Every time I talk to a Christian about their religion and why I am opposed to it (a few of the many reasons, trust me), they seem to believe that someone could possibly reject the love of “gentle Jesus” who plans to burn all those in hell who don’t believe in him. I tell them that it is because of the fact that I cannot see that a “loving god” could possibly allow people to be tortured in hell for all eternity. They then proceed to tell me that this loving god is also just. I tell them about how Jesus is willing to forgive the ’sins’ of believers, even murder and rape, but unwilling to forgive the unbelievers for the ’sin’ of non-belief. And how people like Ted Bundy can offer an honest repentance and get fast tracked to heaven but good, moral atheists will burn forever in hell just for not believing in god. Then they tell me that God is above human ways or make up some sort of bullshit that comes out to absolute nonsense. This makes me think either one of two things, either (1) Christians start taking psychotropic meds at the beginning so their minds are dulled down and cannot use reason or logic in their day to day lives, (2) Christians are bred genetically stupid from the cradle and will believe any sort of garbage you tell them or (3) that Christians are on some sort of drugs. I think it’s number 3 because of the fact that Religion is a drug. Continue reading ‘Someetimes, You Have to Wonder if Christians Are on Some Sort of Drugs’
Monthly Archive for July, 2008
Today, I was reading a story that was linked from the American Atheists website and it was the story of a man (Webster Cook) who took a supposedly “blessed” cracker (a Eucharist as it is known) out of a catholic church. He removed the cracker so that he could help teach a friend of his about Catholicism but the people of the faith were not buying the truth, as usual. People got all up in a tizzy, giving him hateful phone calls, calling for his death and saying that he committed a hate crime against their religion. He finally returned the cracker to the church and he is asking for the death threats and all sorts of other threatening e-mails to stop. Yes, I kid you not, all this over a cracker. In fact, the local diocese referred to this as a hate crime as well, which is blatantly absurd because of a few simple facts: Continue reading ‘It’s Just a Cracker, Get Over Yourselves!’
Sometimes, I wonder what authority I really had to tell people that it was important to forgive the attacker. I mean, it is true that the attacker committed a horribly heinous crime and he got what he deserved, but some people need a little bit more time to grieve. And I believe that the appropriate approach to deal with when I deal with this tragedy or tragedies like this from now on is to meet people where they are at in their pain. I borrow this saying from Arthur Jeon and his book, City Dharma. Basically, the story that he tells in his book to illustrate this concept is one where he is waiting in line at the bank and he sees an old man who is angry as hell, for what reason no one really knows. Arthur tries to offer to help him, with an agenda in mind (to relieve this person’s suffering) and approaches him with this agenda and offers to help him. What happens is that old man tries to splash hot coffee into his face and Arthur immediately backs down. The bank manager comes onto the scene and offers to help him with his problem, meeting him where he is at in the moment. She does have an agenda in mind, but she tries to meet him at the moment. Continue reading ‘Meeting People Where They Are’
I would like to tell you about an awesome webcomic that I found only a few short months ago. At Freethunk.net, where there is already a host of irreligious webcomics and other fun stuff to play around with, as well as factual news about the laughable marketing to these gullible sheep. But I also found another fun little treat over at Freethunk, a webcomic called ‘The Littlest Atheist‘. Not to create any spoilers or anything, but the basis of the story is that the Littlest Atheist, Bertrand, is now being forced to go to church by his mother who recently suffered the death of both her husband and Bertrand’s father. While Bertrand has been able to keep his wits about him, continue to keep his sense of humour in check and keep is ability to decipher the Christian bullshit for what it really is, his mother has fallen into the church. In the second strip, she admits that her husband was not really interested in raising him as a Christian and instead, raised him as an atheist. Fortunately, he did this so well that he was able to resist the Borg-like mentality of the Christians he goes to church with, so far. Continue reading ‘Praise for the Littlest Atheist!’
Today, I had written posts about the beauty of the gay community and how a young woman was robbed of her constitutional right to freedom from religion by a prejudiced Kentucky civil servant. Now, I am writing about a topic which is even closer to the heart, a very bloody realization of the effects of religious intolerance in this country. Today, I received an e-mail from the Church of the Younger Fellowship about how there was a gunman who attacked people who were worshiping at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church located in Knoxville, Tennessee. A person, for whatever motivations, who made the conscious decision to take the life of people who were just worshiping at this particular church. This has been blogged about all throughout the UU blogosphere. The attacker was the ex-husband of a parishioner at the church and attacked the members of the church of their religious freedom and diversity. Despite the miles between Knoxville and Denver, just hearing about this attack shocked me to the very core just reading about it. Continue reading ‘My Response to the Attacks at the Tennessee Valley UU Church’
When I was browsing the hate mail section of NormalBobSmith.com, I found a letter that was sent to Bob from a girl who lives in a Kentucky. Unfortunate, I know, but that is not the bad part about this issue. The issue is that she was convicted of a charge that had to do with drugs and it turns out that she was given a sentence which would require her to be subjected to religious nonsense or have a warrant issued for her arrest. This was clearly made compulsory and this attitude of disrespect towards another persons’ choice not to become one of the sheep and fall in line at the church. This sentence was ironically issued by the Attorney General of the county, someone that should know all too well that actions like this are not only morally reprehensible but also a violation of this person’s civil rights and liberties. Continue reading ‘Kentucky Government, Stop Allowing the Violation of Separation of Church and State’
I would like to say that there is a lot of inherent beauty in the gay community and I have seen this personally, but the party yesterday for the volunteers at Pridefest was another manifestation. I went to the party and I met quite a few people that were behind the scenes. People who helped to make sure that Pridefest went off without a hitch. Rahn Anderson (the volunteer coordinator) and the new executive director of the Colorado LGBT Centre were there. And it was held at the Denver Film Society’s theatre in the Tivoli building at Auraria Campus. There were all sorts of wonderful people from the Centre and other organizations such as Dikes on Bikes. And there were drawings for prizes (I won a board game - DICK-tionary and a Pridefest polo shirt that I’ll probably wear because it does not look feminine enough) and a movie was shown at the celebration. Before the movie was about to start, one of the people from the Denver Film Society came up to me and asked me to move to another seat that she pointed out. I found it weird but okaaay, whatever. And she announced that there were two memberships to the Denver Film Society that could be won, and then I soon found out why she wanted me to move my seat. Continue reading ‘The Beauty of the Gay Community’
I have finally decided to major in psychology. And I have already picked out the school that I just wish to go to for both my bachelors and masters degrees - Naropa University. Naropa is a private (read: expensive as hell) university which provides Buddhist-based education up in the liberal foothills of Boulder, Colorado. Truth be told, the entire reason why I moved to Colorado in the first place was so that I could easily attend Naropa. And guess how I suddenly became broke? Yes, it was by trying to move to and live in Boulder without having a job already lined up before the move. But either way, there are several reasons why I want to have a Buddhist-based education in psychology at Naropa. Continue reading ‘Why I Want to Go to Naropa for my BA & MA’
Yesterday, I had quite a bad scare about my hormones. I was wondering why it was that I had not gone to the clinic for Estradiol in what seemed like a while. So, I counted out my medications and it looked like there were about 12 days worth of Estradiol pills left. The problem with this is that according to the label on the bottle, the last time I refilled my hormones was on June 10th. Oh, holy shit. That was well over a month ago and that really does scare me, seeing as I would have taken only 18 days of meds in a 42-day period. For me to have taken that amount of Estradiol in that span of time is a real MediScare. This means that I have made a lot of mistakes that could seriously have some adverse effects on my health. Continue reading ‘Hormonal Medi-Scare’
Today, I tried to check my e-mail, but oh so sadly, my inbox is not popping up. I wonder what is going on over on Apple’s servers which could cause such an issue? I am tired of the growing pains of .mac/MobileMe or whatever Apple finally decides to name their online services. It just baffles me that a company who perfects the operating system can’t do shit when it comes to web services. Apple has a great many talented people such as Faruk Ates and yet, they can’t seem to manage rolling out a webmail client that works. And the funniest part about it is that they expect people to pay for this. I shit you not, to the tune of $99 a year, that is how much MobileMe costs now. Continue reading ‘Ah, growing pains with MobileMe mail’