TuttleTree.com

As an upper-middle-class suburban white male, you might not expect that I would be discriminated against. Sadly, I am and it's become so commonplace that I'm generally not affected by it any more.

I am an Atheist.

That doesn't mean that I am a Satanist, Anarchist, Communist, or anything else. One does not beget the other. What it does mean is that I do not currently believe in God or a so called "higher power." I believe that everything that has ever or will ever happen has a strictly empirical scientific explanation; whether "we" — the collective knowledge of our species — understand it (yet) or not. But this isn't about my beliefs, it's how I'm being discriminated against.

On November 27th, our local paper published an article about a local Atheist Group, the Freethought Society, planning to erect a holiday display on municipal grounds next to the Menorah, Christmas Tree, and a Cr?che. The following Sunday, the paper ran a letter to the editor that they unfortunately haven't published on their website for me to link. And even more unfortunately, I think we've already recycled the paper and I won't be able to quote it directly for you. In her letter, she says that we (Atheists) should, "keep our opinions to ourselves." Let's not overlook that letters to the editor appear in the OpEd section: Opinions and Editorials. That is the definition of hypocrisy. What gives her the right to voice her opinion and not the Atheists? Because it's her holiday, being a Christian? Were this a different rant, I might argue that point.

And as much as I'd like to explain to her that her letter is hateful, oppressive, intolerant, and hypocritical, I believe she has the right to have and voice her opinion. Part of me wants to sit smugly knowing that I'm not going to stoop to her level, but another part of me knows that the smugness is just another form of stooping.

The saddest part about the whole thing is that I didn't even flinch when Megan read the letter to me. Atheist hating has become the new popular intolerant thing to do, now that racism and gay bashing aren't acceptable public behavior. I only hope the next group to fall victim to the intolerant has the patience and tolerance to persevere.

Kill em with kindness, mom always said.

Seen on Greeblemonkey, and I just had to share. One more example of our government making a mockery of itself. Now, don't take this to mean I'm some sort of fascist or communist and hate the American government. For all of its bad, it does an awful lot of good… and I suppose the good outweighs the bad. And I'm proud to be American. But that doesn't justify breaking the rules and being apathetic about punishing those that break them. The part of the video where they explain that cable-tv airing of the sessions switch cameras during actual voting to hide the practice from the public shows knowledgeable and intentional disregard for the rules which, by the way, are called the law; and all of this just made me sick to my stomach. This is of course just self-governing gone wrong. There is nothing checked or balanced about this. My gut instinct was to say that anyone found guilty of voting for other representatives should lose their job, pension, and eligibility to vote (even down to the PTA level, you bastards!)… but I don't think that even that is punishment enough. I think that they should be forced to go door to door in the area of their constituency, sex-offender style, explaining that they lied to and cheated everyone in that area. If you were the speaker of the house, and it was your job to exact justice on representatives that break the law, what punishment would you assign them?

I get forwarded emails almost every day, despite my regular replies of "Please don't send me forwards." And to be honest, some of them I don't mind. I don't mind the here are a bunch of cute pictures of puppies emails. I don't mind the here are some clever jokes and/or funny things kids say emails. Really – I don't mind. It's honest and, if I have 10 minutes to kill and a desire to see cute puppies, then I might actually read it before deleting it. The kind that I mind drive me into a bunny-face-punching rage are the if you forward this to 100 people Bill Gates will send you $5,000! emails and the This [my adjectives: inane, boring, dreck of a] poem was written by a little girl with [insert terminal illness] and for every person you forward it to the [insert charitable organization] will donate $0.00001 to researching the cure for her disease! Honestly, I don't understand how some people can actually believe this drivel. The ACS will donate money to cancer research for every email you forward? That's odd… last time I went to the Relay for Life I must have missed the booth with all of the computers set up for you to forward emails to your friends and family and coworkers and your mechanic. And to think I did all of that walking for nothing. If only the ACS would donate money to cancer research without my forwards, we would probably have found the cure by now. My bad, guys.