The secret, not-holy war

An article in New Scientist (you may not be able to see it if you're not a subscriber, in which case, you'll just have to trust me) describes the decline in religious belief across the world, but it also exposes for the first time the violent world of Atheist factionalism, a thing that makes sectarianism in actual religions seem like gym class.

The author, Graham Lawton, goes on for several pages about the thought and non-thought surrounding belief and dis-belief, but most importantly, in a side bar, there appears the following typology:

"Four kinds of atheism
Mind-blind -- can't comprehend religion
Apathetic -- can't be bothered
InCREDulous (sic) -- isolated from extreme acts of faith
Analytic -- explicitly reject religion"

This remarkably dim-witted abstruse set of categories seemed harmless until Wood-Charles consulted a not-well-known non-member of the local not-clergy, and discovered that this is actually an accurate discription of the fracture of disbelief into competing, mutually hostile not-sects.  Our contact (who spoke on condition of anonymity since he is not dis-un-authorized to speak to the press) showed us the following letter to New Scientist sent by a high-ranking official of one of the factions of the intolerant unconvinced:

"Graham Lawton's summary of atheism and religion was an interesting and useful piece, but many of us would have preferred that he continue to conceal the 4 kinds of atheism for a while. As a member of the one true sect of the non-faith, I can say that we need more time before we are able to initiate un-holy war against the heretical, schismatic, non-non-believers in the other three kinds. So until the True Un-elect of Atheism are prepared to rise up in dis-righteous anger and smite the schismatic horde of the not-damned -- or at least until we insert enough of our faithful non fidelibus into various governing bodies -- the wrath of nobody will have to wait, and it would be better if we all just pretended to get along."

 Whether this portends execution by the social virtual machine of the instruction if (NOT longBelief AND boolCranky) {mahem();} remains to be seen. However, we did note a sharp increase in companies that produce spandex atheism shorts.

Free at last, free at last ...

It is now permissible for Ann Arbor residents to -- try to restrain your excitement -- scrape food off your plate straight into your composting cart!

A spokesperson for the NAAPL (National Association for the Advancement of Procyon lotor) expressed optimism.

"There's a tremendous opportunity there to reduce the amount of materials we're putting in the landfill ..." he told reporters.