atheistic certainty?

someone i respect just questioned my ability to state, “i am an atheist.” this person self-identifies as an agnostic and questioned “how atheists can be as certain as the faithful”…

here’s what i responded:

i don’t claim to “know” anything, and in that sense i suppose i am agnostic. however, i do not feel that i am on a spiritual quest and nothing supernatural has ever made any meaningful impression on me. so, in that context, claiming to be “agnostic” seems to be placing religion into a special box where it does not get treated like anything else. there is a plethora of things in which i do not believe. god happens to be one of them. rarely am i ever asked to declare where i stand on numerology, magic, psychokinesis, etc. but on facebook and in life i am asked to identify my religion. if a label is solicited atheist is mine. some atheists have recently embraced the label “nontheist” because they feel it has less stigma and seems to give off less of that “certitude” to which you refer — regardless i use either term in the simplest sense: i do not believe in a god. that does not mean i am not open to changing my mind if sufficient proof materialized.

i would prefer not to have to live in a world which defines a person largely based on religious label. i would prefer to be called a “realist” or a “rationalist” — which to me would encapsulate my rejection of gods, spirits, magic, tarot, psychics, etc.

hell! i don’t even know if animals can have emotions. i honestly do not *believe* that they do. i think we project so much onto their behaviors (some of which are instinctual, some brought about through breeding, and some learned). but i cannot say that i *know* what goes on in the mind of my beloved pet. i’m just saying that if someone asked me i would say that i do not actually believe that he loves me. i believe i love him and i believe his attitude toward me is comfortable, habituated, attuned, reliant. this is my belief and it is uncertain.

uncertainty

i noticed tonight that my ex’s facebook page says he is “in a relationship.”* shortly thereafter i defriended him. it’s not good for me to follow his life post-me.

i don’t want to wake up tomorrow. i just want to drink myself to death right now.

look, friends (and i really should never have given this web address to friends in the first place): this is what this blog is for! wallowing in emotion is the order of the day.

“uncertainty” because i really do not know anything. a few weeks ago X told me he had deleted another online profile because of unwanted attention. of course it could actually be the case that he deleted said profile because he had already entered into another relationship. anything is possible. X has never been exceptionally honest.

another thing which confused me recently is that when my mom invited X to her house for Easter (don’t ask!) he said he’d be at the beach and even attending church that day. well, since he and i were longstanding atheists i really wondered WTF that was about. i texted him several times to ask about it and never received a response.

• • •

I had a nice night tonight with great people. Earlier I had a great time at Art Walk and saw some cool stuff and talked to an interesting artist. Still, this makes me feel pretty shitty.

• • •

* also, i don’t think his facebook page ever said “in a relationship” when he was with me.

I read it in The New Yorker

Right now I’m reading two articles at the New Yorker online:

• Review of Broadway’s “The Book of Mormon” by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. The review is oddly written and seems disappointed in the lack of meaning to the musical. But I’ve learned not to expect profundity from the South Park guys. To me it is enough that they find success poking at the things they do. Like an abstract artwork, or much of the literature I enjoy, the lack of a defined point of view in their cultural product is sometimes a good thing. One great thing I got out of this review: ‘The actual Book of Mormon, whose hieroglyphs Smith “translated” while peering at peep stones in the bottom of his hat, lives up to Edmund Wilson’s estimation of it as “a farrago of balderdash.” ‘
• Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology. Haggis, Oscar-winning writer and director, publicly broke with the Church of Scientology over its poor treatment of gay people, specifically its support for Prop 8 repealing gay marriage in California. This article is over 20 pages long, so I’m going to save it for later. Lunch time!