There are many forms of evil in this sad, cold world. But I think we can all agree there is one insidious force that trumps them all. Something so vile, that it can tear apart loving, Christian families, destroy the purity of our children, and release a terror so malignant that it can take on a demonic, haunting life of its own!

And a movie is finally being made that exposes this rotten, stinking scourge on the wholesome, Jesus-fearing American family.

The film trailer opens with the familiar “found footage” style, shaky camera scene depicting a man who apparently has just purchased a digital video camera, “You know, how we talked about before, how we want to document our family…”

First red flag, ladies. You know why your pervert husband really bought the camera.

But wait, amateur bedroom filming may not be the only problem here. The youngest son has been seeing a decrepit, female wraith in the home.

“EXPERIENCE THE TERROR!”

“You let something in. Where there was light, there’s dark.”

“EVIL IS UNLEASHED!”

“The boys are so…infected.”

“A GENERATIONAL CURSE!”

“I’m begging you. You have to stop this.”

“THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A SECRET!”

“It’s like there’s something both living and dead.

It is not harmless!”

Yes. It’s a haunted box of porn.

No, I’m not joking.

"Harmless is a feature film shot in the popular found footage style. It’s the story about a husband and father and his battle with a box of porn that is found in the closet. Once opened, the box of porn begins to torment the family, much like a poltergeist. It’s sort of a social commentary on how pornography can destroy a family." (from the official site)

So, there you go. Now, flogging your log doesn’t just give you hairy palms. No, riding the great white knuckler won’t just make you go blind. Be warned! Oiling your pogo stick will unleash a lurching, vicious, pale, blood-thirsty haunt upon you and your family who will follow you to the ends of the Earth until you banish the heinous box of porn to the curb!

And you just start watching porn on the internet and erasing your browser history, like most normal people do.

Death.

Somehow death has gotten a bad rap. Death is just a part of life. Hear me out.

Think about it. Were you bothered by or afraid of your own mortality, your nonexistence, before you were born, before you existed? As Mark Twain famously penned, "I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it."

I like to imagine death is the best sleep you’ll ever get. Like after a glass of warm milk and a backrub-purring kittens on your feet, electric blanket, wave machine, pitch-dark room, post-coital glow sleep. There is no dreaming, no stirring. There is just blissful nothing.

Humans have a problem with the notion of nothingness, though. You probably picture nothing as blackness, silence, or that ominous, rolling cloud on The NeverEnding Story. But that is still something, isn’t it?

Sure, the death of someone you love is scary. Unthinkable. You may have lived your whole life with this wonderful, supportive person by your side, and it is terrifying to even fathom what life will be like without them. You can’t fathom, but you know it will hurt. Your life will go on, though. 

And when your time for death approaches, you might linger before you succumb. You might fight and thrash and struggle. But that will pass as you do.

No one knows what happens after death. For millennia, humans have invented their own particular fluffy ideas of an afterlife. Is this simply because of the crushing fear of the unknown? Seventy-two virgins, pearly gates, a shiny soul in a new body? Are the legends of heaven, reincarnation, and eternal life there because of the all-too-human need for a cognitive crutch to mitigate that fear?

Perhaps.

All I know is that since I started embracing the wonderful vastness of the universe, and I realized how lucky I am simply to be here, statistically, right now, pondering death with you, dear reader, I became unafraid. Why fear something that is unavoidable and inherent for all living things? Death just is.

I hope to live as long as possible. I take my vitamins, drink plenty of water, and eat leafy greens.

But someday I will die. And that’s cool.

It’s a nice story that someday you’ll be with your loved ones again. It’s a comforting tale to think that if you just say the right words and follow certain rules, you might be rewarded with immortality along side a photogenic divine creator with nice teeth and flowing hair. If you need that, go for it.

I’d argue, however, that the realization-that in all likelihood, there will probably be no glowing clouds, rainbow bridges, angels’ harps, ethereal light, paradise, or reincarnation as a pampered housecat-makes every moment burning, vital, and fleeting.

There is no place for grudges with that realization. No room for pride, cruel words in the heat of an argument, or a guilt trip to get your way. There is only room for kindness, forgiveness, and happiness. If you love someone, you better say so. If you are involved in a toxic relationship, it would behoove you to move on. Have you been hurt? Try to let it go, for your own sake. If you were planning on making a mark on this world, you should probably get to it.

Go, do that now. I’ll wait here.

As the wise Homer Simpson once said to his son, Bart, before tucking him into bed for the night, “Don’t let Krusty’s death get you down, boy. People die all the time, just like that.

Why, you could wake up dead tomorrow…”

…Well, goodnight!”

You know how we atheists often refer to the stories in the Bible as old fairytales and myths? I thought that perhaps translating some of them into the format of nursery rhymes might be fun. Feel free to read these to your children, but be warned, it is the Bible. I don’t take responsibility for the nightmares that may result.

Adam and Eve, went to the tree, against the word of Lord God,

Eve ate the fruit, Adam followed suit,

We were doomed because of one broad.

Noah Noah built a big ship, Noah Noah took a sea trip,

With all of God’s things, with scales, fur, and wings,

The manure was up to your hip.

Little Elisha traveled to Bethel,

Kids laughed at his shiny bald head,

God felt it fair

To send two she-bear,

Then forty-two children were dead.

Hey there, David, have you any foreskins?

Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full!

Some for the Lord, some for the father,

And some as a dowry to marry your daughter.

Simple Jesus saw a treesus on the way to Bethany,

Said the Jesus to the treesus, "Now thee sprout a figgy."

Said the treesus to the Jesus, “…”

So Jesus cursed it to death.

Old father Onan, with his bro’s woman,

To impregnate her, that was God’s whim,

After some bonin’, along with some moanin’

He pulled out so God killed him.

A traveler and his girl, were traveling the world,

And sought lodging and a soft bed,

A crowd wants to rape the male guest,

And when the host is forcefully pressed,

He offers his young virgin daughter instead.

That’s simply won’t do, the concubine’s there, too,

The hoard tortures and rapes her ‘til dead.

When the brutality ceases, she is hacked into pieces,

And no tears for the woman were shed.

Three blind lepers, three blind lepers,

See how they sin, see how they sin,

You cannot enter the temple today,

You’re unclean and so you must stay far away,

But Jesus can regrow your nose if you pray,

Three blind lepers.

Old man Lot was so overwrought after losing his wife to the salt,

But his daughters were fine, and they fed him some wine,

So the incest wasn’t his fault.

Sweet dreams, kids!

If you’re like me, you have probably heard that people think you have actively chosen to disbelieve in God.

They insinuate that it’s just trendy right now. Like one day, you said, “Yes, I actually want to be the least trusted demographic in America. It’ll be cool.”

They propose that a belief in a higher power is the natural state of things, that babies are born believing, that it is as elemental as breathing. Their solution for your fall from grace is to simply submit to the balance of the universe, turn back to God, and “let” yourself believe in their particular recommended religion. Sounds easy, right?

Obviously, to that, any halfway respectable, sarcastic atheist would immediately challenge, “Please, for the sake of your argument, show me and choose to believe that dragons, griffons, and satyrs exist. Plenty of books throughout history, including the Bible, include accounts of these creatures!”

Enter the cognitive dissonance, and most of the time, the conversation will abruptly end with, “Oh, now you’re just being silly.”

Well, here is the story of the time I chose to believe in God. Maybe it will help you understand that, for most of us, being an atheist was never a choice. It, in fact, was the natural state of things.

Unlike many of you, I am not an escapee from a traumatic religious upbringing. My family never shoved it down my throat, but I was actively involved in church. I never believed in the supernatural elements of it, though. Even in the earliest years, I was suspicious of the little gifts the youth preacher would hand out to all the children if we obediently listened to his stories about Jesus. I asked my mother why we got presents just for paying attention to stories from the Bible. Poor mom. I was five years old, and already realizing that perhaps there was an agenda afoot.

Anyway, I enjoyed parts of going to church. The children’s choir was fun. Vacation bible summer camp was great! Wednesday night spaghetti dinners were the bomb. Unlimited garlic bread? Hell yeah! Mostly, church was the time I got to see my best friend who lived across town. We would sneak out the back, crawling low behind the pews, to go practice making friendship bracelets and giggle over River Phoenix pictures in our Teen Beat magazines.

Oh my, the irony of seeing Kirk Cameron here is flipping my shit!

Anyway, you see what I’m getting at? Even in the most reverent, ritualized, honored moments, such as confirmation or communion, I was just going through the ropes because that’s what I had to do to hang out with my friends.

And that, honestly, is what church really is to many, many Americans. A social scene. What is expected of us in our communities. I’m sure you are familiar with the irrational feelings of guilt and shame when a smiling busy-body would approach you after church and say, “We haven’t seen you in a while. Where have you been? We’d love to see more of you at church, ya hear?” Fuck you, Phyllis, I was hungover last Sunday!

Even as a child, I always hoped no one would realize that when I bowed my head to pray, I felt like I was just talking to myself and making selfish wishes in my head.

So one day, all us kids went off to a church weekend retreat. There was singing of Cumbaya all around. There were hand jobs under jackets during movies, drinking, and recreational drug use all around, too. Those religious kids. Don’t let ‘em fool you, parents!

On the last day, something happened. All of a sudden, the camp counselors came in carrying decorated bags, one for each of us. As we looked around, perplexed, while the counselors sung Jesus hymns, we saw that in those bags were hundreds of sentiments of love, cards, photographs, letters, small gifts, from every single person in our lives.

I saw a boy collapse crying after he read an apology from his abusive father. I saw a girl burst into tears when she read a loving plea for a truce from a sister with whom she fought constantly. I received a long, carefully written letter from the teacher who first took me under her wing when I was only three years old, who has followed me to this day with love and guidance. They were all there. Family, community leaders, long-lost friends, teachers. Somehow over the preceding months, our families had scoured our pasts to seek these words of encouragement and uplifting affection. And here it all was, poured out of colored sacks in our laps. It was one of the most moving moments of my adolescence.

The tears and emotion in the room were thick. Not one of us kids, just before sarcastic teenagers, now blubbering children, was unaffected. It was an intense group experience.

And just like speaking in tongues, just like witnessing a faith healing, just like when a virgin Mary statue cries real tears, our emotions had rendered us ready and willing.

We were instructed to leave the camper’s lounge and go out onto the campgrounds to find God’s love and thank Him for all the joy that we had just witnessed in our lives. We were forbidden to talk to anyone until the church bell rang, an hour later. The kids spread out, sniffling and red-eyed, to find their own solitary spot under a tree, on a fallen log, in a lone canoe in the middle of the lake, or huddled up in the fetal position like when your sparkly vampire boyfriend left you, to find God.

I remember my first thoughts were that finally today I might actually believe, and wouldn’t that be great? I would finally fit in with my church friends!

I chose a pine tree and sat under it. I listened to the birds, watched the clouds, and realized just how long one hour is when you are sitting under a tree and you are fourteen years old. I chose, right then, finally, to feel God. I willed it.

When my parents came to pick me up from camp that evening, among the goodbyes, hugs, and wishes of “Go with God,” I think, for the first time, I believed.

It was a great feeling! It was like a high. I kept replaying the emotional scene, re-reading those letters from all my friends and loved ones, pouring over the memories of how special all those words made me feel. I remember spreading those cards and presents out all over my bed the next week, and marveling at how many people loved me. I really was special, and it must be because of God!

I chose to trust what I had heard, that it was all because of God, even though something inside of me was trying to poke its head in and tell me, “Yes, you are special. You are loved. But you knew that already. And it doesn’t take a belief in Jesus for you to understand that you are a good person who will never be alone in this world.”

One week later, the feeling was gone.

I still treasured that experience, but not for the reasons they told me to. Not because there was something higher than myself and the amazing people who came to my side to make that day happen. In fact, I realized that, whatever the answers to the mysteries of life, whether there is a God or not, no one knows, it is how you live your life, what mark you leave on others, that counts.

Do you think you could find enough people in this world to write enough words of love and encouragement to fill a large canvas bag for you?

“The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.” — Thomas Paine

You know how there are some edgy words out there that people use, but they have been masked in some way because of the stigma associated with them? It doesn’t really make sense. I mean, when I type “the f word,” don’t you immediately know exactly what word I mean? You see it in your head, you think to yourself, “Oh, she just meant to say ‘fuck.’ I get it.” I’m still saying “fuck” in code, and this somehow makes it less offensive than if I just came out and said, “fuck?” Yes! Somehow!

Fuck. That’s fun! Fuck fuck fuck!

Anyway, we give words power. The words themselves are just air shaped by our oral cavities. A grunt has just as much subjective meaning as the word fuck. In fact, grunting often accompanies the act of fuck. But I digress.

Another word that has been given unnecessary power and negativity is “atheist.” My baby boomer father, as liberal and intelligent as he may be, is uncomfortable with the word, “atheist.” He has repeatedly implored me to say, “freethinker,” “nonbeliever,” or some other happy, fluffy word for atheist that means the exact same thing.

“Why?” I finally asked him, and he thought for a minute. Then he told me something slightly shocking but also illuminating. He said, "Well, in my generation, the word atheist meant ‘bad person.’”

He continued, “Everyone in my neighborhood went to church. We all did. Every single one of us. We all believed in God.”

I snickered at this point, and offered, “Well, if atheism was equated with being a “bad person,” then of course people said they believed in God. But I guarantee some of them secretly didn’t.”

He disagreed, “No, I think we all did. It just wasn’t questioned.”

It just wasn’t questioned? That’s kind of haunting, isn’t it? What kind of good and moral force in the world cannot be questioned? Hello, is Hitler there?

Oh, look, I just pulled a Glenn Beck!

Anyway, the conversation ended with me understanding a little more about my dad. However, I refuse to sugar-coat things. I am an Agnostic Atheist. Read it. Look at the words. They mean I don’t know for sure, but I don’t believe in God/s.

If it makes you feel better to call me a secular humanist, bright, freethinker, heathen, nonbeliever, infidel, irreligionist, skeptic, scoffer, doubter, rationalist, or any other synonym that means I don’t believe in anything supernatural, then go for it.

But the simple truth is, my views on things can be described most accurately as this:

A-(without) gnostic (definite knowledge of)

A-(without) theism (a belief in God/s)

And it seems just plain silly to use a different word that means precisely what “atheist” means. So why dance around it? I believe the more people say the dreaded A-word, the less power it will have. One day very soon, we Americans might actually hear something like this on the street:

“Hi, I’m Joe. I’m a plumber.”

“Oh, that’s nice. I’m Mike. I’m an atheist.”

“Great, let’s go grab a beer.”

Are you having trouble thinking of a good New Year’s resolution for 2012? Oh sure, we all have tried the “I’m going to stop eating sour cream and salsa pork rinds topped with whipped cream and stop avoiding my family and drinking Old Crow alone in my basement” route. I know you’ve also told yourself in years past, “I’m going to start taking Zumba classes, stop smoking menthol Kools, and start recycling all those Bud Light cans that I usually throw in the back of my pickup truck,” and this lasts until January 3rd, right?

This year, I have some suggestions for New Year’s resolutions that may be a bit easier to keep than trying to actually tolerate spending more time with your kids.

1.  Be outspoken about your beliefs.

Are you open about your godlessness? No? Make this year the year you finally tell the truth when someone asks you what you believe. Contrary to what you see on Fox News, the A-word is not actually a bad word. But watch out. I’ve noticed some atheists substitute rudeness for assertiveness. Sure, I think believing in an invisible man in the sky who can hear and know your every whim and motive is kind of silly, but I don’t point and laugh at my friends who still believe that they are carrying a miniature Jesus around in their hearts. I respect them. But I also demand respect from them. I’m proud, assertive, yet not a jerk about it. I save the venting for my blog and for my boyfriend, with whom I love to watch-and laugh hysterically at-religious programming. I dare you. Try to get through a whole episode of the 700 Club without losing your mind.

2.  Think more.

Have you become stagnant in your atheistic, sinful beliefs? That’s when you might get accused of being “fundamental.” Continue to explore the origins of religion. Learn about what other people believe, not just Christianity, as we Americans are immersed in it. Study ancient religions, art, history, music, and all the intertwined things throughout time that have been shaped and guided by the religions of the day. Go to museums and look at how gods throughout human history have changed, and what that might mean for the future of religion in the world. Don’t just stop with reading the God Delusion and proclaiming yourself cool because you’re against the majority. Be well-rounded.

3. Become more politically active and involved in your community.

It’s very easy to think, as Americans, why even bother? My voice doesn’t count. I’m the most despised demographic in this country. I’m just going to sit here on my couch and eat cookie dough, so there! Well, I’d like to encourage you to give to charity, volunteer, and reach out. Be visibly “good without God.” Here is a nice charity to which I give a monthly gift. http://foundationbeyondbelief.org/ I don’t have a lot to give, but I make sure to do it anyway. Also consider joining-or starting-a local Atheist social group, to seek community and solace when you may feel like an outsider in your small, backwards, redneck town. And vote!!!

4.  Look at yourself.

I know this might sound cheesy, but wearing the “Scarlet A” is a responsibility. Are you outwardly godless? Well, guess what? You may be the only atheist your friends and family know. Do you represent well? Are you kind, open, respectful, and responsible? Don’t be a dick, is what I’m saying. Because if you are a dick, and the only atheist someone knows, they are probably going to generalize to the rest of us. Try looking inward to see if you give a good name to being an Atheist.

5.  Forgive.

If you are like me, you’ve been hurt by some things that people say about your heathen ways. You may have been told that you are immoral, or that you are empty and obviously deluded. You may have been manipulated or coerced. You may have lost friends and been rejected by family. I tell you, first off, that any friend who has such tenuous beliefs that they cannot accept you if your views are different than theirs, was not a friend you really want to have. Their dropping you as a friend speaks more to their own personal doubts about their faith than it does about you. If your family has scolded or ostracized you, give them time. All you can be is honest. Would you rather lie and tell them what they want to hear, or be strong and straight with them? Most of the time, they will come around. Be patient, forgiving, and loving. Let them spew toxic words and chastise you for your beliefs. Let them insinuate that they are better than you, and suggest that you will “come around” to their way of thinking. Just do your best to be quiet, humble, and listen. Attempt to understand that they are simply having trouble accepting something so foreign to them and are probably feeling threatened. Trust yourself and forgive.

There. That should give you some ideas. Now, if you’ll excuse me, there are some pork rinds in the kitchen calling my name.