Today I wrap up my stint at the Smyth-Bland Regional Library. This evening, I'll load my car down with books, music, clothing, animals and my bicycle and head to Charlotte for the summer. To an extent, I dread it. My handful of experiences with that city have given me the impression that it's a city plagued by
aspiring, money-grubbing snobs; to tell the truth they're merely upper middle-class, but they certainly wouldn't admit to that. I'll be braving Suburbia over the next three months, which is pretty terrifying and mind-numbing. Looks like I'll have to drive my car to work every day (money down the drain, pollution in the skies, more size to my ass).
I read part of Eric Schlosser's
Reefer Madness yesterday--at least the section pertaining to marijuana. Though familiar with much of the material, I was nevertheless infuriated by the statistics and individual cases discussed within. I'll never understand what makes a drug offender more of a threat to society than a murderer or a rapist. No, I'll rephrase that.
I understand how and why a government can deem such an offender to be more dangerous, but it's not because that person is a danger to society; rather, that person is a threat to the corrupt infrastructure of American politics. I'm not sure whether I should be angry, scared or just plain depressed about it all.
I've been reading
Atheist Revolution almost on a daily basis for the past three months. Lots of enlightening ideas being tossed around over there, and it's appealing because it's not lofty or inundated with esoteric philosophies and ideas. The common man--who's usually getting the blunt end of the religious stick--can understand what's being discussed. On the subject of not believing, I've become more and more inclined to say that I believe without a doubt that the Christian god does not exist. And, I've become more and more perturbed by the Christian's argument, "How can you look around and see this beauty and complexity and think that it wasn't divine creationism?" What befuddles me about this question isn't so much that it's an easy one to answer, it's that I haven't seen many atheists give what I consider to be an adequate and accurate counter-argument; that is, that beauty and complexity are entirely relative. If someone tells me that a sunset is the most beautiful thing in the world, I might agree. That's not to say it has supreme beauty; rather, it means that in relation to everything else we've experienced, it's the most beautiful. Does it wield more beauty than anything ever created? Most likely it doesn't, because our limited knowledge of things as they exist doesn't permit us to make an accurate statement on the matter.
Out of steam and back to work.
