The Rapture - So when the world doesn't start to end tomorrow...

Who wants to buy a copy of Atheist Tales?

Click here for good post-Rapture reading. Just sayin'.

Although I must stand by a firm belief that nothing of interest will happen on May 21, 2011 (which by the way is my baby sister's 21st birthday, so go to hell Mr. Camping), I wouldn't object to anyone's taking Pascal's Wager. Go ahead, confess your sins and decide to believe in God to avoid eternal damnation, that's a freakin' high stake. When the world doesn't end tomorrow only you (and a priest who can't see your face) will know what a fool you were :)

Atheist Tales - "A New Beginning" by Bill R. Moore [review by starlight]

"As centuries turned into millennia, and millennia into eons, Their job was at last done. The creatures whose bodies They now inhabited were newly sentient."

Upon first reading Moore's Atheist Tale, I found I was at a loss for what the story was trying to get across - which makes it an instant masterpiece, in my books. In a way, it was a peculiar choice to start off the anthology with, because it isn't what one would expect from a collection of short stories about Atheism. When you pick up this antho, no doubt you'll be looking for stories condemning religion, arguing against the existence of God, and pointing out the absurdities propagated by the Bible. Moore's story, at least at surface level, does none of these things. Instead, Moore creates a piece that really gets you thinking about our preconceptions about the world, whether we are atheistic or religious. It's difficult to tell at first glance what this story is really about, and I'v decided that it's a great opener for that reason - it challenges the reader's expectations right from the get go.

Now I would love to leave it up to each of you to figure out how Moore's story promotes freethinking atheism, but I can't resist telling you what I think, myself.

Atheist Tales - "Dear Theologian" by Dan Barker [review by starlight]

"I know that I exist. I know that I could not have created myself. I also know there is no higher God that could have created me. Since I can't look above myself, then perhaps I should look below myself for a creator. Perhaps - this is speculative, so bear with me - perhaps you created me." -God

I couldn't help but skip to Dan Barker's Atheist Tale after all the hype it's gotten. Originally published in Barker's Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America’s Leading Atheists, this stand-alone story is a fictional letter from God to a doctor of theology, asking the same questions man has asked for centuries. God is very confused as to how he came into existence, how he is expected to be the ultimate judge of morality, and what his purpose is. It's a rational argument that combats all of the typical theological debates, and put in the mouth of the Big Man himself, it's very convincing.

Atheist Tales - "Resuscitation" by James Hickey [review by starlight]

"Since consciousness has arisen in our species, the stark face of this truth about our final fate has fed life-after-death fantasies that are impossible to sustain..."

Hickey's Atheist Tale, entitled 'Resuscitation', takes on the idea of the afterlife and all of its flaws using (or maybe inspiring) the anthology's tagline - "Fiction, Not Lies". Hickey's story uses sci-fi to posit what would happen if we had near-indisputable proof that heaven did not exist, and his conclusions are terrifying and believable, following Aristotle's principles of fiction that it is more important for a story to be believable than true. He doesn't, however, expect the reader to believe the story to be true, as humanity has been expected to believe of the bible.

Atheist Tales - "It's All About Soul" by Jane Gallagher [review by starlight]

"You humans - and their clones - have a bizarre interpretation of how we work, but this is the basic idea: this is a private club... You don't get in."

This is a laugh-out-loud short story included in Atheist Tales that, in my mind, really points out the absurdity of many of the rules in religion. In fact, it pokes fun at a lot of things. The idea of some beings having souls and others not, the idea of one religion being the right one and all believers of other creeds being ---- out of luck, and the image of heaven with a door man who is essentially just a bouncer at a nightclub.

I loved this one because it is very light-hearted and humorous, but with a really strong point. The more you think about it, the funnier faith becomes. It doesn't matter how strictly you observe what Gallagher calls "the morals" as if they are legal precedents, what matters are arbitrary distinctions such as whether a human being was made by God or by a doctor's mixing bowl. By making her story very futuristic, Gallagher gets to play with the religious concerns about advancing technology and cloning, and the way she puts it just really hits the nail on the head and draws attention to how ridiculous it all is. A perfect example of how speculative fiction, in this case sci-fi, can be used to comment on religious faith, and a barrel of laughs to boot.

By the way: the image is pretty random, it's Ed Norton in this movie where he plays both brothers in a set of twins. It has nothing to do with Atheism or cloning, but I loooove Ed Norton :)

Atheist Tales - It's coming [story time by starlight]

Here's the website. Still not available to order yet but today it was published. Just waiting on distributors.

Follow on twitter @atheisttales. There's also a page on Facebook.

Thanks for the support!

What is Atheist Tales you ask? Check it out here.

From Above - A sneak peak of my story in Atheist Tales (2011) [story time by starlight]

Here is a sample of my story From Above. Within a few weeks it will be available for purchase online in an anthology entitled Atheist Tales. Enjoy!

               The unrelenting sun scalded the crowd of worshipers that had gathered to listen to the Messengers. It was only once a week that anyone faced the intensity of midday, for the bustling center of trade came to a complete stop when the heat reached its peak. Except for days of temple, citizens rested while the sun was highest in the sky.

              Today they would not complain of their personal ordeal -- the poor with their bare feet blistering on the baked ground and the rich with sweat soaking their silk garments -- for the wealthy and the poor served alike. On one day of the week they knelt beside one another outside the temple like equals.

              It had been the Messengers who had decided that fortune and class had no place in the sacraments. “The Gods reward those who follow their laws,” they said, “regardless of standing.” Those who were privileged enough to indulge in luxuries on any other day found no favor at the temple. They knelt outside on the ground next to the poor, albeit in their finest clothes and wearing palm fiber sandals to protect their feet. Heavy veils protected porcelain skin from burning.

              They knelt in silence. Even the most acrid of the merchants and the most arrogant of the concubines bowed their heads and remained still. Enduring the steaming temperature, the still air, the blinding sun and the stinging sand, not one person so much as whimpered at their discomfort. All wore faces of stone as they waited for the ceremony to begin.             

                A boy called Sajha knelt in the front row, staring down at his sun-stained toes. Like those around him, his face did not display the pain of sitting stiffly in an awkward position while the skin on the bottom of his feet baked beneath him. He tried not to think about his flesh cooking as if on a sun-heated stove, but the idea of his feet being charred like thick slabs of meat kept squirming, uninvited, into his mind.

              Instead of supporting him in his crouched position, his calloused hands were crossed respectfully over his chest. It was a struggle of the will to keep them there as his calves began to strain and cramp. Young as he was, he had lived for sixteen years under the reign of the Messengers, and followed their teachings as strictly as any of the adults. If the Gods willed him to kneel in wait for an indeterminate amount of time without moving a muscle before each ceremony, then he would. But even the Gods and their Messengers could not prevent his bitterness. He was still human.

Atheist Tales by David M. Fitzpatrick et. al, including yours truly - I think you're gonna love this [story time by starlight]

If you're an atheist and free-thinker, this anthology, Atheist Tales is perfect for you. It's a collection of short stories in the speculative fiction genre that comment on religion in various ways. I'm doing this out of shameless self-promotion, because my own short story From Above is included in the anthology, but over the next month or so I will be reading and reviewing the other contributions. I will also include a blurb about From Above.

If you're already hooked, check it out here. If not, I'll work on hooking you over the next few weeks :)