Category: Evil

Will you be happy in heaven when your family and friends are being tortured for eternity?

I’ve been a little quiet lately. There will probably be an update on the reasons for this later… well, maybe. Anyway, Mr. Deity has put out a new Way of the Mister video, and this one is a smidge more blatant than most of his stuff, but very poignant.

It never fails to amaze me how the actions attributed to God are excused. We don’t understand his ways, blah blah blah. Why are the rules by which we judge God different than the way in which we would judge another human? The things God supposedly does would be considered crimes of the most horrendous nature if perpetrated by a human, yet we (figuratively) call it “Love”. I call bullshit. If God is real, he’s a bastard fucker and I’m gonna punch him in the teeth.

Why don’t you believe in God?

I’ve never really addressed this before. At least I don’t think I have. Here’s a brief glimpse into to how the deranged mass of neurons I call a brain works: Weeks ago I had a very brief (something on the order of three sentences) conversation with a friend along these lines. I finished the conversation today in my head. I do that a lot: I have entire conversations with other people in my head that they didn’t actually participate in. Oh, c’mon, you know you do it too.

If you ask the average atheist why he/she does not believe in God, the answer is simple: there’s no proof for god. Basically those of us who label ourselves as skeptics have adopted the scientific method as a way of approaching life in general. It goes something like this:

Fundie: There is a god. He is the one true God and he loves you. Through him only will you find salvation and enter the kingdom of Heaven.

Skeptic: Fine. Where is your proof for said god?

Fundie: Right here! The Holy Bible! This is the sacred word of God and the path to Heaven through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Skeptic: Right. We’ll get back to this Jesus character. So you have a book that you claim was written by a supernatural deity. How do you know that it was actually written by a supernatural being and not written by people?

Fundie: Because it says so right here in the book of I Corinthians.

Skeptic: That’s circular reasoning. The bible was written by a supernatural creator of the universe because it says it was. You have failed the burden of proof. Until you have provided evidence for your claims, the null hypothesis applies, and it is unlikely that there is a supernatural being at all. Your book was most likely written by 3000 year old goat herders with nothing but oral traditions handed down over centuries borrowed from other cultures and no working knowledge of modern science.

Fundie: Infidel! You shall burn in Hell! The Lord thy God shall cast thee into the pits of Hell and watch you burn for eternity!!!

Skeptic: Bring it. By the way, you’re drooling.

The problem though, is that it’s more than this. There’s more to it than just a simple lack of proof. The entire concept of God fails any kind of logical reasoning. For instance, take this example.

Something bad happens. It doesn’t really matter what. Something bad happens and it leads to a series of events. The end result of this chain of events is that someone gets hurt, probably me or you. This has happened to all of us, each and every one. The specifics of this particular example don’t really matter, because the same pattern has happened several times in my life, and probably several times in yours. Let’s go through a couple of scenarios now.

Scenario 1: God fucked up.

Let’s start with the following assumptions:

1. God exists.
2. God knows everything that is happening (Omniscient)
3. God does not see the future.
4. God controls everything (Omnipotent)

In this example, God started a chain of events. Possibly God thought that something positive would come of it all down the road (e.g. he meant well). However, things did not turn out the way he intended. Basically, God fucked with my life and screwed everything up. God is incompetent. He fucked up. Everything would have been better if he just stayed the fuck out of everything.

Scenario 2: God is an asshole.

Let’s start with these assumptions now:

1. God exists.
2. God knows everything that is happening (Omniscient)
3. God can see the future (Prescient)
4. God controls everything (Omnipotent)

Let’s forget the logical inconsistencies of God being all of these things at the same time, and suspend disbelief just long enough to finish the example. In this example, God knew full well that the outcome of the events he set into motion would be and the disaster that occurred as a result. He knew full well the pain waiting for me (or you) at the end of these events. Why would he do that? The fundamentalist would say some dumbass thing like “God works in mysterious ways” or “He was teaching you a lesson” or some other completely inane bullshit. If he’s all powerful, couldn’t he just simply pass said knowledge along? The fundie says “but you wouldn’t learn the lesson that way”. Okay, but if he designed and made me, why would he design me that way? Why not “design” me to just simply know? There’s only one inescapable conclusion to made here no matter how many logical rabbit holes the fundie goes down, God is a complete and utter flatulating butthole.

So, we’re left with two choices, 1. God is incompetent, 2. God is an asshole. Using the bible as a guide, I think we can safely say that #2 is a gimme, but the point of the whole exercise is this: If you proved God’s existence tomorrow, I would, of course, accept the existence of God, but I would not convert back to religion even then. There is no escape from the logical conclusion that if God exists, he is not worth my time. On the other hand, if we accept the null hypothesis that God does not exist, than all of this is nothing more than random bad luck, the kind that statistically happens to everybody all the time. No supernatural explanation is required for this, and I have no reason to be angry at any supernatural entities who refuse to prove their own existence to anybody. Nice, simple, clean, and so much easier to accept and explain.

And THAT is why I’m an atheist.

Gelatogate

I got back from Skepticon IV late last night and it was a blast. I loved every talk I was able to attend. Sprint sucks ass, by the way.

But something happened while I was there, and I’m going to address this first. You may have heard of what became known as “Gelatogate”. Saturday evening, a gelato store just down the street from the theatre where Skepticon was being held put this sign up in the window.

Skepticon is NOT welcomed to my Christian Business

I heard about this Sunday morning via the twitterverse. As soon as lunch hit I ran down to the store to see the sign for myself, but it was gone and Gelato Mio was closed (they’re not open on Sundays, fancy that).

We were pissed. I’m not sure how many attendees knew about this, but those of us who did were pissed. Some nastiness was said over twitter, and I was right in the middle of it. We ate lunch across the street at a place called Trolley’s who normally doesn’t open until 3pm on Sunday, but had opened early just for us and gave us an express menu so we could eat quickly and get back for the next talk. Restaurants being overwhelmed by us and lunch/dinner taking too long had become a bit of a problem, so this was appreciated, especially in light of the stupidity from across the street.

Let me be clear, this crap is not universal. We were, of course, in Springfield Missouri, capital of Jesusland, but most everyone was quite nice to us. I told our waiter at Trolley’s about the sign from the previous evening, and his response was “Jackasses!”. Yeah, he got a good tip.

Later that day, the owner apologized for the sign on the official website.

image

When I looked at this on Sunday, the second and third paragraphs were not there, they were added later. Here was my response

image

At some point during the day, the blog posts began showing up. First was JT Eberhard, one of the original founders of Skepticon.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/wwjtd/2011/11/20/boy-he-sure-showed-skepticon/

Later came this one from @emilyhasbooks

http://pixelstampede.wordpress.com/2011/11/20/gelatogate/

Earlier today, The Friendly Atheist added his analysis of the same.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2011/11/21/lessons-learned-from-the-gelato-mio-sign/?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

These are all good treatments, but something is missing. As a roughly middle aged white guy I don’t usually get discriminated against much. As a rule I oppose bigotry and discrimination in whatever forms I encounter it in, but aside from occasionally being treated less preferentially than thinner more attractive people, I don’t usually get to see the ugliness from the receiving end. It’s an eye opening experience.

One of the first things I noticed about Skepticon was that it almost seemed hidden. The Gilloz Theatre where it was held had no mention of a large 1100 person conference being held there on it’s website. When we arrived there, the sign above the theatre was advertising a John Wayne movie that would be shown there a couple of weeks from now. The first Skepticon sign I saw was inside the theatre.

On Saturday over lunch I was hard up for some foo foo coffee, and went in search of a Starbucks like coffee house. I found one not too far away. The friendly (and kinda hot) barista, who had to have noticed the “atheist” pin I was wearing, asked me if there was some kind of conference going on, because she had noticed a lot of people with nametags on. I told her about Skepticon, which was being held a mere block and a half away from her store. She was still friendly and smiled, but I was surprised that she didn’t know about a huge conference practically next door.

Lastly, on Sunday evening before we drove home, we ate dinner at a local restaurant. Some ugly glances came our way and somebody was overheard saying “yeah, they’re atheists”. 

Seriously?

All of these things combined to show me the ugly side of bigotry first hand. We were bothering no one, we were boosting the local economy, and yet we were hidden as much as possible, told not to come to a local store, and by (admittedly a minority) made to feel unwelcome.

It makes me feel ugly. Dirty. Violated. It makes me want to scream.

I argue with Christians, but only when they want to. I oppose religion in schools, but they Christians are the ones trying to bring it in. I respond to their internet hate, but it’s in response. I don’t go to their churches and protest. I don’t carry signs that read “God Hates Westboro” (even though that would be kinda funny). I want to live in a rational world. I don’t begrudge the religious their right to be religious, and I would certainly never ban them all from a restaurant.

This is bigotry, plain and simple. This is little different than how people with dark skin have been treated for years. Or Jews, or women, or any number of groups who have been discriminated against.

This is kind of new to me. There’s no real response for it except to make it known, which the community has. Gelato Mio’s ratings have taken a serious hit since Saturday. They also ought to know that we will be back, and most likely nobody will patronize their store next time, most certainly not me. The record profits shared by other local businesses will not be theirs. This is sad since they were apparently a sponsor of Skepticon initially. Perhaps they didn’t know that nearly all skeptics are also atheists.

But most importantly, it shows how far we still have to go.

Because I Can

Fuckin bitch fuckin goddamn how the fuckin fuck fuck what? Seriously, what? FUCK! I mean, what the fuck? Seriously. Did I really fuckin FUCK! I really did not fuckin realize how fucking sick fucking humans could fucking be. I mean, FUCK! I fucking married that? FUCK! What the fuck was I fucking thinking? I’m fucking sick! That’s fucking sick. Fuckin’ seriously. I mean, who the fuck fuckin’ stays married to a fucking fuck like that for fucking HOW many fuckin’ years? Fuck. Fuck Fuck Fuck.

It’s like a parasite that you can’t remove. That’s it’s name now. The fuckin’ parasite. What a waste of oxygen.

Aw fuck.

End rant.

9/11/2011

Ten years ago today the unthinkable happened. The TV has been filled with footage from 9/11 today, much of it I’ve never seen before. It’s a wound in the collective psyche of America that’s healing, but not yet healed.

9/11 meant different things to different people, but most of us can agree that it was a wake up call to the capacity for evil.

But whose evil? It’s easy to point to 9/11 and say that Muslims are violent and Islam is an evil religion, but in actuality Islam is in a state now that Christianity was in only a few centuries ago. The difference being that the violence perpetrated by the followers of Islam have 21st century weaponry.

I won’t pretend that the world would be a perfect place without religion, but it would be a better place. 9/11 was proof positive of the evil that can be perpetrated by those that can manipulate through religion. The most obvious examples come from Islamic terrorists, but we are not all immune to this. Listening to Pat Robertson can easily show you that we’re not that different on this side of the pond. A leader of the free world like Michele Bachmann would make us little different from Iran.

For me, 9/11 was a wake up call to the evil that can be perpetrated in the name of religion. I’m not naïve enough to believe that it’s just Islam though. We are mere footsteps from being the mirror image of the Middle East.

We must step back from the brink. We must not become evil to fight evil. We must be clear on what evil we fight. We must remember who we are as Americans. We must remember what America is about. It’s not God, it’s not Guns, It’s freedom. We are not a Christian nation, we are a nation of the free. We must stop sacrificing our freedom to our fear. We must call for our freedoms to be restored.

Ten years later, we must begin to heal. We must become what we were. We must stop the pointless bickering. We must stop allowing the clowns in Washington to play us like fools.

Each and every one of us must decide who we are. We must determine this absent of propaganda and religion. Once you have decided who you are, you can decide if you really agree with what is being fed to you. When I did this, I didn’t. Who I am is so different from who I was before 9/11, but I’m a better person. I’m finally true to who I am.

You can be too.

Where the hell is my giant robot, Dawkins?

This is actually quite funny, with just a hint of supercreepy. The very thought of anyone organizing atheists into an army bent on world conquest is completely laughable. Sorry, we just don’t work that way. Not to mention that most of us, Dawkins included, are ardent pacifists as well. 

But then they warn the Christians to get their sword and fight off the evil atheists. Um, what? Is this more of that Bush era “strike first” kind of thing? It’s more than a little creepy that there are Christians out there who might take this video seriously.

Let me make one thing clear: I’m not fighting a war for Richard Dawkins or anybody until I get my own giant fucking killer robot.