This is your argument? Really?

I always find it amusing when Christians claim that they are being discriminated against in the US for their religion. Big bad atheists are oppressing them. Really? What this usually amounts to is the usual panty bunching manufactured controversy of 'The War on Christmas'. Sorry guys, you don't own any one time of the year and you aren't the only one who has a holiday in December. A quick look at Wikipedia under December observances bears this out. There is a list of 84 different holidays and observances on that page alone. They are as random as ethnicity in the US. Under the 'I' heading I see only one observance that has anything to do with Christianity at all. That would be 'Immaculate Conception' and is a Catholic observance. The other 9 observances are not remotely religious. I'm pretty sure 'International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers' is not celebrated in many churches in any capacity. I don't hear those 'of the faith' railing against that however.

I hear whining. Lots and lots of whining if everyone is not subjected to sugary saccharine carols and hymns as they pick up a package of toilet paper or pick up a cup of coffee. I hate Christmas music. I loathe it. I loathe it because I was in band and chorus in school. You know what you start doing in October? Learning fucking new Christmas songs for your winter concert before break. For that alone I hate them with a passion. And it wasn't just concert band pieces that had to be learned once one was in high school. No. It was also the memorization of music, usually one or two pieces that you had to play, daily, while you practiced marching for a parade. I do feel terribly sorry for people who work retail and have to listen to canned carols and faux happy seasonal music. And my hatred for this isn't based on religion. It's based on the same reason I can't stand pop and country music. It gets on my fucking nerves. Plain and simple. 

And if you happen upon a retailer that isn't festooned with green and red lights and fake snow and reindeer and Santas, you're probably going to be hearing from the likes of Bill 'Whiny Lil Bitch' O'Reilly or The American Family Association. They're on one hand calling the 'reason for the season' Jesus, and bitching because retailers trying to feed into that other religion of greed aren't pushing the Jesus juice on everyone. Because they say Happy Holidays. Or X-mas. If Jesus was the reason why are you worrying about stores and consumerism at all? Shouldn't you be out doing good works or praising Jesus instead of worrying about who is spending money where people say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas? I don't remember the part in the bible where you are expressly forbidden to purchase from vendors that don't say Merry Christmas. 

And it seems like a week doesn't go by without someone throwing a tizzy about some new advertisement that an Atheist group has raised money for and put on either the side of a bus or on a billboard. Texas seems to have said fuck it recently when some of their citizens in Forth Worth made national attention when some Christians threw a fit about some ads on a bus and banned religious and atheist advertising on their buses. Or another silly study focused on stirring the pot more about this nonsense about Christmas trees. Of course Mr. Mouthpiece for All Catholics (so he'd like to think) Bill Donohue has to have his two cents worth and pretty much tells everyone to STFU and assimilate to the Catholic hivemind that he represents.
 


I could give two shits less of what Mr. Donohue thinks and think he's a douchenozzle of the highest order. He's almost as classy as the fellow that prompted me to write this little rant of annoyance. Tom Sears has a bi-weekly column in the Daily Star the local paper for Oneonta, NY. He's a professor of accounting and has a dislike for Atheists. His most recent column points to this. Now I don't know what evil Atheist pissed in his cornflakes, but he's mad. So mad that he's pulling numbers out of his ass and lambasting the heathens because they opened their mouths and put up one of those offending billboards. 

Because Atheists are speaking out more than we once did we are "pathetic" in his words. And anytime an Atheist speaks up it's an attempt to put down Christianity. I wonder if Mr. Sears realizes that Christianity isn't the only religion in the US, let alone the world. And some of those other religions might like a word with him. And for those Atheists that are in the closet, you're pathetic too. Pretending to be Christian so you aren't ostracized by your loved ones and friends that may have a problem with your non-theism. You probably should feel deep shame for being so pathetic. That appears to be what Mr. Sears is saying here.

"Why are atheists so afraid of Christianity that they feel they have to go out and aggressively attack it every year around this time? Why don't you instead proudly proclaim your "atheistic religion" and explain all the reasons and research that led you to your stance. Maybe you can't? Maybe your choice was made out of laziness and you didn't even give religion a chance? Are you going to give your children the right to choose? "

I'm an Atheist. I'm not afraid of any religious institution. They are equally irrelevant in my eyes. Aggressive attacks? I'm sorry, you haven't seen aggressive attacks by Atheists. It's a fucking billboard. If you don't like it, buy your own and put your own message up. There is a reason that these billboards are going up. Atheists are a minority in this country and most countries as you so smugly pointed out. Who cares about minorities, right? Stay quiet and stay silent. 

Why don't "we proudly proclaim our atheistic religion"? Well, for starters, atheism isn't a religion. It's a lack of belief. So that kind of rules out us claiming something we don't believe in. That's just silly nonsense on your part Mr. Sears. And calling us a pathetic minority that dooms us to irrelevance doesn't really invite us to speak our minds at all, now does it?

The reasons for us being Atheists? Well Mr. Sears, I find religion to be a quaint little fairy tail that isn't needed by society to make it moral or productive. My family did not feel the need to indoctrinate me in such ancient goat herding mythologies. My mother is Catholic but never once forced us to go to any church, let alone spoke about it in my entire 18 years living under their roof. Nor does she bring it up now. The only time she did, she said, "You make your own choice". Because it's irrelevant to our relationship as parent and child. As for my choice being made out of laziness, I would call you a liar Mr. Sears. I have a great love for myths and legends and always have. They are stories however and explanations by people who didn't always understand natural phenomena. Just like any other story though, I can put those stories back on the shelves with other books and get on with my life without feeling unnecessary guilt and being oppressed for being myself. And as for children, I don't have any. I don't want any. Thank you for asking.

I would ask you the same thing Mr. Sears. What is your reason for aggressively attacking me for a lack of belief? Why don't you explain all your reasons for believing your "paternalistic, anti-woman, anti-gay religion" and the research that led you to that stance? Maybe you can't. Maybe your choice was made out of laziness because that's just how you were raised. Maybe you haven't given non-belief a chance. Are you going to give your children the right to chose?

"Tell you what; why don't you pick a day, any day, call it Atheist Day, and spend the day celebrating your atheism. Get yourself an atheist tree, exchange atheist gifts and have a great atheist meal. Call all the other atheists you know (won't take long) or send them a card and exchange happy atheist wishes."

You're such a clever and mature fella aren't you? I don't need an Atheist day to celebrate anything with my family and friends. I don't need to feed the consumerism that makes people grow even more debt that they have no way of paying down by passing out expensive gifts to my friends and family in hopes that they reciprocate with expensive gifts to me. Could you remind me what exactly giving expensive gifts and haranguing retailers has to do with your whole 'reason for the season'? Because I surely have no idea what this is supposed to represent. And as to having a nice meal with my family, I don't need to have a special day of the year for that. I can do that any time, but mainly we do that on Thanksgiving. You know another one of those days that Atheists need to not show their faces on because really, without a god, what do you have to be thankful for? (Pssst - it's my family dumb ass so I spend that day with them when I'm not working). And quite a few Atheists celebrate solstice with their nonsecular friends or actually go to Christmas parties that their friends and families throw. Just because we give each other a shout out doesn't mean that we're all buzz kills. We like to party like everyone else.

"Since you believe that there is no being more supreme than yourself (a rather egocentric viewpoint), you can celebrate you by staring at yourself (or small groups staring at each other) in the mirror all day. Isn't this a better idea than going around and putting other religions down? At least you are doing something more positive for yourself if you follow my strategy for you."

Talk about egocentric there Mr. Sears, since you seem to know what every Atheist 'believes'. Of course your little comment above has no basis in fact. Atheism is a lack of belief. I know for a fact that I am not some supreme being with no one higher than me. There are many far more intelligent people in this world than little old me and I'm certain that some of them are theists. I have better things to do than stroke my own ego, such as your self masturbatory article paints all Atheists with a wide brush. We don't worship anything, nor do we gaze at our own reflections in awe of our 'superiority'. That's nonsense and I really don't see how anything you can point to could redeem your sad little screed at this point. You've made yourself abundantly clear that you have made up your mind that all Atheists are Christian bashing, egotistical shit stirrers. 

"We Christians are on the Right Side of this issue. Atheists have no real beliefs; they just want to tear down one more longstanding tradition and belief. How can they claim that a baby in a manger, a cross, a Christmas tree or some innocent Christmas songs cause them untold suffering and still keep a straight face? And then they tell the rest of us to be more sensitive to their feelings. Wrong, atheists; you are the ones who need the sensitivity training sessions. Your claims of hurt and pain are bordering on the side of ridiculousness." 

I fail to see where anyone who put up the billboard that sent you into this tizzy said anything about their untold suffering caused by Christmas. I've never in my entire life heard an Atheist make this claim. If you actually believe that, you are a delusional sort of fellow. I have a mild annoyance for the forced 'cheer' at this time of year and I hate the fucking music and the 'buy buy buy!' mania that revs up the week of Thanksgiving. If I have a problem with any part of it, it is that fundamentalist Christians get their panties in a bunch and nearly go into apoplexy if someone doesn't return their 'Merry Christmas'. If I experience any hurt, it's due to the sheer number of facepalms that I put myself through whenever another trite article like this is published.

"Even though I do push back hard against you atheists, I still hope you will rethink your position and change before it's too late. You are making the biggest mistake of your lives by not at least giving religion a serious try. In the meantime I wish you a Merry Christmas and I will be praying for you."

You're not pushing hard. You're being a whiny twat. Your article was full of factual errors and I have nothing to rethink. My opinion on my non-belief would not be swayed by a your sad 'argument' because you didn't put anything forth but whining. Should I call the waaaaaaaahmbulance now or later? I'm making a mistake by not giving religion a try? You really do know nothing about Atheists do you? Most Atheists are former theists. They are no longer theists because they learned more about their holy books and teachings and compared them with what really happens in real life and decided that not basing their life on a silly book seemed like a better idea. And by the way, you're praying for me? Keep whispering to your imaginary friend all you want, it honestly doesn't hurt me either way. But don't try to silence those pesky Atheists for the fact that they speak up. We won't be forced back into the closet any more. And in parting, you can fuck yourself with a rake, sideways. And not because you're Christian, because you sir are an ignorant fucktard.

You know what? No, nevermind.

At times I am surprised how people I grew up with or went to school with turned out. At other times I'm not. Some of them are not paragons of intelligence and some of them should never have children. Honestly, they shouldn't. It's not that 'they should never breed' kind of thing. It's that 'they're a danger to their own children' kind of thing. I'm not being sarcastic. Then again, perhaps this is watching evolution in action. The stupid take their own genes out of the gene pool, thereby raising the intelligence of those around them. I know that's probably not nice, but it's the fucking truth. In the past 3 days alone I have had the god shit and some pretty stupid shit with god shit thrown up on my Facebook page. I keep my mouth shut however. I don't make it a habit to talk to all that many people on there and if I do initiate a conversation, I will be drug into their unending Facebook drama bullshit. No thank you. I've cut down on that kind of annoyance and I don't want it to start elsewhere.

Monday night, I had left  a few comments for my younger sister M, along with a picture or two and saw this up on my wall.

Honey, if your baby is running a fever of 102.6 and vomiting you don't need to be begging on Facebook for some bullshit prayers. You need to take your lazy ass to the hospital and get her taken care of before some brain damage sets in. Then again, it may be too late. She does have you for a mother. You say you keep giving it to each other? Then you need to get your ass checked out too. You probably both need flu shots and need to quit running around all the time with the sick baby and act like a fucking parent. If you couldn't handle that role, it's obvious daddy couldn't he ran off when you said the magic word of pregnant, you should have not had the kid at all or fucking put it up for adoption if you couldn't handle it. Making sure your kid's brain doesn't get fried by a fever is part of being a responsible parent. You obviously aren't. You didn't take the kid to a doctor. You asked for prayers. Sorry. I'm not a mother. I would have taken the kid regardless because I'm not a braindead moron. I'll be surprised if the kid makes it to adulthood at this rate.  

And this posting shit as your status and trying to get others into your hivemind activity by trying to make them feel guilty for not posting your bullshit annoys the piss out of me. I don't care if you worship a fucking blue crayon in a pile of horseshit under the full fucking moon. Shoving it in everyone's face, especially if they don't worship a blue crayon in horseshit in the middle of the night isn't going to make you any friends. You're annoying the piss out of people. Seriously. And when you do post shit like that, please make certain you know how to use at least some kind of spell and grammar check. 

No, no takers here. I don't believe any of that shit. And it's obvious that you cut and pasted it. I'm surprised your sentence didn't end with the time the last person posted it, like I see all the time. Most christards capitalize the bible and Satan actually. Then again, people who believe their faith is strengthened by this kind of bullshit on Facebook are just as sad as the person who posted about praying for their soon to be brain-damaged child.

And spare me the bullshit faith healing. Please.  

So everyone but cancer patients wish for lots of things? I'm sorry but people with cancer do not spend their entire life focused only on their illness. There are other things besides their illness that are important to them. You're damn right that 97% of people aren't going to post that bullshit. It's bullshit, pure and simple and has no basis in reality. Thank you everyone who didn't contribute to this idiocy. You know what, you may think everyone you know will repost this shit, but you're wrong. You're the only one I saw posting it. And putting that shit up for an hour does nothing. If you want to help people who have cancer, donate some money to the American Cancer Society Volunteer your time to assist those with cancer. Raise money for cancer research. Don't post some bullshit for an hour on Facebook degrading those with cancer. Yeah, it's fucking degrading. Having cancer does not define the person and make them a sad wretch that just lies around saying 'Oh woe is me! I have cancer!'. You aren't honoring a damn person by this nonsense. And thank god your dad is still fighting? Jesus made his wish of not having cancer come true? Didn't you just fucking contradict yourself? He's fighting cancer, but his wish of not having it came true. Does not fucking compute. Either he has it or not. I've got a better idea. Why don't all you faith healing morons just bypass going to doctors all together. You pray to get better and don't bother with any of the benefits of science anymore. Then the people who aren't deluded by the bullshit will have an easier time getting in to see a doctor and the morticians will be a lot happier with the increase in demand for their services.

I don't understand the futility of it all

I am baffled at times how people seem to make the internet serious business. Threats of calling the "authorities" and "reporting" people who offend you is not new. Nor is threatening people with lawsuits because they have said something that offends or does not agree with the person making the threats. Fabricating tales of threats are a typical ploy of these people and I am certain these attention getting ploys are not only used in real life as well. Many of these people seem somewhat socially inept and care only to make demands and pronouncements while accusing their detractors of oppression.

I don't understand how they can accuse others of illegal behavior when they disagree with their pronouncements. I don't understand how people that have a mind of their own and have their own opinions on a subject and are not afraid to speak up are seen as stalkers that are just out to oppress those they disagree with. I wonder who they are reporting people to when they threaten to take the matter to the authorities. I've heard the police and the FBI mentioned on many occasions. I do have my doubts as to the veracity of most of these claims.

From experience I know just how annoying these people can be. They seem to thrive on places like Twitter and Facebook. I was accused of threatening to rape a very disturbed woman somewhere in the bible belt. She said my husband threatened to kill her and she called the police. It's funny how things like that happen. I wasn't aware of this particular wing nut until the day of her accusations. I didn't follow her on Twitter, nor did I care to. She felt it was her mission to "evangelize" to the lost souls of atheists or some such bullshit. Not interested one bit.

Most atheists are people who have left some kind of faith at some point in their life, deciding that there is much more to life than feeling guilty for being human. Or not wanting some angry vengeful sky daddy threatening you with eternal torture for staying out past curfew. I am not one of these people. I had no faith to lose. I was not raised in a religious household and have no wish to have your primitive belief system forced on me. I don't care about your sky daddy and I'm not afraid to tell you to fuck off either.

Of course, I don't actively go out of my way to find nutters like that either. If I have a tweet, quoting a bible verse, not directed at you regarding the bible's stance about putting your daughter out to be raped, that doesn't mean I am threatening to rape anyone. especially considering that was not the only bible related tweet that I had made that evening before you pissed off someone and got called a dirty name. Oh my! A bad word! Is this fucking grade school? Yeah, you may have been called a cunt by someone, but don't you think continually harassing a person has no repercussions? When you feel the urge to judge people and carry on like a fool don't get bent out of shape when you get called names. Take responsibility for your actions. Man up, or woman up in this case. Aren't you supposed to be a strong x-tian woman? A little name calling is a death threat? No, it's not. Cunt isn't a word people like to be called and it is used to get a point across. In this case, "fuck off, you stupid cunt" might have been better.

That was last fall/winter. Recently she's been up to the same antics again. Unfortunately for her, she made a bigger fool of herself. She was being quite rude to a person on Facebook, then throwing a complete freak out paranoid ranting hissy fit when another, quite amused atheist on Twitter commented about it on her page. Her page was public. She had very personal information set as public as well. She was informed of this and went even crazier, accusing the person who commented of stalking her and said she had informed the FBI. Of course, she then Googled the public information for that person and found, what she believed was that person's current place of employment. She called to tell on the commenter. For asking a question that she didn't like and pointing out that she was a fucking idiot for putting private information up in a public place. The commenter was being rather polite about the whole matter while she went into tin-foil hat land by closing her Twitter account and making a "list" of 'dangerous atheists'. She made another account after this, that I blocked, just like the last one after she said I threatened to rape her. Of course, after creating a new account, she sent DMs to all the atheists that were probably really fed up with her shit with some "guess who" bullshit. Some people didn't know about her prior and continuing behavior, atheist or not and chose to believe this person, joining in the vilification of the commenter. For that, I think they were very blind in trusting this sick person and feeding into her continuing illness and attention seeking behaviors.

That's the difference. I am not a person who is going to give you the satisfaction of feeding your drama. There are plenty of others like you out there with what appears to be varying degrees of mental illness. I understand that it's funny to have a reliable moron who will spout off nonsense at very frequent intervals. I don't, however believe that baiting and trying to 'debate' with these people is worth the frustration, time or effort. Trying to argue with the mentally ill is pointless and in the end, they will eventually lash out, sometimes violently. I work with the mentally ill. Not all people with mental illnesses are like this. The ones that are thrive on the attention they get. It's a part of their illness. I have been threatened, physically attacked on at least one occassion, accused of tampering with their brains telepathically and part of a grand conspiracy to kill them. It's a futile effort. There is nothing you can do to convince them if they are set on an idea, a vision or delusion.

Feeling a little thoughtful about this because I was accused, again, of wanting to make a person commit suicide. This is an attention getting ploy by this person. This person has exhausted my supply of patience and empathy and I responded in a quite trolltastic, but honest and straightforward manner. I can't stop you if that's your plan. People who are going to commit suicide don't say things like that. People who commit suicide and are set on doing it don't warn others. You may notice signs later that pointed to their depression, but they are never straightforward about it. I know this from losing my older brother when he was 22. Before I left work yesterday, I was also verbally attacked by another crazy at work. Fortunately this person was enjoying their last day as a resident there and had she said one more thing to me, she would have been enjoying a fun evening with the boys in blue. Verbally assaulting the elderly is no way to go through life. It will land your ass in trouble. I don't care honestly if they jump on me, I'm a big girl. It just reminds me again and again how futile it is to try and argue with people that are very, very damaged. It's as pointless as banging your head against the wall.

Oddities

I'm at home sick today. For my birthday Saturday, I was puking my guts out by midnight and it hasn't really let up since then. I haven't eaten anything today, but I'm not taking my chances after all the blood that was coming up last night. Now, I wasn't vomiting blood, my throat was bleeding from throwing up so hard. It's not a new occurrence, it seems to bleed every time I throw up, depending on the violence of it. And it's been pretty violent, so I'm not going to tempt it another day and just stay away from food. The tea I drank last night didn't come up so I'm going to go with that.

I got another 'gift' for my birthday however that's just fucking odd. Apparently I have become the target of some strange letter writing Jehovah's Witnesses. I don't know how they got my address because I was sent a letter from a woman here in town through the U.S. Postal system to my house by this nut bag. It was handwritten so there was no Comic Sans to get my attention. I didn't take long however to realize that this was a fucking religious nut that was addressing me. And they say the art of letter writing has died. I'm not certain if I should be confused or creeped out that there are probably old women sitting around writing letters like this to complete strangers. Doesn't that seem unusual to you? Perhaps they're compelled by some feverish urge to do these things, mistakenly believing that non-believers like myself are going to be swayed by such odd letters. I used to write quite a few letters. None of them were unwelcome and to my friends. I would even spend some time making the plain envelopes interesting by adding some of my lame ass drawings to them. Oh well. I'm going to scan it sometime and cut out all the names, because they did have my name. Until then, I'll reproduce this oddity, unchanged in capitalization or spelling. The paragraphs are just as they were written in the letter as well. This is their own letter, minus my name, their address and somewhat sloppy but legible cursive handwriting.

Dear chaosagent,

My name is Minnie B-------, I am writing you because I am not able to visit you in person.

Many people are familiar with the Prayer that is called the "Lord's Prayer" or "Our Father". In that prayer we pray "Let Your Kingdom Come" Matthew 6:10.

Have you ever wondered what that Kingdom is that we pray for? How will it's coming sanctify God's name or make it holy? How is the coming of the Kingdom related to doing God's Will?

What is the Kingdom? It is a real goverment established by God - "Jehovah", with a King chosen by God. Who is the King of that Kingdom? Jesus Christ. Jesus as King is greater than all human rulers and is called "the King of those who rule as Kings and Lord of those who rule as Lords." 1 Timothy 6:15. He has "Power to do far more good than any human rule, even the heaven. Act 2:35. tells us where he will rule from? Well where is Jesus now? Jesus was put to death of torture stake and then he was resurrected. Shortly thereafter he ascended to heaven as said in Act 2:35.

Hence that is where God's Kingdom is in heaven. That is why the Bible calls it's a "heavenly Kingdom" 2 Timothy 4:18.

Although God's Kingdom is in heaven it will rule over earth. Revelation 11:15.

 But what is God's will for the earth?

 If you would like to further this discussion please feel free to call the above address.

 If you would like to visit the local Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses located at -------- Crazy Street, accross from Meijer's.

 Our Ministers are all voluateers. They do not get paid. There is no coelections taken up. All are welcomed.

 Sincerely, Minnie B------

Okay. It's like a pitch that they would use when they would go door to door. They don't tend to come to our door, at least when we're here, because most of them come around in the daytime when we are at work or sleeping. I don't think I've seen the Jehovah's Witnesses out in our area before. I've seen Mormons and others from local baptist churches. And most of the Jehovah's Witnesses that do go around trying to spread the word seem to be large women in late middle age. I've seen about a dozen different women come to my workplace to visit some of the residents. One of the women I took care of was a Jehovah's Witness, though she never spoke about it at all, thankfully. She had dementia.

I am curious how they got my name and address. I do not interact with these people when they come to work and I sure the hell don't go looking for them. There seems to be an upsurge in the pushing of tracts, and morons in general showing up around town and my job in particular. Someone left a large pile of Billy Graham tracts on the table where activity schedules and the like are put for the residents. I took them and trashed them, save one, that will go with my little pile of information from the nut bags. On the 5th some stopped by leaving a pamphlet for their "Bible Education Center" on my front door. I took pics of the thing and made fun of it on Twitter. I guess I need to scan and collect these into some posts. I'm sure they're amusing.