MerryAtheist Blog

The internet is awash in unscientific, stupid polls that don’t amount to anything. Which is why I refuse to acknowledge them, even when they pose the question, Would the world be better off without religion?

Really, religion is not the problem. Religion is the symptom. The disease is superstition and non-critical thinking. Eliminating religion (even if it were possible) would solve nothing until and unless humanity suddenly became better at making rational choices and thinking critically. That’s not going to happen anytime soon.

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I’ve been taking some time away from blogging to work on the main website, which explains the lack of activity here lately. Also, it’s summer, and I’ve got better things to do than sit in a hot office and put together deep and insightful tirades about religion and religious nutters (though I can’t help but notice that they don’t seem to take any time off for summer - they stay nutty all year long).

As for the web site, I’m re-configuring the look to something a bit more professional and easier on the eyes (that red background gave me a headache). Also, I’m working on some artwork / illustrations to make things a bit interesting. It’s one thing to slap up some text and call it good, but the addition of visual tidbits adds interest to the information - plus, I need the practice.

I’m working on a painting right now that focuses on the Catholic Priest Sex Scandal. I’m pretty excited about it. It’s definitely a work in progress, but here is a small detail of the larger image…

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So, PZ Myers has done it. Just like he said he would, he has desecrated a Sacred Catholic Cracker, causing much dismay and rage amongst the faithful.

The kerfluffle is rich in pathos, and no more so than on the Catholic Internets, where one finds, in alternating measures, the rabid fury of a country mob brandishing pitchforks, combined with those clutching prayer beads and feverishly fantasizing as to the perverted acts being done to their unleavened Savior. The bipolar nature of religious fervor prompted by this episode is simply amazing.

It’s also at times unintentionally hilarious, like in this post at Catholic Forums:

No really, I am DISGUSTED and DEPRESSED that someone would do something like this. We will have to say many rosaries and make many hours in front of the B.S.

It took me a few hilarious seconds before I realized that B.S. stood for Blessed Sacrament. But really, it works both ways.

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For the record, I would have sat down during this song performance as well.

A singer surprised dignitaries by singing Lift Every Voice and Sing, also known as the “black national anthem,” to the tune of The Star-Spangled Banner during the mayor’s State of the City address yesterday in Denver.

Rene Marie, who was introduced by City Council president Michael Hancock to perform the national anthem, says she made the switch without informing the mayor’s office.

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Last night, for the first time, I took a public stand against religion.

That sounds pretty dramatic.

Did I partake in a protest march?

No.

Did I call in to a religious broadcast and offer sensible, logical reasons why religion is bogus?

Um… no.

Did I challenge a politician to resist pandering to the religious for votes?

Well.. uh, no.

So, just what sort of “public stand” did I make last night?

During the seventh inning stretch of local minor-league baseball game, everyone was asked to stand and sing “God Bless America”.

I sat down.

[Read more →]

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And, well, it’s their ballpark, so they can make the rules, even if it includes banning the filming of the film Angels & Demons from Rome churches.

The Vatican has banned the makers of a prequel to The Da Vinci Code from filming in its grounds or any church in Rome, describing the work as “an offence against God”.

Angels and Demons, the latest Dan Brown thriller to be turned into a film, includes key episodes that take place in the Vatican and Rome’s churches. Archbishop Velasio De Paolis, the head of the Vatican’s Prefecture for Economic Affairs, said that Brown had “turned the gospels upside down to poison the faith”.

“It would be unacceptable to transform churches into film sets so that his blasphemous novels can be made into films in the name of business,” he said, adding that Brown’s work “wounds common religious feelings”.

The novel upon which the movie is based, is obviously fiction, but the Vatican is still smarting from the conspiracy-mongers and aging SCA members dressed in medieval garb who swallowed in whole Brown’s well-known fiction novel, The Da Vinci Code, and no-doubt would prefer using its property to promote its own historical fiction, rather than Mr. Brown’s.

Not that I blame them at all. I just find the story a teensy bit ironic.

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Maintaining moral purity is a constant battle. One needs to be always vigilant, lest one inadvertently piss off the Big Guy (BG) and lose out on a chance at heaven. And the BG is a mighty tough judge of moral character who never misses a chance to point out our failings. Among the more obscure infractions would appear to be swiping ketchup packets from restaurants for use at home.

That’s the thorny moral question posed by a concerned member at Catholic.com forums:

Is it wrong for people who take lots of ketchup packets from fast food restaurants then take them home and fill up their ketchup bottles to save money?

It must be comforting to believe in a God who can create all the matter and energy that makes up our vast universe, who by a mere thought can bring into being billions of galaxies swirling and expanding, who is also the ultimate Master of Space and Time, who is Being Itself, and is still able to find the time to be irritated by a guy who steals ketchup packets for his scrambled eggs at home.

It’s obvious that if God really does exist, he’s Omni-Obsessive-Compulsively-Disordered (OOCD).

Then again, if your moral center is so under-developed that you need the Creator of All That Is to tell you to stop stealing ketchup packets, you are more than a few french fries short of a Happy Meal.

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Got in a discussion the other day with some believers about the definition of God, and one thing they said is that God is a person. I used to believe this myself when I believed in God, but now that I’m on the other team, it seems a bit of a stretch.

It seems pretty obvious that God can’t be a person, but the more I think about it the more complicated it becomes to define just what a person is. One can’t really say God is or is not a person if one doesn’t know what a person is in the first place.

Do we define a person in pure physical terms, mental capacities, a combination, or something else? Help me out here.

What defines a person?

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