This Blog is Doing Something Right

As the blog grows, it has picked up thousands of readers and dozens of subscribers and supporters from around the world.  The blog’s purpose is to help build community in three distinct areas and I get the real sense that this is happening. As I look at the back-end statistics, I see that there is no continent (with the exception of Antarctica) where the blog isn’t read on a regular basis. I am touched by everyone’s positive feedback, your private emails and certainly blog comments which can be left under each entry.

Recently, there has been a new and delightful trend on the blog as a spate of comments from religious individuals, who do little to add to the content except serve as a cautionary tale, have begun to leave their ideas.  They usually site scripture of their particular faith, which are old arguments based on Bronze-age texts that provide most of the enlightened readers an opportunity to see how egotistical and ignorant some of the faithful can be. Most of these comments end with, “Be Saved” or “You’ll burn in hell.” This is typical of death cult thinking and is found in all the modern religions of the Sinai.

I don’t know any atheists, free thinkers or humanists who troll religious websites or blogs to leave messages asking the faithful to forsake their ideas. This, because most of my colleagues don’t subscribe to the imperialism of thought that faith grows much like a virus to infect as many hosts as possible. The intention of theism is to blindly “spread the word” but the reality is the word as a concept leads to “intellectual fascism,” “misogyny, or “cultural bias.”

But let’s stay positive and focus on the socio-psychological need to express one’s faith even when no one is asking or needing it to be expressed.  Faith as a basis of world view comes from fear, indoctrination or ego although believers will tell you it comes from love. When a counter argument to faith is expressed, the response is usually violent in either words or deeds. This is why the faithful and their leaders despise secularism and secular law.  The secular nature of rationalism, science discovery and knowledge are polar opposites to the status quo of religious thinking.

Since I conclude that everyone has a right to self-expression, I rarely remove blog comments or responses unless the comment or response violates the stated policy regarding threats, slander, or other online behavior which doesn’t allow for the free flow of ideas. As a citizen of the U.S., I agree that we must protect the rights of everyone to believe whatever they wish. As an educator, I live for healthy debate since it is the battlefield of ideas, not the battlefield of war, where secular humanism wins every time it is confronted with theology.

And all this because I want the blog to ultimately be a forum for discussion. If you’re religious and don’t like the postings, no one forces you to read this blog. If by chance, you avoid this site and just read websites that soothe your need to be right and believe that you have the right faith, by all means enjoy yourself. 

But if you wish to publish your religious thoughts then be aware that your ideas will be counter-pointed, mocked or ignored. Because faith isn’t rational, and no belief in the supernatural can be verified through science, ultimately your arguments lack value if they are based on scripture alone. So your ideas leave little interest to my readers, except when they take the liberty of disregarding your comments and thank the universe for rejecting faith and for being humanistic freethinkers.

Let me end by noting that I really had a blog post on an entirely different issue scheduled for today. The topic is modern Christian martyrdom and how those who see themselves as helping the victims of supposed social injustice can at times be equally brutal and unjust.  This is based on my personal experience as an imbedded non-participant observer for about two years in the company of leftist Catholics and their ilk. 

That post will have to wait for tomorrow.  But I conclude that those loyal readers of this blog will enjoy the post and those of the faithful who will read it will most probably damn me to hell (again). That’s ok, I can take it, and I’ve turned the other cheek.