If Jesus Returns Kill Him Again Meme

If Jesus Comes Back, This Guy Will Kill Him

Interview with Darwin Bedford, the atheist who wants God dead.

I first came across Darwin Bedford on an image board. I didn't know who he was, merely a foreign guy wearing a pink T-Shirt where you could read : « If Jesus returns, impale him over again ». But Bedford was more than but a meme : I contacted him and plant out he was an atheist activist in Canada, and that he called himself The Atheist Messiah. For years, he's been creating dozens of low-tech websites to spread his words against Christianity, notably through essays such every bit Jesus is a no-prove, the Pope is Humpty Dumpty, and Why god is siding with bin Laden. He even opened a zazzle shop to sell the T-shirts…

I decided to hash out with him. Here are his uncut words.

First, who are you ?

Darwin Bedford. I was given the name David in North Vancouver, Canada, where I was born in the middle of the previous century. Both my parents were real people, as opposed to supernatural beings–my mother an Anglican, my father an atheist. I didn't really pay any attention to religion until I was confronted with the thought that people believed that a god was responsible for creating the globe. I totally rejected the idea on the spot, in fact, I was very upset at the notion. I call up the incident clearly. I was walking dwelling house from a hike with my friend on a beautiful sunny twenty-four hour period when my friend said "Isn't it wonderful how God created the trees and then dark-green and the sky so blueish." I was 11 years erstwhile and this was the first time that I was presented with an caption of how everything came into being.

Somehow I but knew that that couldn't be true. I asked my dad about it in the car with my mother and siblings present and he explained "Some people believe that God created the world and some people don't." Then my Grade 6 teacher explained to the class what an atheist was.

That Christmas I told my parents that I would no longer open up or accept any gifts from anyone, as it would suggest to people that I back up the idea that God fabricated the universe.

So in Course ten, I started writing my name every bit "Atheist Dave Bedford" on all my tests and library checkout cards and etc. The teachers didn't know what to practise with me every bit I refused to stand up for the Lord's Prayer in the morning. They positioned a desk for me at the dorsum of the class then no one would come across me not continuing upwardly. Information technology led to me condign a social outcast. In high school I was asked if it was true that I followed 70 twelvemonth old ladies home and raped them–because that is what their mother had told them that atheists do.

I started blogging on the Cyberspace in 1995. In 1998, I registered the domain name atheists.net, my first spider web site. And then, you lot tin run into that I've been doing this for quite some time. I like to think that I've been pushing the envelope for society dropping religion, only there are now thousands of antitheists on the Internet contributing to the effort. For well-nigh xx years I branded myself with the same "throw-away-the-cross" t-shirt, but now I have over 20 shirts up at www.666shirts.com. I'm not retired yet, but when I am, I hope to expand my efforts regarding my spider web sites.

If the precedent messiah were fake, why should you be real ?

I'one thousand not sure which precedent messiah you are referring to. If it is Jesus the Christ, well that's just a fairy tale that was passed down through the ages. The story of the Christ messiah may have started with Horus the sunday god and travelled effectually the Center Due east and surrounding surface area. Historians are at present confirming that a Jesus of Nazareth may take never existed since there are no records of him until more a hundred years later he was claimed to have died.

I know that I am real because when I compression myself, I can experience it. I am not really recognized equally a messiah — simply a messiah wannabe. A messiah co-ordinate to my Webster'due south dictionary, could mean "any leader and liberator of whatsoever oppressed people". Since I am trying to lead people from the oppression of their religion, I am a existent messiah.

In 1998 I changed my internet publishing name to Darwin to reduce the risk of an employer firing me. I was already calling myself a Spiritual Reality Therapist. In 1999 I also declared myself as the Atheist Messiah because no 1 at the time was owning up to the function. Later I added "Ambassador of Reason", "Destroyer of Faith", and "Supreme Antitheist" to my title. Yes, I know that there are others out there that are more deserving of my titles.

And why are you so mad at god ? Were yous once religious ( in « Apology from Christedom », yous seem to be mad because the foreskin of your penis was cut for religious reasons ).

It is nonsense to ask "Why are you lot so mad at god?" because anything said in the context of a god being real is just that — nonsense. I'm not mad, I'm simply trying my hardest with my mere wherewithal to have people not to become down that route (that gods exist). It is not simply wrong and misleading but it is so dangerous and wasteful.

As I already explained, I was not religious from the starting time (something that is true for everyone); nor have I ever been religious. The closest I came to religion was reading a Yoga volume that explained that my torso was the temple of my soul.

It should exist illegal to mutilate a person's trunk without their consent, including those whose are not one-time enough to requite their consent. My older brother's penis was left alone, but by the time I was born, the religious had gained some influence in the matter.

Religion has been a thorn in family relationships throughout my life — another reason why I come up across as hating God.

Do you consider all believers to be mentally sick ? As a « spiritual reality therapist », how do you plan to cure them ?

Everyone one needs some spiritual reality therapy at some point in their life. Remember the onetime African aphorism "It takes a whole hamlet to bring up one child." Curing people that believe in the supernatural takes didactics, cooperation with others, and patience.

Also, according to my Webster's dictionary the word "oppress" ways "to treat with unjust harshness or to cause to feel mentally or spiritually burdened." Religious people are mentally or spiritually burdened because they have to follow their perceived God's wishes in gild to exist rewarded and not punished in their afterlife. They likewise have to spend a smashing deal of their time praying and serving their church, not to mention contributing their hard earned money to their church likewise. My therapy mainly involves telling them that they don't take to do that. There is no life later on death, decease is the same every bit earlier you were born, and that they are living their just life then bask it in the confines of reality.

Your website has some philosophy to offer, such as formulation of « the simplicity of existence ». Yous seem to want to evidence that being an atheist is not only denying god, simply something else ?

Disbelief is simply the absence of belief in whatever gods. I personally recollect that one should not fully and completely believe in annihilation because when y'all do y'all are no longer open to further learning and choices.

When I was in high school I was repeatedly asked "Then what do yous believe in and so?" At 17 years of age I wrote downward my thoughts which became the bases of my "Simplicity of Existence" postal service. I have revised it every decade or ii since and so. Information technology needs revision at present because it has misinformation regarding entropy. It has now come up to light that life came into existence a result of entropy playing out and is too the driving force of evolution.

Here'south what I believe at present. The true essence of the universe has existed forever and I mean it did not accept a commencement and that is because fourth dimension is something other than what we understand information technology to exist. Time is merely a limitation on motion of mass. There probably was at to the lowest degree one Big Bang. We will never know the size of the multiverse before the time when mankind becomes extinct. Keep in listen that but the "now" has ever existed, and that that the "at present" is never going to go out of beingness.

I find that I sometimes have to be a spiritual reality therapist to scientists every bit well. Mankind will become extinct sooner or later and no trace of mankind always existing will prevail. This will about likely occur earlier nosotros are able to communicate to other life entities on other planets. I don't recollect that nosotros will ever be able to communicate at greater than the speed of lite and that means we won't be able to have whatever meaningful advice with other life forms elsewhere in the universe.

We should therefore concentrate our efforts into preserving the planet as our paradise for every bit long every bit possible. This means no praying and more fourth dimension spent on the sciences.

You wage a existent war on the spider web, notably past registering numerous domain names, answering mails…. is internet the new place for spiritual warfare?

Undoubtedly the Internet has taken over for sharing of ideas. At the time when people believed the world was flat universities were the place to exchange ideas. And so came the printing printing, it was a vast improvement but people with money nonetheless had also much control of what was expressed. With the internet that all changed and its effectiveness is a vast improvement many fold.

If Jesus returned and was killed once more, don't you think it might take the very effect you don't want to happen, ushering a new historic period of an fifty-fifty stronger Christendom?

Non to worry, Jesus was just killed in story. If it was to come to exist believed by people that Jesus returned and was killed again, it wouldn't add together that much to the story. Nor would information technology that God created his only daughter and sacrificed her besides.

If you accept never tried to create a faith of your own, yous will find that it is a very hard puzzle to come with one that will involvement people, and have them convinced to spread it to others. L. Ronald Hubbard, an American science fiction author who developed Dianetics and founded Scientology was

reported to have said that "If you really want to make money, then start a religion." Nevertheless, doing so is far more difficult than writing a hit single.

Have you ever convinced anyone ? Nobody stops being religious considering you lot want him to?

If I recall correctly, from reading their emails to me, that I may have turned a couple of teenagers away from religion, all the same, I don't remember anyone
expressing that I saved their life from their religion. Having said that, I do believe that myself, and others, have prevented people from existence infected by a religion-virus. They may take been, had nosotros not expressed our distaste for organized religion.

Can you tell me how to be a happy atheist?

Yep, don't tolerate people telling you how to behave in accordance to their religion. Be fully expressed whenever anyone tries to shove their religious beliefs downwardly your throat. Think before you adjust. And finally, try to contribute to what y'all think is right for others.

This is item actually one of my health rules. Given that we are evolved as a social specie, like wolves in a pack, we need to contribute to the welfare of the pack. If you perceive that y'all are non contributing, then something will happen to your own well-being to make your life shorter (so as to make it easier for the pack to survive as a whole). I'k talking about millions of years of evolution of internal programming of your mind interim out. This is similar to "Practise unto others as you lot would have them practice unto you." Yeah, religion isn't all bad, religions take some truths within them just the paranormal has to be thrown out.

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Source: https://medium.com/tryangle-magazine/if-jesus-comes-back-this-guy-will-kill-him-264ddaaf8651

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