant bible are different, and the Lutheran and Calvinist branches of protestantism disagree on what the sixth commandment says.
A few months ago I startled someone who had never noticed that the first two books of Genesis flatly contradict each other. Did Yahweh make animals before man (Genesis 1:21â26) or after (Genesis 2:19)?
I’ll have a civil discussion with a theologian, but some stupid yahoo quoting a book at me that he understands less that I understand Thorne, Misner, Wheeler & Wheeler’s _Gravitation_ can stick it where the sun don’t shine.
11

Ebonmuse

October 15, 2007 at 8:02 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Beautiful, Greta! This post is a perfect example of why this is fast becoming one of my favorite sites for atheist writing.
This is what a rant should be – bracing, clear, well-informed, and guided by energy and passion. Applause!
In my experience, atheists are no angrier than the average person, and possibly less angry. Why shouldn’t we be? We have a whole universe full of beauty and mystery to explore, more than sufficient reason for happiness. The only time we get angry is when we’re confronted by hatred and injustice committed in the name of religion (as well as evil and injustice in general, of course, the same as everyone else). We’re stirred to anger when seeing these evils, as any person with a functioning conscience would be. If we seem like we’re angry often, well, that’s just because there are *so many* evils committed in God’s name. What would be a far more serious indictment of atheists, in my mind, would be if we *weren’t* angry at the perpetrators of such crimes.
The important thing, when feeling angry, is to let it stir you to useful action. As you pointed out, righteous anger at injustice has been the driving force for many of the most important movements for social change. For people to truly get involved in a cause, to truly work at it, it *has* to stir them to strong emotion. The bad thing isn’t anger itself, but misdirected anger that’s unleashed without reason or justification. But when controlled in the service of reason and aimed at those who truly deserve our opprobrium, it can be a positive and valuable feeling.
To the commenter who asked what atheists want, I’d suggest the answer is that we want the same thing as everyone else: to live in peace and security and to have the freedom to guide our lives as we see fit, free of outside interference and oppression. We don’t want to take away anyone’s right to worship as they see fit (pace the usual disclaimers about that worship not itself involving harm of the unconsenting). By all means, believe in whatever crazy things you like. But let your belief stay *your* belief, and don’t try to intrude on our lives and demand that we conform to your rules or pay taxes to support your convictions.
12

Jane Know

October 15, 2007 at 10:42 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Right on, sister. Great article. This is something I’ve felt strongly about since a very young age.
Too many people have lost their rights, their families, their homes, their livelihoods, their lives “in the name of one “god” or another.”
Religion too often gives people a mask and an excuse to dish out evil.
13

yoyo

October 15, 2007 at 10:56 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Great post, you are right it is just the very tip of the iceberg. what about the church group when i was a child that told me that women were second class citizens and should never teach men or wear shorts around them. And that rock music is from the devil but beethoven beating his wife is cool and groovy.
Telling me as a young person that all the people who had never heard of christianity and died would rot in purgatory for ever.
the whole thing was poisonous but at least it awakened my nascient feminism.
14

Annie Sprinkle

October 15, 2007 at 11:15 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Yes, you are beautiful when you are angry Greta. Keep it up!
I find that some days I’m athiest (as I was raised by Athiest parents), and some days I’m Unitarian and or a Tantric/GoddessWorshiper/Pegan/Sufi/Methodist, and more. i’m an enjoyer and explorer of many religions. I find both can co-exist quite nicely. Depending on the day and what is happening. I’m “fluid” when it comes to Athiesm and Religion. Like with my sexuality. Some days I’m queer, and some days I’m kinky, other days straight as can be, or even asexual. In any case, I certainly resonate in every way with your blog today. Actually I find snake handling churches super interesting lately.
Annie Sprinkle (anniesprinkle.org)
15

Eclectic

October 16, 2007 at 12:08 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

One point I’d like to make is that it’s mathematically provable that a contradiction implies anything. So, for example, starting with the premise that 1=2 I can prove, by an impeccable chain of logic, that there are space aliens named Xenu hanging on my butt.
Starting from the premise that the bible is consistent (given that it isn’t) can lead to exactly the same conclusion. Or to the conclusion that skull-fucking Benjamin Sinclair will bring about the Second Coming.
And supposedly *I* have no firm foundation for my morality?
16

Luis

October 16, 2007 at 1:46 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I am angry that, after my grandfather had open heart surgery and went through it without complications, every single member of the family thanked Jesus for it. I’m angry that exactly the same thing happened when my cousin’s child was born 6 weeks ahead of time and survived without problems. I’m angry that on both occasions I didn’t have the guts to say that the doctors and nurses who took care of them also deserved some credit.
17

The Flying Trilobite

October 16, 2007 at 1:46 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Bravo. I would like to start a ‘slow clap’.
>Clap.Clap.Clap.Clap.Clap.Clap.Clap.Clap.Clap.Clap.Clap.Clap.Clap.<
Brilliant piece. Thank you for giving me back my right to anger. Excellent, excellent, excellent.
(Please move here to Canada if the fight there makes you too weary. We'll getcha married to Ingrid in a day. Could be longer if there's a line.)
18

BlackSun

October 16, 2007 at 2:36 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Greta. Wow. Extremely great piece. Can I say that again? You nailed it!!!
My personal favorite line of ‘defense:’
“You’re not really talking about the real religion, that’s just a caricature of the real religion. I wouldn’t believe in a God like that either. In order to argue against religion, you have to look at the subtle, nuanced, sophisticated views of theologians throughout history. You have to look at what those scriptures meant to all those believers in all those societies. After all, it’s tradition! You have no respect for people or their traditions. You hate religion! You’re on some kind of a witch hunt! An Inquisition even! How can you attack something you don’t understand, and how can you understand it if you haven’t even bothered to study it for 15-20 years? How can you even discuss or argue reasonably against something when you haven’t read every scripture and theology book written in the last 2,000 years? Dawkins is a moron! I mean, why would you ask an evolutionary biologist about God?? He doesn’t know anything about the subject. That’s like asking a medical doctor to talk about ancient Mayan history.”
Or words to that effect. Which I’ve actually had said to me by a family member recently across a dinner table.
Aaaarrrrggghhhh.
19

Dave Child

October 16, 2007 at 2:46 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I’m angry too. Well said for all the above.
I’d like to add a couple of things I’m angry about though.
I’m angry at other atheists who can’t see why they should be angry. Who take religious crap regularly and don’t seem to be bothered by it. Who put up with religion in others like it’s a harmless eccentricity, and don’t question or challenge the ridiculous unfounded beliefs of others.
I’m also increasingly angry when people compare a complete lack of respect for absurd religious beliefs to racism, sexism or xenophobia. Religion is a choice – race, sex and nationality are not – and as such derision is absolutely defensible.
20

Phill

October 16, 2007 at 3:09 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

This is a fantastic post. It’s the first time I’ve read your blog, but definitely not the last!
(BTW, I was reading a previous comment with some skepticism and atheistic intolerance (Atheist/Tantric/Sufi/Methodist etc. etc., who’s this nut? quoth I) but you know what? Annie Sprinkle is FUCKING AWESOME and can believe (&love) anything she damn well pleases! So can anyone else, really. End of intolerance. For now…)
21

Michael

October 16, 2007 at 3:32 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Why should we oppose religion? Why does Richard Dawkins’ radical ideas resonate with us? Because religious indoctrination can be very dangerous for us. It teaches us to accept authority for itself, not because we have proof of its validation. It encourages us to surrender responsibility for our own lives in favor of religious guidelines under the guise of “submitting to God’s Will.”
We must all accept responsibility for ourselves and our actions. We need to deliberately consider the paths we choose rather than allow them to be made for us by some guy in a nice suit who claims to speak for God. Religion encourages us to be lazy and submissive when we need to be responsible. It’s one thing to use religious teachings as a means to inspire ourselves to become greater than we are; it’s something else to use it as a crutch instead of actively taking control of our lives. Religion can be a powerful tool in our lives, but I find it’s rarely used that way. So ultimately I don’t seek to abolish religion by force, but I’d like to diminish its hold on our lives by encouraging more critical thinking in place of passive acceptance.
22

Rystefn

October 16, 2007 at 3:36 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

There’s right, and then there’s very right. This is just about the best thing I’ve read in quite a long time.
23

Jessiqua

October 16, 2007 at 4:15 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

two words are all thats needed.
thank you.
24

Allienne Goddard

October 16, 2007 at 4:20 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

That was a tremendous post. I hope you will write a book describing the roots of our anger, because you really present a very stong explanation. Maybe I still incline more towards contempt than anger, but you convincingly argue the case that religion is often a malignant force. Anyway, thanks, this was a great read.
25

RickD

October 16, 2007 at 4:46 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Good job.
26

Jessia

October 16, 2007 at 4:51 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Wow, very impressive. I stumbled on your site and read that entire thing. It’s like you took the words out of my mouth and put them much more eloquently on paper than I ever could have. Well said on all counts.
27

Infidel Michael

October 16, 2007 at 5:00 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Great post!
However, I would add some more things which make atheists angry:
1. When believers say that Hitler’s/Stalin’s and Mao’s regimes were evil, because they were “atheistic”.
2. When believers say, that Einstein believed in God, because he used that word from time to time
3. When believers are confronted with inconsistencies and errors in sacred texts and they say “it is only a metaphor!”. Every stupidity can be metaphor for something real, it is only matter of fantasy to find out what it could be.
4. When believers are confronted with violent sacred texts and they dismiss them as “out-of-context”, without explaining what the fucking context is, in which, for example, genocide is not evil.
28

Marky

October 16, 2007 at 5:15 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

wow,
thank you, you’ve dnne some valuable work with this.
wonderfully put together reasoning and facts, and well backed-up and resourced.
i’ll probably be refering to this in my own arguments, i hope you don’t mind.
thanks again, and keep up the work.
hopefully in our lifetime we’ll see you get a legal marriage.
29

heathen

October 16, 2007 at 5:42 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Great stuff! My new mission in life is to memorize this post so I can throw it back in the face of the dopey religious apologists who call me a “fundamentalist” or “evangelical” atheist or try to use the fallacious arguments that you’ve so brilliantly eviscerated in support of their “faith”.
30

Rudi Tapper

October 16, 2007 at 6:13 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

This is brilliant. For some time I have been trying to compile an itemised list of all the things that anger me about religion, and you have saved me the bother. Well done.
31

Jason Failes

October 16, 2007 at 6:27 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

This needed to be said,
now it needs to be forwarded.
32

Mike Haubrich, FCD

October 16, 2007 at 6:30 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
This is completely invaluable.
33

Matthew Graybosch

October 16, 2007 at 6:32 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

As an atheist, I find myself wanting to kill every religious I see every time I think of the sheer misery caused by religion. I know I don’t have the right to do it, and I know that it won’t do any good. However, that anger, that desire to grab a non-existent God by the throat and kill him — just to show his followers how worthless and weak their god really is — doesn’t go away.
DEATH TO ALL RELIGIONS!!
34

Jack Rawlinson

October 16, 2007 at 6:34 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Righteous!
I’ve been an angry, furious, *livid* atheist for years, for exactly the reasons you list (and many, many more). I’m delighted that the anger is growing. It needs to. It is *necessary* to get angry about evil things.
35

Willo the Wisp

October 16, 2007 at 6:39 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Don’t you also get angry at the amount of money spent on churches and other religious moneypits, money that could be spent on things that actually help people?
36

Teitur Atlason

October 16, 2007 at 6:42 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Your blog is awesome… Thank You.
Teitur Atlason
Iceland.
37

Brad

October 16, 2007 at 6:45 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I’m a Christian and think you have quite a slanted viewpoint on Christianity. See, Christianity is about believing by faith that God created us, sent his son to die for our sins, etc (I’m sure you know the rest).
What, however, is one of the greatest commandments taught in the new testament? Love thy neighbor as thyself.
If Christians acted like Christians, you wouldn’t be angry. At some point, after exposing you to God and the message of Life, we have to let you go. It’s up to you to find God after that… We can pray for you, that their be some intervention by the Holy Spirit, but badgering you is NOT the answer NOR is segregating you or making you do things you don’t wish to do.
I could go on and on about how I feel about some of the issues you posted above and I think you could agree that while we may not see eye to eye on all of them, that I can certainly understand your view point.
Some that you mentioned, I felt like had been bastardized. Like wives submitting to their husbands… what women do you know who would submit to their husband if they had a man of utter integrity who provided for her, served her, served others, and made her feel more loved than humanly possible? Probably all of them… And I don’t mean submitted in the context you are familiar with, but submit as in allow him to lead, be apart of him. In order to understand some things in the bible, you have to understand that the other side of it (as I just mentioned). Women in abusive situations (verbal or physical) shouldn’t submit, they should seek help.
Furthermore, using a Catholic church or any catholic official when talking about Christianity is not very fair. They are a small sub-set of Christianity and believe in many things that most of the Protestant denominations don’t. The whole point of the Pope is so that he can be our representative to God. However, we don’t need him. We can have our own personal relationship with God.
My challenge to every atheist I meet, is to ask them to read the bible and pray to the God (even if they don’t think he exists). Do this for a few minutes for 3-7 days. If they don’t feel a change in themselves, the longing for more, the need to understand what they are feeling than they can go along with their lives.
I’ll accept them however they are but I want them to know that the few bad Christians could be tainting them and making them miss something wonderful.
I apologize if this is rough and ill-conceived, I thru it together rather fast… Thanks for taking the time to read.
38

ESVA

October 16, 2007 at 6:48 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Dave Child closed his comment with this line: Religion is a choice – race, sex and nationality are not – and as such derision is absolutely defensible.
In one sense he’s right, people don’t control their gender, race, etc. In another sense, he’s not quite accurate about how religion is transmitted from generation to generation. The children of religious believers are immersed in an atmosphere of religiosity from infancy until adulthood. They cannot view the world from any lenses other than the ones with which their parents equip them for a long time. Even if they learn fairly early on that other lenses exist, they may not have opportunities to try on those lenses for a long time. By then, they may have comfortably settled into viewing the world through the lenses they’ve inherited. Having come from a conservative evangelical Christian perspective, my experience is that it takes a lot of hard work to shed that point of view. It requires something akin to Kuhn’s paradigm shift and can be an extremely uncomfortable experience until one comes out the other side. Once there, one finds it has been liberating. Freedom of any kind never comes without a struggle.
Is religion chosen? No and yes. Children often are reared in such a way that it’s very difficult to say no. Nevertheless, they can say no or yes in a way that will never be possible regarding gender, race, etc.
39

John Randall

October 16, 2007 at 7:07 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Thank you.
Thank you for articulating. I have been too angry for too long to articulate clearly.
40

Tim

October 16, 2007 at 7:09 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Great post Greta!
Feel free to speak for this atheist any time you want.
41

Stomper

October 16, 2007 at 7:10 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

As a lifetime member of the United Methodist Church, I just want you to know that I appreciate your post. You have plenty of good reasons to be angry; everything you said is valid.
If I could somehow speak for other Christians, I would apologize to you. I would abase myself and grovel. Nobody deserves that.
Despite the force and legitimacy of your anger, you still chose your words carefully, so that your anger is directed like a laser beam, rather than a shotgun blast. Your anger is much more effective that way, which is something Matthew Graybosch apparently does not understand.
I don’t use the term “fundamentalist atheist,” but I have often used the term “evangelical atheist.” I am often annoyed by evangelicals on both sides of the fence.
One very minor quibble: unless you deliberately intend irony, you might want to find alternatives to “goddamn” and “damn.” They don’t really fit into the atheistic belief system. I recognize that they are rarely used for their literal meaning, and that is not how you intended to use them. But you chose all your other words so carefully.
Very good job, though. It all needs saying, and you said it quite lucidly. People need to keep saying this stuff until it sinks in.
42

zorn

October 16, 2007 at 7:15 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I have bookmarked this article, when someone asks me why i get angry over religion, i will link them here.
great article.
43

Stomper

October 16, 2007 at 7:18 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Brad posted while I was drafting mine. He doesn’t get it. You spell it out for him, and he still doesn’t get it. I can’t improve his reading comprehension or apologize on his behalf, but I just want people to know we are not all like that.
“Catholics are a small sub-set of Christianity.” I snickered out loud when I read that one.
44

Stomper

October 16, 2007 at 7:23 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Brad posted while I was drafting mine. He doesn’t get it. You spell it out for him, and he still doesn’t get it. I can’t improve his reading comprehension or apologize on his behalf, but I just want people to know we are not all like that.
“Catholics are a small sub-set of Christianity.” I snickered out loud when I read that one.
45

TBDM

October 16, 2007 at 7:24 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Yoyo quote: And that rock music is from the devil but beethoven beating his wife is cool and groovy.
Just to clear Beethoven’s name, he didn’t beat his wife because he never had one. He apparently was somewhat miserable (he was a composer and musician who was going deaf, after all!), but I don’t recall that he was in the habit of beating women.
Anyway, great rant! It makes me grateful that I’m living in one of the more religion-free areas of Canada.
46

jy

October 16, 2007 at 7:24 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Hey, you can too get married in this country… before there was gay marriage in Europe, there was gay marriage in the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts. ‘Course, you’ll have to stay here to enjoy all the associated rights. But that’s just a bonus.
Seems like, however, there’s no stance a Christian can take that won’t make you angry… I mean, if they’re anti-gay woman-subjugating hellfire preaching child abusers, you’re angry, but if they’re not, you’re still angry. It seems like at some point, you should just let them off with being ‘wrong’, and reserve your anger for worse offenses. If you are angry at people just for being wrong, I guess you better enjoy being angry — a lot.
47

Stomper

October 16, 2007 at 7:26 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Sorry for the double post. Not sure how or why I did that.
Here’s a link, showing Catholics are the largest denomination of Christians (if you’ll trust wikipedia on this): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations_by_number_of_members
Of course, nothing in the original post claims that Catholics represent all Christians, or that all Christians should be tarred with the Catholic brush. There was no need for Brad to be defensive in the first place.
48

Stomper

October 16, 2007 at 7:29 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Well, that was just part of the link. Not sure how to get the whole link to appear. Here’s the rest of the link:
ons_by_number_of_members
49

JY

October 16, 2007 at 7:38 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

One more thing… you said:
‘But unless you can point to the text to which these “fundamentalist” atheists literally and strictly adhere without question, then please shut the hell up about us being fundamentalist.’
But that’s not the only thing fundamentalist means. That’s one definition. Here’s another one:
“strict adherence to any set of basic ideas or principles” (from Dictionary.com).
By that definition, no text is required, and I’m sure there are some atheists who could aptly be described as ‘fundamentalist’, in this sense. That’s not necessarily the best word to use, but it certainly isn’t wrong. So on that particular point, there’s no reason to get angry: if people mean it that way, then they aren’t wrong to use it that way.
50

betalife

October 16, 2007 at 7:59 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Great work, Greta. I want to let you know that we are exactly alike except that I’m a married heterosexual male. Good luck on getting married soon. Your time will come if all of us keep fighting with you. I have a wife and two kids who are firmly rational, and my kids are much smarter than I am. They will be a great force for change.
Hang in there and don’t stop being angry.
- betalife
51

Dave Child

October 16, 2007 at 8:08 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

ESVA: Good point. Isn’t there a strong argument to be made that the person who was raised religious owes it to themselves to at least evaluate that as an adult? Meaning they are choosing to keep their religious beliefs and never analyse them, simply assuming them to be true. In my opinion that opens them to derision as well. I would say that those attempting to throw off the religious shackles, for want of a less dramatic phrase, will and do have a hard time doing so, especially when their parents remain within a faith, but in that case wouldn’t a little carefully judged ridicule of their former religion simply help them?
52

Skeptigator

October 16, 2007 at 8:26 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I have to agree wholeheartedly with the post, it’s content and it’s sentiment.
I would like to make two points. First, I’ve never been comfortable with the casting of atheist’s as some kind of persecuted minority. Victimization always seemed so pathetic. You are right when you say that Christians find every opportunity to cast themselves as victims of persecution or warriors standing against the dark forces of “The World” *insert darth vader theme song*. And yet here we are giving our atheist amen’s and hallelujah’s to a post that certainly paints a persecuted atheist perspective.
It always grates on my nerves and makes me roll my eyes when I read it in Christian (and Atheist) literature. I guess maybe because it seems so irrelevant. My thinking goes…
Ok Fine I’m a persecuted minority.
Soooo… This changes how I act how? I can still vote, voice my opinions, not go to church, own a gun, quite frankly the Bill of Rights prohibits the government from intruding on my life as much as my evangelical neighbors. Sure we have an unpopular (but free to express it) opinions. My atheist wife and I can get married, have children, and be buried in a non-Christian cemetery.
Homosexuals not allowed to be married, that’s persecution. Minorities being unable to vote, or use a particular drinking fountain, bathroom or seat on a bus, that’s oppression. Atheist’s not being… uh… popular or… uh… understood properly… uh…
Having said all of that my perspective is quite different from the author. While raised in a low-income situation, I am certainly not now. I am a white, hetero, male who lives in a very white, hetero Indiana, USA. I am quite sure I have never suffered a day of persecution, prejudice or oppression for a day in my life. Well, there was this one time when I used to dress like a Goth/Raver with the full spikes, black nails, green hair and walked into a department store with a backpack. I’m quite certain security was only a couple steps behind me at any given time. Does that count?
Secondly, sometimes observing religious things is less about the religion and more about the people. Just last weekend I was a groomsman in my brother-in-law’s wedding (Catholic). As part of the ceremony we were instructed to walk down the aisle, stop in front of the altar, bow as a sign of respect to the Jesus and take our seats (yea! for seats). I did as instructed not because I was showing any kind of sign of respect to Jesus but as a sign of respect to my brother-in-law because to not have done it would turned “his” day into “my” protest and that seems to be a particularly selfish thing to do.
As a hilarious side note my 8 year old was the ring bearer and when he was instructed to bow to Jesus (who was situated slightly off-center) he bowed the wrong way (It didn’t occur to me at the time that he didn’t know what Jesus looked like). The wedding coordinator said “You need to bow *towards* Jesus” and my son said with absolutely no fear, “Sorry but I don’t know where Jesus is at”. I almost wanted to cry with joy but instead laughed uncontrollably once I saw the woman’s expression. I’m going to give that boy an extra hug tonight because he has absolutely no idea how brave a statement that was.
53

AJ Milne

October 16, 2007 at 8:27 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

That’s it. That’s exactly it. Thank you.
54

Brad

October 16, 2007 at 8:31 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Stomper, I apologize. When I was referring to the Catholic Church as a small subset of Christianity I certainly wasn’t meaning in number of followers or how large they are. They follow their own set of rules and standards that many of the Protestant religions do not and basing Christianity as a whole off the Catholic Church is a bad idea as many of the Evangelical Churches do not think highly of the Catholic Church at all and think they give Christianity a bad name (which appears to be proven even more so by this article and many like it every day on the internet).
Second of all, I’m not being defensive. Why would I be? I’m being positive. The post was fine and her points are valid. I’m simply stating that if Christians acted like they should, atheists wouldn’t have a need to be angry.
Maybe I should have just posted that and have been done with it. So I will:
If Christians acted like they should, atheists wouldn’t have a need to be angry.
55

Gibb

October 16, 2007 at 8:37 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

boo hoo hoo. all you poor little atheists; what great injustices this minority must endure.
don’t you realize that rallying against all gods or religions is EXACTLY THE SAME as rallying for any one of them? it’s just another religion trying to win out. good luck.
most ironic passage: “My time is valuable and increasingly limited, and I have better things to do with it than debating with people who pretend to care about evidence and reason but ultimately don’t.”
I wonder how much of your valuable time was wasted on this post. just a little food for thought in the buffet of praise.
56

spblat

October 16, 2007 at 8:38 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

My compliments!
57

Geoffrey

October 16, 2007 at 8:40 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Though I’m a lifelong Christian, I find that I have to say “amen” to your post. Most everything you’re angry about is caused by the forced indoctrination of religious viewpoints by (usually unqualified) authority figures, and that makes me angry too. There is no merit in following a religion because man forces you to. I am angry at the complex social power-grabbing structures that have grown up around religion, at what they do, and how they tar and poison the honest religion that the laity would much rather follow — if only they had choice in the matter.
58

Jane Know

October 16, 2007 at 8:41 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Luis said, “I’m angry that on both occasions I didn’t have the guts to say that the doctors and nurses who took care of them also deserved some credit.”
thanks. why go to nursing or medical school, if we can just let Jesus take care of the sick people?
59

CJ

October 16, 2007 at 8:44 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Excellent, and sadly necessary, rant.
Except perhaps the part about the NCAA final four. I don’t believe in god but if there were such an entity surely he or she would damned well care about which team won the final four!
Personally, my anger could be assuaged if two things were to occur:
1)Believers of any stripe would just admit that there is no rational or evidentiary basis to their belief -hence the act of faith term.
2) Believers would keep their beliefs out of government. Their faith (no doubt combined with more than a moderate ignorance of biology) should be absolutely prohibited from influencing public policy.
This reminds me of how blown away I was at the Democrats’ responses to gay marriage in the GLBT debate.
I can’t understand why anyone, who expects to be considered for President of the U.S. and has even a passing acquaintance with our country’s history and the constitution, could have answered in any other way than to state that separation of church and state guarantees that the state would not dictate that any church perform same-sex marriage but at the same time necessitates that the state recognize such unions performed by any legitimate church as well as all civil unions. Period. And that doesn’t even require that they comprehend (as Gov. Richardson evidently does not) that sexual orientation is not a preference/choice.
60

gregory

October 16, 2007 at 8:55 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

nah, why be angry at the ignorant? they cannot help it. and anyway, they are on the way to where you are, and you are on the way to where those beyond you are… a-theism being the goal of all true spiritual search based on truth and reality, going beyond the concept of god to the direct perception of the formless oneness of existence…. (most atheists don’t get that, but i don’t hold it against them)… enjoy
61

glomerulus

October 16, 2007 at 8:56 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Many of the things you hate about religion are the same thing we believers hate too. Sorry, but being an atheist doesn’t grant you a monopoly on outrage.
62

Brian Dewhirst

October 16, 2007 at 8:57 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Hear, hear!
Among the best posts I’ve seen on the subject. Three cheers.
Thanks, and best of luck to you and Ingrid. (There is always Massachusetts… though some seem to have forgotten the meaning of ‘full faith and credit’!)
63

Nick

October 16, 2007 at 8:58 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

If you could hear me clapping, then…well, you’d hear it. Very well written.
64

mapantsula

October 16, 2007 at 9:01 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Word.
65

octopod

October 16, 2007 at 9:04 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Brad, my fiance is the sort of man you describe, and I don’t let him “lead me” — furthermore, he doesn’t want to. Once in a while, yes; probably a little less often than I lead him. Most of the time we make the decisions together.
Letting him “lead me” would be disclaiming my responsibility as an adult human being, which is not a good way for anyone — male or female — to live. I don’t think most men or women want to live as children either. Maybe some have been taught that they do, and maybe some are willing to because it’s easier, and they’re lazy.
Kind of like vesting all ultimate moral authority in your imaginary friend who comes from a book you once read, for that matter.
66

No one

October 16, 2007 at 9:06 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Jesus can take away your anger.
67

Nick Hara

October 16, 2007 at 9:08 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

i agree. there have been few times where i see injustices that have been ignored by a whole country, (i’m still young, just 18) and i find it extremely disheartening to know that there is not only a world of ignorance out there but an ignorance that has the public’s ear.
Great Post
68

Jeremy Grant

October 16, 2007 at 9:08 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

People need neither religion nor aethism as an excuse to behave badly.
No need to look further than humanity as the reason why people do nasty things. Humans do bad things, religion is neither part of the problem nor part of the solution (nor is aethism for that matter).
I am sorry for whatever abuses you have suffered to make you so angry.
69

Chris

October 16, 2007 at 9:14 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I don’t think there’s really a need to be angry, to be honest. If everyone was to just chill out and let everyone believe what everyone wants to believe, then that’s fine by me (don’t try and persuade me to change my opinion without rock-hard evidence though). I guess you could call me an atheist, but what I really think is that on evidence, the Big Bang theory and evolution are the most probable explainations at this point. If anyone would like to correct me with a more solid piece of scientific evidence that points me to the contrary (sorry, religious text quotes don’t count as more solid than scientific results to me) then I’ll be more than happy to take that into account when assessing “what went on” and whether or indeed who is out there.
My girlfriend is Christian, but that’s never caused a problem. We each respect each other’s beliefs and that’s just great for us. All the angry people should try it.
70

Rick

October 16, 2007 at 9:18 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Here is one more for you to be angry at….You are angry because you are separated from God by your own thoughts and deeds.
71

Speaker-to-Animals

October 16, 2007 at 9:26 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I hope you won’t mind if I borrow or paraphrase parts of your article to write to a local newspaper that badly needs to hear them, that, as just one of many examples of biased and pejorative coverage, in covering Pride Day in a small town, in which there were hundreds of protesters and one “religious-right” anti-protester, chose a photo of one protester and the one anti-protester, each with their signs, as though their messages and popularity were on an equal footing. Shame on them!
72

Christopher M. Walsh

October 16, 2007 at 9:28 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Wow. That was cathartic. Thanks!
73

Tina B.

October 16, 2007 at 9:33 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

All I can say is wow! I have been visiting blogs for awhile now, and web sites, where some people say that being angry doesn’t help one bit, just makes us look bad. Thank you for opening up my eyes, again. I love your writing, also I think you need to write a book on this subject. I would buy one!
74

Marie

October 16, 2007 at 9:37 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I am genuinely glad that you are angry and can embrace these passionate feelings and claim them with such conviction. I am also purely ecstatic for you, that so many have supported your post.
Believe me when I say that there are many of us that feel the same way and are too afraid to say these things out loud and confront people, for fear that we may be chastised and thrown out of society for good…not that ultimately we would mind.
You have certainly inspired me to change these thoughts, and reconsider my repressed anger.
THANK YOU.
75

Susan

October 16, 2007 at 9:37 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I get angry that we have to write stuff like this (and inevitably expose ourselves to having our characters ripped up via ensuing arguments) just to defend ourselves, when they’re the ones who believe in unicorns.
76

Greg Perry

October 16, 2007 at 9:44 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Blah blah, blah blah blah.
More tired rhetoric from an overzealous something-or-another.
Doesn’t matter if you don’t believe in God, it is still a belief system – and one that you are entitled to practice and believe pursuant to the United States Constitution.
Your time would be better spent trying to change the political process and influencing your elected officials, instead of penning angry-emo-atheist-woman rants and blaming the ills of U.S. society on a group of individuals that a) don’t practice the teachings of the Bible, and b) will say or do anything to get votes for public office.
77

Calis

October 16, 2007 at 9:48 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Your post is well written and it sums up many of the things that piss me off daily. With the anger being stirred up from so many directions, it’s hard to know where to focus the energy. I think we could be on the brink of so good changes for all of mankind, but we’ll all have to take an active role in bringing the changes about. For so many years we’ve had to just accept the believers while they sneer and attack us. It is time for them to have to accept us, then perhaps we won’t need to sneer at them. If we all accept that everyone is likely to have a different viewpoint than us, then it will only make the world a more interesting place.
78

Jason

October 16, 2007 at 9:49 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Thank you. I too am angry about people who think I should sit on the sidelines and accept being treated as less than a full citizen because of my lack of belief in an invisible sky father.
… And so very much more.
79

CalGeorge

October 16, 2007 at 9:59 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

“What, however, is one of the greatest commandments taught in the new testament? Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
There’s no commandment that tells you to be stupid, however, is there?
By believing in the fairy tales told in the Bible, you are perpetuating gross ignorance.
It doesn’t matter how much love you convey while doing it.
Stop treating your brain like crap.
80

RoyKaBob

October 16, 2007 at 9:59 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I’m angry that I read all that and there wasn’t a new, insightful thought in the whole article.
81

Sid Schwab

October 16, 2007 at 10:10 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Couple ‘a followup comments: regarding the “Thank you jesus” comment above. If people believe jesus, or god is responsible for an uncle living through heart surgery, then it must also be true that he’s responsible when someone doesn’t. To be consistent, people should say “thank you jesus” when uncle joe dies in the OR, also. If jesus intervenes, he intervenes.
Also. what this atheist wants: I recognize that for most people, being human and all, giving up religion would be too hard to face. But what I want — and what the world desperately needs — is to have leaders who, if they must be religious, can keep it to themselves; and who use evidence to make decisions that affect us all. Having a president who thinks god talks to him is demonstrably dangerous. If you want to believe in god, fine and dandy. But don’t take me to war over it. And don’t use it to quash science, to discriminate against people for their sexual preferences, or to ignore facts. We see how that works. God helps us all…
82

Angie

October 16, 2007 at 10:10 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Thank you.
83

Robert V

October 16, 2007 at 10:12 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

So you’re angry that atheists suffer the same abuse and torment as non-atheists?
And you’re angry that non-atheists are morally no better than atheists?
Geez.
Next post: why are atheists self-righteous?
84

Kilgore Trout

October 16, 2007 at 10:25 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Best Rant Ever.
Thank you and I hope its Ok that I linked to this from my (tiny)site.
And Thanks to PZ for showing us this spectacular work.
If anyone ever accuses me of being an angry atheist I’ll simply point them this way and say, yeah maybe I am, can you blame me?
85

captain brad

October 16, 2007 at 10:30 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Hey there,
I don’t have anything terribly articulate or insightful to add, but I did want to say I enjoyed reading this immensely. Thank you.
(I was linked to this from the atheism community on LJ).
Cheers,
Brad
86

Eric Z

October 16, 2007 at 10:33 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Wow. I have a lot to say about this, but I’m going to keep it short:
First, I’m a Catholic.
Second, I agree with just about everything you have to say.
87

David Thorne

October 16, 2007 at 10:40 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Bravo!
It takes a lot of guts to be able to say the things you said and to once and for all finally justify the right to stand up and scream at the attrocities and ignorance and downright stupidity of people that cant understand the monumental amount of scientific fact that “God” is nothing more than an imaginary friend for grown ups, used by governments and other organizations to strike fear into millions of fools.
Thank you very much for writing this.
I will be linking it to my site and hope to drive a few more hits to yours.
Again: BRAVO.
88

Peter Fork

October 16, 2007 at 10:45 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I like the pictures, nice job!
89

TheBuddha

October 16, 2007 at 10:53 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

“You will not be punished for your anger… you will be punished by your anger.” – The Buddha
90

W. E. Messy

October 16, 2007 at 10:58 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I get angry at sophistry, begging the question, and equivocation.
91

Shannon Vyff

October 16, 2007 at 11:08 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Great post, I’m off to share it on some net sites I frequent… don’t get to taut my anger often–but it is nice to relish in our evolutionary heritage from time to time. I’m angry about death, so I support the Methuselah Foundation. I’m angry about religion so I teach children about religions at my Unitarian Universalist Church. I’m angry about my blink of an eye in the time scale of things–lifespan–so I’m a cryonicist, in case it works because human society continues to advance the next millennium, and we can figure out how to stop aging just like some animal species that effectively do not age now, because they got the luck of the draw evolutionarily. I’m angry about inequality resources with humans, so I support many non profits like True Majority, Save the Children, The Heifer Foundation to try and help those who have shortened lifespans now, due to their poverty, lack of education, health or food. I’m angry about selfish people who are wealthy compared to most in the world, who live in an unhealthy way–so I try to set an example for my children and raise them as responsible Earth citizens.
So thanks, your anger is eloquent and encapsulates what so many are thinking… and anger begets action….I like to think that the world continues to become a better place each year…
92

Bill C.

October 16, 2007 at 11:08 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

What a stupid post. Not one mention of things in the Muslim world. In fact when the Muslim world gets a mention she is feeling bad for a Muslim girl. Maybe that Muslim girl would have done well to ditch her own delusions and fantasies and been able to give that teacher a real reply.
Not a word about honor killing (over 5,000 a year) in the Mid East or about the general status of women there as chattel. 9/11 gets one line. Not a mention of any one of the Mullahs, Clerics, or imams who issue insane fatwas, execute gays, execute dissidents, and execute and arrest women for uncovering their wrists. But George Bush, Falwell, Haggard, and the pope all get done over thouroughly.
Typical blinkered feminist cant. If you want to increase the respect people have for atheists then try to cultivate a real ethical consciousness and not just use it as a prism through which to focus your own cultural self loathing.
93

regeya

October 16, 2007 at 11:13 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I’m angry at people who always have to spout off about their religious beliefs–or about their lack of religious beliefs.
In all seriousness, I really do tire of the “creationism vs. science” debate, because as you point out, it’s a bogus debate. Whether or not you believe in an afterlife, there are reams of evidence that science is getting it right more often than not. To all the Southern Baptists tuning in: What is so wrong with studying the natural universe? Why do DINOSAURS, for Pete’s sake, through all of you into such a tizzy?
And angry people piss me off bad enough that I want nothing to do with them. Ta-ta.
94

Monument

October 16, 2007 at 11:17 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Atheism is a religion, welcome to the club. We’re all angry about something.
95

Monument

October 16, 2007 at 11:19 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Atheism is a religion, welcome to the club. We’re all angry about something.
96

Julia Kosatka

October 16, 2007 at 11:23 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Brad said:
“If they don’t feel a change in themselves, the longing for more, the need to understand what they are feeling than they can go along with their lives.”
Gee. How terribly gracious of you. We only have to jump when you say frog and perform a short sentence for our lack of belief in your imaginary friends.
How about this, instead? Everyone who thinks they’re hearing the voice of God or ‘feeling his hand in their lives’ should submit to psychological examinations. I hate to think how many undiagnosed schizophrenics there might be out there masked by the nature of religion. Anyone found mentally competent could then “go along with their lives”.
Talk about being unclear on the concept. While I’m not an atheist (yet, who knows what tomorrow may bring), I *am* an anti-religion agnostic. And I’m angry, too! What part of being hammered on all sides by Christians doesn’t Brad and his cohorts get? No one in the US is non-Christian due to ignorance of the religion. Good grief, most of us would LOVE to be able to forget it exists. I used to know the stats, but have forgotten the precise numbers – something like 75% of natural born non-Christian Americans in the US were raised Christian (myself included). The more we learned about it, the less we could believe.
97

Sea Man

October 16, 2007 at 11:39 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

You’re angry because you want an excuse to whine. Live and let live and you will have nothing to be angry about. I hope this rant made you feel a bit of relief, but rest assured you have done nothing to make the world a better place with your incessant whining. Thanks for nothing.
98

gburnett

October 16, 2007 at 11:41 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

An excellent, excellent piece. I couldn’t agree more. We need anger to ignite change – our polite, contrite, respectful stance of the last 50 years or so has gained us NOTHING. We need to get pissed off and make them realize that ATHEISTS ARE NOT THE ONES THAT ARE CRAZY!
99

Josua

October 16, 2007 at 11:44 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

The comments speak volumes about the manner in which you approached this and portrayed your anger.
Well done.
100

Andy Cunningham

October 16, 2007 at 11:51 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I share your anger.
101

Billy

October 16, 2007 at 11:51 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.
102

Peter Marreck

October 16, 2007 at 11:55 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Changing your own worldview is the hardest thing to do. Whether you’re a member of a certain faith, or an atheist.
A lot of the discord revolves around unanswered questions and ignorance of opposing viewpoints. We should all keep in mind that there is only one objective truth, however… out there, somewhere.
103

Linus' helpermonkey

October 16, 2007 at 11:57 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Fantastic post. Got me all pissed off (and I’m not even an atheist) – it’s a good thing that most of the office is out this week or they’d find me all ranty in the kitchen.
You’re absolutely right that no civil rights movement has ever gotten anywhere without some good, articulate rage to fuel it.
104

Ryan Boughter

October 16, 2007 at 11:58 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Let me just lay some things out: I’m religious, I’m obviously on your anger list (at first I thought I wasn’t, but you effectively lumped EVERY single religious Christian (at the least) into your list by the end). And I’m a bit concerned.
You’re totally right though. I’m concerned more with the way religion is going (and has been going, since, well, before Galileo, but pointedly since then) than with you and like minded ‘angry’ atheists. But I’m curious: you point out every quibble you have with religion, yet you say you hate people that do that. You lump all religious people into one category and then say if we disagree with your lumping, how dare we interpret God’s word that way. You make note of the “God-of-the-gaps” ideology as if it were gospel, yet make no note of the alternative religious views on the subject of science/religion.
My question to you is: why, instead of writing such a long blog post, don’t you just say “I am angry with (bold, underline, font size HUGE) EVERYTHING that religion does, and ALL religious people. Because, I would like to have a dialogue with you, one that doesn’t involve hate, perpetuation of old stereotypes, or old, hashed out arguments (on both sides), but you effectively put me at odds with you, and I find that disheartening. I hope that in time your anger will subside, like many of the great movements before you mentioned, but until that time comes the thing I learned from you is: I will never, ever, tell my atheist friends (or any atheist for that matter) to calm the F down.
105

jeremy

October 16, 2007 at 12:03 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

HOLY.
SHIT.
I swear there would be something smarter here in this comment section right now if I wasn’t completely reeling.
Amen.
Exactly.
Right on.
Yes.
GO.
Etc.
Easily the best blog post I’ve read this year – and you’re in high company there.
106

Kyleaxe

October 16, 2007 at 12:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I’m not atheist but i’m angry as FUCK. I am shaman and their is room for interpretation. REFORM,REDEFINE! Jesus was a pot smoking mushroom eating hippy!
All praise money, the antichrist and slavery! Hail king of north america Bush. Gay la douche.
107

another angry atheist

October 16, 2007 at 12:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

here’s some angry atheist music…
http://www.ijigg.com/search?s=+atheism
- Belief in god Never Cured Stupidity
- charlatan bastard jesus
- Tax The Churches For Unwanted Pregnancies
- kiss my ass, jesus
- jesus gave me head
- xtians are gay for jesus
108

Susie Bright

October 16, 2007 at 12:23 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I’m angry because I spent the first years of my life actually BELIEVING that there was this place called Hell and I was going to BURN forever in it because I didn’t wash the dishes properly, because I read books too much, because I “had bad thoughts,” because Sister WhatTheFuck told me so, because I liked John Lennon better than Jesus, because I touched a Ouija board, etc etc etc. And when you’re six and seven years old you have faith. It’s just too sickening.
109

Dave Noonan

October 16, 2007 at 12:27 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Fucking beautiful. Thank you so much.
110

Scott

October 16, 2007 at 12:27 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

While I happen to share many of your views, I don’t share the view that writing a log blog post bitching and moaning about how angry you are, is going to affect any useful change what-so-ever.
Especially since you’re basically “preaching to the choir.” (Funny analogy given the topic of your post, I know.)
Stop wasting so much time being angry and writing blog posts about the hundreds of reasons why you’re angry and start working to actually educate and inform more people in a constructive way.
Unless you’re like most bloggers who just like to spew words in the hope of receiving piles of meaningless praise.
111

Pamela

October 16, 2007 at 12:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Good post. I certainly hope religious people would be angry about all these as well.
112

zachariah skylab

October 16, 2007 at 12:33 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Nice rant. Sorry about all that. I’m religious to my bones but I find atheism gives me a fresh perspective on things.
Unrelatedly, the foregoing rant smacked heavily of theism.
113

Kelly

October 16, 2007 at 12:34 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

This was incredible, Greta. Thank you.
Betalife, I commend you. My husband and I are trying to conceive, and we’ve been getting nothing but crap from people about choosing to raise a child without faith-based beliefs. I can tell it won’t be easyânot because of our abilities or my child’s capabilities, but because there is a society out there who unethically or ignorantly tries to pass off faith for fact, that believe itâs moral and ethical to inhibit a childâs natural curiosity and critical thinking for something faith-based.
Perhaps that, Greta, is something to add. Iâm angry (today, anyway) because people âof faithâ are telling me that because I once worked at an womenâs clinic as a counselor for women considering abortion, Godâs âmade me barrenâ because I havenât conceived in the three months that Iâve been actively trying. Iâm angry because people would prefer to confuse cause and effect and accept appeals as empirical evidence. That comfort trumps truth. That people prefer to be anesthetized to rather than wrestle with the natural existential anxiety inherent in the human condition, and then they claim this is a virtue, something honorable, something to be glorified. That people who accept a blood sacrifice for their âsalvationâ are, by default, moral people.
Actually, I think all this would fall under all your categorical points above.
114

Joe M

October 16, 2007 at 12:46 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Wow, just… wow.
Excellent post!
115

Jeff

October 16, 2007 at 12:46 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Trust me, the God you don’t believe in…doesn’t exist.
116

Alex

October 16, 2007 at 12:55 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Wonderful Brilliant. Could not have said it better myself. Ironically, if you were an actual goddess, I’d totally base a religion around you….
117

James

October 16, 2007 at 1:01 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Excellent article, I agree with most of your points and share your frustration. I’m not atheistic, I’m agnostic, but I’m extremely skeptical in any capacity towards a supreme being. With that being said, I loath organized religion with a passion that is unparalleled.
Thank you for this write up, and keep up the work.
I’m not trying to spam, but visit imminst.org. As atheist/agnostic who doubt an afterlife, all we can hope for is life-extension from a scientific/technological aspect, and seeing how this is the 21st century, it would be naive to think it’s not possible.
Remember, this life we live here is our own heaven, and I’m equally disgusted when religious nutjobs try to taint our lives.
118

secret asian man

October 16, 2007 at 1:08 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I love this post, but yet I’m going to have to disagree.
We *need* religion. I say this as the atheist son of atheist scientists. I’m a kuffar, an infidel, an unbeliever, and I say we need religion.
I used to be angrier. I thought that religion was a trick by which the powerful gave people some good ideas, “thou shalt not kill” to trick them into believing some spiritual BS that benefitted the powerful.
I had it all backwards.
When my father died, my (atheist all her life) mother said “at least he’s gone to a better place”.
Why? Because she needed to believe that.
Most people are irrational. They need to believe these things:
- Good will prevail and evil will be punished
- The universe is not mechanistic, but actually cares about them in a deeply personal way.
- Death is not final.
- We are members of a nearly unbreakable community that will take care of us.
- Someone else will take responsibility for your actions.
- There are simple, comprehensible explanations for natural phenomena.
Now, all these things are false. Comforting, but false. If your powers of logic or will are weak, you will find some way to believe the above.
When my father died? My mother spontaneously came up with some bogus stuff. What happens when kids with no facility for logic rebel against Christianity? They usually walk right into another, equally irrational and empirically false religion or “spiritualism”. What happens when people get shipwrecked somewhere? They come up with religion.
Most people *want* to be irrational. They feel this need at an uncontrollable, heroin-addiction level. They desperately want to believe certain things that are emotionally comforting but false, and they will come up with complex systems in order to justify these beliefs. These systems of rationalization are religions.
Religion, at least, piggybacks on these desires and sneaks in a little good stuff, like “thou shalt not kill”
When I realized this, I realized I had the causal arrow backwards.
It wasn’t
People believe “thou shalt not kill” and get tricked into believing in imaginary bearded friends in the sky.
It was:
People want to believe in imaginary friends. We might as well use this belief to trick them into not killing.
Atheism, like dunking a basketball or higher mathematics, is a skill accessible only to people of specific talents and training.
Let me put it another way:
Newtonian mechanics is false. However, it’s reasonably capable to comprehend. Relativistic mechanics is significantly better, but harder to comprehend.
Why do we teach (false) Newtonian mechanics? Because in the overwhelming majority of situations, it is almost perfect in accuracy, and yet can be understood.
Similarly, religion teaches people to form communities, observe reciprocity, save money, and understand the natural world.
Without religion, these people would be worse. Far worse.
Take away Creationism from these people and they’ll find something even more stupid.
Take away the ancient religions from these people and they’ll find something even more stupid. (This process is already happening, with new-age religions that are even more irrational than the garden variety Abrahamic ones)
Taking away religion from these people is like mandating we teach relativity in fourth grade. Sure, I could handle it, and you could handle it, but what about those who can’t?
What about those people who need religion to keep them psychologically together.
119

Ashley

October 16, 2007 at 1:12 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

JY,
The reason the term fundamentalist is still wrong is because atheists don’t hold to a set of beliefs. There is no equivalent of a denomination.
Atheism in and of itself is a lack of belief. No one is getting together and saying “here’s how to be a *real* atheist”.
120

Ts ila

October 16, 2007 at 1:16 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

You have a right to your anger, and to express it, but holding onto it is bondage. But you really don’t know what a True Christian is like. I am sorry you have had experience with un-Christian-like people. But not everyone who calls themself a Christian actually is one. Christians walk in love and forgiveness. We are kind, gentle and humble. To condemn us all for a few is unjust. But to be judged by you or anyone, to me, is a small thing. God is the One Judge. He will judge us all for the things we have done on this earth, there is nothing that will not be brought to light. He is the only One I care to please. I hope you find peace.
121

Elizabeth

October 16, 2007 at 1:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I am angry too, but I am not an avowed atheist. If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention…
122

Bill

October 16, 2007 at 1:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Christian religion speaks of the End Times, or Judgement Day. As an agnostic, I believe/hope the time is near since it will not be all doom and gloom/end of the world stuff, but rather an end to religion. People will realize that it does not make sense and equate with reality especially as communication and “voice” continues to grow globally. Information is the key and the world is a much bigger information source now as compared to past generations. With each new generation, I believe less of the population buys into religion. The Catholic church has taken major hits over the years, and will likely not recover, especially to its glory years during the Dark Ages. Other flavors of Christianity as well as most other dominant religions also will likely suffer from the spread of information and concept of choice.
Religion’s “End Times” are coming and there will hopefully be lasting peace once this comes, but it will not be at the hand of Jesus, but rather the spread of real time information and the human species realizing that all this religious dogma does not make sense, and “I” am not going to devote my life to the nonsense.
123

Kevin

October 16, 2007 at 1:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I was angry at the twit next to me in an airplane. He made the sign of the cross and prayed before landing.
It fucking works every time! If it lands he validates god’s service to him, ensuring safe landing.
If the plane crashes into a firey inferno then it does not matter anyway.
Win-win. That’s why I hate religion.
124

looneymoonbat

October 16, 2007 at 1:35 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Great piece Greta.
As Margaret Cho says, “Sometimes I just want to ‘go there’” too.
I am angry that my brother has been crippled by MS and our government actively blocks research into technology and science that could help him walk or cure him entirely. Rather than utilize embryonic material that would have been discarded anyway, they, upon their religious belief, impute this as gods will – and value a cluster of cells higher than a live, suffering human.
I am angry when violence against doctors and employees of family planning clinics is committed by religious zealots, and the rest of the religious communities do not do more to self-police these groups. I am angry that Teri Schaivo was used as a prop in a charade of faux piety when the spark of anything that made her uniquely definable as a human being had long departed. I am angry when the bible and religious belief is used to attempt to explain or justify hate crimes against gays. I am angry when gay kids kill themselves because they are raised in households filled with religious intolerance for gays. I am angry that Mathew Shepard was killed, because the root cause of all this homophobia, and the ultimate justification for it, is based in religion. I am angry that the church asks queers to sacrifice their sexuality on the alter of celibacy in order to “enter the kingdom of heaven” – that is essentially what “love the sinner, hate the sin” means. I am angry that this god of theirs always demands being approached on ones knees. I am angry that their god plays a “zero-sum” game when everything else in the natural world testifies to the multiplicity , variety, and diversity of the universe. I am angry that atheists are called immoral when it is the christians who are afraid to do the moral heavy lifting of finding meaning and purpose in their lives without the aid of some vast supernatural entity – or having it spoon fed to them. I am angry that christians would presume to know anything whatsoever about my inner life and moral character when they can’t bother themselves to know anything about atheism. I am angry that Jesus and Mahammoud and the pope are held up as figures above reproach and criticism and that the lives of anyone who dares question their moral authority will be in jeopardy. I am angry that the natural world, with all of its wonders that can be seen, and felt, and tasted, and smelled, and heard, and is in itself awe inspiring and amazing, with mysteries still to be discovered and explored, is dismissed based purely on a “feeling” – the inability of human limited minds to think beyond themselves. I am angry that all of this universe is still not enough to fill someone with respect and reverence for life and everything else in it that people had to go invent god to explain it all, and that even as we begin to understand the universe people STILL cling to fables and fantasy. I am angry that christians can not see that from an atheists point of view their beliefs are as equally valid as believing in Zeus, Thor, Shiva, or the Goddess – how does one chose between one supernatural agency over another? Is it all luck of the draw depending on the age and culture you are born into?
One thing I’ve said about anger is that anger tells us something about ourselves if we are willing to listen. Anger tells us where our boundaries lie. Sometimes we don’t know a boundary within ourselves until we are angry about something. Our anger stands up for us when we would otherwise be cowed, or bullied, or oppressed.
Good piece. I enjoyed reading it.
125

Kris

October 16, 2007 at 1:42 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Wow. Great post! I want more snarky atheists in my life if they’re going to be as smart and articulate as you.
126

Emily

October 16, 2007 at 1:47 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

A-fucking-men.
127

Ranger Joe

October 16, 2007 at 1:55 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

From an atheist that used to be in a foxhole I give you a great big, “Hooah!”
128

Kagehi

October 16, 2007 at 1:57 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

“If Christians acted like Christians, you wouldn’t be angry.”
Bard gets it even less that you said. This is standard, “My far better understanding of what Christians are trumps your arguments about how they actually act!”, excuse that is already mentioned in the article. Its bullshit. The number of assholes in Christianity, even *before* the Nicene Creed, when they decided what was “acceptable” stories, so they could better figure out which “false” Christians to kill, has outnumbered the *true* Christians Brad is babbling about by at least 100:1, if not worse. Its like arguing that Stalin wasn’t a true “communist”. It might even be an accurate description, if you want to nitpick to that silly an extent, but its not a valid argument when 99.9% of the governments that call themselves communist have been based on Stalin’s model, and not on the gloriously pure version a “true” communist would want to argue for. Same for Christianity. 99.9% of Christian churhes, and their attitudes/beliefs towards “everyone else” have been based on the same, “We are better than everyone else, and since we are, we will talk a lot about loving our neighbors and hating sin but not the sinners, but when push comes to shove, if you are one of the later you are, at minimum, going to get thrown out the door, and you should feel lucky we don’t also light you on fire as you leave.”
We are not angry about the imaginary “perfect” Christains you are talking about Brad. I have seen not one scrap of evidence that they are any more real for the most part than Unicorns or Pixies, unless you count the various fictional accounts of all three you can find in made up books, TV shows and movies.
Now, a note on Unitarians and Annie Sprinkle’s post… Give me a break. Statistics on them show that like 18% or something *of* Universal Unitarians, when asked, say they don’t believe in God any more than any hard line atheist, despite being members of a “church”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalism And you won’t find a single atheist denying love, charity, or anything else that gets labeled “spiritual”. What you will find is some that are rather irritated by using a word that implies supernatural forces of some sort, which contradict the total lack of evidence for such things, or some who don’t have that big a problem with the term, but are real tired of some people waving it around like it means something more than the sum of their emotional reactions to the world around them, and that therefor they “deny” its existence. The question of “if” such things exist is, honestly, as up in the air as anything else that *may* be imaginary, but where you can’t disprove it. The difference of course being that we tend to place the supernatural rather low on the list of possible things because nothing anyone has ever come up with suggest that such a thing “does” or “must” exist. This is in contrast with something like say, extraterrestrial life, for which we *at least* know the laws of physics, the age of the universe and the shear number of places such a thing might be, makes is “likely” that such a thing exists some place.
In other words, atheists don’t deny spirituality. They deny it special categorization outside the realm of reality and/or that the term, which carries with it the implication that they lie outside the real world, means anything in the first place, instead of talking about the “real” things that people arbitrarily toss into the “spiritual” basket, so they don’t have to actually think about what they really mean/are or how they happen.
129

Guy Warner

October 16, 2007 at 1:58 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Thanks awesome post!! I shared it with who I could. And our struggle is just starting to come to light. We will do great things if we can come together.
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eponymous coward

October 16, 2007 at 2:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

bleh… TLDR
131

torotech

October 16, 2007 at 2:01 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Don’t you feel like your Luke Skywalker stuck in a Star Wars Movie? You must channel your anger. May the force be with you. Great Blog.
PEACE,
Brian
132

CHADMAC

October 16, 2007 at 2:10 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Very nice article. Apart from my being a heterosexual male, you pretty much captured my thoughts on this matter. I will now do my part and forward this on to my loyal base of readers….. all ten of them.
Cheers
133

PuckishOne

October 16, 2007 at 2:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I agree that this is a wonderful post and that our anger is understandable, organic, and justifiable – thank you, Greta Christina, for saying what I want to say nearly on a daily basis.
I also want to reinforce what commenter JJ Ramsey said: We cannot descend into our own forms of revisionism, our own quote-mining contests…in other words, we can’t stoop to the level of those we are trying to fight, even if being snarky is one of the things we’re really, really good at. It sucks to have to take the high ground, but ultimately I believe that’s what’s going to get the atheist “agenda” (such as it is) accepted into the mainstream. If anger provides the fuel for this, I say bring it on.
134

Cynic the Infotainer

October 16, 2007 at 2:21 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Say it loud “I’m godless and proud!”
I believe atheism is the new “Gay!”
More on atheism (if you’re interested):
135

Nick

October 16, 2007 at 2:22 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I’m angry that religionists think the world can only be beautiful as God’s creation and can’t be beautiful otherwise. I’m angry with original sin, what chance does that give us? I’m angry that they claim all human spiritual progress as their own and take the credit away from the humans who made the actual progress.
Stay angry dude.
136

annoDomini

October 16, 2007 at 2:38 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

In reading the litany of religion’s offenses, I am reminded of a historical figure with an equal measure of anger: John Calvin, famous (infamous?) merchant and theologian. As a result of his anger and his writing, the Protestant Reformation was strengthened and the power of the (Roman) Catholic Church was curtailed. During his lifetime, he inspired tens of thousands to question various dogma pronounced by the Pope and other Catholic leaders. Since his death, his writing has influenced millions to grapple with tough moral questions.
In a similar fashion, Greta’s ideas posted here may have a profound affect on our world and on human beliefs, even well beyond the immediate recognition received on this site.
But let me offer this warning about the power of an “angry pen”: Late in Calvin’s life, when he had become famous, a small group of people claiming to be his “followers” proceeded to convict several of Calvin’s detractors of heresy. The sentence was to be burned alive. Neither the trials nor the punishment was dictated or even approved by Calvin. His readers were simply determined to act on Calvin’s anger. He is purported to have been despondent when informed of those deeds. To this day, many people attribute those deaths to Calvin.
Be angry; let your anger lead to redress the injustices you perceive and can influence. But know that the antecedent of anger is often hatred and the result of hatred is often violence. The unintended consequence of your success could be that 200 years hence, the same offenses that you have laid at the feet of “religion” will instead be attributed to “atheism”.
To turn a famous quote:
Never underestimate the power of a large group of ignorant people to destroy the goodness begun by a small group of believers in a just cause.
137

T.T

October 16, 2007 at 2:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

This is a beautiful post, and sums up exactly how I feel.
Old fashioned bigotry still exists – not towards any race or class – but toward those who don’t believe in fairy tales.
138

Ken Hagler

October 16, 2007 at 2:43 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

H/T to Calladus Blog for the link and thank you for your writing. I’m just not sure saying thank you is the right thing to say but it maybe all I can say.
I’m sorry too. Your words and anger and emotions were well written and if they didn’t break anyone else’s heart, they broke mine.
BTW, I haven’t bothered to read what anyone else wrote and don’t really care to. Your words were enough.
139

Reed Braden

October 16, 2007 at 2:45 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

If this weren’t the Internet, I’d hug you.
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Ken Hagler

October 16, 2007 at 2:46 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

H/T to Calladus Blog for the link and thank you for your writing. I’m just not sure saying thank you is the right thing to say but it maybe all I can say.
I’m sorry too. Your words and anger and emotions were well written and if they didn’t break anyone else’s heart, they broke mine.
BTW, I haven’t bothered to read what anyone else wrote and don’t really care to. Your words were enough.
141

Thanny

October 16, 2007 at 2:48 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

“unimaginable enormity of the universe”
I know pedantry is perhaps the second most annoying thing in the world (first is proselytizing), but “enormity” is not a synonym for “enormousness”.
I know it’s used like that all the time in the popular (and not-so-popular) media, but they’re all wrong. Someone, somewhere wanted a word that means “enormousness”, but rolled off the tongue more smoothly. Said person moved right past correctly using “immensity”, and settled on the archaic word “enormity”, which actually means depraved abnormality.
Sure, eventually, the dictionaries (being descriptive, not prescriptive) will move the newly-added corrupt definition to the head of the entry. But I can still complain about some journalist who didn’t know how to use a dictionary resurrecting a dead word with the wrong meaning because he/she thought it sounded better.
I’ll close with that, before I get started on “moot”.
142

Al Shaw

October 16, 2007 at 2:49 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Wow.
Why don’t you come over to England?
It’s a lot more easy going over here.
143

Ben

October 16, 2007 at 2:54 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Amen!
Arg! Did I say that!?! I totally agree with you. You’ve given me a few more points to bitch about… on top of the already huge “why I hate christianity” list. Kudos!
Now to go do my own ranting…
144

susie Bright

October 16, 2007 at 3:04 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

More angry-emo-atheist-woman rants, please! I didn’t even know it was a genre.
145

Michelle

October 16, 2007 at 3:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

An athiest friend sent this to me. I find it funny and sad – sad for all you people who don’t have faith and are so angry. I don’t meet too many believers who suffer from this kind of rage and anger. seriously, get a life. My take on atheists – you folks are scared of ‘faith’, cos you do not have it, do not understand it, maybe wish you did, at some level, and are damn scared!
You might want to use your anger at helping the world – stop trying to be angry for the mis-guidance( if there is such a word) that happens to those who have faith. trust me, we can take care of ourselves. we have faith, dude.
146

Monument

October 16, 2007 at 3:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

You know what makes me angry? People who censor posts that disagree with their point of view.
Atheism is a religion.
147

Musicguy

October 16, 2007 at 3:08 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

This is an incredible post!!! I’m giving you a standing ovation. Thank you for speaking your mind and articulating so many of my feelings. Keep up the good work!
148

Jen

October 16, 2007 at 3:09 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Huh. I never even had a faint idea that I should be angry about anything. Now I feel stupid.
149

Marcus Ranum

October 16, 2007 at 3:10 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

((applause))
150

Jen

October 16, 2007 at 3:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Huh. I never even had a faint idea that I should be angry about anything. Now I feel stupid.
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Brad

October 16, 2007 at 3:19 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

You would not be so angry if you were a believer. I was angry all the time before I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord.
152

SueinNM

October 16, 2007 at 3:19 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Wow. Brad’s comments perfectly illustrate everything you mentioned in your post … the complete, unthinking arrogance of those Christians who think atheists like me have to find God.
It was Christians who turned me off religion, and “god”, when I was in 7th grade. I’ve never looked back. And I’ve never a day in my life felt any need to pray to the sky father.
And by the way, the Golden Rule wasn’t conceived by Christians. It was already known to the ancient Greeks.
153

Larro

October 16, 2007 at 3:20 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

“You know why you’re not seeing atheists in foxholes? Because believers are threatening to shoot them if they come out.
Can we say: “Pat Tillman”?
A Bush is a Bush is a Bush is burning.
Fucking shit! I didn’t know about the jury thing!
Fuckin’ A! In complete agreement.
154

Brad

October 16, 2007 at 3:24 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Wow. Sue’s comments perfectly illustrate the complete arrogance of those atheists whom think Christians like me cannot believe in God. Sue, you could be so much happier with life as you know it.
155

Cyn

October 16, 2007 at 3:27 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

this is my first time here. my first comment. and no, i’ve not read preceding comments. just had to say…i applaud you! this is the single most well written, passionately stated piece about atheism i’ve read in a long while.
thank you! now i think i need to go back and investigate this site further. you may well be worth a more frequent visit.
156

Cody

October 16, 2007 at 3:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

When you are in “Us” vs. “Them” mode, it doesn’t matter whether you are “Us” or “Them.” Ego-driven outrage is toxic to anybody and everybody. No matter what God you do or don’t believe in.
The majority of the laundry list of valid objections you posted above have this very same folly at the root. The world’s religions are full of this kind of bullshit despite the efforts of many to get rid of it.
Anger sells much better than humility on both sides of the aisle.
But, by all means hold on to your anger if you feel you need it. It’s just that everyone you want to fight against is holding onto theirs just as tightly. Are you sure it’s the answer? Seems like the problem to me.
157

Art

October 16, 2007 at 3:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Even “Peace Man” Gandhi believed in the power of anger:
I have learned through bitter experience the one supreme lesson: to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmitted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmitted into a power that can move the world.
– Mahatma Gandhi
158

ChrisNo

October 16, 2007 at 3:36 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

This post kicks ass. I’m right there with you.
159

Greg

October 16, 2007 at 3:40 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I mostly enjoyed reading this article, save for the comments such as “As an atheist, I find myself wanting to kill every religious I see every time I think of the sheer misery caused by religion,” which don’t seem to me to be productive (or intelligent) in the slightest.
I am Catholic, but noticed that when I got angry in the course of reading the article, it was in agreement with the things being written — I’m equally angry at the Church for sweeping things under the rug, at the idea of young-earth creationism, and at anyone who says “America is a Christian nation.”
Please keep writing and being a force for change — you may not be able to get many people to abandon their entire faith (since it is, after all, belief in the face of a lack of evidence), but writing like this will be a powerful force in shaping a nation where religion is a purely personal matter.
160

SueinNM

October 16, 2007 at 3:40 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Brad,
God doesn’t exist. I see no proof of his existence in anything I see or have experienced. Instead, I’ve seen a nasty being no different from Zeus or Thor, reigning pain and suffering down on innocent people.
What I have seen is the beauty of the world that has evolved without the intervention of any divine being. I have seen “Christians” like Anne Coulter, author of GODLESS, accepted and praised by good christians everywhere while she demonizes anyone who doesn’t believe what she does … just as you do.
I’ve been a successful novelist for 15 years, have a wonderful husband I’ve been married to for 21 years (no cheating, no divorce, no abortions … all of which are far more common in “christian” dominates states), and I see beauty all around me. I’m not missing a damned thing. And I’m fed up with people like you who have the nerve to tell me that I am.
You don’t know me, Brad. And that’s the arrogance. Believe whatever you want, but don’t try to tell me there’s any evidence whatsoever of this god of yours.
I’m done. I’ve got actual work to do. I’m not interested in converting, just being left alone to NOT be convenverted or told I’m not moral by people like you … exactly the sort of “christian” who made me come to the sincere conclusion that god doesn’t exist.
Sincerely,
SueinNM, off to her atheist meeting tonight!
161

SueinNM

October 16, 2007 at 3:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Brad,
God doesn’t exist. I see no proof of his existence in anything I see or have experienced. Instead, I’ve seen a nasty being no different from Zeus or Thor, reigning pain and suffering down on innocent people.
What I have seen is the beauty of the world that has evolved without the intervention of any divine being. I have seen “Christians” like Anne Coulter, author of GODLESS, accepted and praised by good christians everywhere while she demonizes anyone who doesn’t believe what she does … just as you do.
I’ve been a successful novelist for 15 years, have a wonderful husband I’ve been married to for 21 years (no cheating, no divorce, no abortions … all of which are far more common in “christian” dominates states), and I see beauty all around me. I’m not missing a damned thing. And I’m fed up with people like you who have the nerve to tell me that I am.
You don’t know me, Brad. And that’s the arrogance. Believe whatever you want, but don’t try to tell me there’s any evidence whatsoever of this god of yours.
I’m done. I’ve got actual work to do. I’m not interested in converting, just being left alone to NOT be convenverted or told I’m not moral by people like you … exactly the sort of “christian” who made me come to the sincere conclusion that god doesn’t exist.
Sincerely,
SueinNM, off to her atheist meeting tonight!
162

Hell's Granny

October 16, 2007 at 3:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I quite frankly don’t understand why you are so angry at religious people.
In all of human history there has been genocide, torture, witch burning, etc. and above all: hypocrisy – say one thing, do the opposite when nobody is looking.
What’s the big deal?
I think you are simply envious.
Religious people have found a mental gold mine: Do whatever you want with a good, clean conscience, as long as you have a deity to back your misdeeds, while atheists have to behave well in order to be able to look at themselves in the mirror – that’s all.
163

James

October 16, 2007 at 3:55 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Well said.
164

Becky

October 16, 2007 at 3:55 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

*claps* Well said. I linked this from my LJ.
165

Max Hully

October 16, 2007 at 4:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I think that once we do away with anger, we can be much more successful at making the change we want to see in the world.
166

Anonymous

October 16, 2007 at 4:07 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

well put together, this goes in my bookmarks for future reference
167

Jason

October 16, 2007 at 4:10 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Wow… I was expecting to read the exact opposite article. How disappointing. All you hear from atheists is insults and anger, and you want to encourage that?
Good luck. This crap goes over wonderfully with the mainstream. Might as well make a tinfoil hat and cover all your bases.
168

Ted the nonmighty

October 16, 2007 at 4:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

You’re why I have to call myself a nontheist because when normal people hear “atheist” they think of shrill, screaming people like you.
169

samuidave

October 16, 2007 at 4:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I hear you loud and clear, and understand the frustration.
But, for me, mostly I am angry that atheists have to waste even another moment telling believers YOU MUST OPEN YOUR EYES TO SEE!
http://www.openyourfuckingeyes.com
170

kim

October 16, 2007 at 4:21 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Bully!
171

kim

October 16, 2007 at 4:21 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Bully!
172

kim

October 16, 2007 at 4:22 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Bully!
173

kim

October 16, 2007 at 4:23 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

ok, that’s not funny anymore. I try to use the browser key to go back to the site i was before, and it reposts my comment.
well, i guess i agree with this blog x3!
174

David Morgan

October 16, 2007 at 4:51 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Wow. This was an awesome post. Especially to me, as I consider myself deeply spiritual and Christian. I might take small issue with some of your points, but no more than I would other people from my own religion, and in most cases a lot less. In addition, I am impressed with your logic and you manage to get me to a place that I need to work on; you’ve pointed out some of my own hypocrisy. I can see it now, and it is something I need to work on; I thank you for that.
I’m impressed with the clearness of your statements, and the presentation of them and your evidence. Very impressive to me.
175

Robert Talbert

October 16, 2007 at 4:54 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Anger is, in fact, the defining characteristic of most of the atheists I have ever met. And why shouldn’t atheists be angry? I’d be angry too if I knew that basically I had no worth, no purpose, and no meaning as an insignificant speck in the universe.
I found this article to be quite saddening. I do not share in your anger, nor am I angry that you are so much against Christianity, which I accepted as a kid and then rejected as a college student and then accepted again as an older and wiser person. I just feel a profound sadness that a person whose blog I found on del.icio.us would feel such an affinity for an emotion, anger, that rarely accomplishes anything but the destruction of the object. But then perhaps that’s what you want. I hope for better.
176

hate xaylor

October 16, 2007 at 4:54 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Amen, sister.
Excellent rant.
177

PrincessCake

October 16, 2007 at 5:10 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I’ll pray for you.
HAHA Just kidding.
One of the best things I’ve read on the net, and not just because I’m an atheist too. You shared ideas that challenged some of my beliefs.
I think that people believe in God and worship God as a masked way of wanting to be God. You can see it in the power that religious leaders use over their flocks. BUT, you can also see it in the common believer, believing he/she is being humble but actually trying to achieve immortality and a link between their minds and the external world that doesn’t require action. Those are the qualities of a God.
Religion offers a promise of Godhood to believers but masks it in appearing humble.
178

Metra

October 16, 2007 at 5:12 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Thank you so much for this. Someone needed to say it, and I’m glad it was someone with as much intelligence as you have.
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Frank

October 16, 2007 at 5:15 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

hhahahahaha. Chillax. Live and let live. hahaha. You sound like a nut.
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j-mil

October 16, 2007 at 5:17 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I just found this post through stumbleupon. I too have bookmarked it and plan to use it as a reference whenever I need it. Thank you!
181

Joel

October 16, 2007 at 5:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

“I get angry when other believers insist…that their own sophisticated theology is the true understanding of God.”
I think I take a position that can be misconstrued to fit your quote.
You may not agree that believers like us are right, but perhaps you can sympathze with our anger that other Christians are so obviously wrong in their practice of religion?
I don’t believe I have The Truth, but I see truth in Christianity, and it angers me when other Christians discard the truth I see in favor of all of the evil that you mentioned in this post. It is obvious that they practice a radically different religion than I do, and it pains me to be associated with them, because I sympathize with your anger on practially every other point listed here.
182

J

October 16, 2007 at 5:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Wait. You’re angry at mother teresa?
183

Candice

October 16, 2007 at 5:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

JY, I do not adhere to any set of basic ideas or principles that have anything to do whatsoever with being an atheist. That doesn’t even make sense, because what atheism refers to is the fact that there’s one idea in particular that I do NOT adhere to — that god exists. And atheism itself implies nothing else. Nevertheless, I get called a “fundamentalist atheist” all the time. Probably because I have strong opinions that I am outspoken about that I have in common with many other atheists — but those opinions are in addition to my atheism, not part of it.
184

J. J. Ramsey

October 16, 2007 at 5:29 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Brad: “If Christians acted like Christians, you wouldn’t be angry. At some point, after exposing you to God and the message of Life, we have to let you go. It’s up to you to find God after that… We can pray for you, that their be some intervention by the Holy Spirit, but badgering you is NOT the answer NOR is segregating you or making you do things you don’t wish to do.”
Careful here. This atheist here didn’t walk away from the mean, nasty, stupid, Jerry Falwell brand of Christianity. I walked away from a part of Christendom that was pretty friendly, and I walked away from it mainly because the evidence for it didn’t stand up to scrutiny. Truth to tell, this has ended up meaning that I’m not as angry as some other atheists, and it’s part of the reason why I get royally pissed at the cheap shots I see aimed at Christians. (Happily, this blog doesn’t do much in the way of cheap shots.) Still, where I’m short on anger for Christianity, I’m long on pity–and frustration.
Your “message of Life” is a mess. There isn’t even a clear biblical idea of what salvation even is. To come up with even a semi-coherent message, one has to cherry pick from some parts of the Bible and rationalize others. The typical evangelical Protestant message, when looked at closely, looks like a bizarre protection racket. (http://www.jhuger.com/kisshankbutt.php) And the connection between blood sacrifice and redemption doesn’t really make sense. It just doesn’t hang together.
Michelle: “seriously, get a life. My take on atheists – you folks are scared of ‘faith’, cos you do not have it, do not understand it, maybe wish you did, at some level, and are damn scared!”
We are scared of people who trust in what is untrustworthy–like the Bible, and are so sure of that trust as to be at least a nuisance, and all too often a menace.
185

Shannon Chamberlain

October 16, 2007 at 5:32 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Brad:
My challenge to every atheist I meet, is to ask them to read the bible and pray to the God (even if they don’t think he exists). Do this for a few minutes for 3-7 days. If they don’t feel a change in themselves, the longing for more, the need to understand what they are feeling than they can go along with their lives.
Oh, for the flying spaghetti monster’s sake. Why should we? If I told you that invisible leprechauns were at this very moment sitting on your shoulder and had authored a sacred text that you simply MUST read before you had the temerity to criticize my belief in the invisible leprechauns, would you be under any obligation to do so? Why shouldn’t I read the Bhagavad-Gita, or the Quran, or, to hit even closer to home, the recently rediscovered Book of Judas, which presents an entirely different version of what we now call the “gospels” instead?
The sooner you come to terms with the fact that you’ve dedicated countless hours of eminently usable life to a myth, the components of which were arbitrarily constructed by a council of old men with no greater wisdom or insight than that to which your existence entitles you, the better. Then perhaps your posts won’t be so ill-conceived. Think of all of the time you could spend on improving your comprehension, critical thinking, and writing skills.
The thought of all of that wasted time is what makes me angry, and THAT is my challenge to you.
186

OzAtheist

October 16, 2007 at 5:33 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I’m not worthy!
Great blog, I’ve been running my own blog for a short while now, because I’d turned into an angry atheist and wanted to get my point across. But after what you just wrote, I may as well shut my blog down, you have said it all (and way better than I ever have).
keep up the good work
187

Robert Madewell

October 16, 2007 at 5:33 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Great post Greta! I totally sympathize with every reason. Especially, the sunday school teacher one. When I was 10 or so, I told my sunday school teacher that the light from the moon was reflected sunlight. She got so mad and told me that I had no right to question God’s creation. Can’t wait for your next post on this subject.
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Nicholas Lawson

October 16, 2007 at 5:34 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

What dont atheists have that other groups of people have? Atheists do not have regular community meetings where people of the same world view get together and discuss artwork, writing, business, parenting, and a long list of other normal activities that atheists could be getting together to discuss and feel calm and part of a group of people.
Its less important to win the argument and its more important to just move directly to the post-won-argument, phase and literally as best as possible act like they do not exist. Identify every single religious word and stop using it, develop news words, that are not creepy, to be used to define ideas of a Post-God America.
The argument is about a way of life, and the fear is that if there wasnt a church that there would be moral chaos.
That is the ridiculous part of this whole thing. Atheists are moral because they want to be and because being moral leads to its own rewards that have nothing to do with the post-conciousness experience.
The Religious, I think they are angry internally because at their very heart, the real embedded ones, they are angry because they want to do terrible things but the fear of post-conciousness retribution keeps them from doing what they most want to do.
Atheists are good because we want to be, Christians are good because they have to be.
I strongly recommend finding a place to meet with other people that are of a similar world view and just have normal meetings where you discuss normal life related issues. Just intelligent people meeting to have regular intelligent discussions that hopefully would lead to the accumulation of funds for a better community center, a group creating and selling artwork might be the best way for an atheist organization to transcend its sort of bookish organizations that it has now.
Business meetings and philosophy discussions, maybe some time to just get together and listen to music together and have a group meet where we would talk about great music files that have been created.
No screaming, no yelling, just a nice comfortable vibe where we could literally show and discuss the benefits of a non religious lifestyle to people that just dont think its possible. Hell a group like this might get to witness something amazing, like someone finally getting it, that would be amazing to me, to be a part of an organization that every now and again gets to see a person realize the beauty of a world with no illusions.
Ill stop here, thank you for your writing, I am angry too, we should do something normal about it because if there is one thing Atheism has that all of the other religions dont, well at least were normal.
189

gwen

October 16, 2007 at 5:43 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

We have never spoken before, but you need to know that I love you so fucking much right now that it physically hurts.
Anger is a gift. Thank you for reminding me of this.
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Steven Alleyn

October 16, 2007 at 6:02 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I’m posting this particular post to my blog’s permanent links, aswell as your blog proper. You’re going in my feeds & I plan to write a response to this more or less presently, as soon as I do a bit of thinking on it.
The great thing about being on the reasonable side of an argument about reason is that you end up being surrounded by brilliant minds; I feel much richer for having read this post.
191

Andrew

October 16, 2007 at 6:09 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Great post. Everyone else has said everything else. Just… great post.
192

Tsee

October 16, 2007 at 6:15 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Bravo, I say, bravo!
193

Cliff

October 16, 2007 at 6:16 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I believe in reality.
if you want to convince me of something, Prove it!
http://www.churchofreality.org
194

Y

October 16, 2007 at 6:16 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

enjoy your anger
195

An Jiaoshi

October 16, 2007 at 6:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Personally, I think atheism is just as presumptuous as Christianity — just as it’s beyond our abilities to perceive whether God* exists, it’s also beyond our abilities to perceive whether God DOESN’T exist — and consider myself a secular humanist. Nevertheless, your critique of religious intolerance and justification of atheist anger about it is spot on.
Next time someone accuses you of being “angry,” look that person dead in the eye and say, “Yes, I am. It’s RIGHTEOUS anger.”
* Feel free to substitute the supernatural creation deity of your choice.
196

Mathew Wilder

October 16, 2007 at 6:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Totally. Fucking. Sweet.
I completely agree. And now my rage is fueled.
197

Simone

October 16, 2007 at 6:46 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Amazing post. I feel the same way you do about all those things. It seems so clear to me that atheism is the obvious choice when people can draw the exact same conclusions without a bullshit guide book enforced into them.
I will definitely refer people to this when they accuse me of being angry and wasting my time!
As for Brad, he was a perfect example of what you were talking about. You already addressed his type and he still came up with the same old crap. I can only hope that he said all that without having read everything. If he did, it just adds to my sense of hopelessness for blindly religious to wake up.
198

Chucky Jesus

October 16, 2007 at 6:47 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

You go, girl!!
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Criss

October 16, 2007 at 6:56 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I am a believer, a religious, and a Sunday school teacher, among other things (I’m also one of those many, many Christians who have never read the Bible in its entirety, and yes, you probably know much more about my religious texts than I do). I understand and agree with your anger. There are some of us who agree with you on most, if not all, of those points.
I am guilty of being one of those Christians who say, “but I’m not like that! The way *I* see my religion is different, and better!” I’m not going to ask you to come to church with me – I’ll make it clear that you are welcome to come, but I’m not going to shove my views down your throat. I don’t like it either when the other Christians try to shove their version of my religion down my throat, and I’m not going to be the one to do that to someone else.
For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. Excellent post. Thank you for writing it.
200

Eva =)

October 16, 2007 at 7:04 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Wow this was fantastic to read. I am an atheist and i agree with everything you said. I went to a Christian camp once (i didn’t know it until i got there) and i would love nothing more than to send this to the counselors there who had a debate with me about gays.
…but i wont.
201

Some Canadian Guy

October 16, 2007 at 7:07 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I want to father your chillin’s
202

Anonymous

October 16, 2007 at 7:09 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Lame
203

Andrew

October 16, 2007 at 7:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Reading this article was like getting to breathe again after holding my breath for a long time. It seems that everyone is so religious. Why don’t they ever stop to actually think about it? When you do, there’s not even really a debate to be had. Just ask a question or two and the whole religious creed is proven irrational. It was like hypnosis, to me, growing up to be raised so religious. Even years after I was convinced of atheism by my own philosophical investigations, I was still wishing I coul believe, still praying to a god I didn’t believe in. It took a long time before I accepted my own atheism and was okay with being an atheist in a world of believers.
We need more of this kind of encouragement. We do need an effective movement. We need to speak up, despite the dangers.
Thanks for this. It’s so well put.
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von satan

October 16, 2007 at 7:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

who gives a crap what you or anyone else thinks. once you’re dead you’re dead, so what’s the big fuss?! get over it already!
205

Faux_Pseudo

October 16, 2007 at 7:15 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Just adding few things I would have added to the list:
I get angry every time a procreator thinks he wins the debate by saying that everything has to have a first cause but they get indignant when you point out that this is a hipocritical point on their part because they don’t think their god has a first cause.
I get angry every time some religous leader says that athiests worship darwin and say other things to try to make the a-religious seem equal with the religious so as to cause the religious to discount athiests believes without actually thinking about if this is at all true.
I get angry anytime I meet a recovering drug addict who was brainwashed into being addicted to their “higher power” rather than in living a clean life because it is the logical thing to do. And I get angry at the court orderd visits to these instatutions of higher power indoctrination.
I get angry when people who rail against any form of biological science eagerly demand a pill, especially antibiotics, from doctors. I get even angrier when these same people protest that doctors are playing god each time they try to cure some medical condition.
I get angry when religous leaders try to convice people that all scientiests are atheists when the vast majority of scientists are religious and in fact the majority of people who are religious belive that the world is far more than 6,000 years old
On that last point I am angry that all of those people who are religous still stick around in a religion that they know is telling them false like the world being only 6,000 yeas old.
Or for that matter any time someone sticks with a religious in the hopes that it will change to better agree with some of their notions on how it should really be.
I am pissed off an angry at those who lie about science’s findings and try to convice people that dino’s and people lived at the same time and don’t just keep saying this but add to it by buying up dino theme parks and start pushing their lies, aka bearing false witness, on kids.
I get angry every time the churchs demand that the government stay of of their church but they, being holier than thow demand the right to put their church in our government. This isn’t chocolate nd peanut butter, this is a prohabition in the Constitution.
For more on these topics visit faux_pseudo over in livejournal land.
206

von satan

October 16, 2007 at 7:17 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

atheists are as bad as any religious type…you just don’t know it cuz you’re too wrapped up in your bitching. this is the worse blog every. you’re nothing but a sob story. jesus christ!
207

Anonymous

October 16, 2007 at 7:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Oh. Man has for centuries tried to be independent and to justify his refusal to accept responsibility.
Yet, we must all answer certain questions.
1. Where are you?
2. Who told you?
3. Where is your brother/sister?
Where then did we get guilt from? why does our nature gravitate to evil?
The Love of God is the ultimate. God is not against man but for man. If only atheists knew that God loves them, the’ll quit being angry.
Yet our freewill will not be tampered by God, for without freewill, true love can’t be exercised.
God read up what descartes, darwin, and the other atheists said on their death beds. It’s the end story that matters.
208

Entrepreneur

October 16, 2007 at 7:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Just a question:
If atheists didn’t have the religious to hate- what exactly would they be believing in?
209

Faux_Pseudo

October 16, 2007 at 7:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

An add on to my first comment. I get angry every time a procreator thinks that telling an atheist they are going to hell is a valid threat. If one doesn’t believe in God how is one to believe in hell?
210

Janine

October 16, 2007 at 7:40 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Hello Greta. I see you checked in at PZ’s. I am one of those who have been baiting the misognist creep there. I just want to say, I saw no problem with you not addressing the problems with Islam. While they are definitely a threat, the threats closest to us have to be the first priority.
It seems this will be lost in the flood of responses that is here. But I have to ask, what is it like to be loved and hated by the responders.
Great post.
211

Rieux

October 16, 2007 at 7:47 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

This is wonderfully put, and it (especially the latter section) desperately needed to be said. Thank you.
212

Eddy

October 16, 2007 at 7:55 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Exactly why I avoid any and all discussions about religion/gay marriage.
I start throwing things.
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Eddy

October 16, 2007 at 7:56 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Exactly why I avoid any and all discussions about religion/gay marriage.
I start throwing things.
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Sam-in-WV

October 16, 2007 at 7:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Many thanx, Greta. Sometimes it takes hot blood to be appropriately galvanized. As you point out, in reason, we have much to be hot blooded about.
To Stomper: One way to be defensive is to be deliberately obtuse. Churlishness and obstinancy are the resort for those who cannot engage in discussion. Expect the “gaslight” treatment from most Catholics and other Christians.
215

Prohibitoid

October 16, 2007 at 7:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I agree 100%. It’s almost time to fight back, and we’re becoming more and more vocal and visible.
216

whuebel

October 16, 2007 at 8:04 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I think your article hits on some great points. Anger is a good thing in the right circumstances. Anger is a good reason to become a unitarian. I go to church with wiccans, atheists, catholics and hindus who want a common community and aren’t sure that what they were taught as children is true. The common ground is repect.
217

Spanish Inquisitor

October 16, 2007 at 8:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

You go girl!!!
You ought to reduce this to a .pdf file so it can be downloaded, pictures and all. It should be handed to anyone who claims we are angry. No, better yet, it should simply be handed out to everyone.
Richard Dawkins was surprised during his first book tour to America supporting “The God Delusion”, when a commenter asked him about atheist anger. He didn’t know what they were talking about. If he read this, I think he would have a better understanding now.
I’ve been angry for having wasted what so far has been the bulk of my life believing in something that doesn’t exist. I just hope I live long enough to be able to say it was for less than half my life.
I’m looking forward to 91!
Thanks for saying that. I suspect that some day we’ll look back on this as a seminal moment in atheist blogging.
218

beng

October 16, 2007 at 8:07 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

What a pathetic life you must lead.
Why not be happy because you live in a country that lets you be you.
219

Chill out

October 16, 2007 at 8:07 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I don’t see anything to be angry about.
220

beng

October 16, 2007 at 8:10 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Ah, your a lesbo, now I understand it, you can’t marry your girl and your all pissed off. Hey, here’s an idea, go live in Iraq.
221

MICHAEL

October 16, 2007 at 8:13 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

THANK YOU. YOU EXPRESSED MY FEELINGS PERFECTLY.
222

Brycello

October 16, 2007 at 8:24 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Wow! Greta, whoever you are, thanks for your fine words. I feel energized and almost optimistic that there is still some sanity left on the planet. This is a keeper.
223

Anonymous

October 16, 2007 at 8:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

wow. thank you for this.
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Nik Kantar

October 16, 2007 at 8:37 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Brad’s challenge is valid. I’ve done that when I was a child who truly didn’t know what was true and what wasn’t, and I felt emptier when things never changed for the better. I dropped religion in first grade. since then I’ve felt much more empowered knowing that there isn’t an entity that rules over me, at least not in the sense that Christianity (or almost any modern religion) implies.
I have a challenge for Brad: research the theory of evolution (and please take a closer look at how the word “theory” is used in science), read some Richard Dawkins’ writing (“The Illusion of Design” from 2005 is really good), and ask yourself why you write science off when one of its guiding principles is the constant search for truth, while Christianity sticks to what was written in a strange book a long time ago. Over hundreds of years now, time and again it’s debunked religious premises, and any good scientist will tell you that a scientific, empirical, testable evidence of God’s existence would convince them of it.
That kind of open-mindedness cannot be found amongst believers, because those who are that open-minded have already seen through the facade.
225

Nameless Heathen

October 16, 2007 at 8:38 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Eloquent, passionate, thoughtful. You are priceless. Thank you.
226

Wayne

October 16, 2007 at 8:42 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I didn’t read your entire post as I got sick of saying: “Yes, I agree.” Over and over, but what I did read was very accurate.
227

keith

October 16, 2007 at 8:45 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

hey there, i’ll keep it simple. pretty good stuff and thank you for the post. i enjoyed the read and you make a lot of good points, supported with links.
i’m more of an agnostic but we seem to overlap for the majority of your points.
228

Joseph

October 16, 2007 at 8:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

This is brilliant! You are absolutely right on so many issues, thanks for the great read!
229

Jim

October 16, 2007 at 8:52 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

As a non-angry non-atheist, what I’m looking for when I read atheist blogs is a greater understanding.
I can work from (my own) first principles and get to my own values system and understanding life’s meaning. What I have a hard time doing is understanding is what first principles atheists come from.
230

That Girl Tam

October 16, 2007 at 8:55 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I stumbled onto this post quite by accident. I am Pagan and pretty much angered by all of the same things you are. Imagine the looks and gasps of disbelief when you tell someone you’re a witch! HAHAHA!! I don’t usually use that word, but I will say that I’m Pagan if asked. I got mad when this handed me a sheet of paper that basically said I was damned to hell if I didn’t believe in Jesus Christ being the lord savior, blah, blah, blah…
But now I kinda laugh at it…and maybe I’m not so angry anymore because I don’t feel the need to prove shit to ANYONE. This is me…fuck anyone who doesn’t like it!! Thank you for speaking out for the other non-believers…GREAT POST!
231

Bruce Ramsey

October 16, 2007 at 9:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Why should you be angry if there is no God, girl? You’re just a big, evolved, bacteria that got here by accident, right? So, who CARES if you are surrounded by a bunch of stupid chimps who believe in absolutes?
232

John

October 16, 2007 at 9:15 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

No. No more civility. Anger creates change. Spot on.
Free Fucking Burma NOW.
233

melior

October 16, 2007 at 9:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Rock on.
234

Adam

October 16, 2007 at 9:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I don’t know how else to put this except: That was fucking brilliant. Thank you.
235

Crotch

October 16, 2007 at 9:33 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Sweet Zambah G-Zaz that was a good rant!
236

Zybch

October 16, 2007 at 9:46 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

We’re not too angry. Its just the discrimination and subjugation we have all suffered for years finally being given an outlet at last! Enough of us have finally have the courage to stand up and declare that we have had enough! We aren’t going to take this bullshit sitting/laying down any more!
If you push your outmoded, superstitious belief and acceptance of the completely unacceptable onto me, then I’m going to push back twice as hard!!
As a gay person, I probably have more anger towards religion than a most people in the world, the hurt and harm religion has caused gay people is simply beyond reckoning, and it continues today with the apparent approval of governments and their petty short sighted views which have been steered by the church!
So, damn right I’m pissed off and angry! Give me a reason why I shouldn’t be!
237

Rick Wingrove

October 16, 2007 at 9:55 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

It also pisses me off that we were hunted for bounty for 1500 years.
238

Tom

October 16, 2007 at 10:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

It seems to me that most of your problems with religion are problems that plague all of humanity. People are ignorant and easily led. There are plenty of passionately patriotic atheists who believe every single thing the government tells them. This is just as dangerous as believing everything a priest tells you. I’m sure you are aware of this, but people are fucked up, ignorant, and scared. Not just some of us. All of us. We have to fight this on a daily basis to become fully actualized human beings. Religion is just one of the many symptoms of the overall problem: Us.
239

AM

October 16, 2007 at 10:24 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Absolutely amazing post.
This is the first time I stumbled into this blog… it’s now bookmarked.
A huge thumbs up to your writing.
240

ben

October 16, 2007 at 10:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Im angry that you don’t see religion for what it is: a way to organise stupid people into not causing harm.
Remember 50% of the population are below average intelligence by definition, and these people need something to continue.
Your assertion that an absense of religion will NOT remove morality is completely unbased: we simply do not know what the world would be like otherwise. I imagine there would be more harmful “religious like” organisations like scientology appear for these people, and much more harm would come from it.
Religion is prozac for the masses. Its true.
241

Gia

October 16, 2007 at 10:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

fantastic post.we need more stuff like this!
242

nas

October 16, 2007 at 10:38 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Sorry to say this, but it seems most of your anger and reason to be athiest is comes from the injustice of other people and corruption of churches.
Take look at Islam, not a critical look, but a comparative look, and you will notice a religion so different, you might have to rethink what religion really is about.
243

Nifft

October 16, 2007 at 10:53 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Get all the angry you want. It’s our country. We win.
244

JZ

October 16, 2007 at 11:01 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

What are you so angry about?
You refuse to question your own belief system — yes atheists, you have a belief system, though you may not know it. Faith in observation, reason and the universe’s ultimate intelligibility by man is still faith. (But our faith is smart, theirs is stupid.)
You perceive something as injustice — it makes you angry. Flies like turds — turds make them happy. Same diff. We’re all just slow burning chemical equations right? Or is there something more?
It sounds more like your just hating American Christian’s because by and large they’re assholes. No problem there, but call a spade a spade.
245

Jason Black

October 16, 2007 at 11:12 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Greta, I am almost in tears after reading this. Not because I disagree, but because I agree so passionately with everything you’ve said.
Instead of trying not to be an angry atheist (or that close second, the “bitter fag”), reading this has reminded me of both my right to be these and the need to be bitter and angry.
Thanks for reminding me!
–JB
246

Ryan

October 16, 2007 at 11:20 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Very well-argued and salient points. But however validated you feel your anger is, the general public won’t see it this way. Who garnered more respect: Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcom X? Until you can speak out positively and eloquently, few will listen with open minds. Sure, you can argue that the constructs put up against profanity are artificial and irrelevant, but it doesn’t change the fact that they just won’t listen, just like those who protested in Washington DC this summer wearing suits received much more attention and respect than the hippies. At some point you have to accept the hand society has given you, and instead of being pissy about your pair of deuces, why not play the game their way and bluff your way to your a better hand? You will only be more respected because of it.
247

Ji

October 16, 2007 at 11:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

i read your profile and think i should come all the way, across the continent to San fransisco. Find your sweet adress and make love to you and your wife Ingrid both.
248

Jorg

October 16, 2007 at 11:55 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Enough words.
Brilliant piece. Anger is an energy! (as JohnLydon said, in a slightly different context).
249

Amber

October 17, 2007 at 12:33 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

You are a FUCKING genius. Thank you so much for that entry. You have the argument skills I lack – thank you for speaking for me. And you’re right! SO RIGHT! We’re not all bitter. I am one of the most optimistic people I know, I just don’t put any hope into an afterlife and I don’t base my moral/ethical decisions on any doctrine – doesn’t make me morbid or nihilistic. Thanks again.
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tessfeb01

October 17, 2007 at 12:40 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Excellent.
251

Userious?

October 17, 2007 at 12:46 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

“I get angry when religious believers make arguments against atheism — and make accusations against atheists — without having bothered to talk to any atheists or read any atheist writing.” Ummn…you obviiously have no understanding of what it is to be a christian (along with many so called christians). Most people have very little understanding of bible scripture and what it means. They have been taught under the catholic understanding of so called christianity, and that is to trust and believe in preachers, priests, etc. Yes, even protestants. That teaching is not consistant with bible teaching. Christians are to study to show themselves approved. So when looking at christianity, I offer you a set of basic rules. 1st: CATHOLICISM IS NOT CHRISTIANITY!!! You will see some of of the most hidious acts come from that so-called church! It has been that way in the past, and history is repeating itself right now! You just don’t know it yet. Not just the molestation, but lots more. Research the Jesuits to get an idea of what is going on still. 2nd: Do not look to people! If you want to know what christianity is, read the words of Christ! Is that too difficult to understand? Christ is who we are to pattern ourselves after. Sadly, many “christians” lack the most basic understanding of this fundamental principle. And when you see anyone who is famous and powerful, even Billy Graham, assume they are not christians. They are likely not, as is the case with the afore mentioned evangelist. He left his christian beliefs a long time ago due to pressure from the pope. Sad situation. Which leads me to rule 3. 3rd: Politics and christianity do not mix!!!!!! When you see a snake tounged politician touting the name of Christ like a slogan, he is likely doing it to appeal to a christian base! Bush, I’ll say he is not a christian because of his affiliations with Freemasonry and Skull and Bones. These are occultic groups who deny their allegiance to the God of the bible to attain the highest degrees. Twisted but true. 4th: Don’t be so quick to assume that you have it all figured out. You don’t think that the matter is so simplistic, do you? That you, with very little study or effort have just looked around you, accepted what you have been taught by your dad, beefed up your anger, thought about all the flaws related to religion, grouped all religions into one cluster, and just like that, you are the know it all athiest come to save the day. Right. You have not begun to scratch the surface of the depth of this matter. Did you ever consider that all the athiests that you are reading may not know what they are talking about? Yet you study their words religiously to strengthen your position on a matter that you or them know nothing about. Now don’t just read that last phrase I just wrote and get mad. Stop and think about that for a moment. Really think about it. So here is the last of my points for right now. 5th: Christianity is not the angry protestors, aggressive and angry political activists, politicians, catholic hierarchy, etc, etc, etc. It is about the reconciliation of sinful man to a holy and perfect God. A God who loves his fallen creation so much that He fulfilled the requirements of His law, in our stead, in order to give us a chance to live and be restored to perfection so we can be in relationship with Him again. What great love. The call of christianity is to share that message with everyone. Anything else is just uncivilized. No seriously, it is that simple. As a christian, we are to become more like Christ and emulate His example and share the good news with everyone. One more thing I have to mention, Jesus is a real person. Historically, this is a reality. The gospels are well supported historically with extra-biblical evidence of His existance as well. So calm down with all the anger so you can think!!! This is not a joke in case you have not realized it. Ask yourself have you been decieved? Were your teachers right? I would be in the positions of Christians who gave up their faith if I did not study and get to know God through His word. So take another look. If you are right, you will only strengthen your position. If you are wrong, then you will beging to see some flaws in your way of thinking. Wow, this reply is like a blog within itself. I wonder if you will actually allow it to be posted?
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JB

October 17, 2007 at 1:00 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

It’s a pity your mother didn’t have an abortion. Go to hell!
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Reynvaan

October 17, 2007 at 1:19 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

As a religious person, I would like to first congratulate you. Never before have I seen such a list as this laid out so thoughtfully and professionally, while maintaining its writer’s passion. Very well done.
Second, I would like to apologize. While I obviously can’t speak for anyone but myself, I would like to make it known that some of us religious folk are trying very hard to move away from the kinds of things you listed here. It grieves and angers me that such a list ever even had to be made, but I can totally understand and sympathize with most of your points. Though to be fair, I must admit that I know a total of about 4 people apart from myself who still consider me to be religious. Most people just call me “spiritual”, “philosophical”, or “confused”, terms I hate more than almost anything. They say I have moved too far from “THE CHURCH” to be a Christian specifically (my views are Christian-based with added Hindu, “Eastern”, and maybe Gnostic elements), and too close to logic to be religious in general (I fully accept evolution and support gay rights).
Be that as it may, I still consider myself religious, and I cannot apologize profusely enough for the way “my people” and I have treated the rest of the world throughout history.
By all means, stay angry. Without anger, I never would have broken out of the mold of evangelical conservative Protestantism, and instead of this I would probably be blogging about the “crazy atheist hell-spawn whose anti-Jesus ramblings are destroying this blessed Nation from the inside”. So stay mad!
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Russell

October 17, 2007 at 1:45 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

What is it that atheists want? Is a question posed in one of the comments, and apparently if you listen to the current book publishing atheists, they would seem to want to be angry. However if you read them right, they are actually angry at stupidity more that anything else. Many groups are stupid as a collective, if not the majority or them, the masses are asses is a quote that comes to mind, and Iâm sure a mass of atheists would not be very much different. This isnât so much a war between theists and atheists; itâs a war between educated and non-educated people. When it becomes as polarized as it is today, individual voices are drowned out, and the voice of reason takes on water. I appreciate what Harris, Dawkins, and Hitchens are doing, however I think itâs time they got back to their respective fields while they still have their day jobs, this seems to be consuming them and they will suffer a lack of respect among their colleagues.
Itâs okay to be angry, as long as we keep our heads and not resort to the tactics of the uneducated.
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Anthony

October 17, 2007 at 1:54 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Epic post. You win the gold medal.
Ever think that mainstreaming atheism and throwing off the chains of religious bullshit (in all regards, but we can start small) is our generation’s contribution to the future?
I do.
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T0dK0n

October 17, 2007 at 2:05 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Incredible article, Greta. Just found your wonderful blog. Couldn’t have said it better myself. I can’t fucking stand Christians/Catholics, organized religion of any sort. I was “baptized Catholic” when I was born and put into a Catechism every Wednesday until I was in 8th grade. I actually believed in their shit up until I grew a brain when I was 10 and started questioning their motifs. People would pump fear into me, say everything I did was sinful, all that bullshit. The hate grew stronger and stronger. I was displeased that I had to go through all that bullshit. My parents claim to be “falling Catholics”, but really, they’re just agnostic motherfuckers. And I can’t fucking stand that they say I’m a Catholic, just because I was baptized. I don’t believe in that bullshit, I don’t identify with it. Now, I’m 18, ready to vote and change our little shit hole into a better place, to get religion out of fucking state, even if it takes more then a lifetime.
By the way, although, I agree with pretty much everything you said. But the Nihilist statement “”Atheism is a nihilistic philosophy, with no joy or meaning to life and no basis for morality or ethics”… when if they spent ten minutes in the atheist blogosphere, they would discover countless atheists who experience great joy and meaning in their lives, and are intensely concerned about right and wrong.” I mean, I myself am very interested in Nihilism, but I still enjoy life and live it to the fullest. But, I don’t really see any meaning at all to life. We’re here, this is our lives. But fuck being gloomy and depressed about it being meaningless. Might as well enjoy it and get the most out of life as you possibly can. Take every opportunity you can get. Hmm, but perhaps, I’m not really a nihilist. I’m just myself.
Thank you ,
Ian.
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name only

October 17, 2007 at 2:12 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Blaming religion for all the ills of the world is a little like blaming the weapon for a murder. It isn’t the knife that killed but the person wielding the knife.
I am angered by much of the same things that anger you about “religion”,pedophilia,thievery,slavery,the inquisition et al.. The problem is not the faith of the believer,but the wielding of that faith like a sledge hammer. The biggest problem, as I see it, is the intolerance of the religious elite, you spoke of. The religious “elite” of the world are indeed dangerous. It was the intolerance of the religious “elite” that sentenced Jesus to death. My religion is based on faith and nothing more. I gave up paying attention to the elitists when I figured out none of them really get it. I try my best everyday to live my life according to the teachings of Jesus and no one else. I don’t claim to have an answer for the rhetoric about creationism vs evolution. It doesn’t matter. I don’t have prove or disprove either one to have Faith in Christ and who he was and what he did, for me and you. I understand your anger and on behalf of all Christians I’m sorry for the intolerant behavior you have experienced at the hands of misguided and uninformed pseudo- Christian elitists and their followers. Please forgive us.
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rowan

October 17, 2007 at 2:21 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Amen!
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Commonsensekid

October 17, 2007 at 2:28 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

~~~RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD~~~
TAOISM > Shit Happens.
SUFISM > Shit Let’s Dance!
SHINTOISM > Shitting Now.
LUTHERN> Divided Up Shit.
JANSENISM > Shit letâs will it.
UNITARIAN > Whatâs This Shit?
BAPTIST > Let’s Roll In This Shit.
ATHEIST > I Don’t Believe That Shit.
CHURCH OF GOD > Shit’s Out There.
URANTIA > Can You Believe This Shit?
AGNOSTIC > I Believe Some Shit Stinks.
CHRISTIANITY > He Died For This Shit?
HINDUISM > This Shit Happened Before.
ISLAM > If Shit Happens, Take A Hostage.
Protestants> Our Shits is better than theirs.
ZEN > What Is The Sound Of Shit Happening?
CATHOLICISM > If Shit Happens, we Deserve It.
TV AVENGELEST> We Want Your Monetary Shit.
MORMON > Shit Happens Again & Again & Again.
EVANGELACALES> Faith Will Heal Your Shitter.
BUDDHISM > When Shit Happens, Is It Really Shit?
7TH DAY ADVENTIST > Shit Happens On Saturdays.
CONFUCIANISM > Confucius Say, “Shit Will Happen”.
JUDAISM > Why Does This Shit Always Happen To Me?
JEHOVAHâs Witness > Knock Knock “Shit’s Happening”.
HARE KRISHNA > Shave your Head So Shit Can’t Happen.
RASTAFARIANISM > Let’s Smoke This Sticky Cannabis Shit.
COMMONSENSE > Only You Dude, Can Stinking Shit Yourself
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Zoheb Raza

October 17, 2007 at 3:00 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Nicely written, thanks for that.
Btw in England gay couples can have a civil ceremony.
261

WATCH THIS MOVIE

October 17, 2007 at 3:04 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

if ya liked this kind of truth, watch this video if you havent all read.. http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/
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Anonymous

October 17, 2007 at 3:18 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Incredible, it’s nice to have the most relevant of points and arguments displayed in such a coherent and correct blog. Thank you!
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Ken

October 17, 2007 at 3:30 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Greta,
Your treatise on “Atheists and Anger” was superb!
Ken
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Ken

October 17, 2007 at 3:33 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Greta,
Your treatise on “Atheists and Anger” was superb!
Ken
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James Galloway

October 17, 2007 at 3:38 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Thank you for this article. I was prepared (as a believer) to âget angryâ reading it. Instead,
I found a person angered by many of the same things that anger me,
like “cosmic shopping list” praying.
âAnd I get angry when other believers insist that the cosmic shopping list isn’t what religion and prayer are really about; that their own sophisticated theology is the true understanding of God. I get angry when believers insist that the shopping list is a straw man, an outmoded form of religion and prayer that nobody takes seriously,âŠâ
I disagree. Some atheists refuse to listen when âsophisticatedâ believers try to explain their beliefs, ignore us, & keep right on arguing against what has become, for THAT conversation, a Straw Man with respect to THAT âsophisticatedâ believer. Do you atheists truly believe that we believers are all Fundamentalists
deep down? If so, câmonâthatâs BS and you know it.
However, if you mean that, in the USA, in terms of numbers & in terms of public power out of proportion to those numbers, many
believers are of the Fundamentalist âcosmic shoppingâ variety, I agree with you.
Why shouldnât you flay âcosmic shoppingâ if it is so prevalent in the US?
There are two phenomena going on with respect to âreligion:â
(1) a deep-seated human need to believe certain things & to control ones environment in certain ways, and
(2) whatever is âtrueâ (assuming for a moment that 100%
post-modernist doubt of âtruthâ goes too far), regardless of my âneedâ
to believe / be in control.
This, I submit, is in theory true of all humanity, every religion, and also true
of atheists, at least in theory. Whether or not some atheists, to some degree,
âunbelieveâ for irrational reasons I mention as a theoretical possibility without
pointing fingers. In my own observation of people over 54 years as a âliberalâ
believer, we all (including atheists) are irrational some of the time, some of us
(and some types of belief) more than others.
Tillich spoke of 3 âexistential threats:â (mortality, morality, & meaninglessness, or death, damnation & loneliness). Those are universal.
Add to them that life is unfair (JFKâs term) & some suffer far more than others,
& you have some people with terrific trauma going back to infancy. Such people
may be irrationally âgullible.â They may be irrationally âskeptical.â They may
be no more or less rational than anyone else. Or they may grow very wise.
If there is a God, she does not send specific woes to a person to make them wiser, but the universe(s) as a whole may be as it is because for God, it is more important that sentient life be free & independentâat riskâthan enslaved/overprotected. The author of Job thought so. That is NOT getting
God off the hook by blaming the victim. Godâif God existsâis by definition ON the hook & can never duck ultimate responsibility. If God exists, God suffers.
âI get angry when believers trumpet every good thing that’s ever been done in the name of religion….Neither side gets to have it both ways.)â
I agree â both ways.
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Ken

October 17, 2007 at 3:56 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Greta,
I decided to embellish a bit…
Your prose flows smoothly yet swiftly like a mighty river; your emotion resonates vividly and profoundly like birds chirping during a sunrise over a golden meadow; and your arguments glisten brilliantly and formidably like diamonds on an imperial crown.
You deserve to be heralded for crafting and contributing such an important and superb treatise. Bravo!
Ken
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Jason - GorillaSushi

October 17, 2007 at 4:08 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Over the last year or so I’ve found myself transitioning from “closeted atheist” to “pissed-off atheist”. It’s been really nice reading about your justifications. I hope it empowers everyone who reads it as much as it empowered and inspired me.
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Tony

October 17, 2007 at 4:22 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Repost to angry atheists….
I liked this post because it touched on so many injustices. Very good topics and intelligent views. Of course, you know me, I didn’t agree with all of it. That wouldn’t make me a true freethinker now would it?
However, I liked reading it and the author makes some very valid points. I suppose mainly that whenever something corrupt, greedy or opposing my rights pops up, there is usually some damn religious group aiding my enemy. Over the years I wonder why this is.
For the religious, I believe trying to introduce “the angry atheist” view is a tactic to discredit the atheist by giving the “appearance of evidence” to support the idea that “No God = No Happiness”. It makes me happy and disheartened both to hear this idea spread about because it means they are using defensive tactics. People only use defensive tactics when they feel they are being attacked from a worthy threat. If I were an atheist, I would take this silly tactic as a compliment.
I am not saying it isn’t a dangerous idea, only that I perceive it as progress. Why would they say anything at all unless it unsettled their belief system.
Doesn’t it say somewhere in the bible we are to question everything. If we were to take complete faith, how do you know you aren’t worshiping that false idol they wrote so much about?
Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of injustices married with religion in this world and I say be very angry at that and fight those injustices. You gotta fight for your right to party! And everything else apparently. I have a few assholes in the world in high positions of authority that I am not too keen on so I am on the same uphill battle as the author.
If we are sensible people, we can learn a little from each other. I have learned a little today from this post.
I know many non-religious people that are equally as happy (if not moreso) than the religious. So I don’t believe that all atheists or even the majority are anger-encompassed.
I have been victimized several times in my life. Sometimes deep seated faith in religion was involved and sometimes just good ole corporate greed. Sometimes dirty evil people, period. My take on this article is that it possesses many great points. But the anger seems solely placed on the religious believer and not on so many other atrocities where religion is not a factor. Maybe anger may be best used focused on one factor of human suffering. So I do not argue due to my ignorance.
I know believers that are my family and good friends (and atheists alike). These people would put their life on the line for me. They have their own religion but would never be a part of denying anyones rights or pushing their religion on you. They are good people and are for civil rights, anti-discrimination, lesbian and gay rights and yes, even legalized abortion et cetra. Of course, if they did not hold these views then they would not be true freethinkers and I would grow bored with their company and part ways.
That being said, I do believe their are many people I don’t know out there that are ignorant, closed mided idiots who should have to take a reality test to be able to vote. When I say many, I mean many! There are large groups of these sheeple and I do not like that. I don’t like that these blind idiots are forcing political agendas for their beliefs in their religion. I don’t like that politicians are going along and fanning the flames and using this blind faith approach for political gain. I don’t like blind faith over lack of common questioning of things.
I am agnostic and happy with this label. I am no better than any other label. I think I am only better at thinking than certain individuals. My ideas are my business and will be pushed onto noone. I only talk of my views as philosophical discussion. To improve ideas and possibly enlighten or be enlightened myself. I am not so rigid, but rigid enough.
I see the problem with the religious right emerging slowly over the past 10 to 15 years. I don’t like it at all. Influencing laws and politics. We have freedom of religion and separation of church and state. These laws need to be enforced. Get your damn church out of our state affairs.
Although not religious myself, I believe greatly in spiritual growth and becoming a stronger, better person as we go through life. This takes discipline and the acceptance of pain. Sometimes this pain is in the mind because we have to alter our ideas about a faulty religious belief or accepting this god thing to be a possibilty. I want to make it clear that I do not connect god belief to any religious beliefs.
“Random thoughts about my definition of god. And I do believe in my version of god”. It is my right under the first amendment.
I don’t really know, I guess I think of god as a force sort of like in star wars. I think god is not all powerful and is maybe a force struggling in the universe to survive and stay alive in a difficult environment we call the known universe. I think god and the devil might be the same thing. Not as deities but as forces interconnected. Sometimes I think maybe god needs our help and we were sent here as tiny little cells to evolve and become a manifestation so that god could live on. I don’t think heaven or hell exists and I don’t think I am being watched over to see if I do the right thing or not. I don’t know this and I have no facts to back up my ideas. What I do have is the right to hold these ideas as an everchanging philosophy according to my life experiences and the teachings of the sciences. I do not think god loves or hates me. I think it is in a different realm that may be impossible for the human cortex to grasp. I do understand science and I understand the limitations. I can attribute missing pieces of science to the unknown but not to religion by default. In my world, god is undefined. Ambiguous.
Live in the world, learn all you can, question everything and encourage people to think for themselves and fight for their rights. Teach children to do the same,how, when and most importantly why.
Our allies are not always bound by religion, political affilliation, race, sex, or any other label or group. We have true freethinkers, freethinker posers, non-thinkers (sheeple), and the worst of all, the freethinker who uses this ability as a tool to manipulate and oppress all others for power and personal gain or satisfaction at any cost. Sheeple usually follow these types. This is the mental illness I am concerned with and am taking steps to extinguish from our society.
Just a few thoughts,
Tony
269

Religious Fanatic

October 17, 2007 at 4:34 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

You should NOT be regarded as a citizen, NOT be regarded as patriotic, NOT be able to serve on juries, NOT be able to testify in court and NOT be able to hold public office.
You said it right sister, “This is one nation under God.” Accept it or fucking LEAVE, you little snit!
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Religious Fanatic

October 17, 2007 at 5:12 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Sure, my comment is removed. I’m fucking angry because MY freedom of speech has been denied!
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Heather

October 17, 2007 at 5:53 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Great comments. I wish I had the guts to send this link to all my friends who are always emailing me their little religous stories. That’s the thing I get angry about. My friends wouldn’t be my freinds anymore if I did but I have to tolerate their religon while they won’t tolerate mine. Sucks.
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Robbo

October 17, 2007 at 5:57 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Greta
Thank you so much for that. Sputtering inarticulate rage that was not – it was well focused, like a laser, and powerfully fueled with your (ours) vehement rejection of the idle minded forces which plague us.
Big hugs to you and yours. Let the rage out like this and it won’t kill you. It will make the world a better place. And for that, again, I thank you.
Cheers.
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Billy Wilson

October 17, 2007 at 6:28 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

You are a very angry man. I have as many reasons (or more) to be angry by the way Christians are treated now-a-days but I am a grown up and intelligent enough not to let silly things get me so angry. Much of what you have said is simply opinion and much more is greatly exaggerated. Get a life…next week we’ll work on living it. Then maybe you’ll have some purpose in life for a cahnge and not be so preoccupied by these silly little things that have you so angry.
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Steve Forti

October 17, 2007 at 6:38 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Excellent. Thank you for writing this.
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Richard HUnnicutt II

October 17, 2007 at 6:39 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Wow. Very impressive, and informative, rant. I feel you have every right to believe however you choose, and to be angry when you are stifled. I am a Christian, and believe that God gave you that right. I also do not believe THIS COUNTRY has any right to yea or nay gay marriage, or abortion. That being said, if asked by a polotician, or in the form of a vote, I will always try to prevent what I see as sin. This is my right. If I am in the majority, it becomes law. That is how democracies and republics are supposed to work. I am not sure (I am not real computer savvy), but if you can read my email address, please feel free to contact me. I would enjoy ‘talking’ with you! You seem very intelligent, informed and oppinionated! These are GREAT characteristics in a pen-pal. An athiest friend sent me the link here to help answer some of the questions I plague him with. I try very hard not to argue points based on emotion, but on evidence. I also enjoy the deeper discussions of religion just as discussions, not arguments that need to be won. You blog thingy was so long, I couldn’t begin to answer it all. Much of it I agree with, or at least acknowledge your point. You should have rights. I just want to make sure my children learn what I BELIEVE TO BE THE TRUTH, the same as you would want your children to learn your beliefs. The decision is ultimately theirs, but I will not stand idly by while my child is force-fed concepts that can’t work, like evolution [feel free to discuss this with me, it's one of my favorites!]. I don’t tell the school not to teach it. I just discuss my beliefs with my children and let them be prepared to make their own judgement. All Christians are human, which means we all make mistakes. We shouldn’t ever judge (sin), or hate (sin), or threaten violence (sin). But we also shouldn’t worry (sin) or fear (sin) or… smoke cigarettes (pack a day here). I will never be all that a Christian should, but if you would like to debate (honestly and not argumentatively) your ideas with mine, i would be honored.
I have 6 children, 4 girls and 2 boys. Your opinions, insights, and experience will help me understand some of what they will go through in public school system. Write me sometime, ok?
God Bless you. Sincerely.
276

Larry

October 17, 2007 at 6:40 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Here’s a moral question..What is better, to kill people and worship God, or to kill God and worship people? I choose the latter. I think people should believe in what we experience through our 5 senses, meaning hard transportable proof, over things that were written by men with agendas a very long time ago. If there ever was a God who knew all, and since he supposedly created us, then he himself (or herself) shouldn’t punish us for his own creation. God created everything and that includes anti God sentiments too. It just reveals hypocrisy, something which when I encounter it in life, I have to attack it. I propose that whatever created all there is, it was created in the simplest of forms and evolved from there on it’s own. We weren’t dropped here fully formed, there’s way too much hard proof to support that tenet. I always like to ask religious people if they think that there is other intelligent life in the cosmos, and if so, do they believe in Jesus too? That’s so preposterous. We can’t even agree on this planet about the identity of God. If all the people in the world believed in the same exact God with the same exact interpretation, I might give it some credence, but there are just so many different religions, which one is right? I think that they are all wrong. I will continue to listen to the scientists that have hard irrefutable proof about how we arrived here, thank you very much. Thanks for articulating so eloquently the feelings I and so many others have.
277

TG

October 17, 2007 at 6:42 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Atheist anger is understandable. And if it spurs atheists to action, fine. The question is whether it makes believers more or less apt to listen to what we’re actually saying. Are Democrats more apt to listen to what Republicans are saying when said Republicans are angry? Or vice-versa? Are kids more apt to listen to their parents when the parents express themselves with anger? And so on.
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Steve

October 17, 2007 at 6:59 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Some good points, but I see little anger directed against the most irrational manifestation of religion today, Islam. Could it be that our bold little ranter is afraid because radical Christians may make threats, radical Islamists actually carry them out.
279

Doug

October 17, 2007 at 7:00 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Hmmm. I suppose it would be pretty easy to write a similar article about all the evil and pain in the world that has been delievered at the hands of atheists, then juxtapose that against all the good that has been done by the hands of people of faith. As one of those people who find great meaning in a life of faith, I’ll say with this author that the vast majority of the items she mentions make me angry (and/or embarrassed) too. But their existence doesn’t make faith irrelevant. Based on some of the posts here, I’d say there’s a fair share of hostile, sarcastic, and maybe even violent people “without” faith. Is that the alternative? Of course not.
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Doug

October 17, 2007 at 7:04 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

One asked: What is better, to kill people and worship God, or to kill God and worship people? I choose the latter.
My comment: Who said those were the only two options? Try this instead: Kill no one. Worship God. Try hard to love people who are different than you, even if they are conservatives, or liberals.
If we’re going to preach the gospel of tolerance, we need to tolerate people on both sides of the middle.
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allan pochop

October 17, 2007 at 7:40 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Religion emergence of the concept that everthing in the universe has a single all-encompassing explanation. From this point forward all was interperted to have a purpose.
The purpose of (religion) beliving in a purpose was to mitigate the fear of the unknown, the incomprehensible, and the unpredicatable that has stalked man’s steps since the beginning.
The mepaphysical continued to be involded to explain the physical, because there was no other way.
When belief in purpose was added, faith took on form & structure. A theology began to develop. Religion seperated from superstition.
Science will never replace mythology. But people need to analyze the knowledge. That can be validated by evidence acceptable to an intellect trained in the dispassionate methods of experiment and induction.
Religion is the reluctant fellow traveler of superstition, and science attempts to disown then both, in vain.
282

respect, anyone?

October 17, 2007 at 7:42 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

All I have to say is…You have come across some pretty shitty Christians. Before painting the broad stroke of sterotyping hate-speech, get to know some Jesus-followers beyond those you read about. People who write things like this scare me because it reminds me of a great Jew-hater who was just as angry by the potential takeover of the world by Jews. He and his gangsters slaughtered millions in the end, but their angry protests started out just as subtle as blog-mania. The true Jesus-followers I respect don’t look like your broad generalizations. You would want to be their friends. And you would want them caring for you when you’re sick or poor. You would want them watching your children. Get to know some – you might be surprised.
283

Ezekiel David

October 17, 2007 at 7:43 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I’ve never read your blog before, but I certainly will start reading it regularly starting right away. Just a couple things to add to the list (from my personal standbpoint of course):
Iâm angry when I tell people that I donât believe in a god, any gods, at all, and they respond by saying: âoh me too, other than, I believe there is Truth/Spirit/Goodness running through us/guiding the worldâ As though somehow the fact that we both donât believe in a literal interpretation of the bible makes us the same, and that they then assume that I DO believe in some silly mist that just floats around, making people do good things…
Relatedly, I’m angry that people assume that good people must have *some* sort of belief in *some* type of god-like thing, even if said person has explicitly stated that they do not. Like somehow not being an asshole/actively striving to be good becomes proof that you are spiritual/religious.
Iâm angry that a person can get more legitimacy in their quest to do good if they coat it with religion, Iâm angry that growing up I actually had reason to think: âwell, maybe I can become a nun and just never tell them that I donât believe in their godâ in order to find a way to be able to decry injustice.
284

Anonymous

October 17, 2007 at 8:01 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

You are angry!
285

Stacy

October 17, 2007 at 8:16 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Beautiful. I couldn’t have said it better. I’ve read it 3 times already and I’m still astounded. I love your anger and your passion. I couldn’t try to begin to replicate this in my own words, so I’ve linked my readers to your post.
286

RPhil

October 17, 2007 at 8:18 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Dear so called atheists,
please realise that we are humanists, not necessarily atheists.
We are responsible to our ourselves and our peers. Theism is not the norm.
We should not deny other human beings their right to warship whatever they fancy. Neither will we accept judgement based upon believes.
Moral values are human norms for human life.
Greta should not bow to ahumans and be angry.
Don’t worry Greta, be happy!
287

Anton

October 17, 2007 at 8:32 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

There’s some legitimacy to what you’re saying, but not much. The great irony of ‘angry atheists’ is that in saying, and I quote from many of the comments, “DEATH TO RELIGION”, “Religion is evil”, etc. It’s illuminating that in seeking a live and let live mentality, you adopt the very mentality that you claim to detest. You’re of course free to say whatever you want, but your credibility is diminished by those who keep badmouthing religion and those who are religious.
“Everytime I see a religious [person] I feel like spitting in their eye?” (from the comments) Really? That’s pretty sad, and you must be angry a lot.
I’m Christian, but I have no problem with Atheists. Live and let live is my philosophy. Should the US government be as religious as it is under Pres. Bush? Of course not. Have atheists been discriminated against, been harassed, had horrible things happen to them? Of course they have. But so have all minorities in one way or another. So many of your examples of why you’re angry are responses to individual viewpoints.
Being angry at religion? Of course it’s your right; more power to you. But the world is over 90% religious, and like it or not religion permeates a lot of people’s lives. It serves for a lot of people as a source of comfort, as a source of faith, as a source of happiness. And yes, a lot of bad has been done in the name of religion. But if you are incapable of understanding fundamentally why religion exists, then live and let live. If you see these people as ‘ignorant’ and ‘sheep’ and ‘dumb’, that’s your right, but they get something out of religion that you don’t, and you shouldn’t disrespect them for it. Should religious people be saying these terrible things about atheists (for example that they caused 9/11)? Of course not, but the other side of coin applies just as well to you.
As an atheist, by definition, you do not understand why people are religious. To blanketly state that religion does more harm than good kind of misses the point. I commend and applaud your viewpoint, but it’s what you have chosen to believe in. Want to be angry about it, fine, but this generalized attack on religion is silly. Obviously this is a very one-sided comment board, but I just wanted to give the other perspective. I don’t write this to offend or attack anyone, but simply to offer another perspective.
288

Jack

October 17, 2007 at 8:55 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Nice post. I like it.
Says the polytheist. )
289

willottica

October 17, 2007 at 9:00 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I’d liken religion to belief in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy. A harmless belief that can provide some joy to children. But there comes a time when all children have to grow up and realize that Santa isn’t real, that it’s your parents who put all those gifts under the tree (or by the fireplace).
It’s when you take that belief in Santa Claus, and let it affect other areas of your life — for instance, attempting to get airlines to stop flights on Christmas Eve to avoid potential collisions with Reindeer — you take the harmlessness out of it and can become a serious liability to society.
I have yet to have a single person tell me WHY homosexuality is immoral. I’ve gotten the “It’s not natural” argument — which is disproved by nature. I’ve gotten the “It can’t lead to procreation” argument, but if sex is only supposed to be for pro-creation, the Catholic church should also be against the rhythm method (not just barrier methods) of birth control; logical extension of “it can’t lead to procreation” restricts sexual acts to 4 or 5 times in a lifetime, unless you want a really big family, and might even see it banned completely, given that science can circumvent the whole process now anyway.
The ‘only for procreation’ argument could also be extended to food being ‘only for nutrition’, which would make eating potato chips, candy, spices, etc. all immoral — many of which do much more harm than the healthy exercise achieved through sexual intercourse.
I too, could go on for days… and I am in favour of religion. I think it fills a valuable niche, but only if its followers are able to question and selectively ignore parts of doctrine that make no sense and/or are actually harmful.
290

Uncle Nappy

October 17, 2007 at 9:01 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Anger is not healthy…atheist or not. Am I supposed to be angry because I was born black? I carried that badge too long. I will never let anyone dictate how I feel or think. I became just as bad as the ones that egged my house, tore up my yard and shot at me.
Historically, some of the greastest “Christians” were also sexist and racist in the name of religion. I can’t be angry at them, I have a relationship with God and realize that they are human just like I am. They may hide behind religion to express their true ugly nature, but God is love and I know He isn’t “cool” with that.
The Bible says that others are to know that “we” are Christians by our love. I sometimes go to extremes because of love, but rarely do people get angry. Although I don’t treat life and death issues lightly,
I would never argue with an athiest about there belief, but if my faith depended on the actions of the Christians from my past, I would be an athiest also. I choose to look at God and not the sometimes idiot representatives that forget that we are to be known by our love.
Uncle Nappy
291

Liz

October 17, 2007 at 9:16 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Preach it sister!
292

zach

October 17, 2007 at 10:06 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore:

Brilliant post, thank you for writing it.
293

mad marcher

October 17, 2007 at 10:21 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

God does want my team to win march madness. Its those Devils (usually Blue) that frequently get in the way of God’s righteous plans (God often picks the same team as me in the heaven pool).
294

Believer

October 17, 2007 at 10:24 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

You sound angry, dude. Just remember, despite your anger and hostility, Jesus still died for you and still loves you. He’s forgiving that way. If you had just a tiny piece of that in your own life, you could forgive, as well, and get on with your life. God Bless.
295

Believer

October 17, 2007 at 10:24 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

You sound angry, dude. Just remember, despite your anger and hostility, Jesus still died for you and still loves you. He’s forgiving that way. If you had just a tiny piece of that in your own life, you could forgive, as well, and get on with your life. God Bless.
296

DaiMac

October 17, 2007 at 10:29 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Got linked this post from this thread on Kotaku.com:
http://kotaku.com/gaming/night-note/whats-with-the-narnia-hate-311757.php
never been here before, but I really enjoyed this piece, and will definitely be coming back in the future.
Also, thanks for shout out for Blankets, that comic rocks.
297

Steven

October 17, 2007 at 10:42 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Well thought out ideas? They are one liner attacks on an what are overall isolated incidents. One could easily counter and provide extremely similar arguments that point out flaws in atheism and horrible deeds which they did.
Each faction of society has its zealots and sheep. I see many here. I don’t deny that they exist in religious sects too – God knows we’re teeming with them. But do you see what is happening here? One person is spouting rhetoric and others are eating it up. This happens in all realms where the uninformed are, be it theistic or otherwise.
I would be much more impressed to hear, why, how this information came about, some history of the situation, and proof that this is a problem shared uniquely and universally by people of faith. The fact of the matter is that its not.
While I understand and quite honestly agree with most of the points, I feel its like saying all black people are subhuman because one robbed this guy, another was shooting, one was doing crack while another led people to rioting and looting. Its absurd and an elementary argument.
298

Peter Canadian

October 17, 2007 at 11:07 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Great article, well spoken. And what a nice bunch of posts! No bickering and kabitzing! No names and insults! What? I thought all we atheists were angry!!
Especial thanks to the Methodist who read with an open mind.
299

kellbelle1020

October 17, 2007 at 11:24 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

“what women do you know who would submit to their husband if they had a man of utter integrity who provided for her, served her, served others, and made her feel more loved than humanly possible?”
A man of utter integrity? I defy you to show me one that actually exists. And, no, that’s not coming from a man-hating perspective. It’s coming from an all humans are flawed perspective.
“Probably all of them… And I don’t mean submitted in the context you are familiar with, but submit as in allow him to lead, be apart of him.”
Not me. I want a partner, not a leader. I wouldn’t submit to a man of integrity, much less a real, human, flawed man.
And I have read the Bible. All of it. More than once.
300

PhillyChief

October 17, 2007 at 12:36 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Great rant.
It took until 1997 to force South Carolina to allow an atheist for public office
http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/silverman.htm
6 other states still have the requirement but don’t enforce it. If this was brought up already, I apologize .
301

Monument

October 17, 2007 at 1:13 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Still censoring posts I see, that makes me angry.
302

Adam

October 17, 2007 at 1:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I don’t know what any of that has to do with my faith, beliefs in Christ, or my local Church, so well done! I hope after all that venting you and your fellow atheists feel a little bit better because adding to the anger in this world probably isn’t going to amount to anything good.
That was a fun rant to read (I’ll probably continue to check in on your blog, good job!) and I thought about refuting every argument you made, but its already been done. The answers are out there, I entrust people to find them and to constantly verse themselves in deeper arguments and understandings of what they believe and what they ‘think’ they oppose.
Obviously you oppose religion, but given the unsubstantiated arguments presented in a slanted context you could just as well be a Christian mocking the lack of intellectual depth to more critically blemish the ideologies behind religion and faith.
Instead, I will impart to you a principle of my faith in the face of your anger and extreme distaste for my faith and beliefs:
God Bless you! Jesus loves you and I along with many Christians around the world pray for your health and well-being!
303

alphadog

October 17, 2007 at 1:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I live in the South and frequently hear innocent remarks such as “My son went to the dentist, a good Christian man.” This is so annoying because it implies that any non-Christian is not good, ethical, or morally responsible.
304

sailor

October 17, 2007 at 1:49 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I don’t what GOD actually is and I certainly don’t know how HE/IT or whatever affects our lives. I am sure you do not either.
The comments you have show that you really haven’t thought about the real question in all of this. It is what is GOD?
I have come to the conclusion that GOD is the force of all those who believe in a higher power, whether it be man-like in appearance or merely collective will of the believers. GOD may be a thing, event or being…
The next question is what is an athieist? One who does not believe in GOD?
Hey, I don’t believe in abortion but I am not going to write a blog about it. If you don’t believe, then don’t believe. I am angry that you feel you need to evangelize you beliefs…why do you need to do that? Because only you are right? You are only pointing out your own flaws by speaking out. You have nothing to fear from true christians…and be advised those who run churchs are no more holy than myself. Their mistakes and wrong doings are theirs. The Church is a group of people gathered together to worship GOD, nothing more and nothing less.
I am angry that you feel so put out by us “holy rollers” that you need to attack us. Why is that?
You have given many examples about the actions you perceive as against you, when in fact you blaming an entire group for the actions of one.
If you don’t believe, then don’t.
Atheism is not a religion so don’t treat it like one, you are being mislead most likely for the benefit of others…whether that be what we might call Satan or just an evil person. Satan doesn’t hang around the bars and strip clubs, he hangs around the front door of the church, he wants to destroy those whose main goal is love…what is your goal?
Think it over…how many of your words are truely your own?
305

Beth Leonard

October 17, 2007 at 1:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Good post about the things that make you angry and why that anger can motivate you and others to social change.
Anger may motivate people to join a social movement, but to effect change at some point the leaders have to set aside their anger and come up with a reasonable plan and set of goals, not gripes.
Few things cause a person to become defensive more than an angry person charging at them. That’s not the place for reasoned discussion “kill them with kindness” communication and perceived changes to take place.
If anger gets you motivated to think about changing something, great. If that’s how you think you are going to make changes, I recommend you re-think it a little bit.
…
On Christians — consider for a moment how parents are treated in the news media. If you wanted to learn about parenting in America and looked to the news for your sources, you would conclude that 90% of parents abuse or murder their children, and the other 10% merely use their children to live out their own fantasies. Normal parents, good parents, don’t make the news. Yet there are a lot of them out there.
I believe it is the same way with religion, from Christianity to Islam, and even a few fundraising Buddhist monks in between. Only the negative stories make the press. So if it is the press that makes you angry, when talking to a real person about these issues keep in mind that they are not the press.
Don’t take all your anger out on them, because just as there are far more good parents than reported in the news, there are far more reasonable religious people than get coverage in the press. If you condemn each one for the transgressions of all the others you’ve heard about it will be very difficult for you to ever live in peace with your religious neighbors.
–Beth
306

Apollo Lee

October 17, 2007 at 2:02 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

This is such a great essay. Your anger is justified. Your points are very articulate and I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve said similar things to well-meaning believers who feel the need to proselytize their fairy tales and/or make their personal mythology public policy.
Thanks for writing it.
307

todAnthony

October 17, 2007 at 2:07 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Waahhh Wahhhhhh I’m angry…. SO WHAT? What does it matter. You don’t believe in anything anyways so in the end, what does your anger mean?
Why don’t you get down off your cross and use the wood to build a bridge and get over it.
308

Bee

October 17, 2007 at 2:09 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I’d like to say good job. And someone commented ” See, Christianity is about believing by faith that God created us, sent his son to die for our sins, etc (I’m sure you know the rest)
”
One thing I’d like to say is Catholics are the only ones that believe that God had a son and sent him down to save us.
Two Christians do put alot of pressure on others to believe in God. They say they’re open minded but they aren’t. I spend almost everyday in a catholic school. I know how it is. No one knows I’m athiest and therefore that doesn’t matter at all. I still am pressured.
About the pope. Catholics don’t need him to have a personal relationship with God but they pretty much litsen to practically everything he says. You say jump…they’ll say when.
I mean there is more to Christianity than a bunch of hypocrites but not enough for it to matter.
309

Sian

October 17, 2007 at 2:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

You’re my new hero.
Thank you.
310

Dave McDave

October 17, 2007 at 2:22 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Reasons for being angry? And you didn’t mention that god hates amputees:
http://www.whydoesgodhateamputees.com/
I’d say that was a fairly good reason
311

Jesus Freak

October 17, 2007 at 2:46 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

TLDR
312

Jakykong

October 17, 2007 at 2:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I can say that I am Christian, and I’ll let it out right now that I agree entirely with everthing you said in this paper. There is only one church I’ve ever been to that I haven’t been angry at, and that is primarily because they are tolerant — of Atheists, of Muslims, of Buddhists, etc. If it isn’t a church’s job to appeal to their congregation and attract people not in their congregation, what, exactly, is the point of a church?
The problem is that too many people think they can entirely understand God, and too many people think they aren’t susceptible or required to abide by the same things any other person is. The prototypical example of this is my aunt — who will yell at her daughter “Stop swearing, Damn it!” This is basically what religions (frankly, Christianity in particular in this country) are doing.
I don’t mean to sound like I speak for everyone. I hold the belief firmly that everyone has a right to search for their own meaning in life (or in death, as the case may be), and as long as you aren’t interfering with anyone else’s right to do that (sharing religion and forcing it on someone are entirely different — the church in general usually does the latter), I have no problem with anyone.
I have a problem with the church. The same problem you do. Perhaps the bigger problem is that people are NOT questioning what they believe, as you have.
313

Van

October 17, 2007 at 3:04 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I think I love you.
314

Steven Alleyn

October 17, 2007 at 3:17 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

As promised, I drew up a bit of a response to this on my own blog. Thanks again for writing this.
315

mdb

October 17, 2007 at 3:19 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Well said! Thank you for taking the time to write this out and find relevant pictures.
Just letting you know that you aren’t the only angry atheist out there..
316

Steven Aguirre

October 17, 2007 at 3:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I think youve watched 1 too many hitchens debates, and now you think that by regurgitating him, you’ll seem like you have an ounce of intelligence and credibility on the subject. I have news for you, whenever you meantion Atheists, dont ever use the words “We” before it, because you are not and cannot speak for a group that doesnt exist. You miss the entire freaking point of what atheism is, so i recommend you keep the emphasis on yourself and not pretend to represent atheism in any way, shape or form.
317

C.C.

October 17, 2007 at 3:48 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Right on, sister! Thanks for articulating our position so well. It’s time we atheists use this anger to make some progress and leave 2000 year old mythology behind.
318

Jake

October 17, 2007 at 3:56 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

WTF? I couldn’t even finish reading. You have personal issues as great if not greater than any Christian you attacked…
You do have some valid points, but should have thought them out and researched them even better before posting to your blog…
Maybe you should READ the Bible, not for “religious purposes” but to educate yourself, you may be amazed over how much you AND the Christians have it wrong.
Just to touch a few biblical facts (the church IS evil BTW)
Abortion IS legal and sanctioned in the bible.
What happens in the bedroom between 2 married people isn’t even God’s business.
There is no mention of homosexuality being wrong. Just the mention that if you’re NOT homosexual, and engage in those acts, that’s wrong…
It was the “Happiness of Sinning” and overall wickedness that led to the end of Sodom and Gammorah, NOT just homosexuality.
The Catholic Church has condoned condom use for some time now…
And BEST OF ALL…
You’re pissed at the Church for not letting you use a condom and then bitch about no abortions?
Baptist or Catholic? YOU’RE FUCKING WHITE!!!! I highly doubt you’re a “southren baptist” or Muslim…
Most people who are dying DO WISH to have a member of a church present, and I’m even willing to bet your fathers dying breath was in prayer. Regardless, just as you got pissed off about the question, there are those who would be upset were it not asked.
There is no pleasing everyone, and each to their own. I have accepted it and you should too. Untill you’ve done so you will continue to be an angry loser.
319

b

October 17, 2007 at 4:08 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

followed a link from goingchurching.com…
None of the things you’re angry about are necessitated by belief in God. That is, one can believe in God and also be very angry about everything you listed.
You’re anger is not for athiests alone. Share it!
320

J. J. Ramsey

October 17, 2007 at 4:09 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Ryan: “But however validated you feel your anger is, the general public won’t see it this way. Who garnered more respect: Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcom X? Until you can speak out positively and eloquently, few will listen with open minds.”
The thing is, Martin Luther King *was* angry. He channeled that anger very positively, but he was as angry at injustice as so many Old Testament prophets.
The trick is to be angry without resorting to demonization and sloppy thinking, something that the less famous atheist bloggers like Hemant Mehta and our own gracious host have been much better at than the current opinion leaders like Dawkins.
Oh, and Spanish Inquisitor, I don’t know what the legalities of including the pictures in a PDF of this blog post would be, but yeah, it would be a good thing to pass around. Seriously.
321

LM

October 17, 2007 at 4:09 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I got to this link kind of randomly, but I’m intrigued and compelled to comment.
I come from a christian family and my father is a liberal methodist minister. I have a love hate relationship with religion. I love my father and appreciate how he has presented the idea of religion to me, as something that is interesting to explore, that can do much good for people but not something that must be believed. It’s a personal preference. I also hate religion for all of the reasons you presented.
That was my background and I am now probably going to be one of those people that makes you angry. It seems as though you are angry with religious individuals and I find that a bit unfair. Throughout history people have sought answers for things they couldn’t explain and ways to deal with difficult things in their lives. Religion provides comfort and answers. It is easy for an educated individual to understand that the world may have come about by random events and it is acceptable, but for many people it is difficult to find exposure to that kind of information and more importantly, a social network that would support those ideas. I completely understand being angry toward religion, and toward people who seem willingly ignorant, but I also believe that it is important for everyone to try and understand various perspectives so that people can find common ground amid stark differences. While the bad might outweigh the good as far as religion goes, I think it might be a mute point. Until we have a world where people don’t need easy answers to cope with mystery and hardships, religion will be around and I find it difficult to be angry with religious individuals who sincerely find it comforting.
322

Steevo

October 17, 2007 at 5:35 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

If you want to be unhappy – keep being angry.
I think you’ll find it won’t help you very much.
You don’t have the right to choose for other people… otherwise you are just the same as the people/attitude you are angry with.
323

Rog

October 17, 2007 at 5:36 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

You know… even Jesus got angry once…
324

Anonymous

October 17, 2007 at 5:38 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Amen!
325

Anonymous

October 17, 2007 at 5:38 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Amen!
326

Spencer

October 17, 2007 at 5:39 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

THANK YOU.
327

mark neff

October 17, 2007 at 5:40 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Organized religion is the worst thing to happen to this world.
328

Justin T

October 17, 2007 at 5:40 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Anger is a secondary emotion. I too have much anger. Anger for intolerance in the many forms it arrives in. Anger of the daily struggle for wealth and survival. Anger for the relationships I’ve lost with others.
Under that anger… what lies beneath? A quiet acceptance of society, and a simple agreement with myself to live life by my own accord, not those set by societal norms, and a hope for the sake of having hope. Life is simply complicated.
329

Juan alcantar

October 17, 2007 at 5:42 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Amen Sister!!
I’m angry too, and for all the same reasons you describe so well, among others.
I want to ask your permision to translate your text to put it in my blog, which is in spanish.
Great post.
330

T.

October 17, 2007 at 5:44 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

You know, I feel that if I blogged a list with pictures about just how pissed off i am at society as an atheist, it would look exactly like this. I think that atheists will have their day, because I’m sure that after the “war on homosexuality” and the “war on illegal immigrants”, America will be more than willing to spend millions of dollars on eliminating education, and, by extension, any way that people would become enlightened to not having religion in their lives. I do believe that all this anger will boil over though. It’s eating away at me, but I think that anger and injustice will eventually lead to change. I will be there to make sure that those changes happen in my lifetime.
331

Joe@hopkins

October 17, 2007 at 5:46 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

You just won a new reader. A+
332

TMadsen

October 17, 2007 at 5:48 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

How about accepting the fact “GoD” is the first label ever given to the universe, and “MoM” is the most frequent first label for “GoD”.
333

Nick

October 17, 2007 at 5:49 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Bravo, although I am agnostic, I feel the same way as you about many of your points. Keep being angry and maybe someday you will cause change
334

Nick

October 17, 2007 at 5:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Bravo, although I am agnostic, I feel the same way as you about many of your points. Keep being angry and maybe someday you will cause change
335

ViperIII

October 17, 2007 at 5:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I guess I just can’t disagree even as a loosely faithful Christian (maybe it was because it was forced into my life as a child.), but I Agree almost 100%…
Most of the list of things that anger you about politics and those things I completely agree.
US wasn’t founded on God it was founded on the freedom of Religion. Just those in charge chose to be thankful to their “God” which has now given way to the Religious radicals that are consistently found almost more disgustingly horrible than those they are trying to outlaw. Molesters / Child Porn or just Hypocrites of Do as I do not as I do!
Again US is supposed to be free. Marry who you wish but don’t be angry at me. I agree with you and am not happy about many of the same issues. My voice is all I have I just notice when I yell uncontrollably that my point is lost and I am ignored.
My Advice:
Keep the Anger/Rage/Emotion
Have others Keep their Cool While Doing it! Be angry at the politicians and idoits but not your neighbor who isn’t athiest because they may well disagree with a few minor points of religion but agree on sooooo many other levels.
But to each their Own! Thx for the POST!
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Nick

October 17, 2007 at 5:51 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Bravo, although I am agnostic, I feel the same way as you about many of your points. Keep being angry and maybe someday you will cause change
337

Karmakin

October 17, 2007 at 5:51 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Very good lineup of WHY atheists are “angry”, I put it in quotation marks because a lot of it isn’t about anger, per se, it’s about concern. Massive massive amounts of concern.
And as an atheist, I’ll tell you exactly what I want. I want religion to get off its pedestal. By force if needed, but I’m more than willing to extend a hand to help it down. It’s one moral theory among many, and in my opinion in a lot of ways its deeply flawed. Even if it wasn’t flawed the favored position in society might not be a good thing.
Being religious does not make you a good person. It might. But chances are you’re a good person to begin with, and we tend to choose a theology that matches are secularly defined values. But when people can hide dangerous/assholish behavior behind religious belief? That’s not good.
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Stephen R. Friberg

October 17, 2007 at 5:54 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Sure, it is fun and very satisfying to be angry.
And it sure beats trying to understand. All those people out there believing in ways you don’t want them to? Terrible. They are bad people, and you have every right to be angry at them.
And, demonizing is great fun. Getting angry is step one to demonization. Then, bomb them. Or terrorize them. Maybe send them to concentration camps, or Abu-Ghraib.
Anger is great. After all, if you are angry at them, it must because they did something bad, and that means that you can do whatever you want to them because they are bad. Beats logic.
Anger, of course, is great for getting in touch with the higher primitive urges. Go for it!
Or not if you want to be civilized or rational.
Steve
339

Samsong

October 17, 2007 at 5:54 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Wow, I feel like such an asshole for not wanting you to go to hell. Forgive me for being offended by the fact that you’re a dick.
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John

October 17, 2007 at 5:54 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

there’s plenty to be angry about, but your article goes so far overboard that it largely loses any value it might have otherwise had. many of our fellow athiests will eat this stuff up, but keep in mind those of us who are just embarrassed by it. no offense, but this is the type of stuff that makes it easy for people to hate us.
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d

October 17, 2007 at 5:55 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

You seem to have so much more anger than reason for it, and when i read why you are angry, especially about religious parts, I’ve never heard anything come close to the claims you make, nor have I ever said any of those things. I don’t no if when you say “religious leaders” you are talking about all religious leaders or just certain groups. Also it seems like you just bunch everyone together. If i heard some of these things done by, especially catholics, i would not find that reasonable, and would side with you . Also, you cant blame giant things, like the spread of AIDS in Africa on the Catholic Church, thats just naive and stupid.
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Peter

October 17, 2007 at 5:56 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I get angry when militant Atheists are angry at Christians just for being wrong. Yes, there are things to be angry about. I am angry about Christianity a lot of the time. But being angry at Christians for being ignorant doesn’t help anyone. It certainly doesn’t help our cause.
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Halle

October 17, 2007 at 5:56 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

AMEN.
Greta, thank you for using your talent for expressing what so many of us struggle to say.
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LB

October 17, 2007 at 5:57 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

As an ultra-fundamentalist Christian (according to Wikipedia) I’d like to let you know that I agree with you on a number of areas.
I’m very disturbed by Evangelicals and there tendency to try to force others to have the same views as them. And more so, I’m bothered by the fact that they cherry pick what to belief from the Bible.
I’m even more angry about the Catholics and their persecution of other Christians. The Papacy would definitely force us at the point of a gun to worship as they tell us.
And I get angry whenever people kill in the name of religion. It’s not what Jesus would do.
When atheists vent, I tend to nod more than shake my head.
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C.J.

October 17, 2007 at 5:57 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Bravo!! That’s really all I can say. This should be printed in the Times or the Post, or somewhere where millions of people can read it.
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James Shay

October 17, 2007 at 5:58 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Oooo thank u!
That is very awesome what you wrote.
Yea my comments are all n00bish but I don’t feel like making a soliloquy haha (spelling?)
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Nick

October 17, 2007 at 5:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

You’re a very angry person. Perhaps you should find God?
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Matt

October 17, 2007 at 5:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

your pretty angry. as a semi-catholic, i could care less what u believe or dont believe in. Thats for you on your own time, as every other american should. This is the land of the free, FREE to do what i want, when i want, how i want to, and as long as i want. (with in reason…) its just a shame that some sick people have to make movements for what they believe, to press their belief on the masses.
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erik.m

October 17, 2007 at 6:01 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

This was a great post. I’ve always felt angry about what we atheists go through but I’ve always tried to ignore my feelings and go through my day. I think that I should probably be more pissed off. Thanks again for writing this post. It was very empowering.
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David Akers

October 17, 2007 at 6:01 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Please read my post before you delete it, I am being civil.
I would like to point at that I’m a Christian and I’ve never oppressed someone with my beliefs. I believe it is wrong to have abortions, and I believe homosexuality is a sin.
I cannot FORCE someone to do what is right, they have to want to do what is right.
All I can do is show them, and you, the love of Christ. I believe he died for my sins and yours, and my responsibility is but to spread this news I believe to be so miraculous and then to show you love as Christ loved me.
YIM: [email protected]
MSN: [email protected]
AIM: DeadtoSin01
Xfire: mogLDeadtoSin
If anyone needs to contact me then you may. If it offends you that I gave my contact information then I would not be upset if you edited it out.
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erik.m

October 17, 2007 at 6:01 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

This was a great post. I’ve always felt angry about what we atheists go through but I’ve always tried to ignore my feelings and go through my day. I think that I should probably be more pissed off. Thanks again for writing this post. It was very empowering.
352

Ravnwolf

October 17, 2007 at 6:03 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Very well written and very emotional. Good job.
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Nick

October 17, 2007 at 6:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Great. Now the atheists feel empowered. It’s like pissing off a bunch of pubescent teenagers and having to put up with their whining..
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dew

October 17, 2007 at 6:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I can’t stand many of the big “churches” either. Most of they aren’t “real” if you know what I mean. Especially the catholic church and a lot of those mega churches.
Most of what you hate is done by these fake people, not by what real churches or christians do.
I understand where you are coming from with all of this, because I’ve seen them do it too, and I don’t consider it christian.
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NaLalina

October 17, 2007 at 6:09 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

More reasons why some anger is valuable:
According to studies, “it appears that when distinguishing between various arguments, angry people disregard information that’s irrelevant to the quality of the argument, such as its source. Neutral subjects, however, give undue preference to those clues.” Another benefit of anger: “responding to a stressful situation with a reasonable amount of anger can make people feel more in control and more positive. (It’s worth noting that in their study, Dr. Moons and Dr. Mackie didn’t see that high level of certainty among subjects.)”
http://people.howstuffworks.com/anger-decision.htm/printable
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Ryan

October 17, 2007 at 6:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

This is the first atheist post I have read…ever. I agree with most everything this person says. I have been an atheist myself for a long time. I’ve also been angry for a long time. Religion had its time and place. The United States has evolved to the point where atheism can take hold because we can now exist without worrying about what god will do to us. There are still TONS of countries and sociologial systems that still depend on basic things like finding food and water.
Those “caveman” ideas are what promote the want and need to covet thy neighbors things. It’s called competition and power. Religion was the answer for all of this because people did not posess the self control to understand what they should and should not do. They knew it, but didn’t have anyone forcing it down their throats with consequences if they didn’t. This can be argued in an ethics class as to wether or not man is born good or bad. Those things are still up for debate as well.
If responsibility can be utilized on a day to day basis, the only reason for religion is to provide meaning and explination for the world around them. I’m not sure anyone will ever find a “meaning” for life, but for those that are not comfortable with not having one, or making up their own, they will need religion.
I, personally, would love it if religion ceased to exist (pun intended). Religious people look at me the same way I look at every single person that believes in religion. You all know that look when someone finds out you don’t believe in god. It’s like you just stepped off the deep end, and they have just lost respect for you.
The hardest thing I ever had to do was tell my in-laws that I refuse to go to church with them, because I don’t believe in god.
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Andrew

October 17, 2007 at 6:13 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I am a confirmed catholic and I understand some of your points, especially the argument about the soldiers, thats messed up.
But let me tell you what I am angry about
I am angry that every single atheist has tried to convince me that I must be stupid because I believe in God.
I am angry that atheists honestly get angry about so many people believing in God.
I am angry that you think its wrong only 45% of Americans would vote for an atheist president because its THEIR views, not yours. You cannot tell me what my views are. You can however tell me your views.
I am angry that I have a scar on the left side of my face that required 32 stitches and its all because I am catholic (I was jumped when I joined in an argument over this very topic and spent a week in the hospital alone).
I am angry at catholics, atheists, jewish, muslims, homosexuals, straights, whites, blacks, asians, mexicans, democrats, republicans, and communists because they cant accept that everyone views everything differently.
I am angry that you made claims about hating homosexuals when the bible doesn’t say that, its just what YOU BELIEVE.
I am angry that you said the Catholic school systems teach us to despise our bodies, thats not even close to true.
Mostly I am just angry at the people who shove beliefs down other peoples throats.
358

Apathetic

October 17, 2007 at 6:15 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I used to be an angry atheist – then I studied philosophy a little and realised that agnosticism was the only rational viewpoint (in my case apathetic agnosticism – I don’t know if God exists and I don’t care either way) and really I should be directing my anger at specific institutions and their actions rather than religion itself.
I do think you would be less angry if you lived in a less religious country, or even a less religious part of the US.
359

pedro

October 17, 2007 at 6:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I’m just so glad I don’t live in the US. The state of your country is just plain horrible. I can’t even imagine what it would be like if in my country a politician could not get elected for being an atheist.
A lot is being said about the stupidity of americans. Well, statistically speaking most americans believe in God and religion and stupidity correlate. The more intelligent/educated a person is the less likely he/she will believe in God/gods.
I hope one day it will be possible for an atheist to lead a normal life in the US like it is in the rest of the western world.
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Anonymous

October 17, 2007 at 6:19 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Thank you for articulating so much of what I’ve felt for so long.
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Dave

October 17, 2007 at 6:20 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Thank you! You’ve summed up many and more qualms we have with religion, not just Christianity!
And, along the lines of the medical “miracles” you might look up “Why doesn’t God heal amputees?”
Thanks again!
-Dave
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karla

October 17, 2007 at 6:20 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

yea! Thank you!
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jlm

October 17, 2007 at 6:21 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

very well said
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karla

October 17, 2007 at 6:22 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

yea! Thank you!
365

Quinn

October 17, 2007 at 6:22 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Hear hear! But the truth will continually be further brought to light. I have no problem with faith, as long as it bends to logic. And while it’s certainly one thing to be able to explain away absolute zero, atoms and Ammonites, but it will be another completely when we perpetually stave off death, live entire lives without ever setting food on Earth, and finally find irrefutable proof of living organisms that are not sourced from our planet.
366

Jake

October 17, 2007 at 6:22 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I’m angry that nature decided that religion was necessary in the first place.
I’m also angry that on the bell curve of religiocity, I am left out in the minority with all the other freethinkers, where I have to take abuse from people who do not and cannot understand what I’m telling them (usually) by no fault of their own. I mean, look at some of the replies. Talk about not understanding! No, they’re not stupid. Their brains are simply wired differently.
I’m angry that this situation we’re in will never change as long as humans are humans.
367

Curiosity

October 17, 2007 at 6:23 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Why do you want to get married so badly? Isn’t that just an institution that stems from religion? Do you feel it will insure that neither you or your partner will cheat or do you just want the tax break that badly?
368

Neutral

October 17, 2007 at 6:24 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

You’re angry at Christianity. A lot of people are. Don’t however, dirty the word atheist with your selective, incoherent and under-informed ranting. You give us a bad name.
Learn2Research. Learn some objectivity, and then you’ll be more than a pissed of blow hard.
369

OneManRevolution

October 17, 2007 at 6:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Skipped the logos and went straight for the pathos and ethos. A solid read, although it definitely preaches to the choir. Being more well-read on the elements- cognitive dissonance, Zapata’s revolution, and the like- could really bump this up to the next level. China is starting to turn to Christianity and we have to do what we can to reform America’s minds before human rights go the way of the dodo.
I call myself an Atheist for sociality’s sake, although I have been experimenting with a new religion for a while. One that celebrates the catalysts of individual and humanistic betterment and revolution and cites the constructs of original creation as the birth of sin itself. We shall celebrate what makes us human, and not who made us human, although we should do so in terms of progress. Until that comes to fruition, stay angry.
370

Levi

October 17, 2007 at 6:27 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Found this on Digg. One of the best reads I’ve had in a while!
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Brandon

October 17, 2007 at 6:27 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I’m happy and saved. Have a nice day!
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digi

October 17, 2007 at 6:29 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

As an Episcopalion preachers son, i say be angry these are valid reasons.
But know theres some good ones out there. My dad is one of the few religio leaders my roommates, all atheists, like.
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Anonymous

October 17, 2007 at 6:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

The idiot that said that Catholicism is a “very small” subset of Christianity needs to be enlightened that Catholics make up the largest subset of Christians BY FAR, with over 1 billion adherents. The next largest Christian group is the Eastern Orthodox Group with 350 million or so (another nearly 20%). What’s left are the 30% of Christians who are some form of protestant, Lutherans, Baptists, Anglicans, Mormons, Evangelists, etc.
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Jros

October 17, 2007 at 6:34 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I hear you Ryan. “Coming out” to my folks was pretty tough. And it’s still a well-guarded secret from my extended family. Perhaps that “deep-end” look is just the flickering fires of hell that they see about to swallow you up. I know my folks are just concerned for my immortal soul. My mom insists it’s just a phase. It’s been half my life so far so it must be a long one. Buy the ticket, take the ride.
375

TheWiseMan

October 17, 2007 at 6:35 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

First of all, I’d like to “thank” all the “Christians” who have shared their posts and have clearly demonstrated their “wisdom”, which is something that an atheist cannot posses. Simply put, we live in a “perfect” world. The environment is absolutely perfect for life to exist. The gravity of the earth for example is down right perfect (just right so that our mass doesn’t kill us by attempting to walk). The temperature and rate of change (seasons) is absolutely”perfect”. The human species (who was made in God’s image) is the only living species capable of using reasoning and logic to the degree that we have the capability to wonder about who our creator might be. Only an atheist would believe in evolution which believes that it is by chance (randomness) that we exist. If that were the case, the lions and tigers would have the internet and “YouTube” in the jungles by now As an electrical engineer, I have studied about the powers of our God and through wisdom and understanding have learned over the years that our world is “too” perfect to have just come into being via “randomness”. But I’m not alone since atheists are the minority because of their “random” mind-set. It is comforting to know that only a higher being could have formed and inhabited this “perfect” world that we are fortunate to exist in.
376

matty

October 17, 2007 at 6:36 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

You juxtapose atheism with religion, but this is completely inaccurate. Atheism is the belief in no higher power. Not the belief in no religion.
You’re trying hard to juxtapose atheism and religion, but this is a paradoxical position. It is a false dichotomy.
So you’re angry… great. But that doesn’t mean you have to forego logic.
377

Whocares

October 17, 2007 at 6:37 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Are you angry because god made you a bull dyke?
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Mingus T. Waits

October 17, 2007 at 6:40 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I would love to write a response to this whole blog but it is not my place. I will tell you that I feel you are getting angry at the wrong people for the wrong reasons. Religion is a safety net. God explains mystery for those that can’t reason the truth or allow the mystery of life to happen. I understand being mad at polititions because they can’t keep religion out of politics but, look at who they aim this at.
You say there is a Gallup poll that says 45% of the American population would vote for an atheist president, I say prove it. Only 64% even bothered to vote. And that was decried any way with the loser saying the vote was rigged. I am one of the losers and I say the voting has been rigged since the get go (Electoral College = rigged) so why piss and moan now. I don’t like what we got but I don’t like the voters either.
I am sorry that you can’t get married. I don’t understand why you want to though. You claim to be an athiest but you want to involve yourself in a religious (google marriage+origin) practice. Not necessarily Christian but religious. I don’t understand why the Same Sex Partners of the country don’t just simply enter into a legal partnership with their mate and invoke the benefits of that. Including; taxes (better than marriage), business discounts (not involved with marriage), reduced insurance cost (in some, not all cases). What the devil is the difference? That is all you are really talking about any way when you consider a marriage without religion. A legally recognized partnership right? You can have any kind of ceremony you want when you sign the document.
Why are you so angry at non athiests? You seem well reasoned yet, there is so much emotion and what seems like very little logic in this rant. There are facts that I cannot deny damning religions and those that push it but, there are also extenuating circumstances involved that you do not bother to mention. Why do people pray for instance? Why are Hell and damnation used to stifle those that ask questions? Why do religions teach sexuality the way they do, what circumstances surround the origins of these religions to cause such beliefs? Science begets doubt yet more advanced religions embrace science AND God, is there good reason for this and should this make you mad as well? You can’t explain how you know there is NO God, why should people explain how they know there IS a God?
Stop learning about other peoples religions if you don’t agree with them. Just let them be and fight for the causes that matter with a more dignified approach. Side step the morons (oops I mean believers) instead of trying to plow over them.
I am not saying lay down your anger or your passion. I am just saying to use it more intelligently. Make believers have to turn around and really look at your point of view only because you do it so well, not because they are forced to.
379

PassingBy

October 17, 2007 at 6:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Wow, you seem to be a sad and angry person. I’ll be sure to pray for you.
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Adrian Corscadden

October 17, 2007 at 6:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I’m angry that i’m angry….i shouldn’t have to be, but there is no other option.
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4g1vn

October 17, 2007 at 6:42 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I’d bet money that if you were ever in conflict and peril danger you would run with your tail between your legs. Why is this? Because you’re a sheep. This life is all you have and your trying to make the best run at it you can. I, on the other hand know this is only a segment of my journey. It’s amazing that God still loves you even though you won’t acknowledge Him.
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John B

October 17, 2007 at 6:42 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Greta -
Awesome post. But you’ve got bazillions of others up there who’ve said that.
I do not completely agree with you – in my opinion, anger is destructive, not constructive, and while SOME breaking down of prejudice and the like is certainly called for, there’s a point of diminishing returns where breaking society more is counterproductive.
As ugly and hateful and horrendous as society is today, it’s better than a generation ago, and that’s better than the generation before. It’s a slow, slow process, which does take anger – but it takes building more than breaking.
Sure, some well-represented behaviors today NEED breaking – but don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I wish you the best of luck with your anger and your fire and your hope for the future. As others have said – your work here is beautiful.
Sincerely,
John B
383

4g1vn

October 17, 2007 at 6:43 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I’d bet money that if you were ever in conflict and peril danger you would run with your tail between your legs. Why is this? Because you’re a sheep. This life is all you have and your trying to make the best run at it you can. I, on the other hand know this is only a segment of my journey. It’s amazing that God still loves you even though you won’t acknowledge Him.
384

Eric Gates

October 17, 2007 at 6:44 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

You are quite correct. Angry is the new smart.
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Angela

October 17, 2007 at 6:45 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Thank you for writing that amazing rant of an article. You have embodied my thoughts on all of these issues. Hopefully some non-atheists will read this and (just perhaps) learn something constructive that breaks down the barrier of misunderstanding and arrogance. I wish you well.
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Eric Gates

October 17, 2007 at 6:45 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

You are quite correct. Angry is the new smart.
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John

October 17, 2007 at 6:46 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I’M MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE!
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Adrian Corscadden

October 17, 2007 at 6:46 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

John B: First of all, I know that she wouldn’t run if there was a conflict and second of all how is she a sheep?
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Chris

October 17, 2007 at 6:47 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

You do indeed seem very angry. Please don’t confuse religious people with those that believe in some kind of god. I don’t go to church, and am not religious, but I do believe in some kind of higher power…which might be as simple as the laws of physics. Regardless, view your anger as passion. It seems a more appropiate term for the way you feel. I can’t relate on the marriage issue, but know that I’ll vote in a way that will accept such unions. I hope all is well,
C
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Adrian Corscadden

October 17, 2007 at 6:47 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

sorry, I was speaking to 4g1vn, not john B
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ben

October 17, 2007 at 6:55 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

This is a gross generalization, in the same vein as the religious right’s condemnation of atheism. It’s funny how you ignore that an act of charity in the name of God is still an act of charity.
392

Capt Grayson

October 17, 2007 at 6:56 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I was just thinking this on the way home…about how I feel angry. Not all the time, just whenever the words Christian, god, prayer and that lot crop into my life. And I started wondering shouldn’t I adopt a live and let live type of demeanor and now after reading your blog I know the answer: Fuck No. I’m a recovering alcoholic (18+yrs) and everyone assumes I must be a believer. Hey, the term is “a power greater than yourself” and that power is the combined sobriety and wisdom of everyone in that meeting room at that time. I know where my anger comes from is that for years everyone said well, you have god to thank for all that. No, I don’t. I have to thank every drunk that came before me. Thank you. I was wondering where all the righteous anger went in this country. Thanks for sharing. Permission to share on my myspace blog? Thanks.
393

eylander

October 17, 2007 at 6:56 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

A stupendous soliloquy full of strength and feeling. Perhaps there can, one day, be respect for atheists in the good ole USA (maybe even the whole world). I doubt that I or any future children of mine will live to see the day of true civility and reason.
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Jros

October 17, 2007 at 6:56 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

To TheWiseMan. I, in my job as a web designer have studied about the laws of the world, and through critical thinking and scientific process, have concluded that the world is “too perfect” NOT to have come about by randomness. What do you make of this obvious discrepancy?
395

Jaime

October 17, 2007 at 6:56 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I suffered through a terrible marriage for 2 years where my husband was verbally and physically abusive, cheated on me, and abandoned me altogether when I lost my job. I was outraged when my militantly Christian uncle implied our marital problems were my fault because I hadn’t accepted Jesus into my life, and that I needed to pray that my husband would take me back.
396

swine

October 17, 2007 at 6:57 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Rock on! Valid points all! Couldn’t have typed it better myself..especially with my typing skills…(Dyslexics of the world untie!)
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John

October 17, 2007 at 7:02 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

The civil rights movement was strongly made possibl by religious groups. Christian, Muslim and Jewish alike. The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was, as his name suggests, a minister of the Christian Church
398

Andrew

October 17, 2007 at 7:02 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Whoever said that the smarter a person is the less likely they are to belive in God is an absolute dumbass. Sorry to use such callus terms.
Every hear of Einstien? Believed in God.
I have a problem with atheists when they say “believers” are stupid or if they are young and forced to go to church they listen to there iPods during mass.
I will listen to and atheist till he looses his voice but they will not listen to what I believe?
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noel

October 17, 2007 at 7:04 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I used to be an atheist, but now I am a Catholic. I was never an angry atheist. God just did not matter. I could not care less if other people beleived in God or not. I knew that some atheists were angry, but I could not make any sense of it. Then it hit me. They are not atheists. They are anti-theists. (I have told some atheists that they were really anti-theists, and they have gotten so pissed at me. But I trully an not writing this to make anyone mad.) There is a difference. For example, today, I do not believe in astrology. But if someone asks me my sign, I tell them what it is. I will politely listen to them. I do not write angry letter to newspapers that carry astrology columns. I don’t care if people believe in astrology or not. I never get angry. But if I did get angry at anyone who asked me for my sign, or protested newspapers that carried astrology columns, then I would be anti-astrology.
Anyway, I read Mahatma Gandhi, and I was so impressed with him that I read the Bible from cover to cover and I eventually became a practicing Catholic. Gandhi converted me to Catholicism.
400

John

October 17, 2007 at 7:04 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

The civil rights movement was strongly made possibl by religious groups. Christian, Muslim and Jewish alike. The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was, as his name suggests, a minister of the Christian Church
401

Tired of it all

October 17, 2007 at 7:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I am tired of people bitching about what they don’t get.. Be happy for that 55% that _would_ vote. Be happy for what you _do_ get.. People vote on what they believe, if their christian they’re not going to vote for someone who believes in god, just like you wouldn’t vote for a christian who is actively against atheism. We are a country of mixed cultures, religions, and races.. We aren’t always going to get along, but dammit we have that right. I am not atheist, christian, muslim, or associated with any form of religion ( or lack there of ). I just try my best to exist in a world where people just aren’t happy with what they have, and have to complain and make damn sure others know their pain.
I know it’s not a perfect world, I don’t expect it to be. I do however find a way to make myself happy, Try it some time.
402

Anonymous

October 17, 2007 at 7:12 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Bravo. I am a long standing militant athiest who has no problem telling religious types to go fuck themselves.
403

Adrian Corscadden

October 17, 2007 at 7:12 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I get angry about astrology when people that make laws believe in it.
404

James

October 17, 2007 at 7:15 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I think you’re confusing anger with passion. All of those “angry” movements you mentioned, they were designed to incite anger and aggression in their oppressors, not the other way around.
When you spout off out of anger, it doesn’t help your cause. It only appeases those that are already on your side. I don’t know about you, but when someone says “I have a dream”, that has more power to persuade me than “blow me”. When I see meek, peaceable folks getting beaten by their oppressors, THAT makes me think.
I didn’t become an atheist because a bunch of angry people showed me the error of my ways. I became an atheist because it was the reasonable and sane thing to do. Sure, you can debate issues and get angry all that you want, but you will never make any progress that way.
Yes, your anger is valid and justifiable, I won’t debate that. But advocating anger and violence to get people to understand your side of things makes you no better than your oppressors.
405

Andrew

October 17, 2007 at 7:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

James,
I am pretty sure when a atheist took out his 5″ knife and tried to carve “Believer” onto my skull.
Its our own responsibility to find our own believes.
406

Johnny

October 17, 2007 at 7:19 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Wow. What a good mix of “logical process” and “angry rant”. I’m not sure I agree with the furthest edges of it, but go you for expressing it so well. You kept me reading.
407

Levi

October 17, 2007 at 7:22 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Self-proclaimed atheist moral-philosopher here.
I bow to you. Excellent post; that felt GOOD to read.
408

Ty

October 17, 2007 at 7:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Oh Bitch, Bitch, Bitch.
Just shut up and live your life without having to stir shit up just to feel important about being Atheist. After all, it’s what’s “in” now.
You aren’t being persecuted, you are just one of many intolerant butthurt bloggers yearning for attention.
409

Brandon

October 17, 2007 at 7:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I love you
410

Cole Gulino

October 17, 2007 at 7:27 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I’d like to start off by saying that I am neither Christian,
nor am I really athiest. I dont like religion and agree with a hundred percent of your reasons, but you are just as bad as them. I could write a similar post for athiests based on your post only. Accept that they are there and ignore them. Trying to convert them won’t work like it won’t work to convert you. Also any intelegent religious person will tell you most of the bible is made up and that it is just a tool to help describe their belief of the universe and to help their people in times of hardship. Also just like not every ahiest has the same beliefs neither do religious people. Dont judge then hope to not be judged. So look at each of these and e-mail me if you want my list. Dont flame me too bad I’m only 16.
411

JT

October 17, 2007 at 7:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

There’s a lot of faiths (non-faiths, even?) out there.
If we could preach tolerance instead of anger, regardless of right, we wouldn’t NEED this kind of arguing.
412

lulzsauce

October 17, 2007 at 7:29 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

LoL silly athiests
413

T

October 17, 2007 at 7:33 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Wow, Atheists these days are almost more annoying than the extremely religious.
414

INFIDELIS MAXIMUS

October 17, 2007 at 7:34 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Great post. I agree with every bit of it. Anger is the seed of revolution, and a revolution is what we need in this country–an atheist revolution.
415

noizelarva

October 17, 2007 at 7:37 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

F’n A! this is exactly what i’ve been needing to hear articulated for quite awhile. Passionate anger is what is needed so badly in the atheist community and in the general population right now. So many people have become complacent cows while our leaders steal our humanity one small piece at a time.
416

anon

October 17, 2007 at 7:38 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

tits or gtfo

Atheism, sex, politics, dreams, and whatever. Thinking out loud since 2005.

Atheists and Anger

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