Saturday, October 7, 2017
Rusty's Halloween Chick Tract
I made this by cutting together a bunch of Chick Tracts, adding a few drawings of my own, and replacing the text. Happy Halloween!
Sunday, May 14, 2017
Mother's Day Church Services
Once upon a time, someone had a seemingly good and obvious idea that eventually turned out to be horrible: "Why don't we honor all the mothers in church tomorrow for Mother's Day?"A simple "Happy Mother's Day" from the pulpit, I suppose, would have been fine. However, what we now have in many churches (ask around if you don't know what I'm writing about) is a weird, time-consuming rose-based game show that looks very much like reality TV's The Bachelor.
"I have a handful of roses up here at the altar. Some of you will receive them. Some of you will not." The entire church gets to find out who the mother with the most kids is, who the newest mother is, who the oldest mother is, who the youngest mother is... often through some sort of elimination sit-down game. You can begin to see the problems with this already, I hope, and we haven't even got to the bad stuff yet.
There have been many articles (thankfully, though apparently not effectively) written about this bad stuff, which includes exclusion, insensitivity, ignorance, and a general stirring of painful emotions caused by the church that make many women dread the Mother's Day church service. A short list of who these articles mention include stepmothers, women who cannot have children, women who have had pregnancy loss, women whose children have been adopted, and women whose children have died.
Things can be uncomfortable at these services no matter what. For example, being a non-mother at all having to sit through such a ceremony can be weird, since so many dumb expectations are put on women to "be fruitful and multiply." Society in general does this (pay attention to movies, to get a taste), and the church plays a big part. A writer in one of the articles I mentioned described herself as feeling like an "empty shell" when sitting among the standing mothers. (The church also weaves in their goofy judgments concerning abortion, the importance of having children with a husband, their stance on gay people adopting, etc.)
I suppose the happiest mothers during Mother's Day services are the ones who don't think of any of the above and are just pleased as punch to sit on a pew with all of their children present. But what happens when (for a completely random example) one of those kids becomes an atheist and leaves the church altogether? Train up a child in the way he should go and... ah, never mind.
So what's the solution?
I can't say I agree with the articles that want to confront the negative feelings head-on during the services with lines from the minister like, "To those who experienced loss through miscarriage, failed adoptions, or running away--we mourn with you. To those who are single and long to be married and mothering your own children--we mourn that life has not turned out the way you longed for it to be." This seems, to me, like yet another road to Hell paved with good intentions.
The only solution is to stop the nonsense altogether. If you're someone in charge of the church, do what you gotta do to cut it out. If you're not someone in charge, you can make it happen eventually by not showing up to the (apparently) third-most attended holiday of the year (after Easter and Christmas). Tell your church pals you're not going, and tell them why. Guys and gals both: just an all-out boycott of church on Mother's Day if they insist on this game show. Then let the free market decide if it continues.
Because it is, ultimately, a distracting game show instead of, you know, a church service. Okay, so there are mothers in the audience. Who gives a shit? Don't you have a god or something to worship? I know that, when I used to be a church-goer, Mother's Day was always the day I could count on for zero percent spiritual edification. We all had to give up God for a day to serve the almighty Hallmark and 1-800-FLOWERS. The Kingdom of Heaven was at hand, yes, but those corsages weren't going to pin themselves.
So just stop it. Do the Mother's Day stuff in your homes in the privacy of your own whatever.
And, before I go, a theory. Ever wonder why Father's Day isn't a big church event while Mother's Day is? My guess is because every day is already Father's Day at church. We have Big Daddy God the Father, of course. Most of the church leaders are "Fathers." Within Christianity, men still hold most of the power. But these men still count on the women of the church to pump out all those future tithes-payers (or future companions in Heaven, if you want me to be a little less cynical), so Mother's Day is their time to honor them. To patronize them. To throw them a bone.
A bone in the form of a rose.
Wednesday, February 8, 2017
Alternative Facts
Reacting to side-by-side photographs released by PBS contrasting the massive crowds of Barack Obama's inauguration to the poorly-attended inauguration of Donald Trump (as well as other data provided by crowd scientists), White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer declared that Trump had the "largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period." When Meet the Press's Chuck Todd asked Trump's counselor Kellyanne Conway why Spicer would "utter a provable falsehood," Conway dismissed Todd and said that Spicer was merely providing "alternative facts."
This little story would be all fine and hilarious, except that "alternative facts" seem to be winning the day. During the Obama administration, we had conspiracy theorists convinced that Obama was a "secret Muslim" (whatever that means) who was born in Kenya, intent on taking our guns and forcing Sharia Law on America. During the Bush years, Stephen Colbert had to invent a new word -- "truthiness" -- to describe the phenomenon of "feeling" the truth rather than relying on facts.
If our newest incarnation of the battle for reality is frustrating to you, then you have a pretty good idea of how atheists feel most of the time.
It's easy to make fun of Kellyane Conway's phrase "alternative facts," but it happens to have essentially the same definition as the word "supernatural," the idea that there can be something beyond nature itself: an alternative to the real world. As Chuck Todd said, "Alternative facts are not facts. They're falsehoods." Similarly, super-nature is not nature; it, too, is a another apologetic name for a falsehood.
The supernatural is what we are expected to believe in when the actual facts are stubbornly not available. There is no evidence for God, but he is apparently beyond evidence. He is beyond nature, beyond science, beyond our comprehension. He is not accessible in the same way facts are. We are simply supposed to "feel" God, to "know deep down in our hearts" that he exists. We are meant to have "faith" in him, to go against all reason, logic, and common sense and "just believe."
Trump wants desperately to believe that he had a large crowd at his inauguration. He needs to believe it, similar to many theists. ("I want to believe," as Mulder says.) "Trump is a very popular president" is part of the grand story he is telling himself, the false universe he has created. Because his ego is so large and delicate, he is attempting to force this false narrative and alternate universe onto all of us. He needs us to believe as well. Trump claims that any news (including polls) contrary to his personal belief is "fake news." He tweets out what he wants us to think the truth is, attempting to contradict and circumvent reality itself. To erase it and replace it.
If you are curious what the successful end result of such an aggressive reality-altering strategy is, you could read Nineteen Eighty-Four, I suppose, but that is just a book. For an actual example, just look around you. Religion has already created a functioning alternative reality, often having used (or still using) the harsh methods described by George Orwell in his novel. After these methods are successful, believers -- now feeling that they are only under the influence of their own decisions -- are happy to evangelize so that the false reality becomes self-replicating. Belief in the supernatural becomes so widespread and part of the texture that it becomes "normalized."
But it isn't normal. Nonsense is still nonsense, even if the majority believes in it. We all know Trump is speaking nonsense when he claims that millions of people voted illegally. We wouldn't dare swallow such unfounded statements. Yet we can easily swallow the even more nonsensical claim that humans have inherited this thing called "sin" that can only be removed by believing that a god-man died and came back to life three days later and that we can all go live with him in the sky (or an alternate dimension), in a paradisal afterlife. If we're taking bets on which of the above could be proven first, I'd bet on Trump's claim.
Belief in the religiously supernatural is one of the few delusions humans can have and not be called insane. Even many secular people, who don't "believe" any of this, will accept it as normal human behavior. Many simply prefer not to think about religion at all, even though it affects their everyday lives in profound ways, just as many citizens prefer not to think about politics.
So I do try to think about it, about how weird it is that people are functioning as if invisible creatures are all around us, about how abnormal it is that there's a church everywhere I look in my town, established to promote and sustain these peculiar anti-factual traditions, people singing songs and raising hands to something that -- by all objective appearances -- is not there.
I know what it's like to live in a fake reality, because I lived in one most of my life. Like most people, I was handed my deeply-held beliefs at birth, and it took me over thirty years to claw my way out of the made-up world of gods, demons, ghosts, spirits, and angels. After I escaped, I realized that I hadn't been just living in a pretend world; I was living in someone else's pretend world. At least Donald Trump gets to live in a land of his own make-believe. The fantasy world I lived in was created thousands of years ago by ancient religious cultures, shaped and refined by time and place, saving itself from extinction over and over through adaptation and aggression. This evolving survival machine called "God" found a place for me and tried its best to make me comfortable so that I would never leave it. I nearly never did.
Even after struggle, I didn't really escape religion entirely. No one does. I still have to play by its rules, still have to survive within the structures religious people have created. As the saying goes, it's their world; I'm just living in it. For a harmless example, I am expected to behave as if it is perfectly normal when someone closes their eyes and says they are about to speak to the creator of the universe, when of course no such thing is really happening. I am expected to behave this way, in part, out of politeness and respect. For a more serious example, we all have to deal with those who hate, discriminate, destroy our environment, deny science, misunderstand reproduction, and all the other garbage we have to deal with from the worst segment of religious people, all because of something they "believe," eternal "truths" they "know," based on knowledge that is about as real as the alternative fact that Donald Trump has been on the cover of Time magazine more than anyone else.
Because of Trump (and those who promote and believe his false narratives), we are currently involved in a fight for reality itself. It's pretty serious, and the consequences if we lose the fight are severe. So will we be able to live based on observable facts, or will we give in to a fiction created by the state? Will two plus two equal four, or will it -- as I'm hearing it from a lot of people now, big league -- equal five?
I don't know, but I can't say I'm hopeful. In the meantime, atheists are already used to this kind of gaslighting. Atheists say (often rather quietly) that God doesn't exist, and a majority of the country responds (sometimes lovingly, sometimes not) with "What if you're wrong?" or "You're just thinking about God in the wrong way" and makes every attempt to call us the crazy ones devoid of morality: you know, the ones who don't believe in the invisible guy whose idea of social order was murdering our neighbors with rocks.
If it weren't such a painful experience to be subjected to yet another round of post-factual politics and Orwellian absurdity under Donald Trump (the worst case I've seen in my lifetime), I might even say it's refreshing that someone else gets to experience what a forced alternate reality feels for a change.
This little story would be all fine and hilarious, except that "alternative facts" seem to be winning the day. During the Obama administration, we had conspiracy theorists convinced that Obama was a "secret Muslim" (whatever that means) who was born in Kenya, intent on taking our guns and forcing Sharia Law on America. During the Bush years, Stephen Colbert had to invent a new word -- "truthiness" -- to describe the phenomenon of "feeling" the truth rather than relying on facts.
If our newest incarnation of the battle for reality is frustrating to you, then you have a pretty good idea of how atheists feel most of the time.
It's easy to make fun of Kellyane Conway's phrase "alternative facts," but it happens to have essentially the same definition as the word "supernatural," the idea that there can be something beyond nature itself: an alternative to the real world. As Chuck Todd said, "Alternative facts are not facts. They're falsehoods." Similarly, super-nature is not nature; it, too, is a another apologetic name for a falsehood.
The supernatural is what we are expected to believe in when the actual facts are stubbornly not available. There is no evidence for God, but he is apparently beyond evidence. He is beyond nature, beyond science, beyond our comprehension. He is not accessible in the same way facts are. We are simply supposed to "feel" God, to "know deep down in our hearts" that he exists. We are meant to have "faith" in him, to go against all reason, logic, and common sense and "just believe."
Trump wants desperately to believe that he had a large crowd at his inauguration. He needs to believe it, similar to many theists. ("I want to believe," as Mulder says.) "Trump is a very popular president" is part of the grand story he is telling himself, the false universe he has created. Because his ego is so large and delicate, he is attempting to force this false narrative and alternate universe onto all of us. He needs us to believe as well. Trump claims that any news (including polls) contrary to his personal belief is "fake news." He tweets out what he wants us to think the truth is, attempting to contradict and circumvent reality itself. To erase it and replace it.
If you are curious what the successful end result of such an aggressive reality-altering strategy is, you could read Nineteen Eighty-Four, I suppose, but that is just a book. For an actual example, just look around you. Religion has already created a functioning alternative reality, often having used (or still using) the harsh methods described by George Orwell in his novel. After these methods are successful, believers -- now feeling that they are only under the influence of their own decisions -- are happy to evangelize so that the false reality becomes self-replicating. Belief in the supernatural becomes so widespread and part of the texture that it becomes "normalized."
But it isn't normal. Nonsense is still nonsense, even if the majority believes in it. We all know Trump is speaking nonsense when he claims that millions of people voted illegally. We wouldn't dare swallow such unfounded statements. Yet we can easily swallow the even more nonsensical claim that humans have inherited this thing called "sin" that can only be removed by believing that a god-man died and came back to life three days later and that we can all go live with him in the sky (or an alternate dimension), in a paradisal afterlife. If we're taking bets on which of the above could be proven first, I'd bet on Trump's claim.
Belief in the religiously supernatural is one of the few delusions humans can have and not be called insane. Even many secular people, who don't "believe" any of this, will accept it as normal human behavior. Many simply prefer not to think about religion at all, even though it affects their everyday lives in profound ways, just as many citizens prefer not to think about politics.
So I do try to think about it, about how weird it is that people are functioning as if invisible creatures are all around us, about how abnormal it is that there's a church everywhere I look in my town, established to promote and sustain these peculiar anti-factual traditions, people singing songs and raising hands to something that -- by all objective appearances -- is not there.
I know what it's like to live in a fake reality, because I lived in one most of my life. Like most people, I was handed my deeply-held beliefs at birth, and it took me over thirty years to claw my way out of the made-up world of gods, demons, ghosts, spirits, and angels. After I escaped, I realized that I hadn't been just living in a pretend world; I was living in someone else's pretend world. At least Donald Trump gets to live in a land of his own make-believe. The fantasy world I lived in was created thousands of years ago by ancient religious cultures, shaped and refined by time and place, saving itself from extinction over and over through adaptation and aggression. This evolving survival machine called "God" found a place for me and tried its best to make me comfortable so that I would never leave it. I nearly never did.
Even after struggle, I didn't really escape religion entirely. No one does. I still have to play by its rules, still have to survive within the structures religious people have created. As the saying goes, it's their world; I'm just living in it. For a harmless example, I am expected to behave as if it is perfectly normal when someone closes their eyes and says they are about to speak to the creator of the universe, when of course no such thing is really happening. I am expected to behave this way, in part, out of politeness and respect. For a more serious example, we all have to deal with those who hate, discriminate, destroy our environment, deny science, misunderstand reproduction, and all the other garbage we have to deal with from the worst segment of religious people, all because of something they "believe," eternal "truths" they "know," based on knowledge that is about as real as the alternative fact that Donald Trump has been on the cover of Time magazine more than anyone else.
Because of Trump (and those who promote and believe his false narratives), we are currently involved in a fight for reality itself. It's pretty serious, and the consequences if we lose the fight are severe. So will we be able to live based on observable facts, or will we give in to a fiction created by the state? Will two plus two equal four, or will it -- as I'm hearing it from a lot of people now, big league -- equal five?
I don't know, but I can't say I'm hopeful. In the meantime, atheists are already used to this kind of gaslighting. Atheists say (often rather quietly) that God doesn't exist, and a majority of the country responds (sometimes lovingly, sometimes not) with "What if you're wrong?" or "You're just thinking about God in the wrong way" and makes every attempt to call us the crazy ones devoid of morality: you know, the ones who don't believe in the invisible guy whose idea of social order was murdering our neighbors with rocks.
If it weren't such a painful experience to be subjected to yet another round of post-factual politics and Orwellian absurdity under Donald Trump (the worst case I've seen in my lifetime), I might even say it's refreshing that someone else gets to experience what a forced alternate reality feels for a change.
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