Even at My Worst

atheism, atheist, religion, christian, bible, god, sin, fundy, rapture,
I was never this bad.

Most people tend to view sin as simply the things you shouldn't be doing, most of which you wouldn't do anyway, such as murdering and stealing. The bible defines sin, at least in the New Testament, as any random passing consideration of something sinful, such as thinking "nice ass" when a person of your preferred sex, who has a nice ass, walks by. Fundys really take this to heart.

To anyone who hasn't been exposed to this particular definition of sin, it seems unfathomable: how can anyone control all of their thoughts? It's not possible, so why expect it of people?

Control.

If I can make you feel guilty and despondent at the fact that, just like any other human on the planet, you occasionally get lustful or angry, I can control you. And, if I can convince you that these passing thoughts will doom you to an eternity of torment, even if you never act on them, and never would, I own you.

What really pisses me off about this is how beaten down fundys get about all this. It took me the better part of a decade to learn to like myself, to accept myself for who I am: snarky, geeky, irritable and nowhere near the media ideal of beautiful. To watch fundys beat themselves into submission for the great crime of being human makes me angry. They are wasting the only life they will ever get hating everything about themselves, apologizing for every thought, not once enjoying what it is to be human.

They'll never get another chance at this, and they're fucking wasting it.

Twinkling of an Eye starts the thread with: I remember one time many years ago i was talking with my born-again Christian brother, and i remember him saying that he believed it was possible for a Christian to go one day without sinning.
Do you think that's so? I've often wondered. One whole day without sinning...

and while you're dreaming of that, i'm enjoying a nice fantasy about [censored], and i gotta tell you, hot!

yogi3939 defines the only conditions under which (s)he believes this could happen: I know I did it one time. I was in the hospital and drugged for severe pain after a car accident. I know I spent at least one day without waking up or dreaming.

guys? it's okay to like yourself. i'm sure you have good qualities.

Christina makes me a little sadder:

I doubt it very much because we are responsible for our thoughts and sometimes thinking the idea is the same as doing it, I know I'm on my knees daily asking the Lord to forgive me for something, either something I did, said, thought or a way in which I reacted to someone or something.

no, you're not responsible for your thoughts, any more than you're responsible for the workings of your digestive system. brains think, it's what they do.

Sunny takes it to a whole new level (Rapture Ready does tend to be an ongoing "i can outfundy anyone!" contest): I doubt it. Our sin goes into the deepest parts of us. It's out thoughts and motives that we don't even notice that would get us, not the easy stuff that you can point out.

this isn't even thoughtsin here, this is subconscious-sin. she's holding herself responsible for thoughts she isn't even aware of! seriously!

cocopea9052 is apparently reading from a different bible than the rest of us: Well I know my biggest daily sin is impatience and irritation over still being here!. I'm always saying , "I'm sorry Lord, I don't mean to be this way, I know your coming back in your time". Then 5 minutes later, I'm like, ok God why are we still here! And if I hear of something bad or tragic happening, then I get downright angry about it. It is a daily, no hourly, no minute struggle. Really it is. I am constantly praying for patience.

first of all, utterly tragic that you are spending every irreplaceable moment of this life wishing for it to be over. secondly, when did impatience become a sin?

1angel4u feels guilty for being angry at a door. a door!: Yesterday I got so angry at our front door

I'm not kidding though, my key does not work on our deadbolt because our house has "settled" according to my DH. ~~~just get it fixed~~~

So, I litterally have to drop my purse, my bag from work, groceries that I picked up on the way home from work and then when I finally got it open - using two hands - I flung the mail on the floor of the living room and stomped in using four-letter words.

It's very unlike me. But, I've been putting up with this stupid lock/key problem for months now!

It sounds so petty, I know

I prayed for forgiveness right away.

I'm so sick of this world. I remember a time when we didn't even have to lock our doors.

(hey! the emoticons came through! all RR posts are like that, if not worse.) where in the bible is it written that anger against inanimate objects is a sin? oh, and profanity- not a sin. taking the lord's name in vain is forbidden, but generalized profanity is never mentioned in the bible.

Living by Faith considers being sentient a sin: No,and anyone who says they can is most likely sinning right there. It's very arrogant and boastful to think that way,IMHO.
God is so holy and pure,that the things we think of as no big deal are a huge sin before a holy God. Things like pride and stubbornness and lack of trust in Him,complaining.. lobotomies! they need lobotomies, and then they can be godly.

I find it incredibly irritating when fundys say that atheists are without morals because we are without god, but you know what? I'll take complete and utter immorality to hating everything about myself and spending all day, every day, fearing my every thought. People who actively encourage self hatred should be ashamed of themselves.

All Day Long

These People Are Dangerous

vatican, swiss guard, crazy,
Whenever I see the Swiss Guard, I realize the Vatican is a really freakin' weird place. That's the Vatican military. Those men are dangerous. And dressed like a cross between an acid trip and a gay pride parade.

Earthworms

This what I've been getting all over my lawn. I have about 100 of those little mounds all over my lawn. I've been trying to get rid of those for weeks now. I even sprayed organic insecticides all over my lawn, two weeks in a row. Then I figured that maybe I should just go old school, and go with the poisons-all-water-sources-and-destroys-the-earth pesticides all over my lawn.

Turns out, I've been trying to kill earthworms.

Earthworms.

Hope Springs Eternal

rapture, premillenial, dispensationalism, fundamentalism, fundy, christianity,
The cognitive dissonance of the peculiar sect of fundamentalist Christianity that is premillienial dispensationalism has to be crushing. Absolutely crushing. So, it was with both amusement and pity that I watched the thread CountUP to the Rapture grow on Rapture Ready.

"How long can they count," I thought, "before the obvious occurs to them?"

So far, we're at day 41, and we've reached a level of pathetisad previously unseen in human history.

100knight got the ball rolling: Basically, we increase the number everyday until the King comes for us. Since we don't know when it is, we count up instead of down. And of course it stops when HE calls us. We can also discuss any other things we have in mind

READY!?!?

GO!!!

1!

Sorry if this is a bad idea...

I really expected the mods at Rapture Ready (who disappear dissenters with an efficiency Pinochet would have envied) to nip this one in the bud.

Not Perfect But Forgiven expresses the general premil attitude towards life: I'll get on board with that. I'm growing more tired of this sinful world each day. I'm sort of upset we can even count to "1" in this situation. It can't come soon enough!

Seated doesn't seem to understand what reverse psychology is: Reverse Psychology at it's finest!

it all starts getting a little down on day 4:

cieralovesantonio: unfortunatley 4 come soon jesus. todays good 4 me

cocopea9052: Whew okay, thanks Day 8, got it. Oh please let's not see double digits!

100knight: Oh noes! We've reached 10!!!!! WAHAHAHAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

despair sets in at day 20:

cocopea9052: Have we grown tired of the Count Up already. No one posted Day 19 and now we are almost at the end of Day 20. I know this sucks doesn't it? We don't really want a count up, what we need is a count down!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

100knight: DAY 34*sigh*

now at day 41, true pathetisad has arrived:

acceptedinthebeloved: I haven't been keeping count in here very much, but I just wanted to drop in and mention that the biblical meaning of the number 42 is "Departure"... shall we dare to hope?!

nothing like a little numerology with your rapture.

Take Me Away!: 41 people!!!!!!!! Lord, please let it be soon! We are so so tired......

yeah, counting does that to me, too.

I think I'll take a look back in another 41 days and see what comes after pathetisad.

If It Takes Socialism to Get Us All Healthcare

socialism, health care, insurance, bankruptcy, single, payer, obama, liberal,
Then fuck it, I'm a socialist.

From Americablog:

Medical bills are involved in more than 60 percent of U.S. personal bankruptcies, an increase of 50 percent in just six years, U.S. researchers reported Thursday.

More than 75 percent of these bankrupt families had health insurance but still were overwhelmed by their medical debts, the team at Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School and Ohio University reported in the American Journal of Medicine.

"Using a conservative definition, 62.1 percent of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical; 92 percent of these medical debtors had medical debts over $5,000, or 10 percent of pretax family income," the researchers wrote. "Most medical debtors were well-educated, owned homes and had middle-class occupations."

The researchers, whose work was paid for by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said the share of bankruptcies that could be blamed on medical problems rose by 50 percent from 2001 to 2007.

You know why we need this? It's not just the 40,000,000 or so people without medical insurance, it's the millions more people like me, who have insurance and can't afford to use it.

Monday night I was swiffering my floor and I accidentally knocked a surround sound speaker off the stand. It landed right on my bunion, and I ended up with a deep purple/blue bruise on my foot up to my bunion, and a bruise on my toe past the bunion. The pain was indescribable. I'm still limping and that bruise looks bad, and I'm not sure why it's to either side of the bunion. That worries me.

I thought about going to the hospital, but then I thought, nope. I can't afford to pay the hospital to xray it, or for the ER charge. If something did need to be done, it'd be a visit to an orthopaedic surgeon, and my copay for specialists is $50. I don't have $12 for hair dye. I didn't have it last week or the week before, either. (Yes, I'm a little vain.) And you know it wouldn't be just one visit to the specialist. And forget about surgery. I've seen my copays for that. If I could afford that sort of thing, I'd own a car.

So, I grabbed one of the crutches in the basement closet (leftover from when my MIL had knee surgery) and used that for a few days.

I have health insurance. I may as well not.

Imagine what my story will be if I am diagnosed with breast cancer next month. What will I do then? I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll choose between eating and dying. I'll choose between being homeless and letting cancer eat me alive. I'll choose between what is no doubt a really horrible death and having heat in the winter.

So the next time somebody whinges at you about socialism and rationing* and Canada, ask them what they'd choose: cancer treatments or eating, cancer treatments or having a roof over their head, cancer treatments or not freezing to death.



*We already are rationing health care treatments in this country. We're rationing it according to who can afford it. When somebody starts bitching about rationing, what they're really saying is, "I'm on the good side of the rationing right now, and I'd rather not end up on the bad side of it."

The Sky Is Not Green

atheism, atheist, religion, illuminati, new world order, christianity,
To imagine how I felt about this post from Atheism is Dead, imagine standing outside under a clear, blue sky and someone tells you the sky is green. You've certainly never seen, or heard, of a green sky, but you look just to be sure, and the sky is still blue. "The sky is blue," you reply. "I'm looking at it right now, and it's blue."

Now imagine that this person not only stands under a blue sky and insists it's green, but they show you as proof various books and websites that also assert the sky is green. Imagine your frustration as they attempt to use logic and big words and obscure books to prove something that you only have to lift your eyes up to disprove.

That's pretty much how I felt when I saw Atheism and the Illuminati:

Beware and be aware my friends, for while the Illuminati are lurking in the shadows attempting to establish their new world order another group, a menace of massive proportions, is acting in the wide open: they are—the Alluminati who are attempting to establish an atheist new world order

Wow, that's the most amazingly bizarre sentence I have ever seen: the Illuminati, atheism as religion and the atheist new world order, all tied together.

Just to clear things up, Mariano, I am an atheist. I blog about atheism, I belong to atheist organizations and a (primarily) atheist message board, I have read atheist books and I have never heard of any plot to take over the world. Atheism is not a religion and we are not trying to take over the world. Frankly, until we can get atheists to agree on a symbol for atheism, I don't think we're anywhere near getting organized enough to dominate the globe. Which sounds like a lot more trouble than it's worth, in my opinion. I mean, once we enslave the christians, what are we supposed to do with them? I don't know about you, but I have better things to do with my time than oppress people.

There seems to be a common misconception of atheism being anti-religion yet, it is not—it is very, very pro-religion. They are anti-theistic-religion but very much so pro atheistic-religion. This is not only due to militant activist atheist such as Michael Newdow who has long argued that atheism is a religion or the fact that, as noted in Nietzsche Nails Atheism, Again, atheism (under whatever label) has long held religious services (aspects of Unitarian Universalism are an example of this; see here, here and here).

It is, quite rightly, said that the best place to hide something is in plain sight. True indeed, as I recall that perhaps the first time that I posted on atheists attempting to establish an atheist new world order in the form of an atheist one world religion someone commented thusly, “‘Atheist religion’???? Dears, you really are a 3rd class blog.”

Do you suppose it occurred to Mariano to ask the atheists what atheism is all about? Yes, atheism is not antireligion. (Some atheists are, but not atheism itself.) However, calling atheism proreligion is like calling the Pope prochoice. "Yeah, sure, we don't believe in any supreme being, but we love the worship of the nonexistent supreme being. It's great!" wtf?! Do you read what you write, Mariano?

I greatly enjoy, however, that all of his "proof" is posts from his own blog. "Don't believe me? See what else I have to say on the subject!"

And no, the best place to hide things is generally not in plain sight. If I steal a tank, I probably should not attempt to hide it in my front yard. (Yes, I do frequently get pissed off about cliches.)

Many people ask “Is atheism a religion” and there are some reasons for answering in the affirmative yet, the simple answer is, “Whether it is one now or not one thing is for certain; many influential atheists want to establish it as a religion.”

There are no reasons for answering in the affirmative, unless not collecting stamps has become a hobby, but let's put this another way: "Is Christianity a pedophilic cult created and maintained solely for the purposes of giving pedophiles easy access to a wide variety of victims? Whether or not that's true, many influential Christians do seem to use it that way."

What follows is a lot of quotes from philosophers like Rousseau and people like Hovind, and a few Godwins, all continuing in the vein of Teh Evul Atheists are GOING TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!one!!!!

All I have to say is if there is an atheist conspiracy to take over the world, I'm really miffed at not getting invited.