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Are Atheists Angry at God?
by Noah Lugeons
There are plenty of stereotypes about atheists that piss me off, but among my least favorite is this notion that atheists were driven to disbelief by their “anger at god”. Screenwriters and religious bigots would love for you to believe that atheists became atheists because god wasn’t there for them in their time of need. They’d love for you to believe that atheism is the byproduct of trauma that we’re all still working through.
But on this subject and many others, Carlin said it best. I became an atheist right around the age of reason. The same can be said of most atheists. Some of us have great stories about our deconversion, but most of us can’t pinpoint a single time or date or significant precursor. We just slowly came to realize that religion was bullshit.
That’s not to say that nobody becomes an atheist after a traumatic event. I’m sure there are plenty of stories of devoutly religious people abandoning their faith after personal tragedies, but to be fair there are also plenty of stories of nominally religious or non-religious people embracing faith after similar events. Either way, these anecdotes are in the minority. Most atheists are atheists because they correctly employ logic.
But if you cut the sentence short and put the question mark two words sooner, the answer is very different, and I think that’s why theists have such an easy time believing the cliche. Atheists are angry. We’re not angry at god, we’re angry at religion, but I can see how it’s difficult for a theist to draw a distinction there. It has to be hard to step completely outside the religious worldview, but if they did, I think they could see fairly easily why pretending to speak for god would piss off people who don’t believe in god.
I don’t know that this is an understanding that some theists can reach, but I offer the Venn-diagram anyway. It’s not as much for them as it is for all the other atheists that are sick and fucking tired of pretentious religious fuck-munches who, upon hearing that they are atheists, respond with a condescendingly ostentatious display of pity and the words, “what happened?”
No Longer New or No Longer Noteworthy?
by Noah Lugeons
I apologize in advance for what promises to be a self-pitying, egocentric kind of blogpost. If that’s not your flavor of Gatorade, feel free to skip this one and return tomorrow when I’ll get back to being a caustic, anti-theistic personified rage comic. But today I’m kind of in the dumps and what’s the point of having a blog if you can’t use it to bitch when you’re in the dumps?
I’ve joked that I’m a “new daddy” when it comes to my podcast. I’ve only been doing it a couple of months now and it’s still so novel to me that I feel like I have to sneak into its room at night and check to see if it’s still breathing. That’s hardly an exaggeration. If I get up to pee in the middle of the night, I’ll often log on really quick and see how my overnight downloads are going. Every time the podcast reaches a new milestone, I feel like a proud father.
So you can imagine how depressed and horrified I was when I checked the crib two nights ago to find that my baby was sick.
In the podcasting world, everything starts and ends with iTunes. Sure, Stitcher is out there and there are more and more alternatives for podcast listeners, but iTunes is still the first, second and third name in podcast aggregating. It’s where the overwhelming majority of podcast listeners go to get their favorite shows and, more importantly, where people go to find new ones. And luckily for us new podcasters, iTunes is set up to give everyone a chance to get noticed. It’s as close to a true meritocracy as I’ve encountered. When I uploaded my first episode, I obviously couldn’t compete with the people who have been doing it for years, so iTunes helped me find an audience by promoting my show in the “New & Noteworthy” section.
It was really something. The podcast went from getting a dozen downloads a day on a good day to getting over a hundred. We moved onto New & Noteworthy in both the Religious and Science categories so anyone who clicked on either of those options was going to see the Scathing Atheist logo right there at the top left of the screen, right where your eyes go first.
We were up there for a total of seven weeks and during that time the downloads continued to grow. By the time I released episode 5 we were garnering nearly 500 downloads a day. We shot up the ranks of religious podcasts and in our subcategory (other) we even took the number one spot a few times. All 5 episodes were showing up in the top 100 most downloaded episodes in our subcategory and the numbers just kept on growing. And even though I know that I shouldn’t, I started counting the shit out of those chickens. I started extrapolating from the growth we were seeing and I made predictions about when we would cross 10,000 total downloads and 100,000 and even a million.
And then the fairy tale ended. iTunes demoted us.
I guess in a sense I could consider it a promotion. We moved off of page 1 of the “New & Noteworthy” section and on to page 4 of the “What’s Hot” section. As much as this seems like a step forward, the actual result is that our podcast is no longer prominently displayed anywhere on iTunes. If you happen across it, it will be because you’re scrolling deep into the “What’s Hot” list on the “other” section of the “religious” section. In other words, the odds that you’re going to happen upon it have dropped to near zero. And it shows in the numbers. Our downloads over the last 2 days have been cut by more than half… and my baby is crying.
I suppose that on some level my arrogance blinded me to just how significant that endorsement from iTunes really was. I guess that I thought we were just so incredibly awesome that we were fast-tracked to outpace all of NPR’s shows combined. I stroked my ego and told it that it was simply the high quality of the program and the soothing mellifluence of my voice that was garnering all these downloads. The kids on the streets were shouting about it, deviants were plastering the underside of bridges with coded graffiti messages, businessmen were talking about it in hushed tones around the water-cooler, socialites were gabbing about it, learned men and women were analyzing it, Hollywood writers were listening to it with jealous reverence, the entire podcasting community was abuzz about it and they all recognized that soon it would grow to eclipse even the most established shows on iTunes.
But no, it was just the “New & Noteworthy” thing.
That’s not to say that we haven’t made some serious gains. During our brief stint of promotion we did pick up more than a thousand subscribers, more than 9000 total downloads and enough buzz that we should be able to continue to grow an audience even when pitted against far more experienced podcasters with far more established shows. That being said, there’s something painfully sisyphean about watching that fucking stone roll all the way down from 498 downloads one day to 147 the next.
Clearly, if I didn’t care enough about the show to be depressed about this, I don’t think I’d care enough to produce something worthy of our fine listeners. I know that we can continue to grow our audience even without that advantage. I know that by crossing that threshold into the “What’s Hot” category, iTunes is pushing us out of the nest a bit and that should be seen as a vote of confidence rather than an abandonment. It certainly wasn’t fair to all these shows that have been producing high quality content for years that I was able to rise above them in the ranks on the merit of having a really prominent position on the page. I recognize that it’s fair and it’s just and it’s part of the process of growing our show.
And I also recognize that there’s nothing to be gained by looking at all the shows that are still on the “New & Noteworthy” section and pointing out that fully eighty-fucking-percent of them are older than our show, some of them by more than a year. I know there’s nothing to be gained from checking every hour or two just to see if iTunes rethought their algorithm based solely on my depression. I know that there’s nothing to be gained by pointing out that a show with only 5 episodes can’t really compete on the “What’s Hot” section against shows with 100+. I know there’s nothing to be gained from writing meandering, self-indulgent blogposts about how we should really still be New & Noteworthy and our baby bird isn’t quite ready to fly just yet, but I’m gonna do all that shit anyway. After all, I’m a new daddy and that’s what new daddies do.
Obviously, if you want to help, you can help. After all, when iTunes closes a door, Stitcher opens a window so there’s still hope. If you listen to the show and you dig it, I need your help to spread the word. We can’t count on iTunes to do all the work for us anymore. I know ours isn’t exactly a show everyone can just share on Facebook, but if you have a friend that is an anti-theist or a completely areligious person who enjoys caustic humor, let them know that we kick ass. If you haven’t left a review on iTunes, please take a few minutes to do so. And if you haven’t listened to us on Stitcher, give that a try to. It’s a great way to get your podcasts and they have a New & Noteworthy section we haven’t cracked just yet.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a navel to gaze at.
Why Do You Believe?
by Noah Lugeons
One of my least favorite questions is, “Why are you an atheist?” and it’s nearly identical but more frequent form, “Why don’t you believe in God?”
It’s very tempting to answer “Because he doesn’t exist” and depending on my mood and the identity of the inquisitor, that’s often exactly how I answer. When somebody accosts me at a subway station to hand me some silly pamphlet I’ll usually say, “No thanks, I’m an atheist.” And if they pursue it any further, I’ll give them the short, testy answer.
But that’s not always appropriate. Like everyone else out there, I have a lot of friends, coworkers, family members and acquaintances that are religious and when they ask me why I’m an atheist, it’s usually out of a genuine curiosity and I feel like they deserve more than, “Because there is no Tooth Fairy.”
That is the honest answer, of course. I can dress it up in the language of politic and say, “Because there is no convincing evidence of the existence of a higher power, nor is there any logical reason to assume one exists in an absence of evidence”, but that doesn’t do much to soften the blow. The fact is, there is no way (that I’m aware of) to explain it without insulting the believer. What I’m saying, regardless of what words I choose, is, “I’m an atheist because I’m better at thinking than you.”
I honestly believe that this is why atheists have earned the stereotype of intellectual arrogance. The reason that one is an atheist is because one properly applied logic to the question of religion. Atheists are atheists because they thought correctly. Now how the hell does one explain that to a person who thought incorrectly without sounding pretentious?
The problem, as we all know, is that the question is facing the wrong way. It’s not for me to explain why I believe the negative proposition. We both claim A-Y, you just add Z. If you’re the one adding something, you’re the one with the burden of proof. But Google-forbid you flip the question on its head and ask them why they believe in God. You’ll get a laundry list of nonsense that goes on for an hour. You’ll hear about their personal relationship with Jesus and you’ll hear about the value of faith and tradition and the meaning that religion gives their lives and you’ll want to take a trowel to your eardrums by the time it’s all over.
So how does one tackle this question without coming off as scornful? More importantly, how does one tackle this question with any persuasive power?
The truth is that I have no idea. Tact is not one of my strong suits (you may have noticed) and usually I respond with something like, “So how ’bout them Yankees, huh?” But if somebody is insistent and I can’t avoid delving into it, I usually find something that we can both disagree with. I’ll ask them if they believe in Bigfoot or Alien abductions or Atlantis or Astrology or the giant diamond in Sam Harris’s backyard until I find something that we can both agree is bullshit. Then I’ll ask them why they don’t believe in it and let them make the argument against god for me.
And then, of course, I’ll play devil’s advocate by trying to convince them with all the arguments that are typically offered for religion; “But hunting sasquatches gives meaning to so many people’s lives”, “But how can you discount all those anecdotal accounts?”, “What about people who feel Bigfoot’s presence?”, “What about all the written accounts of Bigfoot over the many decades?”
Granted, I suppose I come off every bit as arrogant and scornful in this tactic, but it redirects the question and at the same time, it deflates all the worst arguments they can offer. When I then say, “So why do you believe in god?” they have to at least filter their answers through the “would-this-convince-me-there’s-a-bigfoot?” filter. Even things like “How do you explain the ‘order’ and ‘design’ of the universe?” can easily be answered with “Bigfoot makes noises in the night and there are noises in the night.” This is the intellectual equivalent of “God makes universes and there’s a universe” and is every bit as convincing if you strip away the veneer of intellectual honesty.
But in the end, as I said, I don’t spend too much time concerned with tactful answers to questions like that. It’s the question that is pretentious, assuming and arrogant so if I inadvertently insult the person who asks it, perhaps they’ll think twice about asking it next time.
And if it’s somebody that I really don’t want to offend; my mother, for example; I’ll just throw out this caveat: “You’re asking me why I think one of your most cherished beliefs is misguided and silly. Do you really want me to answer that question?”
Post Rapture Looting Interview Now Available
by Noah Lugeons
Haven’t even had a chance to listen to it myself yet, but I wanted to make good on my promise to link it ASAP. Just got home and this was my second thing I did. The first one wasn’t exactly legal, so we won’t be going into any details on that…
You can, of course, find the Post Rapture Looting Podcast on iTunes, and, if you’re a fan of humor and irreverence from an atheist perspective, you should probably just go ahead and subscribe. But it you don’t have time for that, you can also hear the interview by clicking here.
Papal Media Cock-Slobber-Fest
by Noah Lugeons
Wow, what a successful first 48 hours Pope Francine has had. He’s already transformed the image of the Catholic church, righted centuries of racial bigotry, cured global poverty, refocused the Catholic religion on the core of Christ’s message and made everyone completely forget about the child rape and torture thing.
What’s that you say? He hasn’t done any of that? Oh, sorry, I was getting all my information from the American television media.
I’m already sick of hearing about what a transformative figure Pope Franky is. It’s not just the fallacious notion that anybody can be considered “transformative” after two days on the job (much of that spent sleeping). We went from a sexist, scandal-plagued, geriatric, mentally-antiquated man of European decent to a sexist, scandal-plagued, geriatric, mentally-antiquated man of different European ancestry and this was a transformation? We went from a backwards thinking jackass to a backward looking jack-off and that was a transformation?
But you’d never doubt it if you were just listening to the mainstream media. They just can’t seem to get a big enough mouthful of papal cock. He’s going to rededicate the church, you see, to dealing with global poverty. The guy that’s moving into the golden palace built on crusade booty, confiscated Jewish fortunes and the tears of tortured children is going to rededicate the church to global poverty.
Well, I suppose the first step in that direction would be to lift the nonsensical, anti-scientific contraception ban that even the vast majority of Catholics think is stupid right? No? Not going to move on that one, huh? Despite the fact that it would be the single most significant thing you could possibly do to combat global poverty and it would be free, easy and instantaneous. Still not going to do it, eh?
Well don’t worry, I’m sure that in the absence of action the hard-hitting media will continue to pretend you’re transforming something despite the fact that you head the most static, moth-eaten, obsolete, perpetually pertinacious institution in the history of the world. After all, we’re all getting bored with the whole “kid fucking” narrative and as long as the media isn’t talking about that, I suppose Pope Francesca is transforming something.
Religious Debates on Twitter
by Noah Lugeons
There are two memes that sum up most people’s opinion of a religious argument on Twitter. One is the cartoon where the guy can’t come to bed yet because someone is wrong on the internet. The other one is offensive to the mentally disabled and you already know it anyway.
The basic message is that arguing on the internet is a waste of time. You’re not changing anyone’s mind, you’re not solving any problems and you’re never going to win. But I’d like to challenge that stereotype. I suppose if I wanted I could dig around for some anecdote about somebody being converted through a Twitter debate, but I trust our loyal readers to be too smart to be taken in by an anecdote and besides, I think I can argue for the value of a Twitter debate even if I concede that you’re not changing anyone’s mind, you’re not solving any problems and you’re never going to win.
I justify most religious debate by the audience. The people who watch William Lane Craig debate anyone with enough brain power to keep their saliva inside their head will probably walk away realizing that Craig is a jack-off who talks in circles and hopes his audience doesn’t know the difference between truth and truthiness. But you can’t really invoke that when it comes to Twitter. Sure, there’s an audience, but they’re just as partisan as the participants.
So you can’t win, solve problems, change minds or influence an audience. What does that leave? Well, (here come s the anecdote) you can hone your skills, refine your opinions, learn more about the debate tactics of the apologists, learn the various standard rebuttals, find whole new arguments that you never thought of before and be a counter-apologetic mental-ninja the next time you run into a condescending theist in the real world. I’ve watched my wife do exactly that over the last few days. She’s been locked in a debate with some absurd dingle-berry that is trotting out one tired, easily refuted fallacy after the next. And along the way she’s learning to refute all these stupid arguments in 140 characters or less (minus all the @so-and-so shit).
Think about how handy a skill that is to have in the real world. Once you’ve got it mastered you can shut down any religious assertion in about 5 seconds. And if you never take the time to jump into some of these asinine debates, you may never bother thinking of ways to refute some of the dumber ones.
So all hail the Atheist Twitter Trolls. And next time you hear that Special Olympics line, feel free to send this post to whatever retard said it.
Contenders for the Next Stupid Fucking Pope
by Noah Lugeons
One of the many bonuses of writing this blog is that the analytics that WordPress provides shows me what types of things people are searching for to wind up here. It’s obviously designed to help bloggers track what topics people are searching most, but it also provides an occasional humorous aside when I drop in to check the number of views.
For example, often times people arrive here after googling terms that make it pretty clear that they’re big fans of this Jesus fellow. I love the idea of somebody googling “reasons to love Jesus” and accidentally landing on the Scathing Atheist blog before turning back in repulsed horror. I published a fictitious account of a conversation between God and his older brother Mikey and it constantly gets views that are clearly not from people looking for God parody.
I’ve had a few funny ones now and again, but I don’t think any of them matched up to my new favorite. It came in yesterday. Somebody apparently found this blog by googling “Contenders for the next stupid fucking pope”.
First of all, I’m amused that anybody just types shit like that into the google searchbar, but more than that, I’m flattered that google’s algorithms determined that our blog was the right place for such a person. And now that I’ve titled a blog after it, I can guarantee that anyone who ever googles “Contenders for the next stupid fucking pope” will find us quickly.
Now, if you’re enjoying the podcast and the blog and wanted to give a little something back, this affords you a great opportunity to do exactly that. My birthday is coming up this Tuesday. I would consider it quite a gift if somebody was inspired to take the time to concoct the most fucked up possible google search that would still suggest the Scathing Atheist.
No need to send me your favorite or anything. Just think of something crazy to google and if Scathing Atheist comes up, click on it. I’ll see it on the analytics when I check in on Tuesday. And of course, if we get any contenders worth sharing, I’ll share them.
Episode 4 is Up
by Noah Lugeons
We just polished off episode 4. It’s recorded, edited, processed, published and awaiting your approval. You can get it through iTunes (which I recommend if for no other reason than it ups our showing and gets the show in front of more people), but if you can’t wait for all that synching bullshit, you can also listen to it now by clicking here. And in case you haven’t picked up on this yet, this show is certainly NOT SAFE FOR WORK unless you work in a really cool place.
Enjoy.
A Letter Home From Hitler Camp
by Heath Enwright
Until now, little was known about Joseph Ratzinger’s time in the “Hitler Youth”. Recently, the following letter surfaced, purporting to be a hand-written note sent from the Pope-to-be to his parents during a summer away at Hitler Camp.
Hey mom and dad,
Writing to tell you what a good time I’m having at Mein Camp. Thanks for not sending me to that stupid Bible camp. I think we can all agree that Catholicism is ridiculous.
Everybody is really cool and friendly. Lots of foreskin and superior DNA, so that’s a plus. I’ve learned a lot, in only a few weeks. The tenets of national socialism are quite an ethos. Our generation really needs to take up the Aryan white mans’ burden, or else nobody will. These guys make a lot of good points, and I’m thinking of going into politics. I’m guessing that if I ever run for public office of some kind, my association with a reputable political party from a young age will be a nice resume piece.
Yesterday we did arts and crafts. We made a whole bunch of lanyards, with these cool double triangle stars attached. We also did this big collaborative piece, where we took this giant pile of shoes they gave us, and made a sculpture.
Then we had cartography class in the afternoon. We all made a whole bunch of maps of different European cities, like Amsterdam, Warsaw, London, and Paris.
Finally, at the end of the day, they set up this big scavenger hunt. The counselors hid 3 juice boxes in these abandoned buildings, and whoever found them won the prize. So we’re all hunting around trying to find the juice. We searched for hours, and nobody could manage to uncover the elusive juice. Somehow, I ended up winning when I found the juice under the floorboards. The floorboards, can you believe it?!? The juice had quite a sneaky hiding spot. That is a lesson I won’t forget: If you’re ever looking to hide something really well, under the floorboards is a great spot.
Anyway, I’ve gotta wrap this up and get to sleep. In the morning, I’m participating in the gold mein camp challenge. Over near the building with all the shoes, there’s this big pile of ashes and we have to try to find the gold and jewelry inside. Whoever finds the most, wins extra meth.
Miss you guys.
Love,
Joey
Does FEMA Discriminate Against Churches?
by Noah Lugeons
The temerity of religious leaders never fails to amaze me. As I peruse the various Christian and religious news outlets in search of news items for the next show, I constantly come across the most brazenly illogical fury and anger. Christians stand within their echo chamber so often that they often lose track of just how full of shit they are.
The latest source for Christian Op-Ed ire is FEMA’s policy against giving federal grants to churches to rebuild after natural disasters. I’ve come across a couple of articles where these pulpit-pounders rail against the bigoted, heartless, merciless policy that refuses to give lump sums of tax payer money to organizations that refuse to pay taxes.
Seems simple to me. If you don’t pay into the pool, you don’t get to take from it. How simple is that? If I get sick, I can’t use my brother-in-laws insurance to pay for treatment, can I? If I didn’t throw in on the bag, I don’t get to smoke any of the weed. It’s some pretty simple shit when you apply logic to it.
But Christians and logic don’t get along and that much is obvious from their irate opinions on this matter. In 3 articles I read on the subject, not one single author bothers to even address the issue of churches not paying taxes. It’s as though it doesn’t even occur to them that the rest of us actually pay those taxes. It’s as though they don’t recognize that it is anti-American and anti-intelligence to give my tax dollars to a church to rebuild. It’s as though they don’t even realize that they don’t actually serve a function in the real world.
Take this article from the Christian Post. Author Paul de Vries couldn’t be more livid about how unfairly the churches are being treated. After all, he points out that the churches were the first to respond to victims of the storm and now, when they need help, FEMA is nowhere to be found.
The first problem with his point is that it’s complete bullshit. The first responders were police officers, fire fighters, utility workers and paramedics (that’s why we call those people “first responders”). Sure, many churches opened their doors to the suddenly homeless and distributed food and water and medicine in the aftermath of the disaster. But, of course, that is the only function they serve in the world and the only possible justification for making them tax exempt in the first place.
Many secular groups also pitched in and helped in the aftermath of the storm and many secular people volunteered for days and weeks after to assist in the cleanup (myself included). The secular groups were far more effective, of course, as they spent none of their time trying to evangelize and proselytize to the people who were coming to them for help.
But the preachers, pastors and priests would have you believe that if it weren’t for all those Christians, nobody would have been helping at all.
De Vries points out that religious organizations gave tens of millions of dollars to help the storm’s victims, but somehow it doesn’t occur to him that if FEMA started wasting its money rebuilding churches, they would be, in effect, taking back the money they just donated. What kind of slippery logic does one have to employ to argue that the fact that Christians gave money to the disaster somehow means that the disaster owes them money?
He calls the policy bigoted (despite the fact that it treats all houses of worship equally), he calls it “a severe penalty” (despite the fact that it isn’t a penalty no matter how broadly one defines penalty… it’s not like FEMA is billing them) and he even goes so far as to call it “a step down an insane and sinister slope”, arguing that before we know it they’ll be denying churches the use of police officers and firefighters.
I’m all for that, of course. If you don’t pay taxes you shouldn’t get any government services. That being said, I’m not in charge of anything but this blog and a podcast. I’m not making the law. The notion that the government is going to stop sending cops and firefighters to churches is almost too stupid to acknowledge, and it is too stupid to bother to refute. I only bring it up to point out that even when they name the logical fallacy within the logical fallacy, they still don’t see the logical fallacy.
But by far the worst collection of words in his whole self-aggrandizing treatise of nonsense is this one:
blocking FEMA grants to churches is to pretend to be ignorant of the continuing soul care needed by the many and various victims of Superstorm Sandy.
I should point out that those are his italics up there. I didn’t even need to highlight the clause that makes the statement such ravenous horse-shit. One of his arguments is that without these grants, churches can’t take care of the victim’s souls.
Now keep in mind that there’s not just some money-wizard down at FEMA who conjures up wads of cash or anything. They’re actually calling for money to be redirected to churches. They are actually asking that money that would otherwise go toward rebuilding homes and vital businesses go to churches instead. We should actually take money from the “make sure kids have roofs over their heads” fund and the “make sure employees have a place to go to earn a living fund” and give it to a useless vestigial cancer that needs it to take care of the imaginary man that lives in our brains and drives our body.
So go fuck yourself, Paul. If you want disaster relief, pay your fucking taxes.
The Scathing Atheist 