Atheism

What Would an Atheist Do?

August 1, 2011 by Leave a Comment

It looks like since the deranged attacks of Oslo took place that many in the media have been more than happy to blame everything that is not left-liberal or far left socialists for some responsibility for the actions of a crazy and clearly extremely violent man. And it so happens that some also point a finger at the so called “new” atheists for advocating their views on religions and especially the dangers of totalitarian Islam in the West in particular and in the world in general, this type of blacklisting is very easy and comfortable for them to do since the murderer wrote a manifesto of some 1,500 pages in which he had sufficient space to mention almost any other name in atheism or the anti Islamic movement, as well as the oppressors of multiculturalism in Europe and in the world.

It is a grave sign when journalists just run a search on a 1,500 pages document to find names that they want to slur and then use the twisted demented mind of a murderer as a weapon against thinkers and activists of peaceful and democratic movements, and because it seems that right now anything but a liberal multi-cultural minds are accepted in Europe it is only fair that we try and present the real atheist mind, and the idea behind it.

Just to get the obvious out of the way, Atheism has nothing to do with violence, it has nothing to do with social or cultural tolerance, it is simply the opposition to the idea of god or gods, out of this main idea there is the growing criticism of the way theocracies run themselves and how they destroy the lives of the people living in them, as well as the never ending task of reminding the world how religions acted when they were more powerful.

An Atheist should not have any problem with someone practicing faith in their homes, without forcing anyone to do so and without hurting anyone in the process of practicing. There is nothing wrong with anyone wanting to believe anything and doing so privately, however it does become a problem when the ideas of religion find their way out and are being forced or obsessiveness introduced to a non-believer population. So for someone to eat Kosher meat in their homes is perfectly normal to have a whole city with exclusively kosher butchers and kosher supermarket meat is not acceptable.

For anyone to pray five times a day at home on his or her own time is not a problem, but when the believers gather in the streets and block access to the road, create a public disturbance and terrorize other habitats is not acceptable. An atheist should not fight the individual right for worship but the totalitarianism of religion and the way it constantly tries to sneak up behind everyone else.

If you are an atheist try and focus on objecting to the idea of a god, or gods, it is no small task, unfortunate. It is not an objection to the person worshiping but the idea that the person needs to worship anything or anyone to begin with that is the real essence of atheism.

Salvation via Twitter

July 27, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The Pope has his own Twitter account now, its all over the news. Now millions of believers around the world can tune up to the person replacing Jesus, and get to know his mind on real time. So I guess lots of Africans will wait to see if they can finally use condoms instead of giving or getting HIV, if maybe for a small little moment the pope has them on his mind, and he feels compelled to set them free and avoid all the suffering and death that the Church fight against those small rubber tubes had (and still is ) cost the black continent.

For anyone who wants to follow the Pope, here is the link to the Twitter page. Its always nice to see anyone say we should be better people, and that we should abandon violence, but I kind of figured it out before I saw the Pope’s twit. Imagine how would the official Church Twitter would look like 600 or 800 years ago… “The Earth is the Center of the Universe! Burn anyone who tells you differently”, or “Protestants are evil, must be killed, burned or tortured whenever found, at whatever age”, oh well, that was back then, right?

Another amusing this, here is a funny pastor blessing cars before they go on a race, just to show you how liberated faith has become, as well as to prove once again, that we need to thank god for everything, because (according to this pastor at least) he is responsible for all these wonders, as well as for the death of 22,000 children just yesterday (same number today, and tomorrow)(stats taken from UNICEF.

God Is Not a Constant

July 26, 2011 by Leave a Comment

One of the things that non believers, agnostics and atheists need to confront many times when discussing religion and beliefs is the questions about god, “do you not believe that god really exists?” is one common question. However you will find that many believers do not really have a clear picture of god (not in an abstract way) and do not know what to expect of that god, not in terms of reward or punishment, and not in terms of characteristics it might have.

If you would have the misfortune of being a Jewish person living in Spain about 500 years ago, your tormentors would have told you that all that burning of the flesh and cutting of limbs and stretching of bones is done with express permission from their god, and it was ultimately in your favor to suffer those. According to most of the writings of the time God in the 1,400s’ has nothing to do with love, its all about fanaticism and exclusivity, zero tolerance for anything which is not his disciples single version of religion.

In European wars, up until the second world war, god was frequent in appearing for the true side favor, only that the Nazis had sworn by their god, and the allies by theirs. For a Nazi soldier in the war, murdering Jewish infants or executing a handicap, or burning a gay person could have been morally wrong, but not religiously wrong, since the church was very clear in it being in favor of Hitler’s thinking.

The closer you get to modern times you will find that the Christian (and Jewish) God becomes much more relaxed, less angry and less intimidating. Now you can find even religious Jews that would tell you that being gay is alright by god, as well as Christians who will tell you that slavery is not accepted by Christianity (what a difference one hundred years can make). You could, however, turn to the “good book” at any time and show them how much god likes slavery, and how busy it was with the thought of slavery that a whole manual for slave owners is included with every copy of the bible. Homosexuality is explicitly marked out as a sin in Jewish belief, and it is only that this modern form of believers have adapted a “do nothing about it” policy.

So God used to be angry, bloodthirsty and incredibly violent, however in the last two hundred years its priests and ministers are telling us we got it all wrong, and that in fact god is love and acceptance, well, tell that to the hundreds of thousands of people your colleagues burned an tortured, the children that were murdered in the name of that same god. And if God is ever changing, and if we can not really know its nature, we can assume – with the highest degree of clarity, that this God does not care about anything that happens to us, since in all the atrocities committed in written history there was one event in which God presented itself and put an end to human misery, on the contrary, God was always there, on the side of the criminals, justifying every blood drop that took.

Congrats South Sudan

July 13, 2011 by Leave a Comment

We have been following the troubles in Sudan in the last months, now a new nation is born, out of separation of north and south (is there no more favorite geographical separation of countries? south and north seem like the popular choice), the south is breaking away from the north in search of a better future and a better, more modern way that its people can express themselves.

The timing is perfect, a birth of a republic in Africa between the celebrations of two of the greatest republics on earth (The U.S. which looks less like a republic in the last few months, and France), and the idea is mainly to separate from the Islamic north, to break the cycle of violence that has been crippling this region for two decades and has left countless dead, injured, homeless and traumatized.

One can not imagine what would have been without this religious conflict, without the separation of one faith based group from another, even to dream of a new country forming altogether, based on agreement and modernity, a republic of Sudan for all its people, no matter what they believe in, but to think that will be a folie, since war has ravaged this country for so long. So the Christians will be in the south and Muslims in the north, and lets hope that the separation will help both sides realize that without religion they would have both had a better life.

Good luck – Republic of South Sudan, live long and prosper

God Loves Blood & Pain or How Holland Scored 2 Goals in One Week

June 29, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The news coming from Holland (or the Netherlands – if you prefer the long version) is joyous indeed, this country has been on the headlines in this blog, mainly for letting one of their own parliament members Geert Wilders walk free of the clearly harassing accusations against him and now they are moving forward, in a very positive way.

Here are the news – the dutch parliament is going to pass a law that will require animals to be shocked before they are slaughtered, here is how it was explained in one news site (link here)

shock-or-be-shocked — Shock or Be Shocked

Now it is of no surprise that orthodox Jews and Muslims are upset, these people want to keep things are they were hundreds of years ago, and by saying this I do mean that once upon a time animals were killed without being shocked, the slaughter houses did not have electricity – as in fact no one had it, so it was not an option. Add to this the fact that way before Judaism or Islam those who worshiped gods sacrificed animals (and some times humans as well) to satisfy those angry gods because they really thought that gods need this blood to calm them down.

And so it got to the Jewish religion that killing animals sustained some ritual like practices, and this, in turn, moved to Islam. Both these religions ask that the animal be conscience when killed, and one would do well to note that this is not about the rest of the killing (with all kinds of crazy stuff going on when they actually kill the animal) but of the mere fact that these people really insist that the animal is to suffer as much as possible and not be stunned while being killed.

Holland is moving forward, and for this it seems they need to pay a price, the Jewish person responding to this in the article above is talking about how this brings back memories of the second world war in which the Nazis banned Kosher slaughter as fast as they invaded Holland, and Muslims talk about this being a part of a plan to kick them out (they even say its Geert Wilders idea), and this is not only absurd but insulting as well.

Lets hope that other countries start to move forward as well, and tell these people that its alright to practice the religion they like in their homes (without forcing it on anyone, or hurting anyone in its name) but the minute any idea is out of the house its out to public debate and will be changed if the actual modern life is not compatible with it, just like the idea of sitting in the dark every evening came to an end when the light bulb was invented.