I received this email from a woman the other day. After careful thought I replied to it and decided it was worth sharing.

Here is the email in its entirety:

Thank you for sharing “Wild Geese”. After Joe Biden used most of this poem as his reflection upon the anniversary of 9/11, I went in search of the poem. The two of Mary Oliver’s collections I own did not include it. I was happy to find it at your site and amazed, actually. Amazed and delighted, because a poem I find so “religious” is at the same time such a balm for you. I grew up Roman Catholic; I am now an Episcopal priest. I am convinced after 20 years that what most people throw away – the cats they heave – are indeed worth heaving. Sometimes we have to go deeper, below the interpretations of history, to find our own deeper truth.

Yes, a “barbarous” God exists in the pages of the Bible: What all-kind God and Father would will the death of a Beloved Son? How could God command Abraham to kill his son Isaac as a test of faith? Isn’t that sadistic? Yes, indeed. On the face of it. For us in the 21st century these stories are barbaric. They are foreign to our experience. They were not foreign to the persons for whom they were written when the “first fruits” in ancient societies were offered up to the deity – including in some cases, the first born child. In some places in later writings there seems to be a critique of these practices in the Bible itself. The question becomes, it seems to me, is it worth reinterpreting these stories for our own time, or do we jettison them and replace them with our own stories of sacrificial obedience and love? Yes, life does involve sacrifice – we give up our children constantly to the gods of war who exact a savage price. There are no rams in the thicket to take their place …

But the same source of barbarism comments on itself in texts of amazing love and mercy. We cannot hear these texts enough. Read the rest of this entry »

262Sometimes a post is handed to me on a silver platter. If only I was superstitious and religious, I’d think god his bad self had Mark write this just to help me out when I was in a tight spot. Unfortunately, I’m a godless heathen. Let the blasphemy begin!

I wrote a post on HDC awhile ago called 10 Reasons Atheists Are Morally Superior To Religious Fundamentalists. I toned it down then cross posted it to de-conversion a month ago, and I still get comments on there. Yesterday a guy named Mark wrote the comment below. After each reason, I’ll leave a reply:

Try to read and see who is really ignorant.. (by Mark on deConversion – comment 196)

Ten reasons to believe in God

1. Are you sure God doesn’t exist? You are willing to contend, aren’t you, that there is a tiny chance that God does exist? If you don’t believe in him, and he DOES exist, you’re screwed. You HAVE A CHOICE. When the day comes to choose who enters Heaven, it is highly doubtful you will be chosen, if you don’t believe. Isn’t it safer just to believe?

Puh-lease. Pascal’s Wager, Mark. I am not wasting my life on the off chance that some jealous sky daddy is up there messing around with my afterlife. I prefer to live my one life now, instead of groveling and begging to an invisible friend that ignores me.

2. So you have moral dilemmas? They’re annoying, aren’t they? What is right and what is wrong? Who knows? The law? Crap, you cross the street at a red light. God knows what is right and what is wrong. Believe, and all your moral problems are solved. If you are ever stuck again with a moral dilemma, just ask your local priest, rabbi or equivalent. He’ll explain it all to you.

Nice, condescending attitude coming from a christian. I am an ethical atheist. I am good for morally superior reasons to you. I am good and kind simply because it makes sense and I choose to be, not because I am afraid of hellfire and torment everlasting. I don’t need an invisible parent watching my every move to make me feel like I have to do the right thing. I just do it because it’s right. Religious people are not pure and innocent. Ask the catholic church about that one. Or bible thumping assholes that fill up our prisons. I got my morals from school, teachers I admired, role models from my life. I saw what was good, and how I wanted to be treated, and I realized it was best to treat others well too. Common freaking sense.

Not to mention, your god is a total asshole. He demanded death, murder, rape, slaughter,war, slavery and the death of innocent children at every turn when he talked to people. Then he came up with some stupid idea to kill his son to save us, even though he’s the one who set us up for failure in the first place. I aspire to be much nicer than god ever has. Anyone who tries to be godlike will surely end up in jail for heinous crimes, because god was completely amoral and downright evil. Not that he existed. Read the rest of this entry »

funny-pictures-the-army-of-darkness-is-rather-cuteThe other day I posted Conversations with Craig the christian 2 – Biblical Interpretations and a Logical Fallacy. This is a continuation of that dialogue. I wasn’t sure how to refer back to the previous post, so I just copied it here where Craig refers to what I wrote the other day.

I wrote: Regarding the bible verses and their interpretation, I think that the word of god should be infallible and shouldn’t be ruined and easily misinterpreted by man. It should be the same in every language, and should be offered to every culture in their own tongue, by god himself, if it should even be necessary at all. Why can’t god make it so that we’re born with an inherent understanding of our creator? Why did this local god play a prominent role in the lives of the Israelites, who ordered the killing and maiming, the torture and deaths of women and children, as well as people who made the slightest error in their worship of that god says a lot to me. The sheer barbarity of the bible is telling. It certainly doesn’t read as a divinely inspired text of love and understanding. It is conflicting at almost every turn, it’s barbaric and cruel and unjust, just like the people of that time.

Why only preach to the men of the Middle East and make those few men tell the rest of the world? It is so easily warped and interpreted to suit anyone and everyone, whether for good or ill. It was written by men from many different walks of life, and many different political eras, over a huge range of time. The stories are all stolen from more ancient religions, and not much of it is original, which is quite telling as well. It all leads to a text that, in its original form, is relevant historically, but certainly doesn’t appear to be divinely inspired.

If god existed, and cared about humans, the bible wouldn’t be easily misinterpreted and would not contradict itself in any way. The message would be simple and clear and probably quite concise.

Craig replied: This is funny because I just had this conversation with my mother a few weeks ago. This is what I told her.
It’s not as if the Bible dropped out of the sky with a not from God attached. The Bible, while inspired by God, is written by human hands. Because humans are fallible creatures, the Bible cannot be 100% infallible.

I’m not denying the Bible has been used for ill. Christians have done a lot of bad things throughout history (one of my personal favorite is the Crusade where they attacked Constantinople, a Christian city). Christians will continue to do bad things because they are only human. Part of being human is doing the occasional bad thing. Emotions cloud judgment or sometimes judgment is impaired or misformed. But we’re not the only ones who have done bad things in history, we are no different than everyone else. I think the problem for Christians is we don’t confess our sins enough. What I mean is we try to justify things Biblically and overlook what we’ve done.

As far as Biblical stories being stolen, I think that there are a lot of similarities in the different creation accounts and flood accounts, but I think, for the most part, that is where the the similarities end. I might be wrong, I don’t know when parts of the Old Testament were written compared to the other stories from ancient religions and I don’t know the oral history of the stories.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hallelujah!! I’ve found the Lord! Slavery is OK according to the bible and I get to have one of my very own! I think I might get a breeding pair so that I can grow more. Once you’ve gone slave master, one is never enough, you know. Plus, I can sell the extra for cash.

I just don’t know where to buy my first one. Walmart has knock-off slaves. They may be the least expensive, but they don’t last more than 6 months, so it’s not worth it. I think I’ll try Amazon, they’re great for most stuff. My friend got a slave from them and it was damaged in shipping. They replaced it right away, no questions asked. Plus they throw in an owner’s guide on care and feeding. Slaves can be tricky, so that might come in handy.

And you’re probably about to lynch me for this post, aren’t you? Hey don’t blame me. PZ Myers helped me find the light of the lord. I guess the shining light of reason really goes to Jean, who really is a visionary. She’s a born again christian, who happens to also be black, which in this circumstance only makes her logic so much more compelling. I know that sounds like an ad hominem attack, but no, in fact it is merely an observation. Jean has opened my eyes. Jean is a raging ignorant whackjob moron. Read the rest of this entry »