reality and truth rate high

I'm reading Greta Christina's new book Why Are You Atheists So Angry? It is invigorating to say the least. She lists 99 reasons but says she could name thousands if given the encyclopedic space. Here is reason #93. It reflects my sentiments now that I've given up wishful thinking. Reality rates higher than hope. Hope is okay but truth is better. Here's what she says:

"I'm angry that the idea of religious faith - the idea that it's acceptable, and even virtuous, to believe things you have no good reason to think are true - leads people to ignore, dismiss, trivialize, and flatly reject reality. I get angry when believers make arguments for religion that amount to - and sometimes flatly state - that they don't care whether the things they believe are true. And I'm not just angry because ignoring and rejecting reality leads people to make bad decisions that hurt themselves and others. I'm angry because reality is freaking awesome - terrible sometimes, for sure, but also delightful and wondrous and more surprising than anything we could make up about it - and it upsets me that so many people shut it out just so they can keep believing their made-up stories."

Ignoring and rejecting reality is what I did for many years - all for the sake of my religion and its silent god. Life is not easier. It is definitely more challenging. Meaning is important and I'm learning to create it for myself. But I'm the one creating it - no one else.

no, no, no

"God isn't the 300 people who died in the plane crash.  No, no, no.  God is the one person who survived it.  God is that unlikely event.

"God isn't the death, mayhem, destruction and chaos of the tornado.  No, no, no. God is the miracle puppy which lived through it.

"God isn't the hundreds of US children who die every year due to medical neglect by their Christian Science parents.  No, no, no.  God is the one who may have suffered needlessly, but didn't die.

"Christian faith is blindness to manifest horror in favor of comfort.  Christian faith is picking over a cataclysm looking for anything to indulge their insatiable lust for feeling good."    (from a sir_russ post on a blog that I read)

All very natural human reactions. Denial is not a profitable endeavor however.

the proper place for books

god in the rearview mirror

parallel myths

click here... parallels to Jesus

plus Jesus & Romulus

BEWARE if you are a Christian... you're not going to like these links unless you have doubts about your faith... just warning you. Don't even bother if your heart is racing while you read these words. Go somewhere else, quick!
  

the cost of belief

Religion forces walls between people. Here are words from a song written by the band Words Such As Burn.

Flow

I know you can't sleep at night
You worry about me.
And I know you wish I would
Return to the fold.

Can't do as I'm told.
Because I don’t believe and won’t pretend
That your beliefs are sacred.
Not sacred.

Sometimes I can't sleep at night
You worry about me.
I wish you could see from my side
See through my eyes

I know you can't sleep at night
You fear for my soul.
You only want what’s best for me
But I can't do as I'm told.

Can't do as I'm told.
Because I don’t believe and won’t pretend
That your beliefs are sacred.
They’re yours to defend.
And I don't say this to hurt you
But because you have to know.
If you love me, then...
Let love flow.

Lately, I can't talk to you
You no longer hear me.
But I’m the same; the change is you.
The true cost of your belief

I know this won't change over night
But please don’t let go
I’ll meet you half way, take my hand
and don't go with the flow.

Don't do as you’re told.
Do not believe and do not pretend
That your beliefs are sacred,
Nor are mine, my friend.
Tell me, how can I show you,
That your beliefs are torturing us?
If you love me, then...
Let love flow

the skip

The Skip by James Fenton

I took my life and threw it on the skip,
Reckoning the next-door neighbours wouldn't mind
If my life hitched a lift to the council tip
With their dry rot and rubble. What you find

With skips is - the whole community joins in
Old mattresses appear, doors kind of drift
Along with all that won't fit in the bin
And what the bin-men can't be fished to shift

I threw away my life, and there it lay
And grew quite sodden. 'What a dreadful shame, '
Clucked some old bag and sucked her teeth. 'The way
The young these days.... no values....... me, I blame..... '

But I blamed no-one. Quality control
Had loused it up, and that was that. 'Nough said
I couldn't stick at home, I took a stroll
And passed the skip, and left my life for dead.

Without my life, the beer was just as foul,
The landlord still as filthy as his wife,
The chicken in the basket was an owl,
And no one said: 'Ee, Jim-lad, whur's thee life? '

Well, I got back that night the worse for wear,
But still just capable of single vision;
Looked in the skip, my life- it wasn't there!
Some bugger'd nicked it - WITHOUT my permission.

Okay, so I got angry and began
To shout, and woke the street. Okay, OKAY,
AND I was sick all down the neighbour's van
AND I disgraced myself on the par-kay

And then.... you know how if you've had a few
You'll wake at dawn, all healthy, like sea breezes,
Raring to go, and thinking: 'Clever you!
You've got away with it' and then, Oh Jesus,

It hits you. Well, that morning, just at six
I woke, got up and looked down at the skip.
There lay my life, still sodden, on the bricks,
There lay my poor old life, arse over tip.

Or was it mine? Still dressed, I went downstairs
And took a long cool look. The truth was dawning.
Someone had just exchanged my life for theirs.
Poor fool, I thought - I should have left a warning.

Some bastard saw my life and thought it nicer
Than what he had. Yet what he'd had seemed fine.
He'd never caught his fingers in the slicer
The way I'd managed in that life of mine.

His life lay glistening in the rain, neglected,
Yet still a decent, an authentic life.
Some people I can think of, I reflected
Would take that thing as soon as you'd say Knife.

It seemed a shame to miss a chance like that
I brought the life in, dried it by the stove.
It looked so fetching, stretched out on the mat
I tried it on. It fitted, like a glove.

And now, when some local bat drops off the twig
And new folk take the house, and pull up floors
And knock down walls and hire some kind of big
Container (say, a skip) for their old doors.

I'll watch it like a hawk, and every day
I'll make at least - oh - half a dozen trips.
I've furnished an existence in this way.
You'd not believe the things you'd find on skips.