Introduction

Thank you for reading my blog.  I started this blog because I enjoy discussing religion and atheism and a couple of friends from a forum I frequent suggested I start a blog.  I've never had a blog before.  Frankly, I'd never even considered it.  But the more I thought about it the more I liked the idea of having a place to dump the myriad of thoughts I sometimes have on the subject, so here it is.

It is my hope that it will be read by both atheists and theists. There is normally a pretty big divide between the two, but really, there doesn't have to be.  Most atheists I know would gladly take up a "live and let live" attitude if religion weren't being pushed on us all the time.  It's on our money and in our Pledge of Allegiance.  And any time we complain that the Ten Commandments are in a courtroom or a prayer is posted in a school we are attacked like it is unreasonable that we don't want to be assaulted with religion constantly.  I don't know about you, the reader, but I don't think I've ever met a theist who would not be bothered by the Witch's Creed posted in the school their kids went to, or a quote from the Church of Satan in their court house.  We're not asking that atheism be introduced, as many theists pretend is the case.  But, yes, we ARE asking that God be removed from public places, the same as any theist would ask that Allah be removed from their schools or that Ganesh be removed from their court rooms.

The title of this blog is Reasoning Atheist.  Atheists like to use the word “reason” and theists often take offense to that.  They assume that we are claiming that we are “reasonable” and they are not.  Yes, there are many atheists who think that, but that has nothing to do with using the word “reason”.  And really, when we do actually claim theists are "unreasonable", is it any wonder, the way they often act?  16 year old atheist Jessica Ahlquis has been "bombarded with rape and death threats" since successfully suing to get a prayer banner removed from her school.  And we're the bad guys?  You know, I cannot once remember ever threatening to rape a 16 year old girl because she pissed me off.  I cannot once remember threatening to rape anyone for any reason at all, actually.  Does this sound “reasonable” to you?  Because it apparently sounded reasonable enough to the theists making the threats that they went through with it.  And this is not an isolated case.  In almost every big story where atheists are a big part, death threats are mentioned.  Certainly few reading this would disagree that Muslim terrorists are quite unreasonable.  But really, what’s the difference between blowing up a checkpoint and blowing up an abortion clinic?  What’s the difference between threatening to kill a person who insulted your prophet and threatening to rape a 16 year old girl who only asked that she not that a blatant endorsement of religious values she didn’t hold not be displayed at her school?

So any time you hear a theist complain about being called “unreasonable”, ask yourself, who threatens to rape and kill a 16 year old girl over a 40 year old piece of paper?  Does a reasonable person do this?  Who threatens to kill a man who owns a billboard because they don’t like the message his paying customer put on the billboard?  Does a reasonable person do this?  Who tries to blow up a building or shoot a doctor because they don’t like the fact that abortions happen there?  Does a reasonable person commit murder or plant a bomb to solve a difference of opinion?  The answer, in every case, is “no”.  The person who would do these things is, in fact, “unreasonable”, not to mention insane as hell.  Now try to remember every instance in which an atheist threatened or attempted to harm someone because of differing religious or moral views.

Of course theists will always jump straight to Hitler, Stalin and the like because, quite frankly, they’re idiots.  Hitler was raised Roman Catholic.  He never professed atheism and calling him an atheist is conjecture not based on any known facts.  Regardless, neither Hitler nor Stalin nor any other supposed atheist EVER asked their victim’s religion before killing them.  They killed people, yes, but it had nothing to do with the religion of their victims.  Hitler killed people of Jewish decent, not the Jewish religion, which includes atheist Jews.  Staling killed an estimated 10-60 million people.  It would be impossible that there were no atheists in there.  People kill people, but throughout history only religious people have killed for religious reasons.  In other words yes, atheists have killed, but it had nothing to do with atheism.  In fact to claim otherwise is again being unreasonable.

Is it any wonder that atheists often see theists as being unreasonable when they so often are?  Not that we are when we are talking about “reason”, but any atheist who’s ever had a heated discussion with a theist, I’m sure, will feel quite justified in referring to theists as being generally unreasonable.  They demand that “equal rights” mean that you can talk about their God, only their God and say only good things about their God all the time.  They demand that their rights are violated if they are not allowed strip others of rights which in no way affect the theist.  They make death threats as well as any Muslim terrorist does.  They demand that science be redefined so that it doesn’t contradict the particulars of their religious beliefs, regardless what the evidence shows.  They make idiotic claims that if you’re not teaching about religion in schools that you are, by default, teaching atheism.  They insist that having their God mentioned on our money, in our pledge and in our public places in no way violates our rights, yet allowing two men they don’t know and will never meet to marry does violate their rights.

So this blog is about reasoning, logic and common sense, not about being reasonable.  It’s about addressing whatever misconceptions, idiotic claims or outright lies I come across.  It’s about rational thought and putting things into perspective.  It’s not about religion bashing, though I make no promises that I won’t do that from time to time.  The Westboro Baptist Church, for instance, can suck my balls.  It amazes me that faggots like the WBC still exist in America and I will bash that bunch of queers all day long.  But for the most part, if a religion earns respect, a religion will get respect, which is all a reasonable person would ask.