Atheist Madness! Why Are Atheists So Angry?

Preview for the upcoming Amazon book @AtheistMadness

Is this article about me?

"A good question is like a miniskirt. Long enough to cover the essentials, but short enough to keep everyone interested."
-Charles Halsey

Edited and Revised: 01/19/2015
Atheism is a movement against nothing 
Do atheists still yell “Oh, god, oh god!”when they're having sex? An atheist does not believe in religion or doctrine claiming a divine deity lives in the sky. If these claims are true, then atheists are convicting Christians of being unicorn chasers and fighting invisible dragons in their garage. As you read this a movement begun quiet as a philosophy, off in the distance, has been heard spoken out loud across the world. It began before anyone reading this book was born and will continue long after we return to dust. This is a movement of non-belief, soon it will be at your front door, the genie is back in the bottle.

Questioning the existence of god

Doubting god in America, Europe or the middle east midst fundamentalists means you are asking for real trouble. In researching this book and speaking with atheists at length, you might be surprised that most will not deny the possibility of an all powerful god igniting the universe into existence. That doesn't mean atheists believe that your version of god exists, I'm saying they are still waiting for proof that any god is real.

Can you blame them for doubting?

"God exists." "How do you know that God exists?" "The Bible says so." "Why should I believe the Bible?" "Because it's the inspired word of God." That argument is like a dog chasing its tail. The only proof of existence of an omnipotent being is in the enthusiasm of his followers. Unless you count the face of Jesus appearing in toast, what divine act has anyone witnessed in the last two thousand years? Has god ever replaced a missing limb through prayer?

The age of science and technology
 
The Hubble telescope has captured billions of galaxies in deep space, it wasn't even blessed with holy water. A geneticist can trace genetic DNA patterns back to your first relative. My great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather was what color?! The Earth is now far beyond any doubt billions of years old, dismantling the biblical account of Genesis. The word 'God' doesn't even appear in the U.S. constitution. So where do our modern day Christians go from here? Believers are feeling a shift. Right now non-believers are sitting silently in pews and preaching from pulpits.

Faith isn't necessary if you actually believe

You cannot know a belief is true, you can only believe what is known. If I told you to apply all your mental efforts in believing the Earth was flat you couldn't do it. You can pretend, you can make yourself think you believe but that would never truly become a belief. You are aware of empirical evidence that this world is spherical. You are aware of no empirical evidence that god exists. You can only pretend, you can only make believe.

Atheists just don't Get It
 
Are you sure? What if I told you that everyone on planet Earth is an atheist? I'll bet you I can prove it.

It's not you, it's me. I've been there

"A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets." -Arthur C. Clarke

As an attending member of the (Name redacted) Baptist Church of Tracy California for more than three years, I was a believer in the 'word of god.' My mid-teens were spent in the church choir, retreats, sermons, the works. I was baptized of my own volition; no one forced me under the holy (Jacuzzi) water in the effort to save my soul, I was a willing supplicant of the lord.

Had you approached me back then and claimed there was no god, I would have thought you were crazy or in league with Satan. I was truly afraid of 'the devil' when I was young, that he was making concerted efforts to drive me towards sin. This was right in the middle of puberty, everything seemed like a sin.

Every girl I liked at made my body do weird things. I thought then, this is what sin feels like; excitement. I have to admit the fear of eternal damnation didn't perturb me from playing baseball with girls (if you catch the metaphor). I could feel the nagging biblical scripture in my mind as I tried to charm the (baseball) uniforms off of women, and their sisters. And sometimes their cousins.

It is a curiosity to me now that my faith in heaven and hell was strongest at that time but my brain took orders straight from my lower regions without much synaptic delay. Brad Pit I was not but motivated and I could make just about anyone laugh, like a lot, like pee your pants a lot.

What never set well in my head was the duplicity of the flock who attended that church. In my youth and in the breach of 'becoming a man' I had a justifiable rationalization for breaking my oath to the lord. But even at the ripe age of thirteen I could smell hypocrisy and those that stank of it. Not the least of which was the pastor of our church being convicted of child molestation. Lesser crimes have been the smell of alcohol on the breath of parishioners during services, women complaining about how the other women dressed like sluts or men speaking of women in salacious terms just out of ear shot. Or so they thought.

Where was the unyielding belief in what they preached and shared with the lost sheep with such fervor? Why were they not bedeviled with the fear of the devil?

I guess we blame Satan for planting the maddening ear worm for desire in their thoughts. If god is in their heart the devil must be on their mind. Until I started going to church my idea of a devil was from cartoons and movies. And why is Satan never portrayed as a woman in ancient theology? When I mention this to women friends they immediately agree with my analysis; Women have more guile, more cunning than men. Women are really talented at vengeance and they never forget a damn thing. Maybe it's my two divorces talking but that sounds like a pretty damn good devil to me. I know, I'll receive a lot of emails about being a misogynist but if I said women weren't qualified to be the devil I would get letters for that too. The devil's in the details I guess. So the peers of my youth weren't saints. Is that a reason to doubt theology?

Though my initial understanding of my own religious journey was warped I, like most indoctrinated, believed the person who told me, and they that told them and so on. As I grew older I was disillusioned by how little actual knowledge of scripture 'they' knew or understood. Theses faint biblical scholars were possessed by the feeling of rapture, it was their motivator. But as one grows out of childhood the obvious reality of religious dogma and all its inherent fallacies is no longer avoidable. If we look to a source root of the tree of theology we must point to the Torah and the bible.

Men not women as a point of fact had written what they were given through word of mouth. How much credibility can I give this credo since no one quoted in the bible actually met with Adam nor Eve and neither with Jesus. Since the Council of Nicaea men have used their own experience and ideology to determine what would stay or be edited out of the bible. This does not meet with the criteria of a holy book. When I began to ask questions of its validity I was told I simply "had to believe" as stated by a christians in reply in this question. God gave us a brain and I was being advised to no longer use it.

Do you believe that if I questioned or searched for truth behind the christian canon that god would deem me a heretic? What if I am becoming an atheist? If god knows what is in my heart then he is aware that I, like the apostles, seek the truth. When the bible is placed under scrutiny it cannot maintain the prominence it once had when I was a child. Since god is omnipotent he must have been aware that I would one day no longer think like a child.

Author D. Mitchell Sweatt is in the midst of writing a book for Amazon titled; Atheist Madness! © Why are atheists so damn angry? This has been a small sample of that book.

His Twitter can be found at @atheistmadness!

Meet the Leadership: Corporate America and the Religious Right’s New Team in the House | People For the American Way

John Boehner, Incoming Speaker of the House

The GOP’s dramatic gains in Tuesday’s midterm election have positioned John Boehner as the incoming Speaker of the House in the 112th Congress. In his twenty years in Congress, Boehner has been one of the fiercest protectors of Corporate America, and his political and legislative history provide a striking road map for what to expect from his tenure as Speaker.
Following stints in local politics and service in the Ohio State House, John Boehner was elected to the United States Congress in 1990. In his second term in Congress, Boehner helped write the Contract with America and became a stalwart ally of Newt Gingrich, even his “protégé.” Boehner backed Gingrich’s partisan and confrontational style of leadership, and Gingrich elevated him to the position of GOP Conference Chairman. From there, Boehner became the go-to Member of Congress for corporate lobbyists and business interests.

As Conference Chairman, Boehner “met weekly with leading lobbyists to enlist their support and discuss strategy” throughout his four year tenure. During a vote to remove a subsidy to the tobacco industry, Boehner personally handed out checks from tobacco lobbyists and industry PACs to other congressmen on the House floor. At least one Republican colleague, Rep. Linda Smith, blasted Boehner’s actions, saying that “if it is not illegal, it should be.” Since his role in the Republican leadership was closely tied to Gingrich, when Gingrich resigned following the GOP’s 1998 election loss, Boehner was voted out of his leadership position.

After he was forced out of his role as Conference Chairman, Boehner embarked on a plan to regain support among his Republican colleagues. His leadership PAC, called the “Freedom Project,” took in millions of dollars from special-interest lobbyists, and he then used the money to contribute to his fellow Republican candidates. Top contributors included Sallie Mae, Merrill Lynch, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and Cincinnati Financial Corp., which helped make Boehner’s leadership PAC one of the best-funded among his peers. The “major sources of financing” for the Freedom Project came from “for-profit colleges and trade schools, and private student lenders,” and as chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, Boehner sponsored “legislation strongly supported by private student lenders to restrict the ability of the U.S. Department of Education to make government student loans less expensive by cutting fees.” Boehner told representatives from student loan companies that he has “tricks up my sleeve to protect you,” and he later helped pass a law to bar individuals from refinancing their student loans.
According to Boehner, “I have a good relationship to K Street and people who lobby us.”

Even Boehner’s landlord is a lobbyist, and the Washington Post writes that his landlord’s “clients — including restaurant chains and health insurance companies — hired him to lobby on issues at the heart of Boehner's work, including minimum-wage increases, small-business tax breaks and tax-free savings accounts to help cover insurance costs.”

In addition to building relationships with corporate lobbyists, Boehner enhanced his standing with the Religious Right. In 2002 Boehner wrote a letter to the Ohio Board of Education urging them to teach intelligent design in public schools, using language derived from anti-evolution activist Phillip E. Johnson. Cyrus B. Richardson Jr., the school board vice president, called Boehner’s letter “misleading” because “it makes it sound like the law says you have to teach intelligent design, when that isn’t in the law.”

He has consistently stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the Religious Right throughout his time in Congress. Boehner voted to ban same-sex couples from adopting children and to repeal domestic partnership laws, he opposed hate crimes laws and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and he supported Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. On issues regarding reproductive justice, Boehner voted against protecting reproductive health clinics and backed laws which would compel women to go through biased counseling before terminating their pregnancy. In his speech to the Family Research Council’s 2009 Values Voter Summit, Boehner emphasized his steadfast, 100% anti-choice record. After the 2010 election, Boehner’s chief of staff met with Randall Terry, the radical founder of Operation Rescue, who pressured Republicans in the House to criminalize abortion.
Following Tom DeLay’s resignation as Majority Leader in 2006 (after DeLay was indicted on conspiracy and money laundering charges for which he was recently convicted) John Boehner returned to the GOP leadership and was elected to replace DeLay. From the outset, Boehner pledged to support Republican plans to privatize Social Security, worked against a bipartisan immigration reform bill, and vigorously fought stronger ethics laws. Once elevated to Majority Leader, his leadership PAC received even more financial support from special interest groups. The New York Times found that “Mr. Boehner’s biggest donors include the political action committees of lobbying firms, drug and cigarette makers, banks, health insurers, oil companies and military contractors.” Boehner’s PAC also received $32,000 from casino-owning American Indian tribes with ties to convicted felon Jack Abramoff.

Boehner only deepened his ties to special interest lobbyists and intensified his pro-corporate agenda after the 2006 elections, when Republicans lost their majority and he became Minority Leader. Like the Freedom Project, the “Boehner for Speaker” committee allowed lobbyists to buy significant access to the congressman. Lobbyists were allowed “VIP access” to Boehner and his top aides if they could raise $100,000 worth of contributions or more for the committee. But Boehner’s ties to lobbyists don’t end there: he routinely met with business leaders, particularly from the banking and tobacco industries, at his Thursday Group meetings, spent tens of thousands of dollars “to travel to golf destinations on a corporate-subsidized tab,” and gave business associations a larger platform through his America Speaking Out initiative. In September, the New York Times profiled his close ties with K Street:

He maintains especially tight ties with a circle of lobbyists and former aides representing some of the nation’s biggest businesses, including Goldman Sachs, Google, Citigroup, R. J. Reynolds, MillerCoors and UPS.

They have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to his campaigns, provided him with rides on their corporate jets, socialized with him at luxury golf resorts and waterfront bashes and are now leading fund-raising efforts for his Boehner for Speaker campaign, which is soliciting checks of up to $37,800 each, the maximum allowed.

Some of the lobbyists readily acknowledge routinely seeking his office’s help — calling the congressman and his aides as often as several times a week — to advance their agenda in Washington. And in many cases, Mr. Boehner has helped them out.

Special interest groups continue to pay handsomely to gain access to Boehner and his aides. This year Boehner raised well over $7 million and Fredreka Schouten of USA Today writes the “industries giving the most to Boehner” include “insurance companies, drug manufacturers and Wall Street firms, all of which now face new regulations adopted by the Democratic-controlled Congress.” In all, the financial and insurance industries have been his top donors, contributing $3.8 million to his political committees.

Boehner’s connections to corporate lobbyists and trade associations greatly influenced his political work. He is big business’s chief advocate on the Hill, and his efforts include “combating fee increases for the oil industry, fighting a proposed cap on debit card fees, protecting tax breaks for hedge fund executives and opposing a cap on greenhouse gas emissions.” Reacting to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Boehner agreed with the US Chamber of Commerce that taxpayers should subsidize the cleanup, rather than forcing BP to pay for the entire bill. Boehner has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from oil companies, and fought attempts by Democrats to lift the liability cap in order to make BP pay for the entire cost of the cleanup.

Boehner vehemently opposes greater supervision of the financial industry and worked tirelessly against Wall Street reform, comparing new oversight and regulations to “killing an ant with a nuclear weapon.” When speaking to an “enthusiastic crowd of bankers at the American Bankers Association government relations summit,” Boehner told them to fight regulatory reform and not “to let those little punk staffers take advantage of you.” Before the historic financial reform bill came up for a vote, Boehner “met with more than 100 lobbyists” to strategize their opposition, and after the legislation was signed into law, he immediately called for its repeal.

But while Boehner looks after his friends and campaign contributors on K Street and Wall Street, he voted against recent legislation to increase lending and tax relief for small businesses, voted ‘No’ on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, attempted to stop extending benefits to unemployed Americans, and vigorously opposed a proposal to bolster and ensure government funding for the medical treatment of 9/11 rescue workers. He also led the opposition to the DISCLOSE Act, which would have made corporations publicly disclose their political contributions and prevent foreign corporations from spending in US elections.

An unapologetic beneficiary of corporate money and an unwavering ally of K Street, John Boehner consistently supports the interests of big business over the public interest. Corporations and their lobbyists are largely responsible for financing his political operations, crafting his policy proposals, and lifting his political career and ambitions. Not only has John Boehner embraced Wall Street and K Street, but he also worked hard to shore up his support from the Religious Right and other conservative interest groups. As the next Speaker of the House, John Boehner will have even more power to advance the goals of Washington lobbyists and push his right-wing, pro-corporate agenda.