As most of you probably know, I have another Twitter account and blog dedicated to my webcomic, Goblins. I consider those my main accounts, as it's also where I tweet about silliness like when my wife and I joke around, etc. I've learned through trial and error that it's not the best place for me to discuss things like religion or sexism. Whether my discussion of those topics are right or wrong, a lot of people just don't want to hear it. It's kind of like going to a party and finding one guy standing in a corner, shouting about the importance of accepting Jesus into your heart. Whether or not it's true, most people at the party just wish you'd shut up.
This blog and its connected Twitter account will be a place for me to talk, question and rant about topics that are important to me, without getting in the way of the majority of my readers, who honestly don't want to hear it.
So... why? Why do I feel the need to create a place to say things that have already been said by smarter people in more articulate and entertaining ways? I mean... a frustrated atheist? We're all over the place. Well the reason for the new blog/Twitter has nothing to do with breaking new ground or being a voice for anyone. It's for much more selfish reasons.
As a heterosexual, white male, I've rarely felt persecuted against. I remember being in a McDonalds in the 90s and being attacked by four drunk first nations guys who openly said they were going to "kill" me because because I was white. For most of my life, that was the only time I'd ever experienced direct racism. It was a real eye opener, because I only had to feel that once. As we all know, there are people who face that kind of racism every day.
When I saw that some of my heroes were open about their atheism (Penn Jillette, Bill Nye, Stephen Hawking, Michio Kaku, etc), I decided to be open about it too. This invited a more watered down, but constant form of prejudice. Then, when I later began to question some aspects of feminism which seem to mirror sexism, I experienced even more prejudice, this time in the form of misandry.
I feel it's important to note that the kind of prejudice that I've experienced as an atheist/gender equalist is nothing when compared to that of, say a black person or a woman or a member of the gay community. What I've gone through doesn't even register when placed on the scale with people who've felt real, life crushing persecution. But even so, I'm still angry.
Maybe I'm a sad, whiny, little man, but I'm pissed off that just asking about rape triggers got me a tsunami of hateful email. This is a horrific crime that I think we all need to be aware of and I don't think it's a good idea to attack someone for wanting to learn more about it simply because he's a man. I'm pissed off at how many people find it disrespectful to ask questions about the Bible. A book that calls for the death of non-believers, the enslavement of foreigners and the domination of women. A book that is to be the most important word ever given to mankind, yet is so confusing, there are 33,820 denominations of Christianity who all interperet the Bible differently. And I can't question it?!
There are a couple people who've commented on how snarky or disrespectful I've gotten on my new Frustr_Atheist Twitter account. I think they're right. I should be honest, without being overly insulting and I promise to be more careful. A lot of my thoughts are considered disrespectful or insulting by some and that's fine, but mocking the Bible with a knock knock joke as I did the other day shouldn't be done. There's just no reason. Expect some snarkiness, expect some anger, but expect an open mind.
Basically, I hope to learn a lot from this.
~T
