The Apathist Manifesto

After 20+ years of being non-religious (I never really was religious, just hadn't cut the cultural Christian cord.) I have grown tired of being asked, "What are you?" and feeling the need to defend my position on religion. I considered myself an atheist when I was the angry young man and I delighted in the mockery of religious institituions and in gleeful blasphemies. As I grew older I found that such a staunch position was hard to justify rationally and I decided that agnostic was a better label for my position or lack thereof. I still take delight in the mockery of all institutions, religious or otherwise, but that is just my natural reaction to bullshit.

Calling myself agnostic has gotten me more argument from atheists than from Christians. The Christians, at least the educated ones, see agnosticism as a philosophy or viewpoint that they disagree with but that doesn't refute their belief outright. I didn't do this in deference to their poor pious feelings, but because I don't like to speak in absolutes on any subject in which I lack conviction. I have no religious conviction one way or another.

The atheists, my wife being chief among them, see this as some sort of cop out. "If you don't believe in God, then you're an atheist!" Some of them seem as hardcore about proselytizing and recruiting as their Christian counterparts. My lack of lack of faith troubles them greatly and they are more likely to debate me on the subject than the goddamned Christians. My wife's main concern is how to handle the subject with our children. My oldest is now almost seven and she sees through bullshit pretty clearly. She still gives lip service to the Santa thing because she doesn't want to rock the sleigh full of gifts, but she knows what's up. She has been told about God by various adults and other children already and we've given her a plain and simple explanation about how we feel about it. When asked, she tells the other kids that she doesn't believe in God and has gotten some flack for it. That's the part that causes my wife to argue her point with me. She sees my agnosticism as a moral weakness in the face of first-grade religious enemies. She fears that my lack of concern about the subject is going to confuse our daughter when she needs conviction the most. I hope my daughter adopts my attitude of casual indifference towards religion rather than my wife's strident tone.

I have therefore decided to refer to myself henceforth as a religious apathist. I don't know if there is a god or not and I don't give a shit, quite frankly. Pray or don't. I couldn't possibly care any less, as long as you don't attempt to impose it upon me in some legal or political fashion. You can have the afterlife, but this one is mine and don't fuck with it. Amen.

I googled "apathist" and found www.apathist.org. No club to join nor even a forum. Just a philosophical statement. Perfect.

The simple theory of the apathist:
Perhaps there is a god, or gods, or goddesses, or higher powers.
Perhaps not.
It's irrelevant.
You do the most good you can with what you have.
If you get help from somewhere else, that's just icing on the cake.

Revival?

Sure, bring it back.

I dares ya!

One Year Later...

This place has sat vacant for damn near a year now. The dust is thick and world wide webs hang off of everything. The windows are all broken (should have used Linux) and the homepageless and the spambots are squatting. Somebody shit on the floor.

The bastard is still rotting right where we left him though. Most of the meat may have fallen from his bones, but there's still some gristle left to chew.

What say ye abominable illegitimates? Halloween is the day that the dead rise. Shall we reanimate this corpse and watch it dance or just let 'er RIP?

I've got a tale to tell.

A little late but...

Halloween sucks.

Stupid costumes. Stupid shitty candy.

At least there's no mention of Jesus.

Bless you all.

BOO!

I'm just not feeling it these days. Several months ago, my muse went out for beer and cigarettes and just never came back. Can't say I blame her. I've always lacked discipline, but now I've got the attention span of a kid whose Ritalin was replaced with candy corn.

On that subject, before I forget, trick or treats is nigh approaching and I just could not care any less. Halloween used to be fun. As a kid eating candy, a teenager drinking beer, or a college student dropping acid, Halloween was a good time. Now my own kids get excited at the thought of the coming candy orgy, but it's just a pain in the ass for me. I've got to watch out for predators and poison and drunk drivers. And we can't even make it scary anymore. All it takes is one good old-fashioned, bowel-eliminating scare and I'm up every night for weeks with nightmare traumatized kids. But the real icing on the cupcake is this year's costumes. I will accompany a five-year-old Hannah Montana and a three-year-old Michael Jackson along the parade route. I'll be the embarrassed father with the flashlight/billy club acting as bodyguard to the stars. Sigh.

Cooler than you

I read Kerouac and Ginsberg.

I dream of being a beat poet.

I live in a newly renovated loft apartment.

All my clothes are pre-owned.

My record collection is nothing but original one-off pressings of bands you've never heard of.

My sandals are made from hemp.

My favourite book is Che Guevara's biography.

I only smoke European cigarettes.

The best movies ever made are Soviet underground animation full length features.

I'm a vegan.

I brew my own beer.

I ride a bicycle.

Nothing is cool unless I say it is.

The things you like don't count for shit unless I deem them worthy to be called 'cool'.

I have no label.

I am unique.

the music shop douche

there is no one who irritates me more is the "hipper than thou" music shop douche. a few years ago some one lived in my town who i will refer to as aaron bono (his last name starts with those letters which just begins to show his douchiness). aaron worked in a music store and of course heard of all these bands before they were famous and whenever you went to buy a cd who would go on a rant about it to you.

aaron also had the amazing personal characteristic of being a chronic liar. sometimes people are able to keep up or have some rational behind their lies to make them somewhat plausible and believable. not aaron.

the music store was in the mall but it was the closest thing to an independent music store we have in this town. even though i despised aaron i will admit he kept the store filled with some decent metal albums. the con to this was hoping he wasn't working when you went to buy one of these albums. i admit to waiting sometimes until he went on his lunch break or to the back of the shop so i didn't have to deal with his chronic lying.

i bought a soulfly album from there and he was working. he went on about how max cavalera fired his band mates for showing up fifteen minutes late and how he was a piece of shit. all i wanted to do was listen to the album and not hear a personal critique of what makes a good band leader. this was minor for an aaron bono moment though.

a few weeks later i was in the store wearing a korn shirt and he told me how he jammed with korn when he ran into them before a concert. i asked what instrument he played and he said guitar. aaron did not play the guitar though. a few months earlier i ran into at a house party and he picked up a guitar and said how he wish he knew how to play.

aaron also talked about how he went to ozzfest one time and drank with rob zombie and partied with pantera. this might have happened but knowing aaron, it did not.

the ultimate aaron moment was when i bought a bill hicks cd. he told me that he saw bill hicks perform right before he died in seattle when he did a small tour. time for a little math.

this incident occurred in 2001. bill hicks died in 1994. aaron was a year ahead of me in school and i was 18 when he told me this story so that would make aaron 19 and born in 1982. aaron was such a hipster at the time that he went to the united states and witnessed this comedic legend at a bar when he was maybe 12 years of age. i finally had enough and called him on his bullshit and asked how he saw hicks when he was 12. he paused, started to speak but stuttered and then answered:


"i'm thirty years old".


i asked him how he could be that old when he was only year ahead of me in school and he paused again.


"that's some guy who looks like me".


finally for the grand finale i asked him if he thought it was a coincidence that this guy was named aaron as well.


"i'm not named aaron".


i pointed to his name tag which said aaron and he commented that it was another worker's name tag. he quickly said he had work to do and went to the back of the shop. his co-worker looked at me after he left and was laughing her ass off. apparently she had heard similiar stories from him and was glad that someone finally shut him up.


a few years later i was in a different city for a concert. beforehand my buddy and i were wandering the mall and went into a music store. guess who was working? i said "hello aaron" and he replied "hello" back to me.

"i thought your name wasn't aaron?" i mentioned.

he looked at me with a weird look and went back to work. i guess it's hard keeping your lies straight.