WHAT THE HELL?

THOUGHTS ON GOD AND CHRISTMAS

So you have this idea about a Great Being. You can’t prove it, you can only show that a lot of people agree with you. On this basis, you’re willing to murder people for disagreeing. Not just murdering, but torturing innocents such as children and even pets! Because of something you can’t prove, and they have the gall to disagree with you? Really? And you call that moral?

And if they disagree with your views on anything else, the same curse applies – they should be killed. If they think marriage is different than you say, or slavery, or sex, or they disagree about which foods are “proper” (though none of them is poison), or any damned thing at all, they should be killed. If their skin is a different color, if they speak a different language, DEATH. And you think you are more moral?

You build mega-churches, pull in mega-crowds, and collect mega-bucks on this basis, all tax-free. You spend this money on alcohol, drugs, sex and prostitution, and you call that moral superiority. When a monkey cheats on its spouse, it hides that fact from its spouse and from the whole community, just as you do. You aren’t even morally superior to a MONKEY.

You do not have the right to any of these behaviors. You should not be exempt from taxes just because you’re exempt from obeying the moral law. 84% of prisoners in the U.S. are religious – only 3% are atheists. Even if such statistics are way off – the difference is astronomical. Tell me now, who hold the moral superiority card?

Why is it that when faced with a terminal illness, Christians are generally filled with dread (though they believe they’re going to ‘join with’ their magical deity), and atheists are filled with peace? Why have atheists never started a war, nor started pulling down the monuments of your religion? Only other religions do that!

There’s an old saying, “I swear there ain’t no heaven, but I pray there ain’t no hell.” Yet, when they come to peace with the fact that neither of these exist, the atheist’s morality does not change. The Christian, full of devotion and prayer, hides his amorality unless he can get the group to agree with his immoral acts, then celebrates them as if they were holy. They will rob, murder, and con their way through this world without the tiniest regret. They believe in a Satan; is that why they BECOME him? Their “moral” behavior is not only evil and insidious, but omni-present, omni-powerful, and self-congratulatory.

Never ask why I despise religion; I’m likely to answer you.

If there were a magical, all-powerful being who was the source of love and morality, he would have destroyed the religious centuries ago. Imagine if all the damage done in the name of religion were suddenly reversed; THAT would be paradise! An increase in your “faith” brings the opposite. Having faith only proves that you’re willing to suspend your disbelief infinitely; Jimmy Jones’ followers gave up everything they had and moved to South America to live in his “utopia” and ultimately took their own lives, still apparently believing that only he spoke the Truth. Congratulations! You’re one of those guys!

I never experienced real awe and wonder until I gave up on the notion of God. When one is religious, everything is a test, a trial, a competition. One doesn’t have the right attitude to see the beauty of the Earth, the sky, the stars, life itself. When you study the Bible you come away confused, confounded, and contrite. When you study reality, you come away with astonishment, appreciation, apprehension at the marvel of it all. If there is a God who created all this, then surely the petty little crimes and imaginary superstitions of the tiny carbon life-forms are of the least possible importance. Our thoughts cannot condemn us before He who made us! There is no such creature, but if there were, he would have to be at least as magnificent and astonishing as his creation; not a jealous, homicidal, genocidal egotist who wants – then doesn’t want – our blood sacrifices, who does and then doesn’t command and condemn us! What an absurd notion! Let go of that idea and be free to study and know and wonder at all the mysteries we can behold, all the beauty we can comprehend, all the love we are capable of without need of laws or threats of eternal damnation.

As a child I asked questions no one in my religious community could answer. Because the logic of their religion – even if you suspend your disbelief – won’t hold together. The facts don’t add up! On the one had they say the most beautiful, loving being who ever existed, made this amazing, wonderous universe, but only ever showed Himself in a few square miles of desert. He’s existed for all eternity, but chose to speak only for a few thousand years. No matter that this was a god of Jewish nomads, now everyone considers themselves the Chosen. They preach the commandments, but are the first to break them. They stand in their billion-dollar “churches” and scream into the microphone that one should only pray in private. They claim to cure people but it’s always a hoax, and whatever they preach, however much they say they follow the philosophy of a Jewish man who lived in utter poverty, they still want more and more of your money, and will try to get you to mortgage everything you own to get more for them. There were many preachers in my family, and I got to see their behavior first-hand. There was nothing there to respect, nothing there but shame.

I was about 55 years old when I discovered there was a name for what I am. I had thought I was an atheist, but that is too mean a term. I finally found Humanists, and realized tha that’s what I am. I believe all people – all beings – are equally sacred. I don’t harass the religious, or try to convert them, I just get so weary of having this God shoved down my throat all the time. “God bless you,” “I’ll pray for you,” and things like Christmas music which blares in my brain for months…I don’t mind getting a day off, but to me every Friday is equally “Good.” But most of all, I get tired of Christians and Muslims hating each other, and mis-interpreting their own holy books. Show me, in your holy book, where it says it’s good to hate people! Stop judging me by criteria you yourself can’t meet, and saying it comes from the Holy Bible which you haven’t even studied! Stop claiming a thing is Holy when you don’t even know where it came from, who wrote it, rewrote it, who decided what would go in and what would be kept out. If it were truly written by an all-knowing God, how is it He doesn’t know that stars will never fall to earth? How is it that He advises that livestock fed from a trough containing a striped stick will give birth to striped offspring? It won’t! If He wanted to guide us, help us, wouldn’t he have been clear in what He said, not dress it up in “metaphor” which has to be “interpreted!” Even in the first portion, chapter, of this so-great book defies itself! It proves it’s falseness by contradicting its own tale. Even as a child I could see this wasn’t possible, couldn’t be the work of a Being who was omniscient. How can – and why should – anyone believe in anything this book – this God – says, when he constantly contradicts himself, advises and assists in genocide, and doesn’t appear to know how the universe He supposedly made works. Further, if there were such a Being, why would he punish us for our nature when He created us this way? Why would he threaten and curse these little creatures who are clearly doing their best with what He’s given them? Then He supposedly appears on earth In the form of some holy human, dies like anyone else, and threatens His creatures with eternal torment for having a wrong thought!? Yet He lets evil thrive, grow rich and fat, allows them to torture innocents and murder their fellow creatures, while the devout, the good-hearted, the innocent starve, die of horrible disease, and suffer abuse all their lives? Whoever this Being is, He’s clearly not worth of worship He should be judged by His own rules and suffer the condemnation He threatens these little creatures with.

My constant thought, recurring all my life, is “How can people believe in this?” “Why?” In an age when we know perfectly well what the stars are, and how truly astonishing Infinity is, and how small and petty we are, people are still preaching from their palacial churches and playing the oldest con games in the world on millions of people. In a time when people speak openly about how corrupt and dissolute the clergy is, when the internet makes it possible for anyone to study what the Bible is and how it came to be, the same cons are still being run. The followers of this God must be unbelievably stupid, gullible, and maliciously judgmental. We know for a fact these are cons, these claims are not true, these saints are fakes.

“Merry Christmas?” Do you even know what that holiday is? It’s not a celebration of the birth of your prophet, it’s a continuation of winter feasts which have been held since the beginning of civilization, and has been used to celebrate Jupiter far longer than Yaweh. Your Messiah wasn’t born on this day – read it in your own Book! The “reason for the season” celebration is because this is the time of year when, if there weren’t enough grain to support them until spring,

And at no time did this Messiah advocate giving each other gifts on this day. It has no connection with the Magi who brought gifts to God, and by the way, not to each other. This Messiah advocated poverty and purity, and true charity – not things Christians practice. Spare me your Easter greetings as well – Easter is called so because it’s a continuation of ancient spring rites dedicated to the Goddess Eostre who has been around much longer than this Messiah. Eggs have nothing to do with the Christian mythos, they’re a celebration of Spring bringing life after a long winter. These pagan festivals were hijacked by Christians, and commercial interests have twisted them into the biggest profit-making machine in the history of the world. You spend billions every year on Christmas gifts, and maliciously subject non-Christians of any kind to blaring religious music, decorations, and rituals we have no desire to participate in or celebrate. Yet, if we speak a word against Christianity we’re labeled as rabid, malicious atheists who try to convert the world. That’s not the case. We just wish that if you must believe in this completely illogical, commercially-profitable, fantasy myth, you keep it to your fucking self. If you trust God so much, why do you need police? And why should they proudly display “In God we trust?” Where’s the trusting part?

You go ahead an believe in this Judeo-Christian-Islamic God, but just leave those of us who don’t believe it ALONE. You have no right to subject us continually, from cradle to grave, to your ridiculous con-game myths. What we believe can be PROVEN, will work every time. What you believe is – even after 2,000 years – unprovable, illogical, inaccurate, and torturous. No one is stopping you from believing all that, just stop tormenting us with it. We’re not evangelizing, we’re just standing our ground. You want us to shut up? YOU FIRST.