Here’s the God’s honest truth, #NoHoly. Every morning when my alarm goes off, I pick up my phone and check Twitter, Instagram and Reddit while I wake up. I realize this is a choice and I don’t have to do this, but the fact of the matter is that I do. I do. I just don’t feel like I’m Godless Momming well enough unless I take my morning browbeating. Yes, I start the day with angry comments from believers who probably polish their knobs to thoughts of me burning in Hell. What can I say?

Predictably, within mere moments, I’ve had enough. It’s not so much that I’m bothered by what people say to me, it’s the sheer frequency. It’s the daily reminder that there are still so many people in this world for whom this nonsense makes sense. I mean, they come to me by choice. I don’t go looking for them, and they show up anyway with their wagging finger and their silly little book of ancient tales and they utter this nonsense… by choice. It’s gotten way beyond saying they will pray for me, now. The comments I get make only one thing clear: their authors have not thought much through. Ever.

The absolute worst is Instagram. I don’t know what’s going on there, but it feels like a farm for the deeply disturbed. It’s as if Instagram is producing a commodity and it’s not social networking. No, instead, it’s pumping out morons at a rate faster than George R.R. Martin can kill off your favourite characters. The more followers I get there, the more rapidly these comments are fired in my direction. Having just reached 30k, it’s gotten completely out of control. I get so sick of fielding the same BS comments and questions every day. So, naturally, I had to make you feel my pain, too. Here are seven things I’m sick to death of hearing as an outspoken atheist.

1. If you don’t believe in God, why do you talk about him constantly?

Well, I don’t. That’s the short answer. The long answer is that even if it was all I talked about online as Godless Mom, which it isn’t and a quick scroll through my timeline will prove it, you have no clue what I talk about the other 99.9% of my life when I am not on Instagram! The only thing this comment does is illustrate the fact that you think Instagram is an accurate representation of someone’s entire life. That people who share beer photos have a permanent buzz on and might need an intervention. That people who post shots of food most often are only ever sat in front of a plate of grub, stuffing their ever-growing faces. Instagram posts are just tiny snaps of our lives and some accounts, like mine, are there to promote something. In my case, my Instagram exists to promote my blog, so, yes, it’s going to be overwhelmingly about the topics I write about here. After I take a second to post something, though, I put my phone down and have a life outside of Instagram. Don’t you?

2. Quit bashing religious people!

You’d laugh if you saw my face instantly contort into a look of disgust when the word, “bashing” is uttered. When you say “bashing” I hear, “Hi. I got my vocab from The Suite Life On Deck with Zack & Cody and that’s the depressing extent to which my education will ever reach.” I’m not bashing anyone except that little gay-hating dunce, Frank Turek. Just because I dislike one idea you hold, doesn’t mean I dislike you. It doesn’t mean I think you should have fewer rights, or that you’re not as clever as the rest of us. It doesn’t mean I think you should have anything, including your faith, taken from you, or that you should even be talked out of your faith. I don’t give two flying hecks on a donkey what you believe… until, or unless you use it to affect the lives of others. I am not bashing you, I’m criticizing and ridiculing ideas I feel are dangerous. If you make that personal, that’s your choice and no one else’s.

You see, I have an opinion on the existence of God just like you do. And just like you can assert there is a God, I can express my opinions on the same topic, too. That’s the best part of freedom of speech: it’s not just yours. It’s also mine. I have every right to express my take on the existence of God and all the stories in the Bible as you do. Sure, we have opposite opinions, but expressing those opposing opinions is not bashing each other. It’s just a differing viewpoint that you’re going to have to get used to.

3. You’re as bad as Christian fundamentalists!

Except that I don’t want to take your rights away. I don’t want to affect policy that will stop you from living out your life the way you feel is right for you. Well, until that lifestyle starts to actually and demonstrably harm other people.

4. You define yourself by what you lack.

I love that when people say this to me, they’re clearly ignoring the “mom” part of “Godless Mom”, but that’s beside the point. No one who has ever laid eyes on my Twitter, Instagram, blog or Facebook page knows how I define myself unless they know me in real life. It’s shockingly arrogant to think any single one of you have any insight into how I define myself. This is the internet, for Thor’s sake! This is not my entire world. Not even close. Perhaps it’s your whole world, but it is so not mine. I’m a traveler, a swimmer, a hiker, a mom, a stepmom, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a volunteer, an employee, a cooking enthusiast, a voracious reader, an activist, a pet owner, a failed clean freak, an artist, a writer and a lover of beer and great storytelling. There’s just so, so much more going on in my life than what I share on the internet.

5. Atheists have so much to say about a book they’ve never actually read!

Not counting those times I read it, then?

6. You think religious people are stupid!

Nope. No, I don’t. I think religious people are going about their understanding of reality horribly wrong, but I don’t think they’re stupid. I think they’ve been lied to, they’ve been led to believe the things they believe and given little to no choice in the matter. Most of the atheists I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know as Godless Mom are ex-theists and not a single one of them is stupid. I don’t believe they used to be stupid. Merely misinformed. I think your holy book is stupid. I think your myths are idiotic. That’s no different from me thinking the Danielle Steele books my mom used to read are vacuous piles of dipshittery. I still love her. I still think she’s a smart lady.

7. Why are you quoting him? He’s not an atheist!

I guess I was absent the day they handed out the atheist handbook in which it says that once one identifies as an atheist one must only ever quote or appreciate people who also identify as such. My bad. This may sting a little, you mental imp, but just because you limit who you can respect to those who share all the same opinions as you, doesn’t mean the rest of us do. I’m not a fan of the echo chamber. I can and do appreciate things that all sorts of people say, whether they believe the same things as me or not. There have been plenty of religious people throughout our vast history who have uttered wonderful, quotable things, and my lack of a belief in a god isn’t gonna stop me from sharing them. You can stick to your “own kind” if you want, but me, I like how Kilgore Trout, a believer (albeit fictional), said it,

Takes all kinds of people to make up a world.

What are you sick of hearing as an atheist? Let me know in the comments!

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