It has been said that being an atheist in the United States today is akin to being homosexual fifty years ago in terms of prejudice and hatred toward our life-choice. Now, I’m not entirely sure I believe that wholeheartedly as I don’t know A) what it was like to be a homosexual back then, let alone today and B) I’ve never personally felt as though I’ve been under any sort of serious scrutiny because of my beliefs.

For those of you who don’t know, I am a de facto atheist which means I do not believe there is a god, but I do not declare to know without a shadow of a doubt that there is no god. Perhaps there is, perhaps there isn’t, but I strongly lean toward the later and quite honestly I don’t really care either way!

I was born into a family that was “quasi-religious” as I like to say. Step-Mom had her following over the years in Protestantism and then later Jehovah’s Witness (though now she is more or less non-practicing beside meeting some of her friends at church from time to time) and Dad is non-practicing, if a believer at all. I was forced to go to church as a young child, but I don’t remember it ever having any sort of strong impression on me one way or another. If anything, the biggest thing I remember was hating to wear a dress on Sundays and itchy tights. I remember reading a kid version of the Christian bible complete with pictures and explanations of heaven and hell and thinking it was quite an imaginative, fantastical world like a fairy tale, but certainly not anything I would believe was actual truth.

Now I’m not sure if I would have grown up to be a god-fearing person if my parents had forced religious teachings into me or if they had been more devout followers would I have absorbed the lifestyle of religion and a love of god. Thankfully they pretty much allowed me to be exposed to their beliefs and be able to make up my own mind later on in life. As it turned out, I grew up believing in the possibility of god (with wavering feelings on the matter), but around the time of middle school I had pretty much convinced myself otherwise and, in my view, there is very little, if any, chance of their being a god. I grew up in a community of mostly believers in Christianity as most kids in the United States do. I never outright voiced my opinion of, “Oh yes, I am an atheist!”, but I would never hesitate to give the true answer is directly asked. I’ve had shocked reactions from time to time from mostly people in the older generation, but rarely any sort of hostility or disgust (well, at least to my face).

But is being an atheist really that big of a deal?

According to surveys there is a greater population of atheists today than ever before, particularly in the USA, yet I have rarely met someone who I had known to be an atheist through conversation save my close friends. No one really talks about it and it falls into the realm of hush-hush things like someone’s drinking problem, or financial woes, or someone’s weight if they’ve gained some. The USA is one of the most Christian countries in the developed world, but we’re also one of the most advanced and forward-thinking which confuses me.

I just wanted to make this post not as a slander post toward anyone with religious beliefs as I really don’t care what you believe or what the next person believes, but I just wanted to make a point to tell other people who are atheists such as myself, or aren’t sure if they are atheist, that it is okay to come out and say it/accept it. No one should feel intimidated or oppressed by this, just as no one should feel oppressed being a minority, a woman, homosexual, trans-gender, etc. There’s nothing wrong with having a healthy dose of skepticism as long as you aren’t shoving it into anyone’s face or down other people’s throats because the way I see it, atheist or devout, no matter what you say to a person with different beliefs at the end of the day you have done nothing to convert them to your side or your way of thinking. This is 2009 (almost 2010! ), let’s be comfortable with who we are and accept other people for their differences no matter how big or small.

So, that being said, don’t shy away from being an atheist or thinking being one is wrong. There are tons of open-minded, happy, super-duper nice, well-adjusted atheists out there just like me who get along just fine with the rest of the world, beliefs or not.

And happy Christmas everyone (yes, I still celebrate Christmas as a family/friends/delicious turkey holiday no matter how pagan it is!) who celebrates it! Best wishes for 2010!

I’m notoriously terra-bad at keeping any sort a dedicated schedule to my public blog updates. Needless to say I am currently back home visiting family down near DC where they apparently had about two feet of snow last week. Yes, two freakin’ feet in the tri-state area. Insanity! Either way I’ll be spending the holidays getting my butt in gear and working on some projects of mine in the online world, so hopefully there will be something a little more substantial here soon.

Merry holidays, everyone.

I always feel like a jerk running into people who clearly recognize me from somewhere yet I can’t for the life of me remember who they are. This happens to me quite frequently and is always a source of incredible embarrassment. For those of you who don’t know (which I doubt many of you would unless you know me in real life), I suffer from a medium form of facial blindness or prosopagnosia. Basically this means I have a very great deal of difficulty remembering peoples’ faces.

I feel like this guy

I’ve had this disorder for as long as I can remember, but I didn’t really know it was actually a named disorder till a  year or two ago. I always just thought I wasn’t studying people enough to remember them or wasn’t very mindful of details. It bothers me greatly since I have problems remembering new people I’ve just met. I can remember all other details of a person such as their voice, the way they walk, their clothing, choice of perfume, etc., but for some reason I can’t remember things as simple as their hair color, facial features, or eye color. Even if I consciously sit there and tell myself, “I am going to remember what this person looks like!” I usually can’t recall their faces mere seconds after I’ve finished looking at them! I’ve sat around in restaurants “practicing” my visual memory on people only to find, frustratingly, that I can’t remember them no mater how hard I try to force my disfunctional brain to.

This isn’t to say that I don’t remember people I’ve met multiple times. I can clearly remember my parents’ faces, close friends, and teachers I’ve had all quarter. It just takes me an incredible amount of time to commit them to memory. My boyfriend and I joke about how when I met him I described him as “blonde and green-eyed” to a mutual friend when in fact he was a brunette with blue eyes. I have to spend a great deal of time with a person to remember them, but the  memories do eventually form unlike the severe forms of this disorder where a person can NEVER remember the faces of others; even their family! I remember watching a documentary on people with facial blindness and this one poor woman was so bad that she couldn’t recognize people at a skating rink she had worked with in the same office for 20+ years. Sad.

It’s not that I’m rude when I encounter people I met in class once, or at a get-together the night before. I always just joke I have tunnel vision and a bad memory, but it’s not necessarily that my memory is shot; it’s just you look like a stranger to me! This is incredibly embarrassing with things like interviewing. I interviewed a few weeks ago and I remember sitting for a whole HOUR with one interviewer and then 5 minutes later having trouble picking that person out of a crowd of people. I have trouble remembering HR hiring managers (veryyyyy bad when they say hello to you later and you go, “UhhhhH!?!”). It makes you seem air-headed and disinterested which is absolutely not the case.

It’s so freaking frustrating!

I just felt like sharing this since I’m sure you probably know someone who’s bad at remembering faces. Perhaps they have facial blindness like yours truly!

I’ve been reading a decent amount in the past few months and I just thought I’d share some of my recent favorites:

• Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. I think Katy mentioned this book in one of her posts a few months back and I saw it at the bookstore and decided to pick it up. It’s wonderful! The story takes place over many, many years following the life of a family in the 12th century in England. The story starts following Tom Builder, an architect who has a passion for designing and building cathedrals, and his family. The story continues with Tom’s adoptive son, Jack, and his love interest. The storyline continues with many great characters whose stories are all intertwined. The best part about this book is that it follows the lives of normal, everyday people rather than kings or queens and nobility. It really makes you feel for the characters and their struggles to survive and just how outright crappy life was back then. It’s a really long read, but I really couldn’t put the book down.
• World Without End by Ken Follett. After reading the previous book I had to pick this one up. This book is a sequel to Pillars of the Earth and takes place two centuries later. Many of the characters are related to people you read about in the first book. The story centers around Caris, a descendant of Jack Builder from the first book, and her love interest Merthin. Like Tom, Merthin is also interested in architecture; specifically cathedrals. The second half of the book also deals with the Black Death that plagued Europe. I don’t think this book was as epic as the first, but it’s still certainly good and it’s fun reading about what became of the descendants of the people you read about in the first book.
• Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. I won’t lie when I tell you that the first couple of chapters are really, really boring. I had trouble getting through them since the beginning of the story tends to drag, but once it gets going it’s a pretty good book. The story starts in the years after WW2 in Scotland. Claire is a nurse who worked for the British Army and is married to a man who’s incredibly interested in genealogy. One day she is transported back in time 200 years and encounters her husband’s predecessor; a ruthless man named “Black Jack” Randall. She escapes from Randall by being captured by a clan of Scottsmen and eventually falls in love and is forced to marry one of the clan, Jamie. I haven’t completely finished the book yet, but I am aware that this book became a 7 book series though the first book can stand alone as a work on in on itself.
• The White Queen by Philippa Gregory. I’ve read a great deal of her books since falling in love with The Other Boleyn Girl a year or two ago. This book isn’t one of her bests, but I did enjoy it regardless. The story takes place before The Other Boleyn Girl and deals with a woman who fell in love with the then rising King of England, Edward. The story goes through their love, marriage, and fight to keep the crown in spite of the rising Tudors (who eventually DO take over England as we do know). The story is quite nice because of the love between the two characters, but lacks a lot of details and ends at a really bad spot. I know that Gregory intends to write a second book about what happens after, but still, meh. It’s still enjoyable if you like historic fiction about the royal family of England!

Woo-hoo! I’m so completely and totally excited about FF13 having an official NA release date! 3/9/2010! I’ve been waiting for this game forever (basically since FFX since FFXII proved to be such a huge disappointment) and I’m psyched that it’s being released on Xbox360 so I don’t have to shell out for a useless PS3 just yet. For those of you who are gamers and haven’t checked out the Final Fantasy series I’d highly recommend it. I’ve been a fan since I was 13 when a friend introduced me to the then new Final Fantasy VIII. The storylines are epic and aimed at males and females. I’d highly recommend the series (though honestly if you’re an RPG fan and haven’t heard of FF you’ve been living under a rock).

I’m a little weirded out by the new news that came out regarding the game’s theme song. Apparently they decided to go with a song by Leona Lewis (who I admittedly haven’t heard a single song from till yesterday) for the NA and EU releases. I was really surprised by this since they typically try to keep the Japanese songs they use in the game or try to get the singer to translate the song to English. Either way the song kind of grew on me, but I still can’t visualize the song in the game just yet. Unlike a lot of the rabid fanboys/girls I am not throwing rocks and starting drama with Square’s decision to go with this song versus the Japanese theme song. I’m just praying for a better game than what was delivered a few years ago with FF12. *shivers*

Either way here are some videos so you can compare:

Japanese theme song

Leona Lewis’ My Hands

FF13 Game Trailer

Exciting! I miss good RPGs. There are so few these days.