Fasten your seatbelts - God’s REALLY pissed off now!

God is mad as hell and isn’t gonna take it anymore. It seems the New York law allowing gay marriage was the straw that broke the deity’s back. We are about to experience His wrath ala Sodom and Gomorrah. Yup, hell fire and damnation for the entire nation is right around the corner.

And how do I know this? On Monday God sent a message to his spokesman Pat Robertson. Pat told us so during his 700 Club broadcast. The same place he touts his miracle muscle building elixir, declared the Haitian hurricane tragedy a result of a “deal with the devil”, and suggested we send hit men to kill Venezuela’s president. Here’s the link to the story: http://www.ontopmag.com/article.aspx?id=8782&MediaType=1&Category=26

Usually I’d just laugh it off and wouldn’t give it another moments thought. Robertson’s buffoonery and past asinine claims have succeeded in placing him along side May 21st end times prophet Harold Camping on the shelf labeled “Religious Fanatics: death past due.” But this kind of social vindictiveness, this religiously induced homophobia, intolerance and denial of reality and biology has the effect of stirring the pot and igniting the ire of already ignorant religious drones. Drones who give fools like Robertson credence; who really believe the garbage spewed forth from his pie hole.

No. I can’t just ignore it. I’m getting seriously tired of religiously inspired stupidity. Secular stupidity is bad enough, but when shaken or stirred with a measure of supernaturalist delusion and self righteousness the annoyance factor is increased exponentially.

Look, Pat ... if you’re reading this do the civilized thinking world a favor: Go sell your crazy someplace else, this country is already overstocked with it. And perhaps a nice long dirt nap would do you some good. I know it would make my day.

“Less than human” a Rabbi’s Perspective of Atheism

A Facebook friend was rather upset about a video she viewed in which a renowned rabbi implies that atheists are “non-human.” Not willing to post it on her page and lambasting the rabbi openly out of concern for offending her Jewish friends, she sent me the link and asked for my opinion. Here’s the three minute youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGkI87Rx7o8&feature=related

Let me preface this by saying that I am familiar with Rabbi Sacks. A learned Hebraic scholar, he speaks with authority on Jewish history and law, the Torah, and midrash. That said, he is still a believer, still a superstitionalist, still a rejecter of reality.

I reject his basic premise of the need for humans to seek “meaning” outside the “system.” His examples are fraught with all kinds of problems, but hey... it’s what theists do. But I would not interpret his closing comment as a condemnation of atheists as "non-human." What he is saying is that in his opinion those who do not embrace a meaning of life beyond the "system" of nature and the reality of the natural universe, lack a trait /a belief (what Dawkin's calls "the religion meme") which is unique to humans.Now, in the rabbi’s opinion this is a defect and is a diminishing of humanity / “less than human”. But to realists, to those unencumbered by this missing "meme," or who have the ability to suppress it and over come it, substituting reason in its stead - it is an evolutionary advancement.

Look at it another way. Let’s imagine the rabbi as an early ancestor to humans who has seen a transformation among his species. As a dominant pack leader he would be compelled to espouse (if it could reason and talk) that any of their kind who does not walk on all fours and have a prehensile tail is missing something, it's unnatural, and is something "less." From that soon to be extinct ancestor's perspective he's right. The more advanced species that walks on two legs and has lost its tail has something less than its predecessor species. We walk on fewer appendages, and we no longer need a tail to hang from trees. And aren't we glad.

Frankly, as the more advanced species I’ll happily be deemed as “less” than one of our flea infested, tree climbing ancestors. In short, considering the source, being referred to as less than human in this theist’s parlance is the greatest compliment he could pay atheists. This may be the quintessential example of the truth of the old saw “less is more.”

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“What’s ruining this country is....!!” The Xtians ‘splain it all to us.

Warning: I'm going to go on a rant here.

I read an article headline where some Christian group has declared that homosexuality and abortion is what brought on the financial crisis. I thought it was from the Onion, thus satire. It wasn’t. I didn’t get past the headline.

Last week a Xtian woman told me that pornography is destroying the country. So she signed a petition by some sexually obsessed/repressed Xtians to stop NBC from airing a TV series about the 1950’s Playboy club. The costumes on Dancing with the Nobodies will be racier than the Playboy outfits.

Although I have been chastised for labeling some Christians imbeciles, stupid, and unthinking, I will now add to that utterly clueless and fucked-up. That makes it five defaming labels... they win the quinella and deservedly so.

What’s ruining this country isn’t gays who simply want to be happy and treated equally, or women who insist on retaining the right to control their reproductive system, or guys flogging the bishop while looking at porn (much less looking at women in one piece bathing suits with cotton bunny tails). Nope. None of that has one damn thing to do with any of the perceived ills of this country.

What’s ruining this country are the school boards who want kids to be taught that Gawd created all life, and evolution is a fraud...setting back the teaching of science by 100 years.

What’s ruining this country is the admiration and glorification of buffoons, political hacks, and uneducated “celebrities” who believe Paul Revere’s midnight ride was to “...warn the British that they weren’t going to take the colonist’s guns.” [Palin]. Or that The Shot Heard Round the World which started the Revolutionary War at Lexington & Concord Massachusetts, was in New Hampshire [Bachmann]. Or that the president “probably doesn’t” have a US birth certificate [Trump].

What’s ruining this country is distortion of history, no... lets call it what it is... the bald face lies about our nation’s history in order to support a religious agenda. I.e. The Ten Commandments is the foundation for American law; our Founding Fathers were all Christians who wanted a Christian Nation; Thomas Jefferson didn’t mean separation of church and state when he wrote the Virginia Constitution’s prohibition of sectarian intrusion by government and used the term "Wall of Separation.".

What’s ruining this country is the bizarre insistence that patriotism cannot exist without religious delusion.

What’s ruining this country is the ignoring of the law by school officials who promote and encourage prayer at school sponsored programs, in direct violation of the Supreme Court.

What’s ruining this country is the hope of those same religious fanatics and haters that our economy doesn’t recover under Obama; that unemployment remains high, the stock market falls, and the recession continues to cause pain and suffering for millions - the better to improve their chances of getting a Republican in the White House in 2012.

What’s ruining this country are people who have surrendered personal responsibility for raising their children by seeking to ban a TV show instead of banning their children from watching it. Or who surrender their self determination to an unseen non-existent God, and pray to it to make everything good. Or who surrender some of their freedoms to gain a little safety. Or who expect Government to do for them that which they should do for themselves.

What’s ruining this country are politicians who ask their constituents to pray for rain during draught, pray for the economy to recover, pray to have god bless this nation, and who kowtow to the lunatic religious fringe to whom such things are worthwhile government responses to our ills.
Gays, abortions and porn have existed for millenniums. They aren’t causing the demise of our nation. Credulity, deception, the dumbing down of our education system, and reverence for gross stupidity can claim title to putting us on the road to Third Worldism.

OK, I feel better now.

Yes, Virginia, they are imbeciles.

im·be·cile
–noun
1. Psychology . a person of the second order in a former classification of mental retardation, above the level of idiocy, having a mental age of seven or eight years and an intelligence quotient of 25 to 50.
2. a dunce; blockhead; dolt.
–adjective
3. mentally feeble.
4. showing mental feebleness or incapacity.
5. stupid; silly; absurd.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/imbecile

I was recently taken to task by a good friend, confidant and fellow atheist for referring to those who invested their life savings in Mr. Camping’s end times prediction as tantamount to being mental defectives, imbeciles.

This friend was herself once terminally infected with the God Virus, belonging to one of the charismatic Christian sects. She had the strength, and intellect, to see through it and break the chains of religious enslavement. But she reminded me that those who are still encumbered with the fundamentalist mindset are victims of indoctrination “brain washing.” I don’t necessarily disagree. As I have said many times, had not these people’s minds been infected early and steeped in superstitious gibberish by family, friends and clergy from childhood, it is likely they would have never been willing recruits.

But there is a big difference between being inducted into the prevailing culture’s religion, even brain washed into accepting the most outrageous concepts and tenets of the fringe sects; and imbuing some old fool radio personality with a prophetic gift to whom you willingly bequeath the bulk of your savings in anticipation of his predicted end of the world scenario. A BIG difference.

Some are now angry at Camping. They should be angry at themselves, but I fear they aren’t smart enough to see that. Some others still believe in Camping, accept his calculation error, and eagerly await the new and improved October 21 prophecy of rapture followed by complete destruction of all life on earth. Whether the former or the latter the fact is these people ARE stupid. They ARE silly. They ARE dolts. They show a degree of mental feebleness in their credulity that is reserved for a miniscule percent of believers. These people are then, by definition, imbeciles. Oh, perhaps not clinically, but certainly in the colloquial sense of the word.

Do I feel sorry for them? No. I won’t shed a tear, nor would I contribute to them a single cent. I’ll save my sympathy and my donations for those people who have fallen on hard times because of the economy, or because of physical disability, or even mental disability caused by disease, injury, or genetic predisposition. I have no sympathy for those who have invested their lives and fortunes in soothsayers, shaman, man-gods, the supernatural, and the patently absurd. They’ve had the same choices, the same opportunity to build up the anti-virus we call Reality, Reason, and Logic as did my friend who has been in remission and is now God Virus free.

Yes, Virginia... I called these people imbeciles, and I am unrepentant.

WARNING: “Jesus Brain” can substantially reduce your processing capacity

Religionists don’t process data like we do. Oh, I know what you’re thinking:
“Duh, Hump! Tell us something we don’t know,” or “Yeah, ‘cuz their religionists.” But it’s not that simple. In fact, it came to me as a revelation last week.

This will be the last time I mention the EE-BP rapture thing for as long as I can avoid it. Frankly I’m bored to death with it even though I have condemned myself to having to deal with it daily to some degree or another. But it has taught me a lot about how some Christians think (or don’t think) and lead me to the realization that their brains aren’t wired like ours.

I received many thousands of email from atheists and believers alike. But one constant question kept coming up from believers. So often does this query arise that I have a form letter in my draft file that requires me only to insert the respondent’s name and hit send. The question is this:

“You say you are an atheist. If that’s so, how can you charge for and offer a service for something you don’t even believe will happen? Does this mean you’ll give a refund if the rapture doesn’t happen?”

Now, whenever this question pops up on my screen I reflexively rub my eyes, scratch my neck and shake my head in complete befuddlement.. No doubt the inquiry makes perfect sense to the afflicted, albeit I can’t begin to comprehend how they get this confused.
It’s tantamount to asking:
“You’re betting horse A will lose; I’m betting he’ll win. If you don’t believe horse A will win why are you betting against him...and will you pay me if he loses?”

Say what???

It seems there is a short circuit in their analytical skills. Simple reasoning powers elude them. What is obvious to you and I, the thinking, becomes a brain teaser to these folks. Whether this defect is the cause of why they are drawn to religiosity, or whether religiosity causes this defect in them I can only guess.

What makes this particularly disconcerting is that this peculiar disability is likely running rampant among the religious right, people in position of responsibility; people who make laws, elect representatives, determine what is taught in their schools. It is the prevalence of this peculiar non-think that sheds new light on things that previously were a mystery to me. For instance:

· How can so many of the religious right even remotely perceive Sarah Palin to be qualified to run the planet’s most powerful nation?
· Why do some legislators think its fine if Jesus’ name is invoked during a pre-session prayer, but don't see the hypocrisy of their outrage at the mention of a pagan god or Allah ?
· How can grown men speculate on the shape of a banana and arrive at the conclusion that God designed it to fit man’s hand?
· How can the anti-Christian writings of Jefferson, Paine, Adams, Madison and other Founding Fathers be construed to imply this was meant to be a “Christian Nation”?

Well, I no longer have to ponder these and many other questions that were baffling to me. The answer is now clear. Their brains do not process reality or even the simplest concept as do thinking people’s brains. Reason is passed through the filter of religio-think; bathed in a plasma of confusion; treated with a does of reality disconnect; coated with doctrinal babble and finally extruded through the cells of an atrophied brain.

The end product is all too often gross stupidity.

Agnostics: Carriers of the recessive God Virus gene

The following is an extract from one of thousands of emails I received during the May 21 rapture fiasco.

“Question, am I a candidate for pet rescuer being that I'm not atheist I'm an Orthodox Agnostic? Let me know.”

I don’t have anything against those calling themselves agnostic. I just don’t get this “I’m an agnostic, not an atheist” horse puckey.

Oh, I understand the definition of agnostic alright,”... the essential nature of (God) is unknown and unknowable,” therefore they won’t just say “I don’t have belief in God/gods,” they demur and say “it’s unknowable.”

Bull spigots!

Are they similarly "agnostic" about leprechauns, faeries, Bigfoot, zombies, vampires, gnomes, trolls, or any of the myriad fictional characters invented by man since the beginning of time? After all, the essential nature of them is unknown and unknowable. They can neither be proven nor disproven. Neither can Russell’s fictional teapot that floats in orbit somewhere, full of steaming Earl Grey tea. Agnostic about interstellar porcelain tableware?

The problem with agnosticism is that it places more credibility in the possibility of god/gods than it does on those other fictional characters. That’s why they are more likely to reject the other fictions out of hand. The only reason agnostics do so, and allow the agnostic position to survive, is directly attributable to the impact that the God Virus has had on civilization for thousands of years. Agnostics carry a recessive religion meme Vs the religionists’ dominant propensity toward belief. Atheists seem to have been born without that receptor, or if they were once theist, have learned to suppress and overcome it.

My educated guess is that had a book about the existence of wish granting, psychopathically inclined, vengeful Pixie been written 3,500 years ago, and updated 1700 years ago as a sequel, people would claim agnosticism about Pixies too.

Something worth thinking about.