I’ll say it again, I’ve never seen a bigger sacred cow than BLM. If you are white and criticize them you are racist. If you are black and criticize them you are a sellout. Any other minority criticizes them, they are racist.
I am, and I'm a hardline atheist. The past ten years have solidly convinced me that most people are not cut out for living without a religion - they'll say they don't have one then they'll fit something else into the same slot of their brain and we're no better off.
Worse off, in fact: I'd rather the competing mix of old standards each with established rules and power structures to this morass of new-and-crazy where everyone's looking for - or making - power vacuums to exploit.
At the height of the Evangelical moral panic power I used to make fun of them on accounts with my real name. Today there's an orthodoxy with a priesthood so powerful and a laity so rabid I dare not affix my real name to even mild criticism. If I'm ever found out I'll suffer consequences similar to excommunication at the height of the Dark Ages - not able to interact with others, not able to work, not able to engage in simple commerce. I've been made a member of a church I never signed up for and I will suffer like any other heretic if I botch a shibboleth.
So yeah, please come back Jehovah! I still don't believe in you but boy do I ever need you; you're way more mellow than your replacements.
I am, and I'm a hardline atheist. The past ten years have solidly convinced me that most people are not cut out for living without a religion
Even back in 2010, Dawkins himself stated that he'd come to think that Christianity was ultimately "a bulwark against something worse".
I agreed with him then (in his case, he was speaking about the weak response of secularists to Islamic terrorism), and I definitely agree with him now.
If you've ever talked with theist and they've asked you the question of how you as an atheist can possibly be trusted not to be a murdering raping theiving monster with no morals, or better yet, had them openly tell you that if were not for their belief that they would go to hell, they would be doing those things, then you've already glimpsed the animal lurking under the thin veneer of civilization.
It seems most people actively desire, if not outright require an authority figure to tell them what is right and wrong.
At the height of the Evangelical moral panic power I used to make fun of them on accounts with my real name. Today there's an orthodoxy with a priesthood so powerful and a laity so rabid I dare not affix my real name to even mild criticism.
If you've ever talked with theist and they've asked you the question of how you as an atheist can possibly be trusted not to be a murdering raping theiving monster with no morals, or better yet, had them openly tell you that if were not for their belief that they would go to hell, they would be doing those things, then you've already glimpsed the animal lurking under the thin veneer of civilization.
Our problem was thinking that was a handful of weirdos we just kept running into, and not sign of something bigger. Even as we simultaneously call humans chimpanzees in suits. Hindsight's 20/20, huh?
I’ll say it again, I’ve never seen a bigger sacred cow than BLM. If you are white and criticize them you are racist. If you are black and criticize them you are a sellout. Any other minority criticizes them, they are racist.
I am, and I'm a hardline atheist. The past ten years have solidly convinced me that most people are not cut out for living without a religion - they'll say they don't have one then they'll fit something else into the same slot of their brain and we're no better off.
Worse off, in fact: I'd rather the competing mix of old standards each with established rules and power structures to this morass of new-and-crazy where everyone's looking for - or making - power vacuums to exploit.
At the height of the Evangelical moral panic power I used to make fun of them on accounts with my real name. Today there's an orthodoxy with a priesthood so powerful and a laity so rabid I dare not affix my real name to even mild criticism. If I'm ever found out I'll suffer consequences similar to excommunication at the height of the Dark Ages - not able to interact with others, not able to work, not able to engage in simple commerce. I've been made a member of a church I never signed up for and I will suffer like any other heretic if I botch a shibboleth.
So yeah, please come back Jehovah! I still don't believe in you but boy do I ever need you; you're way more mellow than your replacements.
Even back in 2010, Dawkins himself stated that he'd come to think that Christianity was ultimately "a bulwark against something worse".
I agreed with him then (in his case, he was speaking about the weak response of secularists to Islamic terrorism), and I definitely agree with him now.
If you've ever talked with theist and they've asked you the question of how you as an atheist can possibly be trusted not to be a murdering raping theiving monster with no morals, or better yet, had them openly tell you that if were not for their belief that they would go to hell, they would be doing those things, then you've already glimpsed the animal lurking under the thin veneer of civilization.
It seems most people actively desire, if not outright require an authority figure to tell them what is right and wrong.
Same. This is an utterly undeniable truth.
Our problem was thinking that was a handful of weirdos we just kept running into, and not sign of something bigger. Even as we simultaneously call humans chimpanzees in suits. Hindsight's 20/20, huh?