Atheism: It's What's for Dinner!

Even though I'm a pagan who can't deny their connection to Spirit, or Deity, or whatever one might want to call it, I have an affinity for atheism. I guess I just like the whole freethinking idea, and the rational thought process that many atheists insist upon. I know that I really like the part about speaking out against the rabid evangelical right-wing's agenda to frame the United States as an all-one-way theocracy.

Imagine the pleasant surprise I had this evening while watching the news. ABC news deserves a lot of credit, they actually did two different stories on atheism, although not very long, the reporters both seemed to be hitting the devil's advocate button pretty hard against the atheists, but on the whole, commendable that they even gave the topic the amount of airtime they did.

Atheists Battle Against Religion

The Blasphemy Challenge

The second story deals with the Blasphemy Challenge, something I have seen on YouTube, which has a very thriving atheist community on it--in fact, you could probably say that if it hadn't been for YT's atheist contingent, there may not have been enough interest in the topic to warrent ABC doing the news stories.

A good example of a YouTuber atheist is Nick Gisburne, who was actually banned from the site, but his videos keep being uploaded by his fans. He's basically just an English bloke, thinking out loud about atheism issues.

I really don't know.

You see, "niceness" is kind of a nonentity. It is the quality of nothing, it's really a meaningless word, and hence is devalued by many.

I'm fresh off a, I wouldn't call it a fight, so much as the other person just really showing what an ass they were by being all smug and Libertarian and anti-Al Gore. Anyone that knows how much I loved the Clinton/Gore years knows that's a dealbreaker for me (this is meant to be a little humorous, but I do tend to get really worked up over politics.) (2024--It's quite humorous and more than a little cringe that I felt this way about "the Clinton/Gore years")

And of course, it was that person's blog, and he can blog in any way he feels like blogging, and if I don't like it I don't have to read it, and I was the one who asked to be on his f-list, etc. True enough, no real harm, no real foul, but just the same I removed myself from everything of his I'm on.

Then I went over to a completely unconnected person's Myspace blog and read this:

Niceness. You know what I'm talking about. It's the marzipan on your otherwise groovy and negative day. Tragically, there's no known cure for niceness, so all we can do is work with nice people, and pray to God they don't bring around a casserole when we're down.

I've tried being nice. It makes me feel like an asshole. My body produces more bile than I use, and you have to listen to your body- right, nice people?

Don't get me started on good people. Those fuckers will turn on you in a hearbeat. At least nice people will make an effort.

I guess I can work with nice people, but good people can fuck right off. Good people have all the answers- to them, life is simple. So let's work- albeit begrudgingly- with the nice people. Before the good people fuck-up this planet.

And I thought to myself: What the hell is the object behind being a smuggy smuggerson? What is this need for superiority? Certainly, one can get into trouble by being too Pollyanna-ish and nice, and I enjoy a good snark as much as the next guy, but one can really fall into a trap thinking one is all cool and way smarter than everybody else.

If it makes you a bully, there is always someone cooler and way smarter than you to take you down a peg. Always.

One of the things I enjoy doing is snarking at the snarkers. Some of my pagan friends might think this is funny, I caught one of the dot bunnyhunt people sniping nastily at someone who happened to mention in passing that they were a pagan--this was on a "completely unrelated-to-paganism-in-any-way" community, mind you, and they just opened up and fired a blast of vitriol at her--probably didn't know her from adam kadmon, but felt quite comfortable and unembarrassed about making a complete ass out of themselves.

I snuck over and looked at his LJ--of course, there was some noodley pontification about being a pagan elder and whether or not to be one, and what makes a good one. There are some people that are old enough to know better than to act so immaturely, but age does not always bring that level of common sense.

I don't necessarily want to pick fights with these bunnyhunt people either, but just as a point of information: they aren't just keeping to the pagan forums, they'll be harrassing anyone with a pentagram icon next...one thing can be deduced from this: they mean to have LJ all to themselves!

(This last should be spoken in the voice of the penultimate sentence in the Monty Python episode about the massive proliferation of giant blancmanges: "They mean to win Wimbledon!")

This is Hermgirl, suffering Nice Fatigue,
Over and Out