Apologetics and Justification

About once a week for the last month, a neighbor has been coming over to 'discuss' religion with me.  From her questions, I can tell that she is still a believer, but that her doubts might be echoing in her head a little louder than before.

Why do I bring this up, you ask?

Well, in our talks, the common thread to her responses is: "Well, we can't know what he meant' or 'We just may be interpreting it wrong.'

I asked her some pretty straight-forward questions.  I placed her in the hot-seat to answer them.  Not me, not her God, not her mother...  But HER!

To every question I asked her, all of which were 'moral' questions, she answered like I did.

• That she would stop her child from suffering.  
• That she would stop that young girl from being raped
• That she would help the homeless
• That she would feed the hungry
• That she would treat all of her children equally

And the list went on, and on...

So, after all of these questions, I smiled at her and told her that she was more moral than her God.  She stared at me with a look that couldn't have been worse than if I had just pulled baby Jesus out of my ass.

The next 30 minutes of my life, which I can never get back, were spent listening to her explain, rationalize and justify why her God would do that.

My response at the end of her diatribe was "So that makes it ok?"

Free Will Bullshit

So, today I posted a meme on my FaceBook account.  Nothing special about it, actually a little behind the current events.  It was one of the 'Teaching Jesus' memes (below),

My comment when I posted it was "Explain this shit!"

Now, being the smart-ass that I am, that was actually more of a rhetorical question, because I really didn't think that anyone would be willing to attempt to justify these actions.  Once again, my faith in my fellow man (even a believer) was fallen just a little because someone thought they would enlighten me... :(

Now, there could have been any one of a dozen or so less offensive justifications that this individual could have come back at me with.  You know, 'the devil', or 'they were sinners' or 'their faith just wasn't strong enough', or my favorite "they were being used to bring someone closer to God".

But alas, my FB friend replied with a simple 'Free Will'...

I don't understand how a PERSON can sit there and without choking on whatever bit of dignity or decency they have, and honestly say that what happened to these women was the result of FREE WILL...  This is the same type of rationale that blames the fucking rape victim for being raped.  We have to get out of this type of mentality, or we will self-destruct.

Now, I wasn't one of the women there, and I can't really speak for them and their actions.  However, if I was in their place, I can guaran-fucking-tee you that the first fucking Bible-thumper that tried to explain to me that I should be thankful to God for getting me out of that after 10 years would be eating that same Bible, and shitting out happy-happy-joy-joy verses until Hell froze over.

Free-will?  Yes, we all have it.  We can choose to be as big of assholes as we want to be.  But more importantly, it has become a useful explanation for the religious to 'excuse' things that even they find morally reprehensible, but still can't question their beliefs.  This has become the 'God Done It' patented response when you don't have an answer for it, or don't want to consider the alternative.

That alternative is...  THERE IS NO GOD!

And that's ok.  It really is.

I want this guy that commented to view this story through my eyes.  I bet the view isn't all that different for the most part.

1. Some bad guy kidnaps and rapes 3 women for 10 years.
2. They finally get rescued.
3. There is no god to blame for letting them get raped for 10 years, so there is no god to thank for finally rescuing them after 10 years.
4. Bad guy gets sent to prison.

Ok, so he won't rescue them, which is really fucked up, but ok.  And with the exception of #3, I'm pretty sure most of us can all agree on that.  So, why won't he spare them the torture and suffering and just end their lives?  Would that not be an act of a loving deity?

I used to think that the reason that was an atheist is that I don't believe in the supernatural.  I'm beginning to realize that it's not so much the supernatural that I have trouble swallowing.  It's the BULLSHIT!

Been too long

It's been too long since I've been back here.  A couple of jobs changes, losing my house, and being undermined at every opportunity, but I AM STILL STANDING!  Hopefully soon I'll have my smile back too!

I've missed having this as a release for the frustration that builds in day to day life.

I like to think that I have made a little difference, not necessarily in the social media area, but with a couple of coworkers and friends in the 'real' world.

I have multiple FaceBook accounts, as I'm sure many of you do as well.  One for games (damn, I was hooked on Mafia Wars when I first joined, then came FarmTown, CafeWorld, blah, blah, blah), One for my friends and family, and one for my alter identity, religion and politics.

Well, the game account has been inactive for so long, I don't even remember the password.  And the Political/Religious one has been about as active as this blog has.

But with the New Year, I intend on changing both of those.

Another change is that I seem to have gone to school with most of the fundamentalists in San Diego county, because my friends/family account feed is filled so much right-wing bullshit, both religious and political, that I've found myself spending more and more time discussing, debating, and in some cases, arguing about the topics.

I have a couple of articles I have been working on and will be posting those shortly.  (I write this like I have a huge following of people, waiting on bated breath, for my next post.  Are you kidding me?  I only have 1 follower (myself!!! LOL), but again, this is MY therapy.  Writing it like this helps ME!!! :)