Tag: Religion

  • No Emotional Pleas Here

    I don’t believe that gay marriage should be made legal in the United States of America. I believe it is already legal. I believe that every law that has been put in place to thwart this has been unconstitutional and against both the supreme law of the land and the spirit behind that law.

    For as long as I’ve had some knowledge of the existence of same sex couples, sometime before the age of 10, I’ve believed they could get married. I wasn’t completely oblivious, I knew none of them were getting married. I just figured it would take a few to decide that they wanted to enough to go through the bother of being the pioneers. I thought there would be some fuss and squabble, but that the courts would support them. It was so clear in my mind, that it wasn’t even in my mind, it was in my core.

    The first hint I had that things were not going to go “my way” was when I started to become aware of the domestic partnership movement. I was already married (in Seattle) when Seattle started registering domestic partnership. When Disney began offering benefits to same sex domestic partners (announced in 1995, after my husband was already working for them) I groaned in frustration. I did not see these things as victories. I felt that these “improvements” were just going to make it take longer until the “right” thing happened. I strongly believed that the money being spent on benefits for same sex partners should be spent to hurry up and make same sex marriage the reality in the outside world that it already was in my mind.

    I was naive. I didn’t understand the ugly battle that was ahead. I assumed that same sex marriage wasn’t happening and widely accepted yet, because overall people just weren’t thinking about it yet. I didn’t know how strong and visceral the opposition would be. Yes, you’ve read me right. I was once young and naive and expected more from people than endless annoyance and the strong, twitchy desire to stab them. Or, really, I was just self-centered and I hadn’t bothered to ask people for their thoughts on the matter. The truth is, even among most of my liberal friends at the time, domestic partnership was more than good enough.

    There was a lot I didn’t understand yet, that I hadn’t thought about yet. I hadn’t wondered why I was so accepting of things which were not the status quo. I’m still not entirely sure how it happened. By all rights, looking at my family background, and considering the people who raised my parents, and how my aunts and uncles turned out (I came from Catholics on one side and Mormons on the other) I should have been more like those other people who found the idea of same sex marriage foreign, and bizarre and abhorrent.

    I was in my thirties before I thought to ask my father why, despite not having been raised by activists who talked LGBT equality, it just seemed like the most natural thing in the world to me. We had a great talk, with flashes of insight but no definitive conclusions.  Nonetheless I am grateful for the fact that my parents basically just raised me with the notion that decent people should be treated decently, and really, assholes should be treated decently too, because the way you treat others is more of a reflection on who you are than on who they are.

    So, way back in 1994 when I got married. I didn’t look at it as a political act. I definitely didn’t see it as a religious act. By 2000, thanks to California Proposition 22, I was embarrassed to be married. I was ready to do away with the entire notion of marriage as a government institution, let the religious folks keep it, and make federal domestic partnerships (same and opposite sex) the law of the land.

    Another 13 years have gone by, and this year I will finally find out if the Supreme Court does what I’ve always been so sure they would do. In the end I don’t really give a shit what word is attached to it. I want adults to be able to create legal families under federal law, with all the rights and responsibilities attached to that formation of a family. I want it to be the same form of legal family no matter what their race, culture, or sexual orientation is.

    I expect the Supreme Court of the United States to find Proposition 8 and DOMA unconstitutional. That’s the truth. I don’t even feel anxious about it, I just expect it, even though logically I know that there is no guaranty.  I’ve carried around this belief for so long, it will be foundation shattering if they do not. Next, I’d like our lawmakers to get around to sorting out this notion of a legal family in a way that is equal. It’s not about love for me. Instead it is about government paperwork and benefits. It’s about next of kin, end of life decisions, and estates. I want things to be equally practical for all people, and separate is not equal.

    I don’t really feel much animosity to the majority of the other side on the concept of marriage. I don’t think most of them are fans of the Westboro Baptist Church. I have to assume that the issue is as tied up in their core sense of reality as it is in mine, and we just haven’t found the right way to bridge the gap. I understand they may never reach the point where they are in favor of same sex marriage. I understand they may always teach their children same sex unions are not considered positive within their religion or personal moral code. I do hope they will reach a point where they truly believe, and pass on to their children, that the best way for our government to protect their rights, is to protect the rights of those they disagree with.

  • A Proclamation

    An anniversary of sorts.

    On September 13th, 2001 The White House issued a proclamation –National Day of Prayer and Remembrance for the Victims Of the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001.

    On that day, things changed for me.

    I was born an atheist, and although my family tried to change that, it didn’t work. I have spent a great many hours in church, and even enjoyed a considerable amount of the time spent there, but there was never belief. When the Christian monotheistic concept of their god, and all that entailed was clearly never going to click for me, I looked at all the other possibilities and eventually came to the conclusion that I was [filled in completely with indelible ink] choice Z) none of the above. However, this was not something I spoke about. When pushed into a situation where it really made sense to answer, I would try to answer something as neutral as possible. It was not that I was embarrassed about being an atheist, I just didn’t see it as a decent topic of public discourse.

    By neutral, I mean that I would typically state that I do not practice a religion (definitely true) and also that I am agnostic (also true). Many people seem to think of agnostic as the middle ground between theist and atheist. I did not, and do not, view it that way. I consider it a position on knowledge, not a position on deities. However I let them see it through their eyes and be more comfortable about it. Not because I wanted them to feel more comfortable, but because I wanted them to be comfortable enough to shut up so we could move on to a more interesting topic.

    I consider religion to be a private and personal matter. I don’t want to hear about the beliefs of other people, much less have them pushed upon me, and I want to keep my own private thoughts and business my own private thoughts and business.

    For instance, I am about to write something that I do not believe I have ever said or written before.

    I am not a lesbian.

    Now, I think a great many people already assumed I was likely not a lesbian. I am married to a man. We have a daughter together. These are little aspects of my life that do put out into the public realm that there is a plausible likelihood that I am not a lesbian. However, I basically consider this to be a private matter and none of the business or concern of the majority of the population. This is something that should matter to an extremely small number of individuals. I am not embarrassed that I am not a lesbian. I am not proud that I am not a lesbian. I just simply am not a lesbian. I find it to be on the tacky side to be bringing up this fact in public. However, it is relevant to my feelings about being an atheist. It wasn’t a secret, it just wasn’t something I saw as being a subject up for general discussion.

    There are so many things on this planet that I find more interesting to discuss with people than religion or sexual orientation. While my sexual orientation, life style, political beliefs, thoughts on religion, and many other things do play a part in what I do, and how I do them, I find the actual things that I do to be the more worthwhile topic.

    It was a quick change. In less than a week I went from always trying to avoid the discussion, and giving a very neutral response, to just flat out stating that I was, am, and always will be, an atheist. My personal feelings about such discussions haven’t changed. I still would prefer it to be a private matter, and I don’t go out of my way to bring it up. I am going against my own gut instinct every time I say it, but I say it. I decided that my own personal comfort level was less important than the need to just say “Hi. We are here.” I still hope people find pretty much anything else about me more interesting.

    There were other things, within my family that also changed in that short stretch of time, but I do not feel those are my stories to tell.

    I am including a letter that I sent to essentially all my government officials on September 14th, 2001. (Of course, I desperately want to rewrite it now, ugh I HATE rereading what I have written, it can always be improved! It was written quickly and I was upset.)

    Why couldn’t we have a National Day of Mourning? As heart breaking as the events of Tuesday were, I find myself even further emotionally devastated by the President of the United States telling me once again, that I do not count, that I am not a real American. He had to declare it a National Day of Prayer, despite the fact that, more than ever, the United States of America needs to be UNITED. There is not a single Webster’s definition of prayer that does not include mention of some god or religion. Not every citizen of the United States has a god, gods, goddesses or religion. Labeled, by ourselves, and others, in a variety of ways, including atheists, infidels, freethinkers, humanists, and skeptics. We aren’t united under a single name, for reasons just as varied, but including a belief in individual rights and responsibilities, and the fact many of us consider it to be one of the least interesting aspects of our life.

    On a National Day of Mourning, those who do believe in such things, could attend services, it wouldn’t have changed that. The President and former presidents could still have attended such a service, he wouldn’t have to hide that he personally finds comfort in prayer. The only difference is the rest of us would be included and acknowledged, and I don’t know how much that inclusion would have hurt him personally, but it would have made me feel immeasurably better. Asking people to “attend religious services of their choosing on their lunch hour” just tells us that even at this time of tragedy, even as a representative of our own country, President George W. Bush, gives the politically correct lip service to religious tolerance, but for those without religious belief he cannot open his heart and arms to include us just a little bit. Directing everyone to pray is thoughtless, inappropriate, hurtful and divisive. Yet few people will challenge this unconstitutional act, because we are a group that so many find it absolutely acceptable discriminate against. Because of this, our government should be working all the harder to protect us from discrimination, rather than participating and even promoting it. Yet this is the second Day of Prayer that he has forced upon us.

    Does he think that only those with religion can feel sadness? That only those with religion think life is precious? Does anyone not grasp just how precious we think lives are? We do not believe in heaven, or any kind of afterlife or eternal reward. We do not believe in reincarnation, nor that we continue on in another dimension, on another planet, or become one with the cosmos. We believe this life is what we have. We value life fervently because of this. We can take no comfort from thoughts that the victims are in a better place; we believe they were robbed of the thing that matters, life. We do not have the solace of believing that one day we will be with our lost friends and loved ones again. Of course we are grieving. We are grieving deeply.

    He shuts us out and turns his back on us even as he remembers a tragedy that would have been far less likely to happen if not for the religious beliefs of the terrorists. I do not blame the religion, I blame the individuals, but let’s be realistic, their belief that they would be rewarded for this act in the next life, did not make it more difficult for them to commit the act. With his constant “God is on our side” wording, is he hoping to whip this country up into a holy war? Have we learned nothing from a history full of deaths on such crusades?

    I weep at the recorded images of those planes crashing into those buildings, and believe me, I am not weeping for the loss of a bunch of metal, concrete, glass and wiring. I am not weeping for the financial damage. It is the loss of the lives inside that I mourn so deeply. I shudder when thinking of the people who had extended periods of terror to live through before being brought to a hideous end by events beyond their control. I am heartened by the evidence that some of the individuals on flight 93 were able to at least take some control of their lives back and save countless other lives even though still tragically unable to save their own. I weep again at the images of young children in another country waving flags and celebrating this blow to our country.

    I seek comfort in the prospect of tomorrow, in the laughter of children, in seeing the red white and blue being displayed around my city. I am glad to drive past a local mosque and not see protesters lined up outside. I am proud to see people of varying political backgrounds uniting because they are all proud citizens of the United States of America, proud that they are fully allowed to have varying political backgrounds.

    My friends and I argue over whether our military should just start bombing people without finalized proof, what proof is enough proof, whether those behind it should be publicly executed, whether those who say “it wasn’t me but you deserved it” should be bombed too, whether there should be a trial and imprisonment not execution, whether we should be doing our best to avoid any further loss of life, even the lives of those responsible. We worry about the implications for the future of individual freedom, and argue over the cost of real safety, or whether such a thing is even possible. We worry about how to keep the wrong people from getting training at facilities in our own country, without making judgments based on the way someone looks, their names, accents and religions. We are horrified by the idea of more terrorist incidents, and also terrified that such concerns could lead to things like Manzanar. We frantically called friends and relatives. We hold our loved ones close. We try to reassure our children. We just don’t pray, or turn to any kind of religious leader for support or comfort. Does that really discount every other contribution we make to our community and country?

    Statistics being what they are, some of the victims of this tragedy also had no gods or religion, and no want for prayer on their behalf. Can the President of the United States and all the other countless politicians making statements and singing songs not find enough room in their hearts to just give those victims a little acknowledgment and respect even now. I don’t begrudge anyone his or her comfort in prayer. I am not asking them to consider the idea that we might be right, just consider that we are citizens of this country and are part of humanity. As a Christian, President Bush already firmly believes we will suffer in the next life. Is it really so important that he make us suffer in this one? Are we to tell our children that they can grow up to be anything they want to be, but only those with proper views on religious matters can be full-fledged citizens of the United States of America?

    Today I am in mourning, for the victims and their family and friends. I am in mourning for all the people in the world who feel a little less safe today. I am also in mourning because this country, which I love so dearly, thinks so poorly of me.

    So that’s it. Because of a proclamation by George W. Bush, I now state loudly and clearly:

    I am an atheist. I am many other things, but I am also, absolutely, an atheist. That, is my proclamation.
  • Useless Things

    The internet helps me to save time, and helps me to waste it. So far today, I am choosing to waste time. Perhaps I will change my mind later.

    Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

     

    Belief-O-Matic
    Your Results:

    The top score on the list below represents the faith that Belief-O-Matic, in its less than infinite wisdom, thinks most closely matches your beliefs. However, even a score of 100% does not mean that your views are all shared by this faith, or vice versa.

    Belief-O-Matic then lists another 26 faiths in order of how much they have in common with your professed beliefs. The higher a faith appears on this list, the more closely it aligns with your thinking.

    1. Nontheist (100%)
    2. Secular Humanism (100%)
    3. Theravada Buddhism (83%)
    4. Unitarian Universalism (83%)
    5. Liberal Quakers (45%)
    6. Neo-Pagan (37%)
    7. Taoism (20%)
    8. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (18%)
    9. New Age (10%)
    10. Bah�’� Faith (0%)
    11. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (0%)
    12. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (0%)
    13. Eastern Orthodox (0%)
    14. Hinduism (0%)
    15. Islam (0%)
    16. Jainism (0%)
    17. Jehovah’s Witness (0%)
    18. Mahayana Buddhism (0%)
    19. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (0%)
    20. New Thought (0%)
    21. Orthodox Judaism (0%)
    22. Orthodox Quaker (0%)
    23. Reform Judaism (0%)
    24. Roman Catholic (0%)
    25. Scientology (0%)
    26. Seventh Day Adventist (0%)
    27. Sikhism (0%)

    Take this quiz

  • Family Movie Night

    Last night we watched Jesus Camp. Overall I thought it was a well done documentary. If you watch the trailers available on their website you definitely have a very strong idea of what the film is like, it just goes on much longer. It does give a good opportunity to get to know the kids better than the trailer does. Also quite a bit of Ted Haggard footage is featured, which is of course made more interesting considering his recent history. Apparently he was not pleased with the movie, whereas Pastor Becky Fischer did not feel so negatively toward it.

    I am not sure if I think the film would have been more powerful without a dissenting point of view, but since they did choose to portray one, I am glad that they used Mike Papantonio as that voice. He is well spoken, and strong in his own Christian faith.

    The subject matter was definitely not one I felt any joy in watching, but it certainly provided the family with a topic of conversation for the evening.

    The Families on Fire Summer Camp has shut down temporarily due to vandalism at the location they rent out for the camp. I hope the people involved in that vandalism do not think that they did anybody any favors. The ministry is still active, and has yet another reason to stand strong. The vandalism makes it clear, that as with every issue, there are a great many assholes on every side of it.

    The Boys of Baraka is another piece by these filmmakers that has been in my Netflix queue for quite a while. After watching this, it will definitely be staying there, and might even move up a few spots.

  • another shitty day in paradise

    I am not a fan of Richard Dawkins. This is not to say that I dislike him, I haven’t familiarized myself enough with him to develop an opinion. I am aware of his name and have a general concept of who he is, but I have never read a single one of his books. I’ve never seen him interviewed. He is a shadow in my peripheral vision.

    I ran across this shortened transcript of an interview with him. One of the questions was “How do you explain its prevalence?” (it being the belief in a supernatural god). His response has been kicking around in my brain as vaguely interesting.

    When you ask a Darwinian like me, how we explain something, we usually take that to mean, “What is the Darwinian survival value of it?”

    Quite often, when you ask what is the survival value of “X”, it turns out that you shouldn’t be asking the question about “X” at all, but that “X” is a by-product of something else that does have survival value. In this case, the suggestion I put forward as only one of many possible suggestions, is that religious faith is a by-product of the childhood tendency to believe what your parents tell you.

    It’s a very good idea for children to believe what parents tell them. A child who dis-believes what his parents tell him would probably die, by not heeding the parent’s advice not to get into the fire, for example. So child brains, on this theory, are born with a rule of thumb, “believe what your parents tell you.” Now, the problem with that — where the by-product idea comes in — is that it’s not possible to design a brain that believes what its parents tell it, without believing bad things along with good things. Ideally we might like the child brain to filter good advice like, “Don’t jump in the fire,” from bad advice like, “Worship the tribal gods.” But the child-brain has no way of discriminating those two kinds of advice. So, inevitably, a child-brain that is pre-programmed to believe and obey what his parents tell it, is automatically vulnerable to bad advice like, “Worship the tribal juju.”

    I think that’s one part of the answer, but then, you need another part of the answer: Why do some kinds of bad advice, like, “Worship the tribal juju,” survive and others not?

    Beliefs like “life-after-death” spread because they are appealing. A lot of people don’t like the idea of dying and rather do like the idea that they’ll survive their own death. So the meme, if you like, spreads like a virus because people want to believe it.

    It brought to mind the whole Santa Claus thing.

    Of course, on days like today, it sure would be easier to pick my sobbing daughter up off the floor and try to cheer her up with an elaborate story of how her bird is now enjoying flying around in heaven and she’ll see it again one day. I don’t think it is just a matter of it sticking and spreading because people want to believe it, I imagine the telling of it is a comfort too, for the speaker. Even if the speaker does not firmly believe it themselves, it is an easier, and on the surface perhaps a seemingly kinder response than “That sucks.

  • Yep, still typing

    This year marks the 12th Christmas we have not celebrated. We talked about it. We thought about it. We determined it was not providing us with the purported joy. We agreed. We decided. We quit. We told the people we felt we needed to.

    Our daughter is 11. She grew up not celebrating. While the concept of a child, and what I would teach them, was part of the decision, as a person she has been one of the difficult aspects of it. The feeling of being different, of not being normal, can be hard on a child. People like to poke at differences. They want to know why. They want the difference explained and defended, or *fixed*. They think they have the right to that.

    One December when she was 5 we went to get her picture taken at some crappy in store photo place. She was cute when she was 5 though, so any photos would do and the cheaper was much better for the wallet. A few reasonable sized photos, plus 200 little useless throw away ones so they could advertise a large bundle, for $4.99. It’s a long way from art, but it made my grandmother happy. The button pushing salesmonkey asked her what she was doing for Christmas and she shrugged and responded that we didn’t celebrate Christmas. Salesmonkey freaked out. “What do you mean?! What do you do?!” Salesmonkey stares at me wondering why my child is retarded and lying, “You do celebrate Christmas, don’t you? Why is she saying that?!” I shook my head. “Why not?!!!” Salesmonkey wailed. The kid was traumatized.

    A few weeks later, in January, we were at our favorite (at the time) sushi place. One of the chefs asked her what she had gotten for Christmas and she froze up. She did not want a repeat of the last scene. He asked again. She looked at me. He looked at me. Her behavior was quite odd. She was always extremely friendly with this chef and now it looked like she didn’t know how to speak. “We don’t celebrate Christmas,” I told him. He looked at her and smiled warmly, “Neither do I.” She beamed.

    One of the things that catches attention from certain people about not celebrating is the “not Christian” aspect. Most of the Christians we run into are used to being in the comfortable majority in the country. They’ve heard of the other big religions, but we don’t *look* (Muslim, Jewish, or one of them there “eastern religions”). This means we might be something else, something worse. I’m already long comfortable with the fact that in pretty much every aspect of my life, I am something worse, but this is another area that is harder on the kid.

    Like with most things, we couldn’t leave well enough alone, and we chose to homeschool. Now, most things about homeschooling are really wonderful, and we have some terrific friends who homeschool. However, there is a rather large sized portion of the homeschooling community who are not just “I was raised Christian, so I mark the Christian box” but are instead fervently Christian. We interact with these people at group events, classes, field trips, sports days and more. “What church do you go to?” is commonly asked within the first 5 sentences by many of these people. Now I cannot begin to give a rat’s ass about somebody who doesn’t want to talk to me anymore because I don’t go to church, I mean, really I am grateful if they are going to weed me out for that reason. Still a kid likes to have friends, and more than that. A kid does not like to be teased and bullied. Ever seen a 10 year old, and more than a foot taller, boy get physical with a 7 year old girl because when he asked if she believed in Jesus, she gave “In my family religion is personal and we don’t talk about it outside the home.”as her response? Well, I have.

    Over the years we’ve learned little tricks. Stick her in a Harry Potter t-shirt when going to an event with a new group. It keeps a certain element from even starting to interact with her. Avoid events from Thanksgiving through mid January. I don’t enjoy being out and about then anyway. We won’t lie, but why invite trouble, when it always shows up of its own accord. Yet here I am writing it out on LJ and posting it public. I asked her. None of those kids should be reading my posts anyway, but somebody might. Does she care? She said to post. At 11 she is obviously a lot more immune to the reactions on this subject than she was at 5.

    Things I have been called (not in jest) because I do not celebrate Christmas have included:

    • Grinch
    • Scrooge
    • smart
    • lucky
    • heathen
    • crazy
    • child abuser

    Yes, I’ve been told it is child abuse to not have her celebrate Christmas. Some people have cried actual tears upon hearing that we don’t celebrate.

    One relative lets their kids think we are Jewish so they don’t have to explain something else.

    My MIL quit giving us birthday gifts. Oh wait. She didn’t quit. She has become chronically late with them. She sends us gifts at Christmas, wrapped in Christmas paper and writes Happy Birthday on the cards. In case you are wondering, our birthdays are in July.

    Mainly people want to know what we DO instead. We don’t do anything specific. We are glad to have a day when people don’t tend to call, and we often accomplish stuff around the house and catch up on to do list stuff. The only thing that makes it different from other days is the fact that other people are busy celebrating it. If we eat out, we don’t have many options, but we’ve learned that we can usually find a Chinese restaurant open.