Radio and podcasts and such.

I have a morbid fascination with Christian talk radio. My mom listens to it on our morning commute, so it doesn't particularly bother me... until they start talking. The singing I can deal with, the talking makes me want to swallow a brick.

These Christians... they're fucking nuts. When I was a Christian, these are the type of guys I'd brush off and try not to associate myself with. They just... assume that everyone who is NOT a right-wing evangelical is out to get them. Like, everything a non-evangelical does is for the sole purpose of bringing down the Christians and intruding upon the First Amendment rights of Christians and so on and so forth, and it's all nonsense.

And the worst part is that they ice their little act with these sickly sweet, fake-ass personalities. Okay, example, these two guys were talking about how Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor are atheists and That's A Shame. Clown Number 1 is like "Apparently Dan Barker is an ex-evangelical turned atheist, which is really quite awful. I don't understand how that possibly could have ever happened. It makes no sense at all, hyuck."

Clown Number 2 then adds, "And Annie Laurie Gaylor is apparently his wife... it's strange; they're husband and wife, but their last names are different." And of course that last sentence is just dripping with condescension, because a wife is supposed to take her husband's last name no matter what, and that's Just How It Is. And they top it all off with this gem:

"Please, take a few minutes out of your day to pray for these atheists and blah blah blah insert regurgitated Christian love phrase here."

I really need to stop listening to this stuff... but I'm attracted to things that make me angry, I guess.

Anyways, the main point of this post is to plug some podcasts that I've gotten into recently. I've never really been a big podcast person, but my summer job of filing paperwork at a health clinic is unbearable if I don't have something engaging to listen to. So here we go, the podcasts that keep me from gouging my eyes out at work:

1. Atheist Experience. Of course, who doesn't listen to the Atheist Experience? I started listening when I found that music was not enough to entertain me on the 5-hour drive to my boyfriend's place. Definitely some good stuff. I've found, though, that I'm mostly interested in listening to the hosts' conversations, and not so much the viewer calls. The theist callers to the show tend to bring up the same points over and over and over again, and the atheist callers tend to, um, overstay their welcome and get really wordy. And errbody be off-topic. But anyways, love these folks.

2. The Good Atheist. Okay, this one is probably my personal favorite. I pretty much love everything about this podcast. It's funny, and I learn a lot, and the host (Jacob Fortin) is a bit of dick but a lovable dick, because he says what we're all thinking but are too scared to say. I've listened to about 10 or 15 of these podcasts so far, and they're good listening for the office. Really funny, but not SO wildly, insanely funny/goofy/irreverent that I start laughing to myself in the corner of my shared office and giving the gossipy nurses something to talk about.

3. The Grapes of Rad. This is one of those wildly, insanely funny/goofy/irreverent ones. I can barely listen to this one at work anymore because I laugh far too much. It's not specifically about atheism, but they did do this one really great podcast on religion with the creator of StuffChristianCultureLikes.com. I'm still not too sure about the religious beliefs of the two hosts. I've gathered that they were both heavily involved with church in the past, but not so much anymore? I dunno. Anyways. None of that matters because this shit is hilarious.

A brief rant and apology.

So sorry for the lack of updates, guys. I'm not blog material, I guess. I have faith, though, that none of you were on the edge of your seats in anticipation of my next post, so... :] I think we're all good.

Anyways... a few observations about being "out" around my family and friends:

1. As far as I'm aware, I've only lost 2 friends. One of them I was very close to. She's on the road to becoming a foreign missionary, and--after a brief period of awkwardly dancing around each other and really really badly-faked friendliness, she has removed me from her friends list on Facebook (main line of communication right there) and made it clear she wants nothing to do with me. I understand I guess... she's just doing what the Bible (more specifically: John Piper) tells her to. She's always been intensely serious about Christianity, and even when I was a Christian we clashed... a lot. I hate to assume the worst... but I'm guessing she's written me off because I'm a damn dirty atheist and she's a golden glorious missionary. (Let's not even get into talking about what a missionary's "job" is...) The other is a guy I used to be fairly close to, now an acquaintance barely worth mentioning. Definitely no biggie there.

I spent one sleepless night worrying my little head off about it, but then I realized... screw those guys! I will sleep well tonight knowing that I'm being 100% true to myself, instead of being a pussy for a little bit of validation from some so-called friends.

2. My mom and I agreed to disagree in matters concerning her religion and my atheism... she subsequently dug through my things and found a couple trial issues of Freethought Today (what I like to call "aggressively atheist"), and flipped out, banning all atheist materials from the house.... I've found that her idea of respect is rather one-sided. We listen to appalling amounts Christian radio when we are in the car together, and she recently made a kind of rude comment about atheists in front of my fanatically Christian aunt (who we were staying with at that time). I seethed silently, rather than defend myself and get kicked out of the house.

She also brings up demons and ghosts a lot. Fear of the supernatural is something I really struggled with when I was a believer, and I feel like she's trying to use that against me in an attempt to get me to return to the faith. She told me that she saw a "big black shadow" walk into my bedroom at about the time I became an atheist, but that I shouldn't be scared because she thinks it was God's way of telling her to watch out for me.

It's all so... manipulative and passive-aggressive, and when I try to defend myself then I become the villain. I am more than willing to drop the subject and never ever ever talk religion with my mom ever again... I guess the ball's in her court.

Anyways, over the next few days I'll be cleaning up the blog a bit... deleting and revising some of my cringe-worthy posts, maybe making the layout a little nicer, stuff like that. I'm also going to try to start posting a little more regularly... no promises, though. ;]

The atheists are coming...

So, just yesterday a senior at the public high school in my hometown declared that he did not want prayer at graduation... and that he would contact the ACLU if there were prayer. Well, the school has removed the prayer from the program and replaced it with a "moment of silence"... which, I think, is a great substitution that is respectful of the beliefs and non-beliefs of everyone who may be in attendance...

But it's not good enough for the folks of North Louisiana! This student has received multiple threats (some of them death threats). He's also had a terribly biased newspaper article written about him (that made the FRONT PAGE)... The town is in shambles, and many Christians are planning to rally and recite The Lord's Prayer during the moment of silence.

Let me repeat: the student is receiving DEATH THREATS. Christians showing off their "Christian love" once again!

I hate Louisiana. I'm surrounded by people who don't understand (or care about) the Constitution. Also, I've never seen so much hate in all my life. It seriously makes me ill.

Some linkage for you guys:
'Student challenges prayer at Bastrop graduation' - article from our local newspaper (the finest example of nonbiased journalism I ever did see)
Rock Beyond Belief's blog entry about this issue

In other news, my boyfriend has been here for the past few days to shield me from being completely alone with my parents now that I'm out... I'm pleased to report that things are going a lot better than I thought they would. :]

I'll be alone with my parents tonight but my mother's already decided that as long as we treat each other with respect there's no reason to keep talking about it... and I agree!

The Best of the Bible Belt: T-Shirt Edition

There is a certain t-shirt company with a prolific following here in north Louisiana... they make shirts using the timeless combination of jarringly bright colors (lime green, hot pink, gouge-my-eyes-out-with-a-spoon orange, etc) and ridiculous, "country girl" catchphrases... Here are just a few:

I'm a 4-wheeler ridin', mud-slingin', camo-wearin' kinda girl!

If I can't wear my flip-flops I ain't goin'!

Pink ain't just a color, it's an attitude!

I'm a Bible totin', Devil stompin', faith walkin' kinda girl!

I'm a cell phone talkin', text messagin', Facebook chattin', southern sassin' kinda girl!

CINDERELLA IS PROOF THAT A PAIR OF SHOES AND A REALLY CUTE GUY CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE OMG LOLZ. (Ok, so the caps-lock and the "OMG LOLZ" is mine--but you get the picture, right?)

Every time I see one of these t-shirts (which is at least a few times a day), I imagine Paula Deen reading the ridiculous sayings plastered on them and then I get all pissy because these shirts are one of the few things that can really set my blood boiling. I know it's totally irrational, but it's just one of my pet peeves. I've never seen less thought put into designing clothing. Their typical formula: I'm a blank blankin', blank blankin', blank blankin' (repeated ad nauseum) kinda girl!


And the worst part is that everyone loves these shirts. Everywhere you go,  these shirts are clinging to girls in ratty flip-flops and Daisy Dukes. Them down-home, corn-fed, Jesus lovin' country girls eat this shit up!

I want to special order one just for me in radioactive cyan blue that proudly proclaims: I'm an evolution lovin', knowledge seekin', deity disbelievin' rational kinda girl (complete with a bedazzled picture of Charles Darwin that looks like a pixie threw up on it)... But somehow that sounds even more ridiculous than the shirts they actually do offer for sale (but just barely).

Okay, rant over. I just needed to get that out of my system haha. :] Console me, and tell me that Louisiana isn't the only state with an overabundance of these terrible t-shirts?

Tough Decisions

Today marks three beautiful months that I've been dating my best friend. :] I know that's not very long, but he and I have been an inseparable force since middle school so I'm allowed to be a big sappy sap over this.

Since I finally came to the conclusion that I'm an atheist, I've had to do some tough things. As many of you who've deconverted from theism know... it's about the farthest thing from easy, especially if most of the people you know--most of the people you love--are theists. But you know what? I've done the hard things anyway because I've recently developed an extremely low tolerance for bullshit, especially the bullshit that spews out of my own mouth. I believe I can thank my atheism for that, haha.

So I sucked it up, and I told my hardcore Christian best friend that I didn't believe in god anymore. And yeah, sending him a Facebook message to let him know was probably a bit of a cop-out on my part, but hitting that send button was freakin' tough. And I did the same thing to the college minister to let him know that I was utterly incapable of continuing my involvement with the college ministry's leadership team. And it sucks, because I feel like I'm burning bridges... but that's definitely better than lying to myself and to everyone else.

I straight up tattled on my sorority for hazing. The new girls were being physically, mentally, and psychologically tortured by the old girls. And there it is again: that BS that I'm not gonna put up with any longer.  NO ONE deserves to be treated like that and no one should have to prove anything to some snooty witch with a god-complex.

I'll say this for myself: since I've embraced my atheism I've grown a pair. >:] And I like it!

Last night when all of this went down, I felt so alone. I laid down in my bed and thought about how easy it would be to believe in god, that me ratting out my sisters was part of god's "divine plan for my life," and that his hand was on me in my time of need. I fell asleep kind of upset.

When I woke up this morning I felt amazing, because you know what? I made the right choice, on my own. I didn't have to lean on god for support, I didn't use the "divine plan" cop-out as my reasoning to make a hard choice. I made a hard choice because I thought critically about what was going on (hazing), who was being hurt (innocent girls who are stressed enough already), and the best way to fix the problem (report it to someone with more power in the organization than myself).

So, you know what?! BAM.

Sorry if this post seemed a tad... angry, I'm just so full of feelings! :]