Piss Off The Catholics Month Rant

I’m coming back temporarily to give Thrawn some support.

There’s been a lot of negative chatter in the blogosphere about Thrawn’s Piss Off The Catholics Month.  Hemant offered a rather unsupportive post about it on Friendly Atheist.  Elles, the main author of Thrawn’s blog, is half-heartedly distancing herself from Thrawn’s campaign.

We’re finally getting people to talk about this shit!

We offer scathing indictments of religion in our books and podcasts and blogs.  We talk amongst ourselves about how terrible religion is.  We wear tee shirts about Atheism and pat ourselves on the back.  These are all good things for our self-esteem, but what does it get us?

Even when we use public forums and debates where theists are in attendance, they get nothing out of the discussion except a strengthening of their own beliefs.  Atheists don’t learn from Al Sharpton debating Hitchens and Christians don’t learn from Christopher Hitchens debating Sharpton.  In order to even get these thick-skulled theists to even notice us, we have to dunk their heads under ice-water… or dunk their Lord’s alleged flesh in a cup of semen.

There are theists who are still ignorant about even the existence of Atheists, and those who know we exist don’t care about us at all, except for when they line up their godless straw men and knock them down for show.  As far as American churches are concerned, Atheism is just an idea with no real people behind it.  It’s just a legend to these people.  We need the average churchgoer to know we’re here.  We need them to recognise that there is an alternative to belief in gods.  Talking to them hasn’t helped in all the centuries that we’ve tried it.  Pissing them off is the only thing that works.

But Atheists now have been talked into accepting that religion will ignore us!  We’ve been taught to stay in line and not make waves.  We are just going to cower and accept the wrath of these Catholics.  We deserve to be hit back, right?  That kid stole a cracker!  We had it coming!

I have a better idea:  Let’s not play the battered wife anymore.  The way we can win is by forcing the theists into arguments they were previously unwilling to even consider.  We can win by destroying their ability to ignore us.

No one remembers the quiet Atheist who kept in his place.  They remember the loud Atheist who flailed his/her arms about and shouted until the religious would hear.  They remember the Voltaires, Paines, O’Hairs and Russells of this world:  The ones who stood up to make themselves recognised and pissed off a bunch of religionists in the process.  Freethinkers, especially Atheists, have a long history of rabble rousing and there’s no reason to terminate that history now.  There’s no reason to suddenly stop inciting intolerance of religion in favour of “being nice.”  Peaceful discussion gets you nowhere with religionists.  Yelling at the top of your lungs and forcing them to think about the possibility that a cracker is just a cracker will.  It will get your argument noticed by the average churchgoers:  the ones who never even knew that Atheism existed until somebody kidnapped a Christbiscuit.

People ask:  Who are you trying to convert?

No one.

I don’t care about anyone’s religion if they don’t shove it in my face.

I’m not out to convert.  I’m out to start a conversation with theists and Atheists.  I want to show the theists that they aren’t as high and mighty as they think they are, knock them off their imaginary horses, and push their faces into the mud until they accept that we exist and we aren’t going to take shit from them anymore.  I want to show the Atheists that they are wrong to accept that religions will always ignore our existence and try to silence our voices while they ring bells and shout prayer calls that deafen half the city, and they are wrong to think there is no reason to change it.  Both theists and Atheists need a major fucking attitude adjustment and that’s not going to happen with “civil discussion.”

“Now Reed,” you may very well say, “You’re not being very nice.  You need to relax and take a chill pill.”

“Reader,” I may very well reply, “Shove it up your ass.”

 

Okay… I’m going back to my secluded hide-out now.

 

Caveat:  If you participate in Piss Off The Catholics Month, don’t invade their churches and wreak havoc.  They have a right to worship their dumb Jesusbiscuts, so respect them when they’re in their churches.