Insert Title Here [ Agtheism ]

Hey guys/girls/hermaphrodites.  I don’t really have a topic today (hence the title, though I may actually insert one once I finish this), so I’m just gonna talk about my day and see where I end up.  Should be good times.

Alright.  Day started with Ancient Philosophy.  Knee-slappin’ topic eh?  We talked about Socrates and some of his beliefs, including his thesis that human beings can do nothing bad (harm) willingly.  At first this seems counter-intuitive; everyone has willingly done something they believed is wrong before, right?  We’ve all hit that bong one extra time, or had one too many drinks, or punched that asshole in the face (yes, I know he deserved it, but it’s still harming someone).  Socrates would argue something along the lines of “if you committed the action, you obviously didn’t think it was legitimately wrong, for your rationality would prevent you from doing the action if you TRULY believed it was wrong”.  Fun stuff eh?  I’ll end the Socrates talk here.

Anyway, this class was tough for me this morning for a variety of reasons, which can be boiled down to one cause: I am quitting smoking.  By smoking I mean weed and cigarettes.  This is causing me to be kind of fidgety.  It is also causing me to lose lots of sleep and be unable to eat properly, especially in the morning.  Seeing as this class was at 10am (I know I know, not THAT early, but when you can’t fall asleep till 3am and wake up every hour until 7am, at which point its impossible to fall back asleep, it sucks) I was kind of out of it.  So much so that I was actually having dizzy spells.  Good times.  I forced some food into me, finished the class, and moved on to write an essay outline, which was due Wednesday of this week.  Whoops.  I do kind of have an excuse though; quitting this shit isn’t exactly easy, and I’m not really all the motivated to do stuff at the moment.  I don’t think I’ve half-assed an assignment as bad as I did this one, at least this year.  Oh well, it’s only an outline; I’ll get feedback and then make the essay better.

After that I came home for some food and watched a bit of Enemy at the Gates with my roommate.  Good movie that one, but I had to cut it short to hit the gym.  Fuck does the gym suck when you haven’t been going consistently for months.  It’s just pain.  Pain which ends up feeling good later on (you know, like when you look in the mirror), but pain nonetheless.  After that I went to see a guest speaker at the lecture hall: Christopher DiCarlo.  He is a philosopher who recently published a book call “How to Become a Really Good Pain in the Ass”.  This was put on by the Atheist society at Trent (oh shit, I said the A word).  Before we go any further, I should probably tell you that I am, to quote Christopher, an “agtheist”.  This means that I don’t believe that any religion in the world has gotten it right, but I leave room for there to be a creator (like an agnostic), for clearly we haven’t been able to determine BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT how the universe came into existence.

Anyway, he talked about how the world is getting more and more fucked up (I’m paraphrasing a tad) because we are no longer having rational discussions about our beliefs.  It is considered taboo to discuss things like religion, politics, etc. with friends and family.  This is out of fear of offending someone, and trust me when I say that, as an “agtheist”, I offend a lot of people when I talk about my beliefs.  So I often bite my tongue when I’m in a situation where there are people with strong religious beliefs surrounding me.  I kind of feel like my beliefs are constantly under attack by literally EVERYONE who does not share them.  Whether you’re Muslim, Christian, Jewish, or whatever else, you can all agree on one thing: we atheists are fucked.  If only we could see “the truth” they say, we would understand.  Listen, I see the truth all around me.  It’s called the physical world.  And in the physical world there are some rules which govern how things work, known as laws of physics.  How these laws came into being?  I don’t know.  But I see no evidence supporting there being a God who created these.  I also see a LOT of evidence which points to the fact that the world is NOT 6000 years old, that humans evolved from a species of ape, and that being gay is not a choice.  So I take this evidence and use it to my advantage.  That is not to say that I ABSOLUTELY, 100% believe that this is the way things are.  Can you really ever be 100% about anything?  There’s always got to be a little room for doubt.  Thus I love to have conversations with religious people.  I am NOT out to prove you wrong; I’m just trying to make you think a little more about what it is you believe.  For if you don’t question your beliefs, how can you be sure that they are correct?  I am just looking for the answers, like religious individuals, but unlike them, I don’t place my faith all in one place.  I guess the only real faith I have is in myself and my ability to think rationally (most of the time) about the happenings around me.

Wow, my argumentation is terrible this evening.  I’m really glad this is just me rambling and not an essay, as this would be a FAIL.  Whatever, let me know what you think of all this crap.  I could always use more information and more perspective.