Been A While

Been a while, hasn’t it? There I was, all rip-roarin’ to go. Had a few posts under my belt, was eagerly reading every blog I could and posting comments where I dared. Then suddenly: nothing. Poof. Vanished, like smoke in the wind. I turned invisible, yes, but like the God I once believed in I promised that I was still hiding somewhere in the background, waiting for the proper moment to emerge.

And the moment is now! Ha ha! Well, now-ish I guess. I can’t guarantee that any more posts will be forthcoming, but at least I’m making an effort. Not that I’ve yet developed any readership, really. A scattered few at best. Still, I press on, for after all, this blog is as much my outlet as it is for others to read.

I recall that the last time I wrote was in mid-December. It’s now almost June, which means it’s getting on toward six months. What’ve I been up to? Working. Getting my life together. In the post-college slump that I find myself in, I’ve needed to devote a lot of time to pressing matters of economic and romantic importance (which is to say, getting a job and finding a girl). Alas, I am but one man, and something had to go to make room for these other issues.

But I haven’t forgotten about atheism and what it means to me. The liberation I’ve felt in the year since I became an atheist still astounds me. No more time wasted with prayers when I could be doing something more productive. No more fear of punishment for believing the wrong thing or failing to adhere to some obscure, unknown tenet. No more guilt over trivial “sins”. Along these lines, I’ve admittedly had someone throw the “you’re pretending there isn’t a God so you can do evil things and not be punished” argument in my face. Uh, no. I don’t need your God’s rules and laws to guide me—which, I might add, are really just projections of your own ideas about what’s right and wrong—and, in fact, I never really did. Even when I was a believer, I still generally did what I felt was right, which in a few cases conflicted with what I’d been told by the Church.

I’ve had some discussions with believer friends over matters of faith and I must say I’ve held my own pretty well. Those hours spent poring over articles and blog posts were not wasted. After coming out as an atheist, I thought I’d be under assault from all sides, but surprisingly that wasn’t the case. Most people either didn’t notice, didn’t care, or were too afraid to bring it up. Regardless, only one friend actually rang me up and gave me the third degree about it. That was an interesting evening. I think we’ve reached a bit of a standoff: she thinks I had a bad experience in college and I’ll come back to the faith in five or ten years, and I think she’s so desperate to believe in some kind of higher power that she’ll redefine “God” to slip and squeeze out of any logical sleeper hold I might wrassle him into. And that’s fine. Whatever she wants to do.

This entry has been a bit… rambling. Apologies. Guess I’ve just got a lot on my mind, and no focus whatsoever. I won’t swear that another entry is on the horizon… but I think my non-faith will become a matter of greater interest to me in the near future, and perhaps that will motivate me to write more. We’ll see.