Please, sir, can I have another?

I hate religion, but I make an effort to avoid all-out religion-bashing on my blog since I know religious people (although there are exceptions to this rule). However, this drives me crazy. I've seen it a thousand times, and it seems like the most obvious self-deluding nonsense, but again and again I see it. This woman was falsely accused of stealing some cop's gun, and spent 10 months in jail. She sued the city when she got out and won $7.7 million dollars. Her reaction:

"I'm going to go home and lie down for a little bit," an ecstatic Jackson, 41, said after the verdict. "I feel relieved. I'm happy, and I'm thanking God."

Why? Why are you thanking God? Why aren't you pissed off that God made you spend 10 months in jail, that part isn't God's fault? But it's God's doing that you got $7.7 million. God has a pretty good deal going here; he controls everything, gets to take credit for all the good stuff, but doesn't get blamed for bad things. The ultimate religious explanation for why bad stuff happens to religious people is that God gives the greatest tests to those he loves the most. Really? That sounds like a damn fine reason to not be on God's good side, maybe then I won't get thrown in jail for 10 months as part of some sadistic test. God reminds me eerily of a mafia don, and religious people are mafiosi trying to stay on his good side. When bad things happen, the don tends to punish those closest to him, so it's a lot more risky being there than being some random guy he's never heard of. But they stay there anyway, because either they hope they're going to get rewarded someday, they don't realize there's no reason to put up with it, or they're too scared to death to leave. God is Yakavetta, and theists are Rocco

And now it's all too clear why the concept of hell exists in religion, because without hell there would be no reason to put up with God's shit

EDIT: My girlfriend just sent me NeedGod.com; I recommend everyone check it out. It tells you, surprisingly, why you need God. At one point it asked me, "Does the fact that you're headed for Hell concern you?", and when I responded that it did not it exclaimed "It should concern you". Why?

Perhaps you feel safe because you don't believe in Hell. This can be likened to standing in the middle of a busy highway and shouting "I don't believe in trucks!" . . . God has given us HIS WORD on the existence and purpose of Hell...

OH. My bad. I didn't realize God has given us HIS WORD on the subject, what was I thinking. And not to nitpick or anything, but in the highway example, you can see the trucks

If God is real he probably doesn't read my blog anyway

I've never read the Bible, or really paid much attention to any religions, I've found them patently stupid for as long as I can remember now, but this is basically my impression of how Christianity works:

God: "Jesus. JESUS! Get over here, I need you to do something"
Jesus: "Damn it Dad, what now?"
God: "HEY! I don't like that talk. Come over here, I'm not going to yell over the whole plane"
Jesus: "Fine. What?"
God: "Look, you know those humans I made? I messed up....er, I mean. I designed them to suck. Yeah, that's it. I designed them to sin. But sinning is against the rules I'm making them follow. But you see, I still want them to get into heaven. And I'm all powerful, I am. But I still can't let them in because they're sinners. Well, I could if I wanted to. But I can't. You following this?"
Jesus: "Uh . . . no. Why would you design them to sin if . . ."
God: "DID I TELL YOU YOU COULD TALK? It doesn't matter, just trust me, I know what I'm talking about, it's a whole "free will" thing. So I need a favor. I need you to go down to Earth"
Jesus: "Aww, no!"
God: "Shut it! You're going down to Earth, and you're going to let my crazy creations nail you to a cross, so then I can say we're even for all the sinning they do"
Jesus: ". . . That could not make less sense if you tried"
God: "Who's the omniscient one here? It makes sense, go do it. You'll just end up right back here anyway. Well, until the whole rising from the dead thing. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, for now just go convince them I'm God. I'm going to stay here. Don't worry, I've got this all timed to match up with their existing holidays, so when we convert them all to the true religion they won't have to change much. And make sure it's a cross, I've got stock in the people that make crosses, the industry is going to explode after this"

So yeah. I'm not a huge fan of religion either, if you couldn't tell by my rampant blasphemy. It's actually on the top of the hate list, even above Macs, which is an impressive accomplishment really, but Mac users don't make a habit of killing people that use other operating systems. Although I think they probably will one day, but even when they do, religion has a pretty big head start on them. I used to believe in the whole "let everyone believe what they will and respect each others beliefs" thing, but I got over that a while ago, now I just think they're all deluded.

I was searching for a couple of my favorite atheist quotes using the parts of them I could remember, and amazingly found pretty much all of them on the same page, which is handy. The last one is my all-time favorite and the inspiration for that thing above. It comes down to the rather succinct bumper-sticker friendly "God made me an atheist. Who are you to question his wisdom?"

• "I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
  --Stephen Roberts


• "When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me."
  --Emo Philips


• "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
  --Epicurus


• "We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart."
  --H. L. Mencken


• "Jesus' last words on the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" hardly seem like the words of a man who planned it that way. It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure there is something wrong here."
  --Donald Morgan


• Eskimo: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?"
  Priest: "No, not if you did not know."
  Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me?"
  --Annie Dillard, 'Pilgrim at Tinker Creek'


• "We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes."
  --Gene Roddenberry

I also find this picture rather amusing: