Walking in a Winter Wonderland

My Delphi Forums friend MerlinsDad and his wife live down in Atlanta. He wrote to me a few days ago that the head librarian in the city had ordered all the libraries to close because it was snowing and they had started to get a trace accumulation. OK, I am going to have to apologize to MerlinsDad (Merlin is a cat by the way) in advance for still getting the giggles at the thought of the whole damn city closing down because of a TRACE of snow accumulation. I’m sorry, really I am but oh my…

So then I thought I’d show him what we have been dealing with on a regular basis. This was taken two or maybe even three days ago. It was the day after the last heavy accumulation before we had the Hoar Frost.

Now that’s snow accumulation and did it stop anybody? Oh, hell, no. People go out there and go slip slidin’ away all over the place when we get that much snow. Into the ditches and each others’ front yards. Into the oncoming path of semi trailer tractors. We’re hardy pioneers up here. Unless we have to go to work and then it might take us awhile to find the snow shovel to get out of the driveway. You can always tell the new guys at work because they will get there on time in a blizzard, Until they realize that NO ONE makes it to work on time in a blizzard, not even the boss, so then they become slackers too.

Those big lumpets in the back are what’s let of the 6′ + piles of excess snow that was piled up there after the complex cleared off the sidewalks from the 22.9″ we got that melted away. We have now re-accumulated 12+ inches (prior to the stuff falling at this point) and it’s not even the end of January. It could snow through all of March and into April. Dear Gawd.

This is just typical Wisconsin Winter snow. It’s snowing again however and we have now crossed the line into “DOES THIS DAMN SNOW NEVER END?” territory. People are starting to get that glazed look in their eyes like if they see one more snowflake they might do something unforgivable.

B

Who Let the Dogs Out?

Who let the dogs out (woof, woof, woof, woof)
Who let the dogs out (woof, woof, woof, woof)

(woof, woof, woof, woof)

When the party was nice, the party was jumpin’ (Hey, Yippie, Yi, Yo)
And everybody havin’ a ball (Hah, ho, Yippie Yi Yo)
I tell the fellas “start the name callin'” (Yippie Yi Yo)
And the girls report to the call
The poor dog show down

Baha Men

I’m in a big fuss over at The Poll Vault at Delphi Forums because a bigoted somewhat newbie decided to spew all kinds of anti-Semite and crazy persecuted fundamentalist Christian BS all over us regulars ie., that this is a Christian nation and there is a rich well-organized oligarchy (this is code-talk that means Jews and atheists, friends and neighbors) that has taken over this country and suppressed the Christian freedom of expression and taken god out of everything and away from this great Christian Nation of ours which the forefathers who were all christians (no damnit they were NOT): no prayers in school! no ten commandments in the county courthouses! and a heathen Buddhist Priest praying in Congress?!!!!111eleventy-eleven!!! oh noes!) and we have to fight to get it back and did you know that the constitution does not include the words “separation of church and state?” (Yeah I did. So?) and the way it reads it was meant to PROTECT Christian religious expression because we were supposed to be a Christian Nation that allows other religions to worship as they choose with out harrassing them but they should know their place damnit and it ain’t in public. Whew that was a fun run -on sentence!

She started a poll that asked does the constitution contain those words to begin her little diatribe but you didn’t know that until you were quite a few posts. into the thread. Then all hell breaks loose. Typical bait and switch tactics fundychristians like to pull all the time. <digusted whoosh>

WELL, that got all kinds of people riled up, including and not least of which were the Jewish people that frequent the forum. The Pagans, Deists, Buddhists, and atheists and a whole bunch of other “ists” that frequent that forum jumped right on that BS, too! Soon there were three threads going fast and furious with much passion! Cool Beans!

It certainly got me riled up because as an atheist I am certainly in favor of separation of church and state. Not only that I have studied that issue with a great deal of interest both because I used to be a Fundamentalist Christian; then again as my skepticism grew and I was well on my way to becoming an atheist.

Sooo, we were all in an excited tizzy discussing the constitution and bashing this illiterate fundychristian over the head with her craziness when along comes my arch enemy MrAGent. Now MrAGent and I just do not get along because I find his debating style abrasive, dishonest, cowardly, and just plain out MEAN. When he knows he is cornered and can’t win he begins attacking his opponent’s character and if that doesn’t start a fight he calls them an idiot, crazy, stupid, etc. You get the drift, right?

Well, when Wooly Mammoth (lovely man who happens to be a practicing Jew) stepped up to the plate and said ‘I take offense at what you are saying and you are about to cross a line and you better not’ only in much stronger terms, MrAGent came roaring to the fundychristian’s defense and suddenly we had a REAL flame war! Between forum members! The fundychristian had caused forum discord and separated the hens from the roosters! Whee!

I got massively involved when MrAGent agreed with the fundychristian and claimed that the forum engaged in excessive Christian bashing. I definitely disagreed with him when he said it was an anti-Christian forum. Someone else challenged him to start a thread and keep track of all the anti-Christian posts and I grabbed that idea and ran with it. I created a thread with a title “MrAGent’s Christian Bashing Thread.”

Now the fundamental Christians are coming out of the woodwork to bash ME. It’s a hoot. MrAGent is foaming at the mouth because of some comments I made and I have stopped replying to him because someone else I respect suggested I walk away from a dead horse so I did. So now he is foaming even more and accusing me of being too cowardly to answer his questions about how I bash Christians. Which I am totally enjoying!

Oh yeah, I readily admitted that I bash FUNDAMENTALIST Christians because of their strong-arm tactics in proselytizing and especially when they are like emi–absolute nut jobs who attack the constitution. And the other fundys are attacking from all sides with great furor proving my point that the Fundys ALWAYS pull that damn persecution card when they don’t get their way or someone questions their tactics. Whee! I love these roller-coater rides!

By the way, MrAGent, completely and irrevocably agreed that I should walk away from this dead horse when the other person suggested I should. Can we say Flip-Flop?

Now, to know why I got involved in all of this, took such a lively interest in adding my two cents that I am probably over draw into 2008, and am in desperate need of flame retardant underwear, you have to know that that I am 99.9 percent Irish but I have a Jewish ancestor sooo I’ll be damned if I let any sign of racial or ethnic bigotry pass uncommented upon. Oh yeah, I have some native American blood, too.

I have not mentioned this in the forum because I am not going to pull the “you are picking on me” card. No one would ever guess it in a million years so why play a card that is hidden so well I’d have to go potty to get at it? Miscegenation fries my ass because it is wrong. period. It should fry everyone’s ass.

And frankly, I find that Fundamentalist Christians are the worst offenders. Since I was raised in a fundamentalist Christan church (THE Christan Church–literally)by very conservative fundamentalist people who were as prejudiced as you can get in a totally white bread society, I think it’s my right as a recovering fundychristian to comment on these matters.

Plus I am an atheist. ‘Nuff said on that subject.

Why is this entry written in this Blog you are asking… Because I want to remind everyone that Christopher Hitchens is coming to town to give a speech October 13th at 2 pm. Also to point out to any University of Wisconsin-Madison students that are reading this that the Freedom from Religion Foundation and the infamous Annie Laurie Gaylor reisde here in our fair city. Free thinkers abound in this city.

They are a lot more interesting than those dudes standing on Library Mall telling you kids you are going to hell for being human beings unless you let someone dunk you in water and hold you under while they pray over you. More progressive in their politics, more progressive in their social consciousness, more progressive in their stance on the world period. They are also very Green when it comes to the Environment and Animal Rights is a big issue with many atheists. So there you go.

B

Praise God and Pass the Ammunition

Over at Delphi Forum’s Poll Vault we’ve been having an interesting discussion about the most dangerous idea in religion is prompted by an article in the Atlantic Journal-Constitution titled “Faith and Values: What’s the Most Dangerous Idea In Religion: Violence in the name of God; follow our rules or else; my religion is right; converting others to your religion; or a tribal view of God.

Interestingly enough on July 2nd a Madison Bloggerwriting in Fearful Symmetries gave a review of Jesus Camp, which touches on all of these issues, in my opinion, although he didn’t label it as such and he also mentioned the Georgia Governor’s call for prayer for rain this week, which was also disscussed at the Poll Vault.   My friend MerlinsDad is from Atlanta and started both of these discussions.

We’re both secular humanists and atheists. I describe myself as more of an agnostic atheist because I don’t completely discount the possibility that there is a god. I highly doubt it and I certainly don’t believe in any of the gods I’ve been introduced to up to this point but there is always the possibility there might be a creative power greater than nature. Merlin might actually feel the same but we really haven’t discussed it all that closely. The odd thing here is that we discovered that we grew up going to the same strange little fundamentalist sect that originated in the Ohio Valley in the 1800s. Our several great Grandparents ago might even have known each other back in Illinois before mine went west and his headed east.

What’s different is that , I consider myself a recovering fundamentalist. I have ISSUES and Merlin doesn’tTo further the coinkydinks in this little series the featured Blog on WordPress today was “Don’t ask me to read your Holy Book.” in a Blog titled deconversion. Sooo I feel compelled, almost directed by the powers that be (HA!) to write about how a small town girl raised in THE Christian Church on the plains of Nebraska, baptized in the Little Blue River by full immersion at the Pible (actually I don’t know that it was spelled that way but that’s the way it was pronounced. I don’t recall ever seeing it written out though I must have.) Bible Church Camp who ended up a full fledged atheist feels about the question “What is the most dangerous idea in religion?”

My answer would be the notion of the tribal God. The belief that we are the chosen people who have been put here on earth specifically to do God’s will. This idea promotes the adoption and abuses of all the other ideas. It lends itself to the dehumanization of people who are not a member of your specific tribe or who are not willing to become a member of your tribe through the adoption of your religious beliefs and the worship your God.

It’s ever so much easier to kill people who are not members of your tribe. People you have dismissed as less worthy of your empathy and respect. People you have already deemed damned to eternal perdition because they have not made the right choices in deities. People your God would call an enemy

Unfortunately I believe that most if not all of American Christian churches teach this if not outright from the pulpit on Sunday morning then certainly by implication. Try reading the Old Testament of the Bible all the way through. There is plenty of blood and gore about the enemies of the Lord and don’t give me any guff about that merely being history. It’s only history when it isn’t pretty.

But then most other religions. have this tribal view of their Gods because after all they were invented by tribal men and women who needed a way to explain their world view. What was going on in their lives. Why things were the way they were. Where did they come from and where were they going.

So now all the tribes are really big and we have instant communication and nuclear bombs. And oil. No wait, the Muslims have the oil. We want it. Do you see where I’m going with this?

B