Reason #666 Why I'm an Atheist.

Here's a typical, garden variety, everyday conversation I have on a near-daily basis, broken down mathematically, for fellow nerds:

• Religious Zealot: I believe X.
• Me: That intrigues me. Why, when there is so much evidence for Y, do you believe in X?
• Religious Zealot: Because the Bible says X is true.
• Me: I see, but what non-biblical corroborating evidence do you have to support X, that opposes the evidence in support of Y, which people have accepted on the basis of sources A,B,C,and D?
• Religious Zealot: OMG STOP ATTACKING ME! X IS TRUE!!!!!!
• Me: I'm not attacking you, I'm asking you why you believe X is true simply because the bible says it's true, when clearly, there is a preponderance of evidence based on scientific experimentation and empirical data that definitively shows Y to be the truth.
• Religious Zealot: Y is just a theory! The BIBLE says X is the truth, and I BELIEVE THE BIBLE BECAUSE THE BIBLE SAYS THE BIBLE IS TRUE! Now STOP attacking and hating me, you soul-less, blasphemous, heathen! You're going to HELL for ALL of eternity. I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY YOU HAVE SUCH HATRED FOR ME!!!!! 
• Me: ... Seriously?

 Here's the thing: I whole-heartedly support anyone's Constitutional right to believe in whatever they wish. Unequivocally. With one caveat: If what you believe begins to interfere with any of the Constitutional rights of any American citizen (be it education, marriage, or otherwise), I , and others like me, will challenge your beliefs. Not only should such beliefs be challenged, it is MY Constitutional right, Which is neither more, nor less important than yours, to do so. 

 When superstition causes a group of people to deliberately seek out and destroy another group of people's rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness using legislation for which religion is the obvious catalyst, it is simply wrong. There is a vast array of other words to describe it, but purely speaking, it's just wrong. It's wrong on a fundamental level in that such religion-based legislation is both implicitly and explicitly forbidden by the single most important governing document of the United States: The Constitution. 

 The same Amendment that gives you the right to practice whatever religion you wish also gives me the right to challenge those beliefs. This amendment, the very first one, also expressly demands separation of church and state. Question is not equal to hatred. "Why?" is not an attack. 

 Religious Zealots, particularly Christians in the U.S., continue to try to strip Constitutional rights away from select groups of other U.S. citizens with ridiculous and hateful legislation like Prop 8 in California, and now, Amendment 1 in North Carolina. When will we learn to respect people, regardless of their birth? With any luck, this abomination will be repealed, and your children will be less ashamed of you. 

 You can NOT base your perception of reality on one single text, simply because that text claims itself to be true. By that rationale, I can argue that I am God. Since you can't disprove it, does that make me right? What If I say, "I am God, and I say that what I just said is true." Now, you're in a bind, aren't you? Do you dare to disbelieve me, and risk an eternity in hell, because I love you so much that I'm going to punish you forever for arguing with me? You can't argue a point with any validity by saying "I believe X because I believe it, so it's true." That's called delusion, and it's a sign of mental illness. 

 Don't believe me? Disprove it.

Three Revolutionaries Walk Into a Bar...

 HOLY SHIT! YOU PEOPLE ARE FUCKING INSANE, YOU KNOW THAT?! (You know who you are).

 Let me be very fucking explicit here, and I mean that in the definitive sense, not the connotative "I'm about to use naughty words" sense (though the latter is certainly also true).

 Homosexuality is NOT a choice. Seriously. It's a matter of scientific fucking fact. It's a little area called Genetics, and it is awesome in every sense of the word. If you'd pick up a book other than the one full of fairy tales, you'd know that.

 With the new aberration just passed in Podunk, N.C., there is an awful lot of celebratory gunfire and yee-hawing going on, but what you people (and I use that term very loosely right now) don't seem to realize is that YOU are OPPRESSING a HUGE population of human beings. People just like you (with the exception that you have more rights now). Those of you who just reached voting age, your parents might be appalled. Why? Because your parents are the ones that cried out for equality and got the ban on inter-racial marriage repealed in 1971.

 What the fuck is wrong with you people that you have this primal need to squash one group or another under foot? Seriously, someone explain it to me. In terms I can understand. Scientific terms. Give me facts. Give me evidence. Don't sit there and tell me you're against something because your interpretation of one interpretation of one religious sect's book of fables tells you so. It's bullshit. It's a cop out. it's fucking lazy!

 So here are a few facts for you (those of you who are devoutly religious, myopic, and don't like things like evidence, facts, or proof may want to navigate away from this blog now if you haven't already):

•  America was NOT founded on the King James Bible. It was founded on Democratic ideals. These ideals were the direct catalyst for the birth of this nation. The Constitution states ALL men are created equal. Period. Not just white men, not just heterosexual men, and not just Christian men. ALL FUCKING MEN! 
• The line in the Pledge of Allegiance that says "under god" was added in the 1950s as a knee-jerk reaction to communism. This means that for those of you who are constantly posting in Facebook about how "when I was a kid, the Pledge of Allegiance stated "under god." You're grandparents never did. Your point is invalid.
• Evolution is a fucking fact. It's been proven just like Gravity, Heliocentrism, many theories in Genetics, and Thermodynamics. If you drop shit, it falls down. The Earth revolves around the sun (and by the way, is also round). Many deviations in human development can be traced to one gene or another, and homo sapiens share a common ancestor with other great apes. Fucking deal with it.
• Homosexuality is a matter of genetics, not choice. Period. Full stop. It isn't only found in Hominids, it's actually found in something like 400 species. It's been proven repeatedly. 
• Questions are not attacks. This one really fucking infuriates me. I am NOT attacking you when I ask "why?" I'm asking you to support your position. If you ask me to support my position, I will do so. I understand that you may be trying to understand where I'm coming from, and I welcome the opportunity to impart any amount of the knowledge I've gained through formal study, or empirically. Stop with the oppressed majority bullshit!
• "It's true because the bible says it's true" is NOT a valid argument. Stop using it. By that rationale, anything I write is true as long as I include statements in that piece that assert its veracity. Again, this is a lazy cop out because thinking is too hard for you. KNOCK IT OFF!

 As far as voting to ban marriage between same sex couples (because let's call it what it is, it isn't "gay marriage" it's just "marriage"), in a state that still legally allows marriage between first cousins, that's pretty fucking ballsy. You CAN NOT base legislature on your bible. By doing so, you are not just ostracizing homosexuals, you're also ostracizing anyone who isn't Christian, and that is something that The Constitution of The United States, a document I grew up with and hold very dear (as should all of you who enjoy its freedoms), STRICTLY and EXPLICITLY forbids.

 What you rabidly proud bible thumpers don't seem to be able to grasp, as much as you pride yourselves on being " 'Mericans," is that even if the Bible, the Qu'ran, the Torah, the Book of the Dead, and The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster ALL were against homosexuality, you STILL could not base legislature on them, thanks to separation of church and state. 

 Another fact for you: I am a happily married heterosexual man. That's right, supporting other human's rights doesn't immediately make me one of those humans. It simply means I believe in EQUAL rights. Were it the 1960s, I would fully support desegregation. That doesn't automatically make me black anymore than supporting equality in marriage makes me gay. I also support no-kill shelters. That doesn't make me a dog, or a cat, does it?

 Stop trying to legislate morality! Stop trying to cram your unfounded religious drivel down everyone's throat. If you were really as Christian as you claim to be, you would love your fellow man, and turn the other cheek. You can't cherry pick the parts of your magical tome by which you choose to abide any more than you can cherry pick which laws you're not going to break.

*This blog post is absolutely true. There, it's been said. No denying it now.

Letting Go of God

 It seems like a lot of people are having trouble with this for some reason, so here's the thing.

 I'm an atheist.

 I'll let you recover from that shock for a moment, and let that sink in... Good? Okay. So, for those of you who didn't swoon in disbelief, faint from shock, or run to the hills fleeing my godless blasphemy, let me explain:

 Once upon a time (which incidentally, is how I think The Bible should have opened), I was a Christian. Yes, really. I didn't come to Atheism and Anti-theism by accident, or from being jaded, abused, mocked, tossed asunder, or looked on with disdain. All those things happened coincidentally, and have no relevance on my chosen lack of religion. Those things still do happen from time to time, and that is just human nature.

 So how did I come to Atheism? I did what a vast majority of Christians still don't do: I read The Bible. Cover to cover. I read it... well... religiously, at one point. After I read it, I read it again. And again. I read multiple versions of it. I still have several incarnations of it on my bookshelf... in the fiction section... under Lord of the Rings, and a plethora of R.A. Salvatore novels. No matter how many times I read it, and regardless of how many adaptations of it I read, it still does not make sense. Not at all. Not a whit. Not as proof of an indisputable series of facts to believe in without question. Nope. Though I will concede that as an allegory, it does have some valid points, and as a fable, it does have merit, it is also filled to the brim with violence, hate, bigotry, incest, bloodshed, famine, rape, and atrocities that if filmed for any modern day movie would instantly be grounds for branding it with an NC-17 rating.

 From a very young age, I had questions. I had questions in spades. I had more questions than there were satisfactory answers, and that made me a sinner, which is okay, because according to that book, everyone is a sinner. According to that book, everyone is absolved already, even for sins they haven't yet committed. We're even absolved from the sins of our fathers. Where, then, is the logic that we are offending this wizard in the sky if we don't ask for the forgiveness that we are supposed to already have, because he descended from heaven and washed our sins away already? By way of comparison, if  I decide to cook dinner for my wife because I love her and want to show her my love, I don't demand afterwards that she beg me to make her dinner. I've already cooked it. It's on the table, and being eaten (incidentally, I love my wife too much to ever subject her to my cooking, but the analogy stands).

 I have found, by way of extensive research and empirical data collection, that The Bible is fiction. There is no evidence to back any of its claims. You're asking me to believe in a single book written by dozens of humans which, as stated in that very book, are fallible. No.

 The Bible tells me that homosexuality is an abomination, when science and provable evidence demonstrate before my own eyes that it is a genetic variant.

 The Bible tells me that the entirety of the human race was created from a handful of dust molded into one man, and a woman created from one rib of that one man. Science and evidence give me tangible proof that this is a physical impossibility. That evolution is the truth.

 The Bible tells me that black people are black because of the curse of Canaan. Science and genetics show concretely that melanin, not voodoo, is responsible for skin tone.

 Belief in the Christian god is as archaic now as belief in the Roman gods that it usurped and assimilated. We are human. We evolved, and we continue to evolve. Part of that evolution is unraveling the mysteries of life, discovering new things, and understanding things we didn't before.

 We once believed that illness was caused by a small troll or gnome living in the stomach, but science has taught us otherwise.
 We once thought that bloodletting would balance the humors of the body and restore it to health regardless of the ailment, but science has taught us otherwise.
 We once thought that blood sacrifices would ensure a bountiful harvest, but science has taught us otherwise.

 It is my hope that someday we can say, "We once thought that a magical sky ghost molded the vast universe and everything in it in six days, but science has taught us otherwise."

Right Wing Mythbuster.

 Isn't it funny how the people that believe this country was founded by people seeking religious freedom are the ones trying to cram Christianity down everyone's throat? Here are a few right-wing myths set beside the actual facts for your perusal:

 "Obama is a socialist nigger from Kenya!" 

 He's actually mixed race democrat from Hawaii, by way of Illinois (though why anyone would chose to move from Hawaii to Illinois is beyond me). Although his father was Kenyan, his mother was a stark white women, and natural born citizen of the United States, married to his father prior to his birth. Personally, I think a majority of the idiotic hate that Obama faces can more appropriately be tracked to the fact that his father married, and vigorously fucked a white woman. Something the tiny minds of the religious right just can't accept, but don't want to publicly say they can't accept.

 "If them fags are allowed to marry each other because of their choice of lifestyle, why can't I marry a horse?" 

 Because homosexuals don't have a choice in their orientation, they're born with it. Whom you love is not a matter of choice, it's a matter of heart, and no human being should be denied the right to marry another human being (assuming both humans are of equal maturity and intelligence, and of legal age to do so). You can't marry a horse because it wouldn't be a mutual decision, as marriage is, and marriage is an exclusively human rite. In addendum, animals are not granted rights under the Constitution of The United States as citizens. Although what you chose to do with your junk is your own business (and what anyone else chooses to do with their junk is their business, incidentally), your argument here, is asinine, banal, juvenile, ill-founded, and pedantic.

"Poor people are lazy, and just want me to hand them my money!"

 Most poor people are not lazy. most poor people are poor because they're shouldering more than their fair share of a burden that is the responsibility of the entire working nation. We poor people don't want YOUR money, we just want our own, and we're sick of donating a majority of the pittance we break our backs, bleed, sweat, and raise callouses on our fingers for to your lobbying efforts, political campaigns, bailouts, and tax relief.

"Non-christians are Satanic heathens!"

 Nope. Muslims, who practice the Islamic religion, worship an analogue of your god that they call Allah, Buddhists worship an analogue of your god (albeit much less self-centered and vengeful) that they call Buddha, and Atheists worship no god. Satanism is, by definition, a religion; one whose practitioners worship Satan.

"My kid should be allowed to pray in school! They're stomping on my religious freedom!" 

 Your kid IS allowed to pray in school. There is nothing barring your child, or any other, from praying while in school, or any other public place. There ARE, however, conventions set forth by our forefathers protecting the rights of EVERYONE. Not just your kid. Prayer IS allowed in public school, it just isn't, and shouldn't be mandatory. You'd be just as pissed off if public schools taught the Qu'ran, or (god forbid) the Torah, because what you actually mean is: "My kid isn't forced to pray in school." Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, and therefore, religion is not mandated in public schools. You can, however, take the money I'm saving you by paying your share of the taxes that go to those public schools, and put your child in a private, charter, or catholic school, where they have entire classes dedicated to non-standard, ELECTIVE subjects such as religion. Ironically, though, you're forcing your child to participate in a religion that may or may not fit with their beliefs.

Don't End With A Propositional Phase.

 Can we please focus on shit that matters now? Seriously, the big game against central is over, enough already. I know I've already tackled football, but this banal, boorish blemish on American society as a whole needs a time-out. Can we, as a nation - as adults - huddle up and discuss more pressing issues? Like maybe the recent sacking of Prop H8? That strikes me as a pretty big fucking deal.

 Now, I know homophobes everywhere are mad about the robust grudge fuck Prop 8 took, but that's just tough shit. The fact is, even if you drain all the humanity out of it, and look at it exclusively from the most capitalistic point of view, it makes good, sound business sense. Put the humanity back into it, and voila! Now, you're looking at something that is a win for the LGBT community, or as I like to call them, my fellow human beings who happen to have different tastes (in some, but certainly not all) cases.  You know, homo sapiens? I know a lot of people need that link, because they don't want to believe we've evolved from a species with it's origin in Africa. They're deathly afraid of being related to... BLACK PEOPLE! (Did they scatter)? Never mind that; it's for another rant for another day.

 Here's the thing: there shouldn't be a rift between the general populace on the legalization of something that ought never to have been illegal in the first place! Perhaps I'm daft. Maybe I just don't get it, but I simply can't wrap my head around the abysmal hypocrisy of a select privileged handful of lechers and adulterers, trying once again to legislate morality. Especially when it comes to bemoaning the sanctity of marriage. I may be a complete asshole, and I may be slightly misanthropic, but damn it, love is love. Period! It's not something one can explain, legislate, or break into square, linear, black and white definitions. Why, then, is this even an issue?

 "You want to marry a man? Fine. WAIT A MINUTE! YOU ARE A MAN!? Well, that's no good. Nope. Can't do it." 

 Huh?

 At risk of sounding arrogant and obtuse, I think there is at least a handful of more important things we ought to be worrying about right now, rather than whom one can or can not marry, like... I don't know... figuring out who's least likely to fuck over the ever increasing throng of impoverished families in the U.S. over the next four years? Just a thought. Maybe it's be a good idea to pay attention to that, so we're not pissing and moaning about how poorly that person is doing their job before they've even got halfway through their term? Furthermore, WHAT BLOODY SENSE DOES IT MAKE FOR IT TO BE PERFECTLY LEGAL TO MARRY BLOOD RELATIVES, AS LONG AS THEY ARE OF THE OPPOSITE SEX!? Sorry for the Brian Blessed moment, but it truly flummoxes me that in 25 states, you can marry your first cousin, as long as you don't both have the same type of junk. It seems to me, a great number of these chimps flinging their feces at the LGBT community have hailed from these states. Is there a connection?

 Who knows, we can't subject them to the kinds of tests I'd like to, because of that whole "ethics" thing. I'll tell you this, though, I for one welcome the legalization of same sex marriage (also called "marriage"). If you've got the heart, and the sincerity, and the loyalty, and the constitution to dedicate the rest of your days to a mutual reciprocation of love and trust, then as far as I'm concerned, you've earned the right to be proud of it, and walk through life as a legitimately married couple, reaping all the benefits of any other.The fact that there are married couples that haven't earned and continue not earning the privileges that they take for granted are allowed to stand up and falsely claim undying love to each other while couples that are truly in love are barred from having that same rite (see what I did there?) is truly criminal.

 

Evolution is Just a Theory.

 If you clicked on that link faster than a priest with an invitation to NAMBLA, you're in the right place. I haven't yet decided which is the lesser of two evils: insincerity in the promotion of good and just purposes, or sincerity in the promotion of false and intellectually offensive ones. This is one of many reasons I suspect I'm at least half Vulcan.

 Insincerity in the promotion of good purposes offends me on an emotional level. I find it repulsive that certain people will copy and paste dull, vapid, generally accepted platitudes on their Facebook walls and Twitter accounts and accompany them with thinly veiled threats or insults to the convictions of the people reading them. It's asinine.

 "If you or someone you know knows of anyone that has dealt with cancer, repost this for an hour to help find a cure."

 No.

 Nearly everyone knows someone who at least knows someone who's dealt with cancer. If they haven't, they're either too young, or too far out of touch with reality to make use of the internet anyway. I will not repost this, because reposting this and leaving it as my status message for an hour will not cure cancer. You know what will? Action on research, that's what. If people would stop throwing money away to study the flow rate of ketchup or rent politicians, and start putting it to use to enable research and development, we could get closer to a cure exponentially faster. I don't see how giving your ego a handjob is going to help with this.

 "99% OF YOU WON'T REPOST THIS, BUT..."

 Stop this banal self-serving bullshit. Sometimes, I wish every computer would come with a little troll inside that lives under the keyboard. Every time someone goes to hit Ctrl+C on one of these ridiculous, insincere statuses of which they've only read the first line, he would pop out, draw a tiny scimitar, and take a finger. Anyone who's literate and has the capability of free independent thought that has seen what cancer, AIDS, racism, sexism, homophobia, bigotry, the far right, the far left, communism, fascism, consumerism, terrorism, and Newt Gingrich can do to someone knows how morally wrong these things are. There's nothing your guilt-laden copied and pasted post is going to do about it, and we all know you're not really going to delete any of your friends that don't copy / paste your status message. That's just an idle threat you've thrown in there in hopes to boost the rate at which your bromide is copied and pasted, and what's worse, YOU didn't even add it, you've copied and pasted it.

 Now, for the other problem: sincerity in the promotion of false and intellectually offensive purposes.

 On the other end of the scale, there are people who truly and wholeheartedly believe that Jesus has a Facebook. I assure you, he does not. Don't misunderstand me, I appreciate and respect that you have a religion, and it's an important part of your life, but there comes a point where you simply MUST yield to scientific fact in lieu of superstition. Your god is NOT going to descend to Earth and rapture you on the basis  that you've posted more trite religious crap than the other members of your cult... er... church. Furthermore, the Earth is FAR older than six millenia. It's been proven. People constantly remind me that "evolution is just a theory," but so are heliocentrism and gravity. Furthermore, if that's the basis of your argument, where, prithee, is your concrete, indisputable evidence to the contrary that you so vehemently present as fact? I'm all for a lively debate. I welcome intellectual discourse, but when your side begins to falter, you simply can not retreat to the bible as the apex of your argument. Ironically, it seems an awful lot of staunch, gun-toting, tan-hating, homophobic rednecks do the same. I've not really included them here because while they definitely need to be watched (lest they hurt themselves, or others defending our great country against the invading gay, black, Jewish horde of evil democrats that will ultimately spread the zombie virus throughout the world and remove us from god's love), they also amuse me, and a majority of them aren't literate enough not to have already been lost by this article yet.

 As for those that are ever vigilant in warning us that Facebook has access to all of your status updates, your friends list, and all your information, a wonderful, albeit old and cliched, phrase comes to mind.

 No shit, Sherlock.