I had pretty mixed feelings when the OUT campaign started. Now I find myself trying to get the big scarlet A posted onto my blog - for some reason it appears for a second, and then disappears… even if I host it on my own server. I don’t get it… but I’ll figure it out eventually - I’m sure.

Anyway - for some reason the past 2 or 3 years I’ve spent my time being … a half assed atheist of sorts. I’ve been involved with clubs on campus and CFI, gone to conferences and written up articles for various newspapers and magazines… but when it came down to it - I was always wishy washy. I often took the religious status of “Atheist” off of my facebook.

I think I finally decided it was because of some sort of inside guilt. I was worried about bugging my friends from back in the day who are very much christian. I was worried about secluding myself from so many people. It was almost like when you hear a racist joke, and you want to laugh - but you don’t want to be the first to laugh because… there are so many people around you that it could possibly offend… but if it’s funny - just laugh. That’s why it’s a joke, right?

Maybe that was a bad analogy - but that’s how it was feeling. I was afraid to laugh. There have been times in my life when people have asked me “well, what do you believe” and I have replied with “I don’t know” or “I’m still deciding” or “I used to be Christian” … I don’t like this.

Thus - from this day forward I am nothing less than an atheist. And I’m pretty proud of it. I don’t plan on having anymore wishy washy responses, or being careful of stepping on the toes of my religious friends - I love them, but if they can tell me they are christian, then I can damn well tell them that I’m an atheist. No more internalized guilt.

I think a lot of the problem has stemmed from losing friends to my lack of faith, and losing jobs to my lack of faith. So I started to get particular with who I chose to tell, and how abrasive I was when I told them. But you know what, if people don’t want to talk to me - that is their own narrow path that they have chosen. If a job doesn’t want me, then I don’t want to work for them.

A lot of you will probably say “…you’ve always been an atheist” … It’s a lot easier to be an atheist online in the privacy of my own blog than it is to be an atheist out there in the world. I get backed into corners, I get questioned and I get stared at. Such is life.

So, here is my A, and when I can make it work - I will sport it proudly on this blog.

I dont know if I’ve ever mentioned it in my many monday love posts - but those really are my lips and hand writing! I thought it needed a personal touch.

I have a problem when I read Hemant’s blog - I wish I wrote everything that’s on it… so I’m always like “I’ll just open this up in a new tab and write about it later” to the point where I have about 9 Friendly Atheist tabs open for like 3 days. Everything else gets closed because I lose interest in whatever topic happens to be there (unless it’s about dinosaurs) but his remain open. *sigh* But things like this post on a cheeto looking like Jesus - but really looking like a fetus is just absolutely hilarious, and I can’t just read it and go on with my life. I have to remain hung up on it for days.

So why is it that I don’t write about his blog ALL the time? Eventually I tell myself I’m being silly and close all my tabs in Firefox without doing anything about them. Yep. He’s like a drug. I flush it down, but I always get more. He’s like …Sufjan Stevens in blog form… only not religious. And I don’t picture him having an overly glorious singing voice. …

My group is becoming affiliated with the Secular Student Associated almost entirely due to the fact that we think it will be easier to get him into Canada this way mwa ha.

Anyway - the one thing I did want to take away from his blog has absolutely nothing to do about his blog or even him - but my Easter… rather, and the posts that are spawning from it. So watch for the following:

1. 9/11 wasn’t an inside job

2. skepticism doesn’t always mean atheism, and skepticism is nothing to be afraid of

3.  The OUT campaign and why I am going to finally embrace it.

I *will* write them tonight. This is what I call “forcing myself to blog” because I really do want to do it more. The problem is that I’d rather be group blogging. So that I had someone else to be blog happy with. Who wants to take me on??? Any takers?? I’m atheist who likes dinosaurs! What more could you want? Nothing.

If you’re not familiar with Hemant’s blog (i know at least 5 of you aren’t) go take a read now. And mention to him that you know an atheist girl who would marry him, but she’s not indian.

I can’t even formulate into words how amazing this boy is. Fo’ shizzle.

I was glad to see that Moran had caught wind of Chris Hedges’ new book “I Don’t Believe in Atheism” He took away from it a different aggravation than I, but good points - none the less.

I woke up this morning to my mother rushing me to a radio to listen to the Sunday Edition where Michael Enright was doing an interview with Hedges’ about his book.

The podcast isn’t online yet - but when it is I will most definitely link where you can download the show from today. …Turns out Chris Hedges’ is a total whack job that just makes people like my mom and step-dad think they’re right about atheists not actually being able to exist.

What bothered me the most after listening to this guy go on about nothing for so long was that my mom came out saying “no! he’s right! he’s SO right!” …mostly about the fact that atheists don’t actually oppose “god” or “religion” but organized religion. Hedges claims that most atheists don’t even know the different between institutionalized religion and faithful religion.

This really upsets me quite a bit as someone who rejects both institutionalized religion and faith based religion. Hedges’ in right in the fact that I don’t like churches and how they gain so much power and money. He’s right in saying that as an atheist I am deeply opposed to institutions. But he is absolutely wrong in his “definition” of an atheist.

My step dad is another person who claims that atheists can’t exist. He says the very definition of them is contradictory to our existence. He backs this up by saying two things;

“What is my god? You don’t know, so you can’t deny it.” and “For you not to believe in god you are already stating that there is something for you to deny.”

So I proceed in asking him what his god is, and as I’ve written about before - it is “goodness”, and atheism is a cop out because it is easier to deny everything than to formulate into words what you actually support. God, for him is … all that is “good” in the world. This is his “god”… and because goodness has always been here, and because different groups of people have turned this “goodness” and “morality” into god - then no one, by definition of god, can be an atheist, because we all believe in goodness. …and as my friend out in McGill said “If I define “god” as a crêpe, then I am not an atheist. For sure.”

This whole idea of “wrong definition” is really starting to boil my blood. I am told almost every day of my life that I’m not “really” an atheist or that I don’t “understand” what god is or that I’m just “angry” because I have my definitions wrong. But here’s the kicker - I don’t attempt to define god, because there is nothing to define. I think it is naive and simply irrational to start defining god as whatever you happen to feel like, such as “goodness”.

My step dad takes on the idea that whatever you hold highest is your “god”. Well no, I don’t hold anything particularly higher than anything else except for my education - so is my education my god? Should I thank my education every day for giving me life? Should I consider my profs disciples of my god and bow down to their feet? It’s ludicrous to affirm that whatever you want to define god as, is what god is. That totally illegitimates everything. It makes it all pointless.

Go ahead and think that my lack of belief is really just my lack of understanding, that’s fine. But I also think it’s down right wrong. I don’t believe “god” to be goodness, I believe goodness to be goodness. I don’t believe “god” to be morality. I believe morality to be morality.  I used to think that the worst kinds of christians were those that didn’t listen to facts, now I’m starting to think the worst kinds of christians are those who tell me that it is literally impossible for me to have no beliefs.

And you know what THAT means, right? … I’m getting his book from the library and not buying it! Take THAT Chris Hedges!

This picture isn’t related in any way shape or form to what im going to ramble out, but the story that its from is all kinds of awesome. 

I go to work to de-stress. That’s just not normal. The Larry Moran talk was hugely stressful - most of it fell onto Ang, for which I feel bad, but it’s getting pretty frustrating for all of us when it comes down to the day before an event and nothing is worked out and our posterer decides to skip town for a random interview.

So it was a relief to walk into work where the most stressful thing I had to deal with was deciding if a pant wall should remain a pant wall or get converted into a wall for the green and browns….and making our target for the night. (We left the wall and made target…)

I decided not to do anything today that pertained to any sort of project that is on the go…(except reminding the Good News Bears to register us a domain and sending out a couple e-mails to the skeptics executive…) and it turned into a pretty relaxing day. It was sort of weird to be lying around doing nothing, but I soaked it up.

At this point I just can’t stop thinking about September, I’m really excited to go full time at school again and get all this degree shit behind me so I can start doing interesting stuff. I was sort of wishy washy on what to do next year (just work, go to India, go to school…) but then I was talking to a hair dresser and amidst her mindless rambling she said something (i dont know what, honestly) that sort of made me think “wow…she’s right…” …It was something about there never being enough money - but since when didn’t students have loans and why does that need to put your life on hold and blah blah blah - I figured if she could just accept that, then surely I can too.

So… that was it, next year is full fledged school time - yet again. I’ll have a geography degree… but I want a biology degree. However I was talking to my favorite prof from first year and he made it very clear to me that starting over and wasting money on more undergraduate would be a really stupid idea - and instead I should work REALLY hard at getting phenomenal grades and doing biology shit “on the side” so I can do my masters in bio. That works.