Rising Above Mediocrity
by Benjamin Geiger

I’ve never been one to have a great deal of faith in the supernatural. I’ve always been raised to trust my own senses and my own logic, and most importantly, to keep my mind open and working. However, every theistic religion I’ve ever been exposed to has demanded that I shut my higher brain functions down and accept their message without question or thought; I should trust the Bible/Quran/Bhagavad-Gita because the Bible/Quran/Bhagavad-Gita says I should trust the Bible/Quran/Bhagavad-Gita.

For a while, I was able to fool myself into believing that I believe, and fool others. Somehow I kept open a loophole in my logic to allow the existence of a self-contradictory and nonsensical deity, and I was able to follow along in hollow, meaningless rituals to please others. Only recently have I been able to admit that that loophole has closed, and now I can say that I see things as they truly are.

I am an atheist.

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(Entry reposted from the User Friendly message board.)

I’ve been hanging out with a girl I know (I’ll refer to her as Bonnie, because that’s her name) for a while now. We’ve seen movies together, gone to clubs together, and we see quite a bit of each other over the past few months. A couple of months ago, I told her how I felt about her. She basically gave me the “let’s be friends” speech, with a side of “it’s not you, it’s me”… but I believe it because of her situation. (She’s significantly overweight and it has given her some self-esteem issues.)

Last night, we went out to a club to celebrate the graduation of one of her friends. Things got a bit wild. I was the designated driver, and somehow even I became much less inhibited than usual… more significantly than when I do drink. (Even drinking doesn’t usually reduce my inhibitions by much… either that or it takes a lot more alcohol to get me drunk… or both.) A few times, on the dance floor, we engaged in some… ahem… less-than-FYOSS dancing. [”FYOSS” is a concept used at the UF message board. It refers to things that are “Fourteen-Year-Old-Sister Safe”; in other words, things you wouldn’t mind your proverbial little sister seeing.]

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I’m saddened to report that Amanda lost her battle with cancer at approximately 11AM EST, Tuesday, 10 January 2006.