I got the notice on Sunday just as I was waking up. It took a couple of hours for it to sink in but there it was: my friend, Heretic Woman, died on Jan 20.
To say she was outspoken as an atheist activist would be like saying water is a bit damp. She was a juggernaut who could got toe to toe against the best of them with a style and flair that would make rap battles look tame. She took insane pride in calling out apologists on their bullshit and laughing off any threats they tried to throw her way. My favorite was some shitheel who thought he could intimidate her by mentioning QAnon as if he was in tight with the group. Yeah, nice try buddy…do better.
That being said, the fact that I’ll never see or hear her again really hurt. I mean I sat there at my desk, in tears and I wasn’t really sure why if I’m being honest. Yes, I met her in person twice. She even stayed at my house while attending a secular conference in town. We had a lot of fun together but there wasn’t a deep a personal connection between us. Or, maybe there was and I just didn’t see it.
One thing she taught me above all else was to never ‘listen and believe.’ A story from one source may be true, but it never hurts to do some fact-finding. These days, you can’t trust the mainstream media to get anything right. Don’t believe me? Check out the Covington cluster-fuck that’s happened recently. If that incident taught me anything, it’s this:
1. The left supports antisemitism
2. The left wants to control the narrative of the media
3. The left will outright deny or refuse to change their views in spite of new evidence being presented.
And they call conservatives fascist?
I sometimes wonder if the left is projecting their own problems onto the rest of the world, accusing them of having the very flaws they have in some effort to feel superior. Tim Pool mentioned that the extreme left is a lot like a non-theistic religion, and yeah, I can see it:
-Original sin: You’re a cis white male
-Context doesn’t matter
-The path to absolution is to listen and believe regardless of facts.
-To stray from the path is to forever be condemned. There is no way back.
-You can apologize, but you will be forever marked and must apologize for eternity. You will not be eliminated, but still hated (Jizya much?)
There are more points to this, but I’ll save that for another post. Heretic Woman taught me that neither side of the political fence is absolutely correct, and that no one is above scrutiny, even those who we hold in high regard. She helped me see that some of the crazier leftist talking points had some merit, though I still won’t swallow them completely (yes, sexual preference is a thing…get over it), but at least I can see where they’re coming from.
My hope is that I maintain that kind of objectivity moving forward, and that I don’t lean too far down one path just because it’s ‘righteous’ or ‘comfortable.’ Life is often not either, and rarely both. I want to remember that.
I’m going to miss her, but I’ll never forget her.