Today the Crazy Baptists came knocking...

I went for a walk today and came back to find religious tracts stuck in my door from some gay-hating, teabagging, intolerant asshat of a church that would sooner burn me at the stake than allow me inside without a lobotomy. So I decided on a new way to fight back against this ungodly littering of my domicile: my own unreligious tract laying out exactly why I would never come on over to their dark side:

"Dear Friend,

I may call you my friend, right? I mean, it's not as if you haven't already been to my house. You must have come all the way onto my property (without me there) to leave your publication for me to find when I returned home. Or worse, when I woke up because that means you were sneaking around so quietly I didn't hear you.

For that and other reasons, I'm afraid I'm going to have to decline your offer to join your church.

I'm also severely allergic to those who have a limited and twisted definition of morality because who knows when I'll land on the wrong side of it?

I certainly don't want to be judged by anyone who uses fear and divisiveness to recruit followers. Such polarizing that creates  rigid "Us" and "Them" categories makes for an unpleasant place to live. It leads to wars and all kinds of bad things.

And speaking of bad things, you guys seem to have an unhealthy obsession for other people's bedrooms. That's not normal and if what you believe drives you to such perverse behavior, I'm not sure there's much in your church for a person of tolerance and integrity such as myself. I certainly don't want you looking in my window and deciding if what I'm doing meets your standards for "relating." And I'm also sure you wouldn't want me voting on your marriage.

I also think people should be responsible for their own actions so that whole blaming it on god thing just doesn't work for me. Accountability works for me and maybe you should quit blaming something outside yourself and check in with that guy in the mirror once in a while. We 'd all be better for it.

And to be honest, that hell thing...jeez...it kind of creates this idea that bad people, who are judged "bad" in a totally subjective and often bigoted manner, deserve to go some place so awful and sometimes be killed or burned alive or some bad thing like that, just because one group decided another group deserved it? How would you feel if someone like me decided who had to spend eternity in hell? Honestly, I'd probably pick you and your followers and I'm sure you wouldn't like that now, would you?

But I'm willing to cut you some slack because I understand you've purposely been kept ignorant by having to burn all the really good books, and that you believe in one that hasn't really evolved to keep pace with the times. Even Mark Twain had to clean up his language, but you still insist on hanging onto words written by those who believed the earth was flat.

And finally, all that violence just turns my stomach. Just because someone doesn't believe like you do is no reason to kill them or go to war against them. And how come god never gets blamed for the tornado or flood but when he plucks some sorry ass out of the mess, then he is the good guy? That's just plain nuts.

And stay out of politics. People died and had a revolution and stuff back in the 1700's so they could have a country that wasn't in bed with religion. And if you can't, then seriously, register as a Political Action Committee and pay your fair share of taxes. It's the right thing to do and a lot more honest than what you're doing now."

I put the letter on cards, posters, flyers, and letterhead for you to send yourself, leave on their cars, and put up in their churches. Buy Them Here

Equality Rainbow by orsobear
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Today the Crazy Baptists came knocking...

That Prop 8 vote...

I don't understand most hate. I'm just not the kind of person who wastes what I feel on such a non-productive emotion. I'm always slightly embarrassed for the person who goes off on some tirade that turns them red and livid and bordering on the edge of stroking out from it all. It seems so futile, so low on the list of ways to accomplish something or change an event or manifest what it is that eludes you so completely you must hate all those who keep it from you, justified or not.

I admit to a feeling of bewilderment, of not understanding what it is that people who object to same-sex marriage are objecting to. It seems simple to me. Two people discover they love each other and want to have a party where everyone comes and joins in the celebration of their love. It happens every day all over the world. Why does their being gay make a difference?

And yes, I've heard all the religion arguments and it's probably because of such self-serving interpretation of words written many years after the fact by those with their own agendas to push, that I am an Atheist. Religion has always fed on hate to perpetuate itself, especially in times when it felt threatened. And the last eight years of religious manipulation for political gain has probably created more Atheists than believers so the beast is threatened. And it strikes back to perpetuate itself.

But this time it has stepped on its own tail. Not only has the validity of the initiative process been validated, but so has the legality of voting in a specific agenda based on the small-minded and cruel beliefs of religious cults. This has opened a very wide door that will be shoved open with great force, exploited and trashed for points and counterpoints, and will eventually force a definition of who gets to decide how someone else lives--and why they should have that right over someone other group or individual.

Therefore to help speed up that process so we don't have to endure anymore religious crap wrapped around bundles of bigotry and hate and obscenely paraded as the word of god, I propose the following initiatives for the people of California to consider gathering signatures for and getting on the ballot and then turning out in huge numbers to vote for them:

1.  Make all marriages performed in churches illegal. If churches can decide which civil marriages are valid or invalid, then the people should have the same right to decide if church weddings are legal or illegal.

2.  Make divorce illegal. Force those who bleat about the sanctity of marriage to stay married to each other. No escape. For eternity. That means you, Mel Gibson and Newt and Rudy all the other hypocrites. No new bimbos. Marriage is, after all, sacred and we say so, therefore you must obey whether you agree or not. You must now go back to your original wives...forever. And ladies, you have to take them back because chances are you don't differ that much from them politically so you deserve them.

3. Any church that preaches politics, hatred, and intolerance immediately loses its tax-exempt status and must register as a PAC.

4. Before anyone can get married, a percentage of people based on the number that voted in the last election, get to vote on whether they can get married or not.

5. Make it mandatory that anyone who brings up the Bible as an excuse to justify their bigotry has to sit down and actually read it for themselves, every damn word, every damn page. No unholy intermediaries putting their political spin and manipulation on it.  And if they can't read? Well, then they'll just have to put off using the Bible as an excuse until they learn how.

A lavender alien asks "What's your religion doing in my bedroom?" Funny thong with an important message for the bible-thumping morons who
need to quit peeping in bedroom windows. More with this design

Tired of biblethumpers knocking on your door? Greet them with this
poster of a bug spray can spewing out crosses and words "Bible Thumpers
infesting your porch? Hit 'em with parasite B-Gone!" More with this design

proposition 8, same-sex marriage, equality, gay, lesbian

That Prop 8 vote...

Nature, Atheism, and Me

Here's an excerpt from an email I received from a woman named Amy today:

..."I'm curious how you reconcile your unbelief in God with your spiritual connection with nature."


Dear Amy:

Basically, it's quite simple. I believe the greatest harm we can do is to objectify someone or something. This strips the life from it, the individuation from it, the very spirit that makes it so powerful and unique. This is what religion and belief in God does to people and nature. It takes a living organism like a tree and defines it as a thing separate from us, as an object created by an invisible force outside of ourselves. That makes it easier to cut down because it becomes "lumber" rather than  "part of ourselves," just as it becomes easier to perpetuate hatred and harm on human beings we perceive as being "not us."

Our official enemies never look, talk or act like us. They can't because then it would be harder to make enemies of our fellow human beings. And they always have different religious beliefs because that's a handy way to create the "us" and "them" so even the most uneducated, ignorant moron can understand these ain't godly folks and so we can abuse, torture and kill them in our God's name with no repercussions.

We do this on all levels of existence: my wife, my husband, my dog, my cat, my house. We do not see this as placing limits on what those living organisms can be, but merely as assigning personal ownership or belongingness to them. By objectifying someone or something, we make a place for them and keep them there.

I see such behavior as a destructive force. I see it as stunting the growth of things we perceive as existing outside ourselves. I see deifying a person or thing as the first step towards destroying it.

There is a big difference between saying "my spouse" and saying "part of me."  It is the same with trees in the forest. If I see them as something God made, then they cease to exist as living, breathing organisms that are an integral part of the whole. But if I see them as part of me, then they are me as my arm is me and as my heart is me.

We both still exist in the same moment in time, but our existence is not separate nor created by an external force.  If a tree in the forest is equal to my arm, then it requires thought, awareness, and an ability to understand my actions have consequences before I go blithely removing either a tree or my arm.

There are those who will and have argued with me that God made both the trees and me, without thinking for a moment that we might have vastly different opinions on how me and tree came to be. This is the blindness of religion. It operates by reducing things down to small pieces that can then be controlled, manipulated, and defined to suit personal biases and bigotry. That I might believe differently is automatically perceived as wrong and needing to be changed. That is ego gone wild and is never a good thing.

Our planet is being destroyed by this kind of limited eo thinking. By assigning God credit for the oceans, then we give them an artificial vastness that allows our corporate garbage creators to pollute and destroy them because, well, they are just so vast and can't possibly have a limit if God created them. We apply this same wrong thinking to the air, the soil, and every single resource on the earth.

But if we don't believe God created the oceans or the trees or the air, and instead believe they grew out of a natural scientific process that unlike religion, retains the same truth generation after generation, then they become a finite body of water, a forest that will not renew itself for decades beyond our lives, and air that will choke instead of giving us life, if we do not protect them and start treating them as an integral part of ourselves.

We must step outside the artificial excuse of God-created and realize that our planet must be protected by us, by real human beings who have the power to do or not do this,  or these essential resources will no longer be a source of life, nourishment, and spiritual replenishment.

That is why the increase in destruction of our natural resources has risen equally with the rise of claiming that God made everything and everyone believes in God. I'm willing to bet the corporate thugs that donated to the Republican party pushed religion as a political platform to help them take what they wanted without oversight.

Throughout time criminals and the most corrupt of politicians have used God as a partner in their crimes.  I suspect many of the most ardent of God-pushers don't believe half the crap they shovel towards the masses because if they did, then surely they wouldn't destroy the planet with God watching their every move.

So yes, I can reconcile my Atheism with the spiritual sense of self and belongingness I feel when I'm out in Nature because I never separated myself from the natural world with something as artificial as religion. I accept personal responsbility for anything I do to Nature. I do not blame an outside force like God for a tree I cut down, a stream I damn, or a species I wipe out because I like how it tastes on my dinner plate. I am as it is and we all are. Once we as human beings understand that, then maybe we can stop killing each other and live in harmony for a change. After all, when is the last time you heard about a tree taking out another tree because of their religious differences? It takes human beings to come up with something so ridiculous and disconnected from each other.

Tired of that silly Jesus fish? Are you a freethinker too smart to believe dinosaurs were on the ark? Amuse yourself and other with two dinosaurs munching down on ribs of Jesus fish over a campfire. Magnet may be purchased at The Godless Heathen, a shop for Atheists, Freethinkers, Agnostics, and Unbelievers.

Atheism, Atheist, Environment, Global Warming, Climate Change, Natural Resources, Nature

Nature, Atheism, and Me

Got Big Old Atheist Balls?

One of the things that separates rational people from outright raging lunatics is politeness. You never ever see a group of militant Atheists blocking traffic with the equivalent of mason jar fetuses shoved in people's faces. You never ever hear Atheists demanding that everyone believe as they do or a group of their specially selected chosen ones will kill you. You never ever read Atheists filling up the letters to the editor, congressional reps mailboxes, and media head offices with demands that all programming, all reporting, all legislation be written to favor just their own select group. Atheists are just too reasonable to stomp all over everyone else's rights.

I'm not advocating violence or mean acts or hard core activism. I'm merely suggesting if Atheists want to enjoy the same rights to live in this country as the religidiots, then we can't just sit back and simmer in our reasonableness. Therefore I'm offering a selection of t-shirts that will at least let Atheists some big old in your face balls. There's nothing violent about a t-shirt, but they are an excellent way to spread the message about a cause that requires a lot of words to explain. And of course, all the following are available on buttons, stickers, and other items as well at Wild World Shirts Anti-Religion Shop if you can't afford a t-shirt. Or just click on the design to take you to the shop where it is offered.

First, the tame offerings for those of you who prefer to keep a low profile and avoid the threat of serious beatings from the "tolerant" folks down at the local church farm.

A noose forms the backdrop for the words on this shirt "Religion is a leash in the hands of the powerful." Perfect gift for Atheists, Freethinkers, and anyone tired of religious extremists.

Here's a great t-shirt to piss off the religious right and their cannibalistic vampire cult: "You've given your love to Jesus and I've rented mine to Cthulhu." At least Cthulhu is an honest monster.

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Now, let's step it up a bit with these next two selections:

Next time you're forced to deal with a bible-thumping religious nut, wear this shirt, button, sticker that says: "The Bible was written by the same people who said the earth was flat."

When an organization gets rich from the bottom of the pyramid supporting it through donations and converting others to give money to it as well, it's called a Ponzi or Pyramid scheme...or religion.

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Now, let's match some of these loony xtian tax avoiding whackos with some more out there designs:

You don't need anyone doing your thinking for you. You're a freethinking non-believer of anything you can't personally see and touch. Your shirt says: "Jesus saves you from thinking for yourself."

There's one sure way to stop idiots from killing each other and us over whose imaginary playmate should rule the world: Atheism. As the shirt says: "Atheism, the cure for Religious Violence."

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And finally, here's a couple that will take some very large Atheist balls to wear in public where you can get beat to death with some Jesus Is Love worshipper's cross:

In nice letters dripping blood are the words "I gave my love to Jesus and now he never calls." Great gift for your favorite Atheist, or buy it for yourself and wear it to scare fundamentalist whackos.

A bewildered pink easter bunny hangs on a cross with colored eggs below it and the words "The Easter Bunny died for your sins." Funny gift for Atheist, Freethinker or get a t-shirt for yourself.

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And of course, no Atheist posting would be complete without my own personal favorites:

A bright yellow smiley outlined in blue with blue letters says: "Smile! You just met an ATHEIST." Great shirt or button to wear to let people know Atheists are all around them.

Tired of having religious crap flung at you from the bible-thumping kool aid drinkers? Back them off with these words: "Thou shalt not inflict your religious crap upon others."

anti-religion, Atheist humor, anti-Christian, anti-xtian, Cafepress, Ursine Logic, Atheist t-shirts, Atheist gifts

Got Big Old Atheist Balls?

T-Shirt Worthiness, The Art Of Stalking The News

Those of you who are crazed enough to read this blog over a period of time know that I sell my art and sayings on t-shirts, buttons, and assorted gift items through places like Cafepress, Zazzle, and Printfection. In the last couple years I've sold my designs to people in twelve different countries, every state in the US plus Guam and Puerto Rico, and all the Canadian provinces. And fun as it is, even my insane and twisted mind sometimes draws a blank...literally.

That means I resort to haunting the mainstream media and its Bushie masters for t-shirt worthy sayings and ideas. Considering that most of these newsactors have the cranial capacity of a meatloaf, I only have to worry about finding time to put so many free gifts into a design and onto a t-shirt.

It really is hard to choose sometimes. And at others it is ridiculously easy. Hillary crying was a no-brainer. As a woman I've been living with the dual standard all my life so it was easy to find an appropriate design equating tears with strength.

Other times ideas appear as mystical gifts of nonsense that just beg to be dragged into a paint chamber and transformed into wearable absurdity that will make sense for about five minutes, and then die away as one of those strange memories that will be reborn in some thrift store in a few years. Like the moment when I heard a talking head on TV in the other room say "Kucinich...he's a feisty little dude."

I was indifferent to the UFO stuff because 10,000 designers were on it the minute he uttered the words "I saw a UFO." But feisty? That's this weeks' favorite. No matter what people remember about Kucinich in that thrift shop a year or two from now, that feisty little dude will get another moment in their lives.

Or the other one I heard: subprime nation. That just seemed like a really polite and backstabbing way of calling America a banana republic. It begged to become a t-shirt. So I obeyed.

And then there's days when every one of the candidates feels the need to promote God/Jesus/Easter Bunny as their personal savior and running mate. For those days I just add something to my anti-religion shop at Wild Shirt World. I always feel the world is a lot smarter than it appears on the surface when someone feels the same way and buys a shirt or a sticker for their cars from that shop.

But that doesn't mean I don't have a soft spot in my heart for those who bought this shirt.

Let's just say we understand each other on some very deep levels.

T-Shirt Worthiness, The Art Of Stalking The News

Flies On The Wall #27

Flies On The Wall #27

Flies On The Wall #2

Flies On The Wall #2