Gnashing Teeth: A Godless Blog

Our Story So Far December 29, 2010

The following article is a literal interpretation of God’s creation of man. While I fully intend to add heaps of snark, all information presented will be referenced directly from the Bible.

In the beginning, during six days of creation, an all powerful and all knowing God decided to create man out of dirt. Three things immediately come to mind when I hear this tale; First, the Biblical authors, when attempting to craft the miraculous story of our creation, must not have had the divine foresight to know that Alchemy would eventually be proven to be a scam. Second, why would an all powerful God need a precursor material to create man? Didn’t God just create the Universe out of nothing. Maybe during our creation, like Creationists like to argue, God suddenly realized that he can’t just create things out of nothing. With man’s creation out of the way, God got to work creating all of the lesser creations like the Antelope, Velicoraptor, HIV, Parasitic worm, Black Adder, woman, and rats capable of carrying the Black Plague. Third, why would an all powerful God, that most Creationists like to claim exists outside of time, need so much time to do his creating? Instead of going through the creation of the heavens and the earth and later the creation of water fowl, why not, within a split second, just say let there be everything? Anyways, once the all powerful God had finished up all of his tiresome acts of thinking things into existence, he declared that he needed a day of rest. The story then goes that God looked upon all of his creation and claimed that it was good, which would be like President Obama giving himself an approval rating.

As our creation story progresses, God, having said that everything he created was good, then went about banishing his first creations, forcing incest upon them and their children, committing worldwide genocide, and condeming many of his good creations to Hell. The tragic tale of man’s origins under an oppressive and vindictive creator will continue in the next exciting installment of the Godless Blog. Until then I leave you with a quote from the first atheist rapper.

“I don’t give a shit if he created me, that don’t give him the right to commit genocide and act crazily.” -Greydon Square

The All New God Challenge December 26, 2010

Hello, welcome to the new and improved cult version of the Godless Blog, now with more God. That’s right, though it may appear like you’ve been living your life for some time now and that there has been a long history of both human existence and the Universe itself, I’m here to tell you that I, your all new God, have only just created you and the entire Universe in the last seven days. Regardless of any contrary evidence that you may come across, I never ever want you to question or consider that I did not create you. In order to prove to you that everything I say is true, I will give you this paragraph. What, you say you need more? Well, everyone knows that needing more is of the Devil. Besides, you are hence forth required to have faith, as believing without proof is the greatest most special virtue in all of creation. You say you still want more? You think that our relationship actually goes both ways? I tell you what, you just keep on talking to me and, well you can go right on talking. Now for the part you are sure to like. Not only must you now and forever believe in me, you will also be required to worship me and do exactly what I say, for if you fail to do so, there will be hell to pay. Now that we have gotten that out of the way, it’s time for you to learn how you will now be living, acting, eating, fucking, playing, and even dressing from now on. Your first rule will be…

On behalf of the new and improved Godless Blog, which has allegedly been taken over by the all new God, a challenge has been issued. The challenge will be open to all theists. The goal of this challenge is to disprove the existence of the all new God. If this goal is not accomplished within the next two thousand years, the Godless Blog will fully be expecting that the all new God will begin the process of supplanting imposter Lords like Jehovah and Muhammed as a legitimate player in the arms race to Armageddon.

Prepare to tithe!

Love always and burn in Hell,
All New God

The Great Pretenders December 25, 2010

When was it exactly that Christians decided to begin adopting the principles of humanism? I wouldn’t dare speak for all Christians, but it seems that there has been a recent surge of Christians willing to abandon core parts of their doctrine. I am certainly not complaining about the occasional bit of social progress being made by Christians despite their religion of course. Though I will not complain, I do want to shed light on how it appears that droves of Christians are embracing liberal social values. A recent example is the repeal of DADT. If 76% of Americans consider themselves as Christians, how is it then that about the same percentage supported the repeal of DADT? To further my point, the repeal of DADT was approved by a Senate made up of nearly 100% Christians. Since when did the Bible state to not treat homosexuals as abominations? Oh wait, it didn’t. Something else surely must be going on here. Before I go any further, I would like to address that I will probably hear the rambling of the fundamentalist Christians that always like to claim that some people, such as the ones in the DADT poll and the Senators that repealed it, are not really really real Christians. For entirely different reasons, I would tend to agree. According to the Bible, the progressively stunted team of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost still staunchly support gender and racial inequalities and vehemently condemn homosexuality, divorce, wealth, sorcery, witchcraft, and tolerance for people of other religious persuasions. Because the Christian God is eternally incapable of adjusing his commandments to keep up with the social progresses of free and democratic societies and because the words in the Bible are forever unalterable, it is left up to the Christian church as a whole to finally adjust their outdated principles to keep up with superior values proposed by humanists. For the majority of Christians that have adopted the principles of humanism, I give a crouching ovation, I’m reserving my standing ovation for when these humanistic Christians see Christianity in the same light they see most of it’s doctrine in. Back to the argument Christians often use to question the authenticity of other Christians; I must ask what it is exactly that constitutes a real Christian? Is it that real Christians would never dare to waiver from Biblical doctrine? If so, then the only real modern Christians left are the Westboro Baptist types, which is ironic because the Westboro group would fit right in with Christians from a few decades ago. I’m certain that the majority of modern Christians would be likely be executed by their own forefathers for the liberal values. It seems at some point, a Christian can move so far away from Christianity that they no longer can be defined as Christian. For those Christians that disagree, I challenge you to find one thing that they are doing that isn’t grounded on Biblical doctrine. For those Christians that claim they can find Biblical justifications to support the acceptance of homosexuals, witchcraft, female preachers, etc., I challenge you to either show me or admit that you have consciously decided to ignore Biblical doctrine that you do not support. At this moment in time, with the horrors of religion exposed, I believe we are justified in asking if Christians can even still be designated as such, when they have abandoned the very principles that define them as Christian. Could it be that, the more Christianity abandons it’s self, the closer it comes to the forgotten lands of Mithra, Zoroaster, and Orpheus? Some of us can only hope so.

God loves us so. December 22, 2010

An honest inquiry into the world around us clearly displays that our various gods do not in fact care about us at all. I’m amazed at the complete suspension of reality it takes for someone to think that one of the various gods actually works for their benefit by answering their desires and needs. This kind of belief gets even more absurd when someone believes that one of the various gods actually helped them win a football game. We need to wake the hell up and smell the decay. We need to occasionally step outside of our insulated lives, for without doing so, we ensure that our views and beliefs are highly susceptible to personal objectification. If a person examines the entirety of the human condition and still concludes that there is a caring god meddling in our affairs, we should probably be redefining the very definition of the word caring. Maybe caring should be redefined as allowing thousands of people to die everyday from a lack of clean water or food. Maybe caring should be redefined as the act of performing miracles for a select few, while not performing miracles for entire populations that are in dire need. Maybe caring should be redefined as allowing terrible human suffering or better yet, why not just say that there are really no gods intervening in any of our lives. Of course, then many of us would have to do some drastic redefining of who they really are and what they actually believe. I tend to fear that, between the two possibilities, changing the definition of caring is the more likely outcome. Why is it that, in the face of evidence, most atheists would be willing to change their opinions on the existence of god, while those that believe continue to do what they can to evade the damning lack of evidence in front of them?

Tipping point December 20, 2010

While religion often gets placed upon an untouchable thousand foot pedestal made of gold and gets respect for being an ancient survivor in a world that is increasingly driven by science and technology, it’s protected status and unquestioned authority have recently begun to erode. Considering only the respect paid to religion for it’s length of survival, one would think that atheism would also be granted some sort of special status for existing for just as long. In the unenlightened murkiness of religion’s origins stands the first person to call bullshit. Atheism, though not in name, was born as an ancient reaction to someone else’s absurd claim. It would be impossible to deny that it was religion itself that brought on the creation of atheism. Surely an ancestor of intellectual integrity, however limited in knowledge they may be, would have been skeptical of the sophistry and far fetched supernatural claims. Yet, even with atheism’s long and embattled history, which has witnessed the ruin of many great men and women by persecution, it gets no respect for surving thousands of years against an often times murderous and oppressive opponent. Atheism appears to have had the harder road to follow, yet it has still persisted through every religious and god fearing culture. It’s stood tall against smear campaigns and majority scorn. History has shown us over and over that religions are finite, that all religions will eventually die out. At the end of every religion lies the unmistakable growth of nonbelief. Could the current push towards nonbelief be a signal of a religion’s impending death? I sure hope so.

I’ve heard it said as of late by a great many atheists, including the highly respected Richard Dawkins, that atheism may be nearing it’s critical mass or a tipping point. With the ranks of nonbelievers steadily growing, church attendance rapidly declining, atheist groups coming together to plan and promote, religion itself continuously displaying a propensity for being harmful and fatal, religion does appear to be on some sort of a downward slide to irrelevant obscurity. I would wager to say that every time an atheist goes public, several other atheists are also empowered to do so. I would also wager to say that for every atheist that comes out publicly, someone in their circle of friends and family is also tempted to seek out the truth. If this cycle continues unabated, we could be looking at an explosion of atheist growth in the very near future. While it is possible that atheism could hit a ceiling, the room and potential for growth is so vast that the people holding on to the other side of the ceiling are likely to be marginalized and pushed so far from the debate that they are no longer relevant. To see the religious the right in the same position that it has pushed other minorities would be a cherry on top.

As someone that values an honest bit of introspection and an examination of my own personal biases, I often wonder if maybe I have built myself a hopeful world by surrounding myself with like minded individuals. I have to admit that it is possible that everything I believe could be wrong. Try getting a religionist to admit that. Because I am trying to my best to ensure that my perceptions and thoughts are valid with what is actually taking place, I include into all of my personal opinions the observations and opinions of others. The reason I have included this makeshift disclaimer into this post is not to say that I doubt the march of atheism, but to point to the confirmed observations of not only myself but many others. In just the last few years, the mainstream tides have begun to shift to a secular worldview. A normal day of news is often filled with stories that highlight the ignorance, intollerance, hate, and absurdity of religion and those that practice it. A few decades ago religious criticism in media was unheard of, now it is thankfully a daily thing. From child marrying polygamists, to pedophile priests, to Mormon kidnappers, to homophobic pastors, to Muslim terrorist plots, to child deaths caused by faith healing, to Islam’s enslavement of women, to Mike Huckabee getting his own show, I can’t imagine anyone watching this kind of news and saying to themselves that they should go join a religion. Even for the most fanatical unquestioning religionist, one glimpse of the news should cause some level of anxiety about their choice in worldviews.

Having said all of this, the time sure seems ripe for a reality shifting tipping point, so please keep standing up and speaking out.

T.M. Mackiewicz
12/20/10