{"id":16195,"date":"2012-09-16T15:11:54","date_gmt":"2012-09-16T22:11:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=16195"},"modified":"2012-09-16T15:22:12","modified_gmt":"2012-09-16T22:22:12","slug":"movie-of-the-week-a-sunday-sermon-on-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/16195\/movie-of-the-week-a-sunday-sermon-on-religion\/","title":{"rendered":"Movie of the week: A Sunday sermon on religion."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/selfadoration.com\/IslamTurbanBomb.jpg\" align=\"right\" hspace=\"6\"\/>When <a href=\"http:\/\/selfadoration.com\/ManAlive.html\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Man Alive!<\/em><\/a> was first published, a number of people were distressed that I didn&#8217;t take a harder line on religion. My reason for doing as I did was pretty simple: Although I am a very strident atheist, and although I have nothing but contempt for theology and for all religious apocrypha, I like, respect and admire many people who say they are religious &#8212; including my own Best Beloved, my wife, Cathleen Collins.<\/p>\n<p>I care a lot less about what you say you believe than I do about how you actually behave. If you are capable of leaving me alone to live my life as I choose, I don&#8217;t care what you say are your reasons for behaving as you do. By contrast, if you claim you are in agreement with my own ideas about the nature and structure of reality, and yet you cannot manage to keep your nose out of my business, then I care a great deal your actual behavior, regardless of your putative agreement with my philosophy.<\/p>\n<p>This topic is of moment this week because our friends in the lands infested with Islam have put on another display of the impotent irrationality that is represented to be the substance of their religion. I don&#8217;t make fine distinctions about anegoistic doctrines: Whether your claims are based in religion, in politics or in some absurd academic dogma, if your behavior is atrocious, you are engaged in self-destruction <em>in spite<\/em> of your self.<\/p>\n<p>We go through all this in the video, but the solution to every problem posed by anti-human dogmas is four-words simple: Fuck you. I quit. When the sane believers of every sort of doctrine work up the nerve to say those four words to their would-be masters, the world will be a better place overnight.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/GAwWVw-MaC8\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>You can find an audio-only version of this video at <a href=\"http:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/selfadoration.com\/id521820100\" target=\"_blank\">the SelfAdoration.com podcast on iTunes<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When Man Alive! was first published, a number of people were distressed that I didn&#8217;t take a harder line on religion. My reason for doing as I did was pretty simple: Although I am a very strident atheist, and although I have nothing but contempt for theology and for all religious apocrypha, I like, respect [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,212,29],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-16195","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-egoism-in-action","7":"category-flourishing","8":"category-group-therapy","10":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11645,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/11645\/historian-robert-higgs-citizen-be-careful-what-you-wish-for-the-government-just-might-give-it-to-you-good-and-hard\/","url_meta":{"origin":16195,"position":0},"title":"Historian Robert Higgs: &#8220;Citizen, be careful what you wish for; the government just might give it to you good and hard.&#8221;","author":"Greg Swann","date":"March 24, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Nothing Outside the State by Robert Higgs A popular slogan of the Italian Fascists under Mussolini was, \u201cTutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato\u201d (everything for the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state). I recall this expression frequently as I observe\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Big Mother&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Big Mother","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/big-mother\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10106,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/10106\/when-the-saints\/","url_meta":{"origin":16195,"position":1},"title":"When the Saints&#8230;","author":"Ryan Hartman","date":"October 17, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm an East Coast Liberal-tarian type who's ok-down with all the political talk around here... in theory. But in general I follow the no politics or religion in public rule... just because it's easier, and I guess I wussily think there's really only negative stuff that can come from political\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Casual Friday&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Casual Friday","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/casual-friday\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16793,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/16793\/unchained-melody-sisters-of-mercy-because-leonard-cohen-deserves-better-than-this\/","url_meta":{"origin":16195,"position":2},"title":"Unchained Melody: \u201cSisters of Mercy\u201d \u2013 because Leonard Cohen deserves better than\u00a0this.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"August 29, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"So: Leonard Cohen wrote a song called \u201cHallelujah.\u201d People hear what they want to hear, so they think it's a religious song, when in fact it is a distant and self-absolving lamentation of a broken relationship. Cohen later rewrote the song as a much sexier despairing of what would seem\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Casual Friday&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Casual Friday","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/casual-friday\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/XzuxpucEmZw\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3112,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3112\/marketing-is-religion\/","url_meta":{"origin":16195,"position":3},"title":"Marketing Is Religion","author":"Brian Brady","date":"May 13, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"\"He's Catholic but he's awfully nice\" was a comment you might have heard, in the 50's. Now, I picked Catholicism but I could have picked Judaism, Evangelical Christianity, Islam... whatever. I'm using this as an example of how high the passions run when talk about a belief system. People are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Marketing&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2609,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2609\/the-religion-tyranny-of-niceness\/","url_meta":{"origin":16195,"position":4},"title":"The Religion (Tyranny) of Niceness","author":"Mike Farmer","date":"February 17, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The forms of tyranny we\u2019re most familiar with are the examples of power and ruthlessness over the more genteel and non-violent. Countries without wide acceptance of rule of law and binding constitutions usually fall under the control of the most vicious and powerful gang. But here in US, we\u2019re more\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Group Therapy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Group Therapy","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/group-therapy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12727,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/12727\/reasons-to-be-cheerful-part-3-0-1-you-are-ungovernable-other-people-have-power-over-you-only-because-you-have-surrendered-your-own-sovereign-authority-to-them-and-they-cant-stop-you-from-takin\/","url_meta":{"origin":16195,"position":5},"title":"Reasons to be cheerful, Part 3.0.1: You are ungovernable: Other people have power over you only because you have surrendered your own sovereign authority to them &#8212; and they can&#8217;t stop you from taking it back.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 20, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Let's start with this idea: You are a sovereign soul. I have a lot more to say about the nature of the self, within this series of posts and throughout my writing, but, in a political context, this is the most important fact of your life: You cannot be governed.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Big Mother&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Big Mother","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/big-mother\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16195"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16200,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16195\/revisions\/16200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}