Radical Atheist

The more comments I read by those opposed to the Muslim center the more I wish all those who are incensed at this would understand that this vitriol ought to be applied to every group of religious fanatics.

I wish every bible-thumper in America could understand that the outrage and offense they feel about this mosque, the feeling that the Muslims are pushing this in every Christian’s face is the same that many atheists feel every day courtesy of the Christians. The insult of having someone else force you to accept their religion’s unpleasant beliefs, the gall of being expect to respect laws that were created solely based on their religious beliefs; these are the same way non-Christians feel in America.

Here we go agai

The way the Muslims make you feel? Well, that’s the way you both make us feel. We find you both annoying and somewhat frightening. We can’t fathom how you are able to believe the weird things you both accept without question and demand that we accept as “truth” just because you say we have to.

I read Christians resenting the way Muslims have bastardized our freedoms and Constitution for their own purposes (”And we won’t put up with it” they cry) without a hint of awareness that this is precisely how they come across to non-believers.

Since you two not getting along could seriously fuck up the lives of everyone on the planet at any moment, it’s in the best interest of the rest of us that we do what we can to keep you from each other’s throats.

A compromise, then. Hold off on the Muslim center for now or relocate it to a reasonable alternative site. Muslims willingly concede that the time is not right no matter how unreasonable the opposition. In return the Christians convince their minions to back off in Minnesota and California. Muslims get two mosques and lose their YMMA and the Christians get to salvage their righteous indignation. Both sides gain a little and both sides lose a little. Everybody gets to save face, both of you can claim a victory for your side.

Then the rest of us can quit holding our breathes and get back to worrying about truly important matters.

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This appears to substantiate the possibility of blasphemy laws being enacted in the West as presented in my last posting.

An atheist who left leaflets mocking Jesus Christ, Islam and the Pope in an airport’s prayer room has been given an Asbo.

Harry Taylor, 59, from Higher Broughton, Salford, left the anti-religious posters in prayer rooms at Liverpool
John Lennon Airport in November and December 2008.

Taylor denied three counts of causing religiously aggravated harassment during his trial at Liverpool Crown Court.

But he was found guilty by a jury and given a suspended six-month sentence yesterday, as well as an Asbo forbidding him from carrying anti-religious leaflets in public.

One of the posters Taylor left at the airport depicted a smiling crucified Christ next to an advert for a brand of “no nails” glue. In another, a cartoon depicted two Muslims holding a placard demanding equality with the caption: “Not for women or gays, obviously.” A third poster showed Islamic suicide bombers at the gates of paradise being told: “Stop, stop, we’ve run out of virgins”. (Source-The Independent)

The National Secular Society expresses an opinion on this ruling that reflects my own thoughts.

One of the "offensive" images

The sentencing of Harry Taylor has been condemned by the National Secular Society as “creating a new blasphemy law that will open the way for every religious extremist to persecute and prosecute their critics.”

Terry Sanderson, President of the National Secular Society said: “Regardless of the fact that this six month sentence has been suspended, it is still totally out of proportion for what Mr Taylor did. Nobody can deny that he was being deliberately provocative in leaving these rather mild cartoons, cut from Private Eye, in the prayer room, but in the end he didn’t harm anybody and was simply making a point about the existence of such a facility. The chaplain could quite easily have simply thrown the papers in the bin.

“Instead, she claims to have been hurt and offended by this material, which makes her ultra sensitivity a dangerous thing indeed. The professional ‘offence takers’ in religious communities will now feel that they have a strong new weapon to use against anyone who is critical or disapproving of them. It is, in effect, a blasphemy law that covers all religions and is much more powerful than the one that was abolished only two years ago.”

“Religiously aggravated offences represent a new kind of blasphemy law, and the professional offence takers in religious communities won’t be slow to exploit this new avenue of restricting criticism and comment about their beliefs. It is time for parliament to reconsider these provisions and remove them from the statute books.”

Mr Sanderson said that Mr Taylor describes himself as a “militant atheists” who wanted to challenge the existence of the “prayer room” particularly as it was situated on John Lennon Airport in Liverpool – he maintained that John Lennon was an atheist and would not have approved of the presence of the prayer room. (Source-National Secular Society)

I can’t imagine any rational free-thinker accepting this ruling without protest.

The Pope has repeatedly expressed his displeasure with the media coverage of the multitude of molestation claims being presented around the globe. Will he be the next person to make a legal challenge to this coverage and manage to silence criticism of the Church’s efforts to ignore and bury those claims? Isn’t it a form of blasphemy to question the actions of the Holy See?

How will Christians in the West react if Muslims are able to gain legal protection against any defamatory statement about Islam being made by those who don’t follow that religion, including those who believe in other gods?

When did life offer us a guarantee to never be offended by those who don’t share our opinions? By what universal right do the religious claim exemption from criticism and skepticism. It seems to me that the last refuge of any shallow philosophy that cannot defend itself with logic and reason is the court. When beliefs are indefensible make any offense a criminal action.

Finally, what about my beliefs as a non-religious believer? Shouldn’t I be equally protected by law from offensive remarks made by religious believers who think nothing of calling me immoral and condemning me to an eternity of pain and suffering?

The whole “anti-blasphemy” concept is a joke and antithetical in any nation that repects freedom of thought, speech and the press. Sadly it appears the list of nations that respect those freedoms is shrinking.

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I despair when I encounter people like this in RL and on the net. They should be the punchlines of jokes, they ought to be caricatures. But they’re real, they really exist, really vote, really have kids and most likely an active sex life. THAT RIGHT THERE PROVES THERE’S NO JUSTICE IN THIS LIFE!!

I feel so sad for humanity knowing people who “think” like this are still around. These are the guys who fly planes into buildings, or would if they could and if Christian fanatics had as big a pair of balls as the Muslims. Instead they kill doctors and innocents, justifying it by blaming it on god, using an idea to excuse their inhumanity.

Beliefs like these stifle human progress, they retard our evolution. Religious belief is essentially retarded (note: I’m not calling believers retarded, not explicitly anyway). It can never advance in understanding past its origin 2000 years ago (or less depending on the religion). At the time Christianity was invented, for example, it proclaimed itself to be the ultimate truth, the zenith of knowledge. Implicit in that belief is the sad fact that nothing more could be added to the “wisdom” in the Bible. Access to further knowledge and understanding of our universe was closed. Everything you needed to know, would ever need to know, was in the Bible. Of course not just anyone could read and interpret the holy writings. We needed a priest class to act as intermediaries between just the words claimed to be god’s and humanity. Others claimed to be intermediaries between the god itself and humanity. Lay people, ministers and theologians have been at each other’s throats ever since.

Humanists and atheists don’t accept limitations on knowledge. We confess our ignorance of so much. But we, like everyone else, have a standard that has to be met when it comes to what we’ll accept as truth. Not absolute truth, conditional truth is as good as it gets. Our standards are high, our tolerance for bullshit low. If we’ve listened to what you have to say (and I don’t know an American who hasn’t heard what Christians have to say), and we’ve dismissed it as inadequate, don’t be obnoxious and try to imply there’s any aspect to your religion we haven’t already considered and discarded. It’s a done deal. Unlike Christians, we don’t want to answer 21st century questions with 2000 year old answers. Humans have developed tools and techniques unknown to ancient goat herders that allow us to answer questions we didn’t even have 5 years ago.

Yet humanity, by and large, prefers to embrace superstitions rather than face realities.

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Those who have reached the conclusion that gods either do not exist or are so improbable as to be unlikely in the extreme are atheists. Other than that one specific philosophical opinion, atheists do not necessarily share any other conclusion, interest or attitude.

It’s difficult to form a cohesive social network based solely on the issue of atheism. Atheists are often too different in what they do believe to feel a strong fraternity with others just because they both disbelieve in gods.

And it’s for this reason atheism fails to capture the interest of most people. Indeed, it actually repels many. Their is no community aspect to atheism.

Humans are pack animals. We respond to strong leadership, we take comfort in numbers. Strays and those outside the pack are suspect, potentially dangerous. One particularly powerful pack in this country is the religious pack. By having the numbers, this pack has established itself as the predominant pack in this society. Those outside this particular pack are viewed as so dangerous they required legislating against. This pack is so large it presumes the title of “normal”. It has determined that its standards be the standards for everyone of every faith and of course those of no faith. As compensation for requiring the sacrifice of personal freedom, it offers the sop of community. Even a fool feels less lonely in a crowd of fools.

But we can’t underestimate the power of community. There’s power in numbers. Might may not make right, but it’s still might. Because of our pack mentality, we are suckers for groups, communities, nearly any collection of human beings assembled for any old reason. We have ample evidence of humans surrendering, of their own free will, their rationality, logic, common sense, skepticism and disbelief when the appearent reward for doing so is sufficiently desireable.

I was recently reading a discussion between atheists about the benefits of using groups like MeetUp to get together with other atheists. Atheists are no different than anyone else in being pack oriented. Unfortunately many of us are a pack of cats. The packs we form often leave much to be desired, when a pack can be formed at all.

By not offering a community, we fail in marketing. We have to concede to the religions that they prevail in meeting that human need better than non-believers on a social scale. We aren’t different in the way we feel about our friends and families, but we tend to commune with those who share our common beliefs, not common disbeliefs. Just like Christians, Muslims, the Amish and the Scientologists do. Otherwise there would be a “Church of the Non-Atheists”.

There is one community that being an atheist allows a person to appreciate, the community of humanity. You don’t have to be an atheist to be a humanist, but being an atheist frees you to see humanity as it exists in reality, not fantasy. Granted, the community of humanity is open to all, totally inclusive, non-judgmental, all the things that religion isn’t. That’s why every successful religion has told its believers that they are separate from humanity, that they’re special, the select, the chosen few selected by the god itself to know the real truth about everything, the secret of reality, the answers to all the really big questions. Religious communities make their members feel comfortable with this attitude that drips with pride and superiority. Otherwise reasonable people who practice skepticism and common sense in every other aspect of their lives can fall prey to this insidious group-think, and do, in large numbers around the world.

And one of the greatest attractions is the religious community.

The best we can do is sneak into Unitarian services and try not to wince too often. Cookies and punch if you’re successful.

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If terrorism were simply another human trait it would be much more common among all people.

True, all humans have the potential to be terrorists, but that potential requires a motivation. Motivation is what turns any human potential into human behavior. And the most powerful and effective motivator for most people is religion. Fanatic religious belief acts like a fuse on a bomb. No fuse, the device is inert. With a fuse the device has the potential to be deadly, light the fuse and that possibility becomes a near certainty.

Religion is the fuse and the spark that lights the fuse is a fanatical belief that your god wants you to kill as many other people as possible. Christians do that, but generally in a rather inept way. Fanatical Christians are quite often more amusing than frightening. Fanatical Muslims on the other hand…

Oh, and worst of all? Those roving bands of fanatical atheists with their tracts and their bullhorns, trying to blow people’s minds. Dangerous lunatics.

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[Now I've got to get a copy of this book and read it for myself.]

Elijah Muhammad’s Teaching

from Message to the Black Man (1965);

One God but Polytheistic – 25,000 years. Bible and Quran written by 24 scientists – one scientist was appointed to be God. p.108

The black race created the heavens and the earth and created themselves. p.42.

The black race gave birth to a God named Yakub. p.110. He lived only 150 years. p.116

Yakub, a black scientist, created the white race 6,000 years ago. p.9

6,000 years ago the black race gave birth to Allah, He is the mightiest God since creation born after Yakub. p.111.

Orthodox Islam must bow to Black Islam (God’s choice) p.50. Arabs misunderstand the Holy Quran when they don’t accept me [Elijah Muhammad] as a prophet. p.250.

Moses used dynamite with a fuse to kill 300 of his followers. p.120. –An amazing miracle; dynamite was not invented for 2400 years!

Jesus is not God. p.9, 140

Black [Christian] preachers’ mouths are controlled by devils; there are a great hindrance to the truth of our people. p.18,47,84,89,96

Elijah Muhammad says the Bible is 2/3 pro-phecy. p.89. He says prophecies are a small percentage of the Bible on p.90.

The mountains were created by bombs from spaceships circling the earth. p.90

Wallace D. Fard is God [Allah]. p.1, 11, 27, 46, 52, 141, 155, 172, 237, 294.

(Source)

The source could well be too biased to be giving accurate, in context, quotes.  So I want to see it in context.  But I can say that any group that could accept those beliefs is out there, out where the Jim Jones’ and the David Koresh’s hang out.  Go ahead, drink the kool-aid.  I’m sure the human race will be better for it.

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