Open Minds, Holes in Parachutes

If You Open Your Mind Too Much,
Your Brain Will Fall Out (Take My Wife) - Tim Minchin

“A mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it is not open.” - Frank Zappa

"If a mind or a parachute are open in such a way that the necessary barriers don't hold, and air flows through them freely - you spiral, dangerously fast, towards a thud." - Zena Koan

Remembering the Hits, Forgetting the Misses

For the Skepticism 101 curriculum, a brilliantly done advertisement for The Con Academy.

Jesus Done Somebody Wrong

When I came by a few hours later Jesus, his buddies, and that bread and wine had obviously gone to inspire some new home.

Inspiring Words

"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one." ~ George Bernard Shaw
 

"George Bush says he speaks to god every day, and Christians love him for it. If George Bush said he spoke to god through his hair dryer, they would think he was mad. I fail to see how the addition of a hair dryer makes it any more absurd." ~ Sam Harris

 "The only difference between a cult and a religion is how much real estate they own." ~ Frank Zappa

"Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer," ~ Anonymous 
 

Passover Easter Springtime

A god sent down the-one-who-was-known-by-his-working-name, the Angel of Death, to kill all those particular innocent tots who possessed foreskins, and of course their baby sisters, because these innocents' parents were enslaving the ones he liked best. Pretty basic misdirection of wrath, your honor.

Quite a few episodes later this particular god sends his son down to earth, knowing of course that he'd get killed, the goal being something called redemption, which would somehow enable this god to stop killing enslavers babies in the future.
Lucky for Thomas Jefferson's offspring.

And, as happens only in make-believe, the son beats death and soon after disappears, never to be seen again, except in office furniture, musical numbers, and mostly in that special un-checked inner dialog called faith.

Superstition, social pressure, and spring in the air, is why this time of year is different from other times.

 

As to the election of a new new Pope: if "Napoleon" at Bellevue Hospital had that number of believers he'd be emperor of France.

 

A god who is . . .

A god who is all-knowing would certainly know what it would take for me to believe in it.

A god who is omnipotent could certainly make that thing happen.

And a god that is truly loving would do so ~ forsaking those I-hide/you-seek games.

"Holy Conversations" by AleXander Hirka (paper/glue montage, 1980s)

Click on image to enlarge

"The old paranoia ~ belief in a transcendent god who imposed order on a formless universe ~ has given way to a rainbow of new paranoias, new orders (often merely revived and updated old myths).
Any crazy Plot (far-fetching is encouraged) has room to Thrive. The more unmeasurable the numbers it tries to sneak in as "science", the more blurry or photoshop'd the visual "evidence", the more sinister (apocalyptic even) its premises which stir up the (exciting) fears, the more it is found to give Meaning, to be Comforting in it's own twisted way, and thus to be conveniently accepted as "True".
Any "order" at all rather than look Señor Randomness in the eye.
Me, I wake up every day and give thanks to Lady Luck, and ask her again to blow upon my dice."
~ Roz Koan


"If there is something comforting - religious, if you want - about paranoia, there is still also anti-paranoia, where nothing is connected to anything, a condition not many of us can bear for long." - Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

Atheism isn't a religion, it is a personal relationship with reality.

Evolution

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer gods than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen Henry Roberts, Historian (1901-71)

" Let's say that the consensus is that our species, being the higher primates, Homo Sapiens, has been on the planet for at least 100,000 years, maybe more. Francis Collins says maybe 100,000. Richard Dawkins thinks maybe a quarter-of-a-million. I'll take 100,000. In order to be a Christian, you have to believe that for 98,000 years, our species suffered and died, most of its children dying in childbirth, most other people having a life expectancy of about 25 years, dying of their teeth. Famine, struggle, bitterness, war, suffering, misery, all of that for 98,000 years. Heaven watches this with complete indifference. And then 2000 years ago, thinks "That's enough of that. It's time to intervene," and the best way to do this would be by condemning someone to a human sacrifice somewhere in the less literate parts of the Middle East. Don't lets appeal to the Chinese, for example, where people can read and study evidence and have a civilization. Let's go to the desert and have another revelation there. This is nonsense. It can't be believed by a thinking person. " - Christopher Hitchens

We are here to unlearn . . .

“For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.”  --  Charles Bukowski

Got a title, got a cover - working on content!

Existential Stew For The Soulless

The Out Campaign.

Greta Christina on "Not Religious, But Spiritual".