** The main thing that occupies my attention when I think of blogs is the fascination people have with religion. I want to stomp my feet and bang my fist and say that I know FROM EXPERIENCE that it is all bullshit. Just because you FEEL better knowing that there is a benevolent force operating in your favor in the universe, doesn't make it so. There is no such thing. We have no allies but each other – for whatever that is worth. You don't have to LIKE truth to believe in it. I hate it that there's no imaginary friend to lift me up and out of the human condition. It gives me NO COMFORT AT ALL to believe that everything that pains me is an illusion. Pain is painful, and I know pain. I don't like it. Religion, spirituality, belief, faith – whatever you want to call it – is just a DRUG. I know about drugs and I use them. But at least I know they are drugs and that they are altering my perception of the world. And at least for a time the sense of pain is dulled. But religious fanatics don't know that. They think that to believe in the ridiculous is enough to prove that what they believe is actually real. Life is awful – and to expect to survive it is folly.

**December is a time of anniversaries, when I reflect on what has gone before. My life feels like a series of novels, stories that reflect the depths and shallows, the highways and side roads of my experience. A large part of that consists of the books I read. Herewith is a list of books read this year with my rating, which simply expresses my current recollection of the experience.

Title	Author	✮
Talking Heads' Fear of Music (33 1/3)	Jonathan Lethem	4
Daddy Issues	Lindsay Marks	3
How Music Works Black, White, Blue	David Byrne William Swanson	5 5
Joseph Anton: A Memoir	Salman Rushdie	4
Canada	Richard Ford	5
The Lay of the Land: Bascombe Trilogy (3)	Richard Ford	5
Independence Day: Bascombe Trilogy (2)	Richard Ford	5
The Sportswriter: Bascombe Trilogy (1)	Richard Ford	5
A Universe from Nothing	Lawrence Krauss	5
We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec, Anonymous, and the Global Cyber Insurgency	Parmy Olson	4
Patriots	David Frum	4
Schmidt Delivered	Louis Begley	5
Schmidt Steps Back	Louis Begley	5
Heroes and Monsters: An Honest Look at What It Means to Be Human	Josh James Riebock	1
Monday Mornings: A Novel	Sanjay Gupta	4
Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power	Rachel Maddow	5
Gods Without Men	Hari Kunzru	4
Molly Fyde and the Parsona Rescue	Hugh Howey	3
Wool	Hugh Howey	5
An Available Man: A Novel	Hilma Wolitzer	5
Micro: A Novel	Michael Crichton/Richard Preston	0
Thinking, Fast and Slow	Daniel Kahneman	4
1Q84	Haruki Murakami	4

You know it’s going to be one of THOSE emails when…

**You know it’s going to be one of those emails when you see these at the top of the page: 

It means the sender is most likely older, or more correctly, unsophisticated in modern communications. Those lines mean you are being sent a message that has previously been forward many, many times by similarly unsophisticated communicators. It probably also means they are so passionate about the subject that they don’t hesitate to spew it around liberally. Which doesn’t mean they’re a Liberal – most likely the opposite.

And if the next thing you see is a picture of Ben Stein looking dour and pompous as usual

then you know they’re not a Liberal.

And when the message is presented in 36-point EndTimes Extra Bold – in color of course – and in italics – you know you’re in for a right wing christian screed:

And if it comes from a relative, then you know it’s going to be a pile of right wing religious bullshit – because as far as I know all my relatives are right wing Christians. 

I don’t get as much of this crap as I used to, because early on I let people know I wasn’t interested in their religious or political views.  But every now and then righteous amnesia, or something, overtakes them and they send out drivel like his hoping it will be a “comfort” to me, whom they believe to be languishing in atheistic angst. (I am, but their drug is no longer a palliative for me). 

Maybe it’s because of the “holiday” season, and it gets harder to maintain customary prudence and yield to the pent up desire to celebrate one’s delusions and disseminate them widely, like xmas gifts.

I was going to post the forwarded message here but then realized it would make this diatribe much longer, but also would be cooperating with the evangelical recklessness of the original poster and help spread manure on what they hope will be a field of fresh-grown recruits. If you’re really interested, you can look it up using the clues I’ve given above.

I did a Reply All to that message so that the rest of the family would have no doubt about where I stand. Here’s the reply:

I must have been put on this distribution list by mistake. I am a born-again atheist who thinks Ben Stein reached his peak of intelligence when he did voice overs for Garfield.

That prompted a reply from the original sender:

No mistake. I don't use distribution lists. What little I forward goes only to those I love and care about. Funny, I thought "born again" and "atheist" were mutually exclusive. Be careful what you close your mind to; it's the only one you have, and darkness is clarity, as ignorance is bliss.

Finally, it's the message not the messenger you should pay attention to. 

And my reply to that (and only to the sender, not All):

"Born again." Ah, you get the irony. In my case it means, been-there-done-that-got-the-t-shirt so I know it's all bullshit. And my atheism is only one degree more than yours: I include your god in the same list as you include everyone else's. 
When considering the message, it's wise to consider the source. I defer, not to BenStein but to Einstein, who said "The only difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
My mind is closed to what I saw when it was open to this monstrous belief in an imaginary friend.

And then today, this from one of the All (notice the BloodOfChrist font):

Make no mistake for sure....the message has meaning to all of us. I personally take offense at anyone who expects me to respect their views and rights, but finds it completely fine...even their right and their privilege to stomp all over my rights as a Catholic, as a Christian and as a Parent. Thanks Daddy, From a standpoint of someone who is growing the future leaders of this country.

It’s the last line that bothered me and prompted me to write (the rest is the usual paranoid fist-pounding). This person has no idea of what “the future leaders of this country” will most likely be. This is someone who obviously doesn’t realize that “this country” isn’t what they thought it was going to be when they were young. It is increasingly diverse in cultures, ethnicities and religious persuasions, most of which are neither Christian nor Jewish. It also ignores the fact that the portion of the population who today profess to be “non-believers” in any kind of god-like entity has increased from 8% in 1990 to 15% today. And this percentage is expected to grow. The “future leaders of this country” are more likely to be secular than religious, and most of them will be atheists. 

The brainwashing of children by religious parents is one of the most egregious silent crimes being perpetrated daily. But I expect that a goodly portion of those kids will be able to break out of the mental addictions their parents are cultivating in them. With a more educated populace, and continued rapid advances in science and technology, fewer young people will be enticed to hold to ideas that are so patently ridiculous. Even those who are right now being “raised” by parents who hope they will become fully robotized religious fanatics like themselves and get this nation back to its religious roots. 

And by the way, the assumption that America was founded AS a christian nation is bogus. It was founded as a place where even religious people could believe whatever claptrap they want without having the government prevent them. Here’s an excerpt from my handy “Atheist Pocket Debater,” an iPhone app:

Our Constitution contains no mention of a God, a Creator, or Christianity. It is a secular document. It mentions religion only once, in a passage dealing with religious freedom, which states, “No religious test shall be required to serve public office.” 

…

Many of our founding fathers and patriots were not Christians. They were Deists! These include Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Monroe, James Madison, John Adams, and Thomas Paine. Some actually having much contempt for Christianity. Thomas Jefferson created the “Jeffersonian Bible,” in which he removed all of the supernatural events and miracles of Jesus, just keeping his teachings. Payne wrote” The Age of Reason,” a scathing critique of the Bible

And when these fist-pounders insist on the right to brainwash their children, and to be free to perform whatever form of hideous rituals and practices their delusions encourage regardless of their impact on innocents and bystanders, they grab all the freedom for themselves and leave the rest of society in want. In my own case, the belief that a god-like power would rescue a child dying from acute diabetes is not a delusion that anyone should have the right to practice without constraint. 

Religion thrives in a climate of fear. It shrivels in an atmosphere of reason, education and free discourse. What these spammers are possessed by is the fear that they could be punished for not believing enough in nonsense. They fear hell, and the wrath of some Uber-Parent they might piss off. So an underlying motive is to spread anxiety (which is why so many of them are Republicans) and in so doing build a widespread climate of cowering religiosity to ratify their own fears.

Follow the Romoney

**My first political video

** I have been working on a video for friends whose parents have just died, in their 90s. So I spend a lot of time viewing photos of these people throughout the years. How vibrant and alive they are! I think of how I try to make my days mean something, prove my existence, contribute something to the future. But I know that, video or no, it will all be dust someday. In the meantime, eat, drink and be merry.

**From way before the god era, this struck a chord in me. And now that I know better, it's an entire symphony.

**The "comforter" is a drug

To those who claim their belief in god is comforting, this from Lawrence Krauss in his new book "A Universe from Nothing."

"…the ultimate arbiter of truth is experiment, not the comfort one derives from one’s a priori beliefs, nor the beauty or elegance one ascribes to one’s theoretical models."

And the truth is that life is hard, unfair, chancy and lethal. So take comfort in religious theories, but you're not going to avoid the truth of life itself.