Happy Eôstre, Happy Earth Day, Happy Everyday…

Image by AlicePopkorn via Flickr

Commencing today millions of Jews and Christians around the world will inadvertently commemorate the pagan festival of Eôstre.

Hopefully many, many more will be purposefully celebrating Earth Day – an event of much greater significance to humanity as a whole. How sad that man was once in awe of the power and majesty of the natural world in his pagan state, but now reveres invisible beings supposedly conceived of a fertile and enlightened imagination.

How arrogant are we to consider ourselves more advanced than other living things when we continue to destroy the world, sometimes in the very act of pursuing the ignorant and superstitious beliefs of antiquity.

While it may not be practical to revert back to our pagan roots, how can we once again inculcate those wholesome but primitive values that endeared the natural world to us, while discarding our superstitions and irrational beliefs? Ultimately we may not have a choice; it may be imperative for the future survival of all species.

So while you’re partaking in the festivities of this Easter weekend, spare a thought for Earth and its REAL wonders.

Spirit Mediums and the believers…

This week presented some rather amusing events relating to the world of the believer.

For starters, I came across the results of the Religious Knowledge Survey of  the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life which predictably demonstrates that atheists generally have more religious knowledge than actual believers. The executive summary of their findings commences thus:

Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons are among the highest-scoring groups on a new survey of religious knowledge, outperforming evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics on questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions.

Some atheists have understandably commented that this survey result explains the reason why they are, well, atheists…

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Earlier this week I read that Ed Milliband, leader of the Labour Party in England, had revealed that he is an atheist, just like his sibling, David. Remembering that Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard had also revealed her non-religious status earlier this year, I got to wondering how many other politicians were atheist or agnostic. Considering that a largely religious world generally takes a dim view of non-religious political leaders, I was quite surprised at how many there actually are. The United Kingdom seems to lead the pack with some quite famous former Prime Ministers among others Clement Attlee (1945 – 1951), James Callaghan (1976 – 1979), Nick Clegg (current Deputy Prime Minister) and Neil Kinnock (former leader of the Opposition). Other famous politicians who were atheist are Mikhail Gorbachev, Jawaharlal Nehru and Joseph Stalin.

However, what caught my eye while going through this list, were two atheist fathers of two famous politician sons who are known believers, one who annoyingly just converted to Roman Catholicism. Seems that Tony Blair’s father was an atheist and so was Barack Obama’s father, Barack Obama Sr. What was that about the sins of the father being visited upon the son?

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Finally, it has come to light that the spirit medium who tricked Robert Mugabe’s cabinet into believing that she could coax Diesel fuel from solid rock, has been sentenced to prison for three years; presumably a medium security prison. This enterprising con-artist managed to convince Zimbabwe’s Minister’s of National Intelligence, Police and Defence to part with 1.7 million British pounds, a farm, armed guards and food.

Her sentencing is however a travesty of justice, as the gullible morons who believed her ridiculous claims are all still scott free, and presumably still in charge of delicate portfolios, National Intelligence among them.

A nice change from the usual religious hate e-mail I get

Normally I receive religious e-mail that threatens me with all sorts of horrible punishments for not believing in god or Jesus.  Or, they are extremely condescending sales pitches for a religion, and appear disguised as motivational prose or clever anecdotes, usually accompanied by breathtaking pictures. Yes, you’ve seen them too!

The threatening and pseudo-motivational ones are invariably from Christians, even Muslims, but the e-mails from Hindu’s are revoltingly superstitious in nature and suggest that your luck will take a turn for the worse, if you either don’t do something such as pray or fast; or more absurdly, refuse to forward the mail to x-number of persons within a certain time period. For some reason I don’t receive any religious e-mails from Jews or Buddhists (to their credit); perhaps because the former are part of an exclusive club, and the latter are not really religious.

I was therefore pleasantly surprized, when I received the following piece of poetry which is clearly from a Christian source, but which does not threaten or insult my atheist status. As a matter of fact, it seems to chide Christians, but could apply equally well to persons of all religions; even atheists. ***Note: I personally don’t think it’s the best poem in the world; it’s just titled that way in the e-mail***

Best Poem in the World

                           I was shocked, confused, bewildered
                           As I entered Heaven’s door,
                          Not by the beauty of it all,
                          Nor the lights or its decor.

                         But it was the folks in Heaven
                         Who made me sputter and gasp–
                      The thieves, the liars, the sinners,
                          The alcoholics and the trash.

                     There stood the kid from seventh grade
                        Who swiped my lunch money twice.
                         Next to him was my old neighbor
                          Who never said anything nice.

                           Herb, who I always thought
                            Was rotting away in hell,
                        Was sitting pretty on cloud nine,
                            Looking incredibly well.

                        I nudged Jesus, ‘What’s the deal?
                         I would love to hear Your take.
                      How’d all these sinners get up here?
                           God must’ve made a mistake.

                          ‘And why’s everyone so quiet,
                          So sombre – give me a clue.’
                 ‘Hush, child,’ He said, ‘they’re all in shock.
                      No one thought they’d be seeing you.’

                                   JUDGE NOT.

          Remember…Just going to church doesn’t make you a Christian
             any more than standing in your garage makes you a car .

                           Every saint has a PAST….
                           Every sinner has a FUTURE!

 And, while the conclusion is “cute,” I prefer to think of myself as neither a saint nor sinner, but just a human being; and more importantly, I care not for the past nor the future, but the present, which I have control over.