Things, They Change

The end, for me anyway, of the Slacktivist/Patheos situation has arrived. Fred explained, I am disappoint. Take from that what you will. I have few morals, and like most others of few morals, I cling to those few very tightly. It leads me to places like these, where I feel right and wrong at the same time and am filled with sadness and regret.

Reprint of my comment because I can't imagine how anyone finds anything on disqus. (Hate that fucking program.)

This is it. My final comment. I have enjoyed Fred's writing and viewpoints, and enjoyed the community here (although I could rarely participate in it given my internet situation at home vis a vis typepad and old iphones) for a long time. What I say, I say with sadness and regret.

1. it is the money. fine. all i had to eat last thursday was 2 doughnuts. i get it.

HOWEVER,

2. Fred states that when he said patheos was inclusive, he meant "patheos seeks to be inclusive", so he was either being (a) disingenuous, or (b) didn't do his due diligence to see exactly what "inclusive" means in this situation. either way, i am disappoint.

3. the Anchoress is not inclusive, has no interest in being inclusive and she is their big draw, and she's not alone at patheos.

4. he wishes for us to wait it out and be patient. Fred, women have been waiting a long time, just as have many other groups, to achieve equality. we're sick of waiting. all waiting does is . . . nothing. the same arguments about patience were thrown at Martin Luther King, Jr., too. i, for one, am glad he didn't sit around and hope for the best. misogyny, homophobia, racism and bigotry in general will not be solved by waiting. waiting comforts the comfortable and afflicts the afflicted. i will not wait to be treated like a human being. i will not wait for others to be treated like human beings. patience is a waste of time in these situations, and we don't have forever.

5. i can no longer, in good conscience, send people to the slacktivist. i suggested you to everyone, fred, online and in real life. look! he's amazing! so filled with love, such an ally. fred understands, he gets it, which is just amazing in a white, male, cisgender, able, hetero Christian American . . . and now he asks me to wait politely in the corner while others decide if i'm human enough for them and what human rights and qualities will they choose to grant me. it's embarrassing. and worse,

6. it's abusive to those i send here for whom such hatred is a part of everyday life. i am fortunate in being white and not too visible disabled (and het and cis, etc.). i can, and do, hide amongst the hegemony. it's a tremendous privilege to be able to do so. others are not so lucky. i do not wish to expose such people to more of the same by sending them to patheos, where bigotry is the order of the day, even if it isn't the order of the day on this particular blog. it is inherently cruel, and i do not wish to engage in cruelty towards others, especially not towards others who experience it at so many other hands each and every day. maybe it is "normal" and "everyday" to see such othering and outright bigotry, but it shouldn't be and i won't support it.

Fred, good luck. I hope you find what you seek. I hope this works out the way you seem to hope it will. I hope the Slacktikit gets to move forward with studying German. I wish you the best in the future, even if I don't intend to go there with you.

Faith (a/k/a Personal Failure)

Biting the Hand That Feeds

I love the Slacktivist. The biggest moment of my blogging life (and one of the biggest of my real life) was when Fred put me on his blog roll. I have arrived! Every time I visit his blog, I scroll down just to see Forever in Hell on the blog roll. Every time. I am so proud that someone like Fred thinks my blog is worth reading.

I'm not entirely certain I want to be there anymore. And my chest hurts just typing that.

It's not Fred. Fred is still Fred and he's still amazing and his blog is still amazing. It's where his blog is now, patheos.com. Fred recently moved his blog from typepad, a neutral blog hosting service, to patheos, a blog service with a definite slant- and it ain't neutral towards atheists, homosexuals, pagans or many others.

Patheos' official entry on paganism, for example:

Paganism represents a wide variety of traditions that emphasize reverence for nature and a revival of ancient polytheistic religious practices. Some modern forms of Paganism have their roots in 19th century CE European nationalism (including the British Order of Druids), but most contemporary Pagan groups trace their roots to the 1960s, and have an emphasis on archetypal psychology and a spiritual interest in nature. Paganism is not a traditional religion per se because it does not have any official doctrine, but it does have some common characteristics joining the great variety of traditions.

Paganism is not a traditional religion? Um, paganism is the traditional religion. Paganism, in one form or another predates Christianity by eons, but it's lacking in a speshul book, so it's not "traditional". mm-hmm. I also find it amazingly hilarious that contemporary pagan groups trace their roots to 50 years ago. I'd say the Zeus-worshipping Romans would find that confusing, but Christians should as well. Pagans are mentioned many times in the New Testament, which was written prior to 1960. (I checked.)

Atheism gets much the same treatment:

Atheism generally refers to a critical ideology that rejects metaphysical beliefs in any deity.

Actually, atheism is a lack of belief in god(s). It's not an ideology, critical or otherwise, although some atheists, such as myself, can be quite critical of belief. I'm also a little confused by the modifier "metaphysical" in that statement. Do atheists accept other sorts of beliefs in deities? I . . . don't know. What . . . why is that word there?

Atheism is the antithesis of theism, which both believes in and attempts to affirm the existence of a god or gods.

No, atheism is not the antithesis of theism. Look, theists are just like atheists, except that atheists take it one god further. If you believe in the god of Christianity, then by definition you reject Krishnu, Zeus, Odin and the thousands of other gods that have been/are worshipped. Hindus worship a panoply of gods, but reject Yhwh, Zeus, Odin, etc. Atheism and theism are not opposites by any stretch of the imagination. (Never mind that a good number of atheists don't give a shit about these arguments. They don't believe and they couldn't care less.)

Atheism assumes and often attempts to prove the impossibility of the existence of gods.

Sigh. I might spend a good portion of my time discussing the inherent ridiculousness of many beliefs (god sacrificed god to god to change a rule god made? really?), but proving the impossibility of the existence of gods? Proving a negative is a fool's game. It's up to the theists to prove the existence of the gods they assert, not the other way around.

Atheism has often been associated with agnosticism, but these two ideologies are not interchangeable. Atheism is distinguished from agnosticism in that the latter allows for the possibility of the existence of the divine whereas the former claims an absolute rejection of the concept.

I'll let that pass.

In the 19th century, Karl Marx

Oh, come the fuck on. Marx? Seriously? We're bringing out Marx in the one paragraph segment on atheism?

championed another form of atheism labeled "materialism," which stands in opposition to the metaphysical claim of "spiritualism." Marx claimed that "religion" and concepts of God were political and social constructs. Materialism claims that knowledge and truth are only available through nature and the material world. Materialism rejects the existence of a spiritual world and any knowledge that claims to come from it.

*headdesk*

Sigmund Freud championed atheism in claiming that concepts of God are just psychological deformities. Another strand of atheism is the existentialism signified by Friedrich Nietzsche and others who have claimed that belief in God restricts humanity's freedom and agency.

*headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk*

*headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk*

And that's it. That's the entire entry on atheism. BlahblahblahMARXFREUDNIETZSCHE!!!1!!!eleventy!!

Fred, man, I wish you the best with this patheos thing, but, really? Fucking really?

Oh, and Fred? You might want to check out what happens when you search "homosexual" on patheos. It's . . . revealing.

Yeah, so, I don't know what I think at this point. I didn't get much sleep last night, the weather is horrendous and I'm cranky, achey and tired. Maybe I'll feel differently after some sunshine and a good night's sleep. Maybe not. I would like to hear anyone else's opinion on this. I try to be ethical on this blog. (Well, it's not like I can make money with it, so why not be ethical?) I don't mock people I think might actually be mentally ill. I don't mock blogging teenagers. I link to atheists with political views that give me headaches because I believe in an atheist community that accepts all atheists, regardless of other viewpoints they hold.

What I'm trying to say is, I'm upset and I feel I might not be thinking clearly about this. I do have a sense of ethics and I try to hold to it. I could use some outside opinions. Thank you.

Intestinal Fortitude*

The Slacktivist is all fired up and posted three posts in a day. I think. I usually only check over there twice a week, so imagine my shock at the Pharyngulesque posting schedule. I was caught by this comment from Robert, one of the Slacktivist's libertaritrolls, in response to a post that makes the point that calls for armed insurrection from people living in a more or less functioning democracy are nothing more than childish wish fulfillment of the Wolveriiiiiines! variety:

The thing is... once upon a time... people regularly died just getting from A to B.

"[Move to the New World? It'll take months to get there? I might die? Ok.. sure, let's go.]"

So things like armed revolution were more within their comfort zone.

So now what you see is things like people that would never of taken the Pilgrim Journey in the first place... rationalizing their complete lack of intestinal fortitude... by down-playing the realities that this nations foundations are drastically being altered.

As our liberties are being consumed they continue to point avenues of legislation and lobby as viable methods for true change.

That's like pointing to buttons on a dashboard; while on the other side the wires are being cut; simultaneously laughing at the people that are saying we should pry the panel off and get set to rewire the lines that were cut.

This isn't fiction.
There are volumes of example of constitutional "rights" being ignored by the powers that be.

I'm not saying we need true change.
I'm approaching the place where they doesn't really matter to me.

I'm simply saying that a vast number of people are simply deluding their selves about what is actually happening; because they simply don't have the guts their ancestors did to face the situation as they did.

Look, there is a huge difference between "We're being ruled by some people thousands of miles away we have no say over" and "my party didn't win the election". No, really, there is. Get over it.

Yes, life was cheap in the late 1700s. This does not make people of the 1700s braver than us, it just means that without antibiotics, without vaccines, without safety equipment and doctors, people died. A lot. And young. Suggesting armed warfare to people in 1775 was suggesting just another form of death to people who had been living on borrowed time since the age of 5.

What our Wolveriiiiines! fans seem to ignore, what Robert ignores, is that war was different in 1775 than it is today. Canons were a big deal in 1775. Reloading a rifle took minutes and you had to reload after every shot. And those rifles weren't particularly accurate to begin with. That's not today's war. Today's war is automatic rifles that can be reloaded in seconds, after spewing out dozens of bullets in seconds. Today's war is Predator Drones and smart bombs and the dead lying everywhere and nowhere to run.

I wear a necklace made of bullets left over from a civil war. A 17 year old girl in Liberia, who grew up in a refugee camp, makes these necklaces out of bullet casings because they are easy to find. Bullets, like refugees, are everywhere in Liberia. So are orphans and widows, the maimed and the dead.

People in Liberia divide time into two: Before the War and After the War. An entire generation of children have no idea what it is to live in a world not defined by bullets and death and refugees and loss and pain.

Robert, and the rest of his Wolveriiiiines! crew want that. They want that for the children of America. Why? Because fuck universal healthcare, that's why. Because taxing the rich just a little bit more is totally worth making sure our children are more familiar with bullets than schoolbooks and toys.

There are problems with America. I've talked about them before and I will talk about them again. You know what won't solve those problems? Bullets. Killing our neighbors will not put food on anyone's tables, it won't provide children with better educations, it won't get medicine to the sick. I don't think those are really the problems Robert has with America, but unless his problem is that there just aren't enough dead people, aren't enough burning buildings, aren't enough refugees and widows and orphans, bullets won't solve his problems, either.

*I hate the phrase "intestinal fortitude". You know what takes intestinal fortitude? Eating at that taco place in South Side. Any other use of the phrase is a multisyllabic scatalogical reference that is not nearly so clever as some people think.

Juxtaposition

So here I am, reading an article about the fact that 33% of Congress' work in the last year has been entirely frivolous (apparently, Congress was created to name post offices after people) and I look over on the sidebar at the 10 most popular stories and see As Many As 200 Women, Babies Gang Raped in the Congo.

What the fuck is wrong with us? Really, what is wrong with Americans that we are more about naming post offices and opposing community centers than about the real suffering of women and children? We can't figure out what to do about tens of millions of unemployed Americans (well, the Slacktivist can figure out easily enough), but at least we've got a Jack Kemp post office somewhere. That issue's taken care of and now we can sleep well tonight.

That's it, I'm starting a write in campaign for the Slacktivist for President 2012. At least he gives a fuck and he has a plan.

pic link

Man Was Not Made for the Sabbath

The Slacktivist has inspired me again, as he frequently does, with his third post on Sex & Money.

You should read the entire post, well, the entire series- fuck it, the entire blog! (we'll wait)- but here is the money quote for me:

I've been describing this as an evangelical Christian dilemma because that's who I am and where I'm coming from. But this is a human failing, not a peculiarly evangelical one. We all have this tendency and temptation to approach whatever we regard as holy writ as though we were paralegals, compiling citations and precedents for a moral indictment of other people. Every religion or ethical framework ever known has had some variation of the Golden Rule, and the adherents of every such system have at some point been tempted to regard that imperative as insufficient and inadequate, seeking and finding additional rules until those rules eventually come to conflict with and supersede that central principle.

"Love is the fulfillment of the law," the Bible says. When love is perceived as a violation of the law, something has gone horribly amiss. When the rulebook is telling you that more affordable, decent housing for seniors is wrong, then something is wrong with the way you're reading the rulebook.

Yes. Of course. If you're an atheist, you go a little further: if the rulebook really does tell you that, ditch the rulebook entirely.

Rules exist for a purpose, to guide and protect the people who live under them. 25mph isn't arbitrary, it's the fastest speed that safely allows one to traverse neighborhood streets. We don't punish driving while intoxicated because we are killjoys, but rather because innocent people die when others choose to drive under the influence. Rules are a good thing, I agree. Utter anarchy only serves the wealthy and well-armed, so I'll suffer a few misapplied rules. What I will not suffer is the worship of rules over people, the very definition of fundamentalism.

The reason I can't be a fundamentalist is that the rules will never mean more to me than the people. "No abortions ever!" they cry, and I weep for a raped 9-year-old, impregnated with twins, saved from certain death by an abortion. "It says right here that gay is wrong!" they rage, but all I can see is a gay man prevented by lack of marriage from seeing his love of 40 years one last time before he dies.

I don't understand you, fundamentalist. I don't. I try, harder than you can realize, I really do, but your rules, your words on a page, will never- not ever- mean more to me than the people they affect. You see principles, I see people. You tell me I am evil, and I wonder what part of love for my fellow man is evil. The further I move from faith, the more I understand that the greatest of these is love.

Slacktivist FTW!

fred, slacktivist, phelps, nom, gay, marriage, homophobia, homosexual, religion,
The Slacktivist came up with the best argument against "gay marriage will take away our freeeeeeedoms!" hysteria ever.

Fred Phelps*.

Yes, that Fred Phelps.

But the point here is that Fred Phelps is a free man. His only legal troubles stem from instances of direct physical assault -- not from the hateful content of his beliefs. So when the folks at NOM insist that their opposition to same-sex marriage is a matter of "religious liberty," the liberty they're talking about has to be the liberty to exceed the Fred Phelps standard -- the liberty not just to restrict membership on religious grounds, or just to preach against homosexuality as a sin, or to condemn and denounce homosexuals as people hated by God, but the liberty, apparently, to go beyond all that, beyond anything even Fred Phelps has imagined.

Fred Phelps is a free man, so if you think your freedom is going to be restricted, you must be planning to outdo Fred Phelps.

So there's the two-word answer for every Tony Perkins or James Dobson or Damon Owens who makes up some dubious claim about being persecuted or punished or threatened or jailed or whatever for their anti-gay beliefs.

"I'm a California doct-- " Fred Phelps! He's a free man. Are you worse than him? No? Then shut up, 'kay?

"I'm part of a church group in ..." Fred frikkin' Phelps, buddy. I don't wanna hear it.

"I'm a Massachu ..." Phellllps! Fred Phelps. No one is persecuting you, but your whining is giving me a headache so please just go away now, thanks.

Please feel free to use this argument- a lot. It's brilliant, it's simple and it's true.

*for those of you keeping track, the Slacktivist has now used Hitler to disprove hell and Fred Phelps to disprove gay marriage hysteria. I can't wait to see what comes next.

The Closest I'll Get

slacktivist, evangelical, evangelism, witness, christian, christianity, atheism, atheist, ray, comfort, fundy, jesus,
You know who gets me the closest to being Christian? Not because I believe or anything, but because I want to be more like him?

The Slacktivist.

I mention this because immediately after letting through a comment from a very angry Christian about my "post modernism*" and "intollerance" [sic], I read the Slactivist's latest post.

Ray Comfort and his cohorts stay up at night to think of new ways to insult and denigrate atheists, while the Slacktivist evangelizes with wit, wisdom and ultimately, kindness. The Slacktivist is, and you only need to read one post to see this, truly a good man. He truly cares for the homeless, the poor, the sick, the lonely. I imagine that if the Slacktivist were given three wishes, not a one of them would be selfish. He really would wish for world peace, and end to hunger, an end to disease.**

The Slacktivist is exactly what I imagined Jesus to be back when I believed.

Why do I mention this? Because his latest post is about exactly the form of evangelism Ray and others like him practice.

If you're worried about making friends then you'll wind up more concerned with what others think of you than you are with your duty and you won't be as single-mindedly focused as you need to be in witnessing at them. And let's face it, if you're at all concerned about how others perceive you, then you'll never find the courage to be as off-putting as this duty requires you to be. Treating others as friends, real or potential, involves treating them as subjects rather than how you ought to be treating them -- as objects of your evangelism. So stop acting like you're in some kind of popularity contest and get busy proving that you're not ashamed of the gospel.

That's not the most charitable paraphrase of this stock sermon, but it's accurate.

And anyway I'm not inclined to view this particular sermon charitably. It's pointless and ineffective, for one thing. It doesn't work. The poor souls subjected to some variation of this lecture week after week do not go forth to boldy proclaim the gospel in the way the speaker describes. And that's probably a good thing, too, since if they did that wouldn't work. It encourages a form -- and a spirit -- of evangelism that is far more likely to repel than to attract. It offers no motivation other than guilt, and guilt is just a lousy, lousy motivator. Anything we do because of guilt we do, by definition, begrudgingly. There are very few things one can do begrudgingly and still do well. Guilt also tends to produce a self-defensive resentment of those who provoke or remind us of it. You can see that dynamic in the hostility some people display toward the homeless. This sermon sometimes prompts a similar guiltily hostile form of evangelism.

Hostility and evangelism don't mix well.

Yeah, Slacktivist, I've noticed.

Anyway, since I apparently can't convince the fundys that calling me a fool, and railing about my post modernism and intollerance [sic], is very unlikely to convert me, maybe the words of an evangelical Christian will help.

*What is post modernism in this context? I can never tell.

**I would wish for myself not to be sick anymore, to be beautiful and for the Eagles to win the next Superbowl. Not necessarily in that order.