Religion

Second Thought

Fandango19 Comments

3A26712D-DC37-410F-898F-8DF737009622I started writing an entirely different post earlier today. It began this way:

The United States is a tapestry of religious beliefs among its 325 million or so inhabitants. But atheists are still considered to be an anathema to many, if not most, Americans.

But then I got hung up watching the Kavanaugh hearing on TV and had some second thoughts, so I decided to shelve my somewhat circuitous rant about religion, at least for the time being.

Things are already controversial enough right now and there’s no way that our highly partisan senators will be able to reach a consensus when it comes to Trump’s latest Supreme Court nominee. What else is new, right?

So I’m sorry, but I just don’t have the energy to watch those self-serving politicians wrangle over whether or not Brett Kavanaugh would make a good Supreme Court Justice. (He would not.)

Maybe when my blood pressure has settled down and I’m ready to temp fate and stir things up, I’ll finish up my rant about the American religious tapestry.

Written for today’s Word of the Day Challenge, the Ragtag Daily Prompt, Your Daily Word Prompt, Fandango’s One-Word Challenge, Daily Addictions, and Scotts Daily Prompt. 

Reblog: Give me that old-time delusion, it’s good enough for me

Fandango4 Comments

It’s Sunday, so how could I resist reblogging this?

THE SHINBONE STAR

Donald Trump warned of violence in America’s streets if his Trumplican Party candidates aren’t elected in the November midterms.

“The level of hatred, the level of anger is unbelievable. Part of it is because of some of the things I’ve done for you and for me and for my family, but I’ve done them,“ a very Delusional Donald told evangelical leaders gathered last week in a closed-door White House meeting.

However, his pronouncements were secretly recorded and leaked to NBC-TV.

“This Nov. 6 election is very much a referendum on not only me, it’s a referendum on your religion, it’s a referendum on free speech and the First Amendment,” he postulated.

As always, Trump made the event about “ME.”

He warned evangelicals that there would be “violence” if Republicans lose the House in the November midterm elections.

“You’re one election away from losing everything that you’ve got,” he told his…

View original post 401 more words

Religious “Liberty”

Fandango54 Comments

065CA47E-EFA0-42CF-BA7F-BD3179FCD47AAttorney General Jeff Sessions just announced the creation of a Religious Liberty Task Force that will “ensure that the Justice Department is prioritizing the rights of religious people and groups in its policies and legal battles.”

Acording to Sessions, there is “a dangerous movement” eroding religious liberties and that “we have gotten to the point where courts have held that morality cannot be a basis for law; where ministers are fearful to affirm, as they understand it, holy writ from the pulpit; and where one group can actively target religious groups by labeling them a ‘hate group’ on the basis of their sincerely held religious beliefs.”

So rejoice all you bakers who refuse to bake cakes for gay/lesbian wedfings. Congratulations to all those who are morally offended when people say “happy holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.”

Praise be for all the local civil servants whose Christian beliefs take precedent over their civic duties. Say amen all you preachers and pastors who can make your sermons all about supporting conservative Christian politicians and ideologies without losing your precious tax-exempt status. Sing hallelujah all you pro-lifers who value the life of a fetus over that of a woman’s right to make her own reproductive decisions.

It’s about time someone has finally stood up for the poor, persecuted Christian majority in America. So thank you, Jeff Seasons and the Department of Justice for establishing this Religious Liberty Task Force. This is how we will make America great again…for straight, white, Christian conservatives, anyway.

Because, in Today’s America, they are all that matter. Everyone else is immorally bankrupt lost souls who are apparently destroying what real (i.e., Christian) Americans hold near and dear.

Welcome to the new American theocracy.

All Dressed Up and No Place to Go

Fandango26 Comments

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I probably shouldn’t do this. It’s against my better judgment. After all, my philosophy is “you do you and I’ll do me.” So I’d be better off just keeping my mouth shut and minding my own business.

I also suggest, should you decide to take a moment and continue reading this post, that you lower your expectations, since I have no special qualifications or knowledge on the subject matter. I am merely expressing my opinion.

So what, exactly, is the subject matter? No biggie. Just the purpose of life is all.

I read a blog post earlier today in which the blogger wrote, “the reason for life is for God to know me, love me, and serve me.” Then the blogger said that our life’s purpose, our mission, is “to know, love, and serve God in this life so we will be happy with Him in Eternity.”

Now I’m not being critical of this blogger for her beliefs. Hey, whatever floats your boat, you know. But what she wrote did confuse me. The two statements seem contradictory to me. Is the purpose of life to let God know, love, and serve us? Or is it for us to know, love, and serve God? Which is it? Or is it both?

The blogger also can’t understand why anyone would fear death, because death is what allows us to be happy with God for eternity. Death, the blogger contends, is life changed, not life taken away.

I think the blogger has a point. Why bother fearing death if the sole purpose of life is to “be happy with God for eternity” and death brings you closer to it?

You see, this is why I’m an atheist. I believe that death is the end, that there is no afterlife, no eternity to be spent at the right hand of God. So I want to live my life to the fullest because death, I believe, is life taken away.

The blogger ended her post by writing, “The atheist reasoning best explained from an epitaph etched on a gravestone. ‘All dressed up and no place to go.’”

Yes, I agree with that. When it comes to death, the end is not a new beginning. It’s just the end and there is no place else to go.

Written for today’s Your Daily Word Prompt, “qualification,” for the Word of the Day Challenge, “expectation,” and for Fandango’s One-Word Challenge, “moment.”

#FOWC — Myths, Legends, and Fables

Fandango18 Comments

E6723579-975B-4CD6-A641-B2E230FE5737Warning. This post is bound to offend, irritate, or piss off certain readers, especially those who take the Bible, the Quran, or whatever other holy books they believe in seriously or literally. So if you are such a person, you may wish to exit this post now.

I’ve always enjoyed reading and studying mythology and the stories of heroic and legendary characters. But as entertaining as they may be, I’ve never, as a very pragmatic individual, put much credence into these tales. That’s because they are, plain and simple, folklore.

Folklore is essentially traditional beliefs, customs, and stories of a community, passed down through the generations, first by word of mouth and later by the written/printed word.

Like folklore, fables are generally short tales designed to teach a moral lesson, often with animals as characters.

A legend is a type of folklore, but it typically features human actions, rather than animals, and is perceived to have taken place within human history. It’s typically a non-historical or unverifiable story handed down by tradition from earlier times that is often popularly accepted as historical.

And that brings us to myths, which are stories concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.

Perhaps it’s because of my aforementioned pragmatism, my logic, and my reason, that I can’t quite grasp how so many people in the 21st century truly believe as real the folklore, myths, fables, and legends contained in their holy books and are willing to fight and maybe even die to defend their own versions of these myths and legends as being the only ones to be believed.

Wouldn’t the world be a better place if people just appreciated their myths, fables, and legends for the folklore that they are. Believe whatever you want, but don’t use your myths as a weapon against those whose myths may be different from yours.

This irreligious rant was written for yesterday’s Fandango’s One-Word Challenge, “legend.” Sorry, I’m a day late, but my tour guide duties continue to keep me away from my blog.