Fudged by Easter: Whining + Chocolate

Here I am once more on the topic of Easter. I'm only addressing it a second time because DC just can't let the topic go, and, well, frankly, I find their commentaries on the holiday to be bigotted and shallow, like most of what has been quoted and responded too here.

Nothing to do with Loftus here as addressed in the previous Easter post. This time, I take on a new target, someone never done before, and someone I could care less about in general as far as Debunking Christianity goes: Joe. E. Holman.

Holman's Easter Sunrise Blasphemy is just more of the same ol' same ol' coupled with extreme and outlandish statements. Clearly these people don't sleep at night very well because the Christian Right along with Evangelism are haunting their psyches' because of bad past experiences. I don't want to be insensitive and innappropriate here, but they mine as well have been molested as children by some evangelical preacher with serious sex orientation issues. If this isn't the case, something just as extreme is....

Let's begin my critique:

It's Easter today and that means countless Christians will be at their respective houses of worship praising and thanking the god that made them for sending Jesus Christ to die on the cross for their sins and for his being raised from the grave. You may or may not be planning to attend one of these pagan put-ons known as Easter sunrise services, or like me, you may actually despise them. Either way, I want you to hear why I feel the way I do.

This is where the whining begins to ensue:

I hate Easter. About the only thing I love around this time of year are those discounted chocolates in pretty-colored packages that are on sale in the stores. But that's it. I hate everything else about it. The cool weather leaves and the warmer weather comes. What's to like?

You hate Easter?! Gee, I never would have guessed....

As far as I'm concerned, I much prefer warm weather over cold. At least warm weather can be tolerated longer than cold. Cold doesn't even give you a choice for tolerance.

I hate that it's a holi-(read “holy”)-day. To me as an atheist, this is a red flag reminder that society is still not above having holy days—days with vile histories that have been exalted by blood god worshippers through the centuries who possess the arrogance to think that the world would end without their putrid, bloody offerings. It’s sick, I tell you!

The biased fundamentalist thinking is strong in this one. By this line of reasoning, all holidays are religion-affliated. But the reality is, not quite. I wonder what Holman has to say about Veterans Day, Memorial Day, July the Fourth, Presidents Day, Thanksgiving, St. Patrick's Day, Valentines Day, Martin Luther King Day, etc. All of which these are hardly even remotely related to religion or religious affairs! Only one of these are brute in their origin (Valentines) but still have absolutely zero to do with religion. In fact, many of these holidays are festive remembrances of those that have dedicated their lives to civil rights, helped found and mold the democracy of the United States, and so on. Most of these holidays are days that are reserved for personal family time, yet the people at DC have no complaints about them. It comes with points like these that we must take the binky out of our mouths and stop sucking on our thumbs.

Add to that, Easter time means that the religious nuts can't help but wear their nuttiness on their sleeves with their nauseating talk of alters and blood and redemption and how worthless and worthy of burning we humans are. It's creepy stuff!

Holman doesn't realize that these complaints come from atheists and upset "non-believers" on a daily basis. Shut up and enjoy the candy, already.....

Easter means I have to see those big, “in your face” banners that spread across intersections and streets that advertise these sacred bunny events, and that means more people are out and about shopping. But the restaurants I love will be closed! That frustrates the hell out of me (or hell into me, depending on how you look at it.) Sometimes, I swear up and down that this is how Jeebus is getting back at me for defecting!

Nevermind that in most cases, most stores and restraurants close early on regular Sundays and will also close on holidays such as the ones already mentioned. But perhaps Holman should take the time to consider that people which usually cater to the needs of others have personal lives too, and that Holman isn't the only person in the world with needs and demands. ;)

Then there are the radio broadcasts and telecasts of emotional preachers who have to remind everyone with emphatic, high-pitched voices that a dead guy came to life on a certain day and how that event long ago will someday help us. But it hasn't helped us yet. None of our friends and loved ones and family who died in war or of cancer or Legionary’s Disease have come out of the ground yet. They're still there, but that shouldn't surprise us. Religions are big on making big claims, including impossibly big claims like the dead being raised to life.

Oh really, Holman? You mean to insult us by informing us that a large organ with electric-like impulses is impossible to recover? And what about the braindead whose hearts are still beating? Holman hasn't thought much on the possibility that resurrecting someone through scientific means is very much a possibility, and you don't need a degree in neuroscience to realize this. And if "resurrecting" someone from the dead can be achieved through science, why not open the possibility of this occuring through supernatural means? The likelihood or improbability of something confers that something is possible nor impossible, Joey boy.

But what's the real import of this holiday? Like Christmas, it's not really spiritual. It never was. Spiritual is a man or a woman who tells the truth even though doing otherwise would not result in being caught.

??????????????

All this oohing and ahhing to a ghost, all these churches filled with believers, all these prayers and colored baskets of eggs and pretty banners and billboards that say “He is risen” won't move God to rid the world of a single evil. It won't stop lunatics from shooting up malls or post offices. It won't stop one child from dying of starvation or dear sweet Aunt Olga from dying of breast cancer. And all the church-sponsored Easter egg hunts in the world won't cause God to bless one infertile churchgoing couple who can't have children of their own, and it won’t stop unfit parents from doing the naughty and having more kids they can’t take care of.

Holman's point is????? There are some Christians that don't involve themselves with Easter, and Easter is not a holiday intended to rid the world of its illnesses and dysfunction. Does Christianity even try to pass itself off as the magical miracle pill? I don't think so. Christianity is in fact a religion which acknolwedges the world's imperfections and makes statements about their ongoing reality. In fact, it's supposed to get worse before the end. Not better. Holman is whacked.

I'm going to be sleeping in this Easter like I have for the last seven. Together with my cozy bed and the internet, I'll make it. These big bags of chocolates will help!

A silly nilly will bunny wabbit does deserve an egg basket of confinement every now and then. :D