When the Nazis came for the communists,
I did not speak out;
As I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I did not speak out;
As I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
As I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I did not speak out;
As I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

(more…)

just when i thought i couldn’t have any more respect for Joss Whedon and his amazing, wonderful ability to express himself …

I was watching this Q&A session extra on the Serenity dvd last weekend, and Joss was asked by one of his fans what he has against people being Christian.

“I don’t actually have anything against anybody, unless their belief precludes everybody elses. I am an atheist and an absurdist and have been for many, many years. I’ve actually taken a huge amount of flak for that. People who have faith tend to think that people who don’t, don’t have a belief system and they don’t care if they make fun of them. It’s actually very difficult: Atheists are as a group not really recognised by the American public as people to be taken seriously. This does not mean that I rail against religion, however the meaning of life and the meaning of what we do with our lives is something that is extremely important to me. I have included characters from many different religions particularly in [Firefly], but also in the other shows as well, because I’m interested in the concept. I think faith is an extraordinary thing. I’d like to have some, but I don’t and that’s just how that works. [...] There’s one other thing I would mention, which is from Angel actually: One of the few times I really got to sort of say exactly what I think about the world was in the second season of Angel, episode 16 ["Epiphany"] when he’d gone all dark, because he does that, and he was getting better, and he basically decided - he’d been told: “The world is meaningless, nothing matters.” And he said: “Well then, this is my statement: Nothing matters, so the only thing that matters is what we do.” Which is what I believe: I believe the only reality is how we treat each other. The morality comes from the absence of any grander scheme, not from the presence of any grander scheme. [...] So the answer is: “Nothing, unless you’ve got something against me.”

The above text was copied from the Joss Whedon Celebrity Atheist page.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

“So do I, and so do all who live in such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

- Frodo + Gandalf, the Lord of the Rings, Book1 Chapter2

“However, when contemplatating the leprous, the tuberculous, the HIV-infected, the hungry, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, of this world, should you find yourself about to drown in unwanted feelings of pity and guilt, the following sophism might come in useful.

Fact : far fewer people commit suicide in poverty-stricken, war-torn, disease-ravaged societies than in the comfy, economically advantaged West.

Explanation : when faced with infinite toil, infinite grief, infinite fear, and infinite suffering, human beings are simply too preoccupied to stop and listen to the demons within.

And it is only when the demons are within that self-slaughter becomes an attractive option. For suicide is a kind - a rather drastic kind - of exorcism, is it not?

Yes, the one luxury affluent folk like you and I cannot afford is the luxury of that universal analgesic: adversity.

And so it is when, from time to time, I become aware of the suffering of the hapless hordes who inhabit this agonizing ball of pain we call planet Earth, I do not worry that my sufferings cannot possibly equal theirs. No, I feel rather envious of these people who have so much on their plates already that they have no need to spend their time wrestling with phantoms.”