logical response

North Carolinians Seek to Bar Atheist From Office

cecilbothwellHere’s the gist: North Carolina’s constitution says that no one denying the existence of god can hold public office. The US Constitution says that there shall be no religious test for holding office. Which one trumps the other? I think that should be fairly clear, but to the residents of North Carolina that seem to be stuck in the 1600’s, it is a fight worth fighting. Never mind the fact that Cecil Bothwell was duly elected to the Asheville City Council.

In an article in the Asheville Citizen-Times, H.K. Edgerton, former president of the Asheville NAACP said, “I’m not saying that Cecil Bothwell is not a good man, but if he’s an atheist, he’s not eligible to serve in public office, according to the state constitution.”

Wait wait wait. Someone who is affiliated with the NAACP, an organization that seeks to preserve the rights of a group of people oppressed for generations, is now wanting to deny rights to someone? Who cares if it’s in the state constitution? It’s forbidden in the US Constitution. How hard is this, people? There’s even case law to back this up. In 1961, Maryland’s religious requirement was deemed unconstitutional as it violated the first amendment’s freedom of religion.

I suppose what irks me the most is that Christians never give pause to consider how they would feel if they were the ones being barred from holding office due to their beliefs. But they don’t consider that because they are in a healthy majority and don’t have to.

FarmVille Hates Baby Jesus!

farmvilleFor those of you who are not familiar with FarmVille, it is a game on the social networking site Facebook. For those of you who are not familiar with Facebook, I’m not sure this whole internet thing is for you. Anyway, FarmVille allows users to create virtual farms with crops, animals, trees, and buildings. One of the ways the developers keep the game fresh is to introduce seasonal items for users to purchase with in-game currency. In the past, these have included Halloween decorations and Thanksgiving-themed animals and decorations. It would stand to reason then, that the Christmas holiday would also have a prominent theme.

The application has drawn some criticism in the past from users in countries other than the United States because their local cultures did not celebrate Halloween or Thanksgiving. Now, the complaints are coming from Christians who feel like FarmVille is desecrating their sacred commercial holiday by allowing users to place presents under a “holiday tree” in the game.

  1. The developers of FarmVille can do whatever they want. Just because it’s known as a Christmas tree to you and millions of others does not mean that they can’t call it a “holiday tree.” If you don’t like it, unadd their application. It’s just a pointless time waster anyway.
  2. I personally think changing “Christmas” to “Holiday” is stupid. I celebrate Christmas as a time to be with family and enjoy gift exchange. The origin is not relevant to my celebration or my choice of nomenclature.
  3. Speaking of origins, many Christians fail to pause and consider how exactly it is that an evergreen tree and a fat elf dressed in red came to be a part of the baby Jesus story. These traditions have Pagan roots and are a result of Christian efforts to assimilate Pagans into Christianity.
  4. Why do Christians get so bent out of shape because someone chooses to secularize a portion of this tradition? I don’t think baby Jesus would have thought much of the mad rushes on Black Friday, gluttony, and egg nog. Christmas is, and for a long time has been, a secular holiday. There are just those that still preserve some religious aspects of it.
  5. Shut up! You are not being persecuted!

My friend Megan, who apparently enjoys headaches, emailed one of the upset FarmVille users to call him out on his stupidity. Expecting nothing less, I was not at all shocked to read his reply to Megan, which was also incoherent, poorly worded, and off-topic. He accused her of bigotry and hatemongering, all the while spewing an equal amount of vitriol at non-believers. Megan wrote him back proving that she has more patience than I. Here is his first reply to Megan, supposedly addressing how the Christmas tree is in fact a Christian symbol.

There is no other source of origin of the traditional Christmas tree other than Christian culture, in fact the entire ‘holiday season” is based on our Christian heritage.

Perhaps if you would like to create another holiday season, choose another shrub and decorate it with non- tradtional Christian decorations, such as free condoms, free needles, government vouchers for things like government housing, government cheese etc.

Or just don’t bother having a holiday season at all, after all, there is no logical reason to have one if you aren’t a Christian. It’s a shame that this country’s Christian culture is being destroyed in the name of “respect for other cultures”, which is nothing but a bloody lie. After all, to respect other cultures would mean respecting our own Christian culture- which is the foundation of this nation- as well.

There is no “War on Christmas.” However, there does seem to be a war being waged by Christians called the “War on Everything that Doesn’t Align With My Worldview.” This is a free market economy (for the most part). If some retailer says “Holiday Sale” instead of “Christmas Sale” and it makes you angry – Don’t Fucking Shop There! If a radio station only plays Santa-themed Christmas songs and no Jesus-themed Christmas songs – Don’t Fucking Listen to Them! And for crying out loud, if some dumb Facebook game calls their seasonal fir something different than you would like – Don’t Fucking Play It!

Christians need to stop trying to get everyone to bend to their will. If these companies really want their business badly enough, they’ll change their ways. Otherwise, Christians need to realize that perhaps they need to choose their battles a little more wisely.

So go spray fake snow on your windows, string up thousands of lights on your house, put large curved and extruded peppermints on your lawn, drink egg nog until you barf, and listen to Bing Crosby sing “Home for the Holidays” and reflect on how all of that fits into baby Jesus’ grand scheme.

Warning: This post contained strong language.

Are You Concerned?

I am concerned. I’m concerned that our country is legislated at all levels by people who put faith in front of reason. I’m concerned that children are deluded into believing nonsense during their earliest stages of development by equally clueless parents. I’m also concerned that if something isn’t done to stop the viral spread of religion and other disastrous ways of life, our way of life, not to mention our world, may be in serious danger.

These are not the same things that Kirk Cameron is worried about. See the transcript and my responses to Kirk (in blue) after the jump.

Read more

Atheists Are Happy People

Sorry for the recent absence. I’ve been thoroughly distracted from this website, Facebook, Twitter, and everything else that presents even a minor escape from reality for the last month. Since things are now “looking up” (please do not even TRY to insinuate a pun here) for me, I thought that the following news piece would be highly relevant.

Found at BeliefNet.com, this article examines how non-believers are just as happy and content as their religious counterparts. Really? Ya think? It’s sad that it takes a psychological study for people to realize this, but I’ll just be happy for now that this truth is even being published.

The study suggests that those who are absolutely sure, one way or the other, about the existence of God are most likely to be satisfied with their lives and emotionally stable. It’s the spiritual seekers who tend to be unstable, according to the report.

This makes sense to me. Non-believers are happy in their realization of the absurdity of the religiosity of their counterparts and happy in their acceptance of the natural world as a product of complex changes over time. Believers, however, are happy because they have a steady supply of Kool-Aid to which they have been thoroughly addicted since their indoctrination. It’s the in-betweeners that tend to experience the turbulence and uncertainty. This too makes sense because you either have someone who has been exposed to religion seeking to justify it rationally, or someone with little to no exposure to religion checking it out to see what it may have to offer, as was my case back in the day.

Whatever your case may be, I think the fact that there was even a study commissioned on this topic reveals just how much Christians and other believers believe they have a stranglehold on happiness. It also illustrates their delusion in that they think that no one could possible find happiness in anything other than contradictory Palestinian mythology.

Solace comes in many forms. I choose to take solace in things that are based on facts, i.e. real things.