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we were just pretending

"I guess I like that idea that you could pretend yourself into new feelings and new relationships. Obviously I'm a big pretender. but the kind of leap where it's almost like some kind of science fiction thing happens. Like we were just pretending, and then what's this? We actually have new powers now, and we see each other differently, and in fact all of life has suddenly tilted. I'm going for that everyday, personally."
~ Miranda July

Posts tagged "atheism"

Motto for life, succinctly put.

(via amandaskankovich)

Siken.

(via morgan-leigh)

[…] we have to build the republic of heaven where we are, because for us there is no elsewhere.

Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass (via thephoenixsaid)

nevver:

A is for Atheism.

Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The act of worship, as carried on by Christians, seems to me to be debasing rather than ennobling. It involves grovelling before a Being who, if He really exists, deserves to be denounced instead of respected. I see little evidence in this world of the so-called goodness of God. On the contrary, it seems to me that, on the strength of His daily acts, He must be set down a most cruel, stupid and villainous fellow.

I can say this with a clear conscience, for He has treated me very well—in fact, with vast politeness. But I can’t help thinking of his barbaric torture of most of the rest of humanity. I simply can’t imagine revering the God of war and politics, theology and cancer. I do not believe in immortality, and have no desire for it. The belief in it issues from the puerile egos of inferior men. In its Christian form it is little more than a device for getting revenge upon those who are having a better time on this earth. What the meaning of human life may be I don’t know: I incline to suspect that it has none.

All I know about it is that, to me at least, it is very amusing while it lasts. Even its troubles, indeed, can be amusing. Moreover, they tend to foster the human qualities that I admire most—courage and its analogues. The noblest man, I think, is that one who fights God, and triumphs over Him. I have had little of this to do. When I die I shall be content to vanish into nothingness. No show, however good, could conceivably be good for ever.

H.L. Mencken, in a letter to Will Durant on the subject of the meaning of life (from Letters of Note)

(via jeffscherer)

The Partisans - Rick Perry - Weak, man. (by TheSecondCityNetwork)

“I’m a godless heathen, and I approved this message.”

An atheist loves his fellow man instead of god. An atheist believes that heaven is something for which we should work now – here on earth for all men together to enjoy. An atheist believes that he can get no help through prayer but that he must find in himself the inner conviction and strength to meet life, to grapple with it, to subdue it, and enjoy it. An atheist believes that only in a knowledge of himself and a knowledge of his fellow man can he find the understanding that will help to a life of fulfillment. He seeks to know himself and his fellow man rather than to know a god. An atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An atheist believes that a deed must be done instead of a prayer said. An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanquished, war eliminated. He wants man to understand and love man. He wants an ethical way of life. He believes that we cannot rely on a god or channel action into prayer nor hope for an end of troubles in a hereafter. He believes that we are our brother’s keepers and are keepers of our own lives; that we are responsible persons and the job is here and the time is now.

Definition of atheism given to the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Murray v. Curlett, 1963

If you ask me why, as an atheist, I’m so obsessed with writing and reading about religion, that’s the pat answer that I won’t give you, because it’s too small. It’s a collection of trees that can’t actually express the forest. But I think in human development there’s something that leads us on, some gift of the world, that gives us guidance toward becoming whole. I think there’s something that wants us to look in those dark corners and tease the mysteries out and become strong enough to see things the way they are, without all the magic and hope and fear and ugliness that we project on them, because when we do that, we’re abusing ourselves, because the world inside our head is where we actually live, and the best we can hope for is to work until it matches the world outside our heads as closely as possible.

Jacob Clifton