One nation under god

I agree with all the people that say that we atheists are too sensitive to the word "god." However, the pledge of allegiance really bugs me. It's not so much the mere use of the word, it's the arrogance of using the word "one" before it. On a different point, I don't see at all why we should be taught to promise loyalty to our country at the age of 5 or 6, when we don't really know what we're saying. Now, we could go on and on about it, but this country has more pressing problems than the word "god."

Apologies for this terrible, incoherent post that I wrote at midnight last night. It would be great if someone could write a post right after this one so it doesn't take up room at the top of the page for too long.

God: The Word

Note: any reference to "we" or "us" is a collective term for atheists

Our recent posts & discussions have evolved around the topic of God in our government. This made me wonder: Well, if we [the atheists] don't believe in God, then why do we care so much that the word "God" is on the dollar bill? It's an interesting question, since if atheists don't believe that God exists, God is just a word. A word by which we attempt to pin down as an abstract concept in which atheists by definition have no faith in.

If we don't believe in God, why are we so upset about the word being on the dollar bill? Sure, it's a word that has caused people to kill each other and have huge wars, but in the grand scheme of things. The word is just a label, but isn't necessarily the concept it's attempting to decribe. Personally, if we get frustrated by having the word "God" on our currency, then we are letting the definition of the word become more generalized and accepted. Basically, if you try to treat it as though it's a word more special or taboo than other words, it will become more special and revered. If we don't believe in the concept the word represents, the word shouldn't really bother us should it? It's the meaning behind the word which holds so much power.

By giving "God" so much attention, we are letting the whole situation bother us much more than it has to. And again, we have to draw the line somewhere between atheist and a-religion because as much as some of us may want to group them together, they are innately different concepts and must be treated as such. Finally we're getting somewhere.

Silly Catholics, God is for Protestants!

But seriously.

A Catholic school teacher was recently fired for being pregnant and unmarried. At a news conference announcing a lawsuit Michelle McCusker is filing against the school, she said, "I don't understand how a religion that prides itself on forgiving and on valuing life could terminate me because I'm pregnant and choosing to have this baby."

And I don't understand how a woman professing to be of that faith could not follow its laws. If she was a good Catholic, she would follow the rules outlined in the Bible and allow her community to stone her (KJV Deuteronomy 22:21). Geez.

No, really. I've said it time after time: You cannot claim to follow a religion because of the morals it teaches, because it also teaches ones that most people would regard as bad. When people mention the morals of a religion, they mean the morals that they agree with.

And that's all for today, folks. Have a great holiday.

Divine Intervention

It's high time there's another post.

A major turning point for my atheism was when I started to think about a concept I'll call "divine intervention." For our purposes, divine intervention is the possibility that God intervenes in human life. This can be in either a micro-managing parent view or just as a salesperson/encouraging guide type.

I personally, refuse to accept the fact that there is any sort of intervention from any supernatural being. To me, this intervention would cause a contortion of free will.

In Biblical times, God played a pretty active role. Like after Cain's fratricide, God comes down and asks Cain about the whereabouts of his brother. Now to me, God allowed Cain the opportunity to own up to what he had done, but by coming down to Cain while he was in a crazed state warped Cain's sense of choice. Given the opportunity to think clearly, Cain may have been able to properly atest to his crime.

So if you're the type of theist who believes that by praying to God, God takes an active role in your life and the lives of every human being, answer this: When God solves your problem, or grants you wish, is God somehow denying the right of free will to another person? If you think about it, if every religion considers themselves the "chosen people," we're all on an equal plane. Since the pure contradiction of having all religiously affiliated peoples be "chosen" is obvious. If we're all equal, than how can God play a neutral role in the lives of people. People hate, kill and hurt each other, that's what they do. So at some point, God takes sides.

I would love to start a dialogue on this.

Sexism in Religion

Considering that I'm the only female contributor to the blog, I think I've got the right to bring up the issue. Sexism certainly has distinguishable roots in religion. Example: Garden of Eden, Adam isn't punished for eating the fruit, he's punished for listening to his wife. Since obviously, it's her fault that he decided to eat the fruit, we women are just so incredibly tempting.

Another example: Think about any older movie you've seen where two people get married. What does the presiding clergyman say? "I now pronounce you man and wife." The implications of the statement are that the man owns the woman. The woman is just another one of his possessions like a chair or a dog. Not everbody today realizes why this is so offensive, but it is, and people still say it and may even believe that women are the property of men.

And people today when they refer to original sin, often take the prerogative to refer to women as original sin. It's sinful to be with a woman because she has no sense of right or wrong. I guess my question is, why aren't more men fighting against sexism?

My theory is, there are plenty of people that are alienated by biases and prejudice. They'll always fight back, but in reality, they shouldn't have to. White people should fight against racism; Christians should fight against anti-semitism; and Men should fight against sexism. It's pretty simple, once guys start realizing that sexism is so prominent in our society due to its use in a more religious context.

So even if you never would look at the Bible or the Torah as serious historical documents, you can see that they have cultural and moral effects regardless of their historical accuracy. That is, and always will be, the danger of a religious text.