A Freethinker: Annie Besant

I chanced upon Annie Besant after returning from spending a typical Caribbean Christmas with friends and family.

Annie Besant was an incredibly interesting woman, brave and intelligent at a time where women were devalued. Here is a quote from a book she wrote 'My Path to Atheism' (1885, 3rd edition):

"The first essay on the "Deity of Jesus of Nazareth" was written just before I left the Church of England,and marks the point where I broke finally with Christianity. I thought then, and think still, that to cling to the name of Christian after one has ceased to be the thing is  neither bold nor straightforward, and surely the name ought, in all fairness, to belong to those historical bodies who have made it their own during many hundred years.

A Christianity without a Divine Christ appears to me to resemble a republican army marching under a royal banner it misleads both friends and foes. Believing that in giving up the deity of Christ I renounced Christianity, I place this essay as the starting-point of my travels outside the Christian pale. The essays that follow it deal with some of the leading Christian dogmas, and are printed in the order in which they were  written. But in the gradual thought-development they really precede the essay on the "Deity of Christ".

Most inquirers who begin to study by themselves, before they have read any heretical works, or heard any heretical controversies, will have been awakened to thought by the discrepancies and inconsistencies of the Bible itself. A thorough knowledge of the Bible is the groundwork of heresy.

Many who think they read their Bibles never read them at all. They go through a chapter every day as a matter of duty, and forget what is said in Matthew before they read what is  said in John ; hence they never mark the contradictions and never see the discrepancies. But those who study the Bible are in a fair way to become heretics.

It was the careful compilation of a harmony of the last chapters of the four Gospels a harmony intended for devotional use that gave the first blow to my own faith ; although I put the doubt away and refused even to look at the  question again, yet the effect remained the tiny seed, which was slowly to germinate and to grow up, later, into the full-blown flower of Atheism."

My Grandmother and Jim Reeves

As a teenager I made the epic journey from coldest England to a strange land where my parents were born in the Caribbean. A place I heard much about but couldn't quite grasp what my parents loved and hated about the place they left.
My maternal grandmother wouldn't come to England and I was brave enough to want to venture across a gulf of water on a plane to stay for 3 weeks.
The first thing I noticed about my grandmother was she was very slim and exceedingly tall for an elderly woman. She gripped my arm like a vice and touched my face, hair, neck, stroked my back with her free hand. No rushing - she took her time. She looked stern. After what seemed like an age, her face broke into a smile and with tears running down her face she kissed me, wet soppy kisses everywhere! People who were stood around her home in the semi-darkness, watched and then clapped as she assaulted me with her kisses! This place is weird! These people are weird!
She was proud that I travelled so far to see her - the first child from her baby who had been born in England. We sat around in the yard with these people who had come to see this visitor from 'Hinglan'. The night creatures sounded too loud. The air was cool and fresh but very warm to me, even as it got darker.
After bathing and creaming myself I got ready for bed. I was very tired and disorientated and my grandmother and she checked my bed for the umpteenth time, plumping it, smoothing it, making it 'just so'. Suddenly I heard a big noise, a screechy sound under the bed. Suffice to say I was hysterical that I was expected to sleep in a room with nasty bugs making a racket.
My grandmother, insisted that the noise was from a creature outside the room. I looked at her as if she suddenly had a severe hearing problem as that noise was coming from under the bed. I was screaming out loud at the thought of being so tired and then having to sleep in a bed with some human-eating creature under it. The next thing I knew she threw herself onto the bed and howled - with laughter- she was holding her sides and rocking, making this big noise, whilst I'm stood there wondering what the hell was going on! Just as I thought she had calmed down and her shoulder shaking slowed down as she eased herself upright, she would look at me again and keel right back to where she was on the bed. Very strange people, I thought.
She wiped her eyes with her scarf and explained through smaller laughing sounds that she had never seen anything so funny in her life and I had come all that way to bring her a good joke.
So that was within a few minutes of meeting her. My grandmother.

She was a devout Christian who regularly gave any money the family sent over to the church. (Headed by a man who lived in a huge mansion on a hill with incredible views and several of the latest luxury cars- some other time.) We used to sit in the shade of the mango tree and I was eating fresh juicy mangos that she had picked and collected for my arrival. The chickens would run around the yard, the breeze would blow and on a Sunday the residents on the other side of the valley (a 4 mile walk away) would move their room-sized speaker boxes outside their house, plug in and play: Jim Reeves. Yes, Jim Reeves.
My grandmother would be preparing for church in her pristine white, highly starched and pressed clothes and as she prepared would sing along. So now, atheist that I am, each time I hear Jim Reeves I get a little misty eyed. Isn't that weird?

Quote of the Week:

'Humans are evolutionarily designed to be paranoid and they believe in God because they are paranoid.

'This innate bias towards paranoia served humans well when self-preservation and protection of their families and clans depended on extreme vigilance to all potential dangers.

'So, more intelligent children are likely to grow up to go against their natural evolutionary tendency to believe in God and they become atheists.'

             ~ Dr Satoshi Kanazawa
            an evolutionary psychologist from the London School of Economics and Political Science

I'm Going to Church...

...yes, you read it here first.
I have been invited to attend a church service by some dear friends of mine. I have agreed to attend on condition that they understand that:

a) I will not be giving money

b) I will be writing about it on my blog.

My friends and I have had some hot debates through the night and into early dawn and I have even been told, 'I pray that you get to know Jesus'. Incredible.
Anyway, in the interest of those who read this blog, whether atheist or supernaturalist, I will be visiting their multi-cultural church with pen and notepad in hand.
I plan to go as soon as our calendars meet, which I expect will happen in the next week or so. So watch this space.

Atheist Life v Religious Life

Yes, Atheist Prime Minister?

An article in the British newspaper 'The Guardian' (21 Aug 2008) caught my attention entitled:

'The rise of Miliband brings at last the prospect of an atheist prime minister' here are the first three paragraphs:

"When Labour cabinet members were asked about their religious allegiances last December, following Tony Blair's official conversion to Roman Catholicism, it turned out that more than half of them are not believers. The least equivocal about their atheism were the health secretary, Alan Johnson, and foreign secretary David Miliband.

The fact that Miliband is an atheist is a matter of special interest given the likelihood that he may one day, and perhaps soon, occupy No 10. In our present uncomfortable climate of quarrels between pushy religionists and resisting secularists - or attack-dog secularists and defensive religionists: which side you are on determines how you see it - there are many reasons why it would be a great advantage to everyone to have an atheist prime minister.

Atheist leaders are not going to think they are getting messages from Beyond telling them to go to war. They will not cloak themselves in supernaturalistic justifications, as Blair came perilously close to doing when interviewed about the decision to invade Iraq." [You can read the rest of the article here.]

Now why doesn't that make me feel any better? It's great that these politicians won't use 'god' to try to fool the people, but they will continue to fool the people without invoking imaginary beings. Which is worse?

The ones that care a jiffy about the people - those brave enough to stand up to the elite gangsters, are shot down without a bat of an eyelid. I don't think Obama, McCain, Clinton, Brown (Miliband), Putin, Kharzai and the rest will make a difference. They have no intentions of changing things. How can they? Take a short walk through recent history.

No amount of posturing from Obama will make it other than what it is. He's a front for the mob. He's there to show the world how much America has moved away from just being a country which got fat off the backs of inhumane suffering and oppression. Presenting this Black man as a saviour allows people to be distracted as the current incoherent, bumbling front man is wheeled away out of sight and the mob agenda is moved to the next level.

People are sheep, in the main, and therefore can be controlled and fed poor quality fodder - you can see that all around you.

No, my friend, we are truly in the Dark Ages and we may not realise it with these creeping impositions on our lives.
The smokescreen of being atheist doesn't impress me one iota because none of the mob are 'believers' - they know the power of the supernatural/religion, how much it is a powerful detractor and have used it to their best advantage. We have been and are being tricked. Some have fallen for it and some haven't.

Have you fallen for it? What do you think?

Angry Atheist?

I don't know if you have felt this way or know anyone who is atheist who has been really angry.

I am atheist and have spent far too much time being angry about the state of the world with regards to religion.

I ponder the situation that humans have found themselves in, see the indoctrination and non-progress and put the majority of it (if not all) down to religion. I read 'On the Nature of Things' by Lucretius, Bertrand Russell's 'Why I am not a Christian', Carl Sagan, James Baldwin and many more great writers. It was as if I had moved into a new awareness of the tragic situation of homo sapiens.

My emotions ran from anger to hate to distress without knowing who exactly to blame. I didn't have anyone person I could pin 'the blame' on. Who is responsible for all of this? How do we stop it?

I had visitors from abroad who stayed with me for a couple of weeks who were hardcore theists and I'm afraid they didn't enjoy their visit due to my misplaced anger. I didn't know what to do with it all. The magnitude of this great con was overwhelmingly difficult for me to deal with and to have someone in my personal space who talked about 'god's love' and the rest just about did it for me. Now my emotional intelligence level has been raised and I understand how someone can believe the memes which have been inflicted on them. Equally I understand the anger of atheists, particularly those who have been poisoned by theism and the rituals inflicted on them by it.

It took me a long time to reach the point where I had to find an outlet of expression - hence this blog - it helps to share my thoughts on the web. I first of all tried finding a black woman's blog/site who is also atheist. I couldn't find one - so I thought I would write one myself. How many black women do you know personally who are atheists and are willing and able to identify themselves as such publicly? Maybe not more than 10, is my guess.

So I channelled my anger into delving deeper, acquiring more knowledge, as describing myself as 'atheist' just didn't describe my worldview - it only outlined my non-belief in a god or gods.

A relative of mine sent me some lectures on CD of a man named Tom Clark, who described himself as a scientific naturalist. His views blew me away. I listened to his lectures and talks, trying to grasp the fact that humans may not have 'contra causal freewill'.

I urge you (if you haven't heard of him already) to click on the link above to learn more about this subject.

The concept of freewill is used by theists to encourage humans to submit 'all things to god'. This idea is weak and getting weaker by the minute and theists are cranking up their attacks against atheists and by default against scientific naturalists. King Abdullah has made it very plain that atheism will not be tolerated and is mobilising the world's Abrahamic religions to unite against atheists. A sure sign of panic.

Being angry achieves very little unless one uses it to drive constructive action. Now I am of the belief that I cannot change the world, I can only use my words to share my views and that is as much as I can do at this point. If it makes a difference all well and good. If not, then it is as it is.

The wheels of the world won't stop turning. I am a minuscule atom in comparison to the greatness and magnificence of all that there is and so I will read and write and cogitate on things that mean much to me and try my best to eliminate the poison of anger from my life as best I can. But sometimes...arrgghh!!!!!

Religious Groomers

I have had cause to consider how much of a link there is between religious evangelizing and 'grooming'. There appears to be a link to me and it makes me shudder to think of the same predatory tactics used by people with unsavoury intentions are to engage and manipulate young minds into behaviours which the children are unable to give full consensual permission.

People who evangelize to young children, i.e. those under the age of consent, say less than 18 years old, should be prosecuted as breaking the law. The damage they do is similar to the damage done by paedophiles who have violated their victims without their informed consent.

Let's take an anecdotal look at their similar modi operandi:
They present a friendly face to youngsters. Set up youth friendly facilities or activities which will enable them to get closer to their subjects. Become interested in the things that the young people are interested in. Make available items like chocolate, colouring books, sweeties/candy, etc. They introduce a topic that the predator has as a main focus , either sexual interest or their religion. They spend time making their subject feel comfortable. The groomer convinces themselves that they are doing what they do because they want to share the love they have.
Don't forget paedophiles sometimes abuse children in their own families - just like religious groomers. Those children are trapped and unable to remove themselves from their abusive homes and their abusers.
Any adult, whether part of a religious organisation or not, who grooms minors, whether knowingly or unknowingly, should be prosecuted. Laws should be created to protect minors from them.
It is the same as if a person had an inappropriate relationship with a minor - poisoning a child's mind with dogmatic fairy stories designed, essentially, to confuse and create long-term damage.

Children's minds are like sponges, they are receptive to all kinds of stimuli and experiences and especially dogma. We, as adults, have a responsibility to put aside our personal views and prejudices which could have a negative impact on children who come into contact with us.

I am not someone who believes that you should not talk to children about religion - it is important to inform children of the belief systems of the world we live in but we have a duty to do that responsibly. That means ensuring our responses to their questions are age-appropriate, relevant, unbiased and are based on facts as we know them. Let children decide what they want to know. Let them teach us how they want to be taught.

Do you know someone who is a religious 'groomer'? Are you comfortable with what they do?

British Atheist Speaks...

Pimping For Jesus - Video

One of the great things about the internet is how it enables people to connect and share information right across the globe. What a fabulous medium!

I recently joined a group Black Atheists at Yahoo and received an email from a member pointing me in the direction of a video by Pat Condell, a British atheist. He has a really dry wit, classic British humour, which some people may not always appreciate! I chose this video as a good starting point to understand his worldview. You may actually agree with him on some fronts.

Enjoy!

Where Are We...?

I have been trying to find black atheists on the internet and am dismayed at how few black people, particularly in the highly populated USA, are willing to publicly acknowledge themselves as rational, freethinking atheists. It is worrying.

Then like an oasis in the desert I came across Frank the Financially Savvy Atheist who's blog entry dated 6 March 2006 I have reproduced in full below:

'Where the hell are they?
Stop. Think about a famous atheist you know. My personal finance readers might have thought about Michael Newdow, the atheist who is trying to get the words "under god" taken out of the Pledge of Allegiance.

My atheist readers might have thought about Sam Harris, Isaac Asimov, or Bertrand Russell.

"Hold it!" my female atheist readers protest, "There are several famous women atheist as well". Examples include Margaret Sanger, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (HT: Escape from the Meme Machine). Right you are my female atheist readers. (free thought mom and Atheist Mama)

But my question is this: Where the hell are all the black atheists famous and otherwise?

When you think of some of the famous black people in the media (that are NOT rap artists or athletes) and you have Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, quite far from atheism. There's Colin Powell and Condi, who's (ex)-boss probably required them to be Christian in order to get the job. Who else is there? Oh wait, the rest are media personalities that prey on gullible housewives (Oprah), atheletes, or rap stars. Rap stars who are at least nominally theistic who can thank god when winning awards and giving them so much "bling", while at the same time glorifying a nihilistic life-style that blacks who try to emulate it will find themselves ignorant, debt-ridden, and thinking that the lottery is the best way to get rich.

Blacks are almost always portrayed as devout believers in the media. I remember when I still went to church in high school, our pastor would rant and rave that Michael Jordan wouldn't thank god for winning games/being such a great player like he [Jordan] should. Did you get that? So it was our duty as "good black people" to penalize the "bad black people" for not praising the same god that put us in slave chains for all those years. What a crock of sh*t.

There needs to be a new spokesperson for blacks in America. Not another god-damned hypocritical preacher in the vein of the Sharptons and the Jacksons. A rational spokesperson. Someone that is not afraid to be an intelligent black person who can speak English and can evoke actions from other blacks without relying on antiquated religious notions. This person, man or woman, will be the face for the black freethinkers: the black atheist, the black agnostic, the black materialist, and everything else in-between. He/she will be a foil for the vapid, idotic, untrue sound-bites from our religious counterparts (example: see here)

No longer will rap stars, idiot preachers, and a cultish day-time talk show hostess define us to the rest of America. We will redefine what it means to be a black american. We will rise above the mediocracy that has plagued our race. We will fulfill our potential for greatenss. We will do it all without relying on unnecessary, irrational, and destructive beliefs.

But, before we can, we need to answer this question: Where the hell are the black atheists?''

The amazing thing is this is an old post that is still even more relevant 2 years later. Where are we? Why are we not brave enough to break through the mould set by those who wish to control? If we spend our time thrashing out against racism and don't see just how insidiously wicked all forms of the supernatural are to our well being, then why bother?

I will follow up on the people who made comments on Frank's blog updating us about the black atheists. You might care to do the same. I'll continue my research and do a write up on my findings shortly.

A New Dawn

Yesterday I re-connected with a friend who, for various reasons, I had not had much contact with over the last year or so. We went for a drink and a bite to eat in a very nice environment in the nearest town.

Over the few years of knowing each other we shared our views about many things. This woman is an academic with a sharp brain and could out-argue me with words to spare on any topic. I believed she was a theist and our views differed, but/and she was someone who I still regarded as a friend.

On the way driving together to our destination she told me she now describes herself as an atheist. Well...if I wasn't seated I would have fallen over. A thousand questions jostled for first place in my mind but I decided to listen to her reasons as to why she now described herself as an atheist.

She relayed what had been happening in her life, books she had recently read and how these had had an impact on her current thinking. In short, she had freed herself from the shackled, abusive, unscientific thinking and had now fully embraced the fact that she was a scientist by profession and realised the inaccurate 'truths' of all forms of theism.

Whilst enjoying each others company she advised me to watch a film, available on the internet, called 'Zeitgeist'. I checked the internet this morning and am looking forward to watching this 2hours and 2 min streaming film tonight. Here's the link for those of you who want to be informed about alternative views: Zeitgeist - The Movie. Maybe you will care to watch it and we can openly share our views of it.

What is interesting for me is how someone can have an open mind at any age. My friend is somewhat angry about the damage theism has inflicted on the world and understands that we have to live in this moment, not for the here-after but now, in this second.

If anything will 'free' black people, in fact all peoples, then this is it.

Dispelling beliefs in the supernatural can fundamentally change the world - not mythological beliefs. The escape routes have been closed by theism - if you think outside their box then you are a sinner and will suffer painful repercussions when you die.

How sad. How sick. How wasteful. How wicked.