Why ASOUL?
Yes. Asoul. A as in not. Soul as in… you guessed it. The coinage itself came out of a night of drinking and conversation with a close, smart, atheist friend. I don’t remember who said it first, but once it was spoken, it wouldn’t get out of my head. It fit too perfectly. Densely packed. Funny, too. And, yes, no laughing matter.
Asoul. It’s too perfect, especially in God-sodden America (and apparently Ireland). Good enough to trademark. Maybe. Good enough to “catch on.” Unlikely. Maybe good enough to wear ASOUL bravely emblazoned on a shirt or a hat. A possibility. Or maybe, like me, for now, just good enough to wear on one’s sleeve, and to get the domain and throw up a web site that might add some small value to a healthy interweb a-theist/rationalist/humanist community
Asoul. Yes. No atheist believes there’s a soul that outlives its housing nor any place to go. For this, and other reasons, atheists are often looked upon by believers and fence-sitters as assholes. As one who slowly, reluctantly, accepted that I’m an all-out atheist, not the agnostic I had called myself for 15-20 years, I’ll do my best to document the journey from born-again Baptist at 9 years old to avowed atheist as I near 50. And, cough, the grave.
Asoul. I’m not yet an atheist who campaigns against religion in schools, public places, government buildings, etc. I’m a strong atheist in belief, but weak, so far, in expression. But I’m an asoul. And, boy, do I know it. I’ll write my way through the evolving development of my own atheism and hope others will join with their stories and thoughts. I know religion rains down through American culture like a veritable plague of locusts, peppering people, especially young impressionable people, with the stings of a fictional, and wholly irrational, notion of god. I’d love to hear about people’s experiences as atheists who find themselves outside in such a downpour.
Asoul. It’s one thing to say there’s no soul beyond the one and only life we have. Is it another thing to abjure a soul, as an entity, if only as metaphor, while alive. What about spirituality? What about self? Is an <i>asoul</i> utterly soulless? I’ll try tio partially answer some of those questions and hope others will, too. I want asoul.org to be a very open place for folks to mull over these sorts of questions.
Thank you,
Lloyd Smithson Meeker
Contact: ethos-AT-asoul.org
Or: Comment boxes anonymously open to public w/o email address