Brand New Atheist

Karen and I just finished watching Troy the movie and what’s of most interest to me is how they portray the worst decision made based of their belief in Apollo. A God that no one today believes in.

If you look at the world today you see people making bad decisions based on their belief in God. A God who doesn’t even have a name. It would be like naming your dog “JD” for just dog.

I’m telling all of you believers out there, one day, when future civilizations look back upon your beliefs, they will criticize the decisions you made based on a God that no one believes in. I sincerely hope we are beyond the point where future civilizations will believe in any God at all. History has shown that we are almost there. Think of all the prior civilizations and the large number of Gods they believed in. The number of Gods kept getting smaller and smaller until the majority today are only hanging on to what I hope is the last one.

I tried to get a Caramel Frappuccino earlier today. Since the closest coffee shop (Coffee Crossing, yes their logo is a cross) is closed for all religious holidays, I went to Target to get me a Frap. To my surprise they were closed. It was almost as bad a Christmas day, most stores were closed. So I went to Bass Pro Shop because they have a Starbucks, and they were open.

I’m very surprised that large chains like Target would close any day. You can always find someone to work when someone else won’t. And why do these stores or our government for that matter care what your personal religious beliefs are? Wouldn’t it be easier to treat everyone the same in a secular manner and let them practice their personal beliefs on their own time.

As the population of atheists grow in America, we will be able to remove these annoying restrictions that religious people have created that affect everyone. Because your religious holidays mean nothing to me, the same way other countries religious days don’t mean anything to American christians.

This is my first Easter as an atheist.

First I’m going to explain what Easter means to me now, then I’m going to look it up online.

Before Research: Easter is the one day a year that children hunt artificial or boiled and painted eggs. It seems to have no relevance to adults. Why does Easter exist? I have no idea. Is Easter related to some other event? None that I’m aware of. I look at Easter and Halloween as very similar. Kids gets candy. Easter has never meant more than kids and candy to me.

After Research: Easter is the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus three days after he was killed. I didn’t know that but it doesn’t really surprise me. Easter is also linked to Passover. As far as I’m concerned Easter will remain about kids and candy. If I can age 36 years in America and not know what Easter meant then it doesn’t deserve more than a colored goose egg.

Have ever wanted to kill the Devils ass? Or maybe open a can of whupass on Eve for eating that fruit.

Well now you can in Bible Fight. The first rule of Bible Fight is, you do not talk about Bible Fight.

This is my first Saint Patrick’s Day as an atheist.

First I’m going to explain what Saint Patrick’s Day means to me now, then I’m going to look it up online.

Before Research: Saint Patrick’s Day is the one day a year that Americans pinch each other for not wearing green. People also like to make things green that normally wouldn’t be. Why does Saint Patrick’s Day exist? I have no idea. Is Saint Patrick’s Day related to some other event? None that I’m aware of. I assume Saint Patrick’s Day is something they celebrate in Ireland and we do it here just for fun.

After Research: Saint Patrick’s Day turns out to be religious. Are you serious? I thought it was about a place or a thing, it never occurred to me that it was an actual person. I was partly correct, it’s celebrated in Ireland. The story of Saint Patrick’s Day isn’t very interesting either. The day was mostly over before I even knew it was Saint Patrick’s Day. And it still doesn’t mean anything to me.

Last night Karen and I watched “Stargate: The Ark of Truth”, this was the first time I really noticed how much religion plays a part in Sci-fi. Most of the bad guys in Stargate are false Gods. But they have people worship them and they have books to live by. The Gauld were more hands on but the Ori were more inline with the religions in the world today. They had their holy book and if you didn’t worship you would spend eternity in hell fire. Very original.

I think what amazes me most is how I watched this show for 10 years and never thought about it’s relationship to real religion. Now it seems almost comical. The crazy stuff they come up with isn’t any less crazy than the real stuff. Have you seen the drama with Scientology.

Even the robots in Battlestar Gallactica “Praise the Gods.”

I wonder if almost all Sci-fi writers are atheists? One of my favorite Sci-fi writers, Joss Whedon, is an atheist. He produced the awesome TV series Buffy and Firefly.

In their latest podcast the guys over at Amercian Freethought, John Snider and David Driscoll, discuss Pi and a letter I sent them about publishing this site.

They do a great job of answering my questions (they previously answered in private) which many of you may have also thought about asking.

If you are an atheist and want to share your thoughts, please don’t be afraid. Nothing worth having comes easy.

I sometimes am judgmentally challenged. I tend to think that many high level politicians actually make decisions with my best interests in mind. That is their job, right?

It doesn’t matter if you’re atheist, christian or muslim, the more I learn about our government the more I realize these high level politicians aren’t as concerned about my rights, as they are their inflated salaries. It’s amazing that politicians live a better life (financially) than 99% of the people they are making decisions for. Even after receiving an inflated salary from the tax payers the same high level politicians will make decisions favoring big business rather than the people.

Not only are they paid well, but they do it without having to do their job. Their job is to do what’s right for the people. It’s only a small number of them but it’s enough when one of them is the President.

So who are these high level politicians? We can start with the President of the United States of America. If Homeland Security reads that they will probably flag me as a Domestic Terrorist. Simply for speaking out against the government. Yes, Homeland Security violates many of your inalienable rights.

You see, as American citizens you have your constitutional rights (inalienable), those rights are not given to you by the government. Many people willing give them away because they don’t understand what government is doing or how the government works. Most people believe their rights are provided by the government, this is false.

So who are the rest of these politicians that are not doing what’s best for the people? (here I go again) It’s probably a relatively small group, the Clinton’s, it’s certainly not the majority but it’s enough to mess with your state of living.

I get the feeling the only reason we went to war in Iraq is because they walked on George W. Bushes Daddy’s face at the Al-Rashid Hotel.

I try to vote for the one that I think is concerned for the right of the people. I’m so glad Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee are out, I guess God didn’t want them to be president or have Huckabee change the constitution. I voted for Ross Perot twice because he made sense to me. This time it’s a toss up between Ron Paul and Barack Obama. John McCain, does the constitution change meaning when read by a christian? McCain thinks so.

I voted for Bush twice, so sometimes I’m definitely Judgmentally Challenged.

This is a great article for those of you who are just beginning to get your bearings in atheism and those of you who have preconceived notions about atheism.

My favorite misconception of religious people is that morals come from the Bible.

Los Angeles Times Original Article Link

It doesn’t matter how you say it, The Son of God, The Sun of God, The Sun God, God of the Sun, God’s Son or God’s Sun.

I haven’t done much research on this but it’s crossed my mind several times. Many civilizations worshipped the Sun. It seems to me that the Sun may be the most worshipped item ever. If you think about this coincidence it’s almost seems farfetched. Of all the things Jesus represents, he just happens to be called the son of God. Think of the things he or she could have been called or referred to as. Mother, Father, daughter, King, Queen, proper name. There are many more examples of what the name or reference could have been. But of all the possible references it just happens to phonetically the same as Sun. That’s a pretty big coincidence.

Christmas was the hijacking of an existing Winter celebration (The Winter Solstice). Jesus’ life is littered with plagiarism from previous prophets. Unicorns, really?

Now take into account that Mary was not a virgin, but a maiden (mistranslation, look it up) and you have a man, “Jesus”, who was born to a man and a woman (if in fact this individual ever existed) not the immaculate conception (a product of the original mistranslation) that is claimed in the current translations of the Bible.

You can begin to see that the current beliefs of Christians are founded in plagiarism, mistranslated text and Bible books that have been selectively removed (Book of Judas and Book of Jasher).

Why can Christians read the Bible and see the mistakes (the Earth is not the center of the universe) yet think other parts are without error? Even a simple story of the Bible will be taken as a exact representation of the real story. This doesn’t make sense, if any part of the Bible is in error, then that proves that any other part of the Bible can also be in error.

I’ve begun to understand that Karen doesn’t care what the Bible says. What I mean by that is she’s not concerned about the accuracy of the Bible. She believes in a personal God. I’m not really sure how you can separate God from the Bible because without the Bible there is no God. Regardless of any inaccuracies I point out in the Bible it doesn’t affect her relationship with her personal God. I understand it but I don’t think it makes sense. The only way I can relate is to imagine an imaginary friend that you love like a real person.

Now we have the problem of God and Jesus. If you can only speak to God through Jesus and the Bible is wrong about Jesus then how do you know what to believe? What I’ve found is that most Christians simply believe whatever comforts them. So the nuances between two Christians beliefs are small and the main difference is that each is comforted by something different. I don’t think it’s even possible to convince a Christian that something they take comfort in could be in error.

So who or what do you believe in?