Every single day I come here, I'm reminded of how amazing it is that Christians are so blind to the ubiquitous presence of their religion's influence on this culture, such that atheism (the absence of religious ideology) becomes an identity, rather than the effectively-nothing that it is.
If I was surrounded by a culture of people who all told me unicorns once appeared to mankind and left us with the Book of Unicorn which was written by all the people who really really saw unicorns once upon a time, that there were all-powerful and invisible unicorns who were awesome and yet somehow detectable only to people who already believe in unicorns, claimed to know what the unicorns (who by the way created this universe) think and how they wanted us to behave, and claim that only by following The Way of the Unicorn could I be a decent person... and oh by the way, here are symbols of unicorns and laws based on the Book of Unicorns, which we're going to constantly try to get passed, and oh yeah we're going to elect school board members who're in favor of unicorns, so we can subtly teach your children that they too should be unicornists... and so on, etc etc, ad nauseam...
Then I'd call myself an aunicornist, and sit here on the Aunicornist Forums explaining to people why I'm "begging for unicorns to reveal themselves".
And if you give it a serious amount of thought, you'd realize why this unicorn analogy is exactly the same crap we hear endlessly from religious believers, such that our active self-identity as aunicornists/atheists becomes necessary at all.
Otherwise, we'd just be normal people who like science and history and, well, reading.
If I was surrounded by a culture of people who all told me unicorns once appeared to mankind and left us with the Book of Unicorn which was written by all the people who really really saw unicorns once upon a time, that there were all-powerful and invisible unicorns who were awesome and yet somehow detectable only to people who already believe in unicorns, claimed to know what the unicorns (who by the way created this universe) think and how they wanted us to behave, and claim that only by following The Way of the Unicorn could I be a decent person... and oh by the way, here are symbols of unicorns and laws based on the Book of Unicorns, which we're going to constantly try to get passed, and oh yeah we're going to elect school board members who're in favor of unicorns, so we can subtly teach your children that they too should be unicornists... and so on, etc etc, ad nauseam...
Then I'd call myself an aunicornist, and sit here on the Aunicornist Forums explaining to people why I'm "begging for unicorns to reveal themselves".
And if you give it a serious amount of thought, you'd realize why this unicorn analogy is exactly the same crap we hear endlessly from religious believers, such that our active self-identity as aunicornists/atheists becomes necessary at all.
Otherwise, we'd just be normal people who like science and history and, well, reading.
A Christian told me: if you were saved you cant lose your salvation. you're sealed with the Holy Ghost
I replied: Can I refuse? Because I find the entire concept of vicarious blood sacrifice atonement to be morally abhorrent, the concept of holding flawed creatures permanently accountable for social misbehaviors and thought crimes to be morally abhorrent, and the concept of calling something "free" when it comes with the strings of subjugation and obedience perhaps the most morally abhorrent of all... and that's without even going into the history of justifying genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, religious intolerance, and suppression of free speech which has been attributed by your own scriptures to your deity. I want a refund. I would burn happily rather than serve the monster you profess to love.
I replied: Can I refuse? Because I find the entire concept of vicarious blood sacrifice atonement to be morally abhorrent, the concept of holding flawed creatures permanently accountable for social misbehaviors and thought crimes to be morally abhorrent, and the concept of calling something "free" when it comes with the strings of subjugation and obedience perhaps the most morally abhorrent of all... and that's without even going into the history of justifying genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, religious intolerance, and suppression of free speech which has been attributed by your own scriptures to your deity. I want a refund. I would burn happily rather than serve the monster you profess to love.
