* = Name, gender and title removed to protect the INDREDIBLY GUILTY of blindly listening to and retelling blatant falsehoods.
I hung up on my *. I HUNG UP ON MY *!
This was the first time in my life that such a thing has ever happened. My * has said plenty of insensitive, uneducated and brain-washed things before. "The earth is only 10,000 years old." "Satan was God's right-hand man before blah blah blah (somehow this lead to the fact that Israel is God's chosen nation, and "All the other countries should just leave them alone so this doesn't become a One World Government.")" (WTF?)
So. What got me this time? Blatant bigotry and racism (not that I hadn't heard some of it from * before.)
Now, don't you just love how people will say, "It's not racist, it's the truth!" or some other qualifier to let you know they aren't the ones in the wrong? No. I'm pretty DAMN sure I just heard you say something so offensive that I had to slam down the phone in order to keep myself from screaming at you at the top of my lungs in my place of work.
What did my * say to incense me so? To paraphrase, "He is a Muslim, and they want to GET RID OF ALL WHITE PEOPLE."
!!!SLAM!!!
For nearly an hour after this happened, I thought I might vomit.
Today, * called me to apologize. I returned the call. We picked up almost exactly where we left off. This time I held my cool while scoffing at the racist, brain-washed nonsense spilling out of * mouth. "She is an angry woman who HATES WHITE PEOPLE." You mean her relatives, *? You do realize her husband is half white...?
During this conversation, I came out of a "second closet" to my *. I told * I am an Atheist. When * started to uphold all of the religious, political, spoon-fed, bull-shit ideas, I finally said, "I do not believe in God." I explained my journey to the Land Of No Belief twice just so * won't get the details mixed up in the future. This includes my growing up gay in a very religious family, trying desperately to appeal to God and finally getting married to a woman to "change" me. Hopefully * listened as I explained that I was extremely afraid as a child knowing I was going to Hell because they told me it was so. Hopefully * listened as I explained that I am now free of that fear due to letting go of my "faith." Hopefully * listened as I explained that a great deal of research and thought has brought me to where I am, and has a great deal to do with the way I vote.
Why is it so wrong to try to keep discussions of a human nature here on earth? Why must they always turn to their reasons based on their faith? Do they not realize the circular logic and hoops they have to jump through to justify their bigoted lies? The conversation at one point went something like this (Highly paraphrased, and spurned by the accusations of Islamism.):
Me - "I remember when I went away to college, you were so afraid that I was going to become a Mormon."
* - "Mormonism is a false, made-up religion."
Me - "All religions have unique origins in our history. You just need to do some research to see where your own religion comes from, and the other religions that it is borrowed from."
* - "I believe in the True God."
Me - "Muslims believe Allah is the True God. What if they are right and you are wrong? You do realize that if you had been born in the Middle East, there is a great chance that you would not be a Christian."
* - "Yes."
Me - "But you're going to vote for a Mormon?"
* - "I'm going to vote for a man of God."
The moral of that conversation is... what, kids? Right:
BETTER TO VOTE FOR A (WHITE) MORMON (EVEN IF YOU THINK THEIR RELIGION IS FICTION) THAN TO VOTE FOR A PERCEIVED (ONLY BY THE PEOPLE (AKA YOUR RELIGIOUS LEADERS AND FOX NEWS) WHO FEED YOU THIS BULLSHIT) MUSLIM.
That seems like some racist, bigoted nonsense, no? No matter what facts are presented, people of any god can contradict, dodge, restate and lie themselves blue to get out of a corner or to make themselves feel better. It is some of the most impressive mental gymnastics I have ever been witness to. Would it not just be easier to take your god out of the equation and state your true feelings? The answer to this is no.
GOD IS AN EASY OUT. JUST BLAME YOUR (insert noun of choice such as bigotry) ON HIM.
Showing posts with label Atheism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Atheism. Show all posts
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Saturday, August 25, 2012
August 25, 2012
"Michele Bachmann thinks natural disasters are a warning sign from God about government spending4 — but she claims there "isn't even one study" that carbon pollution is dangerous.5 Bachmann implied that Democrats could be the cause of the swine flu, and said the HPV vaccine causes mental retardation,6 while repeatedly voting to restrict access to birth control and to deny women life-saving medical care." - Becky Bond
One of my biggest questions for religious persons is, "Why don't you want to take credit for your successes?"Think about it. When something that is seen as "good" happens to someone, they give all the credit to their god. What about the hard work, sweat and determination they put into it? Is is that they don't want to seem boastful for taking the credit? Or do they really think that god gave them the strength necessary to get through, and they couldn't have done it without that assistance? I have done everything in my adult life without the thought of god, and I have done fine for myself.
I guess it could come off kind of self centered. "I'd like to thank all the people who helped, and praise be to ME for finding the courage to follow through on my dreams." We are all very scared of sounding like braggarts, and are told that we must be humble at all costs. I guess this means that we are not allowed to take the credit for any good things we do in our own lives.
The flip side of this coin is that apparently their gods are not responsible for any bad things that happen. Perhaps this is just a way of only seeing the good in situations. Take for example a natural disater that claims thousands of lives and leaves just a few. We all know that these types of tragedies are inevitable in our volatile world. Most people claim that earth was created by one god or another, and so wouldn't that mean that those gods are directly (or at the very least indirectly) responsible for it? We do not hear, "God took the lives of thousands of people today," but we DO hear, "God mercifully saved the lives of these select 30." What made them so popular with god that day?
Even the Xtian Bible includes incidents of a wrathful God smiting people, and yet I can't imagine the repurcussions of blaming God for any of these natural disasters today. What if someone stood up and actually blamed God for a disaster? INSTEAD, Xtians find the need to blame humanity instead. "It is because of your sinful ways that this tragedy occured," some say. SOOOO, in a round-about you ARE saying God did it, but by blaming humanity for invoking His wrath.
I'm so very confused by this roundabout way of thinking and processing data. Why not just state facts.
We live on the earth.
It is a volatile environment.
Once in a while this leads to a disaster that claims human life.
Where does or should a god ever enter into this, even if said god was responsible for our universe? Looking back on the history of humanity (minus the fairy-tale books of religion which are not valid as having been proven wrong time and again,) we see no evidence of a god ever intervening to save OR take human life.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
August 23, 2012
One prevailing thought clouds my mind as I sit here this evening. Part of my reading tonight took me to yet another statement by an Xtian declaring that Atheists reach their non-belief as a result of being hurt by the church in their past. I hear this all the time when receiving a "rebuttal" from a person of Faith. This raises a question:
"Why would you come to the conclusion that I have been hurt by your loving, all-accepting religion, unless you are conceding that your church routinely hurts people?"
Chew on that for a while...
And then consider that I have NOT been hurt by the church. Sure, I went to church with some assholes as a kid. Yes, I was treated badly by them, outcast and called names. The church is absolutely filled with these kinds of hypocrites. Of that there is no doubt.
BUT, consider the amount of people who still seek a relationship with God even though they know the church they attend does not accept them for who they are. If you are right that I am an Atheist because I have been hurt by the church, then by that same reasoning all gay people should be Atheist. Why? Because your precious Book condemns us to the Fiery Pit. Yet, this is not so. Many gay people still seek a relationship with an unseen force.
No, friends, I am not an Atheist because I was hurt by all of you. Stop being so conceited as to think that you have that kind of power over me!
I am an Atheist because I have looked at History. I have read about where your religions and your gods started, and by whom. I have looked at the scientific record of our earthly home.
It is because of these things that I reject your gods. And I am happy. Happier than I have ever been. I have no fear of death, and no fear of any after life (or the consequences of being wrong about my choice of gods.) I live my life believing in the humanity of people, and the scientific explanations behind the things we do. Life is finite, and I therefore love completely and treasure each moment with my fellow beings.
Love...
"Why would you come to the conclusion that I have been hurt by your loving, all-accepting religion, unless you are conceding that your church routinely hurts people?"
Chew on that for a while...
And then consider that I have NOT been hurt by the church. Sure, I went to church with some assholes as a kid. Yes, I was treated badly by them, outcast and called names. The church is absolutely filled with these kinds of hypocrites. Of that there is no doubt.
BUT, consider the amount of people who still seek a relationship with God even though they know the church they attend does not accept them for who they are. If you are right that I am an Atheist because I have been hurt by the church, then by that same reasoning all gay people should be Atheist. Why? Because your precious Book condemns us to the Fiery Pit. Yet, this is not so. Many gay people still seek a relationship with an unseen force.
No, friends, I am not an Atheist because I was hurt by all of you. Stop being so conceited as to think that you have that kind of power over me!
I am an Atheist because I have looked at History. I have read about where your religions and your gods started, and by whom. I have looked at the scientific record of our earthly home.
It is because of these things that I reject your gods. And I am happy. Happier than I have ever been. I have no fear of death, and no fear of any after life (or the consequences of being wrong about my choice of gods.) I live my life believing in the humanity of people, and the scientific explanations behind the things we do. Life is finite, and I therefore love completely and treasure each moment with my fellow beings.
Love...
August 22, 2012
I've been thinking a lot about my Atheism recently, along with reading many posts/blogs about Atheism. A post this morning about another person becoming "saved" at age 11 prompted me to remember my own "saving."
My brother Grady is and has always been big on all things Xtian. It was one warm summer day that he coerced me into "accepting Jesus into my heart." I remember sitting on a tiny stump in our yard (which always felt like me to be a magical place where fairies and goblins were just out of reach) and allowing this to occur. There are two very prevalent memories about this day for me. One is that I had to be coerced into this act. I very distinctly at the age of... 6? remember not wanting to do what Grady so desperately seemed to think I needed to do. Honestly, I don't know if this was because I felt I was being put on the spot, or if I truly had misgivings about the whole business. Either way, I was not enthusiastic about this event, and he had hounded me about it for some time. My second memory is that as soon as I had done this deed and prayed for my own salvation, Grady and his friend Roger ran off to play without me. There I was, newly "saved" and just as unimportant to my brother and his friend as I always had been.
My family had taken me to church my whole life before this afternoon. We sang together as a family at church services, and my mom wrote in my baby book that my favorite Sunday School song as a 2 year-old was "Deep and Wide." I did love the music portion of church, and singing was really the only part of the service I liked. Weddings, funerals and Sunday mornings bored me to tears, and although I made valiant efforts to pay attention and read The Bible, I never felt a thing.
Oh sure, I felt some of the same euphoria back then that other church-goers experience when they are singing. At least I think I did. I do remember always wondering why I couldn't feel God's love the way others seemed to. They say there is a "God Area" of the brain, and music plays a big part in fostering that euphoria people feel when attending church. This "God Area" makes people feel a presence other than themselves and other humans, and this is how people "know" there is a God. Maybe my "God Area" never developed.
I know I am not alone in this, but so often I felt awkward in church. The raising of hands, the speaking in tongues and the long exaggerated prayers felt empty to me. I always felt that I was playing a part, and ended up pretending I had experienced certain feelings and experiences when I actually had not. Eventually I ended up going to a quieter church next door to the ministry choice of my family where my best friend attended. It was a place where I could ponder these teachings without being buffeted by the evangelical music and over-emphasized, emphatic pleas to God. It was here that I began to try to read The Bible in earnest, prayed for my sins to be taken away, and even helped create a music program so that I could perform. But, alas, even these experiences did not bring God to me.
It has taken me many years to unwind all of the church's teachings from my mind, and to find who I truly am. I think back now on all of these experiences of my youth, and wonder what life would have been like for me if I had not felt the need to play along. When you are told something is the truth, and when you fear retribution for not following, you try like crazy to conform. This has lasting consequences that take years to erase.
I can honestly say that I am here today a strong, happy man. Confident in what I do not believe. Assured that I can be (and AM) good without God.
My brother Grady is and has always been big on all things Xtian. It was one warm summer day that he coerced me into "accepting Jesus into my heart." I remember sitting on a tiny stump in our yard (which always felt like me to be a magical place where fairies and goblins were just out of reach) and allowing this to occur. There are two very prevalent memories about this day for me. One is that I had to be coerced into this act. I very distinctly at the age of... 6? remember not wanting to do what Grady so desperately seemed to think I needed to do. Honestly, I don't know if this was because I felt I was being put on the spot, or if I truly had misgivings about the whole business. Either way, I was not enthusiastic about this event, and he had hounded me about it for some time. My second memory is that as soon as I had done this deed and prayed for my own salvation, Grady and his friend Roger ran off to play without me. There I was, newly "saved" and just as unimportant to my brother and his friend as I always had been.
My family had taken me to church my whole life before this afternoon. We sang together as a family at church services, and my mom wrote in my baby book that my favorite Sunday School song as a 2 year-old was "Deep and Wide." I did love the music portion of church, and singing was really the only part of the service I liked. Weddings, funerals and Sunday mornings bored me to tears, and although I made valiant efforts to pay attention and read The Bible, I never felt a thing.
Oh sure, I felt some of the same euphoria back then that other church-goers experience when they are singing. At least I think I did. I do remember always wondering why I couldn't feel God's love the way others seemed to. They say there is a "God Area" of the brain, and music plays a big part in fostering that euphoria people feel when attending church. This "God Area" makes people feel a presence other than themselves and other humans, and this is how people "know" there is a God. Maybe my "God Area" never developed.
I know I am not alone in this, but so often I felt awkward in church. The raising of hands, the speaking in tongues and the long exaggerated prayers felt empty to me. I always felt that I was playing a part, and ended up pretending I had experienced certain feelings and experiences when I actually had not. Eventually I ended up going to a quieter church next door to the ministry choice of my family where my best friend attended. It was a place where I could ponder these teachings without being buffeted by the evangelical music and over-emphasized, emphatic pleas to God. It was here that I began to try to read The Bible in earnest, prayed for my sins to be taken away, and even helped create a music program so that I could perform. But, alas, even these experiences did not bring God to me.
It has taken me many years to unwind all of the church's teachings from my mind, and to find who I truly am. I think back now on all of these experiences of my youth, and wonder what life would have been like for me if I had not felt the need to play along. When you are told something is the truth, and when you fear retribution for not following, you try like crazy to conform. This has lasting consequences that take years to erase.
I can honestly say that I am here today a strong, happy man. Confident in what I do not believe. Assured that I can be (and AM) good without God.
Friday, December 9, 2011
December 9, 2011
Attitude of Gratitude Day 2: As much as I often despise working, I am glad to have a well-paying full-time job.
I was listening to what I had always thought of as an inane Christmas Carol last night:
Here Comes Santa Claus
Music and Lyrics by Gene Autry and Oakley Haldeman
Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town
Music by J. Fred Coots
Lyrics by Haven Gillespie
Here comes Santa Claus! Here comes Santa Claus!
Right down Santa Claus Lane!
Vixen and Blitzen and all his reindeer are
Pulling on the rein,
Bells are ringing, Children are singing,
All is merry and bright
Hang your stockings and say your prayers,
WAIT!!! What? Say your prayers? To whom? Santa? Jesus? For what? Toys?
'Cause Santa Claus comes tonight
Here comes Santa Claus! Here comes Santa Claus!
Right down Santa Claus Lane!...
He's got a bag that is filled with toys for the
Boys and girls again
Hear those sleigh bells jingle jangle,
What a beautiful sight
Jump in bed, cover up your head,
'Cause Santa Claus comes tonight!
Here comes Santa Claus! Here comes Santa Claus!
Right down Santa Claus Lane!
He doesn't care if you're rich or poor for he loves
You just the same
Santa knows that we're all God's children,
That makes everything right
WAIT!!! So what you are saying is that Santa, a fictional being, knows that we are the sons and daughters of another fictional being? How does this make everything right? What do God and Santa Claus have to do with each other?
Fill your hearts with Christmas cheer...
I guess my point is that if "Jesus is the reason for the season," why do we need to teach our children to believe that Santa Claus and God are "tight." Personally, I think we just need to stop ALL the fairy tales once and for all.
I am troubled by the sheer corruption of some persons. Don't they know that it will eventually catch up with them? These are seemingly intelligent members of our community committing outlandish acts of thievery on others. Is greed really that strong for some people that they don't care about the repercussions of their behavior?
I was listening to what I had always thought of as an inane Christmas Carol last night:
Here Comes Santa Claus
Music and Lyrics by Gene Autry and Oakley Haldeman
Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town
Music by J. Fred Coots
Lyrics by Haven Gillespie
Here comes Santa Claus! Here comes Santa Claus!
Right down Santa Claus Lane!
Vixen and Blitzen and all his reindeer are
Pulling on the rein,
Bells are ringing, Children are singing,
All is merry and bright
Hang your stockings and say your prayers,
WAIT!!! What? Say your prayers? To whom? Santa? Jesus? For what? Toys?
'Cause Santa Claus comes tonight
Here comes Santa Claus! Here comes Santa Claus!
Right down Santa Claus Lane!...
He's got a bag that is filled with toys for the
Boys and girls again
Hear those sleigh bells jingle jangle,
What a beautiful sight
Jump in bed, cover up your head,
'Cause Santa Claus comes tonight!
Here comes Santa Claus! Here comes Santa Claus!
Right down Santa Claus Lane!
He doesn't care if you're rich or poor for he loves
You just the same
Santa knows that we're all God's children,
That makes everything right
WAIT!!! So what you are saying is that Santa, a fictional being, knows that we are the sons and daughters of another fictional being? How does this make everything right? What do God and Santa Claus have to do with each other?
Fill your hearts with Christmas cheer...
I guess my point is that if "Jesus is the reason for the season," why do we need to teach our children to believe that Santa Claus and God are "tight." Personally, I think we just need to stop ALL the fairy tales once and for all.
I am troubled by the sheer corruption of some persons. Don't they know that it will eventually catch up with them? These are seemingly intelligent members of our community committing outlandish acts of thievery on others. Is greed really that strong for some people that they don't care about the repercussions of their behavior?
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