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You've somehow managed to reach my blog. I don't know how, I don't know why, and I don't care. Actually, my Google Analytics account mostly disproves that sentence.In this blog you may find a unique mixture of wit, hard work, neglect, randomness, copy-and-paste jobs, philosophy, word salad, wishful thinking, harbored ill-will, motion sickness, music, sex, orange pulp, your Aunt Bessie (yes, you have one, but she thought it best that you never meet her for reasons that would become obvious if you did), money-making schemes, skepticism, horrors beyond somebody's imagination, Eagles, sardonic quips, triple-malt Whiskey advertisements, glorious depravity, suntan lotion sales pitches, pessimism, green (the color, the movement, whatever), and other things I'm too lazy and unimaginative to add to this list at the moment. Stay tuned.
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Tag Archives: War
The evils of Azeusism
Over at Conversational Atheist they’ve posted a pretty cool answer for one of the most complicated arguments to respond to from the religious: atheism has lead to more deaths than religion.
This is usually in response to us pointing out just how many horrible things have been done in the names of various religions throughout history, with genocide, ethnic cleansing, witch hunts, crusades, etc. wiping out countless people, all to appease their deity of choice. Now most people you make this argument to really DON’T have an answer for it. But the educated(ish) ones will start pointing out Hitler (not accurate, his propaganda was filled with Christianity and talk of God), Pol Pot, Mao, and several serial killers. Their point being that atheists have killed as many people, if not more.
I’ll let their article go into the details, but calling out the horrors performed by those who don’t believe in Zeus does a pretty good job in calling out the flaw in their counter-argument. See, when we point out the evils done in the name of religion, we’re not describing things done merely by people who were religious. I don’t go around pointing to people on death row and saying, “Christian, Muslim, Christian, Christian, Catholic, Baptist, yep, look at all these people who killed their wives, neighbors, coworkers, strangers for reasons unrelated to their religion. See how evil religion is?” But I will point out when entire populations of people are slaughtered for belonging to the wrong religion. I will point out when planes are flown into skyscrapers for the glory of their god who they believe they’re doing the work of. I will call out when someone believes their god ordered them to kill an innocent person.
But their counter-argument doesn’t take this into account. Instead it equates unrelated concepts. “Lucy hates pizza and kicked a dog. Pizza-haters are mean to dogs.” They’re missing our entire point, and proving it by spouting back something completely nonsensical. Now this may stem partially from their constant inaccurate belief that atheism is a religion. That one’s infuriating enough. I guess since they can’t imagine a life without religion, they can’t imagine anyone else living without one. So our lack of beliefs must BE our belief. But even this misses the point. The atheists they call out for committing crimes don’t do so in the NAME of no god. Their crimes are not connected to their lack of belief.
In the end, this is just more evidence of an argument Phil Plait made in a recent blog post about paying attention to what you argue. It’s easy to get drug down into trying to argue the facts, which are frequently useless against the reasonless, but sometimes if you just pay close enough attention to the question and find the flaw there, you can nip the whole thing in the bud. The creationists (or Intelligent Design advocates, or whatever they are now) have proven extremely good at adapting (but, but, isn’t adaptation an attribute of evolution?) and adjusting not only their arguments, but their entire strategies. From what I’ve heard out of Texas recently, the scientific community has finally stepped up, got their ducks in a row, and headed them off relatively successfully. We all need to learn this strategy and start thinking differently, and learn to bob and weave at least as well as they do.
Tagged azeusism, creationism, crusades, genocide, gods, intelligent design, War
Soldier sues over right to non-religion
Today I came across this article on newsday.com which talks about a soldier suing the military over their unfair treatment of his Atheist views.
According to the article, and the suit, this soldier tried to hold a meeting for fellow Atheists and other non-Christians, presumably as a way of garnering a similar level of support and community that the prayer and religious groups have. Despite having his fliers approved, the soldier’s actual meeting was barred by his superior, and he was threatened with military charges and the blocking of his re-enlistment.
Spec. Jeremy Hall is now suing the military over this and other encroachment on his rights to free speech and freedom of (and from) religion. He has cited other incidents, including being forced to submit to religious tests as qualification for his post.
This situation is a perfect example for me of why my Atheism has become so important to me in recent years. As I’ve noted in my About Me page, the lack of a belief in something really shouldn’t be an issue that I care so much about. I have no belief in Godzilla, either, but you don’t see me dedicating sections of my site to proving there’s no Godzilla. This is, I think, true of the vast majority of Atheists. Why waste effort on something we don’t believe exists? But Christians (I point out only Christians because I rarely come across members of any other religion who give a crap) continually go on about how they’re being persecuted (oh how hard it is to be in the majority and in control of the government) by Atheists, and how it seems like we’re at war with them, trying to take away their faith.
Bullshit.
I don’t give a crap what you believe. Believe in God, Allah, Buddha, a giant tortoise, Zeus, Karma, Ra, or any God, Goddess, spirit, universal “truth,” or other mindset you may please. Seriously. I don’t care. But get it out of my face. And no, by saying that, I don’t mean hide your beliefs; I just mean not to try to force your beliefs onto me, whether by constantly reminding me I’m going to Hell for not believing, or by making your religion’s rules into LAWS (and I’m sorry, but if people are to have free will to choose whether or not to sin, and this is one of God’s tests for them, aren’t you fucking up God’s process by outlawing sins?). Your religion is yours, not mine. You think you know better, so live smugly in that knowledge while I live smugly in mine. But you are not making the world a better place by forcing all the infidels and heathens to live by your religion’s rules. You’re just creating a bunch of angry, oppressed people, and history shows that those groups may get over that anger eventually, but usually after they’ve licked that oppression issue… at least until their founding principles are far enough in the past that the rulers can start convincing people they don’t matter anymore.
And that’s where we stand now. We’re sick of watching you erode our rights because your several-thousand-year-old holy book of choice tells you you can’t do certain fun things that the rest of us enjoy. We’re sick of seeing your interests get preferential treatment over ours because your people are in power, when those interests benefit ONLY you and hurt the rest of us. And less and less of us are willing to take it. We’re not at war with you, but we are beginning to fight, and we didn’t start it.
AlterNet, from whom I found this article (via StumbleUpon), noted the irony of how so many religious people, usually in an effort to prove some sort of point (I never do get quite what point they’re trying to prove), try to claim that Atheism is actually a religion (which, of course, it’s not, just like the big blank screen in a theater at 4:00 in the morning isn’t a movie), yet are completely unwilling to provide it the same rights as one. Make a choice, people. Call it (incorrectly) a religion, and give Atheist groups the same tax breaks and other benefits of churches, or shut up.
I wish this soldier the best of luck with his lawsuit. I don’t expect it to work out well in his favor, considering the might of our military and the backing they have in Washington, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed, which is of course the Atheist equivalent of prayer.
