Later today, I won't be. I suffer from chronic depression. Without a lot of boring details, it takes me (depending on circumstances) from three to twelve hours to feel human after I wake up in the morning. I create god every day and kill him every night when I go to sleep. You might say that I'm an atheist about 25% to 75% of the time. When my brain chemistry clears I don't suddenly believe in some bearded guy in the sky, but I finally generate the faith to face the day. Even if that happens at ten o'clock at night.

But I think I understand what you're saying. The term itself is a pejorative. Atheist means not what everybody else seems to be. Agnostic seems to be a weasel word to try to avoid the pejorative. They both label you as "the other". I don't see it that way. I think you're just as human as anybody else. You care enough to complain about how you are treated by the language and those who label you as something less than them by default. The fact that atheists claim the term for themselves is how language changes - and minds change as well. Religion has been the only game in town for a long time and it holds some pretty serious cultural market share.

I think everybody has faith. Now, I understand that telling an atheist that they have faith or worse, that atheism is a religion is about the best way in the world to annoy them. And most will tell you that and not be long about doing it. And like I said, we can't tell others how they feel. But I know what happens inside my head every day, and I'm human. And I'm pretty sure you're human too. Something got you out of bed this morning, and most of the people that have ever lived have called that something faith in god. The fact that you don't call it that doesn't make you any less human. That's the way I see it anyway.

I say fuck the labels. I don't have to explain any goddamn thing to any goddamn body. I'm as human as anybody else, and if I have faith in anything I've worked a lot harder for it than most people. I could write a book on how to find faith. I've done it over twenty thousand times and counting. I'll do it again in a few hours. All those labels; atheist, strong atheist, weak atheist, agnostic and all the careful parsing that happens in between are just people trying to find common ground among themselves. I think we should just call each other human and be done with it. Does that make me a humanist? I guess so but I don't care.

I think we should find god in others, whatever we think god may or may not be, and stop trying to persecute them because of our inability to see it. And we sure as hell don't need religion to sell people something they've already got.

This is a pre coffee post so I hope it makes sense.