X is…

I’m not sure what it is about my family.  Well, maybe much more than that.

There are around five birthdays the last two weeks of this month.  So is January just an exciting month?  Is it genetic?  Are the sperm more lively in January?

Somebody told me how she knows a bunch of people with birthdays in mid-November and has associated that with Valentine’s Day.  I’ll kind of accept that… if it takes a special day for intercourse to happen.

But January?

If anybody has answers, I’d like to hear them.

Popularity: 16% [?]

I sometimes simply search for news on ‘atheist’ for ideas on what to write about. Today turned up a gem.

KELO in Sioux Falls had this today.

We are looking to interview people who don’t believe in God. Atheism has been gaining national attention with best-selling books like “God Is Not Great” and “The End of Faith.” Air America is launching a nationally-broadcast atheist radio program.

And it went on. They wanted to interview people who do not believe to find out “more about your beliefs and the challenges that you face in a society that places high importance on religion.”

Put the atheists on television? Must be a pretty conservative region. I wanted to know more. To the right of the article was a link to the forum with 85 posts when I saw it. I was dying to find out what they thought. The first post told me everything about this community.

Can’t wait to see the story and see who some of these freaks are.

OK. We’ve set the tone from the Christian standpoint. If you’re not Christian, then you’re a freak. Somebody did have the sense to post a pretty impressive list of atheists. If you’re reading this, then you are probably already pretty familiar with any list of atheists.

One person did stand up and admit to being atheist. Here are some of the lines to this person.

(to another believer) At least you and i know where we are going when we die.

Then hurry the fuck up! You’re taking up too much space here on Earth and you’re wasting too much of my time. The frustration of you living and breathing is too much. If the only reason you are living is to die, then get on with it.

What do you need morals for…whats the point if you dont believe in God. You can do whatever you want. Go ahead…lie, cheat, steal…Why not…You dont believe in God or the 10 Commandments. Just as well get some prostitutes and abuse your body with drugs.

Dipshit. The only reason this guy is moral is because his god instructs him to be. If it weren’t for his god, he’d be a perfectly happy sinner. Isn’t there any sense that people are good for the sake of being good. Since the beginning of time, people have come up with rules and standards. Does this idiot think that Christians are the first to create socialized norms?

You can dispute the existance of God, but are you disputing what is written in in the Bible?

I will dispute that what is written in the Bible was written by a god or higher power. Just because somebody says it is so, doesn’t prove that it is.

Anyway, I was entertained by the arguments that so many Christians use. The fact that they “know” where they are going to be when they die or that they “know” the truth. Evidence is powerful and blind faith is weak.

I hope you were as entertained by some of these posts as much as I was.

From the song Jerk-Off by Tool

Consequences dictate
our course of action
and it doesn’t matter what’s right.
It’s only wrong if you get caught.
If consequences dictate
my course of action
I should play GOD
and shoot you myself.*
I’m very tired of waiting.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Sorry to add this. I think everybody needs a break from the real world. Mine comes with baseball. I’m always sad to see the season end. I’m always so excited to see it begin.

Often, though, I miss most of the season. It goes right on by as I get older. I try to make up for it by paying attention to the postseason.

For many years I would have considered baseball to be the closest thing to religion that I have ever felt. Not anymore. Music gets me much further now.

For several years I ran an online baseball league. It was fun. For a while. Then the constant bickering and fighting over this or that drove me away. I let it go and have been unable to see baseball the same again. These guys were huge fans. Many of them from New England.

I learned in my years of this league that Boston fans may be the most intellectual fans in baseball, but they are the most annoying. I will never root for a Boston team. When I see them on television I am amazed at how they are all the same.

And now they are winners. Mark Kriegel put it in very good words today in an article for FOX Sports.

Rather, what was stunning about the drone, is how much the droners sounded like Yankees fans.

If there really was a Curse, as Red Sox fans like to say, perhaps it came with a codicil: You become what you hate.

So true. For years their payroll has been number two in MLB. Nobody talks about that. Where is ESPN headquartered? Peter Gammons? Boston is America’s Team the same way that Atlanta was for so many years. TBS shoved them down our throats. ESPN is more subliminal about their love for the Red Sox.

They loathed the Yankees for so long that they have actually become a blue-collar version. Definitely more annoying, louder, etc.

One of my cutomers is from the Boston area. He fits the mold perfectly. When he calls I have to pull the phone away from my ear. The screaming hurts.

People know I enjoy baseball and they ask me at the start of every season and then again at playoff time who I like. I don’t believe in rooting for a team forever. No sense in it. My answer this postseason?

Anybody but the Red Sox.

Popularity: 21% [?]

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is one of the few shows that I feel like I ‘have’ to watch.  Everyday I get home, settle in, and watch The Daily Show from the night before.

So last night was the episode with Lynne Cheney.  Jon Stewart was respectful.  Lynne Cheney actually came on his show, and he felt that was worth being respectful for.  I can appreciate that, but Cheney was peddling her new book, so the door swings both ways.  A person can only sell a book to Fox News audiences for so long is my guess.

Cheney started out by bringing a Darth Vader action figure out.  That’s fine.  She’s trying to show that she has a sense of humor about the jokes that have been made about her husband.

Jon Stewart returned the favor by not pushing too hard, although he really couldn’t help himself.

Stewart uncomfortably challenged Cheney on gay marriage and Iraq.  He admitted that he was uncomfortable.  He admitted that it was unfair to challenge Dick Cheney’s wife for Dick Cheney’s actions.

He got Lynne Cheney to admit that she doesn’t have a problem with gay marriage and neither did her husband.  Stewart’s response was good.  He asked her why her husband didn’t go out on the lawn and take a stand for gay marriage.  Why he didn’t break away from the typical conservative opinion.

The only reason they would support gay marriage a little bit is because their daughter is gay.  Typical conservative bullshit.  Completely against something unless somebody they know is affected.

Lynne Cheney also tried to argue that when the history books are written, people will realize that this administration has done a great job of keeping more attacks from happening.  Always with the “you may not like us now, but the history books will” lines.  Are Bush and Cheney going to take over the text book business?

Interesting interview that was only friendly because they each had a vested interest in making it so.

Lynne Cheney, by the way, was selling a book about how great life is in Wyoming.  That Wyoming people are friendlier than New York people and on and on.  I’ve been to Wyoming a few times.  They aren’t that friendly to people who are not like them, which is how I believe the Cheneys to be.

Popularity: 18% [?]

I’ve talked and written about this in the past.  I don’t think it’s archived here.  There have been several incarnations of my ramblings over the years.

I’m going to write about it again today.  I think it’s important to understand.  I think it’s nearly impossible to solve.

Atheists do not have one voice.  I guess what got me thinking about this was an op-ed article published by USA Today written by Nica Lalli.  Ms. Lalli’s main point was that she does not want to necessarily be associated with Hitchens or Dawkins.

I am an atheist, a humanist, a secularist, a person of no religion. I am nothing. And I ask the question above because in recent months, the word “atheist” has become synonymous with one kind of non-believer: the kind that writes books about atheism and is not very nice about religion.

Many of these books have been written by atheists who are tired of being silent, who are sick of being reviled and who are no longer willing to play the religion games according to the rules of the devout. That means that they no longer consider religion off limits to criticism.

The authors of these books have chosen titles that re-set the stage, with new scenery, new production and new lyrics. God is Not Great, The God Delusion, The End of Faith. These titles tell the reader right away that religion is being looked at from a different, far less reverential, view.

She goes on to discuss how not all atheists are the same and that open discussion would be helpful.  I do agree that many of the books are written because they are tired of being silent.  They are tired of being silent because the fundamentalists are taking over.  They are forcing their dogma down the country’s collective throat, and I agree, we shouldn’t take it anymore.

There are over 400 blogs on the official Atheist Blogroll.  Mine is not one.  I haven’t taken that plunge.  So there may be a few more like that out there in the world.  Let’s say there are 450 blogs.  That tells me there is a huge interest and untapped voice for the same idea of equality.

Tired of being marginalized, atheists have found it necessary to try and get their voice heard one way or another.

I want to go a different direction.  I think it’s necessary.  Why is there not one voice?  Because there’s no church.  There’s no central meeting place.  There’s no uniform ideology.

Let’s say the statistics are correct.  There are around 12% of the United States population that are atheist.  Wouldn’t that mean that we are entitled to 12% of something?  I believe that the number of radical conservative Christians is under 25%.  Yet they control everything in the country.  Squeaky wheel gets the grease?

Let’s get squeaky.  Unionize.  In a sense.

If I go to my mother-in-law’s house around election time, I will see on her kitchen counter a pamphlet provided by the church to tell her how to vote on all the major issues.  She leaves it out on purpose I’m sure; just in case anybody else may be confused on candidates or issues.

Atheists don’t have that power.  We don’t get together.  We are generally stubborn people that have come to conclusions on our own.  We like to call ourselves “free thinkers.”  We go against every form of thought control possible.  We cringe at the thought of a leader who speaks on our behalf.

Cringe if we must.  The only way to get the power that should be afforded us is by pulling together resources.  I don’t have answers on how, but I am interested in finding a way.  Without a collective voice, we stand as 1% rather than 12%, and that’s a huge difference.

Popularity: 12% [?]