Merry [Holiday]!

I have a confession to make.

I have a [Holiday] tree.

This has caused me considerable anxiety. If I grant that it’s okay to get a [Holiday] tree for no reason at all, why isn’t it okay to believe in god for no reason at all? I pondered this for quite some time before I came up with the following rationale.

The reasons one puts a tree in one’s living room (in my case, anyway) is because it’s fun to do, it’s cheery, and it makes the neighbors think I’m a normal person, not some atheist nut. The tree is not reflective of any incoherent notions of transcendent beings. I have a tree in my living room for the same reason I have photographs of people on my desk, or a painting in the hall. For me, the tree carries little undeserved import.

In the case of god, though, there are accompanying incoherent notions of transcendence, which is quite unfortunate. God doesn’t exist; there’s no one watching over you; you don’t have a guardian angel. The truth hurts, but I’m going to say that personally, I’d rather have the truth then wrap myself up in warm-fuzzy falsehoods. By contrast, the tree is neither right nor wrong; it represents no metaphysical claim; it’s just a freaking plant.

It also helps to replace the C-word* with [Holiday] whenever possible.

Merry [Holiday]!

*No, no no, not that. Christmas. Sheesh.

Making fun of chain mail, part five

This has been one of my most (or least, depending on your views) popular series, so I thought I’d continue with  it.

Yes, I do Love God.
HE is my source of existence and Savior.
He keeps me functioning each and every day. Without Him, I will be nothing. But, with Christ, HE strengthens me. (Phil 4:13)
This is the simplest test.
If You Love God… And, are not ashamed of all the marvelous things HE has done for you…
Send this to ten people and the person who sent it to you!

I don’t really have any problems with people “loving” god. I love the flying spaghetti monster, so I can absolutely relate to that particular two-place relation.

I do have a problem with the “HE is my source of existence” bit, which is completely biologically inaccurate. It’s actually quite easy to rewrite the sentence for increased scientific accuracy. The new sentence reads something like, “[Mommy and Daddy getting drunk one night] is my source of existence.”

On a similar note, it really bothers me when really sick people say things like, “God is keeping me alive.” Oh, does that mean we should stop the chemo? I found this cartoon expressing similar sentiments: http://atheistbloggers.ning.com/photo/photo/show?id=2213085%3APhoto%3A30

 ”He keeps me functioning each and every day” – I’ve seen this one before. It’s actually a pretty accurate statement, though it’s incoherently presented as a virtue. This one’s easily rewritten, too: “God is a psychological crutch I use.”

“This is the simplest test” … of … what?

And as for the marvelous things he’s done… I think I’ve addressed that one already.

This is part five in a seven-part series. Read part six here: http://beyondtheflock.wordpress.com/2009/01/05/making-fun-of-chain-mail-part-six/

Making fun of chain mail, part four

Yes, the series continues! I am having so much fun with this.

We should always have time to remember all HE has done for us.
If, You aren’t ashamed to do this…
Please follow the directions.
Jesus said, ‘If you are ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of you before my Father.’
Not ashamed?
Pass this on ONLY IF YOU MEAN IT!!

This one’s kind of hard to interpret. By “HE,” is the writer reffering to god, Jesus, the holy spirit, or all of them at once? I’ll deal first with Jesus, then with god (neglecting the holy spirit, because god seems to encompass that, whatever it is).

Ok, I’m going to try to remember all Jesus has done for me. Ready? Here we go.

• He was way ahead of his time in that he proposed important moral and ethical ideas that, one could argue, really only resurfaced some 1,800 years later with Ghandi;
• He spawned the most resiliant, widespread, dogmatic, and deluded institution the Earth has ever seen: Christianity.

Other than that: nothing. We’re talking about a guy who may or may not have lived 2,000 years ago. Realistically speaking, with that kind of temporal discontiguity, there’s probably not a whole lot going on.

Now we suppose that “HE” referrs to god. This gets a little more interesting. Mr. or Ms. Chain Mail Writer would say that god’s done a lot of stuff for me, likely including designing the universe, watching over me, blah blah blah. (Ok, not a whole lot more interesting, but still.) This one’s easy. Where’s the evidence? Never have I seen, and I expect I never will, a convincing argument that necessitating the existance of god. The universe was most likely the result of some complex interaction between various laws that govern the universe.

This can go on for another month, though. “Well, God made those laws!” whines the believer. Yeah. God’s just sitting up there with a row of dials and switches, tweaking all the universal coefficients of things so the universe works out nicely. Or, we can listen to the Albert Einstiens and Stephen Hawkings of the world. But who wants to bother with that? We can sit in our armchairs and offer arbitrary conjectures that divine beings made the world, or we can find actual, scientific data regarding the matters that we’re looking into. Yup; I’m definitely going for the armchair.

Ok. Now we’re going to work on the whole “are-you-ashamed-of-Jesus” question. I don’t think “ashamed” is really the right word. I am absolutely not ashamed of Jesus, but given my particular belief set, I suspect that I’m supposed to be. Why would I be “ashamed” of a guy who (again) may or may not have lived 2,000 years ago?

Oh, wait a minute. I’m remembering something. Yeah… There was that one time when I was in a bar, and Jesus was there, and I was trying to tell this joke, and Jesus kept interrupting and messing it up. That was really embarrasing. Ok, nevermind. I’m wrong. I am ashamed of Jesus, my friends. I am going to Hell to burn for all eternity.

… Dang.

This is part four in a seven-part series. Read part five here: http://beyondtheflock.wordpress.com/2008/12/17/making-fun-of-chain-mail-part-five/

Making fun of chain mail, part three

We try to keep God in church on Sunday morning…
Maybe, Sunday night…
And, the unlikely event of a midweek service.
We do like to have Him around during sickness….
And, of course, at funerals.
However, we don’t have time, or room, for Him during work or play…
Because.. That’s the part of our lives we think… We can, and should, handle on our own.
May God forgive me for ever thinking…
That… There is a time or place where..
HE is not to be FIRST in my life.

This is just intensely pitiful. To summarize: “We go to church on Sunday like we’re supposed to, but why aren’t we thinking about God all the rest of the time?”  Really, the writer answers his/her own question here: “Because.. That’s the part of our lives we think… We can, and should, handle on our own.” Poorly stated and poorly punctuated, but nonetheless, valid. I propose that we now observe a celebratory period of sheer delight that Mr. or Ms. Chain Mail Writer finally got something right.

That’s really all I have to say about this one. If we can handle our lives without invoking divine crutches, why not go for it? Again, forget the ancient doctrine and get on with your lives, people!

This is part three in a seven-part series. Read part four here: http://beyondtheflock.wordpress.com/2008/12/12/making-fun-of-chain-mail-part-four/

Making fun of chain mail, part two

Continuing now with the next few lines of twisted logic:

“God, when I received this e-mail, I thought…
I don’t have time for this… And, this is really inappropriate during work.
Then, I realized that this kind of thinking is…. Exactly, what has caused a lot of the problems in our world today.”

To begin, it is indeed inappropriate at work… unless, of course, the sender works at a church, in which case I suppose it would be acceptable. However, judging by the conclusion of the email, I’d say not: “This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are the property of Coldwell Banker.” Smacks of a lawsuit over religious discrimination in the workplace, does it not? Yes, it is completely inappropriate for your employer to be paying you to be “blessed” for sending out chain mail to help people “find time for God.” If you’re going to not work while you’re at work, at least find something better to do than spamming people with incoherent, dogmatic emails, for crying out loud!

Ah, but then comes the kicker: The suggestion that “this kind of thinking” has caused most of the world’s problems. This is a claim I want to look at in detail.

First, let’s look at the claim as it applies to the preceding statement. The preceding statement is, approximately, “[chain mail] is inappropriate at work.” Yes, I couldn’t agree more that not reading chain mail causes most of the world’s problems. I mean, there is solid evidence that shows that global warming is the direct result of not enough chain mail forwarding. Indeed, poverty, war, famine, and disease are all undoubtedly the results of ignorant email users that don’t pass on their chain mail like they should. (Surely I don’t need to take this further?)

Then there’s the less obvious incoherence. “I don’t have time for this.” Now, the claim the writer was apparently trying to make here was this: People “not having time for” God causes a lot of the world’s problems. Ok, let’s think here. Suicide bombers have time for God. The 9/11 terrorists had time for God. Witch-hunters had more than enough time for God. Nomadic “holy men” wandering around convincing the ill to stop taking their medicines and follow Jesus instead have lots of time for God. I could go on.

“But,” smirks the believer, “I only meant my religion, the Christian religion, the right version of the Christian religion, where we choose the nicest bits out of the Bible and focus on those, and leave creationism, and stoning, and hell, and those sorts of things to one side and offer ‘interpretations’ of them.” Well, okay. I will wholeheartedly grant that if everyone in the world “had time for God” in the sense that they were tolerant, accepting, loving, compassionate, and reasoned, the world would be a better place. But at that point, why even bother going to church on Sunday? Why bother with having time for God? Can one not be a tolerant, accepting, loving, compassionate, and reasoned individual without lugging 2,000 years of absurd and irrelevant doctrine behind? In fact, couldn’t one be more compassionate, loving, etc, without the extra baggage of having to keep His Godliness happy? Aren’t charities like the Red Cross more effective at what they do than are church groups who find that they have to spend their money on pews and alters? In short, yes, maybe if we twist religion into precisely what we want it to be, it’s a useful tool, but it would be far more effective to just throw the whole mess out the window and live our lives free of dogmatic, erroneous religious thought.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

This is part two in a seven-part series. Read part three here: http://beyondtheflock.wordpress.com/2008/12/11/making-fun-of-chain-mail-part-thre/