The Atheist's Inevitable Confrontation

A Little Philosophical Armour for The Novice Atheist's Inevitable Confrontation

When 'coming out', many atheists suffer an all too common and unnecessary confrontation as their loved ones show concern for the fledgling atheist's immortal soul.

Many atheists feel guilt and anger because of the hurt they have caused to their kin by coming out, but they should not, it's not the atheist's fault that the loved one is reacting badly to the news. The fledgling atheist is just the messenger of the truth.

It's antiquated beliefs and religious infrastructure - the Scriptures and Holy-men - that continue to cause and perpetuate these confrontations.

If the loved one had never been lied to, the fledgling atheist would not have been made to feel bad, but it's not the loved ones' fault that he or she believes what they've been taught.

In this situation it is very difficult for the fledgling atheist, who may be still too unsure of the reasons for their atheism to sufficiently and successfully explain their 'disturbing lack of faith'.

To those who find themselves victim of this religiously perpetuated confrontation, I suggest you ask questions of your loved ones - discover their understanding of their religion, and suggest why you have problems with the answers.

Be nice though, it's a big wrench to come to the realization that eternal afterlife was never an option and you don't want a war, you want to enlighten.

The TMQ Core are the core conundrums, which I find prevent belief - they are personal to me - my problems with belief in the ancient beardy one, but I have collected them together as a 'core of disbelief', in the hope that they may help any fledgling atheist to explain the never-existence of god to concerned loved ones.
If you're interested in helping someone escape from their ideological prison try Freedom Formula.

Take heart, it does get better!

These are the Core Too many questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!

The Opposite of Equality for ALL

Totally out of the blue, unsolicited and with no context or prior conversation whatever @issu_assenjee sent me a screenshot. (Tweet's link)

My thoughts on its content are marked by ^(x) and detailed below.

It says...

"The question, then, is: Well, did true justice not exist 10 years ago? Were people ignorant of justice 10 or 20 years ago? Was everyone evil and oppressive less than one generation in the past?
⁽¹⁾ If a white humanist atheist 10 years ago, for example, didn't recognize his "'privilege" and paid no heed to making space for women and the transgendered and wasn't sensitive enough to respect the pronoun preferences of others, and opposed gay marriage like 95% of the rest of the population, etc., etc., would he have been correct in thinking of himself as a "good" person? Clearly not, according to today's humanist, social justice standards.
⁽²⁾ Look at the original version of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the historical document from the middle of the twentieth century that was supposed to be the pinnacle of morality as recognized by universal human reason. No mention of sexual orientation, no mention of transgenderism, no mention of racial privilege, no mention of sex positivity, etc.,etc.
Now the humanist might say, these values had to be discovered and now reason has discovered those values and religion had nothing to do with it.
⁽³⁾ But let"s look at that response more closely. It essentially concedes the entire argument because if humanists 10 years ago believed themselves to be "good" and "just" and turned out to be so deeply mistaken, then what guarantees that the humanists who think of themselves as "good"' and "just" today are not equally mistaken? What reason is there to think that 10 years from now, "reason" won't discover new values and new standards of goodness and justice, standards by which the humanists of today would be considered vile monsters?
⁽⁴⁾ The humanist, therefore, has no basis, by his own lights, to claim that he is a good person, much less to claim that he doesn't need religion to be a good person!
One does not even need to appeal to diversity in moral standards over time. Look at the diversity in any instant of history including today. Views of right and wrong vastly differ among contemporary atheists and humanists themselves in mutually exclusive ways.
Which humanists, therefore, are in actuality the good ones, the ones truly living according to justice? Who decides?
⁽⁵⁾ Furthermore, most humanists did not individually and independently and through the power of their own reflection arrive at the moral directives they so fervently believe to be intuitive, unassailable truths. It is not like each atheist/humanist sits and ponders for extended periods of time to formulate his own moral code that he will abide by for the rest of his life.
No, most of those moral commitments, whatever they are, are accepted by the humanist on the basis of outside authority -— the authority of other humanist thinkers or just good ol" cultural or institutional authority and conditioning. So how is that any different than the theist who claims his morality comes from the authority of religion?
Be that as it may, the only way humanists are even able to make their moronic argument in the first place is by focusing on a handful of widely accepted moral claims involving murder and rape. They make embarrassingly condescending yet asinine statements like, "I don't need God to tell me not to rape!" and "If the only reason you don't murder people is because God said so, then you're a psychopath, hur dur durr!"' In other words, the only way for their claim to have any traction is to reduce all of morality to... "

I've asked for the author's name but as yet it's unforthcoming.
If you know, let me know; I'd love to properly credit it.

My comments...
⁽¹⁾ Why single out the colour of the humanist atheist? Neither humanism or atheism have colours. Are you trying to imply humanist atheists are white, or that only white humanist atheists hold those values? What's the purpose of this distortion? Seems racist.

⁽²⁾ When United Nations Declaration of Human Rights was penned, religion had much more power over people's lives; it had repressed acceptance of those values, and still tries to, for thousands of years. Given the level of religious repression of the time, The UNDHR was as egalitarian as it could have been.

⁽³⁾ Where there is a wrong, it can be rectified. The argument, which can be biolled down to "Humanist morals are wholly fluid" will only attain validity if the values listed fall away in a future generation, however, as humanism's core is more or less "ALL are equal", I see no way for them to do so.

⁽⁴⁾ What a humanist(or any human) claims to 'be' is irrelevant; anyone can claim to be "good" but only one's actions and demeanour toward ALL others  display one's nature. e.g. If one prays to remain supreme above others, is one being "good"?

⁽⁵⁾ Most humanists accept the external authority of the concept of human equality, that is they accept the concept 'ALL are equal' has stand-alone authority; in a field populated almost exclusively by hatefully supremacist dogmas, it stands out as significant.

Finally - Only one who seeks to promote a competing doctrine could create and deliver such a distortion of what it is to be humanist but it's always difficult for an enslaved prisoner of doctrine to properly grasp what it is to be free. The authoritarianism of a religious doctrine functions to hound the less zealous into submission to the full dogma, whereas Humanism functions without compulsion to conform to arbitrary diktats; some humans are free to choose to accept some, or all, values of humanism.

For me, the main difference between humanism and religion is humanism accepts people's differences and expands the category of 'equal' to accommodate them, whereas religion constricts and represses people's differences to enforce intransigent conformity to the arbitrary ideal of a despot.

So, a couple of questions to end...

Do you see the quoted narrative as wholly prejudiced by religious thinking; partisan, biased, ignorant and racist or is it just me who sees those things writ loud and disgustingly proud?

As I stated earlier, I view Humanism's core as "Equality for ALL" so...
Can any doctrine, which is in competition with and opposition to "equality for all", be anything other that "supremacy for some"?

This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!

Dem Drones

Intro

Heads are disconnected by dem lie drones,
Heads are disconnected by dem lie drones,
Killing in the Valley of lie drones,
Coz they do the work of their lore.

Verse

Believer's connected to the Progressive
Progressive's connected to the Moderate
Moderate's connected to the Conformist
Conformist's connected to the Conservative
Conservative's connected to the Traditionalist
Traditionalist's connected to the Orthodox
Orthodox's connected to the Zealot
Zealot's connected to the Radical
Radical's connected to the Extremist
Extremist's connected to the Martyr
Martyr's connected to the suicide bomb.
And they all do the work of their lore.

Chorus

Dem drones, dem drones gonna rise again.
Dem drones, dem drones gonna rise again.
Dem drones, dem drones gonna rise again.
And they'll burn the world for their lore.

Finale

Dem drones, dem drones, dem lie drones.
Dem drones, dem drones, dem lie drones.
Dem drones, dem drones, dem lie drones.
Now fear the wars of their lore.

So to the question...
Given the arrowhead of condonation detailed in the verse, can it be legitimately denied that even the most innocent faith inevitably supports the zealot crusader's excuse for violent martyrdom at the pointy end?
You can probably guess what I think.

This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!

Born Rational

The oxford dictionaries definition of Atheist is "A person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods", which is the condition of ALL babies prior to magical indoctrination.
Now you may think...

"A baby lacks belief in everything, so its absence of a belief in a god or gods is meaningless and, of itself, is not an indication that no god exists. Born atheist isn't an argument for atheism!"

...and I'd agree, it isn't an argument for the absence of a god. 'Born atheist' is just a fact; merely a recognition of the status quo. We're all implicit atheists before the society into which we are born brands us, imprinting dogma and tradition. Our lack of any indoctrination, spiritual or otherwise, is a fact across almost every area of the baby's existence, however, for those proffering...

"Babies are also free of all rational thinking."

...the evidence before us, in every child ever born to every species, is that is not so and, once again, the human eye, already much discussed in the theological debate, offers example.
When we are born we see the world as it is presented by the lens of our eye, which projects it inverted onto the retina.
Over a period of time the baby rationalises that clear and fulsome but poorly presented data from the eye against the data it is receiving from other bodily sensations, including the extremely reliable and ever present gravity data stream.
With no human intervention possible, there can be no complex communication with a being which has no means of complex communication, one may only assume the baby's rationalisation of the disparate data streams indicates we're all born as innately rational beings. And, as supporting evidence for that assumption, if we examine from the converse perspective, a being without the ability to rationalise the data streams(an irrational being) would fail to survive or survive less well.
Further, no matter how we feel about this world's natural disasters, tragedies etc, it's a rational, internally cohesive, generally predictable system. It is unsurprising that therein the beings functioning most rationally thrive best, which conforms beautifully with 'the survival of the fittest'; the most suitable to fit the rational environment survives through harnessing rationality. Or, to put it more lyrically...

In any rational environment the most rational being rationalises most rationally.

Seems to me, as I've shown above, whereas supernatural fables may only be learnt after the child has developed the complex communication skills required for indoctrination, acting rationally is innate, a necessity for the survival of any life-form; any baby of any species must act rationally to properly process the rational data of the world and progress from infancy to childhood.
When then you consider, to our current knowledge, humanity is the pinnacle of rational thought in the cosmos, is it rational to claim an offspring thereof, is born contrary to the evidence visible in any human baby's development and, frankly, all other known life, in a state of irrationality?
Finally, is one who implies or directly claims "Babies are born without rationality" doing so to dishonestly promote the notion that rational thought has parity with religious concepts, by implying they are both taught/learnt? Or that it has parity because they are both innate?
And, as promotion of either would be a dishonest representation of the situation, can one who lies so openly, merely to sooth their ego by crowbarring a wish for eternal life into the topic, be trusted to be honest on any topic?


This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!

The Domino Effect

What follows is a philosophical muse only. No numbers were crunched, no chemistry read etc. It's just a thought I thought might make a loose illustration of how DNA became what is arguably the most important sequence in the history of the universe(s) and, to do that, I'm going to use dominoes, or rather you are, if you want to. I recommend it, it'll probably be a lot easier if you print out the instructions and actually do it.
It might even be a bit of edutainment for older kids to see or do.

1. Take a set of dominoes and empty them into an opaque material bag (a hat would do); it's just so domino selection is random.

2. Take out 1 domino and place it down; the start of the first sequence.

3. Continue to take out one domino at a time.

4. If next domino is not a match with the one already placed down, start a new sequence with it. If the domino does match, at either end of the sequence, the matching domino numbers are attracted together. The higher the number the great the pull; if the numbers match, the piece must join at that point.

5. Keep taking dominoes out and placing them down, continuing the current sequence or starting a new one, until no dominoes remain.

6. When all the dominoes are placed, look at the sequences. Any sequence containing only one domino will be attracted to the nearest matching sequence end.

7. Any sequence with two or more dominoes we'll call a "success", based on the fact that something, a successful coupling, has happened and, by extension, the sequence with the highest number of dominoes is "most successful".

8. If any two sequences match, those sequences are attracted to each other and their union spawns a new sequence, which is not a perfect replica of its parents; one end of the sequence will always gain or lose one domino. If the last domino in the new sequence is connected to the next by a number which is less than half the domino set's maximum number the last domino is lost from the sequence, breaks off and becomes part of the pool, if more than half it gains. If 'gained' it gains it, where a parent has a matching end domino, from one of the parents. The new sequence then becomes part of the pool of sequences and is attracted to any other matching sequences(or loose dominoes if it was spawned of parents with unmatched 'gain' potential). Repeat this process until all attraction couplings are complete.

10. When all couplings are exhausted, Domino sequences with matching ends above half the value of the maximum domino will join together to form 'double-length' domino sequence. There is insufficient attraction and bonding strength to support longer sequences or to support the joining of sequences with and end value of less than half of maximum domino value.

11. When all 'coupling", 'spawning' and 'joining' has been accomplished get another set of dominoes or, if like me you've only got one set, keep a record of the sequences (graph paper works well for this) and repeat the whole process.

If you have the time or inclination, and can continue for 4.5 million years, at some point you'll very likely get a super-complicated sentient domino sequence that thinks it's magically acquired a supernaturally eternal personality.

So, for those who have not already surmised, to transpose the illustration into real world terms...
Replace the domino bag with a planet sized ocean rich with chemicals from exploded suns.
Replace dominoes with amino acids; that is, Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine, Guanine and the coupling chains become DNA strands.
Repeat for 4.5 million years...
and you get an ape trying to explain meaning of life stuff in dominoes.

This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!

Clearly Not Allegorical

A huge unexploded bomb, left over from a long dead civilisation and ignored by all town residents, because it is town custom to ignore it, is detonated by one who follows the "How to detonate this bomb and totally destroy the entire town and all its occupants" instructions printed clearly, in big helpful lettering, on the device's side.

In the devastating blast almost the whole town is torn from the map.

The only survivor, an old woman, found in a storm cellar two miles from the epicentre, says...

"It probably would have been wiser to get rid of such a dangerous item really but it was the tradition to give Ole 'Divine Retribution' a customary little rub or pat as we went into worship. Nobody ever thought anybody would be mad enough to actually follow the instructions written on the side!"

Cops take her away in handcuffs on a charge of criminal negligence.

At trial the judge decides...

"While the court accepts your whole town sanctioned, by their individual inaction, this unconscionably irresponsible practise, you are the only remaining former resident and as such are culpable, under the law of Joint Enterprise, for the mass homicide, which ensued. For your part then, in the town's residents utter failure to remove or even make safe such a potentially cataclysmic item and for the incompetence of leaving such potentially devastating commands in clear sight, where any old unstable nutter or curious child could easily obey them on a whim and destroy so much, you are sentenced to death. However, as you're a pretender in the same god as me, I want you to sit and think about what your inaction enabled."

So to the question...
Can you see how it's clearly not allegorical?

This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!

An Absence of Afterlife.

In the King James version of the Bible is a verse that tears the 'immortal soul' from every believer's belief system. And it's not in some obscure mouldy old tome in the locked and secret, shhh, Vatican archives, it's as clear as day for anyone really reading to see.
And you don't have to read far either; it's right there up the front!

Genesis. Chapter 3.
22 And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
23 Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

See what I mean?
No? I'll attempt to clarify with a spot of paraphrasing...

Genesis. Chapter 3.
22 And God said, Humans were never supposed to become like me, with the power to discern good from evil; they were supposed to remain my playthings, gamboling like puppies, but now they have that power! Grrr; I didn't see that coming!! Curse my lack of omniscience! Now one day they'll be able to figure out my actions here are wholly immoral, verging on unconscionable evil! The last thing I need is for 'em to be chasing me around the cosmos looking for justice forever! Hey, you two disappointments! Get out! And don't eat from that immortality tree on the way out neither!
23 And so, learning the lesson the young learn young, 'never trust anyone over 30', the disappointments left, mortal but wiser than the god who fashioned them.

So...
As Humans were banished specifically to avoid them becoming immortal is unarguable, immortality was not an original design feature of humans.

This is ^NOT one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!

So Much Less Than The Great I Am

If there is one single mental component which engenders the belief that one has, or is in possession of, humanity's longest held zeitgeist the 'immortal soul' it is a person's ego. Only via egotistical thinking can one conclude human consciousness(the 'person'/'self') is not engendered by the biology in which it manifests but instead is somehow independent thereof and can therefore continue to exist, intact, indefinitely and independent of the only location ever known for that 'person', its functioning biology.
While it's likely, after centuries of "slaughter the unbeliever" and elevated breeding levels among the doctrinally oppressed, some are born with an 'Id' that's genetically predisposed to believe the 'immortal soul' notion, I think one may suggest that the presence of such among the population is born of the existence of the egotistical notion triggering epigenetic changes over time.
Could one suggest then that it's the presence of Ego alone that engenders the ready acceptance of eternal life fantasies?

I think so; here's why.

I, one of the soulless, an unbeliever, consider the "I" that is me to be the current culmination of this biochemical genetic colony's life experiences and its current chemical state. The "I" that is me "exists"(has power in the cosmos) for only 1/40th of a second¹, then is gone, lost forever, an imprint on the chronology of the cosmos. And is instantly replaced by a new version of "I" with 1/40th of a second more experience², a new chemical state and responsibility for all this colony's prior acts. When, after a lifetime of about 100 trillion conscious moments, this genetic colony finally fails beyond the capacity for internal or external maintenance or repair, there will be one final "I" before the consecutive stream of "I's" that made up the "me" can no longer be generated. The memory of that recorded "me", who imprinted on the shape of the cosmos for the merest blink of the cosmological timescale, lingers in the consciousness of all or a portion of society then diminishes over a period of time relating roughly to the recorded accomplishments. For the "I" that is "me" the "I" does not extend beyond the single conscious moment and the recorded "me" cannot exist beyond the means which engendered it.

You, one of the soulful, a believer, consider the "I" that is you to be an eternal entity, able to live beyond the biochemistry, extending from before conception, way beyond the single moment and long past the death of the genetic colony stretching on into a distant, possibly unending, future. An "I" of such importance the cosmos will not allow it to expire.

So the question here is...

Which "I" has the bigger Ego?

This is one of the Too Many Questions

¹ "1/40th of a second" : Supporting evidence/explanation here
² "1/40th of a second more experience" : The nature and depth of the experience available in this time period is determined by the complexity of the "I" experiencing the moment. For more on this see Conscious Of Consciousness.

ego: Oxford Dictionaries

1. A person’s sense of self-esteem or self-importance.
1.1 Psychoanalysis - The part of the mind that mediates between the conscious and the unconscious and is responsible for reality testing and a sense of personal identity. Compare with id and superego.
1.2 Philosophy (In metaphysics) a conscious thinking subject.

id: Oxford Dictionaries

Psychoanalysis - The part of the mind in which innate instinctive impulses and primary processes are manifest

This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!

Hopeless Hopefulness

We all know a truth about hope;
we know the patent futility of hoping
for that which currently exists, to exist.

And the converse truth we thereby glean;
One may only hope for things not so,
things not known or knowable.

Hope is a symptom of sentience in the presence of ignorance.
A defensive pretence in the absence of knowledge.
The fearsome battle cry in the face of stampeding destiny,
spawning prospecting premises from which to proceed.

Hope then is the pinnacle of false, the wishfulness climax,
the mental conjuration of a beneficial outcome,
impossibly disconnected from the impending incidence of the causal chain.
An against-all-odds simulation, anticipated in the absence of true solace.

So, when fantastical fables foster fervent false hope,
what hope can there truly be,
for that font of all false to truly be true?


This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!

Is Atheism A Religion

Atheism: The lack of belief in a god or gods.

1. The atheist position:
What are you talking about? A god? What's that? Eh? Are you drunk? Sounds like you've imagined it!

2. The atheist philosophy:
To silently disbelieve unwarranted, unnecessary & unsubstantiated supernatural claims.

3. The atheist agenda:
To passively not believe all unsubstantiated claims for god or gods.

4. The atheist belief system:
The belief that whomever promotes claims for the existence of god or gods should substantiate those claims.

5. The atheist activist agenda:
To converse with whomever promotes supernatural fables as true and persuade them to simply admit there is no legitimate reason to promote unsubstantiated conjecture as fact. And that those of us too honest to do so, do not vomit projectile ectoplasm while our heads spin around.
Please Note:
Discourse associated with no.5 may only be achieved where the atheist makes points to illustrate how facets of faith have been misjudged.
The religiously indoctrinated often intuit the points made in such debates to be a set of commandments or principles in which the atheist believes (has faith).
This is not so.

I'll attempt to illustrate...

Debater A has a doctrine of instructions, commandments etc; a seemingly cohesive structure of concepts from which to argue her doctrine's position.
Debater B has no doctrine and so the debate may only proceed by way of presentation of each concept raised in Debater A's doctrine.
As the debate moves forward each point in the Debater A's doctrine is countered by Debater B (Whether or not these are won or conceded by either side, a posit of similar validity is made.) and by the end of the debate each point of doctrine has two explanations, the original doctrinal explanation presented by Debater A and the new alternative explanations to the doctrinal concepts presented by Debater B.
Debater A is confused as to why there even are alternatives, why her 'beloved' doctrine has not won hands-down; "it's the work of a god after all". Undeterred, however, she moves on to debate with Debater C, who also has no doctrine.
This time, when the debate was over, Debater A noticed the concepts offered as alternatives to the key points of her doctrine were almost exactly same set of concepts offered by Debater B. Debater A concludes "Debaters B and C must be following a doctrine of their own! My doctrine details that Good-guy-gramps has a supernatural archenemy with sneaky and bad, naughty, naughty ways; their apparently cohesive doctrine must be an Evil product thereof! Oooooh Spooky!"

Because doctrine has temporarily^* inhibited Debater A's reasoning capacities, she has failed to notice...

1. Doctrines remain unchanging so the same arguments will be repeatedly offered in opposition to doctrinal concepts, in every debate.
2. Many of the concepts for which her doctrine makes claims have actual, verifiable, real-world answers, which wholly differ from doctrinal claims and which cannot be overlooked as alternatives to doctrinal claims because they are facts.
3. All doctrines make a set of claims. In any debate the set of responses countering those doctrinal claims will be perceived, by those taught to perceive everything via a religious framework, as a cohesive doctrine, structured similarly to their own doctrine's religious framework, but this is an illusion born of circumstance.
4. In the absence of a religious doctrine to set a framework, the set of concepts presented to counter that religious framework are not perceived of as a "set" but are merely an unconnected subset of all known concepts/data/knowledge.

Only when perceived through religiously tainted eyes do a subset of concepts look like a religion.
The religionists misapprehension "atheism is a religion" is born solely of the presence of their own religious framework.

For the rational it's clear, when a more reasonable description of atheism might be the ultimate absence religion, any person describing atheism as a religion, may only be viewed as having an agenda which necessitates such dishonesty, so the question here is...

Is the religionists disability of reasoning on this point, in and of itself, clear enough evidence of the terribly insidious influence over followers' honesty and thereby wider society these spurious tomes have?

You can probably guess what I think.

^* If Debater A were to accept that "immortal soul" is not fact but pretence she would be able to recover full reasoning capacities.

This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!

No Compulsion In Religion

Only they feel obligated, by family, friend and social group's custom, culture or tradition, to practise the usually misogynistic and paternally prescribed family faith.

Only they feel obliged, by others who have been similarly indentured, to comply with the dogma's imposed compulsions, the pillars, if you will, of the tradition, the subjugation and enslavement of the self to the compulsions the dogma dictates; the imposed prostrations and recitations for supplicants.

Only they, in this haze of normalised oppression, feel the compulsion to spread these toxic tenets, as dictated by the author in this coercive manifesto.

Only they will be implored, bribed and coerced, by elders and "betters" to "conduct yourself properly in the superior ways, as prescribed for us in our unquestionably glorious supreme leader's unquestionably supreme manifesto".

Only they feel compelled to close or open their legs at the times the diktats prescribe.

Only they feel the compulsion to wear the uniform, the scripturally 'commended' religious garb and bling; always aware of the mantra "Purest Piety wins the Prize".

Only they feel the indoctrinated urge to coerce the still free, those not yet obligated to the 'supreme' path, to feel compelled to concede that ONLY this manifesto of coercive diktats, compelling submission to an unproven authority, is supreme above all, and other manifestos, which may seem to claim similarly are inferior counterfeits.

Only they are compelled to believe these "counterfeits" to be the works of demons and those who seek every opportunity to destroy the supreme path set forth by the supreme leader.

Only they fail to notice "there is no compulsion in religion" is a verse born of the doctrinal source of all their spiritual compulsions!

And all, and only, because a manifesto of spurious compulsions, which they were compelled to concede as true, has compelled them, via its coercions, to accept and promote what it compels!

And we, the un-shepherded, who are not they, know this because we have no doctrine and so none of the procedural compulsions to which the totalitarian manifestos compel their despairingly enormous flocks.

As I see it, "there is no compulsion in religion" cannot be described as anything other than wholly false, so the question this time is...

With compulsion being the foundation and scaffolding around which faiths are built, how can anybody who does not notice any of it, to the extent that they can feel comfortable and truthful proclaiming "there is no compulsion in religion" be trusted to even use a spoon without injury?

This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!

Join Islam

It's ^NOT funny coz it's true.
This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!

Peace Through Conspiracy

Below is the content of a letter I have just posted to my Member of Parliament.

I am writing with reference to the Counter extremism, Home affairs committee's interview of Fazal Dad, Senior Imam, Abu Bakr Mosque, Bradford, on 12th January.
About 11.5 minutes into the session Nusrat Ghani Conservative, Wealden, asked...

"Maybe it would be helpful if you'd explain how these ideas differ from the faith that you practise in your mosque."
(PDF Transcript Here - (Q738) Or watch the video of the session Here)

Fazal Dad began responding by decrying the misappropriation of his faith by extremists who interpret verses of the Qur'an to suit their own ideology. Very laudable. Unfortunately, almost in the same breath, Mr Dad then presented a distortion of a verse, favoured by Muslim apologists and moderates, which is designed, to suit their own ideology, to fraudulently, extremely mislead the listener into believing this abhorrent doctrine is peaceful. Fazal Dad delivered, to parliament, the same trite, flip, distortion of the Qur'an's words that most Muslims will trot out when defending atrocities by those of their faith...

"The Qur'an tells us straight away... 'Min qatala l-nasa', the person who kills any person it is as though this person has killed humanity, and the person who saves one single person it is as though this person has saved humanity"

; a distorted, out-of-context and misleading paraphrase of the Qur'an verse 5:32, which actually states

"On that account: We ordained for the Children of Israel that if anyone slew a person - unless it be in retaliation for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew all mankind: and if anyone saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of all humanity."

The deceptive omissions he and all "moderate" Muslims make, change the verse, making it sound as if the verse applies to Muslims, it does not; it's a passage referring to long-dead Israelites. However, no matter who the believer thinks it refers to, Muslims or Israelites, it is not the Buddha-like message of peace Muslims paint it to be, but instead has caveats and clauses for those who may be 'righteously' slaughtered. An extremist would argue that "the land" mentioned refers to "all lands owned by Allah" or as we know it the world, and that "spreading mischief" refers to anyone not conforming to Allah's wishes, or as we know them, non-Muslims, which, as you can see, clearly moves the meaning of the verse into one which legitimises the slaughter of any/all non-Muslims.
Why did the counter extremism committee allow Fazal Dad to repeat this misleading quote from his scripture without challenge?
All I hear from western leaders is how peaceful Islam is; has nobody actually read the Qur'an? Are ALL western leaders simply relying on Muslim advisers? I have no idea how any properly adjusted human can read the Qur'an and not find it wholly offensive, both on a human rights level and a legal level and I'm deeply concerned at the apparent complete lack of comprehension about the true nature of this religion being fraudulently promoted as peaceful by those who are paid to keep us safe.
I understand the committee will be recalling Fazal Dad, would it be possible to request he recite the full verse, in English, with all the wording, then explain why he and so many Muslims conceal the true verse behind the misleading, edited version?

Please pass this letter to a committee member and the chair.

So to the questions...
Have western leaders been too lazy to be offended by the contents themselves, relying solely on "trusted" Islamic advisers? Or is there a great conspiracy, spread far and wide, to conceal the absence of a message of peace in this "message of peace"?
And, if that is the case, how can any intelligent human become convinced that peace via conspiracy is achievable?
Is it just me, or does it sound like a perfect recipe for conflict and civil war to anyone else?


This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!

Keep Civilisation Civilised

A man was charged with attempted murder following a stabbing at Leytonstone tube station on Saturday evening; other charges may follow.

The video of the incident went viral, mostly, it seems, because of the statement made by an onlooker: "You ain't no Muslim, Bruv"

I was not there; I have seen only a bad smart-phone clip(above) on the news and subsequent reports (Article - The Standard.) so, first, my assumptions:

I may only assume the speaker of the viral phrase "You ain't no Muslim, Bruv" ...

a. was Muslim.
b. did not know the religiosity of the attacker prior to the incident.
c. assumed the religion of the attacker from the attacker's demeanour and actions.

Now, based only on the meagre evidence available, the attacker could easily have been an anti-war protester who had outgrown his trousers, so a couple of interesting aspects whizzed through my brain pan as I watched...

1: The onlooker jumped, fairly instantly, given the drama, to a conclusion akin to "if someone is attacking people in a terrorist fashion, it's likely to be a Muslim."
So, a Muslim onlooker, identified a Muslim as a Muslim by his violence, then informed this violent Muslim, and everyone else, "You ain't no Muslim, Bruv", which one may only assume is short for "my brother in Islam".
Is it just me or are there multiple layers of priceless but revealing irony in there?
2: I find it highly unlikely that any non-muslim onlooker would feel the need to deliver the defencive and deliberately distancing "He's not one of our gang!" meaning, which the phrase carries, however, if the onlooker had been non-Muslim, how many of that wider Muslim gang would have 'vocalised' outrage at the onlooker's clear assumption... "Goatee-chinned, non-white, knife-wielding attacker?? It must be a Muslim!"? Do you think there is any chance there would have been no cries of racism and islamaphobia from team Islam?

The most recent reports claim the attacker has mental health issues but this would in no way mitigate the assumptions made by the onlooker about the actions likely to be carried out by those of his team.


In the long history of struggle to keep civilisation civilised, can you think of a more intricately knotty problem for the governments and peoples of modern multicultural liberal democracies to untangle?
How does one plan for the future of rational society, maintain and run a a civil civilisation when it's packed with people who think pretending is a rational course of action?
Instead of pandering to the cravings of those raised to be dependent on religion, would it not be more rational and most likely a lot less bloody, to ask all those who are addicted to pretending, to just get clean?

This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!

Reckless Pretending

Whenever a religiously motivated terrorist commits an atrocity, have they acted alone? In a vacuum?
No? Then what does the social landscape from which they emerged look like?

In general, it looks like any other human environment...

• All through their lives people around them have engaged in pretending God/Allah is important (As there's no proof of such, one may only pretend so.) and other equally ridiculous supernatural magical notions.
• Almost every person they ever met inculcated a praise of god's plan, a fear of hell, a wish for paradise and belief that this life is not all there is.
• Almost every person does this because of what they are taught by parent and tradition.
• Largely these pretences are born of the promises of a book of fables.

With this in mind, below is list of points, written as if a believer is writing; the first two of which, I think, any good Christian, Muslim or other pretending type, would happily admit.

1. I am a happy, peaceful human. I live by the general principals - do unto others as you would have them do unto you / live and let live / do not judge before walking in their shoes.

2. I am religiously inclined - I believe in the immortality of person and the judgement of an eternal and perfect god.

Easy so far? Most humans who loosely consider themselves spiritual could admit to a version of the first two. And, I'm reasonably sure, barring any disagreements over the wording used, a great many believers could not legitimately deny...

3. I am fully versed in the text of the book and fully aware there are horrific commands to interfere with the rights of others, to the point of abuse or death, which are liberally strewn throughout. I choose to consider the text as peaceful and ignore the instructions I find abhorrent or outdated; justifying their apparent medieval immorality as "being written for a different time".

4. I consider myself an enlightened believer and would never choose to compromise my own personal morality by taking the commands to persecute too seriously.

5. I am fully aware that some people do not recognise the book for the "bit of harmless fun" it is, take it all too seriously and kill, persecute, shun, or show prejudice to, those whom the book deems sub-human for the fictional crimes of apostasy, blasphemy or other misdemeanour against its self-proclaimed supreme path.

Fair enough so far? Nothing there that any believer could truly deny, is there? Nothing more than what is obvious really, eh? We can go further, however, and while for many it will be the first time they have faced the truth of the next two points, some will recognise...

6. I am fully aware I'm not qualified to judge which of those, to whom I reveal the book's message, will react like me, following merely the spirit of the book and ignoring its immoral commands, and which will take its extremist, fundamentalist, radical, violent commands as the direct instructions of how the god wants them to act.

7. I fully understand the damage some who hear this message can do but, as I'm mercenary and a gambler, and I want to do all I can to secure my golden ticket to the promised paradise, I will do as the fable commands, share it with...

a. My child, relative, kin etc.
b. Any fellow human I meet.
c. All.

... and to hell with the consequences.

And a few of those whose radical need to draw others into this extremely unbelievable fantasy, will activate a monster...

8. Some time later, one of those to whom I spread the "good" word, one formerly unaware of the book's message, (This would include any baptised offspring) shows up on the news, having slaughtered dozens of those the book deems sub-human.

And then, I posit...

9. I find the police at my door.

10. I learn I'm to be prosecuted for reckless or public endangerment¹ via the promotion of literature linked with stochastic terrorism.²

And so to the questions...

• If one is partly responsible for any charity work funded by one's tithe, zakat or other religious taxes, should one not also bear some responsibility for any atrocities also funded thereby?
• Given the trouble these fables engender within society, promotion of those notions as fact, simply so one can pretend paradise is a possible destination, is tantamount to "I'm just walking forward swinging my arms about; if someone gets hit it's not my fault!" and even if you are six that's unacceptably reckless behaviour, isn't it?
  Behaviour worthy of a scolding? Or maybe a lecture about intellectual integrity?
  And shouldn't such reckless pretending by adults be prosecuted?
• Ultimately though, does the responsibility not lie with the lies within the book(s)?
  Should they not be classified as modes of communication for stochastic terrorism?
  
  
  

You can probably guess where I stand.

Finally, as a parting, possibly unanswerable thought...
As even religious books do not themselves exist in a vacuum, are we ever going to accept that responsibility for the actions of an individual lies with every human who has interacted with them since birth or shaped the environment in which the individual grew?


This is one of the Too Many Questions

1:
Reckless endangerment: A person commits the crime of reckless endangerment if the person recklessly engages in conduct which creates a substantial risk of serious physical injury to another person. “Reckless” conduct is conduct that exhibits a culpable disregard of foreseeable consequences to others from the act or omission involved. The accused need not intentionally cause a resulting harm. The ultimate question is whether, under all the circumstances, the accused’s conduct was of that heedless nature that made it actually or imminently dangerous to the rights or safety of others.

Public endangerment is usually applied to crimes which place the public in some form of danger, although that danger can be more or less severe according to the crime.
Wikipedia


2:
Stochastic terrorism is the use of mass communications to stir up random lone wolves to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable.
Article

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!

Syria - to bomb or not to bomb

An Open letter to UK Members of Parliament and all in positions of power.

With a UK Parliament vote on bombing Daesh in Syria (a noteworthy distinction to "bombing Syria") looming I thought I'd offer my perspective...
So, to bomb or not? It's easier to bomb... So much easier, than looking at the real problems.
Much less embarrassing to slaughter innocents in the name of righteousness than to start a program of education...

It's wrong to teach your child to seek friends only from your own religion.
It's wrong to teach your child being gay is evil.
It's wrong to teach your child that they belong to a group of people who are more special than any other human group.
It's wrong to keep or trade slaves.
It's wrong to shun unbelievers.
It's wrong to impose your standards of faith on another but abhorrent to inflict it on your child.
It's wrong to expect any child of the UK to be brought up as if they were living in a different country(by way of imposing old country's culture)
It's wrong for every other mandatory medieval value and viewpoint imposed on the faithful by the same fantasy fiction from which Daesh directly draws its medieval death-cult narrative to be imposed on a child.

It's impossible to ignore the central cause of Daesh; The Qur'an's message of paradise for those who slay they who cause mischief in the land will always be a source of jihadis; while Islam exists unedited it will always generate those who desire its promised paradise. Let's be honest, the strict medieval sharia imposed by Saudi Arabia and the medieval Daesh are exactly the same sharia. And, by way of the same measure of honesty, it's impossible to convince an atheist that if she would just blow up innocent humans and herself up while saying "magic words" paradise awaits her.

Close faith schools; they are the absolute antithesis of integration. It is an unbelievable kowtowing to religious privilege that even one exists. This is not "Islamaphobia"; I would advocate similar ethical neutering of the equally vile and supremacist tomes, the Torah and New Testament. The most peaceful answer is to make religious practise an adult only activity. In very few generations the problem would be gone.

Unfortunately, as what people pretend happens after they die is so much more important than saving innocent lives, it will be so much easier for everyone who feels compelled to pretend in the supernatural, to unload TNT and watch the body count rise. Yeah, much less embarrassing. And, while the ways and mindset of pretending has everyone's balls in a sling, the mountains of flesh and lakes of blood sacrificed to this childish folly will roll on unending, staining our future with myriad blood feuds just as it has stained our past.

However, education will do nothing to eradicate the threat of those who have had their minds set against us and, while our liberal democracies exist, those educated by the frighteningly many theocratic sympathisers of Qur'anic inspiration to hate all that we are will be coming.
Take the fight to them by all means, limit collateral damage wherever you may, but equal resources must be allocated into countering the medieval supremacist narrative couched in peaceful garb that is the true legacy of all the Abrahamic religious doctrines. If you're gonna have a revenge tantrum and bomb the shit out of someone's uncle and auntie's neighbourhood, it's probably best to first educate their nephew and niece here, who may hold sympathy with the target's ideological foundation, or you will just be building an army within.


This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!

Faith Or Democracy

Oxford English dictionaries online defines religious faith as...

"Strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof"

... but that seemingly simple definition is not so simple. If one investigates the meanings of the words in the definition, applying the meanings most suited to their purpose within the definition given for faith, it reveals much...

Belief:
(1) An acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof.
(1.2) Religious conviction.
OED - Belief.
Spiritual:
(1) Relating to or affecting the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things.
OED - Spiritual.
Conviction:
(2.1)The quality of showing that one is firmly convinced of what one believes or says.
OED - Conviction.

Faith:
(2) Strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof.
OED - Faith

So, as I said, taking the most suitable components we arrive at...

Faith: : Strong acceptance that the doctrines of a religion are true, based on the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things, showing that one is firmly convinced of what one accepts as true, rather than by proof.
I think that's fair; if you think otherwise, let me know in the comments.

... Which is incredibly tangly and seemingly meaningless because of it, so let's attempt to untangle it...
"human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical" is a very convoluted way of saying "the immaterial part of ourselves", commonly known as mind, where feelings are registered. So, in the context of the definition...

Faith:: Accepting the doctrines of a religion as true, based on feelings, to show that one is firmly convinced of the religion's truth.

"to show one is firmly convinced of the religion's truth" is disturbing, isn't it? Is it just me or can you almost hear the screams of those tortured under inquisition? Does it not suggest oppression will befall those who do not sufficiently display adherence?
Anyway, it adds nothing to the first half of the sentence so...

Faith: Accepting the doctrines of a religion as true, based on feelings.

Which is just a longer way of saying ...

Faith: Accepting a doctrine as true because it makes one feel good.

Which means, when it comes down to it, it's merely...

Faith: Feeling a doctrine is true (because you like what it promises and/or fear what it threatens).

And, as far as I'm concerned, feeling a doctrine is true because it makes you feel good/bad, is of no more value than pretending.
Further though, if one views the definition of faith through a sensibly more suspicious lens it can be transposed into..

Faith: Submission to non-negotiable, doctrinal rules because doctrinal promises both please and terrify one.
If there was to be a replacement for a current dictionary definition of religious faith, I think this would be close to my preferred wording.

Or, to go a stage further, based on the textually evident behaviour of the scriptural figurehead of the faiths humans have created and, mostly...

Faith: Unconditional adherence to unproven, undemocratic authoritarian overlord's wishes for unconfirmed and deferred, discretionary reward.

Freedom, to me, seems inherently votey and faith, by this definition, is at best woolly wishes for the weak or intellectually inept and at worst capitulation to a despot.
Not for this Democrat.

What about you... faith or democracy?


This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!

Your Hate Crime Is Bigger Than My Hate Crime

The lady on the bus...

Article and video here.

Hate crime Or frustration?

If one filters out the heart-racing, impassioned and under-educated, the rational translation of the tirade the lady on the bus delivers is...

"My dear ladies I find your disrespect for the hard won customs and practises of this country to be separatist and quite frankly supremacist. If you find our ways abhorrent I would request you take up residency in a country better suited to your political and philosophical preference."

I wholly condemn the abhorrent and abusive implication of violence but her method of delivery owes more to education or lack thereof.
The message is born of frustration; of perceiving that they who were the object of her tirade are disrespecting the country in which they reside, and of hearing over and over from politicians how "we", who truly value this island must accept the interlopers inherent disrespect. The underlying cause was the insertion, not integration, of medieval cultures ⁽¹⁾which do not wish to integrate into a fully formed modern secular society.
While the media and police will likely focus on the direct disrespect perpetrated on the victims and possibly label it a hate-crime, they will likely once again utterly ignore the fact that she did not act in a vacuum; the underlying cause of the lady's outburst was not the lady but the tacit disrespect inherent in brandishing the idolised icons of a supremacist and arguably fascist ideology in the face of the free.
How is wearing the garb of a cult, whose principles are wholly in opposition to our culture's hard won freedoms not advertising a hatred of our culture? How is it not an insult to the memories of all who fell to defend us from fascism? How is it not a hate crime in and of itself?

⁽¹⁾ Please note the distinction "which do not wish to integrate": I fully understand there are former members of these cultures of medieval thought who have thrown off their incarceration and embraced the more rational "couldn't give a monkey's about religion" mentality, more commonly found on this island.

This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!

Suicide by Compassion

A short while ago the world was gripped by an outbreak of a deadly disease in Africa. Ebola was chasing people to a bloody death left and right, and the pain and suffering streamed to our screens daily. Fortunately the tide of the deadly plague was stemmed and the world relaxed.
What if the plague had become so out of control that hundreds of thousands of people decided the terror and fear and chance of death was so great and so imminent that another country would be more safe and secure? What would have happened? Would those potential plague carriers have been allowed to travel across multiple borders? Offered welcome, regardless of their infection status, in the heart of a mostly healthy different continent?
One would assume there would be armed checkpoints, mandatory testing for the disease and one would further assume testing would include those who are not sick but carriers.
Would anyone question the sense of protecting the healthy from the infected, even if many thousands died waiting to be tested?
I think we'd all agree that proper quarantine measures are good sense; a necessary imposition for protection. And, in a time of good health, most of those suffering under the quarantine would also agree it's a necessary measure.
It's an easy decision to impose a quarantine when the disease is as obvious as Ebola, so clearly a threat, but what about when the disease is not so visible, not physically based but psychological?
What about if the disease is not running rife but only carried by those who have been brought up to tolerate the deformities it inflicts?

I am speaking of course of the ISIS ideological plague that is the current scourge of a big chunk of desert and jungle. The ISIS ideological plague spreads similarly to a biological virus, by finding suitable hosts in which to grow and causing the death of those who do not succumb to its pathology.
Should those who carry such a plague not be quarantined and tested to make sure they will not deliberately or accidentally infect those not previously afflicted with its symptoms?
I understand that those inflicted with similar diseases do not recognise those who carry the ISIS plague, as carriers of a plague, however, those of us who are rational should be encouraging quarantine of these poor befuddled victims of that vile contagion in order to protect the most common casualties of the plague: freedom of thought, freedom of speech and freedom of action.
With protection of these highest held freedoms of humanity in mind I offer the 'ISIS plague carrier's self-identification test' so that victims can recognise their affliction.
The test can be taken by any who follow a dogma of supernatural coercion and I urge all who pretend in god(s) or spirits etc to take it.
If enough people take it and do so honestly and with honour, the freethinking areas of the world may still avoid suicide by compassion.

So, why is the no quarantine?
I suspect it's because to the majority of Europeans who are pretenders in god, those who pretend in god are all lovely peaceful bunnies.
I further suspect they'd have a different opinion if they stood on the oppressed and abused non-believer's rational side of the argument.
 
This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!

All About Peace

So they, the sycophants of the various brands of pretendsies, each claim "MY religion is peaceful" but on the evidence below... Not so much, eh?



So, ALL about peace?
Seems to me seeking to impose one supremacist brand as a monopoly all across the globe is not an act of peace, it's the act of those who want global war forever.

This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!