dunno about quakerism or christianity

well ok, i dunno about quakerism or christianity. see, quakerism is usually thought of as a branch of christianity. now, christianity is based on the teachings of jesus christ and this book called the bible with 2 testaments, the old and new testament, and the old testament is also called the torah and it is the basis for the older religion of judaism. quakerism was established by george fox in england in the 1600’s because he was dissatisfied with the way other christians practiced their religion and thought they had lost the way and were no longer practicing things the way early christians did, in the first and second century a.d. george fox believed that the early christians had a superior form of christianity which had been wiped out by the corruption of the roman empire, when the romans made christianity their official state religion, and established the vatican in rome with the pope as its leader. he thought that catholicism was horrible and that protestants had made good strides in reforming christianity but had still not gone far enough in getting back to the true spirit of christianity. so, thus, quakerism was established. nowadays, some quakers do not consider themselves christians, and they have other beliefs, but are still welcome to practice quakerism.

but, ok, enough about quakerism. it was founded upon the basis of christianity and as such it is a christian denomination. it has not been labelled non-christian by the fundamentalists, the way they have singled out the mormons and jehova’s witnesses, so quakerism must still be, at its core, a christian religion. but is christianity itself acceptable? the teachings of jesus christ and the christian bible... are they good or bad? for more insights i listen to the local christian radio station sometimes.

there are several radio shows i have heard, all by various christian fundamentalists who all say they take the bible literally. they all believe in creationism and reject what they call “darwinism”. they all put forth various contradictory doctrines on their radio shows. none of the different fundamentalist christian radio shows has the same doctrines about everything! each one has a different “literal” interpretation of the so-called “holy scripture”! and most of the time, these people are spouting off on nonsense and are ranting and raving like lunatics, and sound like they have little or no understanding of reality! then, after all of their faith-based lunacy (how on earth does each of them have the faith to think that their personal viewpoints correspond to the truth and everyone who has another view is wrong?), they spout off about how science is wrong about this or that. they actually don’t attack “science” directly, but say that certain things science teaches that most scientists believe are “unscientific”, and they claim that science and atheism are a religion! moreover, they claim that this religion has actually been discredited and proven wrong! absolutely ridiculous nonsense! how can those who base their thought on faith question proven scientific theories that are based on logic and reason and sound empirical evidence, irrefutable data that conforms to the predictions of these theories? scientific experiments can be independently verified by anyone who has the proper equipment. they are not based on what somebody says they saw happen once, but has no proof of. they are the exact opposite of religion, where you are expected to believe something ridiculous based on no evidence whatsoever, just because somebody tells you it is true, and because of the peer pressure aspect, and they are like, “if all these other people believe it, doesn’t that mean it’s true? if you reject what everyone else believes in, you must be insane.” some of the radio hosts even equate sanity to believing in christianity, and say things akin to “how can you even reason with someone who does not accept the bible as the basis for all truth?” all of their beliefs are based on that one initial assumption that the bible is the basis for all truth. in one of the shows, they have lately been doing nothing but attacking psychology, saying how the “so-called science of psychology” is entirely based on atheism and how all the major figures in developing psychology were atheists, so psychology is completely unacceptable and no christian should even try to find a way to reconcile psychology with christianity and perform christian psychology. they say that all the answers we need to the problems in life can be found in the bible, and if we look anywhere else we are looking in the wrong place and just asking for trouble. these idiots have put all their faith in one book, an old book full of contradictions that has many immoral things about it (things that we can clearly see as immoral nowadays, such as slavery, stoning people to death for minor offenses, men bossing around women all the time, god massacring huge numbers of people who did nothing wrong, etc.). and so many of the ideas and things they claim to have gotten from the bible, and preach on their radio shows, are blatantly immoral and wrong. just today i was listening to someone talking about how these were the end times and how jesus will come and be the king and how he will rule the entire world and wipe out all opposition with an “iron rod”, basically killing everyone who opposes him. then jesus christ will rule the world for a thousand years, and there will be peace for all thousand years, because nobody will dare oppose him, for fear of being brutally executed. it will basically be the same type of rule as hitler or stalin. and then, when the time is up, satan will actually emerge on this earth, a beast marked with the number 666, and then, things get even worse, and there will be massive killings and torture and earth will become very much like hell. now of course this radio preacher tried to downplay all the genocide that jesus would carry out when he comes back to rule for a millennium, saying that all the peoples of the middle east and all the kings would come down and worship him and there would be peace, and that there would be hardly anyone who opposes him, and he would only have to wipe those people off the face of the earth. but still, we are probably talking about at least hundreds of millions of people, and more likely billions, who would have to be killed by our “savior” jesus christ when he comes back to be a warrior-king sitting in a throne in jerusalem. and when the radio preacher talked about how great jerusalem would be with the temple rebuilt and how shiny and expensive and nice-looking everything would be, i could not help but think how this was like a rapper rapping about how he has a pimped-out ride and a nice big mansion and a private jet and all this great stuff. the preacher said that those of us who believe will all end up in heaven praising god and jesus for all eternity, nothing but singing their praises all the time. well excuse me, but i see no reason to praise god or jesus, and if i had all eternity to live, which i don’t, i would certainly find a more productive use for my time and actually do something enjoyable, rather than just feed the ego of an arrogant, powerful snob who thinks he is entitled to have everyone praise him all the time. i mean, the arrogance of god knows no bounds! and of course pride is one of the 7 deadly sins. to be honest, i think at various points in the bible, god demonstrates that he commits the 6 other deadly sins as well. he certainly has quite a temper, so he has wrath covered. remember the story of noah’s ark, and sodom and gommorah? god is like a fricken nazi. and what is the deal with the song of solomon in the old testament? that has lust covered. and so does that whole deal about the virgin mary and how god had sex with her. why is it that god sees everything? he probably only wants to look at hot naked women. and what about sloth, that is, being lazy? well isn’t that what he does most of the time, just sit around and do nothing while horrible things are going on and all of people’s prayers are left unanswered? we sure as hell haven’t seen any miracles happen lately, at least not anything even remotely as miraculous as some of the things described in the bible. so god must be slothful now, if he is around at all, which he isn’t. and what about greed? well god is certainly very greedy about wanting to have possession of the entire universe and omniscient and omnipotent powers. and the descriptions of the lavish palace for god in heaven and in the new jerusalem for jesus, well that sounds like the place where someone incredibly greedy would live. what is the deal with tithing, paying 10% of your income to the church? sounds like the church is rather greedy, don’t you think? why is it that religous leaders are always asking for your money? and the sin of gluttony does not merely include thoughtless excess in food and drink, but also in violence or in anything else. in the bible god has certainly demonstrated his gluttony for violence, all the times he has committed mass murder. and of course the last sin, envy, is demonstrated by all the references to other religions in the bible, and of how people must have no god but the jewish/christian god “jehovah”. not only that, but there are places in the bible where god seems to be envious of satan, or of people here on earth. i mean what is the deal with the book of job, where god and satan are ganging up together like schoolyard bullies making bets while ruining other people’s lives, without even caring about all the death and destruction they cause?

see, there is only one answer for all of this. the god of judaism and christianity is a megalomaniac, a genocidal dictator, very angry and hateful, and basically completely evil. of course he claims to be good. pretty much every evil dictator claims to be good. they try to spin everything to make themselves look good and righteous. but god is like an evil totalitarian dictator for the entire universe, at least in the way he is depicted in the bible. so even if he existed, i would not want to believe in him or worship him. i would sooner go to hell than praise that evil sadistic mass-murdering bastard at all. the most righteous and noble thing a person could possibly do is reject god, because by rejecting god, you are rejecting all of that evil, and instead, you embrace the good. you are rejecting hate and venom and lies and murder and bigotry, and you are embracing truth, justice, love, peace, and honor. if there is nothing more honorable than sacrificing oneself for the greater good, then what could be more noble than refusing to praise god, even if it means spending eternity in hell rather than heaven? that is the ultimate act of self-sacrifice, the most noble thing anybody could possibly do. it requires a lot of bravery, a lot of courage, and the strength of your convictions. but i know in my heart that even if the god described in the bible and believed in by christian and/or islamic fundamentalists did exist, he would be pure evil, and anyone who praised him would be an accessory to all of the crimes against humanity he has committed throughout the ages. this is the same god used to justify terrorism, the same one used to justify men dominating women, the same one used to justify slavery, the same one used to justify killing homosexuals, the same one used to justify the crusades, the spanish inquisition, the “witch” burnings, the great religious wars of europe, and all of the violence that israelis and palestinians do towards one another. who in their right mind would worship such an awful, evil god? i have heard many people say that despite all this, they think there is more good than bad in christianity, or things to that effect. well good for you... you just rubber-stamped an evil dictator. but that evil dictator you worship does not even exist anyway so it does not matter what you believe. but what does matter is your actions, and, to quote voltaire, “those who believe in absurdities commit atrocities”. that is why, to me as an atheist, the beliefs of christians and other religious groups do matter, because they affect what happens here on earth and how we humans treat each other, and whether we are willing to act in our own self-interest as a species by preventing global warming and destruction of the environment. all too often, those who are overly religious go around advocating things that are highly immoral and wrong, or even doing evil, bad things, all because of their religion. i think that without religion, we would all be much better off. and it saddens me, because i know the sense of community religious groups give people, and the fact that religions do teach people some certain amount of good values is undeniable. but mixed with the good is the bad, and it is a poisonous mixture for the mind. when you accept a religion like christianity, you take the bad with the good, and are endorsing the whole thing. and quakerism, as something based on christianity, cannot be seen as anything but a part of it, or at least something which originated from it. and when you are able to see that the origin of the whole thing is completely corrupt and immoral and bad, then it becomes clear that religion must be rejected. let no mind be chained by the laws of any external ideology or belief system imposed upon a person by others. we ought to think freely, and not enslave our own minds to these poisonous, corrupted belief systems. such belief systems become chains that hold the mind back from being able to think freely and logically and thoughtfully. so i cannot in good conscience call myself an adherent to any belief system or religion. but i do call myself a subgenius and praise the church of the subgenius regularly in this blog, because i believe in what they are doing. they are not a real religion at all, but a mockery of religion, and their mockery exposes all of the evils of religions both great and small, from obscure ufo cults to giant mega-churches. in fact, the church of the subgenius is an obscure ufo cult itself, not unlike the raelians or heaven’s gate or the less-obscure scientology, except that the subgenius religion is a farce, a mega-comedy. the comedy all started with publication of a humorous pamphlet in 1979, entitled “pamphlet #1”, by 2 men who went to high school together who were living in fort worth, texas. they call themselves reverend ivan stang and dr. philo drummond. this comedy act has grown more and more popular each year since then, and there are more and more subgenius ministers performing the subgenius comedy act, each in their own unique way. what is most ingenious about it is, they have developed a very complicated and intricate set of dogma and fake beliefs that they pretend to believe in, all of which are incredibly ridiculous ideas that are obviously false to pretty much everybody, no matter what religion the person is. the church of the subgenius makes sure to make itself more self-contradictory and absurd, and have more ridiculous beliefs, than any other religion on the face of this earth. what is so wonderful about it is the sheer creativity of its members and just how interesting all of the doctrines are, because they are like science fiction or a fantasy novel or a ridiculous thought experiment that somebody comes up with to prove something wrong. i just find the church of the subgenius’s comedy to be strangely addictive and also very meaningful. it carries a powerful message underneath all of the sarcasm and hyperbole and parody and self-parody. there are other parody religions too, i know. the two that come to mind are discordianism (followers of the goddess eris discordia, a religion started by the recently deceased philosopher-genius robert anton wilson) and pastafarianism (pastafarianism is the name invented for followers of the flying spaghetti monster, and the religion was made up by someone just so he could file a legal brief about it in a recent court case involving the teaching of creationism in kansas public schools). but those 2 religions are far inferior to the church of the subgenius. they have nowhere near the complexity or the level of humor achieved by true subgenii. discordianism and pastafarianism are quite simple and fairly boring, really; they have no real depth to them. they are just simple absurdities and silly parodies, but they do not take the joke anywhere near far enough. the church of the subgenius takes the joke much further than any joke was ever meant to go; the joke first started 28 years ago in 1979, or according to church doctrine, the church is actually serious and started in 1953, not 1979. now there are some idiots out there (who subgeniuses derisively refer to as “bobbies”) who actually believe in all the doctrines of the church of the subgenius. these people are so stupid, they could pretty much believe in anything at all and would not question a thing about what they are told. the church of the subgenius tries very hard to prevent anyone from becoming a “bobbie”, trying to tell people as many times as possible that the whole thing is one big joke, that it is inherently self-contradictory, and that it is the only religion that admits that the whole thing is a complete sham (so it must be right!). the supposed founder of the church, j.r. “bob” dobbs, is depicted as a mentally incapable bumbling fool and compulsive liar, gambler, alcoholic, and drug addict, who became extraordinarily successful in life through a combination of a little charisma and incredibly good luck that never ran out. subgenii are supposed to praise “bob”, whose name is always in quotation marks to show that it is a joke, in order that we might inherit some of his qualities and be more like him. and the church of the subgenius teaches people to never do any work and to just slack off all the time. imagine what would happen if nobody ever did any work; the whole world would fall apart... civilization depends on the fact that most people do useful, productive work, work that advances civilization as a whole. all of the beliefs and teachings are so patently absurd. and that is what makes it so great, because expert subgenius ministers are able to use logic and rationalize all of the subgenius belief system and make it sound at least somewhat rational, all with a straight face and without bursting into laughter at how ridiculous what they are saying is, even though they believe none of it. it is like what stephen colbert does on his show with the character he plays and the odd beliefs of that character (such as the iranian hostage crisis still not being over, and how he cannot see what race a person is, and how bears are the #1 threat to the civilized world, and of course how george w. bush is the greatest president ever). or like what sacha baron cohen did with the character borat sagdiyev, who also had very odd beliefs that he was able to pretend to have convincingly. so, i think perhaps much of christianity and many other religions is the same type of thing, people pretending to believe something even though they actually think it is a bunch of bullshit. certainly that must be true in all the islamic countries, countries where according to official statistics 99% of the population is muslim, or that sort of ridiculous statistical bullshit. people are too afraid to admit to not being muslim because they do not want the actual muslims to kill them. so all the nonbelievers pretend to believe, out of fear and intimidation. i think that is a large part of religion, the fear and intimidation part. and, call me crazy, but i just think that’s wrong, and i want no part of it. and i think islam is probably the worst offender as religions go, the most evil of all of the major ones, certainly, but that does not mean the other ones are not evil too. they are all a malevolent influence on humanity, and we would be better of if we were rid of them all (especially islam, but the others too). even quakerism has got to go, which pains me to say, since i am so attached to it, and believe in such a large percentage of its teachings. it would not be fair to get rid of all religions except quakerism, certainly. but quakerism has a few flaws of its own too, which i have found through my studies of it. luckily quakerism is structured so that quakers can question beliefs and practices of their religion and reform and update them when need be. like to name one particular issue, gay rights for instance, quakers were actually slightly behind the times on this issue, only endorsing the gay rights movement a few years after most of the major media institutions in this country had already done so with their news coverage. and quakers used to be very strict, quite unnecessarily so, and maintained strange and odd customs for pretty much no reason except out of tradition, because somebody thought it might be a good idea a few hundred years ago and the other people back then agreed. a lot of quakers do like to quote bible verses, as did the founder of quakerism, and i have already detailed why i utterly detest the bible and think that it stands for all that is wrong in this world. and sometimes i think that the liberal permisiveness and the uncompromising pacifism of today’s quakers might be taking things a little too far, even though i generally agreee with those sentiments most of the time. quakers have such a deep and strong tolerance for all other religions, and it completely goes against my views of most religion being evil. even islam is revered as a fellow religion and another path to the truth or enlightenment or whatever it is that quakers are after. more commonly, today’s quakers look for truth and enlightenment from buddhism, but it is alarming to me how willing quakers are to take tolerance to utter extremes. at some point, people have to say, “enough is enough”, and stop tolerating things that are obviously bad. since quakerism teaches that there is truth to be found in all religions and many paths to the truth, and you can be a quaker and another religion at the same time, no matter what that other religion is, there would be no problem being a quaker subgenius. but i have increasingly seen the dangers of people taking extreme viewpoints, and how religion tends to make people do this. of course i have extreme viewpoints on the subject of religion, but what can you say? i am biased, because i am an atheist, and i know how atheists have been oppressed and brutally killed for thousands of years, and forced against their will to “convert” to false religions they did not believe in, and i know how all the religions that exist today are younger than atheism, since atheism is the original belief system people we are all born with. but, enough of that. while i strongly sympathize with quakers and approve of almost all of quakerism, it is not 100%, and i simply cannot burden myself with having to justify all of the wrongdoings perpetrated by christendom for the last two millennia or the earlier wrongdoings written of in the old testament. i do not think those wrongdoings can or should be justified, or that anyone should be following the teachings of the perpetrators. now i know that atheism is nothing more than a lack of belief in god or any religion, so without something that people actually do believe in, there is no morality, no rules on how to behave, no guidance on how to think. but that is the whole point: it is about freedom. people can come up with their own ideas. it is what people do anyway. even christian fundamentalist radio hosts come up with their own ideas on everything. they just pass off their ideas as coming from the bible. if everyone were atheist, this would just mean that people would continue to come up with ideas like before, but probably more ideas and most of the ideas would be better. but the idea of everyone being atheist is an absurdity, because atheism is the utter freedom of the mind, and people have a tendency to latch onto ideas and become attached to them. no sooner would everyone be atheist than countless new religions and belief systems would sprout into existence, right from the beginning, and some of these new religions would grow quite rapidly and attract lots of followers. they would not be burdened by association with atrocities that happened in the past, or long-ago discarded unscientific views of things. the only reason atheism is still around after so long is because it is not a religion, but rather a lack thereof. it is a nothing, in terms of ideas. any mind incapable of grasping the complex ideas of religion is an atheist mind, and so all of the animals we see in nature are atheists, and they are never troubled by theological disputes. it is too bad that we humans are so intent on finding answers for everything, all too often we seek out the easiest answers rather than taking the time to search for the ones that are actually most likely to be correct. that is the reason ancient people had supernatural explanations for everything rather than scientific ones, and why the explanations were different in every tribe or ancient civilization. people are unwilling to accept uncertainty or take “i don’t know” for an answer, and this is the ultimate source of the problem. anyone who thinks they have all the answers probably has all the wrong answers, and yet this person is considered smarter than someone who admits to not knowing anything. but the person who says “i don’t know” to almost every question is the greatest genius of all, since such a person is smart enough to avoid falling into the trap of being wrong about something. such a person is infallible, as long as they keep from knowing anything. if only we were all smart enough to be so stupid.