In Summary

Jennifer has a really terrific post that is a summary of everything that I've been saying for three and a half years now. Those of you that read me regularly should read her post, and you'll know exactly what my response is going to be.. and why I find her views exquisite in the perfection of everything that is wrong with deeply religious people. I've also cemented a view that I've been dabbling with recently.. and that is.. the immutable nature of a "faith based" personality.

Before I get on with the fisk, I'd like to also observe, again, the weird way in which conservatives tend to cast specific people into anonymity. In this case, Jennifer uses the "and you know who you are" method of referring to me without actually referring to me. Doug does this frequently as well.

What is the deal? You don't want to name me, link to me, nor argue against what I've actually said? Okay.. fine.. but I will, because you make my case better than I can, so I'm very pleased to link, quote the whole thing, and shred it. Her post is titled "Hypocrisy 101".

I find it quite ironic that those who demand tolerance are so disinclined to give it.

That sentence speaks volumes.

"Intolerance" of "intolerance" is not intolerance. It's self-defense.

I find it hard to see the reasoning behind the view that people who initiate the moral condemnation of another group are astonished when that group, as a result of the accusations, find the methodologies and thinking of the accusers to be morally inferior.

Jennifer thinks I am being a hypocrite for engaging in my crusade against organized religion, when it is organized religion that started the fight. If they had simply kept to their churches, or temples, or synagogues, or mosques, and applied their own views to themselves, there would not have been a problem. There would be no "gay rights" movement if everyone is treated the same. The issue isn't even same-sex marriage. It's just a useful topic to use for demonstration.

But that's not how religion works. The idea of "evangelism" is paramount, and so they give themselves the moral authority to judge the behavior of everyone else, regardless of whether or not that morality makes any sense. They believe that their "values" are THE values. They believe that their "morals" are THE morals. And through their certainty of infallibility, they believe that those morals and values should be imposed on everyone else. They insist that the morals and values are one of those immutable "truths" and that therefore justifies their condemnation of other groups.

It's moral absolutism.

To summarize; Jennifer believes that because of a very old book (of dubious origin and questioned validity), and "tradition", her view of morals is what everyone else's view of morals should be, and she should be free of criticism from those that she morally condemns. After all, if those accused desire "tolerance" then they should also "tolerate" the very same people who are accusing them of being immoral.

There is no "hypocrisy", there is only standing up for oneself.

I have been criticized and mocked for having values, for having beliefs, and for having faith. I accept that as part of being a Christian and a Conservative.

Notice how Jennifer casts herself in the martyr role. As Jesus was "mocked" and persecuted, so is she. It's typical of Christians to see criticism as something completely irrational because of their complete investment in the religious delusion in their personalities.

Christians are given constant reinforcement that casting aside reason is a virtue. They are told that they will be persecuted for their "beliefs", but rationalize it and insist on it, because it draws parallels to the supposed persecution of Christ. It gives a positive reinforcement to think they are nobly suffering as Christ suffered.

I sometimes call that phenomenon, "nailing themselves to the cross". The degree to which they justify their suspension of reason by internalizing phantom psychic pain is remarkable.

She believes her "values" are THE "values" and assumes that having a "belief" and "faith" are intrinsically good things. Therefore, when other people criticize the philosophy of basing ones entire world view on something that is made up out of thin air, she considers it "mocking", as opposed to reasonable criticism.

There will always be others that think I am crazy, and it really doesn't concern me. I know who I am and what I stand for.

Classic self-martyrdom.

Jennifer cannot see an interpretation of her "faith" from a different frame of reference. People who base their understanding of the world on the "real" and "reason" do not create exceptions of "belief" based on whether or not it involves the idea of a "god".

In other words, if somebody claims that the "abominable snowman" exists absent any corroborating evidence, some people may call them crazy. Just because your "belief" involves your concept of God and Jesus, that doesn't mean that some people will not call you crazy for completely investing yourself in something that was made up a long time ago. It's all the same.

What does bother me is that they (and you know who you are) can bad mouth Christianity to their hearts content but then expect me to accept homosexuality without blinking an eye.

I don't expect Christians (or religious people of any faith) to "accept" anything. I didn't expect Christian Southerners to accept desegregation laws, or the banning of anti-miscongeniation laws. What I do expect is that you apply your views to yourself, and leave people to be as they are in the context of the laws which we are all subject to.

Religion always has to have a target in order to feel relevant to the larger world around them. Because they assume they are the moral arbiters of right and wrong, there must be immoral groups whose behavior religion seeks to control. Today, it's gay people. Yesterday it was racial minorities. Tomorrow it will be Muslims.

They don't understand our faith, so their only defense is to make fun of it. They preach one thing and then do another.

Jennifer assumes that anyone who would understand her faith would automatically be a part of that faith because of the universality of it.

I understand it quite well, and if anyone likes, I can list the atrocities of human horrors perpetrated by religion over countless years. We can list the modern horrors as well. They are going on every single day.

I'm not "making fun" of anything. To make fun would be to trivialize it, and I would do anything but trivialize the dangers of organized religion, and the failures in thinking that are required for participation.

Jennifer has not demonstrated any hypocrisy, and completely fails to see that if people simply keep their private views in private, there would be no problems. They simply can't do it, because they are indoctrinated in evangelism, because their organizations will die without it.

And the money would stop flowing.. and ultimately, for the organization, it's all about money. For the adherents, it's all about fear.

One of the ways they do that is by throwing Bible verses out there like they have read it and understand what the Bible is saying. I think one of the most famous ones is "Thou shall not judge" and frankly it's a good one. Christians should not judge people, for we are certainly not without sin. Judging someone and making them feel bad or inferior is wrong, BUT there is a huge difference between judging someone and not agreeing with them or their actions. For instance....I don't believe that homosexuality is right but I have never thought any less of someone for being gay. I think abortion is wrong but have never thought any less of someone that had one. I guess it goes back to the "love the sinner, hate the sin."

I've always insisted that religious people are incapable of forming logical thoughts of cause and effect.

Jennifer is incapable of understanding that behavior is an intrinsic part of being a human being. It is who they are. A heterosexual may have attractions and desires to engage in physical activity with somebody they find attractive. It's not an act separate from their nature. It's the same exact thing with gay people. However, Jennifer claims that the behavior is a "sin", but tries to disassociate it from the gay person's nature.

That fails every sense of logic, because she is incapable of understanding the degree to which sexual behavior is ingrained into the entire being of a person.

Therefore, the act and the person are one and the same. By condemning the act, she condemns the person, and it's only through a semantic failure that she can claim that she's not being judgemental. That's complete hogwash. She is absolutely condemning the person, and even if she is incapable of understanding why, she should at least accept that the person she is condemning believes it.

And then, after Jennifer claims that she doesn't "think less of a person", she advocates policies that casts those people into a different category then everyone else by claiming gay people should not be allowed to be married under the same civil laws as everyone else.

To summarize; gay people are fine, gay acts are wrong, therefore, gay people should be categorized different than everyone else.

To top it off, she basis her criticism of homosexuality (it is "wrong") on questionable text, word of mouth, and archaic tradition. It's as if slavery should be re instituted because that was "traditional" as well. Take away women's rights, as tradition dictates they should have none, etc.

And then she wonders why we call her "crazy".

I truly feel bad for people that don't have faith. Believing in a higher power doesn't make you week, it makes you strong.

Stunning.. truly stunning, but it is the assumption that we've always made about deeply religious people.

You need it because you can't cope without it.

Sometimes when I look at this life that we live, I wonder how people with no faith do it.

Why would you feel bad for people who don't need to invest their entire beings in something completely made up as a coping mechanism? I think this is true of a lot of religious people, but it is remarkable that Jennifer wonders how a person can deal with the difficulties of life without thinking the invisible friend in the clouds is guiding it all. To top it off, she "feels bad" for people who are quite happy and adjusted, just as they are.

It doesn't, not for a moment, occur to her that maybe the one deserving of the sympathies are those people who are incapable of seeing the beauty in the real world around them, and who need to delude themselves into thinking that the virtue of suspending reason will somehow make everything okay.

Religious people often feel a "burden lifted" or some sort of psychic change as a result of deep seated religious belief. They think it is caused by forces outside themselves. They are convinced of it - and that "convincing" is a requirement in all religious belief. The truth is, it is simply a reaction of their own mind. It's similar to the effect that some people get through the practice of meditation, and has everything to do with the human mind, and nothing to do with an outside influence.

Yet, they convince themselves that God has taken a personal interest in them, changed them, and is now going to make the horror that is their world much better.

I know when I die, I will have a better life. No tears, no pain, a place that I can only imagine in my dreams. For the people that believe that this earthly world is it, how do you get through the day? Where is your hope? Where do you find peace? The future must look very dim in your eyes.

For me, personally, I don't worry about it because there is no sense in worrying about something that cannot be known. Religious people are religious simply because of fear of the unknown. Religion says it has the answer, and they believe it. Isn't it sad that you have to delude yourself to get by?

What is "hope"? Things are very good.. can get better.. and we'll just deal with things as they come. If there is an after-life, okay.. we'll see. If not, then it doesn't matter because it's hard to be upset if you don't exist.

Why does a person need religion to be "peaceful"? Just because you are incapable of dealing with the realities of the world, doesn't mean everyone else is also. I make my own "peace", just by not being delusional. There's lots of great things in the real world that leads me to think the future will be great.

Isn't it weird that a person has to delude themself with religion in order to think the future is bright? I realize that Jennifer is incapable of seeing it from my point of view, or the point of view of anyone else who is not invested in a participatory god, but it's quite a lot better to be connected to real people and real things then to subjugate yourself to a jealous God as some sort of therapy for a mental condition.

Or.. I might die tomorrow, in which case the future wasn't so bright. The point is, one never knows.. so there's no sense worrying about it.. and it's certainly silly to buy into the God Delusion (which is merely a money racket) based on negative emotions.

In mine it looks as bright as sunshine. I guess that is one of the reasons why I try to share my faith with others. So they can find the same hope and peace that comes from knowing that there is more to this life than what we are living now.

Not only do religious people think God is the answer for clinical depression, they think everyone else is depressed too.

It's just amazing how Jennifer assumes that everyone is suffering from the same anxiety of life that she is. She thinks because of the sensations she experiences, everyone else is the same and can benefit from God and Jesus the same way she has.

Listen.. Jennifer.. honest to Gorak I'm not trying to make fun of you.. but.. it's one thing for you to cope with life with the whole God thing.. but it's quite another for you to think that anyone else other than you has the problem that requires the God fix in the first place.. k?

I get extremely annoyed with people when they think they can just start giving me the Jesus spiel. I like to go Hannibal Lector on them.. tell me Jennifer.. do you wake up at night, hearing the screams of the lambs??

But notice how Jennifer externalizes her view again. Homos are bad.. so she reaches out and condemns them... she needs Jesus.. so everyone else needs Jesus too..

And it never occurs to her.. not once.. that the reason she's externalizing the Jesus need is because it fits the evangelizing need of religion.. to spread it's influence, and it's money making potential.

It's like there's this huge number of Jesus zombies, infecting the world.. who give up their credit card numbers.. and the zombies have no idea they are being played. All they know is that they don't have to fear the world or death anymore.

I'm reminded of the story of Padre Pio, the Catholic priest who claimed to have the stigmata. They dug him up and put him on display. The Catholics claim to have done it for spiritual reasons, and not for the money and interest it generated.

And the story talked about one young man.. badly burned by a gasoline fire. He was convinced that God would help him, if he just came to see the dead body of Padre Pio.

The young man is religious for the same reason Jennifer is. It's desperation. It's a coping mechanism for that man, who cannot come to terms with what has happened to him. God is not going to cure his burns, any more than God grows back an amputated limb... because God is not involved.

One could argue that the burned man's belief in God, and hopes that God will fix him, is benign.. a form of therapy that doesn't require a therapist. I suppose that could be.. but it's weird the way a majority of people would claim his "faith" is a virtue, when God is not going to help him. The truly virtuous are the ones that come to terms with their situation on their own, through their own personality, through the comfort and aid of their friends and family.. not by a made up friend on a cloud who isn't going to actually do anything.

And to top it all off.. religion, particularly the Christians, tell you if you don't suspend your disbelief and buy into their dogma, your eternal soul will burn in hell. It's a classic scare tactic.

And still.. the religious don't think it's just another scam.. albeit the oldest scam in human history.

Sometimes I feel like I am talking to a brick wall, maybe I am. Maybe some people will just never get it. Some people are so narrow minded and in such denial that God himself could come down and they still wouldn't believe. I guess that is a decision that they will have to live with, or maybe die with would be a better word.

Again, you think other people should just simply "believe" in an unsubstantiated pyramid scheme just because it might be true.. with sprinkles of hell thrown on top.. And you wonder why we call you crazy?

Never once have you seen God.. nor Jesus.. nor anything that is super-natural. Sure.. you can delude yourself into thinking that the image on the piece of toast is the Virgin Mary.. but it's not.. it's just a burn in the toast.

Everything that ever goes on in this world is easily explained by nature. However, if some being did comes down.. and started doing real miracles.. well.. then we'd know there was an entity that could do miracles.

I think the biggest difference between me and them is that they go on and on about how crazy we are but never stop to think what if.

Actually.. the biggest difference between you and us is that you need to invest your being into a figment of your imagination because you can't cope with life otherwise.. and the rest of us are more concerned with what is real in this world.

We don't think "what if" because it's a stupid question that cannot be answered. What if The Flying Spaghetti Monster is the true God? Huh? Huh? What if that's true. You should start worshipping his noodely appendages now because it might be true and if you don't, you might go to meatball hell for not believing.

And that is exactly how silly your argument is that people should buy into the God Delusion just out of fear.

Besides.. if there is a God.. he's not going to be a giant douche bag like you claim he is, and cast everyone who didn't buy into it into hell. That's just a stupid, silly, vapid, scare tactic..

Anything can be sold to gullible people if you scare them enough. But, not only does Jennifer not understand why some of us can't be frightened into believing made up things.. she actually feels bad for us that we're not frightened into believing made up things.

And then she wonders why we call her crazy.

Someone likes to accuse me of saying "I believe how I do and nothing anyone says will make me change" and that is correct.

That "someone" would be me. I have a name.. it's Thomas.. or Tom if you prefer.

They find fault in those words where I find a strong faith and conviction.

We find fault in your needing to delude yourself in order to deal with life. Moreso, we find fault with you claiming a virtue for having a delusion as if it is a superior philosophy to those that can deal with life by means of the real world. And moreso of the moreso take great offense when you tell people what they can and cannot do, based on that need for you to delude youself in order to deal with life.

And then you wonder why we call you crazy.

There are no words to convince me that there is no God. There is no proof out there that denies God. They expect me to be open minded about certain issues but then close their ears to others. Hypocrisy 101.

I'm think that a persons ability to be convinced of susperstition is a biological one. There's something different about religious people that causes them to crave answers that are unknowable by definition. Perhaps it's an unhappy childhood. Maybe there is some trauma. Perhaps it's a "follower" mentality, where they want other people to give them the answers they crave, even if the answer is just a guess. It's good enough.

Notice how Jennifer invests herself in something that we cannot prove does NOT exist? Then turns around and says that there's no way she can even consider that she might have been wrong all along.

When you consider why she needed that "faith" in the first place, it's understandable why she cannot reconsider it. Imagine the horror in her own mind if she suddenly had to come face to face with the uncertainty of existence. That would cause some people to disolve into a quivering pile of goo, too frightened to even walk out their front door.

I don't expect you to be open minded. I expect you to put "belief" in a lower order of importance to facts and reason. If you have to rely on a bunch of hocus pocus made up superstition to support your argument, you've lost the argument and should just shut the fuck up already. Apply the crazy to yourself and your family. I'd rather not deal with your crazy.. and I'm quite happy to stay away from you so you won't have to see what you think is my crazy.

Before you criticize my values and beliefs, stop and think about how you would feel if it was directed toward you.

Wow.. can't believe you actually said that. Drive another nail..

In the end, what we're trying to achieve is a just world where people are not frightened into God, or despaired into God.. or coerced into God.. but simply choose for themselves how to answer the eternal question, "who am I?"

It cetainly isn't Jennifer's God.

(note)

After I published this, I cleaned up a few phrases that weren't worded very well... and added some minor things.