The Antichristian Phenomenon

This evening on the phone, my younger brother confided in me that he was becoming an atheist, and that it was my fault.

His previous silence on the topic was certainly enough that I could not draw a definitive conclusion as to what he was really thinking.   Now that my mom is pretty sure that I’ve “fallen”, even though I’ve never outright admitted my beliefs (or lack of), and the only one currently at arm’s length is my poor sibling, she’s taking on the task of ensuring that he stays the faith, and her efforts are having the opposite effect.  At first I did worry that he was simply being influenced by my cousin and myself, but after a bit of discussion, I’ve determined that he’s reached his own conclusions, and isn’t just copy-catting the cool “big kids”.

Now I’m sending over a huge list of beginner-atheist materials.  Any suggestions for him I may have overlooked?
(Yes, I recommended the God Delusion and God is not Great, so I don’t want to see 20 posts of those)

Congrats, little Jedi.

I’ve recently been getting a lot of people calling me on my cell phone who spoof their numbers.  In the fall, I had some Christian Video organization prank calling me 3 times a day for weeks.  No one answered when I picked up the phone, so there was no way to complain, the only way I found out what was going on was by Googling the number.

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I know this is a bit after the fact, but for various reasons I was not on the internet much over the holidays, mostly because my grandmother does not have internet, and that’s where I was.

By going to my Grandmother’s house over the Christmas Holiday, I was obligated to attend Mass on Christmas Eve.  She is deeply religious and my mother will do anything to ensure that I do not break her illusion of god-fearing grandchildren.  I have reason to believe she fears that my irreligous state will reflect poorly on her parenting, but that is the topic of another article.

Returning to church was somewhat of a landmark for me, as I used to attend mass very regularly throughout my childhood and through High School, but since escaping off to University, it had been a full year since I last set foot inside a church of any kind.  I did not even attend Easter Mass last year, as I did not go home for Spring Break and as a result there was no obligation.  However there was not much of an option in this circumstance.  I decided to mentally take note of how a full year of separation and a rapidly declining faith changes the impression of Mass, and create a little write-up for the ACP.  Oh yes, and this is a Roman Catholic Mass, by the way.

First, the preparation.  I do remember Christmas Eve mass used to be a very big deal when I was a young child.  My mom would take us out shopping to purchase a new outfit for the occasion (the same happened for Easter Mass), as generally I had outgrown my past year’s dress, and in years I hadn’t… what a travesty to wear the same dress two years in a row!  Also we generally attended Mass at the church in my hometown so this was my first experience with Christmas Eve mass at any church other than that one.  Getting ready for Christmas Eve Mass in the past also generally included curling hair and dolling up a bit, because God cares that you dress up for this specific Mass.  No really, he does.  You have to be a step above normal Mass because this is a Holiday, he’ll probably send you to hell if you attend in jeans without your hair styled.  At least, that was the impression that I got from my parents and the other members of my congregation…

Fortunately, my mom has been a bit lax in what I have been allowed to wear over the past few years, but since it was my Grandmother’s church, she was a bit more strict, but at least I could wear dress pants.  I sincerely hope that none of the readers here can sympathize with this sort of foolishness.  Perhaps in the future I will write an article about church “Dress Codes”…  Regardless, I was able to get away with my Thor’s Hammer necklace (I don’t think my mom understands what it means, or why I wear it anyway), a thin scarf with skulls and crossbones all over it, and simply run a brush through my hair.  That’s right, no hair spray OR curling irons.  So far, this whole church thing is not quite as bad as I remember.  I stuff Richard Dawkins’ “River Out of Eden” in my coat pocket and wait forever for everyone else to get ready.  There was a special on the History Channel about giant man-eating Anacondas to watch while I waited, which was pretty awesome.  I’m probably going to Youtube it later, it was that cool (here it is!).  Apparently Florida is having this problem with Burmese Pythons that escaped during the hurricanes and… oh yeah, church.

We helped my grandparents into our van, and drove off into the cold.  (Un?)Fortunately due to my grandfather’s current state of health we were able to use their handicapped tag and parked right next to the doors and a life-size, very ugly Nativity set.  Some things don’t change between churches and the horrific Nativity displays are one of them.  I swear they use the cheapest plaster and paint, and hire the worst sculptors and painters to create these absurdities, and then proceed to light them rather unflatteringly, to make them look even WORSE than they already are.  We helped my grandparents into the church, and as a young man (who would be the lector) opened the door for us I was nearly bowled over with an overwhelming stench, that brought back decades of anxiety and anger.  Incense.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the smell of some incenses.  If my room mates happen to be smoking cigarettes downstairs, I light up a bit of the sweet perfume in the center of my floor to drown it out and relax.  However, the Catholic Church must have some business deal with a company out there to be the exclusive provider of their full line of shoddy, cheap aromas.  A while back, the Church I attended in my hometown purchased different incense, that smelled sweet and pleasant, but since then, they have been purchasing the same disgusting scent my Grandmother’s church used that night.  I closed my eyes to let the brief nausea pass and followed my family to a pew that was in the second row from the front, in front of a smaller Nativity set, equally as hideous.  I refused to genuflect and marched to my seat near the end.  Already I was feeling a little bit uncomfortable, but I had some time to kill as we arrived about 45 minutes early to get a seat so I calmed my nerves by reading about the “utility factor” of male to female births and whether a son or daughter would be advantageous in various animal species in terms of passing down DNA and ensuring descendants.  Fascinating.  Not Church related at all either.

The building began filling up rather quickly and about 20 minutes before Mass started, a choir began to sing various Christmas carols.  I relearned exactly why I disliked organ music… Overall the music quality was sadly lacking.  At this point, my dad leaned over and pointed out that there was a random girl in the nativity scene, the first either of us had seen that was not the Virgin Mary.  She was carrying a pitcher of water, and wearing a red apron, which seemed to have the breasts emphasized with a white highlight.  Good job on being politically correct.  There was also some random half-naked Amish guy, I don’t know what he was supposed to be… a shepherd maybe?  With the cheesy nativity scene, christmas lights, trees, choir, and happy organist, I could only think of one word to describe the atmosphere, and no pun intended of course: gaudy.  And the priest hadn’t even entered the scene yet!!

I missed the Procession as my nose was still buried in Dawkins, but when I finished the page I discovered that I was standing up and the priest was giving the greeting.  The time that passed between the introduction and the first reading are jsut a blur, a testament to how good I got at tuning out the mass in the years before.  Then the lector had to go and piss me off.

He was a young, attractive man, no more than three years my senior or one year my junior.  Isaiah 9:2-7 was the reading, though I imagine it might have been edited slightly, as I have found that in-Church readings always seem to say exactly what the preachers want them to… out of their biblical context.  His voice was firm, but slight wavers betrayed his nervousness.  About the time he reached the boots of warriors and cloaks rolled in blood, his voice picked up a malicious sneer, and his eyes flashed with arrogance and blind zealotry until the last line; “The ZEAL of the Lord of hosts WILL accomplish this.” OH?  When exactly?  Last I checked, our world was still war-torn and stricken with everything BUT peace.  Oh yeah, I almost forgot, he meant after the second coming and heaven and stuff, which is apparently sometime soon, and has been “sometime soon” for the past 2000 or so odd years.  And everyone forgets why these sorts of verses were really written in the first place.  Here’s a hint, it has something to do with Jews and captivity… not Jesus.

After another really bad musical interlude, the lector stood back up on the podium, a bit more confident this time, and a lot more arrogant.  The second reading was from the Letters somewhere (of course), but my ability to tune out nonsense prevailed and all I can remember is an overwhelming desire to punch the lector in his smug face… or at least stand up and scream “BULL SHIT!” but my grandmother was there and I mustn’t make her look bad.

Then the Gospel, yay… Of course, it was some version of the Christmas story, shepherds in the fields and angels singing, and all that nonsense.  I’ve always wanted them to recount the two stories right next to each other to see if anyone notices the discrepancies…  But regardless, it was homily time.  I worked hard to pay attention, as usually this would be the time I’d imagine dragons crashing through the stained glass windows with the mission of carrying me off to fantasyland, and paying attention was really really hard.  The homily was an anecdote about the Children’s mass a few hours earlier, where he asked Children questions about Christmas and Church.  I think it was supposed to be touching and funny?  The priest made sure to lay on a bit of guilt, tell everyone they need to be reborn for the next year, try to sin less, and think about others in the holiday season.  I was pretty sure I’d heard the homily before actually, and it reminded me of the recent ACP aricle on the same topic.  He also told a mind-numbingly stupid stock story about a girl who bought a hair comb for her grandmother to illustrate some point about giving and selflessness, and finally it was over.

Which meant we moved to the second half of mass: Liturgy of the Eucharist.  Originally I had intended on not taking Eucharist, but the fact that we went to my grandmother’s church changed that plan, and I walked through the motions as I had for many years.  The beginning of the second liturgy is an excessively long series of prayers and rituals (all of which I have memorized) mostly carried out by the priest as the congregation kneels.  I refused to kneel, and instead sat forward in my seat.  I will do a number of things to maintain an image, but I will never kneel at the altar of a dead god.  The very act of kneeling is at its heart degrading.  Instead my mind wandered, storming in discust and rage at what I had witnessed thus far around as the familiar words bounced around my skull.  Nothing new.  My resentment and anger built as the rituals carried on, and I felt thoroughly gross after shaking everyone around me’s grimy, dirty hand.

When everything was prepared, and the crackers and juice properly Jesus-ified, we filed around to recieve our divine snack.   I actually have always enjoyed the taste of the crackers they dish out, symbolic caniballism aside, so this was not the most painful part of the mass, and instead of kneeling to pray afterwards I returned to Out of Eden to read about the mating habits of salmon.  The word “SEX” was printed no less than 10 times across the page, referring to both gender and the act of mating, so I hope the nice happy family behind me was approprately disturbed as they leaned half across my seat in prayer.  “OMG SEX IN CHRUCH! BLAFSMEMEY!”

Unfortunately my brother copy-catted me and pulled his book out too, so my dad quickly chastized us for our inappropriate behavior and I was left with nothing to do but listen to more Christmas carols and stare at the random nativity-scene milkmaid’s prominent breasts and wonder why the craftsmen felt the need to make them so… obvious…  Eventually the priest allowed everyone to sit again and began the closing procedure (This mass has ended, go in peace!  “THANKS be to God!”).  It seemed to end rather abruptly, but I suspect that was my incredible tune-out ability at work yet again. Regardless we went back to my grandmother’s, and ate a lot of ham.

Now a few closing comments.

One of the realizations I reached while ignoring the priest during the prayers was that every single Antichristian should attend Church once in a while.  It can be easy to forget just how real and imminent the delusion is, and arrogant lectors and homilies serve to help keep the flames burning.  I left that mass renewed, though not in the way the priest intended… instead I was renewed in my passion to move towards total eradication of such nonsense, to oppose it with every fiber of my being.  I also realized that in the short year between masses, I had gone from a mushy agnostic-atheist-kinda-still favoring some fluffy God concept and maybe-all-religions-have-a-puzzle-piece-of-wisdom to something pretty close to a miltant athiest.  That’s quite a change to mull over, I haven’t fully digested my thoughts on the matter yet, I’ll get back to you when I do.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a good Holiday season!

This past weekend, Cleric and I decided to relax and watch a couple movies… something fun, maybe kind of bad, with lots of explosions.  We’re both Sci-fi buffs, as was his friend D., who was over, so we decided to whip out the Starship Troopers Trilogy.  The first one was great; the second was a botched attempt at making the series into horror, and the third… a catastrophe—acting, lips, and special effects aside.

When religion and cinema mix, it must be a tasteful blend, or one risks alienating part of the intended audience.  It is clear that there was a distinct purpose for mixing religion into SSTIII, but it was done so distastefully that I felt the need to get up several times to get more popsicles.  Not that I was particularly hungry, or too warm, I just couldn’t stand what I was seeing… and I sat through Expelled.  What went wrong?  Lets start from the top. **Severe Spoilers ahead.  Not like you’d actually want to watch anyway, but if you do for some bizarre reason, watch before reading.** (more…)

This is an anecdote about some protesters in front of Planned Parenthood today.  Hilarity and ignorance ensues. (more…)

This summer I have been taking a few classes at the Community College in my hometown, one of which was an online Macroeconomics course. A few of you who have been reading my personal blog as of late have read at least a portion of my recent bind in this class, but I think the general ACP readers will find interest in the full story, accounted in full and in order.

Most of us never really think much of the stories about teachers and professors espousing their religious beliefs and actively discriminating until it happens directly to you. I didn’t think it would happen, or could happen, and especially not in an economics course. Yet, here are the events… (more…)

Gematria is an attempt to validate the Bible and seek hidden revelations within using mathematical codes. It can be quite fascinating, even if it doesn’t prove much. If you want to learn more about Gematria, there are lots of interesting sources to Google, I don’t feel like writing about it right now.

I stumbled across a site that would apply the rules of Gematria to any website, so I put in the ACP. Here are our results:

So, apparently we are… good? Is that a good or bad thing?

Though, 77 is the holiest number possible with a range of 1-100..

We seem to have some high-rolling phrases, such as “”wouldn’t it be much cooler if jesus had a magic wand and shouted “you shall not pass” at those bloody green-skinned romans?“” worth 7826 points, “face it, even if you think that your brilliant theory on equidistant letter sequences will abso-fucking-lutely prove the biblical inerrancy beyond the shadow of a doubt, and even if you’ve worded it in a way that you cannot see any obvious holes, you cannot expect random people on the internet to sit and read a subject that they’re pretty certain is wrong.” worth 30870, and “widgettitle, .” worth 1169… for one made-up word.

Gematriculator ftw.

(Update as I play around with it
“Theory of Evolution, Charles Darwin” is 96% evil, while “Intelligent Design” is 99% good! I’ve seen the light!! Creationism and ID only for me from now on.)

I debated whether or not to put this under the DC series but decided against it. This is less a “debunking” or awareness article and more of a ramble. As you may or may or not know, I work a part time customer service oriented job during the summer. This is something I discovered, much to my displeasure.

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Debunking Christianity III — Of War and Manipulation

I deliberated quite a bit about whether or not to include this article under the Debunking Christianity series. I finally decided to include this with DC because it fits into my overall goal statement, which I will type up in the very near future, and should have posted before I even began the series. This is not your typical “Religion = war!1!! War iz teh evul! Stop relijuns = no more warz!111!!!” article that you might see elsewhere on this topic. It is less of a “debunking” and more of an awareness article, but it still fits.

Without further ado, here is the Debunking Christianity view of war and its ties with religion. (more…)

Just within the past few days I have been approached through comments by a Christian by the name of Brian who has a few bones to pick with my budding “Debunking Christianity” series. The comment replies became too lengthy and detailed to maintain a good comment-debate, and he expressed interest in using email as our primary form of communication. My problem with this was that it would take a topic that I would like to remain public and pulls it into the private domain, so I asked his permission if I could post our email exchange in article format for outside opinions on both sides.

This first part includes our original long comment debate, the second part will be our first email exchange. I do not know how long this debate will be or how frequent as we are both busy people, but I will be sure to make an article for each exchange so anyone who is interested can follow and contribute.

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