Lay Theism

George Carlin is a very bright guy…

This is so good, I can’t stand it.

God loves you… but he needs your money!

There is no Humpty Dumpty and there is no god.

To help you celebrate Easter next year, here is a wonderful batch of Easter greetings for your loved ones… 

A friend of mine sent me a couple of these irreverent e-cards that definitely got a chuckle out of me.  These folks don’t seem to sit firmly in the non-belief camp, but whomever wrote these cards doesn’t take religion too seriously:

Let’s just relax tonight and watch The Passion of the Christ

 

There are few former carpenters I admire more than Jesus Christ and Harrison Ford

 

I hope the abundant Easter symbols of fertility and rebirth will remind us to fuck like bunnies

 

Sorry the fulfillment of the Lord’s promise means I’m saved and you’re not

 

Adorable candy will help distract us from the astounding horror of a man being nailed to a cross

 

The Easter Bunny still scares the living shit out of me

 

I’d love to decorate Easter eggs with you or a slightly better artist

 

Happy Easter from one lapsed Catholic to another

 

Please join us for Easter dinner unless you’ve already committed to Satan

 

Let’s resume everything we gave up for Lent without any newfound spiritual insights

 

Easter may be the wrong time to tell my parents you’re a Jew

 

Drag a pagan to church this Easter

 

After Jesus, you’re my second-favorite Jew

 

I wish the resurrection of our lord and savior was deemed important enough for a day off work

And the only one that actually made me laugh out loud (not Easter themed):

Have a happy Hanukkah, Hannukkah, Chanukkah, or however the fuck you spell it 

Thanks someecards.com — keep up the good work.

I wanted to blog on this real quick before it gets stale.  To honor my parents, I went to church today… it was utterly painful.  My parents live in another state, so it has been fairly easy to avoid church on major holidays for several years. To be in an Easter service for the first time since I am a confirmed* atheist was fascinating.  We attended one of the small-sized Methodist churches in my area, as I have several times, but this was the first time in this church.  They had removed most of the decorations from the sanctuary to symbolize the day Jesus died as well as covering the cross with a black sheet.  Then after some singing and Bible scripture recitation, with the organ music swelling, they brought everything back in and pulled the cloth from the cross on the wall… RESURRECTION!

Then the pastor proceeded to weave this tale about how the women that went to the tomb looking for Jesus were looking in the wrong place.  He tried to create these clever ideas to indicate that they should have never expected him there.  Duh!  He’s the son of God…  why would his broken body be lying in a tomb?  But then again, why didn’t he rise where everyone would see vs. in cover of night??  Wouldn’t that have solidified the event once and for all? But it was odd because he painted the picture of how implausible all this was as if to say, “… and because it’s so completely implausible makes it that much more miraculous!”  He confirmed for me that it’s all simple-minded mythology created by early man with virtually no understanding of the natural world.  That makes SO much more sense.  Think about it.

Anyway, I won’t belabor this as it was tiresome enough sitting through it…

The one bright spot is that as we are riding in the car, out of the blue my wife says, “I can’t believe people believe that crap.”  To which I said, “I know… it’s all very weird.”  Then we proceeded to have a light conversation about how wasteful and counterproductive it is to believe that god has a plan, and that everything happens for a reason, and all the silly shit that religious people believe.  We never really talked a lot about religion before we married, but we have come along to our current state of non-belief at about the same pace.  It’s really interesting, because we rarely talk about it, but when it comes up, we always seem to be in the same place.  I love her very much and having put religion (mostly) behind us has freed us up to concentrate on much more productive, earthly pursuits.  If we only have to attend church every few years while our parents are still with us, then so be it.  Worst case, it’s a nice refresher on why we don’t attend church.

Good luck to you on your quest for meaning and happiness.  You might try this as a starting point.

*If you haven’t been keeping up, I finally woke up within the past year and realized that I don’t believe one shred of the supernatural mumbo-jumbo that has been spoon fed to me since I was born. As far as my confirmation, after doubting for years and then studying non-belief by reading many of the excellent sources available, I became convinced… and that pretty much confirmed it.

This is just to absurd to leave alone.  What is wrong with this picture painted by the Wall Street Journal?  That may be a “subscriber only” link, but here’s a pretty good synopsis:

…Pastor Jason Burrick grabbed his cellphone and dialed 911… Half an hour later, 71-year-old Karolyn Caskey, a church member for nearly 50 years who had taught Sunday school and regularly donated 10% of her pension, was led out by a state trooper and a county sheriff’s officer… The pastor, Mr. Burrick, told congregants the three were guilty of gossip, slander and idolatry and should be shunned, [Ed. emphasis added] according to several former church members. [...]

Shortly after the church hired Mr. Burrick in 2005 to help revive the congregation, which had dwindled to 12 members, Mrs. Caskey asked him to appoint a board of deacons to help govern the church, a tradition outlined in the church’s charter. Mr. Burrick said the congregation was too small to warrant deacons. Mrs. Caskey pressed the issue at the church’s quarterly business meetings and began complaining that Mr. Burrick was not following the church’s bylaws. [...] 

In April 2006, Mrs. Caskey received a stern letter from Mr. Burrick. “This church will not tolerate this spirit of cancer and discord that you would like to spread,” it said. Mrs. Caskey… continued to insist that the pastor follow the church’s constitution. In August, she received a letter from Mr. Burrick that said her failure to repent [Ed.] had led to her removal. It also said he would not write her a transfer letter enabling her to join another church. [Oh no!]

Mr. Burrick repeatedly declined to comment on Mrs. Caskey’s case, calling it a “private ecclesiastical matter.” He did say that while the church does not “blacklist” anyone, a strict reading of the Bible requires pastors to punish disobedient members. “

OK, seriously???  A strict reading of the Bible?  Who is he kidding?  A strict reading of the Bible condones slavery, says the world was created in six days (and the “heavens” too!), that the best Jesus could do was to cure individual sick people (not entire diseases, or all birth defects, or mental illness, etc.), and that we all decend from Noah and company.

I really don’t have anything more to add to this.  It’s exactly this type of thing that drove me nuts when I was a Christian, and now that I am not, just puzzles and amazes me how far away so many people are from reality.  That’s all I have the energy for today…

Hey, I know, go watch this: The Atheist Delusion.