What now?

"To hear a religious parent say "You're an embarrassment to the family" is hurtful and is made no less painful by the confidence that your rejection of superstition was the necessary, healthy and right choice. I heard these words this morning, and while they cut deep, they serve as an example of how religion attempts to quell legitimate counter-arguments by attempting to shame those who present them. Even family."


This is a quote from "The Thinking Atheist" who is a guy named Seth that hosts a website, a podcast and of course Facebook and Twitter pages/accounts. I read this quote this morning, like 12 hours ago and I haven't been able to get it out of my head all day. After officially and publicly separating myself from Christianity I got a lot of comments like this, probably since I was even more (publicly) outspoken then, than I am now. Since then I've gone through some stages, sort of similar to the stages of grief actually, as odd as that might sound. Not having come out the other end of that I am stuck in a familiar pattern of frustration and anger and I cannot decide what to do about it. Literally removing all my Christian friends from my life would solve some of my problems, however the problems it would create are probably even worse. I could publicly ask people to leave me the fuck alone and keep their idiotic dithering to themselves, but that isn't practical either considering how much I use social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. And it doesn't help me decide what to do about the members of my family who have been laying guilt trips on me so thick I feel like I'm being crushed. It's breaking my heart, and it's taking up way far too much of the space in my head. I had a friend who always told me I chose what thoughts I "rent" space out to in my head. But I can't kick this one, and I am confronted by this issue on nearly a daily basis.


I know I have nothing to feel guilty about, and I know that the fact they keep bringing up my shortcomings or mistakes I made in the past (some 2 decades ago) just shines a spotlight on their immaturity. But I can't help but feel like I'm a bad person! I spent YEARS of my life judging people for not blindly accepting the Christian faith, I mean, it was so "obvious" that it was the "truth". The truth was, I had never actually given it any real consideration, it was all I knew, it was how I was brought up and all these smart people around me that I respected so much seemed to genuinely believe these things. Now as I stand on the outside looking in I wonder HOW on earth ANYONE could possibly buy into such blatant bullshit. But, I digress, back to the point. I have nothing to feel guilty for, as much as I hate the sound of this term, I am the *shudder* victim here. Maybe I'm frustrated because now I am presenting these people with cold hard facts that are obviously in direct opposition to what they believe and their ears and eyes are closed. Why should I care? It's their problem not mine. Or is it? It seems it's constantly becoming my problem lately. I was hoping this would help me reach some conclusion, yet it has not.


So, I move forward hoping for some clarity and wondering how to obtain it. I miss North Idaho more than ever at times like this. There is a rock, high above a lake where I used to take these questions....

Kicking a dead horse...

A week or so has passed since Harold Camping a pastor/broadcaster from Family Life Christian Radio predicted the beginning of the end of the world.  The vast majority of thinking people paid this absolutely no mind, however a small percentage actually bought into the idea that May 21st was in fact the end of the world.  That day my Facebook news feed was full of commentary, jokes and discussion about the 6pm deadline (Pacific Standard Time, apparently Jesus prefers the West Coast of the United States for some reason) for the second coming or the beginning of Armageddon, depending on whether you believe in a "pre-trib" or "post trib" rapture.  The funniest thing to me was all the Christians who were making jokes about this.  They seem to forget they're just as crazy as Harold Camping, the only difference is they don't claim to know the day it's going to happen.  The fact that Christians say things like "we don't need to worry about the environment, Jesus is coming back before it will become a problem for us or our children" is absolutely asinine!  I want to know how I can confront these people with the facts about the ridiculous things they believe in a manner that will jar them into a realization of the fact that they are as bad, or worse than Mr. Camping.  He's 89 years old, he has an excuse for why he's gone looney, his brain is full of plaque and cholesterol.

Ridiculous.

And the battle continues...

Apparently only the religious are allowed to express their beliefs in public forums such as Facebook and Twitter, and anyone with divergent or contrary beliefs such as myself are apparently expected to remain silent.  The amount of ignorance I am confronted with on a daily basis is staggering, it seems that belief in god means that one must completely abstain from any use of logic or reason when explaining, discussing or defending one's beliefs.  I am also seeing a total lack of historical knowledge, whether it be ancient or modern the faithful seem to ignore the implications of their predecessors actions and behaviors in regards to their religious beliefs and the erroneous claims they continually make about god and religion.  Even more ironically, there seems to be a strong patriotic connection for many of these people, god and country often go hand in hand in many of their ramblings.  Yet they know little or nothing about the foundations of the United States and the fact that the vast majority of our founding fathers were atheist or agnostic, and the ones who weren't could hardly be described as Christians.  Even though it appears to be futile I continue to engage them in debate, I challenge their notions of god and the statements they make and almost invariably their response is something akin to a child plugging his or her ears, stomping their feet and yelling "NO, NO, NO I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"  Which is then followed by a list of "amens" and some idiotic and illogical statement about faith.  I spend a lot of time and take great care to make sure that my answers/responses are respectful, thorough and insightful.  However they seem to barely read let alone actually consider the facts about the issues or what I have to say before they vomit out the same kind of ridiculous response.  These people are quite literally brainwashed.

At this point I am not yet sure what it will take to break through the walls of lies and propaganda that have been built up around their feeble minds.  However, if I do discover some universal approach to exposing religion for what it is a Nobel Peace Prize will surely follow in short order.

I wish everyone who has to deal with this in their life, whether it be family members, co-workers, friends or just simply the Mormon and Jehovah's Witness door-knockers the best of luck.