Reader Greg sends this winner in:
And then you have God Wars going on in Ft. Worth:
Stand on a corner in this city and you might get a case of theological whiplash.
A public bus rolls by with an atheist message on its side: “Millions of people are good without God.” Seconds later, a van follows bearing a riposte: “I still love you. — God,” with another line that says, “2.1 billion Christians are good with God.”
A clash of beliefs has rattled this city ever since atheists bought ad space on four city buses to reach out to nonbelievers who might feel isolated during the Christmas season. After all, Fort Worth is a place where residents commonly ask people they have just met where they worship and many encounters end with, “Have a blessed day.”
People crack me up.
Comrade Javamanphil
First they came to arrest and convict 20 foot tall Santas and I did not speak for I was not a 20 foot tall Santa.
ThatPirateGuy
So why exactly are these people so rude as to be constantly saying the southern equivalent of F— you?
The Moar You Know
I’m glad to see that, in these troubled times, Americans have a sense of priorities.
LGRooney
I’ve always had a great fondness for the slack-jawed reaction by many, many people I meet (mostly at work) when they find out I am an atheist. They can’t believe that such a normal, nice, easy-going, funny, suit wearing, financial analyst with the ever-available shoulder could be anything but a religious person. I don’t push it but when the question comes up I am not shy.
General Stuck
Can’t deny them atheists in the heart of the bible belt got some epic cojones. If you wanted to make the godbotherers heads esplode, somebody ought to paste this on the side of a FT Worth bus
Sko Hayes
On twitter this morning, a tweet from Dan Gainor (a Fox News “columnist and nondenominational Christian”) :
Wait til he hears about Santa being arrested!
Mudge
Aren’t there upwards of a billion Chinese who are atheists and innumerable Hindus that do not choose the “true” God..?
The bus sign was very conservative.
stogoe
Did the 20 Foot Santa Claus cave in their roof? Is that why they offered the reward? You’d think that 20 Foot Santa Claus could just reach up and drop presents down most chimneys, without having to step foot on any roofs. (Rooves?)
Also, the “2.1 billion are good WITH god” signs miss the point entirely. Great, you’re good people. So are we. If we’re all good people, you and us, and some of us don’t bow before Jesus, that must mean that being a good person/neighbor/friend has zero to do with worshipping the christian god. You’ve just made our point for us.
geg6
Heh. I’m loving how so many of my fellow atheists are getting sick and tired of laying down for the asshat religionists and putting our message out there, front and center.
And I posted this in another thread, but here’s my favorite entry in the War on Christmas:
http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/festivus_in_many_ways_more_real_than_those_boring_old_religious_traditions/
I love this guy.
Zifnab
Stimulus!
Seriously, if religious nutters want to hire out-of-work truckers to tail buses around the city with big “I Love Sweet Baby Jesus” neon lit signs, more power to them. Jobs is jobs. And I’ve got nothing against free speech.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
(The following story requires that you remember that Fort Worth is cheek and jowl with Dallas)
I wrote this thing for the Dallas Morning News a few years ago about America’s ridiculous discomfort with atheists, using my relationship with my atheist husband as the launching point.
My editor had been a little afraid that someone might feel the need to travel to Chicago to throw a brick through my heathenish window, but the response I got was all from atheists, and it was just overwhelming and very heartwarming. Sometimes you just have no idea what your real audience is.
I’m really glad that someone bought that ad space on the buses — atheists get to see a little piece of themselves where there is usually none, and complacent believers get a little glimpse into a human reality they’ve been able to ignore.
(If you want to read my essay, it’s here: http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2009/09/09/on-godless-heathens/ )
Moonbatting Average
It pisses me off that I have to define my belief system in the negative.
@geg6: Though I do love the term “religionists”. That’s quality.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Someone should pay for an “Atheists love Jesus” sign to see if we can truly get some heads to explode.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@ThatPirateGuy: No, no, you’re thinking of “bless you/her/him.”
“Have a blessed day” is sincere.
One must be careful with the nuances of a foreign language in a foreign land.
Hunter Gathers
The evangelicals are really going to be pissed off when the rapture happens, when they find out that Jesus is black, and only Mormons get to go to heaven.
Zifnab
@Mudge:
I’ve never really understood religious demographics. I mean, I’m a baptized Catholic, but I haven’t been to church in half a decade. Does that make me Catholic, atheist, agnostic, non-denominational, or what?
The Chinese have a plethora of belief systems and moral codes. But the government has a very hard line on religious worship and practice. So who knows how many Chinese Buddhists or Taoists or Christians or backwater cultists exist and just get slapped with “Atheist” by the party?
Ash Can
@The Moar You Know: Seriously. Wouldn’t you think these people had something better to do? Like, say, running around buying a bunch of cheap crap to get ready for Christmas?
jrosen
O little town, Great Barrington
(to the music of “O Little town of Bethlehem”)
“Great Barrington, Massachusetts is controlled by people who somehow believe that Christmas decorations are harming the world. These numbskulls are so crazed by melting polar ice caps and perceived church-state “issues” that they are imposing fascist declarations on folks who just want to enjoy the season.” Bill O’Reilly on line, December 20, 2007
O little town, Great Barrington
How dark you are these nights;
Selectmen feed elitist need
And turn down Christmas lights.
At 10 PM you darken
To lighten up the weight
Of carbon use, you doused the juice
And roused an angry fate.
Oh Barrington, Great Barrington
Is small and quite unknown
But Bill O’R. is never far
And he is not alone.
He skewered you on TV,
Your “War on Christmas” cursed
His angry spleen made quite the scene,
To him you are the worst.
Thus from the ranks of Christian hosts
Came Christian love’s lament,
And also hate in quite a spate
And even death threats sent.
But hear this word and hearken:
Bill really filled your cup
Near to the top, for next year’s crop
Of tourists will be up.
O’Reilly is a horse’s rear
Whose rating’s on the wane
His War on Christmas shtick is this:
A ploy to make it gain.
The PR is a winner,
You’re on the biggest stage
So never fear, when come next year
It’s Coulter’s turn to rage.
bemused
@General Stuck:
That would great on t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.
NobodySpecial
Well, now we know the real culprit behind the Metrodome collapse.
Zifnab
@Hunter Gathers:
No one is going to be more surprised at Black Jesus than the Mormons.
baldheadeddork
We’re having the battle of the buses in Bloomington, Indiana, too.
It’s recently moved off the bus ads to pro-Christian bumperstickers informing viewers that “Good – God = 0”
Do you suppose that the Muslim fundamentalists are at least smart enough to know the difference between letters and numbers? Does the Taliban try to do math with the alphabet?
Chris
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
Love the essay. Only one quibble;
I’d argue that that’s true in the United States, but much less true in the rest of the West. In France, with church attendance at 10% and a government that practices secularism almost to the point of turning it into its own religion, he’d fit right in.
Just Some Fuckhead
Where’s the financial payoff in advertising for atheism?
jibeaux
I wonder what order you’re supposed to return, arrest, and convict 20 foot Santa in? Hm.
Maybe this is the key to stimulating the economy, Transport Advertising Wars!
The Southern equivalent of “f” you is closer to “bless your heart” (although that’s more of a “you’re kind of dumb/tacky/clueless, right?”), not “have a blessed day”. Around here, “have a blessed day” is most commonly African-American, but some other folks use it to, equivalent of ‘bye and/or “end of voicemail outgoing message.”
suzanne
The loan officer we used when buying our house this summer had that on her voicemail message. Seriously made me want to hurl.
Buck
@baldheadeddork:
That’s low. Do these people have no shame?
Listen to me…. of course they don’t!
Ross Hershberger
I put up with most of the religious talk in everyday life without complaint. I have no orientation toward religion so it doesn’t apply to me and there are more serious things to think about.
But when someone tells me that I should conduct MY day in accordance with the grace of THEIR god it rankles a little bit more.
Buck
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Wouldn’t be great though if there was?!
Moonbatting Average
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: Great letter, thanks for sharing it.
baldheadeddork
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Soros – duh!
Bill E Pilgrim
“$1000 for the arrest and conviction and return of the 20-foot Santa Claus”?
I hope Santa stays on the lam, myself. Go Santa!
That reminds me of the thing someone saw in Japan years ago, a little statue of Santa Claus, nailed to the cross.
I would start laughing again every time I thought of it, for days. I could just picture Santa saying “You’ve got the wrong guy!”
Come to think of it, “20-foot Santa”, hmm, that sounds suspiciously Vishnu-ish and foreign to me. Oh that’s hands? Okay then. Call off Bill O’Reilly.
Ross Hershberger
Most people would call me an Atheist but I don’t use the word. I don’t have to define myself in terms of their beliefs. Their religion does not apply to me. They can label me whatever they want but I won’t wear that label voluntarily.
jibeaux
@Chris:
The French government’s version of secularism is very grating to me. I realize we have a first amendment and they don’t, but if kids can wear a peace necklace or a heart necklace or a, I dunno, Jerry Lewis necklace but they can’t wear a necklace with a religious symbol on it in a public school, that’s just a straight up content based restriction that reflects not neutrality as to religion but hostility.
BTW, I just checked my voice mail and I had a message ending with had a blessed day. The odds of that happening were actually pretty good, though.
oklahomo
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: Don’t forget the truly scathing “Bless his/her heart.”
suzanne
@Zifnab:
SERIOUSLY. All my Mormon friends (and there’s lots of them in the Phoenix/East Valley area) have the same print of a crappy painting of Jesus hanging up in their houses, and I LOVE to bust their asses about how white He looks in it.
My mother gave me a ceramic creche a few years ago that has a blonde baby Jesus. It makes me laugh. One of the Wise Men is black, and I call that one Mystical Negro.
Citizen_X
Bwah-hah-hah-haaaaaaaaaa!
Next thing you know, they’ll be demanding a constitutional amendment to keep church and government separate.
jibeaux
@Ross Hershberger:
I sort of think about it as “have a lucky day!” I don’t know why, that’s just how it comes across to me. Not the intent, I know.
Sentient Puddle
I think this sentiment is pretty big in Texas. I’ve had a number of conversations similar to this, and when I say I don’t go to church because I’m not religious, they look at me like I just said the sky is green.
Seems like it’d be funny to see this thing going down in Fort Worth, though.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@Chris: Thank you!
I have to confess that I was talking about “Israel and the United States” which are our two cultures, and there’s no good way to abbreviate that without opening an entire new conversation. So I went the easy route: “Western culture.”
But it’s also important to remember that “secularism” =/= “atheism.” One can very easily oppose religion while still believing in either God or some vague Higher Power. Most Israelis are secular, for instance, but after 14 years of living there, I would say that most of those still believe in God.
Pongo
I’m longing for the good old days when it was considered rude to discuss religion and politics in public, much less plaster them all over billboards and the side of buses. Not understanding 1.) Why atheists felt the need to validate religion by taking a public stand on the issue, and 2.) Why Christians consider billboards so threatening they feel compelled to attack people who see things differently than they do. WWJD? Probably not spend millions on billboards to debate an age-old disagreement that will not be solved by stupid slogans–especially not during a during a recession. I suspect he might have been more inclined to spend the money actually feeding the hungry or housing the homeless or something (damn socialist).
Greg
Atheists are widely hated in America and, for most Americans, that hatred and discrimination is seen as perfectly acceptable. See
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=1786422&page=1
Note this in particular:
Asked whether they would disapprove of a child’s wish to marry an atheist, 47.6 percent of those interviewed said yes. Asked the same question about Muslims and African-Americans, the yes responses fell to 33.5 percent and 27.2 percent, respectively. The yes responses for Asian-Americans, Hispanics, Jews and conservative Christians were 18.5 percent, 18.5 percent, 11.8 percent and 6.9 percent, respectively.
Atheists are seen by many Americans (especially conservative Christians) as alien and are, in the words of sociologist Penny Edgell, the study’s lead researcher, “a glaring exception to the rule of increasing tolerance over the last 30 years.”
More at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrimination_against_atheists#United_States
Buck
@oklahomo:
I’ve been known to say “bless you” from time to time (I think I did just yesterday here at BJ), but I don’t mean anything religious by it. Just a habit I picked up.
How it’s taken by the recipient is what matters though. So maybe I need to shop around for a better salutation.
geg6
@Zifnab:
According to the Vatican, you’re a Catholic. Even if you don’t want to be. And even if you send them a hand-written resignation letter telling them to take their baptism and shove it (as nicely as possible, of course). And even if you then send another one saying the same thing, but not so nicely this time.
You’re a Catholic forever if you’ve been baptized one. Unless, of course, you decide to ordain a female as a priest.
http://www.diopitt.org/news_hausen.php
http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=54883
PaminBB
@baldheadeddork:
Good-God = O, of course, not 0.
We all know “O” is Oprah. So Oprah is all that separates God and good?
Bill E Pilgrim
@jibeaux: It might be somewhat less grating had your country lived through the Inquisitions, but that’s just a guess on my part.
Religious tradition is still a bigger part of life in France than people here (I mean in the comments here) realize, I think. Not in the way we’re accustomed to in the US, but in ceremonial ways, having to do with the holidays, and so on. There are many religion-based official holidays in France for example. What people say is that religion is for weddings and funerals, but not politics like it is in other countries.
It’s not without controversy to say the least, and these issues are neither decided nor black and white, and get into racial and immigration and discrimination problems and so on. However what’s clear is that if anyone tried running for public office by claiming that “God wants me to be President” or something, it would be er, less than successful let’s just say. To say the least. This at least to me feels far more sane.
DanF
Is buying Christmas gifts from godless China OK?
@baldheadeddork: – As I recall, our city decided to contract advertising to a private company as the city of Bloomington could not deny advertising merely because it was controversial, but a private company could. The freak-out in the local paper was pretty amusing.
oklahomo
@Buck: It’s also regional and generational, and it’s more an expression of pity, sort of an “Oh, you poor thing.”
lacp
I moved to another stop to change buses on my morning commute – the one I had been using had a crew of godbotherers who would come up to me at 6:45 in the morning asking if I accepted Jesus (I got tired of answering, “No, only Visa or Mastercard.”)
Odie Hugh Manatee
This is bad news for Barack Obama.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@Moonbatting Average: My pleasure! I loved writing op/eds. I miss it. Damn you print media and your wasting illness!
geg6
@Buck:
Yes, gotta say that you really should. When people say that to me, I tell them I don’t need any blessings, thank you very much. Pretty much stops them in their tracks.
Chris
@jibeaux:
I concur. It’s one thing to demand that immigrants learn the language, the history and all the stuff that goes with it, but there’s no call for the open expression of contempt for their religion that the headscarf law was.
Though to be fair, the French government does have a history of taking strong action to curb the influence of religion in general, not just Islam.
Culture of Truth
There’s something kind of weird about taking out an ad where you claim to speak for God.
Culture of Truth
There’s something kind of weird about taking out an ad where you claim to speak for God.
Jay in Oregon
“And finally; Christians? Christians? Ah yes, I’m sorry, I’m afraid the Jews were right.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rC6UrMTC73A
John S.
Then define your beliefs in terms of what you DO believe rather than what you DON’T. Pretty simple, actually.
Zifnab
@Sentient Puddle:
You need to hang out with more young people. I can count on zero hands the number of friends I’ve got that have attended church since they moved out of their parents’ places.
Shinobi
Once I was talking to some friends of mine about how I am not religious anymore, and they posited the argument that people who did not have religion were not good people.
Their evidence for this claim was that the kids they used to baby sit who didn’t go to church, were always less well behaved than the kids who did. (It goes without saying that all of these families were some degree of catholic.)
It was obviously a huge leap of logic to instead conclude that these kids didn’t go to church, because they wouldn’t behave in church.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Chris:
Exactly. Not that this issue is easy, as I mentioned above, but for example there was a protest march in Paris at one point by Muslims regarding the head scarf restriction– they were advocating for it. It’s not as simple as people think, though everyone is certainly entitled to an opinion of the law.
Ross Hershberger
I went to a Catholic grade school. 40 years of recovery and it’s still one day at a time.
When they taught us about political systems I assumed that the Church would be on the side of Soshulism. As described it sounded much more Christian than Capitalism.
Figuring out how the Church ended up on the side of Capitalist Democracies was the first major thing I learned about the world.
MikeJ
Most god botherers don’t annoy me that much, even if they do say religious things, as long as they don’t expect me to believe too.
However, if you want over the top stupid, check out Edroso’s VV column on the war on xmas. The best/worst line, “The first battle in the War on Christmas has been won by Judeo-Christian culture.” Yes, celebrating Jesus is a big win for the Jews.
Buck
@oklahomo:
True. But I made it a habit to state whenever I was offering a very special thanks, like when someone does the impossible of shutting down the constant ramblings of a troll. A “thank you” just doesn’t seem good enough.
Maybe I’ll offer up a hug next time instead. hehehe
geg6
I hear this garbage all the time. And I just tell them that I don’t need invisible sky wizards to tell me right from wrong. They are appalled, but I really don’t give a damn what these people think of me. If they know me, they know I am a good person who does her best to treat the Earth and all its denizens with the respect they deserve.
LGRooney
@Odie Hugh Manatee: No it’s not. It’s Obama’s fault since he clearly has not been forceful enough on this issue!
oklahomo
@Buck: I grew up in a very non-religious family, and moving to the South was just mind-blowing. The spontaneous offering of “we’ll pray for you” and “bless you” or “we’re having a prayer circle and rebuking that horrid bar just outside town” was just something outside my world view. The “rebuking” thing is just too damned weird for words.
Ross Hershberger
Apparently I’ve immoderately used the dreaded S-word and need moderating.
Bah.
Buck
@geg6:
I’ve got you beat. I have family members tell me I’m going to hell simply because I’m not in church every weekend. I’m a baptized Southern Baptist, and it still isn’t enough.
GregB
Missing Santa update.
He was found in the back pocket of 900 foot Jesus.
kommrade reproductive vigor
First Temple of Dagon!
The Republic of Stupidity
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
But good news for conservatives!
jibeaux
@Chris:
I know, it’s a very different philosophy. Once I had a conversation with a French man who was a typical liberal, but it strongly irked him to see women in public in any traditional Muslim garb, headscarves to burkas. I think there was a proposal to ban burkas in public parks or something in France that was being discussed and which he supported. He was trying to explain that the French view religion as private, and there’s something sort of unseemly about flaunting it. If, of course, you belong to a religion such as fairly explicit about being observant 24/7, there’s going to be some tension there.
I find it hard to relate to. I’m not religious, but I see people’s attempts to express their religion on their own person the same way as their attempts to express anything else about themselves from nose rings to mom jeans to tattoos, just their right as people. I think it comes down to whether your society takes more of a view that prizes some amount of homogeneity and social cohesion, or one that highly values individuality.
Keith G
A great thing about my town, Houston, is that after a very brief period of WASP-y thuggery in local politics 84-87 ish, the city just got too diverse for this kind of idiocy to make much of a splash.
Sure we have more than our share of mega-churches and a couple of goofy suburbs, but the central ethos of most Houstonians seems to be making money and having some fun, not telling others what to believe.
Even our signature mega pastor, Joel Osteen is all about maintaining the well-appointed life and not fighting sin. Here, John Hagee would be so provincial.
Sentient Puddle
@Zifnab: Right off the top of my head, I know three, one of which is an actual minister. I got a fourth in mind, though I’m not entirely sure if I should count him because he’s Texan only because of college and will go wherever there’s work when he graduates (though he’s got his eye on Austin, which I’m heartily encouraging). I think a fifth and sixth, but I can’t say for certain that they attend church. And I’m not trying to find out if the people I hang out with are religious, so there may be more that I don’t know about.
That said, you do have a point here. All the people who I run into that seem to assume all Texans go to church aren’t particularly young. And I really don’t hear about religion at all from any of my friends (except the minister, of course).
MattF
That NYT article has the quote of the day:
“It’s a season to share good will toward all men,” Mr. Tatum said. “To have this at this time come out with a blatant disrespect of our faith, we think is unconscionable.”
Good–Will–Toward–All–Men. Indeedy.
New Yorker
@Moonbatting Average:
Sam Harris doesn’t use the term “atheist” for this reason. He says we don’t have words for people who don’t believe that Elvis is alive, so why should we have words for people who don’t believe in God?
Ross Hershberger
Religion in this country is just schizo.
Ask people to pick from:
1) Christian
2) Jewish
3) Muslim
4) Other
5) Atheist
and Christian will be the overwhelming choice.
However when people are surveyed in detail about their actual beliefs and religious practices, far more sort out as functional agnostics. Individuals who were raised in nominally Christian households often self-identify as Christians rather than decide to state that they no longer practice or believe in that faith.
This is the basis of the falsehood that America is a Christian nation. Labeling, rather than practice.
Ash Can
@oklahomo: This is what I’ve thought too, with my admittedly extremely limited exposure to Southern usage and dialect. I had a housemate in grad school who was a dyed-in-the-wool Southern belle from Georgia, and she said “bless your heart” as an expression of (sincere) pity as well. I don’t recall her ever using it as an expression of contempt. (Then again, she swore like a truck driver when she was at home and among friends, so maybe she figured she didn’t have to bother. :) )
Buck
Speaking of Baptists…
(NB: story edited to fit the way I originally heard it)
Culture of Truth
America may not be a Christian nation, but Christ is damm well an American.
Chris
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Right. I had an Algerian teacher when I was in (French) high school, and she and her family were all for the ban – secular modernists all, and they’re far from being the exception.
My position remains “it’s not their call” (or mine or the state’s or the mullahs’) – or it shouldn’t be. People wear the headscarf for all sorts of reasons, and as much as people rant that they’re being forced to do it, in a lot of cases (I can’t say if it’s a majority or not), it’s simply not true. The government ought to protect their ability to choose to wear it or not, but it shouldn’t make the choice for them.
dr. bloor
@baldheadeddork:
If I become an atheist I’m going to have an orgasm?
Chris
@jibeaux:
For better and for worse, France is simply a more communitarian, less individualistic society than the United States.
In terms of economics, I like it; it makes it easier to support things like welfare states, strong unions, and taxation of the rich, and makes it more difficult for the uber-rich to hide behind a bullshit “rugged individualist” myth to escape their responsibilities to society. But it also makes it easier for community rules to be imposed on minority groups, like Muslims, whose behavior is judged as not conforming enough to society.
sukabi
Did anyone stop to think that maybe the Santa, being a good republican, is holed up in some flop house with a male hooker?
J. Michael Neal
@NobodySpecial:
The collapse of the Metrodome roof is evidence of a just and loving god. Had the whole fucking building fallen down, it would be proof.
Shinobi
@Chris: I think in some cases wearing the headscarf or the veil actually gives Muslim women more freedom in their lives. A woman who chooses* to wear the veil might be trusted more to go about her business.
It’s not like if they stop wearing the headscarf or veil they will just go about their business bare headed. These women will instead essentially be trapped in their homes by their culture/religion/patriarch.
*Whether or not this represents an actual free choice on the part of the female is up for debate.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@LGRooney:
Nope! It’s clearly bad news for Barack Obama. In fact, everything is bad news for Barack Obama. No matter how inconsequential, everything is bad news for Barack Obama.
I know this is true, I saw it on the internet and on TV!
@The Republic of Stupidity:
Yup! It’s clearly good news for conservatives. In fact, everything is good news for conservatives. No matter how inconsequential, everything is good news for conservatives.
I know this is true, I saw it on the internet and on TV!
sukabi
@Ross Hershberger: that’s the same with the “liberal”, “conservative” and “socialist” labels…
moderation, really…. is it for “liberal” or “socialist”???
Comrade Javamanphil
@Jay in Oregon: Atkinson was spot on with that skit.
J. Michael Neal
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Official French secularism has little to do with the Inquisition (which wasn’t very active in France anyway) and a whole lot to do with the Church inserting itself into politics in the second half of the 19th Century. It was actively royalist and anti-democratic at least up to the First World War, and arguably up until the Second. And, yes, I mean royalist in the sense of advocating for a return to a Bourbon monarchy, although another Napoleon would have been an acceptable substitute, so long as he was like Napoleon III rather than Napoleon the Real.
I still disagree with the position. I think that a far better way to help the Muslims who want not to wear the headscarf is for them to do a better job integrating North African immigrants into French society so that they aren’t confined to slums in which they are confronted by religious enforcers. Still, the Church has no one to blame but itself for the total hostility of the French left.
gnomedad
@PaminBB:
Adding God to both sides, we obtain
Sounds kinda hippie to me.
J. Michael Neal
@Shinobi:
Or, she might wear a hijab BECAUSE SHE THINKS IT LOOKS NICE. I know a couple of Somali women around here for whom that is the case. Having looked at them myself, I find it hard to disagree.
Dayton’s/Marshall Fields/Whatever the Fuck It’s Calling Itself Now has a very nice selection of hijabs in their downtown Minneapolis store.
J. Michael Neal
@gnomedad: Funny, when I do “O” + “God,” I get “O God.” Which clearly means that god is telling me to have sex.
Davis X. Machina
@J. Michael Neal: L’Affaire never really ended in France, as our Civil War has never really ended. I remember being shocked, reading Alistaire Horne’s A Savage War of Peace about Algeria, how the country fifty years on was still split as much Dreyfusard/anti-Dreyfusard as pro- or ant-DeGaulle.
Citizen_X
@dr. bloor:
Oh, Doctor, no. Read the equation: it only works if you’re a good atheist.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@geg6:
or for the sake of variety you could take the opposite tactic: “Thank you very much for wishing further blessings upon me, but I’ve already had enough wild kinky sex for one day, and I don’t know how much more in the way of blessings my back can take before it gives out. Maybe tomorrow…“
kommrade reproductive vigor
@baldheadeddork: Unless the city has changed radically since I left I am sure that causes a great deal of snickering.
And a little light vandalism.
jake the snake
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
The term I am familiar with is “God love him/her/it”, the inference being that no one else could.
WereBear
In my small hometown in the Midwest, my parents were considered a “mixed marriage.” He was Lutheran and she was Methodist.
That’s how crazy it can get.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Culture of Truth:
Right right right…
Blond… blue-eyed… tan… good looking in a rugged, SoCal, surfer, construction worker-kinda way, but NOT gay… no no no… NOT a Village People construction worker, but an all-American kinda construction worker…
I always loved the Indians on Bonanza years ago too… Jeffrey Hunter as Cochise…
Shinobi
@J. Michael Neal: Exactly, that’s why regulating it is kindof insane.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
And we all know…
If it’s on the Internets and the tee vee machine…
It’s GOT to be true!
Omnes Omnibus
@dr. bloor: Only if you are good.
chopper
@gnomedad:
yes, but dividing both sides by Gd means oo=o, which means o=0 or 1. so either God=0 and thus doesn’t exist, or “God is one” and the jews were right.
The Republic of Stupidity
@J. Michael Neal:
I have to say…
I was surprised recently to learn that Dearborn, Michigan… Henry-Farkin’-Ford’s old stomping grounds… is now considered a predominantly Mooooooooooslim community…
Chris
@J. Michael Neal:
This too.
Personally, I’ve only known two girls, both in college, who wore the hijab. One was an immigrant from Iraq who chose to wear it for cultural reasons. She had five sisters who all chose to go bareheaded; their parents didn’t object to either choice.
The other one I didn’t know as well, but she was American born and raised and wore the hijab for most of college until she stopped wearing it during senior year. I never found out why, but last I heard, she was in grad school studying English literature – hasn’t been “trapped” at home or anything like that.
So yes, people really do wear it for all kinds of reasons and often by choice, even if the right wing blogosphere enjoys making it sound like they’re all just one strand of hair away from an honor killing.
Liz
I saw this when we were in NH over the summer…it was near Conway I think. We stopped with the kids to get ice cream.
There must be a joke in there somewhere but I’ll be damned if I know what it is.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@The Republic of Stupidity:
Absolutely! They would never lie to us, would they? Heck no!
Stefan
Sam Harris doesn’t use the term “atheist” for this reason. He says we don’t have words for people who don’t believe that Elvis is alive, so why should we have words for people who don’t believe in God?
I often argue to my religious Christian friends that they’re atheists too — after all, they don’t believe in Zeus, Odin, Ba’al, Vishnu, Shiva, Quetzalcoatl, etc. The number of gods I don’t believe in is simply n+1 greater than the number of gods they don’t believe in.
DFH no.6
Hey, where are our favorite BJ community god-botherers, like burnspbesq?
And when I say favorite, I mean that sincerely.
I really like and appreciate just about all the commentary that brother burns blesses us with here, except he gets pretty sideways and cranky when any of us heathens comments unfavorably on the various cults (with their fanciful and unprovable truth claims, and general deleterious effects on the advancement of mankind) we have left behind, to coin a phrase.
My own were a youthful Roman Catholicism (though I suppose I can mostly blame that on my family), altar boy phase and all, and a later involvement with the execrable Worldwide Church of God (my own fault entirely).
I really wonder how anyone today can be a Catholic who is not either elderly (like my in-laws) or a fascist/teabagger. If you’re elderly and non-fascist (like my in-laws) you can probably be excused for thinking Vatican II still pertains, but others?
As for the deeply fundamentalist WWCG (now split into a number of factions) maybe the less said the better, except the somewhat trivial personal results that I was always known as the “token liberal” (so I never completely lost my mind, I guess), I at least really know my Bible (comes in handy, sometimes), and (WWCG being a theological descendant of the Puritans and Dunkard Brethren) the fact that I left Christmas celebrations behind decades ago, and have thankfully never gone back.
When the Christmas thing comes up these days, I tell people I hew to an older tradition, painting myself blue and dancing naked before a bonfire on the winter solstice instead. Actually doing that would probably be fun, just not with my sadly no-longer-youthful body.
jake the snake
@Buck:
I heard that same joke as a kid. Aimed toward whatever denomination you were tweaking. Since I was raised in the Church of Christ, I always used Campbellites.
jrosen
Since I last posted on this thread (about 2 hours ago) I got my mail. And it included a package that was obviously a soft-cover book, with a return address that I didn’t recognize, and certainly not something I ordered (which I do a lot). It turned out to be something called “They Thought for Themselves” by one Sid Roth, touting “Ten Amazing Jews” and I thought Einstein? Philip Roth? Felix Frankfurter? Leonard Bernstein?.
Nope, a quick riff through the pages (no table of contents and no index) showed that these were 10 Jews who found Jesus! The book was free (thanks very much).
Now I have no idea how I got onto Mr Roth’s mailing list; perhaps he has a staff that looks through phone books for Jewish names (mine is Rosen).
I am invited to respond to the book, which I may do, but that means I will have to read at least some of it, and that is not an appealing prospect.
I am an atheist (that can mean different things in this Orwellian Age where Rush LImbaugh is a “conservative” and Obama is a “radical”); suffice it to say that the God of the Bible is not convincing as to existence, and if he does exist, he is not worthy of 10 seconds of worship, being egotistical, callous, moody, and prone to homicidal tantrums, one that in real life I would flee on contact. My feelings on receipt of this piece of chutzpah are mixed: amusement, bemusement, and anger at the imposition, with not a little of the anger at a sense of betrayal (JEWS for Jesus???!!!). That it ended (I checked out the last page) with an exhortation to live in Israel just added ground glass to the dip.
I have been accosted by Mormons (on the street) and Witnesses (at my door) and I have been polite. This time I’m not so sure. At AA meetings (22 years worth) where the custom is to end with the Lord’s Prayer, I join hands but remain silent. That litany is loaded with too much historical baggage, and non-religious (like my parents) I may be, I feel I owe it to my ancestors who were hounded, raped, gassed, mocked, and tortured in that Name, not to utter those words aloud.
I enjoy the idea of putting messages on buses, if only to see the Jesus-heads fume and froth. But that is a petty feeling that doesn’t last long. Has anyone else here had this same POS deposited in their mailbox? It’s not just addled-brained Christian fundies that do this kind of thing. It seems to be addled Jews too.
Mnemosyne
I guess it says a lot about where I live and who I associate with that I would assume that someone who says “have a blessed day” is a pagan or Wiccan of some flavor, not a Christian. It’s just not a word I associate much with Christians.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
And the Daily Inquirer… and the Star… the Sun…
Where would we be w/out a free press?
Annamal
Australians and New Zealanders tend to be fairly secular (while taking full advantage of any and all religous celebrations as a chance for some time off work.
Religion is considered something personal and not discussed much in polite company.
The attitude can probably best be summed up by Tim Minchin’s
White wine in the sun
(including the fact that our Christmas is mid-summer and blazing hot)
kommrade reproductive vigor
That was the rule I was raised with. I still follow it, mainly to minimize the number of times I want to punch a stranger in the face.
Really, I don’t care what people do or don’t believe. I don’t understand people who have time to care.
aimai
@Mnemosyne:
Yes, I agree with Mnemosyne. I associate it with that great scene in BTVS “Bunch a’ Blessed-Wanna-Be’s.” Every girl with a spice rack thinks she’s a sister to the dark arts.
aimai
Catsy
@baldheadeddork:
Well, be fair. They are Arabic numerals.
rdldot
@jrosen: Dude, it’s not addle-brained Jews who did that. Jews for Jesus are Christians that try to convert Jews. At the very least, they are Jews that have converted to Christianity so they ARE fundie Christians.
shortstop
@geg6:
…and by doing so, you are morally equivalent to a pedophile. I know because Ratzo explained it to me.
@Keith G:
So are you saying that an openly atheist individual could get elected mayor there, just as an openly gay person (right on) can? I confess I am still skeptical about that.
Mnemosyne
@shortstop:
Well, no, because pedophilia is not grounds for immediate excommunication the way that, say, obtaining an abortion for the pedophile’s 12-year-old victim would be. Someone who ordains a woman as a Catholic priest is actually morally worse than a pedophile.
Just thought I’d clear that up.
shortstop
@Mnemosyne: I appreciate the additional information. I confess I find it difficult to wrap my head around some of these finer points.
Hogan
@aimai: I remember it as “wanna-blessed-be’s.” But yeah, good catch.
Also: hi!
Mnemosyne
@shortstop:
It’s hard to keep all of the rules straight, but if you just remember that almost anything someone does that specifically helps women is grounds for excommunication, you can usually guess how the rule will fall.
Scott P.
Nothing bothers me more than those cafeteria Old One worshippers.
shortstop
It doesn’t bother me in the least when someone tells me to have a blessed day or asks me where I go to church (admittedly, I rarely hear the latter in Chicago; I do understand that in many southern communities this is a topic of burning interest). I really don’t even mind if someone tries to convert me. Hey, if they strongly believe they’ve cornered the market on truth, why wouldn’t they want to share it with me? It’s presumptuous as hell, sure, and it necessarily involves a heaping helping of control freakery, but at its heart it’s also a generous sentiment. So…meh.
The thing that burns me up is so many people’s inability to see non-belief in other than explicitly religious terms. That’s when you get the “Your religion is secularism!” or “Science is your religion!” bullshit — it’s just not possible for some people to imagine a life absent of religion, so they have to create these false equivalences, which uncoincidentally set up battlegrounds so they can feel they’re fighting a noble holy war.
The all-or-nothing perspective is also grating. Until I hear someone saying, “Happy holidays–unless your holiday is that fucking Christmas,” I will continue to be astounded that people actually think that the mere act of recognizing other traditions is a direct hit on their own. Freaking the hell out at/vehicular stalking of a bus with an atheistic message is just another example of this.
Michael D.
Two things:
1. I hate when people say, “Have a blessed day” at the end of a conversation or, “Bless you” when I sneeze. But I’ve learned to smile and ignore it. No one is hurting me and it makes them feel better. The only thing I hate is that I realize they actually believe everyone else wants to hear this.
2. I just had a holiday lunch with my co-workers in our conference room – all Christians except for one Jew. We went around the table and everyone told of their Christmas traditions (as though it was obvious that everyone celebrated Christmas). When they got to me and asked , “What is your Christmas tradition.” I said:
“I don’t celebrate any religious holidays. But my favorite tradition at this time of the year is eating all the wonderful southern-style food you ladies and gentlemen make. It’s awesome.”
I suspect they thought it was nice that I was really sincere about the delicious (heart attack on a plate) food they made. But I’m guessing they’ll skip over me next time.
Stefan
I appreciate the additional information. I confess I find it difficult to wrap my head around some of these finer points.
That’s because you’re a bigot solely motivated by anti-Catholic bigotry….
shortstop
@Stefan:
Pipe down, you Uncle Tom. Enough of your sycophantic attempts to get the cool kids to accept you. Jesus isn’t going to forget this, you know.
chopper
@shortstop:
hence the reply from atheists that “atheism is a religion in the same way that ‘bald’ is a hair color.”
shortstop
@chopper: Oooh, that’s good. I’m usin’ that.
Hogan
First Temple of Dagon!
What part of “ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn” don’t you understand?
geg6
@Mnemosyne:
Exactly. Ordaining a woman as a priest is worse than murder, rape, and pedophilia. Murderers, rapists, and pedophiles are NOT excommunicated. Of course, if their excommunication was the case, there would BE no Vatican. Hmmmm…
Stefan
Pipe down, you Uncle Tom. Enough of your sycophantic attempts to get the cool kids to accept you. Jesus isn’t going to forget this, you know.
I noticed it took him a good long while to come up with that “Uncle Tom” explanation. It makes no real sense, but I suppose he had to say something…..
Paul in KY
@geg6: Sometimes I think their internal reaction is something along the lines of: “but, but, believing in Jesus & the afterlife is the only thing that keeps me from going on a murder/rape spree. Get away from them quick before they snap”.
Mnemosyne
@Michael D.:
Hating that someone says “bless you” after you sneeze is like being annoyed that someone says “goddammit” when they’re angry. Unless you want to insist that we either make a total cultural change to say nothing when someone sneezes or insist that everyone say “Gesundheit” instead, you’re kind of stuck with it.
Move to Japan or another country where the cultural norm is to ignore sneezes and your problem will be solved.
ETA: Wikipedia has a fun list of responses from around the world. At least you don’t live in Barcelona, where the response to a sneeze is, “Jesus!”
Paul in KY
@New Yorker: Isn’t the word ‘Aelvisites’?
geg6
@DFH no.6:
Oh, he’s in another thread calling me Pope geg. LOL! As if I’d accept such a position even if nominated!
He’s too much of a coward to step foot in a thread like this.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
The stupidity of religious extremists often cracks me up too. But sometimes I think about this: I live in a blue-state college town. If somebody puts a twenty foot tall Nativity scene on their front lawn nobody bats an eyelash. If I put a two foot tall sign proclaiming “there is no God” on my front lawn I’d be scared to death of getting a brick or molotov cocktail through my front window. America is still America.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
Back to say:
Having been all grown up and written about teh atheists as if they were people, too (as if!), I return with sheer crankiness, asking that America just STFU about Christmas already http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2010/12/14/its-gone-up-to-11-long-enough/
War on Christmas? No, no! Cotton wool on Christmas! Cotton wool and mufflers and insulation and whatever else will just make it be quiet already!
ruemara
@aimai:
Dude. that shiraz, garlic and lamb reduction I did last night was fully worthy of Hecate’s blessings. My spice rack is divine.
Xacto
I live in Fort Worth. A woman waiting to see someone at a charity where I work asked me where I go to church. When I told her I didn’t, I’m not religious, she did not respond, but squirmed and avoided eye contact for the rest of her 10 minute wait. I, on the other hand, was quite pleased – and shocked, I might add – at my honesty, which in this town gets you branded like a well-done T-bone.
J
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Well, as an atheist, Jesus was a cool guy as a moral philosopher who was all about mercy and compassion to the poor, and infirm.
shortstop
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.): My parents are UUs and they once put a lighted question mark on their lawn. Pretty sure the only reason they didn’t get a brick through the window is that the neighbors didn’t get it.
bob
@Ross Hershberger:
When they say “have a blessed day” you must reply “Inshallah”
(If it is God’s will). Then duck for the explosion of grey matter.
Xacto
Christmas didn’t even become an official federal holiday until 1870, and, ironically, it was roundly condemned by the Puritans as a Catholic invention.
Let’s be honest here. Christmas is a retail bonanza, invoking Jesus the way Republicans invoked 9/11 first responders, right before they voted against treating their injuries, caused by breathing toxic dust while they tried to save lives.
Jesus would not associate with the hypocrites who call themselves Christians today. I believe his reference to Pharisees praying loudly in the streets so as to be noticed pretty much covers it.
And modern Christians would certainly not associate with Jesus, that sweaty, dusty pilgrim who would be sleeping on the streets today. In fact, unlike the good Samaritan, instead of worrying about the welfare of someone lying along the road, they would call 9/11 to have him removed, as he might be blocking the path from their Mercedes to the front door of Ruth’s Chris or some such.
DFH no.6
@geg6:
in re: burnspdesq
No, I don’t think burnspbesq is a coward when it comes to commentary regarding religion on John’s little blog here.
He rants-up quite righteously, from what I’ve seen, when us non-believers dare show disdain for fairy-tale belief systems that are used to control people and damage their lives (which would be just about all of them).
If I remember correctly, his particular Big Brother is Roman Catholicism, which of course ranks right up there in the controlling and damaging departments. Maybe burns is just not up for the argument today.
I don’t blame him for taking offense, but I’m still going to call out the fairy tale belief systems. I’m with Diderot on that.
Alturn
Call it collateral damage caused by new energies which are causing an increase in awareness.
“The new energy sweeping through the world is re-programming creation to make people aware of their mind, spirit and body. This awareness acts like water splashing away the mud of old beliefs and politics, bringing a new freshness to our lives.”
– World Teacher Maitreya through an associate as reported by Share International magazine.
Xacto
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: Great essay, Emily! Thank you.
Xacto
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Actually, that’s not a bad idea. And I’m sure in a lot of cases it’s true.
Ruckus
@chopper:
atheism is a religion in the same way that ‘bald’ is a hair color
Well that’s great. It’s taken decades but my hair color and my lack of religion are finally aligned.
J. Michael Neal
@DFH no.6: As long as you’re fine with a lot of us thinking you’re an asshole for going out of your way to insult people.
bemused
My husband and I were considering what the Solstice holiday for pastafarians would be, and decided on Marinara Christmas. (This is called a non-sequitur.)
asiangrrlMN
@shortstop: That was the comment that finally pushed me over the edge in that thread. Stefan handled it with much aplomb.
That sign is all kinds of win. Man. The stupidity. It burns. As for dueling buses, I’m all for banning religious expression on them.
I am agnostic. I don’t care what other people believe. I have had my niece tell me I’m going to hell (only because she was concerned she wouldn’t get to see me in heaven), and I have my mom praying for me every day. I’m fine with all that. I just don’t understand why I’m not supposed to argue about religion at all as I would about any other fact-based belief.
I have a sincere question for believers. Why do some believers feel, “It’s part of my religion” is an effective answer to how they feel about something? If I don’t believe in said religion, then it’s a non-starter for me. Let me hasten to say, I don’t particularly care what other people believe, regardless of religion, but I do start caring when they try to use their religion to change laws or govern the country or even try to tell me what to do with my life.
Dalancroft
Brilliant!
DFH no.6
@J. Michael Neal:
Yeah, I don’t care if you or anyone else thinks I’m an asshole.
But, going out of my way to insult people? Have you actually read the post and most of the comments here?
Insulting, no doubt (that’s why I said I don’t blame burnspdesq, or you, for that matte, for taking offense). But no one’s “going out of our way”.
It’s a fucking thread about the ridiculousness of god-bothering, but I suppose you’d prefer that your own particular ox wasn’t gored, and that the insults were kept to the approved targets, like the crazy American Taliban fundagelicals and suchlike.
Too bad. Religion of all stripes is used primarily to control people through truth claims that are not just unprovable but absurd. Far as I’m concerned, that’s a bad thing.
Diderot had it right (as did Marx on the topic), whatever you god-botherers (a term our esteemed host has used a number of times) have to say.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@Xacto: My pleasure! It meant a lot to me to be able to publish it. I mean, seriously — some of my best people are godless heathens! What up, America?
Stefan
That was the comment that finally pushed me over the edge in that thread. Stefan handled it with much aplomb.
I have nothing if not aplomb.
Squirrel Whisperer
@oklahomo: Rebuking: If there’s not enough buking there has to be some rebuking until the target is fully buked.
athenap
@Shinobi:
Did you tell ’em the prisons are full of “good Christians?”
office_tramp
Even speaking as a non-believer, I don’t understand the point of atheist prosthelytizing. Unlike the church they don’t get anything material out out of it. I mean, you can’t eat smug!
shortstop
@office_tramp: There’s that discussing non-belief in explicitly religious terms again: “atheist proselytizing”?
Taking the creators of the sign at their word, the point of the message is to make people who are already non-believers feel less isolated at this time–to let atheists living in a super-Christian part of the country know that there are lots of others like them here in the U.S. (interestingly, the NYT reporter misquoted the sign; it says “millions of Americans,” not “millions of people”). I don’t know that I’d call that proselytizing, the definition of which is an attempt to convert. It does seem to be a challenge to the widespread–and, for my money, smug as well as insecure–idea that having a solid moral center requires belief in a higher being.
Paula
@shortstop:
OK, so, I’m a lapsed Roman Catholic, and more agnostic than atheist, so the idea that atheists want to reach out to other atheists in any way shape or form seems counter-intuitive. Is it for physical and social protection?
On the other hand, it seems to testify to the idea that atheists do very much have a belief system that they want to protect and propagate, very similar to people who are members of organized religions.
As an agnostic, I really don’t want to have metaphysical conversations with people about God because I think it’s useless. By this token, strongly-opinionated people on both sides are very, very annoying. I mean, we can have a conversation about what’s lawful to do in our society and I fully support taking specific religious beliefs out of these considerations (even though, yes, this particular society was built on Western Judeo-Christian ideas). But beyond that, I really don’t care about individuals’ wrongness or rightness on the questions of God and heaven and human purpose. And, as an agnostic, I don’t really care about reaching out to other agnostics.