I am taking a class this quarter called Philosophy of God. While covering the work of Sigmund Freud we briefly touched on the question of whether or not humans are important if there is no God. The consensus of my (mostly religious) class was that of course Atheists must see humans as unimportant because God is what makes humans important. I knew that many people think this of Atheists (as well as thinking that we can’t have morals), but it was interesting to sit and listen to people discuss this idea in the context of the work of a non-believer who spent his long career studying the minds of humans. How could Freud have considered people unimportant while simultaneously spending so much ink on the inner workings of the human mind?
Continue reading “The Importance of People”
Month: October 2016
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Missing Niki
When I started playing the Mass Effect series I named my Commander Shepherd “Niki.” Niki Massey was such a geek. She loved those games, especially around the time I played through them, and naming my character for her felt appropriate and I loved and gushing about the game together on Twitter. I was so grateful to her for talking about her love for those games because I would not have gotten to enjoy them without her.
Others have written beautifully about who Niki was, but I knew her best as a geek. Niki and I first met at Convergence, when I was a timid newbie to the Skepchick network, and she was incredibly friendly to me there. Two years later when I returned to Convergence we geeked out about her new costume together and shared in our mix of both loving, and struggling with, the party atmosphere. Niki understood my conflict with that perhaps better than anyone else, but over and over she dressed fabulously (I adored her cool outerspace dress) and turned out to party because she cared so deeply for her community of geeky atheist friends.
When we talked it was about video games and cats. Niki was accepting and welcoming of me and my friendship in an intense way I treasure when I find it. Everyone who knew her knew that Niki accepted no bullshit, but she was also able to see good in people and accepted me without hesitation.
What Niki was able to accept so easily in me and others, she struggled with accepting in herself. It is sometimes harder to deal with our own weaknesses or struggles than those others experience, and she was no exception to this. She could be HARD on herself, and reassuring her of her value didn’t always work. Now, though, all I want is more time to tell her over and over how important she is to me.
But I can’t.