HEPPY EASTER

[Hebe]

Things are getting back to what passes for normal thanks.

HS - what happened? Are you OK?

[Howard Stinks]

Thank you Hebe and Machiavella.
I am OK not one scratch, no others involved thank god.Damaged two other parked cars will have to pay for the damage,no insurance.
Probably will lose my driving licence, had two points left thanks to shool zones.Double demerit points during the easter period.
One good thing out of all this,started walking a lot, feel better already.

[Swami Dring]

The older I get, the more intolerant of religion and all things associated I become.

So people saying "happy easter" and "merry xmas" has become a bit of a problem for me. (Who the fuck says "merry" anyway?)

I genuinely dislike it when others say these things to me and I cannot bring myself to reciprocate.

Sometimes I say "no thanks, I'm atheist". But maybe that's a little uncharitable. So what do I do?

Have I become a cranky curmudgeon?

[Machiavella]

Sometimes I say "no thanks, I'm atheist". But maybe that's a little uncharitable. So what do I do?

Have I become a cranky curmudgeon?

Yes, you have! Not that there is anything wrong with that, and, as far as "cranky curmudgeons" go, you are allright, if you are the old Dringy.

I think that lately it's the atheists who have taken over from the former "missionaries", they are every bit as control-freakish as the olden religious nuts were. Just listen to the increasingly strident Dawkins pontificating about his religion, AAATHEISM. He might have been good in science, but with his screeching anti-everything-and-everbody-else-but-him-and-atheism, he could nearly turn me back to religion again! So there !

[Swami Dring]

Sometimes I say "no thanks, I'm atheist". But maybe that's a little uncharitable. So what do I do?

Have I become a cranky curmudgeon?

Yes, you have! Not that there is anything wrong with that, and, as far as "cranky curmudgeons" go, you are allright, if you are the old Dringy.

I think that lately it's the atheists who have taken over from the former "missionaries", they are every bit as control-freakish as the olden religious nuts were. Just listen to the increasingly strident Dawkins pontificating about his religion, AAATHEISM. He might have been good in science, but with his screeching anti-everything-and-everbody-else-but-him-and-atheism, he could nearly turn me back to religion again! So there !

Dawkins, along with all atheists, has very good reason to stick a fork in the ass of religion at every opportunity. You could hardly call him "screeching", though. Persistent, certainly, but he's a little too polite and restrained for my liking. I prefer Hitchens' style.

I found an excellent response from a contributor on Fark who was accused of "being a dick". That is, being too strident an atheist. Here it is:



I'll stop being a dick when Jesus/Mary "appearing" in some random object stops being bigger news than someone heroically saving another's life by pulling them from a burning building.

I'll stop being a dick when I stop getting the same tired, irrational arguments with no basis on evidence or reality when I try to discuss religion vs. atheism.

I'll stop being a dick when people stop assuming I either have no morals or got my morals from religion.

I'll stop being a dick when people stop assuming I'm stupid/crazy because if the majority believes something it must be true, and anyone who disagrees has something wrong with them.

I'll stop being a dick when people stop praying for solutions to real world problems, and instead try to use real world solutions.

I'll stop being a dick when people stop treating the only life they've probably got as if it's just preparation for the real deal after they're dead.

I'll stop being a dick when they stop trying to scare people into converting with stories of an eternity of suffering for nonbelievers.

I'll stop being a dick when my stepbrother stops treating his children like slaves because the Bible tells him to.

I'll stop being a dick when my stepbrother stops treating me like a subhuman, even though I've never said anything about my stance on religion to him except for admitting that I'm an atheist.

I'll stop being a dick when I can have the last few years of my mother's life back without her hating me for being an atheist.

I'll stop being a dick when Alcoholics Anonymous stops taking advantage of people's vulnerability to convert them to Christianity.

I'll stop being a dick when Scientology stops existing.

I'll stop being a dick when clergy stop taking advantage of prisoners' desire for freedom and corrupt prison officials' religiousness to gain converts.

I'll stop being a dick when bringing people together to suffer and die, refusing to treat them even though they could be saved with modern medical technology makes one "saintly" like Mother Teresa.

I'll stop being a dick when people stop providing treatment to the sick and food to the starving as leverage to convert them to their "saviors'" religion.

I'll stop being a dick when people in Africa stop being fed lies about condoms causing AIDS.

I'll stop being a dick when people stop overpopulating because the Bible commands them to "be fruitful and multiply".

I'll stop being a dick when there's no longer a religion inspiring my culture's belief that if it's pleasurable, it's probably sinful and needs to be banned.

I'll stop being a dick when a woman who gets pregnant by rape can have the unwanted fetus aborted without risking being shamed, ostracized, or worse for it.

I'll stop being a dick when the doctor who helps that woman doesn't have to fear for his life.

I'll stop being a dick when no more children are dying because their parents refuse them medical treatment for religious reasons.

I'll stop being a dick when people stop jumping to the defense of child molesters because they're clergymen.

I'll stop being a dick when my gay friends can marry the people they love.

I'll stop being a dick when gays stop being assaulted and killed because they're an abomination.

I'll stop being a dick when people stop strapping explosives to themselves and setting them off in crowds of innocent civilians because their god tells them to.

I'll stop being a dick when people stop flying planes into buildings because the buildings are full of infidels.

I'll stop being a dick when they do.

[annielaurie]

A very impressive post, Dringy. I could not disagree with a single thing on your list.

And Machi, atheism is not a religion. Atheists are simply sick and tired of the unrealistic, irrational and selfish religious-minded ways of evangelical fundies, and they are speaking out - they are shouting it now - because no one will listen otherwise.

Get science instead! Get humanism instead! Get an understanding of nature and the world we live in. Reality is right here in front of our eyes.

[Swami Dring]

A very impressive post, Dringy. I could not disagree with a single thing on your list.

And Machi, atheism is not a religion. Atheists are simply sick and tired of the unrealistic, irrational and selfish religious-minded ways of evangelical fundies, and they are speaking out - they are shouting it now - because no one will listen otherwise.

Get science instead! Get humanism instead! Get an understanding of nature and the world we live in. Reality is right here in front of our eyes.

Cheers annielaurie.

I think Machi is smart enough to know that atheism is not a religion. She was prolly just throwing a line in and trying to get a bite. Not that there's anything wrong with it.

[J.W. Frogen]

Dring has always been a curmudgeon.

I understand where Ms. Machy is coming from, although I usually agree with Dawkins critiques of religion, he has moved from simply rebutting their spurious claims to an almost pathological rant that religion is a mental defect or not natural, which leads us to the assumption that he believes only atheists are mentally healthy, thus the majority of humans who have ever lived or live now are defective.

This is almost the same exclusionary and elitist claim as the religious fundamentalist makes on behalf of their infallible sect.

To reveal how persistent the human need for faith or transcendence from rationality is even Richard Dawkins succumbs to it. On one of his web sites he claimed he practices Zen meditation. This reveals Dawkins is either woefully ignorant of what Zen meditation is for or he too has a religious instinct.

Zen meditation is not a simple breathing exercise, it has a point, a goal, enlightenment or residing in the pure or clear ground of being. Both are non empirical concepts, there is no scientific proof there is such a thing as enlightenment or a pure ground of being. So anyone practicing this is doing so on faith that there is, or transcendent experience (which can not be proved to others until they experience it) that there is.

Hitchens is by far a more consistent atheist in that he claims no faith in anything but his reason and education. His book ‘God is Not Great is a devastating attack against revelatory religion. (Religion based on text rather than direct experience.) Hitchens is also more even handed, being just as scathing against eastern religions such Buddhism and their false claim they are not religions at all, he reveals the damage they too have done in history and the logical fallacies of much of their reasoning.

But the human impulse to faith is so strong that even he succumbs throughout his life, if not in a God than in a process or inevitable law of human existence, first being a Trotskyite, accepting that there was a pre-determined or inevitable economic-material path of human progress and evolution (a non empirical concept) and now as a proponent of human freedom being the enviable progression of human existence. (A Neo Liberal). Though he will not accept the latter title that is where his present politics resides.

He also makes the true claim that many valuable human lessons can be learned from literature, but literature is fiction, if fiction can reflect real human truth than so can fictional (or non) religious narrative.

[Swami Dring]

Dring has always been a curmudgeon.

Not always, Froggy. I was ok until I met my family.

I understand where Ms. Machy is coming from, although I usually agree with Dawkins critiques of religion, he has moved from simply rebutting their spurious claims to an almost pathological rant that religion is a mental defect or not natural, which leads us to the assumption that he believes only atheists are mentally healthy, thus the majority of humans who have ever lived or live now are defective.

The thing is, religious faith IS a mental defect. And if you doubt this, imagine a public figure publicly declaring their faith in, and their love of the Tooth Fairy. And while you're imagining your reaction to such a declaration, remember that the Tooth Fairy story is almost infinitely less ridiculous than the goddy god god story. As for the majority of humans argument, popular opinion has never been a guide to empirical truth. And let's not forget that all of these believers barrack for a different, and sometimes mutually exclusive, one true god.

This is almost the same exclusionary and elitist claim as the religious fundamentalist makes on behalf of their infallible sect.

Apart from the fact that Dawkins has reason on his side.

Hitchens is by far a more consistent atheist in that he claims no faith in anything but his reason and education. His book ‘God is Not Great is a devastating attack against revelatory religion. (Religion based on text rather than direct experience.) Hitchens is also more even handed, being just as scathing against eastern religions such Buddhism and their false claim they are not religions at all, he reveals the damage they too have done in history and the logical fallacies of much of their reasoning.

Love the Hitch! Buddhism is just another way for a coward to try to cheat death. Reincarnation? Bah!

But the human impulse to faith is so strong that even he succumbs throughout his life, if not in a God than in a process or inevitable law of human existence, first being a Trotskyite, accepting that there was a pre-determined or inevitable economic-material path of human progress and evolution (a non empirical concept) and now as a proponent of human freedom being the enviable progression of human existence. (A Neo Liberal). Though he will not accept the latter title that is where his present politics resides.

Let's not confuse political leanings with faith in Magic Pooves who zap up universes.

He also makes the true claim that many valuable human lessons can be learned from literature, but literature is fiction, if fiction can reflect real human truth than so can fictional (or non) religious narrative.

It is not surprising that a book which would presume to tell us how to conduct ourselves would get a few things right. Unfortunately, it got a shitload of things wrong and they are not trifling things. Will you stone your son to death if he disobeys you? This is one of many bizarre instructions from the word of god. The problem is that millions of morons believe the shmible IS the word of god, and while most of them will not stone their children to death for disobedience, they WILL spread the hatred contained in their "good" book as far as the law will allow.

[J.W. Frogen]

I am infallible on this subject!!!!!

Repent, step into my confessional and drop your pants.