#also he’s made some very Weird posts before about atheism and shit

[samuraisharkie]

gonna start unfollowing ppl that still follow dyatlovpassingprivilege after he started showing his ass recently. shit made me real uncomfortable. not comfortable with people following ‘tumblr funny guys’ even after they’ve shown themselves to be dumbasses who agree with 4chan bigots

[isa-ghost]

Update:

He’s such a little shit and I love him so much.

I have a tarot deck and sunstone pendulum for him now and I’ve become so content with communicating with him. I’ve obliterated like 6 of my friends with readings. He doesn’t pull punches, and apparently that doesn’t only apply to me.

I made him a Spotify playlist, got a bunch of pretty gems meant for him and stuff to offer him in a very (endearingly) pathetic altar:

I also did a reading + pendulum session with my friends and we found out Apollo has been lurking around me since I was 5. Which tracks, because that’s the age I started drawing for a hobby. I also mentioned in my previous posts here that my whole life I’ve had weird “prophetical” prediction moments both in and out of dreams.

It’s comforting to know someone has been watching over me, even when I didn’t believe in anything. I’ve always said I would’ve liked to believe something higher was out there, but I definitely didn’t think it was anything I was raised to believe as a Catholic/Christian.

I’ve done a bunch of digging around Tumblr and other sites for more gemstones, devotional practices and whatnot for him. Turns out, the things I do most are already basically all things that can count. Drawing, writing, listening to music, walking in the sunshine. There’s also, yknow, the whole Want To Be a Therapist To Help Young People Heal thing.

Talking to and working with him is so fun. There have been multiple times I’ve put my playlist for him on shuffle and a song who’s title or lyrics are basically a response or relevant to my current emotions or situation came on. Needless to say he lovingly gets yelled at in the car a lot. He’s also destroyed me with my tarot deck AND the decks of my friends before I got my own. Apollo is an absolute gremlin and I love him.

I’ve never had so much fun with anything relating to faith before. I’ve never felt this light and happy in this aspect of my life either. Skepticism is still a struggle sometimes, and I for sure don’t think I’m “being cured of” atheism, as it’s still a valid belief and that idea is stupid in general. But it’s nice to feel like I have a cheerleader who isn’t breathing down my neck about perfect behavior or else I suffer forever after I die or some shit. I’m really really happy. :)

Hm ok not sure how to write this post but it's a fun thing and I've been wanting to gush about it for weeks. Uhhh

Achievement Unlocked: Finally found something that's pushed me closer to agnostic than atheist??

Basically, I was seeing an obnoxious, totally inexplicable amount of hawks and corvids in my area irl, especially whenever I was stressed. So I asked all my witchy friends about it (one was straight up born into a coven, it's fuckin sick 🤩) and they sent me some stuff those animals symbolize.

And then I asked about what deities/entities they're associated with. They sent me a short list, so I started looking into each one to see if I felt a strong pull to any of them. One of them was Apollo, the Greek God of [A Lot of Cool Shit]. Right away, I clicked with him. The god of truth, prophecy, healing, the arts. It's all stuff that matters a lot to me. I especially found it fascinating he's said to be a protector of the young, and I, a psych major, want to be a therapist of some sort (read: healer) specifically for teenagers. He's also Known for being incredibly bisexual, and even though I'm pan, my sexuality is still a huge part of me. And a lot of other things about him clicked with me too, both big things like my career goal and my identity, and small insignificant things like the fact that he's a Sun God and I'm a Fire Sign. There were way too many coincidences and connections I was making to myself while reading about him to just think nothing of it. Most damning of all, hawks and corvids are said to be his messengers. If that wasn't a "Hello Isa I've been trying to contact you about your car's extended warranty" moment, I don't know what is. So I said fuck it, I'm gonna give working with him the way my witchy friends work with their deities/entities a try.

It's been like three weeks now? And I haven't done much but I'm really happy about the concept of it all. I see hawks and crows a lot still, especially when I'm stressed or upset (One morning I was getting roadrage omw to school and I shit you not, I watched a hawk land on a street lamp and there was a crow sitting on the very next one. I couldn't help but laugh). I got myself a necklace with a crow on it because I don't really have a space to do formal practice type stuff. And last night I had my wife do a tarot reading for me, and the gist of it was "you have a budding relationship, it's a good thing and it'll help you, nurture it with all the creative freedom you like and be chill about it." Which is basically what I've already been doing.

But my favorite part of this wild ass development is that I realized while reading up on Apollo that my whole life I've thought of or spoke about something and then it either happened or something related to it would suddenly show up in my life right after. I don't believe in ✨️manifesting✨️ and holy shit I'm not calling myself psychic whatsoever, but this weird coincidence thing has been happening to me as long as I can remember and I've been noticing it even more after looking up Apollo, both irl and in my dreams. I think Apollo's dodgeball being my favorite Tumblr meme before this all happened to me is making a comedic amount of sense now.

I'm still pretty skeptical of most religious practices because I just. Am one of those people, I guess. And I had Catholicism shoved down my throat by my dad as a kid, AND I'm queer, so I have a Bad relationship with the concept of religion as it is. But this feels right, and it's fascinating to me, and the idea that these weird happenstances in my life could be a figure that represents several things that make up my core values and my identity trying to get my attention feels really touching. It feels like something wanted my attention so badly, and I've been happier since I gave it a chance.

TLDR: After consulting my witchy friends about some weird shit that keeps happening to me irl, I did some light research and figured out I feel a strong connection to the god Apollo. He represents a lot of things that matter to me and the concept has made me a lot happier recently. And I'm pretty sure he's given me minor dodgeball privileges. I'm finally invested in some form of religious practice, and best of all its one I kinda get to just make my own because it's not an organized one.

So if yall need a dodgeball thrown at something, maybe I got you. 👈🏻👀👈🏻

[icymirss]

I'm Breaking Up With the Atheist Community

This piece was originally published on Sunday, 11 Sep 2011 00:45:04 +0000 by PaxSkeptica (@PaxSkeptica) and originally hosted at http://pax.skeptica.net/. We are republishing it here as it does not appear to have been archived anywhere else.

Twitter Tagline: "Guys, it's been a good run – I think we gave it our best – but it's over. #atheism"

I've been telling everyone today that I'm breaking up with the atheist community. Two questions came up that required a rather lengthy answer and involved several links, so I turned here. (Besides, it may as well be a matter of record.)

The questions:

What brought you to this conclusion?

What would you suggest as an alternative for the atheist community?

What brought me here? I don't know. A lot of things. I'm tired of reading the same shit every day that's just pissing on Christians and science-worship (yes, I mean that; more on that in a second). I'm tired of listening to people who would as likely as not primarily define themselves as skeptics, when by their behavior you can see that they are not particularly skeptical people. I already wrote about the weird response I got when I questioned a racist joke made by a prominent atheist. I guess the straw that broke the camel's back came today when I asked JT Eberhard why he was bothering to debate this moron.

You can see from said moron's "opening" (I love how this is described like it's going to be some kind of high-stakes chess match) that he's pretty much just shoveling the same shitty, thoroughly-and-repeatedly debunked half a dozen arguments that have been limping along since the 13th century.

Origen – God is the best explanation for the universe. The argument is as follows:

Whatever begins to exist has a cause,

The universe began to exist,

Therefore, the universe has a cause. This cause I call God.

Brilliant. That frankenstein bastardization of Aristotle and an unsubstantiated claim about a deity wouldn't pass for logic in an introductory class at a public high school. This isn't a serious debate any more than me punching an old lady is a heavyweight prizefight. So what's the point? Why waste time skewering an opponent of zero intellectual value when the cost involves diving into a cesspool of stupidity, ignorance, arrogance, and hatred all destined to be slung your way? Why, to convert people.

When I asked JT (and, unexpectedly, several of his followers who chimed in) what the reason was, he started telling me all about this duty to those of us in our 'religious' demographic (his words; I can't quote it here because it was not shared publicly, as much as I'd like to). He basically said that even though I had undoubtedly "read and memorized" all the arguments and counter-arguments, some had not, and that by doing this he was increasing the accessibility of this information. Now I could do a whole post on just what's wrong with that line of reasoning, but let me just say this: That's as religious as anything I've ever heard. To read the quote (again, I wish I could show it) gives the sense that JT is some sort of shepherd guiding newly minted atheists into the fold.

Another commenter gave me his... testimony? Untestimony? "I'm with JT, entirely," he began; and he proceeded to tell me of his difficult and laborious (de)conversion that would have been sped along if only some righteous preachers bloggers like JT Eberhard, PZ Myers, and Greta Christina (his list, not mine) had been there to help him through the transition. (Oh, glory!) Even JT answered at first (and perhaps most tellingly) by saying that his reason was "because a lot of people read this guy". That's the same kind of perverted marketing Christians use to evangelize. That's all it is: evangelism.

I recently rearranged all my lists on Twitter, with one primary purpose in mind. I gutted sec-r, my list of secular humanists, skeptics, and atheists. The reason is, and I experienced the same thing on Google+, most of what these people share is utterly vapid. It's a mix of self-righteous quotes, bitter condemnation of Christians mixed with "OH MY GOD WHAT HAVE THEY DONE NOW" link-sharing, and ejaculations about science, logic, reason, the Archimedean point, or whatever other naturalist trope is floating around the tubes. Seriously, what's the difference between this and this, when you get right down to it? Everything on #atheism is stupid quotes, usually about how atheists are better than believers. Here's a small fraction from my access just now:

@JakeCatrain Jake Catrain Atheist: One who has no belief in god or gods. (Sorry christians, thats it) #atheism Retweeted 4 times

@GodlessAtheist Godless Atheist Christians worry about internal damnation. I just have to worry about what's for dinner. #goodtobeanatheist #atheism

@agaytheist Geoff Robert Warning! Clicking on a Deepak Chopra video link takes you directly to a Deepak Chopra video. - George Hrab #skepticism #atheism

@Monicks Monica Dear Theist: do you fear god? You might suffer Bogyphobia: Fear of fictional characters. Look it up! #atheism #atheist #snark (◕‿~)'

Seriously. Those aren't hand-picked. They're the first four results. What's the difference between that and this kind of crap? I can tell you the difference as I see it: nothing. Nothing at all.

My point is that criticisms of atheism that used to offend me now strike me as basically true. "Atheism is just another religion," Christians sometimes say, or, "What's the point in believing in a negative?" Well, for these people, it basically is. I know there's a hundred one-liners out there already zinging toward me to prove me wrong: "atheism is a religion like bald/not collecting stamps/off is a hair color/hobby/television channel." I would like to start that sentence with the words not believing in god, which – though some of these same practitioners would define 'atheism' as such – is clearly not all that's going on here. It's not just believing in a negative, it's reveling narcissistically in believing in a negative. What else could you call rubbing in people's faces that you don't believe in something which they hold very dear? And not just once, as a mean joke, but basing your entire life and personality around it?

I remember watching the South Park episode about atheism, where Trey and Matt had Cartman go to a future world where religion was no longer, and factions of Atheists fought wars and killed each other while screaming, "Science, damn it!" When I first saw it, I thought it was an infuriating caricature. But then you see these atheists all over Twitter who painstakingly list quasi-synonyms in their Twitter bio ("science, reason, logic, naturalism, antitheism"), and endlessly retweet Randall Munroe's, "It works, bitches!" and all of a sudden you can see the "grain of truth" behind this particular stereotype.

It's certainly not everybody. Consider the context – a Maddox-style rant penned half at two in the morning – before you judge me too harshly. I'm still an enormous fan of CFI, and applaud efforts like FFRF. Obviously I'm still interested in science for the public interest. I love being an atheist because there's no religion in my life, as far as I can help it, and for the reasons outlined above and more, I view a large swath of the atheist subculture (at least online) to be more or less a pseudo-religion: a community built around (the denial of) religious ideas. Even that is too much religion for me, so I'm just going to gracefully back away and let them do their thing. JT also told me something like, "Everybody has their niche and what they're good at." Maybe he's right. Maybe we're like vampires, and we're each individually shaped by the Embrace that was our faith snapping in half and reason inexorably leading us to atheism. Maybe we're all left bitter or wounded in a different fashion, so each has a way of dealing with it. I'm not categorically against what they're doing: it's just not for me.

As for a replacement for the atheist community? It hadn't really occurred to me. After all, I'm not really in the market for one. I much more strongly identify with late 19th century leftist politics (libertarian anarchism, secularism) and pacifism rooted in skepticism than I do with atheism per se, let alone the "gnu atheism" that is so preponderant online. So unlike, I suspect, most members of the online mega(un)church, I'm not so much a part of the community that I'm going to feel any withdrawal. There's no void for me to fill.

PS – Since you read all that, here's your reward: http://www.youtube.com/embed/Ti3t7MAwaaM