His response may be the best I’ve heard, if only because it allows for the one worthwhile trait of prayer – that it can comfort those who believe in it.

And it neatly breaks down the other side of what people mean when they say, “I’m praying for you”. They want you to believe what they believe.  And other people have responded to what Hitchens said and said that they hope when he is at death’s door he begs for God’s forgiveness. And they don’t believe this is an act of presumption; a cruel way to mete out their judgment. They think they can do it in a loving way.

They can’t. It’s not possible.

I hear “I’m praying for you” a lot. I don’t get offended, because I know the people who say it mostly mean they care, they’re helpless, and they want my life to improve.  But I’m forced to side with Hitchens on this one – if your thoughts are for my personal state of affairs, then send a letter or dial a phone. And most people in my life DO those things.

The ones who say it, and don’t follow up with personal contact are the ones I know are saying it because they hope I will find God’s grace in the way that they have. I can, at this point in my life, state that I will not.

Then again, one day if I become some crazy Southern Baptist wrassling rattlesnakes, you can point this blog out to me and I’m sure we’ll all laugh about what a young fool I was.

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I’ve studied a load of religions in depth. I’ve studied groups you probably don’t even consider religions. They interest me endlessly. Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Pastafarianism… and then all the cults you probably don’t pay a second thought to, even though they tend to derive themselves from Christian tradition. I’ve never, ever found a religion that encompasses my world view.

Can I deny categorically that there is a God? No, but I can certainly say that I find it extremely unlikely there is one.

I used to be “religious”. I used to pray. These are habits most of us have instilled in us by our families, our communities, our friends. These habits become traditions and we attach them to places and feelings and memories and not so much to God over time. This is true even for religious people. How many Catholics really think about why they’re taking communion every Sunday? Do they just do it because it’s habit, because the whole group is doing it? I never had my first communion and as an adolescent, I used to be pushed into taking communion without any understanding of why we did so when I attended church services. Eventually, I stopped taking it because it was meaningless to me.

I refused to be married in a ceremony that would be tainted for me by being defined by any religion. When I’m close to dying, I will fight like hell, just like Dylan Thomas wanted.  I won’t baptize or indoctrinate my children. When I get in a shitty situation, I reassure myself about the inherent slack of the universe instead of praying. I am in control of my life and ultimately, the world (albeit a small portion of it). The good I do is reflected in the world, and in my heart. I don’t need a specter to threaten me or a benevolent being to reward me for my actions, the actions themselves are their own punishments and rewards.

The absolute, broad-brush approach to treating atheism as an impossibility for humans is hypocritical. I respect that people believe in God, that they may, in fact, be right. I don’t need to prove my disbelief in God any more than you need to prove your belief (because you couldn’t prove it, you know that, right?). What matters most is how we treat each other, something that too often gets lost in the flood of people trying to prove they’ve picked the right religion.

So now we’ve officially met. I look forward to your retracted statement.

I simply pulled the garlic scapes out of their packaging and set them on the cutting board, and they formed this shape, looking much like the FSM. The kale I chopped and potatoes I peeled did no such thing, I can only imagine this means that he FSM has laid his noodly appendage on the scapes in particular.  Unsurprising, since they smelled much better than the potatoes and kale.

I wonder if I should alert the press, or at least our CSA to the fact that something holy is happening in those fields.

I’ve mentioned before that women are often prescribed birth control to help with physical problems. My mother was on birth control when she had ovarian cysts (PCOS is increasingly common these days, and birth control helps relieve the symptoms for some women). I myself have been on birth control to relieve emotional symptoms associated with menstruation (PMDD – again, increasingly common, many birth controls advertise themselves as a means to relieve symptoms).

Therefore, women are prescribed birth control for a variety of reasons that have NOTHING to do with preventing pregnancy. That’s why I think it should be illegal for a pharmacist to refuse to dole out the medication and for an insurer to refuse coverage for those medications, WITHOUT EVEN TOUCHING THE MORAL ISSUES.

Secondly, I think it’s idiotic to intend to go into medicine, into nursing, into filling prescriptions with the intention of forcing your morals onto someone else.  You know what, I applied for a job at Whole Foods once, when I was vegan. They told me they could put me in the deli, would I have a moral issue with that. And I said, nope, I wouldn’t.

Did I think eating meat, cheese, etc was morally wrong at that point? You bet your sweet monkey butt I did. Would I have refused to slice that meat and sell it to someone? Hell no. You know why?  Because I respect individual rights, and also because I am not contributing to the problem by slicing meat that’s already been processed and selling it to you. You’re going to eat meat no matter what. And the store will sell it so long as there is a demand for it. So what would my refusal to participate do?

I didn’t take the job because it was in a bad location and they wouldn’t up my pay and also because they tried to strong-arm me into signing a contract. But my point is – I would have taken that job, moral issues aside, because everyone deserves a choice about their lifestyles.

What bugs me more than the fact that these places exist is that they don’t feel as though they have any responsibility to help out the potential customers who come in by sending them to another store. This is a shitty business practice, and a crappy way to treat another human being. Apparently, their morals justify being a douche-bag.

When someone came into Butler’s Orchard and asked me about picking peaches, I didn’t say “We don’t pick peaches here. Fuck off.” I said, “We don’t pick peaches here, but here’s a list of other local places that do and what they charge.” You know what that’s called? It’s called customer service, and when you’re interested in doing business with people, you learn it well.

Maybe some consumers will like going to a store and not having to glimpse a condom. Maybe some pharmacists will like not having to dole out birth control. Maybe what they’ll like more than anything is not having to deal with someone with differing morals.

My personal hope is that someone starts a chain of pharmacy/sex shops. Now that would be a convenient stop.