The Rude Pundit - Don't Bring Your God to a People Fight

[meegbear]

Let's face it. Strong religious belief involves a kind of Stockholm syndrome. You have this all-powerful figure who you want to please because, if you do, you'll go to a paradise of figs and pussy or clouds and singing, whatever floats your boat, or, if you don't, you'll be punished with an eternity of some kind of Hell, depending on the flavor of your faith. But you, being brainwashed by years of mindless rituals and propaganda, don't just say, "That seems like a bullshit deal by from a manipulative motherfucker." No, you believe this with all your heart and, what's more, you love this all-powerful figure, this G/god, and you think that nothing happens without his (for the most part) say-so. You pray when you're told to pray. You pretend you're a cannibal. You avoid pork or beef products. Because you are thrilled to please your G/god, you'll condemn anyone who doesn't buy your faith flavor in a kind of "Fuck you, Pepsi lovers. Coke, bitches" way. You might even be so deluded that you think you need to kill people who like Pepsi. Or Jesus. Or leprechauns. Either way. And it's all because you think - no, you know - that your G/god is watching everything everyone does, thinking, "Will this get me pussy and figs or a lake of fire?" and deciding what you do based on keeping G/god smiling on you. That idea inspires you to action, for good, for bad, for stupid. And it inspires lots of people to say dumb shit.

See, if you're gonna invoke your G/god, you gotta think about the consequences of doing so.

Someone who didn't do that was Thomas Dunn, a Leesburg, Virginia, town council member. He was reacting to Phillip Thompson, the head of the local NAACP saying that "if the government hadn’t intervened, I would still be a slave in the field picking cotton" during a discussion of hiring practices at a meeting.

Dunn was outraged, as one is when a black person dares to acknowledge that there was a past. He let everyone know it. "Shame on you, Mr. Thompson, for throwing slavery into this discussion," Dunn said. "There are people who feel that . . . government is supposed to be the answer to everything, and Mr. Thompson, I don’t believe that government freed our slaves we had in this country. That was an evil that this country had. It was the hand of God touching the hearts of man that freed those slaves."

So, just to follow the "logic," such that it is, Dunn is saying that his G/god knew that slavery was wrong and "evil." Then what the fuck took him hundreds, if not thousands of years to touch some motherfucking hearts or maybe smiting a bitch or two to end slavery? If he could have done it but just didn't, your god is a big dick. And if this god of yours is all-fuckin'-powerful, why is there still slavery going on? Don't answer with not-knowing-the-ways-of-God bullshit when you just said you quite specifically knew the ways of your god.

Dunn tried to explain his comments with "I feel much of our government has been ordained and established by men under the influence of God." The Rude Pundit has read history books. He's pretty sure that much of our government was ordained and established by men under the influence of liquor, which, hell, why not, you can say God created.

It's a nonsensical thing that religious right-wingers of all stripes do, bringing G/god into an argument that G/god has no place in, If your G/god were real, he'd probably think, "The fuck I got to do with that? I made your fuckin' planet. Deal with it." Instead, we get, for example, Rep. Paul Ryan, who said in 2012, "Our rights come from nature and God, not government." How did they come from God? Or does he mean the Bible? Conservatives say this shit and don't think about the implications.

Whether it's your G/god says to blow yourself up on a bus or your G/god thinks gays getting married is icky, what you're really saying is that your almighty being is either too lazy or too weak to do shit himself. Or he's an asshole who does things on his own time. And you better shut the fuck up and smile because here's some figs or here's a red-hot anus-poker. Which do you want?

http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2015/03/dont-bring-your-god-to-people-fight.html

[madokie]

1. The rude one gets it

I'm a happy non-believer. My life is no different than the bug that hit my windshield. I'm here then I ain't.
I was baptized as a kid but I guess it didn't take, huh

Other than what I did that I leave there will be no more from me once I'm gone. Same as can be said from the first human up to and including the very last one. dm

[olegramps]

22. Someone got it right a long time ago. His name Mark Twain.

In 1909 he published his "Letters From Earth" essay in which he totally decimated nonsensical religious notions. It is a worthwhile read that combines sarcasm, wit and humor to demonstrate the extent of how ridiculous are man's concepts of the God mankind has created. It is amazing just how intelligent and informed he was on scientific concepts of universe that Christian fundamentalist dimwits over a hundred years latter are unable to grasp as they cling to asinine concepts that are nothing more than superstitious crap.

[madokie]

25. It wouldn't be quiet so bad

if so many didn't try to push their beliefs off onto the rest of us.

Its like rule by fear, you do this boy or you're going to burn in hell for eternity. fuck that noise.

[mountain grammy]

31. Exactly!

[Cha]

48. I know, huh.. it'd be Great if they adhered to that saying..

[font size=21pt][font color=blue]~LIVE AND LET LIVE~[/font][/font]

madokie

[sinkingfeeling]

33. It's 'Letters From the Earth" and here's a pdf of the whole thing.

http://www.cs.umd.edu/~mvz/bible/ltrs-from-earth.pdf

[BlancheSplanchnik]

43. you rule! and so does the Rude Pundit! :)

Thanks!

[djean111]

2. Very well and accurately said.

[Martin Eden]

3. Rude Pundit is a TREASURE

[LiberalLoner]

11. + a million

[JHB]

4. I have no idea if great-great granddad was especially religious, but...

...apparently Mr. Dunn considers my g-g-gd to be an Agent Of God(tm) for manning a cannon at Gettysburg and about a dozen other battles to "touch the heart" of Virginians, North Carolinans, Alabamans, etc. with lots of large lead projectiles.

[Roland99]

5. Talk about hitting it out of the park!

[gregcrawford]

6. The Rude Pundit is my god!

Anno domini bippity-boppity-boo!

[Enthusiast]

7. You're funny, Rude.

Especially the pussy part.

[hatrack]

16. And figs!

[Enthusiast]

26. Yes.

[mindwalker_i]

37. Agreed. Kick and rec

For figs and pussy!

[The Wizard]

8. The invisible sky hero

gives some people an excuse to abdicate responsibility for their actions and lack thereof.
Repubic authoritarians exploit the weak minded and fearful in the same way some religious leaders do, by appealing to their worst fears and lowest instincts, hence the poisoned political climate that exploits fear of those who aren't the same.
Why would a benevolent god do bad things to good people? Milton tried explaining this in his epic poem, "Paradise Lost." At the time he wrote "Paradise Lost" it was a valid argument considering the information available, but information advances and what was true yesterday may not be valid today.
The Sun does not revolve around a flat Earth as some Repubics want us to believe. Knowledge evolves with new discoveries. Hiding behind the a Bible that was written by hand 6000 years ago in a language that few today understand and translated many times over by many different translators does not constitute empirical data. Magical thinking is no substitute for research and scientific discovery. Hiding behind the Bible is a lazy person's excuse for not doing what has to be done to make the world a better place for all, and yes the Bible did endorse slavery. And anyone thinking slavery is moral can go fuck themselves as Satan's disciple Dick Cheney would say.

[madokie]

28. Spot the fuck on

Can it be put any plainer? I don't think it can, thanks.

[kathysart_decoration]

9. Who needs them?

So, if God is fixing everything, why the heck do we need Paul Ryan, or any other politician? We could save an enormous amount of $ without them, plus, we would not have to listen to the stupid things they say - like this.

[starroute]

10. Except that our rights *don't* come from government

I'm with Jefferson on that. We're born with certain rights. We create governments to protect those rights. And if those governments no longer protect them, they either change or lose their legitimacy.

You can argue about the basis of those rights -- I'd call it "evolution" and say that they all boil down to a right to adapt, to improvise, to seek out better circumstances. But suggesting that they're contingent on government is a non-starter.

[malthaussen]

21. Jefferson also said people were "endowed by their Creator" with said rights...

... with which I would think Mr Paul would agree. So it skirts a pretty swampy area to bring that up. But surely natural rights are not contingent on government, or else they wouldn't be "natural." On the other hand, Mr Jefferson was out-and-out lying when he claimed such rights to be "unalienable," since clearly governments alienate such rights at pleasure.

In Hutchison's view, the triad of "Life, liberty, property" was augmented by a fourth inviolable right, that of freedom of conscience. I've always found it interesting that of these four rights, governments have not yet found a way to deny freedom of conscience (although they're quite good at denying liberty to express conscience). But they're sure-enough working on it.

-- Mal

[starroute]

41. Which is why I suggested evolution could account for them instead

The question Jefferson was trying to answer was why certain rights seem to go along with the business of being human. The language of his day was still residually religious, so that's what he used. But I'd argue that the same set of rights could be defined as the freedom to grow, to adapt, to explore, to change.

As for unalienable -- what that means is that you can't sell them or give them away permanently. The legal definition of "alienate" is "transfer ownership of (property rights) to another person or group." So Jefferson was saying that people aren't property and that neither you nor anyone else can transfer ownership of yourself to another person. The fact that governments intrude on our rights all the time is a different issue.

[FiveGoodMen]

39. "You were born free, you got fucked out of half of it and you wave a flag celebrating it."

-- Doug Stanhope

[Bluenorthwest]

52. "You were born. And so you're free. So Happy Birthday."

- Laurie Anderson

[Dont call me Shirley]

12. Religion teaches people how to be helpless and irresponsible.

[99Forever]

13. Damn straight Rude One.

Fables and myths to control the weak-minded.

[Fred Sanders]

14. Secularism is under mass attack by zealots and pretenders, just as Charlie Hebdo warned...just as the Founders warned of.

[Leith]

15. God Always Seems to Want

Whatever some crazy jackass wants. That's because he made his god in his own image and likeness.

[Moostache]

17. Damn straight...my "hell" would be figs and pussy with Fundies....the horror! (n/t)

[Nye Bevan]

18. What's with the "G/god" thing?

Either capitalize the word or don't and then just stick with it.

[whatthehey]

24. because both are correct alternatives

It's only capitalized when used as a proper noun, a laughable genericizing attempt to make all tissues Kleenex writ divine incidentally.

So unless the gods to which he refers are the Jewish or the triple-bonus amalgam of Christianity version, they are gods. Brahman is a god in this essay, Yahweh is God, his street nickname, rather than using the several proper names he is given in the Bible, which would of course give away the syncretic origins of Judeo-Christianity, as both Yahweh and El were pre-existing members of the Canaanite and Elamite pantheons.

The writer wants to include Brahmanm and God and other deities in the same sentences, so g/G is a correct enough way to do so.

[nxylas]

34. Correct, but annoying

It's like using "he/she" in an article. Once or twice is fine, for the sake of gender inclusiveness, but anything more than that gets in the way of readability.

[malthaussen]

19. The thing that baffles me is this:

Take a person of more-or-less good will who has sincere, but not fanatical, beliefs. He will thank his god-thing when something good happens, but sees no inconsistency in giving him a pass when something bad happens. Remember when the tornadoes devastated Oklahoma last year? The TV guy tried to get someone whose home had been destroyed to say she thanked god she was alive, and her response was to ask why she should thank him for being alive, but not blame him for the tornado? This disconnect in the minds of people of more-or-less good will really puzzles me. I know religion is about faith, not logic, but that's a question of belief. Having flexible standards of responsibility is a different thing altogether.

-- Mal

[Myrina]

30. Yes!

I almost fell off my chair ing last night when a friend of a friend posted on FB that she had to have an emergency surgery for something or other and that it was pretty serious but "God got me through it".

Uh, no, the SURGEON and his team got you through it. If your all-loving-God was involved, you wouldn't have needed emergency surgery in the first place.

[hifiguy]

45. The ultimate WTF example is when churches collapse

and kill the parishioners. The logical problems conflating that happenstance with belief in a benevolent gawd would baffle the All-Star All-Time team of philosophers. Me? I think the universe just might have a sense of irony.

[tomp]

49. agreed! nt

[Thespian2]

20. According to my friend,

who retired from the Ontario Provincial Police, if a person begins a statement with "It's the God's honest truth," the following statement will be a lie. G/god is the lamest excuse man has devised to answer all questions and problems...and to tell any LIE, ask Fux news.

[Roy Rolling]

23. Same old same old

In the world of non-theistic philosophy, this a belief system just as the theists have. It is not atheism, it is non-theism. Whatever the theists of any stripe believe, we believe the opposite.

Maybe a new faith--"Oppositeism"

Arguing for the scientific proof of a G/god is the same as arguing for the scientific proof of no G/god.

You would think among such logical thinkers people could make that connection.

[whatthehey]

27. You would think logical thinkers would differentiate positive and negative claims

I have a 2ft tall invisible teleporting giraffe living in my garage. Why should you even need to prove I don't and how would you go about doing so?

[sinkingfeeling]

29. Crude language be damned. Absolutely the way it is.

[mountain grammy]

32. As usual

Rude takes what's in my head and puts it out there.

Wondering if there's enough crudeness to describe the Israeli election.

[Grammy23]

35. It continues to baffle me how even highly educated people

Can continue to hold fast to the belief system that was inculcated in them as children. I have had several relatives (very close family members) who were degreed out the ying yang who sincerely believed their faith until their dying breath. Two were Christian ministers who had benefit of years of education, training in logic and knew very well the language translation issues of the Bible. Some of their thinking evolved over their lives, but they still maintained the basic tenets of their Christian beliefs, although they were willing to be accepting of other faiths, too.

The beginning of the end for me happened in college. The things I was taught as a child from birth through age 18 no longer made sense from a comparison to them with other faiths. Realizing that all humans have a desire to answer the big questions....who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here? What happens when I die?.....then the purpose of all religious faiths began to make sense to me. Not their beliefs....their Purpose. Then factoring in things like the desire of one group of people to control ANOTHER group of people and it all fell in place.

To this day, I am baffled and amazed at the willingness of otherwise intelligent people to suspend logic and common sense when it comes to their faith in a God. The inconsistencies and outright contradictions of their Bible don't faze them. But then I remember why they hold so fast to their beliefs....it brings them comfort (especially if you take it all in without questions and accept that it's just the way it is....Period.). It provides answers (kind of) to those biggie questions. It is too scary for them to question the inconsistencies and have been trained to believe that they put their "eternal" life in jeopardy if they do point them out. So they just accept it and live happily with a faith that continues to brain wash them.

[tblue37]

38. Their indoctrinated beliefs, which they were forced to absorb before

they had any ability to reason about them, continued to bypass their rational faculty. Their positive emotional associations for core beliefs were too pleasant to give up, especially when nothing comforting was available to replace them.

Like comfort food. Even if it's bad for you, and you *know* it is, in times of stress or fear, you still want it to be available to comfort you, so you don't clear it out of the house completely..

[AllyCat]

36. Perfect

[FiveGoodMen]

40. "It was the hand of God touching the hearts of man that freed those slaves"

And look how he did it: "30 percent of all Southern white males aged 18–40 died"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War

So who's side was he on???

[obxhead]

42. A surprisingly poorly written Rude.

I get the sentiment completely.

There was just too much to say. This post deserves an entire fucking book.

K&R.

[hifiguy]

44. Rudie hit that one into a high-earth orbit.

He and Charlie Pierce are the best there are at telling it like it is while making you think and smile.

ETA the classic quote from Epicurus:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?"

Then there's Frank Zappa's take on child-raising:

My best advice to anyone who wants to raise a happy, mentally healthy child is: Keep him or her as far away from a church as you can.

[ybbor]

50. Wow!

Those are two amazing quotes!

I have heard Zappa's, but the Epicurus one is new to me. I will try to remember that for my next religious discussion.

[blackspade]

46. Awesome sauce!

[marym625]

47. K&R! Big time

Bravo!

[ybbor]

51. So eloquently put

The Rudester is so amazing with his metaphors!

He is always so spot on.

Bravo!