Thursday, June 28, 2012

Why atheists will never unite

In a sentence, we're too busy getting high off sniffing our own farts. Atheists think we have a monopoly on intellect. We think that we are superior to folks who can't or won't or haven't yet let go of irrational thoughts. We think that anyone who isn't like us is obviously just a moron and not worthy of respect, and may be worthy of hatred and ridicule. We think people's experiences and perspectives are only worth something if they concur with something that happened in a laboratory.

What a bunch of pricks we are.

Of course, we soothe ourselves to sleep as we swallow a philosophical placebo of "freedom." We tell ourselves, only people that agree with us can be truly free because people who have faith in irrational things are slaves. Since slavery is abominable, we fancy ourselves as freedom fighters, crusaders for rational thought and intellect. We tell ourselves that the end justifies the means, so even if we acted like pricks high on our own farts, it's all for the greater good of the world. In this way, we absolve ourselves of our sins yet we don't realize that we've enslaved ourselves in that mindset.

The mindset of, "I am right, you are wrong and I get to judge and mock you for it. We will never be friends and I will never respect you because you're obviously too stupid to be worthy of my friendship and respect," might as well be concrete walls and metal bars. We're removing ourselves from the majority of society, forming our own little gangs, and making shivs out of scraps of what we think is wisdom.

Then, just like herpes, our overinflated sense of superiority spread to other areas. What started with non-faith has migrated to politics. Because we're used to thinking alike when it comes to non-faith, we're shocked to learn that not every atheist thinks alike. Not every atheist supports the same cause. Not every atheist is a liberal. Not every atheist supports abortion. Not every atheist supports healthcare. Not every atheist is against circumcision. 

It angers and confuses us, so we fight each other, because we've all convinced ourselves we're right and infallible, and anyone who dares question that is worthy of a hearty stabbing or two. So, the liberal atheist gang attacks the libertarian atheist gang. The libertarian atheist gang attacks the communist atheist gang. The communist atheist gang attacks the socialist atheist gang. Meanwhile, the one, lone republican atheist cowers in the back corner of his cell, fearing he will be outed as a right winger and that all of the gangs will unite and slaughter him unmercifully....and he's probably right.

Yet, somehow, even with all this internal conflict, we seem to think we can go to battle as a small herd of wounded cats and claim victory over 80% of the global population. Then we wonder why we make no headway and why religious folks think we're all angry, crazy, hateful, and dangerous, but not so dangerous that we have too much of an effect on things. Sure, one or two of us might bitch about a prayer banner hanging in a public school or make a controversial billboard, but, eh....who cares? We're all going to rot in hell anyway.

While Christians hypnotize themselves into believing think they have a monopoly on compassion, forgiveness, and cute little quote books, atheists should be perfectly capable of espousing those ideas. Yet, so often we don't. We quote their book and say, "Judge not, lest ye be judged," to them, just highlight their hypocrisy, but then we quickly turn around and abandon the principle when it comes to ourselves. Worse, we do it to each other.

There aren't a lot of us in the world, at least not that are "out of the closet," yet, we don't stick together. As much as we want to stroke ourselves saying it's okay to be different, we afford the right to be different only to ourselves, which breaks us up into smaller and smaller gangs and causes more and more dispersion. We scattered ourselves about the earth, and because of our self-proclaimed "enlightenment," there we shall remain, with closed minds and closed hearts.

But, hey, look on the bright side. At least we know we're always right.






Image courtesy of http://catmacros.files.wordpress.com/, who likely stole it from someone else, who likely stole it from someone else as well. Pin It

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Germany outlaws circumcision. Is this a victory?

According to this story, German courts have banned infant circumcision because the, "fundamental right of the child to bodily integrity outweighed the fundamental rights of the parents." The procedure has not been completely banned in the country. Boys may decide for themselves later in life if they want to have the procedure done. It also can still be performed if deemed medically necessary.

While, to most atheists, and anyone with a heart and mind of their own, this should seem like a victory over religious barbarism. Unfortunately, we all know just how deeply religion has its diseased talons buried into people and just how infections that disease is as it courses through their veins. There is a sad amount of evidence from other situations that many people are willing to go beyond the law to preserve the cruelty of their faith.

Consider female genital mutilation, which is illegal in the United Kingdom. However, every year hundreds of British girls are genitally mutilated. How do they get around it? Travel or duck. During long school holidays, parents are known to send their girls off to places where the procedure is legal.

What's that, sweety? You want a pony for your birthday? Ok, but he'll have to be made of cotton!

What's to stop parents from doing the same to boys? Worse, since male circumcision can still be performed when a boy has "decided on his own" that he "wants" it done, what's to stop families and communities from pressuring boys into it? There are hundreds of ways to brainwash people into doing crazy things with a few simple tricks. Just like with female genital mutilation, advocates will manipulate scientific data to claim circumcised people are healthier, more sane, do better in school, are more sexually appealing, have MORE sexual arousal, are cleaner, etc., etc. until they have you believing you'd be cruel to deny a child all of these advantages in life.

By the way, at what point is a boy legally and developmentally old enough to decide he wants his cock chopped up?

There is no way that passing a simple law will protect victims from this act barbarism. It will just go into the back alleys and become even more dangerous and damaging. While it is still important to fight against this unnecessary act of cruelty, it must be done by information and not by force. Just like with anything else in life, if you want to influence someone, you have to make them think your idea was theirs all along. Beating them over the head with it usually makes them resist twice as hard. While, as a controversial and provocative topic, it's hard for many of us not to resort to head bashing when we discuss our thoughts on genital mutilation with others, as Maya Angelou said, "People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

On the bright side, since circumcision will still be legal for medical reasons, in order to keep cutting, people will be lining up to admit that religion is a mental illness. Pin It