faith

A (partial) list of my disbeliefs

All too often atheism is diminished into “not believing in god” but what believers tend to forget atheism is not believing in gods (plural).  Common Sense Atheism has a wonderful post listing some of the many many many gods atheists don’t believe in. The post includes a massive list of gods that have fallen out of favor with the believers for different reasons and a few which may still find pockets of favor around the world.

Christians are often baffled as to how atheists could deny the existence of their god, Yahweh. But they shouldn’t be. Christians deny thousands of the same gods that theists deny. Atheists just deny one more god than Christians do (or three, maybe).

Some of my favorites? Pratibhanapratisamvit, Buddhist goddess of context analysis. Or Acat, Mayan god of tattoo artists. Or Tsa’qamae, north american god of salmon migration.

Anyway, here’s a handy comparison between the gods Christians deny and the gods atheists deny. We’re not so different, after all. Let us celebrate our vast agreement on the non-existence of thousands of gods!

The list is very long but as one commenter complains:

This list in not complete at all. For one thing the majority of modern day christians refuse or do not acknowledge any god by the name of YAhweh. But rather worship Jesus Christ, who is the son of a no-named god simply called by a title “god” but also is the same exact being in some redneck, twisted sort of way.

Complete or not its a fascinating list of disbelief.

Posted on by mklang

Acceptable sex for priests

This must have catholic priests sniggering in their vestries.

Swedish priests are allowed to be married. Swedish women are also allowed to be ordained as priests. Therefore it is not strange for two priests to be in bed together and know each other in the biblical sense (ooh, that’s a bad pun). Apparently there are unacceptable sexual acts among priests.

The whole thing started when a priestly couple. To be clear: a husband and wife both priests. Anyway the priestly couple had a threesome together with a male acquaintance (not for the first time). The husband priest took pictures of the act with his mobile telephone. Reports are a bit hazy but the wife later attempted to delete the photographs and the husband lost it and started beating his wife. Naturally all this ended up with the police and the tabloids had a small snigger at the whole affair. Even for swedes this raised a few eyebrows. What can I say: Sex sells.

What makes the whole thing much more interesting is the response of a Swedish bishop (also a woman) who stated that the priests may be dismissed. What is queerer is that even the wife priest may face the same end or at least be given a warning. The dismissals are not only due to the wife beating but also are due to the threesome.

It appears that the the couples sex acts “exceed the boundaries for what may be accepted within marital relations” (my translation) The Swedish church does not have general rules for what priests may or may not do but they may not act in a way “that harms the reputation a priest should have. Also having something like group sex breaks the vow of sexual fidelity in marriage” (again my translation). Maybe they should write a manual of acceptable sexual acts.

I’m sure that the catholics are clucking sanctimoniously but let’s not forget the many, many, many sexual scandals they have caused. Isn’t it incredible? It does not matter which priests or which religion they are all really mad. Religion is not only a total waste of space it is also a harmful activity.

Posted on by mklang

The God Delusion

Yesterday I bought and began reading Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion – The book is a well written, good humored approach to the subject. He includes plenty of quotes throughout the book, an early one in the beginning is from Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: “when one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion.”

So far I am very pleased with the book – it’s very nice to read a clear lucid argumentation on atheism. So I guess I will be posting more on this later.

Posted on by mklang

Saint for procrastinators and hackers

Saints live interesting lives after their death. The memories and stories are abused and distorted into being something they probably never were. One of these is Saint Expeditus, the saint invoked against procrastination and for speedy solutions. He is the patron saint of Navigators and also an unofficial patron of computer hackers and programmers.

St Expeditus – photo: Constance Wiebrands (CC by-nc-sa)

In addition to being useful against procastination and to programmers St. Expeditus also has ties to Voodoo culture & on the island of Réunion where his shrines are sometimes decorated with underwear.

It’s not even sure if he existed but the story goes that he was a roman centurion and became a christian martyr. A convent in Paris recieved a statue of him, or relics of him according to other sources, in a box with the text “spedito” or Expeditus in Latin. The statue is now in New Orleans. What is sure is that the no one really knows if he was a saint but whoever he was his real name was not Expeditus.

It’s amazing how this man has evolved after death in ways nobody could have imagined.

(Sources: Wired, Patron Saint Index, Molossia.org, Catholiconline.org)

Posted on by mklang