30 Days of Fiction: 8

Among the rubble of the fallen building one hand could be seen reaching toward the sky. Noticing the hand, a rescue worker rushed over and started digging shards of metal and concrete out from around the hand, that now lay limp. After an minutes of relentless work the body of a middle aged man emerged covered in dust and blood. By the time the rescue worker had started CPR more medical personnel had arrived to prep the ambulance ride should the man be brought back to life. The man's eyes opened suddenly and a gasp of air signaled a successful resuscitation. He was lifted onto a stretcher and placed into an ambulance.

Later that night the news would report that the building had been the victim of a terrorist bombing intended to disrupt the sale of religious texts and send a message to those that propagated Christian ideologies. No group had come forward yet to take credit for the bombing that caused the death of at least one shop worker and one customer and had sent one man to the hospital in critical condition. This had been the first terror attack in the small town of Medford, Oregon and the public wanted answers. "The religious community will not be intimidated or deterred," the woman on the news would explain. 

Bruce's eyes opened slowly to find that he was all alone in a quiet and brightly lit hospital room with an IV in his arm, bandages on his face chest and legs, and a pounding headache. A moment later a nurse walked in the room.

"How are you feeling today, mister..." she said hoping he would finish the sentence.

"Lenny," the man said cheerfully. "Lenny Bruce." He tried to lift his hand but stopped mid way up and laid it back down.

"That's alright, Lenny. Just relax and try to move. You've sustained a major concussion and some cuts and bruises but I think you're going to be just fine," the nurse said confidently. "Do you have anyone that we can call," she asked.

"No, it's fine. Don't want to worry anyone and I don't have family in town so..." Bruce said cordially. 

"OK, well if you change your mind just let us know. How do you feel," the friendly, young nurse asked as she checked his charts and monitors. 

"I have terrible headache," he said squinting and rubbing his head. 

"OK, I will talk to the doctor about what we can do for that," she responded as she started for the door. "I'll be back in a few minutes. Your lucky to be alive," she said turning to him and then walked out of the room. An hour later the kind nurse entered the room where Bruce had been to find an empty bed and and opened window. 

Bruce glared at the screen of his computer that displayed the latest news on the bombing. Articles speculated that the recent attack was a response to the series of gruesome murders of seven prominent atheists in the past year. Or it could be a random act of violence perpetrated by Islamic radicals, one article explained. The next website on screen was a notice that Seth Harris would be in Medford to speak at the local community college on his Nationwide college tour debating the negative aspects of religious ideologies. This latest news interested Bruce very much.

A few days later Seth Harris was walking out of a gas station bathroom, just outside of Medford, when he felt the world slowly start to fade to black. He had passed out due to a build up of fumes that had been pumped into the bathroom from the outside. His limp body was picked up and placed into the back of blue Ford SUV and soon he was being brought back to consciousness by the feeling of freezing ice and water hitting his face. His eyes opened to see a sideways man standing in the shadows holding a bucket.

"What the fuck is this," Seth said, groggily. Looking around the cold concrete room he saw gardening tools and lawnmower but to the far right there was only a cloth covered bench, on which laid a golden dagger, a large hammer, a bag of four inch metal spikes and a plain old hacksaw. At seeing this he whined,"oh fuck," and started squirming around but the ropes around his ankles were connected to the ropes around his wrists which were connect behind his back and he wasn't going anywhere soon.

The man in the shadow came forward into the light, turned the bucket over and sat on it contemplating his new victim. Bruce stared at the man laying in the corner and patiently waited for the man to stop pleading, questioning and bargaining and when the man finally stopped Bruce stood up. He began kicking Seth in the chest and stomach and face all the while chanting over and over, "And have mercy on those who doubt. And have mercy on those who doubt. And have mercy on those who doubt." He continued chanting and kicking until the heathen fell unconscious and he was out of breath.

Minutes later Seth woke up in a pool of blood, his teeth falling apart in his mouth. He whimpered and moaned with no one to sympathize as Bruce sat in the light sat staring at him on his white bucket. Then, Bruce stood up and as he walked toward the tool bench he recited,"But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death."

"No, No, No," Seth stammered and spit.

Bruce, holding a dagger with a golden handle, walked to the man, knelt down, opened the man's neck and said, "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life."

The next morning was cold and dreary, with fog covering most of the well kept grounds of the Medford Methodist Church when the groundskeeper walked down the stairs to the church's basement to fetch weed killer. He opened the door like he'd been doing for the past 15 years but this time he was greeted by the horrifying scene of dismembered bloody body parts in the shape of a cross, each piece nailed to the wall.



Bruce was eating pie in a quaint San Franciscan diner when everyone around him turned their heads toward a TV set attached to a wall behind the counter.  A young female reporter was saying, "Yesterday, Oregon state troopers arrested a man they believe is responsible for the terrorist bombing of a small Christian book shop in Medford last week." The picture of famed atheist Darren Richmond showed on screen next to a photo of Seth Harris. The reporter continued, "The divide between the faithful and the faithless is ever growing as in the same town the body of renowned 'New Atheist' Seth Harris was found brutally murdered and nailed to a church basement wall."

Bruce looked back down at his plate and began eating again. 

The Big Bang Argument…

So when Christians say that science is making great strides to help them reinforce their faith by illuminating the “Designer” in the natural world it is yet another attempt to high jack scientific thoughts. One of these scientific discoveries it the theory of the Big Bang:  At the beginning of time and space there was a singularity or a dot of condensed mass and all at once it exploded in all directions and it seems that this must be due to a God making it happen. One Christian apologetic put it this way; if there is a cause then there must be a ‘causer’. I’ve heard it also said that there can’t be something from nothing so god is the something before the Big Bang. And all things burst from his mouth and it was good I guess.

The main reason scientists believe the big bang is a viable theory is that it was discovered that the universe is expanding. Things are constantly floating away from the center is a uniform yet accelerating way.  This leads to the logical conclusion that at one point in time all the universe was in that center as a super dense mass.  So the idea that something came from nothing is to negate the idea the dense mass was something. Also, it is like a Christian to take one piece of incomplete text and turn it into doctrine. They say, “no, you guys came up with it, and now we know god is real because he is outside space and time (supernatural) and space and time only existed after the big bang.”

This is how simple people think.  They take one idea and run with it instead of doing what any skeptical, intelligent person would do which is to probe the idea, discuss possible exceptions of explanations and continue to study the theory. There are so many theories that go past the big bang and many that try to discover more underlying realities involved in the universe that may prove the big bang theory to be laughable but it is the search and continued skepticism that keeps science going and our understanding evolving. Even if all the theories are proved incorrect it is still better than hanging the whole argument on “God did it.”

The Your Just Rejecting god Argument…

Many Christians argue that atheists reject god’s commandments because they want to be free to be sinful, sexually deviant, or otherwise morally delinquent and to this I think there is a very simple answer.

I say to this, “I don’t reject god because god is not real; I reject you because you are not my superior and you have no right to dictate my life.”  I don’t reject unicorns; I reject those who try to sell me one.

Christians often say things like god forgives you, or god Loves you, or god wants you to do this or that. These people are so diluted they think they are god and thus are really saying I forgive you because I can do that, or I want you to do this or that because I am righteous.  Self-righteousness is toxic and speaking for god is a sign of delusional hubris.  

THE CHILDREN ARE OUR FUTURE!

                Children are not slaves to their parents and society can make decisions about how to better educate and treat these future politicians, professors, doctors and maybe even pastors.  It is only when we encourage curiosity, nurture open-mindedness and strive for intelligence in all children that humanity will evolve to solve the world’s problems.  Survival requires adaptation and change, not conservatism and stubbornness.

The biologist Richard Dawkins often expresses concern for the children of religious people. These children are indoctrinated from the beginning to believe everything that their parents tell them about the world and about how god wants them to behave.  Children grow up blindly converting to the religion of their parents with no choice and often with no outside influence to other explanations of the world.  Many children are taught that god is always watching and judging them; that they were born sinners and are condemned unless they abide their parents interpretation of ‘god’s will’; and taught that those who are not a part of the in-group are outsiders and are to be judged accordingly.  When children begin to think for themselves and challenge their parent’s authority (which is normal) they are often ostracized, abused, ridiculed, excommunicated, or otherwise tormented by their own families. It is not always extreme but children in these families are not encouraged to be curious about the world or about other ways of thinking.  They are shielded from outside influences to ensure total brain washing and speaking out about family problems is often discouraged and punished. 

                Daniel Dennett, the brilliant philosopher, has one simple, yet powerful solution to this issue and I’m inclined to agree with his plan.  His solution is to create a mandatory curriculum of religion education in public schools. Schools would teach only the uncontroversial beliefs of as many religions as possible and I think they should through in some philosophy and history as well. This would allow students to think about religion from a more secular point of view and make better decisions about how to live their life as well as how to examine claims about the world. Why would a religion be afraid of this informative curriculum if they are so sure of the righteousness of their prescribed dogma?

Why Atheists, Agnostics and Others should speak their minds

“…AND IN WHAT POSITION.”

-Christopher Hitchens on god the dictator

                In the last few years I have watched atheists and others in the media to speaking out about various issues including prayer in school, government sanctioned prayer, catholic malfeasance, radical Muslims,    radical Christians, Christmas, and a slew of other important issues.  These media encounters are often mini-debates where one side is pitted against the other and given a 5 or 10 minute speech and it ends up being very limited in substance and typically not very persuading for either side but in these mini-debates I have noticed one argument on the religious side that rebukes the atheist for  “rocking the boat”. They say things like “why do you want to tell children Christmas isn’t real?” or “why don’t you just keep your opinions to yourself,” or “just let people believe what they want.” So, it is to these types of comments that I write this. I want to express why I think it is essential for dissidence to be encouraged and why these ‘free-thinkers’ or ‘new-atheists’ should speak up more often. Power must be questioned and challenged and some of the smartest people are atheists or agnostics.

                The majority of Americans identify as Christian and that majority includes the political body that governs the country. Christian politicians and advisors are informed by their beliefs and these people’s decisions influence millions of lives.  Science funding, global warming, taxation, education and social programs are all influenced by rich, white religious people who have a tenuous grasp on modern science and use stone-age justifications and logic to make their decisions.  These people have been in power long enough to show that they are incapable of creating a better world for the masses.  In the thousands of years that the bible has been around and with the millions of religious people that have interpreted it, it seems that little change has occurred for the better. They tote the ideas of Jesus but their actions are the same as any ancient kings and dictators. It’s all about money and power to these Christians and the Republican Party is the best example of this.  So, the outsiders watch for as long as they can and then they decide to speak out and whether they are atheists or others something has to be said.

                When people say that atheists are militant or stringent it is only because they are fighting thousands of years of power mongering and reification in the religious controlled world. Catholics and Christians have forced their views on millions of good people throughout the world with their emissaries and armies and child indoctrination.  They use fear and hate to propagate conjecture and outdated ideals for the purpose of control, power and self-righteous fulfillment. Anyone who says Christians just want to live good lives so why make waves hasn’t taken into consideration the bigots who spew hate to their children and to the public. There are countless examples of negative acts done by Christians in the name of Christianity and many of them go unchallenged or whose consequences are too subtle to notice until it is too late.