Monthly Archives: January 2007

The Round Square by Jamey Hecht

Why is there a world at all? Guy stands up and says,
God made the world, and as for who made God, well,
That’s just a mystery beyond us. Woman says,
A round square is not a mystery beyond us;
It’s neither real nor imaginary, it’s not a concept,
Not an object, neither nothing nor an Entity.
He says, that’s what I’m saying, it’s incomprehensible.
No, she says, there’s nothing there to comprehend.
He says, of course there is, and we both know it.
She says, you’re bobbing for apples of relief, love
And immortality and along comes a word. The word
Is a noun and pretty soon you’re making it the subject
Of a world of verbs, and then the miracles begin. She says
God is logic’s corpse, a wound in reason, grammar’s empty skin

I found this poem by Jamey Hecht in a back issue of Free Inquiry and I thought I’d share it. It so neatly captures my own view of the word “God” which, depending on who you ask, means everything and nothing, order and chaos – a perfect round square.

Most Bizarre Patriarchal Ritual Ever: Ghost Brides

Three Chinese men are in custody today for the murders of two women whose corpses they sold as ‘ghost brides‘. This tradition, called “minghun”, is more or less the post-death selling and buying of female corpses for the purpose of providing a wife for a deceased male relative who died single.

Most disturbing is the unconcerned manner the main culprit, Yang Donghai, has behaved in. He’s bluntly stated that he decided to kill these women when he figured out they were worth more dead than alive. As for his reasoning, it was ‘for the money’ and if he hadn’t been caught he would’ve killed more women because it was a “quick buck” in his opinion.

This is by far one of the most bizarre male supremacy rituals I’ve come across. Even Purity Ball having Christians and Honour defending Muslims stop at our (women’s) graves.

*shudder*

John Kasich: Unhinged

Check out this video of Brian Flemming’s appearance on Fox News. John Kasich is more or less unhinged about people whom he identifies as “children” making videos of themselves commiting the ultimate sin (Matthew 12:31-32).

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As with others who are put off by the Blasphemy Challenge, Mr. Kasich is upset about the “children” who have elected to participate of their own violation. I think that’s what got some of the naysayers so ticked off about the whole deal. It really ticks them off that there’s a generation coming up who aren’t afraid no ghost. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to convince someone to believe one’s bullshit story if the target giggles about the main characters, eh?

Of course it also brings up something a lot of Christians tend to gloss over. The Unforgivable Sin. If one truly believes that the Bible is in the undisputed Word of God ™ whose various laws and regulations apply to all for all time, Jesus ain’t the sweetheart they pretend he is.

I cannot off the top of my head think of one human who has stated “I’ll forgive anything but trash talking. Rape, murder, kidnapping, child abuse, genocide, theft and all manner of violent behaviour – I’ll forgive those trespasses, but talking trash about my cousin? I’m going to torture your ass for eternity over it!”. Seriously, it takes a rather ugly disposition to desire to punish someone for eternity for such a “crime”.

Disowned Again

censoredI’ve been disowned again. It happens every few years and I really hope it’s permanent this time. I am so tired of being called all manner of things and then chastised for doing nothing more than defending myself. I don’t really feel like writing right now but I think that if I don’t I might just finally lose it.

My aunt, as usual, is the ringleader. She got custody of my sister and I after our mother’s death and never let us forget it. She’s the kind of person that starts a fight and then pretends to be the victim when the real victim did nothing but defend themselves whiling trying to end whatever shitstorm she started. I think what galls me the most about this latest storm is that everyone in the family knows how she is having been victimized by her in the past, but still continue to side with her when someone else is the victim. Perhaps they’re just beaten down after all these years. It still sucks though.

The latest shitstorm is my because of my continued atheism. She’s known about my disbelief since I was a teenager and she just a regular hypocrite. And every time something major has happened she’s assumed, without speaking to me, that I’ve been “cured”. It’s always failed and with each confrontation she’s gotten worse and worse in her viciousness and her ignorance.

And now that I’m back home in Houston, it’s still not over. As with the last time she’s talking about doing something to remove my daughter from my custody simply because I’m an atheist. Nothing more, nothing less. I am an atheist so I should not be allowed around children, even my own. She’s also stirring up the rest of the relatives, pretending she had no idea I was an atheist and that I just dropped it on her lap for no other reason but to upset her “in her time of grief”.

And this time – I hate her. She knows damn well that the family will cease what little contact I have with them and will thus cut my daughter off from them. And one day when she’s older I’m going to have to explain it all to her. And exactly how do explain that kind of hate to a child? My rational mind knows that being seperated from such vileness is a good thing, but the irrational side’s yelping about “family” and how children deserve to know them.

I’m not sure what’s going to happen in the future, but for now I am through with the whole lot. One of her parting shots was that I did not exist. I hope she keeps her word.

An atheist in Jesusland

Hypocrites
Originally uploaded by bama spirit.

The photo above really captures my impression of Vancleave Ms , a place I spent the last years of my childhood in. I left it when I was 18 and recently returned there for my aunt’s husband’s funeral. In hindsight, I probably should have stayed home.

It’s either gotten worse or I’ve done a lot of forgetting. It seems that every store we stopped in had something to do with the Christian god in the windows and/or on the counters. Nearly all of it was hostile and confrontational in nature. And the churches. There had to have been at least a dozen or more in a town of less than 10,000.

There are crosses on the side of the road with spotlights lest they be overlooked.

I was only there for a few days, but it was stressful as hell without my aunt getting in on the act, but that’s another post. I can’t begin to imagine the stress other atheists, non-believers, disbelievers and doubters are under.

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