Friday, November 23, 2012

Born Again


I’ve studied all the great philosophers and I’ve decided my favorite philosopher is Henny Youngman. And my favorite Henny Youngman quote is,I once wanted to become an atheist, but I gave up - they have no holidays.”

Professor Youngman makes an excellent point. How come the atheist activists you see on the news fighting against stuff like public nativity scenes always seem so dour? Atheists ought to have parades and celebrations just like everybody else.  Atheists have a lot to celebrate. Being a born again atheist feels quite liberating. It’s like finding yourself suddenly debt free. And you can stop worrying about silly shit like whether or not life is meaningless. Who cares? Even if you determine that life itself is meaningless, that doesn’t mean your life therefore has to be meaningless, too. It’s not an undertow. If staring at a piece of concrete all day gives your life meaning, then your life isn’t meaningless. You’re free to find meaning in whatever you want.

And who says born again atheists can’t believe in miracles? Inside my skull is this grayish glob. It looks like a head of cauliflower or a hunk of putty sent through a meat grinder. Inside this glob there are constant thunderstorms going on.  This glob barks out orders all day and all night. It never takes a break. It’s telling me to write this right now. And this glob is so damn demanding. It insists on a constant supply of oxygen and if it doesn’t get it, even for a few minutes, it will shut this whole operation down. There’s this other blob of membranes in my chest. It beats and beats and it never stops, all in the loyal service of pleasing the tyrannical glob. The beating blob is the slave shoveling coal into the furnace. Someday it will become too fed up or exhausted to continue.

The point is, all that is a fucking miracle.

And there’s also a certain sense of relief that comes with acknowledging the indifference of the universe toward humans. Suppose a tornado blows away your hometown. If you are the center of the universe and the point of all creation, then you have to wonder what you did to piss off the universe so bad that it blew away your hometown. But if the universe is indifferent, you don’t have to torture yourself like that because you know that whatever happens, it’s nothing personal. It’s all just business.

But what if atheists did come out to the point where they had some kind of big atheist holiday celebration on the scale of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, balloons and all? It might be dangerous.  I’ve always been tempted to conduct an experiment. First I’ll buy a battered, rusted wreck of a car. But I won’t drive it anywhere. I’ll park it and put vanity license plates on it that say ATHEIST of even 8THEIST.  And then I’ll see how long it is before the windows are broken or the tires are slashed.

An atheist holiday might cause a riot.

13 comments:

  1. Hey, anyone tweeted by Roger Ebert is worth a look. I love your blog.

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  2. Darwin's sea voyage began on Dec.27th. Beaglestide?

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  3. But then Hallmark and Walmart would get involved and start commercializing it. The day before Ateist Holiday you would be all stressed out with last minute gifts. Someone would write some idiotic piece about the True Meaning of Atheist Holiday, and kids in school would have to memorize it. Then there would be a lawsuit about how the Statue of Charles Darwin cannot be allowed in the public park. And worst of all Fox News would start whining about the War on Atheist Holiday.

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  4. I conquer. We atheists do have much to celebrate--but we don't have any good holidays. I think we all should put more of our weight behind labor day and may day and pagan holidays like the solstices.

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  5. Haha, DK Fennell! Indeed. I agree that solstices/equinoxes and dates of historical (scientific) significance would be a good place to start. We celebrate Pi day in our house, as well.

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  6. The angry atheist shown on the news are the equivalent of liberty activists who walk around topless in parks to make a point.

    The media shows what will get their viewers fired up and in idiocracy America, that is the knuckleheads.

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  7. ” Holidays” were secular before religion hijacked them...so let's celebrate them and take them back!

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  8. Thank god for atheists! :-))

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  9. Every day is an atheist holiday!
    http://www.amazon.com/Every-Day-Atheist-Holiday-Magical/dp/0399161562

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  10. Hey, there! Whoa! Of COURSE atheists deserve holidays, but the Pagan holidays that certain of you are so blithe about glomming onto already _belong_ to us Pagans, thankyousomuch. The Xtians are bad enough about swiping our holidays. You don't really want to model your behavior on the Xtians, do you?

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  11. Steve Martin's help on atheist music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFWA1A9XFi8

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  12. I'm a part-time Atheist and full-time Unitarian, of the Pagan persuasion. I like Solstice. You don't have to take it on faith, it's astronomy.

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  13. I've always kind of thought of Christmas as an atheist holiday.

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