For every atheist that speaks out, there is often a reciprocal event taking place that may be going unnoticed. It is often the case that most of the people surrounding us have never been exposed to the arguments for atheism. We can never really expect that others will see the clarity of rational thought on our words alone, but by
A man didn’t understand how televisions work, and was convinced that there must be lots of little men inside the box, manipulating images at high speed. An engineer explained to him about high frequency modulations of the electromagnetic spectrum, about transmitters and receivers, about amplifiers and cathode ray tubes, about scan lines moving across and down a phosphorescent screen. The man listened to the engineer with careful attention, nodding his head at every step of the argument. At the end he pronounced himself satisfied. He really did now understand how televisions work. “But I expect there are just a few little men in there, aren’t there?”
– Douglas Adams, paraphrase of a parable spoofing modern creationism that Adams often told, as retold by Richard Dawkins in “Lament for Douglas” (14 May 2001)
As a child, I spent a lot of time unknowingly reading books by a man that held a completely different and opposing worldview than nearly all of my friends and family. If it wasn’t for the humorous accessibility of Douglas Adams, I may have never managed to get a glimpse of true reality. I’m certain that if the Hitchhiker’s Guide had been titled the Radical Atheist’s Guide to Freethinking, I would have likely never been interested or allowed to read it. I was too young at the time to even realize it, but Adams planted the seeds for my escape from superstition and religion. In Adams’ ultimate wit and skepticism, I found a previously unknown ability and strength to look at things in a different light; A light that turned out to be perfectly clear and rationally illuminating. With nothing more than comedy and more than any scholarly “new” atheist, Adams cracked my near impenetrable and absurdly illogical religious indoctrination. I may mourn that Adams died far too young, but I find plenty of comfort in knowing that he got to live the only kind of life worth living; The enlightened life of a freethinker.
I know that he is gone, but for anyone listening; Thank you Mr. Adams. You did your part to make the world a much better place.
For a group of people that are so convinced that they are correct, Religionists sure do seem to have a complex when it comes to allowing others to seriously consider what they believe. They seem to have an even greater complex in allowing others to freely determine whether they are convinced or not. If you are a person that has failed to be convinced, you can expect that there will be many attempts to you force into line. You can expect that there will be laws that say that you cannot hold office, money that says that you trust the Religionist’s god, a motto that says that you are living “Under God”, and many other attempts of making sure you don’t fall through the Religionist’s crack. Many Religionists like to say that we have free will, but they sure don’t seem to support that for nonbelievers. On closer examination, it appears more like we are being told that there is no escape from the appendages of religion. One must ask why Religionists need it to be this way. Could it be that someone is so unconvinced by their own beliefs that they feel a need for special exceptions to shore up their own doubts? Just a thought, but if Religionists ever expect to win over nonbelievers, they will only do so by first offering up an argument for the existence of god that is free of any and all coercion. Knowing the current arguments inside out, I highly doubt that they are even capable of it. Religionists would only have to compare their current Church and State violations with how oppressive regimes maintain power and they would see that their belief has become tyrannical and defeating of their own stated purposes.
Anyone that has ever read the Bible (I mean really read the Bible) knows that it contains some very explicit sexual content. In Genesis alone the Bible contains the following pieces of bad advice:
19:1-8 Rape virgins instead of male angels
24:2-3, 9 Place your hand “under the thigh” (sexual organs) of someone swearing sacred oaths
25:1-6 Keeping mistresses is not adultery
Since there are literally hundreds of sexually inappropriate Bible verses, should our children really be made to read them? Better yet, should children really be included in the debate regarding adult sexuality? Apparently, Westboro Baptist parents feel that they should. The Westboro Baptists regularly trot out their poor children to hold signs regarding what they view as sexual depravity. Surely, if they have instructed their children to hold up these signs, they have also explained to them what they mean. As a child welfare worker, I can say with certainty that when kids get exposed to adult sexuality, whether by accident or on purpose, they will have questions. Most kids simply do not have the context to understand things of a sexual nature. If Westboro parents are exposing their kids to the knowledge of adult sexuality, some at six or seven years old, and then using the Bible as a guidebook for explaining everything, their kids could be at serious risk. It’s not a stretch to say that a case could be made to show that Westboro parents are neglecting to protect their children’s welfare every time they parade them out with sexually explicit signs.
Isiah 36:12″…you, will have to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine?”
