Why There is No God, Reasons 42 & 43

The One True Religion™, the Catholic Church (self-named it was), instituted what it called the Inquisition (1184 to the present day) to root our false learnings and false teachings, oh and witches and sorcerers, too. Their primary instruments were fear and torture. Whole villages of people were “put to the question,” and then executed.

When the Pope got involved (the first Papal Bull on the topic was in 1199), he ignored the Bible’s teachings (Yahweh’s actually) “The one who sins is the one who will die.” —GOD, Ezekiel 18 and declared that executions, previously forbidden were now the order of the day, and the punishments would be imposed on the descendants of the condemned, also.

Now the god they claimed to worship was also claimed to be all-knowing and you’d think that such a god would let the Inquisitors know what we know now, that torture doesn’t work. Tortured people will tell you exactly what you want to hear, not what they believe.

This is especially egregious based upon what the Inquisitors learned. In France Inquisitor after Inquisitor commented on how freely peasants spouted heresies, proud of their learning. This shouldn’t surprise anyone, especially not an all-knowing god, because the vast majority of those peasants could neither read nor write. Consequently, what they knew was taught to them . . . by the damned Church! They were proud to share their learning because they learned what the priest taught them! Then they burned at the stake.

Now, based upon the easily observable facts such as these, an “all-loving god,” such as the Christian god was declared to be would take pity on the poor duped peasants and set up re-education camps or classes to get them sorted out. Even the communists did this instead of just executing all the “wrong thinkers” willy-nilly.

Two more strikes against the Crummy Christian God™ leaving us to wonder how it got its god card in the first place.

Postscript With the exception of the Papal States, the institution of the Inquisition was abolished in the early 19th century, after the Napoleonic Wars in Europe and the Spanish American wars of independence in the Americas. The institution survived as part of the Roman Curia, but in 1908 it was renamed the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office. In 1965, it became the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In 2022, this office was renamed the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. (Source: Wikipedia)

Why Isn’t Populism Popular?

In my youth and political naïveté I often wondered why populism wasn’t what all Americans wanted. Didn’t we want “government of the people, by the people, and for the people?” Fast forward to today and we are being warned daily about the dangers of populism, and the words populism and populist seem to be used as slurs.

So, off to my go-to dictionary, Merriam-Webster I go:

populist 2 : a believer in the rights, wisdom, or virtues of the common people and
1 : a member of a political party claiming to represent the common people

Definition 1 is spot on with my original thinking, and definition 2 is also, but that’s not all there is.

Another definition is:

Populism is a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of “the people” and often juxtapose this group with “the elite.” It is frequently associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment. (Wikipedia)

this too is spot-on, and

populism : political ideas and activities that are intended to get the support of ordinary people by giving them what they want: e.g. “Their ideas are simple populism – tax cuts and higher wages.” (Cambridge Dictionary)

Finally, here is why the powers that be, on the left and right (actually “above” as left and right don’t really exist anymore, having been co-opted by the oligarchs) are opposed to populism. Although one could claim that the oligarchs are in favor of tax cuts and higher wages, for the rich, but the assumption here is “for ordinary people” so since such things reduce profits and thus the salaries and stock earnings of rich people, they’re agin’ it. We are supposed to be creating government structures “of the people, by the people, and for the people” but the rich are opposed to this quaint idea. They consider “the non-rich” to be “the filthy poor” who just can’t wait to get their hands on the money the rich people have piled up by hook or crook, so it is unthinkable that “those people” would be in charge. (This is why Franklin Roosevelt was declared to be a traitor to his class. He did way too much for ordinary people (even supported labor unions, eww!), at least according to the oligarchs.) Their idea is government of the non-rich by the elites (the rich and those chosen to represent them, e.g. paid for politicians).

One of their tried and true tactics is to demean the things that they want their followers to hate. They turned the term “liberal” into a slur. Social Security and even the Post Office became socialism. Church-state separation became a war on Christianity and now populism is a dirty word. The message underlying all of this is “you don’t want this, move along.” Apparently they think it is a Jedi mind trick.

What started me off on this post was a single sentence (I don’t have triggers so much as short fuses): “Populists always say popular things, so judge the man for what he’s done not for what he says.” WTF? Only populists tell us what we want to hear? Apparently they were thinking of politicians, not just populists.

What The Fuck is Going on with the News Media?

Recently I have seen multiple “journalists” getting their exercise by jumping to bizarre conclusions. For example, anyone who is critical of the actions of the Israeli government is an anti-Semite. WTF? What does criticism of the government have to do with “hostility to or prejudice against Jewish people”? If you are a MAGA Republican does criticism of the current Democrat governing bodies equate to criticism of the American people? Would anyone think that?

I saw Columbia University students protesting the Genocide in Gaza (their words, not mine) equated to “Friends of Hamas.” Really? Not wanting to see innocent civilians suffer and die makes them Hamas supporters? On what planet?

Why have we gone all tribal in this issue? It seems that the guiding principle is “you are either for me or against me” and there is no middle ground, no nuance, nothing other than that. (Thanks Republicans for promoting tribalism so hard for the past two decades.)

News organs are flinging incorrect labels around willy-nilly indicating they have agendas they are not supposed to have. Even declaring the legitimate government of Gaza to be a “Terrorist Organization” is suspect. Hamas was labeled a terrorist organization, in the past, but so were Zionist groups. A government might employ guerilla tactics, but that doesn’t make them terrorists. I guess journalists do. But by any such definition a government performing terrorist bombings of civilian populations, either though suicide vests or dropped by fighter-bombers would make the Israeli government a terrorist organization.

In Canada, section 83.01 of the Criminal Code defines terrorism as an act committed “in whole or in part for a political, religious or ideological purpose, objective or cause” with the intention of intimidating the public “…with regard to its security, including its economic security, or compelling a person, a government or a domestic or an international organization to do or to refrain from doing any act.” Activities recognized as criminal within this context include death and bodily harm with the use of violence; endangering a person’s life; risks posed to the health and safety of the public; significant property damage; and interference or disruption of essential services, facilities or systems.

Sound familiar?

If Hamas is a terrorist organization, the current Israeli government (which I do not equate to the Israeli people) is one too.

Which Animal Is Most Likely To Kill You In Your State?

The question in the title above has been making the clickbait rounds of late, especially (I think) because the CDC had released statistics on that question.

But all of the responses are wrong, not even close. Some states pointed to bears, other venomous insects, still others venomous snakes, but all got it wrong. My home states, Illinois, was listed with 403 deaths, nowhere near the highest nor the lowest. But the numbers piled up in the IL by the actual champ dwarf those.

So, consider the question . . . carefully:

Which animal is most likely to kill you in your state?

And the answer for all states? You know it don’t you? It is human beings. For every person who gets killed by a mountain lion or a bear, there are hundreds killed by other humans.

Think about it.

There are over 43,000 people killed in auto crashes in just one year recently. That is also more than all of the stats provided for deaths from other animals alone.

And every year, 117,345 people are shot. With 42,654 people dying from gun violence. 16,651 are murdered. 76,725 people survive gunshot injuries. Again, just this one source outnumbers all of the “other animal” related deaths.

Then there are the suicides by other means, the people who drink themselves to death, die from metabolic diseases they could control, and on and on. The carnage is immense!—there were 3.27 million deaths in the U.S. in 2022, and if you look up, say, the Top Ten causes of deaths, you will find things like heart disease, cancer, COVID-19, and so on (Hey, Alzheimer’s made the top ten!), but you won’t find out how many were killed by other humans, because Congress has restricted the statistics that can be measured by government agencies.

Dying from being shot by gun-happy Americans is so rampant that many other countries have advisories for tourists planning to visit the U.S. Instead of Trump’s MAGA, we seem to be involved in MAIABR, Make America Into a Banana Republic.

Why I am Coming to the Point of Hating All Religions

I don’t want to hate anything . . . but . . .  I was recently watching a rather nice three-part BBC documentary on Persia and Iran. In college I took a course in ancient near eastern history but I only learned a smidgeon about Persia, so this was an opportunity to fill in the gaps in my understanding of history. Persia, one the first major empires, became over time a doormat for invaders, many, many invaders.

About 500 years ago an Islamic general decided to conquer Persia and made war and accomplished that goal. He was not conquering Persia to convert that country to Islam. Persia had been conquered by Arab invaders centuries before who had converted the entire country to Islam, essentially relegating Persia’s native religion, Zoroastrianism, to the dustbins of history. (As religions go, Zoroastrianism, to my tastes, was a superior religion, but . . . it still conferred the “divine rights of kings” onto their rulers, etc. There are an estimated 110,000–120,000 Zoroastrians left in the world from the millions previously.)

Back to the invasion of 500 years ago. The general, who made himself King of Persia, wasn’t converting the country to Islam, he was converting it from Sunni Islam to Shia Islam. For this many, many people died, economies were disrupted, buildings destroyed, etc. Then the people were forcefully converted from Sunni Islam to Shia Islam. Yes, that Islam, the religion of peace, whose holy book clearly states that no one is to come to Islam by force.

Never judge a religion based upon what they say, always look to what they do. Religions represent a terrible cost to human beings. Instead of focusing on things that make people’s lives better, wars are fought over imaginary differences. Religions make people stupid.

Obviously this is not the only case I base my conclusion upon. Currently Palestinians and Israelis are fighting a religious war. And the “Troubles” in Ireland are not that far in the past, the Nazi efforts to exterminate Jews and Gypsies, and then, the Croats and Serbs went at it . . . and then . . . there are myriad examples of religion being at the heart of wars and human misery.

The current actions of Christian nationalists here in the USA are part of the same picture.

Yes, I am an a-theist, and now I am an anti-religionist. If you are requesting special privileges because of your religion, I am against it. If you do not want your churches to pay taxes, I am against you.

A pox on all religions and their imaginary solaces and real damage they offer. If you are one who wants to convert the USA into a “Christian Nation,” fuck you and the horse you rode in on. You are just paving the way for turning us into an Islamic nation.

The Human Flaw

The title of this piece was carefully chosen. I could have used “A Human Flaw” but this, I think, is the Mother of All Flaws, the one that will possibly lead to our downfall.

The idea sprung from me watching TV. I have spent way too many hours watching TV. It is entertaining but rarely instructive. In this case, I was look for something to view and I saw “Downton Abbey” a long-running BBC series that drew rave reviews. I like BBC productions, and I had never seen even a single episode of this blockbuster series. So, to Episode 1 I went.

Fifteen minutes later I was looking for something else to watch. That fifteen minutes didn’t get into the meat of the storylines, it basically established that the staff of a stately English manor home were, well, typical human beings. Each person on staff had a position on their hierarchy. And every damned one of them was obsequious to those considered their “better,” that is those of higher social status, and borderline vicious to those even one rung down the ladder. The third scullery maid had better not piss off the second scullery maid because she would then go about making the miscreant rue the day.

I like shows, like Star Trek, where even aliens are treated with dignity and social climbing is not the main competitive sport.

So, doing my best Red Queen imitation, it was “off with their ‘eads!” and I switched over to a documentary series on the history of the Roman Empire. We had reached somewhat late in the Republic of Rome period and it became noticed that while many land owners were off fighting for Rome, the rich, often Senators, were confiscating their farms due to lack of payment of taxes. Having no one to work the land, there was no produce to sell, and no money to pay the taxes on the land. The rich swooped in bought up the plots cheaply and then worked the land with slaves, captured by the very people whose land they had just stolen. Roman warriors, who survived, often came home to find themselves evicted, their families in the wind, and themselves homeless. Fucking elites!

Of course there was a law forbidding just that from happening. What the rich were doing was clearly illegal. But the people responsible for enforcing those laws were the selfsame Senators, etc. in charge. It was also obvious to many that with all of the land being worked by slaves, the next time soldiers would be needed, there wouldn’t be any to be drafted. All of the citizen-soldiers were driven off.

Can you see what the “Human Flaw” above all other flaws is? Being a social species, we tend to establish social hierarchies, but we don’t soft peddle it. We look down our noses at “lessers.” We thieve their wages. We call them shiftless and lazy and say “people don’t want to work anymore.” And there is no limit to this distain. In WW2 the Nazi’s had no trouble finding local volunteers to help them round up Jews and Gypsies and other “enemies of the state” and riddle them with bullets. These were the killer’s neighbors, merchants, teachers of their children, doctors, etc. Bang, bang, we shot them down.

About 400,000 non-Germans volunteered to serve Germany in the Waffen/SS later in the war, when Germany recognized their were not enough pure-blooded Germans available.

And today, we call ourselves civilized and participate in class wars. Why poor people keep voting for the scams of rich people is beyond me. How on Earth would there be any trust there after the record the rich have laid down?

I often refer to this phenomenon as the Totem Pole Principle. This principle states that the only way to know you aren’t on the bottom of the pole is to be standing on the neck of someone else. But why aren’t we content with being a rung on the social ladder, content with our “lot in life” (as if we actually drew lots)? Well, I suggest it is because the higher ups, rung by rung are trying to make their social station seem grander than it is and they only way they know how is to denigrate those on lower rungs.

Consider the overbearing arrogance of some Christians who consider themselves “saved,” and atheists like me are doomed. They could meekly and mildly try to share the good news of how to get saved, but no, that is not enough, they need to denigrate the filthy godless atheists for being the subhumans we are. In the past, this included execution by stoning or even burning at the stake. Such arrogance. As if their all-powerful god couldn’t run things without their help. I am not painting all Christians with a broad brush, as the aphorism goes, please note I said some Christians. You can include those who sneer at people coming to their church who aren’t dressed up to the standards thought “proper,” and on up from there.

And is there any more obvious examples of ass licking than the toadies in Donald Trump’s circle? They should all be wearing signs around their necks saying “Please accept me Donald, as part of your inner circle.”

Israel Threatens to Take Their Ball and Go Home

There is a playground tradition in the U.S. that when playing pickup sports games, someone has to “bring the ball.” This person is not infrequently someone trying to ingratiate himself with the better players, who do not treat him fairly, so at some point he decides to “take his ball and go home,” meaning “game over, assholes.”

The Israelis were outraged that the U.S. would introduced a ceasefire resolution in the U.N for the Gaza Genocide. They had backup in the form of two other permanent members of the Security Council, Russia and China, who vetoed the motion but they were so offended that the U.S. would betray them that way that they pulled back a delegation coming to Washington. D.C. to discuss their actions. The only problem is that we paid for their ball. If we choose to we could make their ball disappear.

That a religious and conservative coalition currently has control of the Israeli government is one thing, but they are stupid besides. A partner operating in good faith would know that no such resolution would get passed and would know that introducing that resolution would give some political cover to a U.S. president being strongly criticized for not doing enough to reign in a genocide during an election year for that president, especially in that we are providing most of the munitions allowing them to pursue their ends.

While I have supported previous Israeli governments, this one I cannot, just as I usually support the U.S. governments but didn’t when the Trump Gang was trying to burn down the house, for example.

This Israeli government is off the rails, exhibiting all of the qualities that they claim make Hamas a terrorist group. They say Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Okay. Is Israel dedicated to the destruction of Hamas? Okay we have a tie here. They say Hamas attacks innocent civilians (disregarding the fact that during the October 7^th attack by Hamas, half of those killed had active military ranks). So, has Israel killed innocent civilians, including a majority of women and children in Gaza and the West Bank? Okay, another tie.

It seems a mix of ultraconservative politicians and the ultraconservative religious is a very, very bad mix. And, by the way, this is exactly what the Republican Party states as its goal if they win control of the U.S. federal government this fall. At least we are getting a good look-see at what the GOP wants to implement before the election.

And the Truth Shall Set You Free

The most recent Pew Research Center’s survey on the influence of religion on American public life found an interesting factoid:

“. . . only 31% of White evangelicals agreed that the federal government should stop enforcing separation of church and state. That’s higher than other demographics, but it’s still not a majority. A slightly higher number (35%) wanted to maintain the church-state boundary. Before secular government enthusiasts get too excited by this number I would point out that, for a fair number of evangelicals, the worry is that the state will interfere with the church, not the other way around.” (My emphasis, not theirs.)

This is or should be the Achilles’ heel of the Christian nationalism movement. Many folks are unaware that back when the Constitution was being debated before its ratification, most evangelicals supported the separation of church and state. Evangelicals were, at the time, a small minority in this country and they envisioned, rightly, that if the larger, better organized churches were to get adopted by the government of the states, they would be unable to compete because of the funding disparity. The big churches would be on the dole, that they would be passing a plate. (This was actually the case as several states had already adopted official churches.)

Ask any Bible Belt Christian whether they would want the State of California telling their religion what they can and cannot do. Their hair would burst into flames, I am sure. And what if a fair number of Muslims were to move into a state with a very low population (yes, I am talking about you, Wyoming) and because of division between the various Christian sects, got Islam to be the Official Religion of the State? That might be a minor concern, but a major one, for evangelicals, surely would be that Catholics are the most populous sect of Christianity and would therefore be most likely to be the “Official Religion” of many of the states. (If evangelicals think they could avoid this by making the determination of the “Official Religion” a national case, then Catholicism would become the “Official Religion” of all of the states. How would they like it if their tax monies were going to fill the coffers of the Catholic church in their state. (Go ahead, ask any evangelical in your ken, I’ll wait.)

I believe the operative maxim is “be very, very careful what you ask for, you might just get it.”

Of course, the Pew Survey doesn’t exactly hone in on the truth. According to that most recent survey, nearly three-quarters of White evangelicals think it’s important to have a presidential candidate with strong religious beliefs—indeed, a similar proportion want a candidate who shares their beliefs. Yet just 6% of those same voters think Donald Trump is very religious. Nearly half say he’s not religious at all. Now, the evangelicals cover this embarrassment up by claiming that Biden isn’t at all religious, but then Biden, who is a devout Catholic who goes to church every week, suffers from the evangelical belief that Catholics aren’t True Christians™.

It is ironic that evangelicals claim that the Anti-Christ is coming and once he makes his presence known, they vote for him . . . because he supports their beliefs. Now, that really says something about their beliefs.

Does He Want to Win?

It seems The Donald doesn’t just want to win, he wants to win in the most embarrassing fashion possible to his opponents. Or maybe he wants to lose to see if he can pull of a successful insurrection. It is hard to tell.

Recently Trump promised to cut off federal funding for any school which required vaccinations of its students. Basically Trump is saying “I want your kids to die.”

Then Trump said he would cut Social Security and Medicare if reelected. His campaign immediately realized how damaging his comment was and got Trump to try to walk it back, but cuts to Social Security and Medicare are ensconced in the plans Trump and his MAGA allies have for Trump’s second term, in order to give another giant tax cut to the morbidly rich.

Cutting Social Security is opposed by 85% of voters over 50. And when you look at the list of the states with the most voters over 50, it’s like a carbon copy of the list of key 2024 election battleground states: Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, etc.

Oh, if you are Jewish and vote for Democrats then you “hate Israel.” Didn’t know that, did you. It is  Gospel According to The Donald.

As to the January 6^th convicts, “The whole thing is crazy what’s happening in our country. Let’s call these brave Americans what they really are: persecuted Christians. They’re being persecuted, and let’s call their imprisoned and imprisonment. They are being imprisoned by Joe Biden and his people, evil people. He’s surrounded by very evil people. They are, I believe, just doing whatever they want to do. I don’t believe they have any leadership at all. Joe Biden, because of his gross incompetence, is a threat to democracy, big threat to democracy. To reverse these monstrous abuses of power, the moment I win the election, I will appoint a special task force to rapidly review the cases of every political prisoner who has been unjustly victimized by the Biden regime.”

“Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war, With the cross of Jesus going on before!” as sung by what The Donald calls “the J6 prison choir,” comprised of 20 men who have been arrested, convicted, and incarcerated because of their role in the violent January 6^th insurrection, now available for just $49.99 on the website! (This paragraph is 100% pure parody, so don’t go looking for that album . . . but I wouldn’t put it past them.)

This was in a speech made to the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) in February, including “We’re going to save this country. It’ll be thanks to the men and women like you, like the people in this audience. And we are represented by the best. The people who make God’s work your work…. Today, we are in another struggle for survival of our nation….

The greatest threat is not from the outside of our country. I really believe this. It’s from within. It’s the people from within our country that are more dangerous than the people outside. We can handle China. We can handle Russia. We can handle all of ’em if you have a smart leader. But the inside people are very dangerous. They’re very sick people, in my opinion. In many cases, they’re sick. I’m here today because I know that to achieve victory in this fight, just like in the battles of the past, we still need the hand of our Lord and the grace of Almighty God. We have to have that.”

I am waiting for the Trump website to offer “Gott Mitt Trump” belt buckles.

Does he want to win, just win? It doesn’t look like it. It looks like he wants to win in Bizzarro World fashion, or lose so he can stage a successful insurrection.

Postscript Trump pays no attention to what he is saying, after referring the Biden and “his people” he says “I don’t believe they have any leadership at all.” And then he goes on as to how they are doing this and doing that and persecuting him, and Christians, and, and. . . .  Pretty good for people who have no leadership at all.

Remembering Wrong Manae

I lived in a very small community in Northern California before moving to Chicago. The whole county had just breached 100,000 residents. Our little community had a radio station however, and that station hired a weatherman, who did double duty as a weatherman and morning show host. His name was Ron Manae(sp?) although he quickly acquired a nickname of “Wrong Manae.”

One morning our weatherman, who I believe wasn’t a real meteorologist (most TV people just join a meteorologists society which gives them the title) and just read the weather services predictions keeping up a litany of things like “X% chance of rain today.“ One day, it went like this: “40% chance of rain today,” then “60% chance of rain today, finally up to “80% chance of rain today,” all the time I looked out the window of our home and saw that it was pouring. And we lived just a bit over a mile from the radio station.

Finally a caller had had enough and called the station and his call was put on air, possibly because the producer had had enough, too. The caller, exasperated, pointed out that it had been raining, hard, for over two hours. He capped his call with “For the love of God, man, look out your window!” (The booth was fronted by a large window so passersby could see the radio station in action.) The next weather report? It was “80% chance of rain today.”

So, why do I bring this up?

It is a mirror to our politics.

For example, Trump and his goons, keep screaming that there is a wave of violent crime in this country entirely due to illegal immigrants. You can always tell when Trump is lying, his lips move. New data, however, demonstrates that there was not a spike in violent crime in 2023. Instead, across America, rates of violent crime are dropping precipitously — and the decline is especially pronounced in border states.

If you look, you can always find a spot in which something has increased. Just pick a spot with a low number and when it jumps up a point or too, shout “Look!” It is much harder for an area that has a high number of whatever and have it increase a substantial percentage. But in this case, the lies aren’t even data-based at all; they are just fear-based.

Notably, the two border states that have completed their FBI Uniform Crime Reports saw particularly sharp declines in murder in 2023, with 15% drop in Texas and 8.8% drop in Arizona. Both states also saw significant declines in violent crime overall. If undocumented immigrants were driving a violent crime surge, as Republicans and some media outlets suggest, you would expect to see it show up substantially in the data from border states, like Texas and Arizona.

Of course, Fox News is still reporting on the rampant “Biden immigrant crime.”

Why is there no penalty for lying, especially political lying? The defense that they believe what they are saying is true, is not a foundation of good journalism, but then Fox News and the Republican National Committee have no journalists on staff. Maybe that explains their lies. More probably it is an absolute belief in the end justifying the means, indicating both a lack in objective morals as well as subjective morals.