In order to fix the overly atheistic slant of this blog, I give you my side project: http://www.thedeviatednorm.blogpsot.com/
HaHA. Just kidding. Even though it says up at the top that I identify as an atheist (and then again in the little red atheist A on the right, and in the textbox at the bottom), I'm clearly not doing enough to shout it to the world.
I mean look:
In 22 posts: only TWO have been about my atheism. Damn, I'm losing grip on reality here, posting so much about gender and feminism, racism, and transphobia, and my life, and music, why straight culture makes no sense, and television. It's less than 10% of what I crankycrankypants about! What was I thinking? This should be angry atheist 24-7!
In order to TRULY rectify that, I give you "Dear God" by XTC.
Lyrics are on the actual video.
Now, now, some may say this means I wholly support their message. But I gotta say, every time I watch it, the end always irks me. The anger directed at god seems silly even. I hardly get pissed when the tooth fairy doesn't visit, do I? Why should they be so frustrated at a social construct not fixing the world. However, I do rather love that opening line:
Dear God, Hope you got the letter and I pray you can make it better down here. (I don't mean a big reduction in the price of beer.)
It certainly would be nice to be able to ask to have the world get fixed and have it happen. Oh well, since there doesn't seem to be anyone who can do that, guess I'd better wade in myself and do it.
Posts
I've always wondered whether this song is exactly atheistic. I mean, it's clearly using the concept of God to criticize religion (specifically Biblical religions), but is it really challenging the idea of a god? I know they repeat "I can't believe in you," but...can you address an appeal/complaint to something you don't believe in? I don't know. (This is not a challenge, mind you, just something I've thought about.)
ReplyDeleteIn other news, I have some questions for you as an atheist. Clearly you can't speak for all atheists, but the main thing I'm wondering is what does atheism (and being an atheist) mean to you? Literally the word "atheism" means "a theory or belief that God does not exist" (OED), but I've found that many of the atheists I know eschew all forms of spirituality, deistic or otherwise--which doesn't leave a lot of room for those of us who don't believe in god but do believe in *something*. On the other hand, some self-identified atheists I know seem more agnostic to me, in that they don't really care one way or another whether there *is* a god, but are atheistic in their refusal to *worship* a god. Not to commandeer your blog or anything, but maybe you could devote a post to explaining your own identification as an atheist. I know I'd be interested.
-BF
Yeah, the anger is something that I don't quite get (as mentioned briefly in the post). I think the idea of the appeal itself could be an excellent rhetorical device, helping to expose how empty the questions are, but instead it just comes across as being pissed. Which obviously doesn't make it seem the song writer is so much god-less, as (rightly so) pissed with organized religion and perhaps even god (less rightly so) for not fixing it all.
ReplyDelete