Aww, poor Mike

Everyone needs to go try and cheer up that poor lonely atheist, Tangled Up In Blue Guy. It was his birthday yesterday and everyone in the world forgot.

I can't console him. He's an atheist, which means it is entirely true that most of the people in the world hate him and want to strap him to a big stick and set him on fire, and I'm an atheist which, as we all know, means I'm insensitive and uncaring. Sorry. I hope one or two Christians, the only people capable of being nice, stumble across this message and find their way over there to offer him some friendship.

And invite him to their big house on Sunday morning for some "fellowship".

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This will be a quiet week - I've got my Dad making his annual visit, a talk, a short trip, and then a slew of guests arriving for the weekend for Simon's 9th birthday party and Simon's first Torah reading (he's too young to read in the main synagogue, but he'll be the youngest kid ever to chant…

Pbbt! A real atheist would love the Blind Pitiless Indifference of the Universe, and be gratified to see it applied to even one's own birthday.

sn't PZ wrm nd cddly?

Mks m wnt t b lk hm!

Bttr, ft, nrrw mndd, fntcl, tc.

[Normally, I'd just delete a comment from the Kansas troll, but I'm impressed with the stupidity of this one. I know Mike Haubrich personally, and we're friends as much as infrequent acquaintances can be...and poor Mr "Greybill" interprets a little joshing with a fellow Minnesotan as atheistical hatefulness? He confirms the ignorant attitude I was mocking in this post.]

PZ,

the question I want to ask, is whether we live in a fabricated nightmare.
A nightmare created by the neo cons / religious christian fundamentalists in the US.
A nightmare which perpetuates the polarization of american society , between so called "religious values" and "secular values".
A nightmare which lives on a self fulfiling prophecy calling for a polarization of religious extremism between judeo christians and muslims. Idea perpetuated by the kind of documentaries from Christiane Amanpour from CNN called "God's wariors".

The real fight, PZ, is not between atheism and theism, but between secular and religious values.

If the excellent documentary "the power of nightmares" from the BBC is right, the entire world's stability relies on a return in America and the UK of politicians that minimize the importance of religous based fundamentalism.

Just comments from a European perspective.

By negentropyeater (not verified) on 01 Sep 2007 #permalink

Thanks, PZ. Yesterday was a day in which I was truly ready to surrender and welcomed a quick takeover by the Cephalopod Overlords.

But I stopped feeling sorry for myself this morning.

Most of the people in the world DO NOT hate atheists. There are of course two notable exceptions: the USA and Saudi Arabia. Strange bedfellows indeed.

Saudi Arabia is, to my knowledge, the only country in the world where the teaching of evolution is forbidden. Soon to be followed by another one?

By Paul Lurquin (not verified) on 01 Sep 2007 #permalink

Paul,

you are right, because that "hate" has been stimulated by the neocons in America, as a fight for "judeo/christian values".
I have not encountered any problems with being an atheist when I lived many years in France, Spain, Germany and The Netherlands.

By negentropyeater (not verified) on 01 Sep 2007 #permalink

Mike:

There have been a couple of occasions when I've tried to leave a comment on your site but I was somehow thwarted by your comment system. So maybe there are a lot of birthday wishes that tried to get through?

Like mine. I really sent one, really.

Greg

I don't know if this is happening to anyone else or if I am just having some problems with my ISP, but it appears that the link to TUIBG is broken.

??

Carbonfish, even I was having trouble with it for a while. Blog-city sometimes does a maintenance thing, or because of the number of hits I got from this post they may have thought it was a DOS attack. Self-pity has its upsides.

I'll be moving to a new host in a few months. Thanks for trying, though!

Christians are the only one capable of being nice?
Surely you jest.
I'm sorry, that you are so misguided. It is only the true, literally believing in the inerrancy of the KJV bible folk, that are capable of being nice. You are sooo damned to hell. Only those who believe that God hats Fags, Swedes and US dead soldiers can in God's eyes ever be nice.

Jo men Visst! (Non standard Swedish - ask Torbjorn Larsson what part of the country its' from)

Ken

By Ken Mareld (not verified) on 02 Sep 2007 #permalink

PZ: I left a friendly message. It wasn't the Christian thing to do, it was the nice thing to do. For the record, the invisible sky fairy I would be interested in communing with would probably think that posting a link to Mike was more than just nice, it was thoughtful. Good on ya...Scott

Sorry, as an atheist, I'm just way too busy persecuting the faithful, burning bibles, promoting amorality, homosexuality, and so many other "-alities", not to mention eating my own young, that I just can't be bothered to wish another of my persuasion "happy birthday".

Blame those damned dirty apes I'm descended from!