Ask An Atheist

Reply to the Marias of our time: — “during that time it always has been a god-thinking world” –? During most of that time it has been a flat-earth world, during that time it has been a burn-the-witch world, during that time we have been for too long prevented from using our reason — during our time, we are just climbing out from under the rock/church, during our time, we are struggling to make civil rights more prevalent, — and, unfortunately, during our time, most religious people are harkening back to the time of oppression and unreason.
–To Ask An Atheist: THANKS for what you do — this hour is becoming a weekly balm against the week’s “shocks and arrows” and the “ClapTrap.”
Many thanks!
David Houston

Just a thought. I, too, like church-visiting; for me, it’s free theater, with costumes, drama, speeches, and audience participation. As a former Roman Catholic, I have to admit loving the off-off Broadway theater that the Catholic church has been offering for two millennia — as theater. But — theater of the absurd, really. The pope just dubbed a bunch of new cardinals, who processed down amazing sets designed by Michelangelo in incredible (really!) costumes–to amazing music. The pope moves in unbelievable drag among supernumeraries dressed in matching costumes that Broadway can only envy. I remember seeing a new cardinal marching down a long aisle as I overlooked from a balcony. Few brides sported a train as long as this guy did, in a scarlet as bright as a field of poppies. What theater! The rub, of course, is that the theater is designed to impress and especially to oppress. Only Monte Python does justice to a bunch of cardinals hoofing it up as they do so well.
David

Best episode ever. I still don’t understand why on a nearly all god channel there aren’t more people calling to give it the old college try to make god sound reasonable. Calls like that make the show infinitely more entertaining for me. I know some people don’t enjoy the antagonism, but I find it far more enjoyable than “preaching to the choir”. I really hope more people crawl out of the woodwork now.

My favorite two bits of maria-ness were,

1) when she claimed she didn’t like talking with atheists because they get angry. You didn’t even raise your voice. What she really meant was “disagree” she doesn’t like when you disagree. Then at the same time she said “if you’ll let me talk”. The woman was talking a mile a minute with no interruptions and did not even stop to hear what you were saying. I actually lol’ed. But I really lol’ed (while walking the dog) at the next bit

2) Getting nowhere and starting to look not quite square on her rocker, she pipes up in a desperate tone “Dead Sea Scrolls!”. Comic gold. A complete non-sequitor. She sensed her time was running out and thought she’d swing for the fences… and that’s all she had.

Seriously, thank you. Please try to cultivate some more of that. I’m sure it’s horribly frustrating, but that was a real person who really walks around the streets of our cities. Substitute any other belief with the same characteristics and she’d likely be put somewhere by her family. But that particular magical world view is perfectly sane, even healthy somehow.