Riding Some Wild Tangents

1917 to 2008

I don’t pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.

Sir Arthur C Clarke, his novel Childhood’s End

1921 to 1991

We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes.

Gene Roddenberry: Can a Smart Person Believe in God? by Michael Guillen; later put into a speech by Spock.

1931 to 2015

If this is your God, then he is not very impressive. He has got psychological problems. He is so insecure that he demands worship every seven days. He creates faulty humans and then blames them for his own mistakes. He is a pretty poor excuse for a Supreme Being.

Science Officer Spock in Star Trek, The Motion Picture

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The ONLY Ultimate Message of ALL Christendom

To begin, as I was growing up and my mom forced me to go to church, I quickly discovered that there is truly ONLY one message of ALL Christendom:

Ultimately, this message is actually applicable to ALL religions.

I mean, this is verbatim what the preachers in Sunday School class and the Sunday Sermon would tell everyone, literally every Sunday. And I had to hear it AT LEAST once every Sunday, most often twice. There were other things taught and preached about, but they were always based in fire-and-brimstone. Pure Psychological Terrorism. Pure Child Abuse.

There is no argument you Absolutists can give. There is no apology you Absolutists can give. There is nothing any of you religious bigots can ever offer that would cause me to offer forgiveness to any of you. Even your greatest Apologists cannot change the ONLY message ALL you Christians have for us godless heathens. Why can’t y’all just leave us the fuck alone? Do you see me, or others like me, standing outside any church doors sporting a sign condemning you Christians? No! I never shall. However, I can no longer sit by without letting others know what you ignorant savages did to children over 50 years ago to intimidate and terrorize them into believing the nonsense of an obsolete and savage Bronze Age religious text.

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My Philosophy Of Life

For me, the ONE and ONLY True Truth

This is something my father taught me when I was having such a terrible struggle with church. When I turned 13, he put his foot down. He told my mom that at 13 years, I was old enough to decide for myself whether I wanted to go to church or not. Of course, that cascaded down to my sisters and brother... You know, the old standard, If he doesn’t have to, then why do I? thing... However, my younger brother and youngest sister continued going to church anyway.

-- Live and Let Live.

-- Leave me alone, I shall leave you alone.

-- Mess with me and mine... Just don’t... The results won’t be pretty.

-- Want to be friendly? We can be friends.

-- Want to be belligerent? We’ll probably be enemies.

-- Respect the Right of ALL persons to have whatever beliefs they wish to have, even if contradictory to your beliefs.

-- Wish to discuss beliefs? We can discuss them.

-- Do not force your beliefs onto others.

-- Force your beliefs onto me, we are enemies.

-- Mind your own business and affairs.

-- Allow others tend to theirs.

-- Live and Let Live.

He with long nose, tends to get it chopped off. - RF Runyan (my father)

It was from this philosophy and Star Trek that I later derived my Ten Commandments. Yes, Star Trek.

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My Ten Commandments

1) Question everything, trust nothing; for it is more important how to think than to be told what to think.

2) You shall mind your own business and responsibilities, and allow others to tend to theirs.

3) You shall render aid to others when needed, disregarding #2, as you shall want others to do for you. If your aid is refused, then do not force it.

4) You shall respect the right of ALL persons to believe whatsoever they wish to believe; even if contradictory to your beliefs. You may discuss beliefs; however, forcing your beliefs onto others is condemnable.

5) You shall live your own life always seeking to cause no harm.

6) You shall test everything; but you shall check your own ideas against the facts and evidence, and you shall always be ready to discard even a cherished belief if it does not conform to the facts and evidence.

7) You shall never overlook evil or shrink from administering justice; but you shall always be ready to forgive minor wrongdoing freely admitted and honestly regretted.

8) You shall treat ALL living things with love, honesty, respect, fidelity, and trust.

9) You shall never indoctrinate anyone, especially children, regardless of their situation; rather, teach them how to think, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree with you without disrespect and dishonor.

10) You shall value the future on a timescale longer than your own life span.

In all actuality, the 4th one has three words at the end that I add mentally, punishable by death. This does not mean I shall kill any who do try to force their beliefs onto me. It just means that is how condemnable I find the forcing of beliefs onto others.

Discuss your beliefs, YES; force your beliefs, NO.

Some may say that I am trying to force mine onto them with this document. I beg to differ. I never forced you to download this document. I am not forcing you to read it. I am not forcing you to think about what is said. If you ain’t going to think, then nothing I can say will make you think.

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Atheist, Shmatheist

Why do we call ourselves atheists?

I know, in Greek:

θεός (theós) = God, Lord, Creator;

ένα- [usually shortened to α-] (éna- [usually shortened to a-]) = to be without;

thus αθεός (atheós) atheist = to be without God.

Regardless, I much rather prefer the term "rationalist. For is it not from rationality that we derive our conclusions? Yes, I do not believe in a supernatural super-being with ultimate-power, ultimate-knowledge, and ultimate-goodness (which I beg to differ on the goodness). The reason why is not because I am without God, rather it is due to the fact that I have rationalized the conclusion that any god does not exist. Never has, never shall. How can you be without" something that never existed? Think about it. However, even atheist is a very apt term to describe who/what I am. Additionally, I am an anti-theist, and I am an anti-religionist.

And I damned sure cannot tolerate the term agnostic. That is the stupidest fucking term I have ever heard to be applied to atheists or rationalists. It literally means the same thing as ignorant. Let’s have a look...

Agnostic, from the Greek:

γνώση (gnósi) = knowledge;

ένα- [usually shortened to α-] (éna- [usually shortened to a-]) = to be without;

thus αγνώση (agnósi) agnostic = to be without knowledge.

In English:

ignorant = due to or showing lack of knowledge or training or information; unlearned; uninformed; unaware.

See. They mean virtually the same exact thing. Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but I ain’t without or lacking knowledge. I have some knowledge. Granted, I shall be the first to admit that I do not know everything, never can, never will; however, that does not mean I am agnostic or ignorant. Thus, if I should lose it when you call me agnostic, the fault is yours. For I have forewarned you.

I do understand what is meant by agnostic. It is the without knowledge of whether an ultimate super-being exists or not. However, I still despise the term. I tend to believe like one comedian said (cannot remember his name) about agnostics being a bunch of wishy-washy pansies.

And here is another for you: ένα- (éna-) and θεός (theós) = έναθεός (énatheós) is where the English word anathema is derived.

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Ignorant or Ignorant?

Did you know there are two ways to pronounce ignorant? And the meaning changes?

1) ig-nur-unt = same as above.

2) ig-nor-unt = in a state of knowingly ignoring something.

Notice the highlighted syllable. See? One means lacking knowledge, the other means you are actively ignoring something that you know is there.

Told you, wild tangents...

ToC

Why I Am An Atheist

Here is a concept I guarantee none of you Absolutists can comprehend. All humans are born atheist. Although this is poorest argument any atheist can make, it is also the most absolute truth. Even you Absolutists are born atheist. You are just taught not to remember it during that indoctrination into your parents religion.

As Andy Rooney once said in one of his Sixty Minutes closers (and I was privileged to have watched), "Why am I an atheist? I ask you, Why is anybody not an atheist? Everyone starts out being an atheist. No one is born with belief in anything. Infants are atheists until they are indoctrinated. I resent anyone pushing their religion on me. I don’t push my atheism on anybody else. Live and let live. Not many people practice that when it comes to religion." Ain’t that the Damned Truth.

About me, first and foremost, I was born an Atheist. All persons are born Atheist until their parents begin the indoctrination of religion. Consequently and foremost, I have always been an onerous skeptic. I am skeptical about everything. I trust nothing. This was due to the fact that both my father and mother (mostly father) taught me it was more important how to think rather than what to think. They taught me to search for the answers to my questions instead of giving me their answers, even if they had the answer. And it was mostly my father who taught me one saying, Trust nothing anybody says. Research it for yourself. Find the evidence and draw your own conclusions. That has lived with me my whole life.

Hell, I even remember when I was seven years old and presented both my father and my mother with mathematical and scientific proof that Santa Claus CANNOT exist. I forget exactly how I did this, but I think it had something to do with Santa Claus being incapable of visiting every home in the world, regardless of which direction he went. I do remember it also had something to do with Relativity. If I am not mistaken, I think it also had something to with the inability to travel through the atmosphere at speeds approaching the speed of light (299,792,458 m/s) without destroying Earth. And this was when the world population was only around 3 billion. The world population had doubled in my lifetime almost 20 years ago.

For my fifth birthday, my mom gave me a novel by Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood’s End. This novel is regarded by both readers and critics (me included) as Clarke’s best novel. In fact, I wish I could find a copy so I can re-read it since I have not read that novel in over 50 years. My mom gave me a month to read the novel and write a report about the story. What kind of mother tortures her child thusly? On his fifth birthday? However, I loved the story so much, I wrote a ten page report.

While I was in school, we always had those Scholastic Book Club things at least once a year, sometimes twice (back then it was just a small booklet/pamphlet). I always got 10 to 30 books every time. Hell, back then, for us students, paperback novels were only 50¢ for students. I became a voracious consumer of any and all books, fiction and non-fiction (always focusing in science and science fiction). Thus, at the ages of 6 to 13 years, I was reading books by Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein, Frederik Pohl, Isaac Asimov, Larry Niven, Phillip K. Dick, John W. Campbell, James Blish, Ray Bradbury, Jack Vance, Hal Clement, Clifford D. Simak, L. Sprague de Camp, Lester del Rey, L. Ron Hubbard, Fritz Leiber, E. E. Doc Smith, Bertram Chandler, Theodore Sturgeon, A. E. van Vogt, Poul Anderson, Edgar Rice Burroughs (only the John Carter of Mars series), and William Gibson (who invented cyberspace). Wow. I guess my memory ain’t that bad after all. Although quite long, that list still does not comprise all the authors I was reading. It also did not include the science based books I also read. My Four Horsemen of Science Fiction: Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and Larry Niven.

I can even remember waiting for the National Geographic, Popular Science, Scientific American, Popular Mechanics, and other magazines to arrive once a month. I almost could not wait for my father to finish with them so I could consume them.

Star Trek: The Original Series premiered on CBS television while I was in elementary school. I was forever hooked on science-fiction; thus, also hooked on science. Furthermore, I was hooked on being skeptical, just like any scientist. Another fact: It was Mr. Spock who also taught me to be skeptical of everything, to question everything, to trust nothing, and to apply logical reasoning to everything, on top of what my father had told me.

Hell, I can even remember being avidly glued to the television screen as Apollo 11 launched two days after my birthday (my birthday = July 14, Apollo 11 launched July 16, Eagle has landed on July 20; greatest birthday present ever). Then six days after my birthday, I watched as Neil Armstrong did his Small Step Giant Leap thing. Although it happened past my bedtime, my parents let me stay up and watch it live.

It was due to both science and science-fiction that I stayed skeptical all my life. Even when I had finally capitulated and pretended to have gotten saved and became a believer. That skepticism led me to ask many questions about the veracity of the Bible. That is why I was constantly ostracized, even excommunicated, by the churches.

The questions that got me ostracized, even excommunicated. And still get me ostracized even today...

-- Why did God create us so badly, then blame us for his mistakes?

-- Why should anyone cede to religion the right to tell us what is good and what is evil?

-- Why should anyone cede to religion the right to tell us what we can and cannot think?

-- Why would any God be so stupid as to create such a huge universe for only one insignificant species (and this was when the universe was only 2 billion light years)?

-- What if there is another species, not human, but just as advanced as we are, does this God of yours force the same bible onto them?

-- Why is it us humans did away with slavery, whereas God condones it? This especially proves that human morality is superior to your God’s.

-- If God is truly omnipotent, they why doesn’t He just make us humans sinless?

There were many, many, many other questions I asked, but I think you get the gist. Basically, as I said, I, like ALL humans, was born a skeptic. Born curious, just like a scientist. Thus, once my mom began forcing me to attend church, I am supremely happy that my intelligence was too strong for you idiot Absolutists to truly brainwash me. In fact, I am so happy I was even intelligent enough to pretend I got saved and pretend to became a believer before y’all did completely wipe away my true mind. The only thing I truly despised was that baptism bullshit (they believed in complete submersion). However, to keep up the façade, I had no choice. Once you are saved and become a believer, you MUST get baptized. And here is a good one for you Absolutists: Guess what I did with the wet clothes after I changed after the water dunking? I threw them in the garbage. I damned sure did not want anything to do with those clothes ever again after being in that unholy water.

Thus, if my mom had wanted me to become an Absolutist, she should never have allowed me to buy all those books, watched all those science-fiction, and science (anyone remember Mr. Wizard?) shows on TV, read all those magazines my dad got, go to the public library and check out other science-fiction and science books, she should not have allowed the public schools system to teach science and math in the schools I attended. Hell, she was the one who started it with that book by Sir Arthur C. Clarke. The only reason she gave me that book was to have me read