St. Patrick's Day

Gaiety Dance Team

In celebration of dining, dancing and song.  Happy St. Patrick's Day to All

Isn't That Just Ducky! - St Patrick's Day

Take an invigorating bath.  Have hair all trimmed and fluffy and soft.  Race twice around the room then hop up on the couch.  Preen for the camera.

"See how pretty I am in my fresh green bow?"

This little pup is all ready for March festivities!  Bring on the shamrocks and pass the green beer!

Isn't that just Ducky!

Four Excellent Things

Here are four excellent things to listen to on this St. Patrick's eve:

Mount Everest still holds mysteries for scientists. 

Why are some countries rich and others poor?  (You knew it!!)

My idol, Meryl Streep, introducing Hillary Clinton at the Women in the World Summit:



My other idol, Hillary Clinton at the same conference:

Triggers

I have had a hard time functioning normally these past few months thanks to the cluster of shockingly misogynistic bills that have come before some state legislatures and the even more viciously misogynistic rationale, propaganda and political strategy which spawned them.  I have about a dozen posts in various stages of production,  but right now I seem to be incapable of sorting through it all calmly enough to write coherently on any one of them.

There is a term for this logjam of emotion, this mind-choking wad of confusion, rage, pain, misery and almost nihilistic despair which is triggered by events which stir up horrible memories of past trauma: post traumatic stress disorder.

I have never been diagnosed with PTSD and I probably never will be.  I doubt I will ever trust a medical professional enough to ever go for assessment. The worst traumas in my life were visited upon me by the very professions upon which society depends to protect people from criminal assaults or to treat them for medical emergencies.  Like many women, I have learned the hard, painful way that neither police nor doctors can be trusted to care about what happens to me. Worse, I have learned, as most women do, that these professionals can even do me harm in the service of the ideologies they hold: their sincerely held belief systems which render someone like me sub-human in their eyes.

Like most women in the western world - and possibly every woman in the developing world - I have endured regular, casual, culturally-approved gender-based mistreatment from my young girlhood to the present day.  Like most women, I have been sexually assaulted - not just once but several times - ranging from the clumsy grabs at breasts and crotch which are a regular occurrence on any school playground or neighborhood backyard to the intimidation of catcalls and threats from strangers in passing cars or in nightclubs, to unwanted sexual advances after a date from which I barely escaped, to a violent daytime stranger assault that left me bruised and terrorized. To the nonchalant amusement of the police, my attacker was a teenager a little younger than I was, already known to the authorities from having committed this type of assault before, and I was informed that no charges would be laid, because it might "ruin the kid's life". Had I been a man, brutally attacked and beaten at midday as he was on his way to work, the perpetrator would have been charged with aggravated assault at least. But I was a young woman, still a teenager, and the perp also sexually assaulted me. For that, the potential for his reputation to be ruined by a charge of attempted rape was considered much worse than the fact that my life would never be the same again, even after I recovered from my injuries.

Unlike most women, but probably like many more than women themselves realize, I have been denied information about a life-threatening condition in order to limit my choices in my own healthcare.  A doctor placed his religious ideology above my life and decided that I was not to be trusted with information which might have resulted in my choosing a legal abortion in order to safeguard my own health and possibly my life.  There is no doubt that my choice would have been to try to save that very much-wanted pregnancy anyway, but the knowledge that a person with power so dehumanized me that he felt he had the right - no, the god-given duty - to take away my right to make my own healthcare decisions by concealing the facts from me - even at the risk of my dying because of it - is an emotional trauma from which I may never recover.

Women in the west are constantly chastising themselves for failing to be happy in our modern, post-feminist world. Men who love us cannot understand why we can't just be happy, and we ask ourselves the same question. We wonder why, with all of our alleged equality in the modern world, we cannot seem to feel equal or respected or safe. The answer is simple: we know, through constant lived experience, that in every human culture we are not equal, not respected and never safe.

Women in the west have been force-fed a sickening glut of lies and misogyny that has, I believe, left too many of us paralyzed. Reality does not match the story our culture tells us, and we have daily proof that our rights as "equal" human beings are a myth. We are paralyzed with fear and we are paralyzed with the knowledge of just how degraded and dehumanized we remain in a world that is still overwhelmingly dominated by misogynist, religiously-fueled patriarchy. We are humiliated by the daily barrage of hateful messages directed at ourselves, our daughters, our sisters, our friends, and we are doubly humiliated because we are jeered at and intimidated into silence if we dare to try to talk about it. We try to play the game, try to figure out how to navigate the world without falling victim to the constant threats to our minds, bodies and livelihoods, and we try to suck up the inevitable attacks every female human being endures in her life - simply because she is female - to keep on living as joyfully as we can.

I have lived the life of a relatively-privileged and protected white woman in the western world:  raised in a society which pays lip service to equality for all human beings, but which systematically privileges a few dominant groups. Like all average western women, I have endured a lifetime of fear of assault, shame for the fact of my femaleness, humiliation at the hands of men, betrayal by men and by other women (who have joined the patriarchy in beating other women down to save themselves further pain) and doctor-mandated rape as punishment for having the audacity to seek medical care to which I was legally entitled.

"Many women find Pap smears embarrassing, 
and they would avoid getting them if they could get away with it 
and still get the other gynecological care they need...Is it paternalistic to require a Pap smear in order to get contraceptive pills? One could argue that. But it's also effective. Sometimes doctor really does know best."

Elizabeth Boskey, PhD*

The recent rash of horrors from state legislatures mandating - among other horrors - state-sponsored rape of women seeking abortions is nothing more than the logical extension of a 50-year policy of subjugating women to doctor-mandated rape for seeking female controlled birth control.  The rationale that women need "information" forced upon them before choosing a legal abortion to end an unplanned or forced pregnancy is no more dishonest than the rationale that forced "screening for cervical cancer" is a necessary prerequisite before oral contraceptives can be safely prescribed. Both rationales come from the same root belief: a woman seeking birth control/abortion is a slut who deserves to be punished for having sex. Both rationales are lies. 

Many women have been following recent events with growing terror, and that is the longterm goal of this strategy:  to keep women in a perpetual state of fear so that we will not dare to organize again and speak out to defend our human rights.  We are publicly worried about losing what few rights we had managed to win in the last century,  and we are privately frightened every day by the intimidation of a patriarchal society which threatens to strip a woman of everything she cherishes - the love of her family and friends, her ability to earn a living, her very life - unless she conforms to its impossible norms and restrictions.

Most women keep trying to play the game. Most women hope that if they try hard enough to please, try hard enough not to be too pushy, try hard enough not to be too demanding or too insistent on being treated as the equal of men, then somehow they will avoid attack. They play along to get along.

United, we can stand up to misogyny.

But, here is the thing, my sisters:

Playing along to get along isn't working.

It has never worked.


It is time to be courageous and stand up.

It is time to do what is right and speak out.

We can face down the fear together.




It may take me a while to be able to finish that dozen or so posts.  But, I will get there.  I hope you will be there with me.

* In November, 2010, Dr. Boskey added the following postscript to her unedited original post on Ask.com. :

Update 11/10: Since writing this article, I've read many women's stories of their experiences getting Pap smears, and I'm no longer in favor of using birth control pills as a way to encourage Pap screening. I still think that regular, although not yearly, screening is important; however, I think that it would be better to recruit women through education than through mechanisms that are perceived as highly coercive. Your stories have changed my mind. Thank you.

While this postscript is called an "update", it sits at the bottom of the page well after the article is concluded. The original article has not been updated: the language and message remains unchanged from the original including the quotes above.

Isn't That Just Ducky!

I make people smile!

I am a traveling dog.  I am a companion, a precious pet, a best friend.

And I make people smile!

Isn't that just Ducky!

Paralysis

I can hardly write at all lately on any of the topics that really must be written about, talked about and fought over.  The veritable tsunami of misogynist legislation which has been plowing its way through state legislatures all across the United States has left me feeling paralyzed, speechless and powerless.
There was a time not so long ago when it would have been unthinkable for anyone, let alone an elected official in a state legislature, to directly compare women to farm livestock and to say without fear of censure that women - adult female human beings - do not deserve as much, and certainly not more, consideration or health care protection than cows and pigs.

I'd like to think that the Georgia horror must surely be the lowest point possible in this nightmare,  but in this new world order,  I am no longer confident that there is any level of vindictive cruelty too low to which those who wish to strip women of their humanity will sink.

Too bad she's not a fetus

The reality is that women are quite literally under an all-out attack right now. This is not the work of just a few "fringe" people with a religious agenda.  This is the final stage in a long, deliberate strategy by the religious right and its political wing, the Republican party, to roll back the rights gained so painfully by women in the last century. The strategy was to evangelize and mobilize a voting force to bring these Christian extremists to power,  and it has succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Not only did they create a "base" of determined and loyal religious fanatics, but they gained the unstinting support of self-described "moderates" who were - and remain - only too happy to clasp hands with the fanatical fringe as long as their own privileged position in society appears to be protected.

In his book, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, Chris Hedges gives a chilling and detailed account of just how that strategy was implemented. Read it. The author was able to interview many of the principals. Their strategy has been so successful that by the time Hedges wrote the book, their success was so great that they did not attempt to hide the agenda any longer.  In fact, they took great pleasure and pride in telling the story of how they have managed to bring the country to its knees and have forced the United States into a Christian theocracy in every important sense.

One of the most potent weapons they used to win voters' support was women's reproductive rights. Thomas Frank's book What's the Matter with Kansas? describes in chilling detail how the religious right and the Republican party reframed the issue of abortion to their mutual benefit, and started (in earnest) the war on women which we are seeing approaching a starkly hateful climax this year.  The lie of calling most abortions the "killing" of "unborn babies" instead of the removal of blastocysts, embryos or zygotes (which is what abortion is in nearly 90% of cases) was the beginning of a campaign of fear, violent imagery and emotional manipulation of potential voters which has reaped a devastating toll on women's rights everywhere.

Back in 1998, Hillary Rodham Clinton was roundly ridiculed for saying that there was a "vast right-wing conspiracy".  She was correct then and she continues to be correct today.  In her opinion piece for the New York Times today, Maureen Dowd talks about the former presidential candidate's renewed vigor in the fight for protection of the rights and dignity of women.  It gives me some comfort to read an article like this.  Allison Yarrow  also has an excellent piece today on the rash of bills tabled by women representatives (and one man - Ted Celeste of Ohio - if only I still lived in Ohio, he would have my vote!) to highlight the absurdity and dangers of these anti-woman pieces of legislation.

I am going to work on further posts on this. For today, though, this is about all I have in me.

3.14 - Pi Day!

3.14.12

It's Pi Day!  Yes, that warm, fuzzy day when lovers declare their undying affection - for math and science!

I usually like to showcase fruit pies on this special day but, given the year, I felt a tug for something savoury and spicier -  and divided into 12 slices!

But, for you traditionalists out there:

Mmmmmmmm,  pi!

A Christian Asks an Atheist - Part 3

If you don't BELIEVE then you can't have Christmas anymore! 

(This is Part 3 of a three-part interview. Part One and Part Two)

Q. Do you not participate in religious holidays at all?

I definitely do celebrate holidays!  I participate in as many religious (and non-religious) holidays as I possibly can, and with great enthusiasm!  I try to learn about the mythos and traditions that have developed around each holiday.

All holidays, both religious and secular (and a few which are both!) belong to everyone.  They grew out of the non-religious traditions and cultural development of all of our ancestors. Most have their origins in ancient rituals which long predate the modern religions which now claim them. They are my cultural heritage as they are all humanity's.

I love the winter holidays, especially the ones which grew out of my western European ancestry.  The fun of Santa Claus and the magical elements of the Christmas story (a giant star! angels in the sky! talking animals! That's magical stuff!) make Christmas my favorite holiday hands down, with the traditions of Yuletide and Winter Solstice included, of course.

New Years Eve is another big holiday in our house (we throw a huge party!).  We celebrate the twelve days of Christmas, not just a single day wrapped around turkey and presents. The myth of the magi/three kings is one of my favorites from long ago, and we celebrate Twelfth Night as the Christmas season draws to a close. 

I like Chinese New Year because I had friends in school who taught me a lot about it and the traditions around that holiday.  I rejoice in Easter/Spring - I celebrate the renewal of the earth (with no human sacrifice necessary).  St John's day, Mardi Gras, Memorial Day/Canada Day (July 1), Independence Day, Halloween and Thanksgiving are all marked with special meals,  decorations and family traditions.  I also enjoy learning about the holidays of other cultures and I celebrate them, too, when I can!

Like most people, I love holidays!  One of the nice things about being atheist is that, since I am not forced to regard only some as "true" and declare others "false" to validate a religious belief system,  I can appreciate the genuine history of human seasonal celebrations and the myths created around them, claim our common human heritage and celebrate them all! 

Q. Were you brought up as Athiests or did you decide on your own later in life?

No, I was not brought up an atheist, I was brought up a mainly cultural Catholic in a fairly open-minded, tolerant, book-stuffed household. I attended Jesuit/Catholic school right up to university, not by my parents' choice but by necessity: where I grew up, all schooling was religious. To my parents' dismay, my dream and my plan for most of childhood and teen years had been to become a Maryknoll Sister.  Those nuns were adventurous and heroic - doing important work! - and I longed for a life of purpose like that, too. I even spent a year in a convent boarding-school preparing to enter the novitiate after high school.

Growing up, my identity was intricately entwined with my religion, but only in a cultural sense.  The people I knew were not fundamentalists, nor social conservatives, nor did religion or god-belief figure in our daily lives much at all - it was just who we were.  My siblings and I walked to our Catholic schools with our Catholic neighbors and the Protestant kids on the street walked to their schools with the other Protestant kids. We all shared generic Christian holidays, but had different denominational holidays - we had St Patrick's Day off; the Protestant kids had St George's Day off.

Religion provided the calendar of our lives and the cultural community to which we belonged, but religious belief was not something that was in our lives every minute or hammered into us every day.  I barely gave God a thought. I never connected god-belief with fear. Nobody I knew behaved as though a judgmental god was in any way a real thing. At most, people seemed to regard God as an invisible pal who agreed with their gripes and who sympathized - silently and apparently impotently - with their troubles. We did have a religious denominational school system,  but in spite of that the society was largely secular and one might even say almost irreligious.

The only obvious difference between our denominational public school system and the secular public school systems I have seen elsewhere since then was that we did have religion classes in school a few times each week.  I remember catechism as dry and boring (except when I was thrown out of class - once for declaring that I was not a sinner and another time for insisting that I did so understand the "'mystery' of the Trinity"- I was in second grade).  In middle school and high school, catechism gave way to world religion classes which I remember as interesting and illuminating.  Outside religion class, we had a completely secular education in our so-called religious schools, learning about evolution in science classes,  ancient mythologies in literature classes and even an objective study of the Reformation in history classes. As far as I can tell,  there was no redaction or revisionism of inconvenient history to suit a religious agenda in my school in the 1960's and 70's, unlike what we are seeing today. I loved my schools and church and I was enthralled by the sacred music, the mythology and the ritual.  

I never believed that the Biblical mythos was literally true nor that the Biblical god was a literal being (at least not in my conscious memory) so in that sense I appear to have been born atheist. The Biblical god was roughly equivalent to a story character in my mind - not a real thing, but an idea - a caricature with a purpose. I had a vague sense that everything we discussed and did in church was deeply meaningful ritual and poetry and art which was symbolically pointing us toward some kind of ineffable, supernatural goodness. To me, the religion and the Bible and the beautiful Church rituals and glorious music and liturgies were reaching toward so much more than the literal interpretation of them. My understanding of that ineffable goodness gradually morphed into a belief that the purpose of religion was to work toward the fulfillment of human potential for good- ie as stewards of the earth, as peaceful co-inhabitants of the earth with other people, animals and other living things, as intelligent beings seeking greater understanding of the universe and our place in it - no gods required. God was simply a metaphor.

The truly funny thing is this: I thought that was what everyone else thought, too! I thought I was completely normal in my church and that what I understood to be pointing to the greater meaning of it all, was in fact, what everyone else thought and believed! I thought that everyone else considered the Bible readings and lessons to be simply our ancestors' best acknowledgement (through centuries of wonderful effort and tradition) of our role as human beings and our duty to continue to strive toward fulfilling our role to the best of our ability. This was probably true in my hometown in that era (late 1960's- 1970's). I received all of my sacraments blissfully, joyfully convinced that I was completely in line with the Catholic Church's teachings. 

Until I was away from home poised to enter the pre-novitiate, it honestly never really occurred to me that other people in other communities (other than rare cults) actually have a very different - very literal and illiberal - view of religion. But there is a whole other world of religious conservatism out there, which I discovered when I traveled far from home to a convent boarding school.  I had come from a community where the fatherly priest at my school had enthused that I might become one of the first women priests if I wanted to be, to a place where the aloof young convent pastor made it clear how subservient I was to remain as a female Catholic - he represented a renewed wave of reactionary conservatism in the Catholic Church.

The hopes of progressive Catholics in the 1960s and 70s were soon to be decisively dashed, though I did not understand all of that in that one year.  I just knew that the changes I had heard about growing up were never going to happen quickly enough for me to be able to participate fully in the Church. Of course that realization was the main reason why I did not enter into religious life.  It was in the convent that I gave up my dream of becoming a Maryknoll Sister. I was not conflicted about it or upset; life is full of surprises and adventure and my realization only made me even more interested in religion as a social force, while saving me from a mistaken turn in my personal pathway.

I loved my Church. I grew up always believing that my beliefs were perfectly in line with everyone else's. To this day, in spite of that disconnect, I feel at home when I visit a Church.  I guess that is the power of "belonging" and "community" that so many people seem to be seeking in a church. However, both time and geography have revealed to me a far less beautiful Church than the one I grew up believing was a force for justice and goodness in the world.  I don't attend church anymore, and I am very happy to be recovering, but I do miss that sense of belonging.

Q. Can you share more about your non-beliefs?

What are non-beliefs?  That is a question I am not sure how to answer. How about if I share a few more things I do believe?

I can tell you that I believe very strongly in the power of humankind to grow and learn and to become better people.  I think that our emotional development will surge forward as we understand our environment better and can learn to manage our resources so that physical survival is not the main concern of the majority anymore. I believe that once survival for a reasonable lifespan is reliably ensured for most people on the planet, cognitive and emotional development will increase at a faster pace, allowing humankind to gradually approach its eventual potential. I am not talking about overnight, obviously.

As long as human survival is still precarious for a majority of human beings, the primitive pre-occupation with individual survival - with competing for food, territory and mates; with controlling other people to ensure reproductive success - and the survival and dominance of the tribe or nationality will continue to be a dominant trait in our species. These are all concerns which are instinctive to all living things and which, to me, are very convincing evidence of our evolutionary nature. We share this preoccupation with survival and reproduction, and the fierce competition which has its roots in these, with every living organism on the planet, from the smallest one-celled organism, to the largest animals on earth.

The interesting and amazing thing is how human beings began to develop more complex concerns as tiny pockets of them settled into relative prosperity and began to enjoy freedom from extreme want. Enter: confessional religion.

People were still strongly influenced by the ever present concerns about survival, but the small comforts and privileges of small pockets of settled humanity allowed people to begin to think about issues other than killing or being killed, starving others or starving themselves, winning land/food/mates or losing them and losing the battle for survival. With the stress of these constant concerns easing slightly, they were able to begin to think about how to make societies better, how to treat their fellow humans better and so forth.

Obviously, even this step forward was hampered by many of the more primitive concerns of humans (thus the elaborate rules and strictures around reproduction, for example).  Still, it was a significant leap in a relatively short space of time and with only slightly eased circumstances!  Imagine how far we could go if the majority of humankind could enjoy freedom from extreme want for several generations! I have great faith that humankind will reach that happy point, maybe not in my lifetime or my children’s or even my grandchildren’s, but it is coming.

This is a huge subject and it would take days to type even a brief overview, but the above is a small sampling of what I believe about the development of humanity and religion. 

Isn't That Just Ducky!

I like to dig in the sand!

I don't need a bath. I will bathe in the sea! I will dry in the sun!

I like to dig in the sand.

Isn't that just Ducky!

A Christian Asks an Atheist...Part 2

Heathens like you are going straight to HELL!

(This is the second part of a 3-part interview. Part One is here)

Q. Do you believe we all have a spirit/soul?

No, not in the accepted Christian sense. I do not believe in a god-given, inborn, supernatural "soul" which is supposed to be the key to a mythological eternal life but has been already besmirched by the actions of prehistoric, mythical people. The repugnant idea that right from birth one is stained with "sin" not of one's own doing is one of the most sad and self-loathing aspects of Christianity. I do not share that belief and I never have.

I do believe, however, that some sort of entirely natural "spirit" is possible. There could be a spark of energy which animates our bodies and fires our minds while we are alive.  I could call it a "soul", especially since that word seems to be in general usage meaning the parts of ourselves that we cannot yet explain easily. I imagine that such a spirit or soul would be pure and bright and joyful.  It could be a spark of the source of life itself, whatever that was.

My beliefs and imaginings about spirits and souls are completely subjective.  I recognize that these ideas are just my own pleasant musings on the subject, often inspired by books I have read or the insights of others. My fantasies have no basis in reality nor any hard evidence to support them.  In that sense, my ideas have exactly the same weight and validity as the ideas about an afterlife held by theists.

Q. If so, does it live on after bodily death? If so, where does it go?

Perhaps the spirit becomes one with the universe when we die. Maybe it leaves our bodies and joins the energy in the living things around us. The most likely answer is that "it" - if there actually is a soul or spirit - goes nowhere, but simply ceases to exist when bodily death occurs.  If that is the case, of course, none of us will know or care when it happens to us.

Obviously, though, the idea that people we love (including ourselves) will simply cease to exist anymore one day is really hard to handle. Emotionally, this is not a concept that sits comfortably with self-aware human beings.  Most of us would like to think that some part of us continues after we die.  I recognize this wish in myself and in others. I don't confuse wishing with reality, though.

We are star stuff!

So, like most people, when painful loss occurs I indulge myself in fantasies about what I would like to think could possibly happen if there is a special spark of life energy inside living things. I don't see the harm in doing so, and who knows?  Maybe something wonderful does happen!  It is nice to let oneself daydream - to feel that departed dear ones might still be somewhere close by. To relieve the pain of grief, I am as apt as a theist to invent stories to comfort myself about my loved ones' "souls" or spirits living on in some form after death.

I know that my ideas are pure fantasy and I expect that other people will have their own, probably different, fantasies.  It is a coping tool, not dogma. I remain aware that most of what I let myself believe on this subject is what I want to believe. I think most people tell themselves what they want to believe when contemplating an "afterlife", but religionists tell themselves it is the objective truth - based on dogma not evidence - instead of accepting what it really is: a psychological coping tool.

None of us knows what really happens after death but if the stories people believe sooth the pain of losing a loved one (or soothes the fear of where we are going ourselves after we die), I have no quibble with any of them, as long as the concept of soul is only used to ease private emotional pain. I believe that is one of the purposes of the mythos of afterlife. And a perfectly sensible one it is, given our human fear of death. You have to marvel at the resourcefulness and creativity of our ancient ancestors!

Unfortunately, most religious traditions do not use the soul concept or the idea of afterlife simply to cope with grief and loss. I reject totally the usual religious imaginings about what happens after death - ascension to some sort of Valhalla/Paradise/Heaven to live among the gods or else condemnation to a Uffern/Hades/Hell to suffer for eternity.  Those fantasies strike me as naked revenge fantasies and nothing more.  However, codified into religious dogma,  these fantasies cause real harm to people.

The fundamentalist Christian idea, for example, is that one's eternal destination is completely dependent upon belief.  This means that the concept of sin - though used by religionists to cause untold misery to their fellow humans - is, in fact, just a red herring:  eternal joy or eternal damnation depend completely upon something which a person cannot actually control - whether or not s/he can believe in a deity - so sin and morality are actually irrelevant  to Christian "salvation",  making their theology amoral at best and (if you think causing suffering to millions of people all over the world is immoral, as I do) evil at worst.

I feel that only people who have swallowed the entire theist mythos could ever accept these ideas at all, let alone consider them just or good. It is a psychological tool used for ill, in my opinion, and is yet another reason why I dislike religion.

Q. Do you absolutely believe there is no God/Higher Power?

Absolutely not.  Unlike some theists, I don't pretend to be absolutely sure about anything for which there is inadequate evidence or - as in the case of gods -  no evidence at all.  However, like Bertrand Russell famously said in his book of essays, Why I Am Not A Christian,  neither can anybody say for certain that there is no teapot orbiting the planets, invisible to the naked eye...but I do think it is reasonable to believe that a teapot in a space orbit is so unlikely that we probably would all call ourselves "aorbitalteapot".

Proof for teapot-belief! 

I feel as certain as most people feel about orbiting teapots that there is no Biblical God, whom I consider to be exactly like - and as real as - the gods and goddesses which preceded him. They are all human fabrications used by humans to explain natural events or to provide themselves with the comfort of imagining a higher power watching over them in times of crisis - sort of a parental figure, which is what most of us long for when we are in trouble or afraid - so I think the fact that people assigned this role to a supremely powerful God is perfectly understandable and its genesis is not difficult to figure out.

I think the most important (and least defensible) reason why gods were invented was to provide a supreme, supernatural power upon whose authority ancient peoples were able to base justification for their own political and social and cultural ambitions.  This is the aspect of god-belief that disturbs me the most and continues to cause the most trouble to this day.  I don't know if it should be surprising, though.

In prehistoric times, when god-belief is thought to have developed, life was a constant struggle for survival. As humankind began to evolve more complex brains and critical- and creative- thinking ability, it stands to reason that people would begin to use these new skills to augment their physical survival skills. Standing thousands of years in the future,  and out of harm's way so to speak,  I can appreciate that inventing monotheism was a pretty creative and resourceful hammer in the survival toolbox of ancient peoples.

As for some kind of higher power that may be suggested or pointed toward through god-mythos:  that, I feel, is more likely than a literal god-being, though not at all in the way people usually mean by "higher power".  I believe that whatever higher power there might be in our universe is likely within all of us and, if it is unconnected with self-consciousness, then it is probably within all living things.  However, it is power we are probably several millennia from understanding or being able to harness for good, because I don't think we've evolved enough yet to overcome our more primitive urges and needs.

Nevertheless, my completely imaginary concept of what a real higher power might be gives me tremendous hope for humankind when nothing else is cutting it.  I do believe that a transcendent impersonal energy probably does exist.  I do not believe in any anthropomorphized gods; at most I think it is possible that we are all small parts of a universal energy.  But with or without a higher power, the growing moral power of the human spirit is evident to me in the striving of more and more individuals for justice and peace.  While we have not yet come anywhere close to realizing our full human potential, I think we are evolving steadily toward it.

It will be a long journey, but I think we will get there.

Part Three

Isn't That Just Ducky!

I am up with the sun!

I am bright-eyed and bushy-tailed!  Daylight savings time is OK with me!

I am up with the sun!

Isn't that just Ducky!

A Christian Asks an Atheist...Part 1

Let's Keep it Friendly, Shall We?

Five or six years ago, I participated in a discussion about religion on an online parenting forum. In one of the discussion threads, a religious person decided to pose a series of questions to the atheists on the board in order to try to understand an atheist point of view a little bit better.   She trotted out the usual atheist tropes which so many theists seem to think are shiny, new ideas with fresh "gotcha!" potential. The one small mercy was that she didn't ask the time-tested and tiresomely repetitive, "Without a god, where do you get your morals?".

It was a useful exercise, though. My participation in that discussion spurred me to try to further flesh out my answers so I copied the theist's questions verbatim and I wrote the responses which follow.  My views have evolved since I wrote these but much of this is still true.  Looking at religion from a purely rational perspective, I still see it much as I describe below. The main difference is that I am not as soft on religion anymore.  It doesn't get the "purely rational" free pass anymore.

The fondly delusional delight I once felt about the "creativity" and "resourcefulness" of humankind has been rudely shoved aside by the reality that religion was created and continues to be used for far darker reasons than I was prepared to confront back when I was so tentatively coming out as an atheist. I was raised in a culture so thoroughly divided by religious affiliation that, while overt conservative religiosity was rare (and even frowned upon) in my birthplace, my whole identity - like that of everyone else I knew - was intimately entwined with my identification as a Catholic.  Letting go of one's identity as part of a religion community is probably the hardest part of the process of coming to terms with - and coming out as - being atheist.

I will discuss that aspect - the reaction from the community to an atheist coming out - in greater detail in another series of posts. I only mention it here because fear of rejection by my community was very much underneath the answers I wrote to these questions,  so I wanted to explain that.  It turned out to be completely justified fear, by the way, which is something which I suspect all closeted atheists know deep down, and is probably the single most powerful reason why many atheists remain silent.

Ultimately, however, the shunning and rejection I experienced after even the most carefully chosen and respectfully delivered words explaining my atheism proved to me that Greta Christina,  PZ Myers and others are absolutely correct. There is no accommodating the religious majority.  There is no language gentle enough, no phrasing respectful enough.  It is disbelief itself which enrages and threatens them.  Be "nice" or be "confrontational", the result is the same:  you're out.

With a few revisions (the more "confrontational" stuff is newer ;))   here’s the question and answer essay:

Q. I was just wondering what it's like to be an Atheist?

This is me

I can't speak for anyone else, but I think it's wonderful!  Literally. :) Every day is full of wonder for anyone who dares to look beyond a religious tradition that insists that everything one needs to know has already been written in one set of iron age books. There is a huge universe out there full of mysteries to unravel and discoveries yet to be made. 

There is a useful argument that comes up in debates about atheism that goes something like this: I believe that everyone on the planet is actually atheist and that I am not really very different from modern theists. What I mean by that statement is that most modern theists do not believe in most of the ancient gods, such as Zeus, Jupiter, Odin or Freya (though many are on the fence about Yahweh, since he is mentioned confusingly in the Jewish Bible/Christian OT:  I suspect that many modern Christians are not aware that Yahweh was actually one of a pantheon of ancient gods who was elevated to prominence by the early Jews who wrote the OT... but I digress) so in a sense current religionists are all undeniably atheist.  I totally agree with modern theists that the ancient gods and goddesses never literally existed, and I also believe that the Biblical god(s) likewise never existed. 

So, "what it's like to be an atheist" for me is very much like what it is like to be a theist, except that I disbelieve in one more god than theists do.

I do however, believe that the mythos surrounding all of these gods does point to a vital aspect of being human; I think it is reasonable to call it spirituality, for want of a better word.   I value the Bible and the Christian New Testament and all ancient/sacred books, including those which pre-date the Bible and those that came after it (such as the Qur'an and the Book of Mormon) as well as books which were excluded from the sacred canon by men (such as the Gnostic gospels), the Dead Sea scrolls and any other ancient texts which have been or have yet to be discovered.  I think they have both historical and cultural value.

Proof for god-belief!

Most of these "holy" books were written for a variety of purposes. Biblical scholars say they were composed primarily to share history and culture with future generations, but also (somewhat unfortunately) to cement various peoples' claims to superiority and entitlement, as human societies developed.  It seems to me that there is contained in these books a mixture of high-minded philosophy, rich cultural stories of deep human significance and clumsy attempts to explain the natural world.  The overwhelming focus and purpose of these books, however, is to enshrine political, social and territorial goals into some sort of permanent record, and to justify, through claims to a supernatural authority, the actions which people took to achieve these goals.

As works of human creativity, they deserve a place among our historical treasures along with the other works of art, literature and music which have survived down through the centuries.  As a blueprint for something divine,  I think - not so much.  I think all creative human endeavors point to something which is transcendentally human - this reaching toward and beyond literal understanding of the universe and our existence within it.  It is something that seems to be important to all of us, to varying degrees, whether we seek to understand through religion, philosophy, science, art or something else, and I believe we should continue to celebrate the rich history of humanity through preservation of these treasures.

The history of human development, especially the development of human societies and ethics, is fascinating to me. It's pretty much been my lifelong avocation to study religion, holy texts, and scholarly books discussing religion and its importance to human beings and the power that religious influence has exerted over societies.

It may sound corny, but being an agnostic atheist is one of the greatest joys of my life.  I feel extraordinarily privileged to have the intellectual and spiritual freedom I enjoy as an interested and enthusiastic amateur philosopher.

Unimaginable?

Q. From a Christian POV, it (atheism) is just unimaginable to me.   

I can't really help with that. It took me a long time to understand that other people don't see religion as I see it, but their POV is not unimaginable to me. It's just that, to me, modern theists seem to settle for such a small part of the entire amazing picture while I prefer the huge potential of a subject I can hardly contain in my thoughts all at once.  I cannot contain it, because the subject is too vast and splendid.

I know many people who speak of their belief in God in this manner, and I totally get what they are saying. For me, there is no conflict with this, because I consider the use of God as the word to try to describe the indescribable to be perfectly valid and historically traditional.  Agnostic writers and scholars and philosophers down through the ages used the term "God" to refer to the ineffable in spite of their unbelief.  I'm fine with that.  People today use the word "God" to refer to as many different ideations of the divine as there are believers. Where our thinking diverges is that I think of God as a mythical concept that, at best, may point toward some universal truth whereas my theist friends think of God as a literal Being. I understand that most people prefer things that way and I respect their feelings. It isn't unimaginable to me that they would feel or think like this, it is just not the way I feel or think.

Part Two

Isn't That Just Ducky!

I am a water dog!  I am one with the water and the wind.

I am a creature of the sun and the sand and the surf.

I am at the beach!  I am a water dog!

Isn't that just Ducky!

Moving Day - Saturday, March 10

"Moving Day" 

To mark the occasion of our daughter's and son-in-law's move to a new apartment this week.  

Wishing you both much joy in your new home!

Isn't That Just Ducky!

I love the beach!  I have a tasty stick!

Look at the sand! Look at the surf!

I love the beach!

Isn't that just Ducky!?!

Imagine...A World Without Religion

Hitchens speaking in March, 2007.  I cannot improve on this.

Wait - Did Hell Just Freeze Over?

LOL Is that you waving the hat, Pat?

NPR reports that Pat Robertson has declared that marijuana should be legal.  According to the "two-way" blog item, Robertson has apparently been a long time advocate of legalizing and controlling marijuana use and sale just like alcohol.

 “I’ve never used marijuana and I don’t intend to, but it’s just one of those things that I think: this war on drugs just hasn’t succeeded.”

Who knew anything sensible would ever come out of that man's mouth!?!