Coda

Atheism is not blasphemy

Blasphemy laws punish not other religions, but the non religious. Such laws are an attack on the most persecuted group in history; the atheists.
Blasphemy laws are intended to silence any criticism of gods, but mostly the Abrahamic god.
It is legalised bullying of atheism. It is an attempt to continue to persecute and silence atheists using a secular legal system.

As Saudi Arabia now heads (ridiculously) the UN Human Rights Council, blasphemy laws are much more likely to be enacted.
Many countries are cowardly and silently accepting the bullying and brutalising of their citizens by Islamic hate groups.
How far away are blasphemy laws? How soon before free speech starts to pay a price? When will atheist books start to be burned by blasphemy laws that deem them against the will of god?

Every crime in the name of religion that goes unpunished is an encouragement to commit another.
Every pedophile priest that is unpunished, every rape allowed by the Quran, every beheading, every lashing, every stoning, every genital mutilation, will be committed without complaint because it will be blasphemy to talk against religious crime.
How long until science must agree with religion or be called blasphemy?

If you consider this hyperbolic, look at the history of Abrahamic religions in power.

Blasphemy laws are intended to silence truth and a crime against humanity.

Atheists are the only free people

Freedom
1.
noun
The state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint
2.
exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc.

Tell me again how religion sets you free.
Then tell me why religions use fear to control people.

Beyond fear lies freedom.

You're offended?

Ask yourself why you're offended. It's not in defense of your all powerful god, so it must be something in you.
Ask yourself honestly why you are offended by another's beliefs and you will find it has more to do with pride than anything else.
You are offended because your pride is hurt when I think your religious beliefs are silly.

Listen up, hypocrite. Abrahamic religions have been killing, maiming, torturing, shaming, atheists for 2000 years.
Now, when we are starting to question the universe with science and your god doesn't fit into the answers, you want to be offended?
You are offended by truth.
You are offended by reason.
You are offended by the realisation of your own stupidity in believing nonsense for your entire life.
You try to use being offended as an argument to silence criticism of your false beliefs.

The Earth is a very small place in the unimaginably vast universe. Your offence is a particle sized thing on the Earth.
Imagine your offence in that unimaginably vast universe...

The amount that I care about offending you is less than that.

Thank... who?

Christians have said to me, "You don't have to be religious to be grateful for your life."

I've wondered about this kind of thought.

To whom or what should I be grateful for my life, if not some god?

My parents? They planned to have a baby but had no sway as to which sperm would win the sprint to the egg.
Reproduction is more of a compulsion than a choice. We are biologically programmed to reproduce and continue the species.

Should I be grateful to nature? To biology? To random chance? Mathematical probability?

It is enough for me to be happy to be alive.
Gratitude is not necessary. It is a religious foot in the door that separates the realm of reason from the realm of faith.

If you're grateful to be alive, who will you thank?

The truth is...

Truth is not an opinion. It is not a belief, faith, a hunch, a feeling, or a superstition.

What do you know that's true?
Gravity? Drop a ball and it's proven true.

Life? Well, you're reading this... proven.

Death? So far, nobody has beat it.

God? If you rule out the unprovable... belief, faith, a hunch, a feeling, or a superstition, there's nothing there.

Truth is provable.
I've heard most of the bullshit religious arguments.
"Nothing can't come from nothing."
"Prove God doesn't exist."
"If you believe he will prove himself to you."
These arguments always try to get around the request for evidence.
No evidence = no proof = untrue.

The plain fact is, gods are unprovable. They always have been and always will be because they are invented by humans.
That's why you need belief, faith, a hunch, a feeling, or a superstition.

The truth is... gods are not real.

Comfort is over rated.

Discomfort makes more positive changes than comfort.

Sitting on the couch is comfortable. Exercising is not comfortable.
Exercised muscles get stressed and repair to be larger. Lungs enhance their volume, allowing more blood to flow.
Comfort weakens; discomfort strengthens.

An uncomfortable truth is better than a comfortable religious lie.

Every person I've talked to who has left religion and become an atheist tells me they are much happier living an honest life, instead of denying truth to suit their religion.
It isn't easy to give up religious beliefs. It's bloody hard to look at all you've believed your entire life and say, "I'm wrong."
It's uncomfortable to even contemplate such a huge life change!
Discomfort makes you stronger.

Comfort is over rated.

Blasphemy vs free speech

~Deny science.
Scientists will ask for evidence of your denial.
~Deny a political party.
No harm done. Simply vote the way you choose to vote.
~Deny religion.
Some will wag a finger. Some will yell. Some will hurt you. And some want to make blasphemy laws preventing you from denying any religion in the hopes of protecting their own.

Of all the things that could be unlawful to deny, religion should be at the bottom of the list because it is nothing more than an unprovable belief.
Denial of anything is free speech and should be an untouchable right.

Blasphemy laws are an attempt to legislate faith to be more valuable than truth.

Its unproven nature... its vulnerability to defend itself is the true reason religions scream for blasphemy laws.
Blasphemy laws are against humanity and against the natural order of survivability.
If the only way your religion can survive is to keep the majority of people who don't believe it from criticising it, then maybe it's time your religion took its natural place in mythology.

Religions want to imprison those who freely speak non religious beliefs.

The strictly religious idea of blasphemy is a crime against reason and knowledge and must be denied by all people who put the survival and advancement of humanity before antiquated superstitions.

Superstition

Crossing your fingers when you lie is telling yourself that you're allowed to lie because you're a Christian.

That is just one of many superstitions religious people have. It stems from belief in the unprovable... belief for the sake of believing.
If you can believe without proof in an omnipotent being that created the universe with mojo, you can believe anything.
Superstitions are training wheels for religions.

I do not knock on wood.
I walk under ladders if it's safe.
I open umbrellas indoors.
I do not cast bones to make decisions.
Found pennies are not lucky or unlucky.
Black cats cross my path and I don't care.
I spill salt and don't toss more over my shoulder.
Breaking a mirror does not give 7 years of bad luck.
13 is just a number between 12 and 14 and should be a floor number in tall buildings.
A shiver is not someone walking on my grave.
I step on cracks and my mother's back is unbroken.
Four leaf clovers are plentiful.
Blessing a sneeze does nothing.
Horseshoes protect horse's hooves.
Rabbit's feet belong on rabbit's legs.
A coincidence is not a sign.
Everything does not happen for a reason.
I don't believe in gods.

Superstitions are for those who do not understand how things work and do not question absurdities.

At worst, superstitions cause people to believe in absurdities as training for religions. At best they are a trivial version of Pascal's wager.

Just grow the fuck up

All religious arguments are based on the existence of God.

It is necessary to prove God exists before religious arguments have any meaning, before holy texts can claim to be the word of God, and before churches have anything but lies to peddle.

As proving God is impossible, there are no religious arguments worth debating.

There was good before God was invented and there will be good after God has passed into mythological status. People are good or bad. Religions just gives people an excuse to be bad.

The world grows ever more tired of excuses.
Just grow the fuck up and take responsibility for your own actions.

Plain truth

Religion is using lies to spread fear and hate in the name of power.

This is also the definition of evil.

Humanity first

What do you put before humanity? What has more value to you than humanity?
Money?
God?
The afterlife?

Anything you place before the welfare of humanity is based in fear. Morality is based on what is good for the tribe and we are all one tribe.

~ Money will give you a comfortable life = fear of a hard life.
~ God will protect you and keep you healthy = fear of self responsibility.
~ Heaven is paradise = fear of Hell.

When you stop being afraid of life and death, you find you don't need money or religion.
Death makes life precious and money irrelevant.

When you stop being afraid, you realise that we are more important as a species than as individuals.
But to end fear you must first do something that will lead to your love of humanity...
You must love you.

Is religion a mental illness?

I think the answer is yes, if we are talking about people who have sufficient reasoning capability to understand the natural universe to a degree that would prove that religion is man made... but refuse to acknowledge what they know to be true in favour of their unwavering faith.

If you can understand that religion is false but you will yourself to believe otherwise, then you are mentally ill.

It doesn't matter that 7/8ths of humanity believe in some kind of god.
It doesn't matter that only 1/7th of humanity does not believe in gods.
A majority belief in a god is not evidence of anything but the gullibility of the human race.

Religion is a mental illness that humanity is slowly curing with education.
Every scientific discovery in biology, anthropology, physics, geology, and many other scientific fields, is another bit of evidence that believers have to disbelieve.
It gets more difficult to disbelieve the ever growing evidence and if you can't disbelieve evidence, you can't believe in a god.

There's only so much rationalising a reasonable person can do before seeing the truth.
Unreasonable people are getting more upset at the "attack on religion", which is not actually an attack, but a defense of reason.
These people will not be convinced by evidence. If evidence was a punch in the face, they'd deny their own bloody noses.
These are the mentally ill that believe in something beyond all reason and evidence to the contrary.

Some of these people quietly refuse to see reason and pray in private, never talking about their religion.
I have no problems with them. Someone's belief in a god, however lacking in reason, is none of my business.

The people that must be countered are those that start trying to push religions into schools and governments, and start pushing for blasphemy laws.

These people are not satisfied to be themselves mentally ill; they want all humanity to share their mental illness.

This is where the line is drawn in the sand. Those who cross that line must be met with resistance both firm and resolute.

With reason.
With education.
With love for humanity.

Indoctrination

Someone told me that the word, indoctrinate, was too harsh to use for parents teaching their children about religion.
Unsurprisingly, I disagree.

Many Christians don't tell their children, "This is what I believe. I hope you believe it, too."
They tell their small, innocent children, "The bible is the truth. Everything else is a lie, and if you don't believe it too, God will punish you and make you sad all your life. I will cast you out of my house, and when you die after a life of shame, you will burn in hell forever."

What child of four, five, or six years of age has a chance of critical thinking when faced with the loss of happiness, family love and protection, and the parental threat of never ending torture?

This is emotional child abuse of the very worst kind and it should not be accepted in any society that calls itself fair and just.

I think...

I have heard calls for Kim Davis to undergo empathy training.

People's opinions are often cause for calls of their opinion adjustments.

"Let's deprogram the religious."

"Let's punish those atheists until they believe!"

If you think you have the right to forcibly change the way someone thinks, you're wrong.
This goes way beyond free speech.

Free thought is the most precious freedom we have.

You can speak your mind. You can educate. You can give your opinion. But you must never forcibly change the way someone else thinks!
To even consider that action is to allow another to think they have the right to brainwash you.

I don't care if you have God's permission to do so. I don't care that science has proven religious beliefs false.
None of that matters.

If you force anyone else to believe as you believe, you are the worst kind of human possible.

This includes your children... especially your children.

Hook for Jeses

And there we have half the problem.

I've been dancing around this topic and it's time I said it out loud.
The majority of Christian fundamentalists are stupid, uneducated people.
No, "stupid, uneducated," is not oxymoronic.
Stupid requires a lack of intelligence. Uneducated could be anyone.
You can be intelligent and uneducated, or stupid and educated.

Of course, the other half of the problem with Christian fundamentalists are those who use them for money and power.

Politicians, preachers, racists organisations... it's a long list.

In this day of freely accessible information, denying science and embracing religion is stupid. It is the ignorant, cowardly willing to spend life in slavery, because they are afraid of educating themselves out of the safety of their religion.

Religion is fear based control of the stupid and uneducated.

Thanks to Nikki for the pikki @SexedUp_Atheist

The Long Con

Every great con works because the mark is greedy.
You give him a taste of easy money, make him insist on being in on the next game, and he's ready to be had.

Life.
We want to live for as long as possible. Some of us hedge our bets and follow a religion that promises life after death.
We have a taste of life and want more.
Then along comes religion and, knowing the con, and knowing the mark wants more life, tells him he can't have more... because you have to make the mark insist on having more life.

The mark must come to you, or it's not a fair con.

So religion says, "Okay, but the catch is, you have to give us money and do what we tell you in life if you want eternal life after death. Oh yeah, if you don't, there's this place called Hell..."

As a money con takes advantage of monetary greed, a religious con takes advantage of life greed.
Life greed and monetary greed have this in common; both want something for nothing.
The money con sees unearned money. The religious con sees unearned immortality.

The old cliche is, "You can't con an honest man."

Religion figured out how to con an honest man... you first make him dishonest.

Death

Death.
The end.
The big sleep.
Passing gently into that good night.

Death makes life precious.

If we were immortal, we would view life very differently. We wouldn't fear so much.
But we wouldn't treasure life as profoundly as we do.
Life, love, existence, learning... they always come with pain and scars. Those are the prices of growth.

I think that religious people fear death more than atheists because their unquestioned beliefs have not allowed them to come to terms with death.
They know in their hearts that death is the end but unlike atheists, they have not let their minds accept death.

Even if you spend your whole long life loudly claiming that death is not the end, you know it is a lie. In fact, the louder you proclaim immortality in the afterlife, the more fearful you are of death.

Again, death makes life precious. Life is a brief glimpse into the wonders of the universe, a chance to add to the cumulative knowledge and advancement of our species with your own unique views.
It is sometimes painful, for some much more than others, but therein lie the lessons.

I am what the younger me thought I should be... though I never knew then the scars I would need to get here.
Looking forward, I see the scars to come and accept them with great joy and love, for without those cruel slices of mortality, the love would not fill me so.
Life is thoughts and dreams of ourselves, and death a reflection.

You pay tax for religions.

Religions are tax exempt because it insures the separation of church and state. If religion was taxed, it would mean the end of free exercise of religion. As part of the tax free status, religions are also expected to stay out of politics.

But religions do not stay out of politics. In fact, religions are political corporations and affect every major political decision.
Preachers boldly tell their parishioners who to vote for in elections. This is against the law but the authorities almost always look the other way.
The Pope has said, "Catholics must be involved in politics, even if it may be dirty."

So, if religions enter into politics openly and with the obvious purpose of gaining a theocracy, they have forfeited the right to tax exemptions.

Religions have broken their end of the agreement.

Tax 'em.

Martyr

What if Kim Davis wasn't religious?
What if she decided that she didn't want to give marriage certificates to gay/lesbian couples simply because she is a homophobe?
She would have been arrested even faster.

I submit that Kim Davis is not a victim of religious persecution but that her religious reasons for not issuing marriage licences to gay/lesbian couples actually kept her from being arrested.
Her religion gave her preferential treatment.

Calling the arrest of Kim Davis religious persecution is nothing more than a political ploy.
The people who work for her have stated she is in contact with out of state lawyers who are urging her to continue the fight against religious persecution.

This is religion using a somewhat stupid woman to gain political advantage.

She gains nothing but jail time... for a cause that is obviously false.
According to the judge, her religious reasons gave her more time before being jailed; not less.

There is no war on Christianity. Christianity is starting all the battles with political purpose; to change secular laws to religious laws.
It will gleefully see Christians jailed as martyrs.

I bet Kim Davis is glowing with religious rapture right now. She is martyring herself for God.
(And Christian politics.)

Disproving gods

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
Sherlock Holmes

Let's use Holmes' (Doyle's) theory of detection and examine God(s).

To disprove God, we must first have evidence He/She/It exists.
What evidence can I refute?
What working of God can I not attribute to a natural cause?
Show me this god you're asking me to disprove.

No?
Nothing?

Sorry, your faith and belief don't count as evidence or proof.

You can feel God inside you? Are you asking me to disprove a feeling?

Any gods who cannot be proven to exist are indistinguishable from non-existence and may therefore be counted as non-existent.

Gods cannot be disproven because there is no evidence of their existence to disprove.

That which does not exist cannot be disproven.

Having eliminated the impossible, and no matter how improbable you consider the notion, it can only be deduced that gods do not exist.

Elementary.

A+ for atheists

Wilful ignorance is more dangerous than simple ignorance because wilful ignorance is a denial of evidence, while simple ignorance has not seen the evidence.
The simply ignorant can be taught.
The wilfully ignorant refuse to be taught.

If a man is shown DNA evidence of evolution and refuses the theory because it disputes the bible, he is refusing evidence of truth.
If that man then teaches children thay the bible is the only truth, he is wilfully withholding knowledge from that child, in order to create another Christian.

Christians willingly surrender their children to lies based on unprovable faith, even in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Whith the sheer numbers of faith believers, this is disasterous for future generations of humanity.
It is a crime against humanity.

Those who refuse truth are more dangerous than those who have not seen it.

Teaching a child religion is like the proverbial yelling, "Fire!" in a crowded theatre. Most won't get hurt running for the door, but many will be hurt at the choke point.

Religion's choke point is when it has enough numbers and social power to violently enforce its religion on others.

And every time it has reached this choke point... every time... it has wielded this power with ruthlessness and a callous disregard for human life, human rights, and even the tenets of its own religion.

The test of a man, an organisation, a country, or a religion is behaviour when in a position of power.

Atheists have a growing social power but there have been no killings, no rapes, no child molestations, no acid throwing, and no riots in the name of atheism.

Atheism is passing the test.

Love that logo! Photo credit to atheism+
http://atheismplus.com/

UBU. IBME.

Anyone who tells you, "This is how you should think," is wrong.

Not everyone needs to think like a scientist, or a religious person, or an artist, or a writer.

Who is a priest to tell an atheist how to think?
Who is a scientist to tell an artist how to think?
Or a man to a woman, a woman to a man, a dog to a cat...

There is no right way of thinking for all people.
The scientific method of thought is perfect for scientists but hardly works for a jazz guitarist plying his trade.

I have been told I should stick to scientific evidence when writing my atheist blog because I, "sound just like a religitard."
I find this just as repugnant as being told I have to believe in a god.

Our individual life experiences make us who we are.
Some of us are dogmatic in the way we lead our lives, whether that is religious or scientific.
Others are creative and prefer creative freedom in all aspects of their lives.
Most of us are somewhere between those two goalposts.

Let nobody tell you how you must think.
Not the religious.
Not the majority.
Not your family.

Your unique experiences have made you who you are. Be that person, but expect nobody else to be or think the same.