Talking Soup

Comment here, and
1: I'll respond with something random about you.
2: I'll challenge you to try something.
3: I'll pick a color that I associate with you.
4: I'll tell you something I like about you.
5: I'll tell you my first/clearest memory of you.
6: I'll tell you what animal you remind me of.
7: I'll ask you something I've always wanted to ask you.
8: If I do this for you, you must post this in your journal.

Whee! Stolen from gurmpy.

Still working on my fanfic, but I'll be finished tonight. Would work on the powerpoint...if, yanno, people would send me their information, lol.

We're up to the last episode of Heroes with Sophia! And we've started watching Kodocha with her. God, but do I ever wish we could find a really good, subbed, non-edited version of that show, because it's so brilliant. I put the first DVD on my Netflix list--I've heard that the English version has parts edited out, but I'm hoping the Japanese version won't. Not gonna get my hopes up, though. Meh.

Tagged by calliopeeternal

List five truths. Five things that are on your mind. Good, bad, it matters not. Lift some weight off. Then pick five people to do the same.

1. I'm not angry. Why am I not angry about the things that matter? About the Iraq war? About Darfur? About hate crimes? About the fact that gay marriage still isn't legal? About the attacks on abortion rights? About abstinence-only education that has killed thousands because they refuse to hand out condoms in Africa? About the growing theocracy, not only in America but around the world? I was angry before. What's happened?

2. Not so much panic attacks themselves, but the idea of them, the fear of them, and the thought of fear itself, is still bothering me.

3. People tell me I shouldn't hate people, but I do. I can't help it. I hate fundamentalists, of any religion or type. I hate them. I fucking hate them. I also hate people who are willingly ignorant and hate facts and deny facts when they're right there in their faces--people like flat-earthers. People who live in delusions just because reality is too scary. People who refuse to see gray.

4. I have friends who are pretty much racist, and think it's okay to use derogatory terms. My brother is like this too. And every time I talk to them about it they ignore me.

5. Ithaca and California are like two completely different worlds. It's humorous and also kind of scary. I can't say things here that would be brushed off as joking in California. I can't say things in Cali that would be considered standard here.

Hm. Dunno if that really lives up to the five truths meme thingy, but oh well, they're on my mind.

There's also a sixth thing that I have to bring up. Atheism. It's been on my mind for a while now. I feel like I can't be an atheist around believers. I feel like I almost have to be agnostic. I'm talking about a joking setting--like, someone will joke about "Oh, maybe God meant this by the duckbill platypus" or something to that effect, and I'll kind of respond with something similar. And it's harmless and fun and whatever, and the thing is, if I just say, "Or there's no God," I'm a killjoy. Which I don't want to be, cause that's not what I am, and why does atheism have to be equated with "dry, yeastless factuality," as Yann Martel put it (though, actually, he was refering to agnosticism). But I'm losing my point. It's good and fine to joke about these things, but whenever I say anything that makes it sound like I believe in God, I feel like I'm kidding myself, or not being true to myself.

The fact of the matter is, I don't believe in God or the Bible or Satan or heaven or hell or any of that, and if the Bible is anything, it's a series of stories that, in some places, gives us good examples of how to live fulfilling, decent lives in which we learn to live with people instead of fighting them all the time. I think that the Earth was formed by the compression of matter over a hell of a lot of time, and that for millions of years it was much like Venus--lots of fire and noxious gases and that fun stuff--and that as everything sort of settled down, proteins combined, DNA was formed, bacteria came to be (yeah, yeah, I know--"how? spontaneously?" Who cares? Can't we have some mystery to life, huh?), to fishy things, to mammals, to apes, to humans, and all the lovely other things we've got running around on this little blue planet. I think that if you're going to believe in something, believe in people, in life, in yourself, and in the potential those things hold.

The only thing I'm kind of ambiguous about is the existence of a soul--as in, I'm not sure if consciousness persists after death or not--but that's a different story.

Jeez, this meme really set me off, didn't it? This has been on my mind for awhile, though.

I suppose the reason you can't talk about atheism because the fact of atheism presupposes that everyone who's a theist is therefore delusional. Which isn't accurate. I think you choose what to believe in. I don't really give a damn what people believe and whether it's true or not as long as we don't shove it in each other's faces, which happens to me more often than I really realized at the time, in a strictly passive and non-aggressive sense, but still. Just because I believe something, though, doesn't necessarily mean it's true. So I admit that I might not be correct in my beliefs, or lack thereof, but they're still mine to believe or not believe in. People believe in things because they want to. That's the definition of belief.

I was reading this article for Queer Studies about heterophobia, which is pretty much homosexuals who hate straight people (the title was actually "Queers Read This: I Hate Straights.") It kind of threw me at first, but now that I think about it, I can understand. The article was talking about how the authors get pissed when they see heterosexuality and hetero sex portrayed everywhere, when like a girl and guy can kiss on a sidewalk and it's nothing, but if two guys or two girls kiss it's like, "WHOA, alarm bells!" It's not quite the same for me with religion since I'm not as angry (like I said) but the thing is, Christianity is everywhere, and you can hear people talking religion on the street, but if it's atheists talking, heads turn. Or if you're with Christian friends and you say something atheistic (or whatever), some people get defensive, some just kind of go quiet and avoid looking at you or talking about it, or some engage in actual debate, which is cool. I'm not stereotyping and I'm not saying it's necessarily bad--after all, we've got what, a 90% Christian population in this country?

I guess the bottom line is, I'm starting to realize what it's like to be a minority.