Today I found myself riveted to Richard Dawkins' rad website, where a group of devout atheists cranked out explanations of what they do at Christmas aka "Christ's mass." Here's a small, tasty sample:
"As a miserable atheist I shall of course be alone over christmas. After breakfast I will spend the next three hours tearing pages out of a bible and cursing anyone who has the temerity to ring or call (I will save the quran for Boxing Day). Having loaded my air rifle I will take pot shots at birds and cats that enter my garden. Just before dusk I will spend an hour or two breaking into cars and if I am lucky, stealing children’s presents, I don’t want them of course so I will throw them into the nearest waste bin having stamped on them first...."
I hold a sweet place in my heart for all the world's Atheists (I was one myself -- between being born into a daddy/sky/war-god family and moving on to the Mother/Earth/Peace-Goddess).
A metacool thing about Atheists is that they are our allies in the war to break the fist-clamp the father/sky/war gods* hold over us.
In other words, once Atheists become cool to everyone, it'll be easier for Pagans too to hold our heads up high (without worrying about getting them smushed into the nearest cement sidewalk by some busted daddy-war-god dude).
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*Mainly Jehovah, Allah and Yahweh, but also the Hindu daddy war gods
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thnx to Ramon Gris for the foto; go HERE to see more of his work.
9 comments:
I was also an Atheist for some time, Athana, and hold them dear.
The only thing which oisses me off about some of them (and Richard Dawkins is a good example) is their inability to discern between Bad Religion and Good.
Yes, I know it's highly subjective - but Pagans and Goddess Folk aren't the religions trashing the Earth. Neither do they hold silly anit-female notions which have been ground into society. Neither do they abuse children, women and animals on the basis of Man being the Lord of Creation made in the image of Daddy.I could go on.
Richard Dawkins seesm blind to religions' spectrum and its distinctions - he just lumps them all in one boat as harmful and silly.
But I agree, these are wonderful allies to have.They also, as you noticed, have a great sense of humour, often self-deprecating in the extreme!
Love,
Terri in Joburg
I find in some ways Atheists are not much different from Christians the only difference is they occupy the opposite pole.
Their tactics are much the same but instead of spreading the word about god they are spreading the word about his non-existence.
Take their Winter Solstice sign and billboard for example:
"At this season of the Winter Solstice, may reason prevail."
"There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell."
"There is only our natural world."
"Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts
and enslaves minds."
Although I was once also an Atheist and I know a few who I consider good friends, I find these messages disturbing and similar but opposite to Christians (instead of your going to hell we get, you are stupid, ignorant and superstitious).
Their goal is to eradicate all religion and it is only a matter of time before they turn their eyes on our "superstitious" ways.
I would hold them very cautiously as "allies".
Terri, I think you are so right on re: everything you've said. My take on it is that most atheists have almost no knowledge whatsoever of Pagans as modern spirituality practitioners. So when they use the word "religion," what they mean in toto is daddy/sky/war-god religion. It's all they know. It's the same as if everything in the world were red. If everything were red, none of us would have any knowledge of the concept "color." Color wouldn't exist for us.
Anti-thesis: guess we need to remember atheists as a separate, special and critical category when we're out trying to explain Goddess spirituality to the world, and the necessity of returning to such spirituality. Atheists are going to be hard nuts to crack, I'm afraid, maybe even harder than the daddy/sky/war-god people. I think it would help if we Goddess people totally divorced ourselves from the word "religion." I suspect that word has been irreparably tainted by the war gods. I doubt if it can ever be cleaned up and made presentable again.
Just a note, but the Raving Atheist has now converted and declared that he is now the Raving Theist, and has picked christianity as his theism of choice. Noticed he was on your blogroll and thought you might want to take a look at how the reaction is going down on his site.
I am a born Muslim, (note the born please gurl :)), anyway there is a misconception of labelling Allah as male, it is an asexual deity, both male and female. There has been Muslim philosophers who mulled over what God is and some say It, is female because of Its penchant for perfumes and beauty. Whatever the case is, I'm not sure about Christian theology but you can bet your five bucks many of the representations dealing with Islam are, misrepresentations. Although myself I have lost touch with religion altogether because it claims to be THE only way to rid of the constructed/deconstructed social ills.
Welcome to Radical Goddess Thealogy, liyanat. It's wonderful to have a former Muslim visit here. Please come back anytime!
If you return, here's a question for you: what percentage of Muslims would you say believe Allah is female? Maybe 90%? 50%? 20%? What?
One of these days, so-called "thealogists" like you and Carol Christ will learn that there ARE Goddesses of warfare (Ishtar comes to mind, as does Freyja and Morrigan), female divine powers who HAVE done things like slay or abuse their own children (Hera throwing Hephaestus off of Mount Olympus because he was deformed, or Palden Lhamo killing her own two children and using the skin flayed from one child's body as the saddle on her donkey) and you all will recognize that there IS a violent and destructive side to Goddess.
Just because a Divine power has boobs does not mean that Divine power is all peace, all harmony, all the time.
You can go on and try to dictate to Goddess what She will be...but She will be violent and gentle as it pleases HER, not you.
Why are you so sexist? You are sexists to both genders, because:
1: you assume if it has a penis, it's violent and hates women, and you refuse to give ANY credit to ANY man (mortal or divine) that stands for compassion (the Dalai Lama comes to mind, as does the Nordic God Baldur)
2: you limit women's possibilities by slicing off a part of Divine femininity (fighting, violence, warfare)
You actually shortchange BOTH in your extremely sexist worldview.
You need to zip it and look at yourself for a good long time and come to realize some actual BALANCE in your mind.
Or you need a therapist, because apparently some man did something to you that you can't forgive and now you're taking it out on all men.
You are wrong, Athana.
Goddess does NOT necessarily equate with peace and love and harmony, etc.
Goddess CAN equate with violence, anger, death, destruction, warfare, etc.
You're already walking in this way with your bitter, angry spirit - and you don't even realize it.
Dear anon,
You don't need to come here and be afraid to use your real name. I won't bite.
I have no idea where you got even one of the notions you've written about here. Not even one. Nada. You give no examples, no proof, no substantiation.
It's clear you haven't read much of anything in this weblog.
Wouldn't you agree that it's pretty lame to come and write so many bald-faced black & white assertions about a body of writing you haven't read?
Also, please don't come here and use derogative terms for the human body -- like "boobs." I will delete you the next time you do.
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