Ok I'm about half
way through this monster of a book and a few themes need to be
reiterated. For one moment I'd like to state for the record that
beside in anything other than a purely satiric nature, I've never
told anyone they were going to go to hell. This I'm finding pretty
fucking offensive as the caring and loving nature of Jesus' disciples
cuts a little too deep when it comes from people who's heads are well
traversed amid the depths of their ass. It doesn't so much bother me
the statement in itself as much as the level of pure ignorance from
which it comes. It is my opinion that nobody with even half the
opportunities you've been given to be able to read this blog, has any
excuse to not do actual research before they go and make such glaring
statements.. This book is about 500 pages. That's 500 more pages I
will be in front of my friends who subsequently still tell me to look
around in wonder as "proof" for god's existence. I'm
bringing an army to a boxing match and the boxer is using a
pillow.
Well, onto the themes. One which I personally find the most fun is the utter ridiculousness of rationalizing a god with all the typical powers. You know, omniscience, omnipotence, benevolence, omni-whatever else. If it was simple enough for people to ridicule with such precision and tell-allness without modern day science, you'd think that would speak volumes to people who rely so heavily on those "arguments" that stem from vague memories asserted from authority, and not personal reasoning. The great thing that apologetics have learned to do when trying to acclimate the faith is to forgo agreeing upon definitions before they begin or take it a step farther and explain why the main issue that would cripple their view doesn't apply in the "context" (aka bullshit personal bias) that their reasoning needs. Countless times you see through history that it was first human progression, second the church who dragged its heals the entire way, then decided to get on board. Slavery, women's rights, witch hunts, animal cruelty, WWII, sooner or later it will be homosexuality and stem cells if we're lucky. Every modern day should be another nail in the enormous coffin it's going to take to amass all the absurdity and harm this decrepit dogma has bestowed.
Continuing, Carl Sagan tells a lot about the witch hunts and all the people killed, on ZERO evidence, at the prospect of the conspirators to get their assets or money. This reminded me of the debate, in w/e vague sense you can call such a spectacle, between D'Souza and Dennett. During the question and answer session one of the students asks Dinesh something referring to the atrocities Christianity has purported in the past to which D'Souza gave a telling and ignorant reply. He rants a bit about how Stalin killed thousands "in the name of atheism", which is enough for anyone who knows anything about the definition of atheism or Stalin to write off D'Souza, then proceeds to say during the whole time the Salem witch trials took place only 11 people were killed. Now the idea that he would even resort to reducing murderous crimes done out of ignorance and injustice, not to mention kinda maybe suggested by the bible, to a simple number battle bothers me, I mean it was only tortured death. The icing on the cake is that he apparently glossed over the fact that witch hunts burned a few more than he would like to believe. By a few I mean several thousands, especially if they belonged to the women and children variety. The worst part of our modern day heroes and pioneers debating under these conditions is that, if your speaking to an audience with attention spans that barely understand crappy movies, of course if they have no knowledge in the subject before hand, they're going to lean with the guy who speaks with passion(desperate yelling) and word play("hey I'm the cool guy" god joke).
Anybody who feels I am beating this subject into the ground is right. I've been sick of feeling like I repeat myself with no adequate rebuttal from the people I actually care to hear from for a really long time now. I take solace in the fact that as far back as one could write about this stuff and not get killed, people have felt the same way but still had the underlying appreciation for their freedom to write it and an overall hope for the one day it will all be over. I'd like for these to be somewhat of a testament to my actual truth that I care about people's liberation of mind and by just sitting back and bitching to myself, I'm no better than the guy who says I'm going to burn in hell for not believe like him. If you do that by the way, fuck you. You're not worthy of much greater a response.
None of these people have seriously tried to embody the "atheist or agnostic" position. None. Not seriously, not "I have been one in the past" either. It's a boldface lie, which I'm learning is not a "sin" most Christians give two shits about disobeying. And I don't mean to even just haphazardly forgo your faith and play pretend, I mean to sit back and let the "I don't knows" really sink in. I mean for you to not say "o look an anti-faith book, commence scary music!" and run away. There is in no way shape or form it is just a mere choice for me to say I don't believe or don't know. It's just the fucking truth. My recourse didn't come from "god did it" so I looked for real proof and wah-lah I wasn't alone. Who thinks it was just easy for me to drop any hold that lifelong embedded superstition had on me? Who cared to ask in a manner that wasn't accusing me of never believing in the first place? Do you think it's a fun position to hold thinking your friends trapped by tradition are forcefully denying themselves the beauty of the real world, the power that mental stimulation and a reasoned outlook can give you? It's like I have the best invented drug ever made with zero negative side effects, but it's just a little too hard to understand and takes a little too much time pick up so let's all just gnaw on our red meat.
I don't think there is much left for humanity to try to finally work out than this quarrel between religion, science, morals, origins, and the self. I don't understand how a belief in a speculative, by definition impossible to realize, place of never ending worship and lobotomies, is enough to trump amazing facts about our world. What sick power does one feel when they can't wait for some of the greatest minds in history to burn in hell because they've shown another reason to get over the myths. Their mind is unsettled ipso facto someone else is automatically wrong. It's so simply consoling it's just sick.
No single raindrop thinks it's responsible for the flood.
