Godless And Free

by Pat Condell

  I don’t like the arrogant way they try to force their narrow prejudices into other people’s lives any more than you do, but come on, this is supposed to be a positive video, and I don’t want to ruin it by dwelling on the negative things – the selective reasoning, the wishful thinking, and the shameless abandonment of personal responsibility that religious belief embraces in such a self-deceptive and cowardly way. I’d rather focus on the positive.

  And the most positive thing I can think of to say, and this is something many believers have said to me as well, is that religion gives people hope; it gives them optimism for the future.

  And that is definitely a very good thing. In fact it’s something I can certainly relate to, because even after centuries of repression and bigotry and downright bloody minded stupidity, I’m still optimistic enough to believe that religion is just too absurd to last forever, and that sooner or later humanity’s collective intelligence will rise just enough for us to see it for what it actually is, a cruel and manipulative hoax which sustains itself, not by exalting the human spirit, but by breaking it.

  And I just hope that when that day arrives we’re big enough to laugh at ourselves, because laughter is the best medicine, as we know, even according to the Bible:

  “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones.” Proverbs 17 verse 22.

  Peace, especially to everybody with dry bones.

  27.

  Was Jesus Gay?

  November 2, 2007

  I’ve had a couple of e-mails from people who want my opinion as to how they should break the news to their fundamentalist Christian parents that they don’t believe in God.

  Well, the obvious answer is tell them you’re gay, and then when they’ve recovered from the fainting fit and you’ve administered the smelling salts you can tell them you were only joking, you’re not gay, you’re just an atheist. And they’ll be so relieved they’lling hallelujah.

  Religion doesn’t much like gay people, does it? But then of course religion doesn’t much like anything. And if we listed all the things religion disapproves of we’d probably still be here next Tuesday. However, it does seem to hold a special place of condemnation in its hard little heart for homosexuals.

  To the religious mind, if you’re gay, then you’ve got something wrong with you. Whereas to my mind, if you think it’s some kind of insult to call somebody gay, well that’s when you’ve actually got something wrong with you.

  It is one of the most common insults I get, and it’s also one of the most puzzling, because if I was gay I wouldn’t think it was anything to be ashamed of, and even though I’m not, I don’t feel in the least bit insulted at being called gay, so what the hell, go ahead and knock yourselves out.

  I realise that this is a sensitive subject to some people. Here in the UK we recently had Catholic adoption agencies actually threatening to close themselves down rather than place children with gay parents. Although, given the Catholic Church’s record with children, I’d have thought gay parents would be the least of the kids’ worries.

  The Anglican Church is on the verge of splitting over this issue, because some people don’t want gay clergy. And I can understand that. I don’t want them either, but then I don’t want any kind of clergy.

  In America there’s a well known televangelist who apparently hates gay people so much he couldn’t wait to get his hands on one of them, even paying money for the privilege. Of course he kept it quiet for as long as he could because Christianity and homosexuality make uneasy bedfellows, if you’ll pardon the expression, because of course it is an abomination unto the Lord, isn’t it? Homosexuality, I mean, not Christianity, obviously. You wouldn’t call that an abomination, would you? A laughable parody of Christ’s message, perhaps, and a tasteless burlesque of everything he ever stood for, certainly, but an abomination? Oh all right, you’ve talked me into it. It’s an abomination. I was just trying to be nice.

  I’ve heard it suggested from some people that Christians are so irrationally obsessed with this subject because deep down they’re terrified that Jesus himself might have been gay.

  There’s no real evidence for it, but then there’s no real evidence for anything to do with religion, so yeah, I’ll buy it. Well, keep an open mind, that’s what I always say. What do you always say?

  To be fair, according to some accounts like the Gospels of Philip or Thomas, it’s probable that Jesus wasn’t gay, because he got married and had a child. But unfortunately those Gospels never actually made it into the New Testament, so they can’t possibly be true.

  If we take the actual Gospels as gospel, then what we’ve got is a man in his thirties, unmarried in a culture where it’s almost unheard of for a man of thirty to be unmarried. Plus, come on, you can’t ignore the twelve boyfriends, especially when there’s a missing passage from the Gospel of Mark that actually describes Jesus spending a night with a naked youth. We’re told that the youth came to Jesus wearing a linen cloth over his naked body, and he stayed with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the kingdom of God. I be did, along with one or two other little mysteries while he was at it. Well, why not? He was only human.

  The apostle John repeatedly refers to himself as the one who Jesus specially loved. I don’t know whether he meant it in the Greek manner, so to speak, but what would it matter if he did? This is the point. If Jesus was gay, would it negate the teachings and the parables? Would the Sermon on the Mount lose its authority if preached by the queen of queens rather than the king of kings?

  And if somebody could prove historically beyond all doubt that Jesus was in fact homosexual, would Christians then reject Jesus, or would they reject the evidence as usual? Your guess is as good as mine.

  From what I’ve read in the Gospels I think Jesus was a pretty common sense sort of person, and I don’t think he would have had a problem with anybody being who they are. I do think, though, that he had a problem with people who pretend to be one thing, while being another.

  So if you are a closet homosexual family man with your own ministry, as I know some of you are, don’t be ashamed. God knows you’ve got enough to be ashamed of without adding imaginary crimes to the list.

  It’s not a sin to be gay. It’s a sin, if anything, to be a liar and a hypocrite about it. So why not do yourself and everyone around you a favour, step out of that closet and show a little pride in who you really are.

  Some people won’t like it, of course they won’t, but you know how bigoted they are. You know that better than anybody.

  And anyway you can ignore their opinion because now you’ll have the kind of strength that only comes from being true to yourself, and who knows, it might even help to enhance your faith if you take comfort from the real possibility that your messiah, Mr Jesus Christ, was a normal healthy homosexual just like you. Everyone’s a winner.

  Peace to all Christians, especially the secretly queer ones.

  28.

  A Word to Islamofascists

  November 14, 2007

  OK, I’d like to say something about the Muslim Council of Britain, whose leader recently accused the security services here of increasing tensions in society by fostering a negative image of Muslims, which is pretty ironic given that the Muslim Council of Britain itself is probably the most high profile negative image there is of Muslims in this country, apart from the actual suicide bombers.

  Of course there are various ways that you can increase tensions in society; not least people who constantly push for unwarranted religious privilege, and who issue lists of demands that would impose Islamic values on every school in Britain.

  People who refer to themselves as community spokesmen when they actually speak for nobody but themselves and their Wahhabi fundamentalist paymasters in Saudi Arabia, where just last week somebody was actually executed on suspicion of practising witchcraft.

  Intolerant misogynists who are given a frlatform to insult this country during Remembrance Week by comparing Br
itain with Nazi Germany, in a tasteless and calculated slur guaranteed, and doubtless intended, to insult and offend every grieving war widow in the land.

  They also want a ban on alcohol in public and a more modest dress code for everybody, whether they’re Muslims or not, and whether they like it or not. How inclusive. How thoughtful.

  This organistation, like its American equivalent CAIR, or the Council on American-Islamic Relations, is the respectable face of terrorism in the West. The sort of society they’d like to create already exists in Saudi Arabia, where children are raised to hate Jews and to refer to them as vermin and pigs and apes; where young men are so sexually repressed by their religion they spend all their time furiously masturbating over violent internet pornography like a bunch of Catholic priests, and where women have to be invisible in public to avoid being raped.

  So you can see why we in Britain might be a little hesitant about welcoming these kinds of values into our society.

  But of course this hasn’t prevented our spineless government from pandering to these fanatics at every opportunity, most recently promising state-funding for hundreds more Islamic schools, thus encouraging segregation and separation in society, and sowing the seeds of conflict for future generations to have to deal with. They might as well be putting lead in the water supply, and they know it.

  It would be easy to blame this on misguided political correctness, but this is actually cynical political opportunism. The truth is the Muslim vote is just too important to lose in places where the Labour Party needs to win. So as usual they’re happy to inflict long term damage to achieve short term ends.

  They even gave a knighthood to the previous head of the Muslim Council of Britain, despite his public pronouncement that death was too good for Salman Rushdie. They gave him a knighthood anyway for the sake of community relations.

  You know what’s good for community relations? People who come to this country and who adapt happily to our way of life, or, if they find that it’s not quite to their taste, they piss off and live somewhere else. That’s really good for community relations.

  If you don’t like how we do things in Britain, get out. You weren’t invited here, and you’re not wanted here.

  And please don’t lecture us on moral values. When you can’t even bring yourselves to condemn stoning as a punishment, it’s clear that yours is the morality of the cave man.

  And for your information, we do have strong moral values in Britain; we just don’t feel the need to enforce them with an iron rod because we’re not as insecure as you are, and because we believe people should be free to make their own choices in life and not be dictated to by small-minded medievalists who despise everything this country stands for.

  And by the way, this has got nothing to do with immigration. Let me make this very clear. I welcome immigration to Britain. I think that within reason it’s a healthy thing for the economy, I think it’s a good thing for the country. This is about religion, and only about religion.

  So to any white supremacist morons out there who think they can latch on to this video in the way they’ve attempted to with some of my previous videos, go and take a piss on a live electric rail, because I’m not your friend. I’m your enemy. And I’m proud to be your enemy, just as I’m proud to be the enemy of every creepy Islamofascist on this planet, because you people are two sides of the same coin, and it’s an evil worthless poisonous currency that I want nothing to do with.

  As for the Muslim Council of Britain, if you insist on shoving your religion into people’s faces all the time you shouldn’t be surprised to get it shoved right back at you, because that’s how we do things in a free society, and if you don’t like that you know what you can do.

  The people of Britain know damn well that the reason for tensions in our society is nothing to do with the security services or the police, and everything to do with the activities of people like you, the true enemies of Muslims in this country, because every time you open your mouths you make things worse for Muslims. You increase the tension, you increase the resentment. And this is deliberate on your part, because you want Muslims to be in conflict with people all the time in an attempt to intimidate us into allowing you to impose your narrow beliefs and your barbaric values on our society. Well you can whistle up your sawn-off trouser leg for that one my friend, because it’s not going to happen. Not now, not ever.

  And as for accusing us of being like the Nazis, that really is pretty rich when it’s clear that if people like you ever did achieve the kind of universal power you crave, there would be another Holocaust, and everybody knows it.

  So we in Britain are going to carry on living the way we like, regardless of what you think about it. We’re going to carry on treating women as human beings, and not as possessions. We’ll drink alcohol in public if we damn well feel like it, regardless of your sensibilities, and we’ll walk around dressed any way we choose. And you might as well get used to it, because if you don’t you’re going to have a miserable time here, because you’re always going to be in conflict. And maybe that is what you want, but I don’t think it’s what most Muslims want.

  To my mind, if religion has a legitimate purpose, it’s not as a vehicle for conquering and subduing people as you seem to believe, but as a personal means – and I do mean personal – as a personal means to achieving a peaceful heart, which is, I think, its only legitimate purpose.

  And a religious person who is in constant conflict is clearly not even looking for a peaceful heart, and is therefore abusing their religion, and by extension abusing the people who follow that religion, the very people you claim to speak for, you liars, you hypocrites, you duplicitous, mealy-mouthed, unprincipled terrorist-sympathising scum.

  Thank you for your time. I’d wish you peace but you wouldn’t know what to do with it.

  29.

  Why Debate Dogma?

  November 27, 2007

  I’ve had quite a large response to my video about the IslamoNazis who are attempting to drive a fundamentalist wedge into British sciety with the connivance of our corrupt dhimmi politicians, and some of the most positive messages I got were actually from Muslims who are themselves embarrassed by the activities of these people, so that was very gratifying, and thank you very much indeed for all those.

  Inevitably there was plenty of negative feedback as well, from the usual religious nutjobs, but also from some atheists who have told me that they think I’m giving atheism a bad name. Yeah, right. Like it ever had a good name.

  I’ve been told things like my arguments are too crude, I’m damaging the atheist cause, I’m not contributing to the debate, and my personal favourite: “You won’t convert anyone to atheism by insulting people.”

  Well, OK. First of all, as regards being crude. We are talking here about religion, in case you hadn’t noticed, and it doesn’t come any cruder than monotheistic dogma. I can only aspire to that level of crudity. But just for your sake I promise to do my very best.

  Obviously I’d like to show more respect for people’s sincerely held beliefs, of course I would, but unfortunately that would violate my own sincerely held belief that religion is a filthy lie and a threat to civilisation. So you can see the problem I’ve got with that.

  Besides, I don’t think I’m insulting anyone who doesn’t deserve it a thousand times over. I also think if we did a bit more insulting and a bit less pointless debating, then religion might not have such a falsely inflated idea of its own importance, and there might not be so many people on this planet who want us all to live our lives according to ideas and stories that would embarrass a second rate fantasy novelist.

  I think to engage dogma in debate is to legitimise it and to confer on it a status that it simply doesn’t deserve.

  With its arrogant intrusiveness I think it long ago forfeited any claim it may have had to be treated with respect. Too many liberties have already been taken.

  Religious dogma has been allowed to encroach on ground it has no right to occupy
, and to claim authority where it has no authority to claim anything. And I don’t think this is a matter for polite debate, especially when all you’re going to get is the usual raft of glibly held but unexamined certainties hammered home like coffin nails at every opportunity, because dogma is blind and deaf to anything reason has to offer. Faith is non-negotiable. So where exactly is the debate?

  You obey the rules of reason. Religion ignores them, and neutralises your argument before you’ve even opened your mouth. It’s not interested in anything you’ve got to say. It’s just waiting for you to draw breath so it can say: “Yes, that’s all very well, but you’ve still got to submit, because it’s written in this book.”

  Right now in the UK some Christian fanatics are attempting to take out a prosecution for blasphemy against the producers of a popular comic opera.

  Now the very idea of blasphemy, the idea that blasphemy even exists as a concept says it all for me about religion, because what this really means is that some human beings have taken it upon themselves to feel insulted on God’s behalf. They don’t trust God to decide for himself whether to be insulted and to deal with the matter in the appriate way on Judgment Day. No, they want to see punishment dished out right here on earth for their own satisfaction. Because it’s not really about God, is it? It’s really about them and their personal mental illness, as it so often is when religion is exploited and misused by pig-ignorant narrow-minded zealots.

  This is the same mentality that wants to compel us all to live in the past. And the past has plenty to teach us, but I don’t think it should be allowed to detain us against our will.