Verily, verily, let’s not forget the brave souls who rose against the Catholic Church in risk of their precious lives.

Actually, and in all honesty, I don’t believe this is the most proper or the smartest way to go about spreading the word of anti-religion, but you got to admire this man’s balls. Brass balls indeed. During the high Easter mass in the Notre-Dame and dressed in the garb of a Dominican monk, he waited for an opportunity to climb the rostrum and declare the following message to the hundreds gathered and many thousands more at home who watched it on television or listened to it on the radio:

Today, Easter day of the Holy Year here, under the emblem of Notre-Dame of Paris I accuse the universal Catholic Church of the lethal diversion of our living strength toward an empty heaven I accuse the Catholic Church of swindling I accuse the Catholic Church of infecting the world with its funereal morality of being the running sore on the decomposed body of the West. Verily I say unto you: God is dead We vomit the agonizing insipidity of your prayers for your prayers have been the greasy smoke over the battlefields of our Europe. Go forth then into the tragic and exalting desert of a world where God is dead and till this earth anew with your bare hands with your PROUD hands with your unpraying hands. Today Easter day of the Holy Year Here under the emblem of Notre-Dame of Paris we proclaim the death of the Christ-god, so that Man may live at last.

April 9th this was 58 years ago. The man had to be rescued by the police from an ensuing angry mob that would probably have ripped him to shreds if they got their hands on him. More on that whole affair here.

Volgens de website van de “Bond tegen het vloeken” is dit de achterliggende gedachte van deze poster:

De Bond tegen het vloeken is deze week gestart met een nieuwe postercampagne. De campagne met de slogan ‘Als er een vloek valt, breekt er iets’ richt zich op het kwetsende karakter van vloeken.

Een vloek wordt vaak in een opwelling, onnadenkend geuit. Toch kan zo’n enkel woord mensen in de omgeving pijnlijk raken en meer teweeg brengen dan je je bewust bent. Doel van de campagne is mensen hierover aan het denken te zetten. De aanpak van vloeken begint bij bewustwording.

En dan dit:

Dit staat op de website van de Bond, onomwonden:

Doel: Uit diep respect voor de Naam van God wil de Bond een eerbiedig en juist gebruik van Gods Naam in de samenleving bevorderen. We stellen echter niet alleen vloeken, maar ook schelden aan de kaak. De Bond zet zich in voor respectvol taalgebruik in de meest brede zin van het woord.

Vloeken gebeurt vaak onnadenkend. Vandaar die papegaai in het logo. De Bond streeft ernaar dat mensen zich meer bewust worden van wat ze zeggen en wat ze hiermee God en medemensen kunnen aandoen.

Motivatie:

De motivatie voor ons werk vinden we in de Bijbel. Bijvoorbeeld in het Onze Vader, waarvan de eerste bede luidt: ‘Uw Naam worde geheiligd’. Liefde en hoogachting voor God zijn drijfveer voor ons werk. Maar we weten ons ook gesteund door opvattingen die breed gedragen worden in onze samenleving. Vrijwel iedereen vindt vloeken en schelden onbeschaafd.

Ik geloof niet in God. Ik geloof niet in “een” God en ook niet in aliens, engelen, telepatie of Sinterklaas. De Bond is echter een spreekorgaan voor Christelijk Nederland. Hun motieven zijn door-en-door Christelijk. Ze zeggen terecht dat iedereen vloeken en schelden onbeschaafd vindt, maar dat wil nog niet zeggen dat blasfemie onbeschaafd is. Er valt zelfs iets te zeggen voor blasfemie.

Christenen indoctrineren kinderen, ze discrimineren jegens vrouwen en homosexuelen en ze verkopen prietpraat. Dankzij de “verlichte” conclusies die ze trekken over normen en waarden zijn er op dit moment honderduizenden mensen een langzame dood aan het sterven door HIV, vooral in Afrika. Dankzij het Christendom hebben we duizend jaar “Dark Ages” gehad tussen nu en de laatste grote beschaving van de Romeinen. Voor Christenen is het belangrijker om kuis en nederig te zijn dan assertief en te werken aan je volle potentiaal.

Christenen proberen normen en waarden op te leggen gebruikmakend van een fundamenteel foute basis: een immens verouderd, bij elkaar geraapt en oneindig gereviseerd boek uit het stenen tijdperk- vol met tegenstrijdigheden, gruwelijkheden en klinkklare nonsens. Voor alle “wijze lessen” in de Bijbel staan er zeker twee maal zo veel “onwijze lessen” in.

Ben ik nu echt de enige die een godsgruwelijke hekel heeft aan De Bond? Ok, ik besef me helemaal dat het allemaal nogal onschuldig is, en dat de acties van de Bond nu niet bepaald verstrekkend zijn, maar ik vind het allemaal zo’n verspilling van geld en moeite.

Christenen verdienen geen speciale behandeling- ze verdienen respect en fatsoen net als iedereen dat verdiend. Ze hebben echter helemaal niet het recht om naar wij gepeupel te wijzen met een vermanende, patriarchische vinger over ons taalgebruik. Ze staan niet boven de rest, ze zijn deel van de rest en het wordt eens tijd dat ze zich daar naar gingen gedragen.

I can understand how this commercial seems convincing to someone who doesn’t know the first thing about the human body– but I bet that last you checked, toxins weren’t exiting your body through your feet. Unless you were talking about my smelly feet, which are highly toxic, especially at the end of a busy day. Wait… maybe this thing does work! In which case I might start thinking about developing some highly effective Kinoki armpit pads.

Of all the foolish things people believe, God is one of the most extraordinary. I think it’s alright to have the personal belief that your life is being guided by a divine being, but it’s not alright to fight about it to the death – or at least utter tediousness – without having sufficient proof for it.

And there is no proof for God, folks, it’s time to face up to that fact. The time when the world was an almost wondrous affair are all but gone, thanks to science. What came in place of God is the beauty of the real world. Isn’t the natural world amazing and breathtaking enough, do you really even need to throw a supernatural being in the mix to be awed by reality? Isn’t life on Earth incredible enough- just look at all the incredible shapes of life! What about quantum mechanics? Astronomy? Psychology? All that science uncovers in these fields inspires in me the same awe that miracles would- all without need of a God. In fact: don’t you agree the “revelation” that all of this came about without a maker is even more inspiring than explaining it away by means of a mysterious Creator?

That said, there are millions of people around the world who claim to have evidence of said Creator. One of the themes of this weblog will be presenting these various forms of evidence and dismantling them. Yes: dismantling. As yet, there is no evidence for the existence of God or even the suggestion of the existence of God, as I will show you. Until I get down to penning about this, I’d like to present one of the strongest arguments against God I’ve heard so far, by the great George Carlin.

Several days ago, the news got out that several Dutch Christian organisations filed official complaints at the address of the Dutch “bureau for codes of conduct in commercials” (honestly, I don’t know what the official translation ought to be, so here’s the literal one) due to franchised electronics warehouse “Dixons” disrespecting Christian faith.

The franchise distributed commercial prints depicting the Three Wise Men navigating by TomTom and baby Jesus listening to ‘I’m dreaming of a white Christmas’ on an iPod in his crib. According to spokesman Bert Dorenbos these depictions are: “Dangerous, especially during Christmas time.” If you can read Dutch, here’s the original article.

Now, I’d like you to consider this and ask yourself how this is different from Islamic outrage over comic portraits of Muhammad in a Scandinavian newspaper. The only difference I can think of is the intensity in the revulsion felt by the offended religion. In fact, I think there is no difference at all. Both situations are equally outrageous and truthfully: the only “dangerous” thing in the whole situation is giving these Christian organisations credulity.

What’s more: where is the danger in these depictions anyway? What’s offensive? I don’t get it. Because it is blasphemous that Jesus might listen to a Christmas song on an iPod? Give me a break! It’s not as if he is trying to get friendly with the mule or anything. Now that would be a decent reason to take offense.

Why did I say it was dangerous to give these Christians credulity? Well, for the plain reason that they are trying to establish that Christianity needs to have a special place in Dutch society. Such a special place, in fact, that it is deemed to be a major breach of common decency to harmlessly depict a Shepherd playing a video-game. What these organisations are lobbying for in this manner, is that society should not be critical of Christianity, however trivially, because it would hurt their personal feelings. And hurting anyone’s feelings is bad thing, don’t you agree?

Well, Bert Dorenbos, you are hurting my personal feelings. Even though I am not too fond of Dixons, I feel offended by the organisations you speak for, for trying to insert small-mindedness into society. For trying to stop us from being critical of a religion that needs to be criticised like never before. For trying to promote Christianity as a clique beyond reproach and mostly– for playing on people’s fears by playing the card that says: “criticizing religion breeds hatred in society.” After all, people, wasn’t Theo van Gogh killed for his blatant critique on religion (Islam), wasn’t Ayaan Hirshi Ali forced to flee the country for the same reason?

For these reasons, I want to hurt your feelings. I want to be critical of you, so that hopefully, it will dawn on you that you are being small-minded and patronising. I don’t mind you and your Christian conviction, however, what I do mind is that you can not keep it to yourself. Instead, you try to tell me, an atheist, and any other person who might ever get the idea to say something “dangerous” about your faith should keep their “blasphemy ” to themselves. I will not shut up. I repeat: I will not shut up. I will never stop criticizing people with small minds and hypocritical agendas.

Amen.