An Atheistic Examination of the Culture of Belief: How Religious Devotion Trivializes American Law and Politics

An Atheistic Examination of the Culture of Death

Carnival of the Godless - Sun, Mar 6, 2005

Welcome to the Sixth edition of the Carnival of the Godless! We've got hardcore atheists, hardcore atheists, slightly-less-than hardcore atheists, and god-hating hardcore atheists. The submissions are grouped with priority given to posts by atheists, with a secondary priority given to those who e-mailed me first.

I've left the post descriptions pretty much as you wrote them, modifying them for those who demonstrated that they didn't know how to refer to themselves in the third person (The Raving Atheist certainly does). My comments follow in boldface.

Feel The Awesome Power Of God's Perfect Love: Brent Rasmussen of Unscrewing the Inscrutable explains why all atheists should satisfy their diaper fetish with midget prostitutes in a Dunkin' Donuts dumpster twice a week like he does -- and also explains why atheists tend to come across as raving atheists to your typical Christian.

I swear I don't resent Brent for basically stealing my idea for an atheist carnival, but I wish the guy had the courage of his convictions. After he sent me his submission, he pulled the diaper part of the essay from his site -- including the following picture of himself indulging in his fantasy:

He's a little more frank about matters at his other site, although he seems to have dumped his midget friends.

Olsen Calls AIDS "God's Judgment on Gays: Scott Hagaman of ScottishNous offers a parody, completely fictional, of certain theological attitudes towards plagues.

NOTE: The post is not based of upon Rev. Jerry Falwell's comments about gays. Furthermore, Scott does not believe that Falwell's first sexual experience was sex with his mother in an outhouse.

Selling Atheism: Hank Fox explains why it would be a good idea for atheist to become pro-active at exposing more people to godlessness.

I've found that atheism is a product that sells itself, particularly after you've explained to the buyer that he's an superstitious, shit-brained drooling baby who needs to realize that the universe has no purpose and our lives are just painful, meaningless exercises in dying.

This is Who I Am (Part 1) or Straight to Hell: Dean of Deanpence discusses why he's an atheist, how he's beyond the help of any loving God, and how you can avoid his wrath.

Since Dean asserts that he has "no interest in convincing you to accept [his] position," be sure not to read his post.

Mission Aborted: No More Mr. Nice Guy tries to see how many people on both sides he can piss off with some musings on the subject of abortion.

From what I read this post is exclusively designed to piss of the pro-life side of the spectrum, myself included. Insofar as the post delves into theological matters, I note that if you're going to argue that God must be an abortionist because heaven is filled with spontaneously-aborted fetuses, you also have to accept that He loves infanticide because of crib death and other childhood fatalities. Both are crappy theological arguments, but that's the nature of theology. That being said, I concur with him that the religious right could enhance its credibility on this issue by supporting increased funding of maternal and infant health programs.

Go to Hell: In which Peter Fredson deconstructs the historical, interlocking religious mysteries of "Hell" as a method of conserving power in the priest class, and controlling the little people.

This being the second Carnival I've hosted this year, I can affirm that Hell does in fact exist. To paraphrase the atheist Sartre, it's other bloggers.

Thank God I'm an atheist: Jack Carlson of Jeber's Jabber muses on the frustrations felt by a confirmed atheist living in a fundamentally Christian country.

A post chock-full of moral perversity, including the notion that "being a decent human being should be its own reward." However, while I concur with Jack's position on the meaninglessness of funerals, I would advise him not to complain to the mourners at them about the "awkward social situation" he has been put by being required to "play along with what he consider[s] a farce." Just send them a link to your post a couple days later, after the grief has subsided.

And aren't we lucky: Andrea questions methods of raising children in a religious household while maintaining that the family's religion is the truth. She also argues that organized religions should not allow children as members because they were forced into those particular beliefs and asks why an organized religion would want to accept these nonbelievers as their own.

Hey, I devoted a post to this post in December, in which I reproduced in full four of its seven paragraphs. Either re-read it and get pissed off all over again about her statement that she has "only the highest respect for the faithful and the religions they practice," or look at her drunken New Year's Eve pictures.

Egalitarianism: Josh Rosenau of Thoughts from Kansas reminds us that evolutionary biology is radically egalitarian, valuing all life, not just all humanity. "You respect all people, and all life, because every being is a result of an incredible process, extended in time and space -- a struggle against oblivion."

Hmmm. Evolutionary biology isn't really all that egalitarian when it comes to deciding who gets to eat whom. And respecting all people doesn't necessarily translate into a respect for all life, particularly not all those insects he claims are becoming "more diverse and numerous" at the expense of primates. Eventually I might be forced off this planet, but I'll grab a can of Raid before I do..

Intelligent Design and Faerie Rings: Michael Koppelman of LoLife tries, again, to explain why Intelligent Design is the last explanation that should ever be considered by science . . . an explanation that relies on design has effectively abandoned science and can no longer be called science.

Note that he's not denying the existence of faerie rings, just the faeries.

Beyond the Falange: Nick Barlow of What You Can Get Away With following up on his research on Christian pro-censorship groups, Nick discovers a Catholic group called 'Tradition, Family and Property' -- a strange ultramontane sect who seem to have a lot in common with the old Spanish Falangists.

I'm sick of sects being tagged as "strange" just because they're fixated on a sighting of the Mother of God hovering above a tree in Portugal in 1917.

Revelations Peg-Eye Nate of Conservative Cat offers a few.

The examples illustrate a corollary to the problem of evil – the problem of inconvenience.

Three from the South African bloggers at the Omniscience Annex:

Apostosy: Aquila ka Hecate at blogs a little on apostasy, particularly Muslim-to-Christian conversions.

The post illustrates, as Aquila points out, the dangers of religious moderation.

Reality Check and The Joys of Atheism: Nurtle Turtle discusses her self-inflicted, rabid obsession with human right issues and religion.

Leave it to an atheist to whine about a church holding mentally ill people in chains to treat their demon-possession, or the hanging of a naughty sixteen year old Muslim girl..

Religiosity in the UK over the festive season -- Bishops wringing their hands : Will Martin of The Land Surveyor is struck by the lack of confidence of two leading British Bishops and their ambivalent defences of Christianity.

They're still better than this guy.

Does this not count as littering?: The Retropolitan of Tales to Astonish! waxes philosophic about launching a Christian symbol into orbit around the Earth, and the ambiguity of the separation of church and space.

Given that the big atheist moon has been doing the same thing for billions of years, we really shouldn't complain.

The 10 commandments, for the 85% who don't know them: Ron of God is for Suckers gives a little remedial review of the 10 commandments, asking how much they might have a secular purpose.

Ha! Ron admits that laws against killing and stealing have secular purpose! Roy Moore for President!

(Top) —Posted by: The Raving Atheist in The Daily Rave · Permalink · 7 Comments

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