Part 3, 9/30/05

And the parade of belief goes on. Here's a particularly desperate one:

The Afterlife

This life must be a preparation for a life to come. In this life, it is often so hard to do what's right, so easy and tempting to do what's wrong. Good is not necessarily rewarded, and evil often goes unpunished. If there's any justice in the universe, then there must be life after death. And if there is justice in the universe... the implications are unfathomable. I have to believe in God, because in spite of modern science, I don't see how life could have arisen from non-life. I believe there are too many inexplicable occurrences, too many answers to prayer, for God not to exist. There's enough evidence of miracles, of an afterlife, of a spiritual plane to convince me that the physical world is not the only reality. And God must be just -- if God were unjust, then this world would be unspeakably more horrible than it is; existence would truly be meaningless.

This person is referring to right and wrong as defined by his beliefs; therefore his logic is circular. If indeed God decides what's "right and wrong," then yes, it would seem to make sense that He would reward or punish us for following His rules. Unfortunately, this God doesn't have to play by those rules. If He decides that right and wrong is different, then we're screwed regardless. But what if God doesn't decide what's right and what's wrong? What if morality is organic to human beings and organic to simply interacting successfully with one another? Would not life be its own reward for living well? We can then decide if this "God" is unjust. There is a lot of unecessary evil in this world, and I see that the writer can see that. His God must have ultimate justice. He must make things "right" in the end, or else a world with God is truly horrifying and meaningless, isn't it? But what if the unecessary evils aren't caused consciously, but simply happen through natural means, as we already know of hurricanes and tsunamis? Then we deal with nature as we always have: by using our wits, our resiliency, and our natural tendencies to help one another. That world doesn't sound so horrible. Scary, indeed. But not meaningless and horrifying, as if something had done that on pupose.

He says "I can't see how life arose from non-life" and decides there must be a god. Thankfully, scientists don't give up quite so easily. We are on the road to learning how this occurred. The day we learn this fact, I wonder how many people will be honest enough to cease believing in a Creator?

"Too many miracles!" he announces. How many miracles are required? Shouldn't one miracle be enough? If there are other answers to one miracle, there can be more answers to "too many" miracles,

"Too many answers to prayers!" If God is just, then we shouldn't have to pray at all. Why pray if you believe God can justify the evils He commits? God must know what's in store for you. "Thy Kingdome come, Thy Will be done." If God wants something to happen, it will happen whether you like it or not. "Too many answers to prayer!" He says. Assuming that so many have been answered, it's the ones that weren't answered that I'd worry about. What of the orphaned children? The men and women that lost their spouses and children? heir homes? Didn't they pray? Or is it another case of "Noah's Ark Syndrome:" "They were all wicked."

This one's short and sweet:

I have to believe in God, because if I do not, then there can't be a hell. My anger is so great sometimes. There has to be justice in the end.

"MY ANGER IS SO GREAT! THERE MUST BE A HELL!" This one should win a caption contest for sure. He goes on, after some concern from the other posters:

I was spouting of at the mouth really. I was having such a bad day the other day. I have cancer and sometimes people are so ignorant. The most prestigious people in town, to me happen to be the most evil. Also, my pharmacy, and health insurance can rott if you know what I mean.

I really hope that there is a heaven and a hell. Sometimes this world is sooo wacked. I don't want to be sitting in heaven with child molesters either.

This is probably what most people mean when they talk about their beliefs. It relates to their personal struggles. As the person above, so many bad things happen, there has to be justification for it. But if you don't believe in God inthe first place, you don't have to think that way. What if it's a consequence of nature? That way, there's no one using mysterious reasons to inflict horror upon you--mysterious reasons they promise you get to find out after you die. That's a great cult/scam tactic. The secrets will be revealed. What if you can actually find out for yourself?

From reading the bible and listening to theologians, sitting in heaven with child molesters is great. That's because so many secrets are revealed to you, you will know exacly why a child molester can give a death-bed confession and end up "sitting next to you." Besides: you will be too busy looking at God and singing His praises to notice. Hey: if your best friend is having his testicles branded in Hell and you don't notice, why in God's name would you be bothered by a child molester? WTF? You're in heaven and you're complaining about the neighbors Maybe it's just that some people can't be happy unless they can complain. You have to know some people like that. Maybe, for them, heaven is a place where you get to complain all day and finally get listened to!

Originally posted by chicklover
I think what dyermaker is an important issue that we see nowadays. I believe in something for some good but it doesn't actually matter if it really exists.
It is like: I love in god just because it calms me , it doesn't matter it really exists or not.

So true! I feel like sometimes I have to believe in God because that's the only thing that gives me hope and calms my anxiety about what's awaiting me in the future.--Naive (no kidding, that's really his/her post name!)

What if your anxiety about what's waiting for you in the future comes from the very religion you think you have to believe in for comfort? Some religions don't have hell. What if you believed in those? Perhaps you wouldn't have that anxiety? In that sense, it doesn't matter if it exists or not: if you don't believe in it, that should calm you down for good! Hell, it works for me!

Part 2, 9/30/05

This is another post referring to another post referring to another post. I hope you can follow.

The Man Behind the Curtain

The Raving Atheist recently gave us a post dealing with something rather interesting. Specifically, he was discussing an article in Newsday that asked a group of Unitarian Universalists whether or not they believe in god.

...

...was less complimentary, however, about UU Janet Hanson's answer:

I have to believe in God because I see so many things -- both good and bad -- done in God's name. God exists in the minds of people. To say that I don't believe in God would be absurd.

The RA responds to Ms. Hanson with considerable scorn:

So God exists in her mind because it exists in the minds of others who say He does things. But what if those people are all doing the same thing -- basing their beliefs on Ms. Hanson's conviction that God exists, a conviction that itself is based only upon her opinion of what’s in their heads? God might just be a belief about what other people believe you believe about what they believe.

In one sense I agree with the RA- believing in something because a buttload of other people do is a pretty stupid reason. On the other hand, I do think the RA is missing something important here. The Sociologist W.I. Thomas wrote, "If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences," which is often used as a one-sentence summary of social construction. In short, humans collectively decide on the nature of the world, building a set of interpretations and understandings as a group activity. This is not to say (in my view) that an ultimate, single physical reality does not exist, but rather that the webwork of meaning that humans use to interact with that world is produced through social means. Though stated inelegantly, Ms. Hanson has stumbled across a similar revelation. On a certain level, if enough people believe in god then god is socially real, even if he is not materially real.

...

Men and women have defined god to be real, and he has become real in his consequences for the world. Such a process of social construction can easily be invoked to explain religious devotion...

The problem here is what "Total Drek" and his sociologists are talking about is belief in a God, not God. I have to be honest here and say that I think "Social construction" is nonsense. We're talking about memes, and not even Richard Dawkins says they are real. As a strict materialist, memes are real, as ideas in our brains. But even if 10 thousand, 10 million, a billion people have an idea they call "God," they still are not the same idea. They are a billion ideas, existing nowhere but as ideas in a billion heads. I have no problem saying that the belief in God exists, and that a scary majority of people have the idea they believe in A God, but that doesn't make "god exist as a social construction." And certianly, the UU's who will go ahead and be smart-alecky and say "I believe in God," they sure-as hell don't have the same meme. Why say "I believe in God in a sense," when you can say, "I believe in the belief in God," and discuss how that belief affects you daily? (And explain which God you mean.)

I suppose what we have here is a Unitarian-Universalist Social-Construct God meme. That's a whole different ball of wax. It sure isn't the same meme my sweet Aunt Doris worshopped in her Quaker meeting-house, nor is it the same meme my uncle babbles tongues about in his much louder church. No, it's much more pretentious and a sort of impotent UU God meme. It also makes you wonder--they aren't proposing that their meme is the same as at least one of the memes in the Hindu head, is it?

Could there be a UU-Social-Construct Polytheistic Gods-Meme, as well as the Monotheistic Social Construct God meme? We wouldn't want to leave anyone out. Because, after all, we can't be so presumptuous as to assume we know exactly what meme is in everyone else's head.

Now that I think of it, social constructs are guesses and assumptions. They are not collective ones, however. Guesses exist in the heads of individuals, and social constructs exist as ideas in the heads of the one making the assumption.

That idea just doesn't seem lofty or important enough to qualify for a God, does it?

Why They Believe for 9/29/05

But one thing I do know, if atheism is correct, then it doesn't
matter if I believe in Christianity, because atheism holds that there
is no capital `T' Truth, life is ultimately meaningless, and that all
life in the universe will inevitably be extinguished in the heat
death of the universe (if not before), in which and it will be as
though we all, atheists and Christians alike, had never existed: --RE: The Atheist Question

Atheism "holds" nothing. This is another Christian who is ultimately a nihilist. Of course, we don't have to pit Christianity against atheism. Is Christianity the only religion? Atheism is not the opposite of Christianity. It is the opposite of theism.

I believe in christianity because I have always felt a connection to God. I never recognised it as such until later in life. First I identified my connection with something trandscendant. -- Why Christianity?

This would be another interpretation of the warm fuzzies. Great feelings of connectedness interpreted as coming from somewhere else. How do we know it doesn't come from ourselves, Satan, an alien, a person sending psycho waves, or from a really good piece of pie? One must always rule out natural explanations before one jumps to magical conclusions.

You Know What? I believe in Christianity.
And you are just going to have to fucking live with it.

You are also going to have to live with the simple and irrefutable facts that:

1. I do not hate gay people, nor do any other Christians I know.

2. I do not care about what you do with your sexual organs, nor do any other Christians I know.

3.I believe every religion is right - and wrong - in its own way. I believe in Christianity, because I believe in everything else. --You know what? I believe in Christianity.

Ok, Ok! Everything's fine! Nothing is ruined!. Every religion is right and wrong in its own way. Especially since most religions inherently say that all other religions are wrong in every way, especially Christianity. But, as the young lady claims, she believes in Christianity, but disagrees with the deity she claims to worship. How do you do that? Worship someone but rally against his teachings? That's like saying, "you know, I believe in Nazism. Deal with it. No, I don't hate Jews, love them, and homosexuals, too. All political systems are right and wrong in their own ways, but I worship Hitler."

She goes on to rant about how we don't believe in Christianity because we claim that Christians are biased, prejudiced, and ignorant. Leaving belief out of it, I don't follow christianity, not because of its believers, but because its deity is biased, prejudiced, and ignorant.

I believe in Christianity, first of all, not because I believe in this book. I believe in this book because I believe in Christianity. Religion does not come out of the Bible. The Bible comes out of religion. I believe in Christianity because I believe in evolution. Christianity is to me further evolution. I know no better definition of it than that.--Stones Rolled Away (and other addresses to young men).

Beautiful! A circular reason all spelled out, no muss, no fuss.Unnfortunately, none of it is a reason to follow Christianity. This is based on mistaken beliefs about evolution. Sure, Christianity is a part of human evolution. No question--memetic evolution, of course. It doesn't make it better, or right. Animals evolved a lot of unnecessary and harmful things,.Memes are not defined as good things. Organs/memes: they can all be judged on their individual merits.

I believe in Christianity because there is enough circumstantial evidence to convince me it is true (and that is all we have, circumstantial evidence)--from Ain't it Cool News Forum on the Exorcism of Emily Rose

circumstantial evidence: All evidence except eyewitness testimony. From the United States Attorney Kids' Web Page.
If we have any circumstantial exidence, I'd sure as hell like to see it. This is the first time I've heard a christian say we had absolutely no eyewitness testimony! Wow! Wait...he's still going on...

but it also took a leap of faith for Moses even though he witnessed all the Exodus miracles going down.....TARDS!

Sad. Very very sad.

for myself, i believe in christianity because it satisfies my questions about life and existence. i wish i could leave the question unanswered like bossel, but i cannot. because i exist, i believe someone put me here. i believe there is some fundamental questions ingrained in humans that need to be answered, such as "right and wrong."--China Daily

"Christianity" or "God did it" is not an answer to any questions about life and existence. If one is satisfied with that answer, one is extremely easy to please. If "God did it" answers "why am I here?" then "God did it" is a good answer to "why does unecessary evil exist," or "why did God make the Tree of Knowledge in the first place" or "Where are my keys?" This person doesn't ask questins. As for "right and wrong," those are concepts, not questions. But, does "God did it" answer "is it right to kill one for the sake of others?"

I believe in Christianity because it's the only religion that doesn't require any works or attaining perfection on your own to get to the best place when you die.--Kalvin B

Finally! Some honesty! It's definitely not an answer to why he believes, but why he follows Christianity: because you can sit on your ass and still go to Happy Land!

'You have just proved my theory of atheists being ignorant and narrowminded to be correct. All this talk about brainwashing and conditioning sounds like atheist cynnicism. Nevertheless, I believe in Christianity because of my theological studies and I refuse to let my faith be udnermined by the opinions of some child who won't accept a religion she doesn't agree with.--The Bible?

Yeah, no self-respecting Scientologist should be undermined by the opninons of some christian who won't accept a religion she doesn't agree with. You are a Scientologist, right?--Alleee, "narrowminded to be correct."

And now, for fun:

I believe that when you die you have a choice.
Live on Earth or live with the spirits or somthing like that.
If you chose Earth you memory would be erased and is put into a new
"to-be" child.
i doing so the theory of life being in other place other than earth is possible because you might choose to live on another plannet other than Earth because of your experiances with it.
If you choose spirit you would be able to do as you wish with no limitations but there is a catch-you will not age and nothing that happens on earth will happen there(Ex:War,Violence)
So i pretty much belive in life after death but i dont really agree on how it works.(Ex:souls,spirits,ghosts,heaven)(not that i dont believe in heaven)--Marth 186

Little Satan

I had a dream last night that Satan was a tiny little figurine-sized devil. Cute, too. I had to kill him. Damned thing kept biting me, too. I finally decided to kill him by tying a string around its neck and the other end around my finger, and drowning him in a pan of soapy water. In the pan was a bunch of Hummel figurines of little choir boys. I thought they were just figurines, not alive. But somehow they were, and not subject to death by drowning. The devil was pulling stunts, taking his string and wrapping it around the heads of the choirboys.

But I knew I had to kill him. I would dip him in the water, but just before he drowned, I'd pull him up, and he would spit and cough. He laughed and sneered at me the whole time, daring me to kill him. Finally I put him down in the water, and left. I forgot him, and there was the string, sticking up out of the water, and not moving. I thought I had finally done it. Then I thought:

"The Christians can't be happy about this, though I know they will be. Because if I killed Satan, then their prophesies are all false! There won't be anyone for Jesus to fight in the Apocalypse."

Then I woke up.

DID I kill Satan?

Don`t Be Ashamed, Troy

Someone who knows what they`re doing remixed Troy`s love mixtape. Check it out in the comments on a past entry.

Normal Bob Smith on Live with Hellbound Alleee

Be sure to tune into Live with Hellbound Alleee tomorrow, Sunday, September 25th, at 2 pm Eastern Daylight Time (1800 hours Greenwich Mean). We'll have a lot to talk about, some torturous music, and, of course, a visit with Normal Bob Smith of Jesus Dressup and NoBS Radio! Come inot our chat room with questions for Bob. Call in and win! The second caller of the show will receive one of three lovely prizes: a book, a cd, or a lovely t-shirt.

Coincidence?!?!?

Jean-Luis Barrault of Les Enfants du Paradise and Conan.
I wonder...

Reply to Christian Theist : Matter Matters

Christian Theist, you've set me up by demanding an “absolute immutable standard”. Yet neither of us can possibly have such a standard. Even if you believe that God is an “absolute immutable standard”, you still rely on your own values to decide whether or not to follow what you think is “the word of God”. And our values are not absolutes nor immutable. You have decided to take the path of moral irresponsibility by choosing moral submission, and I haven’t. That’s the only difference.

Your own religion has no "absolute, immutable standard" for the treatment of others. The "divine commands" in your bible show that your God's standards are subjective, as I have shown in my post. God commands the slaughter of many individuals in the bible, some cruel and needless.

Either way, there are no “absolute, universal, invariant laws of morality” in your worldview, so why do you demand them of mine? When we grow up, we observe the things around us, and amongst these things are people around us that we recognize as individuals with their own values and feelings, and from all this we naturally come to value ourselves, our survival, our flourishing, other people around us, people we love, things we love, and ultimately the society that is necessary for the expression of those values.

This is something that we all acquire as we grow up. If you can’t decide why to treat people well, other than to be told to do it, then what kind of a person are you? Obviously you don’t love or care for people, otherwise you wouldn’t need divine diktat to treat them well. You would obviously see the benefit of treating them well for the pursuit of your values (love, caring, friendship, whatever). If you do, then you are either lying, or simply borrowing from my worldview and not recognizing it.

Matter matters. It doesn’t make sense to say that things don’t matter because they are made of matter. Meaning and value are substrate-invariant. The proposition “1+1=2”, for example, is true and means the same thing whether it is written on paper, engraved in stone, written in clouds, or planted in flower arrangements. Whether a person you love is made of atoms or soul-puffs does not make the person less valuable to you. The moral value I put on that person is substrate-invariant.

Even in cases where it does seem that the substance is relevant, it really isn’t. For example, we value gold more than most other metals. But we value gold because it is rare compared to these other metals – because of a relative property. If we were made of soul-stuff, or whatever you believe things are made of, then other substrates would be rarer, and we would value those more highly.

Materialism is not just an ontological side-issue. It is a crucial issue. Within materialism, material agents such as human beings can look at reality and hold fast to values which correspond to the functioning of their world. I know the Sun will rise tomorrow, I know that being rational is my only means to know, I know that to fulfill my values I must be rational, honest, benevolent, non-coercive. These are all facts that I grasp because I am part of the causal systems within which they exist.

If materialism is wrong, if there is a god or demons or whatever supernaturalism you want to come up with, our choices are meaningless and our principles are subjective. We lose the solid ground of uniformity and fall into subjective anxiety. Christians “backslide”, scientists don’t “backslide”. Religion is cultural-dependent, science is not cultural-dependent.

As I said before, you still rely on your own values to decide how to put your will into submission. Ultimately you made the autonomous decision that your worldview is divine, and not demonic, or self-inspired. And that’s a decision that you have no basis to make. All that we both have is our personal values and the material facts of reality. Because of your education, feelings, brainwashing, whatever, you chose fantasy instead of reality. That’s your problem – not mine. But don’t make moral issues dependent on your belief in an immutable fantasy.

Nothing is immutable. It is a common saying that “change is the only constant”. Christianity also changes and changes. The idea that Christianity presents an immutable moral system is laughable, and anyone with any understanding of history would tell you that you’re ignorant of the facts. Christians throughout the ages have tempered their moral beliefs, simply because Christianity is part of the memetic evolution that takes place every day in society. Simply expressed, any belief system that becomes intolerable to a given society becomes less and less popular, until it disappears. To survive, Christianity has had to revise its moral beliefs many times, from the days of flagellation and Inquisition all the way to admitting women pastors.

Speaking of Values

Another lovely fact of the evolution of the human brain just crossed paths with me, turning my vexation into the relative beginning of a wonderful day.

I downloaded the album of the week from Basic Hip, and I am listening to it right now. From the very first song, it hit me: the smell of my dad's trumpet.

My dad was/is a jazz musician/conductor/composer/arranger, etc. He had a number of instrumebts, but the one he played most when I was a child was his trumpet. He also had a lot of great record albums from the 60's: Stan Kenton, Count Basie, Louis Prima and Keely Smith Charlie Parker, all kinds of things. This album, The James Bond Sountrack, is precisely the kind of jazz my dad listened to. When I heard the first track, my head? nose? was filled with the smell of his trumpet.

I was pretty little when he played trumpet and led the Wenatchee Big Band (he's a Kapellemeister now in Leavenworth Washington). My memory tells me I used to go to some of these concerts. I'm not exactly sure when or where. But what I do know is poking around his trumpet case. I think the inside was red velour or velveteen. I'd pick up the trumpet and put the mouthpiece in. Trumpets and other brass horns tend to be very humid...steamy, sort of. That's because they're constantly being blown into, and no matter how much you release the spit valve, they're still a bit mist in their cases. There's somewhat of a chemical reaction taking place between the metal and the low acid in the spit. My dad was a big coffee drinker. That must have been part of the smell. It's not pleasant, by any means. But it reminds me of my dad. You know how that is.

That' s because nature (that evil, godless, worthless old evolution demon) gave us a part of our brains where memory and the sense of smell are neighbors, and therefore intermingle. This also can trigger emotion. It's not just a magic trick that The Amazing Jesus pulled out of his flowing sleeves along with the loaves and fishes. It's part of our bodies, this brain of ours. It's part of why we are who we are. It can be mighty pleasant sometimes. Even if the smell of wet brass isn't inherently a "good" smell, circumstances and my brain made it so.

Another point for this lump of "meat body," as the Scientologists would say!

Christian: Nothing Matters

Sorry for re-posting comments on the main section of the blog, but this kind of thing gets my nanny:

Christian Theist says:
"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." (Eph. 5:25)

"Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them." (Col. 3:19).

Perhaps the church has treated women poorly, but Jesus Christ would never approve of it. It's actually illogical, given the Christian position, for Christians to treat women poorly. On the atheist worldview, treating women like animals makes sense (women would be just evolutionary blobs of material stuff). The atheist cannot justify universal, invariant laws of morality by which we can know that treating women poorly is wrong.

Alleee indignantly replies:
Christian theist:

if you cannot find a reason to treat women well without using THE BIBLE, then you aren`t looking past the nose on the end of your face.

I don`t care if Jesus loved the church, whatever that means. The fictional character of Jesus thought everyone who wasn't an Israelite was like "dogs." (Matthew 15:21-28:)

Jesus spoke for the old scripture. The old scripture which viewed women as vessals, just like the urinals we see in the picture.

The old scripture that said that if you raped a woman, your "punishment" was to marry her. The old scripture that said if a woman did not cry out during rape, they both are stoned to death. (Deuteronomy 22:23-27)

The old scripture that put monetary worth on those "piles of matter," men at sixty sheckels and women at fifty. (Leviticus 27:1-)

The old scripture from the "church" that Jesus so loved, that said that a woman on her period is "unclean," and everything she touches is "unclean," and that she has to make the priest an offering of pigeons or turtles in order to be "clean" again.

The gospel scripture that says a woman's promise is null and void if her husband disapproves of it. (Numbers 30:12)

And finally, the old scripture that says women and girls are the spoils of war. (Deuteronomy 20:13-16)

Jesus was fond of doing commercials supporting this old scripture. He couldn't get enough of his beloved scripture.

The cartoon character Jesus was not my friend. The cartoon character Jesus spoke for a theology that says that nature is corrupt, and we must fight against it, against the world. That's evil.

I'm sorry that you cannot deal with the fact that people and things are made of other things. How you come to the conclusion that being made of other things makes them worthless, I do not know, but it shows that it is you who thinks that people are worthless, not me. "Atheism" does not need to "justify" your beliefs. You're the one whose supposed to try and do that. Reality, however, already justifies the fact that you treat others well in order to live in the world.

...

Christianity does neither make people do good, nor does it do much for advocating it. Too bad, eh?

Although I have my doubts that the Christian actually believes this, I have to wonder how this worldview can possibly allow the believer to function in society, in following this to its logical conclusion.

In this worldview, where, if things are evolved and not filled with ghosts and spirits of the Heavenly Supernatural Realm, then they are meaningless blobs. That means that the Christian, when he gets up in the morning, gets out of bed for no reason other than the fact that God is making him. He cleans himself for no other reason than a command, or, actually, the hand of god holding his arms and washcloth. His kiss to his wife or children is not self-motivated: the ghost inside of him makes him do these things. That's because evolved humans cannot possibly love or value their children or mates on their own. Only the ghost does. (What an empty gesture that seems to me, this directed kiss.)

The man has no values at all. The man/organism, I mean. Only the ghosts, playing about in our universe, pulling us about like marionettes. Our emotions, our values--all just a puppet show for God.

Here's an atheist justifying actions and choices: we have values because matter matters. It is substance that has value. In that I include everything in the universe. The ghosts and spirits have no value or substance because they do not exist. Humans should pay them no mind and concentrate on giving some fucking appreciation for the world, rather than whining and crying that it's just not good enough for them. It's like a whining bride who sees a towering, beautiful wedding cake being cut by her loving, handsome groom, and crying that the cake isn't made of solid gold and her groom isn't Jude Fucking Law---with magical powers, of course.

Matter matters.

What the church thinks of women

Pledge Unconstitutional--and stupid

I Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag
of the United States of America
and to the Union
for Richard Stans
One Nation, Under God
Invisible
With liver trees,
and Justice For All.

Do Americans really think that swearing an oath means something? Especially swearing an oath to a cloth and a land mass defined by borders and under the thumb of an imaginary flying magic serial killer?

Swearing oaths has roots in the occult, but it doesn't seem to bother christians. I fyou say this incantation, it binds you supernaturally to a statement?

If you believe something, you believe something. No country can ever change that, or require it. But it seems that this American country thinks that uttering a magic spell is good enough. As long as you give lip service, as Marge Simpson would say. The government prefers a lie to the truth.

If you want to be owned by your government, fine. But does anyone really believe that uttering this nursery rhyme written by a socialist will condition children into being better than children in countries where they do no recite statist rhetoric disguised as "truth?" Are Canadian children simply awful? What truth has patriotism, and what does the "pledge" have to do with it?

It's like hanging the Ten No-No's in classrooms. This Abracadabra nonsense is worse that the God phrase in it. It promotes a belief with or without the word "God, " and there is no justification for it.

That being said, I must offer you a download, for reading my rant:

Charlie Made a Monkey, by the Love Jesus Cult, "The Family."

PIck and Choose

Dear Internet Diary,

April asks,

what parts of the bible to believe and what to not believe. you can't just pick and choose what parts are allegory and what parts are "real". you can't just pick to follow this part, and reject that part. whan you do that you're creating your own religion based on your own wants/desires/biases/etc. you might as well be an atheist.

That's a great point.

Interestingly enough, the creation of the bible was "pick and choose." The creation of covenant theology was a reaction to the failure of God"s prophesy. The temple was destroyed? Ok, let's make it so that God meant that the temple would stay only if we never sinned against Him.

The writing of and the selection of bible books and scripture is all subjective. What was the Council of Nicea if not "pick and choose?" And how many years did it take to consider Revelation part of the bible?

Over 400 years.

There's your pick and choose. The bible wasn't created in its full form. Mythology was happening during the writing of the bible. The Gospels were not just reinterpretations. Scripture was actually changed during this time, if it did not suit the writer. This or that prophesy failed? Easy. Change the prophesy to fit. Change "history" to fit the prophesy. It's ok; you're an evangelist. You're doing this for the glory of god. It's not really lying.

But April is right. You might as well be an atheist. Because if it's symbolic, then, well, Jesus, performed miracles, came back to life, and flew up into the sky is symbolic. If you don't believe Jesus is God, only symbolically God, and that God is symbolic too, then you're an atheist. Because if the bible is allegoy, so then must be its characters.If you take it as allegory, you are an atheist.

The sad thing is that it was genesis that put a stop to mythology. For the first time, it was to be taken literally. The snake, Adam and Eve--they were supposed to have existed. Cain, Abel, "his wife," all real. These are precisely the characters that liberal christians reject as symbolic. For good reason, as they simply are not original symbols in any way.

It doesn't matter, though, if every single thing in the bible were symbolic. The teachings are still evil. The entire premise is to fight nature and join the supernatural.

But in my symbols, the good guys fight on the side of the world.

You Are an Atheist, so SHUT UP ALREADY.

You say, "well, I'm not 100% atheist, because I can't prove that god exists, so technically, etc.but I don't believe in any gods..."

STOP. Did you hear yourself? You just said "I don't believe in any gods..."

YOU ARE AN ATHEIST.

Don't get all excited. So what if you think you cannot prove it, or you don't know it? Fine. BE an agnostic.

BUT YOU'RE STILL AN ATHEIST.

How many times do I have to say this? Look inside yourself, for want of a better phrase. Is there a belief in God there? Yes? Then you're a theist. No? Can't find any? Then you're an atheist. Don't tell me you don't know if you believe or not. Your beliefs are not hidden inside, lurking behing some grey tissue.

For fuck's sakes, answer the question! Do you believe or not? NO no no buh buh buh buh.....I didn't ask you to tell me anything about proof or knowledge or chances or any of that. I ASKED you if you BELIEVE. You don't believe, you are an atheist. Simple.

Atheism is about BELIEF. Agnosticism is about knowledge. A person isn't "an" agnostic. A person is agnostic towards something, would be a better way of putting it.

Do you believe or not? Honestly, if only the word "agnostic" had never been coined. If Huxley saw the uses of his terms today, he'd be "rolling over in his grave."

I don't believe that either.

Live Show

Tune in to Live With Hellbound Alleee at 2 pm eastern daylight time tomorrow!

We'll be discussing Whose To Blame?!? Just like everyone else!

The Clouds are Lifting

I just wanted to say how thrilled I am that fall is coming.

The Northeast is a great place to be right now. Not that it wasn't great in the northwest in september. It was. But everyone here seems to be in agreement. Summer is ok, but we are northeasterners, and fall is ours. That goes double for Quebecers: Summer is good, fall is better, but winter is ours. The mood lightens. A fog lifts from my head as I can see out of the oppression that is summer.

Now is the time to eat. That's the big thing. Now is the time to get out the crock pot. It's time for chili. It's time for stew. When I see the back end of county Fair season, it's time to boil the hell out of whatever animal it was that won the blue ribbon.

This is what floats on the back of my eyes:

My mother has cleaned the entire house (well, we helped). This time, she mopped the floors. It smells like pine sol. The dishwasher is steaming. She is listening to Edvard Grieg on our giant Magnavox stereo console, in imitation walnut. The fabric that covers the speakers is littered with holes I poked, because the popping sound it so satisfying.

Soon we can smell something oniony, possibly chicken and dumplings or tamale pie. That mingles with the smell of the apples that I brought in from the garage, so mom can make a pie. We always have a big box of apples in the garage in the fall.

That's it. I don't remember the battle to decide who sets the table and who washes the dishes, or my dad yelling at us to help my mom clean the living room. I'm glad my brain allows for that. That way, when September comes, I am comforted and I am back in that living room, lying on the orange semi-shag carpet, listening to Peer Gynt, waiting to have that chicken.

The Spirit of Evil

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I believe in Santa Claus, and I am a rational, realistic, intellegent person. I've seen Santa Claus. Thing is, it's not a fat man who lives at the north pole in a red, non-fur-friendly suit; that's a advertising concept created in the late victorian era. It's a spirit that takes people. It's a spirit of giving and happiness, and it is as real as the seat under my ass.

"God" works on kinda the same principle, in the way you are getting at. It's faith, and faith, by its very nature, is a concept without tangible evidence. Evidence creates fact, and faith is not fact, but that does not make it any less real.. --Wade

This is sarcastic, right? You can't be serious.

There is no "spirit of giving." This is called idealism, and it doesn't work. It's not a beautiful idea. People give, people do nice things, people take, people do bad things. There exists no representative of this in the universe. You see people do giving and wonderful things, you give the credit to the person, not a non-existent "spirit of giving." This takes away any possible moral autonomy, any possible responsibility any individual has for doing good. That's called stealing.

But the devil exists, doesn't he? I've seen him. He's called "the spirit of evil." Therefore, no individual has the responsibility of doing wrong, because he did it in the name of evil, or the spirit that exists inside, right?

Happy Christmas: No, Virginia. There is no Santa Claus. Your parents love you, and they worked very hard to give you the things you see at christmas, because they want you to be happy. They did not do this because of a spirit. They did it because they value you as their daughter, and they found it economically feasable to give you a sparkling Christmas.

Sad Christmas: No, Virigina. There is no Santa Claus, The "Spirit of giving" does not exist, and you need not feel bad, because since this "spirit" does not exist, you were not singled out by supernatural entities to be denied happiness at Christmas. There is no spirit of giving god that decided not to give to you, because you were bad, or forgotten. The children who were given toys were not blessed by a spirit that denied you. For some reason, it was not economically feasable/the weather took away your house/your parents are drunks/etc.

The "spirit of giving" idea, as I see it, can be a cruel belief, just as god-belief is a cruel belief. And just as Devil-belief is cruel and strange. --Alleee

Troy's Mixtape of Love VS Lay Lady Lay

I found a very special recording over at PCL Linkdump: Troy's Mixtape of Love.

I couldn't resist fixing it up a bit. Here's Troy's ReMixtape

Enjoy!

TUNE IN AND WIN!

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UPDATE: NEW LINK TO LIVE SHOW: SEE BELOW!

Hellbound Alleee show for September 3-9: The Fine-Tuning Argument

This week, Francois presents the "Fine-Tuning Argument," and refutations. Tune into the show on our station at 7 and 11 pm eastern time, or download at the site.

LIVE with Hellbound Alleee for September 4

Tune in and Win!

Be the second caller to the Hellbound Alleee Show LIVE on Sunday, September 4, 2005 at 2 pm eastern time, and win your choice of the following:

Franc's Short Handbook of Atheistic Apologetics
Hellbound Alleee CD 1 or 2
A Lovely Hellbound Alleee T-Shirt

We'll be chatting about the hurricane in the southeast, and much more. Of course, as always, there'll be some weird-ass music.

To listen, go to Hellbound Alleee LIVE page. Please note that it will not be playing on the Hellbound Alleee station, but on Shoutcast. (During the show ONLY.) The sound will be 10 times better, and any distortions should clear up in seconds, not minutes. You can listen to the stream through the link, or go to Shoutcast and search for "hellbound" between 2 and 3.

Don't forget to join us in the chatroom!

Thanks!