I wrote this on the day after Christmas.
‘Twas the day after Christmas, and all through the House
The leftovers were eaten, the fire was well doused.
The stockings had been stripped of their goodies and lost
While the pols at the Capitol dreamed of bribes of great cost.
Atheists are often accused of being too outspoken, too militant, to strident. Our mere presence in society offends many people, all of them religious in one way or the other. Our existence is a reminder that the religious worldview is not the only one, that there is some possibility that they might be wrong about their beliefs in the supernatural, which beliefs forms a major component of how they deal with the day to day exigencies of life. We’re simply telling them that their beliefs, their vision of reality, could be wrong. Since there is an underlying current of insecurity in those beliefs, we make them nervous.
Insecurity?
Some of you may remember the TV prime time soap drama, Dallas. JR Ewing and his family were Texas oil millionaires with dysfunctional relations rarely seen in real life. One of the plot lines for a whole season occurred after one of the actors (Patrick Duffy, who played Bobby Ewing) left the show, and was not part of the TV family. At the end of the season, he must have missed his paycheck, and asked to be brought back, so the next season began with Bobby’s wife waking from a dream (and he in the shower) with this dream being the entire past season without him. All the viewers smacked their foreheads and thought “WTF?”, but then the show continued with him for a number of seasons, so it apparently didn’t affect the false reality created by the show.
Now consider the following:
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?
I spent so many years thinking all these silly vestments, and hats, and rituals, and incense and ringing bells and holy days all meant something. But it’s all just a way to make the flock feel like there is some significance to the equally silly pretensions underlying all religion. It’s just an elaborate smokescreen to paint a veneer of respectability over a much more insidious process happening outside our view.
Every once in awhile I dig beneath the Dashboard of this blog to see what kind of interests the people have who show up here. March 9 was the day I checked for this post. Below is a list of all the searches that link to this blog.
Now some of them I can understand. All the searches for variations on the “atheist billboard” theme are explained by my last two posts. And of course anything with “spanish” (even if spelled incorrectly – go go Google!) or “inquisitor” in the search would show a link to this location. The “venus fly trap” inquiries are also obvious.
Best Freudian slip ever.
although, in all fairness, this is what was intended. Continue reading
Sometimes I just don’t feel like writing, especially when I see that someone else has done a much better job at it, in a more succinct way, with fun graphics and sound.
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.
SPANISH INQUISITOR 