It’s Cruel for an Atheist to Pray with Their Dying Mother

Unsurprisingly given its content, a specific Postsecret entry has been addressed by several of my atheist colleagues over at Patheos.

PostSecret card of a hospital bed reading: "I don't believe in god / when I was 19 my mom was on her death bed and asked me to pray for her / I told her I couldn't because I would by [sic] lying / now she's gone forever, and I feel like I failed her as a daughter"

Hemant started the conversation, saying that he felt for the postcard’s creator and saw no way by which he could gain from refusing to pray. Matthew agreed, adding that he sees prayer as a supportive act. The people with whom I find myself agreeing not only most but actually entirely wholeheartedly are Kaveh and Cassidy, although I might amend Kaveh’s answer from “Fuck no and fuck you” to “Fuck no and fuck this question” for reasons that are not dissimilar to those of Cassidy.

It is downright cruel for an out atheist to pray with a theist relative on their deathbed: Cruel to the relative, cruel to the atheist, cruel to anyone even marginally involved, and cruel to the non-religious in general. Continue reading “It’s Cruel for an Atheist to Pray with Their Dying Mother”

It’s Cruel for an Atheist to Pray with Their Dying Mother
{advertisement}

What’s In a Name? Not Necessarily Religion.

Content Notice for ableist slur in tweet screencap

Spike the dragon from My Little Pony wearing a top hat and twirling a fake mostache
I imagine an extravagant mustache twirl accompanying the asking of “gotcha”-style questions.

“If you’re not a Muslim, then why do you have a Muslim name?”

Boy, do theists love them some cliche-as-all-heck “gotcha!”s or what? Well, so do atheists, but since there are more of them than there are of us, and I’m currently dealing with a fresh slew of smug believers on Twitter, let’s talk about name origins.

To start, my name isn’t strictly “Muslim”, per seContinue reading “What’s In a Name? Not Necessarily Religion.”

What’s In a Name? Not Necessarily Religion.

Ajar Thread: Getting Away With It (Plus an Update)

Apologies for the lack of post on Friday and the brevity of today’s post. I’ve been planning for, attending, and recovering from Creating Change 2015. Lots of awesome is afoot, I promise.

As a teenager (and beyond), I was quite annoyed with one my relative’s proclivity of thunderously proclaiming very, very intensely judgmental statements about people he hardly knew anything about, let alone to the extent to which such a reaction was warranted. Annoyance became horror when he would call Allah’s curse on people he disliked, which struck me as courting all kinds of bad things.

Once, when he was declaring that Allah’s curse be upon Yasser Arafat (as he often did when it came to Muslim leaders he thought fell short of his ideals), I blurted out, “Judge not lest ye be judged.” As I was the scholar of the family, he seemed to think I was quoting the Quran or Hadith and he stopped his rant.

I had actually been quoting The Bible


by way of Viviane from The Mists of Avalon, but it worked. For all I know, to this very day, he thinks that’s a verse in the Quran or a saying of Muhammad.

What is the best and/or funniest that you got away with by the power of sheer audacity?

Ajar Thread: Getting Away With It (Plus an Update)