Why people make fun of religion.

A lot of people like to make fun of religion and religious people do not like that AT ALL. But why not? After all, every single religion operates in the closed minded belief that they are the only ones who actually know the real truth, and that the rest of us are misguided fools or stupendously ignorant. If you acted like this for any other reason people would never take you seriously, but faith wants to be respected and I just won't go along with that.

Many people take these attacks personally, like they are somehow representative of their entire faith. It's not that, it's just that there are too many things that beg to be mocked. As a comedian, I love picking apart things, and religion is always a fun subject. Following are three of the reasons I can currently think of that make it okay to mock religion.

1.) The Pope

Where would Jesus sit?

Somewhere on this planet is an old man sitting on a golden throne making decisions that influence the lives of millions of people. He is not beholden to any governmental body, he's elected for life, and he has followers in leadership positions across the globe. His organization is repeatedly in trouble for molesting children all over he damn place and then covering it up afterwards. Nobody knows how many people have left the church over this issue but, the more it happens, the more I wonder why the true faithful haven't cast down their leadership and replaced them with people who don't allow children's lives to be ruined. If any other organization other than a church did this kind of thing this often, this widespread, the entire world would shun them.

And let's not forget how many lives are forced into this world because the Catholic church refuses to allow their members to do any family planning. The world is over populated in many places, poor people are burdened with extra mouths they cannot feed, and the best defense against Aids in Africa is thrown right out the door because the Pope thinks that condoms are somehow the work of Satan.

And please note I'm not even remotely touching on anything that happened before I was born. History is full of examples where the Catholic faith was responsible for horrendous deeds.

You are always allowed to make fun of the Pope until he sells everything he owns to feed the poor, just like Jesus told him to.


2.) Hypocrisy

There's only one rule.

Long time readers know that I started my own satirical Facebook page specifically to make fun of this one thing. The amount of hypocrisy in the world is appalling. Every single time I see someone like Newt Gingrich talk about family values when he has three overlapping marriages, I want to throw my television out the window. And I have a large television and very small windows. We all know by now that the louder someone yells about gay people, the less we have to wait for them to get caught with a gay prostitute. And it doesn't end with people who claim to love you so much they want to beat the crap out of you for being different either. Here in the U.S. there is a direct correlation to how religious the state is to how racist it is. Politicians and other idiots will gladly speak both hate and religion in the same paragraph, all with a nice little "God Bless You" to tie it together.

This behavior is most common when I get into discussions online with the faithful. Even the smallest disagreement, or sometimes even a question, is frequently met with open hostility and rage. If, for instance, I point out that the same books in the bible that dictate our sexual behaviors also tell us that we aren't allowed to shave, wear mixed fabrics, AND give us rules for selling our daughters into slavery, so maybe they aren't the best standard for modern behavior, I am frequently met with a stubborn insistence that I should just shut up instead of challenging their belief that gay people are evil.

Occasionally someone will blow up an abortion clinic, killing plenty innocent people, most who are there for regular medicinal stuff, and they still have the audacity to do it in the name of the 'Pro-lifers'. As a matter of fact, the Pro-life movement pays the smallest amount of lip-service to calling these psychos the terrorists that they are. Go to ANY comment section where religion is discussed and you'll see countless examples of open hatred towards people who just believe differently. This is not only hypocrisy, but scary.

And, let me set this straight, you are always allowed to mock people who say one thing then do the opposite. If you establish a rule, you must follow it. If you claim to love all creatures and then slap someone in the face, you deserve everything people decide to say about you. Especially if it upsets you.


3.) Logic

Sure, whatever.

In most countries, the faithful far outnumber the rest of us. For thousands of years we've been forced to quietly acquiesce to the will and opinions of the mob. Even last night, the President of the United States ended his speech asking God to bless us and to bless America. Despite the fact that almost no Christian in this country behaves as the Bible tells them to, you don't have to live here more than two hours before you run into the influence that these people have on our society. And, while most of the faithful of all religions are nice and decent people, it's the violent thugs that tend to be the loudest and most willing to decide things for you. Since this is an election year, I get to hear a major presidential candidate cry out against the application of sharia law in the exact same conversation that he insists that we use his religion as the basis for law.

Logic and reasoned thought are the enemy of religion. It is actually the policy of most Intelligent Design 'Scientific' communities to automatically reject any evidence that disagrees with what they already believe. If we ever have the technology to build a wormhole to send probes back into the past to visually record dinosaurs 73 millions years ago, if these people are still alive the first words out of their mouths will be that the entire thing is fake. You could send them there and they would accuse you of drugging them. There is no way to get through to people who have made up their mind and refuse to listen to you.

Eventually you get tired of foolishly trying to reason with the unreasonable, but you still have to deal with them every single day, so how do you deal with this? Well, if you're like most of us, you just make fun of them. Everybody else who secretly agrees with you gets a laugh and when the target of your mockery gets upset, at least you got a laugh out of it. It's just that simple. I'm not trying to make fun of your faith, I'm sure you're a friendly person who feels guilty for not calling their mother every week and tries real hard not to beat your children, just like the rest of us, but the next time you see something on the internet mocking your faith, please remember that's it not target at the normal people. It's for the douchebags who reduced us to this.

Shocking, I know.

Dear Pastor Mike...

 Someone in the Idaho Atheist group on Facebook posted a link to this -

Pastor Mike wants us to set up a national registry for Atheists

Go ahead, read it and then ask yourself why so many of us are against religion. The comment section is locked out, so I decided to write him an email and then post it to my blog. If he responds, which I doubt, I'll keep you posted. First off here's his picture.

The face of brotherly love.

I put in on here for INFORMATION purposes only. It's important that rational people know who wants to put them into internment camps (allegedly).


Here's the email:


Hello Pastor Mike,

First off, it is certainly not my intention to offend. As a twenty year Christian I have some insight into the way that Christians generally feel towards us atheists but, after reading your blog about the registry, I just have some questions for you if you have a moment to spend. 

Q1) Considering the subject matter of Matt. 23 (Jesus yelling at religious leaders for their hypocrisy), it seemed odd to me that you quoted verse 33 and directed it towards non-believers. Was this a mistake on your part or was it intentional because it fit the tone you were going for?

Q2) Considering that Atheists are one of the most mistrusted, slandered, and ostracized group in America, and especially because of the fact that less than one percent of convicted felons are atheists, isn't it grossly unfair to compare us to ex-convicts and sex offenders who are almost universally Christian?

Q3) Statistically less crimes are committed by Atheists, we don't proselytize, and we are completely indistinguishable from 'normal' Americans, so how long do you think it would take for your hypothetical registry to turn into a witch hunt or to force your fellow Christians into McCarthy like levels of paranoia?

Q4) Speaking of Communism. Your picture suggesting that a lack of religion will lead to a communist state is humorous, let me tell you, would it be okay if I make a similar poster suggesting that a Christian state will lead to Nazis?

Q5) Do you actually misunderstand what Atheism means, or do you intentionally label it as a religion because it fits your agenda? If Atheism is a religion, is bald a hair color and is silence a type of music?

Q6) Would it be possible to sign up for your registry? If your flock is anything like you, i.e. the opposite of everything that Jesus taught about how to treat unbelievers, I would hate to have them come to one of my comedy shows and accidentally have a good time fueled by Satan.


Full disclosure: I am posting this email and any ensuing conversation that I doubt we'll have to my blog at beardedatheist.blogspot.com  Thank you so much for your time, I hope you have a wonderful day.

-Mikey

The First Hypocritical Church of Christ

I am a huge fan of satire, I've actually exhausted the category on stumbleupon several times. The Onion, Betty Bowers, Landover Baptist Church and several youtube channels are frequent lurking grounds for me on the interwebs, and that pales in comparison to my religious devotion (irony noted) to The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. I'm certainly not the only person on the internet consuming sarcasm and the like, devouring laconic ironies for breakfast, sardonic videos for lunch. One of my most popular stand-up jokes involves lampooning racists, something nearly everybody gets behind, so it shouldn't be too surprising that I started a satirical facebook group called The First Hypocritital Church of Christ. It's obviously satire, isn't it? I mean, isn't it?
 
I've thought of making it bigger and having a web-site designed, selling some t-shirts, making some videos, all poking fun of the obviously hypocritical things that are pervasive in our culture (Also, daddy has bills to pay and needs constant attention). But before I move forward on that I really need to find out why average Christians find it so offensive. I'll admit I didn't think it through all the way and added pretty much my entire friend's list without thinking on whether or not they'd be offended, and I certainly won't blame facebook for letting just anybody add you to any group without your permission (Although in light of this they should probably change it before some bored miscreant puts everyone they know in a group called 'rapists and thieves), but it is interesting how people get so defensive about the groups they belong to without thinking about it.

I wonder if there's a way to phrase it to dull the emotional reaction without losing the edge that makes it funny. It's not my intent to insult people, well not most people, but to really point out how irritating hypocrisy is. For example, is there anything more Christ-like than to sell everything you have and give it to the poor (Matt 19:21) or taking care of the sick (Matt 25:36)? Yet how many 'religious' people are against universal health care or social programs to help the needy? How many religious leaders have to molest children before there is a real outcry of the people? Why do we condemn children confused about their sexuality in a culture with more mixed messages on the subject than clarity to the point where they lose so much hope that they take their own lives? I may not believe in the divinity of Jesus, but if the words in his book are a true reflection of his personality as a man, I'm pretty sure I can extrapolate how he'd feel about it (hint: not good). Even his Father hates hypocrisy (Job 13:16) to the point where they don't even get into heaven...

We are all hypocrites. None of us lives up to our own ideals, few of us are innocent of driving in the same ways that enrage us, and even David, the man after god's own heart, had a man killed so he could steal his wife. Yet it's not God's forgiveness that's important, it's each others. It is the forgiveness of your neighbor's faults that we all share, more or less each in their part, that makes a society strong. I try to do my best daily and I try specifically to be a douche as little as possible, just like most of  us, but what irks me is the person who stands up and loudly proclaims what they believe and then openly does the opposite. And if it offends you that they are the subject of my ridicule, than I guess you just don't get it.