Another Old Story from the Troll Wars

Now - before you go any further and read this, let me just warn you that if you're even mildly religious it's liable to make you rather angry - unless maybe you see how I twisted it around to jab a St. Michealean spear into the troll and those of his ilk.

:moustachetwirl

A far time ago, on a message board long since intentionally nuked by its host, there happened the Troll Wars. One of the major skirmishes involved a radical, activist atheist troll who sought to sow dissent and dissonance amongst not only those with faith, but also those who had deliberatively chosen no faith.

The battle raged long and furiously, with invective and vituperous vitriol spewed heatedly by most all. Even our resident atheist - whose benignly amused opinion of the faithful being in for a rude postmortem surprise was similar in tolerant bent to my own concern that ultimately, he better hope he's right - was struck with grievous wounds as he allied himself with us against the malevolent troll.

No, the troll was not satisfied that we tolerate his anti-deity opinion. Oh, no - unless we recanted all faith and joined in the supreme-beingless mindset he espoused, peace would not exist. No measure of "you go your way, I'll go mine" sufficed to appease his soulless quest to conduct a version of the Spanish Antinquisition. DO NOT REPENT! GET OFF YOUR KNEES! NO PRAYING!

After this had gone on for cyber-eons, something occurred to me that hadn't before: the radical atheists don't have anything like the hymns us religious folk do. From time-to-time they might need some sort of song to rally 'round when they get together, so without anybody asking (my SOP), I put together the Activist Atheist's Anthem:

(It'll help if you're familiar with that old, obscure Christian hymn "How Great Thou Art.")

How Not Thou Art

I have come to - a de-fi-nite con-clu-sion
That there is no De-ity ov-er man.
I see the stars and call them blobs of gasses,
Placed by cha-os, not from a Master's hand.

And when the poll results come in, You'll see:
How not Thou art, how not Thou art!
I won't console myself so foolishly.
How not Thou art, how not Thou art!

I am so wise that naught to me's a myst'ry
From the Big Bang to human D-N-A.
When I look down my nose at pious cretins
And their quaint Book, I laugh and walk away.

Had but-tered rolls in houses of cof-fee,
How not Thou art, how not Thou art!
I won't console myself so foolishly.
How not Thou art, how not Thou art!

In my denial, I spout so ar-rogant-ly
Disdain for all those mindless sheep galore.
Some get en-raged, oth-ers just shake their nog-gins
And mum-ble quiet prayers of yore.

Re-mote control is not my deal, you see.
How not Thou art, how not Thou art!
I won't console myself so foolishly.
How not Thou art, how not Thou art!

But when I dream that life is just time pass-ing
Spent in pursuit of things I want to do;
That when I die, it's just the Great Big Off-Switch;
No final judge, nor consequences too.

I'll have a bowl of the Gazpacho please.
How not Thou art, how not Thou art!
I won't console myself so foolishly.
How not Thou art, how not Thou art!

No Pearly Gates or Book of Earthly doings
To make me hope for life e-ter-nally.
I'll just feed worms until my whole bod's eaten
And leave my bones for arch-ae-o-logy.

I have no soul to carry off with me.
How not Thou art, how not Thou art!
I won't console myself so foolishly.
How not Thou art,
How - not - Thou - art!

Take my word for it, this is not for amateurs. The whole time I worked on this, a black cloud hovered nearby flashing lightning in my direction. It's still there, and now that this is posted, it's really popping. I'm starting to get a little concerned that it... ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT!

Comments

[Cogita Tute]

For the record, the radical wing of atheism prefers to be addressed as "Evangelical
Atheists." This term was coined by a cyberfriend of mine by the name of Steven
Roberts, a very bright guy.

[Cogita Tute]

With apologies for misspelling Stephen's name, here is my alltime favorite quote from him:
"I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
...Stephen F Roberts

[schmed]

I didn't use any capital letters on the adjectives describing our old Troll, but it wasn't because I didn't know how else to describe him, I just called it as I saw it.

I'm sorta staying tooned to the whole "Bright" contravalence to see if some of the other activist atheists are as haughty as their fundamentalist ("Rights"?)counterparts.

[TigerGrrL]

I wasn't around for the troll wars, but that is still freakin' hilarious! It is a good thing I wasn't there for all that - I may not have been so lucky to make it out alive like you folk!

[Bruce]

I'm still scarred from the incident. I have my very own troll following me around to this day. Every once in a while schmed will invoke its name and it'll send me emails for a couple of weeks. Odd how that happens.