Reasons for unbelief

The New Statesman asked several prominent atheists why they don’t believe in God, and then compiled their responses. I really like this one from human rights activist Maryam Namazie:

I don’t remember exactly when I stopped believing in God. Having been raised in a fairly open-minded family in Iran, I had no encounter with Islam that mattered until the Islamic movement took power on the back of a defeated revolution in Iran. I was 12 at the time.

I suppose people can go through an entire lifetime without questioning God and a religion that they were born into (out of no choice of their own), especially if it doesn’t have much of a say in their lives. If you live in France or Britain, there may never be a need to renounce God actively or come out as an atheist.

But when the state sends a “Hezbollah” (the generic term for Islamist) to your school to ensure that you don’t mix with your friends who are boys, stops you from swimming, forces you to be veiled, deems males and females separate and unequal, prescribes different books for you and your girlfriends from those read by boys, denies certain fields of study to you because you are female, and starts killing in­discriminately, then you have no choice but to question, discredit and confront it – all of it. And that is what I did.

Fundies might deny it, but in reality fundamentalist Islam, Christianity, Judaism, et al. are more alike then you think. Patriarchal religion has slowed the progress of women’s rights throughout history, and getting rid of it would be a huge step forward.

The following is a message from God

Dear not-raptureds:

You may have seen lots of people being raptured today. However, they weren’t the ones you expected. For example, the Robertson, Dobson, Fischer, and Barber types are still here. There are numerous reasons for this.

One is the consistent false predictions. There are far too many doomsdays that didn’t.

One reason is that you accuse me of “creating a fake”. Evolution is a fact supported by overwhelming observable evidence. The cdesign proponentists and creationists dispute this, therefore committing the sin of blasphemy by accusing me of being deceptive. This is why members of the Discovery Institute, Answers in Genesis et al are still here.

Another is the few–issuesism. You focus almost exclusively on abortion, school prayer (even though you are told not to show off your faith), and same–sex marriage. How could it possibly be reasonable for my “followers” to be few–issue voters, when I, the creator of the universe, are clearly not a few–issue diety? You give the whole faith a bad name, making all Christians look like judgmental, sex obsessed fundies who cannot mind their own businesses. This therefore excludes the Focus on the Family, Family Research Council, et al are still here.

One other reason is how you promote the heresy of “prosperity theology”. Rather than acting following the reality that a camel going through the eye of a needle has a better chance than the rich man has of getting into heaven, you claim that the rich are especially favoured by me. You even go so far as to falsely ignore one entire book of the Bible. Instead you lie and whine about “redistribution”, while at the same time having no problem running million dollar megachurches and living in mansions funded by the proceeds of your members. This is why pretty much everyone who is a member of a megachurch is still here.

Lastly, you promote hypocrisy and make a complete farce of the idea of being saved. You claim that once you are saved you are always saved and guaranteed to get to heaven, no matter what you do. This provides no incentive for being moral, hence you high divorce rate, rampant child abuse, and the oppression of women. This is why all fundamentalist and theocon types are still here.

For those reasons, this is why the Lunas of the world have been raptured, and why you wingnuts have not.

Have a nice tribulation.

From: God

Prepare to get a new keyboard, folks

From the Onion: NASA Completes 52-Year Mission To Find, Kill God.

It’s too funny.

Why the separation of church and state matters

It’s events like these two that show why the separation of church and state is important.

First, a Palestinian barber is facing imprisonment or execution for advocating atheism (via):

A mysterious blogger who set off an uproar in the Arab world by claiming he was God and hurling insults at the Prophet Muhammad is now behind bars — caught in a sting that used Facebook to track him down.

The case of the unlikely apostate, a shy barber from this backwater West Bank town, is highlighting the limits of tolerance in the Western-backed Palestinian Authority — and illustrating a new trend by authorities in the Arab world to mine social media for evidence.

Residents of Qalqiliya say they had no idea that Walid Husayin — the 26-year-old son of a Muslim scholar — was leading a double life.

Known as a quiet man who prayed with his family each Friday and spent his evenings working in his father’s barbershop, Husayin was secretly posting anti-religion rants on the Internet during his free time.

Now, he faces a potential life prison sentence on heresy charges for “insulting the divine essence.” Many in this conservative Muslim town say he should be killed for renouncing Islam, and even family members say he should remain behind bars for life.

The rest is after the jump.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be an agnostic

Before and after

A six–storey graven image statue of Jesus in Ohio was struck by lightning and destroyed Monday night:

MONROE – Monroe fire officials set damage at $700,000 after lighting struck and burned down a 62-foot-high Jesus Christ statue and an adjacent amphitheater at Solid Rock Church late Monday.

Police are now ticketing motorists that are slowing down on I-75 to look at the landmark, one whose construction was nearly as controversial as its destruction.

Church leaders are vowing to rebuild the iconic “King of Kings” statue – also dubbed “Touchdown Jesus” – which alone was valued at $300,000.

$300,000? What a waste of money; it’s not like it could have been spent cleaning up pollution or helping the poor or something. No surprise that this was an evangelical megechurch.

Hat tip to Personal Failure at Forever in Hell.

Parentheses

I am not an atheist; I am an agnostic. I am not sure whether God or any sort of higher power or diety exists or not, and hence I suspend judgement. I also think that this issue may eventually be resolved, and in that sense I am different from other agnostics who think that this issue is unanswerable.

However, looking at my blogroll reveals that I have atheist and theist blogs nestled there, not agnostic blogs. Why? Well, in my experience there are no quality agnostic blogs. The main reason for this appears to be that “irreligion” organizations aren’t about atheism and agnosticism so much as atheism (and agnosticism).

So much for atheists having no morals

From Unreasonable Faith: Pastor Gets Caught Lying for Jesus.