From The Crow's Nest

Arrr, mateys! If ye don't already be knowin', today be September the 19th, or International Talk Like a Pirate Day! ARRRRRRRRRRR! It be the day when Pastafarians (ed - followers of the parody "religion" involving the Flying Spaghetti Monster) o' many varieties fly the Jolly Roger and speak in the style o' our Romanticized view o' Historical Piracy.

And if ye say it be gay, then ye be walkin' the plank!

First up the mast be Grand Pirate Cap'n Wil o' the Wheaton with this'ere TLaP Day classic. Note the tiny hat an' cheery disposition. Arrrrrrrrr!


An' then there be me, photoshopped though it be. I changed me avatar on the Twitter for this day, an' this be the end result. Ahoy!


Next into the bilge is @AtheistinWA from me Twitter followin'. Of this here image, he says "See, a year and a half of Digital Design pays off! It all lead to my avatar[!]" An' what a fine avatar it be, laddie. I'll be raisin' a pint o' the ale for ye t'night!

So what're all ye lubbers doing for Talk Like a Pirate Day? Tonight, good ol Cap'n Prophyt's gonna go an' slap-n-tickle o' the wenches at the local watering hole! Have a fine holiday, an' may ye all be touched by His noodly appendage! Arrrrrr!

Out

So, are you out?

Does that question make any of you uncomfortable? Probably a few, since some of you are a bit homophobic, or maybe defensive of your sexuality for some reason. I'm not here to judge that. But when the vast majority of Americans hear that someone is "coming out," they think that someone is letting the world know that they're gay.

That's not always the case, of course,. It isn't always a sexual thing, either. In fact, coming out as a homosexual is really just the tip of the iceburg. There's all kinds of coming out! The kind we tend to focus on here is coming out as an Atheist, Agnostic, Freethinker or Secular Humanist. Off the top of my head, here are a few examples.

Trekkies - Oh yeah, you knew that was tops on this list. I'm an out Trekkie, just not the stereotypical uber-Trekkies you think of when you hear the term used. Hellz yeah I loves me some Star Trek! And there are literally tens of millions of people like me who are fans in some form or another of it. But a lot of people also ridicule the Trekkie, based on the extreme stereotype that some fans have managed to get associated with the name. It's fear of that rebuke that still keeps some Trekkies closeted, and often makes it tough for them to come out.

Furries - Every culture has a dark side, although I'm not quite sure where the Furverts fit in. I mention them because they're a very small niche culture that's often shunned, even by the somewhat-larger niche culture they tend to co-exist with. Obviously, coming out as a Furvert is on par with coming out gay, and might even be harder, given the peculiarity of the whole thing.

Potheads - Let's face it, folks: Pot is what it is, and its out there. It's legality is what keeps people in the closet, obviously, but some folks are taking a stand of some sort. Al Gore admitted during his 2000 Presidential run that he had, indeed, smoked pot, and that no one held a gun to his head. Tommy Chong? Duh. Woody Harrelson, same difference. The members of 311, pretty much any solo or group rapper out there, I can go on for days. But now Medical Marijuana is legal in some states, and some states are even decriminalizing possession and making it a summary offense instead of a major crime. Will this help? We'll see.

Male Soap Opera Fans - You know you're out there, guys. And we know why you're quiet. But we won't question your masculinity just because you like daytime serials. I can sympathize on at least one level: The stories are probably better than anything Vince McMahon has put on TV in the last 10 years. This group can also include guys who like Chick Flicks, Oprah, Lifetime, or novels with a Fabio clone on the cover. Heh heh heh. Hey Butt-head: Man-din-go! Heh heh heh...

Mainstream Religions Themselves - Depending on what part of the world you live in, people might seriously be afraid of admitting to what denomination they adhere. In some places, being Muslim isn't enough: you have to be Shia or Sunni or whatever. Some instances can even get you killed in some crazy holy scrap. Yeah, it can be that bad, even for the Mainstream religions.

And then there's us - Atheists. While America may not an 'officially' Christian nation, it is most certainly dominated by Christianity as a whole per capita. Fully 90% or more Americans probably claim the carpenter from Nazareth as their personal savior through one denomination or another, and probably 80% of those have a tendency to look down on us. To the individual Secularist, it can seem like overwhelming odds: The community at large, members of their own family, other loved ones, all some form of Christian, and all with the desire to share it.

To say words like "I don't believe" takes more courage than they can seem to muster. Coming out as an Atheist means condemnation from those that, up until you came out, once smiled and welcomed you into their lives. It means distrust simply because you don't believe in any God, let alone theirs. It means discrimination for that same reason alone. It means dirty looks, whispers behind upheld hands, and even a measure of fear of what you are, simply because you're different.

Yeah, coming out as a Secularist can be a pretty scary thing. It will mean fights with family and friends sometimes, and it will mean a whole bunch of confusion as to why they can't accept you for how you are now, even though they accepted you as you were for all these past years.

But it doesn't mean you're alone. Coming out can be like sending up a flare. It can be like standing on the deck of a carrier signaling an incoming fighter pilot. It can be like standing at the highest point available to you and saying "Hey! I'm here!"

And you know what? Someone else will see that signal. Someone else - someone who thinks very similarly to you - will hear you shouting, see you waving flags, and they will reach out and help pull you out of the fog.

Because that's how we roll. With us, it's about Humanity, and what we can do to help it along.

Remember: Ubi dubium ibi libertas - Where there is doubt, there is freedom.

And more importantly, there are friends waiting there for you, too...

Do You Really Want To Know?

So yeah, I'm surfing teh Intartubes this morning, and a strange thought crosses my mind as I'm going through my morning Tweets: All these groups of Atheists all over the place, but are there any close to home?

Teh Google, light the way in the darkness of Cyberspace...

...and show me one particularly interesting link. To save you the trouble, I'll do all the obligatory click-through nonsense to reach the final, most-recently-updated destination: Pennsylvania Nonbelivers. Aha! I knew there was at least one organization! Take that, Pat Robertson! Anyway, they have a map of organizations in Pennsylvania, and out of 52 total Counties, all of 12 have groups. 12! There are 40 Counties in my home state that lack any sort of Atheist/Humanist/Agnostic/Freethought society.

Sadly, that list of 40 includes my home of Clearfield County. Well, that sucks.

There are of course groups in Centre County: With Penn State's main campus at its core, it's hard to believe that there wouldn't be any secular groups there. How many are there in reality, though? The truth is, I'm not sure: It's either two, or one. The sure bet is the Penn State Atheist Agnostic Association - they have a Facebook page as well. The other group's site seems to redirect to some sort of "Days Until" calendar website. I checked: Yes, they DO list Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Blair County was highlighted as a candidate, too. But the first group's site redirects to the host provider, so no dice there. The second group has no site, only an email addy that indicates the group is centered at Penn State's Altoona Campus.

Two Student orgs, and I haven't been any sort of student in damn-near precisely 10 years. Plus, Altoona and State College, while not really all that far, aren't trips I can really afford to make with any regularity. Also plus, given that it IS Penn State, I'm a bit wary: While I live the Blue and White as a life-long PSU fan, that place can sometimes be a little too liberal for me. And I'm a freakin' liberal!

So, I guess there's only one thing that I can do - it's Ding-a-ding-dang my dang-a-long-ling-long. See what I get for listening to Ministry when I type? Ohy...

Anyway, seriously, I guess I don't really have much of an option. I'm just going to have to start something on my own and see what happens.

Funny thought: Christians like to think that the Magic Sky Pixie "calls" on them to do things. In a more secular light, an Atheist like me may feel like something they do is a "calling" of sorts. For years, I've known of and worked within mine: I'm an entertainer. But lately, I've been thinking that I've got another "call" to answer, and again not from God's hotline.

It's time to wake the sleeping outcasts and rally them to the soapbox...

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...

Deny Your Maker

[soapbox]

It's a well-known fact that I'm not a religious person. At all. What I've never gotten into is why I am this way. Well, the answer is simple, but it might also be a bit unbelievable, given what I'm about to tell you.

I have questioned God since the age of six.

Yep. Six. See, supposedly, I'm smart. Like scary smart. The last time I had my IQ checked legit, it came back 146. One of those internet IQ tests spat out a 142, which isn't that far off given how wildly inaccurate they are. That's the number I display on my MySpace page.

Back then, I understood alot of the concepts of life that most parents try to hide from their children as long as possible these days. By six, I could read quite well, and with my dad being a physical therapist, he had alot of basic medical and biology books in his collection.

It was in this way that I learned the nature and purpose of the act of putting on some Barry White and making sweet love down by the fire all night long to a woman you love. Awwwww, yeah!

Armed with the knowledge of where babies come from, I began to compare it to what I was hearing in Sunday School class. You see, my parents - devout Evangelical Lutherans, sadly - thought, like all other misguided souls bound to the cross, that God was the way, the truth, and the light for me. Therefore, I spent alot of time in the basement of the Faith United Lutheran Church here in Houtzdale.

There, a kind old women named Katherine taught me about the story of the nativity, the supposed devine conception and birth of one Joshua of Nazereth, who's name has been perverted over time to be phonetically spelt JEE-zus. I also learned about the 10 Commandments: God's 10 big rules to follow, and are not to be broken, lest your soul be damned to something and such nonsense.

Now, stop me if I'm wrong, but the alleged events surrounding Joshua's birth themselves violate the 10 Commandments, specifically two:

Thou shalt not commit adultry.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife.

"How," you ask, "could this possibly be so? How could the Divine Maker have violated his own laws?"

Quite simple really, all explained by rational, scientific historical study. In fact, part of this real, rational, scientific historcal study proves other nifty things, like Joshua's status as a bachelor! But I digress - here's where this kicks in.

Adultry is defined as one spouse cheating on another, or the act of being with another person's spouse.

Now, I don't care how you dress it up, how you word it, how you picture it. If someone gets pregnant, there's some sort of fucking going on there. So, God fucked Joseph's spouse, supposedly resulting in her pregnancy with Joshua.

"But hold on," you say, "Mary and Joseph weren't actually married! They were just companions!"

Sorry, but you're quite wrong again. Here comes the science:

You see, marriage as we know it today, while ages old, isn't exclusive to the realm of the big religions. Pagan rituals included coupling rites, predating Christianity. Ouch, I know, they don't like that, do they. But yes, things pre-date Christianity. And Judeism. And Islam. This is why Fundies should quit crying about gay marriage.

The word "companion," back then, was used quite widely as a term equal to spouse, husband, wife, whatever. While an official ceremony - which you blindly think is necessary - may not have happened, it was recognized that Mary was the companion - and therefore spouse - of Joseph.

So yeah, that brings us to point of contention #2: God supposedly chose Mary - whom in his divine all-knowingship MUST have known that Mary was Joseph's spouse - to carry his supposed son.

In other words, he coveted someone else's wife. And since God is supposedly everywhere, he would, in fact, be Joseph's neighbor, thus literally and figuratively violating the ever-loving heck out of that commandment.

Even in my six year old mind, this created a paradox: How can a God impose his laws on people, and yet not himself follow these same laws, thus leading by example? How can it be "Do as I say, not as I do?" How can I be expected to follow the example of a God who willfully violates his own simple rules, yet at the same time be expected to not violate them, lest I be damned?

Does not compute. Even to a six year old.

Afterwards, as I grew older, they exposed us to the more violent parts of the bible: The plagues visited upon Egypt (I thought you were supposed to love thy neighbor as thyself), the smiting of Sodom and Gommorah (I thought God said "Thou shalt not kill?"), the great flood that supposedly drowned the entire Earth, again showing no love to their sinful neighbors and killing a whole bunch, even thou he ought shalt not to. Or something.

I found myself with more questions than answers. And then, it hit me: That's what it's all about. That's how it works. It's a crutch. It's easy answers to questions that don't have any, presented in a frightful and totalitarian manner as to elicit the submission of the masses, get them all thinking on one page, and then exploiting it for finincial gain and power.

God will love you, but don't piss him off or he'll wipe you and your whole sick sinning family of the face of the Earth. But don't worry, if you're a good little sheep, he'll be a nice God and only kill the Bad People. But he doesn't want you to kill the bad people, no no. That's a sin.

Feel safe, but be very afraid. Be comforted in times of need, but be afraid.

It's a sham. A ruse. It plays on people's fear of the unknown, giving them false hope and false comfort. It's the world's oldest form of scoial engineering.

Obviously, I was a voracious reader as a kid. And thankfully, I wasn't limited to medical journals. No, I too had my share of literary classics, works of fantasy and sci-fi and historical fiction and all kinds of myths and legends.

Now, there's two interesting words: Myths and Legends. It seems that we, as a supposedly Christian society, have managed to classify certain things as being in the realm of whimsy and unbelievabilty! Imagine that!

Now, if I walked into a church and said I believed in Faeries and started clapping my hands and what not, everyone in that congregation would think I was a loony! "How silly," they'd say, "things like gnomes and faeries and the like don't even exist!" In fact, I'm pretty sure they'd have me put away.

And yet, invisible bearded men in the sky? People with wings who sing a whole bunch and live in the clouds? The dead coming back to life and achieving near-earth orbit? An evil bodybuilder with a goat's head presiding over a pit of fire and flames that exists right beneath our feet?

"Yeah, fine, come on in, we'd love to talk about it with you!"

And Christians wonder why we of the secular humanist community call them hypocrates. How can you excuse one piece of fiction as such, and yet glorify another as if it were absolute fact and truth? How can you disbelieve one fantasy, yet believe another? You simply can't have it both ways.

Myths, legends, and Bible storys all share common elements: they're all well beyond the realm of obvious reality. I just can't jibe with buying one piece of fiction and laughing the other off as whimsy. Truth is, they're both whimsy. Neither has any basis in reality.

By the time I was eight, I was demanding that my parents quit making me go to church. I was sure by then that I didn't believe in God, or Satan, or any of that rot and rubbish. It was as goofy as Sirens in a Homeric Epic, and I wasn't buying it anymore. And yet, they told me that I would have to continue to go "until you're a confirmed member of the church."

Now, by confirmed member of the church they mean thus: As was the tradition when the human life expectancy was nowhere near what it is today, people had to grow up faster. 13 was the norm back then. By then, a human child has either been through or is going through puberty, and is thus able to reproduce. Medical science being crap back then, the younger a human produced offspring, the better the chance of survival for all involved.

As is with the Jewish Bar Mitzva, Evangelical Lutheran Confirmation - both the acts of becoming an adult in the church's eyes - began when I reached the appropriate age, and I knew what I had to do.

And so, swallowing my pride and my convictions, I did everything I possibly could to make my youth leaders and pastors happy, to the point where they would ensure my confirmation as an "adult" in their little club. I memorized Bible verses. I even memorized the books of both testements, in order. Jump through the hoop and you'll get a treat.

Only the treat for me came the day I was confirmed. There, before the whole congregation, my parents beamed as I became an adult in the church. And as soon as I was handed my certificate and the ceremony declared over, I promptly turned their beaming into disappointment as I walked out of the church, laughing, never to return.

Since that day, I have professed my adamant secular humanism. Call it Atheism, call it Agnosticism, call it me being a dirty, hell-bound heathen, I don't fucking care.

What I call it is freedom. Freedom from having my mind clouded by doctrine based on fiction. Free from having my mind tainted by the hate and rhetoric spouted by the leaders of the fallacy. Freedom to see the world the way I choose, and ground that view in reality.

Freedom to be a human being who does something with the time he's given now, not worry about what happens after I've died.

I'm not concerned with being immortal. If my name lives on, so be it. But I don't have to please any invisible man in order to feel better about death. Sure, I'm afraid. But I've accepted the reality of it all.

You know. One less thing, right? I've got enough problems as it is. Religion is one that I clearly do not need. That's why I am the way I am. That's my story. One voice among a growing number of voices who are rejecting the ghosts and leftovers of our primitive past and ready to face the future unbiased and full of hope: Hope for humanity.

But apparently, all this makes me some sort of sub-human. Way to love your neighbor, Christianity...

[/soapbox]

Steering Perception, I Am

So. Why do I call myself The Lost Prophyt? Why did I choose a pen name based on a band who's only song I know is on the Need for Speed Underground soundtrack? Why did I use a Y? Why create the identity at all?

Deserves a bit of rationale, dun'it?

Alright then, here goes. Yes, the band was a bit of an influence. lostprophets rock, no doubt about it. But I've really only ever heard one of their songs, and it's fairly good, but nothing I'd burn onto a CD and jam in the car over and over. Normally, my mood determines if I keep it on the playlist in the game or not. But adding lost to prophet carries much more meaning than just that.

It's well known that I'm something of a Secular Humanist. A Prophet is a figure attached to religion. Because I could see myself as something of a (very, very, very minor) prophet, but for the human race, not for any specific deity. I don't preach the "obey" power trip like Jesus (yes, he was just a prophet) or Mohammad. In fact, I don't really preach at all. I think and speak for all our good, as a collective, IMHO. Slight societal changes, easily implimented, that could actually bring about a more well-thought out world view.

Lost plays in, given my status outside of the "norm" of the religious establishments. I am neither Christian, nor Muslim, nor Bhuddist, nor Satanist, nor Wiccan, nor Jedi, nor Pastafarian. No, to them, I'd be seen as a sort of lost soul, wandering without the love of their own chosen deity, a person to be actively "saved" to the point where you tell your own Aunt to fuck off. Yeah, I've fallen that far from the tree. Oh well. So I'm a lost sheep. Trick is, I ain't no sheep. I'm a human fucking being.

So, lost and outnumbered, I quietly spread the idea that, if we just gave up on the lunacy and corruption of religion, we might stand a chance to grow, develop, and eventually save ourselves as one collective race, not a collection of whack-job factions with delusions of superiority over the others.

Is that so bad?

Look. I don't care what happens after I die. Why should I? I'll be dead! Can't care when you're dead, right? I'm not worried about my "soul" or any such hooey-blah. Elijah Wood and Ian McKellen spelled out my basic philosophy on the silver screen in Peter Jackson's monumental Lord of the Rings Trilogy:

Frodo: I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

So true.

Who cares about what happens after. It's what you do now that counts. So, I am The Lost Prophet. I'm voicing my view, just like everyone else. Whether folks catch on or not, that's up to them. But, in the end, I just can't be silent.

And I guess some of you are reading, whether it's my secular humanistic PoVs, my often-odd video posts, funny little anecdotes from life at large, when I take a side on an important issue, or whatever. Thanks for showing up, and thanks for listening, whether you agree or not. I bid you all welcome...

And hey, a hit from Brazil... Gui, is that you?!?