Feedburner
So yeah, I’m on the way to band practice (band geek ftw), but I just wanted to let you guys know that I made a feedburner feed for the blog. So enjoy! When I get home tonight I’ll try to get a post up.
The Athiest Blogroll
I just wanted to give a quick shout-out to the Atheist Blogroll. They’ve been giving me a lot of traffic here, and I’m very proud to be a part of them. So go check out the Atheist Blogroll
Daily Wrap-Up – The Media and Women
So, I think that I’m going to do a small daily wrap-up every day that I remember to. I think it will help inspire thought and help me to improve my writing. I may also pick a random topic and rant about that. Anyway, here we go.
There are a lot of things that really piss me off, but there are a few that really get me ticked. One of those things is the fact that the media makes women think they have to look a certain way to look good. That they have to be anorexic to be accepted. That they have to dress in so little clothes that there is nothing left to imagine.
It just annoys me when %90 of the women, or small girls for that matter, that I talk to always mention that they are fat, and need to stop eating, or that they haven’t eaten in days. It makes me wonder how people in the media can live with themselves. Small girls are starving themselves because they feel like they need to to fit in. Some of them look like Ethiopians but think that they are too fat. You know, I don’t think I’ll ever understand why this is accepted, and people are not jailed for teaching women and children this horrible lifestyle.
I leave you with this.
If you are a guy, please tell someone they are too skinny today, and then tomorrow, and then every day after that for the rest of your life, until this problem stops. You might even save the life of a girl who makes herself throw up after every meal, and is on the verge of starvation. Tell her she looks beautiful, and make her feel special, because she most likely is.
If you are a girl, and one with a problem of course, please go eat something. I beg you, just go do it, you’ll feel better, and you may be less dizzy. You might actually feel good for once. If a guy can’t accept you for who you are, no matter what you look like, then that isn’t the guy you should be with. You should feel good about yourself no matter how you look. Stop listening to the media. Start listening to the little voice inside your head telling you what you know is true. “You look good just the way you are, and there’s no need to change.”
The Story of an Agnostic
I live in southern Alabama. I don’t think there’s anywhere more Christian in the United States. Anyway, I wanted to tell you all about my experiences.
I felt that I needed to go ahead and let everyone that doesn’t know know, I’m an agnostic. I have grown up around the bible belt here, so when I let people know this, I got tons of shocked looks and comments abound. So, for everyone that reads this, here’s my story. I wrote this a month or two after everything happened, but I never posted it here. So anyway, enjoy!
I first decided that I was agnostic (although I’m really close to atheist, but I’ll explain that later) when I was in College Prep Biology. Everyone was doing busy work, and I was talking to my friends as usual. Then the topic was brought up that Jordan doesn’t believe in the moon landing, and thinks it was faked. Everyone in class of course thought this was a riot. They laughed at that for a minute and then I commented that I didn’t believe in God. You can guess how well that went over. The whole class didn’t hear me at first, but it traveled like lightning through the room. Within 30 seconds the whole class knew. The laughing stopped fast. Everyone kinda stared at me as Mrs. Bedsole tried to figure out what was going on. She just told everyone to be quiet and continued with grading or whatever she was doing. Meanwhile, nobody really got quiet, as the whole room was shocked at the fact that someone could NOT believe in God. No-one else there was agnostic. Of course, this is the bible belt, and most of these people had never even heard of being agnostic. Most people here just live in their strange “Go to church to gossip and praise God, then go home or go to school and have sex and curse, because I go to church, and that makes me a Christian”. Keep in mind of course that not near all the people here are like that, just most of them. Some people keep clean lives, and pray every night, and act as a “Good Christian”. Anyway, the point I’m trying to get to is that everyone here has lived in this somewhat sheltered life where all they know is God and church, and know nothing of people that don’t believe.
If I haven’t gotten the point across yet, from that day on, for the next few weeks, and even for the rest of the semester I had religious discussions with my teachers and friends in class. So much so that numerous times we spent an entire hour and a half arguing over religious facts, and never really got to the classwork. All I had to do if I didn’t want to do work was say God a few times, loud enough that someone in the class said it, and it spread till we argued about it. I really didn’t use this to get out of work though, because it’s me against the class when we argue over religion, so it turns out as more work than the classwork we are assigned.
I thought it had cooled down after a month or so, but then I happened to carry a copy of “The DaVinci Code” into my Health Class and lost hours of work over the next week from arguments about that, although that’s another blog. Even last week I got a phone call from one of my friends in Band who had just found out I was atheist, although I didn’t realize this. Here’s how the conversation went.
Me: Hello?
Friend: You going straight to Hell!!!
Me: What?
Friend: You atheist bastard!
This conversation kept going for a few minutes until he calmed down and I hung up. A couple things I want to point out. In this phone call he said that he was going to heaven and I was going to hell, because he knew God and went to church, while I don’t believe. This is well and good, and he can believe what he wants, but he said Bastard, dammit, and numerous other cuss words while claiming that he was a Christian in the same sentence. Somethings wrong here. Maybe I’m the only one that can see it because I am the only one that isn’t put under this, dare I say spell, called Christianity. It scares me sometimes. I’m going to show you how I see Christianity, and you can take it however you like.
This massive group of people believe the following as far as I can tell. A strange heavenly being has been here since before time, he is just there, and has created the Universe as we know it out of thin air. He then magically populated the Earth with Humans and created heaven and hell, for the bad people and the good people to go. He sends all people who don’t believe in Him to hell, and lets all that do enter heaven.
Now, I know that many of you are going to complain about how many things I missed and got wrong and such, but broken down and leaving out lots of stuff, this is how Christians see life. I’m sorry, but it looks like the general masses have been living in fear since the beginning of time, because they are afraid of being sent to Hell, so they pray for this God, because he has a supposed power over us, and can keep them from going to hell. Better yet, he can send you to heaven, so you can see all the good believers you once knew again, and live happily ever after. Again, something seems wrong here.
I have explained as best I know how I view Christianity, and why I don’t believe. I also want to clear a few things up.
First, I am agnostic, meaning I believe there may be a God, I am just unsure. I take this stance because I feel that Christianity has no solid evidence for God, and I have no evidence against it. I would be no different than Christians if I was an Atheist. So I remain Agnostic, until I see something that changes that.
Second, I do not hate Christians, nor hate God. I feel that some people think I hate God and/or worship the Devil. I just don’t believe in God, or the Devil for that matter.
Third, I dislike being Agnostic. I don’t it, because it gives me the challenge every day of explaining myself to all the other people, and it helps me meet people. But I would absolutely love to be a part of the masses, to beleive in something I can’t see, to feel this warmth inside and know when I die, I will go somewhere better. I think it would be the greatest feeling anyone could ever feel, but sadly, I can’t feel this way without some kind of proof, and hopefully something will change that. It would be so nice. Soooo nice.
So, there you have the story of an Agnostic. Growing up in this part of the country is pretty hard as an agnostic, but I think I’ll make it through, especially after writing this. Leave comments or whatever you please, and please, tell you friends to read this, it might do them some good.
Why I’m Atheist
As a follow-up to my first post, I’d like to let you know why you are reading the daily life of an Atheist, as opposed to the daily life of an Agnostic.
I have recently decided to place myself in the category of Atheist, because of the confusion Agnosticism seems to spark. It seems that no matter where you are, an Agnostic is seen as a very confused and dumbfounded person, not even sure that they exist themselves, much less the gods/goddesses of the various religions. I personally think that it is much simpler to declare myself Atheist, and then, if asked about my views, I can shed light on my exact beliefs. I think that this helps in sparking conversation, and it only adds to my reasoning behind this declaration.
So there you have it. Now you know why you are reading the story of an “Atheist”. I hope this clears things up.
The Daily Life of a Southern Atheist (and other rantings) 