The objective I chose to describe my goal is especially fun:

OBJECTIVE: To obtain a position within Company Name that will further God’s Kingdom and Company’s ministry…

Yeah, I still work at this job. Must. Edit.

Photo by Andrew Morrell Photography

A good friend of mine has offered me the opportunity to present a reading at her wedding. She’s also given me the option of choosing the reading myself. I’d love to be able to come to her with some ideas, but I need some help!

What would you recommend I read at a secular wedding ceremony?

“I’ve never met one before!”

“I’m Unitarian.”

“How can you… what??? *sharp, frustrated sigh of puzzlement* You know what, I won’t ask.”

You should try this. It’s a crap shoot!

photo by Paul Kelly

I’m sorry I haven’t been writing actively as of late. I sit here in my chair after a weekend of relaxation, escape, and nature only to find myself back in the machinery of life—the mechanical nature of my habits, my job, and my schedules.

And it makes me ponder a bit. I’ve found myself falling into an apathy related to my atheism lately that I’m not sure should be there. I’ve attempted to explain why atheism isn’t a big deal. Even with the mentality that our non-belief is just fine, normal, and not worth a huge stink, I still feel a smoldering passion within my gut when I consider my own story, my past, and the plight of other non-believers who truly are struggling in their current situations. For instance, I received an email this week from a distressed reader:

Over the past year I have began to question my beliefs that I have had since childhood and I’m down right confused and ridden with guilt mainly… Waiting to be “struck” down I suppose. I am working through it slowly, but being married to a “minister” doesnt help.. again.. riddled with guilt… and fear.

It breaks my heart that the search for truth leaves anyone feeling this way, but it especially pains me to hear it from someone who is afraid to leave religion and faith behind. I know just how conditioned Christians (like my past self) are to fear doubt and deviation from the faith. The guilt is tremendous, and it feels like failure to be going against something you’ve been accepting as an authority all your life. I remember hearing that small voice in my head that told me I was “just rebelling” or “going through a doubting phase” or that I shouldn’t make any certain decisions based on my doubts because I could be punished (for lack of a better word) by God for straying and not being strong enough in my devotion. I recall those emotions with a shudder and a sigh.

No one should feel this way.

It’s becoming more clear to me that I may not care as much about debating theology or commenting about other beliefs I find ridiculous (as fun as that may be—especially on the internet when the quick jab and the snarky wit are king) as others do. Instead, I am coming to deeply care about the journeys and stories of others in the atheist community. Where have we come from, and where are we going? Do we have enough support and friendship to spare for those who are not quite strong enough to go it alone? Can we move forward together? Is my dream of atheist community  just a silly, romantic, and futile idea in this period of individualistic living?

So I may not be writing much, but I’m still figuring this whole atheism thing out… day by day. As we all are.

"Angel of Grief" Glenwood Cemetery, Houston, TX (photo by teejayfaust)

A former coworker of mine just lost his sister to cancer after years of riding the rollercoaster of hope and fear. His love for her inspired me, and it reminded me acutely of what it was like to watch a family member die from the disease.

I have only experienced fresh grief as a Christian. My father died in 2003, and I sought comfort and peace in the hope that he was “in a better place” and free from pain, experiencing the joy and bliss he always desired in life. He was a very passionate believer, and he would always tell me we’d “be together again” when my time was up. I found this to be very soothing and helpful, because I didn’t want to let him go. I wanted more time with him, and I desperately wanted him to be healthy again. I was so fearful of being separated forever. Magical solution? Heaven. Duh.

I’ve never lost a loved one as an atheist, so I honestly can’t speak to what it feels like to say goodbye to someone knowing we will never be together again. I imagine this could be a healthy, helpful way of letting someone go, processing the loss, and moving forward. Is that so?

What matters most to me now is understanding someone’s role in my life and how that helps me be a better person. That way, they live on in me, through me. My father is part of me down to my very DNA. He’s gone, but he has a legacy that affects me and every single person I encounter. I am very fortunate to have had such a great life with him while it lasted. Isn’t that what grief should be about?

What about you?

We can all can talk a good game about how great it is not to be oppressed by the burden of hell, yada yada… but only someone who has actually experienced a loss can talk about what grief is like.

Has anyone out there experienced intense grief as both a faithful religious person and as an atheist? How did your experiences differ on a personal level? Could you share with as much transparency as possible (as you feel comfortable)? Were both healthy experiences? Was one more comforting than another? When someone says “It doesn’t matter if so-and-so has faith in Heaven if it comforts them,” do you agree or disagree?

photo by Joe McCarthy

When you meet someone new or are just enjoying discussions with other people, are you ever surprised when you find out they don’t share your views? I keep having this experience! Tonight while at dinner with a group of women, one of them mentioned her pre-teen son being baptized at their church since he just “got saved” and how excited she was. During her story, I kept expecting a punchline—as if she would suddenly laugh and tell a story about going skinny dipping in the baptism dunk tanks. But no, she was totally serious, and nothing’s wrong with that.

It made me wonder: Do we assume the people with whom we get along are going to think the same ways we do? I think I do! For instance, I’m skeptical about the paranormal; I do not believe ghosts exist. A friend of mine gabs constantly about ghost hunting and the supernatural, and all the while  I laugh and think she must be joking because, hell, who honestly believes in ghosts? Well, she does. Why am I so surprised? Is it my ego?

I remember feeling this way as a Christian as well; If I met someone who wasn’t a believer, it was like a trip into a different world. They were strange, foreign, and mysterious. How could they not believe in Jesus? Of course, Christianity is so popular that it’s sometimes difficult to find people who openly identify with something else—at least in my area. So why am I walking through life as part of the atheist minority assuming everyone else thinks Satan is silly and God is a figment of our imaginations? I have no idea! I guess I think I’m normal!

Photo by Katchooo

Last Sunday was stuffed full of freedom like a donut with jelly—the kind that drips down your chin as you laugh with delight. I got to stroll around my hometown in the sunshine; slurp an enormous smoothie; watch a man in a wolf mask play violin; wander through market stalls filled with hippie goods; and hear a man selling soap tell a joke with the punchline, “So god turned him into a woman and she walked across the bridge!” And all this was before the tornado warning, basement picnic, and hours of stories and secrets told in the back bedroom.

Homespun therapy didn’t occur because of the places I explored or things I did, but because I experienced them with someone who knows me. Sure, my friend Jenn and I hadn’t seen each other since my father’s memorial service over 8 years ago, but we knew one another’s pasts and personalities. We still understood the inner bits that matter, even with a near decade slung between us like a suspension bridge buried in fog.

What enveloped my heart as I sat with Jenn, walked with Jenn, and talked with Jenn was a natural freedom to be absolutely honest, completely myself, and laughing uproariously about it. Our conversation, stories, and jokes were a balm on the slice of my being many would call a soul. It’s that gnarled bit of me that is unprotected from the events of life. It dangles precariously on a precipice, beaten raw by the wind and bleached by the salt in the swells below. Oh, my life isn’t always so jarring, but lately I’ve felt as if it’s been one wave crashing forward after another. There is no barrier between my deepest, most vulnerable sense of self, and all of life’s changes and moods. Yes, vulnerable … that’s the best word for this kind of inner nakedness.

Missing Words

The peace I received from Jenn’s presence and openness was as medicinal as writing used to be for me.  Before the term “blogging” was coined, I was scrawling my personal insights, questions, and (rather boring) life’s stories into both paper and online journals. I frequently gave away too much information, but my examinations were honest and forthright. I was a typical teenager with a diary at that stage: God, boys, school, and friends were some of my favorite topics.

My life was fairly simple (even if I didn’t see it as such at the time); yet there was a magic to writing that drew me closer to those who read my words. Reading a journal was an investment in someone’s inner life. You saw an unashamed, unapologetic view of their thoughts and feelings, and there was a conversation and exchange that followed. Some of the friends I made back in the old online journaling days are still present in my life today. Why? I think it’s because they know me—like Jenn knows me. After sharing your true self with someone, and bring them along in your story, an intimacy is created whether you realize it or not.

So what happened to the intimacy in my writing? Did it go away when I limited myself to being “Godless Girl” and writing an “atheist blog?” There are a truck load of atheist bloggers about who usually talk through the same subjects and news bulletins. Nothing is wrong with that, and obviously I enjoy it myself or I wouldn’t do it… but lately I’ve missed writing. In fact, when someone asks me what I want to be when I grow up (And I don’t know if I ever will), I find myself sighing whistfully and muttering something obscure about “getting back into writing” or “finding a creative outlet.”

I don’t have a paper journal anymore. I am not interested in keeping one at this time. What I need is the medicinal experience that sending my words out into the universe can provide. Even if it bores a reader or three to absolute insanity, it would be good for me.

Photo by azrasta

It may be admirable to claim that I read only to learn and expand my mind, but to be perfectly honest, I read because I enjoy it! It’s fun. If I happen to learn or challenge myself during this pursuit—all the better. I’m the furthest thing from a book snob as you can probably get while still loving to read.

I’ve purchased heaps of books lately (both audio and paper) that must be read! Have you read any of them? Which should I pick up next?

Fiction

The Gray Man by Mark Greaney
The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf by Molly Harper [fuckme, some of these titles seem embaraassing, don't they?]
Naked in Death by J. D. Robb [I love naked stuff]
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Non-fiction

The End of Faith by Sam Harris [Are you shocked that I haven't finished this book yet?]
Why I Am Not a Christian & Other Essays on Religion & Related Subjects by Bertrand Russell
Letters from the Earth: Uncensored Writings by Mark Twain
The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God by Carl Sagan

I’m leaving out a bunch of great options hiding on my shelves, but this is a good start.

What are you reading right now?

photo by TrevinC

“Life sucks and then you die.” Or so said my coworker when she heard about my break-up with my boyfriend yesterday. I laughed, and she promised she would pray for God to take away my troubles. Another acquaintance tried to comfort me by saying I shouldn’t be afraid about finding another man in the future. God would provide, and we have nothing to fear.

Well, sometimes life does suck, being lonely is no fun, and once in a while I wonder if I will find a mate for the long haul who will be an amazing match for me. But am I afraid? Does being an atheist have anything to do with my heartache? I don’t think so, no.

Fear and Humanity

Do atheists fear the world? Is fear a bad thing? Would believing in God protect us from trouble and remove fear from our lives?

(Read more after the cut…)

The Secret Atheist posted a response to an Oswald Chambers quote on fear:

“The remarkable thing about God is that when you fear God, you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God, you fear everything else.” —Oswald Chambers

There was a time when I thought that all non-Christians lived their life in constant fear. Fear of the future, fear of death, fear that they would be wrong in the end and have to face judgment.

[This] is a lie spread by Christianity in order to protect itself from unbelief. If believers think that without god there is only fear, they will be less likely to question their beliefs.  … I don’t fear everything. I don’t fear god. I don’t fear death.

At first blush, I agree with his reaction to Chambers and those who quote him. I also spent my life thinking non-believers had no hope in life and no comfort in trials. When my father died, I thanked Jesus that I had him to help and console me and that I didn’t have to mourn hopelessly like non-Christians did.

I think I see what Ozzy (as one of my favorite authors as a believer, we’re on a nickname basis ) was saying in the sense that fearing God basically meant having a reverential respect and sense of incredible awe towards Yahweh’s powers. If you think your deity is perfect, good, loving, and can do anything for you that you ask for, then I can see how the world and our struggles might appear less daunting or intimidating. If I had Superman in my back pocket, I’d feel pretty safe.

Unfortunately, this view takes away the dignity and power and capability from the individual and places it all on an unknowable, untouchable, invisible being who doesn’t show up in tights and a cape when life goes awry. As believers, we do not teach ourselves to be able and influential if all we focus on is our inability and God’s super-ability.

I much prefer the humanistic point of view that we are empowered to do good, and to do it as best we can. Sure, there will be impossible obstacles to overcome along the way, and no, we won’t have an escape from struggle. But we will know that we chose to act, and we made the world a better place despite any fear or failure.

Life is hard, and some of it is frightening, but we need not bend to fear or tell ourselves that a supernatural superhero is going to come save us. We don’t need to be weaklings or self-deprecating. Even the most imperfect of us can do the most good. We need to work and toil together and hope for what’s real.

photo by TreMegLan

A Personal P.S.

I truly appreciate the kind tweets, emails, and texts many of you have sent in response to my broken relationship. I don’t often know how to reveal that side of my inner life to people—even my closest friends and family. Having virtual and long-distance hugs and kind words come from you really does make an impact on my feelings. Thank you so much. I’m very sad about things ending between him and I , but I am very thankful that we handled it like grown-ups and have split amicably. I’m sure this will be a good thing for both of us in the long run.

Ahura Mazda

An email from Rev. Richard Robbins:

Your name is wrong. You are not a godless girl. Your name should actually be denial girl. You can tell me till the cows come home there is no God but I know for a fact that you believe in God you are just living in denial. If you admit there is a God then you have to deal with being accountable to Him. Not such a happy thought.

I bought the wrong domain name, folks! Is denialgirl.com still available?

Mr. Robbins,

I didn’t think one of the “gifts of the spirit” was telepathy. Apparently I missed that in one of Paul’s epistles. It seems you claim to have the same mind-reading power as the deity you worship. Do you also claim to be all-knowing? Maybe it’s limited to the thoughts and views of atheists? Very curious indeed!

I’ve stated before that the ignorant claim that atheists can’t handle being accountable for our actions and “sins” is ridiculous. Apparently atheists’ refutations of this canned accusation haven’t made a dent in the condescending beliefs behind it, so let me hold up a mirror for you:

You can tell me till the cows come home that Ahura Mazda does not exist, but I know for a fact that you believe in Ahura Mazda and are just living in denial. If you admit Ahura Mazda exists, you have to deal with being accountable to him. Not such a happy thought.

See how amusing that sounds? How likely are you to convert to Zoroastrianism because of what I said? Your answer is going to be the same as mine if you had asked me how likely I am to take your statements seriously. Sorry, Mr. Robbins, it just doesn’t work that way.  I can’t be shamed or frightened into believing in a deity if there is no evidence that one exists. Doing so would be intellectually dishonest and delusional.

One more thing: According to Christianity, it doesn’t matter if someone admits there is a God or not; they will still be held accountable for their actions (as will all Christians, if you’ve forgotten what your guy said in Matthew 7:21-25). Of course, you wouldn’t have this problem if you believed in the true god, Ahura Mazda. Good luck!