ApostateAbe

Atheism excels over religion in the world of critical thought, but religion dominates another world that is decidedly persuasive to the human mind: art.

There is little question that religious influence depends on song, literature, poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture, etc.

So put aside your intellectual polemics, and show the world some of your favorite soul-filled yet soul-less poetry and writing, here on this topic.

I saw this poem somewhere on the boards a while back, and I don't remember exactly who or where it came from, but I saved it and I will post it here. If it is yours or you know whose it is, speak up.

Thoughts of an Ancient Farmer

Salty sweat drips from my burning brow
As I strain in the dust behind this plow.
The Sun is bright, the air hot as Hell.
Why I breathe this dust, none can tell.

I cough and ask the gods, “Why oh Why?”
So I gaze into the glare of the empty sky.
Am I punished for some bloody crime
That I can’t recall in this dust and grime?

It must have been a foul sin before my time
By my father, or his, in a past gentle clime.
The sin angered the gods to such cruel rage
They burned the garden of the Golden Age.

Man and woman were sent into dusty fields,
To scratch the dry soil for meager yields.
“By the sweat of your brow shall ye struggle to live,”
Said the gods without love or mercy to give.

I asked the shaman about the ancient fall.
“How did our father degrade us all?”
Moses the shaman, told us the story
Of Adam’s sin and his fall from glory.

Adam said, “She, the law first did break
When the fruit of knowledge she did take.”
Eve sought truths that the gods deny,
Good and evil, and the first great lie.

They lied that gods made us from mud,
Slime and dust, spit and crud.
They lied about our majestic source.
They feared our learning the truth, of course.

Gods said magic words, arcane chants,
Animated mud became man without pants.
Shamans in their arrogance and bluff
Deny that we are ancient star stuff.

In future we’ll avenge slandered Eve
Using complex brains we did receive.
There are no gods but Gaea, our mother,
Earth, visible and real, and no other.

Our complex brains Gaea made us evolve
By climate shifts, thinking minds to solve
Alleles, markers, nucleotide codes,
Translocations, repeats, and deletion modes.

She evolved our complex frontal lobes
To send into the cosmos, intelligent probes.
Finding our beginnings in a proto-star core,
A supernova blast, and then we did soar.

Protons fused into atoms of Hydrogen,
Carbon, Oxygen, Sulfur, and Nitrogen.
Off into space they sped trillions of miles.
‘Till gravity collected them into dense piles.

Big piles ignited nuclear-fueled suns.
Little piles made planets in orbital runs.
One watery planet made life in a mix,
Molecules bonding in a double helix.

The helix bonds lysed and translocated.
Alleles deleted, repeated, and mutated.
Mutation to mutation made most die out.
But some adapted to stand, walk, think, and shout.

Large frontal lobes discovered our kin,
Amoebae, worm, lungfish, and lobefin,
Kangaroo, primate, ape, and mankind.
Gaea evolved our inquisitive mind.

Here comes that shaman to brow beat
My tired body in this burning heat.
He says, “Thank god for not making your toils
Worse in this hell, where your sinful flesh broils.”

The shaman tells me I will go up there,
To grovel for gods who never did care.
From this dusty field I will get no relief.
Yet no shaman’s lie will be my belief.

A glob of mud was not my sire.
Eve sought the truth that we all desire.
Our atoms burst from a giant star core.
Across space we sped, 10 billion years more.

We’re not magic mud, not conjured by gods.
We’re star stuff, from a journey against odds.
We formed planets and bonded molecules who
Stood up, thought, and sought what is true.

Fiach (D.T. MacPherson ©)

Chicken Girl

Aaaarrrggghhhhhhhh.

I wrote an atheist poem last year, but it's not on my hard drive anymore, and the hard copy is at home.

You'll have to settle for my Smokin' Jebus poem:

An Ode to Smokin' Jebus

by Chicken Girl

I love you Smokin' Jebus
White trash Messiah
with that cigarette
or is it a joint
hanging so nonchalantly
from that fountain of nonsense
you call a mouth
and ashes tumbling down
hitting your elongated foot
Please don't take off your shoe
I bet your foot looks like
a charcoal flipper
or a charred flattened sausage

Trailer trash Jebus
is there anything you won't do?
The cats you humped
all cry for more
your buddy Pope Incontinent
must have had fun
last night in the bar
with the strippers -
or were they nuns?
You never know
with
crazy
Smokin' Jebus.

Smokin' Jebus
come over here
with your purple dildo
and some K-Y jelly
we can do some photoshoppin'
but leave the Pope at home
I don't want him
to stain my carpet...

Egoinos

Worldling has an atheist poetry site.

fando

A void before birth,
An exuberance of life,
A void after death.

Elbereth

It kinda sucks, but here goes:


The Dream

It creeps up on you before you know what it is.
It engulfs your world before you can see what lies beyond.
It embraces you, comforts you, fills your head
With lies, oh the lies!

You are a sinner, it says.
But I can save you.
You owe me your thanks, your life, your everything.
Because I love you, and all sinners like you.

You must not doubt me, it says.
I am the only truth.
You must not let yourself question me
For I am the light, the truth, the redeemer.

With me you’ll find eternal happiness, it says.
I am the everlasting.
This world is nothing to you, except to bring you to me.
Live for me, live only for tomorrow.

It is unrelenting.
It feeds upon your insecurities.
It promises to make you happy, to heal
The hurts that it has caused.

You know it not for what it is.
From your earliest memory, it has been there.
Without doubting, without questioning, you’ve never analyzed
Your situation, your deception.

Trust in me and everything will be okay, it has said.
Yet it has never been that way.
You blame yourself, your sinful nature, for the wrongs you have suffered,
And in this way you will never find peace.

Suffering is a test, it has said.
It tests your love, and your faith.
But you could learn something else from your test.
If only you could open your eyes.

I would help you, if you would believe, it has said.
If only you would have faith.
It hides itself in promises and reassurances,
And gives its help conditionally.

Only you can uncover the mist from your eyes.
Only you can begin to live.
This moment, now, is yours to cherish, but you must pay attention.
And then you can begin to heal.

You can pop its bubble of comforting deception.
Enter the real world.
You can unlock the mysteries, gaze at the beauties, and find yourself at peace.
Awareness will set you free.

The first step in this long journey is realizing there is a path.
Find your path.
Feel every step, notice every aspect of your unique experience.
You are your teacher, and your only child.

It has no power over you
Unless you believe it to.
It has no foothold in your mind
Unless you have let it in.

Let it out. Let it go.
Be free.
Life is there, so close, waiting for you.
Enter it directly.

With no cloud over your head,
With no blindfold on your eyes,
Live now this life you have chosen for yourself,
Experience life for what it is.

Wake now from your dream.


2/15/02

Shadowy Man

Written 920125:

Crossed Again

I lie in bed
and stare
at the small plastic man
nailed to the wall
above me.
His eyes stare into
mine.
And I think,
"Poor fellow,
look what you've done."

ApostateAbe

Elbereth, welcome to the boards!

Your poem does NOT suck (not even kinda). On the contrary, it inspires me to print it out and post it on my dorm door. I will even send it to my religious relations, if I decide that the wisdom contained in it isn't too wounding.

If you have any critics who say it sucks, it is only to protect their faith from shriveling up from exposure to the truth and insight that your poem presents so well.

Ronin

If I were Jesus Christ ~

I would not have let them kill me
An intervention from above
should be the one of hope and love.

The fault was not their own
according to the tale

Forgive the seed as sown
no death upon the nail.

A sacrifice of blood and death
heals not the mortal failing

A finer love is blood and breath
an end to needless wailing

If I were Jesus Christ ~

I would be alive today
and not a fairy wishing well
for those who blindly pray.

~ So the teenage half-breed daydreams on paper while at catechism many years ago.

[ December 03, 2002: Message edited by: Ronin ]</p>

ApostateAbe

I re-discovered who wrote "Thoughts of an Ancient Farmer". Thank you Fiach!

Elbereth

Wow, thanks Apostate.

It was me who said it kinda sucks, I haven't shared it with people of faith because it is a little negative and I don't want to be negative. People don't like to be told they're living in a dream.

But if it's good enough for a dorm door, maybe it doesn't suck. (And since it will be seen by people instead of just sitting in my hard drive I suppose you wouldn't mind putting a little "By Bridget Falck" on it somewhere. )

Maybe I'll put it on my dorm door too.