You can't escape it

PZ writes this morning about some asshats who are offended that the awesome band They Might Be Giants sings a children's song that (gasp!) promotes the idea of evolution and refers to angels as unscientific.

Later, I was checking out some stunning photos of volcano lightning (seriously, you gotta see that shit) and when I

I have a dream... that someday my children's children will be able to look at a stunning and starkly beautiful picture like this without some fuckhead ruining the whole thing by insisting that GODDIDIT.

get to the bottom, lo and behold, there is an argument in the comments over whether this is some kind of penis-wielding display by an angry god.

Meanwhile, I've been conversing with HuffPo's resident "yoga chickie" over in the comments section at Joel's blog, trying to explain to her why us "atheist fundamentalists" feel the need to be so vocal. It's because the other side¹ will not shut the fuck up, and uses every possible context to prattle on not just about their absurd delusions, but also why we should all cower in terror of their warmongering sky daddy.

I did not go looking for some theological discussion today. Well, okay, I got pointed to the TMBG thing via a hardcore atheist blog, but PZ originally posted about it just because TMBG is awesome, and I would have clicked the link and listened to the song anyway. In the case of the volcano lightning, I was just looking at some cool pics that I found out about from Snopes. And yet, everywhere I turn, there are theistic blowhards trying to tarnish everything that is beautiful and wondrous in this world with their dumbass sectarian viewpoint.

You can't escape it. Not in today's world. And given that, we have two choices: Run away, or take a stand.

¹I want to clarify that by "the other side" in this case I do not mean moderate theists, and especially not "imaginary friend"-style pseudo-theists like Lauren... I waffle on whether moderate theism is potentially harmful or not -- and you can read a lot of my thoughts about that in my conversation with Lauren at Joel's blog -- but that's a subtlety that's not very important right now. I'm not inclined to spend much time arguing the finer points of whether a mature form of theism is a net positive or a net negative, when our politics and our daily lives are under constant assault by an infantile and intolerant form of theism.