Vaya sin Dios

Go without God (addressing the plural). Watch how I start with dinner, and manage to come back around to this:

I enjoyed a lovely (and stuffing) Indian meal with some blogger gals. Ladies, if you will. We talked about lots of things. Husbands (theirs), kids (theirs), jobs, careers, ex-boyfriends, pickles’ association with disco,* blogging, stalkers, Henry Rollins… At one point during the evening, one chum said, about me, “She doesn’t like Christians.”

Um?

She was joking, of course, but it did give me pause as I drove home… I’m an atheist. It’s my own choice, within my own set of beliefs. But are there really people out there who think I want to recruit them? Like some sort of deranged missionary? “Euw, you believe in God? How gross. C’mon, believe in yourself, it’s what all the cool kids do. Don’t you want to be cool?”

But, because I am who I am, the part of this internal dialogue (monologue?) that really intrigued me is the etymology of “atheist.” Greek. A=without, theos=god. That part is totally clear. The part that puzzles me is the phrasing. I am an atheist. Not “I am atheist.” I am without god. I am an without god. I mean, euw, gross, what horrible syntax. But, atheist is a noun. Also, atheism is a noun. Atheistic is the associative adjective, and I think it’s clunky. -ist is a suffix that usually forms a noun, but can form an adjective. Sexist is, unfortunately, the only example that I can think of at this precise moment. Or rather, it’s the only example that the OAD can give me right now, because I am too tired to think of even one.

And whether you’re Christian, or Muslim, or Hindu, or Buddhist, or Jewish, or Wiccan… I don’t really care what theistic or non-theistic beliefs you hold dear.** Your beliefs are precious to you, and you can keep them. Just as I’ll keep mine right here in this pocket, and oh, look, a dollar! Bonus!

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So anyway. I joined Brightkite and thirty-something bloggers. Because yeah, I have time for more social networking. HOW do you ladies do it?

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*If anybody can explain this, please do.

**Except maybe for those people who believe that certain celebrities (and many non-celebs) are actually lizards. Yeah, I do have a bit of a problem with that. If you’re one of those people, and you read my blog, you may now boycott me. I understand.