Thinking Out Loud

Our First Lady, Michelle Obama

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I don’t know about ya’ll, but I for one am tickled pink that our first lady is a black woman.

I’m happy for Barack Obama and I realize that him becoming POTUS is history with a capital “H”, but it’s Michelle Obama that really makes me grin and want to do a silly dance.

It’s kind of strange.  I never realized how much of an impact that the endless line of white women being ‘First Lady’ impacted me until Michelle Obama.  When it comes to race I’m somewhere between white woman and woman of colour with most people classifying me as middle eastern or plain “not white”, especially if I’m out with my daughter who is very white.

The point of this post?  I suppose there is no point.  I guess I just wanted to share my joy at the First Lady looking a bit more like me than not this time around.

From one extreme to the other?

shackled I finally got around to reading this month’s issue of Freethought Today by the Freedom From Religion Foundation and as usual, it was not disappointing.  Of all the articles this month it is the one by Barbara Walker titled “A Brief History of Marriage” that caught my eye.

Apparently back in the day it was women who owned everything and held so much power that men could only attain social standing if they were married to the highest ranking woman in their respective societies. They lost that social standing if their wife died or left them:

At the beginning of history, men could claim spiritual and secular authority by association with a representative of the Great Goddess. Early kingships depended on the king’s marriage to his nation’s Mother Earth, in the form of a high priestess or queen. Landowners in pre-Christian Scandinavia were kvaens, “queens,” the same as Saxon cwenes. Scriptures from Babylon and Phoenicia speak of the time when fatherhood was unknown, but kings could rule by means of a hieros gamos, a “sacred marriage” with the Goddess.

The high priest of ancient Rome, the Flamen Dialis, had no power unless he was married to the high priestess, the Flaminia. If she died or divorced him, he lost his office. Similarly in Judaism, a rabbi had to be married to be considered spiritually empowered. In India, even today, it is said that every god must have his Shakti, an emanation of the Great Goddess as a divine muse, because godlike potency is gained only through women: “Women are Life itself.”

At the risk of once again having my feminist card threatened with revocation, I have to say it must have sucked to be a man a few thousand years ago. For me, Walkers article detailing, if only briefly, how marriage used to work puts how marriage has worked here in the west for the last thousand years or so as well as the writings of early Christian leaders into perspective.

Imagine for a moment that every current well known man here in the west could only get and hold their positions via marriage to a woman.

Is it little wonder why early Christian leaders despised marriage and worked to see that the rules that subjugated them were not only made null and void, but that new rules were put into effect that, in effect if not intent, subjugated women to them once it became common amongst Christians?

Damned if we do, damned if we don’t

Someone at the Economist has a problem with atheists. According to the anonymous author of this piece we pick the wrong fights and keep using that “A-Word” which frightens the poor little Christians.

How do we know when we’ve picked the wrong fight? A wrong fight is anything the liberal Christians don’t agree with us on. Of course, the conservative Christians accuse us of the same thing. And why do they accuse of us picking the “wrong” fight? Because they’re completely happy with whatever we’re fighting them on. Same coin, different side, same story. Imagine that, eh?

Our anonymous author also has a problem with us using the term atheist. The author also has a problem with godless, humanist, bright and secular. I suppose we should just call ourselves space monkeys but I’m willing to wager that that would upset the Christians too once they learn that “space monkeys” means “people who do not think there’s an invisible magic man in the sky”.

What really ticks me off is the author’s inherent message that we should shut up about anything that we consider important because there are things taking place that are effecting the lives of Christians. This is obvious when one considers that the author thinks removing references to the Christian god from both the currency and the federal pledge is “wrong”.

Why is it wrong? Because it doesn’t bother the majority of Christians. And since it doesn’t bother them, it’s not important. On the other hand, the prospect of being hit up for Jesus by their own kind does bother them. Since what bothers Christians is important by default, the rest of us need to shut up about all other issues until the Christians are safe again.

But don’t worry, once they’re safe again they’ll go right back to insisting that anyone who supports arming the wall between their religion and our state is smoking something that isn’t legal in all fifty states.

In conclusion, I honestly swear I’m starting to hate liberal Christians more and more each day. At least with conservative Christians, a bullet is not only expected – but promised.

On Atheist Hostility

If there is one way to start an argument amongst atheists, it is bringing up the hostility some of us have towards religion. Belts come off and guns drawn over the subject throughout the atheist blogosphere, but we never appear to get anywhere be it for the better or the worse. So, I thought I would bring up this map:

Map of the Bible Belt

It’s a map of the “Bible Belt”. The red areas are where Christians actively and explicitly dominate. I spent nearly all of my childhood within its boundaries and have lived within it for about a decade now. When it comes to Christianity, I am one of the hostiles and that hostility is related to, if not primarily caused by, experiences I have had with Christians in the belt.

It is one thing to live in area that is predominantly Christian and another to live in an area where the Christians think and act as if they have a right to rule over everyone else. The former can get annoying. The latter can drive you up a wall. That leads me to wonder how much of the hostility on the part of atheists towards Christianity and its adherents is regional in nature.

Thus, for all the less hostile atheists and the baffled Christians who don’t get the anger and hate, I have a few questions for you to reflect on.

What’s your background with Christianity? Do Christians in your area talk crap about non-Christians and atheists as part of everyday conversation? Are they passing laws that are little more than their personal religious beliefs? Do they show up on your doorstep, accost you when you’re out in public or use every occasion to force you to give lip service to their beliefs?

Have they picked out specific groups for harassment such as Mormons, Catholics and Jehovah Witnesses? Did you know that all three of these groups are lower than atheists in the Bible Belt? Don’t get wrong, atheists are disliked, but I can’t recall a time where I spent an hour being told about the evil that is atheism. On the other hand, I’ve been to funerals where the pastor in charge used his 15 minutes of fame to attack other religious groups.

What’s my point? My point is that some of us have very specific reasons for being hostile. Perhaps they seem out of proportion, but it’s possible that it seems that way simply because you’ve never been to “God’s Own Country”.

Now I am not saying that every Christian on the planet acts like the ones in the Bible Belt, but that doesn’t mean that the Christians in the belt don’t exist and haven’t had a major effect on the way we non-Christians view Christianity and Christians.

Awakened Atheists

I just found a great comment over at Unscrewing the Inscrutable by Hank Fox and thought I’d share a part that hit home with me:

But an Awakened Atheist? I don’t think there’s any way such a person could ever let religion back into his/her life. After you get religion out of your head, after you start to think your own thoughts and begin to see what sort of damage had been done to you – after you see the LIES for what they are – I just can’t imagine going back to it.

I’m one of these. I’ve seen other atheists write lists and essays of what it’d take for them to convert, but I have no such list or essay. If I were to write such a list or essay, it’s subject would be taking apart the lists/essays of other atheists.

Religion is dead to me. Oh, I can argue/discuss things with the believers, but I don’t think I can be (re)converted. Futhermore, I agree with something else Hank said in the same comment:

In social terms, the opposite of religion is atheism. But in personal terms, the opposite of religion is … freedom. Freedom of thought, freedom of choice, freedom of … everything.

I was supposed to be a fundamentalist Baptist. I turned out “free” instead. I will not give up my freedom. For anything. Including life. Death is preferable to slavery.

Should the Bible be spared from flames and poo?

There seems to be a bit of an uproar over on YouTube. In response to the Blasphemy Challenge author David Mills put a video of himself cursing and ripping out pages of the Bible which he used to pick up dog poo. An atheist by the name of KillTrend took offense and put up a video denouncing the act and stating the rest of us ought to do so as well.

I disagree. Burning, destroying and otherwise “disrespecting” a symbol is a longtime tool of rebellion. People burn flags. They blow up statues. They destroy all manner of things from the mythological “bra burning” of the sixties to the burning of effigies of despised political leaders today.

And when it comes to the Bible, there is probably no greater symbol of terrorism, brutality and subjugation on the planet. Why should it be spared from destruction by those who see it this way? I think the various reasons fall apart under closer inspection.

1 . People already have a bad impression of atheists. People always have a bad impression of groups who are opposing them, especially if the opposing group is seen as undermining the self-assigned rights and/or privileges of the groups being opposed. We saw this the Civil Rights movement, with the second wave of feminism and we are currently witnessing it with the equality movement for homosexuals.

This thought is, IMHO, an internalized mind-game. “If I show how nice and respectful I am, someday they’ll treat me nicely and respect me despite our differences”. But, the fact of the matter is that “someday” will never come because the point of this particular mind game is to create a situation where the oppressed group is too ashamed to act in a manner that will ensure that that “someday” arrives.

For example, Martin Luther King Jr was arrested in Birmingham, Alabama in April of 1963 for protesting segregation. While in jail several ministers published a piece condemning his actions and calling for all black people to abstain from the demonstrations. In short, Dr. King and black people were told to “play nice and someday we’ll quit treating you like crap”. Dr. King did not and the demonstrations grew. And here it is, nearly 44 years later and segregation is gone.

2. Destroying Bibles is like blowing up Buddhists statues. No, it’s not. While both involve the destruction of religious symbols, only one is done from the seat of power. The closest thing in America to the destruction of the statues is Mount Rushmore. How so? Mount Rushmore was once known as the Six Grandfathers and was a holy site for the Lakotas. The American government seized it and defaced it with the faces of white men. They might as well have stacked dynamite around it and blown it up.

In short, the defacement of the Six Grandfathers and the destruction of the Buddhists statues were done from seats of power by the ruling group. They were both acts of oppression and designed to subjugate opposing groups. In America, atheists have neither the actual power nor the social standing to oppress or subjugate theists. Comparing the rebellious destruction of the majorities favourite symbol by a member of a despised minority group to similar (in appearance only) acts of the majority is absurd.

3. Destroying symbols doesn’t “prove” anything. This may be true, but destroying a symbol isn’t about “proving” anything. It’s about defiance. Women shave their heads not to prove that popular definitions of what’s “womanly” are wrong, but to defy those popular definitions. The destruction of a woman’s hair by the woman is an act of defiance. So is the destruction of holy book by people demonized by that book.

Such destruction is not be seen in the same light of Christians destroying the Koran in western countries such as America. As with the statues and mountain above, Christian destruction of non-Christian symbols such as the Koran are acts of oppression, not defiance.

4. Atheist Bible destroyers are not unlike Fred Phelps. Wrong. The motivations are quite different and quite important. Destroying a Bible is a defiant act that repudiates the idea that it is special and deserving of respect. Standing on a corner with a sign that says “Gays Die, God Laughs” is an oppressive act that is designed to intimidate homosexuals and showing up at a non-gay persons funeral with a sign that says “God Hates America” is an aggressive act designed to intimidate non-gays from fighting the oppression of homosexuals. The two are only similar in the shock they are capable of producing.

So, in conclusion, it is my honest opinion that the destruction of the Bible by atheists is not similar to the behaviour of majority groups as they relate to the ideas and symbols of minority groups. The motivations are quite different. The majority wishes to silence opposition and uses such acts to intimidate. The minority wishes to be be heard and uses such acts to get the attention of those who will listen. They are similar in appearance only.

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