News of the Stoopid

Hell Hath No Fury

DENVER, COLORADO [NotS]

This News of the Stoopid is actually a sequel to The Logical Man is Not a Man of God.
It’s amazing: that particular article has gotten the most response, both negative and positive, of any of them. Naturally, more of the Emails were negative than postive, since the majority of ‘netsurfers seem to be relatively affluent semireligious Americans thus far. And that’s something I really should have considered when writing the damned thing.
So, for clarity, I’ll define a couple of things…
‘particularly religious’ means ‘particularly religious’ and not ‘kinda-sorta-maybe somewhat religious at times, like when the subject comes up or if there’s a tax advantage to it’. The whole point that particularly religious people are definitively stoopid is that particularly religious people tend to attack anyone who doesn’t completely agree with them for no reason at all. By my definition, a particularly religious person is different from a passively religious person. The passively religious person is either relatively undecided on whether he’s
religious or not, or he’s an intellectual theologian who can see other perspectives, consider them, and abandon them. A particularly religious twit won’t bother to consider anyone else’s perspective or opinion. ‘particularly religious’ could also be called ‘aggresively religious’, which are the Inquistional types who like to launch groundwars against any society who don’t agree with them. And that sort of behaviour is, beyond debate, stoopid.
Calling a christian with a brain a paradox is something we like to refer to as a joke. A christian with a brain would have got it.
There’s also been the argument that, just before his death, Darwin renounced his theory and turned to god for help. Okay, I’ll buy that. But it doesn’t make the evolutionary theory any less substantial. Saying that Darwin later abandoned darwinism and made evolution go away is tantamount to saying that, after writing Death, be not proud though some have called thee mighty and dreadful for thou art not so, John Donne died, and the Tenth Sonnet was erased from history…which, for the easily confused, it wasn’t.
Finally, and this is probably my favourite type of hatemail, the line That’s just my opinion; may lightning strike. Let’s have a real good look at this one, okay? It’s an opinion. There are a few levels to reality: opinion fact and truth. Truth is truth; end of story. A fact is a provable concept, and may or may not be true; ‘true fact’ isn’t redundant, because there’s such a thing as a false fact–’the moon is made of green cheese’ is a false fact, not an opinion, true fact, or truth. An opinion is really just anything anyone says which can’t be determined through a scientific process. Calling religion an idiotic psychological handicap is largely an opinion, though the psychological handicap of believing in an unseen babysitter could probably be proven true or false. And, by definition, the existence of god is an opinion, because god can’t be proven to exist. That which cannot be proven to exist is an unprovable hypothesis, and is therefore an opinion. And if that’s your opinion, then you could be wrong.
Not that I came out and admitted that my opinion could be wrong in so many words–I’ve got to hold back a little bit before I inadvertantly become Dennis Miller. What I actually claimed was That’s just my opinion; may lightning strike, which is a bit of an offer, I suppose. Lightning hasn’t quite managed to incinerate me yet, so, by scientific process, my hypothesis could probably be construed as a proven true fact at this point.
Which will only lead to more hatemail, I realise. Because the aggressively religious are too damned brainwashed to understand a few important things: you came to my site to read this–that’s your fault; you took it personally–that’s your fault; you inferred that I might give a damn–that’s your fault. Accusing me of playing not devil’s advocate but devil’s advertising executive is complaining about your own doubts. And I don’t really want to hear about them. This is not the door to hell; this is not a recruiting service for the mythical Church of Atheism. My entire point behind the first News of the Stoopid on this subject is that the militant JesusCrispies of the world are constantly trying to recruit those of us who don’t give a damn. Hey, call me misanthropic, call me sociopathic: there’s more to life than your gods.
To be honest, I wish I could believe in your gods. It would make things so much simpler. I wouldn’t have to bother thinking anymore. I could just blame everything on an omniscient, omnipotent alien who never does anything, and never shows itself. Look at this from my perspective: your god is apparently part of a union; otherwise, it might occasionally get something accomplished.
Which reminds me: it. Why It? Greek, that’s why. There are two genders to Greek: it and she. God is referred to as an It in the bible, not a she. God is an hermaphrodyte, according to the language in which the bible was written. So please, please, please know what the hell you’re talking about before you bother me with your own doubts next time.
I tried just ignoring the unproven theories of the religious–particularly the christians–for years. But there’s only so many attacks I’ll put up with before punching back. I tried asking questions, and they accused me of being the devil. They threatened to pray for me. And for what? To make themselves a little less obviously doubtful. So: new rules. Oh, and, quite possibly, a bit of a rant…
Do unto others as you’d have done unto yourselves. Any ideas? Here’s one: don’t bless people who sneeze. Put some thought into this one. You bless me, which is merely pushing your particular flavour of I-don’t-get-it-ness on me, and I could just as easily tell you to go to hell if you sneeze. Not that I’m a satanist, but if I were religious at all, that’s probably what I’d be. By the same token, the cute little aphorisms that get tossed about like breathspray at an Amway meeting are equally combative: you offer to pray for me, and I could offer to mention your name next time I have a powerlunch with Satan. You tell me ‘god be with you’ and I could tell you ‘Satan likes your tie’. And I might as well, since I don’t actually believe in Satan. And if you actually believe in Yaweh, then it doesn’t believe in you anymore. Why? Simple: saying ‘god be with you’ to an atheist is vanity. It’s using your lord’s name in vain. Tag: you’re excommunicated.
If you people wanna do what you’re told, then great. But do all that you’re told. Don’t pick and choose the happy bits from your bibles and forsake the rest, because that makes you so much worse than me. I don’t believe in gods, and don’t really care if you do. That’s really all there is to me in that capacity. If you believe in gods, and have a good reason for it, then good for you. And if you’re a true christian, or catholic, or jew, or whatever you are–if you follow the letter of the highest laws like you’re supposed to in order to be a member of your little theological gangs, then you’ll stop trying to pray for me, bless me, convert me, lick me, or whatever it is you think you’re going to accomplish by bothering me with your ideals. Be good to your gods or renounce them; there is no middle ground.
That’s just my opinion; and that’s a fact.

–Gremlin

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