Coming Out: Full Disclosure
Be advised! BE ADVISED!!!
I have an agenda.
My “agenda” is to put ignorance, obedience, and conformity in all forms… religious and political… out of business.
My “agenda” is to help billions of victims of indoctrination to recover the natural curiosity and confidence that was stolen from them by their ignorant elders and malevolent overlords.
My “agenda” is to promote freedom FROM religion as a basic human right.
My “agenda” is to encourage everyone to reject “revelation”, “authority” and tradition as sources of knowledge and wisdom.
My “agenda” is to put an end to “socialization” by censorship and coercion.
My “agenda” is to encourage everyone to see with their own eyes, hear with their own ears, think with their own brains, feel with their own hearts… and to draw their own conclusions based on evidence, logic, and their innate sense of decency.
My “agenda” is to put the preachers, priests, imams, rabbis, gurus, politicians, and other snake oil salesmen out of business… not by force, but by persuading their fawning flocks and constituents to find better things to do with their precious time and hard-earned money.
My “agenda” is to help people see that religion… not some of it… ALL of it… is inherently divisive.
My “agenda” is to help people see that religion always has, and continues to, stifle material and moral progress everywhere.
My “agenda” is to challenge the diplomatic immunity of religions everywhere.
My “agenda” is to encourage everyone to challenge “the authorities”… not just to question their proclamations, but by what right they have ordained themselves.
My “agenda” is to foster global solidarity based on secular values… basic commitments to decency and fairness that are universal, timeless, natural, and self-evident.
My “agenda” is to encourage everyone to trust their doubts… and to express them openly.
My “agenda” is to encourage those still in the closet to come out… to stand up and be counted… without apologies or reservations.
My “agenda” is to bear witness for a life-affirming worldview based on LOGIC and LOVE.
My “agenda” is to socialize secular values and responsible freedom as the only enduring basis for peace, justice, happiness, and human flourishing.
My “agenda” is to socialize a mature version of the golden rule, as easy to understand as it is difficult to live by: Love yourself, Love others.
Have I left anything out? You bet I have!
Learn more… The Seven-Letter-Word, Part II
Existentialism Humanism Religion agnosticism anti-theism atheism blasphemy Christianity existentialism heresy humanism Islam love naturalism science secularism
Frank J Peter View All →
A uniquely burdened and blessed citizen of the world thinking and acting out loud!
I support your cause 💙💙💙💙💙
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You made my day! Five hearts received and multiplied. Thanks and peace! : )
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An Atheist or “non-believer in God” or someone who is bitter because they feel they have been abandoned by God, who ridicules anyone who believes in God, Jesus, Snoopy or the Fonz, and wants to dismantle them from their beliefs, reeks of the same stench of hypocrisy as religious zealots who seek to convert or destroy those who believe in a “different” God. If you despise all religions then you should despise the “religion” of Atheism… an organized belief in non-belief.
I am a “tolerist” and “inclusionist” who accepts all people who believe in a God, idol, object or superhero that gives them comfort, including Atheists, as long as they do not try to impose their beliefs on anyone else… I prefer a world filled with eclectic beliefs universally accepted and celebrated to one of monolithic belief or religion, including Atheism… Peace and freedom of belief to all…
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I am going to ignore your mischaracterization of nonbelievers and share one thought: If COMFORT was the sole consequence of unreasonable belief, I would have no problem adopting a live and let live stance. Alas, such is not the case. Unreasonable beliefs remain THE cause of human-inflicted suffering everywhere. Even false comfort itself is a cause of suffering… to the degree that it invites the believer to abdicate responsibility for the world’s problems by giving them the false hope that some supernatural agent is going to make everything okay without any effort on the believer’s part.
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That is well said. Frank, the first item on your list says it all. GROG
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A godly name is yours? Apollo, thanks for including atheists in your list of those you accept. There are two kinds of people in the world, those who understand that whatever human soul we have, dies with us. The others believe that the human soul is somehow eternal and continues to exist in a heaven. Believing in the supernatural is not a problem, but dreaming of, and praying for, the end of the world and trying to bring it about, is the problem.
That is why the rest of the world must oppose the monotheistic death cults of Christianity and Islam. On which side of that division do you fall, Apollo, sir? GROG
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Dear Grog,
Thank you for your respectful response. You do exemplify the golden rule by not making assumptions on which to base an unhinged rant of ridicule on those that do not agree with you. Unhinged charismatic rants can lead to a set of followers that begin to chant “Burn Witch, Burn!” These assumptions of absolutes cast upon all who may have a belief, for the actions of those that leverage religion to gain power and money is what leads to all the denigration of humanity… If the terrorists were not paid, do you think they would fight just for the religion? It is a job to make money and those who recruit them crave money and power not Allah or Christ. And if there were no Allah or Christ it would be a secular cause to fight for as they convince and pay their followers to believe they are a victim of something…
Now to dispel the assumptions (when you assume you make an ass out of you and me (-:)) and bigotry that resulted from my post by my utilizing Apollo as my name… The truth is I do not fall into either of the two categories you place all humanity in. I fall into the category of an open mind to belief or non-belief. While some of us may be arrogant enough to think we have the absolute answer, I do not. I belong to no religion and have no idea what will happen to my soul, if one even exits in me after I die, but is it possible there is something else, a form or collective of energy not discovered yet or that we are a projection of a higher form of being that is just playing an afternoon of chess in what we consider to be our universe??? I am not closed minded or blinded by bitterness to shut out all the possibilities undiscovered by science or belief.
I do believe in a philosophy of peace, like Christ, who may be nothing more than a man who believed in something. I do believe it is the right of every individual to believe in what they want within the universe of their own body as long as that universe does not do harm to others. I do believe that it is wrong to take away belief from all the people that do good with it… from the missions in Africa, the churches that offer shelter and food to those that may otherwise die or comfort to abused women or children, recovering drug addicts, rehabilitated murders or the mother or father who feels comfort from belief when they face the loss of a child diagnosed with cancer. I do not want to be the one to tell them they are wrong to believe because they are part of the death squads and fools who are stupid and evil enough to believe in an after-life.
Let’s please just agree to not judge people by their beliefs or non-beliefs. There are many bad people on both sides of this ledger who impose themselves on the others. Let’s focus on exposing and stopping them from imposing their will upon others to dominate their thinking and their person. That is the true evil… after all, non-belief is a belief too.
Peace be with you… my work is done here…
Apollo
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When I last conversed upon religious topics with Dad, he asked if I still believed in Jesus. I said no. His look of incredulity took my breath away! Inside, my incredulity at his rose like a big lump in my throat.
Now he’s gone. Free from all ideologies, true and false.
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Bruce, at least you were able to let your father know how you felt. I never did talk to my dad about religion. I have always wondered what kind of a Mormon he was. Did your father grow up in the Church? GROG
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My direct paternal line goes, unbroken (after a fashion, which I will explain) back to Joseph Smith’s time in Nauvoo and my third great grandfather James Holt. Now, the explanation. My Grandpa Holt went inactive in his youth. He divorced his first wife. My Dad was born to Grandpa’s second wife (never a member) and was never baptized until he and my Mom dated and became “serious”, but it wasn’t my Mom who “converted” him.. Mom’s Dad baptized my Dad, though.
So he kind of grew up in the Church, with a late start! Me, my 5 siblings were all raised in the Church. My kids (except my youngest) were raised in the Church. 18 of my 19 grandchildren have been raised in the Church.
I wish I could have realized the fraud sooner and have broken the chain. As it stands, I’m just an oddball.
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Bruce, I asked you a lot a questions about being a missionary. I know a fair bit about the Mormons and grew up with the church all around me. The following info I didn’t know until just a few years ago: my GG grandfather joined in the church 1831, my G grandfather was a bishop and had three wives. And, I have a close relative who has told me that he will one day be a god. GROG
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Isn’t that special?? 😁 A god.
Why could I not see the ridiculousness sooner?!?!?
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Why couldn’t we all, Bruce? At least we all woke up eventually. All the best.
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“I did not wish to anger anyone, but many people are upset to learn that someone does not believe in any god, much less theirs. However, if my words plant a seed of apostasy, I would be pleased.” ~ Me.
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Indeed, Bill. I can no longer allow “politeness” to silence the truth. Thanks and peace.
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In order to win a war objectives must be established. Thanks for the list! I already have my copy of The Art of War, so what should be our strategy? What are the vulnerabilities of the enemy? I wrote a short piece about the Muslims in Xinjiang where the CCP is in the process of discouraging belief in a “higher power”. An interesting experiment in GROG which is being referred to as “re-education”.GROG
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Thanks for sharing, GROG.
Readers will find said article here: https://grogalot.wordpress.com/2019/01/07/chinas-re-education-plan/
I have been to both Urumqi and Turpan in Xinjiang province… where I was warmly received by Uyghur and Han alike.
Visual evidence here…
Urumqi photo essay: https://wp.me/p6fyvo-12B
Turpan photo essay: https://wp.me/p6fyvo-132
But I witnessed one of the most horrifying and terrifying things in my whole life in Urumqi when I “saw” (hard to explain how in just a few words) a squad of Chinese police/soldiers beat and arrest a young Uyghur man who was just playing guitar in an underpass. For those who don’t know, the Uyghurs (predominantly Muslim) are considered terrorists by the Chinese central government. As a witness, I thought I was next. Anyway, that’s how the central party rules: Zero tolerance. These squads are a highly visible and menacing fixture in the Muslim neighborhoods. BTW, I managed to catch a glimpse of one of these squads with my camera in the Urumqi essay above.
China is one of the hardest core tyrannical countries I have every been to. Mao is still revered as a God. His mug hangs above the entrance to the forbidden city and shrines to him can be found everywhere. And, while almost nothing happens without central party approval, money talks. Corruption is rampant and most people live in ignorance and fear. That said, the hard-core Chinese central party elite are demigods, and their communism a particularly vicious and stifling form of religion.
All that said, I plan to share many thoughts on ways to come out… short of resorting to the same tactics as our oppressors.
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That entire mess is out of my control, but it is an experiment, the outcome of which, I am immensely interested. Christians are getting it too, but their culture is not so much a problem; though they do eat the cracker and drink the blood. GROG
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Frank, on “sharing thoughts on ways to come out”, that is really good. You know that they are out there and you know it can be done. Wonderful, I say. GROG
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We can do it, brother! Hopefully without violence, Thanks and peace
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When were you in Xinjian? Have you kept up on what is going on there?
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June 2013…. Alas, I have not kept up…. for various reasons…. For one, too many competing personal interests. For two, the sudden, inexplicable end to email exchanges with some very cool people I met all over China. I don’t know if my emails were blocked or their emails were blocked or if my contacts there stopped responding out of fear. I will never know.
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The few reports I’ve read make it clear that the CCP is serious about eliminating terrorism. Have you been reading anything about the situation? GROG
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Sorry I haven’t… just too many other irons in the fire… but open to learning about any new developments as you learn them. Thanks, man.
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Frank, I wrote a bit in a recent blog about the Uyghur Muslims. Most people are looking at this as an attack on their culture, as a human rights issue. The CCP is putting severe restrictions on the practice and proselytizing of Islam. I am very interested to see how it works out. I see it as an attempt (hopefully successful) to eliminate the delusion of the supernatural in
China. GROG
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I am interested, too. Keep us posted!
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An actual moral agenda instead of religion’s ulterior motive fueled agenda operating under the guise of morality? How refreshing. I’m with you Frank.
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I’m with you, too, Ben.
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Yeppers! Christian version of the golden rule is an exposé on how they really feel about themselves after submission and self deprecation
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Hear, hear!
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