To make a reply to this individual would be a useless gesture.
Right-wingers have long been fascinated by Ayn Rand, the mid-century pop philosopher who defined moral behavior as doing whatever will make you, the individual, happy, and opposed any government intervention in the economy or charitable giving. Based on her economic beliefs, you can understand why, for example, Rep. Paul Ryan makes each of his staff members read her most famous novel Atlas Shrugged. But shouldn't it bother some of these right-wingers that she was, to use their own language, a "radical atheist," too?
Ryan, a Catholic, was confronted on this rather obvious friction last Friday, as he was leaving notorious GOP grifter Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Conference in Washington D.C. A young man supposedly representing a religious organization concerned with promoting economic justice — just like in the old days! — caught up with Ryan as he made his way through the hallway. He introduced himself as a Catholic and began hurling questions to Ryan about why he supports the economically immoral cult of atheist Ayn Rand. He offers Ryan a Bible and suggests he pay more attention to Luke!
This comes less than a month after 75 Catholic professors sent a scolding letter to Speaker John Boehner, a Catholic, for pushing a harsh budgetary agenda which they see as violating their religious principles.
All we're trying to do is give a "heads up" to those policymakers who run their mouths about being devout Catholics while simultaneously promoting Randian economics: Get your canned responses ready, because people are starting to notice.
One cannot rationally argue with someone on a matter of faith. To do so is clearly an act of futility. One may as well attempt to practice medicine on the dead,
What I can do is to explain, to other rational people, why I cannot submit to this load of mental excrement.
Let's begin with the basics.
A IS A.
On the epistemological level this means that regardless of what someone wishes to believe that THE TRUTH IS THE TRUTH.
This means that the TRUTH cannot be changed or otherwise negated. No matter how many times a lie is repeated or how many guns are shoved into into a person’s face or even how many people are actually murdered in order to enforce a lie.
But any smug Catholic such as the one I quoted above would claim that he is only following the commands of God when he is unleashing force upon us to comply with the will of God.
Whose commands?
At no time in the fifty one years of my life have I ever come into physical or visual contact with God. I have never EVER received a message from God. No phone calls. No letters or other junk mail through the U.S. Postal Service. Not even an e-mail from god@god.god, even though he should be able to get something through the spam filter.
Nothing. At. All.
I simply have no reason to believe in the existence of God.
As a consequence I have to treat any demand that I obey God as so much nonsensical noise.
But does not stop numerous individuals from claiming to speak for God and demanding obedience to his will on his behalf. Nor does it stop these individuals from writing numerous books outlining those claims and their demands for obedience.
The issue is, again, that there is no objectively verifiable evidence for the existence of this being.
But, say the Theists, God created Heaven and the Earth, therefore he must exist and therefore we (meaning YOU) must obey him.
Really?
(I regret to say that I do not have access to my personal library and it has been some time since I have read the relevant works. My answer to the aforementioned nonsense may be the reverse of Rand’s answer to it. And I will not be able to place the correct citations in this article. Please bear with me on this.)
It is claimed by Theists that God, as his first miracle, created the Earth, and by implication the rest of the Universe, Ex Nihilo. Literally out of nothing. And that there was nothing in existence before the Universe was created by God.
Nothing at all?
Theists often claim that God was the original conscious being. But in order to be conscious one must be conscious of something.
A consciousness that is conscious of nothing is a contradiction in terms.
Therefore there must always be something in existence.1
Existence has to exist.
But some theists also claim that God is omnipotent. That he can do anything and is not limited by the laws of nature.
Really?
Existence is identity. To be is to be something in particular.
An omnipotent being is NOTHING in particular. Which is to say, it is nothing at all.
But let’s look at the practical effects of omnipotence.
An omnipotent being should not have ANY unfulfilled needs or desires. An omnipotent being should not be bored in any way. Furthermore, an omnipotent being should not any uncorrected physical or psychological flaws.
An omnipotent being should not have to create the Universe or to create Man to serve him.
If God exists, then we should not exist.
And by we I mean a physical and conscious being who carries out his own action by his own decisions.
If God, the omnipotent being exists, then Man cannot direct his own actions by his own free will. A man cannot even decide to
submit or not submit to the will of someone who claims to speak on behalf of God.2
But all of the above does not prevent theists from making their most absurd claim yet.
That each of us has an immortal soul. If we obey God then the soul will be eternally rewarded by being allowed to enter Heaven.3 And if we do not obey God then we will eternally punished by being sent to Hell.4
Never mind that there is no evidence that the mind can be separated from the body and preserved in some fashion.
Theists are not simply doing this to be sadistic.
As a class the clergy are not productive members of a society. In order to exist they need the material support of those in their domain. They also need to feel that they can continue to rely on the support their victims.
In short they need wealth and power.
The history of organized religion is the history of robbery by fraud and the murder of those who rightfully refuse to obey and materially support the self appointed speakers for God.
And if the Judeo-Christian version wasn’t bad enough, the perpetrator of Islam took the most evil aspects of Western Monotheism and turned them up to eleven.
In a novel that I’m writing I have a character who is thinking of what so say to the convert to Islam who was responsible for the murder of his wife and daughter:
But in Islam, those who submit to the obviously false god Allah, and obey the obviously false prophet Big Mo, and who in their supposedly holy names go out and conquer and abuse the unbelievers, will get to eternally rape a bunch of eternal victims as if they were a bunch of eternal animals in Allah’s eternal whorehouse.
Okay. I’m not nice.
The fundamental part of the scam of organized religion is the notion that God owns Man. That Man has no rights that those who enforce the will of God need to respect. And that those who refuse to obey God, as represented by the clergy, will not only be subjected to spiritual punishment but must also be subject to temporal punishment. The Founders of the American Republic understood that this would lead to sectarian violence and in the first article of amendment of The Constitution prohibited the enforcement of sectarian doctrines.
The smug Catholic such as the one I quoted above apparently does not understand this or does not care. What matters is the warm and fuzzy feeling that he receives from abusing the power of government to enforce the will of God.
And if some unbelievers have to die? Well that because they disobeyed God.
Speaking only for myself I fully believe that those who deny the Rights of Man cannot claim those same rights for themselves.
I cannot believe in the concept of God. I will not submit to those claim they are enforcing the will of God.
I will live my life by my own rational judgement. And I do not care how many priests and obedient followers I have to kill, how many places of worship I have to demolish, and how sacred texts that I have to burn to do it.
I will judge. And I will prepare to be judged.
What are your questions on this block of instruction?
1. Of course there will be those who will claim that the theory of the Big Bang constitutes proof of the existence of God. But there had to be something to go BANG. Therefore I must conclude that there was always something. No ifs, ands, or buts.
2. This is taken to extremes in the areas occupied by the adherents of Islam. (I won’t call them nations.) Some Muslims if they witness the commission of a felony or even a murder will not interfere or even call the police because it would interfere with the will of Allah.
3. Where the Muzak system plays syrupy sweet songs that constantly praise God and Jesus Christ. This may actually qualify as punishment. Seriously, Jennifer Knapp can write and perform spiritual songs that do not mention God or Christ at all. But Miss Knapp is also a lesbian. Nobody is perfect.
4. Where the condemned are subjected to the noise generated by Yoko Ono.
Okay. The last two points were a bit silly.
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