The Binary Circumstance

Shrines! Shrines! Surely you don’t believe in the gods. What’s your argument? Where’s your proof? — Aristophanes (ca. 448-380 BCE)

Source

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The snow almost did us in, but we broke the record!

Turns out there’s nothing like a little snow to make the rain look good.

Puget Sound-area residents spent much of Wednesday bracing for another anticipated snowstorm by stampeding grocery stores, hardware retailers and tire shops.

But the predicted snow was interrupted off and on by rain, and November became Seattle’s wettest month on record. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport reported a monthly total of 15.37 inches late Wednesday, breaking the record of 15.33 inches recorded at the Federal Building in 1933. Measurements have been taken at Sea-Tac since 1945.

Writing at Jewcy.com, Sam Harris tries to address the question of why atheists are so angry.

The United States now stands alone in the developed world as a country that conducts its national discourse under the shadow of religious literalism. Eighty-three percent of the U.S. population believes that Jesus literally rose from the dead; 53% believe that the universe is 6,000 years old. This is embarrassing. Add to this comedy of false certainties the fact that 44% of Americans are confident that Jesus will return to Earth sometime in the next 50 years and you will glimpse the terrible liability of this sort of thinking.

Nearly half of the American population is eagerly anticipating the end of the world. This dewy-eyed nihilism provides absolutely no incentive to build a sustainable civilization. Many of these people are lunatics, but they are not the lunatic fringe. Some of them can actually get Karl Rove on the phone whenever they want.

While Muslim extremists now fly planes into our buildings, saw the heads off journalists and aid-workers, and riot by the tens of thousands over cartoons, several recent polls reveal that atheists are now the most reviled minority in the United States. A majority of Americans say they would refuse to vote for an atheist even if he were a “well-qualified candidate” from their own political party. Atheism, therefore, is a perfect impediment to holding elected office in this country (while being a woman, black, Muslim, Jewish, or gay is not). Most Americans also say that of all the unsavory alternatives on offer, they would be least likely to allow their child to marry an atheist. These declarations of prejudice might be enough to make some atheists angry. But they are not what makes me angry.

As an atheist, I am angry that we live in a society in which the plain truth cannot be spoken without offending 90% of the population…

I left a comment.

Great work, Sam Harris!

I’m angry because my entire life I’ve been forced to kiss the asses of irrational people who make up reality and offer no proof or evidence of their beliefs. I’m angry because they turned people with my intelligence into virtual slaves to their foolishness and because they have used religion and government to rob others of their money, their freedom and their most basic human rights, including the right to think rationally and to love existence for what it is, instead of some self-serving, self-promoting fairy tale.

I don’t like the term atheist, either. It defines me in terms of someone else’s belief in God. It suggests that I lack something important. I’m a rational. I have a brain and I use it. I look for evidence to support my beliefs. “Atheist” means I’m without theism. But more importantly, I’m WITH reason and reality.

I don’t believe in a personal God because I see no evidence for it, but plenty of evidence that those who do believe in a personal God are immoral thieves, liars, murderers and worst of all child-molesters who destoy the ability of children to think rationally. One does not have to believe in God to be a thief, liar, murderer, or a child molester but at least the “atheist” can’t commit their crimes in the name of God.

As a Libertarian, I do not wish to abolish religion or make it illegal. I do, however, want freedom from being forced to deal with those who practice religion instead of reason. I want to use my natural right to defend myself from their stealing, irrationality and relentless assaults on my liberty. All people must have the freedom to discriminate against the religious just as they discriminate against other religions, gays or whomever else they decide their particular version of God does not approve of.

Rational people deserve the same consideration and right in a free country.

Debating is quite useless and debating the religious is a total waste of time. They are delusional. Objective reality is not dependent upon the outcome of a debate. The truth is what exists and delusional people reject what exists in favor of their delusions.

Let the religious have their irrational beliefs; just stop forcing the rest of us to support them, give them housing and jobs, or share the great discoveries of science with them. The only reason they survive is because they have successfully used government to turn the rest of us into their slaves. We do not yet have the right to set ourselves free.