Legislative Prayer

Imagine my delight at hearing that a federal judge ruled today that the Indiana House of Representatives can no longer have open prayer during a session which identifies any specific diety or promulgates any particular religion. All prayers must be generic. Of course all of the zealous christians complained loudly to the media, saying that it was a terrible ruling; that it is a rueful step backwards.

Hardly! It is one of the few steps forward that has occured over the last several years. Christians believe that since they are in the majority, they have the right - even the duty - to shove their beliefs down everybody's throat. It doesn't seem to matter to christians that there are, in fact, people of other faiths, even a few of no faith, involved in government, business and other worldly pursuits who do not wish to be forced into being a party to a blatantly christian celebration.

There are only a few such victories for godless folks such as myself in this oppressively religious world. It is, of course, only a marginal victory. The judge could have (and in my opinion should have) ruled that no prayer should be part of any governmental gathering. But, alas, it was not to be. It's all so ludicrous.

I have watched a good deal of sports over the last several weeks (Go Colts!) In almost any game, at any level, be it football, basketball, or whatever, there is usually at least one or more players who, during the course of the game, stop and cross themselves, or say a quick prayer. (God, bless you and thank you so much for this touchdown.) This reminds me of a story I heard on NPR's Fresh Air a few years ago. Sadly, I can't remember who Terry Gross' guest was, except to say that he was, I believe, a writer. He stated that he did not believe in god. She asked how he came to this (anti)epiphany. He answered by recounting an evening of watching the Tony awards on the tube. He took notice of a number of the winners, in their acceptance speeches, including god in their thank you's - ("Thanks to the producers, the director, my fellow actors, my family, all you little people, and, of course, god for allowing me to be so wonderful.") He continued with the observation that - "about the Holacaust god had nothing to say, but he involves himself with the Tonys."

That puts it into perspective for me. Kinda makes discerning "god's plan" difficult, doesn't it?

First Blog on Blogspot

This is it. This is my first post, on this blog anyway. I tried another blog site, and didn't like it. I don't know if it really matters, but here I am.

What am I doing here? Probably not much of any real interest to anyone. But I've got an itch in my craw (or crawl, or whatever.) It's those Raptarians. Raptarians? The Rapturites. The good old christian folks who are nervously waiting for "The Rapture" to whisk them off to heaven while all of us non-believers are left behind to deal with old Lucifer and his minions who will inflict violence and hellfire on our slattern, godless bodies.

What a load of crap!

As you, the esteemed reader might gather, your host is not a believer. It is my belief that no god is lording over us. There is no omnipotent, omniscient being, entity, essence or whatever, no "intelligent designer" making all this up on the fly.
This life is all we get. We are on our own. It is up to each of us to be good, to be bad, to be indifferent. But when we shuffle off this mortal coil, that is it. No immortal soul is going to wing its way to heaven, or free fall into the depths of hell. All that will remain of us is our rotting corpse and, more than likely, hefty credit card balances and perhaps some late arriving mail that, had we still been around, we would have put in the bottom of that old box of junk down in the basement for later perusal.

The Raptarians are busy posturing, pushing, shoving to get themselves into just the right place in line to assure a boarding pass for the Paradise Express. The rest of us will be "left behind." Not only us non-believers, but also all non-christians, even more specifically, only fundamentalist, protestant christians will get the sought after pass. No catholics, no jews, no muslims, no hindus, no sikhs, no shintos, no buddhists, no taoists, no zoroastrians, no epicurians. Only good ole god fearin' fundamentalist christians. (I know, I know, I'm not showing proper respect by failing to capitalize the various religious groups, and god, for goodness sake. But, this is my space. It is my choice. If this offends you, you are certainly free to let me know, or you can just click off.)

I don't flatter myself in thinking that I'm the only one who has come to this conclusion about the fallacy of god's existence.(But we are certainly a significant minority.) Nor am I likely the most articulate. But I just want to add my two cents worth, and, hopefully stir up some conversation and debate amongst all you blogsters.

Being an atheist is either brave or stupid depending on your perspective. If you believe in god, and it turns out that you're wrong, no harm done. If you don't believe in god and you're wrong, there'll be hell to pay.

Well, that's all we have time for tonight. I want to thank Oprah, Dr. Irwin Cory, Kermit and the entire cast of WWII for being here this evening. Be sure to hurry out and get your copy of "Lori Line goes Gangsta." Tomorrow, we have scheduled Daryl (of Larry, Daryl and Daryl) to read from his "Newhart" scripts.

Thank you, Paul, and all of you.

Goodnight.