Diary of a Teenage Atheist

If not “awesome,” then at least ridiculously funny.

Not even the Almighty Creator is immune from finding some of the shit in this (Godforsaken? Hee) world annoying, so He’s decided to create a blog about it. Over at Stuff God Hates, nobody’s safe from His Wrath. God takes potshots at cats, Africa, Patrick Swayze and anal sex. Reading and having a good laugh about The Good Lord’s hatred is enough to brighten my day, even, which goes to show you that the guy is simply divine. (I’d say “fabulous,” but I don’t think He’d like that too much.)

Some of my favorite God quotes:

“And I’m a big, big fan of the current guy, Pope Benedict XVI. He’s My kind of Pope – tough like a marine but crazy like a ninja. Way better than the last guy, old Whats-His-Face-Whiny-Bitch II. Trained by the Nazis to be a stone cold killer when he was just a boy, Benedict still keeps his Hitler Youth knife tucked safely under his pillow when he sleeps. Like I said, My kind of Pope.”

“Oh! How I wish humans could be more like dogs! They are decent, obedient, and love you unconditionally without question – even if you beat them. They set a great example.”

“I and I alone, The Sovereign Lord God Almighty, was responsible for every phase of [the September 11, 2001 attack]  – the planning, the flying, the blowing shit up – that was all Me! And quite frankly, I’m sick of other people getting the credit. I mean, what the hell do I have to do? I even posed in the smoke for you people and what do you do? You give the credit to Satan. ARGGH!”

“I’M COMING FOR YOU WITH MY CHERUBIM AND MY FLAMING SWORD AND I’M GOING TO SMITE YOU SO FRICKING HARD!”

Hee, I love that God says “frick,” like Elliot from Scrubs.

“Some of you might be thinking, wait, wasn’t it Jesus Christ who got crucified and not God the Father? Well technically, yes. But the thing you have to remember is that Me and My Son Jesus, we’re actually the same person! I know it sounds kinda schizophrenic and deranged, but it’s true! See, there are three parts of My Personality: The Angry/Vengeful Father, The Loving/Naive Son, and The Confusing/Lazy Holy Spirit. If you don’t know what that last one is, it’s kind of like the black smoke from Lost.”

Best TV analogy ever.

“I’m going to use all My Godly Powers to make sure [Hillary Clinton] loses the only thing she’s ever cared about (becoming Emperor) to some smiley-faced black guy who can talk pretty.”

Now, I’m a huge Barack Obama supporter, but my favorite part about that quote is not that He’s smiting Hillary, but “smiley-faced black guy who can talk pretty” is a hilariously spot-on description.

The Big Papa in the Sky probably still hates me for, well, being an atheist, but either way, I still love this blog. Angry God of this Blog, I love You in a Roberto Benigni kind of way.  Stuff God Hates gets a big two-thumbs-up from the Teen Atheist.

I can’t wait for the day when God takes on Apple and Steve Jobs.

Hi. My name’s Emily and I’m 14. I’ve been athiest for about a year. I haven’t told my parents, and I still go to church with them. I don’t have the heart to tell them. Anyway, I’ve found one other atheist, my best friend. All of my other friends are very religious. I’m afraid to tell them, because a few will probably dump me right off, but I really want to keep them as friends. I want to tell them, but it will get spread around school, and I see what happens to others. I always stay out of religous discussions. What should I do?

Well, Emily, you might be asking the wrong person about this, because I’m not one of those very vocal, “I’m an atheist and everyone knows it!” types. But since you asked, I’ll give you my perspective.

As I’ve mentioned before, I follow a “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy when it comes to my atheism, except when the person is very close to me and I can feel that he or she wouldn’t turn on me upon finding out. I’m not ashamed of my atheism, mind you, it’s just very annoying to have to be armed with counters to various inane arguments all the time (”Then where did the universe come from?” “That’s just a phase, right?” “Why is this world that we live in so beautiful?” and other fun crap). There’s also the risk of making your relationship awkward with whoever it is you’re talking to. Even with people you’ve just met, like what happened with me a week ago at a movie premiere:

TA: “I think this movie would appeal to all denominations. I mean, I’m an atheist and I’m totally interested in seeing this.”

Elderly Woman: “Ah.”

TA: “And what did you say your job was again?”

Elderly Woman: “I’m an organizer at our local parish.”

TA: “I see. Cool.”

[awkward silence ensues; TA and Elderly Woman eventually excuse themselves to go talk to other people]

Let me tell you, though, it’s very liberating to be open about your beliefs, which is why I’m slowly becoming more confident in discussing my atheism with others. I think that’s what you could do, too. You don’t have to have a big “Coming Out” party or anything, just try to work your way into becoming more comfortable about your beliefs.

If you feel like your friends will reject you for being an atheist, you don’t have to tell them just yet. You can approach the friends you feel closer to and try to get a feel of how they might react; for example, you could start by asking them about their thoughts on religion and atheism. This is actually what I did with my religious friend, Martha (”How do you feel about atheists?”), and that went pretty well. I also told my friends from school about my atheism after a long discussion on religion (I had a post here, around November 2007, but I deleted it by accident. *cries*).

I don’t want to resort to cliches here, but I do believe you’ll know the right time when it comes. It’s when you feel like there are a million things you’d rather do with your sixty minutes than go to Mass with your parents. It’s when your upper lip starts to twitch when your friends all agree that “all fags should go to hell.”

It’s all a matter of priorities, Emily. If you feel like preserving your friendships at the expense of keeping your beliefs hidden is the better idea, no one’s stopping you. If you can’t stand it anymore and you feel like you need to speak up, that’s okay, too. There is no right or wrong answer here, it’s completely dependent on what you feel would be better for you.

Let me know how it turns out! And if you feel like my advice isn’t enough, feel free to browse through the comments section, because my readers usually have better ideas than I do.

M’kay? Seriously, this office is TMI Central. I’m just a kid, let me flounce around in my weirdo outfits and devil-may-care grin without having the weight of your problems on my shoulders. Don’t you hate it when people tell you shit without you asking for it?

Just when I’d forgotten about my problems with Carl and Mrs. Carl (he quit, by the way — and oddly enough, I kind of miss him), Nikki comes into the picture with an issue of her own.

22-year-old Nikki (named after, yes, the song “Darling Nikki”) is the girl in your office who will stop at nothing to draw attention to herself. Some will be greatly annoyed (dude, nobody likes Nikki), while others, like me, only feel sorry for her. Just some silly girl with a histrionic personality disorder, is all. She’s essentially the office whipping girl, to the point that it drove her to tears once.

Still, it’s not like the derision is completely unfounded. Nikki would proclaim to anyone who asked that she used to model on the catwalk (still does part-time, supposedly), and everyone else would be like “…Really?” And I’d be one of those people. I’m not trying to be mean here, but Nikki, who might be model-ish from the neck down, is Broomhilda from the neck up. No kidding. She’s all splotchy and blemished and crooked-nosed, the kind of ugly that isn’t even modelesque ugly but just plain ugly ugly. She also brags about having expensive clothes, but when you ask her which outlet she got it from, she takes ten seconds to respond and then gives a wrong answer (read: she’s making it up). Nikki is the annoying kind of person who wants everyone to think she’s well-off, but it’s clear to everyone that she’s, well, not.

Let’s get one thing straight, though: unlike many of my co-workers, Nikki is not a bitch. The girl means well, she’s just a little off her rocker.

One day after hours, everyone else has gone home and it’s just me and Nikki, so I chat with her because I’m not picky about who I befriend. I’ll talk to whoever approaches me. She confessed that the pressure of everyone talking about her behind her back was really getting to her, particularly the latest gossip that she’s supposedly going out with one of our bosses, Kyle, even though he already has a girlfriend.

Now, weeks before my one-on-one with Nikki, I’d already spoken to some of my other (admittedly bitchy) officemates about her. One of them told me the whole situation, explaining that Nikki had a huge crush on Kyle and was now lying to people by claiming that they were in some secret relationship.

Back to where I left off, Nikki was like, “I can’t believe people would make up stuff like that, just for fun.” As a target of their rumor-mongering myself (I apparently have relationships with a couple of the bosses and several of my guy officemates), I just shrugged and explained that it was their nature to do that kind of thing.

Half an hour later, we’re standing outside the building, and she asked, “TA, are you good at keeping secrets?”

“Sure, yeah.”

“I have to tell you something,” she confessed. “But you have to swear not to tell anyone.”

“I won’t.”

She got this weird expression on her face. “…It’s true.”

(more…)

Ooh, an atheism-related post! Finally!

Many might find it condescending that I refuse to get into debates with theists, or that I immediately delete anti-atheist comments on this blog. Then again, I never said it wasn’t.

I’ve recently come across the perfect example to show you all exactly why I refuse to dignify theism-laden arguments with a response. The main reason is that I hate it when they drop by our blogs to lay on the stupid, because we don’t drop by their blogs and write crap about theism. At least, I hope not, y’all.

Cleverly Disguised Theist (CDT for short) left a comment on my blog one day, and because he didn’t once mention theism in it (although it was still a dumb and condescending comment), and because a lot of his blog posts are tagged “atheism,” I assumed he was just the special “pretentious” brand of atheist.

Before I move on, please be aware of two things: 1) I’m not leaving a link to CDT’s blog because I don’t want you guys to up his view count, so no matter how curious you are (or if CDT drops by and leaves a comment), please don’t encourage the stupid or give him more “atheists are big meanies!” fodder; and 2) if you have any comments on the “logic” of his arguments, or if you have anything to say to him, leave it here. He’s one of those theists that likes to drop by atheist sites to angry up the blood, so I’m sure he’ll come across this post and be like “Satan strikes again!”

Anyhoo. It all started when he called me condescending and ageist (two things I may or may not be, I don’t really care to figure it out). I wrote a response, he wrote something unintelligible which I didn’t bother responding to:

Then he blogged about this exchange, because I guess he thought he was being clever? Something about how people were insulting his beard and waah, I called him a dipshit and yada yada. I said:

I was like, “Noncondescending? LULZ.”

I thought he was just being sarcastic, because I was still under the assumption that he was an atheist.

This only confused me further, because apparently he believed in Satan? And like, I’m the one with no argument (”your statement is condescending because [reasons]” = valid argument, FYI), while his retort of “Satan has got a hold of you” is “perfectly logical”? Something wasn’t right here. I didn’t bother replying, because why should I when he’s just saying weird, nonsensical things? (Even though I wanted to say, “Please don’t insult logic by using that word to describe your argument.” Oy, gevalt.)

Then I re-read his “About” page, and he lists himself as a “Christian.” So it kind of irked me that he kept tagging his posts “Atheism,” because ugh, so totally piggyback-riding, you know? Well, haters are haters.

And I admit, I was probably being totally condescending when I exclaimed, after finding out that he was a Christian after all, “Oh, that’s why! Well, I’m glad. At least I can stop wondering, ‘Since when did atheists get this stupid?’ now.” But, condescending or not, I dare you to prove me wrong. The stupidity was rooted in the belief, wasn’t it?

All in all, it was a big waste of my time. Had I known that CDT was a theist — and not just a theist, but an anti-atheist theist — I wouldn’t have bothered responding in the first place. Because, as I have said in my disclaimer: the whole atheist vs. theist thing never goes anywhere.

It’s not a matter of only choosing to argue with atheists. I’ll argue with anyone, believer or not, but once you start bringing Jesus and Satan into your arguments, that’s a dealbreaker right there. Logic only, please.

[Note: May I remind you all: please do not make any attempts to visit CDT's site. It would be a huge disservice to me. All opinions go in the comments section of this blog post. Thanks, y'all.]

This is steadily rocketing up to the top of my Statements That Annoy Me the Most list, simply because I hear it almost every single fucking day now from various co-workers:

You’ll understand when you’re older.

Like when I told Gina, 34, that I was planning on being one of those never-gonna-get-married types, like Oprah or Susan Sarandon. “You’re still young, you’ll understand the importance of settling down and getting married when you’re older.” Or when I told Stella, 45, that I loved this job too much to quit and go back to college like everyone else (her included) tells me to. “You’re still young, you’ll understand the importance of education when you’re older.” (I get it just fine, retard, I just want to get used to my job first and then go back to college when I feel ready.) And I’m the only one in the office who gets this crap thrown at me, because I’m apparently the wunderkind there. Whenever I’m introduced by co-workers to new people, it’s never just “This is my officemate, TA.” It always, always has to be, “This is my officemate, TA. She’s only 18!”

I wouldn’t even be entirely surprised if I profess to being an atheist and somebody replies, in that preachy, sanctimonious way that I hate so very much, “You’re still young, you’ll realize the existence of God when you’re older.”

It’s like 18-year-olds are completely incapable of making their own huge-ass decisions. These moments just make me want to stand on my desk and scream, “I’m eighteen, not fucking five!”

This is why I felt a little sad about having to cross Carl off my list of friends; even though he was kind of annoying anyway, he was one of the few people who treated me like an equal, not some little kid who needed wiser, older people to show her the ways of the world.

It all goes back to what I said before: Patronize us, and we’ll be equally patronizing right back at you. Make us feel smart, and we’ll take everything you say to heart.

Then again, maybe it’s just my hyper-bloated ego? I mean, I feel like I’m ten times smarter than these assholes, anyway (dude, Annie’s 27 and acts like she’s 12, and even she gives me that “when you’re older” horse shit), and they just feel the need to be all preachy with me because they want to make themselves feel superior to someone. Hell, I even think I’m smarter than my parents, so there you go.

I mean, do my co-workers also expect me to address them as “Ma’am” and “Sir” just because they’ve got ten years on me? (Our company has a “First name basis” policy, which also applies when talking to to superiors.) As long as Dipshit McFuckface and I are working in the same position, doing the same things for the same amount of money, he has no right to expect special treatment from me. It’s ageist. (Not that I’m not ageist myself, but anyway.)

Mind you, this little problem is not driving me to the brink, though. Yet. I’m perfectly willing to suffer the crap, if only for the equal amount of “Wow, you must be really smart then!” comments I get from people. Because like I said, I have a ginormous ego.

[Apologies in advance for the number of non-atheism-related posts recently. If I limited my blog to experiences pertaining to my beliefs, this blog would be waaay thinner. This is most likely because I haven't interacted much with my sanctimonious, preachy Mother Dearest since I started working, and god damn it, I love working!]

I realized in the fourth grade, while pondering on the ways of the world with a couple of friends, that anyone who claims that “Looks don’t matter” is a fucking liar. Of course they matter, and I honestly don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

We were strange children. Hee.

When I say looks matter, I don’t mean that we should only go for the Adonises of the world, because that’d leave a helluva lot of lonely people. I only mean that it’s natural for people to want to be with those whom they are attracted to. Appearances are not the end-all-be-all, but they certainly do matter. Not just in romance, but in all sorts of interactions: from my experience, people are nicer to me if I wear something pretty and show a little leg.

In case you were wondering, I’m discussing this because an experience this past week had me thinking about how shallow I truly am. The experience happened on Wednesday morning, with 50-something divorcee Murray.

Before I continue, let me give you a brief description of Murray, whom I’d mentioned in my last post as the co-worker who gave an unsolicited lecture to me and fellow atheist Carl. That TL;DR moment aside, Murray and I had a pretty good friendship going, with an Opie-and-Cool-Older-Guy dynamic. In terms of looks, since that’s the topic, Murray is, well…old. And pretty gross-looking. (Hey, I never said I wasn’t shallow.)

I showed up on Wednesday wearing faded jeans and a fitted black Pearl Jam t-shirt with a low neckline; I’d taken to it with a pair of scissors because the collar was tattered. It showed off my ta-tas pretty nicely, although that wasn’t my reason for wearing it — I just really liked Pearl Jam.

Right as I walked into the office and sat down at my desk, Murray went “Woooo, someone’s looking hot today!” complete with the touch-your-skin-while-making-a-sizzling-noise gesture. Which, okay, it’s always nice to hear that you look good, but this was bordering on creepy. I’m fucking eighteen, dude, watch your boundaries.

I tried not to let the comment bother me too much, or affect my rapport with Murray, but I ended up avoiding him for the rest of the week. I think he took the hint, and he didn’t try to say anything like that again, limiting it to a “You look nice today.” It’s kind of a shame, because no matter how you slice it, that’s still one less friend for me in the workplace. (Oh well, he was kind of annoying, anyway.)

It was after that incident that I started thinking about whether or not I was overreacting or being superficial. If, for instance, it were Gay Friend Mikey or Platonic Soulmate Ray who made that remark, I wouldn’t have been bothered by it. Hell, even though he’s still got a good 15 years on me, if Totally Doable Boss Mr. McKenzie grabbed my ass and whispered dirty things in my ear, I’d have nodded, grinned, and locked the door behind us.

But since it was gross, old Murray, it bugged the heck out of me. It’s like that one SNL skit with Tom Brady, where he was in a 50’s-style PSA on sexual harassment, which included this awesome bit:

Funny but true.

Overall, I was a little shaken by what happened, but I’m not going to let pervy comments or lascivious stares affect the way I dress. I’ll wear whatever the hell I want to, thank you very much, and if you can’t keep your comments (positive or negative) to yourself, then I hope you won’t mind if I avoid you for a while.

Ah, the workplace. I learn something new every day.

Just finished my first week of work, and it was hella fun. Yay, me!

I met all sorts of interesting people at work. There’s my semi-cute, early-30’s boss, Mr. McKenzie, who doesn’t really make my heart race when I see him (plus he kind of has a beer gut), although I’d still hit it. I’d totally hit it. I’ve never had that phrase repeated so often in my head in one week. Whenever he’s got his back turned and I’m checking out his butt, I’m like, “I’d hit it.” When my co-workers squeal about how gorgeous he is, I’d say, “He’s not that hot, but I’d hit it.” Haven’t you ever encountered that kind of person? You know s/he’s totally wrong for you, and maybe isn’t even your type, but you’d still tap that ass given the chance. I’ve only experienced that kind of thing with McKenzie and with a former teacher of mine, Mr. Dexter, who somehow managed to be a Catholic and a Wiccan at the same time. He was weird, pale and spindly, but still kind of hot. Don’t ask me why.

McKenzie picks on me a lot because I’m the Opie of the workplace, but I’m handling it pretty well. I think McKenzie and I would have been good friends under other circumstances, but since he’s my boss, I find him just a little bit intimidating.

Back to the co-workers: fat, condescending uber-bitch Judy. I took this job knowing that people would probably underestimate me because I’m at least a decade younger than everybody else, but Judy is in a class all her own. She’s twice the bitch on the outside that I am on the inside, and that’s saying a lot, because you all know I’m a total bitch inside. I tried to be friendly towards her, but she’d raise an eyebrow and then turn her back on me. Whatever, nobody else likes her, anyway. Maybe she’s just jealous because she’s a 29-year-old college grad who’s earning the same amount as a dumb teenager fresh out of high school? Hee.

We have Annie, 27, sweet but slightly clueless. I spend most of my time with her, I guess because she was the first to approach me when I was new to the workplace. I sort of have to dumb myself down when I talk to her, but I don’t mind too much. It’s nice to not have to be on my toes all the time.

Ray, 24, brings out the inner dork in me, which is why I love hanging out with him. In the middle of work, we’d jump out of our seats and sing showtunes to each other! He’s the Jim to my Pam, if you remove the underlying romantic tension from the equation.

If all goes well, then Mikey, 28, will soon be my Gay BFF. Tee-hee. We like all the same things, and we get along great. He’s the only guy in the office whom I feel is on my level, intellectually.

Then there’s Carl, a kind father of two in his mid-thirties who sits next to me at work. I don’t know how the discussion came to religion, but it did, and when he told me he was an atheist, I breathed a huge sigh of relief, told him I was an atheist too, and then high-fived him. (What? It’s hard to find fellow atheists here!) Unfortunately, Murray, the mid-50’s guy who sits behind us, overheard the conversation and wheeled his chair over to share his thoughts on God and faith. I know he meant well, but it was incredibly TL; DR, and I spent most of that monologue trying not to space out. To make things worse, it was an “I used to be an atheist, but…” story. “But then I decided that logic just wasn’t for me.” (Okay, it was “But then my mom got cancer.” At least it’s an interesting twist to the whole “My mom got cancer so I became an atheist” story.)

It’s another annoying habit that theists have. It happened to me before when I had dinner with Joe, a hugely irritating friend-of-a-friend. I was telling him about my rocky relationship with my family and how horrible they are to me just because I’m an atheist. From out of nowhere, he starts preaching to me about “it’s not really about God, it’s about love” and blah blah fishcakes, and I just nodded and smiled even though I was thinking, “Guh, what? Worst date ever.”

I don’t know what compels someone to do it, but whenever I say that I’m an atheist, a believer who happens to hear me will suddenly go into a looooong sermon on the tenets of Catholicism or whatever. I hate to break it to you guys, but theists? We usually don’t care. Well, I’m speaking for myself, anyway. You’re not going to convert me by saying something long and boring about a topic I don’t give a flying fuck about, when we could instead be talking about something interesting, like rock music.

Murray’s actually my friend, and I like the guy, but once he was out of earshot, I whispered to Carl, “This is exactly why I don’t tell everybody I meet that I’m an atheist.”

Carl: “Agreed.”

On the heels of my semi-rejection (the “Uh, we’ll think about it” kind) from Dream College, I blew a lot of money on clothes and shoes. Totaling the receipts post-retail therapy brought me to the conclusion that I needed to get a job.

The following day, I checked out the classifieds and some online listings to see if anybody needed an articulate, computer-literate, bratty teenager with an exceptional typing speed. It turns out, we’re actually in high demand (minus the “bratty teenager” part), especially in this country. In a week, I got a phone call from an outsourcing agency, asking if I could drop by the following day.

I was made to take a few IQ and reading comprehension tests, and a typing test. After being informed that I did well on all of them, and then being coached on how to conduct myself during interviews, the administrator told me that I would be sent for an interview at another company the next day. When he mentioned the company name, though, I dropped a brick. This was an international, Forbes-list-worthy fucking corporation, and they’re sending some kid to apply?

So I did it anyway, because of course I wanted to work there, despite being a lowly Dream College reject. I put on my best idea of “corporate attire,” took a taxi to their pretty, pretty office and got interviewed by three different HR bigwigs (one of whom was adorable in a nebbish, Adam Brody kind of way).

And I got the job*.

Boo-yah!

It’s a full-time thing, so I will probably have to postpone my studies another year or two. Which I’m totally cool with, natch! College can wait; I have a feeling I’ll be learning much more through this experience, anyway.

Between this and skipping my fourth year of high school, I’m so far off the normal path for fresh high school graduates that I’m in a different continent entirely. I’ve always been one to march to the beat of my own drum, though, so this is nothing particularly new.

*I can’t disclose the nature of the job or the company, for obvious reasons, but it does involve dealing with a lot of cranky and stupid people! Don’t worry, though, I can totally handle it. I’ve been living with cranky and stupid people my whole life. ;P

Just watched Detroit Rock City last night on HBO, and I’ve decided that Jam (Sam Huntington) is officially my dream boyfriend. Besides, as far as I’m concerned, anyone ballsy (or horny) enough to lose their virginity in a confessional booth is a real fuckin’ inspiration.

If I haven’t updated in a while, that doesn’t mean I’m dead. Sometimes, writers get writer’s block. The best way to coax me out of my “I don’t feel like saying much” mood is to give me an idea for a blog post. Ask me about my life. My friends. My opinions on love and other disasters. Anything. But to ask me whether or not I’m still alive is slightly tacky, I think. (No offense meant to the commenter, I’m happy you care, it’s just that this has happened a couple of times already and I figured I should address it before it happens again with somebody else.)

Anyhoo. I typed the last blog entry while I was at the summit of my post-semi-rejection anger (read: thirty minutes after finding out the results), but I’m actually doing great now. I was angry for, like, one hour, but then I had some food and forgot about the whole thing. That’s basically TA’s Cycle of Anger (family matters excluded): I get mad for a short while, then it all goes away.

I’m going to take my TOEFL in a couple of months to help me with my college applications in the United States, so wish me luck! Unfortunately, I missed the deadline for NYU Tisch, but hey, there’s always next year, and there are other colleges to choose from. Another Plan B, which I have been seriously considering for a while now, is to follow in my cousins’ footsteps and take up BS Nursing in a nearby college. After all, my family is planning to move to the USA in a few years, so I could become a nurse there and live in my own personal Grey’s Anatomy. Hee. I think this is a really good idea, because I would probably make more money as a nurse than as a writer, and then I could just study writing as an additional course in my free time.

Had I not been waitlisted, I probably would not have even considered this option, so all in all, I think I lucked out. It’s not even just a silver lining in a dark cloud here, the whole frickin’ cloud is silver. So, I’m glad things happened the way they did.

Oh, and I also bought myself a ton of new clothes from Gap, so that definitely helped my mood. Retail therapy FTW.