Rise of the Nones

I note that the latest Pew Research poll holds that "56 million Americans now identify themselves as agnostic, atheist or 'nothing in particular.'” We are called "nones", for "religious preference: None". That’s more than 22 percent of the population.

That's a lot of people for the Christianists and their Christian Reconstruction army to round up and make disappear. It's not just a paltry six million Jews and a few Gypsies and communists to deal with this time around. And that 56 million doesn't even include American Jews,  Muslims, Buddhists, etc., all of whom will have to be swept up as well.

That's a whole lot of people. If the average train car would hold 100 people, that's 560,000 train cars to haul us away. I don't think there's that much rolling stock in the world, let alone the USA.

Face it Religious Right, you are losing ground.

Which makes them all the more dangerous. Like a cornered animal. I think I may have to stock up on a few more 2nd-Amendment-Solution^TM "protection devices" myself.

And BTW, it's long past time for someone in the Congress other than Pete Stark to come out of the theological closet. I know you're in there. Show some guts and show your faces.

Besides, Pete Stark isn't actually in Congress any longer. He;s retired, but not before he was reelected several times even after he admitted he was an atheist. Atheism is no longer the moral equavalent being a child-molesting communist pederast to the American voters -- those who are not still in the Moron-American Voting Bloc, anyway.

You Are What You Think You Are

The other day I kind of came out of the theocracy closet and admitted that I am an atheist. And while that is technically true, it also implies a certain level of emotional and/or psychological commitment to atheism that I don't really feel. That's why I prefer to think of myself as a "non-theist". While, as I say, it's technically true that I am atheist, the fact that I don't believe in god doesn't really enter in to my own perceptions of the "me" that I am, or my "world view".

This is clear to me but surprisingly hard to convey. The atheists I know who proudly and loudly proclaim that fact seem to be committed to an almost missionary zeal about it, and I just don't feel that way. This lack of belief of mine is beyond agnostic ("wishy-washy-can't-committer") but it isn't "other-directed". It's just as aspect of my character, like having a sense of humor or having thinning dark curly hair or brown eyes or believing that all Republicans are evil or being an outrageous flirt.

A very good friend of mine is a Christian...but she is on the branch of Christianity that you never hear about in the media, the Religious Left. She takes seriously the Jesus of the Bible who was all about loving your neighbor, healing the sick, feeding the hungry, visiting those in prison. She does all those things. The people on the Religious Right, as far as I know, absolutely do not. do these actions. Instead they hate their neighbors (the ones who don't look like them), cut food stamp and welfare payments and the only prisons they think about are the ones they can still all the "criminal lawbreakers" in. As Gandhi said, "I like your Christ; your Christians...uh, not so much"

You are the sum of your parts, in this case your beliefs, and I am solidly Liberal in my thoughts and deeds. But even I am not perfect. With all of the leftwing beliefs that I have, I am perfectly comfortable owning several guns. I don't think there's anything wrong with responsible gun owners having firearms. The problem, though, is all of the irresponsible people who also have them. You know, like pretty much everyone in the NRA, and those who believe that the solution to school shootings is to arm all the teachers. It's like Archie Bunker once said on All in the Family, when interviewed about a skyjacking: "Arm all the passengers. Some guy jumps up wit' a gun, he got 50 pointing back at him. Problem solved."

If you are like me and own guns in what some try to paint as a hypocritical defiance of your beliefs and your liberal ideals, you don't have to feel bad, feel guilty, or hide your guns away from being seen. Don't want to give up your guns for politics? You don't have to. There's an organization calling itself Democratic Gun Owners Association of America which is aimed at Democrats who own guns responsibly and works against the stupid excesses of the NRA.

Now I Understand...

... why celebrities eschew faux awards on the Internets. It's all a fraud, a beauty contest, and no one knows who is doing the actual "voting" -- or if there really is actual "voting"...

Otherwise how do you explain the absence of me, "your humble narrator"*, from the American Humanist Association list of the Top Ten Sexiest Male Celebrity Atheists...

Brad Pitt? Okay. Antonio Banderas? Okay. Johnny Depp? Well, yeah, okay...

Hmmm, on further review, I am kind of vaguely aware that I am now officially in my dotage, and I am at the age where I do have to make a decision which can have long term -- indeed, lifelong (such as it is) -- consequences: Am I a geezer, a codger, or a coot?

Jeez, it's so hard to make a choice!

But I digress... Or I think I do... Or something...

Oh, and to ensure that I and the American Humanist Association are not seen as "sexist", here is a list of the Top Ten Female Celebrity Atheists

[* Literary and/or film buffs will recognize this as one of the catch-phrases of Alex of Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange. Read the book if you haven't seen the film; see the film if you haven't read the book.]