Reality Bites

With the recent violence in Aurora and Wisconsin, the secular community has once again come under attack for our godlessness and our insistent stance on separating church from state.  Congressmen and women have claimed that "god is angry" with America because the "atheists" have taken "god out of schools and our lives".  The always jovial and friendly televangelist Pat Robertson, you know, the guy who spews this kind of crap constantly, has now blamed "satanic atheists" for all that's going on.



Lovely right?

And, of course, the Twitterverse and Facebookland are filled with the whole "it was probably an atheist that committed those crimes because they don't have any morals or ethics and they eat babies and hate god and punch old ladies and kick puppies and think killing is awesome".  Maybe not in so many words but that is the general gist of the comments and conversations I have been witness to.

The most common statement I have come across lately is the "how easy it is to be an atheist because you just don't care about anything and don't have to worry about god judging you".  To this statement, I cry a loud and resounding "BULLSHIT".  Being an atheist is fracking hard and trust me when I tell you that I have tried with every ounce of my body to "believe" but simply cannot find the logic behind it.

"Ha!"You say. "The atheist wants to believe because deep down they know there is a god!" No. Sadly, deep down inside I am 99.999999999999% sure there isn't.  There reason I try to believe is because, face it, reality bites sometimes and I don't have the lovely cushion of security and comfort religion provides.  When a 6 year old is gunned down in a movie theater I don't have that "she's with Jesus now" mentality.  I have reality telling me that a 6 YEAR OLD is dead and her parents will never see her again. She will never grow up. She will never have a boyfriend, smile, eat, play, hug or kiss anyone, and she will never have the luxury of being alive that everyone seems to take advantage of.  The theist has the blissful advantage of being sad for this tragedy, but then actually believing that this little girl is now crowned with a halo and fluttering around Heaven with Jesus and all of her dead relatives and pets.  Her parents are comforted in their beliefs that when they die, they'll "meet up" again and everything is hunky dory.  How nice.  Really, I don't mean that in a snotty way.  There is no snark behind that statement.  To have that belief that someone you love is "waiting for you" in the next life, makes these horrible things well, a little less horrible.

Let me tell you. If one of my children were killed or died of a disease or something horrible like that, I would die myself.  Because, as an atheist, I don't have that belief of them "watching over me" or "in Heaven" or that I will "see them again".  My reality is that my child is gone.  Forever.  And I will never, ever, ever, be with them again.  So when tragedies like Aurora and Wisconsin happen, or I read about a baby with terminal cancer, or children starve to death, I'm not thinking they are in a "better place". I cry because they are dead and gone forever.  And that is a hard pill to swallow. A very very hard pill.

There have been only a handful of times that I tried very hard to put myself in the place of a religious person and try to "believe".  The biggest one for me was my grandmother's death.  I couldn't fathom that one minute she was here and the next not.  I would give both my arms and legs to see her for just 5 more minutes.  The theist has the comfort in believing that they actually will. The reality that my grandmother is gone forever is devastating, even after almost 20 years.  Death, at least for this atheist, is terrifying, and I don't want to face it.  The reality that my life, my parents' lives, my children's lives, my husband's life and all the lives of the people I care about are fragile and temporary frightens me to no end.  There are nights I wake up out of a sound sleep so afraid that I am going to die that I can't fall back to sleep.  It's horrible. 

It frustrates me to no end when people say they are "living for the next life".  Why?  Life is so amazing and wonderful, why would anyone waste it waiting for the afterlife.  It boggles the mind.  And it frustrates me even more when I'm told I "have it easy" with "no responsibilities or consequences" for my actions because sky daddy doesn't exist.  That's a scary statement.  It implies that the speaker is only decent and good because they fear repercussions from "god".  That, if in fact they did not have god in their lives, they would be on murderous rampages.  How absolutely frightening.

So let me tell you, an atheist doesn't have it easy.  Apart from being blamed for all the crap that goes on in the world, blamed for corrupting the childre, and moral fibers of society (I think we are tied with gays and lesbians on that one), blamed for being "intolerant" and general "meanies", we also carry the huge burden of seeing things as they really are.  There's no "he's dead but...." in our little world.  There's no "satan", causing people to do evil.  There's no "god's will", determining who lives or dies. There's no notion that we are this amazingly special creature created in the image of a deity who rule the planet and the Universe.  As the amazing Bill Nye, the Science Guy said, "I'm this guy standing on a planet. Really I'm just a speck. Compared with a star, the planet is just another speck. To think about all of this, To think about the vast emptiness of space.There's billions and billions of stars.Billions and billions of specks".



It's pretty humbling to be a speck.

But reality as an atheist isn't all doom and gloom.  I have the wonder of the Universe to marvel at and realize how absolutely amazing it is to be here at this moment right now.  The landing of the Mars Curiosity puts everything into perspective on how marvelous it is to be a human being.  No deity or supernatural forces needed.  Reality may bite when dealing with "the hard stuff", but in the end, it is really awesome and it is what makes this little trip around the sun so much more worth it.  I don't have the promise of an afterlife running around my head.  I have the promise that this life is all of I've got and I've got to make it worth something to myself and the people around me.  What a waste to do otherwise.

Doctor, Doctor!

In preparation for the new season of Doctor Who, I've been watching the series on Netflix again and revisiting the lovely and scary creatures Numbers Nine, Ten and Eleven encounter.  Here's my list, in  no particular order, of the ones that make it difficult for me to fall asleep.

1. "Are You My Mummy" Little Boy


2. The Weeping Angels


3. Silence


4. Scarecrows

5. Mannequins


6. Clockwork


7. The Vashta Nerada


8. Host


Funny that the Daleks aren't on my list. Thirty years ago(Jesus Christmas I can't believe it was that long ago), the Daleks scared the hell out of me. Now, when faced with the above monsters, I'm sort of "meh" on the Daleks. My tastes in scary/creepy have evolved apparently.

Milestones, I Haz Them

It's hard to believe that I have been writing this blog for 6 years, but indeed I have and I know this because I initially started writing this blog to chronicle the pregnancy and subsequent birth of my first child.  And, seeing as that baby that was kicking me in my belly as I blogged about late-night peeing just turned SIX YEARS OLD, my blog reflects the same age.

And, in the same breath, the baby that took two years to conceive, who decided to come two weeks early and who now is not really a baby anymore, just turned TWO YEARS OLD as well.

They say that the second child always gets the shaft when it comes to attention and such. While I can't say that Dorian isn't showered with as much attention as big brother Dante, I can say that he's definitely gotten the shaft when it comes to photos and videos.  By the time Dante was two, I had about 400 pictures and videos of him.  Dorian, on the other hand has about 70. And while my blog in the past marked every step, word, poop, jump, and milestone Dante achieved, my blog posts now have become few and far between, appearing only when I really have something I have to get off my chest or when I feel that I need to post due to a sense of overwhelming guilt for not mentioning that Dorian has started walking and talking (about a year ago, actually) and that his early years and not as documented as Dante's.

So without further ado, I present:

Mr. Six and Mr. Two!

The Scarlet Letter

If you didn't know, I am the organizer of a (dare I say it) very successful and ongoing book club here in South Florida.  We've been going strong for well over four years and I can boast we are, I think, the only co-ed book club that has lasted this long and has a great turnout at the monthly meetups.  My membership consists of young, old, moms, dads, professionals, blue collars, professors, students, priests, pastors, atheists, gay, straight, you name it.  We are a very diverse group brought together by our love of books, ideas, and hearty discussions over a few glasses of wine.  In a nutshell, I love my Book Club.




I got this letter from a "new member" today responding to my request that they pay their dues.  Names have been changed to protect my sanity:

Hi Alessia, please withdraw my membership.

This book club is starting with probably the most harmful and anti-democratic novel of our time. Ayn Rand is not a thinker, she is a polemicist, and her message is pro capitalism, pro rich people, anti Union, anti helping people, and is in keeping with the sick philosophy of the Tea Party and the evil Koch Brothers' attempt to have our democracy controlled by non-tax-paying billionaires.

I thought that since I met you at the Broward County Atheists, we would not be doing the kind of sick books that have influenced such numb-skulls as Ronald Reagan, Mitt Romney, George W. Bush, Grover Norcross, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and other sick right wingnuts. Those right-wing Republicans would lead us back to the "golden age" that preceded and caused the Great Depression, a time when banks and rich people controlled everything, and common people controlled nothing.

My joining your club was a mistake. I shudder to think I might be associated with such political thinking.

(Name deleted)


Let me just start off by saying that this is proof positive for all Christians out there that not all atheists are the same.  This one is clearly a dolt.  While I, on the other hand, am awesome. Let this letter dispel any notions the theist world had that all atheists think and act the same.  Clearly, we are only similar in that we don't believe in the supernatural.  That's it.  Anything else, is fair game.

So, I was a bit taken aback by such harsh words coming from a supposedly intelligent person, whom I have actually met and spoken with many times at length.  And maybe it was because I spent 2.5 hours this morning cleaning out the kids' playroom and my back was screaming at me in pain, but I simply did not let this go unanswered.  So here is my response:

Wow (name deleted), what a misinformed, judgmental asshole you are.

First and foremost, my book club is not "starting" with Atlas Shrugged. My book club, Ex Libris, has been going strong for over FOUR years now with a dedicated and intelligent group of men and women who bring incredible thought provoking discussion to our monthly meetups. If you had bothered to take the time and read about the club, you would have found our extensive list of past books we have read. Instead, like most of the idiots you listed in your senile diatribe, you chose to make sweeping generalizations based on NO information.

Secondly, a MAJORITY of Ex Libris members are freethinkers and progressives and we collectively chose this book because of its negative history. We, as intelligent, rational human beings, wanted to read this drivel (because I've discovered, since reading it, that is is drivel) BECAUSE of its history. Are you clearly so ignorant that you would think only a certain type of thinker should read a certain type of book? I've read Mein Kampf. Does that make me a Nazi? I've read the Bible. Does that make me a Christian? Better yet, I've read Harry Potter. Why can't I cast spells yet?

Your ad hominem attacks against Ex Libris, myself, and my members are extremely ignorant on your part. It seems like you've been too exposed to the right-wing nutjobbery...you're becoming "one of them".

You can withdraw yourself from Ex Libris, because, if you claim you have such superior intellect, you can certainly figure out how to click the button to do so.

Cheers!
Alessia L.
Organizer, Ex Libris


I would have liked to throw in a few "fuck you's" here and there but I was trying to keep some sort of decorum.  But then again, the idiot was claiming I had no brains and loved the Tea Party, so maybe I should have said something about "Amurika is Jeeezis cuntry" and that would have sufficed.

In any event, if you're interested in checking out Ex Libris, by all means visit us here: Ex Libris: A Book Club With Brains.  If you click on the "Pages" tab, you'll see FOUR YEARS worth of books we  have read as well as what is coming up.

Now I'm going to go watch Fox News and fantasize about Bill O'Reilly since I seem to love them so much.

UPDATE: He wrote me again, tried to chastise me like he was my father, then tried to school me on "how to properly read books" and then played the "I'm 74 years old missy" card on me. He has been removed and banned from the meetup.