An ordinary woman can be an atheist

Browsing through other blogs I see a lot of "creds," including women who blog as "polemicists" or "feminists."

eh, I'm an feminist in the sense that I want to do what I want to do and I don't want men, especially men who don't know me, telling me what to do.  I don't want women to tell me what to do, either, so that really makes me a free thinker.  (One exception: my boss can tell me what to do but only for 40 hours per week and she can't tell me who to fuck or who not to fuck or how to do it when I do it, which she fortunately isn't nosy enough to be tempted to do even if she was a fundamentalist nutter)

Some lady bloggers began their blog "careers" as ordinary people then got creds by being bigger-than-life bloggers.  Jen McCreight became famous for "Boobquake," which was a "movement" (heh, couldn't resist) objecting to some fundy muslim cleric's claim that earthquakes were due to women being boobish... or something.  I wasn't paying attention then and only found her blog later.  At the time she was an undergrad at Purdue.  Now she's a graduate student and has flown around going to conferences speaking on student activism.  She did a good thing, but her "creds" were really just having a point of view and being willing to speak out, then encouraging other students to make a point (or two.. haha couldn't resist that one).  She didn't write her blog as a scientist, just as a person who believes in the right to be an atheist in the U.S.

The thing about ordinary women, who aren't ex-pastors or philosophers or PhDs in one of the "hard" sciences or evolutionary biology, is that ordinary women in Christianity are often the invisible glue holding together passé religions (i.e., all religions).  They are the "church ladies" and the moms and wives who make it possible for crazyass men to take crazyass positions.

I was expected to be one of these religious women, because church theology (doesn't matter which denomination) is so insane that it needs a translator who will put it into everyday parlance. 

Some of my facebook friends are just such people.  They "praise god" for a good outcome after an illness or scary event that god didn't apparently forsee so they had to praise him after he figured out how to fix his oversight.  If they didn't pray for the happy ending, they credit god with being magical beneficial, but if they did pray for it, they thank him.  Granted, more of my FB friends are women and my women friends are chattier on FB, but I think they kind of represent what happens in families and social circles in general. 

Today I was emotionally blackmailed with typical FB crap again:

To all my friends (including me) who are going through some issues right now--Let's start an intention avalanche. We all need positive intentions right now. If I don't see your name, I'll understand. May I ask my friends wherever you might be, to kindly copy, paste, and share this status for one hour to give a moment of support to all those who have family problems; health struggles, job issues, worries of any kind and just need to know that someone cares. Do it for all of us, for nobody is immune. I hope to see this on the walls of all my friends just for moral support. I know some will!! I did it for a friend and you can too. You have to copy & paste this one, no share button

Amen! Love you guys!

uhhhh what?  Do guys post this kind of thing?  I've never seen a guy post something that useless, but it's commonplace amongst my Christian friends.  Another one posted this gem today:

Today in my devotional, "Jesus Calling," there was a word "abhor." It said that "Jesus abhors the use of guilt as a means of motivation." Abhor means to "loathe or hate." Strong word. You shouldnt be pressured into serving Jesus

First of all, why do they have devotionals?  A: because reading the Bible will turn them into atheists!  It makes no fucking sense if you read the whole thing.  And not feeling pressured into serving Jesus?  The post itself is peer pressure to make you want to serve Jesus, and who wouldn't want to?  Oh you don't?  Well that's just not acceptable.  You should feel guilty for not feeling non-guilt for not doing what you don't want to do, .... or something.  You can't say "Jesus doesn't want to guilt me into serving him. *whew*  Let's party!"

Or this, which speaks to the social needs of women.  We want to talk about our problems, but you know what?  Even our best friends get sick of us.  But Jesus, our invisible friend, doesn't get sick of us (that we know):

Jesus is not only your King, but He is your friend. You can talk to Him whenever you want. He is the kind of friend you can call at 3am just to talk. Is Jesus your friend?

My King is my pal.  How sweet.  WHAT?  Why should he talk to me at 3 a.m. when there are premie babies and earthquake victims praying for him to help them?  Ohhhh... he's like a magical Santa Claus who hears all and is everywhere at once.  Does the Bible say any of that?  Only kind of sort of.  It's a huge modern stretch to fill a gaping psychological need.

 

So....   how will atheism reach people like my Christian gal pals?  They are not interested in philosophical arguments or rants against Biblical errors or inconsistencies.  They don't really pay attention to the Bible anyway, not really.  Their religion is medicinal, social, and psychological... and simplistic.

 

The ordinary woman is not going to read polemics or philosophy or probably anything written by someone with a Ph.D.  We don't need more feminist bloggers.  We need examples of how you can be an atheist without being "uppity."  Jen used to be ordinary and then she got to be a big deal, and then she got smacked down by atheist men & trolls (I hope they're trolls) for getting uppity or "divisive" or for having breasts.  Whatever.  They weren't her target audience anyway, at least not in the beginning.

 

She became a cause celebrée by asserting a woman's right to jiggle without being accused of causing natural disasters.  Let the academics call that polemics or [insert unintelligible academic gibberish here].

 

I want to see more ordinary people being ordinary but atheist.  Maybe what we need isn't "A-Plus" movements (whatever that is) but more of this:

 

 

 

(random friends' group photo grabbed from the web - lots of these out there, but few of men in such groupings, FYI)