If Only In My Dreams

For the first time in a very, very long (and long-overdue) time, I'll be spending Christmas alone. And you know what?

That is fucking awesome.

Now, granted, I wouldn't mind some female company for the holidays (and beyond), and I'd certainly like to know if I really am a father so I can celebrate with my (potential) son. But all in all, a Christmas alone, in my case, isn't that terrible a prospect. Allow me to explain.

First of all, there's the whole "reason for the season" argument. As an Atheist, of course, I'm rather opposed to the Christian definition of the modern Christmas: To celebrate the birth of Jesus of Nazareth (even though he is clearly of Bethlehem according to the ol' yarn). How many things are wrong with that? Well, if the calendar is truly "the year of our lord," then Jesus' birth would have had to occour at Midnight between 1BC and 1AD. In January. Not December. The December celebration is actually a Pagan holiday which celebrates the Solstice; it was annexed by Christianity in order to get the Pagan folk to join the club.

Of course, this is a major point of contention between myself and my family. It's of great embarrassment to me that:

A) My family actually buys into this Mother Goose horseshit, and

B) Some of them are entirely too forward (read: evangelical) about it.

It's a wonder how I stayed sane during the Holidays for so long. Maybe it was the gifts in my selfish youth, or maybe the vain hope that I might plan the seed of doubt in one of their minds. The desire to get your parents to take the red pill can give you quite a bit of willpower, but not enough to last not-quite-half a lifetime.

To counter the above sources of much facepalming, and to ease the sting of being here by myself this Christmas, I have these two rather comforting thoughts:

A) The fact that I'm away from my family means no possible arguments. Having two iron wills collide in a discussion of faith and folly is both taxing and loud, and

B) The fact that I see the seeds of rationality and free-thought in the next generation of Marie and Walter's descendants.

Silent Night indeed. Holy Night, not so much.

No, here - alone in my little box that can't hold heat worth a damn - I will sit and celebrate the Christmas of the Godless. Upon my fellow men and women of all kinds, godless or not, I wish peace and goodwill, and the hope that we can all sit down, shut the fuck up about stupid shit, and get along for a change. We're all on this rock together, and fighting over it for silly second grade reasons isn't doing us any good, so we might as well drop the bullshit and try to move forward.

Forward is the only direction you can go, but it's a difficult journey indeed when you're stuck so far back in the distant, primitive past.

This Holiday Season, I hope that Mankind - all of Mankind - can put away the grown-up Santa Claus fantasies that it clings to and matures into the species that nature meant us to be.

Godless Saviors?

I caught an episode of The Discovery Channel's The Colony for the first time last night. Nifty show. Controlled, but nifty. But it got me thinking about the broader topic of post-disaster survival.

What would happen?

I'm willing to bet dimes to dollars that Christians will flock to churches and wail to the Magic Sky Pixie to save their lives. It's what they do when they're faced with something they can't handle, really. Almost like a reflex. But that's probably not the smartest move in the world.

Given the vast majority of the United States is Christian, flocking to churches would cause the inevitable chaos of too many people, too small a space. Hurricane Katrina showed us what FEMA does with that situation. Also, if the disaster is the result of some whackjob terrorist group or rogue state, they're looking to maximize the hurt: Churches become targets.

My guess is, any person of any faith would probably do the same thing: Jews would go to temple, Muslims to the mosques, Hindus and Bhuddists to their respective houses of worship, and Scientologists to Oprah's couch. Again, you would have massive crowd issues, and would be dealing with a fanatical people screaming and yelling about the end of the world. And with a great deal of the world claiming some form of faith or another, what's left?

Who would step up and actually do something about the situation? Who's going to think with a clear and rational mind? Who will take charge and lead the way down the road to recovery? Who will try to calm people down and get them to think less with their fears and more with their common sense?

Who will work the hardest to ensure the survival of the human race?

Atheists.

That's right, folks. Godless heathens.

I honestly and truly believe that we of the Atheist mindset will have a whole hell of a lot more of the will to think straight under that much pressure. We don't have any belief system that speaks of an apocalypse (and they all do) and tells us to lay down and die. Overcoming the personal desire to panic should be a little easier without that little hang-up.

No. We understand what we are. We know that - like every last one of the other animals crawling about this ball of dirt and water we call home - we have an instinctual need to survive, and to further the species as a whole. And when the chips come down, the true faith of the Atheist will shine brighter than any halo you can paint around the head of a supposed saint: We have faith in what we are, who we are, and what we're capable of. We have faith that we will grow beyond this world and out to others. We have faith that the Human Race can become something greater than slaves to false gods and superstition. And we have faith that we can all do it together.

Atheists are Male, Female, Gay, Straight, Transgendered, Black, White, Arab, Indian, Asian, Tall, Short, Differently Able, Young, Old - in short, it doesn't matter. We don't discriminate. And when the cards are dealt and it's all-in on the river, we won't discriminate when it comes to trying to overcome the so-called "end of the world." Not even against a person of faith, the people who would think us traitors.

Humanity - and yes, the World - will endure. That is the Atheist's faith. And when the time comes, we will show you all that we aren't the evil, soulless sub-humans you seem to think we are.

All because we've managed to leave fairy tales behind. All of them...

RB338 2.0

Took a look at my ClusterMap today, and boy howdy was I surprised...


The big dot covers my local area, more or less, and the hits up the northeast coastline are fairly regular. Florida is most likely Tom, and there are a couple of possibilities for the Michigan hits that I won't discuss in detail right now. The ones that get me are:

Central Flyover States - Wow. Who's out there in the cornfields reading my crap? Cool. Guess people in the Land of Checkerboard Road Layouts actually think some of what I have to say is good enough to read. Hawesome. Welcome aboard!

Nordic Fence Sitters - Now, I don't know if any of you can tell, but those dots (yes, there are two, one is underneath and slightly southwest of the other one, it makes the border look thicker than normal) seem to sit right smack on the Straight of Denmark/Western Baltic Sea area. Is that Sweden, Denmark, or both? Whoever it is, Hi! I used to have a pen pal in Sweden, went by the name of Martina. That'd be neat if it was her, but I think she'd at least break down and leave a comment.

Sri Lanka - Say that again? Who in Sri Lanka is visiting? My inner fanboy is slaivating like a Trekkie in line to meet Shatner at the thought of maybe, just maybe, Arthur C. Clarke (who resides on Sri Lanka) has come to read my blog for some wild reason. Doubtful, but a fun thought either way. Greetings are in order no matter who it is!

Once upon a time, I had a website read by people from all over the world. I got emails and comments from all over the place (especially The Netherlands, big hello to Sjord if you're still out there, my friend!), and it was a really neat feeling. I'd like to recapture that if I could.

No matter where you're from, I highly encourage you to leave comments. Let me know where you're from, what brought you here, what you think, anything at all. People who read my senseless drivel have to be an interesting bunch. That, or you have many, many grains of salt to spare, I don't know.

The whole reason I put my life and my stories on the Internet is to share them with the world at large, or whatever small portion of it deems my stuff read-worthy. It's been an honor to have been read by such a diverse cross-section of the human race. But in order to share, you need other people. So, stand and be counted, my friends and my enemies alike.

Life is a case study in people. The more you encounter, the more you learn about what it means to be human, and to live in this day and age. People are made up of little bits and pieces of all of the other folks they encounter. From some, we adopt mannerisms. From others, stupid little sayings (thanks, Justin). Still more give us beliefs, and some give us senses of style and taste. We take these things and assemble them to create who we are as individuals, while still maintaining a sense of belonging to the greater world around us. All without really realizing it.

Some of you get something from me when you read this blog. Those of you who read, and that I know personally, have each given me something as well. It's those of you out there, beyond the confines of this backwards little Blue State, that I'm interested in learning about...