I have a confession to make, one that will upset and outrage many geeks: I'm not an atheist.

Even though I probably agree with 99 percent of what Richard Dawkins believes – basically everything that's peer-reviewed – I can't in good conscience call myself an actual atheist.

This is because I don't have the energy to disbelieve in every single god. I mean, it's pretty easy to disbelieve in D&D-style gods like Verminus, the Roman god of cattle disease. It's also easy to disbelieve in any gods I only know about from reading their Wikipedia page because, you know, Wikipedia.

Old Testament God is somewhat tougher to not believe in, because I watch TV like anyone else. He's like Batman – so much a part of my culture that I kinda feel bad saying out loud that he's not real. It'd be like spitting on my great-grandmother's grave; I know it doesn't have any real effect, but it feels really weird.

Nonetheless, when bribed with shrimp-and-bacon hors d'oeuvres, I will admit I don't believe that there's a very powerful person who invented rainbows and dictates best-sellers. But after that, I'm out of energy.

Do you have any idea how many wacky god concepts there are out there? Someone once told me that if you took all possible mathematical equations and put them all on one infinitely large USB thumb drive, that thumb drive would be God.

Some people believe dark matter is God. "It's everywhere, but you can't see it, and it keeps the universe from exploding forever." What? Look, I can't firmly insist your god doesn't exist if you can't even explain it to me without having to stop and hide the bong from your R.A..

Strahmin Revealed —————–

So I've decided to simplify things and just not believe in one particular god. That God's name is Strahmin, and he's really easy to not believe in, because I just made him up.

I'm an Anti-Strahminist.

Strahmin is the god of free throws and cancer, of landslides both geological and political. When there's a football game or a war, Strahmin looks down and decides who wins.

When a hurricane turns away from Florida and slams into Alabama instead, it's because Strahmin decided that old ladies in Tampa pray better than old ladies in Mobile. When you talk to him, he listens, like a close personal friend who will eventually kill you.

Strahmin made up a bunch of rules for you to follow. He cares about whether your fruit juice is fermented or not. He has strong opinions about who you have sex with and what sort of sex you have with them.

He has instructions for what to do at certain times of the day, week or year. And if you're a woman, Strahmin has a long list of things to do to make him happy, which coincidentally are also things that make powerful men happy.

Strahmin invented plants and animals. Some say he set them down on the planet like an Etsy-er putting beads on an old soda bottle.

Others allow that perhaps he invented evolution as a sort of organism-generation algorithm, like a cosmic Will Wright. Either way, pigs are either delicious or forbidden because Strahmin said so.

Strahmin manifests himself in many and varied forms, and I don't believe in any of them. Some worship him as the one and only creator, while others are poly-Strahminist. New people are always bringing the just-revealed word of Strahmin to everyone in their compound, while others work to revive the old Strahminist ways.

And nothing pisses off a Strahminist like the wrong kind of Strahminist.

We could discuss the definition of "god" until your Dark Side of the Moon CD wears out. If your definition is "the inner light of goodness that's in each of us, no matter how obscured," then sure.

Or maybe you feel "god" is just another word for the infinite possibilities that careen off from reality every time we make a decision. Fine. I see no reason to get off my metaphysical ass in order to disbelieve in those sorts of gods.

The thing about these sorts of thought-experiment gods is that they rarely demand disclaimer stickers on science books or insist you denounce the people next door because their hats are the wrong shape.

If your god isn't like that, if the only message he or she or it has for humanity is "work it out yourselves, guys" or "be nice," then I'm happy to have no opinion about him or her or it, one way or the other.

But if you tell me about your god and then tell me that he'll only approve of me if I wear the proper holiness garment, or that he has a personal interest in my semen-dispersal habits, then as far as I'm concerned you're worshiping Strahmin. He's as devious as he is omnipotent, and he tricks a lot of people into worshiping him, which is why I don't believe in him in the first place.

I'd try to convince each of you to take up the Anti-Strahminist banner, to live a life by a strict code opposing Strahmin in all his forms, to denounce not only Strahmin but those who refuse to denounce Strahmin themselves, but you know what?

That sounds like the sort of thing Strahmin would be into.

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Born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg eventually overcame these handicaps to become a transcendentalist humanist transhumanist humorist.

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