This is a REAL "blog" entry.
2 weird things happened today, both had to do with religion and atheism.

First one: I went to the local independent book store. This girl was there, and she's really, REALLY cute. So she asks "can I help you?" I say "yeah, I'm looking for 'The End of Faith' by Sam Harris, and I can't seem to find it in "religion". Do you have it in another section?" "Yeah!" (much more enthusiastic than she normally is to me) and goes and finds it. I decide to get that book, and order in another copy, as one copy is going to my youngest brother for his birthday. We then talked a bit about the book. She asked "have you read it?" and I said

Here's another one, on YouTube, between me and "BetterThanU123". This is pretty funny. On the comment section for this video

I've been talking to theists lately. Mostly on GodTube, but on other places as well. Here's a conversation I had with a particular GodTuber, mikepl82.
It started out with this comment on the Christian response to "The God Who Wasn't There". (My name on GodTube is nothingman)

In case any of you care.
I was raised in a fairly secular home, though my mother, raised a Catholic (but she fell away from the church because of the Latin masses and the "Mary worship"), would pray with me every night before I slept. I never understood it, though. My first church service was a funeral for my maternal grandmother. All I remember of it was me, as a kid, screaming "open that box, my grandma's in there!" but mom recalls me speaking "like a chipmunk" for about a year afterwards. [likely due to stress] One thing you should know is that rejection and racism occur often in my life, especially early on. My mother's family, outside of her mother, opposed the marriage of their Connie to my half native american father (we thought her adopted brother, Kent, accepted the union as well, but it turned out he was trying to break them up by causing fights between them and sowing seeds of distrust when alone with one of them). The reason was purely racist, didn't want to dilute the bloodline with us damn mixed breeds. As a kid in preschool, I was rejected by other kids, mostly due to my attitude. I was a bit of a jerk, to say the least, which I believe is behaviour I took from my father, an emotional mess and a bit of an abusive person, emotionally. Occasionally physically too. And I'd of course abuse my poor little mentally handicapped brother in turn.

Ever since I was a teenager (not so long ago), I've always been a bit turned off by religious media. There are several reasons for this. For one, the quality level is rarely high enough to impress, and most religious media I've experienced is very heavy handed in its preaching. It's also always struck me as elitist. That is, the general "secular" media isn't good enough for the religious. I understand the desire to have television shows, movies and music that affirms your worldviews. I am more likely to listen to a mediocre band that preaches things I believe in. However, many christians nowadays will not listen to ANY music that isn't christian, even if it is not "offensive" and does not promote something christians are against. Hell, they only recently started accepting U2, and the band has been quite christian since they began.

I did create an account ages ago, but I never used it until now. So, I'm here. I'm Ben, and I'm an atheist. A closeted atheist...yes. Haven't told the family, save my youngest brother. Anyway, I'm new here, so...yeah. Hi!
Ben