god-botherers
So here's two things for the day. The first is a freakish website designed to recruit US military into missionary work. The ideal program has a soldier move directly from retirement from active duty military to their missionary college. (as far as I can tell it is not a spoof).
The second is a link from Phrangyula that I wanted to talk about a bit. If you don't feel like clicking, it's a review of a brand-spankin' new Chick tract about how evolution leads to atheism leads to the Dark Side. PZ has a bit to say about it, but I want to touch on a point that he didn't, namely, the climax of the main character's development (his "fall" if you are willing to frame Chick tracts as actual fables) when, after having confirmed that, "Evolution does away with morals", he goes on to muse, "Anything goes...what's to keep me from becoming a god?"
That line sort of got me, b/c that's the conclusion I came to all on my own. Clearly this is something that scares fundies to bits. But in the same panel as the "god" bit comes the things that fundies always assume go along with that: lying, stealing, whatever you want. (implied scare quotes) I think it's really telling that when I came to the conclusion that I had to be my own god, that my aim was to be better than the "moral" system I had learned and that had hurt me. However, when fundies imagine having to be their own god, the very first things that seem worth doing are mean and hurtful. I think that says a lot about their understanding of their God. Much more than it does about their understanding of atheists. As usual, it's projection. They project themselves onto their God and then their God onto me and mine. The reflections they get back are ugly b/c they are ugly.
If you can't imagine anything better than yourself, and you're a mean little vindictive shite, then of course you can't imagine anything better for your God, or imagine that other human could be better than you or your God. By definition, they must be worse. And if you're starting from such a low bar to begin with, well then people who don't have your God must really be bottom of the barrel scum.
That's what I got from it.
Attn: fundies
Stop projecting your mean and hurtful god on me. I'm better than you, and I'm better than him.
The second is a link from Phrangyula that I wanted to talk about a bit. If you don't feel like clicking, it's a review of a brand-spankin' new Chick tract about how evolution leads to atheism leads to the Dark Side. PZ has a bit to say about it, but I want to touch on a point that he didn't, namely, the climax of the main character's development (his "fall" if you are willing to frame Chick tracts as actual fables) when, after having confirmed that, "Evolution does away with morals", he goes on to muse, "Anything goes...what's to keep me from becoming a god?"
That line sort of got me, b/c that's the conclusion I came to all on my own. Clearly this is something that scares fundies to bits. But in the same panel as the "god" bit comes the things that fundies always assume go along with that: lying, stealing, whatever you want. (implied scare quotes) I think it's really telling that when I came to the conclusion that I had to be my own god, that my aim was to be better than the "moral" system I had learned and that had hurt me. However, when fundies imagine having to be their own god, the very first things that seem worth doing are mean and hurtful. I think that says a lot about their understanding of their God. Much more than it does about their understanding of atheists. As usual, it's projection. They project themselves onto their God and then their God onto me and mine. The reflections they get back are ugly b/c they are ugly.
If you can't imagine anything better than yourself, and you're a mean little vindictive shite, then of course you can't imagine anything better for your God, or imagine that other human could be better than you or your God. By definition, they must be worse. And if you're starting from such a low bar to begin with, well then people who don't have your God must really be bottom of the barrel scum.
That's what I got from it.
Attn: fundies
Stop projecting your mean and hurtful god on me. I'm better than you, and I'm better than him.