Postcards to say “No, Thanks”

Like it says. Somebody else’s issue.

Postcards For Our Comrades!

Actually, if anything, Stalin and Hitler were establishing cults of their own.

Think about it, believers… not only does the Stalin/Hitler Fallacy fail to address the existence of any good deeds or ethical standpoints of non-believers, it has a downside.

If “Stalin was an atheist” makes all atheists emulators of Stalin, then the same syllogism makes all christians into paedophile priests.

Let’s send that particular furphy to Siberia, shall we?

Postcards to say something: 024 – Insert Thirty Pieces Of Silver After The Beep

If you hold your prayers up to your ear, you hear your own heartbeat….

Postcards to say something: 023 – Nothing Of Substance

Suddenly I could see why the skywriting was so totally emblematic of the whole campaign!

Congratulate yourselves, guys. It’s a do-nothing feel-good for those already in the churches, and it’s going to appeal to the marshmallow-headed vibe chasers who want a four-song sandwich and a salved conscience.

Spot on!

And the poor, you shall always have with you, unless the poor fuckers starve while you’re busy with the banners and the skywriting. – Gospel According to Black.

Postcards to say something: 021 – Day Of The Dead

I buried my Stepfather today. He was more of a dad to me than the gene donor.

He was not a learned man, although he was more than brilliant in practical ways. Bush mechanicking and skill with even difficult animals were just two of the things that, like his ears, stuck out.

We had to try a little harder to get along together than is the case for blood-relatives (I’ll excuse my father from this particular comparison), but I thought I knew the man.

His entry into christianity was gradual, as this man had a low tolerance for bullshit. He was apparently scared into the flock by some of that alarmist material Stan Deyo was putting out in the late 70s.

The man I knew was kind. Not a soft touch, and guaranteed to give the “pretend-looking-for-work” bloke some actual hard work to do, but a fair reward at the end. Of course, association with church people influenced him over the years.

I haven’t had a lot of contact with the old man since my mother died. He went to stay with the sister I can’t stand, and I gather he attends her church in the relatively-affluent suburb where she and her unpleasant husband live.

I don’t know what sort of tolerance and charity Affluent Jeebus teaches, being of the sort who thought, even when a believer, that the whole Jesus thing was more about the unempowered.

Still, when the only email I get from him in months is all BIG RED LETTERS, saying:

Good Day and welcome to a brand new edition of :

‘ASYLUM’.

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… then I know the man I once held dear has died.

And may they put Anglo Jesus in the ground with him, before I piss on it.

Postcards to say something: 020 – Hello, Weenies!

No, I’m not for the halloween thing either. Although it stems from Irish and Scots culture, (Burns’ poem “Halloween” tells of the Scots observance), it is still superstition, and no superstition is a good thing.

And just remember, the christian myth has a zombie in it too.

Postcards to say something – 019: Jesus thinks you’re a jerk.

From a certain political aspirant (with emphasis on the ass and the rant) came this delightful piece of hate mail, spread below like a puddle of (sic):

“Is it a reflection on your own in ability to gain publicity that u had to hijack jesusallaboutlife web site? Pretty pathetic effort! And why do u only attack Christians? Where are ur web sites attacking Islam, buddism Hindu etc. I guess Christians r just a soft target! U wouldn’t want to offend anyone who might fight back eh! PS it wasn’t me who disabled ur web site, but more power to whoever it was. Not because I disagree with free speech, but because u hijacked th domain name. Did u do that to try to stiffle th Christians right to free speach? Surely not!”

Dear boy:

1. English lessons. Get some in.

2. Hijack? We own this site, and there is no attempt to pass it off as anything but the commentary and satirical site it is. Legal, we are! We have owned this site from inception.

3. If you’d like to observe me and my playmates giving the other silly superstitions a rousing send-off, I suspect one of your carers can direct you to the Atheist Foundation. This is, after all, Jesus – All About Lies, not Krishna – All About Being A Blue Dude Who Likes Cows.

4. Christians are not a soft target. You have undue influence, and the fact that some of you cannot pull 2% in a Federal poll may be due to your personal shortcomings. Who’s the cheeky little deity who gets prayers said before Parliament? All I’m saying is the privilege you enjoy is certainly not due to merit.

5. It was not this web site which was disabled. Anyway, what I read from your message, is that a potential Federal politician tacitly supports cyberterrorism. I shall remember this, and don’t be surprised if you wind up with a Federal Police dossier.

6. If you were not so egregiously stupid, and were not under the false impression that a domain name was hijacked, you would realise that nobody’s right to free speech is being stifled. We have had some interesting dialogues with christians here. (And occasional comic monologues from clowns like you, but that’s hardly the point.)

7. Go and look through the gospels and find the bit about Peter, the sword, and Malchus’s ear. What does this say to you, as a believer, regarding any christian who goes intending to do damage or harm on behalf of his god?

8. AFA and the Convention site were certainly targetted, but nobody’s claiming responsibility. What if this was just somebody’s test run, a sort of “Look, I can do it” before mounting an extortion attack on, say, the Anglicans, Catholics or another wealthy christian organisation? Does this change your opinion of the perpetrators?

Here’s a postcard just for you, in recognition of your sterling effort. Please write again, and this time we expect better than a regurgitation of that farrago of fallacies you copied from the newspaper, and added a hasty “so there!” before posting.

Postcards to say something: 017 – In The Pink

It’s a bit of a crackup. Is Benny in the dark, or does he think everybody else is?

And while it’s dark, watch out for Father Kidfidlan.

Come on, you lot! Out of the cloister, out of the closet, and admit that women are people too!

Postcards to say something: 016

When the apologists and polemicists have had their say, waggled their texts and retired to sharpen their pointing fingers, the whole god business comes down to a matter of faith. There is much encouragement in christian culture to keep meeting and talking together, and mutually reinforcing that faith.

But what is being reinforced?   The biblical Jesus and early christian church, for example, did not believe in doing anything about the government of the day, apart from obeying it. The moral standards they chose for themselves were simple: avoiding sexual immorality and not eating meat offered to idols. What is more, these standards were for the believers themselves, and there was no call to enforce compliance among the unbelievers.

There are so many add-ons in the churches of today which are merely constructs of political and social engineering. It takes a lot of bible-twisting to justify them. Ironically, the church hierarchies (unbiblical in themselves) have managed to bury Jesus in a pile of new material, and it says a lot against his divinity that he has so far been unable to dig himself out.

Postcards to say something: 015

God speaks? No, people do that.

Whether it’s the Voice of Doom telling us there’s a Pudding with our name on it unless we comply, Danny “Catch The Liar” Nalliah telling the gullible about the Invisible Soul-Snatching Goblins, or just the domestic-model nutjob with a hobby or a fancy, wanting to add a little more authority to his demands… people speak on behalf of god.

It’s a neat trick. With enough cult indoctrination, you too can learn to develop voices in your head.  Or pretend you hear ‘em, and say what you jolly well like.

Remember:

• Be solemn (unless you’re Pentecostal, in which case just avoid making the chicken noises too often);
• Use the Third Person… “The Lord says…”  (don’t want the audience thinking you’re doing it off your own bat!);
• Plausible deniability helps: “if your faith is great enough” is a trusty standy;
• Only tell the parishioners you fancy that “God wants us to be together” in private… (Bonus points if you check for a mike first).