First Entry: What do I do now?

I'm a little confused on how exactly I should begin. I want this to reflect what I am passionate about, so it’s probably best that I begin describing what I’m makes me most passionate.

I am a fan of sports like MMA (Mixed Martial Arts), baseball, football, and basketball. I don’t particularly care for hockey, golf, tennis, croquet, or soccer. I also enjoy comedy, writing, and movies. One great pastime of mine is making fun of everyone and everything. It has often gotten me in trouble with family and friends but it’s something I can’t seem to turn off. If a joke is there, I’ll open my big mouth and it will definitely fall out.

Aside from sports, funny anecdotes, and making fun of things, there’s really not much to me. I’m not that attached to anything, really. I’m an atheist and as such I don’t believe in a whole lot of order in the world other than what human beings create. I believe much of what religions (every religion) try to force on people is either completely self evident or just an unexamined line of half truths.

Generally speaking, half truths and misdirections always piss me off, but religion is particularly stacked in this category. One of my favorite examples of the glaring half truths of religion is the old worn out platitude that goes something like this: “god helps those who help themselves.” As a side note, you’ll notice that I did not capitalize the word “god.” That’s because I don’t believe in the concept of god and if I’m not going to be roped into the whole believing in the concept thing, I’m not going to capitalize the word either! Going back to the quote, which is not in the bible, but is a common thought in many religious minds, it seems to say that if you want help, help yourself, and at the same time god will help you.

It’s very unclear what the hell this means. It could mean don’t rely on god (which I like), or it could mean god only helps those who are willing to work for their own benefit. To me it seems like this quote, which again isn’t in the bible and most religious zealots will fight me on this and say how dumb I am for using this as my first example of religious stupidity because it’s not actually espoused by any church, is a fundamental flaw in religion. Religion minimizes the individual human life and promotes the ethereal world that has never accomplished shit. Religion convinces people that there is an unseen force that propels them to greatness and that there is some unknown plan for every person.

The biggest manifestation of this is when people accept awards, give speeches after important milestones in their careers, or get overly sentimental for any reason. Among these my favorite is the award acceptance speech that begins like this, “First off, I’d like to thank GOD and JESUS for this award. Without them I couldn’t have done it. Also, I’d like to thank my mom, my producer. Thank you.” To me it seems like god or jesus didn’t write the song that got the artist a gold record or a grammy or what have you, it was the artist who wrote the song. Another thing about those moments that makes them so funny is they’re often incongruous with the lessons of god. The all time best is when a fighter has just obliterated his opponent, giving him black eyes, maybe a huge cut on his face somewhere, blood dripping down his face, eyes swelled shut, and the first thing the fighter does is thank god for it. I’m confused why they’re thanking god. Is god the personal helper of shitty rap artists and people who walk a fine line between athlete and criminal? Did Jesus ever say “I want a good clean fight. Obey my commands at all times. Go back to your corners and fight on my command”?

Don’t get me wrong, I love MMA and its fighters, though some piss me off to no end. I’ll get to all that later on. It just seems like religion is filled with inconsistencies, most of which are explained away by the mysterious concept of faith. To me, faith is the final word in religion. It suspends disbelief just long enough to make you forget about disbelief entirely. The argument of faith is the church’s way of saying “stop asking questions and believe what we tell you.” It’s like when you’re a child and you pester somebody so much that they give you that look, you know, the “I will beat your ass if you don’t shut up” look. To me those looks have always been a challenge to keep on doing what I have been doing. I don’t believe what others tell me just because they say I should. I need to - and I think others should feel the same way - learn the facts and make my own decision instead of swallowing whatever message is being rammed down my throat.