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I suppose my most defining attribute (especially around here) would be my atheism. I say my atheism because it is after all simply a word that could be used to describe me. But I'm no more an atheist than I am a non-alchemist, or non-astrologist or any other such terms. Atheism shouldn't exist. If there was a Church of Atheism, I'd suggest that be the first commandment. Those like me almost wholly lack the unity of churches, texts, and other such devices. Part by nature, and part by preference. I like to listen and I like to think. I find truth in the minutia of nature. I find truth not in authorities of social groups or ancient texts but in each other equally, including the inhuman and unpersonifiable universe around us.

After the massacre on April 16th 2007 at Virginia Tech a man of despicable virtue and intellectual dishonesty named Dinesh D'Souza used the events to call out Atheism and say:

Atheism has nothing to offer in the face of tragedy except C'est la vie. Deal with it. Get over it. This is why the ceremonies were suffused with religious rhetoric. Only the language of religion seems appropriate to the magnitude of tragedy. Only God seems to have the power to heal hearts in such circumstances.

A brave professor whose name I cannot find replied with such surrealistic resonance that I have taken a part of it as my creed. Perhaps he is a more articulate man than I, or perhaps the humanity of the events empowered him to be so profound; but in either case, he expresses what is deepest within me better than I ever could:

We atheists do not believe in gods, or angels, or demons, or souls that endure, or a meeting place after all is said and done where more can be said and done and the point of it all revealed. We don’t believe in the possibility of redemption after our lives, but the necessity of compassion in our lives. We believe in people, in their joys and pains, in their good ideas and their wit and wisdom. We believe in human rights and dignity, and we know what it is for those to be trampled on by brutes and vandals. We may believe that the universe is pitilessly indifferent but we know that friends and strangers alike most certainly are not. We despise atrocity, not because a god tells us that it is wrong, but because if not massacre then nothing could be wrong.

The professor's response in full