Tag Archives: atheism

Pledge Perfect

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Oh, dang. The AHA is at it again, going for the small fry. It really annoys me when an association that I’m a rabid fan of comes off as a bunch of pedantic, narrow-minded gits.

USA Today reports that the AHA has filed suit against the Matawan-Aberdeen Regional School District (N.J.) to have the phrase ‘under god’ stricken from the pledge.

For non-US citizens a few words of background information:

  • In the USA, many states mandate that every child in every school recite the ‘Pledge of Alliance’ on a school day. Yeah, exactly what I think.
  • The original text of this pledge read ‘… one nation indivisible…’ and did not contain the phase ‘under god’. During McCarthy time, to show those little commie bastards who where known to be no-good god-hating atheists, the text was altered to ‘… one nation under God, indivisible…’
  • This change was first deemed unconstitutional in 2002, and later in 2010 it was deemed constitutional.

So why am I blowing a gasket? Are they doing the right thing? Yes. But why don’t they get their priorities in order? The pledge and the dollar bill (‘In God we trust’) are not prime battlegrounds for humanists. They are small fry that resolve themselves over time. Let’s get the big ticket items first, can’t we?

Let’s get everyone’s right for same-sex marriages, women’s right to abort pregnancies, and rid ourselves of Guantanamo Bay Prison, Creationism and Abstinence-only sex ed first, OK?

Friggin Humanists. Always doing the right thing the wrong way.

Sometimes, I hate being a Humanist.

Saudi Korea

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If there is one hypocrisy greater than religion, it is the western ‘friendship’ with Saudi Arabia. Not only has the Saudi King gone on record in front of the UN assembly that human rights are alien to him – which the UN recognized by appointing Saudi Arabia a seat at the UN Human Rights Council – it’s a matter of public record that in Saudi Arabia women are subjugated and homosexuals are persecuted.

Doing no-one – especially not moderate muslims – a favor, the King, taking a page from the Spanish Inquisition, now has redefined terrorism as

calling for atheist thought in any form, or calling into question the fundamentals of the Islamic religion on which this country is based

You read that right. In Saudi Arabia it is now considered an act of terror if you call into question a superstition – while traditional tell-tales or terror, like for example, using violence to induce fear in the populace, are absent from that definition. Somehow fitting for a state religion that has a lamentable reputation of doing just that.

What bothers me most: the moral mendacity of governments that make a distinction between Saudi Arabia and North Korea.

Sharia’s bad rap

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There is no doubt that the word ‘sharia’ carries huge challenges in relation to public relations,

declares UK’s Minister of Silly Thought (a.k.a. Minister of Faith), Baroness Warsi. Indeed. So do ‘Spanish Inquisition’ and ‘Apartheid’. All for good reason. She then goes on to make a couple of important points:

I am a British minister in the British cabinet […]. I am not elected[…]. I therefore don’t represent a constituency and I certainly don’t represent the British Muslim community.

Correct on all accounts – which rather does raise the question what the hell (pardon the pun) her role is. Except being a Baroness, which in the UK can be a job unto itself – see Queen (not the music group). If there is one thing she does it’s opposing ‘secular fundamentalists’ like Richard Dawkins.

The most aggressive post I get is from people who are secular fundamentalists,

she complains. She defines secular fundamentalists as people who say that there should be no public space for faith. It’s not entirely clear what her complaint is, but looking at other fundamentalists, she may complain about the complete absence of violence, calls for murder, or similar paraphernalia of standard fundamentalism that can be righteously denounced or talked away as being done by people who are ‘not true believers’.

It does not occur to her that the obvious opposite, someone who advocates faith in the public space, or, not to put too fine a point on this, holds public office for faith, must be a religious fundamentalist. Then again, reason never was the faithful’s strong suit, and she’s currently UK’s Queen of Faith.

It’s obvious that not only Sharia’s bad rap is well deserved.

Nietzsche’s not dead

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Tomorrow will see the release of “God’s not Dead”, a christian movie (based on Rice Broocks’ book with the same name). OK, so the title invokes Nietzsche – interesting. According to the blurb, the story revolves around a philosophy student who has to fight a dictatorial philosophy professor. The professor requires all students to sign a ‘God is Dead’ statement to get a passing grade, and the student strikes a bargain that he will pass if he can defend his position ‘God is Alive’.

Well, that’s quite some stereotyped cliché’d trope (pleonasms be damned); the movie itself is highly reminiscent of a 10 minute (and logically embarrassingly inept) movie I watched on YouTube some time ago (which pretty much re-told the aforementioned links).

But then, the movie is officially advertised with this tagline:

Atheists say ‘No one can prove the existence of God’. And they are right. But I say, ‘No one can disprove that God exists.’

Ouch. And this is supposed to happen in philosophy class? Is this the level of intelligence we can expect from the movie?

Now, I do understand that this movie is primarily aimed at the average american christian. But do the producers really hold their viewer’s intellect in such contempt that they lead with kindergarden logic? This is going to be one long movie to watch.

The persecution of Christians

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It was inevitable. As we all know, Christians are persecuted – just like UK’s ‘Voice of Justice’ Lynda Rose lamented after her miserable appearance on BBC’s ‘Big Question’. That statement raised some eyebrows, so here are some concrete examples from the past three months:

  • In Greece, a man was sentenced to 10 month in prison for Blasphemy after poking fun at a priest on Facebook
  • Students wearing T-Shirts adorned with a page from the ‘Jesus and Mo’ cartoon were threatened to be expelled from campus if they didn’t cover their T-shirts
  • A picture showing the ‘Flying Spaghetti Monster’ superimposed on the ‘Creation of Adam’ painting was forcibly removed from a booth at a student fair
  • A student group was kicked off-campus for naming a pineapple ‘Mohammed’

Oh, wait. That’s the Christians persecuting atheists.

Atheists are easy…

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Many a believer thinks that debating with an atheist is easy – after all a religious person ‘believes’ that they know the truth: that this universe was created by their god(s), and it’s just a matter of showing this truth to the unbeliever. There’s always holy scripture to fall back upon (which the believer may have read), and if all else fails, there’s always Hitler. Debating atheists is easy.

Until, that is, they actually meet an atheist. Trying to convince these ungodly creatures can be a rude surprise:

  • unlike for the believer, chances are high that the atheist has read the Scripture – it’s usually why they’ve become atheists
  • most are usually just aching to pull out the issues of slavery, homophobia, genocide and misogyny. And you just gave them the perfect pretext.
  • they aren’t deterred by big words like ‘objective morality’, ‘first cause’ or ‘cosmological argument’; worse, many can counter with even bigger words.
  • they’ve also read other religion’s holy scripture and can quote choice passages that makes your religion look really bad. The ‘love’ Christianity preaches, for example, pales in comparison to that of Jainism.
  • they can point to intentional mistranslation (e.g. Metanoeite) or plagiarism (e.g. Golden Rule ripped off from Confucius) in your scripture
  • plus, most atheists break into that disconcerting grin when you mention Hitler, Mao or Stalin

It’s usually much easier just to tell them: ‘I believe because I don’t know what else to do’. That saves a lot of time.

It’s also more honest.

‘… the whole Bible’

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Every once in a while, I encounter one of the most presumptuous, condescending, pompous, and ostentatious comments a Christian can make while arguing their belief:

To understand, you need to read the whole Bible.

I usually encounter it as a reply to a (perhaps snide) quote from the Bible I make. The comment is ostentatious because it insinuates that the one uttering it has read the whole Bible (usually it turns out that they haven’t). It’s presumptuous because it assumes I didn’t read that book in it’s entirety. It’s stupid because even after reading it, at least one of us hasn’t understood it – plus, it’s certainly news to the Jews who can make do with essentially only half of it: the Old Testament. And it is condescending because whoever says it believes that not only have they understood, they believe they have read the only correct version.

So why do people try this when they are forced into a corner? The comment is designed to stop the average Christian from further discussions: 99% of all Christians haven’t read the Bible. But why is it that so many Christians haven’t read the Bible?

Because it’s boring.

Most who try are already sound asleep long before all the begetting begins.

Churchill was right

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One of the most entertaining things I do is to read the comments for news articles that cover legislation that somehow curtails what some people regard as their religious freedom: removing religious symbols from public space, forcing organizations to hire women and treat them equal to men, prohibiting religiously-inspired mutilations on underaged children, or forcing children to accept life-saving medication in spite of their belief.

Within a few lines, the gloves come off; we wade knee-deep in justifications based on scripture, and we are inundated by a veritable Tsunami of accusations of moral decadence, crusading against religion (nice one!), or persecuting christianity. Godwin’s law always looms large, as Hitler is only a few arguments away.

To paraphrase Churchill: The best argument against religion is a five-minute conversation with the average believer.

Unfortunately, when reading the counter-points, the same goes for atheists.

No logic in Foxholes

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There is a saying that ‘There are no atheists in foxholes‘ – meaning that under extreme duress all people believe in, or hope for, a higher power.

Perhaps.

What is evident, though, is that in foxholes no-one believes in the Gods they claim to believe in. Because if they did believe in Yahweh, Allah, or whatever, they wouldn’t need foxholes: their god would protect them; and even if their God screwed that one, they’d be promptly whisked to paradise. If they really believed that, they’d have nothing to worry about.

So what is a religious person doing in a foxhole? Most likely they are afraid of meeting their god, and hope for a truly nice guy in the sky instead. They hope that their ‘real’ god doesn’t exist.

Hence the foxhole.

… but because they are hard!

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A believer once asked me why I was an atheist. He pointed out that it would be much easier to accept the love of god in my heart and live a life of contentment, knowing that I was going to be saved after I die.

He certainly has a point. Being an atheist isn’t easy. People are suspicious of you, assert that you have low moral standards, and seem compelled to bring up Hitler every other day. Your family is sometimes ostracized for not believing, and in some countries being an atheist can be dangerous, even lethal.

So why are we atheists?

We choose to be atheists. We choose to take responsibility for our actions, hold people accountable for what they do, and live our lives as ethical as possible.

We choose to be atheists and do all these things not because they are easy…