Sexy Secularist!

Hey there, heathens and blasphemers. What are you doing the night of Sunday, July 13th? Sleeping early to get a head start on the work week?

Pah!

You should come to the Sidewalk Cafe on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where my band will be playing an hour-long* set that is sure to rock your socks off. Or pop your tops off. We don’t actually rock that hard at all, but it’s possible we can get you to Disco like they do in Mt. Kisco.

Anyhow, it’s good stuff and there’s no cover charge, though there is a two drink minimum. Sidewalk is an extremely well-reputed venue, and it’s where some major people got started, so you’ll enjoy yourself. Scout’s honor.

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*In the sense that a psychoanalyst gives you a full hour of treatment.

Looking at the calendar a few days ago, I was shocked to discover that my girlfriend and I had been together for about 3 years. I wasn’t exactly sure what day our anniversary was, so, rather than be the guilty party, I immediately phoned the sexier semi-secularist and accused her of forgetting.

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Our world is populated by one fewer badass. George Carlin came to my college campus to perform last October, and I missed it - I’d figured that I’d just catch him the next year, since he came by about every fall. I regret now that I’d missed my one chance to see him.

In view of his thoughts on softened language, I thought I’d write a brief and direct eulogy:

George Carlin died today of a bum ticker after years of being a professional irreverent bastard. While it is almost entirely certain that the ’soul’ (whatever the fuck that is) does not live on after bodily death, it is my sincerest hope that in the case of an afterlife, Mr. Carlin is rotting, writhing, and screaming in the very depths of hell this moment. I imagine he would find it much more enjoyable and interesting down there; after all, it’s where all the cool people go.

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P.S.: Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits.

Hey everyone, hip news! A recent performance of mine got me an invitation to perform some of my godless comedy and music in God Tastes Like Chicken, the brainchild of Brother John Murdock and featuring a lot of other cool and talented people from New York’s East Village scene that I have been dying to work with. I have to confirm the date, but you should all come see the show! It’s an upcoming Friday in July (I think the 12th or the 19th) and it’s gonna be awesome.

Oh, and for those of you who hate political/protest music as much as I do, I promise that I’m all entertainment first.. The actual message is so tangential to my goals that I’m amazed it makes it in at all, but it does get in, and the end result is hilarious, dance-tastic, awesome music about Muslims and the Disco Institute.

More info to follow on the gig. In the meanwhile, check out God Tastes Like Chicken’s Myspace Page for whatever details you need about their heathen badassery.

This post will be slightly more Sexy than Secularist.

I just posted a pornographic fetish story on one of the many erotic literature forums that I frequent. The pieces have to be vetted by a board moderator who formats and edits the pornographic stories.

I just checked out the finished, edited version. Every occurrence of the word “god” (as in “oh my god!”) has been removed (as in “oh my!”).

So, let me get this straight: I can post dirty, erotic writings that depict acts that are both devoid of consent and hazardous to the health of the participants, but I can’t make my characters take the lord’s name in vain?

Exqueeze me? Baking powder?

Now here’s a secular holiday we can all get behind:

Firefox Download Day!

Ladies and Gentlemen, start your clicking!

The good Rev. Reed Braden just said some very nice things about us while asking why we haven’t posted in a month. Mea culpa. I shall explain.

NOTE: Theistic visitors should be cautioned that, in posting this, I probably do not represent the majority of atheists, who tend to have adopted many humanist beliefs.

As atheists, we have to deal with some common misconceptions. We’re regularly asked, individually or as a community, “If there is no God and everything is just here by chance, why bother waking up in the morning? Why help other people? Why bother falling in love or having children or trying to improve the world at all?”

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One of my favorite Biblical stories is the one of Jesus killing a fig tree. Aside from the implication that Jesus would kill a tree just because… well, he was hungry and it wasn’t producing food (I’d hate to see how he gets at a Denny’s on a busy night), the story is just bizzare and I don’t think I’ve gotten the same response twice as to its meaning.

My girlfriend, who lies somewhere in the void between religious and atheistic says that as a young girl, she watched a musical cartoon that explained that the story is about the power of words. If Jesus curses the tree, it will die. A sort of be careful what you wish for deal, I guess.

Recently, I heard another defense of the story saying that if the tree wasn’t producing anything meaningful, it serves no purpose and should die. I often say the same thing about Ben Stein, but, alas, I am not Jesus Christ. (Note: though Ben Stein is an obnoxious moron, I don’t actually wish him dead — for clarification purposes, this last sentence uses a literary device known as humor to get its point across. In truth, I don’t care enough about him to actually wish him anything.)

But, for the best explanations of the fig tree story, I turned to google, which gives us a link that explains simply that the fig tree represents the Jews or at least those who are so stuck in their religious ways that they won’t accept the new way of thinking (I think my irony meter just exploded). Wikipedia sort of confirms this, but then includes a few other oddball interpretations to keep things interesting, including one that somehow relates to The Matrix.

All of this points back to the relativism inate in religiousity. No two people actually subscribe to the same exact religion and often will defend their beliefs by explaining that those bad people who call themselves Christians (or Jews, or Muslims, etc.) aren’t true Christians (or Jews, or Muslims, etc.) and then explain what it means to be a true Christian. Unfortunately, Dictionary.com isn’t too helpful in this regard, offering 11 different definitions ranging from “a person who believes in Jesus Christ” to “a male given name.”

As for my particular interpretation, I believe that figs are a nasty fruit and Jesus, in his omniscience, tried to destroy the fruit before it could give rise to the truly awful Fig Newton. Unfortunately, being in human form, he was not omnipotent and could not prevent its ultimate creation.

However, there’s a fairly good chance that I’m injecting a little too much Terminator into the story.

Whenever I’m on a date with an atheistic exhibitionist, I tend to wish she were to believe in an omnipresent God. It would make things so much easier for me.

I have to hand it to New York - no matter how amoral, sex-crazed, greedy, and secular this town gets, it still allows us to be daily exposed to the moral and intellecual salvations offered by religion.

Usually in the subway stations.

The other day, for example, I spotted some assholes who’d set up a table in Grand Central. They had signs telling us that we were sinners and that Jesus would save us, and they had piles of free literature.

Now, I’m a starving student, and i’m not going to turn down an opportunity to pick up kindling while depleting the propaganda supplies. I took copies of their thickest books - tonight I’m starting work on some crap about “living waters” - thanked the guy who was handing them out, and began to walk away.

“Hey, kid!” he shouted (I’m 21, I had a briefcase, and I was headed to a job interview, thanks). He held out a CHICK tract, his eyes glimmering like the host of a Saturday morning cartoon marathon. “You should take this one instead! It’s got pictures in it. You know - like those comic books you read!”

Maybe that’s why I never liked the Bible - not enough pictures…