The Positive Feedback of Reaching a Turning Point

Change usually takes long. Whatever long may mean. I still think a year is a long time.

A year will probably seem like just one of many things, when I'm old. Entire years may have been completely lost in the bottomless ocean that's fed by the river of time.

No matter how extreme your human definition of long and short, it's still only considered intermediate by nature.

The same goes for change, though. Human definitions of change mean nothing on the scale of the very big or the very small.

Your life however, shouldn't be stripped of all meaning just because it's meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

Your life isn't meaningless on YOUR scale. Change on YOUR scale isn't meaningless either.

It seems rapid change only ever happens when significantly catastrophic things happen.

I never really did anything but copy+paste Horace's carpe diem.

	Don't ask what end
	the gods will grant to me or you, Leuconoe. Don't play with Babylonian
	fortune-telling either. It is better to endure whatever will be.
	Whether Jupiter has allotted to you many more winters or this final one
	which even now wears out the Tyrrhenian sea on the rocks placed opposite
	— be wise, strain the wine, and scale back your long hopes
	to a short period. While we speak, envious time will have already fled
	Seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the future.

The War on Atheism Cont.

We all know that Terry Jones, the pastor who schemed to burn the holy book of islam, the quran, on the eleventh of september, chickened out. Part and parcel to his decision to cancel his BBQ were the reactions from, in particular, Indonesia. 

Apparently, a couple of bits of paper with some words on it on a stove could "ignite" world peace. 

You'd say, if you're really adamant about the veracity of your religion, what would a random disagreeing person on the other side of the globe matter to you? 

Anyway, apparently, that matters. 

Terry Jones has now swung around his metaphorical flamethrower. He's aiming for atheists this time around.

In order to preserve general order, he has organized a ceremonial burning of The God Delusion. 

The evil devil hell book by Richard Dawkins. 

The pope has set his sights on atheism as well. Why? That's a mystery. 

Quote: "Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live. 

I also recall the regime’s attitude to Christian pastors and religious who spoke the truth in love, opposed the Nazis and paid for that opposition with their lives. As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a “reductive vision of the person and his destiny” " 

Such an honorable and holy man.

I'm sure he'll live much longer than "normal" human beings, like all popes have.

And he will never get ill. 

How can an entire religion revere a man who is identical to that forgotten senior you see and perhaps even pity when you pass by a retirement home.

P.S. The pope said "I also recall the regime's attitude to Christian pastors and religious who spoke the truth in love, opposed the Nazis and paid for that opposition with their lives."

I personally recall the accounts of the pope not doing jack shit during World War II.

Compared to what could've been done, the church did NOTHING during the holocaust.

And now he blames godlessness for all that?

The War on Atheism

Rabbi Daniel Lapin: "Atheists are parasites in the sense that they're benefiting from everything that religious culture has built in America but they're doing nothing to add anything into the system. You know, some of the best corners of America are places where people go to church every Sunday. The real answer to atheism, to the cataclysmic epidemic of disbelief is for people to show the enhancing of life and how the quality of life goes up when faith is a part of life."

...

"The religious and the non-religious have two incompatible world visions for this country, we have to settle it now. I hope not with blood, not with guns. But we're going to have to settle it nonetheless. The good news is that I think our side is finally ready to settle this, roll up its sleeves, take off its jacket and get a little bloody. Spill a little blood. We'll settle it and we'll win, there's no holding this back."

Also, his quote of "everything that religious culture has built in America"...
Does he know that the founding fathers were atheist/agnostic/deist at best?
I can only imagine their views had they lived with our current knowledge.

Some of the founding fathers:  

Thomas Jefferson ripped out the parts of the bible he thought were nonsense, he ended up with a tiny tiny document called the Jefferson Bible. 
He also said 

Thomas Paine said: "All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit." 

George Washington: "Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society."


When did absurdity like this become normal.

If you like the idea of consolation in a god, think about what you want to believe and what you can believe in the face of natural reality.

I think it should seem obvious to anyone that there is no god that directly influences everything that happens. You have a hell of a lot to explain if you disagree with that premise, but feel free to do so.

That should immediately make you deist at best, hopefully agnostic.
Which immediately means you are free to reject the myths and stories that are being used as tools for amoral purposes every day.
Individual wealth (ever seen the vatican?), oppression, mutilation, intolerance, violence and possibly most important of all: opposing progress.

Which god would willfully allow that to happen? Not mine.

A simple 5 minute series of thoughts could really clear up your head.

There is an answer for EVERY question you have. You just have to do more than just speculate or accept what an authority figure says.