Ignorant Bliss

I just read an excellent essay by a Canadian woman named Cathy Oliver.  It was originally published on Pharyngula, P.Z. Myers' excellent blog.  Here is a link to it on Alternet.  The author tells of the occasion when she realized exactly why she was an atheist.  I won't spoil it by telling too much, but I do want to quote two of her lines from the essay because they are truly priceless in their summation of why it is better to be an atheist:

"I’m really an atheist because religion is selling ignorant bliss – and I don’t want it."

Followed by this in the next paragraph:

"If I have to trade a bit of happiness for the ability to think for myself – done."

I wanted to share these because they are both (especially when used together) excellent short answers to why one prefers to be an atheist--something that almost all atheists have to explain on occasion.

A News Story About Atrocities In Franco's Catholic Spain

Christiane Amanpour has produced a short news segment about a new BBC documentary chronicling one of the worst crimes of General Franco's fascist, uber-Catholic regime.  During that regime, the children of "undesirable" parents were stolen and sold to Franco's supporters in order to make sure that they were appropriately brainwashed in religious authoritarianism.  Who were these "undesirable" parents?  Liberals (the few left that weren't executed by the regime during the civil war), the poor, single mothers, etc. 

The same sort of thing occurred in Argentina during their dirty war against liberals and secularists, and, although she doesn't mention Chile, I would be quite surprised if they did not do the same.

The BBC documentary will air in the U.S. on BBC America on November 3rd of this year.  We should all watch it.  More important, we should all remember that the religious are at war with us and will stop at nothing to marginalize and eradicate us.  These stories are just examples of how serious this secret, undeclared war can be.

Reproduction As Warfare

I am sorry I haven't posted lately.  I have had a lot of things occupying me in the last few weeks, and the posts I am working on seem unfinished as yet.  I felt I had to pass on something I read this morning, however.  A frequent poster on Think Atheist posted one of the best and most succinct explanations of the reasons for religious hostility to birth control, and I just had to pass it on (with a slight modification or two):

"Along the course of time, while religions were being invented by the leaders of humans, and gods were invented to instil fear in order to control the masses, unlimited reproduction, seen as a weapon of war, war by numbers, was a primary component of the purpose of religion.  Unlimited reproduction (breeding) is still a component of the religious wars. Overbreeding and religion are inseparable. Religious people are indoctrinated into thinking that humans are precious, in order to create more disposable humans, in order to outnumber the other religious factions.  Religious citizens are the breeding pawns of war mongers.

Our methods of economics, notwithstanding its many faults, has taught us one very important consideration, the availability of a resource is inversely proportional to its value.   Religious leaders know this.  As our human population expands, it becomes more and more important for religious leaders to instil the "precious human" doctrine.  We need precious disposable humans to send to slaughter at war, to ensure our place at the top of civilization.  Breeding contributes to the war effort.

Now... women in the west have been reducing our war effort, but what have our governments done to compensate?  [They] encourage population growth in the third world, then import those disposable war workers here.  As usual, our governments working against us."

Just above this person's comment, you will find another post on the topic that is also quite informative.