When I was 5, I had a teacher, whom I now recognise was a fundamentalist Christian. Which actually is quite rare in the reasonably affluent, relatively liberal area of London I live in.
She used to talk regularly about the glory of God and Jesus, and how Jesus came down to save us all, blah blah blah. We’ve all heard it.
But the thing that got me was when she said we could communicate with god. She told my class that if we sat very quietly, we’d be able to hear God talking to us. When you’re 5 you take your teacher’s word on pretty much everything. I remember thinking that I’d never get that kind of quiet at school with all the boisterous kids, and that at home I’d struggle too, as I have a brother 2 years my senior with severe learning disabilities, who was normally making a racket.
However, one day my brother was out. I had my chance. I went up to my room and sat in silence and waited. And waited. And waited.
Nothing.
And then I knew. It was, as we say in England, utter bollocks. All of it.
I enjoy this story especially when people are preaching to me, giving it the old, “if you ask God sincerely to reveal himself to you, he undoubtably will”. You don’t get any more sincere than a 5 year old fully expecting to hear God talk to you. There’s no comeback for them there.
As I’ve got older, I’ve never had any doubts. Not even close. I just cannot see how any serious minded person can believe any of the crap in any holy book you care to pick up. It’s all so insane. I mean, Jesus, born of a virgin. Resurrected. Really? Mohammed, flew up to heaven on a winged horse. Really? Talking snakes. Men living in Whales. Really? Are you 6 years old?
I’m now loving the “new” atheist movement, and the attempt to rally the troops, so to speak, in the fight against religious fundamentalism, in all it’s preposterous, irrational forms, whether it be Islamic fascists or the moronic creationists pushing their crap in class.
So here’s to the continued rise of free thought, rationalism and humanism. We are slowly, but surely building a better world.
Nick T.
United Kingdom
QFT
actually, that’s a missprint.
athorist: Saying that’ll get you shot in Texas just as fast as saying that men can’t live in whales. :^)
I wouldn’t worry about it until people from Wales learn to read.
Bazinga!
Thought you were safe there, didn’t you, coralline? But I have an English friend who looks for insults to my glorious nation and reads them to me. Beware!
I think it only fair to point out to aziraphale (and any other followers of Pharyngula from Wales), that these posters are actually making a pun on “whales” (very large marine mammal) and “Wales” (showery principality slightly to the west of Birminghan). Of course the Bible never seriously suggests that Jonah spent three whole days alive in Wales – the close harmony singing would have killed him within hours. All the Bible says is that Jonah spent 72 hours inside the intestines of a a “great fish, which God provided”. When Jonah repented of his sins, God let him out – something He has clearly not done to the vast majority of Welsh people, sinners or otherwise.
This clearly proves the veracity of the Bible.
God also made leeks, but he made them for the Welsh.
Re johnlee above: “This clearly proves the veracity of the Bible.” The bible says lots of nonsensicle things of which the bloke in the whale is just one chapter of childish nonsense. The whole fabricated myth of the baby jesus etc etc etc proves no veracity of anything, except the vivid imagination(s) of bronze age goat herders.
Johnlee, I appreciated the joke.