Times change — people change

Long ago, my ex-CS friend (among a few others) and I were walking down a street near my college, probably to kill time until another friend got out of class, when we walked by a moderately-sized building claiming to be owned by the Jehovah's Witnesses. My friend, having been almost exclusively exposed to Christian Science, and I, having been almost exclusively exposed to Mormonism, humored the idea of visiting tons of different churches — one every Sunday — to learn more about what other religions do and believe. "We only really know about one religion each," we thought. "Wouldn't it be great if, when our friends say they're Catholic or Baptist or whatever, we actually had an inkling of an idea what that meant?"

I had an additional motive back then, though. I had recently discovered the Non Prophets and the Atheist Experience on iTunes, and was enthralled not only by their incredible confidence in their worldview, but by their methods. Rather than digging into some book, or clinging to the words of some authority figure, they sought out arguments against their view and talked about why they didn't find it compelling. And, best of all, they insisted that we, their audience, agree with them because of their reasoning, not because of their conclusion.

So, as my friend and I started visiting other churches, I started this blog primarily to catalog all our adventures to various churches, but also ate up the little pamphlets and things these churches would hand out. I would snatch them up, read through them, consider them, and use this blog to articulate why I disagreed with them. This blog was my chance to forge my opinions without worrying about the social repercussions of arguing in person.

This blog, therefore, had a kind of theme to it. It was a blog dedicated to arguing philosophically and factually about the God question, with the occasional music related post to spice things up. But something happened which I knew, deep down, would happen. Deep down, I knew this moment would come, and I could feel it getting closer and closer, taunting me. Threatening the very character of this blog:

I've heard it all.

Every argument for God ultimately boils down to a few logically fallacious premises. Typically it's this one, with the next most common one being the one that looks like this:

1. Something must have caused X.
2. I call that thing "God."
3. Therefore, God exists.

I'd argue against this ridiculous argument right now, but I've already done it before. And that's the problem — I've pretty much solved the God problem in all its iterations, which means my blog, with its current focus, is blandly redundant at best and utterly useless at worst.

And so, here I am. I'm an Atheist who's totally and completely confident in his worldview, still writing in a blog primarily designed to develop that confidence. This blog has served its purpose.

Often, I think, people get caught up in a commitment or a creation or an organization and become slaves to it. They feel like they're somehow obligated to serve the system they're a part of, and feel like they're trapped by that obligation. It's sad.

It's sad, because I'm kinda doing the same thing. I've got a bunch of readers now (which is something I never thought would happen) and I've caught myself, after writing a post, letting it decay for weeks as a draft because I was worried how my readership would take it, before finally (and lamentably) deleting it. Can I post frivolous things? Can I post vitriolic and insubstantial rants? Can I post the solutions to word problems I got in Calculus that I found interesting and awesome? Does my post fit with the theme of my blog?

So, more for myself than anything else, I'd like to say, "Fuck you, more-than-likely-inaccurate mental caricatures of the readers of my blog! This blog is mine, and I get to do whatever I want with it!"

Ultimately, this blog is for me, like all blogs should be. The blogosphere is a beautiful cacophony of voices, each proclaiming its respective individuality for anyone, anywhere, to stumble upon. Is there anything more wonderfully human? And is there anything more horrible, therefore, than a blog author who posts just to garner more readers?

Behold, then, my blog! It's my place to rant about whatever the hell I want to rant about. It's my place to post whatever the hell I want to post. It's mine, and my readership will be determined by what I post, not the other way around! The theme of my blog — if there even is one — will conform to my posts, not the other way around!

It's possible, I admit, that nothing about my blog, beyond the outlook of the author, will change at all. I still love ripping apart stupid arguments, whether they're about God or the supposed evilness of vaccines or our ability to see the future, I still love making the occasional music post that gets waaay more hits daily than I expect it to, and I still love getting comments by clueless commenters.

But I also enjoy writing amusing and pointless posts, math heavy posts, and partially substantial but mostly caustic posts, too. And, actually, I also really enjoyed writing that flippant and vacuous post.

Welcome, I guess, to Logic Eats Babies 2.0 — a scary, scary place, where you get to delve even deeper into the brain of a science-minded, whimsical and nihilistic Atheist you probably haven't even met in real life.