Ever heard of those? It’s for people who have a hard time committing to following through on things. All those people that say “I’ll do it when I get around to it,” really ought to check out this site that sells round tuits, although I guess you’d have to get around to telling someone else to get it for you because you’d never get a round tuit on your own, would ya?
What the hell am I even leading up to, you ask. Last year, way back around Giftsmastime, I was at home in Dial Up Land and found an interesting article I couldn’t write about at the time. Now I have the time and, what’s more, the inclination. It was all about a popular children’s rhyme and how it may have actually been a hate crime to be singing and acting it out. You read that right. Hokey Pokey could be a hate crime.
according to the Catholic Church and some Scottish politicians, singing the popular tune that begins with the words “You put your right hand in, your right hand out,” may constitute an act of religious hatred.
A spokesman for the leader of the church in Scotland said the song had disturbing origins.
Critics claim that Puritans composed the song in the 18th century in an attempt to mock the actions and language of priests leading the Latin mass.
Now politicians have urged police to arrest anyone using the song to “taunt” Catholics under legislation designed to prevent incitement to religious hatred.
I wonder how that went. Since I never heard of mass panic in playgrounds, I guess it went the way of the dodo.
Supporters of Rangers FC have been banned from singing anti-Catholic songs at Ibrox stadium to taunt their rivals Celtic, a club with Catholic roots.
But fans of the club are said to be discussing on internet forums the possibility of getting round the ban by singing the Hokey Cokey at next week’s Old Firm derby between the clubs.
Peter Kearney, a spokesman for Cardinal Keith O’Brien, said:
“This song does have quite disturbing origins. Although apparently innocuous, it was devised as an attack on and a parody of the Catholic mass.
“If there are moves to restore its more malevolent meaning then consideration should perhaps be given to its wider use.”
According to the church, the song’s title derives from the words “hocus pocus”.
That idea has made the rounds, but Wiki credits Canadian soldiers in WWII for providing Jimmy Kennedy with the inspiration for what later became his Hokey Cokey hit.
Jimmy Kennedy Jr. quoted his father’s writing:
“They were having a hilarious time, singing and playing games, one of which they said was a Canadian children’s game called The Cokey Cokey. I thought to myself, wouldn’t that be fun as a dance to cheer people up! So when I got back to my hotel, I wrote a chorus based on the feet and hand movements the Canadians had used, with a few adaptations. A few days later, I wrote additional lyrics to it but kept the title, Cokey Cokey, and, as everybody knows, it became a big hit.”
According to Kennedy Jr., his father told him “the unusual title was to do with drugs [cocaine] taken by the miners in Canada to cheer themselves up in the harsh environment where they were prospecting.”
That’s even better than 17th century Puritans. It took some hunting to find the National Post’s response to this business, but it’s unclear if they’re reporting on what Wiki has, or if they’re Wiki’s source. Around and around, eh? I can’t find any sites explaining how many prospectors O.D.’d before scurvy got them or anything, but hey. It’s still one hell of a story.
People would rather take offense than do research first. A hoax is just good enough to be believed by one person who tells a few others and soon it’s as real is lemon sorbet. Mmm..sorbet…
My local Freethinkers had a meeting about this topic today and one of the guys shared a few quotes about death and dying, including this one attributed to Albert Einstein:
“Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us, our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life.”
But what if it is the child who has died? What then?
In the past 25 years, hundreds of children are believed to have died in the United States after faith-healing parents forbade medical attention to end their sickness or protect their lives. When minors die from a lack of parental care, it is usually a matter of criminal neglect and is often tried as murder. However, when parents say the neglect was an article of faith, courts routinely hand down lighter sentences. Faithful neglect has not been used as a criminal defense, but the claim is surprisingly effective in achieving more lenient sentencing, in which judges appear to render less unto Caesar and more unto God.
This disparate treatment was evident last month in Wisconsin, a state with an exemption for faith-based neglect under its child abuse laws. Leilani and Dale Neumann were sentenced for allowing their 11-year-old daughter, Madeline Kara Neumann, to die in 2008 from an undiagnosed but treatable form of diabetes.
It’s one thing if it’s an accident or some quick virus or sudden onset of one of the worst cancers and there’s barely time to say goodbye let alone get the right drugs into the system that may or may not be beneficial in the long run. But when something easy to treat that people can live with for years winds up killing a child because parents prefer to pray instead? It’s inconceivable to me.
In a nation founded on the free exercise of religion, the legal system struggles with parents who act both criminally and faithfully in the deaths of their children. This paradox has perplexed courts for centuries. One of the earliest prosecutions of such a case occurred in England in the 1800s, when the crown charged followers of a sect known only as the Peculiar People, a name derived from a translation of the phrase “chosen people” from the book of Deuteronomy. They were accused of killing numerous children as a result of faith-healing practices.
Today, the Old Peculiars are largely gone (their faith-healing views thinned their numbers considerably), but many other sects such as Unleavened Bread Ministries have prospered.
And I was reminded today that Canada is not immune to this. I can’t find a link to anything relevant to this country, unfortunately, but it’s been suggested elsewhere that prayer should be covered under health insurance. If you pay someone to pray for you, that person should be reimbursed as a health care provider. Christian Scientists in the States were hoping for it and while the original link has 404′d, Ed Brayton quoted some of that article.
After our meeting, a few of us moved into the lounge to continue discussions and the guy who mentioned this to us wondered how many ways hucksters and scammers could work a system like that. And if the person dies anyway, do you sue the guy you paid to pray at him, or take it out on the doctors? Assuming you even bothered to consult a doctor. And when it comes to the prayer part, do you go generic, or contact someone you can tell is affiliated with a church? Does the insurance company have to sign off on a person’s ability to pray first? Any testimonials of successful interventions in life and death situations?
And during the meeting, a woman who works for a memorial service brought up a study that was done regarding terminal cancer patients and how much life prolonging stuff they asked for in the week leading up to their death. The least religious were more likely to just let go, while the most religious in terms of coping wanted everything that might give them another hour, day or week of added personal suffering and added pain for family members – not just emotionally, but financially as well.
Clinicians need to recognize and be sensitive to the role that religious coping plays in medical decisions at the end of life. They may wish to include other health professionals in discussing these matters. For aggressive care at the end of life to prolong that life at all costs leads to a poorer quality of death and emotional issues for friends and family.
I’ll let the wise artists of xkcd.com have the last word.
–noun
an assembly of people engaged in a common activity (often used in combination): filmfest; gabfest; love-fest; poetry fest.
Over in Scotland, Dundee has declared December to be Christian Christmas free. No overtly religious symbolism will be allowed to honour that time of year in any public venues.
IT IS a story that could have come straight out of the pages of Dr Seuss’s The Grinch that Stole Christmas.
IT IS NOT. The Grinch wanted to kill any and all celebrations that were fun and full of songs and joy and gift giving. If anything, the Grinch was a Puritan. That he failed is evidence that joy and fun cannot be quashed for long and even the Grinch has a change of heart about surrounding one’s self with friends and being joyful. He was lacking it, thought he didn’t need it, and he was wrong.
City leaders in Dundee are planning a spectacular festive celebration – but with no references to Christianity.
So? December belongs to everyone, not just Christians. Not everyone buys into the Christian way to explain the day. There are traditions galore over what to do with the shortest day of the northern year, and how to spend the longest northern night. The winter solstice is not the sole property of any group. Anyone can have a party. My Freethinker club is planning a Festivus celebration for the 20th. I’m going and I don’t even like Seinfeld.
Hailed as a celebration of Dundee’s contemporary culture and innovative past, festive season revellers are being promised a visual feast of projections and lights later this month. It will be a “Winter Light Night” of festive season illuminations, audiovisual displays, music, street art performances and a children’s torchlight procession.
Which is quite similar to honouring St. Lucy, Hanukkah or Advent, by the way. Bringing light into the darkness, be it with real candles, or an enlightening belief system that promises to change the world with a Word.
But yesterday the city council and the event’s organisers were under attack from church leaders, who accused them of eroding the religious significance of Christmas by removing all references to Christianity from the annual switch on of the city’s Christmas lights.
But that’s just it. Christmas is one of many ways to celebrate the season. It’s been around for a long time, but it’s never been a world-wide phenomenon that everyone celebrates. “Do they know it’s Christmas time at all?” Do they know where their next meal is coming from? Do they know why their country is in such dire straits? I’m sure that’s way more important than what day their benefactors think is holy.
And, instead of the traditional nativity story, the festival will feature a solar-powered disco, a continental market, a circus and a fairy on stilts.
That’s a flashing, sparkling, mirror ball of awesome, right there. Holy crap, do I ever wish my passport was up to date. That sounds like the best damn day ever organized!
Know what traditions existed before that nativity story got popular? Mithra had his birthday party on the 25th of December every year. Even ancient Romans acknowledged the existence of this Persian god of soldiers and chided Christian soldiers for lacking the same desire for “temperance, self-control and compassion — even in victory” that Mithras followers did.
Northern Europeans enjoyed the rituals of Yule for years before they heard of Christianity. According to Wiki, the secretly Christian King Haakon I of Norway started eroding Yule’s purpose and instigated the moves to blend the “heathen pagan” celebrations with Christian holidays and traditions until very little of the old Yule was left.
“The presbytery is concerned at the dropping of the term ‘Christmas lights’ in favour of ‘winter lights’ at the festival.”
Mr Webster said the Kirk’s convener was writing to the council chief exective to express concern. “Members of all the congregations within the presbytery are also being encouraged to take the matter up with their councillors.
“Christmas is a Christian festival, and the dropping of the term Christmas lights and the telling of the Christmas story is an erosion of the religious festival.”
I prefer to see it as reminding people that Christmas is not the only proper way to celebrate anything this time of year. It’s optional. Donkeys, inns, wise men. All optional. Santa, elves, reindeer. Optional. Candles, carols, mincemeat, date cake, all optional.
He added: “I don’t think there is anything sinister here. I think it is more a case of this having slipped through the cracks rather being any sort of politically correct move.
“The presbytery’s concern is that somehow, the Christmas aspect of the festival has fallen off the edge.”
Has Christmas ever been ruled as mandatory by a government? Celebrate Christmas or be fined and imprisoned. Hardly. I don’t think the town of Dundee is saying no Christmas decorations will be allowed anywhere in city limits. They’ve just opted to put on a faith free festival this year. Go ahead with your trees and tinsel and ornaments and baby Jesus displays in your homes and church yards. Nobody’s going to stop you. Celebrate the season in your own space however you see fit.
Dundee sees fit to celebrate the season without a label for a change, and I doubt attendance at their fest will be mandatory. Be a Grinch if you want and skip the whole thing. Nobody’s going to force you to join in.
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.
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.
…do it for them. Not for yourself, so you can feel heroic. Not for your wife so she can brag to her bridge club. Not for your parents or someone you admire that thinks you ought to. Do it because it needs doing and you want to do all you can to help someone get through troubled times.
Amy Henry at WORLDmag.com mentions a book called Same Kind of Different as Me, written in part by another WORLDmag contributor (was that the only reason she read it?). She explains part of this true story where Ron’s wife has had some “prophetic” dream about a man he’s supposed to help and lo and behold, Ron finds a man fitting his wife’s supposed description (probably along the lines of “He was black” — sorry, in the mood to be snarky). His wife insists God’s telling him to help the guy, but
Well-acquainted with those volunteer types at the local mission, Denver sees right through Ron’s half-hearted attempts to befriend him: “If you is fishin for a friend you just gon’ catch and release,” he says. “Then I ain’t got no desire to be your friend. . . . But if you is lookin for a real friend, then I’ll be one. Forever.”
The couple does wind up befriending Denver, who returns the favour gladly. Happy couple, happy poor man, book deal, money made, the end.
Amy finishes her commentary by saying, “As fishers of men, catch and release should never be our policy.”
Do they have to be caught by a rod approved by Christ or can anyone do it? I think anyone can choose to reach out and be a friend to someone who needs one without wrapping the net of Christianity around him or her at the same time. Couples like Ron and Debbie mean well, obviously, but are they helping because someone really needs it, or are they driven more by some desire to demonstrate what good Christians they are?
Sorry. I know I shouldn’t assume everyone has ulterior motives at the root of everything they do. Not everyone acts to further some divine ambition, consciously or otherwise. At some point we just have to trust a person’s sincerity, otherwise nobody moves forward.
So, well done, Ron and Debbie, for wanting to make a difference in someone’s life. We all should aim to do the same and mean it when we do.
Thinking about this, one thing popped into my mind. Why can’t I own a Canadian?
Think about it. Racism is ugly and trusting one’s neighbors is Christlike, so we should also let people from ALL the lesser Americas to come visit us to work as well. Canada is a country full of snow-bound savages who are good at chopping wood and light industrial tasks.
Pause for LOLS.
Reminds me of those hilarious questions the tourist industry shares about ignorant Americans (and others) about this great land that’s really big.
But I digress.
TBear offers a sensible comment to counteract all the asshattery:
It may be a joke, but how do you feel when you read “jokes” told at the expense of American values and stereotypes or about the enslavement of a fellow human being. Nobody anywhere should use slavery as a joke. It is a disgusting part of North America past that sane minded individuals are happy has ended. Using slavery as a punch line undermines severe oppression slaves endured.
Additionally, I am a Canadian, but I have lived in many countries. What this article promotes is found around the world. Canada is a thriving country with an excellent economy and an amazing democratic system. Yet these “jokes” are pervasive on the internet and in other forms of media, and they restrict Canada from gaining the respect it deserves.
Jokes may be intended to be light hearted, but when you are the subject you are never happy about it. I acknowledge that this article must be written in jest, but I still reserve my right to be grossly offended at the content and the intended or unintended propagation of negative stereotypes.
I agree.
I don’t think ignorance and stupidity need to be tolerated, not this kind anyway. People need to be taught, not humoured. It’s beyond inappropriate to encourage this kind of thinking, even in jest.
No, I’m sorry. I misread it. It’s Kbells (sic throughout):
I kind of have a problem with discrimination laws in general. Is it really the Governments business who I hire or rent to? Theses laws have some employers reluctant to hire minorities in vital positions because they are afraid that if it doesn’t work out they won’t be able to fire them without a lawsuit. I’ve known employers who will reserve a harmless, dead end job for the minority employee. They will also try to double up by hiring a black woman making it harder for a black men to get hired. Now they will have to hire a gay, black woman.
I always thought people should be hired because they are the best qualified, not because an employer needs to meet some quota “equal opportunity” malarky. On the flip side, a crap ass effort can be given by anyone on any job. To assume you’ve been sacked because of your ethnicity rather than anything you haven’t (but were supposed to have) done is like putting the cart before the horse, isn’t it? Or am I having a hard time approaching this because I’m a white lower-class French-German-Irish-Canadian right-handed, brown-haired, eyeglass-wearing woman?
Oh, to have a world not built for sorting folks into labels… what a world it could be.
Anyway, the quote is under an article at WorldMag which reports on a successful gay rights issue being supported and approved by Mormons in Utah – the right to housing and employment:
Passage made Salt Lake City the first Utah community to prohibit bias based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Under the two new ordinances, it is illegal to fire someone from their job or evict someone from their residence because they are lesbian, bisexual, gay or transgender.
The gay community of Utah is willing to tick the win column on this one and why not?
“What happened here tonight I do believe is a historic event,” said Brandie Balken, director of the gay rights advocacy group Equality Utah. “I think it establishes that we can stand together on common ground that we don’t have to agree on everything, but there are lot of things that we can work on and be allies.”
God will, of course, still strike them down if they dare try to get married, but I suppose it’s a start.
“The church supports these ordinances because they are fair and reasonable and do not do violence to the institution of marriage,” Michael Otterson, the director of public affairs for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said.
Yes, gay marriage has the power to do violence. I had no idea. The love is that amazing, eh? They’ll actually destroy an institution with it. Wow. Makes me think the institution of marriage isn’t built very well, if that’s the case. And how many wives can Mormons have again? But exceptions are only good when they’re in your favour. Right…
Sorry. I don’t even like that song. However, it was all I could think of to lead into results of an attempt to bring Christian vanity plates to cars in South Carolina. Similar stories have been in the news before, but now the Daily Telegraph reports on the pro-choice judge who said the one word they never wanted to hear: NO!
The southern state’s legislature had already approved the licence plate, but Cameron Currie, the district judge, said the plate was unconstitutional because it violated the First Amendment, which requires the separation of church and state.
“Such a law amounts to a state endorsement not only of religion in general, but of a specific sect in particular,” Ms Currie wrote.
Well done, Judge Currie, for coming down the side of equality here instead of preferential treatment.
“Whether motivated by sincerely-held Christian beliefs or an effort to purchase political capital with religious coin, the result is the same.
“The statute is clearly unconstitutional and defence of its implementation has embroiled the state in unnecessary (and expensive) litigation.”
some legislators openly admitted that they would not vote for similar plates for minority faiths.
Nobody would be forced to buy them; vanity plates are entirely optional. Generally I think they’re pretty stupid, but whatever. If your whole identity is tied up in how strangers see your car, you’ve got bigger problems than what your license plate says.
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!
Posted by 1minionsopinion 
Posted by 1minionsopinion 
Posted by 1minionsopinion 
