HEPPY EASTER

[Machiavella]

I am infallible on this subject!!!!!

Repent, step into my confessional and drop your pants.

Bless me, Brother Frogen is back Hi!!! Nice to see you again!

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...

When I said "screeching" I meant it metaphorically - perhaps I should have used the word that describes "nails across the blackboard", but I couldn't find it anyway.

His "God Delusion" is written sooooo badly that I found the writing nearly as offensive as his arrogance, which is soooooo in the "upstairs/downstairs" mould. The guy is so preachy that he would even irritate me if he was flogging handmade soft centered dark Paddington chocolates.

Incidentally, I think that millitant Atheism and "the Left" have become so common, that I'll go for conservatism and the tolerant agnostics as the "new black".

[AiA in Atlanta]

According to Ken Wilber there are a growing number of people worldwide who consider themselves "spiritual but not religious." I put myself in that category.

Seems that Dring is throwing the baby (spirituality) out with the bath water of religious superstition.

[J.W. Frogen]

Ken Wilber had a startling spiritual revelation after watching Charlotte’s Web.

[J.W. Frogen]

By the way I literally threw my baby out with the bath water once.

But we Frogens have very hard heads.

No harm, no foul.

Still my wife wanted to know why I removed the entire bathtub to throw out the water?

[boxy]

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?

There's a special pressy under the tree for you, this year, dring

[Swami Dring]

Bad dog!!

No, wait. That dog is obviously an atheist.

Good dog!!

[boxy]

No unwanted presents in this house



Yeah, get sum... get sum...

[J.W. Frogen]

On the serious side of things of course almost every religious tradition has far more complex human thoughts, ideas, philosophy, and yes, some times wisdom than most children's stories.

Take Jesus (who probably did exist, unlike the Tooth Fairy, though I do not think he resurrected, unlike Hey Hey It’s Saturday), there is much that he says and teaches that is extremely valuable even to the secular humanist or atheist, the tooth fairy analogy is facile and reveals that at least for those atheists who use it, there is a reflexive faith that religion is totally and completely false and destructive rather than an serious or thought out examination of it’s complexity.

As to political faith, or blind faith in political ideology, the instincts are very much like the instincts of the religious fundamentalist, often with the same or even greater destructive consequences.

This reveals that the idea of religion versus the atheist is simply a dispute of reason versus irrationality if flawed, it is not an accurate assessment of how either group actually behaves and is too simplistic a defense of atheism.

[AiA in Atlanta]

Take Jesus (who probably did exist, unlike the Tooth Fairy, though I do not think he resurrected.

Not much is known about Jesus. Was he a great spiritual master? Certainly. Was he name Jesus? Probably not. Was he a Jew? Probably not. A entire mythology, borrowed from far more ancient traditions, was put on top of what little is known about this man by early Church leaders whose motivation was political.

[J.W. Frogen]

I think there is enough agreement in the synoptic Gospels to reveal a real man, a man who gets angry, changes his mind, is searching for a new form of Judaism or a Judaism that reflects his experience of God rather than temple ritual and economic power.

There are so many details in the Gospel that actually contradict the theology, so much that would not be there if he were not a real man that really existed that by reading Mathew, Mark, Luke, John and seeing where they agree shorn of the miraculous one can discern the real life.
If we were to dismiss these accounts as totally fabricated then we must dismiss Socrates or Confucius as totally fabricated.