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| I've gotten to thinking lately. I have a kind of new boyfriend. We've been dating since about Thanksgiving. Anyway.
He smokes. Occasionally. He knows I don't like it, and he had told me earlier that he quit. He usually avoids it around me, but sometimes it apparently just has to happen.
I don't get it. I know it's fun. But from my point of view, smoking is one of the dumbest things you can do. Hands down. You have one fucking life. You have only so many years in which to experience things. Only so long. And yet, he's willing to possibly sacrifice many of those years just to smoke. There's nothing else. These years we have are the best, and the only, gift that matters. And he's willing to lose a good portion of that.
I have a friend who takes the exact opposite viewpoint. He figures that there's no reward for being good. And that as long as we have this life, we may as well make the most of it, and do however many drugs and whatnot as we want. That he'd rather live a shorter, fun life than spend an entire lifetime trying to preserve himself.
I guess it depends on what you enjoy. I get very little enjoyment out of these things. Drinking can be fun in small amounts. Pot is pointless, and smoking even moreso. Completely pointless. If you really enjoyed these things, it might be one thing. But I value this one life I have, quite a bit. I enjoy existing. I enjoy it enough to try to do it for as long as I can.
I used to think that I wouldn't want to live into my old age. That I don't want to be all old and decrepid in some nursing home. Now I don't know. I suppose it makes no difference once you're dead.
Every so often it hits me. All at once. And it's overwhelming. The thought of dying, of no longer existing. It's so overwhelming. It's something that happens to all of us eventually, I suppose.
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| If I were at all spiritual, I would be a LaVeyan Satanist. It looks very cool.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaVeyan_Satanism
Except for that whole spiritual aspect, it seems absolutely perfect. I like the nine statements, the eleven rules, and the nine sins. All that is very well aligned with my world view. Except for that part about magic and spirituality.
In other news, I saw The Nativity Story with my family tonight, and am not sure yet what to make of it. It wasn't that good, but my whole family was gushing about how beautiful it was. It's not a particularly interesting story, and the cinematography is nothing new. It wasn't exactly outstanding. I'll warn you now, any positive reviews it gets will be only on the merit of religious value.
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| I hate religion. I hate what it does. I hate how people use it as an excuse. I hate how its followers seem pre-disposed to a martyr/victim complex. I hate how I am supposed to "respect" this fairy tale. I hate how it makes otherwise very smart, logical people into complete fools. I hate how people use it as a way of looking down on other people and feeling better about themselves. I hate how people end up looking better to the general public if they are seen as god-fearing individuals.
I'm a god-fearing individual. I'm scared of this imaginary god and what he's done to our society. Not like it's anything new. But imagine all the things we could have accomplished, and all the bullshit we could have avoided, had nobody ever believed at all! "God" is powerful-- and I don't mean a man in the sky. I mean the concept of God, inside everyone's heads. The concept has been the most powerful driving force of many things, good and evil, in the world to date. It's imaginary, but the concept packs a surprising amount of power.
I hope I live to see the downfall of religion. I always told myself that I'd never try to "convert" anyone and that I'd always "respect" religion. But lately it seems more and more... parasitic? Is that the word I'm looking for? I just wish people would wake up from their fairy tale world. You can't make up your world-- you have to live in the one to which you were born.
(I say you can't make it up, but it seems billions already have, and died without ever realizing their mistake.)
I hate religion. I wish my family didn't believe. I'd try to open their eyes, but the chances of them waking up and being appreciative of my efforts, compared to the chances of them never waking up and only being irritated and hurt by said efforts, makes it a ridiculous conquest to even consider attempting. | | |
| The moment I first decided God wasn't real happened in a car. I was driving up north with my family for the weekend, and I was reading the book "Moses and Monotheism" by Sigmund Freud. I was reading it for a class, though a class that I was happy to be taking. It was almost three years ago. (The seeds for atheism were definitely planted long before, and thinking back, I can see how I probably was even earlier... but this is my one moment.)
The book was all off. The book was absolutely wrong on so many levels. But you know what? It got me thinking.
The things he described in the book were all based off of why people have religion at all. Every situation he described showed a group of people who needed a god. So they made one to fit their precise purposes.
God fits a purpose with us today. People need someone looking out for them. People need to believe that we go somewhere else when we die. People need somebody to stand behind their decisions. Look at the war in Iraq, for example. There are millions of people who would say that God is behind us, that God is on our side. They need that, to cure their guilty consciences about the damage we're doing over there. This is God's country, god damnit.
People need God.
I realized that I needed a better reason to believe in God than just my desire to believe in God.
For awhile, I really wanted to believe in God, though I wouldn't give in until I found a better reason. I read every proof. I researched every theory. All the great religious minds. For awhile, I wanted to believe.
Then I realized that it was so much better not to believe. It'd be great if there WAS a god I could fall back on, sure. But that's not the case. THERE IS NO GOD. My eyes are open and I am no longer succumbing to my childish desires. I am comfortable now living in the world of reality.
I've said it five hundred times. But RELIGION IS NOTHING MORE THAN WISHFUL THINKING. If you believe in God, ask yourself why. Is it because you "feel it inside"? Because you "have faith"? Look inside yourself. Are those just ways of saying that you want it to be true?
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| After posting that last entry, several other thoughts have entered my head.
nz
bakery
solstice
I have a coworker who grew up in New Zealand. We get to talking every so often. He comes from a family that is culturally Jewish, but I don't know how much they lean towards Judaism. He is most certainly an atheist, as was initially made evident by his American Atheists mug.
In New Zealand, according to his story, religious people often try hard to keep religion and government separate. Not just because it is the right thing to do, either. But because they don't want their religion being contaminated, so to speak, with the dirty scum that is politics. They apparently won't sink to that level. Charlie Brown has been banned, apparently, because of its blatantly religious undertones.
I wish more people would take that route. I know that if I did happen to believe in anything faith-based, I would probably have some sense of wanting to keep it sacred. Religion doesn't necessarily hurt me. It's this obnoxious, lets-put-it-out-our-belltower-in-a-PA-system attitude that threatens my freedom. I've never been to NZ, and I don't know if it's better or not. This is just one story. But I love the idea of people trying to keep their beliefs sacred. There is no sense of that here. Here, religion is something you scream to the mountaintops to make people think you're a better person than you are.
Next.
So, awhile ago, I posted about this huge family fight that resulted in my being outed as an atheist. Well, here's the update: When I went home next after that, I was out with my mom and we went to her favorite bakery. I saw a "now hiring" sign in the window, and almost said something, as she's expressed interest in working there for years. But decided against it. When we went inside though, she asked-- without having seen the sign-- if they'd be hiring anytime soon. She's worked there for two months now and loves it. I'm only a little bit smug. I haven't said anything smug, but I feel good about it. I'm glad she's happy.
Third.
I did nothign special on the solstice. I had a trip to the beach planned (nighttime trips are the best) but it ended up raining for the two days preceding the solstice, and I had to work at 5am. I didn't do anything, but I enjoyed it on my own, just thinking about it. If I ever end up with a family, somehow, we will celebrate the solstice, and not Christmas, and it won't be nearly as stressful and hectic, and materialistic, and ridiculous as Christmas.
The end, goodnight, merry Christ Mass.
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