World Net Daily confuses fact and fiction

I like the headline on this one, all set to raise instant ire in all who see it:

Billboard companies allow slam against God.

Gracious. Call the troops. Someone has slapped a billboard on the side of a building giving God a funny mustache and a stupid grin to make him look stupid in front of everyone. The shame! The travesty! It’s the end of the world!

In actuality, it’s just a statement on a billboard by a road. If you don’t believe in God, you’re not alone. Finally, some truth in advertising. It’s aimed at the people who may have turned from faith, or are at least starting to doubt it, and wonder what to do. Find people who’ve gone through it, boys and girls. We’re out here. Don’t be shy.

How does World Nut Daily spin it? It turns out the bigger issue is about billboard companies who’ll run those so-called “slams” but are unwilling to run WND advertisements based on worse lies and slurs:

Two major billboard companies are allowing signs that slam Christian faith, even though they rejected out-of-hand a billboard campaign that asked for documentation of Barack Obama’s eligibility to be president.

First off, they aren’t slamming anyone’s faith, nor aimed at any specific religion. No religion is being insulted. No believers are overtly getting insulted in the language itself. It’s not saying “God sucks!” or “Christianity sucks!” or “Everyone who believes in god is an idiot!” It’s just making a statement that there are people who don’t believe. What happens in the heart and head of the reader is a separate issue that has nothing to do with the advertising.

If the billboard company refused to run WND’s ridiculous birth certificate ads, they were right to do so. That was propaganda designed to sow seeds of distrust in a popular candidate. Slurs and allegations without any basis in fact, I might add, no matter how much “research” they’ve put in. Not finding any evidence for their claims has just made them cry “conspiracy” all the louder, instead of admitting to the possibility that they might actually be wrong about it.

“I found it ironic that the billboard … is maintained by Clear Channel,” wrote a WND reader who noticed the apparent double standard. “I seem to recall Clear Channel did not want to run any of the ‘Where’s the Birth Certificate’ ads on their billboards, because of the ’sensitivity of the issue.’”

They were being polite. They were also holding to their promise not cater to groups engaging in character defamation. The certificate signage was suggesting Obama was a liar and not fit to lead the country.

Company spokesman Tony Alwin did respond to WND’s request today for comment on the latest development, sending a link to the “code of industry principles as a guide for content” from the Outdoor Advertising Association of America.

Specifically, it calls on companies to “Observe Highest Free Speech Standards.”

“We support the First Amendment right of advertisers to promote legal products and services, however, we also support the right of outdoor advertising companies to reject advertising that is misleading, offensive, or otherwise incompatible with individual community standards, and in particular, we reject the posting of obscene words or pictorial content,” the code states.

Alwin did not respond to subsequent questions from WND on whether his company has determined “Are you good without God?” doesn’t mislead anyone, doesn’t offend anyone and meets all community standards.

I’d hazard a guess that it’s because he thinks you guys are crackpots and has already given you more time than you deserved. The question is innocuous. It’s also reminding other non-believers to continue being good role models because the world is, quite literally, watching.

It’s not misleading. There is no offensive content in the language. There is nothing obscene in it beyond what readers imagine. If it offends you, you need to look at why. It’s not our fault if you can’t begin to fathom it.

“WND’s reporters have investigated this issue more extensively than the rest of the media combined – sending senior staff writer Jerome Corsi to Hawaii and Kenya in search of evidence,” he has said. “We have commissioned private investigators in Honolulu. There is simply no persuasive evidence to affirm Obama’s claim to a Hawaiian birth. There is no hospital on the island that will confirm the first black president of the United States was born there. It’s all conjecture. And no controlling legal authority in this country has ever asked Obama to provide the proof.”

Have they ever insisted someone prove it before? Has any president had to drag his birth certificate out to show it was real? Has every one of their certificates been given to guys who check for counterfeiting to make sure everyone was truly who and where they said they were? Or are you guys just picking on Barack because he’s different?

Did they not see the article demonstrating how Barack might be related to everyone who has ever been president? Only one guy out of all of them was not a descendant of John “Lackland” Plantagenet, once king of England and a signer of the Magna Carta. That’s quite the pedigree. Maybe Martin Van Buren’s legitimacy should be worked over with a fine tooth comb, instead. He was a Dutchman! The first Dutchman ever elected! Man, did nobody check if he was really American first?

Turns out they did, in a way. He was the first ever president born with the status of American Citizen. All the previous ones had been British subjects when they were born. Does that negate their legitimacy? Maybe Americans ought to discount the earlier boys and name Van Buren as first proper Prez. That poor sod got stuck with an economic downturn while in office, too, and he failed to achieve a second term despite popularity. Too many people blamed him for their problems, I guess. And the wheel just keeps on turning…

WND looks unwilling to give up on their billboard bullshit, but we can hope other companies like Lamar and Clear Channel have the public in mind as they turn away every attempt to discredit Obama.

The saddest thing I’ve read in a long time.

Once more I am glad I never had to go through any faith-based trauma to get where I am today.

I fell into something of a depression when Michael Jackson died. I was unbelievably sad. I was embarrassed to tell anyone. I had enjoyed his music, but I had never been a huge fan. I had never purchased any of his albums. I had never seen him in concert. I had never met him, of course. But, his death opened up a lot of childhood wounds. I felt like I knew a part of him. Like I understood in a way that few others would.

I knew the pain of growing up in an abusive Jehovah’s Witness home with a subservient and submissive mother and a domineering father. I knew the pain of loving a mother who will not protect you, because she believes that God will condemn her for doing so. The pain of loving a mother who will not leave the man who believes it is within his God-given authority to beat you. The pain of loving a mother who would rather watch you suffer in misery than expose Jehovah God or his organization to public scorn and shame.

Growing up, I loved my mother more than anything, but she didn’t love me more than anything. She loved her religion more. It still makes me cry. So when Michael Jackson died, I cried. I cried for the little girl who was terrified that demons were going to rape her in the middle of the night. I cried for the little girl who begged her mother to leave her father. I cried for the little girl who begged Jehovah God to kill her, so that the pain would stop. And, I cried for the little Jehovah’s Witness boy that Michael Jackson had been.

I admire Sarah for sharing this story and being able to move past her upbringing into a better life. What a life to have gone through first, though. Can’t fathom it.

Quotable theology, round 3

Who knew? Who suspected? Yes, of course I’d ramble so much that a third part would be necessary to finish this up. Is verbosity a useful trait or should I defer to my old English teacher who promoted the need to be concise, clear, and to the point?

Obviously it’s far too late for this set of posts (first and second). Maybe I can work on that another time.

Anyway, here we are at the tail end of this really short post I came across about the nature of God and goodness. I’ve been disagreeing, in case you wonder.

Everything god does appears to be for subjective reasons. He doesn’t like this, so he kills those people. He doesn’t like that so he kills some more people. He gets jealous and vindictive and rude and mean over any and all things. But, he approves of Noah’s obedience and to reward him, lets him build a boat for his family and every animal he can rustle up and then drowns every other human being because they don’t measure up to Noah’s faith in him. What the fuck is that all about? Nobody ever talks about the families who supposedly drowned. I’m sure they weren’t all bad. But they had to go because they weren’t like Noah? Why can anyone buy the ark story as proof of anything beyond god’s petulant, childish sadism?

The only way a god could ever be considered objective is if he were a non-emotional computer program monitoring behaviour on the planet. For this action, respond this way. But then there would have to be so many limiting factors to determine exceptions because, let’s face it, not everyone gets the same treatment when they do the “wrong” thing.

If god really was capable of destroying a city because he saw someone have gay sex, you think there would be any cities left? Unless the rule was, god sees gay sex, god must burn California. If that were so, there would never be a day when California wasn’t burning. But who told him to burn California? Was he also burning the west coast in the bible days? Maybe nobody could report on it because nobody even knew North America existed when the bible was assembled.

Back to the post, finally:

Since an ethical life is half of any kind of a reasonable human life once the good is drowned out there is little more about us of any real value, and this is where the atheist wants us to be; with them in the meaningless jumble of protons with neither truth nor goodness.

Again with this silly ass assumption that goodness is not a trait a person can have without god in the picture. What can atheists do as a group to demonstrate how our values and ethics and desires for humanity reflect our quest for meaningful life experiences?

A comment on one of my other blog posts suggested we need to approach the problem from a values based angle. Rather than focus on defining “goodness” we should jointly come to agreement on what values benefit society and on what levels. Competition is good to a point. Ambition is good to a point. Cooperation is usually worthwhile for everyone. Honesty, integrity, loyalty, honour. All vital, all values that should be expected and applicable to everyone in our society. There should be ways to come together in agreement on this stuff. It matters to all of us, regardless of god belief. It’s absolutely wrong and untrue to believe otherwise.

If we are going to have a God we need him to be a God worth having and anything other than the Christian God is easily reduced to triviality.

What you’re essentially saying is every other god belief is trivial and yours is the only one that’s true and right? What a laugh there is to be had there. Oh, the egotism of it. At least atheists are smart enough to claim every god belief is trivial. We’re equal opportunity offenders. heh.

A friend wrote to me…

“Someone who says “but a good god would would do ___” is measuring his theoretical god against his *own* standard of what he thinks “good” is. In doing so, he really has made himself to be God, and what he calls “god” is merely a citizen of his own kingdom.” VW

And I think that that is true for the most part

I agree. We only have our standard of what good is, which is why people can’t wrap their heads around what god does and what god says is good. How we are to judge vs what god gets away with. They don’t match. It’s a hypocrisy and it will always be a hypocrisy because the bible is an unchanging document of a history of god belief in ancient times.

What about now?

Cultures change. People change. People’s needs for society change. Values change. Morals evolve (how does the average person feel about slavery now compared to 500 years ago?). Ethics alter as we learn more about the earth and things upon it. We’ve realized just how few resources we have and what we can do to extend their usability. We figure out ways to improve life and living conditions and innovation leads to solutions, or at least ideas for better solutions.

but we can also see that since God himself put in our hearts and very constitution (as sentient beings created in the image of God) his own moral law and ethical categories, we are born into the world with the ethical equipment to recognize justice and find God through such activity. Thus we can only in this limited sense “judge God” in that we have the ability to see what he does and that he is always good.

I’ll agree we can recognize justice. But all too often we confuse it with vengeance. Eye for an eye crap. There is more to that verse, isn’t there? As for as “he is always good” – that only works if the logic is “Anything god ever does is good.” It winds up being such a loose definition of good.

Does that mean we don’t have the right to intercede after floods and natural disasters to help people? God might still wish them to be dead so it’d go against god to provide aid. If god can only do good things, we should never get in the way of his goodness, no matter what grief it causes humanity at large. Just pray they find the path to god’s righteousness before they see the flames of hell, I guess.

That explains a lot. I’m deeply saddened to think there might be people who would take the belief of god’s goodness to this conclusion and I’d bet a cookie that some do. That’s so depressing. We should always help, no matter what the tragedy. If people wind up thanking god instead of volunteers when they live, so be it. We still should help, even if we’ll never get a thank-you or reward for it. That should never be the reason to do the right thing anyway.

I think this kind of exercise of judgement is found even in holy scripture when we are called upon to not only relent, but to recognize the goodness of God. We are called not just to admit that God is powerful and sovereign over Heaven and Earth, but that he is actually good. His goodness is not reducible to merely his authority and omnipotence but is an actual moral quality inherent in the Godhead itself. Thus perhaps in judging God by the “good” we could say that we are really judging God by God, or maybe measuring God by his own moral consistency.

People will judge us every day because of what we do. God’s judgement doesn’t matter as much as theirs does. I think god’s apparent concept of morality shouldn’t apply to any human beings who want to care about their fellow human beings. I think that anyone who claims to understand god’s judgement has to make it up as he goes along.

Nobody can really know god, right? That means no one can really know what he apparently thinks about anything. All the faithful can do is assume and rationalize and postulate and infer. They can’t prove any of it. They can believe whatever the hell they want to believe, I guess, but they can’t prove any of it is factual truth. It’s not verifiable in any way, shape or form. We can only take it on their word that it is so.

But why should we? What makes that version of reality more true or right than another? I would rather credit plate tectonics than be like the ones who point to a group of people and claim god didn’t like what they were doing so he shook the earth to punish them all. Nope.

What really happens is your group’s intolerance of another group allows you the freedom to claim god punishes that group you don’t like by sending earthquakes and fires. You hate what they do so you claim a freak disaster is god’s good righteous judgement upon them. Praise the good lord for judging you to be as horrible as we already think you are! Hooray! Die horribly! Hooray! You totally deserve it you freaks! Hooray!

Such a ridiculous notion. I don’t know why it sticks around. Sure defeats the need to promote compassion or any decent human behaviours. Doesn’t matter if you use earthquakes, disease or accidents in the analogy. It all works out to the same conclusion – God’s judgement on a world gone to hell. Armageddon is on the horizon because we can see boobs on HBO.

I don’t know about you but I’m tapped out. I don’t know why I do these posts. Minds won’t change unless people want them to anyway. If these people want to believe every tragedy that befalls a human being can still be considered proof of god’s inherent goodness, fine. Be that way. I don’t get it. I don’t want to get it.

I just have to say that I am glad to be an atheist right now. The joy is so tangible, it must be shared. I have to dance because I’m so happy to be an atheist right now. I am so full of joy, I have to dance like an idiot!

Odes to Joy should be optional

Strange report coming out of California…

Sorry, let me start that again.

Typical report coming out of California: a substitute teacher has decreed that is it vital kids be given the freedom to be forced to sing religious carols in December while they’re at school. Merry (cute) Susan Hyatt has put forth a ballot and desperately wants people to agree with her and sign their names to the fact that Christmas carols are so important they simply must be part of public school winter activities.

Backers of the initiative to get the issue put on the ballot need to acquire 434,000 valid signatures on petitions to make it happen.

Reportedly, Hyatt feels that children need this. She said, “‘They need to see that we believe in Jesus, and He is the Prince of Peace. That’s why we are the best country on Earth.’” And as far as she is concerned, non-Christian children, can opt out and go sit in another room.

A representative for Americans United for Separation of Church and State had this to say about it:

Here’s a woman who’s so tone-deaf to American pluralism that she thinks everyone should be forced to enjoy Christmas whether they want to or not …

It seems way too early to wade into Christmas debates. It’s an El Nino year and we have no snow yet. And where should I go with this? I hesitate to take an atheist angle on it and get all uppity about the unChristian history of solstice celebrations (bindun) or deconstruct a Christmas carol (bindun a few times) so what should I focus on instead?

I guess I’ll twitch at the school angle of this. Kids have enough stuff they’re supposed to be doing that isn’t getting done every year to decent educational standards. Why add enforced singing to the list to daily to-do’s? Math lesson? Check. English lesson? Check. Every kid who claims to identify as Christian (none of whom ever got to choose that fate) has sung holy drivel offkey prior to wrapping up for recess? Check.

Non-Christians can opt out? Seriously? Make those kids leave the room while teachers demand harmonious joy from the rest? So your child comes home in tears because her classmates got to sing and she was told her upbringing is the “wrong” one so she can’t … No kid wants to be left out of anything that ought to be fun, even if they’ll never in their wildest dreams get good at it.

Kids can learn carols anywhere. They can sing them anywhere. If parents want to drill their kids on the holy ones, fine. If kids would rather belt out all the weird parodies of Jingle Bells they can devise, bring it on. If they want to scream and add more Fa lalalalaalallalalas than are needed to fit the tune, suck it up and buy some earplugs. But for the sake of everything great about this upcoming festive season, find a way to deal with the very real fact that celebrating Baby Jesus’ big day is only one of many many decent ways to mark the end of the year. Enjoy Christmastime, by all means, but quit trying to hog the whole damn month!

December belongs to everyone, no matter what they might do with it.

And joy is completely optional.

Atheists are loveable? Of course we are!

I’ve never even heard of The Ball and the Cross so it’s great that revelife provides a rundown of the plot of G.K. Chesterton’s story. It sounds interesting enough to seek out.

It involves an atheist journalist and a Catholic who’s angry enough over what the atheist has written that he insists a duel needs doing. The atheist is simply tickled someone’s even bothered to get bothered by his articles (sounds like me, har!) and enthusiastically agrees. From revelife:

The two men are hampered in their efforts to fight their duel, however–firstly because duels are illegal, but also because every person they encounter tries to talk them out of it. “Religion is–a–too personal a matter… The most religious people are not those who talk about it,” says one. “…You ought to be more broadminded,” says another. And (while I won’t spoil the ending for you), as the two men flee from place to place throughout England searching for a quiet place to have their duel, they find that they are quite coming to like each other.

It is that which I love about atheists. They think that these questions of reality or existence are worth fighting for, worth arguing over. They think that it matters whether God is or is not.

I guess what ultimately gets me down is the fact that matters. Why? Why can’t a person just say, “I’m a Christian,” and another person say, “I’m an atheist,” and then both just get down to the business of living to the best of their abilities? Why does god-belief have to enter into any of it as a reason to get fired up and hotheaded? Let’s just play cards or something. I mean really. Do you have any eights? No? I’ll go fish then…

I guess I will have to read the story to see if I agree more with the passionate duelists or the apathetic public. My library doesn’t have a book by this name listed but I put holds on a couple Chesterton collections so hopefully it’ll be in one of those. If it’s not there maybe something else will be worth writing about instead. All is shiny and bright regardless.

I keep a blog not because I want to knock down religions like dominoes. I just want to be a voice and offer a viewpoint. Nobody has to agree with me. I’m not going to force anyone to dump years worth of (wasted?) devotion if they aren’t seriously prepared for the fallout that kind of decision can create. Don’t look to me for suggestions on how to do that. I’ve always been an atheist, unlike others.

I don’t think it should matter what people think about mortality and immortality and all that stuff so long as nobody’s getting physically hurt by it. Hurt feelings and offended hearts can heal, given patience and time and loved ones (and sometimes psychologists). But whether one buys the tales of heaven and hell or not, death is forever.

Death is forever.

Is the hope of winning this centuries old argument worth it? To either side?

I fervently hope not.

—
edit 6:44am: Just found Black Sun Journal’s take on beliefs and rituals and look what got written:

Humans have performed rituals for all sorts of nonsensical reasons throughout history. Believe it or not, I’m OK with that so long as no one gets hurt…

The similarity just caught my eye while I was reading. Now I’ll finish reading that article. It looks like a good one.

Oh, thanks be to the Flying Spaghetti Monster!

Guess what I spotted today: my blog featured on the atheist tag page. Oh, yes, I bless His Noodly Appendage for snagging my blog in his most tenderest of Noodles and resting me upon the wordpress like a treasured meatball. Oh, I must sacrifice tomatoes to his greatness tonight. I must!

And yes I hit Print Screen and saved that image. Skeptics always demand proof eh?

Ramen! Ramen!

(k, done. A little humility also goes a long way…)

Quotable theology, round 2

This is a continuation of a response to a post I came across. Read the first half here.

One way or another we need to face the problem. Either we present God as a mushy glow of love and compassion that would really like to do something about evil but either can’t or won’t, or we present him as he presents himself in scripture and push the problem back at the accuser.

Epicurus already dealt with the first part, which is why he discounted the need for gods. Why would the problem be lobbed into our court? It’s your ball of crazy. You explain it.

If you still insist that I have to, I’ll remind readers that the bible today is not the original. All those books were once separate writings based on early spoken stories that were only later written down. And they were all written down at different times, only gathered up in one volume far later, when it became obvious that schisms were becoming a problem.

Better to unite everyone under the same books than have every group follow their own version of the story. That’s why there are two Genesis tales. Why the gospels don’t agree on how Jesus came to be born or risen from the dead.

Beliefs in a god or gods depend wholly on the culture the gods are a part of. For early Hebrews, I suspect they wanted a vindictive god because life was hell under the Egyptians. So when plague struck or locusts ate crops or the Nile flooded over everything, they could credit God’s will, God’s vengeance, dealing out lots of death to everyone who ever oppressed his chosen people.

It’s beyond daft, yet we know people who still want to think this way about people they don’t like, don’t we. Like the idea that God burned California to stop gay marriage. Why would anyone ever come to that conclusion and broadcast it? It’s totally moronic.

Those without God inevitably absolve the universe of evil in order to avoid the God that judges evil and so make themselves innocent at the cost of moral realism.

Of course I absolve the universe of evil. Is it the sun’s fault you get burned? Hardly. It’s your fault for not taking precautions. The sun is not sentient. It can’t give a damn about anything. Neither can the earth or moon, or a nebula or black matter. The universe is incapable of caring about good or evil. Those are human terms used to explain and rationalize human deeds and inexplicable natural events. That is a realism I can get behind.

What’s moral realism? Turns out it can be defined as this:

Realism as applied to the judgments of ethics, and to the values, obligations, rights, etc. that are referred to in ethical theory. The leading idea is to see moral truth as grounded in the nature of things rather than in subjective and variable human reactions to things. … moral realism aspires to protecting the objectivity of ethical judgment …

I’m of the opinion that society builds morality. Every society has a moral or ethical code. Including lions and tigers and ants, by the way. Appropriate group behaviours. Appropriate behaviours toward like groups, appropriate behaviours toward unlike groups. I don’t think animals pass much judgement over who they sleep with, beyond picking a partner that will create the best genetic mix. Not that they do any reasoning that leads to this result beforehand — it’s just what they do. It sure as hell isn’t fair to the runts or off-colour critters that don’t fit in, but it benefits the group at large to not pass along unwanted traits.

Should human beings use the same moral and ethical code the animals do? I sure as hell hope not. But if moral truth is grounded in the nature of things rather than subjectivity and variable human reactions, then we’re wrong to not follow this animalistic genetic example. If everything else living in the world behaves this way, why don’t we?

Because we’re capable of reason and independent thought. We don’t have to live by our instinct for survival. And it’s not just our own survival we care about prolonging. We don’t let the weak and the lame be ignored or killed off if we can help it. We research disease, we build vaccines and crutches and we perfect operations that fix flaws (imagined or real) and repair eyes and teeth so natural body failures won’t be a detriment to survival. We replace hips, heart valves, livers and lungs. Why in the hell do humans go through all that trouble to save lives?

Because we can.

Know what? I’m going to break here and post a round 3 later. Come on back, ya hear?

Quotable Magician

How tall is Penn Jillette? He’s all awesome.

Believing there’s no God means I can’t really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That’s good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.

I totally agree with this sentiment. I would rather live my life knowing I’ve done all right by people than deal with folks bearing grudges. Some of that I can’t help, I suppose. No doubt my dislike of some beliefs might bother people enough to condemn me to a place I don’t believe exists.

Reminder to those people: hell can only be a useful fear tactic for people who believe there’s a heaven they might miss out on. For anyone else, it’s a very empty threat.

H/T to Kat for having the quote on her sidebar.

Quotable theology, round 1

This post linked to one of mine so I clicked it out of curiosity. It’s about the God/good thing. I could comment there but I’d rather work through it here. I like having space to spread my thoughts out. They do tend to be long posts, don’t they? For once I’ll spare readers some agony and do two posts instead. So don’t say I never do anything for ya. Har!

I’m getting a lot this ‘what a “good god” would do’ thing now in emails and such (backwash from the new atheism).

What’s so new about new atheism? I’m 35 and I think I’d have to say I’ve been an atheist for at least 25 of those years, whether I called myself one or not. Does the “new” aspect have to do with how vocal atheists are becoming these days? The internet does provide equal ground for all viewpoints, no matter how mainstream or fringe.

Youtube and podcasts take the debates off radio and television and into a new realm of anonymous flames and trolling but messages worth getting out are getting heard. Atheists, humanists, freethinkers, brights, whatever we might want to call ourselves, our viewpoints have merit. A good and decent life is possible without committing one’s self to some deity’s demands for obedience, no matter what the purpose.

Fundamentalist ideologies that preach hatred and beg god to send fires down to punish the people disliked or feared is a viewpoint I don’t like but enough people seem to share it so it remains in the public eye more than it should. Does anyone besides atheists and the like stand up to them and tell them what’s wrong with their world view? Or is there some bizarre mindset at work, that if you ignore them they’ll go away? You really think that’s likely? If only. If you really want to get the weeds out, you never ignore the appearance of the first one. You know damn well the seeds get everywhere, and will grow like mad. It’s what weeds do.

And don’t be thinking all atheists are the same. We’re not. I’m not out to destroy religion. Believe in god if you want to. I’d like to see more acknowledgment of the validity of our side. That a useful, valuable lifestyle can still be achieved without belief in gods.

I’m ethical. I’m moral. I give to charity. I’m kind and polite and I try and treat everyone I meet decently because that’s the best way I’ve found to get along in the world. I don’t want to be a person people hate to be around. I don’t want to hurt people if I can avoid it. I make allowances, I try not to lie or act deceitful. I don’t make an ass of myself on camera and then post it for the world to see. I don’t want to be that kind of person.

I want to be respected and trusted so I behave in ways that encourage respect and trust. By and large, I want to be happy and I know I wouldn’t be happy knowing I made people miserable. I don’t need wealth, or perfection. I just want to have a life I like. And I do. I get along with my family, I have nice friends, low stress levels, lots of music, good books, free movie rental. I love my godless life!

Try this: Instead of looking supplicant and making excuses for God as if He had been having a bad day, say plainly that “any God that would not judge persons, nations, entire civilizations and even the world would not be a God of any great significance and so unworthy of true faith or sincere worship”.

But how much of what happens in the world is really the result of god’s actions and judgements? Can you say that any of it is and be sure you are correct? I don’t think so. All you have is faith in this assumption to guide your way. And it’s a very silly assumption that I’d never want to buy into and can’t fathom why anyone does.

Does a god cause war, or do people do that to push a political or religious agenda? Is he the earthquake causer, or does the magma under the planet’s crust get a bad case of the hiccups sometimes? Does a god cause the fires in California, or is that the fault of assholes who light them either deliberately or by anonymous accident? Did a god cause H1N1 or did the virus mutate and evolve like all the others tend to do over time? Is this god really casting his judgement on the world, or is it just a case of bad shit happening to everyone because bad shit is bound to happen eventually? The wheel never stops turning, Badger. And as far as the world goes, it’s all rim.

Round two will be posted soon. Check back!

What’s the deal with ChristWire?

Is this for real? Do people really think this way? Until I’m informed of the reality of this site, have a few laughs anyway. It’s a helluva good time.

Start with the bit where emo spirits cause men to have bad hair and buy communist products. Who knew? What’s communist about iTunes? I have to pay for every song. I thought under communism all kinds of shit would be free. Stupid commie bastards who ruined the utopia Marx dreamed of…

If you want to own a cat, you may as well worship Bast, too and then go straight to hell, do not pass Go (but do pass the lint brush. Cat hairs! Evil cat hairs!) On behalf of cats everywhere, I’m offended.

Friendly Atheist gets a finger shaken at him for mentioning the Virgin Mary and a condom in the same piece. Because it IS the same piece:

I wish this were still the days of the Spanish Inquisition, because I would mount my horse and lead the charge to slowly burn all these filth atheist witches at the pyre! There is nothing moral or right about disparaging the mother of our Lord and Savior!

I hope and pray God gives them just punishment for this, it’s so far over the line of wrong. May God strike down their fornicated secret parts with emerods and then let their souls stoke the fires of hell!

Feel the love. I love being loved. Whoever got to be loved with that Virgin Mary condom was very loved indeed. I also love how it says “emerods” instead of hemorrhoids, too. It’s obviously a writer more familiar with King James’ version. Haven’t seen much evidence of smiting yet. God can’t even smite down my fruit flies. Not that I’ve asked him to – I’m an atheist with a soapy water spray bottle. I can deal with them myself.

Apparently there’s a group around that’s given up masturbation for Jesus. I shouldn’t wonder why. You’ve seen how Jesus is hung, right? (Dude’s in need of a dress up party, too. Open this in a new window or tab for later. Don’t leave here yet. There are more LOLs!