I once believed in Eden, and in Adam and his Eve
I believed in Satan’s serpent; his intention to deceive.
Eve’s decision doomed humanity to misery and woe—
I believed it without question, cos the bible told me so.
I believed Man was created, and that God took Adam’s bone
And made Eve as his companion, so Man wouldn’t be alone
And that women are a vessel, into which a man might flow
I believed it without question, cos the bible told me so.
I believed in plagues of locusts, I believed in Noah’s flood
I believed in unclean women (you could tell them by the blood)
Women’s duty was submission, I told everyone I know
I believed it without question, cos the bible told me so
I believed in subjugation; I believed in owning slaves
I believed you ought to stone to death a child who misbehaves
I believed I had it figured out, those many years ago
I believed it without question, cos the bible told me so
Then, I found that I’d been lied to! To my shock, I’d been deceived!
(Though the bit about the rib, I’d kind of always disbelieved)
I had always used my holy book, to tell me how to live
Now I’m looking for the answers that the bible used to give
So I’m finished with Creation! And I’m finished with the snake!
The flood, the plagues, the pestilence, the stories all are fake!
The stories I thought watertight are leaking like a sieve,
And I’m finished with the answers that the bible used to give!
And I see no earthly reason, once the holy books are tossed
That the women’s contribution to our culture should be lost
If religion is the reason, then it’s really no surprise
That by rights we should be feminists… um… guys? Guys?
It almost sounds like you think there’s some baggage that should be discarded when you ditch god-belief…
Yeah.. clearly, I must be doing it wrong.
Works for me.
+1
Ditching god belief is all fine and good, but it doesn’t really matter much in the end unless people thoroughly ditch their beliefs in revealed truth, ditch their beliefs in authoritarianism, and learn to feel empathy for people who aren’t part of their tribe. Losing gods is not some kind of free pass to reason and being a good person. And even if god belief appears to be lost for the right reasons, non–god-believers are every bit as capable as god-believers at compartmentalizing their willingness to think critically.
This is why accomodationists are flat-out wrong. Praising the compartmentalization of irrationality merely allows irrationality to flourish. Selective irrationality is, in fact, irrational, and that means that you can’t escape the fact that selective rationality is irrational as well. Reason is not a choice at the buffet, to be taken whimsically and placed alongside tire rims and anthrax on one’s plate. Cherry picked reason isn’t really reasonable at all but is rather just another form of motivated “reasoning.”
One of your best efforts, Cuttlefish. Four or five kudos to you.
Linguistic question: do sieve and give rhyme for you?
Link doesn’t work.
DM–
Yes. And… just checking… they do for the dictionary as well. (I love playable pronunciation guides!)
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sieve?s=t
Once more, amazing; we are led to ask yet again, ‘How do you do it?’
Since you mention playable wotsits, here comes a question I’ve wanted to ask for a while, though it felt a bit sacrilegious: do you use (or more to the point can you recommend) a good rhyming dictionary?
The ones I’ve found on the net are usually shocking.
I need every crutch I can get!
Zackoz–
Rhymezone is the one I use, though like any rhyming dictionary they include some words that cannot possibly rhyme, and miss others that do. I often will just act as my own rhyming dictionary, and go through the alphabet “airy, berry, carry, cherry, dairy…”. And of course, I use the occasional neologism, or jam a couple words together, or tear one apart, such that I am using stuff that is not in any dictionary, rhyming or not.
Only now am I thinking “hey, I should have answered this one in verse…” Oh, well.
Thanks, Cuttlefish.
It usually seems so effortless in final form, that I’m perversely encouraged that even you have to go through the mental rhyme-hunting process.
It varies tremendously–sometimes they come out as fast as I can type them. Sometimes it’s like pulling teeth.
R Johnston @5:
Your link is borked.