The Antichristian Phenomenon

Just an interesting thought that could be groundbreaking if the Christians to whom it would apply to would actually share my point of view (hint: they don’t); namely that if god is suppose to promote acceptance and tolerance, then Satan must necessarily be the opposite, no? Meaning that Satan would then represent the very thing many Christians often adhere to, such as being against homosexuality, promoting sexism and so on and so forth. I haven’t been in a religious discussion with a believer in quite some time, but it is definitely a card I would bring up. Seeing that these people quite often already cherrypick what passages to believe in from the bible I doubt it would work as intended (god only likes Christians y’know? Christians like me, since everyone else claiming to be Christian and for example liking homosexuals can’t be Christian), but I guess it is worth a try.

I wrote this short story in greek, but I found it appropriate to translate it for you here – I hope you enjoy it.

—————————–

-Quick, get in the stable!

-Actually, I think it’s just a really dirty homestead

-Melchior, you asshole, give me a freakin’ break. Here, see? There are goats, oxen, even a glorbillah.

-Will you two shut up? Do you want someone to hear us?

Carefully, the three fugitives entered. The place stank of mud and glorbillah poop. The leader, Gaspar, took a quick look around. The goats were asleep.

-Good. Balthasar, start digging. Go behind the post-hay stacks.

-Me again with the hard work?

-Yeah, you! Weren’t you the one bragging like the drunken jerk you are that we emptied the vaults and Herod would find richer kings in stables?

-How could I know the tavern would be crawling with mutant rats..

-Of c..

-Hello there!

-Who the devil are you? Gaspar roared.

-My name is Joseph, and that’s my daug…my wife, Mary. Our hole is poor, but if you don’t mind the baby’s crying, we’ll be glad to accom…

That was when Joseph noticed the strangers had left some bags on the ground. And despite the glorbillah’s smell, he detected an odour of “myrrh”, the drug of which the monopole was in the hands of HEROD CO., and which was the economic foundation of the entire New Canaan colony.

“You’re those thieves from Babylonia 6! You robbed the good king Herod’s palace!”, he cried in outrage.

-Another word and I’ll have you pushing up googooleds old man! By the way, in our circles, we are known as “the three magi”. You see, we make fortunes vanish.

-I’ve already hit the button for the roof star-siren! The police will be here soon! You’d better surrender, you leec…

Melchior had already planted a bullet in the holelord’s left head. Behind some soy-apple boxes, a girl, holding an already bearded baby, cried: “Fath…Joseph dear, are you ok?”

She kicked him cautiously. He didn’t flinch.

-Well, that serves you right, scumbag. So, dudes, let’s make a deal. You’ll give me a taste of this “myrrh” whenever I want to get high, and I’ll see that you get on a private starship to whatever destination you fancy.

The police sirens were already close.

-As you wish, babe. But the baby will stall us.

-Oh, him? Azor hasn’t eaten in a couple of days.

When the captain of the guard and his men stormed the homestead, all they found was some sleeping goats, two oxen and a very happy glorbillah.

Recently there has been a bit of a stir over the latest Mr. Deity: “Mr. Deity and the Woman”, in which Mr. Deity meets his latest creation, the rib-woman Eve.  After being posted to RichardDawkins.net and Pharyngula, its been stirring up debate over whether or not it is derogatory by negatively stereotyping women.  The short answer: No.  The long answer is below the jump.  I expect it will be largely unpopular, so don’t waste your time if you aren’t going to actually engage potentially uncomfortable ideas.

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It seems that I missed a week in my goal!  I have been really busy recently, I didn’t even realize the week went by.

Anyway, we left off with typo drama and a bit of bragging.  Now it’s my turn to confront the nonsense.

If you’re new to this series, here’s The Prelude, Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. (more…)

When I opened my inbox this morning I saw an e-mail that was sent to this website’s contact address. Like usual, whenever we receive e-mail or answer questions directed at us in a collaboration post. This post may be updated with the added comments of a different ACP member.

Greetings,

My name is [...]. I’m a 23 year old Christian from Arkansas, and I would like to go ahead and get it out on the table that this letter holds no hostility to whoever reads it or your movement. It’s simply a question that I would like to have your opinion on…

I understand that many horrible things are carried out supposedly in God’s name. I agree with you that it’s wrong. However, every religious group has its “bad apples”. In my opinion, there is no room for extremists in any religion, Christian or other. My question to you is why direct your entire organization towards Christians or any other Abraham based religions?

Waldheri: Allow me to dive right into it. The people who actively participate in this group all come from countries in which Christianity is the predominant religion. It is part of our daily lives, whether we want to or not. Even though a lot of a things we write about are applicable to other religions, is it that surprising that it is mostly centered on Christianity when you realize it is the religion that we come most into contact with? I do not think Christianity is worse than the other Abrahamic religions, if that is what you’re actually trying to ask.

Anath: I generally do not direct my efforts towards extremists but rather towards the good ol’ average Joe churchgoer.  The extremists are entrenched too deeply in their own delusions to be swayed either way, but when someone is a reasonable person, they are more open to seeing from another person’s point of view.  Also, the moderates quietly support the extremists by their sheer presence, and the fact that they do NOT decry the behavior publicly or otherwise.  There are more moderates attending  and funding the megachurches than extremists!  There are more moderates quietly going along with extremist organiztions such as NOM, putting their votes in to legislate their beliefs by attempting to ban gay marriage,  abortion, teach intelligent design and abstinence-only education in schools, and so on.  THIS is deplorable.  It is the moderates, who nod their heads and baa contentedly that we need to shake awake.  Extremists will always be extremists, but the moderates have the ability to either support or condemn their actions.

In this nation, we all have a constitutional right to freedom of religion.

Waldheri: Your right to freedom of religion is certainly extant, and I would never try to take away that freedom. However, being a secularist, I will do my best to pry religion apart from governance. In itself, I do not think religion is a valid reason for passing or obstructing legislation.

Anath: And WE have that right as well.  As I stated above, the attempt to legislate BELIEF is one thing I stand firmly against.  I am an American as well, and I do not want the Church dictating what me or my (potential, future) children do with their bodies, mind, or how our tax money gets spent.  Don’t think this is happening?  Watch more closely, it is.  There’s a saying out there: “Freedom of religion means ALL religion”… including secularism.

Now I’m not saying that there aren’t extremist Christian groups that would lash out, sometimes even violently, against your group or any other like it. That’s a cold hard fact, and it’s gravely unfortunate. But my concern is that you’re attacking the foundation of life as we know it against mostly everyday good people. There are going to be conflicts between groups like ours, and that’s inevitable. However instead of going for the throat, we should be trying to calmly discuss our differences. Most Christians (and all true Christians) don’t believe in hating anyone for any reason. We hate the sin, not the sinner. You also hold a constitutional right to freedom of speech, but with that does it also mean that there is no such thing as common decency between our fellow people anymore? If both of our missions are to promote peace and harmony between all people, than why are we being so ruthless towards one another?

Waldheri: I’m not sure what you mean by the “foundation of life as we know it”, but it is important to remember that people simply might not agree with you on those foundations. To me, the freedom of speech is one of the most important freedoms we have. My ideas may sound controversial or even offensive to Christians, but frankly that’s not my problem. I don’t think I’ve ever directly attacked Christians as persons in my posts (and if I have, I apologize) – I have always attacked Christianity. I think its metaphysical ideas (souls, heaven, hell) are ridiculous, its moral character (Old Testament divinely sanctioned bloodshed) deeply dubious, some of its virtues (faith, piety) naive and worthless and its god a spiteful, arrogant tyrant that I would not want to serve even if I did believe he existed. I am honest in my posts and I realize it may offend Christians, but they can’t expect me to simply shut up. Must I keep my deeply held beliefs locked up so that others’ deeply held beliefs can roam free without dissidence? Furthermore, you must understand that some of Christian beliefs are deeply offensive to me. Examples are the idea that when we are born, we already bear the guilt of some crime committed by our forebears; the idea that we are worthless and inherently bad (“sinful”) and need saving; the idea that our actions in a finite time frame are enough to judge us to a fate of infinite timespan.

Anath: I’m going to assume that by “the foundation of life as we know it”, you mean the basic tenents of Christianity; the existence God, the divinity of Jesus, a “plan” for us all, an after life, etc.  Let me turn this around–Christianity is attacking the foundation of life as WE know it.   By that  “attacking that foundation”, I mean inserting causation where none can be proved, denying the reality of evolution  and what it entails, attempting to undermine science on the basis of a 6000 year old book written by patriarchal desert nomads, claiming we have “freedom of choice”–then defining that “freedom” as “choose God or GO TO HELL!”, claiming that we are condemned before we were born for the sins of our greatest ancestors… that there is a strict, black and white dichotomy of “good” and “evil”, and every single action, motivation, person, and so on in this world can be judged by that dichotomy… and so on.  Your belief system attacks the foundation of my reality.  By insisting that your belief system is the only correct one, and asserting the “God or Hell / Good and Evil” dichotomies, you assert that I am Evil and Hellbound.  If that is not an attack, I don’t know what is.  Think about it from the other side of the fence for a while.  You may “hate the sin, not the sinner”, but that doesn’t change where we stand in your worldview.  You dont’ have to “hate” us to condemn us.

Based on your “freedom of speech” bit, I question whether you actually engaged the CONTENT of this site, or became squeamish based on our name alone.  Read some of the articles, we are not overtly hostile and “going for the throat”.  My recent debate with Aelnathan demonstrates that we are willing to be patient and engage Christians and Christian thought.  Our recent “10 Answers from an Antichristian” posts demonstrate what we DO believe, and why we do not follow Christianity, in a very approachable way.  Cleric’s recent “Reasonable vs. Unreasonable Christians” demonstrates that we ARE willing to engage Christians as long as they are reasonable, Lea and Waldheri’s recent posts engage Christian thought and bring up important questions and observations about Christianity in the modern world.  I fail to see how we are “going for the throat”, but if you can bring up a specific example to back up this statement, we will explain the intent, and how you may have potentially misunderstood the content.

Like I said before, I don’t mean any of this offensively, it just had been on my heart. I don’t expect you to censor any of your authors or anything like that. This is just a simple conversation between anyone in your group interested and myself. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

[...]

Waldheri: Nor is my opinion meant to be offensive, but it can be. You need not apologize.

I got a bit carried away with something yesterday and totally forgot to make my post.
Anyway, now that it is Wednesday, new posts are overdue!

If you remember in our last episode, Aelnathan asked us to go to HIS review if we wanted to continue commenting, as he just can’t keep up with posts on someone else’s review. Whatever. I did it. Previously, Cleric had gone to his review and continued a discussion that was already in the comments section, but we will start with my post, as there is a gap in time and the old debate (The bible promotes genocide! No it doesn’t, there are wars but wars aren’t genocide! Yes it does, God asks them to kill all living beings in a city…! BUT BUT BUT TEH WERE TEH EVULS…) Kind of died. If you would like to read it for yourself you can go to his review here. The content I am posting starts on page 2. There’s also another person who steps in and gives similar arguments to the ones I presented, but all of the previous debates were months old by the time I got there.

Anyway, on with the debate. I will keep it short, 2 posts, because from here on out, the posts become… EPIC.

If you’re new to this series, here’s The Prelude and Part 1. (more…)

It’s Tuesday again, time for the next little installment in the Great Amazon Smackdown debate!

This will be much shorter than the Prelude since we no longer have to catch up.

For those who want to read ahead or look at it in its “native environment”, this section starts on page 30 of Cleric’s review.
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It turns out, All-Access Customer really did run away, only to be replaced by another. This turns out to be Aelnathan, who had been in and out sporadically during the All-Access affair. I mentioned him in my last article by the name he posts under, but he requested I use Aelnathan as a pseudonym so I have edited that, and will continue to refer to him under the pseudonym. A LOT has transpired in the debate since then and it may potentially continue, though Aelnathan claims to be getting too busy to continue to reply (right…), so instead of posting a single entry with all the comments, I’ll make small weekly installments until we catch up to the end, and then I’ll only post as 2-5 replies accumulate.

This article records everything from Aelnathan’s first comment up to the time All-Access left for good and Aelnathan got serious and stopped waiting a month between posts.
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As a continuation of my other article, I decided to make a follow-up post since while people might be aware or not, Cartesian dualism is one of the primary reasons why we have modern science and consider Atheism to be an equally valid philosophy alongside religion.

To understand why, we must first look into how Descartes defined the universe, namely that of the physical and the nonphysical. Everything we can touch, see, smell, feel and taste are of the physical world, everything else not such as thoughts and ideas. Basically a dichotomy made of the abstract vs the concrete. To consider the universe physical, we must also consider it as an object made for study as we can study the physical world but we cannot study the nonphysical (according to old belief, we now know we can study the mind as proven in Psychology and similar sciences).

In science, we are to reject the nonphysical since it cannot be properly reviewed. We look at the physical world as an object, something which can be rationally understood. Not surprisingly we started to reject Christianity and the Church by the time we also started to believe in Liberalism, in personal responsibility and freedom and that every individual matters in comparison to rather seeing a group of people than a group of individuals. To understand why the development of Liberalism is important we must understand that without a Divine Creator who has laid all the rules for us to follow, the only one being able to take responsibility is oneself. Personal resonsiblity, free will and freedom are the underlying foundations of  Liberalism and Atheism too embraces this idea, since if we don’t believe in a Divine Creator and a Holy Scripture then we only have ourselves to blame for our earthly faults and we must learn how to deal with it. Our morals come from ourselves, not from a Creator Mystique. In summary, one can basically say that by the time we really started to believe in the world as an object and rejected the nonphysical during the Enlightenment Era, Liberalism and then Atheism were later to be born. It is also interesting to see that it was at this point when the church was split between Protestantism and Catholicism, the former believing more on individual responsibility than the latter, thus also rejecting ideas such as Original Sin, which claims that we are to be blamed for the faults of our ancestors, thus rather grouping people up in a huge collective than seeing them as free individuals. This strongly opposes the idea of individual freedom and personal responsibility and was easily solved with the idea of baptism. Drop your head in some holy water and voila, the Original Sin is gone.

With the help of the Enlightenment Era we would soon give birth to Industrialism and it is now science is finally is starting to seriously take a spin. Many huge scientific improvements were made around the 19th century or after that time and in fact we all got monsieur Descartes to thank, making us believe that we can actually view the world as an object. In such a sense isn’t it all also very ironical that we now are rejecting his idea of Dualism given that it was his idea of the physical world that planted the first seeds into developing modern science? Regardless, Atheism rejects anything made of the nonphysical and at least claims that if such a nonphysical world would exist, it too is a part of the physical world but not yet properly understood.

In a sense, we can actually say that the Abrahamic religions were doomed when they first introduced the concept of a soul and a nonphysical world. They in fact, planted the ideas which would later spawn Atheism since Atheism is more or less the rejection of the nonphysical, but such a concept cannot exist unless we are to believe in a physical and a nonphysical world, as later laid out and defined by Descartes.  When Christians argue that Atheism then is a necessary evil, maybe we should try to explain to them that they themselves laid the foundation for such a concept and as they continue to believe in a soul and a nonphysical world, and that they will just help Atheism to spread further as it also of course allows the belief of the opposite, which also is equally amusing when you think about it. Therefore I think it’s pretty safe to assume that Atheism will only cease to exist (as Atheism) when we have completely given up the concept of the nonphysical. I just want to clarify that this doesn’t mean that future Atheists will refuse to reject the nonphysical, but as we move more into a belief of a monistic world, then the concept of Atheism isn’t needed anymore as there is no longer a reason to reject of what we today know as a nonphysical world.

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.