This is just too funny!

First time I heard this guy I was listening to Freethought Radio and the song was called "Fuck the Creationists". The profanity in the song just made it funnier. This is not actually Steven Hawking (LOL) but last I heard he took it as it was intended, as a joke. I think it's a rather funny one, too.

http://www.mchawking.com/

Answers in Creation Site

Interesting, a old-earth Christian rebuttal to the young-earth Answers in Genesis people. I don't agree with them all the way (needless to say) but it's still a nice breath of fresh air to find some Christians who are not totally cut off from scientific fact.

Answers in Creation

I have a page on MySpace now

www.myspace.com/mikayla_starstuff

No More Hornets: Atheist Jokes

LOL These are good:

No More Hornets: Atheist Jokes

Could the eye have evolved?

I'm pretty familiar with this claim by creationists that Darwin admitted that the eye could not have evolved. I used to believe them, but I grew up and wizened up and read The Origin of Species for myself. Darwin was only preempting this objection to his theory, but of course the creationists don't mention that he addresses the issue. I'm still shocked at the shamelessness and total dishonesty of creationists who tell impressionable kids (like I was) stuff like this.

It is because of things like this that I'm planning to go to the Rally for Reason and protest that monstrosity of a "Creation Museum."

If you'd like to know more about it, click the banner I have added at the top of my blog, or go to http://www.rallyforreason.com/

Pale Blue Dot

This is a cool video inspired by one of my heros, Carl Sagan. Enjoy!

Interesting video

The music is a good choice. You can just feel the irony.

Vegetarianism

I've tried being a vegetarian before, but living with omnivorous family and my former roomate made that very difficult to do. However now that I'm living in my own place, I have decided to give it another chance. For the past week and a half I've eaten no meat other than seafood, and that only when I'm at a restaurant with friends where there are no fully vegetarian meals that appeal to me. Expect for a bit of sushi at lunch the other day :)

So why am I doing this? The latest motivational push came from watching An Inconvenient Truth. Meat processing consumes more energy and feeds less people than does using the grains and plants to feed people rather than cows. I am convinced that global warming is a real issue, and I want to help do something about it. Eating less meat is one of the suggestions on the AIT website, and I think that is a great thing for me to do.

Of course, there is also the issue of eating less fat and cholesterol. Then there is the horrible treatment of animals in the mass meat industry. All good enough reasons for me to go veg.

Someday I might even give up fish and go fully vegitarian, but not until I've figured out where a few more veg friendly restaurants are around here, and convinced my family and friends to go there when we go out.

If anyone out there has any good and quick vegitarian recipes send them my way!

Controversial chocolate Jesus exhibit canceled - CNN.com

This chocolate is my flesh...?

Honestly, I can't believe they even tried this.

Controversial chocolate Jesus exhibit canceled - CNN.com

Quiz: What's Your Spiritual Type?

These are my results from this quiz on Beliefnet. Interesting...my result is in bold below.

25 - 29		Hardcore Skeptic -- but interested or you wouldn't be here!
30 - 39		Spiritual Dabbler -- Open to spiritual matters but far from impressed
40 - 49		Active Spiritual Seeker – Spiritual but turned off by organized religion
50 - 59		Spiritual Straddler – One foot in traditional religion, one foot in free-form spirituality
60 - 69		Old-fashioned Seeker -- Happy with my religion but searching for the right expression of it
70 - 79		Questioning Believer – You have doubts about the particulars but not the Big Stuff
80 - 89		Confident Believer – You have little doubt you’ve found the right path
90 - 100		Candidate for Clergy

Might be a quarter life crisis, who knows?

First heard of this concept in a John Mayer song on a CD I used to listen to constantly while I was in college just because I related to so much of what he was singing about.


Never thought I'd encounter the phrase anywhere else, but check this out. Bit scary actually, given some of the thoughts I've had in the last few months.

Quarter-life crisis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Characteristics of this crisis are:

• feeling "not good enough" because one can't find a job that is at his/her academic/intellectual level


• frustration with relationships, the working world, and finding a suitable job or career


• confusion of identity


• insecurity regarding the near future


• insecurity regarding present accomplishments


• re-evaluation of close interpersonal relationships


• disappointment with one's job


• nostalgia for college life


• tendency to hold stronger opinions


• boredom with social interactions


• financially-rooted stress


• loneliness
  
• desire to have children


• a sense that everyone is, somehow, doing better than you

I guess at least I know I'm normal, if that's any consolation. I can relate to almost every one of those points. I this on Grey's Journal, a website linked to the article:

While I was happy at the job and in the flat, a nameless unease grew within me. It took a long time to realize that I had passed a fundamental divide in my life without noticing: from always working toward the end of something -- be it high school, college, summer jobs or teacher training -- to having no end in sight, save that of retirement and death.

Anyone have ideas for how to deal with this?

Thankful to feminism for...

hell’s handmaiden » Blog Archive » Five for Feminism

I have been tagged by hell's handmaiden to list the file things I can thank feminism for. This should not be hard :)

1. Women's suffrage! I never miss a national election.


2. I can work in a field that is typically dominated by men, and no one thinks anything of it.


3. I have freedom to express myself sexually without feeling dirty.
   
4. I'm not under pressure to just get married and have kids as soon as I'm old enough.


5. Feminism has shown me that I deserve respect equal to that which is due to any of my male friends.

I could go on, but no doubt this is my top 5.

I have tagged Beep Beep It's Me .

WAVE 3 TV Louisville, KY :: Baptist leader sparks furor with "Is Your Baby Gay?" article

You have got to be kidding me. What would be considered "prenatal treatment to reverse gay orientation"? More religious craziness...

WAVE 3 TV Louisville, KY :: Baptist leader sparks furor with "Is Your Baby Gay?" article

(NEW YORK) -- The president of the leading Southern Baptist seminary has suggested that a biological basis for homosexuality may be proven. He also says prenatal treatment to reverse gay orientation would be biblically justified.

The Reverend Albert Mohler has been attacked by liberals and conservatives for his views. Mohler is president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

Proof of a biological basis would challenge the belief of many conservative Christians that homosexuality is a matter of choice.

Gay rights supporters are upset by his assertion that homosexuality would remain a sin even if it were biologically based.

An article on Mohler's personal web site published earlier this month was titled, "Is Your Baby Gay? What If You Could Know? What If You Could Do Something About It?"


(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

South Park Personality Quiz

a lot of pennies from Heaven

Did this guy really think people would fall for it?

WAVE 3 TV Louisville, KY :: Man who tried to cash $50,000 check from God arrested

The stinkiest stinker

I am re-reading Richard Dawkin's The God Delusion and I came across this passage that I think is totally hilarious. This is from Chapter 3, "Arguments for God's Existence" and Dawkins is reviewing a few of Thomas Aquinas's most famous arguments.

Let's move on down Aquinas' list.

4. The Argument from from Degree. We notice things in the world differ. There are degrees of, say, goodness or perfection. But we judge these degrees only by comparison with a maximum. Humans can be both good and bad, so the maximum goodness cannot rest in us. Therefore there must be some other maximum to set the standard for perfection, and we call that maximum God.

That's an argument? You might as well say, people vary in smelliness but we can make the comparison only by reference by a perfect maximum of of conceivable smelliness. Therefore there must exist a pre-eminently peerless stinker, and we call him God.

LOL

atheist gratitude

It can be hard to be an atheist in the United States. I read about it in stories on the Internet, talked about it in the extian email list, seen it on ExChristian.Net, talked about it in the local Atheists Meetup group, etc. I've contributed my share of material to these sources to share the fear, religious pressure, fights with my parents, etc, that went along with the discovery within my family that I was not a Christian anymore. Some of that you can read on this blog from the last few years.

However, things have smoothed out since then, and I am very grateful for that. Religion is no longer a source of open conflict between my Mother and I--and I think that this is more to her credit than it is to mine. Maybe it is because she knows that she is not going to bring me back to her church by arguing with me, so she has toned down a lot. Maybe it is because I'm at least going to a church now, even though it's not really a Christian church. Better Unitarian-Universalist than totally heathen :) Could also be that she is seeing that I have not really changed my basic values much after embracing my atheism. What I do know is that she loves me, religion or no. Dad too, of course, but there was never much conflict between us. And I am grateful for all of that.

Another area where I have been incredibly fortunate is in my workplace. I work as an IT Programmer/Analyst in a moderate sized company in Jeffersonville, right across the river from Louisville. One of the striking things about this this working environment is the incredible amount of open mindedness and diversity. I have co-workers there from many different national and religious environments, and religion has never been brought up yet in conversation as anything but a cultural interest. And there is no prostelization and no pressure of a religious sort that I hear that atheists encouter all to often in office settings. And I am very greatful for that.

There are other areas which I'm also greatful, my Unitarian-Universalist church, the internet which gives me the ability to share my thought and communicate with people from other parts of the U.S. and the world about this stuff, and many things that I'm just not thinking of now, for sure.

Dang, I almost forgot to mention that I'm even dating an atheist. How sweet is that? :)

Five Favorite Quotes Meme

I've been tagged by Stardust [I stand corrected :-p] to list my five favorite quotes (of the moment). So here goes :)

1. "I have steadily endeavored to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved [and I cannot resist forming one on every subject], as soon as the facts are shown to be opposed to it."
   
   Charles Darwin (Freedom:Quotes and Passages from the World's Greatest Freethinkers


2. "Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"
   
   Douglas Adams (Pulled from Positive Atheism's List of Quotations)


3. "There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened."
   
   Another one from Douglas Adams (from The Quotations Page)


4. "When he looks into his hand, he can see thousands of generations before him and thousands of generations after him. He can see that he exists not only in the evolutionary tree branching along the axis of time, but also in the network of interdependent relations. He told me that he never feels lonely."
   
   Thich Nhat Hanh (from Peace is Every Step)
   


5. "If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?"
   
   
   Carl Sagan (from The Quotations Page)

I have tagged Luminous Phenomena and Contemplative Activist.

Life Quiz

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	7
Mind:	7.2
Body:	8.4
Spirit:	7
Friends/Family:	3.2
Love:	6.9
Finance:	7.1
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

Dance classes

This is something that I've really always wanted to do since I was a kid--I have started taking dance classes. While doing an internet search, I found a fairly new dance studio in town that offers dance classes for not a whole lot of money. I got a $40 a month membership so I can take as many of the classes as I want, and I've been going for a week now.

I enjoy this a lot because it means that I'm learning some new skills--which makes it challenging--and I'm getting exercise. And it's a great social activity, especially since this is ballroom dancing, with a partner.

So far I've learned the basics of the tango, salsa, waltz, and samba. With a bit more practice I might get really good at this :) I figure that this is a prime time in my life to pursue these interests, while my time after work and on the weekends is still free.

What does it mean to believe in something?

This morning's message at church was about the pagan holiday Imbolc, which is the holiday celebrated to make note that the days are growing in length and that Spring is on the way. For the benefit of people in the congregation who are not Pagan, the minister gave a brief explaination of earth-based religion and it's place within Unitarian Universalism. She had an interesting thing to say about belief. I don't remember the exact words, but the gist of it was that it doesn't matter whether the things you profess to believe in are (literally) true or not, what matter is whether or not they help you to connect with...well...people, nature, or whatever it is you want to connect with.

This brought up in the mind the difference, often unspoken/forgotten/confused, between "believing in" something and believing something. Believing is having an idea of how you think the world really works when you don't or can't know for sure. To believe something is to believe that it is true objectively. If this belief is true, then it is true for everyone. It's not knowledge I'm talking about, though some seem to confuse belief and knowledge. (The phrase "I believe and KNOW" comes to mind--as if a belief that is believed strongly enough counted as knowledge. But I digress...) Belief of this sort is a placeholder for knowledge--it's a hypothesis that maybe just can't be tested yet, but should be as soon as that is possible. And then that hypothesis should be accepted or rejected according the evidence.

"Believing in" something, on the other hand, is the belief that that something is good, or useful, or thinking that there is some sort of virtue in believing it. It looks to me as if there are many religious people who "believe in" things without really "believing" them. It's like people saying that they believe in God when what they really mean is that they believe that one should believe in God. Or magic. Or the immortal soul. Or karma. Or [fill in the blank].

I don't really don't think there is anything wrong with "believing in" things, just so long as you don't get so carried away with really believing them that you insist that all other people must also believe them or they are just WRONG WRONG WRONG. "Believing in" is by nature subjective and I suppose this is what people mean if they talk about subjective truth (a concept which has long bothered me and still does to some extent).

I went to the Imbolc ceremony that the CUUPS group put on at my church tonight. Even being the scientific rationalist that I am, I can't resist a bit of ritual from time to time, and no group does ritual quite like Pagans. I've looked into Paganism before but was turned off by what looked like a lot of mumbo-jumbo and superstition. I still am turned off by a lot of this, esp. if someone tries to talk me into some astrology or tarot or something of the sort. But what I like about Paganism is the way that it follows real cycles in nature and in human life. There is nothing superstitious at all in celebrating the fact that the days are now getting longer and Spring promises to come, even though we are right in the middle of Winter. It is a season of hope--that from the dead of winter, life and warmth will return again. I have found that I can fully participate in this even while staying firmly grounded in reason.

I don't believe that the Lord and Lady of Paganism (mentioned many times in the ceremony) are real but I do believe in hope. I do believe in persevering though the Winter in the hope that Spring will come again.

Overzealous censor edits 'God' out of 'Queen' - CNN.com

LOL Seldom do I find censorship amusing, but this one takes the cake.

Overzealous censor edits 'God' out of 'Queen' - CNN.com

getting settled in

I've been in my new apartment for one week and two weekends now. It's been really nice having my own place, especially now that I've finally got cable and internet and a landline phone now. Even though I am now at Mike's house using the wireless network I just set up :).

One of the benefits of having my own place is that I can read when I want to without being interrupted. I finished reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, and I highly recommend it. I had gotten tired of reading about arguments against the existence of god(s) quite a while ago after I'd become quite secure in my atheism--I felt it was time to quit beating that point into the ground and go on. But that sort of stuff makes up only a very small portion of this book. Most books on atheism seem to be written by philosophers, and as much as I like philosophy, it was a breath of fresh air to see a distinguished scientist tackle the issue head on. He is not interested only displaying that the supernatural claims of religion are imaginary, but he took some time tackling the question of how we ended up with religion in the world in the first place. I found his discussion about the evolution of religion from a Darwinian perspective pretty interesting. I ought to go back and spend some time reviewing the book, and then write a real review. If I ever get around to it.

Getting a place of my own

I've decided to get into an apartment for a year and try to save up for a house while I'm there. I'm going to sign the lease Friday evening and start moving in ASAP.
Finally, a place of my own!

Amusing Video

The rant gets a bit old, but hold out until the middle of the video and it gets funny. This is for every one who has been awoken on a Saturday morning by Mormon missionaries.

Atheists say they've been threatened over their views

I was at the atheist meetup group in Louisville where this guy interviewed our group. I just happened to stumble on the story on the internet today. It's not bad :)
Atheists say they've been threatened over their views

Atheists say they've been threatened over their views

DYLAN T. LOVAN
Associated Press

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The note on Blair Scott's windshield wasn't a nice one.

The anonymous writer had to have seen Scott's atheist-themed bumper sticker, an uncommon sight in the small south Alabama town where he lived at the time.

"It just amazed me that people would take time out of their day to return to their car, grab a pen and paper and write a 'You're going to hell and you're going to burn in a lake of fire,' and stick it under my windshield," said Scott, a 36-year-old veteran who installs computer systems in prisons.

Outspoken atheists like Scott remain a minority, but there are dozens of atheist chapters sprouting up around the country, and even many in Southern states dominated by conservative Christians.

Many who consider themselves atheists said they're afraid to mention their views on religion or that they don't believe in deities. It's an especially unpopular opinion in the South, they said.

"Do I think that any of these people are really afraid if someone knows they're an atheist that they're going to get shot down on the street tomorrow? No. But the thought is always there in the back of your mind," said Joe Mays, Louisville computer technician who helped organize an atheist group that meets monthly.

Atheism is generally considered a disbelief in god or other deities, but some self-described atheists said they feel it is better described as a conclusion one arrives at sometime in their life.

"I don't really care for the word belief," said Edwin Kagan, a northern Kentucky lawyer who has defended atheist clients. "People say do I believe in evolution? It's not something to be believed in, it's something to be learned. Like the multiplication table. Do you believe in the multiplication table, or do you use it, do you learn it?"

Some estimates say as much as 15 percent of the population is atheist, though few call themselves by that title, said Jim Heldberg, national affiliation director for American Atheists in San Francisco. Heldberg said his group has 60 independent groups in many cities around the country. And there are many high-profile people who have expressed atheist views or a disbelief in God, including cyclist Lance Armstrong, golfer Annika Sorenstam and actresses Angelina Jolie and Jodie Foster.

At a meeting of the Louisville atheist group earlier this year, several members spoke of a fear of retribution if they mentioned their views around family or at work. Most didn't want to be identified. The members - including a factory worker, a nurse, a real estate agent, an accountant and some who work in computers - considered putting up flyers in local bookstores to attract new members, but they scrapped the idea when one said they would likely be torn down.

"Nobody's your friend when you're an atheist," one member said. Another member, Christopher Helbert, wryly suggested that he would rather his parents know he was gay than an atheist, because they would say "gay is curable."

A study at the University of Minnesota this year lends credence to the group's discussion. It found that Americans favor gays and lesbians, recent immigrants and Muslims over atheists in "sharing their vision of American society." Respondents also said they were least accepting of intermarriage with atheists than with any other group.

"I think the key to this animosity is probably this idea that somehow morality and religion are deeply linked and if you lose any kind of religious doctrine, you inevitably lose some purchase upon morality," said Sam Harris, best-selling author of "Letter to a Christian Nation."

Harris' book is a response to Christians who have criticized his writings on atheism.

"People think unless you've found Jesus, you can't love your neighbor in any significant sense," he said.

Some atheists have gone to court to challenge American institutions, most popularly the "Under God" portion of the Pledge of Allegiance, which was added in 1954.

In 2002, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the pledge is unconstitutional when recited in public schools, agreeing with a suit filed by atheist Michael Newdow of Sacramento, Calif. The Supreme Court in 2004 reversed that decision. Newdow has since revived the case and last year a federal judge ruled in his favor.

Newdow said atheists cannot get elected to office and that elected officials consistently side with people of faith on many issues.

"Government sends the message that it's a bad thing to be an atheist," Newdow said in a phone interview.

Scott said when he was living in Mobile, Ala., people were tipped off to his atheist views after he wrote an editorial to the local newspaper protesting a proposed bible class at a public school. He said he never mentioned that he was an atheist in the letter.

Scott said after that, his car was bashed up by a baseball bat and a cross was planted in his yard.

He has since moved to Huntsville and now heads a local atheist chapter in that town, which he said is much more tolerant because of the number of NASA scientists who live there.

"I think there's almost an unwillingness to come out of the closet for most atheists, especially in the Bible belt, because of the type of repercussions from people of faith," he said. "Some nasty stuff has happened to people, some really nasty stuff. And people are afraid of that."

---

On the net:

"Letter to a Christian Nation" http://www.samharris.org

10 myths—and 10 Truths—About Atheism :: Sam Harris

Must read for anyone who thinks they know anything about what atheists are all about.
10 myths—and 10 Truths—About Atheism :: Sam Harris

---

10 myths—and 10 Truths—About Atheism
By Sam Harris

December 24, 2006
The Los Angeles Times

SEVERAL POLLS indicate that the term “atheism” has acquired such an extraordinary stigma in the United States that being an atheist is now a perfect impediment to a career in politics (in a way that being black, Muslim or homosexual is not). According to a recent Newsweek poll, only 37% of Americans would vote for an otherwise qualified atheist for president.

Atheists are often imagined to be intolerant, immoral, depressed, blind to the beauty of nature and dogmatically closed to evidence of the supernatural.

Even John Locke, one of the great patriarchs of the Enlightenment, believed that atheism was “not at all to be tolerated” because, he said, “promises, covenants and oaths, which are the bonds of human societies, can have no hold upon an atheist.”

That was more than 300 years ago. But in the United States today, little seems to have changed. A remarkable 87% of the population claims “never to doubt” the existence of God; fewer than 10% identify themselves as atheists — and their reputation appears to be deteriorating.

Given that we know that atheists are often among the most intelligent and scientifically literate people in any society, it seems important to deflate the myths that prevent them from playing a larger role in our national discourse.

1) Atheists believe that life is meaningless.

On the contrary, religious people often worry that life is meaningless and imagine that it can only be redeemed by the promise of eternal happiness beyond the grave. Atheists tend to be quite sure that life is precious. Life is imbued with meaning by being really and fully lived. Our relationships with those we love are meaningful now; they need not last forever to be made so. Atheists tend to find this fear of meaninglessness … well … meaningless.

2) Atheism is responsible for the greatest crimes in human history.

People of faith often claim that the crimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were the inevitable product of unbelief. The problem with fascism and communism, however, is not that they are too critical of religion; the problem is that they are too much like religions. Such regimes are dogmatic to the core and generally give rise to personality cults that are indistinguishable from cults of religious hero worship. Auschwitz, the gulag and the killing fields were not examples of what happens when human beings reject religious dogma; they are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma run amok. There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.

3) Atheism is dogmatic.

Jews, Christians and Muslims claim that their scriptures are so prescient of humanity’s needs that they could only have been written under the direction of an omniscient deity. An atheist is simply a person who has considered this claim, read the books and found the claim to be ridiculous. One doesn’t have to take anything on faith, or be otherwise dogmatic, to reject unjustified religious beliefs. As the historian Stephen Henry Roberts (1901-71) once said: “I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”

4) Atheists think everything in the universe arose by chance.

No one knows why the universe came into being. In fact, it is not entirely clear that we can coherently speak about the “beginning” or “creation” of the universe at all, as these ideas invoke the concept of time, and here we are talking about the origin of space-time itself.

The notion that atheists believe that everything was created by chance is also regularly thrown up as a criticism of Darwinian evolution. As Richard Dawkins explains in his marvelous book, “The God Delusion,” this represents an utter misunderstanding of evolutionary theory. Although we don’t know precisely how the Earth’s early chemistry begat biology, we know that the diversity and complexity we see in the living world is not a product of mere chance. Evolution is a combination of chance mutation and natural selection. Darwin arrived at the phrase “natural selection” by analogy to the “artificial selection” performed by breeders of livestock. In both cases, selection exerts a highly non-random effect on the development of any species.

5) Atheism has no connection to science.

Although it is possible to be a scientist and still believe in God — as some scientists seem to manage it — there is no question that an engagement with scientific thinking tends to erode, rather than support, religious faith. Taking the U.S. population as an example: Most polls show that about 90% of the general public believes in a personal God; yet 93% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences do not. This suggests that there are few modes of thinking less congenial to religious faith than science is.

6) Atheists are arrogant.

When scientists don’t know something — like why the universe came into being or how the first self-replicating molecules formed — they admit it. Pretending to know things one doesn’t know is a profound liability in science. And yet it is the life-blood of faith-based religion. One of the monumental ironies of religious discourse can be found in the frequency with which people of faith praise themselves for their humility, while claiming to know facts about cosmology, chemistry and biology that no scientist knows. When considering questions about the nature of the cosmos and our place within it, atheists tend to draw their opinions from science. This isn’t arrogance; it is intellectual honesty.

7) Atheists are closed to spiritual experience.

There is nothing that prevents an atheist from experiencing love, ecstasy, rapture and awe; atheists can value these experiences and seek them regularly. What atheists don’t tend to do is make unjustified (and unjustifiable) claims about the nature of reality on the basis of such experiences. There is no question that some Christians have transformed their lives for the better by reading the Bible and praying to Jesus. What does this prove? It proves that certain disciplines of attention and codes of conduct can have a profound effect upon the human mind. Do the positive experiences of Christians suggest that Jesus is the sole savior of humanity? Not even remotely — because Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and even atheists regularly have similar experiences.

There is, in fact, not a Christian on this Earth who can be certain that Jesus even wore a beard, much less that he was born of a virgin or rose from the dead. These are just not the sort of claims that spiritual experience can authenticate.

8) Atheists believe that there is nothing beyond human life and human understanding.

Atheists are free to admit the limits of human understanding in a way that religious people are not. It is obvious that we do not fully understand the universe; but it is even more obvious that neither the Bible nor the Koran reflects our best understanding of it. We do not know whether there is complex life elsewhere in the cosmos, but there might be. If there is, such beings could have developed an understanding of nature’s laws that vastly exceeds our own. Atheists can freely entertain such possibilities. They also can admit that if brilliant extraterrestrials exist, the contents of the Bible and the Koran will be even less impressive to them than they are to human atheists.

From the atheist point of view, the world’s religions utterly trivialize the real beauty and immensity of the universe. One doesn’t have to accept anything on insufficient evidence to make such an observation.

9) Atheists ignore the fact that religion is extremely beneficial to society.

Those who emphasize the good effects of religion never seem to realize that such effects fail to demonstrate the truth of any religious doctrine. This is why we have terms such as “wishful thinking” and “self-deception.” There is a profound distinction between a consoling delusion and the truth.

In any case, the good effects of religion can surely be disputed. In most cases, it seems that religion gives people bad reasons to behave well, when good reasons are actually available. Ask yourself, which is more moral, helping the poor out of concern for their suffering, or doing so because you think the creator of the universe wants you to do it, will reward you for doing it or will punish you for not doing it?

10) Atheism provides no basis for morality.

If a person doesn’t already understand that cruelty is wrong, he won’t discover this by reading the Bible or the Koran — as these books are bursting with celebrations of cruelty, both human and divine. We do not get our morality from religion. We decide what is good in our good books by recourse to moral intuitions that are (at some level) hard-wired in us and that have been refined by thousands of years of thinking about the causes and possibilities of human happiness.

We have made considerable moral progress over the years, and we didn’t make this progress by reading the Bible or the Koran more closely. Both books condone the practice of slavery — and yet every civilized human being now recognizes that slavery is an abomination. Whatever is good in scripture — like the golden rule — can be valued for its ethical wisdom without our believing that it was handed down to us by the creator of the universe.

live and learn

Turns out I didn't get the house after all. (See the post below.) The mortgage situation turned out alright. The problem was that the seller would not fix the stuff he'd agreed to--including some old wiring that had the insulation falling off of it. So that was it. I'll start looking for a house again sometime next year--for now I'm taking a break.

Enough of that.

I've been on a bit of an Alanis Morisette kick for the last few days.

This is one of my fav's from her, mainly because I can relate to it. Yes, Mike, this one is for you.

uncertainty

I'm not feeling real happy right now and I feel like spilling out my feelings. I don't have someone to talk to right now so I guess I'll just spill it out for the whole world to see.

The main thing bugging me is that I found out the mortgage on my new house is going to cost me quite a lot more than I thought it was going to. All these stupid fees. I'm not going quite into it right now, I'm just irritated that I got these mortgage papers in my mail on a Friday night and I can't get any answers to my questions until Monday. Arrrrr!

*Sigh* Ok, I've got that out in writing now and that makes me feel somewhat better.

It's times like this that bring out an odd and hard-to-understand bit about myself. Why do I get all upset and defensive when my tries to tell me about how his uncle knows all about mortgages and how he could give me an estimate of my costs. Maybe it's that I really don't trust that he knows what he's talking about. For some reason I have this really hard time accepting advice from someone unless I have (a lot of) experience that tells me they really know what they are talking about. Like my Dad--I can trust that if I'm out somewhere and my car won't start, I can call him and most of the time he could tell me just what to do to bring the damn engine to life. On some other topics I may be less inclined to listen.

I think another bit of the problem is that I like to figure things out for myself. When someone tries to tell me how to do something, if I have not asked them for their advice, it's like they're telling me "Here I see you are not competent enough to figure it out on your own, so let me set you straight." That just drives me NUTS for some reason.

Hey, all you who have given me well intentioned advice, before you get defensive: I never said it was a rational response. I'm quite sure it isn't. And I probably should be on the giving end of some sincere apologies.

I suppose the flip side of this personality trait is that I do like to figure things out for myself. And if I didn't question so much the things people told me, I'd still be believing odd stuff like the notion that I'm somehow deserving of eternal condemnation because I have not always chosen to do the right thing in every circumstance in my life. Or that I can escape this supposed condemnation by believing really hard that some guy who was God 2,000 years ago died as a sacrifice to God to save me from God's wrath. Oh and that he then rose from the dead and lives in some place outside of space and time called Heaven . . . Well, you get the drift (assuming you don't believe these things yourself).

I have a tenancy to think for myself and question what the authorities have told me.

Not just in religion either . . . I also question political and other authorities. There is just so much lying and corruption in the world it's really hard to know who you can trust. Far as I can tell my best bet is to trust my own powers of reason.

The mortgage is a rough call because I have neither expert knowledge in the area, time or motive or resources to gain this knowledge, nor anyone to talk to with real expert knowledge who is looking out for my interests (and not trying to squeeze money out of me).

Times like this I just have to gather all the limited information I can, and after that just take the plunge into the unknown. Life is just full of uncertainty. It always was.

I know I'll feel better in the morning. I always do.

YouTube - Atheist

Really cool flick! Wouldn't do any good for some Christians who think scientists and intellectuals are fools anyway though...

YouTube - Atheist: ""

YouTube - Richard Dawkins - Revelations...

A Christmas loving atheist

I think this guy has got it right:

Secular Web Kiosk and Bookstore: Christmas Counterpoint

It's Official!

I'm now a Unitarian Universalist. I signed the membership book at First Unitarian Church last Wednesday. After deciding to hold off on the decision for about 2 years now, I've done it.

bits of starstuff: joining first unitarian church

bits of starstuff: atheist?

This kid's got the right idea :)

I got this from BeliefNet religious jokes:

Afraid of the Dark

A little boy was afraid of the dark. One night his mother told him to go out to the back porch and bring her the broom.

The little boy turned to his mother and said, "Mama, I don't want to go out there. It's dark."

The mother smiled reassuringly at her son. "You don't have to be afraid of the dark," she explained. "Jesus is out there. He'll look after you and protect you."The little boy looked at his mother real hard and asked, "Are you sure he's out there?"

"Yes, I'm sure. He is everywhere, and he is always ready to help you when you need him," she said.

The little boy thought about that for a minute and then went to the back door and cracked it a little. Peering out into the darkness, he called, "Jesus? If you're out there, would you please hand me the broom?"

Cold-hearted orb that rules the night removes the color from our sight

Red is gray and yellow, white.
But we decide which is right and which is an illusion.

NASA - Strange Moonlight

Yes that was a Moody Blues lyric :) I found it appropriate.

Shark that walks on fins is discovered - Yahoo! News

Fish do walk.

There is now even a walking shark. I see a new car emblem--a shark with feet :)

Shark that walks on fins is discovered - Yahoo! News

Went to church today

No I haven't reconverted :)
I went to First Unitarian church, where I was going to for a while about a year ago. At one point I'd even talked to the minister about joining, but ended up deciding not to do it right away. Since then I've checked out a Buddhism circle, biking on Sunday mornings, and a few weeks ago I checked out another Unitarian Universalist church here in town.

Going back was a good experience for me. I recognized quite a few faces and met some people I did not already know from before. We had a good discussion about ethics in the adult Sunday School (they don't call it Sunday School though--here it's called the Sunday Morning Adult Round Table or SMART for short). The Celebration of Life (what they call their Sunday morning service) message was that we can find spiritual nourishment and fulfillment no matter what our specific beliefs or situation in life. Not the words they used, but that is what I got out of it anyway.

I am considering the possibility of joining this time, now that I've tried some other things and other Unitarian churches for a while. I find that now I am a lot more secure now about my atheism, and I'm not worried about being around and discussing it with people who think that I'm wrong. As long as there is respect on both sides, and I'm not expected to submit to a creed (they have no official creed). So now may be the right time to join. . .

Dear God

I've never heard of XTC, but I was listening to my Sirius radio on the New Wave station on the way to work today and heard this song. Wow! Both the lyrics and the music (I'd post an mp3 if I wasn't worried about copyright). It's an awesome song!

EDIT:Actually I found the video on YouTube! Dear God Video

Dear god,
Hope you got the letter,
And I pray you can make it better down here.
I dont mean a big reduction in the price of beer,
But all the people that you made in your image,
See them starving on their feet,
cause they dont get enough to eat

From god,
I cant believe in you.

Dear god,
Sorry to disturb you,
But I feel that I should be heard loud and clear.
We all need a big reduction in amount of tears,
And all the people that you made in your image,
See them fighting in the street,
cause they cant make opinions meet,
About god,
I cant believe in you.

Did you make disease, and the diamond blue?
Did you make mankind after we made you?
And the devil too!

Dear god,
Dont know if you noticed,
But your name is on a lot of quotes in this book.
Us crazy humans wrote it, you should take a look,
And all the people that you made in your image,
Still believing that junk is true.
Well I know it aint and so do you,
Dear god,
I cant believe in,
I dont believe in,

I wont believe in heaven and hell.
No saints, no sinners,
No devil as well.
No pearly gates, no thorny crown.
Youre always letting us humans down.
The wars you bring, the babes you drown.
Those lost at sea and never found,
And its the same the whole world round.
The hurt I see helps to compound,
That the father, son and holy ghost,
Is just somebodys unholy hoax,
And if youre up there youll perceive,
That my hearts here upon my sleeve.
If theres one thing I dont believe in...

Its you,
Dear god.

This is cute :)

The Daily Religious Joke from Beliefnet:

The Pious Man and the Atheist

MSNBC - Daily Comics

Hehehe I thought this was cute:

MSNBC - Daily Comics

The Hope-Filled Infidel

I have a new blog discussing the hope of the Infidel.

If you are interested, check it out at http://thehopefilledinfidel.blogspot.com

The Healing Power of Holy Water?

heheheh I got this in my email today, thought it was pretty funny.

DailyJoke: "The Healing Power of Holy Water?"

Fact Sheet: Safe Substitutes at Home: Non-toxic Household Products

Speaking of environmental cleaning, this is an info-packed page:
Fact Sheet: Safe Substitutes at Home: Non-toxic Household Products

Sweet Mary, Mother of God?

Another Mary sighting, this time in a chocolate dripping. What will it be next, chocolate Marys in the Easter basket along with the Bunny?

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/08/17/chocolate.mary.ap/index.html

Daylight Atheism � Better than the Bible

About the new leader of the American Episcopal Church. Good points about a liberal brand of Christianity.

Although the Bible contains many verses calling for basic kindness and charity, it is silent on, and often actively opposed to, the philosophical principles of justice and equality needed to build a truly good society and not just a society that contains a few good people. Believers who nevertheless support these principles are better than the Bible. They are more just than the Old Testament. Their morality is superior to the teachings of Jesus. They are better people than God.

Check it out here:
Daylight Atheism: Better than the Bible

Daylight Atheism: Better than the Bible

Daylight Atheism � Better than the Bible

AOL News - Disowning Conservative Politics Is Costly for Pastor

Wow. If only all evangelical pastors were like this. Well, actually the pastor I grew up with tended to keep out of politicising from the pulpit--there are probably more like this than we tend to think. But that's just how I was raised. Hearing of a pastor giving political speach from the pulpit was a shock to me once when I was exploring other churches. I only know that I've been hearing about it a lot lately. Anyway, here is the link:
AOL News - Disowning Conservative Politics Is Costly for Pastor

YouTube - Kissing Hank's Ass

LOL Someone finally made a movie of Kissing Hank's Ass. Just brings the old story to life :)

YouTube - Kissing Hank's Ass

Environmental cleaning

I have observed that a lot of cleaning products, especially those for the bathroom and kitchen, are very poisonous and expensive. Lately I have been experimenting with natural homemade cleaning products. Doing research I have found the following links about natural cleaning products and I've included a few of them below for anyone who is interested.

• About.Com: Natural Cleaning Products You Have In Your Home
• New American Dream -- Contains info on safer, natural, cleaning products and other aspects of environmentally sustainable living.
• WorldWatch Institute: Cleaning Products
  

Evangelist arrested on federal charges | Local News | PensacolaNewsJournal.com

I knew Dr. Dino was nuts, but this is just too much :)

Evangelist arrested on federal charges Local News PensacolaNewsJournal.com

Proof that God exists:

LOL If only. I never even got a dial tone. ;) I got this one in my e-mail from BeliefNet

If God Had Voice Mail:
Thank you for calling heaven. I am sorry, all of our angels and saints are busy helping other sinners right now. However, your prayer is important to us and we will answer it in the order it was received. Please stay on the line.
If you would like to speak to:
God, press 1. Jesus, press 2. The Holy Spirit, press 3.If you would like to hear King David sing a Psalm while you are holding, press 4.To find a loved one who has been assigned to Heaven, press 5, then enter his or her social security number followed by the pound sign. (If you get a negative response, please hang up and try area code 666.)
For reservations in heaven, please enter J-O-H-N 3:16
For answers to nagging questions about dinosaurs, the age of the earth, life on other planets, and where Noah's Ark is, please wait until you arrive.If you are calling after hours and need emergency assistance, please contact your local pastor.

Environmentalism, Part 2

In my last post I stated that my interest in protecting the environment was watered by my interest in evolution. What I mean is that the claims of environmentalists make little sense to me until I got two things into my head:

1. That humans are not a special creation, above and separate from everything else of earth. We are as natural and dependent on the earth for survival as any other creature.
2. That God is not going to come back and destroy the earth anytime soon. So we can't treat the Earth and our resources as something disposable, something that will be destroyed soon anyway.

The first claim comes directly from an understanding that humans evolved from other forms of life just like every animal on this planet. The second follows from a naturalistic long term view of life on earth.

I have more thoughts on this for a later post . . .

Environmentalism

I was interested in environmentalism as a kid. When I was a young teenager I watched 'Captain Planet and the Planeteers' almost religiously. It was on at 7:00 am every Saturday morning, and I'd be up to watch it. I learned some cool stuff from watching that show that I encountered later, one example being 'cruelty free' products--a way that makers of personal care products can display that their products were either not tested on animals or tested in a way that would not cause harm to the animals.

Also as a result of things I was taught about environmentalism in school, I suggested to my parents that maybe it would be a good idea to have a government program that built a recycling program into the city waste disposal. Citizens would need to sort their recyclables into different bins before setting them out. The issue my folks brought up was how to pay for it and manage it--and as I had really no idea that was the end of that discussion. (I had the suspicion that raising taxes would not be an option.) So that idea was shot right down.

For a while I lost my interest in saving the environment. For one thing, I quit watching Captain Planet after watching an episode of Northern Exposure where I found out that the character Geia, the 'Spirit of the Earth' in the show, was revered as the goddess of the Earth in some pagan religion (at least Geia was referred to as a goddess in that show). It seems silly to me now, but as a very serious Christian girl at the time, I was devastated that the show used a pagan goddess as a main character. In fact, I wondered if I could trust anything from the show.

Another thing that blunted my environmental interests was that I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh with my father. As a homeschooled girl, this was pretty much my political education in highschool. Anyway I remember that anytime Rush mentioned the word 'environmentalist' on his show, it was always proceeded by the word 'wacko'. As in, people who chain themselves to trees to keep them from being cut down, and who care more about saving the kangaroo rat than they care about the livelihoods of farmers. It has taken me a long time to get the phrase 'wacko environmentalist' out of my head.

I did not regain my interest in environmentalism until my personal values went though a complete overhaul. I would not claim that this is the same for everyone--as some Christians are avid environmentalists--but in my case what sparked my interest in environmentalism once again had a lot to do with my doubting of Christianity. More specifically, it was sparked when, partly as an act of rebellion I sneakingly brought home _Cosmos_ by Carl Sagan (sneakingly because at that time I was still afraid of my parent's disapproval. From a comment I heard Dad make after we watched the movie 'Contact' at my sis's house it was clear he did not think much of Sagan.) I would read it in my room with my door closed, and hide it whenever someone opened the door. The most memorable thing about this experience was that it was the first time I'd read a comment about evolution being a grand and wonderful thing. The idea that the theory of evolution was anything good was a complete novelty to me, and the idea fascinated me. I also found a small book called a _River out of Eden_ by Richard Dawkins. This started up a great fascination with evolution in me, and I wanted to know more.

My beginning understanding of evolution watered the seeds of environmentalism in me that had lain dormant for a long time.

This story is getting to be quite long, longer than I'd intended, so I will continue it in my next post.

WP: Detainee abuse charges feared - washingtonpost.com Highlights - MSNBC.com

I don't usually talk about politics and stuff on this blog, but I find this to be, well, disturbing.

WP: Detainee abuse charges feared - washingtonpost.com Highlights - MSNBC.com

Blogthings - What's Your Religious Philosophy?

You are an Atheist

When it comes to religion, you're a non-believer (simple as that). You prefer to think about what's known and proven. You don't need religion to solve life's problems. Instead, you tend to work things out with logic and philosophy.

What's Your Religious Philosophy?

overcoming temptation

As you could see from my recent post that I titled 'temptation' I have been tempted to lay reason aside and entertain ways to accommodate irrationality--in this case in the form of astrology. I've finally bit the bullet and decided, several days ago actually, that is would just be plain dishonest for me to act like I think that there is any merit to astrology. The real temptation was to go along with peer pressure and not offend my boyfriend.

I think the limitations of reason really only come from a lack of information available to us. I strongly suspect that reason is really applicable to the whole universe--the only limitation on our part is that not all the facts are at our disposal. Since our brains are really only evolved to comprehend facts that have to do with our immediate survival really anyway (this being the reason, I think, that really advanced math is so hard to grasp), it may not help a whole lot if all the facts were at our disposal. This is a cause for humility for sure--but not a reason to entertain irrationality.

Now how to be honest about my skepticism to believers without making them think that I think they're stupid or something . . .?

Meet An Atheist: Atheist Religion

Meet An Atheist: Atheist Religion

temptation

I had a chance today to sit by the river, go for a walk, and do some thinking today.
One thing I thought about was reason, and it's limitations. I have had bad reactions to mystical thinking before. I still do sometimes, but there is a way that I find it to be a deeply wonderful thing. I'm a bit torn between two ways of thinking. My rational mind wants to see everything from a scientific point of view, wanting to explain everything. Maybe I should say logical, not rational, because I don't think that what I'm contrasting this mindset with is irrational. Maybe non-rational, I don't know.
Anyway, back to sitting by the river. I feel an odd attraction to the river, and I have all my life. A sort of fascination. My boyfriend says that I should be attracted to water because I'm a Cancer. Now hold on a minute right here. I am strongly suspicious of astrology. It makes no sense to me that objects out in space influenced by personality by their configuration when I was born. It's illogical. However, the idea has a strange seduction to it. He also says that we (Cancer's that is, he was also born in June) are the "beasts of burden" for other people. This also strikes a chord with me, especially regarding my roomate. (Check previous posts.) Then jumps in the rational part of me that says "Well, yes you can take personality traits that you already know I have and then attribute them to a "sign," but just try to predict what a person is like based on their birth month. You can't do it, unless you just dabble in vagaries that could apply to anyone, and then only remember the bits that were right." Course, I don't tell him that, and I figure I never will. We just think differently about these things, and that is something that attracts me to him. No pressure, just temptation. He tempts me to believe. (Not just astrology, but other things that seem to be a lot closer to reality.) I don't believe in astrology, but maybe I could find some symbolic meaning in all of this . . .

further update

My boyfriend just gave me a call a few minutes ago. So, he is thinking of me after all. This is a good sign.
About the things I said about him before, I don't know if it was completely fair. It was how I was feeling at the moment though. I'm not used to a relationship that didn't involve some sort of communication usually at least every other day. Maybe this is a good thing for me, as this is the longest lasting romantic relationship I've been involved in to date.
I'm still sorting things out here. I love this guy, I have no doubt about that. I'm not sure if a relationship between us would last a lifetime or not though. And I don't need to know right now really, as I'm not in any hurry to jump into any lifetime commitment (I wonder what I'll do if that opportunity presents itself). Right now I'm just holding on and seeing what happens.

what's going on

It's been a while since I wrote--and I'm sitting at the computer killing time--so I guess it's time for an update.

My roomate and I have been getting along rather better since the last couple of posts. He has improved since we first moved in--though there are still the little quirks like his battery powered alarm system that he insists on having but I seem to always forget to turn off when I get home. And his insisting on always having the door locked, even when I'm home. Couple of times I had to bang on the door for him to let me in because I'd gone outside to do something and he locked the door out of habit. I still don't know for sure if I will stay or move out when the lease is up. Part of it is because I'd like a nicer appartment, though I've also had the idea that a bit of work and spending could improve this one. I don't know what he's do if I left. He's dependent enough on someone else to do laundry, shopping, etc, that he has to either have a roomate willing to do it or else talk his mother into doing all that for him again. (She seemed very relieved when I took over all that stuff.)

As for my boyfriend, I'm not sure exactly what is going on. I called him and left a message on Thursday (or was it Wednesday, I'm not sure) but I've not heard a thing back from him. I know his sister is in town this weekend and that has got to be something to do with it. He's also the busy workaholic, but you'd think he could take just ten minutes out to let me know he thinks of me every couple days. I get the feeling that he is controlling all the interaction in this relationship--I can't get ahold of him when I call and he just calls when he wants. (This week is not the first time this has happened, if it was it wouldn't be a problem.) If the cell phone is broken, there is still a land line when he lives. I guess I'll just wait and see what happens--the ball is in his court, so to speak.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that I'm planning to go to my Sangha meeting this morning. It's been a long time, and I haven't been meditating for a couple of months now. Just got the idea yesterday that I'd up and go today.

about last night

After my roomate got back from band practice we had a "through the bedroom door" conversation (I'd already gone to bed.) First we argued a bit. But then he gave an apology and admited he's gone over the top. Interesting, the effect that had on me. It was just what I needed to hear and I told him so. So everything fine between us for now.

Warning: Bitching post

I don't usually bitch on my blog, but I have something on my mind and I hate calling people just to bitch at them. Especially since I hate when people call me for that reason.

Anyway, I am pissed. It's about my roommate. We have an interesting situation, one that I was well aware that I was getting into when I got into this apartment with him. After all, we've been best friends for a bit over eight years now. For one thing, he's blind, and never learned to do laundry, dishes, or cook beyond putting something in the microwave or toaster. I don't mind doing these things, though I wonder what he will do when I'm not living here anymore and when his mother isn't available to do the laundry. He can't get around anywhere by himself at all because he also has a disoriented problem and tends to veer off course if he doesn't have something to follow like a sidewalk. So if he wants to go anywhere he has to arrange a ride with the busing service or get me or some member of his family to take him.

Note that I'm only mentioning this as background information. I'm not mad about any of this stuff--I only mention it because it does put a little strain on our friendship. Like how he wants advance notice whenever I'm going to be doing something out at night. So he can plan dinner, and because he gets lonely in the appartment. It's a strain becuase I feel like I'm doing everything for him. It's an imbalance.

What pisses me off is his how he handles conflict. The other day he misplaced his watch. Fucking $16 dollar talking watch from Radio Shack. He starts ranting and raving and bitching about how he can't afford another $16 for a watch, and how someone at Denny's must have stole it (the theory was that it fell out of his pocket at Denny's Restaurant) and on and on. I even called Denny's but no one could find it there. Turns out that he had just placed it in an odd spot and forgot it. Then all was fine and good.

The most current thing, which riled me up today, was concerning a microphone. He really went off on this one. He's in a band, and the mic was supposed to be in the keyboard pouch. But I looked for it, and it wasn't. Therefore someone on the band was careless with his equipment. Or stole it. And he's quitting the band if they mistreat his equipment again. And he can't afford a $200 microphone. Bitch, bitch, bitch. Right in front of one of the band members that came to pick him up for band practice. You know where the microphone was? Right with the other band microphones at the house where they have their practices.

The really bad thing about all this? I can not stand to be around someone who is yelling and screaming and bitching and jumping to horrible conclusions whenever something of theirs is not where it's supposed to be. On top of me needing to take care of stuff for him that a roomate would normally take care of himself--even if he is blind--this is driving me crazy!

I'm the lady :) I wouldn't own a gas guzzler if someone gave it to me.

career update

A couple of posts back I mentioned the job interview I went to a couple of fridays ago. Well, yesterday they called me with a job offer, and today I called them back with my acceptance. I've agreed to a start date of May 15.

Pharyngula: Easter mourning

Cool blog post I found today:

Pharyngula: Easter mourning

Easter morning

When I was a Christian, Easter meant a lot to me. I guess that's why I'm in the mood to write something today--the lack of having something to celebrate today is making me a little bit down.
Well, besides the weather getting really warm and the trees budding out and getting really beautiful. That is always something to celebrate this time of the year!

But that's not really what was on my mind when I started this post. I always remember my Christian days around Easter time, and I thought I'd write about an insight I've had. You other women out there may be able to relate.

Everyone thinks they know about women's mood swings--how that monthly cycle affects her emotions. I know I have them, though now that I understand better what is happening when I get emotional around the middle of the month (usually) I can deal with it rationally and say "Yes I know feel moody but since there is nothing in my circumstances to feel moody about it's probably just my hormones. I'll just wait a few days and it'll go away." And it does, inevitably. Reason is my lifeline here.
When I was younger I didn't understand as well what was going on. I didn't understand the chemical nature of emotions, and I still believed in a supernatural, eternal soul. So when I had those down times, they were almost always mixed with another emotion--guilt. I never felt like a very good Christian--I didn't know how to witness since the things I had to say to others wouldn't have convinced me. lol This lead to doubt, mostly doubt over my own salvation. This would lead me to be very susceptible to altar calls--to where I would jump and confess all my supposed sins (and I was a goody-two-shoes back then! ) and make sure I was saved and then feel light and free from the while cathartic nature of it all. Then next time around (or maybe even the next day) I'd be down again and doubt my forgiveness and feel guilty about doubting and the whole process would start all over again.

So what is the point? I dunno it was just on my mind--maybe the point is that there is an advantage to having a rational, materialistic view of emotion over having a supernatural view. God is not convicting me of anything. There is no God to convict me of anything. If I've done something wrong I can figure it out myself (or have someone point it out) and feel real guilt and do what needs to be done. Not have false guilt over imaginary sins that I must have commited.

Couple of interesting sites I found today

One site is http://www.theadvocates.org/
They have a cool quiz for determining where you fall on the political scale. It's a very short quiz and is, far as I can tell, pretty accurate. And (this is rare) it doesn't denegrate any of the political leanings, only describes them as favoring different types of freedom--different priorities.

BTW, I came out of the quiz as Liberal. I knew I was, but I wasn't sure just how much I was. lol

The other cool site is http://www.churchofreality.org/wisdom/
A religion that believes in whatever is real. Now there's a breath of fresh air!

Job Interviews, etc.

Here is the lastest update in what is going on in my life. Just a few minor blurbs since I don't feel like detailed writing tonight.

The biggest thing is my job interview at Service Net. I currently have a job but I'm still casting out to see what is out there. Since I'm in a project currently, I want to stay until at least the first roll-out.

My boyfriend in now in Maine for a few weeks. Since I've been going to his place every weekend for the last couple months, it's going to feel odd without him around here.

Someone planted the thought in my head a couple weekends ago. So I've been playing with the idea of changing my name. It is an interesting conversation starter, but I'm getting a bit tired of people looking at me wierd when I tell them my name. "Did your parents want a boy?" Though it is kinda fun watching them get the look on my face like "OMG, I really just put my foot in my mouth didn't I?" LOL I'd never had a good idea what to change my name to, but someone suggested changing to Mikayla. I like that one--and I'm giving it some thought. I'd be a hassle though, trying to get people to call me something different though. But it's close, I like the sound of it, and it actually sounds feminine. And it's still unique.

That is all for now. There is a bit more I could write but I don't feel like it right now.

finally, an update

A few things have been going on since I last wrote on New Year's. I'll start with the most interesting thing to me, namely, that guy I met at the New Year's singles dance.

Honestly, I wasn't really expecting to strike up a new relationship at that dance. My plan was just to go, dance with a few people, have fun and go home. What ends up happening is that at first I'm not getting any invitations to dance so I decided to just go out on the dance floor and dance by myself. I was not up there long, probably not more than one song, when this pretty well built guy with brown eyes and dark curly hair asked if I minded if he joined me. I didn't mind, so we danced together for a few songs. He was a good dancer too, and taught me a few moves. I had a blast! He also liked to talk and was asking me stuff like what kind of drinks do I like and what kind of vices I had. When I first saw him the first thing I thought was that he didn't look too old (most of the crowd was around 50 or something) and that he looked Hispanic. Next thing I noticed was his accent, which I couldn't place, but which definately did not sound Hispanic. This was cool for me--I seem to have a thing for dark guys with odd accents. LOL Anyway, it turned out that he was from Maine. After a while we parted and I went to sit back down, but it wasn't long before I was looking around to see where he was--and he noticed and asked me later if I was looking for him. We were dancing together when the New Year started, and at his request I gave him my number before I left.

A few days later he called me, and on Tuesday we went to see King Kong at the theater near my apartment. The movie was good too, and I got into it. What really got me is that when we were talking after the movie ended, he was watching my face during the movie to see how I was reacting to the more intimate scenes of the movie--like the scene at the top of the tower (if you've seen the movie you should know what I'm talking about). He said that he could tell that I was really into the movie at those points. I couldn't help melting a bit when he started talking about that--I think there is something irresistible about a guy that in tune with how I'm feeling, even about a movie. Even back when we were dancing on New Year's I just felt like this was a guy who could understand me.

Since then I've been to a couple more dances with him, and I've spent a few weekends at his place over the past month. I've learned a lot more about him than I knew on New Year's. I think I've found something really special here, but I'm trying my darnest not to rush ahead. He told me that when he tries too hard to make a relationship work it has usually caused it not to work, and this has been my experience as well. Just got to take this one day at a time. But right now I feel like I could keep this up one day at a time for quite a long time.

Happy New Years!

One again it is time to review the previous year and make plans for the new one.

Here is some of what happened this year. These are in the order they come to my mind, no chronological:

• I moved into an apartment in November, with my best friend.
• I have finished all of my college classes, and have started my final co-op. I'll graduate in the Spring.
• I've got my first real programming job, full time and with health insurance.
• For the first time I actually have my own heath insurance instead of relying on my mother's.
• I started meditating and then started looking into Buddhism--and found a lot that really rings true with me. Also started to attend the meeting of the Louisville Community of Mindfulness on Sunday mornings (playing hookey today though lol).

Last year at about New Years I said:

• I'm working on exercising more and drinking more water.

  I want to work on keeping a positive attitude when I'm stressed out. (It's
  not a problem when I'm not stressed.)

  I intend to graduate at the end of 2005. This involved also finding a co-op
  for next year.

  I'd like to be moved out on my own by the end of this year, or shortly after
  graduation.

I actually accomplished most of these. The exercising fizzled around the end of February, cause I got tired of Dad's elliptical machine. Ok, I got a bit lazy lol. But it lasted a whole two months--not bad I guess. But I did keep drinking more water.
My meditation practice has helped me not to get stressed out so much--it helps me to keep a clear head and be able to see when what I'm worried about will just not be helped by me giving myself an headache over it.
I'm close on the graduation bit. I finished my classes in 2005, but my official graduation will be in the Spring of '06.
I am moved out into an apartment now. Woo hoo!

On to next year:

Here are my intentions for this coming year:

• I plan to continue my meditation practice and find out more about Buddhism.
• I plan to start taking classes at Gold's Gym, which is just a couple of minutes from my apartment. In fact, I just signed up for a monthly membership yesterday.
• I would like to get my Microsoft Certified Application Developer certificate, though I've not made serious plans toward that end just yet.
• I'd like to go to more dances, like the the one I went to last night. Found a new friend who was teaching me how to dance. I'm expecting maybe to get a call from him today . . .

We'll see how it goes :)

My Christmas

My Christmas was a bit different this year. We've always had our family Christmas Eve party at Grandma's house, but this year we had it up at my folks house. It is even the first time we've had any parties up at my folk's house--they have been working really hard on getting the place rearranged and even putting in a insert wood stove and building a hearth around it. I wish I had before and after pictures to post--it's a bit like Changing Spaces or something 'cept they did it themselves. :-p

The Christmas Eve party went off great--we ate, Grampa shared some of his Christmas memories, the Christmas myth was read, we sang some carols. I'll see if I can get some digital photo's from Dad so I can post them.

I spent the night up at Mom and Dad's house after the party. It was weird sleeping on the couch, and I didn't get to sleep until about 3 in the morning. As Christmas morning is also Sunday morning, Mom invited me to go to church, as expected. I pretty much planned on going with them anyway, so I accepted.

We missed half of the service since it went from 10am-11am. I'm not sure of the reason for the shift in schedule; I think it was something to do with the pastor's traveling plans. Anyway, what it meant to me was that I only had to sit there for 30 minutes as opposed to an hour. LOL The service was alright--we walked in where the pastor was reading Isaiah 53 and then switched to the birth of Jesus and then to the bit in Revelation about the Lamb and the seven seals. A team with a soprano sax and a singer who I know from when I was in the youth group did "O Holy Night." They did quite a good job on it too, the singer even did it in sign language.

Then, to my dismay, I found out that they were going to do Communion. This was the first time I'd been to a Communion service since I decided that I definitely was not a believer. It was also the first time that I sat still during the entire thing--just breathing in and out and trying not to look too conspicuous. I used to love Communion when I was a Christian, and the combination of that and that of going against the peer pressure made it all an unpleasant experience. What else could I do--to take it is no less than a public proclamation of faith. Far as I know, most in the church are totally unaware that I have rejected Christianity--they only know that I've not been going to church. I wonder how many noticed that I didn't even take Communion when it is open to anyone who has "accepted Christ as their lord and savior"? Not that anyone mentioned it afterward, of course.

The rest of the day went alright--but as this post is already pretty long I'm going to make the rest of it very short. We ate Christmas dinner at Grampa's and then I went to my roomate's family party. And that was my Christmas this year.

Judge rules against �intelligent design� - Science - MSNBC.com

Heartening news :)

Judge rules against "intelligent design" - Science - MSNBC.com

And along the same lines, this has got to be my favorite Doonesbury ever:

http://www.msnbc.com/comics/daily.asp?sfile=db051218&vts=121820051719

events of the day

Today I went to a memorial service. Also known as a funeral. It was for my little neice who, as it turned out, died before ever seeing the light of day. Her name was Rebecca Grace. I've never seen such a tiny casket.
I've also observed in the last few year that funerals are much harder for me than they used to be. This being because most of the "comforting words" are about mythical stuff that most of the people there happen to believe. While the pastor was going on at the memorial service about how "God knows how to lose a child" and "the baby is in the arms of Jesus" and all that I just stared at the tree behind him and concentrated on breathing in and out and waited for him to get done. I suppose it doesn't really matter if those words were any comfort to me or not, as they meant something to the parents and the others there. I'm not going to sit and wallow in self-pity over it--just thought I'd share my thoughts here for all the others out there who have similar experiences. At least no one tried to witness to me, or talked much at all about it after the sermon, far as I could tell. It was good to be around family, and it was heartening to see how many people showed up. I do know my brother and sis-in-law are going to need support this Christmas.

On a brighter note, I have finished with my classes. No more tests (of the written and graded type, anyway). Woo hoo.

A false dichotomy

This has been on my mind a lot lately. I have discovered the thing that I've heard as the sort of reason that people renounce atheism in order to embrace some religion or another. That is, that science and reason in themselves are unable to give meaning to life.

Most of my life I have held this assumption that to be spiritual and to find warmth and meaning in life was somehow tied to believing things that defy what my eyes see and what my science teacher tried to teach me. Salvation was found in believing things and trusting that if your eyes and reason said otherwise, then your eyes and reason were deceiving you. The alternative was simply disbelieving anything that couldn't be proven for certain--after all I've always hated being uncertain in these matters. (Especially when I thought my eternal destiny was tied to my degree of certainty, but I digress). This is the false dichotomy that I'm talking about.

I came to the point of recognizing that reason is not everything on my own. My explorations into Buddhism revealed the rest. I'd hardly considered the possibility of a religion that is not based on faith, but rather experience. There may be faith involved in varying degrees for different people, but it's not essential. Well, anyway, Buddhism as I know it is primarily about our experience of the present moment--no so much about the origins of life or what, if anything, happens after we die. Not much reason to get into debates about evolution versus creationism here.

Also, today I read chapter one in a book called The End of Faith by Sam Harris. He expressed very clearly the idea that has been rattling around in my head for the past couple of months, and it was this reading that moved me to write this entry. It seems so damn simple--like it was right on the edge of my thoughts before but I've never been quite able to bring it to the surface of my thoughts before. Too many of my old assumptions were in the way.

We cannot live by reason alone. This is why no quantity of reason, applied as antiseptic, can compete with the balm of faith, once the terrors of the world begin to intrude upon our lives. Your child has died, or your wife has acquired a horrible illness that no doctor can cure, or your own body has suddenly begun striding toward the grave--and reason, no matter how broad it's compass, will begin to smell distinctly of formaldehyde. This has lead many of us to conclude, wrongly, that human beings have needs that only beliefs in certain fantastical beliefs can fulfill. It is nowhere written, however, that human beings must be irrational, or live in a perpetual state of seige, to enjoy an abidng sense of the sacred. On the contrary, I hope to show that spirituality can be--indeed, must be--deeply rational, even as it elucidates the limits of reason.

So you don't have to either hold absurd beliefs or refuse to consider any ideas that your reason cannot understand. There is a whole lot of middle ground here. And it's a wonderful sense of freedom when you realize that you need not fear reality causing your beliefs to crash down around you! If a belief is shattered by reality, then that is just one more obstacle on the road to a clear view of the world out of the way--and this is a good thing.

NPR : There Is No God

NPR : There Is No God

Charles Darwin: Evolution of a Scientist - Newsweek Technology - MSNBC.com

I like this article, thought I'd share it. It's all about who Darwin was and what the controversy over evolution is all about.

Charles Darwin: Evolution of a Scientist - Newsweek Technology - MSNBC.com

my new home

I'm now out in an apartment. I moved out of my folk's house at the end of October. I'm pretty much just now getting both the time and the motivation to write on this blog. SO now I'm on my own, sort of. I got this apartment with my best friend, and it had really worked out better than I expected.
Josh and I'd been considering the possiblility of getting an apartment for almost the whole last year. He was sitting in an apartment he hated and wanted a way out of there, and I was looking at finally moving out of my parent's house. I just felt I'd outgrown living at home and was ready to move on. The conditions for moving out were ideal. After we figured up the expenses and decided we could afford it, there was just one psychological barrier to overcome: what are people going to think about a guy and a girl who are not married and not related moving in together? We're not even boyfriend/girlfriend, and we have discussed the idea that either of us could invite dates to the apartment. We ended up just pretty much just deciding that it's no one's freaking business if we are sharing an apartment. LOL
I've been pretty busy lately since now I have to shop for groceries and do laundry for two and take care of utility billys and think of stuff like what to eat for dinner. Yea yea I do his laundry, which will just have to be a fact of life until we get the washer and dryer labeled in braille. I don't mind it at all actually, which is almost a bit of a surprise to myself. I think I could go on living this way for a long time without any trouble.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, I now have DSL and a wireless. Woo Hoo! I'm writing this blog entry over the wireless using my company laptop.