Category: I’ve had it with religious idiots

You do not have the right to not be offended.

Facebook is always an interesting place, where an eclectic assortment of ideas tent to bubble around the surface. I just saw a picture go by of a woman holding a sign (it’s a popular meme) which read something to the effect of

I’m an American, but I would never make a video that mocks your faith. I am offended by that. Yadda yadda, don’t remember the exact words.

So my initial gut reaction is

Yeah, let them know how kind and understanding and tolerant Americans are.

Then I think

The fuck we are…

Then I think

The fuck! I don’t agree with that sentiment at all.

Call me an asshole. I am. But I haven’t been following the events that have occurred in the middle east recently too closely, but as I understand it, it goes a little something like this. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong on any of this.

  1. Some yahoo makes a video that mocks Islam.
  2. Muslims across the middle east are mortally offended by it.
  3. Said “peaceful” Muslims riot in response to their offense at the video.
  4. People die.
  5. Video maker is now a bad guy, Americans everywhere condemn him

I have a slight problem with this. To illustrate my point, let’s take this same scenario but turn it on it’s side a little bit. Let’s say it went a little like this:

  1. Some religious yahoo makes a video mocking Atheists, or makes false claims about them. Say, something like this:
  2. Atheists across the country are mortally offended by it.
  3. Atheist riots occur across the country in response to the offensive video.
  4. People die.
  5. Who is/are the bad guy(s) now?

Bill O’Reilly would shit himself with pleasure if that happened. His “War on Christianity” would hit non-stop status.

The point is this: You do NOT have the right to not be offended.

I don’t care who you are or where you live or what bronze age myths you believe or choose not to believe. You do not have the right to kill because you’re offended by something. A few years ago I condemned a nutjob pastor from Florida for threatening to burn a stack of Korans which set off a set of riots in the middle east which put American lives at risk. I was wrong. I take that back. While I still think he’s a dipshit and should not have done it, the blame for this was put squarely on the wrong shoulders. It should have gone on the shoulders of the people actually doing the killing, not the fuckwad who pissed them off enough to do it.

I don’t know what the content of this video is, and I don’t care. It could show Muhammed being prison raped for all I care, that’s not the point. The point is that no video gives anybody the right to kill. And only religion seems to get a pass on this. Only religion could inspire someone to be offended enough to kill. Only the assault of someone’s precious religious beliefs make us sympathize with murderers. I don’t give a fuck what was in that video, those people who killed others are murderers, period.

9/11/2012

I wrote a blog post on 9/11 of last year. I think what I said in that post still pretty much sums up my feelings about 9/11. I’m still continually disgusted at how politicians try to politicize 9/11. The truth is, It’s just another day now. For 11 years we’ve commemorated 9/11, but I think it’s time for us to collectively move on as a nation. The resulting fallout from 9/11 is some of the most frightening things I’ve seen in my lifetime. I’ve seen our liberties eroded, our young soldiers killed, foreign civilians killed, foreign leaders overturned and executed, and our country tip towards the brink of fascism without even knowing it. 

9/11 has often been compared to Pearl Harbor. It’s not quite the same, but even so, we commemorate Pearl Harbor quietly these days. The pain of that attack has subsided. World War II was fought and ended. We fought and toppled fascist governments, discovered unthinkable crimes, and tried and convicted those responsible. What happened after 9/11 was a little different. We entered a war, but not with the foreign power who attacked us, because there was no foreign power that attacked us. It was a ragtag band of religious zealots living in the deserts of Afghanistan. The government of Afghanistan refused to cooperate with us, and we entered into the nation’s single longest war (that isn’t really a war because it was never declared by congress) with that government. We almost immediately lost sight of the criminal who murdered 3000 of our citizens, and turned our attention to another despot who hadn’t really done anything to us. That conflict cost us dearly. but no matter how dearly it cost us, it cost the citizens of Iraq much more dearly. We are not popular in that part of the world, and there is a reason for that. And no, it is not “because they hate our freedoms”. But recently we’ve found the criminal who murdered our citizens, and he was killed in the event. I will not entertain conspiracy theories about that event either.

9/11 will forever remain for me the epitome of what religious extremism can lead to. Unfortunately, it can get far worse. The crusades were a religious war, and they were fought with middle ages technology. Imagine if the crusades were fought today. That is the future we must avoid. Religious zealots are constantly trying to control our government, and the moderately religious are encouraging them to do so. This is the danger of even moderate religion, as Sam Harris points out. If we fall to fascist powers and become a religious state, the world as we know it will be in danger.

It is time to return to the ideals that made America great in the first place. Our freedoms and liberties must be restored from erosion of the last 11 years. Our adherence to the separation of church and state must be absolute. The balance of powers must be restored. And we must once again strive to be an example to the rest of the world as we once were, not the bully that the rest of the world is afraid of that we are now.

The last year has been very eventful for me. Around this time last year I had just started dating the first girl I had dated since I met my ex wife. Since then I’ve had quite the emotional rollercoaster. My divorce has been finalized. My children finally know that there are alternatives to extreme religion, and they’ve returned to public school. I’m alone, but I’m free of my ex wife to as much of a degree as possible. My house has been foreclosed on and soon to be repossessed. My apartment is overrun with cats whom I’m desperately trying to find homes for. I’ve returned to the job I had 11 years ago, as much as that job still exists, and I was with and lost a woman I’ve been secretly in love with for over a decade, and whom I consider to be my perfect mate. Sorry, fairy tale endings don’t happen in real life. It’s amazing how much can happen in just a year. I haven’t even covered everything that’s happened in my life, I’m sure yours has been just as eventful.

A year is a long time. When 9/11/2013 rolls around, it would be nice if we didn’t have to once again call for the freedoms we’ve lost to be restored again. 

You took the kids WHERE???

I’m going to a picnic at Darrel Ray’s this afternoon. I find it kind of cool that I actually know the author of The God Virus. If you’re a member of the KC atheist community, you’ll realize that it’s not all that big of a deal, he knows all of us. But still…

I’m taking my kids too. Part of me.hopes the ex finds out. I can already see her doing a Rumplestiltskin type angry dance similar to when I embarrassed her lawyer during the trial.

Why yes, as a matter of fact. If you didn’t already know,  I am an asshole. To those who’ve earned it.

It’s Wabbit Season!

I started therapy yesterday.

Let’s face it, I’m fucknuts. I was watching Looney Toons with my kids earlier, and we watched Rabbit Fire. That’s the one where Daffy and Bugs go back and forth with the “rabbit season” “duck season” bit. It’s hilarious, and I’m reminded of the time during an improv group when I basically did that scene by myself. There was one guy who ended up playing Elmer Fudd, and my spastic self played both Daffy and Bugs. He was a bit shy, and didn’t seem to know what the fuck to make of me. I think I scared him a little, but the end result is it was fucking hilarious. I was awesome.

Was.

I remember the guy who did that. The guy I was back then. 17 years of bad marriage will fuck you up, and that guy is gone now, and I can’t get him back. I know, I would be a different person now even if I hadn’t married the batshit crazy church lady, but I think there would be more of that guy left.

I’ve thoroughly trashed three relationships since the end of my marriage. Well, in fairness to myself I had a little help trashing them, but still… I can’t seem to pull off a successful relationship. Maybe I’m not dating the right people, but I was absolutely sure the last one was right. I’m still having trouble reconciling it a month later. I should be past it by now, one would think. But I have a fuckload of baggage, and I think I didn’t realize just how much until yesterday.

The therapist seemed to catch on immediately just how much the cult fucked me up. This is something that I don’t think anybody else ever has understood about me. These people did more damage in the couple of years they had me than my wife did in 17. I’m still dealing with it in many ways. On the other hand, had it not been for the cult I might have never examined my own belief systems, and realized that the whole thing is bullshit. I suppose I should thank them for that. But fuck if I will.

Most people seem to blow the whole cult experience off as trivial, except for one or two other people I know who went through the same thing. It’s not like we talk about it though. Former cult members don’t have conventions. We don’t chat on facebook about it. “Hey, remember that time that the one kid crashed his car because he was so tired from sleep deprivation and almost died? Yeah, good times!” There are exactly 0 people that I’ve been able to talk to about this over the last decade. My ex didn’t go through the exit conversion the same way I did. In fact, I’m not sure she ever went through it at all. She’s been looking for a replacement for the cult for the last decade, and I’m pretty sure she finally found one.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is I think this is going to be good for me in the long term. I may not be able to save my last relationship, but maybe I can make the next one not crash so badly. I’ve already realized about myself that my dating experience pretty much consists of my teenage years, a couple of years in my 20s, and the last year. I haven’t had a lot of time to figure this shit out. My marriage was pretty much fucking awful for most of it, so I don’t have a lot of experience in how a good relationship works. I do know that I really wanted the last one to. But first I have to straighten out some shit in my head.

I may not be that guy from 20 years ago anymore, but maybe I can be someone else just as good.

Hey girl-who-I-was-dating-when-I-was-a-teenager, remember that time you ripped my heart out and stomped on it and crushed my will to live? Ah, good times…

The divorce is final, and me and my children have been officially buttfucked by the state of Kansas. What, you were expecting something else? There’s one upside to this whole fucking mess, my kids are going back to school. I can’t pretend I don’t have mixed feelings about this… School is a brutal place. Bullies abound, many teachers are jaded, some just suck, and the religious fucktards are out in force trying to destroy what little value the public school system has left. But until America starts taking education seriously and starts fixing the schools and giving it adequate funding, it’s the best option I’ve got. Homeschooling by a religious fucktard with a high school education is just not an option.

So now I find myself a single guy at 41 with a tiny apartment and six cats. Where did the six cats come from? I got sort of blindsided there. I adopted a stray cat who was hanging around my apartment. She turned out to be pregnant. Now I have six cats to get shots for, and spay and neuter. This while I’m struggling to find money to eat on. The good times just keep coming.

So I find myself back in the dating world. I’ve actually been there for a little bit. I’ve been through one girlfriend, another… I don’t know what the fuck that one was… and finally settled on what I thought was a fairly normal relationship.

I’m pretty easy to keep. I don’t have very many rules. I was thinking about this (online via Twitter) and I think they boil down to the following:

  1. Don’t be batshit crazy.
  2. Don’t be controlling.
  3. Don’t violate my trust.
  4. Don’t blow me off.
1. Don’t be batshit crazy.

You would think this one would be pretty simple, but my wife of 17 years couldn’t seem to get the swing of this one. To this day I don’t think she recognizes anything she’s done as in any way shape or form abnormal. I gave up trying to explain it to her years ago. In hindsight, I should have filed for divorce at the same time, but I waited another 7 years or so. My bad.

Everybody has crazy. Everybody. I have more than my fair share. Many of us recognize our own crazy and try to keep it in check. Mentally I think of it as having a mask I show to the outside world. I have a face everybody gets to see. It looks fairly normal, geeky, intelligent, and frequently a bit grumpy. I have the mask I show here. It’s filtered mainly to outrage about religious fucktards and right wing nutjobs trying to fuck us all over. Sometimes I let a little of my spiritual musings out here. Not as much lately. Dr. Cowboy is a mask. I’m anonymous for a reason. It’s also a persona. Don’t take it personally, I have a persona for everybody. The only person who knows what it’s really like in my head is me. I keep hoping I’ll find somebody who wants to find out what it’s like in here, but realistically, not gonna happen.

2. Don’t be controlling.

The ex also had an issue with this, and this rule is largely because of her. She has a spider like need to have this web of control over everything in her life. I’m guessing it has something to do with her dad leaving the family. Daddy issues. I think a lot of that came out at me. I tried to be supportive and helpful for years, but I finally had to give up. The crazy just got too thick and it was affecting my kids. Still is now, but I can no longer do anything about it. Actually I couldn’t do anything about it before, but at least now I have the legal backing to get my kids in school. That was about my only win.

My wife also exerted control over who my friends could and couldn’t be. I was a pussy and let her. I lost many good friends over the years. So earlier this year when a friend needed help and my girlfriend at the time had a problem with it, the relationship more or less ended. There were other factors, but that was a big one.

3. Don’t violate my trust.

This has happened twice so far since being separated. I won’t go into details, but it’s a big deal breaker for me. If I’m with you I will trust you to the ends of the Earth (figuratively speaking) until you give me a good reason not to. Revealing personal details you were privy to that others weren’t is a biggie. Twice now it’s happened and twice now it ended relationships. My ex did it in smaller ways, and for many years I let it go. I can’t do that anymore. I haven’t been cheated on that I’m aware of, at least not for 20 years or so, but if it happened, that would fall under this rule. Cowboy don’t play that game either.

4. Don’t blow me off.

This one was almost an afterthought. The situation I find myself in is largely because of this. My current girlfriend hasn’t—to the best of my knowledge—violated rules 1, 2, or 3. That’s why I’ve spent the last three weeks or so feeling really frustrated. The relationship started out really great, nothing held back, we were good together. Something changed along the way. I think it’s largely a result of a friend who violated my trust, but I can’t be sure. At any rate, that ended the friendship, but the damage is done.

I reached the point that despite how I felt about my girlfriend, despite the fact that I’ve known her for 11 years and been attracted to her on both a physical and intellectual level for that entire time, besides the fact that she seems to be in almost every way my perfect woman, I was ready to end it. Then she finally talked to me. I found out that there was damage as a result of my friend’s violation of my trust. Understandable, completely. But now she wants to be “casual” and “see where it goes”. What? What the fuck? What the fuck does that even mean?

I’ve been out of the dating game for a long, long time, so I get confused on terminology these days. If I were to hazard a guess, I would think that means that  we’re now no longer in a relationship, but we can go on dates occasionally, but we’re not exclusive. Exclusive implies relationship to me. Casual implies not a relationship. I put the question out in the twitterverse and the twitterverse seems to agree with me: my relationship is basically over.

But I went on a date with her last night. See, this confuses me. If she wants a bud, that’s fine, but let’s call it what it is. I’ll stop hoping for any kind of intimacy. I can look elsewhere. If we’re dating casually, then it’s largely the same as buds except I can hope for sex.

If I can’t date other people, then it’s a relationship. Relationships have rules. I don’t know what any of them are anymore, and it’s still frustrating the fuck out of me, and I can’t seem to nail her down on what her definition of our relationship is, other than we’re “dating casually” and “seeing where it goes”. Well whoop de fucking do. That’s a fucking cop out. That’s “I’m not really committed to making anything work, and if I get tired of you or find something I like better in that moment I’m gone.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that attitude, except it’s not for me. I’m 41, I’m at least halfway through my life, and I have less time left to live than I’ve already lived. My health is already going downhill, and I’ve fucked up the first half of my life pretty good. I’d like to get the second half right, and fucking around like that doesn’t seem like the way to do it. But then again… it’s HER…

I’m going to try to nail her down on some definitions later today, and hopefully find out if I’m free to look around or not. But for the record, I don’t really want to look around. I would like things to go back to how they were before, when we were in love. Yes, love. Or at least something that felt a lot like love. Then again, maybe I don’t really know what the hell love is. Look who I stayed married for almost 2 decades?

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.

The Gospel of Jeshua Cottontail, Savior of all Animalkind.

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.

You’re a closed minded bigoted Atheist!

A friend recently blogged about a t-shirt she had seen that read “Fuck God”. An interesting discussion ensued in the comments and me being the opinionated asshole I am couldn’t resist but to jump in. The original post is here: http://yesweexist.wordpress.com/2011/11/26/fuck-god/ It’s worth your time to go read the whole thing.

Another friend once told me that sometimes my comments are better than my blog posts. I read the comment again I kindof agreed with her, so instead of the post I had planned next, I’m just simply posting the comment I put over there more or less verbatim (with an occasional spelling correction).

———————-

First of all, you do not have the right to not be offended. While I would never wear a Fuck God shirt, my only objection to wearing it in public is the word “Fuck”, which would be awkward to explain to my kids. As far a Christian’s right to not see that, you don’t have that right. I drive by at least five churches no matter where I go, and I don’t get to object to that. I don’t get to object to the Christian dogma displayed at the Seventh Day Adventist based hospital where my mom went for surgery, because that’s where her insurance is good at. I just have to deal with it. If a Christian has to do the same, I’m not going to get upset about that.

I have found no Christians coming to my defense. Indeed, I find myself needing defense against Christians. No Christians objected when George H. W. Bush said Atheists were neither citizens nor patriots. This is the former president of the United States saying this, not a crazy pastor from Florida. An elected leader of the country of which I’m a citizen thinks I have no worth to this country because I don’t subscribe to your dogma.

Do Christians come to my defense when I’m fighting against the teaching of Intelligent Design in the public school system? No, they’re the ones I’m fighting. They see no problem with teaching Christian dogma in the public schools in direct opposition to proven science.

Did Christians come to my defense when I lost everything to my ex-wife joining cults? No, they’re running the cults.

Did Christians come to my defense when I was fired for not hiding my atheism in the workplace? No, they’re the ones who fired me.

Did Christians come to the defense of the Atheist who lost custody of his/her children for being an Atheist?

Did Christians stand up against the blatant violation of church and state that occurred by placing “In God We Trust” on our money in 1956? Or “Under God” in the pledge of allegiance in 1954?

Could you even imagine an open Atheist being elected President? Or to any public office? Did you know religious tests for public office are explicitly forbidden by the constitution, but we have to pass them anyway, don’t we? One of the crazy claims leveled against Obama is that he’s a Muslim or even worse (gasp!) an Atheist. How is that not a religious test? You have to be Christian to get elected. Period.

If you want to know what upsets Atheists, this would be a great place to start.

If you want to call it closed minded and prejudice, that’s your right. I call it real world experience. Christians are in politics fighting climate science, fighting evolution, fighting health care reform, fighting NPR, fighting Planned Parenthood, and running our country into the ground with debt from needless wars. I’m perfectly willing to accept other information, and I’m quite aware that these behaviors and actions do not represent all Christians, but it’s the vast majority. And I don’t see the moderate or liberal Christians fighting back, I see the Atheists fighting back, and for that we’re labeled “Angry” and “Militant” or “Combative” because we’re standing up against this bullshit. Fuck God? If he’s out there and lets these things happen, Yes.

If you want to present evidence for Christians who do not behave like this, I’m open to it, but your definition of “Closed Minded” is a little off. You seem to be saying “I should agree with you or I’m closed minded” and that’s bullshit. Religious groups CAN be painted with the same brush to a certain degree. Ethnic groups cannot, because the color of your skin does not determine your behavior. Your gender does not determine your behavior. BUT YOUR RELIGION DOES. You have a holy book that tells you what to do and how to behave. Sure, people interpret it differently BUT IT’S THE SAME BOOK.

Atheists, on the other hand, only have one thing in common, we reject superstition. That’s it. We can’t be painted with the “Evolution is a religion” brush or whatever other brush they like to paint us with, because Atheism is not about a set of beliefs, it’s about a lack of certain beliefs. Past that, it’s fair game. Atheists are liberal, conservative, libertarian, and every other variety of political orientation that you can think of. We’re scientists, artists, writers, every day working Joes, whatever. Not all of us study evolution. Some of us just don’t care.

But we get painted with the Atheist brush all the time, and if you run across a blog entry by an Atheist who’s pissed off about that, are you really surprised? You just did it yourself. She said “we get treated differently” and you said “you’re closed minded and prejudiced”. I would say if you only find angry atheists but no bigoted Christians, you’re either A) doing it wrong or B) falling victim to confirmation bias. In which case it would be YOU who is closed minded.

Let me leave you with another video about what being closed minded really means.