“There is peace in being one more descendant of Sisyphus”: Meme from The Way of the Heathen

There is peace in being one more descendant of Sisyphus, pushing that rock upward, passing wisdom and experience to the next generation of rock-pushers. There is peace in knowing that without our struggle, the rock would always be at the bottom, grinding people into the ground.

“There is peace in being one more descendant of Sisyphus, pushing that rock upward, passing wisdom and experience to the next generation of rock-pushers. There is peace in knowing that without our struggle, the rock would always be at the bottom, grinding people into the ground.”
-Greta Christina, The Way of the Heathen: Practicing Atheism in Everyday Life
(from Chapter 27, “Permanent Struggle”)

(Image description: above text, juxtaposed above image of mountains)

I’m making a series of memes/ inspirational poster thingies with my favorite quotes from my new book, The Way of the Heathen: Practicing Atheism in Everyday Life. Please feel free to share this on social media, or print it and hang it on your wall if you like. (The image above is pretty big: you can click on it to get a bigger size if you like.)

Way of the Heathen cover
The Way of the Heathen is available in ebook on Amazon/Kindle and on Smashwords for $7.99. The audiobook is at Audible. The print edition is at Amazon and Powell’s Books, and can be ordered or carried by pretty much any bookstore: it’s being wholesaled by Ingram, Baker & Taylor, IPG, and bookstores can buy it directly from the publisher, Pitchstone Publishing. Check it out, and tell your friends!

“There is peace in being one more descendant of Sisyphus”: Meme from The Way of the Heathen
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“Loved it”: Bill on The Way of the Heathen

Way of the Heathen cover
I got a really nice comment from a reader, Bill Dauphin, about my new book, The Way of the Heathen: Practicing Atheism in Everyday Life. I’m sharing it here with his permission.

“Finished listening to TWotH on my car trip home from DC Sunday. Loved it. Just to pick out one thing, I thought the analogy between sex and music was brilliant, one of those things that makes you say, ‘I never thought of it that way before, but now it seems so obvious!'”

Thanks, Bill! To others who have read/ listened to my book, I’d love to know what you think of it.

The Way of the Heathen is available in ebook on Amazon/Kindle and on Smashwords for $7.99. The audiobook is at Audible. The print edition is at Amazon and Powell’s Books, and can be ordered or carried by pretty much any bookstore: it’s being wholesaled by Ingram, Baker & Taylor, IPG, and bookstores can buy it directly from the publisher, Pitchstone Publishing. Check it out, and tell your friends!

“Loved it”: Bill on The Way of the Heathen

“Understanding the world doesn’t remove the mystery”: Meme from The Way of the Heathen

Understanding the world doesn't remove the mystery, except in the narrowest sense. It enhances it.

“Understanding the world doesn’t remove the mystery, except in the narrowest sense. It enhances it.”
-Greta Christina, The Way of the Heathen: Practicing Atheism in Everyday Life
(from Chapter 4, “The Sweet Mystery of Life”)

(Image description: above text, juxtaposed next to image of Earth seen from space)

I’m making a series of memes/ inspirational poster thingies with my favorite quotes from my new book, The Way of the Heathen: Practicing Atheism in Everyday Life. Please feel free to share this on social media, or print it and hang it on your wall if you like. (The image above is pretty big: you can click on it to get a bigger size if you like.)

Way of the Heathen cover
The Way of the Heathen is available in ebook on Amazon/Kindle and on Smashwords for $7.99. The audiobook is at Audible. The print edition is at Amazon and Powell’s Books, and can be ordered or carried by pretty much any bookstore: it’s being wholesaled by Ingram, Baker & Taylor, IPG, and bookstores can buy it directly from the publisher, Pitchstone Publishing. Check it out, and tell your friends!

“Understanding the world doesn’t remove the mystery”: Meme from The Way of the Heathen

14,000 Twitter Followers!

Exciting benchmark! I now have over 14,000 followers on Twitter!

Screen Shot 2016-06-10 at 2.24.15 PM Greta's Twitter account

Screen Shot 2016-06-10 at 2.24.15 PM Greta's Twitter account

Whenever I have one of these “rolling over of the zeroes” moments, I think about how different our lives would be if we had eight or twelve fingers instead of ten. They’re kind of arbitrary. Fun anyway, though. You can be one of the cool kids — follow me on Twitter, at @GretaChristina!

14,000 Twitter Followers!

Greta Reading at Perverts Put Out, Thursday July 23! Part of National Queer Arts Festival

perverts out out on black leather

Perverts Put Out! joins the National Queer Arts Festival with a special Pride Week show, featuring Greta Christina, Sherilyn Connelly, Gina DeVries, Daphne Gottleib, horehound stillpoint, Na’amen Tilahun and Xan West, presided over by hosts Dr. Carol Queen and Simon Sheppard. Come celebrate with us!

Perverts Put Out!, San Francisco’s long-running pansexual performance series, has featured stellar line-ups of truly twisted, mega-talented artistes — even an occasional naked mayoral candidate — since way back in 1998. Hope to see you there!

DATE: Thursday, July 23
TIME: Doors 7:00, show 8:00
LOCATION: Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission Street, San Francisco (near Civic Center BART)
COST: $10-25 sliding scale

Greta Reading at Perverts Put Out, Thursday July 23! Part of National Queer Arts Festival

Sex-Positive Does Not Mean Anything Goes

plus sign on keyboard

Content note: sexually invasive behavior, sexual harassment and assault, denial and gaslighting of same

There’s a talk I give on atheism and sexuality, and in the part where I start to talk about secular sexual ethics, I often make a joke. I talk about religious sexual ethics, and I jokingly ask, “Without God, are we looking at a sybaritic free-for-all, uninhibited by any constraints?” I joke about how some people might be hoping the answer is Yes — and then I say that the obvious answer is No. Of course we have sexual ethics, and of course we want to have them. A sybaritic free-for-all can be an entertaining fantasy, but we wouldn’t want a sexual world with no ethics, where nobody cared who got hurt.

It seems that to some people, this obvious answer is not so obvious. So I’m going to spell it out here:

Sex-positivity does not mean treating the entire world as a sexual buffet. Continue reading “Sex-Positive Does Not Mean Anything Goes”

Sex-Positive Does Not Mean Anything Goes

Why We Publicize Accusations of Sexual Misconduct

dam with water coming through dramatically

Content note: sexual harassment and assault, denial and gaslighting of same.

The dam is bursting.

In the last few days, several accusations of sexual misconduct on the part of Richard Carrier have been made public. Stephanie Zvan has collected and summarized the current ones to date; Skepticon has banned Carrier from their conference, “partly because of his repeated boundary-pushing behavior, including towards someone involved in Skepticon.”

I want to take a moment to talk about why we publicize these accusations. Tl;dr: We do it because we’re trying to make the community safer.

Those of us who talk about sexual harassment and assault, and other problems in the organized secular movement (and everywhere else, for that matter), are often accused of doing it for our own gain. We’re accused of doing it to increase traffic and boost our careers. And we’re accused of doing it to bring down people we don’t like. I’ve already addressed the first accusation: today, I want to speak to the second.

Richard Carrier was a friend of mine, as well as a colleague. We weren’t close friends, but we had a good social relationship and a good professional relationship. He’s been to multiple parties at our house (a fact that now gives me the creeps: I hate the thought that I may have exposed my friends to his behavior). We worked together at Freethought Blogs for a long time; we collaborated; we promoted each others’ work. And he was a public advocate for feminism and social justice within organized atheism. I was extremely distressed when I started hearing these accusations, and at first I didn’t want to believe them. But I heard more than one accusation, and some of my own conversations with Carrier made me uneasy about his sexual ethics. That’s when I began distancing myself from him, personally and professionally.

I’m not publicizing accusations against him because I don’t like him. I stopped liking him because I started hearing these accusations.

I’m going to say that again, in large boldface capital letters, since it seems to be all too easily overlooked:

I’m not publicizing accusations against him because I don’t like him. I stopped liking him because I started hearing these accusations. Continue reading “Why We Publicize Accusations of Sexual Misconduct”

Why We Publicize Accusations of Sexual Misconduct

To Cis/Het People Wondering Why Queers are Freaking Out About Pulse/Orlando

Flowers, candles, and posters at 18th and Castro in San Francisco, memorializing Orlando shootings. Photo by Greta Christina.
Flowers, candles, and posters at 18th and Castro in San Francisco, memorializing Orlando shootings. Photo by Greta Christina.

CN: Orlando/Pulse, 9/11

To any cis/het people who are wondering why queer people, and especially Latinx and African-American queer people, are responding so strongly to the attack on Pulse in Orlando:

Did you grieve over 9/11, even if you didn’t personally know anyone who was killed? Did you feel frightened, angry, in shock? Did you feel that the attack was an attack on all of us? Did you realize it could easily have been you, or people you knew? Did it make you fear for your own safety? Did you wonder if there would be follow-up attacks, copycat attacks, or simply more attacks by people who hate us? Did you feel rage and bafflement at the idea of people having that much hatred towards you and people like you?

If so, you need to SIT THE FUCK DOWN and listen.

Note: I am not going to be patient in the comments.

To Cis/Het People Wondering Why Queers are Freaking Out About Pulse/Orlando

Politics and Tragedies

Flowers, candles, and posters at 18th and Castro in San Francisco, memorializing Orlando shootings. Photo by Greta Christina.
Flowers, candles, and posters at 18th and Castro in San Francisco, memorializing Orlando shootings. Photo by Greta Christina.

They tell us we shouldn’t politicize tragedies.

When a man sees two men kissing and responds by walking into a gay bar with an automatic weapon and murdering 50 people, we’re told we shouldn’t politicize the tragedy.

When a man writes a 107,000-word manifesto detailing how and why he despises women and wants to murder and terrorize us, and proceeds to murder six people and injure fourteen others, we’re told we shouldn’t politicize it.

When a man murders nine people in a Black church and later confesses that he did it to start a race war, we’re told we shouldn’t politicize it.

When a hurricane hits a major U.S. city, and thousands of mostly poor, mostly black people are abandoned for days; when the evacuation plan assumes everyone has a car; when the Federal government’s emergency management agency is run by an incompetent boob, in a deliberately created political climate that holds the very idea of government in contempt; when the aftermath is rife with real estate speculation and other grossly predatory profiteering — we’re told we shouldn’t politicize it.

I could give you examples all day.

So here’s the tl;dr, the punch line: We didn’t politicize these tragedies. They were already political. Continue reading “Politics and Tragedies”

Politics and Tragedies

Orlando, and Listening to TBLG Ex-Muslims

TBLG rainbow flag

In the wake of the terrible violence in Orlando this morning, I understand the intent to not engage in anti-Muslim bigotry and hatred. I share it.

But I’m listening to my TBLG ex-Muslim friends. They’ve been subjected to queerphobic horror from their religion for years — and they’re sick of seeing it minimized. They’re asking people to stop contributing to that minimization.

TBLG ex-Muslims are saying that their former religion is a major contributing factor to the hateful queerphobia against them. Yes, other religions and cultures are hatefully queerphobic as well, and when they’re responsible for anti-queer violence, we should say so. But this time, it seems probable that Islamic queerphobia was part of what inspired this terrible act. My friends are tired of having this reality ignored or erased.

I’m boosting their signal.

We don’t have to pretend religious-inspired venom and violence doesn’t exist. We can speak out about it without being bigoted or hateful.

Orlando, and Listening to TBLG Ex-Muslims