Vivat Libertas

First of all, sorry for not posting. I'm really, really sorry. A combination of exams and (oddly for me) nothing to write about is not a particularly great thing. Secondly, being a fairly vocal atheist and a person who actually pays attention  to what people believe in, I've had more conversations about atheism and religion then I really care to remember. I've also got a fair bit of experience...and really, I'm just getting sick of it all. I just see the same thing over and over and over again. I just see repetition. It's not something I signed up for - I want to think , to engage my brain, not to see the same tired old clichés. So here, in no particular order, are conversations I'm sick of having. (Also, if there are any conversations you're sick of having/you want to criticise anything/etc., feel free to leave comments.) Anything along the lines of "Atheism is stupid LOLOLOL".  I've heard it before. I can refute your arguments. Anythi...

"Atheism is a religion!" I'm sure pretty much everyone's heard that. I'm sure some people of any belief position hold or have held that idea, because in a twisted way it makes sense - equating belief positions to religions and saying that holding certain ideas is the same as being dogmatic. (Well, it makes sense if you concentrate on the details and ignore the bigger picture, which is disturbingly easy to do.) Sorry to say this (not really), but phrases like "Atheism is a religion like bald is a hair colour" or "Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby" don't help. They're right, but they don't seem to get the point across. Atheism is not a religion, it's an idea. It's the idea of "not-a-God". That's basically it - and ideas aren't religions. Atheists don't have not-God-worship services or take The God Delusion  or God Is Not Great  as our holy text. We don't recite not-prayer...

(I think you people have seen this image before . That's because it's one of my favourite religion-related ones.) I very frequently get told by religious people to respect their religion whenever I open my mouth to protest "Actually, no, I don't want to be forced into sitting in chapel for three-quarters of an hour when I have better things to do with my time" or something along those lines - basically, any defence of atheism or secularism seems to get me a telling-off for being disrespectful, which is obviously the worst thing in the world. So, if you're the kind of religious person that would do that, I've got a couple of questions for you. Why is your idea (since religion is an idea) inherently deserving of respect, especially when there are more holes in your holy book than there are in Swiss cheese? Why does my idea not deserve equal respect - in other words, why do you get to trash it without fear of reprisal? And if your idea's so goo...

As an atheist, I often get theists telling me to respect their religion (in all fairness, I was singing "there is no God" under my breath before a service I was forced to attend - try singing that in a house of the Lord, it's fun). How dare I openly say that I'm doing just fine without a God?! Leaving aside the question of whether any beliefs are inherently deserving of respect (I don't think so - respect is earned based on their logic - but I'm already in enough trouble as it is), I'd just like to ask some theists this. You force your beliefs on others. You force me to attend your services and sit through things I don't believe in, as well as pouring your vitriol on me for being a young atheist feminist bisexual woman, while claiming that all this is justified because "Britain is a Christian country", then order me to respect your religion if I sing "Glory Hallelujah" under my breath (OK song on an excellent album). Right, s...

As foretold, I have been on a bit of a hiatus due to school and, more importantly, our impending House Music - which we're going to flop, but at least Part Song will be fun. Anyway, we had a chapel service as per usual. In the chapel service two drama students performed a "play" (read: thinly veiled piece of religious propaganda). Now, I've performed thinly veiled pieces of religious propaganda before. It's strangely fun if you throw yourself into the part and ham it up. However, my piece was actually well-written (poor drama students, you are lovely people and you're only doing the best you could with such an awfully written script), and, more to the point, it didn't make my blood boil with its assertion of Christian misconception about what atheism actually means. I realise I've probably pissed off a lot of theists with my misconceptions about what theism actually means. I'm not proud of that. I do genuinely want to communicate...it just gets...

I'm surrounded by religious people, which is very odd for an atheist. On the plus side, it makes you more tolerant of other people's beliefs and better able to understand them. Keep in mind this is coming from a former antitheist - someone who hates religion. I first converted to antitheism when I read The God Delusion . Rereading it now, I see that Dawkins is basically an intelligent, subtle, moderate antitheist - but when I was ten, I happily skipped past all that and only caught up on the "religion is evil" bit. Thus began three or four years of me being a douchebag to anyone religious, convinced that I  was in the right and  they  were in the wrong. Quite a lot of that changed due to the efforts of my school chaplain, a Christian liberal in the best mould with real passion for his religion. He was unfortunate enough to take me for Year 9 RS and respect for religion was pretty much the only thing I learnt in that class (hey, it's RS, what did you expect?). ...