If it seems like a lot of this list is directed towards Christianity (when I use that term, I'm including ALL the factions of Christianity. Not just the Fundies.) That's pretty fucking astute of you! It's my list, and I'll write it how I see fit. Thing is, I don't have very many Muslims knocking down my door trying to convert me. I do however steadfastly believe that the fundamental tenets of Islam as they are being practiced today are disgusting and disturbing as well. I've also yet to meet a person from any of the Hindu religions that apply to these reasons.
10.- You think you're doing me a favor by telling me how god has worked miracles and blessed you in your life.
Listen, I can appreciate that you have some great shit going on, but you have not been blessed by god with a kick ass T.V. It's annoying and it discounts the hard work and effort (Not to mention a shit ton of other circumstances that come into play.) it takes to successfully achieve goals we set. You can't even agree on which god is the "real" god, so who's really getting the blessing anyway? Keep it to yourself, and I promise I won't tell you how hard I had to work to earn the shit I got. Okay? Thanks.
9.- God Bless you.
NO, I'm not going to thank you when you say "god bless you" after I sneeze. I'm also probably not going to mention or acknowledge any of your awkward bodily functions. It's an antiquated saying. Demons aren't entering or exiting my body through my nose. It's a sneeze, nothing more, nothing less. A jab (albeit mostly unintentional) most of us atheists tend to take with minor disdain, all the way up to a full blown "fuck you" attitude. Trust me, I'm not some PC asshole but how would you feel if I told your kid when he sneezes- "god is a lie." Rude, huh? Let's just leave my burps, farts, sneezes, wheezes, coughs, and any other unusual noise emanating from my body alone.
8.- Christian rock. Are you serious?
The bible is filled with scripture regarding the dangers of emulating the things of the world, and yet how do you explain Stryper? Stay out of our loud, dangerous, hedonistic music, and we won't pogo in your church! How bout some christian sex, christian drugs, and christian rock and roll, sounds pretty fucking boring. You don't get to talk shit about AC/DC while trying to convince me X-Sinner is somehow okay.
7.- Halloween and Christmas.
Speaking of things of the world, stay outta these Holidays! Jesus is not the reason for the season. The reasons are an amalgamation of a shit ton of pagan traditions! Some of these traditions are totally harmless, some are more then just a little "They did WHAT?" The same goes for Halloween. I know this spins off of number 8 a bit, but I want to make it clear- having a "harvest festival" on Halloween is lame. Get in or get out. Just quite telling me how immoral I am when every time I turn around you're doing the same shit, just renaming it...
6.- Trying to convince me that the United States of America was founded on Christian values.
While I agree that this country was founded on inherently christian values, I'm sure we'll disagree on what those are. Entitled white men condoning slavery and misogyny sounds pretty Christian to me, but I'm sure most cookie cutter christians would have a fit at the thought (maybe not though). The majority of the founding fathers where decidedly and openly not "Christians." Do some homework, and shut the fuck up about it.
5.- Religious people wondering why I'm so angry.
Right off the bat, they're right. I am angry. I'm pissed off that in this day and age 1/3 of this country (93.6 million*) believe the bible to be literally correct. Another 146.5 million* believe it's the inspired word of god. Now personally I don't give two shits about what kind of crazy stories you decide to live your life by. It's when those beliefs dictate policy, procedure and inevitably law in my country, state, county or city that I begin to have a problem. Nearly 75% of the population dictating law based on archaic writings with no regard for modern medicine or science? WOW. To quote a line from a favorite song of mine "Majority rule, don't work in mental institutions." But mention that a country in the Middle East that is predominantly Muslim wanting to implement Sharia Law (that shit is just as bad kids)and watch the Christians go nuts! Yeah, I'm pretty pissed and I'm betting you still don't know why.
4.- Telling me that Atheism sounds like a religion as well.
I'm not going to get crazy about this one. Just think about this- how bout we come up with a word for not being a plumber, lets call it notaplumber. Now lets call not being a plumber an occupation. Are you still with me? I am notaplumber. See, now I have a job not being a plumber. Asshats. What about my tax exempt status for being a religion? Fuck yeah you can call it a religion if I get the same tax exemptions! Wait, what's that? Oh, it's not a religion after all. Fuck you very much.
3.- Your kids telling my kid he's stupid for not believing in a god.
This one makes me want to smack some sense into your kids too! Please stop filling your childrens' sponge like little minds with threats of damnation, suffering, and pain. With ideas of intolerance, bigotry and hate. Then you wrap it up in a nice big ole' blanket of love and forgiveness? Fuck that. Plain and simple. Kids can be mean and spiteful without tossing in some of "gods love." My kid certainly isn't stupid for asking questions or thinking it's silly that he came from some rib woman in a garden way back when.
2.- Praying, but more specifically praying for ME.
The irony must be lost upon you. If you don't care enough to offer some sort of real help, then please don't insult me by offering to do what equates to nothing. Need some help moving this weekend? How bout I pray those boxes get to your new place. There, done. Now can we drink some beers? I usually give a pass to those who don't know me well enough, but I will (when I can) let people know I don't buy into it. It just sucks to have to play polite about this shit at work where I know it would be detrimental to expose my beliefs (or lack there of). I think I'll try to handle my issue or dilemma with a little bit more enthusiasm, than with psychic messages to some omnipotent being who has made it clear in his story book that he's doing shit his way no matter what. My dad used to ask me "Son, if you wish in one hand and shit in the other, which hand do you think is gonna fill up first?" Change wish to pray and now you begin to know how I feel.
1.- Faggots, Queers, Homos, Dykes, Lesbos, Transgenders-
Your hate mongering, homophobic books and teachings inspire and elicit insidious acts. Cruelty, violence, intolerance- these are the brass tacks of your ideals. Your religions of love quickly turn to hate as soon as you find out who is sticking what, where. Bullying is psychologically devastating thousands of teens and young adults. Want to know where kids are learning this cowardly tactic? Church, home, and school. Gays and lesbians aren't brainwashing your children, YOU are. Look, I'm not saying that you still can't hate gays. You have a right to be as ignorant and bigoted as you want, right? But try and remember that god (of any variety) isn't allowed to make policy or law in this country. Check out the 1st Amendment in that same Constitution you're always screaming about when it comes to your guns! Picking and choosing what is important as it pertains to your agenda is typical. Christians do it to their own bible all the time. Please stop confusing your beliefs with facts. Get on board with equal rights, or I'm buying a lion.
* http://www.gallup.com/poll/27682/onethird-americans-believe-bible-literally-true.aspx
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
The joys of being a Atheist/Punker/Dad
Lets just say that I love it! It is however, becoming more and more apparent to me that I need to temper my opinions with a greater sense of fairness. You see, my son is just starting to get to a point in his life where he is seeing things in the world as being connected. We have these awesome conversations after I get home from work about what he's doing in school. Being 12 years old and in 7th grade, he's really just getting introduced to the cool stuff in science, and to broader ideas in history. These subjects just happen to be high up on my list of things I think are really cool, and he's taking to them with an enthusiasm that makes my chest swell!
Here's where it gets tricky, and I sometimes over think myself. Am I smothering his interests by unintentionally projecting my own ideas and opinions onto him? Most of the time I don't think so, but it's something I have to be constantly aware of. If I where a practicing Muslim, Christian, Catholic, Protestant or Baptist (I think you can see where I'm going) I wouldn't have to worry about it at all. I would be parenting out of which ever holy scripture went along with my chosen deity. That just seems like some lazy parenting to me. Going that route would also relieve me of any personal responsibility to what kind of person he becomes, right? I was just passing along the information! Maybe my kid must not have been good enough to deserve the grace of [insert deity here]!
The flip side of that coin is I also have to be very aware of how I share my opinions with him. I will always try to be honest with him, but I try to make sure that he knows when I'm sharing my opinion and encourage him to look into it and make up his own mind. It's a trip to watch documentaries or talk about current events with him and hear him tell me what he thinks. Sometimes he blows me away with the insight he has! Sometimes he's so naive and idealistic I just wanna ruffle his hair and tell him I love him! The bottom line is I have to ALWAYS be aware of what I'm putting out there for him to absorb. It is a pain in the ass to espouse free thinking while trying to maintain any type of a monocratic nuclear family!
My son is openly atheist. But I allowed him to come to this on his own. Trust me when I tell you that for a few years, that was not easy to do. He was raised in a secular environment. This wasn't done intentionally as much as it was just done. It wasn't until 5th grade that he was indoctrinated into Christianity. A friend from his school attended the local non-denominational Calvary style church and frequently invited my son to attend. I utterly and completely despise these vile, despicable piece of shit parents who use their own children to lure in other children so they can proselytize young, trusting, defenseless minds (this is the reason why I feel like I need to be hyper-diligent about sharing my opinions with my kids). For weeks after his mother broke the news that our son had decided he was now a Christian, I had to resist the urge to find these parents and kick some ass.
Cooler heads prevailed, and I spent the better part of the next two years biting my tongue to respect his new view on life. I never stopped being honest with him when he asked me if, and eventually why I didn't believe in his god, yet all the while being careful not to make him feel belittled or dumb. That's tough to do when it comes to a subject like this, we're not talking favorite football teams here! It took a while, but he eventually got tired of hearing that his dad was going to hell if he didn't accept Jesus as his own personal savior. He would ask me "Dad, why do you want to go to hell"? and I would ask him if he thought I was a bad person, and if he thought I should go to hell. It opened up some really good dialogue. Seems his biggest fear was burning in hell (no shit) and not fully understanding what it was I believed. He's a bright kid, and constantly makes me proud.
It's not all walks in park and root beer floats when you don't have a big scary place like hell to threaten you kids with. It's never easy to have to face a problem and agonize over the solution. I have to use critical thinking-GASP-and reason(tsk, tsk, tsk) to figure out how to be a good parent. Fuck, you know what else works? Parenting by example! Ya want honest kids? Be honest! Ya want your kids to be kind to other kids? Don't treat other people like shit! It seems pretty obvious, right? With those tools, a whole lot of love and the help and advice from my wonderful wife, why the hell would I do something as useless as praying my kids turn out to be good people.
Here's where it gets tricky, and I sometimes over think myself. Am I smothering his interests by unintentionally projecting my own ideas and opinions onto him? Most of the time I don't think so, but it's something I have to be constantly aware of. If I where a practicing Muslim, Christian, Catholic, Protestant or Baptist (I think you can see where I'm going) I wouldn't have to worry about it at all. I would be parenting out of which ever holy scripture went along with my chosen deity. That just seems like some lazy parenting to me. Going that route would also relieve me of any personal responsibility to what kind of person he becomes, right? I was just passing along the information! Maybe my kid must not have been good enough to deserve the grace of [insert deity here]!
The flip side of that coin is I also have to be very aware of how I share my opinions with him. I will always try to be honest with him, but I try to make sure that he knows when I'm sharing my opinion and encourage him to look into it and make up his own mind. It's a trip to watch documentaries or talk about current events with him and hear him tell me what he thinks. Sometimes he blows me away with the insight he has! Sometimes he's so naive and idealistic I just wanna ruffle his hair and tell him I love him! The bottom line is I have to ALWAYS be aware of what I'm putting out there for him to absorb. It is a pain in the ass to espouse free thinking while trying to maintain any type of a monocratic nuclear family!
My son is openly atheist. But I allowed him to come to this on his own. Trust me when I tell you that for a few years, that was not easy to do. He was raised in a secular environment. This wasn't done intentionally as much as it was just done. It wasn't until 5th grade that he was indoctrinated into Christianity. A friend from his school attended the local non-denominational Calvary style church and frequently invited my son to attend. I utterly and completely despise these vile, despicable piece of shit parents who use their own children to lure in other children so they can proselytize young, trusting, defenseless minds (this is the reason why I feel like I need to be hyper-diligent about sharing my opinions with my kids). For weeks after his mother broke the news that our son had decided he was now a Christian, I had to resist the urge to find these parents and kick some ass.
Cooler heads prevailed, and I spent the better part of the next two years biting my tongue to respect his new view on life. I never stopped being honest with him when he asked me if, and eventually why I didn't believe in his god, yet all the while being careful not to make him feel belittled or dumb. That's tough to do when it comes to a subject like this, we're not talking favorite football teams here! It took a while, but he eventually got tired of hearing that his dad was going to hell if he didn't accept Jesus as his own personal savior. He would ask me "Dad, why do you want to go to hell"? and I would ask him if he thought I was a bad person, and if he thought I should go to hell. It opened up some really good dialogue. Seems his biggest fear was burning in hell (no shit) and not fully understanding what it was I believed. He's a bright kid, and constantly makes me proud.
It's not all walks in park and root beer floats when you don't have a big scary place like hell to threaten you kids with. It's never easy to have to face a problem and agonize over the solution. I have to use critical thinking-GASP-and reason(tsk, tsk, tsk) to figure out how to be a good parent. Fuck, you know what else works? Parenting by example! Ya want honest kids? Be honest! Ya want your kids to be kind to other kids? Don't treat other people like shit! It seems pretty obvious, right? With those tools, a whole lot of love and the help and advice from my wonderful wife, why the hell would I do something as useless as praying my kids turn out to be good people.
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