I Am Biased, I Confess. I Think the Very Idea of Invisible People in the Sky is Dumb, but Still

 This is the dumbest article I have read in a while:

It's The Liberalism

In brief.  I though this was going to be some sort of take down of liberalism by some idiotic, toxic  conservative.  I found the link to it on Real Clear Politics, after all.  Turns out the writer really wasn't talking politics, but was writing a backhanded endorsement of monotheism and organized religion.  

He did not differentiate between Old and New Testaments.  I don't think he considered how very much not liberal most strains of Islam are.  That sort of wrecks his point.  But in any case. If your argument is liberalism bad, because people are worshiping and living life less under the dictates of some Invisible People in the Sky?  So the answer to that is to worship and live life under the dictates of some Invisible Person in the Sky.  Well, you just be recruiting. And badly.

Oddly enough, telling people who reject the at least outward and organized worshiping of  Invisible People in the Sky, is not likely to convert any one to your side, with out doing something like advancing a case for monotheism and organized religion.  Hmm?

Oh.  And this fucking guy, pulled a McWhorter.  He sets up liberalism as a religion.  Which it is not really, unless you accept the most wide open definition of religion as any shit any one might believe in, with something approaching more than neglectful interest.  And then at the end, his argument is really nothing more than, try the original flavor of religion.

I don't get it.  I truly don't get it.  

Too Early On A Saturday Morning

to wax long on my feelings about organized religion.  Or even the core, underlying ideas of religion.

I'll post the following, and comment  a wee bit after.

I try not to harsh too harshly on religious folk.  But I lean more to this (Mr. Clemens') view, rather than the respect religion, JUST BECAUSE it is said to be a person's religion, thing.

I think that is perhaps the biggest con of them all:  getting people to accept the idea that an individual or a group supposition about the true nature, will, and allegedly inherent superiority of invisible sky people deserves more respect than the supermarket check out person's question, "Paper or plastic?"

I Now Get The Bishops' Point of View! ( Well Not Really, But . . .)

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Let's Play Jeopardy. The Answer: Just Tell Them What the Constitution Actually Says.

Abs hits  his buzzer and says,"What is how do you piss off a Wing Nut?"

Poor Ann Althouse.  Over the past day she did what she does now and then.  She says something I agree with.  Usually this occurs when she talks about law, and a rule of law so universally understood by lawyers, that only a dishonest one would disagree.  And she did that on one aspect of the, as I call it, not a religious liberty matter but rather: The War on Worker's Rights to Be Free of Employer Meddling With Their Insurance Coverage,  matter.  (Like how I framed the issue?) 

She called out the wing nut redneck horde, particularly Rush Limbaugh, for finding/declaring some invisible, actually imaginary  broad right to Religious Liberty in the actually narrow Free Exercise Clause.

And I say poor her, because I went and looked at the comments, and some of her minions  are attacking her.  For accurately stating the current and historical and actual meaning  and limited nature of the Free Exercise Clause.

Sucks to be  near wing nuts. I don't recommend it, unless one is itching for a fight with idiots.
Go Here for That Shit.

Does anyone actually believe that the Catholic Church has a right to tell anyone they employ in the stream of ordinary commerce (meaning not a priest, nun, or employee of an actual parish who has to be a Catholic to get the job in the parish) they can't use their salary to by some rubbers?

(Almost) no one would say the church has a say in how ordinary employees spend their wages. So why the hell does anyone think the church can meddle in employee choices when it comes to ordinary employees' health insurance? Religious Liberty my ass!

Let's Pick on Tebow Some More!

It's almost the end of the year and I have only a little time to come up with any more new coinages, bon mots, good slams, this year. Here's one that came to me while reading the attached article.

The best (facetious) was of describing Tim Tebow's public displays of faith would be:

FAITH PORN!
...
Now we all understand that the word porn was originally intended to describe graphic depictions of sex. But over the years, it has been used as a modifier for other excessively graphic images and imagery: gun porn, food porn, guitar porn. Ect. And when my mind got to thinking about it, yep. Even if Tebow's job on paper is athlete, he is also in the business of TV. So what he does on TV can count as graphic, if he does it in a graphic way. That's my case, and I standing by it!

Fast Forward to New Year's. Please!

Even if I finally got my de minimus Xmas decorations up, and my first Xmas cards in the mail, I still am way the hell not feeling the season, this year.  I just want to speed it up to New Year's  so can say I survived another shit year.  Well it was not all shit.   I had a lot of good times.  Kept close with old friends, made some new ones, and did not fucking die.  So  what if I did not get the bank account up to fat and happy levels?  Well, that is my main complaint actually.  All other irritants in my life would be totally insignificant, provided I had enough money to keep that shit out of sight and out of mind.

And that reminds me.  Yes  children.  The rich are different.  They don't have to really deal with shit or people they rather not.  Money is good for that.  Unless one chooses to slum, or other wise consents to having to breathe the same air and share the same places as the plebes and proles.

And I went on a tangent there.  And what I really intended to do was post this pic.   After cleaning up my over the top remarks  about the mockingly anti-creche creche erected in Madison, in the previous post,  this mocking  "motivational" pic in my archives  came to mind.  Now mind me.  I am not anti religion.  I am anti alleged christians (and similarly disturbed people of other faiths,) whining about how the few of us here in America who really do not respect religion, refuse to actually really respect the shit they happen  to believe in.  How dare we!  I'll tell you how.  Religion is supposed to be a matter of personal conscience, in a free society.  That means no matter how much your faith tells you to spread the good word, and all that evangelising shit, you do not have a right to have a public,  government financed pulpit for your religion.  As soon as the assholes  get that straight, the more civil a society we will have.  Ok.  I went long there.  Something about this  year really has me  all full of piss and vinegar.  I tell ya!

Personally, I don't really give a shit whether or not they have a traditional creche set up at my town hall.  But when some one objects, saying the display is outside the fair rules set by law under the US  Const.?  I will of course accept the right of others  to fight it.  In Court.  But fight it fair. Fight it honestly.  And don't fucking whine about an attack on christians or christianity.  Truth be told, none of that shit should be on government property.  That what your own homes and houses  of worship are for.  Let your freak flag fly.  Have at it, and enjoy yourself  giddy.  He haw!  But not on public, taxpayer owned or operated lands and sites, when you get called on it.  People have been getting over with that shit for years.  That doesn't mean  it is right, or legal.  It just means that the majority bias has been winning the fight in that place, for too damn long, and it is finally being challenged. 

I will be paraphrasing from a US Circuit Court opinion, but first the set up.  The ruling was against some christianist bigot who sued Augusta State University, after it expelled her from its school-counseling program. She was one of those whack a doodles who thinks you can counsel the gay out of people.  That ran not only against the curriculum, but the ethical standards of the field.     

What she argued, in court, was that the school:

"Had violated   her rights to free speech and the free exercise of her Christian faith when it told her that, in order to stay in the program, she would have to change her beliefs about homosexuality—that it is immoral, unnatural, and a “lifestyle choice” that can be reversed through “conversion therapy.”"

She rightly got her ass handed to her, at the trial court.  And the Circuit Court agreed saying she was,"Looking for preferential, not equal, treatment.”

http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/appeals-court-rejects-christian-students-bid-for-reversal-of-her-expulsion/39257

This is EXACTLY what I am talking about.  All over the country for years and years, christianity has enjoyed preferential treatment.  And that sort of treatment  basically pisses all over the First Amendment.  Actually.

I am almost done.  Here's my last point:  this passive-aggressive christianist  bigotry has got to go.  Well I think so, at least.  Obviously it can make me crazy, just thinking about it. 

Reasons I Hate the Convserva-christians. Them Who Whine and Tell Whopping Lies About the War on Xmas.

Ya  hate is a strong word. I'll pull that punch in a bit and say in stead, I hate the stupid, dishonest shit they think and say.   How's that?  Granted,  look at the fucking pie chart.  I can't say you will see the same thing I do, but I see evidence than for the most part, when conserva christians are whining about being persecuted, what really is going in there is some twisted passive-aggressive bigotry.  Get over your fucking selves.  Lighten the fuck up.  You  (all so called  self describing christians, that is,) are 66% of the population.  See that tiny sliver of other?  That  is not merely  agnostics and atheists.  That percentage is tiny. Actually. 

Wanna  know who's the oppressed spiritual matters minority in the USA?  It's the unbelievers.  You believers run the fucking place. 

Agnostic's Affirmation.

Ok. I confess. I get crabby this time of year, and wrote a "Note" (on my FB page) about how some people do things this time of year that divides people way more than bring them together (*cough* conserva-christians *cough*.) But I decided to heed my own advice in my deleted note, and try to lighten up. But still. I likely have said similar things before and I am going to reaffirm my agnosticism. And . . . I will post the Wiki Article that explains that, and the specific kind of agnostic I most resemble. Just letting ya'll know where I am coming from. And for the record. I really don't mind all that christian Christmas stuff. What gets on my nerve is the whole culture war/war on Christmas/stop picking on us by not submitting to our will, shit. Anyway, here is where I am coming from, for the most part:

Strong agnosticism (also called "hard," "closed," "strict," or "permanent agnosticism") The view that the question of the existence or nonexistence of a deity or deities, and the nature of ultimate reality is unknowable by reason of our natural inability to verify any experience with anything but another subjective experience. A strong agnostic would say, "I cannot know whether a deity exists or not, and neither can you."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism

Tebow Wow Wow.

Ok.  Ya fucking wing nut Tebow christianist fanatics.  If we are supposed to assume he's some fucking divine agent when Denver wins, what does it mean when Denver gets the shit kicked outta them?  Does that mean Tebow has lost the favor of His Creator?  Does that mean he has impure thoughts  about some female he is not married to yet?  Does that mean, only, that The Lord God had something better to do that day?  Or does it mean what Occam's Razor directs;  that if there is a god  (and for this point, just assume that for the sake of argument) he usually got better things to do than help the lame assed Broncos win football games?

Definitely Not Smarter Than a Third Grader.

Christian Bigot Eric Bolling SHOCKED, SHOCKED to discover that atheists DO NOT believe Jesus is Lord. Throws atheist off his show for expressing atheist thoughts.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/eric-bolling-boots-atheist-guest-off-show-for-denigrating-the-name-of-jesus-christ/

And sorry. Can't get the link feature to work now as the dashboard is all messed up here. So many buttons missing. And this is yet another, first on FB then posted here, things. With follow up.

Now I don't expect christian (or other religious) bigots to get it, that they are totally offensive people for dragging their religions out in the street, and erecting shrines to it on public property. I know they really don't care if they offend me, and that would only be a little bit; for me it's a matter of constitutional law and being a tacky bully. And they certainly do not care about the people they really manage to oppress like religious minorities, who may be deeply passionate about their beliefs, who naturally see the shrines to some other religion as vastly degrading their faiths. So let's try another argument.

You love your faith and religion all that much? Well don't be casting pearls before swine. Don't put your money in a pile on the front law, if you actually want to keep it. In other words, be greedy about your faith. Lock it up. Keep it safe. Be a miser with it. Treat it like the most precious thing you have in life, and safe guard it with will all the security you can afford.

Not that I am going to steal anyone's faith away from them. I have no use for that shit. But I really wish religious people were more like Scrooge McDuck with their precious religion, than like obnoxious missionaries who will not shut the fuck up about their beliefs. Isn't the right to believe what ever you like enough for you people? Isn't the fact that no one can force you to fight or switch, convert or be deported or killed enough? Isn't the freedom of your own conscience regarding religion enough of a liberty that you would rather die in torture and agony than engage in anything remotely like religious coercion yourself?

Well not all religious peeps don't get that shit. But too many don't. Believe what you want to believe, people. Just keep that shit to yourselves.

Does Dedicating the Video of George Clinton's Atomic Dog to Herbie Cain Make Me a Racist?

Well some asshole ignoramus, Prof. Douglas, might think so. Here's his bovine, witless post. According to that other wing nut hack, Instapundit, he's "fighting bigotry." Here.

I want to go with the smack that both professors don't seem to know the meaning of the word bigotry, but that is not the whole truth. Both fuckers are right wing hacks. And like Humpty Dumpty says, they intend their words to mean no more than what they want them to mean. In other words, they don't give a shit about the real, actual meanings. It's all about what ever shitty scam or game they happen to be running, that minute.

And in this case it is Professor Douglas being the bigot. Why am I so comfortable hurling that trebouchet in his specific direction? Because it is patently obvious he's doing that perverse wing nut game. And I wish I had a more succinct way of saying it, but here goes:

Ya know that thing where someone is just so overeager to accuse someone else of being what they know in their hearts and minds they themselves are guilty of, that they will make the accusation with the tiniest bit of cause, or none at all? Well it is that thing, here.

. For a baseline, let's load up a definition of the word bigotry. I will go with the one from Wiki:

A bigot is a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices, especially one exhibiting intolerance, and animosity toward those of differing beliefs. The predominant usage in modern English refers to persons hostile to those of differing sex, race, ethnicity, religion or spirituality, nationality, language, inter-regional prejudice, gender and sexual orientation, age, homelessness, various medical disorders particularly behavioral disorders and addictive disorders. Forms of bigotry may have a related ideology or world views.

Notice the words I bolded. We are not, where bigotry is concerned, calling each and every barb, dig or crack evidence of bigotry. From that extreme pov every criticism of people in the "suspect classes" would be bigotry. And no one in at least half of a right mind would believe that. So what is going on here that makes me point the finger back at Douglas? He basically is taking some really minor cracks taken at right wing wing nut icons, and going all bat shit crazy with the accusation of left wing bigotry.

Turns out the first incident in his post concerns some blogger's 1/2 crack at Tim Tebow. Now after some hugely long and boring set up, Douglas posts the "evidence" of bigotry:

"Now that Kyle Orton has been cast from DenverEden, God will be particularly protective of Timmy because, Notre Dame or no Notre Dame, nobody wants to see Brady Quinn placing his hands near another man’s manparts. Not even Touchdown Jesus."

If that is christian bashing, bashing is the same as a pillow fight.

And now we come to the false charge of racism. For starters ya'll might have heard that Herbie Cain has been called out by his lady on the side, for having a lady on the side FOR THIRTEEN FUCKING YEARS? That should be he headline. That should be what Professor Douglas is paying attention to. But noooooo. He's indignant at the headline a certain blogger used, while republishing the news of Herbie Cain's love you long time, girl on the side:

"Herman Cain Has Sexed Up Every Woman In America Including Your Mom."

And along with that, the blogger posted a graphic of some Blackploitation comix. And that is the evidence Professor Douglas puts forth to support the charge of racism???

Gimme a break! The man's been drowning in sexual harassment charges for the past three weeks and now his paramour steps up and speaks out about a 13 year affair. And some blogger goes with the Blackploitaion graphic? Sorry. But being portrayed mockingly as super hot ghetto hero with some Bettys dripping at your legs is not being made the victim of racism. Granted it was a joke, I mean really! But it actually pumps up Cain's image more than I would. That's why I posted George Clinton's "Atomic Dog" to my FB page last night and dedicated it to Herbie. Emphasis was on the word DOG. I was not going for anything so flattering as that Ghetto Hero pic.

So do I have anything else to say about that or that idiot Douglas? Well I think he either needs to renounce his faith and embrace his inner asshole and claim it as part of his personality that does not need to be disguised with and under false license or cause. Or the fucking hypocrite needs to give up on that sort of insulting shit and get right with his god and face the truth. The truth is he's a shitty excuse for a christian if he's insulting any the fuck one for any fucking reason. And that make him a perfect poster boy for the hypocritical Religious Right.

Now me? I'm an extreme agnostic. I don't pretend to be a christian. So I get a pass from the charge of being a hypocrite. Because I don't go to church and make promises to some god I have no real intention of keeping. But it never ceases to amaze me when alleged self describe christians go all bat shit like that. Or any way. For any reason. Love they neighbor. Love they enemies. These alleged christian might as well be telling Lord Jesus to fuck off, the way they demean him with their unchristian behaviour, beliefs, thoughts. All that shit.

I Understand Being a Partisan, but Jeeze Lousie!

Now I call myself a once and perhaps future democratic political hack as I used to be a labor union lawyer, and on account of that, a registered lobbyist. So I totally get being partisan. But gimme a break . . .

I am not even going to link either site, but there is this wing nut blog I rubberneck, called The Anchoress. Blogger is super Catholic. And even if I was raised that way she's so far off the edge it's like reading an alien's description of the world through their alien filters.

Representative titles of posts: "Carmelite Nuns Wreaths On Sale!" "New Book on Bishops!" "Cathecism is Cool!" You get the picture.

But she also writes about politics. And she posted a link to one of her buddy's post elsewhere taking P. Obama to task for . . . wait. As this is so petty it might blow your socks off . . . the way he pardoned the Turkey! En-croy-able!

Re the source blogger? Well at least she got some good push back in the comments section:

"I won’t be voting for Obama either, for important reasons. But this “classless, ungenerous, ungracious ” sniping over every silly thing is what’s really “adolescent” and “pathetic.”

And: "Wait, so this was actually meant to be taken seriously? You should probably step away from the keyboard for a little while and try to regain a sense of perspective."

Oh and for delicious irony the name of her blog is,"Seasons of Grace." Seems she's fairly graceless to me. But hey. It's hard to live up to the example of Christ, and be a minion in the GOP, party of selfishness, hate, and petty meanness. Helps if one is immune to cognitive dissonance, and blind to hypocritical self irony.

Hey Althouse, and Other Wrong Headed Christians . . .

Shouldn't you be whining about the lack of mentioning of agricultural deities, instead?

Ok. Back up the truck.

Today, Ann Althouse (perhaps not intending to come across all whiny) published some silly nonsense about how P. Obama failed to mention GOD in his Turkey Day proclamation.

Go Here for that silly shit.

And as an aside, it's when she goes down the wing nut road, like in this instance, that she earns the reputation of being mostly a wing nut herself. Granted, merely being a whiny religious person, either generally or specific to your own beliefs/denomination, does not instantly and always equal wing nut. But it's their issue, to whine about how some people don't go out of their way to promote religion. As if that is an insult to religion and religious people --- to chose not to do so.

Ok. Now it's time to get down to the truth of the matter, and why I think her post is fucking silly.

Are you ready? Here goes. There's nothing fucking religious about Thanksgiving! It's so fucking not a religious holiday! It's the American Nation's Harvest Party! If there is going to be any religious aspect attached to the event, it should be doing what our heathen ancestors did this time of year, worshiping the Agricultural Deities, for fuck's sake. In other nations in the North Hemisphere, often at the regional if not smaller level, folk are (or have been) celebrating modern day variations on the heathen ancestors' celebrations in honor of the harvest, and the Lords and Ladies of Agriculture.

So where the fuck do people get the idea there is something Judeo Christianist about Thanksgiving? Well before I answer that rhetorical question, let me plainly say that what most people think about the "First" Thanksgiving is more so a result of myth making rather than actual solid history. So that is the context. Beyond that, there's the bit (and likely true, but follow me) about how during that first Harvest at Plymouth Colony Throw Down, that the settlers gave thanks to God Almighty. Ya. These people where Extremist Christian Outcasts. They thanked God for everything, be it waking up alive in the morning, to that first successful bowel movement of the day. They were religious people. The celebration wasn't specifically religious merely on account of that. So in ending I say, what the fuck?

Oh and Happy Turkey Day. And for the record my favorite Agriculture God is Dionysus. Just saying. And the picture there is Xochiquetzal, an Aztec Earth Deity. I know. She got some long slinky gams for an Aztec!

No, I Don't Intend to Quote Some Church Lady . . .

But just before, I was reading the no belief sub part to the Wiki art. on religion. The following perfectly describes the logical foundation for my extreme agnosticism.

Faith is the commitment of one’s consciousness to beliefs for which one has no sensory evidence or rational proof.

Remembering that is a lot easier than trying to remember countless scripture verses, dogma, and all that shit.

Tolerance, Wing Nut Style.

Nothing really new about the punchline to this joke, but it's disturbingly humorous how wing nuts define tolerance, per se, or just twist the idea to include the most heinous of folk. Who are usually wing nuts. Here's an example of that, where Bobby Jindal excuses that bigot anti Mormon preacher who's a pal of Rick Perry. The quote line:

JINDAL: I don't think it's for any of us to judge somebody else's religious views, their relationship with God. The Bible is very clear, that's up to God, not up to us. I have some experience with this. Last time I ran for office, the Democratic Party in Louisiana attacked me for my faith.

GREGORY: Why not call on Perry to denounce this very strongly?

JINDAL: It did give me a chance to explain my Christian beliefs to Louisiana voters. It's not for any of us to judge somebody's faith, relationship to God. I think that would be inappropriate. The Bible is very clear. That's not our role.

Go Here for that.

Let's deconstruct. Jindal basically dodges the issue. In the lead up to this, Tim Pawlenty expressed the idea that,"it’s disappointing that Governor Perry and others who didn’t denounce Pastor Jeffress and those comments more directly, we have a country where we don’t have prohibitions on a particular church attendance for public office. In fact, it’s prohibited in the U.S. Constitution." And Jindal just punted. His punt gives cover to not only one unapologetic christianist bigot. But one who is merely a good representative of the sentiments suspected by if not embraced by a vast number of christianists. Who tend to vote GOP. So Ya. Either (as the writer there suggests) it's a huge example of butt kissing the bigots in the Wing Nuttysphere. Or a huge example of cowardice. Or a huge example of Jindal's own not exactly constitutionally rooted values where freedom of religion is concerned. Cause if you are defending the religious bigots, you are on the wrong side. According to Jefferson at least.

But there's another level of twistedness here. I will quickly deconstruct the bigotry. And as someone raised Catholic but now is a super agnostic, I find it itself disturbingly humorous that someone from one the renegade protestant sub groups is pointing the finger at anyone else saying they are really not christians. That irony seems to lost on these people. Cause they are pathologically incapable of believing they are wrong about anything, even if the earlier main versions of Christianity were practiced for over a thousand years before Jan Hus laid out the basics, and then that plagiarist Luther manged to get the "heresy" published and disseminated.

Ironically in of itself, Jindal's a Catholic, who's institution gave up it's own gross bigotry, who is now basically defending that kind of gross bigotry.

But in the end this is less about religion and religious bigotry than it is about the twisted soul of the republican party. Ya can't offend the bigots and expect an easy time of winning the nomination.

Oh. Last shot. And I am working up to a slam on Jindal. Take another look at the inconsistent argument he makes there. He argues that he was judged by these christians, so he knows what that is all about, so he says it's wrong to judge people by their religions, while he is DEFENDING these peoples' being able to judge people by their religions. Jindal is a fool.

Even More Religion.

Usually reliably level and liberal headed Kirsten Powers has written a basically over the top rhetorical defense of evangelicals, based on the attention The Stepford Wife has been getting for things like:

(a) saying she was submissive to her husband, and
(b) later defining the word to mean just about anything but what the word means, actually.

Go Here for the Article.


My comments (as posted on the Daily Beast FB page -- typos correct here, thought):

When ever someone needs to define a word they have used way past the dictionary meaning, they are on thin ice, as far as their own veracity goes. Beyond that, and I admit I am a fan of Kirsten Powers, but she's not really being persuasive here. Two, three, four hundred year old a history of that word being consistently taken to mean "not really submissive, actually," would have been good proof of the point. What was given was just contemporary spin from modern day evangelicals who to a great extent make up their own meanings, as they go along.

Painting this a bigotry is really intellectually foul. It's more than rhetorical overstatement. Now personally I say I respect every one's right to believe what they want. But I do not have to respect what they believe. Anyone who thinks otherwise, that they can make me respect beliefs I do no will be sorely disappointed, because I will resist that as fiercely as an attack on my person. Oh. And if I was not clear, I do have a right to judge people on the things they say they believe in. To argue against that is to argue against reality itself. Now would I write someone off merely because they are a believer? No. Now how many Americans would not vote for an atheist or an agnostic, merely on account of that? You want to identify bigotry, there's your obvious bigotry.

Back to Religion.

Took a time killing trip over the the Hannity Forum. Now I rarely even rubber neck there, and particularly not in the Religion forum, cause some of those people are really fucked. Meaning. They take the shit they believe way the fuck too seriously, and seem to get upset that other people don't respect their actual beliefs, actually.

That's where the insanity kicks in, I say. I find the belief on anyone's part that I have to respect any of the particular things they believe in, 'cause of their religion, to be inexcusable, and oppressive.

Never the less, the following remark by a non believer, in a religion inspired thread, not in the Religion forum, but instead, General Interests:

I always appreciate when people give me gifts to celebrate their imaginary friend's birthday.

I'll stop there. For now.

"Your site is really disrespectful toward religious people."

That's a quote I pulled off some page somewhere. I'll get back to that point, and soon. But first I will say that I am still rubbernecking at that site called The Anchoress. It's run by this extremely devout Catholic lady. And most of the friggen time I have no idea what the hell she is talking about.

I could easily crank out comparative religion papers. But I have no feel for religion. I have no appreciation for the institution. I really do not respect the institution. And that gets us to my quote.

What is wrong with religious people, in how they get it, that some people don't respect religion, but don't get it, that they are allowed not to respect religion? More's the point, where the hell do they get the nerve to expect if not demand that others respect their religious belief system? It's not only totally fucked up thinking. But it's oppressive.

I really hate that shit. And I know. I mean I know that on account of the disparity of the numbers, religious people outnumber the rest of us, that society places a value on religion making it superior to other human belief systems. That's the default. But do I forfeit my right to say, that shit doesn't make the tiniest bit of objective sense to me?

I'm not really ranting here. I am just saying.

Ann Althouse says:

"Perhaps respect for religion should lead us away from using the words "sacred" and "sacrifice" casually."

She's All For Free Speech, Except When She's Not!

Oy vey!

And I am going to put on my arch agnostic hat and say I am fucking sick and tired of fucking religious people trying to get me to respect religion, when truth is, I don't. Not much. Not really all that much more than any other belief system, hobby, or other human time-killer activity. And to be honest, there's a lot of things in the arts and sciences I respect way more. Like, idaknow? All the arts and sciences?


But hey. Like I say, religion doesn't have to be oppressive. But lots of religious people are.