A friend sent this link to an article on HuffPo to me this week. I took me awhile to read it, then a little longer to reply to my friend. I thought that since my reply was lengthy, and I havent posted anything in awhile, I’d reproduce my response.
Read the article first, then my reply.
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This’ll be short (I think).
Paul Ryan wants the Obama administration to explain why the Democratic platform doesn’t include the word “God” in it.
Is he fucking serious?
“It’s not in keeping with our founding documents, our founding vision. I’d guess you’d have to ask the Obama administration why they purged all this language from their platform.”
No, this is not my Martin Luther King moment.
Did you ever have a dream from which you awoke that you felt was full of some monumental wisdom, something you never would have thought of in any of your waking moments, and you felt that you ought to get right up and put the dream to paper, knowing full well if you rolled over and went back to sleep, you’d completely forget it in the morning? And once you do, and you’ve had your second cup of coffee, and you analyze it, you realize it’s not only NOT a very monumental bit of thinking, it’s not even rational, and what made you even think it was so profound?
Well, technically, that’s not true. What I’m trying to say is that atheism is just one small component of what I am, what describes my worldview, my personal philosophy, my attitude towards life and how I now choose to live it. A better word, one more encompassing, though a bit verbose, would be ASUPERNATURALIST. I don’t believe in the idea, the concept of the supernatural.
Why?
Here’s something that’s been bugging me, so allow me a little rant.
It seems like every time an atheist makes a comment about some aspect of religion that bugs them, they are quite forcefully and specifically told to shut up. Religion is not a topic one is supposed to discuss in polite company (along with politics and sex, and we know how often that rule is broken). Atheists are made to feel like every time they criticize theism, they are stepping over some boundary of propriety. Due to my upbringing, I often find myself gauging the sensibilities of my listener to see if I might offend them, but I notice that never does a Christian (I don’t have much contacts with Hindus, Muslims and members of other religions) stop and think before they “thank god” or “god bless me” or otherwise inject their religious beliefs into a conversation.
There is far too much discussion about religion in this election. I don’t care who has the better theology, whether one is a better Christian than another, what god says about gays, vaginas or the price of oil for that matter. I don’t care what every two-bit preacher with a mail-order degree thinks. I don’t care what Obama’s pastor said once or twice in the 20 years he attended service in his church (that issue is old news and I don’t want to hear it re-hashed by Santorum).
People think we atheists pick on Christians too much, but tend to shy away from picking on Muslims. Actually, just about everything we object to, while often directed to some inanity of Christianity, could be easily extrapolated to any religion, because it’s theism that atheists don’t buy into. Christianity is just the most pervasive form of theism on the planet, and a known target. In addition most atheists, if they were once part of a theistic community, were probably Christians, or at least live in a predominately Christian area. There are not a lot of formerly Islamic atheists out there. At least there are not many talking about it, even if they exist.
If you like Tim Minchin, you’ll love this – and it’s Banned in Britain! Well, not really, but it was cut from the TV show it was recorded for, which is sorta like being banned.
But, he has a good attitude about it. I wish Americans had this kind of response.
It’s 2011. The appropriate reaction to people who think Jesus is a supernatural being is mild embarrassment, sighing tolerance and patient education.
And anger when they’re being bigots.
Oh, and satire. There’s always satire.
God has sent Christopher Hitchens to hell because he loves him.
This is clearly what happens when a perfectly viable human being is dropped on his head at birth, either by the doctor as he’s pulled out of his womb, or by his mother when she got a good look at him. His brains get scrambled, the synapses in his skull don’t fire as they are supposed to, information doesn’t get sorted properly, and stupidity, sheer idiotic lunacy, comes out of his mouth.
It’s either that, or he’s a Christian.
You decide.
It’s not a “god particle”. It’s simply a building block of all matter. The Higgs Boson. Why does the media feel the need to dumb their coverage down for the masses by equating everything to a religious metaphor?
You know that all the ignoramuses out there are going to read this and think “See? The purpose of science is to prove the existence of god. That’s what science is all about.”
SPANISH INQUISITOR 