My Offer

A few days ago I had an impromptu debate with an individual which I found very enlightening, if that's the word to use, even if nothing that he said can be considered to be enlightened. This individual was wearing a black t-shirt emblazoned with the words Trust Jesus in huge yellow block letters and, on the table next to him, propped up against the wall was a sign advertising "Are You Going to Heaven? - Free Test!". Naturally, with nothing much better to do (other than the obvious, such as eating my enormously overstuffed falling-apart-at-the-seams burrito, picking my nose or ramming my head repeatedly into reinforced concrete, the last of which was basically the same thing in the end) I, the Jewish-Atheist-Raised-On-Ham-And-Cheese-And-Richard-Dawkins wunderkind that I am, sat down to see whether giving God the finger every Yom Kippur was endearing me to His Holiness. And, naturally, my love of provoking religious anger led me to switch the topic up mid-test and begin questioning this pure and holy missionary (who, if one is sentimental enough to believe that dreams do come true, might one day even achieve the honor of appearing on television with his GOD HATES FAGGOTS sign curiously rendered in black over a Rastafarian-colored green-yellow-and-red background). My (admittedly religious, but at least relatively sane religious, the kind of religious person who's religion stays a personal matter that doesn't bother people who'd rather be left alone) friend saw me and joined in, and soon a decent-sized circle had gathered around us for our good-natured exchange of personal beliefs. A number of great religious pearls were uncovered during this repartee; for example, the idea that anything God does is justified because "God is sovereign" (explained by my religious friend: "he's saying God is good because God is arbitrary" - thank Beelzebub my friend doesn't buy into that kind of phony argument), leading me to remember the various other cases where acts were justified because the actor was "sovereign", good "sovereign" people like, for instance, Hitler (another such gem was "He has ordained that they suffer in Hell for His glory" - wow, sounds like a great guy). He also came up with the interesting insight that I had no friends (despite the the fact that my friend was sitting right fucking next to me) and that my so-called 'friends' would all betray me (shhh! you wouldn't want to ruin the surprise, would you?), not to mention several mind-numbingly unimaginative dodges for my standard questions about religion (one question, the one detailed in "the parable of Joe and Ahmed" on my blog, he flat-out refused to answer). He also curiously accused me of trying to belittle him when I asked when he thought the world was created so that I could assess what breed of Christian I was dealing with (doesn't asking for your beliefs only count as belittlement if your beliefs are patently retarded? if you're ashamed and feel belittled when someone asks for your opinion, it really seems like it's you who needs to change your opinions, and, failing that, at least do the gene pool a favor and get a vasectomy). In the end, the results of my test were that my main defining character trait was 'wickedness' (I thought everyone who used that word had died out around the same time they stopped hunting for witches) and that I was going "straight to Hell".

I learned from this explicitly something which I have understood in my gut for years, yet never had the courage to realize it fully. I always gave religions, by dint of popularity, some sort of veneer of respectability in my mind, as if they were a proper intellectual challenge to my system. Don't get me wrong; religions, great and small, are still a worthy target for attacks, and blasphemy still has a place in my intellectual ideas, but ONLY because they are popular. Once the task of eradication of religious belief is complete, we will only remember them as a warning to future generations. Now I have realized my error and accordingly I make my offer to the world:

To those that accept logic and rational thought, who are open to argument and willing to change their beliefs to suit the evidence, I offer debate, discussion, and examination of evidence, in order to move closer to the truth. To those who deny logic, whose ideology trumps any and all contrary evidence, I offer only silence where our differences do not necessitate a confrontation, and violence where they do.