My family has a group on Facebook so we can communicate with each other about family affairs without playing a huge game of telephone. Lately it's being overrun by our more religious family members who can't seem to function regularly if they can't bring up god fifteen fucking times.
People ask for prayer for EVERYTHING. By the beard of Odin, fuck off! Today was a classic. There was a severe hailstorm and someone's windows were broken. Um, last time I checked prayer doesn't fix windows. Call a fucking window repairman you idiot. Is prayer necessary for everything you do in your life? "I'm gonna take a shit, please pray that I don't get hemorrhoids." I literally feel like that is a serious statement. It's not about actually wanting someone to pray for you, it's about being so fucking obsessed and addicted to religion that you cannot function if you aren't constantly bringing it up. It's about not having an identity that doesn't revolve around your faith. It's about having absolutely no sense of self, and filling your emptiness with god. It's about needing something to connect you to people because you are so boring and unpleasant that the only way people will tolerate you is if you guys worship the same figment and can sit around and fap together about how awesome it is.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Science or a god?
One question I often am asked when people find out I'm not religious is how I can find any meaning in life. People like to tell me that a belief in a god gives them some sort of meaning, and a reason for living. I don't quite understand this statement. It seems to me that a belief like that would actually take the meaning right out of life. If we are just sport for some sort of deity and don't ultimately have control over our lives, if there's already a "plan" then what is our purpose?
I was watching the video of the high school student who has found a new, effective and unharmful way of treating cancer. It occurred to me that while I shout "Science!!! Fuck yeah!!" The religious person in the room would praise god and say how god is ultimately responsible for this by "blessing" the girl with the gift of scientific knowledge and intelligence. So let's get this straight: God made cancer. God then made the girl with the ability to cure it. So what exactly is the point of that? Busy work, at the cost of millions and millions of lives? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Of course we're not supposed to "understand the plan" (copout) but if you really sit back and think about it, it's illogical. Unless humans are just a game, and god is just a big kid playing with an ant hill with a magnifying glass. I'll stick with the logical conclusion that there is no god, no plan, and we are just advancing and earning our lives through evolution.
I was watching the video of the high school student who has found a new, effective and unharmful way of treating cancer. It occurred to me that while I shout "Science!!! Fuck yeah!!" The religious person in the room would praise god and say how god is ultimately responsible for this by "blessing" the girl with the gift of scientific knowledge and intelligence. So let's get this straight: God made cancer. God then made the girl with the ability to cure it. So what exactly is the point of that? Busy work, at the cost of millions and millions of lives? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Of course we're not supposed to "understand the plan" (copout) but if you really sit back and think about it, it's illogical. Unless humans are just a game, and god is just a big kid playing with an ant hill with a magnifying glass. I'll stick with the logical conclusion that there is no god, no plan, and we are just advancing and earning our lives through evolution.
Friday, March 2, 2012
The Self-Centeredness of Christianity
Think about it... What is more conceited than having this imaginary being that you've built up in your own head to be the be-all-end-all of perfectness? The creator of all things? The person who determines whether good or bad will come your way? That will decide who is "righteous" and better than everyone else? That grants eternal happiness in the place of eternal damnation? Then to pretend that every time good luck comes your way it's because YOU are so amazing and awesome that he must favor you in some way and gave you special treatment? My, how very VAIN of you.
"I passed my driver's test, praise the Lord!!"
Fuck off.
Even if there were a god, and he did meddle in human affairs, what makes you think you are so special? Why should he have "blessed" you with such a minor thing while allowing thousands of African children to starve every day?
The other facet of this total escape from reality comes in the form of badgering others for not being as "godly" as you are. Yep, you get to sit there in all your self righteous glory and point fingers at those that don't measure up to you in your head. Gay? You're going to hell, fag, accept Jesus or suffer. You're not part of my club. I'm better than you. It somewhat reminds me of cliques in high school who think they hold some power. And in a sad way they do. I always thought to myself that they weren't REALLY popular, just liked by the other people who they deemed good enough to fit into their club. If all the people who they treated poorly and who actually despised them stood up and treated them with the same disdain that they showed everyone else, they could easily make their life a living hell. I feel the same way about Christians in America.
There is no doubt that there are more Christians than non Christians in America. I do argue that many of those so called Christians aren't actually Christians and are probably deists or pantheists or some other type of person who believes in a god but not the dogma associated with the church. They are just ignorant to what those other belief systems are, and since Christianity is so in-your-face they equate a belief in god to Christianity and identify themselves as so. They don't practice the lifestyle. They haven't read the bible. They just do what is easiest because it's so accepted and revered here, and all their friends are doing it. You see, it's not TRUE belief that matters. It's NUMBERS. When they have the numbers they can control what our nation does and teaches, and before long they will have enough kids indoctrinated into true believers that it won't matter.
I would wager that if a large number of those people really invested themselves into some introspection and studying on the subject, they would quickly become agnostic if not full on atheist/antitheist. The trick is avoiding that knee-jerk reaction you get when you outright attack something they identify with. You'll notice, when you meet someone who isn't even a devout theist, they just have a vague idea of a creator, as soon as you suggest maybe they're wrong it gets personal. ESPECIALLY if they are ignorant to science and well established theories on where we come from. Education is the key. And making it clear that you aren't a better person and more important just for believing in something with no evidence to support it. We must instead teach them that being a skeptic, that demanding proof and forming your own ideas, that learning and questioning everything is the real virtue.
Faith is nothing but arrogant ignorance and gullibility in a fancy suit.
I realize this is going to evoke an automatic reaction of "I'm not like that! I don't think that way!" I don't want to hear it. The fact is that if you have prayed for any special treatment, or thought you have been blessed in any way, this completely applies to you. I have great things happen all the time. Good things happen, bad things happen. It's not a god. It's not karma. It's life, and the way we see things.
"I passed my driver's test, praise the Lord!!"
Fuck off.
Even if there were a god, and he did meddle in human affairs, what makes you think you are so special? Why should he have "blessed" you with such a minor thing while allowing thousands of African children to starve every day?
The other facet of this total escape from reality comes in the form of badgering others for not being as "godly" as you are. Yep, you get to sit there in all your self righteous glory and point fingers at those that don't measure up to you in your head. Gay? You're going to hell, fag, accept Jesus or suffer. You're not part of my club. I'm better than you. It somewhat reminds me of cliques in high school who think they hold some power. And in a sad way they do. I always thought to myself that they weren't REALLY popular, just liked by the other people who they deemed good enough to fit into their club. If all the people who they treated poorly and who actually despised them stood up and treated them with the same disdain that they showed everyone else, they could easily make their life a living hell. I feel the same way about Christians in America.
There is no doubt that there are more Christians than non Christians in America. I do argue that many of those so called Christians aren't actually Christians and are probably deists or pantheists or some other type of person who believes in a god but not the dogma associated with the church. They are just ignorant to what those other belief systems are, and since Christianity is so in-your-face they equate a belief in god to Christianity and identify themselves as so. They don't practice the lifestyle. They haven't read the bible. They just do what is easiest because it's so accepted and revered here, and all their friends are doing it. You see, it's not TRUE belief that matters. It's NUMBERS. When they have the numbers they can control what our nation does and teaches, and before long they will have enough kids indoctrinated into true believers that it won't matter.
I would wager that if a large number of those people really invested themselves into some introspection and studying on the subject, they would quickly become agnostic if not full on atheist/antitheist. The trick is avoiding that knee-jerk reaction you get when you outright attack something they identify with. You'll notice, when you meet someone who isn't even a devout theist, they just have a vague idea of a creator, as soon as you suggest maybe they're wrong it gets personal. ESPECIALLY if they are ignorant to science and well established theories on where we come from. Education is the key. And making it clear that you aren't a better person and more important just for believing in something with no evidence to support it. We must instead teach them that being a skeptic, that demanding proof and forming your own ideas, that learning and questioning everything is the real virtue.
Faith is nothing but arrogant ignorance and gullibility in a fancy suit.
I realize this is going to evoke an automatic reaction of "I'm not like that! I don't think that way!" I don't want to hear it. The fact is that if you have prayed for any special treatment, or thought you have been blessed in any way, this completely applies to you. I have great things happen all the time. Good things happen, bad things happen. It's not a god. It's not karma. It's life, and the way we see things.
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