Memories...

Facebook. It's pretty wild.

Today I became friends with a girl I wasn't particularly nice to, growing up. She was one of my cousin's best friends, but I kind of had a chip on my shoulder about her and wasn't as friendly (back then) as I should have been. Want to know why? Of course you do.

Because, in first grade, she was one of the few girls who would play Army with me, but we always fought over who got to be general. Or, rather, she would declare herself general and go play with our other friends and I would sulk in a corner because *I* wanted to be general.

It didn't occur to me, then, just to think it was cool that other girls would play Army with me. Or to attempt a coups, for that matter. Heh

Sentimentalist

OK, I was just perusing The Digital Cuttlefish and came across this gem:



Wow. That's the first Christmas song in a while to actually bring a tear to my eye. Very nice. Had to share.

Life Uncommon

Happy Thanksgiving.

Want a potentially trite sounding gratitude list? I knew you did. On Thanksgiving we all get to rough draft our eventual Oscar acceptance speeches.

I'd like to thank my parents for giving me life. Thank you, Mom, for teaching me about education and dedication and for raising me to appreciate fine details and accuracy. Thank you for dragging me, kicking and screaming, through lessons of food preparation and household maintenance. I fought you every minute and had a horrible attitude. Only now, as a mother, do I have any clue how much work it was for you to perservere and teach me what I needed to know. Thank you for helping me work around my bad attitude at school and still get outstanding educational opportunities. Thank you for making it possible for me to take algebra through the college when I wasn't permitted to progress in junior high. Thank you for your endless hours at the dinner table, explaining the concepts that frustrated me. I don't know if you remembe how annoyed I was, trying to understand why suddenly I had to solve for f(x) rather than just y, like it had been before. When I got to Calculus the additional understanding of functions was quite helpful. Dad, thank you for your empathy as I struggled through adolescence. Thank you for being my verbal sparring partner and political pugilist all these years.

I'd like to thank my oldest brother for letting me listen to rock music and teaching me the keyboard parts to a few songs, when I was little. Your attention meant the world to me, and playing opening chords from random 80s music is still a fun party trick.

Thanks, oldest sister, for inspiring me to write. My earliest short stories and poetry were pathetic mimicries of your work. When you were in Germany I cherished a book of poetry you had begun and commenced writing my own. I don't know how I would have survived that year without the creative outlet writing offered.

Little sister, I adore you. I admire you. Your intelligence and warmth make me feel better about humanity as a whole. When I share my views on religion, I always fear it will alienate me from all my loved ones, but every time I have exposed an emotional wound or frustrations or even just gone on a ranting bender, you have patiently listened and then provided calm, intelligent points of view that bring me to a more peaceful, humble way of thinking. We may not agree on some things, but I always get the impression that our hearts are in the same place. I can not overstate the value of this in my life.

Baby brother, you rock. I still worry that the cruelty I directed toward you in childhood may have done real damage. Hopefully it didn't, but I'm still sorry about that. I have loved watching you become a father. Your daughter is fortunate to have you for her male role model and first hero.

Mr. McGeeky, G-Rex, Bayba and Muggle - You are my world and I'll tell you all more about that after I make dinner for you.

HRH UP - Sorry I won't get to see you today. Thank you for teaching me some social skills and about forgiveness and the endurance of friendship.

Mrs. Bosazzle - I don't want to embarrass you in public, so I won't go into all the things about you I'm thankful for, but I wanted to make sure you know you're important to me.

OK, I've been hearing the exit music in my head, so I suppose I should wrap this up...

I love you all! Thank you all for enriching my life and making me a better person.








Funny, my exit music seems to be the sound of aliens getting shot, amidst gruff voices repeating phrases like, "Your warriors have engaged the enemy!" "Upgrade complete!" "I have returned!" and "My life for Aiur!" heh

Grace Under Pressure

If my blog were a Monty Python movie, this would be the part where it arbitrarily cuts from the actual story to some sort of wierd incongruent intermission...

So The Plan was to do the whole Thanksgiving brouhaha at the Urban Princess' house. I was in charge of dessert (of course... heh *preen* ), so my only grocery efforts had been to procure ingredients for a pumpkin pie/pumpkin cheesecake hybrid and a chocolate pecan pie.

And then the kids got sick. And puked. And leaked diarrhea all over the floor (on the tile, thank the FSM!). Yeah. *shudder*

So I had to cancel plans with Her Royal Highness, Urban Princess. HRH UP, if you will. Or not. Whatever.

And that left us with no Thanksgiving. Not the meaningful part... That beauteous meal that is the gastronomical highlight of my year... I LOVE traditional Thanksgiving food. So much so that I was going to make a T-Day spread for my birthday dinner. There's just no way I can cope with eating something lesser tomorrow.

So after Mr. McG got home, I tossed mac and cheese at the people who could tolerate solid food and took off to the grocery store.

$70 later, here I am. My pumpkin cheesecake pies are in the oven, my brine is cooling (I'll put Mr. Turkey in the brine before I go to bed), and I have the basic timeline listed for tomorrow. I only have one oven, after all, so orchestration is imperitive. Immediately after the turkey hits the oven it's time to get the dinner rolls mixing (must be from scratch... bread is always worth it), then yams, then yukon golds boiling for mashed potatoes, then the dressing, the green bean casserole, and finally the cranberries. Complemented with a Ginger Orange Cranberry punch. Whew.

Damn I'm good.

I will be photographing the food. And maybe even a kid or two.

Plus, I'll freeze some leftovers to heat up for my birthday so I won't have to cook (except for the cake... but that's baking, which is much better than cooking).

Beyond the Rant

It's been a lovely day. First, I surprised G-Rex at her classroom with pumpkin muffins for her class (a collaboration with her teacher... a GOOD surprise, not an obnoxious one, I hope... it wasn't my idea!). Then I spent a day getting knocked out of my isolated ranting place.

So at the moment I'm feeling a little humbled. A little less know-it-all. Temporarily free of my inferiority/superiority bipolar swing. Nice.

So, Mrs. Warmth. FINALLY I get you to weigh in! About time! ;o)

Seriously, though - I love it when you speak up because I know you'll present different views intelligently and provide a little balance (which we both know I sometimes lack). One particular gem in your last comment: "Why do you believe scientists? My opinion is that you've had repeated good experiences with believing things scientists have written or said and so now you continue to believe them despite you not actually being present and part of the physicality of their studies. I think for Believers, it is somewhat similar." In my case, you are right - although I can't speak for any other atheistic science groupies.

The difference between the two is the method. I am not sufficiently educated to prove or disprove all the science out there. But I understand the checks and balances of peer review and that the rigors of academic thought are likely to provide the best information.

To go with the brain analogy, no I have not seen my brain. But I could. Science has provided fabulous imaging tools. A doctor can safely say I have a brain and can provide mountains of evidence to back up his or her claim. Should the evidence not convince me, my head could be cut open to provide absolute verification. No belief is actually required.

With religion, everything is based on emotion. Do you feel something is right? Do you feel something is wrong? Do you feel you can trust the person who claims to speak for God? It's all about the feeling of hope and security.

Feelings are fickle, easily manipulated things which can color and corrupt thinking. It seems most people trust their feelings to be reasonably accurate reflections of reality.

I don't.

The benefit of having had the experience of thoughts and emotions COMPLETELY out of control - and now having perceptions and interpretations of reality that generally stand up to corroboration - is knowing how faulty our senses can be. I know what it's like to hear and see things and not know until later that my brain made it all up... once I got over the terror (well, mostly... I don't know as I'll ever be totally over it... but I don't live every day with the fear of losing my grip, anymore) it was really quite enlightening. No matter how good or bad someone's intentions may be, no human can perceive objective reality except through subjective experiences.

Religious practices expect people to prefer emotional responses, and seems to consider emotional reactions to be more valuable than rational data. Feeling that something is right is more reflective of God than data. But quite often, idividuals' messages from God come at cross-purposes. Think of all the religious wars. Everyone thinks God is on their side and that the other is deluded. The truth? There is no truth because it's all subject to personal belief. God can not be proven to be or do or think anything. Why are your feelings right?

And what does it say (if anything) if something as simple as swallowing a pill changes how you feel? Which feeling is the correct one?

And what if God talks to you all the time until you take a medication that stops your hallucinations? Going from seeing bugs that aren't there and hearing conversations that aren't happening and feeling a deep, personal relationship with God to... nothing. What is the most likely explanation? Maybe the not the most comfortable, but the most likely is that the chemicals that manufactured a sense of "God" are the same that concocted all the other things that aren't there.

And yes, God/Goddess returns if meds go away and stress goes up.

So... does my subjective interpretation of that experience matter or do you want some science to explain stuff like that?

My favorite book on perception and belief is, How We Believe by Michael Shermer (really, anything by Michael Shermer is going to be good).

Meaningful

This morning I was reading some comments on Possum Mama's blog. One (Renee's) that was both annoying (because of its off-base assumption) and important (because those same assumptions are SO outrageously prevalent amongst Believers) asked about traditions and cultural/moral memes atheists pass down to their children.

The assumptions always seem to orbit around the notion that atheists have neither morals nor any traditions to cherish as part of a family and a society. The former makes me angry. The latter simply baffles me.

To address the moral issue: Morals have nothing to do with religion. Read Richard Dawkin's fine book, The Selfish Gene. Seriously. It's worth it.

Now, for traditions... We may not read the Nativity story in Luke as part of our Christmas festivities, but otherwise our celebrations probably look quite familiar.

Yes, we celebrate Christmas. When I first left the Mormon church, but hadn't yet finished my journey to atheism, I spent a few years as a Wiccan. Part of what attracted me to Wicca was digging through history and learning more about the roots of our popular holidays (unfortunately for my religious yearnings, studying history and anthropology killed any suspension of disbelief I could muster and left me ultimately admitting to myself that Wicca was as silly as any other religion - just more fun). So for a while I was pretty hardcore about celebrating The Winter Solstice or Saturnalia or anything with less brow-beaten baggage than Christmas. After having G-Rex and feeling a heavy burden to teach her truth, I had to drop cherished religious chestnuts, one by one, until I was left with Atheism. No, not agnosticism. Atheism. When I finally got to that point, I realized that it didn't matter what I called it. My family has called it Christmas for generations, so that's what my kids celebrate.

There are so many good, important things to teach my children. They learn about the Christian Nativity story. They learn about the Solstice and some of the celebrations archaeologists and historians have described. But those details aren't very important.


Important Things I Teach My Children (and specific holiday practical applications):
1. Family is The Most Important Part of Life. Full Stop.
Our Christmases are so wholesome and family oriented, we could make Norman Rockwell tap out. The quintessential American family road trip spirits us away to The Homeland my grandfathers homesteaded where extended families pack into warm homes, nestled in snow drifted mountain emptiness, to eat too much, talk too much, and attempt to fit a year's worth of joy into a week. This is not an easy thing. We have to save money and budget for it. We have to winterize our wimpy PNW cars and traverse icy mountain passes. But it's what we do because it's important. And it has nothing to do with religion.
2. Tolerance matters.
But tolerance is not the same as actively embracing the vivid, intelligent people who might think differently than we do. We love people who disagree with us. And we are loved by people who disagree with us. Homogeny is not necessary and thinking for oneself is not a fearsome thing.
3. It pretty much rocks to give AND receive.
4. History matters.
Those who have gone before leave fascinating legacies. Learning from their strengths and weaknesses can help us more actively and consciously shape the selves and family we are.
5. Solstices are cool.
Astronomy is fun.

There's more, I'm sure, but I'm getting tired of listing and need to go make dinner.

My point is that for holidays, as is true for every other aspect of humanity, nothing of value has been lost for lack of deity. And, for me, an authenticity has been gained that I never would have expected had I not relinquished the safety net of faith to pursue knowledge.

(I'm concerned that the final sentence sounds like I think religious folk have no use for knowledge and that's not what I mean. However, on the search for truth, there is the brick wall of faith... where a person has to decide that there are things they can't understand yet must accept to please God. I defy the notion that accepting anything "on faith" is a good idea. Why stop at faith when, with effort, one might know?)

Boundaries

If you choose to send me email in reference to my blog (especially if it's rude, grumpy email), I will feel free to post it and reply via the blog. And no, I will not go out of my way to remove headers or other identifying data from the emails. I'm putting myself out here on the public stage, as it were, and this is the vehicle which I will use for political or religious discussions with people I don't know. I will not engage in debate via email.