I think this film, Parrot, might reflect what a lot of us feel or experience as the only atheists in our deeply religious families:
Do you think it has potential?
comic by Ken Fager
After my family stopped attending Catholic mass regularly and started frequenting a Presbyterian church, I discovered the absolute delight of “Communion Sundays,” which were only once a month. I loved the tiny little plastic cups passed around in fitted brass plates. After sipping up the grape juice, I would do the classy and mature thing by sticking my tongue into the cup to get every last drop from the bottom. I’d suction it onto my tongue, waggle it around, and make silly faces at my friends until an adult noticed and I had to busy myself with the bulletin or something.
My favorite part of Communion Sunday was the bread. I loved that bread. I sometimes called it “3-D Jesus” because it was in a small cubed form instead of the flat, bland wafers we used to dissolve on our tongues at mass. No crackers or matzo here, just soft cubes of a dead guy.
The best thing about this bread was its taste: it was sweet like buttered honey and it fairly melted into your teeth like a soft candy. Jesus tasted damn good. I once tried to take more bread from the passing plate, but I felt ashamed that someone might see, so I contented myself with just one tiny square of Jesus.
Now that it’s not even symbolically holy and I still remember the scrumptious taste of that bread on my tongue, I very much want to eat it again—but in mach larger quantities. Did they buy it or bake it? Is this a common communion food among protestant churches? I’ve googled “sweet communion bread recipe” and not come up with anything particularly enticing.
If you’re out there, Jesusbread baker, can you give me your recipe? I want some with a little honey on top. Like, now. I’m starving.
photo by Catholic Church (England and Wales) on flickr
The ruler and figurehead of the Roman Catholic Church really knows how to come out swinging. The United Kingdom’s increasingly secular society is a great threat to the success of his religion there, and so he starts his visit to the UK with this gem:
Pope Benedict XVI urged the UK to resist “more aggressive forms of secularism” .
He said: “We can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews.
“As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the 20th century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society,” he added.
“May it [Britain] always maintain its respect for those traditional values and cultural expressions that more aggressive forms of secularism no longer value or even tolerate,” he said.
By “aggressive,” I think he means secularists who don’t just sit back and accept the influence and rules of religion on the laws, standards, and traditions of their country.
Terms like “neo-atheists” and “atheist extremism” are thrown around like insulting buzzwords within the religious community. Those of us who speak up against religion and confront the theology and doctrines with which we disagree are seen as a menace, a group without morals, and apparently the same desires for society as the Nazi party. These insulting words are carefully crafted to make atheists with opinions seem like fringe groups with violent, anti-societal agendas. I have my own views on “militant” and “extremist” atheists. We’re really not worth the propagandized vocabulary.
In response to the pontiff’s slight against secularism, the British Humanist Association said:
“The notion that it was the atheism of Nazis that led to their extremist and hateful views or that it somehow fuels intolerance in Britain today is a terrible libel against those who do not believe in God.
“The notion that it is non-religious people in the UK today who want to force their views on others, coming from a man whose organisation exerts itself internationally to impose its narrow and exclusive form of morality and undermine the human rights of women, children, gay people and many others, is surreal.”
If any of us is “extreme,” I’d say it’s the Roman Catholic Church.
(Thanks for the tip @Fargough)
EDIT: Pharyngula posted a long list of quotes by Hitler that apply to this papal insult. Check it out.
Anne Rice was raised a Catholic and left the religion to do her own thing for many years. Much to the delight of Christians who like to name drop (and especially those who hate vampires), she reverted to Catholicism in 1998, dedicating her writing and life to Jesus.
“I Quit”
But twelve years later, the tide has turned once again. Rice recently spread this news via her facebook page:
Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten …years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.
As I said below, I quit being a Christian. I’m out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of …Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.
–Anne Rice, author 2010
You can imagine all the atheists eating this for lunch, can’t you? Can’t you smell the delight over someone famous leaving Christianity? Everyone likes having a public figure on their team. Free endorsements!
However…
Not Good Enough
Good for Rice that she finally recognized the mess of this religion. I understand not wanting to identify with much of Christianity—especially the fundamentalist branches that make a business out of being anti-everyone–but that’s not good enough!
Rice is clearly not abandoning her mythology and superstitious delusions. She’s leaving conservative, fundamentalist Christianity behind and making a political stand out of it. But what about liberal Christianity that is still based on the same myths, but is dressed up in hipster clothing and a laissez faire attitude? When Rice realizes the whole shit n’ caboodle is based on a false premise, then perhaps she might leave for good. Perhaps.
What do you think?
Olin Thang on 
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