Radio Host: What Problems Could Atheists Possibly Have? They’re Like Trust Fund Billionaires

Syndicated radio talk-show host Joe Soucheray can’t understand why atheists in Minnesota would want to promote themselves at a ball park:

I have never quite figured out what it is that an atheist intends to promote. To me, it’s got to be the easiest thing in the world to be an atheist, like being left a billion dollars in a trust fund by a distant uncle. You’ve got nothing to worry about. While the rest of us might be nagged by doubt and various theological complications, the atheist goes sailing through life not even having to get up early on Sunday morning. The mystery of transubstantiation alone keeps me up at night.

You’re nagged by doubt because you know it’s wrong.

The theological complications occur when false beliefs mix with reality.

Transubstantiation keeps you up at night because it’s an out-of-your-mind crazy idea that a cracker and Jesus’ body are one and the same.

And atheists have plenty to worry about because people like you actually believe this shit and then try to pass legislation based on it.

"I kind of want the prosecution to use more and more absurd terms because of ..."

Makoto

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Zorginipsoundsor

"It had to make room for their ginormously infected spleen."

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Julie Peitz Nickell

Garren

We can also have sex whenever we like with NO consequences…except STDs, pregnancies, and relationship complications.
69ingchipmunks

The Smacketh has been layeth downeth.
Tainda

I get up early every day because I have one life to live and I want to experience it every day! I also base my actions on what is right and wrong and the consequences of those actions fall on me and me alone. I don’t blame some imaginary evil person for my bad choices.
mikespeir

“The mystery of transubstantiation alone keeps me up at night.”

Then the religionists’ work is done here. Me? I’m going back to bed.
David Philip Norris

Would Joe like some cheese to go with his rather dry and unpalatable wine?
Carrie Looney

I can’t sleep in on Sunday – that’s race day! Most weekends, it’s either triathlon or supermoto…

Do you know who has it really hard, though? Adults who believe in Santa Claus. Staying up late at night, trying to count how many elves can dance on the head of a pin, working endless spreadsheets to see how this toy distribution could possibly break even financially, calculating the speed required to visit every house, probing the mystery of how his visits can never be recorded…
mountaintiger

I thought that this was an improvement over the usual “atheists must be miserable” piffle. Maybe Joe will someday come around to the idea that enjoying life is OK.
Devitek Pond

Yes, being an Atheist is easy, because being hated and distrusted by most everyone around you is super simple.

Oh, the “mystery” of transubstantiation? It’s a cracker and some wine. You eat it, you drink it, and it digests just like…a cracker and some wine.
LesterBallard

“The mystery of transubstantiation alone keeps me up at night.”
Gas keeps me up at night. That and reading a good book. A good book, not the “good book”.
gingerjet

Please stop. No one in Minnesota take’s Joe Soucheray or his poor attempts at satire seriously
1000 Needles

Wait, now my life is too easy? I thought I was supposed to be unhappy and hating God.

A quote from Natalie Reed comes to mind:
“Do any of your criticisms contradict each other? Like are you criticizing some people for both infighting and for groupthink? For being both callously individualistic and fascistic? For being too elitist and too populist? Too derivative and too weird? As much as it’s an indicator of when a group you belong to or a group you sympathize with aren’t being given a fair chance, it can also be an indicator that you aren’t giving some other group a fair chance, and that you’re forcing circumstances to fit your opinion.”
TerranRich

The mystery of transubstantiation alone keeps me up at night.

Maybe get communion crackers that aren’t so high in fiber?
Bubba Tarandfeathered

“I don’t know what an atheist exclaims in disappointment,”

I like, “Darn-it!”, “Awe Shoot!”, “You Suck!!”, “Dag-Namit”, “Oh Dog!”, “Dog gambit”, “Sun on the beach”, “Cheeses H Zigst!”, “You…Dog forsaken…”, “Frakk”
Ronjrose

Perhaps if they acted like they were plagued by doubt he’d have a point. The problem is they almost always act quite sure of themselves.
Tainda

“Poopie” is my favorite. Usually my language would make a sailor blush so that’s why I use “poopie” a lot. I keep em guessing.

Frak is also one of my favorites but that’s because I’m a huge BSG fan
The Healthy Humanist

Hemant, you’ve been cursing more. It’s fucking awesome.
Xeon2000

That was my first thought too. I always hear that atheists must live sad, miserable lives full of disappointment. Now I’m told we actually have it easy and our lives are carefree and awesome. Hmm…
C Peterson

The mystery of transubstantiation keeps me up at night too… if I think too hard about it, I just can’t stop laughing!
Arthur Bryne

Transubstantiation of the cracker is silly.
An excuse to eat crackerjacks is awesome. So, “Take me out to the ball game….”
chicago dyke, orphan

welcome to our world. we’re told we’re sick and depressed, but somehow organized and energized enough to have an effective world conquering agenda we’re enacting via the blood of xtian children, or something. we’re effeminate and dangerous risks in a military situation but we’re strong enough to rape butch all american str8 marines in the barrack showers and reduce them the battlefield ineffectiveness. we ugly, pushy and overly ‘manly’ when what we really should realize is that we’re weak, soft and incompetent specifically due to our feminine stupidity. etc.

wingnut “logic” never is.
chicago dyke, orphan

i’m a fan of “frell,” myself. “frelling” is really smooth and slips off the tongue easily. and i like the show too.
Joe Mama

I’m sorry, I read her bio, got to the end and pulled a Silverman face:
http://rachelheldevans.com/about

“Rachel is a skeptic, a creative, and a follower of Jesus. She is a lifelong Alabama Crimson Tide fan, and happily married to her husband Dan.”Skeptic… and follower of Jesus. Lolwhut?
GloomCookie613

Nothing to worry about? Oh, the weather must be glorious in Ignoranceville.
GloomCookie613

I go with alternating between “frak” and “fark” myself. Love BSG too.
Shrubber

F Yeah! Aw F No! You no-good bastards! Throw the F-ing ball! Hit the F-ing Ball!
Atheists can curse just fine, thanks. Now fuck off, Joe.
Udt123

I’ve started saying “Fudge-sticks!” and “Fudge-buckets!”
I’m not one for f-words, and these are kind of funny alternatives.
🙂
Justin Vacula

At least this billboard went up…
The word “Atheists” is not permitted on buses in Lackawanna County.
So easy, though, to be an atheist.
Mike_nam

Maybe more fiber? I mean…he could be backed up
C Peterson

I actually know a trust fund billionaire. A nice guy, and while he and his family live a lifestyle very different from most of us, his life is neither simple nor without problems. Being rich doesn’t mean you have nothing to worry about. The statement not only reveals a good deal of ignorance about atheists, but also about billionaires!
Zack Pew

The idea that christians in this day and age are so diluted to think that simply accepting whatever they’re told by the church (or more likely shamed into by their families) is more of a challenge than actually seeking out knowledge.
Zackpew

..scares the shit out of me
Jay Arrrr

Ahhh, yessssss, the old “Atheists get to sleep late on Sunday Morning” meme… I wouldn’t exactly say I don’t “get up early” (snicker)…

And I can tell him why he lays awake at night worrying about Transubstantiation…

It’s because your subconscious brain is going into overload trying to believe something it knows is total and complete bullshit.
ORAXX

Wow! I’ve known quite a few atheists and I’ve never met a single trust fund billionaire. I guess if you make enough noise about your “conservatism” and your “christianty” then you’re then free to say any stupid, irresponsible thing you want.
Jay Arrrr

Sorry… I’ve sat here contemplating what a billionaire could have in his life that is so troublesome, then I read the latest email from my 30-y-o daughter who works a minimum wage job and wonders where she’s going to be living at the end of next month, and you know what?

I can’t find one SHRED of compassion in my being for the billionaire.

I think my daughter would much rather be losing sleep over what to wear to the next country club do than impending homelessness, too.

In other words, if it needs any further explanation, FUCK your wealthy acquaintance.
C Peterson

Well, to start with, his daughter (who was a volunteer setting up schools for girls in a third world country) picked up a serious and often deadly disease, which required months of recovery time. All his money couldn’t change the terrible time she went through, or her family.

I see absolutely no reason to blame a rich person just for being rich. I have problems with our system, which allows for such a disparity of wealth in the first place, but I’m not going to take that out on people who choose to utilize the system to get rich. This guy may be rich, but he’s also smart, nice, friendly, and charitable.

It is your attitude I find unfair and unethical. And if you think being rich eliminates life’s problems, you’re simply ignorant.
Cafeeine

I don’t think C Peterson was proposing sympathy for the moneybags, but making the point that the idea that money implies lack of worries, and I’m not talking about having to choose which Mazerati goes with your tie, is a simplistic one. Dehumanizing the rich is not nearly as damaging as dehumanizing the poor, but it doesn’t actually help anything either.
Probablyram

As an atheist, I would encourage you to read some of her blog. It’s obviously not for everyone, but she really is the most skeptical Christian I’ve come across. She challenges religion and the church on a regular basis. I know, I know – she’s still a believer, so how can she really be a skeptic. I can’t answer that, but I will tell you that watching her struggle with the church’s nonsense makes for interesting reading at times. Just my two cents.
Veronica Abbass

Did you mean to say diluted, as in watered down, or deluded? Either way, the sentence makes sense.
Jay Arrrr

You’re right, CP, being rich doesn’t make all of life’s problems go away.
It simply improves your bargaining position.

Your friend’s daughter DID get good care, and DID eventually recover. I daresay had the same thing happened to my daughter she’d either had died or been crushed under a mountain of debt.

Something I read many years ago that left a deep, deep impression on me:

“How can a man who’s Warm understand a man who’s Cold?”

Guess that still makes me “ignorant”, huh?
C Peterson

I said you are ignorant for believing that being rich gets you out of life’s problems… a position you’ve clarified.

Your willingness to consider a person you’ve never met to be bad (a view you have not altered) does not make you ignorant, it just makes you a poor excuse for a human being, in my opinion.
Kodie

Is he saying it’s a luxury, the poor and middle-class can’t afford not to believe in god. Regardless, it still wouldn’t make god real, even if we were all trust fund billionaires, but he’s not saying we’re all trust fund billionaires. The crazy thing being the stupid shit he worries about highlights his own luxury to puzzle over the “how it works” part – the part that ought to make him nearer to atheism eventually if he ever did get it worked out – and not the normal difficulties people usually count on god for, like the “thank you for landing me a sweet gig, lord, where I can shoot the shit for a couple hours, not have to be smart, not have to be handsome, not have to wear a tie, not have to sweat my balls off laboring in the elements. Please never take it away from me.”
NickDB

Because often the man who’s Warm used to be Cold.
Deanna Jackson

What an idiot.
Bama

Roll Tide
Joannaa

“not even having to get up early on sunday morning” ??? What does that even mean? It’s not our fault you find your religious observances burdensome.
Couldn’t Muslims deride Christians for not even having to answer a call to prayer 5 times a day?
I have 2 babies; I get up early every day. Doesn’t make me better than anyone else, it’s just what I do.
Kodie

Oh, I get it now…. Religions have to work hard to sell crazy shit like transubstantiation and manage to convince people to get out of bed early on Sunday just to go to church, while atheism ostensibly sells itself, so why do they need to advertise so much.
Kevin Sagui

Meh, I still use “god” “damn” and “hell” quite a bit. Old habits and all.
Finlander413

May I ask sir what has caused you to be so hostile to Christianity in general and honest questioning in particular? When someone truly questions their beliefs it isn’t necessarily proof of the incorrectness of those beliefs, but a sign that someone is truly seeking the truth. In this case I firmly believe the man quoted would come to find the full truth of Christianity, not a falsity. While the man quoted was incorrect in stating that atheists are worry-free, I do not think such hostility is conducive to the open dialogue this world needs to ensure that all of us are worry-free.