I haven’t even been in Seattle for 48 hours, and this is what I just found on the steps leading up to my place:
Man, Christians are quick.
Though as I went back to my car to get more groceries, I noticed all the houses had this on their steps. I still like pretending that I’m some infamous evil atheist worth personally targeting with silly evangelizing.
Oh, and the back? Just the same old “Why you should accept Jesus into your heart stuff.” Nothing new to report on there.
I found this very amusing when I moved in:
Hey, I’m just happy I have soap!
My landlord is super nice, though it is a bit amusing seeing my car with a Darwin fish parked right by his car with a Jesus fish. I pray to the FSM that this will not be a source of blogging material over the next year or so. I want to live in my Garden Gnome Cave in peace.
Because I made it to Seattle, woooooo!
Somehow Mark and I survived the drive without going too insane. The first day we drove for 15 hours and stopped in Wall, South Dakota. I swear we just happened to end up there when it got dark – we did not stop because of the tourist trap known as Wall Drug. Though since a bunch of my twitter followers insisted that it was hilariously bad, we checked it out. Sorry guys, but it was not worth the ten minutes :P
The second day we drove for 14 hours and stopped at Mt. Rushmore, which was a much nicer stop. Pretty cool, though we didn’t stay for long. We spent the night is Missoula, Montana and were greatly impressed that you can apparently get alcoholic beverages for takeout at restaurants.
The third day we only had to drive 6 hours, but it was by far the worst. South Dakota and Montana were actually pretty beautiful. Idaho was beautiful as well, since we were basically driving through cloud filled mountains, which we don’t exactly have in Indiana. Hell, I get excited when I see a hill. Or a patch of land without corn.
But man, Eastern Washington was so insanely boring. It actually reminded me a lot of the desert grasslands in Arizona where I do field research, but just a lot uglier. And then the last couple hours are a horrible combination of city traffic and mountains, so I felt like I was going to die. But I made it!
My apartment is super nice. I lucked out because I bought it from craiglist based on a couple of photos and talking to the landlord on the phone. It’s a lot more spacious than I expected, and I have more storage space than I have stuff to fill it with. It feels a bit barren at the moment, but I’m sure that’ll change soon enough. Oh, and the entrance is adorable, since it’s a basement apartment:
I feel like I’m living in the Secret Garden. …Or that I’m some sort of garden troll, whatever.
I am so exhausted. The combination of 35 hours of driving and sleeping on an air mattress until my bed arrives is not very relaxing. Not to mention I’m unpacking and buying various apartment necessities that I either couldn’t bring or never had. I still need to go grocery shopping, since this is what my refrigerator currently looks like:
I can think of no more appropriate way to kick off grad school than an fridge that’s empty except for a six pack of beer. Hurray college.
No, the crisis of faith isn’t supposed to be the horrifying part. It’s a murder mystery called The Faithful that’s coming out October 1:
About the book:
Conflicted with his faith in God and the hypocrisy of the church, Aidan, an assistant pastor, is already a spiritual battleground. When he learns that his ex-fiancee was murdered in a possibly demonic ritual, he finds himself catapulted into an even deeper fight. Tormented by demonic threats and haunted spirits in the afterlife, Aidan becomes a medium that will hold the key to solving this murder mystery. As Catholic priests, paranormal investigators and rogue law enforcement seek Aidan out, readers both secular and religious will find that the Faithful tears at the emotions and doubts of humankind.
About the author:
Jonathan Weyer is a campus minister at Ohio State University and is ordained in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. He is the founder of The Thomas Society, a student-led ministry dedicated to answering questions from skeptics, doubters, agnostics, and atheists. Jonathan is also the only Christian minister to have been added to the Secular Student Alliance speaker’s bureau. During the transition from church to campus ministry, Jonathan wrote the Faithful, combining his love of scary stories and his experience with doubters. He lives in Columbus, Ohio with his wife Wendy, three kids, and a crazy cat.
For the sake of full disclosure, you should know that Jon and I are friends. Jen friends with a minister?! Shocking, I know. I haven’t read the book yet, but if it’s half as engaging as Jon is in person, it’ll be wonderful. I’m sure his constant exposure to us crazy atheists will help him handle the “crisis of faith” in a non-cheesy way… though I have a sneaking suspicion the pastor will see the light. ;)
And hell, if you can’t plug your friend’s book on your own blog, what’s a blog good for?
Jon was nice enough to share a more religious focused passage with us. Blag Hag exclusive material, woo!
I shrugged, “Yeah, you’re right. Natural, I guess. But, first, let me ask you a question.”
She raised her eyebrow at me as took a sip of her ginger ale. “Ask away, preacher.”
“What do you believe?”
“About God? I guess I believe there is one.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, folding my arms across my body, taking my “I’m going to teach” position.
“Well, I guess I’m not sure. I mean, I was raised Catholic, but I don’t go to Mass much anymore. I don’t hold to most of what the church teaches.”
“Doesn’t that usually go with being an American Catholic?” I asked, smirking a bit.
“True,” Jennifer said. “I guess I have my own religion. You know, I believe in God and spirituality. I’m spiritual, but not religious.”
“Okay, let me stop you there. What does that mean, spiritual but not religious?”
She stared out the window, watching the Gallery Hop crowd pass by our table.
“You know, I have never really thought about it. I guess it means acknowledging God, being thankful, nice to people, helping in the community and all that. I guess a little praying gets thrown in there too, especially on some of the cases I have to investigate.”
“Okay, so this God you pray to, what is He or She like? Can you describe this entity?”
“Well, no, I guess it’s more of a feeling.”
“Exactly. Why do you need God to be a good person, to be nice and all that? You don’t.”
She folded her arms across her chest.
“So, who says what’s nice? Someone has to enforce the law.”
“So, God is a universal cop? That’s comforting.” I tried to keep the scorn out of my voice.
“No, I mean, laws come from somewhere right?”
“Sure. Society. It’s in the best interests of society for laws to be made.”
She slowly nodded her head. “I see what you’re saying, but I don’t buy it.”
“But what do you buy? This God you can’t define other than good feelings or ‘facts’ that you can’t prove?” I had leaned in close, far enough that our faces were almost touching.
Jennifer backed away, slowly nodding her head. “I guess, but I have hard time believing there isn’t something out there.”
“Like what? It could be anything, as Dawkins says. It could be a flying spaghetti monster. You don’t know.”
“True, I guess.”
“I suppose I don’t believe in God anymore because I see no other alternative,” I said. “I think the whole vague, spirituality thing is a crock, excuse me. Either believe in God, do what he says, or don’t. Why try to have both? It’s just hypocritical holding on to the notion of God without any of the responsibilities.”
You can pre-order a copy of The Faithful here.
This an open discussion for the above topics. Have fun commenting, but keep it respectful.
Oh, and since I set up this post days ago… If the US has been destroyed from “Burn a Koran Day” due to crazy Christians/crazy Muslims/smiting from Allah, I fully expect my international readers to pick up the slack.
This is a fun little website that analyzes the text of a blog. Here’s mine:
“blaghag.com is probably written by a female somewhere between 26-35 years old. The writing style is personal and happy most of the time.”
Hey, not bad! I’m a 22 year old female, though I can see how my writing seems a tad more mature. And that happy to ranty ratio seems about right.
I wonder if this works well for other blogs?
“friendlyatheist.com is probably written by a female somewhere between 66-100 years old. The writing style is personal and upset most of the time.”
Oh, erm. …Never mind.
The first two issues of The Atheist comic:
The covers are cool enough, but the story is kind of neat:
When your fears are beyond belief you need a hero beyond believing. Antoine Sharpe is a scalpel on two legs – skeptical, brilliant, ruthless. A special agent with a shadowy department of the U.S. government, Sharpe applies his unconventional intellect to any paranormal threats that arise. His mission: Debunk or destroy. When countless teenagers show signs of otherworldly possession, Sharpe and his partner must not only find the truth, but stop the apparent plague from destroying civilization itself. How far will Sharpe go to save humanity? Farther than you can imagine! This trade paperback collects the hard-to-find, critically acclaimed mini-series, featuring the complete first story-arc of comic superstar Phil Hester’s enigmatic, intellectual government agent.
Woooo skeptical super heroes!
Unfortunately it’s an old comic and there are only two additional issues. I kind of want to get my hands on them. At the very least they’d make some badass artwork for my new apartment.
Thanks, Ryan, for the great gift!
You’re dictator for the day. You’re allowed to remove, alter, or create one law that is somehow related to religion (I’m allowing loose connections as long as you can justify it). What one law would you change, and why?
If you’re not from the US, please make sure to say so in the comments so all us silly US-centric people can understand your new rule better.
Me? I can think of a bunch, but off the top of my head I would remove the tax exempt status of religious institutions. Though making gay marriage totally legal is a close second. The latter would probably follow if Mormons didn’t have so much money to waste on hateful political campaigns.
Ok, ok. I know I just got in the car a couple of hours ago. I’m probably not even out of Wisconsin yet. But from all my rambling about Seattle the last couple of months, it seems I have a lot of readers there. And, well, I’m going to be a stranger in a new city, so might as well meet some people, right?
So, Pub Night! Woooo!
If you’re interested, please say so in the comments. And let me know which dates out of the 17th, 18th, or 19th work for you. Seattlites (is that correct? WTF do Seattle people call themselves?) can suggest an awesome pub venue. Something in Wallingford would be awesome, since I’m not sure I’ll have mastered navigating the city yet. You don’t want to be responsible for me getting lost forever, do you?
Axe murdering readers, please don’t answer that last question. Or come to the pub night.
PS: Did you know Greta Christina is going to be in Seattle Sept 12? The venue is small, but I’m going to try to make it!
Dad: How are you going to survive three days without the internet?
Me: Har har.
What I was really thinking: Well I already set up my blog to autopost and we’ll probably be able to get free wifi at the hotels, or at the very least at McDonald’s.
I have a problem.
Anyway, let’s just hope we make it to Seattle in one piece. Hopefully we won’t see conditions like this. But if anything interesting happens while I’m not driving, I’ll tweet it. And when I’m driving, I’m sure Mark will be tweeting our spiraling descent into insanity.
What’s your best/funniest/most horrifying road trip story?
