An Atheist Hymnal

An Atheist Hymnal My God does not Exist My God, does not Exist He is, a Figure of Speech No wisdom, power, or love My God does not Exist. My God, does not Exist He is, a Figure of Speech No wisdom, power, or love My God does not Exist. My God does not Exist. My God does not Exist. In honor of the French Revolution The Old Guillotine On a hill far away, stood an old Guillotine The emblem of suff'ring and shame And I love that old Guillotine where the dearest and best For a world of lost sinners was slain So I'll cherish the old Guillotine Till my trophies at last I lay down I will cling to the old Guillotine And exchange it some day for a crown Oh, that old Guillotine so despised by the world Has a wondrous attraction for me For the dear Lamb of God, left his Glory above To bear it to dark Calvary So I'll cherish the old Guillotine Till my trophies at last I lay down I will cling to the old Guillotine And exchange it some day for a crown In the old Guillotine, stain'd with blood so divine A wondrous beauty I see For the dear Lamb of God, left his Glory above To pardon and sanctify me So I'll cherish the old Guillotine Till my trophies at last I lay down I will cling to the old Guillotine And exchange it some day for a crown To the old Guillotine, I will ever be true Its shame and reproach gladly bear Then He'll call me some day to my home far away Where his glory forever I'll share So I'll cherish the old Guillotine Till my trophies at last I lay down I will cling to the old Guillotine And exchange it some day for a crown Particularly suitable during Stock Market Crashes Jesus Hates Me Yes Jesus hates me for the Markets tell me so Jesus hates me this I know For the Markets tell me so Stock Brokers to him belong They are weak but he is strong Yes Jesus hates me Oh, yes Jesus hates me Yes Jesus hates me for the Markets tell me so Going down, yes down away Markets dropping all the way Undeserving, and stubbornly never fail to hate me still Yes Jesus hates me Oh yes Jesus hates me Oh yes Jesus hates me, for the Markets tell me so Yes Jesus hates me, hate Oh yes Jesus hates me for the Markets tell me so For the Markets tell me so that I'm never alone See, sometimes I'm lonely but never alone For the Markets tell, for the Markets tell For the Markets tell me so See I know that he hates me Whether I'm right, whether I'm wrong

Epitaph of Michael Katai, from the Hungarian, 1606

Michael Katai, World's Exemplar Pupil of Epicurus Follower and companion of Sardanopolis, Bacchus, Venus Son of Voluptas. Those musty Tomes recording the name of God That silly nonsense of ephemeral faith that I withheld Enemy of my country, by my own nation sold And soaked, Good Sir, in poison's blood! I read the book of the living God That if you would believe himself, his divine fury Spreading abroad indiscriminately Down the awful, infernal hierarchy To all the Great a mockery! To me all of God's firmament Manifests God's existence; All that I owed, I gave: Here I lie, hewn sawdust in the grave!

WI: Mahatma Gandhi had really been a pacifist

One of the more popular historical misconceptions is that Mohandas Gandhi opposed all war and violence throughout his adult life. Actually, he served as an ambulance driver during the Boer War, and volunteered for active military service in the British Army during the First World War. He was invalided out when he developed pleurisy. He did, indeed, oppose active violent opposition to the British Imperial authority in India, following the First World War, favoring very organized passive resistance in the form of mass strikes, demonstrations and sit-ins, instead. Frequently, passive resistance is equated to pacifism, despite the fact that passive resistance can result in a great deal of violence, indeed. There were tens of thousands of casualties in Gandhi's "non-violent" campaigns, including both attacks by the British and reprisals by his own supporters. Ask an American or British or French union leader how "non-violent" mass strikes generally are! True, Gandhi wrote extensively of "non-violence" in the last few decades of his life, espousing it as a profound philosophy of existence itself. However, it is helpful to bear in mind that Gandhi was, always, a brilliant politician, from a very long line of brilliant Indian politicians. And, in general, politicians are not entirely incapable of a certain degree of hypocrisy, to achieve their ends and objectives. A couple of pertinent quotations: 1. "It costs a lot of money to keep Gandhi living in poverty". 2. "Pacifists don't mind violence, as long as it's violent enough." -- George Orwell. Gandhi was, above all, an Indian politician determined to improve the lot of of his countrymen, by any means necessary and appropriate. In South Africa, he did precisely NOTHING for the native Africans, all of his activities benefited the immigrants from India, exclusively. His decision to advocate passive resistance to British authority following the First World War was based primarily on the obvious weakness of the British Empire, and the inevitability of Indian independence in the relatively near term. Since the British were on the decline, it no longer made sense to tie their interests to the British Empire. However, since the British were obviously quite weak, by this time, there was no practical reason for violently opposing them. Passive resistance was the simplest, and optimal political solution, and Gandhi was quite perceptive enough to see this. If Gandhi had really been opposed to all violence, he would certainly have balked at the obvious violent consequences of his campaigns of passive resistance against the British and South African governments. And, if he had really been opposed to all violence, he would never have been able to function within the British Empire, as he so skillfully did throughout most of his career. He would have failed as a politician. Indeed, if Gandhi had not been willing to advocate ANY level of violence, whatsoever, in order to achieve his political objectives, he could never have been successful as a politician. Hence, his entire philosophy, as both Churchill and Orwell recognized, was pure sham and show, pure hypocrisy to accomplish his political objectives.

Crusaders failing to convert the Holy Land

Pete, I think our good friend Karl Marx can help you out a bit here. All Wars are economic. Even when people talk of religious wars, all that means is that various aspects of religious dogma, practice and political associations have important economic implications for much or most of the population. For example, the Protestant Nobles living in England following Henry VIII's reign of terror over the Catholics, really didn't give a damn about saying the Mass, or even Papal authority, but they sure as hell weren't going to give back any or all the land they stole from the Catholic English Monasteries, were they? This amounted to almost half of England, for Chrissakes! And much of the Protestant rebellion in Germany, the Netherlands and England was the direct result of the monopoly granted by Pope Alexander VI to Catholic Spain and Portugal over all the riches of the New World. What they were really "protesting" wasn't Papal authority, per se, but the fact that it was excluding them from their rightful share of the wealth. When Christianity originally swept the Roman Empire, including Palestine and the other states of what became, during the Crusades, Outremer, it represented a means to challenge and reform the Roman Empire from within. People were seeking alternatives to Roman Power, perhaps because it was so oppressive that people needed an escape and alternative. In contrast, Islam was developed specifically in response to the collapse of the Roman Empire, and because of the perceived need for some centralized government power to stem the resulting anarchy. Really, the Koran is just a simplified manual for "instant government", in place of total anarchy. And, when the Crusaders tried to conquer the Holy Land in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, anarchy still reigned. Islam was simply more practical and profitable, from a purely economic point of view, than Christianity, because it represented a stabilizing force. Christianity is, by its very nature, anti-government. So, in context, at the time of the Crusades, the people of Outremer quite rightly perceived that they were better off with the stabilizing force of Islam, purely in economic terms, than with the anarchy of Christianity. There was no possibility of Christianity "winning out" under these circumstances, over Islam. It was only the vast wealth of the New World, and the even more anarchic Protestant world view that freed Europeans to ruthlessly exploit it, that finally gave Christianity an edge over Islam, in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Now, of course, with no new frontiers to exploit, once more Islam is in the ascendant, as a stabilizing force for humanity.

Catherine de Medici in England?

So, Horny, you seem to be suggesting that the Protestants in England would not have had the power to prevent another Catholic monarch after Mary Tudor's fairly early death at 42, despite Mary Tudor's unpopularity and the unpopularity of the Spaniards who were effectively "colonizing" England after she married the immensely powerful Phillip II of Spain. I think you're probably right, since the attempted uprisings against her failed so miserably. The monarchy was an extremely well respected institution in sixteenth century Europe, and lineal descent by blood was of paramount importance. So, since after Mary Tudor's death, with no Elizabeth around, Mary Stuart is the closest legitimate blood relative, I think she's very likely indeed to get the prize, isn't she? Then we have the very interesting prospect of French catholic colonists replacing Spanish catholic colonists in both England and Scotland. What would that be like, exactly? True, Mary Stuart's French husband, King Francis II dies in 1560, but, with the formidable Catherine de Medici acting as regent for the new French King, is this awesome woman likely to give up England and Scotland? Hardly likely. And, the French approach to dealing with the Protestants was much more complex, subtle and, ultimately effective than the Spanish approach. The Spanish hardly had to deal with Protestants at home. The Iberian Peninsula was threatened by Moors and Turks, good Christian Catholics had to stick together! And, all of Catholic France stood between Spain and the Protestants in Switzerland, Germany and the low countries. In contrast, France was on the very front line of the war between Catholicism and Protestantism, a war they fought for centuries, until religion ceased to be a major factor in European politics. France used every approach possible to deal with Protestantism -- full tolerance, limited restrictions, Inquisitorial type persecutions, genocidal extermination! Sometimes, the French would go from one extreme to the other, in a most unpredictable fashion. Witness Catherine de Medici's immensely successful and totally unexpected St. Bartholomew Day Massacre! So successful in bringing to a dead halt Protestantism's advances in France, that it is celebrated to this very day in the Vatican in a great painting showing Charles IX justifying the act to the French Parliament. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Bartholomew's_Day_massacre Why not a comparable massacre in London, as well as Paris? Surely, that would teach the protestant English dogs to heed their master, the Pope! While I'm not sure a full union between England, Scotland and and France was at all sustainable, long term, it seems rather more likely to me that the formidable Catherine de Medici could have largely extirpated Protestantism from England in the long term, with Mary Stuart on the throne. Using extremely ruthless methods of course, far more ruthless than anything the comparatively civilized Spanish Inquisition would have considered. The Spanish Inquisition favored controlled, selective killings. That wasn't enough to control the English, of course! Genocide would have been necessary, and that was a tool the French were quite willing to use in their wars of religion. Remember what they did to the Cathars in Languedoc!