The Ants

The Australian office worker first lost her epic cubicle, down the drain went her privacy, the spot she put her kid’s painting. The partitions got smaller and smaller, the chairs got closer and closer. We became like ants, look alike, always busy, typing, emailing, talking, thinking, moving around for the Queen. Finally they removed partitions, and placed everyone around long tables, made everyone sit next to each other, and back to back. No personal space, no personal seat, when you come to work, sit wherever you find. Then some smart employee, shrieked “Eureka!”, it wasn’t necessary to keep one chair per one employee. After all, not all ants are present at all times, some are sick, some are on holidays, thought the smart employee. They removed more chairs, and placed remaining chairs closer and tighter. In case more ants come to work unexpectedly, they built “hot seats”, fancy name for a punishment, folded trays that come out of walls, so that ants can email, talk and think while standing, until a chair becomes available, around the big long table. The employee who shrieked “Eureka!” got “Ant of the Year” award from the Queen and received a movie ticket for The Ants.        

In this satirical short story I criticised the modern capitalistic workplace how inhumanely the modern office is designed, and how pathetic our lives have become.

The secret of happiness

The secret of happiness is doing something fun and useful at the same time, doing it in a way like there is no tomorrow, dream on it, work on it, in the shower, on the train, in a park, and before you go to sleep, fight relentlessly, when you fall refuse to surrender, bounce back and fight, persist till you win, deserve your win.

Barking in the dark

Renowned “scholar” Reza Aslan calls Harris, Dawkins anti-theists, and as dogmatic, fundamentalist as true believers. He adds “Sam Harris and “New Atheists” aren’t new, aren’t even atheists”

Here is the link to Reza Aslan’s article published in Salon:

http://www.salon.com/2014/11/21/reza_aslan_sam_harris_and_new_atheists_arent_new_arent_even_atheists/

I disagree with Aslan's sentiment that "New Atheists give Atheism a bad name".

Atheism and Anti-Theism are not mutually exclusive, and combining them in one name "New Atheism" is perfectly fine. Why would it be bad? On what ground?

Aslan recognises closet Atheism. A non-political, passive stance, scared to raise its voice, and gets along with religions by “respecting” them.

So long as Atheists lock themselves in a closet and they respect religions they are OK and they can be recognised as just “Atheists”, like a harmless religion.

Atheists for centuries had to hide themselves from religious oppression by simply being low profile. They still have to go under cover in religious societies.

Aslan resorts to polemics by saying:

“In other words, while an atheist believes there is no god and so follows no religion, an anti-theist opposes the very idea of religious belief, often viewing religion as an insidious force that must be rooted from society – forcibly if necessary.”

Wikipedia accurately defines New Atheism as follows:

“New Atheism is a social and political movement in favour of atheism and secularism promoted by a collection of modern atheist writers who have advocated the view that "religion should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized, and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises.”

In other words no anti-theist in their good mind is suggesting “religions should be rooted from society - forcibly if necessary”.

Aslan is simply making one of his false generalisations about Anti-Theism and New Atheism to give them a bad name.