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Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Oh no he di’int!
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There’s a basic, historical misunderstanding at the root of modern Republican [i.e., Reactionary] philosophy. A little fact that seems to get overlooked. It’s not their insistence that the road to fascism begins with good health care. It’s not even the pretense that President Obama somehow masterminded an economic collapse, bank bailout, and massive deficit weeks, months or years before he came into office. No, the incident that the GOP [i.e., Global Oppression Party] has let slip is a little more basic.
The South lost[!] [emphasis mine]
See, Republicans [i.e., Reactionaries] seem to have mistaken “wage slavery” for . . . that other kind of slavery. They must have, because anyone who understood that workers are employees, and not property, would recognize that workers have rights. . . .
As an employer, you have the absolute right to religious freedom [NOT religious privilege]. Attend any church, temple, synagogue or reading room you like. Give as you feel obligated. Worship as you please. Place on yourself any restriction in diet, activity or anything else that you feel is in keeping with your beliefs . . . but only on yourself. You don’t get to impose these restrictions on your employees.
Source: imgur.com
• All faith is folly, including moderate faiths
• Stop giving religion special treatment
• Bible offers no answers to suffering
• Religion is not the source of morality
• The universe is matter and nothing more
• Atheism is a positive philosophy
• Atheism is growing, coming out of the closet
• Godless societies happier, healthier
Source: Victor J. Stenger
Can you describe the process by which you lost your belief in the teachings of your Church?
An interesting thing happened while I was studying at East Texas Baptist University: I was told not to read Rudolf Bultmann. I asked myself: Why? What were they protecting me from? I picked up Bultmann’s work, and that decision is the catalyst that ultimately paved the road to today. Throughout my educational journey, which culminated in an Ordination from the United Methodist Church where I’ve served for seventeen years, I’ve continued to ask the question “Why?”
Ironically, it was seminary that inaugurated my leap of unfaith. It was so much easier to believe when living in an uncritical, unquestioning, naïve state. Seminary training with its demands for rigorous and intentional study and reflection coupled with its values of reason and critical inquiry began to undermine my naïveté. I discovered theologians, philosophers and authors I never knew existed. I found their questions stimulating but their answers often unsatisfying. For example, the Bible is rife with vileness evidenced by stories of sexual exploitation, mass murder and arbitrary mayhem. How do we harmonize this fact with the conception of an all-loving, all-knowing God? While many have undertaken to answer this question even in erudite fashion, I found their answers lacking. Once I concluded that the Bible was a thoroughly human product and the God it purports does not exist, other church teachings, such as communion and baptism, unraveled rather quickly. To quote Nietzsche, I was seeing through a different “perspective” – a perspective based on critical thinking, reason and deduction. By honing these skills over time, reason and critical thinking became my primary tools and faith quickly diminished. Ultimately, these tools led to the undoing of my faith rather than the strengthening of it.
Always Question Authority 