by Pat Condell
Freedom from religion, from other people’s unprovable beliefs, is our basic human right. At least I think it is. And some very determined people would like to take that right away from us. And if we don’t do anything about that they’re going to be allowed to succeed.
Maybe you think the way to deal with this is to engage it in polite debate, and to make all your little points and counterpoints and show us all what a clever dick you are, and that’ll be great fun for you. And the good news is you don’t even have to worry about somebody like me coming along and damaging your cause, because you haven’t got a cause – what you’ve got is a hobby.
If God existed, and if I had any reason to ask him for anything, I think I’d probably ask him to save me from the curse of polite and deferential atheists.
Religion is out of control right now precisely because too many people have been too diplomatic for too long. If we’d had the balls to do some straight talking years ago when we should have, and put this insulting nonsense in its rightful place with astrology and palmistry, we wouldn’t even be talking about this now. We’d be doing something more useful with our time. What a waste of an Enlightenment.
So my position is pretty clear. Believe whatever you want, but if you want me to believe it, then provide evidence or expect mockery and ridicule. Do not expect polite debate.
I’m not trying to convert anyone to anything. I don’t give a damn what anyone believes as long as I don’t have to keep hearing about it. And by the way, that would include condescending atheists, just for future reference.
I’m not interested in arguing about whether God exists or not. I couldn’t give a shit. If he does, he can go and suck eggs for all I care. In fact, he can know himself in the biblical sense, because I want nothing to do with any god who would encourage murder on his behalf, which the god of the desert repeatedly does. In fact, I’m ashamed and embarrassed to have been created by somebody with such moronic values, which is why you’ll never hear me bragging about it.
So I’ll carry on giving his so-called religion the verbal finger, and you can carry on with your polite discourse, and who knows, maybe you’ll come to some kind of amicable compromise where you only have to spend half your life on your knees – that might work for you. And if not, well, at least you’ll have something to keep you occupied, which is the main thing really, isn’t it?
OK, that’s enough. I’m out of here. Peace and love to one and all.
30.
Laugh at Sudan
December 3, 2007
Well, it’s another public relations triumph for Islam. I was wondering when the angry street mob would appear, I must admit. Who’d have thought it would happen right after prayers? What could they have been listening to?
The government of Sudan has come in for quite a lot of criticism over this,* but apart from shaming their country, debasing their religion, and insulting their Prophet, I think they’ve handled it rather well, certainly by their usual standards. At least nobody has been massacred yet, which is a step in the right direction.
Of course we were all hoping they would come to what’s left of their senses and admit that this was just an innocent misunderstanding, but, as we know, they chose to misunderstand the misunderstanding and make fools of themselves, embarrassing their own people, and turning their country into a laughing stock. I bet they’re even laughing at them in Pakistan over this one. Maybe even in Saudi Arabia. Actually, no. In Saudi Arabia they’d probably execute the teddy bear.
Why they let this happen I really don’t know. Maybe they felt they weren’t getting quite enough contempt for their unparallelled record of murdering their own people in Sudan.
Maybe they weren’t happy with just being known as the genocide capital of the world, and they wanted to get a little bit more attention, just to show themselves off properly in all their full three-dimensional bollock-brained stupidity.
To be fair, the government probably would have let this slide, but for the influence of some hardline clerics who insisted on dragging their religion into the dirt and insulting their own Prophet by using his name to score what everyone can see is nothing but a cheap and grubby political point.
And they’ve got the nerve to talk about inciting religious hatred, these spiritual vampires, when they’re the ones who have been preaching up this storm of hate, demanding that she be publicly executed to make an example of her, when all they’ve really done is to make an example of themselves, and it’s the usual example, the classic combination of cowardice and cruelty we’ve seen time and again embarrass and disgrace the Islamic religion.
This has done their faith more damage than a thousand blasphemies a million times over, but they’re too thick to realise it.
Human nature being what it is, you just can’t help wondering now how many pet dogs in the West, or even pot-bellied pigs, have found themselves renamed overnight from Patches or Trixie or Gus. They’re even selling Mohammed teddy bears on eBay, for God’s sake. This is not a good result for Islam. But then it so rarely is these days.
I was listening to a radio interview with a member of the Sudanese parliament, and he was asked if he was insulted by the Prophet’s name being used like this, and he said: “No, the Prophet Mohammed is beyond any insult.”
Well, isn’t it just a shame that so many of his hare-brained followers are not.
But I guess that’s what happens when little men get hold of big ideas they don’t know how to handle.
Men who call themselves scholars and who think they’re educated because they’ve memorised the Koran, which admittedly is quite an achievement, even if it has got nothing to do with knowledge or wisdom and everything to do with self-hypnosis.
But now that she’s been pardoned and she’s coming back to Britain, presumably things will start to return to normal. The Sudanese government will carry on murdering its own people while we stand by and watch.
We’ll send money to help, of course, as usual, even if much of it does end up in private Swiss bank accounts, as usual.
And then we’ll wait for the next bunch of opportunistic ignoramuses to disgrace their religion by choosing to be offended yet again about absolutely nothing at all.
It’s so pathetic in a way that it’s almost hardly worth generating the contempt, but I feel like making the effort, don’t you?
Peace to all teddy bears, whatever they’re called.
* The Sudanese authorities arrested teacher Gillian Gibbons for allowing children to name a teddy bear “Mohammed”.
31.
Pimping for Jesus
December 18, 2007
We’ve been following the American election campaign quite closely in the United Kingdom, mainly because our country has been acting like the fifty-first state for so long that he kind of feels like our president too now, God help us.
And of course we realise that this is a very important choice, not just for Americans, but for everybody on the planet. This is not the sort of job you can stroll into with your head up your ass hoping for a major atrocity to give you an excuse to attack a country that had nothing to do with it. That’s not going to happen – any more.
I suppose it was inevitable that the Republican campaign would degenerate at some point into an unsavoury squabble about who is a bigger pimp for Jesus, because two of the candidates, Mr Huckabee and Mr Romney, have realised that the evangelical lobby is still there waiting for somebody it can call its own; still waiting for that special someone who will actually do something about the rapture.
So they’ve both decided to run on the ‘theo-democracy’ ticket. This is a new word, theo-democracy, which has been coined as a euphemism for what might be more honestly described as the Christian jackboot.
A society ruled by Christian values is what they want. Not the values of Christ. No, the values of Christians. Yes, I can almost hear that shiver running down your spine from here.
To this end, Mr Romney has been very keen to reach out to the evangelicals, but because
he’s a Mormon they’re not sure they can trust him yet. They’re thinking: “This guy might be crazy. Let’s hope he is so we can vote for him.”
He’s a member of a bizarre sect that believes an angel turned up about 180 years ago with some gold plates, and as a result of this thell have to wear special underwear. I don’t know whether that would be considered crazy enough, but if not, he also said recently that freedom requires religion, which I think pushes him way over the line, because freedom requires religion like a slug requires salt.
When you embrace religion you give up your freedom; that’s the deal. You submit.
And it’s why you need faith, because there’s no rational reason for you to submit, so you have to talk yourself into it. That’s what faith is.
Mormonism is not a high profile religion here in the UK. In fact I didn’t even know about the special underwear until just this week. I suppose I’ve always regarded Mormons, I dunno, a bit like Jehovah’s Witnesses. The kind of people who, when they knock on your door, you don’t want to be rude, but you don’t want to be polite either.
So when I first heard that there might actually be a Mormon president, I was a little surprised of course, but then I thought: Why not? America is a very egalitarian society. Why not a Mormon? Indeed, why not a Jehovah’s Witness? What the hell, why not go all the way and elect a Scientologist? Anything but an atheist. Because atheists are the enemies of freedom, and a threat to the American way of life, according to Mr Romney.
In fact, I’m just wondering now how long it’s going to be before somebody actually uses the phrase: “War on atheism”, because I think you’d get quite quite a number of people signing up to that one in the name of religious freedom.
I get e-mails from people who live in the Bible Belt and who tell me they’re afraid to go public as atheists because they think it would affect the family business if people knew they didn’t believe in God. Is this the kind of religious freedom America is so proud of? Praise the Lord, or else?
And they always dress it up, too, in such a nice little package, as if Christianity equals patriotism. This is a peculiarly American idea. This is not something I’ve ever seen anywhere else, this notion that Christianity and patriotism are somehow connected, when the truth is American Christians are the last people that you would call patriotic, because they worship a foreign god.
I mean if you’re going to worship a god, at least make it a North American one – there must be hundreds to choose from. Show a little loyalty to the land of your birth, people. No wonder you’re losing the plot. Your religion has no roots. You’re praising the wrong Lord.
Mind you, here in Europe we can’t really criticise, because we’re just as bad. I’ve always found it quite odd that we revere the ancient Greeks for their great discoveries in science and philosophy, and yet we dismiss their religion as fantasy, while embracing the religion of a culture that could barely rub two sticks together to make fire.
If only we had gone with the more civilised Greeks, who knows where we might be today? Actually we’d probably be be blaming Pandora for all our troubles on earth instead of Adam and Eve, and creationists would be forcing children to believe that the world came out of an egg laid by a giant black-winged bird. There but for Genesis, and the god of the desert, because that’s the god we chose for ourselves, for reasons best known to ourselves.
And withis god there is no dialogue, hence there is no freedom, because with this god you obey or you perish. That’s the arrangement. Submit or be damned. On your knees or be tortured forever you miserable sinner who’ll never be worthy enough and whose soul will never be pure enough, but God loves you anyway, you worthless piece of crap.
Who wouldn’t be seduced by such blandishments?
Who wouldn’t want to prostrate themselves in humble gratitude?
Well me, actually, for one, thanks all the same. Because religion has had thousands of years to make a convincing case for itself, and yet this is the kind of thing it still has to resort to; crude coercion and childish threats of eternal punishment.
And as for all this talk about freedom and religion, the one thing we never hear about is freedom from religion, and I think this is the most important thing of all, because Mr Romney wouldn’t even be a Mormon today if he hadn’t been raised that way. He’d be wearing regular underpants like everybody else.
But he was brainwashed into it as a child. He was hypnotised into it as a child. And now, despite his obvious intelligence, he’s clearly unable to shake it off, even though it’s a hindrance to him in what he’s now trying to achieve.
Far from being free, he’s a slave to the childhood programming that keeps this mind virus alive generation after generation. And there’s nothing he can do about it, even though he must know in his heart that this is the one thing that’s likely to keep him out of the White House. Oh well, never mind. He’ll always have Jesus.
Peace to everyone, especially to atheists, and other crazy un-American freedom-mongers.
32.
Partying with Baby Jesus
December 24, 2007
Hi everyone. I’ve been asked by a number of people whether I celebrate Christmas. Well, of course I do. I celebrate every day I’m alive, quite frankly, and I find I’m particularly alive at Christmas.
So if your Christmas is anything like mine it will probably be a traditional family occasion of gluttony, drunkenness, long-held resentments bubbling to the surface, and fistfights over the dinner table. We usually book the ambulance for about six o’clock.
No, not really. Christmas is a time of peace and goodwill; everybody knows that. And it’s also a time to celebrate the miraculous birth of Little Baby Jesus. And one thing Christmas has always done for me is it always reminds me that there are actually two separate versions of Jesus – the adult Jesus, obviously, with the beard and sandals who was murdered by the Jews, and Baby Jesus.
I’ve never connected those in my mind as being the same person. They’ve always been completely separate entities to me. I never look at Baby Jesus in the crib and think: “Ah yes, I can see the resemblance.” It wouldn’t even occur to me (although it probably will now).
We actually have a little model Nativity scene in our house this Christmas, as we do every Christmas, ostensibly for the children, but really it’s for everyone, because Christmas is for everyone.
Why do we have it? Well, for the same reason that we have a Christmas tree and fairy lights and tinsel and crackers and paper hats. Because it’s fun.
To me, the Christmas story has always been a charming folk tale. I’ve never really connected it with religion in the sense that I’ve never associated it with sin or guilt or burning in eternal hellfire, which means I’m usually in a pretty good mood and ready to celebrate. But that doesn’t mean I actually believe the story is true, any more than somebody who celebrates Halloween believes that witches really fly around on broomsticks, but it doesn’t stop them from having fun with the idea.
Christmas was a folk festival long before Christianity ever got hold of it, and it will be long after Christianity’s bony fingers have been prised off it, because newsflash for Christians – nailing your deity’s name to a festival doesn’t make it yours, I’m afraid. It’s still all about the solstice. It’s all about the rebirth of the sun. No, not the son of God, the regular sun.
It’s a celebration of the life force, something that Christianity wouldn’t really know very much about, because the only thing it celebrates is death.
All the supposed benefits of Christianity accrue after death, not before. Life is a penance to be endured, not lived – unless you’re a televangelist with a million dollar mansion and a couple of Cadillacs, or a senior clergyman who happens to live in a palace, or two.
But the actual Nativity itself is an iconic scene which, of course, is instantly recognisable. A baby born in a stable, well that can only mean one thing. You never look at that scene and think to yourself: “I wonder if that’s Baby Jesus there, or one of th
e many other babies known for being born in stables.”
But, you know, it might not be a bad idea once in a while, because the Christmas story is by no means exclusive to Jesus. It was told and retold many times over the centuries long before Jesus was ever even thought of.
To the ancient Egyptians, Isis was the mother of God, and each midwinter they depicted her in a stable nursing a child that she had, guess what, miraculously conceived. And all this a couple of thousand years before Jesus. But there’s no reason for that to spoil the party, because it’s a folk tale, and they’re meant to be reused and retold. It’s all part of the magic. And, well, Christmas is a time for magic, and that’s why, even though I don’t believe in Santa Claus, I would never tell a child that there’s no Santa Claus.
If I was going to tell them the blunt truth about anything I’d probably tell them that there’s no Jesus – or if there is, his image rights have been hijacked by the forces of evil, and he now works directly for Satan, doing his best to keep us fearful and ignorant, making us feel less worthy than we really are, and emotionally crippling us with guilt for crimes that we had nothing to do with. Doesn’t that sound like the work of Satan?
Not that I really believe in Satan, by the way, I should emphasise that. But then we all know you don’t actually have to believe in a thing for it to be a part of your life whether you like it or not, so in that sense I knoe exists, and I also know the holy scriptures will back me up on that, which gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling all over, and isn’t that really what Christmas is all about?
Well, that’s enough from me. I want to wish everybody a merry Christmas, and I want to wish you what I wish for myself, which is of course peace, and may all your Christmases be godless and free.