From the BBC!
Friday, December 11, 2009
Thursday, December 10, 2009
God? No thank you.
I am an atheist, and I am OUT. I am a moderator in two atheist forums, one is the Richard Dawkins Forum, and the other is a greek atheist forum, atheia.gr, and in both I am known by the name Darkchilde.
There are some questions that come up all the time, and I thought of starting to collect them and answer them in my blog.
The first question I would like to address is: Why are you an Atheist?
Well, the first and main reason is that there is no scientific evidence for any god(s).
I rejected christianity and other forms of religion since I was a little girl. I remember being around 9-10 years old, and thinking how stupid the stories of Adam and Eve, and Noah's flood were. I was lucky in the fact that neither my mother nor father were very religious, and the only one trying to force religion down my throat was my grandmother.
I have been baptized an orthodox christian, which is the main religion in Greece, where I was born, raised and currently reside. Orthodox christianity is a bit different in some practices than other christian branches. First of all, the way the hymns are sung to my ears sounds more like noise than music. They are very loosely based to Byzantine Music, but to a child they mostly sound awful. And they did sound awful to my little ears as a child.
Not to mention that church is boring! You have to sit tight and listen to all that awful music, and to bible passages I did not understand! The Bible read in the orthodox churches, is in an old Greek language, a mixture between Ancient Greek and Modern Greek, which is not understood by the majority of the population. In fact, a translation of the Bible in Modern Greek did not exist for a very long time, having been translated and published in Modern Greek only in 1997!
Then there was the fact that my grandmother wanted to take me to church at every opportunity when I wanted to do something else, especially the 4-5 weeks before Easter. Each Friday in those weeks preceding Easter, there is a church service. Trouble is that, a certain year when I was a child still, every Friday on TV there was "Space 1999". And one of my favorite branch of literature/TV/Movies is Science Fiction and Fantasy, and it has been this way since I was a child. So, there comes this Friday a few weeks before Easter, and my grandmother wanted to take me to church for the service. I wanted to stay home, and watch "Space 1999". Of course, my grandmother being the elder and "more sensible" she won that round. However, I won the war! Because, I was constantly whining at church and for some time after, that I lost that episode, and how was I going to watch that [this was at a time before there were even VCRs!], and similar things. That episode I finally watched it at a much later date, on a VCR. Of course, now I have it on DVD!
And then, there was my love of science. And I am still in love with science. My influences when I was growing up included Isaac Asimov, and not just for his science fiction novels, but also for his popular science books, and Carl Sagan, with his series Cosmos. Watching Cosmos made me want to become an astronomer. Reading Asimov, made me want to study technology, specifically computers, and AI.
Then there was the question of gender inequality in religions. And since I am of the female gender, I could not understand why I was thought to be inferior in everything to males. And I was really angry when they told me that my goal in life should be to just find a man and get married and have babies! Just become something little better than a slave! I hated and resented that. And all that just because my reproductive organs are to be found inside my body...
The main attraction of the whole religion show in my childhood though was Sunday school. Well, that was still when my grandmother used to take me to church on Sunday, and then I would stay for the god lessons. I hated going to church on Sundays, even more. At the time, I had school Monday to Saturday, so Sunday was the only day I could sleep a little more and not have to wake up early.
But back to Sunday school. I never liked it. Why? because I never got a straight answer, and of course, the Bible teachers there did not like me too much either. So, after a few Sundays, it was commonly decided that Sunday school was not the best choice for me. That was before the Easter "Space 1999" trouble though.
And when I got to puberty? That was what was even worse. Because that's when the misogyny from religions strike. It wasn't because of sex, my parents explained to me all about sex, and what happens. It was because of my intellect as opposed to other people's. I have logic and critical thinking skills and applied them. Which meant that I outright rejected the orthodox church and christianity, to the dismay of my grandmother especially. I still though thought at the time, that we should respect religion, and still believed at a universal force behind everything.
I never was religious from that time on, and if I happened at church, it was because of a social event. I never gave it a thought about religion, as it never played a role in my life, other than my fights with my grandmother about it.
Another big influence on me, and never realized how big it was until recently, was my science professor in high school. Her name was Mrs. Casotti. Most students disliked her probably because she was quite strict. But I do now understand that she was also fair. She taught us real actual science, including evolutionary theory. I remember we had a whole session on Lucy, the Australopithecus Afarensis skeleton found in 1974.
I never remembered it until recently, that Mrs. Casotti had said that she was an atheist. And that was back in the second half of the 1980's.
How then did I realize that I was an atheist? In a period of 4 years, I lost 4 of my dearest people. I lost my grandfather to Alzheimer's; my grandmother to natural causes; my father to cancer, and the blow of blows for me, my then 26 (now would be 29) years old little sister.
At the time I was angry at everything and everyone; I thought that this was some cosmic joke against me. Then in my anger, I said that I don't believe in god or any universal force or whatever you want to call it. Even though, those were words of an angry spirit, of a person in a lot of pain, they were essentially true. And that, because in essence, I had never actually believed in any god(s) or any universal force(s)! But before I realized this, I still had to let go of the anger I felt.
That was a very slow process, that came about with the help and support of my family and friends. Although most of my family was devastated from such losses, we still held through. A couple of months later, I was on my way to healing and had started to let go of the anger. The pain mellows with time, but there is always a hole and a scar left from such huge losses.
About January 2008, I received an order from Amazon, which included the book "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. I had heard of Prof. Dawkins as an eminent biologist, and was curious about the book.
The book did not tell me anything new; I had argued a lot of the same arguments with my grandmother and other religious people. What it did though, was to put my thoughts and my ideas into a logical order, to make me say that "the god hypothesis does not compute" and to make me realize, that all this time I was really an atheist. I just did not call myself that and I was clinging to a notion of god, of higher power that made sense to me and me alone! I also realized that I had to let go of my last irrational taboos, that I held to them for no other reason than to please others and not myself.
So, I left behind any notion of fasting: I was doing it purely for traditional purposes, and not for myself. I wasn't eating meat for a week, only to please some irrational old tradition, and was going hungry, and resorting to eating all sorts of crap food just to make up for the growling of my stomach! Since I stopped doing it, I am much happier with myself.
Then, it was the time for blasphemy: but I had blasphemed a number of times, when I had criticized religion for the irrationality of the stories in the Bible, for the misogyny, and for many other things. What was then different about religious figures in comparison let's say to the Star Wars characters? [Okay, I admit it, DARTH VADER IS GOD!] Religious figures feature in a book and are the protagonists of a book. And I held them in respect because ... of convention! So, now I am finally free to complete blaspheme! And yes, Sweet Fucking Zombie Jesus!
Thus I realized, that I had been an atheist since I was a teenager, since I had rejected religion, any religion, and I always followed the evidence...
There are some questions that come up all the time, and I thought of starting to collect them and answer them in my blog.
The first question I would like to address is: Why are you an Atheist?
Well, the first and main reason is that there is no scientific evidence for any god(s).
I rejected christianity and other forms of religion since I was a little girl. I remember being around 9-10 years old, and thinking how stupid the stories of Adam and Eve, and Noah's flood were. I was lucky in the fact that neither my mother nor father were very religious, and the only one trying to force religion down my throat was my grandmother.
I have been baptized an orthodox christian, which is the main religion in Greece, where I was born, raised and currently reside. Orthodox christianity is a bit different in some practices than other christian branches. First of all, the way the hymns are sung to my ears sounds more like noise than music. They are very loosely based to Byzantine Music, but to a child they mostly sound awful. And they did sound awful to my little ears as a child.
Not to mention that church is boring! You have to sit tight and listen to all that awful music, and to bible passages I did not understand! The Bible read in the orthodox churches, is in an old Greek language, a mixture between Ancient Greek and Modern Greek, which is not understood by the majority of the population. In fact, a translation of the Bible in Modern Greek did not exist for a very long time, having been translated and published in Modern Greek only in 1997!
Then there was the fact that my grandmother wanted to take me to church at every opportunity when I wanted to do something else, especially the 4-5 weeks before Easter. Each Friday in those weeks preceding Easter, there is a church service. Trouble is that, a certain year when I was a child still, every Friday on TV there was "Space 1999". And one of my favorite branch of literature/TV/Movies is Science Fiction and Fantasy, and it has been this way since I was a child. So, there comes this Friday a few weeks before Easter, and my grandmother wanted to take me to church for the service. I wanted to stay home, and watch "Space 1999". Of course, my grandmother being the elder and "more sensible" she won that round. However, I won the war! Because, I was constantly whining at church and for some time after, that I lost that episode, and how was I going to watch that [this was at a time before there were even VCRs!], and similar things. That episode I finally watched it at a much later date, on a VCR. Of course, now I have it on DVD!
And then, there was my love of science. And I am still in love with science. My influences when I was growing up included Isaac Asimov, and not just for his science fiction novels, but also for his popular science books, and Carl Sagan, with his series Cosmos. Watching Cosmos made me want to become an astronomer. Reading Asimov, made me want to study technology, specifically computers, and AI.
Then there was the question of gender inequality in religions. And since I am of the female gender, I could not understand why I was thought to be inferior in everything to males. And I was really angry when they told me that my goal in life should be to just find a man and get married and have babies! Just become something little better than a slave! I hated and resented that. And all that just because my reproductive organs are to be found inside my body...
The main attraction of the whole religion show in my childhood though was Sunday school. Well, that was still when my grandmother used to take me to church on Sunday, and then I would stay for the god lessons. I hated going to church on Sundays, even more. At the time, I had school Monday to Saturday, so Sunday was the only day I could sleep a little more and not have to wake up early.
But back to Sunday school. I never liked it. Why? because I never got a straight answer, and of course, the Bible teachers there did not like me too much either. So, after a few Sundays, it was commonly decided that Sunday school was not the best choice for me. That was before the Easter "Space 1999" trouble though.
And when I got to puberty? That was what was even worse. Because that's when the misogyny from religions strike. It wasn't because of sex, my parents explained to me all about sex, and what happens. It was because of my intellect as opposed to other people's. I have logic and critical thinking skills and applied them. Which meant that I outright rejected the orthodox church and christianity, to the dismay of my grandmother especially. I still though thought at the time, that we should respect religion, and still believed at a universal force behind everything.
I never was religious from that time on, and if I happened at church, it was because of a social event. I never gave it a thought about religion, as it never played a role in my life, other than my fights with my grandmother about it.
Another big influence on me, and never realized how big it was until recently, was my science professor in high school. Her name was Mrs. Casotti. Most students disliked her probably because she was quite strict. But I do now understand that she was also fair. She taught us real actual science, including evolutionary theory. I remember we had a whole session on Lucy, the Australopithecus Afarensis skeleton found in 1974.
I never remembered it until recently, that Mrs. Casotti had said that she was an atheist. And that was back in the second half of the 1980's.
How then did I realize that I was an atheist? In a period of 4 years, I lost 4 of my dearest people. I lost my grandfather to Alzheimer's; my grandmother to natural causes; my father to cancer, and the blow of blows for me, my then 26 (now would be 29) years old little sister.
At the time I was angry at everything and everyone; I thought that this was some cosmic joke against me. Then in my anger, I said that I don't believe in god or any universal force or whatever you want to call it. Even though, those were words of an angry spirit, of a person in a lot of pain, they were essentially true. And that, because in essence, I had never actually believed in any god(s) or any universal force(s)! But before I realized this, I still had to let go of the anger I felt.
That was a very slow process, that came about with the help and support of my family and friends. Although most of my family was devastated from such losses, we still held through. A couple of months later, I was on my way to healing and had started to let go of the anger. The pain mellows with time, but there is always a hole and a scar left from such huge losses.
About January 2008, I received an order from Amazon, which included the book "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. I had heard of Prof. Dawkins as an eminent biologist, and was curious about the book.
The book did not tell me anything new; I had argued a lot of the same arguments with my grandmother and other religious people. What it did though, was to put my thoughts and my ideas into a logical order, to make me say that "the god hypothesis does not compute" and to make me realize, that all this time I was really an atheist. I just did not call myself that and I was clinging to a notion of god, of higher power that made sense to me and me alone! I also realized that I had to let go of my last irrational taboos, that I held to them for no other reason than to please others and not myself.
So, I left behind any notion of fasting: I was doing it purely for traditional purposes, and not for myself. I wasn't eating meat for a week, only to please some irrational old tradition, and was going hungry, and resorting to eating all sorts of crap food just to make up for the growling of my stomach! Since I stopped doing it, I am much happier with myself.
Then, it was the time for blasphemy: but I had blasphemed a number of times, when I had criticized religion for the irrationality of the stories in the Bible, for the misogyny, and for many other things. What was then different about religious figures in comparison let's say to the Star Wars characters? [Okay, I admit it, DARTH VADER IS GOD!] Religious figures feature in a book and are the protagonists of a book. And I held them in respect because ... of convention! So, now I am finally free to complete blaspheme! And yes, Sweet Fucking Zombie Jesus!
Thus I realized, that I had been an atheist since I was a teenager, since I had rejected religion, any religion, and I always followed the evidence...
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
New Moon
Yesterday, I went to see "New Moon" at the theatre. I have not read the books, so I cannot compare the two. I definitely want to read the books though, because I think that, at least the "New Moon" book, should be much better than the movie.
Let's start from the beginning though. With respect to the first movie of the series, (Twilight), "New Moon" is a definite loser. Twilight had more action and was not filled with cheesy romance and lines not even fit for a daydreaming teenager!
One of the most corny and ridiculous moments, was the scene where Jake takes off his T-shirt, and wipes the blood off Bella's forehead. I laughed really hard, because it was really obvious that the scene was meant for 15 year old girls to go "Ooooh" and "Aaahhh" at seeing Jake's quite athletic body. [I still prefer Edward!]
What I wanted to see and didn't get from this movie: more action! Werewolf vs. vampire! Not even a decent fight. There was only the one with Laurent, and Lawrent was just a wimp, as we already know from the last movie.
Where was Edward for more than half of the movie? Where were the vampires? Nowhere to be found. And I think that the absence of the Cullen and other vampires was what really was detrimental to the movie. Suddenly, Alice comes back to Forks, and the whole movie changes. There is action, interest peaks again and the race to save Edward... I hope we do get to see the Volturi again.
My advice? Keep the start and ending of the movie, the scenes with Laurent's death and when Bella realizes that Jake is a werewolf, and ditch all the romance between Jake and Bella.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Opinions: about the creation museum of the Answers in Genesis religious group
I am sorry to see the power religion has over people. I am sorry to see that organized churches influence people so much so, that they would reject scientific theories and proven facts over unproven claims and mythical tales! I am sorry to see people blinded by religious freaks! I am sorry to see that religion wants to return us to the Middle Ages when even the mention of true science was condemned as magic, and people burned in the stake for their beliefs in science, like Giordano Bruno. And people getting tortured for believing that the Earth rotates (Galileo Galilei). Is this where religion wants to bring the world to? And how many people suffer because of religious beliefs all over the world? How many people are prisoners of their religious beliefs? How many more wars will be fought under the pretenses of God and country?
I REJECT RELIGION.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Zlad - Supersonik Elektronic
This is a really funny and wacky music video I have found.
And the lyrics to the song are:
Hey baby wake up from your a sleep
We have arrived onto the future
And the whole world is become....
Elektronik, Supersonik,
Supersonik, Elektronik,
Hey baby ride with me away,
We doesn't have much time,
My blue jeans is tight,
So onto my love rocket, climb,
Inside tank of fuel is not fuel, but love,
Above us, there is nothing above,
but the stars, above
All systems gone!
Prepare for downcount!
5....4....3....1! Off blast!
Fly away, my space rocket,
You no need put money in my pocket
The door is closed I just lock it,
(Ha) I put my (Ha) port plug in your socket (Ha Ha Ha)
The sonic sky is bright like fire
You and me gets higher and higher
Cut communication wire
Only thing can stop us is flat tire
Ha, Ha, Ha Ha Ha Ha
Hey love crusaider
I want to be your space invader
For you I will decend the deepest moon crater
I is more stronger than Darth Vapour
Obey me I is your new dictator
For you is Venus, I am Mars
With you I is more richer than all the tzars
Make a wishes on a shooting stars
Then for you I will play on my cosmic guitars!
Ladies and Gentlemen
Fasten your beltseats
We has commenced our decent
I trust you enjoy this flight
As much as you enjoy this accent
Now back on Earth its time for downsplash
Into sea of eternal glory my spaceship crash
People have arrived for cheer me from near and far
And as I float I open door and shout
"I am worlds biggest, washed-up superstar!"
(Supersonik, Elektronik)
As for sure as the sun rises in the west
Of all the seas and all the boats I am the bestest
come, let me put ring of Jupiter on your finger
Then like a smell around you I will forever linger
Ok, is time for end, no more will I sang
Let me take you back in time,
I want for you to experience big bang
Long live space race
Long live, Molvania
About Molvania: http://www.molvania.com/index.html
Friday, November 24, 2006
Stars
Look at the stars...
So beautiful, so far away.
You can look at them,
but you can't touch them...
They're like our dreams...
The above poem was written a very long time ago, around the end of the 80s. It was a very bad time for me personally, so the poem reflects my depressive mood of the time.
So beautiful, so far away.
You can look at them,
but you can't touch them...
They're like our dreams...
The above poem was written a very long time ago, around the end of the 80s. It was a very bad time for me personally, so the poem reflects my depressive mood of the time.
Light and Shadow
All there is: light and shadow
And there between them
there you stand
with your miserable life
trying to find something
And you run, your life is running.
The above poem was written a very long time ago, around the end of the 80s. It was a very bad time for me personally, so the poem reflects my depressive mood of the time.
And there between them
there you stand
with your miserable life
trying to find something
And you run, your life is running.
The above poem was written a very long time ago, around the end of the 80s. It was a very bad time for me personally, so the poem reflects my depressive mood of the time.
Why
Why have I to be alone
Why can't they understand
Why should I listen to them
I'm standing on my own
but I have to subscribe
I don't want to, but they say I have to
Why should I listen to them
Why should I do what they do
Why can't I live like I want
I'm always on my own
and music is loud
but they don't like it
Why do you want to hurt me
Why life is a nightmare
Why are you so cruel
Everyone stands on his own
Few can be friends
Few want to help
The above poem was written a very long time ago, around the end of the 80s. It was a very bad time for me personally, so the poem reflects my depressive mood of the time.
Why can't they understand
Why should I listen to them
I'm standing on my own
but I have to subscribe
I don't want to, but they say I have to
Why should I listen to them
Why should I do what they do
Why can't I live like I want
I'm always on my own
and music is loud
but they don't like it
Why do you want to hurt me
Why life is a nightmare
Why are you so cruel
Everyone stands on his own
Few can be friends
Few want to help
The above poem was written a very long time ago, around the end of the 80s. It was a very bad time for me personally, so the poem reflects my depressive mood of the time.
Dreams
When I'm alone
I like to dream
Music is loud
Everyone dreams
And everyone says
"Don't dream,
Dreams are for children."
Are they really?
The above poem was written a very long time ago, around the end of the 80s. It was a very bad time for me personally, so the poem reflects my depressive mood of the time.
I like to dream
Music is loud
Everyone dreams
And everyone says
"Don't dream,
Dreams are for children."
Are they really?
The above poem was written a very long time ago, around the end of the 80s. It was a very bad time for me personally, so the poem reflects my depressive mood of the time.
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