Sharing a moment of tolerance

In this day and age there's a definite feeling among atheists that we're on the shit list. We rank below the "terror" that is the Muslims (no pun intended), we're barred from public office in several states, and considered sub-human by well-spoken members of the clergy. Most atheists are afraid to admit their lack of belief, and will do whatever they can to avoid the subject. Some go so far as to fake belief in order to avoid detection.

I typically find a middle ground between this and the heavily outspoken atheists that are finally making us known. I rarely directly bring up the subject (except online), especially as there's rarely a point, but I also don't avoid it. If someone asks me my religion, I'll readily state that I have none, and am an atheist. But that doesn't mean I don't dread the moment, wondering what reaction I'll get.

Now I'll admit that in Southern California it's really not that hard for me as it would be elsewhere. I can't really think of any moments where I've been directly, recognizably persecuted for my lack of belief, or treated especially poorly. That said, outside of my circle of friends, it does generally bring up challenges. I've had people tell me it takes as much faith to be an atheist as a Christian. I've had people start questioning me on where love comes from. I've had people try to prove the divinity of the Bible. I've had people in a conversational, accepting, friendly tone let me know that they accept that I'm an atheist, but feel bad for me that I'll be burning for eternity in Hell. The point is, it's very uncommon that it's mentioned and doesn't lead to someone trying to save me, or point out that I'm wrong, and that's never comfortable.

Yesterday, though, I was at a client's office, assisting with the phone support for their email host. I spelled out my name to the support technician, and heard the owner of the company joke to her associate, "ooh, a nice Jewish boy!" I chuckled slightly at this since yes, my surname and background back up this assumption, and I've heard it before. I've also had the least problem with Jews as while I disagree with their religion no less than any of the rest, they tend to be some of the most likable and least judgmental towards others of any religious group that I've dealt with.

Anyway, her associate chided back that she had no way of knowing I was a Jew. The owner pointed out my last name. The smirk on my face was growing by the second. Her associate parried back that just because I had a Jewish last name didn't prove my religion. Maybe I was Catholic. "Heck, I bet he's an atheist. I'm sure of it." I could barely keep from laughing on the phone at this point as I finished up the call.

Once I hung up, the owner asked me if I was Jewish. I laughed, gestured to her associate, and said, "nope, she wins," with a chuckle as I got back to work. Her associate cheered over her successful guess, we chatted for a few moments about my family history, explaining the blood connections and roots of the name while I worked, and nothing else was said. It was friendly, open, non-confrontational, and felt nice.

Why can't we have this more? Why do people like us have to live in dread of these conversations going the other way? Why can't all of us be this tolerant of others and their idiosyncrasies? I think people's religious beliefs are completely wrong, but I'm respectful enough to begrudge them their right to them and not treat them poorly over them. And likewise I'm sure many of my friends and coworkers who accept me believe I'm nuts for not accepting Jesus Christ as my personal lord and savior, or whatever their religion dictates. But the people I choose to surround myself with are respectful enough to recognize and accept that difference. Heck, one of my best friends from my old job, and one of the most intelligent people I know, is an extremely hardcore Christian, but I only learned this from his MySpace page. Hasn't changed the way I interact with him one bit, and considering how open I am about what I believe, I can only assume he's aware of me. Yet neither of us has ever discussed the topic, and I hope to keep it that way. I respect him too much to get into a religious argument that could damage a friendship. And don't get me started with the most important person in my life, the woman I've chosen to spend the rest of my life with. We even take the risk and have the conversations, but we still work hard to respect each other's differences and grow our perspectives off them, and it's fantastic.

My point is that there's plenty of room for this in the world, but there seems to be so very little of it. Right now Christians claim there's a war on their religion from the secularists. But what they don't seem to realize is that they started it. Their lack of respect for beliefs no more crazy than their own, and their push to either convert us or make us live by their laws has forced our hand. We're not at war with them, but we're also not going to be stepped on by their bigotry, prejudice, and disrespect any longer. We're here, we live alongside them, we're just as valuable to society, and we're HAPPY to work together with them to make our towns, cities, states, and countries a wonderful place for us all. There is a middle ground, and most on our side are merely striving to reach even that. Right now we're barely pushing back from the edge. But we're gaining. Mingle with us in the center, like so many of the wonderful people I've managed to associate with, and everything will be just fine. Those that don't will likely eventually find themselves on that very same edge.

PixelVixen707: The Lost Coin-Op

So just got the exciting confirmation that I solved the latest puzzle in the mystery of the Lost Coin-Op over at PixelVixen707.

See, Rachael's been searching for an arcade machine she played with at a then-local restaurant as a kid. She had a chat with her dad about it, argued a little over what game it is, and ended up making a pretty wild bet that one could track down the EXACT MACHINE she played with all those years ago. Seems absurd, and she was definitely kicking herself for it, but the thing is, they're sort of pulling it off. And it's taken quite a wild ride. To watch the story unfold, check out the appropriate tag here.

On a COMPLETELY unrelated note, J.C. Hutchins' podiobook precursor to his forthcoming novel, Personal Effects: Dark Art has just been released on his podcast feed. I strongly recommend you check out Personal Effects: Sword of Blood for yourself. Now where have I read the main character's name before...?

In Santa Clarita We No Longer Trust

So a few weeks back, one of our local City Council members, Bob Kellar (ex-mayor, if I'm not mistaken), shocked the room by proposing we add "In God We Trust" to the city seal. His feeling was that it's somehow raised morale in other cities that have done it, and in these trying times, we all need a little more... what, exactly? What is it that a few words on a sign that reference something a large percentage of the population have no belief in is expected to do?

Either way, it was agreed to table it and discuss a vote at a future meeting. That meeting was held last night.

According to SCVTalk.com, that discussing didn't go quite as was expected. Seems the council felt it completely unnecessary to have the fair citizens of this city vote on the subject. "I strongly believe we are a representative government," Mayor Frank Ferry said, according to The Signal [warning, link full of incredibly ignorant comments]. "We are elected to represent the people." And so, with that understanding, they went ahead and made the decision without us.

Apparently these people are unaware that their view of God is not the only one that exists. Not only that, but apparently it never crossed their minds that the people who voted them into office didn't do so with any remote expectation that they would be representing not only their interests in managing the city, but also their religious affiliation. While I didn't vote for any of the people who make up the current council, I also didn't vote for the people I did based on their likelihood to vote against combining church and state. That was never discussed in campaign speeches or mailings. But then again, with comments like "What I don't want through a city election is for this to become a religious issue; where it's atheist verse Christian, Atheist verse Catholic or Christian verse Jew" by Mayor Frank Ferry, maybe I give them too much credit. Apparently they were aware we exist, and were aware we would be upset by this. So, as opposed to recognizing it's a controversial subject and skipping it, or as opposed to allowing us to be adults and have those arguments, they simply made the decision for us to approve one of those viewpoints over all the rest.

I'm unbelievably frustrated, saddened, angered, and disenfranchised by this. I am not the only atheist in this valley, nor are atheists the only people given the finger by this decision. In God I don't trust, but I was under the impression that I could trust the people who were elected to manage this city to make decisions in the best interest of its people, and their personal freedoms. Deciding their religion needs to be displayed all over our city in an official capacity does not protect those interests.

Santa Clarita is not in the middle of nowhere. We're not in the bible belt, we're not a small town with nothing but churchgoers. We're in Southern California, not that far from the coast, right outside of the big city, and our town's made up of people who commute to those coast cities. We're therefore a melting pot of beliefs and opinions. Yes, this city tends to lean right-wing, and therefore religious, but I never had the impression that it was this close-minded and foolish as to forget such a large percentage of its citizens in exchange for what? Simple platitudes on a wall? Something that will make a few religious people smile when it happens, and then forget about it within days, but will stand as a silent, yet blaring reminder to the rest of us that our city thinks we're irrelevant?

I don't know what else to say. I've never felt this directly persecuted before for not going with the status quo and pretending to believe in something for which I see no reason to believe. I would never, and will never, begrudge these people their beliefs. And I would never decide, if elected, to modify the city seal to represent something that I believe that others do not share. I would, instead, leave well enough alone and choose to keep the city seal the simple, non-denominational, non-controversial seal it was, and leave the personal beliefs to our homes, churches, temples, synagogues, libraries, strip clubs, movie theaters, and wherever else we feel comfortable expressing interest in things others don't necessarily share.

I don't know what, if anything, can be done. But if there's anyone else out there who's as pissed off as I am who wants to do it, please join me. Let's make a difference and remind these people that their entire citizenship matters.

EDIT: A friend of mine recommended the following revision to the seal. Seems just as fair:

[caption id="attachment_87" align="aligncenter" width="251" caption="A hastily-drawn alternative"][/caption]

EDIT 2: Dave Nichols does a great job addressing this issue, and its overall implications, from a much broader level. Check it out here.

Big time #twitterfail

All right, I haven't been this pissed off in a while. Twitter just made an update supposedly in our best interest to stop displaying half conversations. In a nutshell, if someone you're following is replying to someone you're NOT following, they're doing you the favor of not displaying it to you. See, they claim this is just too confusing, and we wouldn't want that.

Thing is, they used to have an option for this. You could choose if whether you wanted to see these half-conversations. By default it was turned on. So now, in order to avoid confusing us simple folk, they've REMOVED THE OPTION COMPLETELY. No, they didn't change they default. They just removed it. They didn't want to worry our pretty little heads with complex things like options. Nope, just remove the option and stick to one thing.

Problem is, people wanted this. I know I sure as hell did. Some are pissed off about how it'll ruin #followfriday. Reality is, I'm not sure that's true. It only blocks the messages that begin with an @mention so as long as you start with #followfriday or something you're covered. RTs aren't affected, either. It's just replies. Why is this a big deal? Well, I'm sure I'm not the only one who finds his most interesting conversations and most fascinating follows through those very half-conversations they're sure are confusing us. I constantly see a conversation mid-stream, check out the person being replied to, jump in, and soon enough I'm engaged for several hours. I end up gaining one or more interesting people to follow, and I get several new followers from people watching the conversation unfold.

Does Twitter really want to destroy this ability to constantly grow and expand the communities and networking this option provided? What's the goal, here? Are they just trying to cut bandwidth any way they can at the expense of one of the things that made us even want to use their service to begin with? If so, I foresee an even bigger drop in bandwidth as people start giving up altogether. It's that very expanding universe that sucks me in. A closed-off one like what they've just created can only serve to stifle my interest. They'd better catch on fast before the damage is too great.