The male gaze is socially CONDITIONED. Simply spend an hour at a nudist retreat engaged in activities with dozens of naked people to find the “gaze” vanishes from awareness. It is an artificial response to a puritanical environment

Yes you have a fight on your hands because religion, esp. ✝️, is too popular in the 🇺🇸. I’m not American. Where I live there are full abortion rights and LGBTQ rights. It is Conservatives who are trying to roll those rights back, so far failing to do so

OK. If you say so. I have no say in the matter. I have zero faith. I’m scientific. If I had to assert anything, I’d hazard that Jesus never existed. The apostles are not historical. But I won’t argue the question. I’m more interested in biological evolution.

I listen to evangelical sermons, for fun!! - I’m anti-religion - and they frequently vilify nonbelievers. “You know where the sinners of Jesus’ time went? To hell. You know where they are now? In hell!” I have to laugh. With MAGA’s rise, I’d expect strident opposition voices to also rise.

In current discourse, “religion” means ✝️, ☪️, maybe so-called “Hinduism” - not ALL religions, not ancient devotions to Apollo, Poseidon, etc., though popular piety did persecute the impious philosophers like Anaxagoras banished to Lampsacus for claiming the sun was a burning ball, not a god.

Yes. I agree. I’d only add that our institutions are imbued with Christian assumptions, because despite the Renaissance & the Enlightenment, the perspective of Christianity’s takeover of society since AD 313 has become culturally normalized: body shame, sin, & punishment, etc

Yes, it IS a moving poem, as ART. As belief-content, however, romantic nonsense. Nature is beautiful? Try cherry-picking plagues, ticks, droughts for the poem instead of greenery and eye-candy imagery. Atheist here too, & I repeat, yes, the poem gives a warm feeling.

The oppression arises from the beliefs. As I said, the faiths are not private & personal. They are assertively public and activist.

Lucretius’ The Nature of Things, Book 3, lines 307-785, lists & criticizes the numerous spirit beliefs of the late Roman Republic. Quite humorous at times, and not much has changed in the 2,075 years since.

Or, if as you claim, atheists are obnoxious and self-important, maybe their energy matches the complacency and assertiveness of the pious.

It’s a neutral space where there is no mention of either “God” or “no-God”. Schools are NOT teaching “there is no God”. There are no tests on the issue, no classes on it, no correct answers because the topic isn’t raised at all.

If only ✝️ / ☪️ was just personal & private. It’s not. It seeks to rule society. Atheists get loud! We’ve fought against forced prayer in school, ✝️-based homophobia, Lords Day acts, ✝️-defined roles for women, anti-MAID, anti-abortion, book-banning. It’s religion that won’t leave the rest of us alone.

If only ✝️ / ☪️ was just personal & private. It’s not. It seeks to rule society. Atheists get loud! We’ve fought against forced prayer in school, ✝️-based homophobia, Lords Day acts, ✝️-defined roles for women, anti-MAID, anti-abortion, book-banning. It’s religion that won’t leave the rest of us alone.

“Believing there is no God” is not the same as “not believing in God”. ✝️s & ☪️s - call them collectively Spiritists - tend to hold the first opinion of atheists; that atheism is a belief. It is not. It is a dismissal. I can’t be bothered actively believing there is no God, no Bigfoot, etc. I’m busy.

We’ve heard this excuse forever: “We’re not THAT kind of Christian. Those fundamentalists aren’t real Christians. Don’t paint all Christians the same.” And now we’re getting the same grift re: Islam. Apologists for organized religions ✝️ & ☪️ they’re the same. I call them Chrislam.

“Spirit”?! Seriously!!! The ghost that is the “real you” inside your body. Then your body dies and ghost-you goes to ghostland to meet the Master Ghost?!? Put away all the spirit-books and read science instead. Seriously

Free will doesn’t exist. We didn’t evolve “to” anything. Morality is merely the imperfectly evolved behaviour patterns of a herd animal. There may be survival value in behaviours conventionally classified as immoral - in fact, such behaviours wouldn’t exist otherwise.

The usual boring evasion: “I’m not THAT type of Christian / Muslim. That’s only extremists and fundamentalists. Don’t blame all religious people because of a few …” blah blah blah. Uh uh. No longer. Not after MAGA has arisen. The religious are the enemy of individual freedom.

Sin doesn’t exist so cannot be committed. Spirit doesn’t exist so has no truth to it. Truth is not an aim in material descriptions; accuracy is the aim. And finally, it is the religious in general who are busybodies, imposing their value judgements onto everyone, so atheists are on the offensive now

I will not bow my head in respect and a moment of silence for any prayer. Superstition has ruled for 2500 years. Time to affront it in all its forms. Its social privilege needs to be challenged. Pray in a closet if one must.

Our historical context validates atheist activism. Since the ‘60s we’ve successively pushed back against school prayer forced on everyone, religious qualifications on job applications, homophobia, anti-abortion laws, the Lords Day acts. But now religious reactionaries are surging back into power

Atheists profess no beliefs. (Many) Christians condemn atheists & Muslims. (Many) Muslims condemn Jews. Etc. etc. Freedom of religion doesn’t mean freedom from criticism. When, for ex, Christians are homophobic or support forced birth for everyone, valid criticism doesn’t negate their freedom

Ever since the letters of “Paul” (not a historical person), Christianity has appropriated “love, compassion, kindness, morality” etc - all of them normal human impulses - to its followers alone. Nonbelievers were slandered as lecherous, self-centred, immoral, etc. As if ✝️ MAKES people moral.

Church charities don’t “do good” - they’re lures to convert people. The nonreligious are as charitable as the religious. Meanwhile, churches support homophobia, book-banning, child indoctrination , etc - why defend them? Churches create the binary that the faithful are good, the unfaithful bad.

Why do you distinguish between a ✝️ afterlife resurrection if you’re true to “God” and an ☪️ afterlife resurrection if true to “Allah”? They’re essentially the same nonsense: a perspective I call Chrislam.

“Half of pregnancies fail. Medical intervention can produce as well as prevent life. All the sperm in the world is useless in itself. Woman rules fertility and health; Her choice too is nature and fundamental. Why god is small-g and has Consort. Call Her Adventure, Daring, Indomitable.”

“The way to erase Woman’s independent will is to impregnate her. Life must take its inevitable course: to birth or still-birth. Medical intervention is forbidden. Rape & Fate rule Woman; Choice belongs to Man. Why God is One, ‘He’, and has no partners. Call it Bible Law, Texas Law, Qur’anic Law.”

“A lot of people were very surprised that this nerdy, gay, Californian son of immigrants techpreneur decided to support Donald Trump’s presidency”

“It’s bordering on fascism … talks about how companies are better run than governments because they have a single decision maker—a dictator, basically. He is hostile to the idea of democracy. … he would explain it as belief in efficiency and results”

Smith, Poilievre & Trump