Ooh, you’re a holiday
20 November 2007 by vastleft
In the tradition of hearkening back to holiday massacrees of days gone by, I belatedly cross-post this item from my ol’ solo blog: a response to the Christianist grinch who tried to steal Thanksgiving….
More horrors from WaPo’s new “On Faith” forum, this time courtesy of R. Albert Mohler, Jr., President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary:
Thanksgiving has been transformed into an iconic American event. This leaves us with a fascinating question — how do unbelievers celebrate Thanksgiving?
Here is the response I posted:
Dr. Mohler,As I savor the leftovers of my 49th Thanksgiving — none of which was ever a remotely religious affair — I am struggling to digest your divisive and demeaning post.
It is terribly sad to see that this is the kind of message that’s supposed to be reflective of Christ’s love. And it’s sad to see yet another stain on the Washington Post’s once-proud record, that they would provide a platform for this narrow-minded nonsense.
If your wikipedia entry is correct, and you believe in “the ‘verbal plenary inspiration’ of the Bible, and that it is the inerrant, infallible Word of God,” there probably isn’t much point in debating you, is there? The Word was written millennia ago, translated many times, and interpreted by you and your brethren. So you will, de facto, always be correct. And those of us who are merely Americans, but not Christian Americans, will be wrong.
So, I’ll confine my remarks to the following…
1. “Thanksgiving Without A Giver?” The “giver” in Thanksgiving isn’t an invisible guy in the sky who receives thanks. That would be a “taker.” The giver in Thanksgiving is the American citizen, who pauses to reflect on nature’s, humanity’s, and this fortunate country’s bounty. Someone who isn’t blinded by Christianist bigotry is able to see the beauty in all things and in all people and wouldn’t seek to marginalize those who make the idiosyncratic choice *not* to base their lives upon [an] old book.
2. “The secular vision of thanksgiving feels empty and false… Those who disbelieve in God may substitute some ‘attitude of gratitude’ for thanksgiving, but it does look like a pale and artificial substitute.”
You guys are doing a heck of a job taking over a country that used to rigorously keep church and state separate.
Enjoying and respecting Thanksgiving as a holiday for all Americans is just not good enough for you holy folks.
Thanks to people like you, my country is beginning to look like a “pale and artificial substitute” of the great land I grew up in.
The president y’all helped install has brought disgrace to this country — Iraqi deaths in the hundreds of thousands (trading “thou shalt not kill” and “turn the other cheek” for pre-emptive war), and an “ownership society” that would have shocked Christ more than any nails driven into him did.
Here’s an idea: appreciate people for their humanity, rather than denigrating them for failing to be part of your flock.
20 November 2007, on 11:23 am
Well said, vastleft.
Austin Cline has a great entry also about atheists and a “godless” Thanksgiving.
Last paragraph of Cline’s article at About.com:
20 November 2007, on 11:57 am
People thank God because God is their PIMP! “…the warts of a thousand genitals.” Psalm 50:10
But we Christians thank the inventors of Mason jars as well, because we store all our man seed in them, and that keeps the individual homunculi from ever hitting the ground and thereby offending the Great Pimpkin. The doctors who treat us are specialists in insidious psychiatric disorders of the credulous with special ECT machines to help heal us. We thank them because they deserve our thanks, and we thank God…BZZZZZZZZZZT! Never mind. Forget I said that.
I’m still wondering why mice spring forth from the box of old shirts and hay I keep beneath my bed? After all, God is neither an old Petra tour shirt nor dried stalks of premium alfalfa. But, hey, maybe when God diddles me in the middle of the night he also pauses to violate that box as well? So, I guess it isn’t spontaneous generation after all but immaculate virgin mouse birth going on in my room. I’m almost positive that my brain consists of eleven monkeys throwing their corrosive feces at each other. I kill! I maim! I violate! I will not go to bed and you can’t make me because it’s your bedtime and not mine and I don’t go to bed when you say I have to!.
Here is a question: Where do you get your big boy pants?
20 November 2007, on 11:58 am
If you’d like to kill me, send $29.99 to my Paypal account.
20 November 2007, on 11:59 am
If there is no manual and we are not shiftless and there is no “carburetor”, then why am I on horseback?
20 November 2007, on 12:13 pm
RAmen, vastleft!
That’s a great article, Star, thanks (:-D)!
20 November 2007, on 12:13 pm
I put it like this:
“I can’t think of anything more empty, selfish and meaningless than giving thanks to an narcassistic imaginary friend rather than thanking the actual family and friends that make your life more pleasurable and enjoyable.”
(Austin Cline says it better though)
20 November 2007, on 12:42 pm
But we Christians thank those who help us as well, because we know that God created all mankind
That’s what you are brainwashed to think. Where is your real evidence for this “divine creator”? Just some ancient text.
If you decide not to kill that Christian standing next to you, what stops you and why?
Here is a question: Where do you get your standards?
If there is no God and we are not created and there is no “higher standard”, then why would you hold yourself back?
Because of my good upbringing by my parents who taught me right from wrong and my own conscience and desire to always do the right thing. I was brought up to respect others, and to treat others as I would want to be treated. It’s all about getting along in society and to promote peace and cooperation so that everyone can have a good quality of life. We do it because of who we are, and respect for life and the planet we live on. There are those who don’t have such an upbringing, and many, many xians are careless assholes who don’t give two shits about anything except themselves and their goddam rewards and doggie biscuits for being good citizens. Atheists need no rewards to be good.
Think about this, theo…
and I have stated this to you before and you ignore it. If Xianity is the moral compass of everything, and there are so many more of you than there are of us, then why is the world so full of war, starvation, abuse, hatefulness, bigotry, discrimination, carelessness about the environment, etc. Why are the god botherers enthusiastically in support of war and killing of other human beings? Why are the jails mostly full of god botherers? Answer that for us, theo.
It’s scary to think that all that is holding Xians back from killing someone else is a fear of an imaginary sky daddy that doesn’t exist. So, theo…another question…if you came to your senses and realized that there is no god, you would go out and start killing people? WTF!
20 November 2007, on 12:49 pm
Yes, indeed, vastleft and Stardust…and thanks to you guys and ALL our fellow atheists for so tirelessly struggling against such great delusional resistance…in RAISING THE CONSCIOUSNESS of humanity…regarding what should REALLY be the true, rational ‘targets’ for our gratitude.
If anything like a ‘grace before meals’ even merits consideration at a Thanksgiving day celebration; I MIGHT add to that thought, something the original native Americans would undoubtedly have included in the list for their thanking…
that being the poor turkey (or pig?) for its ultimate sacrifice!
Certainly not a totally non-existent, lazy-ass, blame the victim…Gawd!
So, I say to all youse human…erm…Toikeys?…albeit, a bit oily:
“Gobble Gobble!…Oink, Oink!
Wait! Did I just hear the ever-so-faint screaming of the sacrificial vegetables?
Oh…the UN-humanity!
And Sooooo, my dear brethren…
Lettuce prey?”
20 November 2007, on 1:01 pm
there is no “higher standard”
Exactly. Never has been, never will be. “Moral” human behavior is a product of being social animals who need each other to survive. That requires cooperation. And it works even better when compassion, empathy and sympathy are involved. What holds you back is your being reared by family and society, not some mythical book.
If you want to see rampant “immorality”, just read the Old Testament and see how Gord and his people behave. Barbaric.
20 November 2007, on 1:06 pm
If you want to see rampant “immorality”, just read the Old Testament and see how Gord and his people behave. Barbaric.
AND the New Testament. Gawd sets it up to “save” his little creations in the most horrible and disgusting way…nailing his own earthly son to a cross and letting him die in agony. And this is an all-powerful, all “loving” god that is supposed to be our moral reference.
20 November 2007, on 1:10 pm
Dastardly things indeed. Like the murdering of hundreds of thousands of Canaanites, the Crusades, the Inquisition, terrorists, etc, ad infinitum. ad nauseum.
Tell me this, Theo, what holds YOU back from killing that atheist standing next to you? Fear of god? So if there was no god you’d just kick the dude in the nuts and slit his throat? Where do you get YOUR standards? If you say “The Bible” then tell me why you don’t follow all the Old Testament laws which were established “for all time”??
Hypocrite.
20 November 2007, on 1:19 pm
My thoughts are that it’s the American Indians and their compassion that should be observed. After all, without them (Non-xtians BTW), there wouldn’t even be this (strictly) American tradition. No god involved – humans!
20 November 2007, on 1:29 pm
Theo, the standard of the Bible is that anyone who works on the Sabbath is to be killed.
Do you observe this standard? If not, why not?
20 November 2007, on 1:34 pm
666,
Good point. If you read the actual history of the Mayflower piligrims, they all would have died within a year had the Native Americans (aka “godless savages” to the Christians) not supplied them and showed them how to farm and hunt.
Of course, we see how this kindness was returned by the righteous Europeans…genocide. At least they were being consistant with their god’s sense of morality.
20 November 2007, on 1:51 pm
Theo is another example of brainwashing ‘trumping’ any rational, critical thinking ability.
If anyone steps away, far enough, from the usual childhood installed indoctrination…you know…those ancient, anecdotal, irrational, self-contradictory, FICTIONAL, story telling-based…totally scientifically ignorant…religious blatherings; they might just consider how actually STUPID the so-called “god notions” are. As has been said to various trolls, over and over here on GifS…A close examination of the drug-like “Sacred”, desert heat, brain fried fantasies contained in the Bibble, Koran, etc. portray a rather weird-ass, selfish Gawd of humongous pathological, psychotic proportions!
Certainly NOT worthy of ANY thanks or worship, whatsoever!
My advice to Theo? TRY retrieving you brain from its errant, mis-guided lodging…having slipped somewhere, down, perhaps, into the intestinal area?…and explore a few of the many links in the right panel of our GifS home page.
In other words, try some critical, objective thinking…if only as a possible exercise of what still might be left (a salvageable remnant?) of your rational mind…to re-examine those long assumed, brainwashed “NOTIONS”.
Other than that; I might be taking a lesson from our dear archival Sean, and a few others, in suggesting…
“Fuck off, asshole! We’re very well aware of ALL the religious-based, totally delusional bullshit! Most of us lived through one or more variations…and thankfully, to ourselves and other fellow atheists…emerged into the TRUE LIGHT’ of Freethinking!”
20 November 2007, on 2:16 pm
Dear The(ist)o,
When early humans came in out of the cold, turning in their nomadic ways for the more sedentary, agricultural ones, they tended to settle in places more conducive to that lifestyle- near bodies of water, on the easily defended high ground, etc..
As these settlements grew beyond the abilities of individual headmen or elders to maintain order, it became necessary for a code of conduct, with the imprimatur of a higher power, to keep the wheels of a reasonably orderly society- still in it’s infancy. The smorgasbord of deities that, heretofore, had filled the voids in human knowledge- insuring plentiful game before man had figured out animal behavior, insuring bountiful gathering and relief from the elements before man had figured out seasons and/or astronomy, insuring health long before man had figured out the Germ Theory of Disease- became the perfect “authorities” with which to enforce new social codes and human laws.
At that point, they probably were necessary, as Santa Claus and the Bogeyman may still be assist in the discipline of children. That these- now solo- deities are still apparently necessary for a pathetic majority of folks like you, The(ist)o, speaks not of the nonentities’ legitimacy through longevity presumably but, rather, of your ilk’s refusal to get up off the metaphysical couch, change their drawers, and grow the fuck up as a species.
The mutually agreed upon rules and laws of our society may once have been codified somewhere in the guise of religious texts but their inspiration was hardly divine. One needs no more than a healthy respect and compassion for one’s fellow man to know right from wrong.
Our ability to accept the responsibility for what one chooses to do with such knowledge- no devil to blame or god to credit, is what makes a righteous person.
Signed,
Morally Safer
20 November 2007, on 3:27 pm
how do unbelievers celebrate Thanksgiving?
Holy shit, Thanksgiving is a religious holiday??? You could have fooled me. I have never ever celebrated it as a religious holiday, neither now nor with my family as a child. I always just thought it was a time to think of others and also to appreciate just how lucky we are to have what we have (oh, and something about Pilgrims too and how they “befriended” the Indians).
20 November 2007, on 3:54 pm
Meanwhile, George Witless Bush is, per usual, going to pardon the Scape Turkey that has been offered up for sacrifice. Unfortunately, the turkey’s brethren–in their 8% injected solution wholesomen and tasty millions–have been beheaded, de-footed, plucked, eviscerated and flash frozen. They and the Iraqi citizenry have much to be thankful for this year.
20 November 2007, on 4:19 pm
While discussing this gawd/morality crap, it is essential to point out that morals change with the times. In our day and age slavery is unacceptable, but this has been a rather recent development in the history of civilized society. Not long ago owning another human being was NOT considered immoral, not even by the standards of gawd and jeebus. That shift in accepted values had not one dammned thing to do with the bible. Society figured that one out on their own. In fact, the bible propogates and glorifies slavery, so long as certain criteria are met in the treatment of a slave. Some moral compass you got there, theo.
20 November 2007, on 4:23 pm
Well, here’s what William S. Burroughs is thankful for.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8m_J6sXj_0
20 November 2007, on 4:25 pm
hey, where’s troll Theo to come back and answer some of OUR questions????
20 November 2007, on 4:30 pm
Stardust, I think he went off to pray about it
20 November 2007, on 4:42 pm
Stardust, I think he went off to pray about it
If he’s like the fundies in our family, each and every one of us here are on his church pity list by name.
20 November 2007, on 5:07 pm
Maybe Theo swore at his parents and a person of high standards put him to death, just like the One True Book of Morality tells us to.
It’s a cruel book, but fair.
20 November 2007, on 5:45 pm
Editors,
Has something a little odd happened to Theo’s comments?
20 November 2007, on 6:04 pm
vastleft, that sometimes happens here with regular and persistent trolls…but it wasn’t me this time. I know you don’t like the comments in the threads of your posts messed with.
We used to asshat regularly and had a large number of Xian trolls coming around trying their best to get asshatted, or poopy Jeebus posted into their comments. Sean was particularly good at “editing’.
That’s probably what Theo was waiting for, though . . . to be asshatted. When you are nice to them, like I was Yodeling Cowboy in the atheist and bear thread, they leave. Or if you ask too many unanswerable questions, they leave. In Theo’s case, he didn’t answer our questions and was probably lurking waiting to see what would happen. He succeeded in being asshatted AGAIN, and left…for the time being. He’ll show up again, I’m sure. But probably not in this thread. It’s a regular routine with him.
20 November 2007, on 6:25 pm
Thanks Stardust.
IMHO, we were holding our own as is, and I don’t like to leave the impression that I’m the one doing the asshatting, which isn’t my personal style, but c’est la vie.
20 November 2007, on 7:12 pm
Sorry, vastleft. It was me. Every once in a while I like to put words in others’ mouths because it just cracks me up like a Mad Lib. I never fail to amuse myself
but, if you’d prefer I abstained, then abstinent I shall be.
You do realize, that, like those christers with their abstinence pledges, I’m statistically likely to break it, right?
20 November 2007, on 7:29 pm
RDZ,
Say three Hail Marys or smoke three maryjanes (your choice), and all will be forgiven.
20 November 2007, on 8:03 pm
I started reading the comments and I wondered, is this the same theo who was such an ass of a godbotherer before? He’s attained quite the sense of humor…he sounds eerily like RDZ!
Good to know all’s right with the world!
I was going to say what 666 said. Without the natives, the first thanksgivers’ asses would’ve been grass. This should be a day of national atonement, not thanksgiving.
20 November 2007, on 8:26 pm
karen,
Speaking of atonement, I just posted about Exodus 16, the Yom Kippur chapter, on the Bible blog.
It’s amazing to me that my Judeo-Christian friends think I’m anything but serious and accurate when I say this stuff is as freaky to my eyes as any pagan ritual would be to theirs.
20 November 2007, on 8:56 pm
I am fascinated that you cannot hold a civil discourse with me. But I know why. Jeebus gawd Bible quotes, Jeebus etc. etc.
I see you are back to trolling in another comment thread in addition to this one. Theo…this is not vastleft or RDZ…this is the mod god ever-watching over you and all you say and do. This post has once again broken a GifS Commandment: Thou shall not proselytize. Read
Comment Policy Guidelines, for reference. Try to be cooperative, though we know how hard it is for you. Mods
20 November 2007, on 8:59 pm
Again theo, remember not to proseltyze. And again, this is not vastleft or RDZ…this is the mod god. This post has broken a GifS Commandment: Thou shall not proselytize. Read
Comment Policy Guidelines, for reference. Mods
21 November 2007, on 12:30 pm
Ah, Theo, Theo, Theo… *shakes head sadly as surreptitiously reaches for straitjacket* A mind truly is a terrible thing to waste. What part of our comments policy is such an impossibility for you to understand and follow?
I’m guessing it’s “no proselytizing…”
21 November 2007, on 12:53 pm
vastleft…
RE your Exodus 16 link…
[Pardon a rhetorical question?]
Can you imagine someone you knew, or encountered, actually claiming they ‘hoid’ all that insane bullshit in a ‘vision’, made notes, and began reading it to you.
I think I just might be getting my cell phone out, dialing the operator, and asking to connect to the nearest loony bin.
“Press 1 for English!” (?)
On second thought…more likely…I’d be “high tailing it” away from the fucking nutcase. (screaming in terror?) Perhaps something like…
“Help, Help, I’m being repressed!”
The Bibble is such total inane/insane crap; it’s ‘literally’ astounding to conceive that people still swallow…whole, gagging cloth…such outrageously stupid…even demonic-like…bullshit!
The cherry picking preacher fuckheads have the sheeple by their “testaments”…tweaking and squeezing them; adding guilt and fear, whilst reaching around to grab their wallets/purses and leading the never ending tithing ‘dance’!
[Cue the Hokey Pokey music?]
[Minister/Priest]:
“You put left hand in…you put your left hand out…
You grab the person’s money…and you shake (fake) it all about!
[You fill in the rest?]
Or maybe something like the “Bunny (Money) Hop”?…
“Writhing…Tithing…hippety, bibbety, bop (or scam/fuck?)!”
21 November 2007, on 4:46 pm
^ Hey, I like the “Hokey-Pokey;” stop blaspheming it, ChuckA!
21 November 2007, on 5:14 pm
ChuckA,
Having never read the Bible, I am rather surprised by how awful most of it is (at least halfway through the Pentateuch).
God seems a most horrible creature — arbitrary, cruel, and self-centered. There is an insane amount of stuff about how YHWH is to be honored, including making refugees build a veritable cathedral in the wilderness, where animal after animal is sacrificed to absolve people of countless procedural sins.
People are plainly attracted just to the idea of venerating the Bible, because the reality of it is something quite a bit less than perfect. Maybe there is some better stuff ahead — I can only hope, since I’m spending the next decade reading and commenting on it, but so far I’m quite horrified.
21 November 2007, on 6:16 pm
vastleft: where animal after animal is sacrificed to absolve people of countless procedural sins.
“Because the sweet smoke of the sacrifice is pleasing to god” or some such thing; hey, I wonder why he let Phoebus die on a cross instead of burned in a fire, then? Just another inconsistency…
21 November 2007, on 8:46 pm
Totally unrelated, just wanted to share a little inanity I came across. On some days, when I feel like a cheap thrill and also feel that I can stand the tidal wave of self-pity and ignorance that accompanies it, I visit prayer request sites and read a few. I found a real chestnut that illustarates the results of biblical indoctrination-oops, I mean “education.”
“Please pray for my sister who is away from home at bible college. She gets scared at night because she feels their is something evil in the room. Please pray that God’s anointing power fills that room and anything evil will flee – In Jesus name. Please pray that she is comforted and has a great night sleep. Thank you.”
She’s probably sensing the chaplain watching her through a transparent mirror or surveilance camera. I bet she can her him grunt when he blows his load. Seriously, though-notice that the supplicant doesn’t bother to pray for a little maturity or common sense for her sister. She’s praying for “real” protection for a COLLEGE AGE STUDENT who still fears the MONSTER UNDER THE BED!
There was another great one with a guy praying for a job as a clinical psychologist working for state programs or in the prison system program. The writing wasn’t completely horrible, but he did seem to have a serious problem with spelling and grammar. Maybe I’m prejudiced, but the idea of a psychologist praying for a job strikes me as funny. The thought of him being the only one there to help counsel or diagnose prisoners, doesn’t.
I also picked up one of my favorite lines of christian silliness from a prayer request site:
“Lord Jesus, please heal me of my debts.”
Who needs home economics or personal responsibility when you’ve got Jesus?
21 November 2007, on 8:52 pm
Neil,
That does sound like an interesting diversion.
I must say that the idea that college-age students or anyone else is in the thrall of sky-daddy superstition strikes me as no less weird than them worrying about monsters under the bed.
21 November 2007, on 8:57 pm
Eve,
The phrase “sweet savour” comes up over and over to describe God’s pleasure at the pointless killing of animals. I’m sure it also gave him great pleasure to slaughter nearly every living thing in the Great Deluge. Such fun! And so amazingly little justification given.
I’ve got a long way to go before the New Testament, so I can’t vouch for whether God would have enjoyed the sweet smell of his only begotten son burning as much as he enjoyed absolving every sinner in the world by letting that unfortunate son be nailed and bled to death.
23 November 2007, on 12:28 pm
Ugh…any time I hear of someone praying for just about anything, it makes me want to smack someone and say “you’re an arrogant asshole and you should know better…grow up!”