So the first day or two after we got back Aiden adopted the family prayer-fascination role, because he is the current six-year-old. He kept suggesting we pray before eating. I’d say, “That’s for people who believe there’s a god up in the sky.” And he’d say something like, “There is one. You have to believe in him and he has a beard and a lightening bolt and his name is Zeus.”

So anyway, Trinity, the former six-year-old who at one time hounded us with lots of prayer requests but now says, “How about we pray to Mom and thank HER for the food?” (yeah, that’s my girl)–well, she had an idea last Sunday when we were getting ready for my husband’s Jewish grandmother to come over (Jewish in a heavy heritage/cultural sense, not so much in an actively religious one).

Trinity said, “How about when Grandma is here and we sit down to eat, we act like we’re going to pray, but then we all chant, ‘Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble. By the pricking of my thumb, something wicked this way comes.’” (You Shakespeare geeks will recognize that).

Yeah…so my husband and kids did that. I don’t include myself because 1) I never bothered to learn it. 2) Grandma may not be very religious but I thought she might freak a little.

I went along with it, at least…When my husband suggested we all hold hands in a circle around the table I did it too. And when they did their dark chant, I saw Grandma’s eye brow creep up, just a little.

And then Grandma responded with, “I’ve got one.” And I thought, Oh no, I have to sit through another prayer? I thought I left that back in Kansas City.

Then she said, “Everybody put your elbows on the table.” So we did.

“Now clasp your hands together…and rest your chin on them.” We did. And at this point I’m relieved and trying not to laugh because my kids have no idea that nobody prays in that position. Then she says something like, “Thanks for the bread, thanks for the meat. Now when the heck are we going to eat?”

Laughs all around the table and we’re having a good time and let me just say, I’m glad we have friends and loved ones who will blaspheme with us.

From Shok The Agnostic

What would cause a pastor of over 20 yrs to leave the ministry? My reasons and story are uniquely mine. Maybe you have been in my shoes in one way or another. I started out in the Pentecostal and Charismatic traditions of showing up early and leaving late from every church meeting I ever attended. As a result, as soon as I was asked to do anything, I always said “yes.” In our churches, the way into ministry was through apprenticeship, for higher learning was suspect as not being spiritual enough for true ministers.

I was as sincere as anyone I have ever met. My motives were honest, simple, and trusting that I was truly following God. I was led to believe that my calling and gifts would make room for me in the kingdom. It sounded good to me, and I bit into it hook, line, and sinker.

Soon I was the anointed worship leader, Christian school administrator, elder, assistant pastor, building coordinator, TV host, hospital visitation minister, home group leader, secretary, board member, and anything else that was needed on the staff of the largest charismatic church in our four county area. I was “in.” I was busy, and I was burning for God.

Sometimes weeks went by without one night at home with my wife and children. I was too anointed to need time at home, right? Does it sound familiar yet? As life unfolded and people kept encouraging me to keep on fire for God, or at least burn out trying, my wife developed asthma. To make a long and painful story shorter, let’s just say that it was assumed that because this happened we were losing our anointing or walking in some secret sin.

Weary and burdened with asthma and the disdain of those who once saw us as their leaders, we began to question everything called “ministry.” I am leaving out a ton of details for time’s sake, but as the 20 years went by, we found ourselves losing any desire for involvement in formal ministry. Instead we enjoyed spending time with those who had nothing to do with church, such as Lou, the bassist and head of the satanic church in Laramie, Wyoming. We loved our time with each other and our kids. One thing led to another, and since October 2000, I have not been in the formal ministry. This has been a disappointment to my father, as well as to those who knew us as church leaders.

These days, I find myself with more respect for myself as a person, with more love for my wife Tammy, with our three grown kids and their sweethearts, and with our grandson. I also love all the good people I have met through the Elks Club, the Chamber of Commerce, my current work in real estate and bus driving, the local bowling and golf leagues, and our downtown community parties.

In short, I have become almost everything I used to preach against. What has become of my theology? I have experienced everything my charismatic background had to offer, and found myself lacking love for myself, my family and others. Since I have left organized religion and de-toxed since year 2000, I find love increasing in every way. I think I am reduced to love. If there is a God and that God is love, then I’m into that.

Previously, people were a burden. Now, I love spending time with anyone, regardless of his or her belief system. People are no longer a project to bring to conversion, or a possible warm body to prop up a church program, or a parishioner who might tithe regularly so we can grow the church. I am done with pimpin’ the program.

It’s healing just to write a bit of my story. Do I miss the ministry or attending church? No. I wouldn’t trade my life for what I now have. How could I afford to leave? I drove trucks, waited tables, delivered pizza, installed cabinets, worked in a factory, sold houses, drove school bus, and worked at a golf course. Some of this I still do. If you are dying to get out, it isn’t easy. It’s a process. It’s embarrassment at its highest in the church world. But what the hell, it’s so worth it. I’m just starting to live and love.

Thanks for listening.

Shok the Agnostic

Today is the shortest day and tonight is the shortest night of the year. Tomorrow we will see (but probably not notice) a slight increase in daylight, which will continue to increase until after the summer solstice.

Christmas Reenactments/Solstice Presentations

Last week I was watching my youngest in his kindergarten winter/holiday performance. It was unusual. There was a big Christmas tree with presents on the side of the stage. But the performance was a compilation of nursery rhymes. The only Christmas-related idea in it was the starring role of the Gingerbread Man and his place as the thread of the story. The narration between each song linked the various nursery rhymes into a telling of the Gingerbread Man’s journey and his eventual learning to trust others and make friends. Yes, it had a happy ending and nobody ate him. =)

It’s my understanding that nursery rhymes are more educational for young children than Christmas songs. Just their repetition alone helps children understand language. Thinking of all this–the choice of the kindergarten teachers to do such a non-traditional winter performance–got me thinking about the educational value of performances and reenactments in general. And that got me thinking about the reenactment of the Christian Christmas story that is a tradition for many families. My family usually did it when I was a child. And my own children have usually participated in a reading of the Christmas story at my in-law’s Christmas Eve celebration (until last year, when thankfully, someone most have woken up to the fact that 3 out of 6 siblings in that family is either atheist or agnostic–we now invite the grandkids to do a talent show, instead).

The result of all this train-of-thought thinking while the cute little Gingerbread Man ran around the stage and my son-playing-a-spider made cute faces at me was an idea to write a simple presentation of the Winter Solstice as a symbol of light and hope and the source for all the light-celebrating holidays, including our own Christmas. It would include a mention (and maybe visuals?) of all the sun gods (including Jesus) over the course of human history. It would also explain the reasons for our current traditions that have pagan beginnings.

Does anyone want to contribute facts/resources, especially online links? Ideas? Please share by leaving a comment. Maybe I will be able to put something together before next year’s season returns–unless you know of something like this that already exists…?

In the interview, Schaeffer describes how he and his minister father, a friend of the Reagan’s and the Bush’s, helped organize the Christian right by means of the Pro-Life movement, how it evolved to take over Republican Politics, and the hypocrisy that finally drove him away from it.

There is so much that is fascinating in this interview. If you haven’t already heard it, you can listen by following this link.

Dear Red States:

We’ve decided we’re leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we’re taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren’t aware, that includes California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.

To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches. We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood. We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom. We get Harvard. You get Ole’ Miss. We get 85 percent of America’s venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama. We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition’s, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms. Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we’re going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they’re apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don’t care if you don’t show pictures of their children’s caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq , and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we’re not willing to spend our resources in Bush’s Quagmire.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country’s fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation’s fresh fruit, 95 percent of America’s quality wines, 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT. With the
Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all
Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia. We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless we’re discussing the war, the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.

Finally, we’re taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico.

Peace Out,
The Blue States

Let me start by saying that I’m not truly 100% vegan. I think of myself as vegan, but every once in a while I remember that the real hard-core purist vegans might not consider me one.

First, I eat eggs once in a long while, which I buy from my friend because I’ve seen her chickens and how free they are to roam on her property. I don’t bake with them. But sometimes we fry them.

Second, I snag some of my kids’ Cheez-It’s here and there, and sometimes I have some dessert while we’re out that has an egg or milk in it. But all of my own cooking and baking is vegan, and most of what I eat when dining out or with friends is vegan, as well. I figure it’s better that I allow myself a few exceptions than that I go back to meat-eating because I miss just a couple things.

The (Many) Reasons

Jason asked me this question when I mentioned that I am now a vegan…

Were the reasons you went vegan for philosophical reasons or health reasons? Just curious as I know many who have arrived at vegetarianism and veganism on many separate paths…

My reasons for becoming a vegan are all of the above, plus some. Veganism is better for the environment. Think of all that land going to feed cows, just so that we can eat them and drink their milk. Think of all that methane.

Veganism is compassionate. Not only do the animals lose their right to life, but many of them suffer a low-quality of life, and often a brutal one.

It’s healthy. That one was a surprise for me. Because I have a problem with hypo-glycemia and was always very concerned about getting enough protein, I never thought I could forgo meat. It turns out that plant-based protein is more stable, and my blood-sugar has never been as regular as it is now. Of course, you have to eat a whole-foods diet in order for it to be healthy. That requires a major lifestyle change for most Americans. I recommend taking gradual steps in a vegan direction.

It’s moral. I’ve always thought it was a better moral decision to choose not to eat meat or animal by-products. But because I didn’t realize I could do that and be healthy, it didn’t seem like a moral imperative. Now that I have learned that it’s possible to let the animals live–while improving my health at the same time–I do believe it is the right thing to do.

The Family Meals

What about my family? They’re not true vegetarians, although they eat a vegetarian diet at home. When we go out they often choose animal products (my husband, not so much). But they’re all fine with the vegan diet we eat at home because they like my food. There are so many amazing vegan recipes to explore that in the nine months I’ve been cooking this way, I’ve only repeated a few recipes. My husband prefers my food to all of our favorite restaurants.

My Recommendations

If you’re looking to eat fewer animals, I have a couple favorite sources, which are the keys to my being able to do this, while keeping everyone happy…

Moosewood Restaraunt New Classics and Moosewood Simple Suppers recipe books–These are not totally vegan. They have vegetarian recipes, fish and seafood recipes, and vegan recipes. They’re delicious. They make me turn my nose up at other restaurant food. They’re easy to follow (although, many of the New Classics recipes, which are amazing, will keep you in the kitchen longer).

Vegetarian Food For Thought Podcast by Colleen Patrick Goudreau–This is such an informative podcast on everything having to do with vegetarian cooking and animal cruelty. I also have her cookbook, The Joy Of Vegan Baking, and we LOVE the stuff we make from this.

Listen from the website.

It sure was fun talking about things I really haven’t talked much about in a while. It’s nice seeing my old friends trickling in to the blog again, too. Plus some new names–those never stopped, though, amazingly.

I never did tell you about the article I wrote for the Humanist Network News back in March for their Secular Parenting column. Here’s how it starts…

The “Out” Parent

I walked into my child’s preschool one day right before class was to let out. There was a lobby full of parents and one of them raised her voice above the crowd to say to me, “I noticed your license plate says AGMOM. What does that mean?”

Those of you who have read my articles or blog will recognize it as my blog name, Agnostic Mom. While most of my friends know about this, it wasn’t something I wanted to shout across a crowded room of parents at my child’s preschool. Yet there they all were, staring at me, curious.

Would you like to read the rest of the story? Then please click here.

If you’re newer to Agnostic Mom and would like to read all of my articles when I had a regular column with them, you might want to head over to this page.

The Podcast

Tomorrow on Chuck Bryant’s Something Happening Here podcast, an interview with me will air. I’ll be back to link to it, but I thought I’d give you a heads up…you know, since I’m not around so much lately. =)

You might want to check out his site and show by then, too.

I can’t ignore the fact that loyal readers like Ed and Jason reach out at random times, wondering if the blog is dead. I’d say it definitely died, but perhaps resurrection is real after all? It’s so good to hear from you guys.

Here I am, almost exactly one year after promising to pop in once in a while, which I’ve never done. How about I catch you up on what I’m doing and if any of you are hanging around you can catch me up on where your lives have headed?

My Second Full-Time Job

I have two competing full-time jobs now. I’m still a SAHM, but I also host an internet scrapbooking tutorial show. I have professional weekly videos, a weekly live show, and regular blog articles at Paperclipping.com.

This is where my AgnosticMom blogging time has gone and why I haven’t felt like I had any minutes left to write here. I still miss you guys, though. Maybe now that my blogging skills have improved I can stop in once in a while with some short posts. No promises this time, though.

I’m Now A Vegan

This was one of the best streets I’ve ever turned down. I love having an animal-friendly, cholesterol-free, whole-foods plant-based diet. Feels good.

The Great Gatsby

We rescued this sweetheart from the animal shelter. Gizmo was horrified at first but now they’re best friends. I love being a mommy to two dogs and find myself wanting to go back for a third, even though my allergist says I should never have gotten the first one.

The kids…

…are growing and we’re enjoying the wonderful little people that they are. Blake is teaching himself to animate, chose the school at which he wants to learn film and computer graphics, and has named his own production company for movies.

Trinity has become such a graceful ballerina and blows us away with her ability to beat anyone at any time in the game, Memory. She’s definitely visual.

Aiden is strengthening his natural inclination for music and will be starting full-day kindergarten next month.

All three are amazing kids.

What about you, my long-lost friends? Where has this amazing life taken you over the last year?

My husband and I began putting major efforts into some other projects earlier in the year. For a while I’ve been unsure what to do about AgnosticMom because I love this blog, but it’s hard to do something well when your attention is split.

Once summer came, that was it. Trying to keep my children from turning into little vegetables on the couch, or monkeys in the rafters, is consuming so much time! Every summer surprises me with its demands. And this one is no different.

So, I’ve devoted all my extra time to our other projects. I told the Humanist Network News that I was taking the summer off from writing and that I hope to be able to pick things back up again when school starts. Even with the return of my usual schedule, I am unsure about this blog. As long as I write my monthly HNN articles, I will at least post a link here.

I have thoughts I want to share here all the time. And I wonder about those of you I’ve gotten to know through your comments. I’ve also been interviewed a number of times over recent months. I was interviewed on a Canadian-based international radio station at Easter (that was interesting!). Most recently, an Atheist organization interviewed me for their newsletter. I’d like to post that interview here when I get the chance.

But if I don’t, I hope you are all happy and doing well. We’re having a fun (and overly active, in my opinion) summer. Everyone is generally healthy. And I have been enjoying the fact that we are receiving a whole lot of love from friends and family who don’t mind that we “nonbelievers.” I know not everyone is so fortunate.

I promise this isn’t my last post, but I can’t promise how often I’ll be around. You may want to subscribe to my RSS feed so that you can be prompted when I do pop in. Thanks for sticking around! And thanks to those of you who have tried to check up on me!

Our interview starts at 9:30 EST, but the actual show starts at 9pm with an interview of Julie from Mothergoosemouse. Julie is an atheist and some of you old-timers might remember her commenting on AgnosticMom.

You can call or email the host with comments or questions, so come prepared. If you can’t make it tonight, the show will be archived and you can listen to it at your convenience.

That doesn’t mean we can’t help. Here is what Dale said we could do:

A polite expression of curious interest combined with excitement for the appearance of such a reasonable and respectful book — that’s the ticket. Something like this:

Dear Mr. Windybottom,

I just came across a great new parenting book and wondered if you’d heard about it. It’s called “Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion” and is co-written by a number of prominent authors ranging from Richard Dawkins to a Unitarian minister. Early reviews are praising it as evenhanded and down-to-earth, not an angry screed. As a longtime reader of [insert mag name here], I’d love to see a review of this book in your pages. Would you happen to know if that’s in the works? I look forward to hearing from you!

Regards,
Sandy Subscriber

As for the list of mags I’m most eager to break into, here’s my top ten:

Parents Magazine: www.parents.com
Parenting Magazine (circ. over 2 million): www.parenting.com
Informed Parent – includes prominent book reviews: www.informedparent.com
Brain, Child – very good content fit: www.brainchildmag.com
Family Resource.com – prominent reviews: www.familyresources.com
Gay Parent – many gay parents are secularists: www.gayparentmag.com
Cookie Magazine: www.cookiemag.com
New Parent Magazine: www.newparent.com
Wondertime Magazine: www.wondertime.go.com
Mothering Magazine: www.mothering.com

I’d be very grateful for help in gently contacting the editors at these publications. Thanks Noell, and thanks to your readers!

Some days my seven-year-old daughter believes there is a god. Hers is a god of lost pencils and favorite foods. On other days, when said god doesn’t come through to grant a wish, she announces, “I guess I don’t believe in god anymore.”

To read more, follow the link to this week’s article in the Humanist Network News. Feel free to write a letter to the editor in response. Or come back here if you’d like to comment on my blog.

I wanted to thank everyone for the great response to the previous post about Parenting Beyond Belief. It was great to see so many links back to my posting and to the book; so many purchases, even multiple purchases, and gifts to local libraries! Awesome.

Somebody asked which of the magazines and stores are rejecting the book. I contacted Dale McGowan about this. So far he is waiting to hear the specifics from the publisher. Once he gets the information I’ll be sure to update you so all the interested activists in this readership can start writing letters.

Here is a positive review from Library Journal. This is a publication that is instrumental in getting libraries to purchase copies:

McGowan, a professor, freelance writer, and novelist, has collected essays from some of contemporary secularism’s big names, e.g., Richard Dawkins, Margaret Downey, in support of those nonreligious American parents who seek to “articulate values, celebrate rites of passage, find consolation, and make meaning” sans religion. Contributor Ed Buckner writes that secular means “not based on religion” rather than “hostile to religion.” Though a few entries do evidence anger or resentment, it is clear that all of these astute essayists have thought carefully about God’s nonexistence. Most of the 30-odd contributors recommend imbuing children with the ability to think well independently; when pressured or rejected by real and figurative institutions that tend to favor the religious (e.g., schools, scouting, holidays), parents are advised to stick to their nontheistic guns. The book considers parents as pedagogues, recalling Deborah Stipek and Kathy Seal’s Motivated Minds: Raising Children To Love Learning. Engaging and down-to-earth, this collection balances the scores of religious parenting titles shelved in the average library and is highly recommended for large public libraries and parenting collections. — Douglas C. Lord, Connecticut State Lib., Hartford

Thanks for your interest, everyone! Don’t forget to stop over to HNN for a little reading.

Several parenting magazines are declining to review the book for fear of offending religious subscribers, and a few retailers are declining to stock the book, claiming there is no market for it. It is essential that we demonstrate otherwise, so please put all promotional oars in the water as soon as possible.

I know that a huge percentage of AgnosticMom readers have blogs. Will you please promote the book on your sites? You can also send a link to the friends and family members on your email lists. Plus, if you can spare the change, how about ordering one for your local library?

Here is a link to the book, Parenting Beyond Belief. Let me know when your order your copy!

I have long expressed that empathy is a key factor in a person’s morality. Empathy is a state that the human brain evolved a capacity for. Guilt is another. Our social upbringing also comes into play, but only because an ability to experiences these things first evolved within the brain.

Gregg100 sent me a link to an article that tells of a recent study on this subject. I’ve pulled out a few statements that summarize the main points of the article but I recommend you read the whole thing so you know the specifics and the limitations to how far the study extends.

Damage to the part of the brain that controls social emotions changes the way people respond to thorny moral problems, demonstrating the role of empathy and other feelings in life-or-death decisions.

“Part of our moral behavior is grounded … in a specific part of our brains,” said Dr. Antonio Damasio, one of the study’s lead authors and director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at USC.

The ventromedial prefrontal cortex processes feelings of empathy, shame, compassion and guilt. Damage to this part of the brain, which occupies a small region in the forehead, causes a diminished capacity for social emotions but leaves logical reasoning intact.

Researchers found no difference among groups in their responses to scenarios with no moral content, such as turning a tractor left to harvest turnips.

This study is not in isolation. Without even looking for them I come across studies with similar or related conclusions quite regularly. The conclusions have perspective-altering implications that might challenge the way religious believers expect their god to hold people accountable for their “sins.” Or the way societies deal with criminals. Such implications and how we should deal with them are complicated. But I think this is an extremely important area to learn more about if we are ever going to understand human nature and hope for a more peaceful world.

Thanks for all your thoughts on the last two posts! They were amazing to read. And they just kept coming and coming. So many of you posted for the first time and I really appreciate it. You’re all welcome back if you have more to say!

My apologies, by the way, on my wording of the first question in the last post. It made the assumption that we have a soul and that was purely accidental.

But for now, if you don’t already get HNN in your inbox, head on over to read my article, When The Sympony Stops Playing. If you have thoughts you can write a letter to the editor at HNN or you can comment here on my blog.

Would you do me a favor, even if you’ve never commented before? Even if you want to use an anonymous name and a fake email. Please sign in and tell us:

1) Do you believe the soul continues to exist after death?
2) Have you found peace with the probability that when it’s over it is really over? Does this fill you with fear and dread? Or are you somewhere in between (please explain).

And please, this one post is just for the non-religious only. If you’re religious and feel a need to comment, please leave it in the previous post.

Thanks in advance!

The concept no longer makes sense in light of evolution, unless we are willing to grant souls to chimps, dogs, sea sponges and celery. Since species evolve incrementally over time, insisting that we have souls, but other living things do not, requires us to come up with some pretty unlikely scenarios. At what point in evolution did the soul suddenly appear — and why didn’t the previous generation qualify?

Whatever sense of self and personal identity we have springs entirely from the constantly recomposed electrochemical symphony playing in our heads. Some find that horrifying; I find it utterly amazing. And asking where our “self” goes when that electrochemical symphony stops playing is just like asking where the music goes when an orchestra stops playing.

What a great analogy. Really, there is no more evidence or reason to believe in a soul than there is evidence or reason to believe in gods. Over time, more and more of what we have attributed to the soul falls to the wayside as scientific research finds that chemical reactions within specific areas of our physical brain are responsible for everything soul-oriented. Neurologists can even stimulate an area of the brain to cause many people to have “out-of-body experiences. Of course, they are not actually having them. The brain is just really good at deceiving.

I don’t find life any less amazing or beautiful for our lack of a soul. What do you think?

DALE MCGOWAN is a writer, editor, and critical thinking educator in Minneapolis. His satirical novel Calling Bernadette’s Bluff has been called “an undoubted triumph of satire” and “wicked funny.” He recently completed Northing at Midlife, a humorous narrative of a midlife crisis encountered on the trails of Britain. McGowan is editor of Rumors of Peace, the international newsletter of Nonviolent Peaceforce, is a board member of the Critical Thinking Club, Inc. and has taught critical thinking skills in the college classroom, the corporate boardroom, and public venues.

Dale met Becca, now an elementary educator, in 1984 when they were both members of the University of California Band in Berkeley, CA. They live near Minneapolis with their three ethical, caring kids

I read on the Parenting Beyond Belief forum that you grew up going to church. What religion were you?

We attended a UCC (United Church of Christ) dutifully every Sunday, but there wasn’t much presence of religion in our home the rest of the week. I grew up in the sort of nominally Christian home that’s so common.

Your dad died when you were thirteen years old and that event was the catalyst to a long journey of trying to discover truth about what happens after death and whether God exists. When I say long, I mean it lasted until you were about thirty three years old. Is that right? Throughout this time did you lean toward believing or not believing?

It was at Dad’s funeral that I began to feel that questions about God were important and interesting enough to pursue. Over the next twenty years I chased the answers to five questions:

1. Can I ask these questions?

2. May I ask these questions?

3. Even if I can and may, are answers possible?

4. If so, do the answers matter?

5. Am I alone in my conclusions?

For the sake of the inquiry, I had to assume the answer to the first question was yes. I gradually realized that a decent God was unlikely to care if I was honestly wrong about him, which took care of #2.

Question #3 took much longer. At last I realized that “Is there a God?” was the wrong question. “Why do people believe there is a God?” – now there’s a question I could actually pursue. If it turned out that people had good reasons for believing, I too would be justified in doing so. It was the process of learning why people believe that took most of twenty years.

I began to recognize the terribly negative effects of religious belief in my early thirties, which answered #4, and discovered (through AN Wilson) the astonishingly rich and largely concealed history of disbelief, which answered #5. At that point, in my mid-thirties, I felt I could express my disbelief with a greater confidence in its reasoned foundation.

You attended nine denominations throughout your church-going days. What were they?

The experiences varied from a few visits to several years. Let’s see if I can do it from memory: UCC, Mormon, Unitarian, Methodist, Lutheran, Baptist megachurch (five years, please shoot me), Catholic, Episcopalian. I always forget one. Uh…Presbyterian!

Which played the most dominant role?

Unitarian. I attended Neighborhood UU Church in Pasadena, California for two years in high school and actually looked forward to the services. The minister (whose name I would swear was something like Reverend Lovejoy) would talk about life, actual human here-on-this-planet life! I felt challenged, inspired, and enlightened every Sunday.

Is your wife a nonbeliever and freethinker as well?

She was a mainstream Christian when we started dating and for about the first nine years of our marriage. And though I’d vigorously dissect the service on the way home from each ordeal at our Baptist megachurch, I never set out to change her views. But she’s wickedly smart (in addition to being perfect in every other way) and eventually began to question her own way out. She now calls herself a “humanist who prays ‘to whom it may concern.’”

Parenting Beyond Belief isn’t your first book. You’ve also written two novels. What drove you to switch over to nonfiction and write for secular parents?

The novels were written when I was a secular humanist professor at a Catholic college. They were satirical releases, born out of the frustration of that situation. Calling Bernadette’s Bluff was published in 2002; the sequel, Good Thunder, is finished but not yet released. I’m very happy with them, but I really think fiction is the aberration for me. My first love is narrative nonfiction, including a humorous travel narrative I wrote while living in England in 2004 (also pending release).

PBB came about because of the crying need for it, a need I discovered while editor of the Family Issues page of the Atheist Alliance WebCenter. I simply could not believe how little there was out there for parenting without religion, so I created PBB.

I realize the book hasn’t been released yet, but what kind of response is Parenting Beyond Belief getting?

It has been overwhelmingly positive – a kind of ripple-hallelujah from people who’ve been waiting for just such a thing. And word is spreading like wildfire. Googling the phrase “Parenting Beyond Belief” on January 1 gave me 49 hits. Last week it passed 12,000. I daresay we’re onto something!

Why is now the time to publish this book?

Ooh, I like that! Makes it sound like I sat on the project until just the right moment. In fact, this is when I got around to it. But I do think the timing is unbeatable, for three interrelated reasons:

(1) Publishers are ready. Ten years ago, no mainstream publisher would have touched it, but now disbelief is coming into its own. The enormous and recent success of the Dawkins, Harris, and Dennett books showed the publishing industry that nonbelievers exist in large numbers and that they read.

(2) Our numbers are increasing. In 1990, 8% of respondents to a USA Today poll identified themselves as non-religious. By 2002 that sector had grown to 14.1%. I don’t think 18 million people stopped believing during that time; for the most part, I think 18 million people started being comfortable with saying they didn’t believe. And that’s the point when we start getting comfortable sharing our disbelief with our children, as a value, not as the absence of one.

(3) Five years from now, with any luck, the book will have competition. At the moment there is essentially none, which makes this a better time!

Do you know how many non-religious families there are, and how this compares to estimates from years past?

This can only be guesssed from other statistics. The U.S. Census in 2000 counted 37.3 million households in the U.S. with school-age children. Assuming the same rough percentage of nonbelievers among parents as non-parents, these numbers yield a conservative estimate of seven million individual non-religious parents in the U.S. today, or roughly five million families.

What do you think is the number one reason for the boom in interest in leaving religious belief behind in our culture today?

The rise of fundamentalism, both Christian and Islamic. When George W. Bush was elected for the first time, I found myself in a room full of long-faced humanists bemoaning the end of the enlightenment. “Chins up!” I said. “This is the best possible news for us.” And I was right, imho. It is difficult to get people to see religion as a cultural cancer when it is moderated and under wraps. Only when religious zealotry takes the reins of power does the evidence become overwhelming.

We’ve had a chance to see the true face of religious orthodoxy in recent years, from a president who says God wanted him to invade another country to a religious electorate that seemed willing to permit him any course of action so long as he said his prayers. We can’t see priests without thinking of the hundreds who abused their authority to molest trusting children. Nineteen devout young men perpetrated mass murder on 9/11. Some people, gratifyingly, are beginning at last to connect the dots.

Disbelief isn’t automatically morally superior. We don’t need to make such an arrogant claim to earn our place at the table.
All we needed was the removal of the assumption that belief granted automatic supremacy. Now that that is a harder argument to make, people can think for themselves — and more people than ever are thinking their way out of superstition.

Has there been any public criticism from the religious side or do you anticipate any?

Nothing yet, and a number of Christians who’ve read excerpts have expressed pleasant surprise. The book does not attack religion or attempt to “recruit” people away from religious parenting. It is intended to encourage and support those who have already made the decision to raise their kids without religion and simply want a little help in doing so. Our hope is to help create a world in which disbelief is accepted as a normal and acceptable choice. Reasonable readers of all perspectives should be able to accept that.

A major concern of AgnosticMom readers is dealing with social situations and people who may not want to associate with atheists and agnostics. Do you have a section that addresses this subject? If so, tell us about it.

It’s not a separate section, but a thread that runs through several chapters, popping up in discussions of church-state separation, “mixed marriage,” and the chapter of Personal Reflections.

Do you envision following this with another book or project on a related subject?

Yes indeed. Since this was the first major book on the subject, we couldn’t hope to accomplish everything in one fell swoop. We hoped to play out some threads that could be continued in other projects. I see three immediate needs: a book devoted to dealing with death and loss, another on being secular in a religious extended family, and a practical book of activities.

I remember that once I finally allowed myself to question a few nonsensical religious beliefs, a flood of contradictions rushed out of my unconsciousness. The number of religious doctrines that don’t jive with reality astounded me. The contradictions were there all along but I had tucked them away into the unconscious hiding places of my brain so that I couldn’t see them.

Ignore. Ignore. Ignore.

I much prefer the open-ended approach to understanding the world that I have adopted. It is honest. And of course, more accurate.

I am getting ready to interview him and I thought I’d see if any of you have questions you want me to ask him. If you do you’ll have to post them quickly because I hope to post the interview in the next couple of days.

Hi Noell
I happened upon your website as I was searching for input on how to respond to as question my children seem to be very close to asking….What happens to people when they die? I think at this age (they have just turned 4) they need an answer that is more definitive than “some people believe this or that”. But at the same time I feel it will freak them out to hear the brutal honest truth that the end is the end. I was hoping you could share your wisdom with me or suggest some reading.
Thank you

I wrote an article on this subject for the Humanist Network News. It is one of my articles included in the new book, Parenting Beyond Belief, as well as an article by Julia Sweeney on the same subject.

I hope my article is helpful. It’s been a while since we discussed this subject so any comments are welcome.

I have some stories to tell plus an article to write for next week’s issue of HNN. You’ll be hearing from me soon.

Today I am going to add an additional activity to what we did last year. I’m still working it out in my brain but I think I am going to explore color with the kids as a metaphor for how all of life is made up of just a handful of basic particles. Just as all color and all its variety come from three primary colors and black and white, everything we see in the world with all its variety comes from a limited number of elements (I’m still not sure what I should break it all down to. Any suggestions?)

We’ll play with paint, beginning with red, yellow, and blue, expanding to the secondary colors, then the tertiary. We’ll add black and white for varying tone. I may use that to explain mutations and how some mutations help a creature to survive environmental pressures, allowing it to reproduce more, and some mutations make it harder to survive, preventing it from reproducing as much.

And of course, we’ll also be doing the traditional AgnosticMom stuff that I outlined in my HNN article:

Feb. 12: Introduction of Evolution through Family Book Reading
Dinner focus: The first phase of evolutionary life: shellfish, jellyfish, worms
A. Read The Tree Of Life: The Wonders Of Evolution by Ellen Jackson.
B. Dinner:
1. Very involved version: A smorgasboard of shellfish: shrimp, lobster, oysters
2. Simpler version: Shrimp dinner
3. After dinner treat: Gummi-worms (put them in cute gift bags or boxes on their
plates. The kids love that!).
C. Table decor theme: Under the sea

What are you doing today? Whether you have ever commented before or not, please leave a comment if you are celebrating Darwin Day and tell us what you are doing today! If you have a blog and have written about it there, leave us a link.

Hello Noell,

I have been reading your blog for a few months, and there are a few questions I feel compelled to ask. This is meant to be a genuine inquiry, and not a personal attack. One of the questions that reading Agnostic Mom has raised for me is: What does it truly mean to live a life as an atheist? Sure the easy answer is to live a life without religious faith or belief, but what about without -religious behavior-? Your behavior and lifestyle as
an atheist seems nearly indifferent to me from a person of faith. So that raises the question: Why do you feel it is so important to distinguish yourself from someone who is of a religious background? And, are there really substantial differences between the lifestyle of an atheist from that of a person of faith that merits being distinguished?

When you step back and look at it, Agnostic Mom, and your involvement with the HNN all revolve around religion. It is the true driving force behind your participation. It seems to me that by trying to denounce religion, and assert that you have done so, you have actually immersed your daily life in it. It also seems that some atheists are so caught up in professing their lack of religion, that they have inadvertently become reliant on it to identify who they are.

So, is it really worth the effort?

To be fair, I should state that I am agnostic to some degree. However, I feel more comfortable with not being labeled when it comes to my own position on religion. Also, I suppose it would be fair to state that I am a 22 year old college student. So even though I am not a mom myself, I really enjoy your blog and the discussions you have here.

Note:

Martin almost touches on these questions above. However when he asks, “What part of free from religion did you not understand?” my question is, are you really free?

Let me start with this observation and question:

Your behavior and lifestyle as an atheist seems nearly indifferent to me from a person of faith. Are there really substantial differences between the lifestyle of an atheist from that of a person of faith that merits being distinguished?

The first thing I want to say is that if you do not see a significant difference between religious people and avowed atheist/agnostics, then doesn’t this just show religion to be unnecessary? Isn’t that the point? Do we really need religion to be decent people? Is logic and reason not enough? If LaShawn’s observation is true for most of us, then it seems to me that religious people are just throwing enormous amounts of time and money to something completely unnecessary.

It is not my intention, though, to eliminate religion from the world. I am also not trying “distinguish myself from someone of a religious background.” I actually blend in quite well with the people in my environment, religious or not. What I am trying to do is share my ideas and gain from others who want to raise their families with humanist values. For those of us who have left religion behind, it can be scary.

For me, leaving religion allowed me to look in better places for understanding about the world and how humans got to where we are. That is a subject I have always wanted to learn more. Leaving religion also gave me freedom to direct more of my money to the places that made sense to me. And the best part is that leaving religion gave me more than an entire day, every week of my life, to focus my time on the things that are important to me, rather than on the things that my religion told me were important.

But to get to the specifics of your question, regarding day-to-day behavior and morals, I think this really varies from person to person, depending on what religion we leave behind and what we choose to value from our new worldview. I can only answer for myself. My religion was very strict. Having left Mormonism, I maintained the values that made logical sense to me. I refrain from shoplifting because I don’t like the idea of hurting or cheating someone. Plain and simple. Secondary to that, I prefer to live in a world where people choose not to steal others’ property and I know that will work out better if I do my part. Does it take religion to think that way? No.

So you are right. My life may not much different than a that of some people of faith when it comes to morals and ethics. It is more different in terms of what I devote time, money, and attention to. And specifically as a former Mormon, the details of my life are actually extremely different.

For the record, I do not push for the idea that everyone leave their religions. I am not an evangelical nontheist trying to convert the religious to become atheists. I don’t claim to know if the world would be better or not, although I am curious.

When you step back and look at it AgnosticMom, and your involvement with the HNN all revolve around religion. It is the true driving force behind your participation. It seems to me that by trying to denounce religion, and assert that you have done so, you have actually immersed your daily life in it.

Let’s get a little perspective here. I know that all of your contact with me is immersed in subjects often revolving around religion, but you have to remember that my blog and artlcles are not all there is to me. I do have a life beyond what you read here. If there is anything I immerse myself in it is art, photography and scrapbooking. That is not something I really talk about here. I probably spend less than an hour a week on average with AgnosticMom stuff. That isn’t exactly immersing my daily life in it. On the other hand, I work on my paper art between one and three hours daily. In addition to that is my 65-75 minutes of daily exercise, my household chores and errands, my volunteering at the kids’ school, and my family time.

I will grant you that despite this reality check of how much time I actually spend on AgnosticMom items, I do immerse myself in it quite a bit, especially in the past. But that deserves some perspective, too. I like writing. I think way too much and so it helps me to write my thoughts down. It gives me clarity. When I started my little blog I had no idea it would take off so quickly and get me public recognition. The writing opportunities have all come to me. I have not sought after a single one. Since the atheist/agnostic topics happen to be my niche from the blog, since I happen to have an audience, it would make sense that this is the subject I discuss.

And there is a reason many of my topics revolve around religion. Because my past religion was so all-consuming I was lost and scared during those first years after leaving, especially when it comes to raising children. This blog is mostly (but not totally) for others like me who have left religion behind but are not sure how to go about filling in the holes when it comes to childrearing. So, of course, religion plays a factor in most of my posts and articles. I basically write how-to’s about raising a family without religion.

There is one more reason that I dwell on this subject. There two types of people (among the gazillion types of us!). Those that have a natural propensity to ponder life and the world and over-analyze everything about it. And those who just want to live their life. You mostly hear from those of us who like to analyze it and talk about it. That is how I am. I was like that as a religious person (so no, I do not dabble in religion near as much as I did when I believed in it) and I am still that way. It’s my nature. There are plenty of atheists who do not feel compelled to analyze and talk about it. That is why you don’t hear as much from them. I actually have a handful of friends who are agnostic or atheist, who I see regularly, but we have only discussed our nontheism a couple of times.

Your last question:

Martin almost touches on these questions above. However when he asks, “What part of free from religion did you not understand?” my question is, are you really free?

No, I don’t think I am really free. As long as I still feel I need to prove to my parents that they do not need to get me back to church, I will probably not feel totally free. As long as I feel I need to keep my ideas and perspectives to myself so as not to offend my religious friends who have no problems sharing their perspectives with me, I will not be totally free. As long as I have to worry about how adequate my children’s science education is because there are topics that those in charge do not want taught, I will not feel completely free. That’s just the way it is.

Thanks, LaShawn, for your honesty and asking such interesting questions. I’d love to hear thoughts from anybody else.

I have some ideas of activities I hope to add this year. I’ll be sure to post them to the blog. If you have some ideas to share, please leave a comment!

Also, HNN’s editor had asked for my thoughts on the Ashley story. If you’re interested in that controversy and would like to see how I apply my ethics, you can read my Letter To The Editor here.

Very interesting that although you claim to be agnostic you practice yoga. You would think that such a strong self-avowed aggy would not be “saluting” and aknowledging the sun as her god. Do a little research, yoga is inseperable from the hindu religion which has a pantheon of gods. Why does every pose have the name of a prayer .Double standards people!! At least just call it stretching if you want to retain your cred.

We’ll pray for you…

Whether you like it or not.

Rob, how sad that you feel you must exclude something healthy from your life just because it’s originators wrapped it in religious hindu beliefs. I do not believe the hindu gods exist. But I can recognize the physical benefits of the exercise. When I do sun salutations I am greeting my morning and welcoming a new day. The “prayer” is symbolism and nothing more.

And why would I “just call it stretching” when it is more than that? The difference between you and me, Rob, is that you feel a need to run away from other gods and hide from them. I suppose you fear them. The gods mean nothing to me. I can enjoy my yoga and have no worries about accidentally praying to them because they’re not there.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check out my article in the Humanist Network News. Normally I only contribute one article a month, but this month I will have a second article in HNN. This week’s article is a general description of what Darwin Day is. Next week is an outline of how my family celebrated last year. As we get closer to the day, I will post any extra activities that we may add this year.

During a recent airing, talk show host Dennis Prager spoke to a man who apologized to his son for “giving a worse America to you than my father gave to me.”

A worse America? This wasn’t a new concept to me. Having grown up all around conservatives, I’ve heard this complaint many, many times. People lament what they perceive to be a decline in American values over the last forty years.

Although there may be a small amount truth in the statement, I have to wonder if it is really so, overall.

I mean, I’m sure the African Americans who, at one time, had to drink from different water fountains and go to different schools would disagree. And I’m sure the women who weren’t able to vote or leave abusive marriages would disagree. I’m sure the hispanics in my hometown, who were not allowed in the public swimming pools, would disagree.

I bet the girls who were blamed for their own rapes would disagree. I bet the parents of depressed suicidal teens, who were told their children had lost their seat in heaven, would disagree. I bet the children with ADHD, who were smacked with a whip in school for not controlling themselves, would disagree.

I wonder if the “love children”, the “bastards” who were labeled dirty for coming too soon, would agree? Or what about those permanently paralyzed by polio, before there was a vaccine? How about the single mothers who couldn’t get a decent enough job to feed their family?

We could go back a few more generations, to the lawlessness of the old west,
the ruling gangs of New York, the slaves of the south. Child labor? Public education by way of the Bible? Or what about no public education?

Oh, I know we could come up with an entire second list of injustices we have overcome. Improvements in American values.

Yes, there may be spots where America has done a nose-dive. But does it really balance out to a net loss? I don’t think so. I’d say that for many, America is a much better, safer place. It is a wonderful time to be raising children.

We also discovered that if you google “agnostic” we show up on the first page of the search results. (Go ahead, try it).

Many thanks to all you readers who have linked to me or who have emailed my articles to your family and friends.

Just when you thought it was safe to get used to the green layout…

Just when you thought red flowers were so last year…

Just when you thought it wasn’t posh for Ag’s and Athee’s to embrace change…

The Original Layout Returns…

I missed the flowers… It helps me to hope for spring…

I have no idea what is going on with my website. I did nothing to it. Remember how I said it was possessed? I guess website possession is the one area of supernaturalism I am falling for. Unless I still have a hacker. Who knows?

Of course, now that I think about it, as soon as I post this it will probably revert back to one of the other templates and nobody else will know what the heck Jason and I are talking about. So in case you miss the return to the original AgnosticMom template, it was here, this morning! Over the last couple months it has changed templates twice, and we cannot figure out why.

I was really nervous about the social implications when I stopped going to the Mormon church and became an atheist/agnostic. The religion I came from forces you to make a choice: Either come out of the closet so you can live your life the way you think is appropriate, or stay hidden and live the rules of the Mormon Church. I came out of the closet because my sister was about to get married in the LDS (Mormon) temple. You have to hold what is called a “recommend” in order to go in. My recommend had expired during the time that I was trying to figure out my beliefs. I could not get a new one and keep my integrity in tact because you must proclaim your belief that Jesus is the Christ and Joseph Smith was his prophet in order to do so.

By the time of the wedding I had confirmed to myself that I was not a believer. Rather than lie, I decided to tell my family that I would not be going through the temple for the wedding and the reason was that I no longer believed the church was true. And in fact, I was an atheist. (I called myself an atheist before I decided to call myself an agnostic. To me it is all semantics and a bit problematic). I suppose I didn’t have to tell the reasons why, but it has never been in my nature to act like someone I am not. I was never shy about being a Mormon and I am not shy about being agnostic.

Of course, telling my parents was one of the hardest things to do. They didn’t take it well. But after four and a half years they have seen that I am not backing down, they have seen that my children continue to hold excellent standards and principles, they have seen that I have a presence in the secular/humanist community, and they have seen that I am happy and non-disruptive to their religious lives. It has gotten better with them year after year and I now feel mostly satisfied with where we are in our relationship.

When I left religion, I also felt a need to tell my current friends. One reason was because I held many leadership positions, never missed church, and was very involved. The other was because Mormons have strict rules about clothing; rules which are absurd for people in desert climates to abide by. I was happy to be able to dress in less constricting clothes that were much more appropriate. But it was a shock to all my friends for me to suddenly expose my shoulders. It may seem silly to someone who is not from the Mormon culture, but it is scandalous for a Mormon not to abide by the dress code if they once had. People usually suspect that marriage infidelity led to the change.

So, it was awkward in the beginning feeling compelled to announce my change to my friends at their first sight of me in un-Mormonish clothing. I didn’t want them to assume the wrong things about me. The revelation of my non-belief shocked and hurt them. I received many warnings from people who had “gone astray” at one time and and regretted it. Still, as awkward as it was, I think is beneficial. It is beneficial to our community because it spreads the word that nontheists are normal people. It is beneficial to ourselves because 1) It takes us out of our comfort zone, and that is always healthy! 2) It frees us up to be who we are and not have to hide.

Thankfully, I am past that phase now, of having to come out to current friends who had always known me as religious. My main interaction now is with people who never knew me as Mormon. For them it is only about discovering that I don’t believe in any religion, period. And that is a whole different situation. We’ll come to that in a separate post.

Oh, and two articles by Agnostic Mom! And there’s my secret. This book, to be released in April, will feature two of my articles from the Humanist Network News!

I’m going to give you a link to the book on Amazon, but before I do, I’ll let you in on the plan. You can preorder now if you’d like. Or, if you want to try to propel it to the top ten, you can wait until April like many of us are doing when the book is actually released.

There is also a possibility that I may join some of the contributors at the September conference for Atheist Alliance International in Washington D.C. to be on a panel.

Okay, now here is the link to Parenting Beyond Belief.

Hmmm…

I WANT MORE is all I can say. I learned some new names at the conference and want to know more about these people and their ideas. The next conference will take place November 1-3, 2007.

For those of you who are lucky to have the Internet connection and want to learn about other incredible things in science and technology (and get entertained, too!), I also suggest this conference: http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/ From my experience, it’s best to download each video and then watch it in QuickTime. Julia Sweeney, Hans Rosling, David Deutsch, Jeff Han are just a few people I want to mention that made such an impression on me.

We’re in Kansas City visiting my parents and siblings! We’re having so much fun! Yesterday we went away to some farm areas where my parents have some gorgeous hilly property away from civilization. We took turns riding quads, Grandpa pulled the little ones in a trailor with his miniature tractor, and we sang Karaoke.

If only you could have heard (and seen) my brother-in-law’s versions of Lady Marmalade and The Final Countdown. Or maybe you would have enjoyed my husband and I singing Zombie by the Cranberries, with the funky vocal flips and all! What a blast.

I just wanted you all to know that I am still here, still thinking of all the posts and topics I have been wanting to blog. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas or Solstice, or whatever it is you did this past week! Hopefully I will post again before the New Year, but if not, I wish you a very happy start to 2007!

The scientist, Ramachandran, describes this experience as literally dissolving the barrier between two people because the neurons do not know the difference between poking yourself and poking someone else. He concludes, “it provides a basis, almost a neuro-basis, for ethics.”

He then goes on to explain that many children with autism are missing these neurons, “which is one reason they lack empathy…and are unable to look at the world from your point of view.”

Here is the link to the particular session with Ramachandran. You’ll have to get through the first speaker and some discussion before the speech I am referring to. And I’ll warn you if you try to watch the first speech, none of the scientists in attendance understood the guy, nor did they seem to accept his premises. Ramachandran’s speech was quite interesting.

I’ve been watching videos of the entire conference for a couple weeks now. It is was a recent conference called, Beyond Belief, with other well-knowns, such as Dawkins, Shermer, Sam Harris, and many others I am getting to know. It’s been completely interesting. It is essentially a debate about the stance atheist scientists should should or should not take on religion. There are very many view points and it’s great to see that the scientists have no problems giving and receiving criticism to one another’s opinions. There is a lot of discussion on the morality question as well.

Note: If you click on the link to the entire conference, you will need to scroll way down until you see the big black box with titled, “Beyond Belief.”

In fact, the article may relate in some way to a comment/question that Angel posted last week. Angel: If you are still here, the article I linked to may interest you. I do plan to address your specific concern about having raised your children without religion in the next few days.

I also promise to respond to Mommy Window soon, who had a question others have asked regarding social situations as a minority unbeliever.

Enjoy!

We had a lot of fun. I painted bricks onto two panels of paper that I hung in the archway from the living room to the kitchen. As each guest arrived, Blake escorted them to the brick wall, did the magical tapping on appropriate bricks, and then led his guests through the panels. Once inside the magical world of Hogwart’s School (in our kitchen and backyard), Blake let the guests choose from a tray of various wands. Then he put the sorting hat on each guest to hear the announcement of which house (team) that guest would be a part of. My husband recorded the voice of the actual sorting hat from the movie into his lap top and pushed play when the guests put on the sorting hat. The boys loved this! It produced laughter every time.

When most of the guests had arrived we began playing a modified version of Quidditch, then a game between dragons and humans where the humans dodged dragons to steal their golden eggs (chocolate).

The best part for me was the potion class. I put three flavors of Kool-Aid in various shaped jars and containers and as I brought them out I told the kids that the red was Dragon Tears, the purple was Extract of Pituitary, and the green was Sleeping Potion. I also put out bowls of Bloodworms (gummi worms) and Beazles (jelly beans). The boys were hysterical with this! Never did I hear the words, punch or Kool-Aid, come out of their mouths. It was all potion to them. And they thought their own combinations were amazing! I’ve never seen kids drink so much!

They took their drinks to the dining table I set up on the patio under the glow of white Christmas lights. I covered the table with a purple table cloth and laid diamonds of gold wrapping paper as placemats. I set gothic-type center pieces along the table to give it an old and formal feel, like the dining hall in Harry Potter.

Instead of bags of candy and little toys for the party favors, I found 100-piece jigsaw puzzles with dragons and knights at the dollar stores. I wrapped the puzzles in brown paper and sent them home as their thank-you gifts. What a fun night!

Many of the ideas for this party came from www.amazingmoms.com on their Harry Potter page.

Number one is to answer a question from MomSquared: I am curious whether the name Trinity is religious in origin or not?

The origin of Trinity’s name happens to be the movie, The Matrix. That’s it. We were Mormons when we chose that name and Mormons reject the concept of the Trinity. They refer to the three gods as the Godhead and teach that they are three distinct beings who are one in purpose, not one in being. We had a few people quite unhappy about our name choice. One personoften said to me, “But we’re Mormons! We’re not Catholic!”

There was another major concern mentioned by Angel, which I’d like to address in a separate post when I have more time.

And point of business number two, check out this video, The Atheist Delusion.

This post is to answer a question from Jennifer:

I know this question was already raised, but I don’t think answered, who teaches your daughter about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit? (I’m agnostic, just wondering).

I know I have forgotten to answer a lot of questions. If I passed you over and there is something you’re dying to know, try it again and maybe I can get better at this!

But back to Jennifer. Trinity was really young when we left religion (Mormonism). I think she was only two. But believe me when I say I was a good Mormon mom and I ingrained religion into my children from the beginning. This means she had a vague understanding that there was a god who loved her and that when we die we go to Heaven (she was always fearful so this was important to her) and get to be with Jesus and family again.

When my husband and I made that transition of beliefs, we explained to our children that we didn’t believe all the things that Mormons believed; that there were certain things we thought were wrong with religion. The move toward agnosticism with my children was slow and gradual (I declared myself an atheist as soon as I left the Church, but not to my kids). I just couldn’t tell them there is no god or heaven.

My husband and I travel together three times a year and my kids stay with their grandparents. They go to church with them on these weekends. They go for three hours, two of which the kids are in a small class with a teacher and kids their age. The teachers do not adjust their teaching for non-member guest children (for example, “We believe…”). They just state their beliefs as facts and have my children participate as much as possible.

Trinity enjoys these visits to church and takes everything to heart. In addtion to that, our extended families pray at every gathering and there have been religious lessons at some holiday events. It has only been in the last year that I have been more clear and direct that I do not believe there is a god.

Somebody left a comment that expressed an inaccurate understanding of an earlier post. They thought I call my family agnostic because some of us have atheist beliefs and some of us have Christian ones. I want to clarify that that is not what I meant. I call my family agnostic because when my kids ask about religious doctrines, I tell them what various people believe and then say that no one really knows. I tell them no one has actually seen heaven or Jesus. Those who say they know don’t really. I never tell them unequivocally that there is no god.

Trinity’s choice to continue believing has nothing to do with the fact that our family is agnostic. It is significant only because I have chosen to put more emphasis on giving my children confidence in their right to an opinion. I do not consider Trinity a Christian. It is probable that she will eventually grow out of this belief like she’ll grow out of Santa, given the way we raise our kids. At the same time, she is the most emotionally-driven member of the family. Maybe she won’t.

“How are humans being classified as non-animals in Social Studies class?”
By teaching that animals have long been used to, say, work in the fields, regardless of their choice. Doing the same thing to humans is usually presented as wrong, thus making a distinction between animals and humans. The double message is that humans both are and are not animals.

“No one is being made to make ethical statements based on science in school.”
I don’t agree with that in all cases. I suspect that some would like ethical statements based on science to be made in schools. Within the context of this blog, I understand people to have been attempting to base ethical statements on science.

I agree that faith(s) can be discussed in school. I disagree that it should be taught. Perhaps this has changed, but when I was in school, slavery was presented as wrong. I think this is a faith-based teaching.

Do you see humans as animals? If yes, is it wrong to own animals as pets or use them for work against their obvious choice?

One of the themes on this blog that I’m interested in is: Assuming a purely materialistic universe, is there any way, based solely on the physical evidence that we can observe, to build a moral or ethical system that is not relative to the individual? I understand Noell to be saying yes, there is, and I disagree. If you haven’t done so already, you may want to check out Noell’s post: http://www.agnosticmom.com/2006/08/02/evolutionary-psychology-and-materialism-as-a-world-view/ and my response, which is approx #12.

I will now quote Dan in italics and then make my response.

“The double message is that humans both are and are not animals.”
I will agree with this statement. Humans are animals. And at the same time, humans are not animals. The statements only contradict because of semantics. The truth is, we evolved from animals, we are part of the animal kingdom. We share many similiarities with animals. We are animals.

And yet, we evolved a few other capabilities that distinguish us from animals. The greatest factor in this is the human development of advanced language. It is language that allowed us to form the communities that we have, allowed us to develop a capacity for empathy, allowed us to have an awareness of others, allowed us to have some choices beyond our instincts, allowed us to think about ourselves and evaluate.

Humans are the only animals we know of that can act against even our greatest instinct, which is to spread our genes (procreation). We have, for example, invented birth control. Daniel Dennett likes to point out this fact as he explains how language has made the human species unlike any other animal.

(Note to Dan: If you really want to understand this viewpoint, Daniel Dennet, atheist philosopher who knows his science, is the person to read or listen to.)

“Within the context of this blog, I understand people to have been attempting to base ethical statements on science.”
There is a distinction to be made here. Science must do its investigating and be kept wholly separate from ethics. Learning that nature selects that which is “most fit,” for example, does not mean it is ethical for humans to favor those most fit and allow to die those who are less able. Humans must make decisions on ethics from a philosophical stand-point. But many of the findings in science can direct us to a greater understanding of how things work, giving better clarity and accuracy to our philosophy about ethics.

For example, it will take science to better understand what is going on when someone is in a vegetative state. Science does not tell us whether it is ethical or not to take someone off life-support. But it might tell us whether someone has any chance for survival, whether there is any level of consiousness, whether there exists any pain or desire within the person. We can then take the scientific evidence to help us decide the ethics of whether to leave a person on life support or take them off. Science gives us the information we need. It does not give us the ethics. That is why, yes, we have discussed a link between science and ethics on this blog. And yes, I would submit that scientific findings are crucial information as we make choices in ethics. But there is still a vast separation between the two. Science gives us factual information. Ethics must derive from philosophical discussion with the facts at hand.

“Perhaps this has changed, but when I was in school, slavery was presented as wrong. I think this is a faith-based teaching.”
It does not take faith in a being that no one has seen to come to the conclusion that enslaving someone who desires freedom is wrong. Faith and ethics have nothing to do with each other.

Do you see humans as animals? If yes, is it wrong to own animals as pets or use them for work against their obvious choice?
This is an example of where scientific progress may shape our ethics on treatment of animals. It seems that my dog is in pure bliss living with us, even with our rules that he not leave the house without us. If it were to be discovered that dogs are unhappy as domesticated pets, that they have a will and desire currently unknown to us, then I would conclude that it is unethical to keep them. It’s not about the fact that they are animals (as we are, too). It has only to do with their ability to be content or “happy,” as far as animals can be happy. It appears that dogs are happy as pets. It is unethical to treat animals with cruelty, even if they are animals.

I do not allow my kids to cage up wild insects, as much as they would like to, because I know insects have a need to be free.

Cows were bred to live the lives they do. As far as we can tell, cows have no need to run free and pursue other interests in the wild because they were not bred to desire that. But, if it were discovered through science, that cows were, in fact, unfulfilled and depressed on the farm, it would become a matter of ethics whether we keep them there or not. Arizona just dealt with these issues politically as we passed a law that farmers give more space to pregnant cows and calves raised for veal (previously they had no room to even turn around).

Humans are animals that are extremely different from all other animals. Our particular difference requires we have more autonomy in order to be happy. Other non-human animals just don’t have as many needs for personal fulfillment as we do because they did not evolve in the direction we did.

So, I hope you see, Dan, that there is nothing contradictory here with the view of humans as animals. And there is nothing shady in terms of the relationship between science and ethics.

What is my take on this? Anyone can make an accusation like the one the gay prostitute has made. So far the prostitute has not revealed his alleged evidence (email) and until he does I consider it a non-story…at least I did until Haggard admitted to getting a massage and then buying meth from the guy (which he says he immediately threw away, overcoming the temptation).

As a respectable pastor, you don’t suddenly get tempted to buy meth out of no where. Other events lead to the purchase of meth. Unless he was a druggie before he became a pastor. Then the story makes an ounce of sense.

Does anyone know Haggard? Does his conversion story include salvation from drugs?

I have not raised my children to be atheists, although I have that natural desire, perhaps biologically evolved, for my children to share my beliefs. My kids did not even know the meaning of the word, “atheist” until a couple of weeks ago (more on that later).

You all know me mainly by my worldview. I realize I am quite vocal on my blog. What else could I be? But in reality, as you would suspect, there is much more to me and my life than my godlessness. And while I teach my children about how to treat people, animals, and the world around us, I spend very little time talking to them about the gods. When that subject comes up, I have usually tried to explain that some people believe this, some people believe that. I often ask them what they believe. I never tell them what I believe (about gods) unless they ask. And they don’t ask often!

This is why it was such a surprise to me when Blake (age eight) announced to his friends that he didn’t believe in God. Of course, I always hoped he would come to that conclusion. But that is just the point. I wanted it to be his conclusion. Trinity (age six), on the other hand, professes to be a believer and we have never made her feel inferior for being one. I expect in time she will come around, anyway.

The important thing to me is that the kids learn critical thinking, that they learn to question things, that they look for evidence when it is needed, and that they are confident in their ability to form their own opinions.

A number of weeks ago we got our issue of Wired magazine, mainly a techie subscription. Blake saw it on the chair and yelled, “Wow, cool!”

My husband asked, “You like the design on the cover?”

Blake answered, “No, I like the topic!”

What was the headline topic that had him so enthralled? “No heaven. No hell. Just science.”

The title of the article is “The New Atheism.” We asked Blake if he knew what atheism is. When he said he didn’t I told him, “It’s when you don’t believe there is a god.”

He yelled again, “That’s us! We don’t believe in God!”

And then Trinity interjected, “I do! I believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”

So there it is. We are an agnostic family and each child has the right and the information to make his or her own decisions. Of course, we influence them. There is nothing wrong with that. But each child knows we respect their ability to come to their own conclusions.

By the way, if you want to know about the article, it is an excellent one with an atheistic viewpoint. Rare, I know. The writer interviewed Richard Dawkins (evolutionary biologist, but you know that), Sam Harris (neuroscientist who wrote, The End Of Faith), and Daniel Dennett (philosopher). You can find it in the November issue.

I was wondering what was going on the past few weeks! I like the new design, though, I think I will miss the photo of the pretty flowers at the top…

Just think, though, you are now important enough to be attacked and not just ignored by the right-wing! Congrat’s! Next thing you know, James Dobson will be denouncing your bog on national television, and soon you’ll have hundreds of hits instead of just a few dozen…

Ahh, the price of fame and simply being right….

Good luck with the whole hacker thing–from what I’m reading here, a few other sites I visit are being–shall we say persecuted?

As for my design, it is not by choice. If there is a hacker, he/she is doing it. If it’s not a hacker, my blog is either possessed or it has some weird default mode. It does not look like this by my own choice. I keep switching it to the old template and but it jumps back to this one. If I were more computer literate I’d be more proactive about getting to the root of this. Alas, I am dependent on my super-busy husband to fix these problems.

BTW, Jason, my blog has been getting at least a hundred hits per day for quite a while now! It hardly deserves it with the decline in posts over the last couple months.

Moving on: we have a busy day today. I carved two pumpkins this year instead of just one! When the kids get home (well, Blake is already home sick) we’ll grab an early dinner, get the costumes on, take tons of pictures (I am determined to get some good ones this year, so I’m giving myself plenty of time) and then we’ll head over to the grandparents’ neighborhood (much better for trick-or-treating than my own) to get an early start. With Blake sick, I don’t want to be out late.

I hope to have some time tomorrow to get a more normal entry posted!

Dear Mr. Potential Hacker,

If you are the reason for my blog troubles, I can only assume it is because of religious motivations. And since that seems to trump freedom of speech for you, let me appeal to the Ten Commandments. I pay for my website, therefore, when you shut it down, not only are you stealing my right to free expression, you are also stealing my money. Where are your principles?

I explained to Blake that this was a club for children whose parents actually believe that the stories in the Bible were all real. I disappointed him with the news that this club was not the right one for him.

And then came the interesting part. He said, “Do you know that all three of the kids at my table believe in God?” Now I was really interested in this conversation. How did he come upon this information? And why was he so surprised?

He continued, “I said, ‘So who here believes in God?’ And they all said they did!”

“And what did you say?” I asked.

“I said, ‘I don’t.’”

I was getting nervous now but didn’t want him to know it. If I acted anxious, or began giving him warnings, would he learn to feel ashamed? But is it okay for an atheist or agnostic child to just bring the conversation up, as many Christian children do? I have always told him that if friends want to talk to him about God, or heaven and hell, that it is appropriate to say that our family doesn’t believe in that. But here he is now, in school, introducing the topic.

I asked him, “Then what did your friends do?” Apparently one gave a loud exhale of disbelief and another let his jaw drop to the table. But that was it. Thankgoodness. So far it’s been a couple weeks there has been no fallout.

So here is a discussion topic for you. Would you give your child a gentle warning that some parents don’t want their kids around people who don’t believe as they do? Do you think it is inappropriate for a child of atheists or agnostics to ever bring up the subject? Or do you let them do their thing because they really should have that right, as children of Christians do, even though it may lead them to a friendless path?

It’s been a horrendous week. How much more blunt can I get? And to end it, now that the trauma is subsiding, the kids started their fall break so I won’t have any real recovery time until they are back to school on Monday. That is, of course, as long as we don’t have any more urgent health crises.

Trinity had a severe reaction to her medicine last Wednesday (itching hives from her ankles to her cheeks, welts that covered her entire thighs). When I called her neurologist, the secretary gave me a punch in the stomach when she informed me that Dr. Thinks-He’s-God won’t see us now because we got a second opinion. Once we got Trinity stablized and on new med’s with a new doctor’s prescription (it was a horrible three day process), I thought all was well again until Blake had an asthma attack like he’s never had before. Asthma is what killed my husband’s uncle (who is my age) a couple months ago. Blake’s breathing treatments weren’t helping so we’ve got him on a steriod for five days. He’s a little better tonight, having missed school for two days.

I tell you, every day of my life is consumed with doctor visits, pharmacy drive-thru’s, phone calls with a nurse, and the dolling out of medicine. The good news is that with both chronic illnesses, I now know the buzz-words to bypass long waits on hold: “has asthma and is wheezing” or “seizure.”

Anyway, now that I’ve started this party of pity, please don’t feel like you can’t comment on my article about ghostly fears! I’m curious to know your thoughts on the article.

I do have a story I’ve been wanting to share and I’d love to hear anyone’s thoughts on the situation. I hope to be able to sit down and blog it in a couple of days. Until then, Olga provided a link to this Freethought Media website. Go take a look around. I am still getting familiar with it but there are audio files on Richard Dawkins, James Randi, Michael Shermer, Daniel Dennet, Steven Pinker and a couple others I am less familiar with (but looking forward to getting to know). So far I have listened to one interview with Richard Dawkins.

But before you go over there, I want to initiate a little discussion on science writing. In previous debates on my blog, as well as in other articles I have read, there seems to be an issue with some popular science writing, particularly with Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker, but also some others. One issue, as far as I can tell, has to do with an unclear line between general scientific understanding and the writers’ own philosophies and worldviews. The other issue stems from language. Good writing involves tools that may sometimes obscure scientific accuracy.

Let me explain what I mean. In my earlier discussions about some of Pinker’s writing I began to sense that he intermingles his own philosophy with scientific data in a way that is sometimes hard to tell apart. He also doesn’t always say how strong the support is for a particular theory he is basing his premises on. At some point we have to make decisions about what we believe, even when there is little evidence. So I see no issue in Pinker’s forming philosophies around new and emerging theories. The problem comes when he doesn’t always clarify the strength of the various theories.

At the same time, I understand why he doesn’t. What a monotonous book it would be to make notes for every single statement in order to clarify. As a blogger I understand this. In every post I have to decide what information to include and what not to or you would never finish reading. Pinker also has to make his writing interesting if he wants to reach a greater audience. And in my opinion, reaching a greater audience is importance for the future of science. But so is integrity.

Dawkins seems to have some issues as well, although I am less familiar with his writing. I have read three different critiques of his work, and I wish I could remember with more clarity what the exact criticisms were. In addition to these two writers, I have read a critique of science writers in general about the personification of genes, Natural Selection and such (what I mean is, talking about Nature as if it were a thinking being, even though it is not). Many of us writiers do it. It is good writing. But it does give the false impression to some that genes, or Natural Selection, or even Nature itself, have a will and a purpose. I like writing that way and I see others do it all the time. It makes for a good story. It is what pulls me in to the study of Biology. And yet, I can see how it can be misleading.

So here is the dilemma, as I see it. We have good science writers reaching the public and educating them on important issues in science. It is generating an interest unlike before. But it may be generating a lot of misunderstanding as well. It it worth it? What are the ethics in this situation? Should a science writer sacrifice wonderful writing for more scientific accuracy? Or should one keep it interesting and hope that the overall effect is more scientific understanding, not less?

Please feel free to weigh in on my question, or just provide more information and specific examples if you have them. I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this.

Yesterday’s installment of the Humanist Network News included my article, Coping With Parental Difficulties. Feel free to share your own thoughts or experiences in a comment below!

The best part was taking some banana bread over to a friend whose husband is a police officer. I know the possible sacrifice she and her husband say yes to every day that he walks out their door.

Tonight at dinner we will light candles for the thousands of our citizens that died on 9-11, for the thousands that have died in the wars, and for our memory of a day that opened our eyes.

Although I dreamt Trinity had a seizure last night, she has not had a third one yet. She panicked at the zoo last weekend, though, because she felt like she was about to. It was too hot and she finally burst into tears. Dramatic tears. So of course, we jumped to her rescue and got out of there.

With her type of seizures (Partial Complex) they typically have what is called an “aura” which they recognize as a signal before the seizure. So it’s hard to know if what she was feeling at the zoo was the warning aura, or if she just wasn’t well and it reminded her of the beginnings of that first seizure.

Moving onto other subjects, last week new license plates came in the mail. I left them unopened for my husband, as I figured they were his.

“They’re yours,” he told me. “Open them.”

“I didn’t know my plates were expiring. Why didn’t they just send me tags for my old plates?”

And then I noticed a funny look on my husband’s face. So I opened the package, pulled them out, and there were brand new personalized plates just for me with a nick-name a few of you have called me in the past.

Now on the back of my car, for everyone to see, are the capitlized letters, AGMOM.

How cool is that?

And, since that posting she had the second seizure. This time it was in her sleep so we didn’t see it. I just knew something wasn’t right when, after carrying her sleeping body into and back out of the car, sitting her next to her active and chatty older brother in said car, taking her temperature, and wiping her face with a wet cloth I still couldn’t wake her up.

Finally, with the nurse on the phone, I rubbed Trinity’s sternum, which I learned from the parademics after the first seizure. This drew a response and partial consiousness. Still, she laid there abnormally motionless, with her eyes dazed and her normal self far far away. The only movement or acknowledgement I could get from her was if I asked her if she was okay. She’d nod her head, make a barely audible squeaky sound, but that was it. According to the neurologist, her brain was “re-booting” after the seizure. She remained in this almost, but not-quite, conscious state for forty-five minutes. She doesn’t remember it.

We went to ER again where they gave her an EKG (which monitors the heart), which also had an abnormal result. So, in addition to all the neurological testing, we will also see a cardiologist next month for a more thorough heart exam. Okay, it’s called an echocardiogram but I don’t know if I’m spelling it correctly and I just don’t feel like looking it up. Sorry.

Hopefully her heart is fine (because it is quite unlikely to be related to seizures at her age) and with luck the EKG was just showing signs of stress.

A few days after the second seizure I took Trinity back to the neurologist who surprised me by prescribing anti-seizure medication. Already. I just wasn’t expecting that to happen so soon. Having done my research since that pill-prescribing appointment, I realize that we were quite thorough according to industry standards and it is typical to start medicating at this point, if not sooner. But with the doctor’s approval, we are waiting. He said he expects she’ll have another seizure within six to eight weeks of the last one (meaning four to six weeks from now. And yes, I am watching the days). At that point, if she has her third one, we really need to get her medicated.

If we are lucky, and she doesn’t have a third one for many months, she just might grow out of them. So right now, we are waiting. And I am reading. I am learning about seizure disorder and the medication. I am researching the various options. We are also trying to round up all the test results from three different institutions to send to a second neurologist for another opinion. Just to be sure. I hate to mess with my little girl’s brain. There can be side-effects to the medication. And the medication is only supposed to help. It doesn’t necessarily eliminate seizures. I think it has a fifty-fifty success rate if I remember right.

And that brings us to why I have not been blogging. The usual topics on this blog are often serious, heavy, or require research. My brain just doesn’t have the capacity to juggle these topics in addition to seizure disorder. For the sake of my emotional health, I need to spend my extra time with something that calms me down rather than riles me up. So I’ve been focusing on my number one love and sanity-saver: scrapbooking.

I will continue my monthly column with HNN and will post here to let you know when it installs. I will probably pop in with short blurbs on lighter topics here and there. And who knows, maybe sometimes I will even have something more typical of me.

No promises.

I call it a warm-up because the particular theory is one I doubt many of us will disagree on: it is a possible explanation for the human tendency toward religion (an explanation among a number of joint explanations). You’ll like it. In fact, the theory is similar to an article that my reader, Ed Darrell, provided a link to in a comment. But I’ll be using that article in my up-coming entry, so I’m holding off on posting it in this entry (thanks, Ed Darrell!).

Of course, the morality discussion we’ve been having is a little more controversial and challenges some current views. So, to help you out, I’ll warm you up to Evolutionary Psychology with theories you will like!

Head on over and read that article (or if it is too detailed for you, read the synopsis on Panda’s Thumb.

You may start to realize that theories in Evolutionary Psychology are everywhere. And you’ve already read a number in various articles, many of which I have linked to over the course of my blog. As long as I don’t call it “Evolutionary Psychology,” or associate it with the word, “morality,” I always get a 100% positive reponse. It’s a funny thing. In fact, there is a theory for that as well.

Too many topics, too little time.

If you’re not already a subscriber and haven’t yet read my article in the Humanist Network News, make sure you head over and take a look. Read the other articles while you’re at it and feel free to write HNN a letter with your feedback or leave your comments here on my blog.

I have a feeling that, like most instances in dealing with children, your kids did not portray the real picture of the situation. What I imagine really happened is that your kids saw your relatives praying and asked why they were doing so and that is when your sis-in-law made the comment about prayer. I really wish that you would talk to your relatives about what happened (it does not sound like you did) before painting this most-likely inaccurate picture to all of your readers. Kids perception often differs from reality.

Your post about the situation was polite and respectful but still it may have painted an inaccurate picture and your readers took it negatively even though you tried not to portray it that way.

How absurd that someone like me, a skeptic even about ideas that support my own beliefs, did not consider this possibility. Sadie’s analysis never even occurred to me and it seemed she might be right. Frankly, after reading her comment, I still didn’t want to approach my sister-in-law about the situation because it did not bother me so much; I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable and have her associate negativity with having watched our kids when we were so pleased with the experience.

I have a couple principles I try to follow when it comes to relationships. If a person’s actions offend me and there is no previous pattern for the offensive behavior, then there is a high likelihood of a misunderstanding. I believe the healthiest choices in such a case are to either give that person the benefit of the doubt and disregard it, or, if nagging negative emotions arise and persist, to approach the person and give them a chance to explain. More often than not, when there has been no previous pattern of such offending behavior, I find there was just a misunderstanding.

It turns out that this is the case with my sister-in-law. When Sadie suggested I didn’t have the full story, I realized she was probably correct. My sister-in-law has never been one to interfere. I decided it made the most sense to assume that my kids had first asked her why she prayed.

When discussion continued on my blog about what may or may not have happened, I decided to pursue the matter and ask Blake. Blake confirmed that Trinity had, in fact, asked her the question. He said that their aunt was not trying to teach them to pray and he seemed perplexed that I was even asking.

I don’t like that I mis-portrayed my sister-in-law and I think it is an example of dealing with relationships where these types of misunderstandings are likely to occur when there are religious differences.

I also wanted to clear up what I saw as a misconception from Wendy, who left a comment that I accidentally deleted. Wendy seems to think I object to a “sharing of beliefs” (if, in fact, I understood her comment). I welcome the sharing of beliefs. I have always been interested in religions of all types, Christianity or otherwise, and I want my children to know about others’ religious beliefs.

What I have a problem with is when any adult teaches something to a child that contradicts with the parents’ beliefs. This is especially hard in a place where one major religion is the default belief-system and a majority of the people assume that you either do, or should, believe in it also.

My kids practically swim in other people’s beliefs about God and that is okay, as long as people do not cross the boundaries between comparing beliefs to help in understanding, and trying to convert my kids.

Likewise, contrary to what I think Wendy implied in the comment that is forever gone, I do not teach nor allow my children to “make fun” of other people because of their beliefs. But when someone asserts that my child will go to “the worst imaginable hell,” as Blake’s friend did, I think it is helpful to giggle about it with my son when the friend is not there and assure my son that that is absurd. If a person wants to be so insistent with ideas that I believe are emotionally abusive, then I have the right to help my child feel better by lightening the situation. I will not apologize for that.

Also, some religious beliefs, like talking donkeys or a woman made from a man’s rib, just naturally inspires a giggle in someone who was not raised around such stories. When this occurs in the privacy of our own home, I will not apologize for that either. I am sure there are plenty of families who laugh at the ideas of evolution. While I think that is ignorant, I don’t find it at all offensive. It’s just natural.

Giggling in private about such a belief is not the same thing as making fun of someone, which I have never seen my kids do. And there have been plenty of opportunities, considering how often people like to “share.”

Rejoice!

This gives me just under three hours, three days a week, to start making those medical checkups I’ve been putting off, finally make some real improvement on the house, volunteer in the kids classrooms, and even blog or scrapbook sometimes. I almost welled up with tears after I dropped Aiden off. Not because he’s my big boy growing up. But because I was driving alone to go enjoy some solitude in my house!

It was a very exciting morning for all of us. First I took Blake and Trinity to their incredible school, which, to our surprise, had colorful helium balloons all over the entrance, including a rainbow of them which we had to pass under to get into the school. The Star Wars theme music blasted through a sound system outside and I imagined (or observed?) that my kids were feeling quite awesome and powerful as they entered their school with such a welcome.

Trinity is now in first grade, which means she has graduated to a full-day of school (more good news for me)! She is so excited to eat in the cafeteria.

By the time we waved the kids off as they herded into the building, there were 40 minutes left until Aiden’s school would start so he and I hopped over to the vast desert trails below the mountains just minutes from the school and took a walk. We started doing this regularly last year when my reader, Ron, commented about a woman who takes her kids out into the wilderness for three hours a day. Three hours daily won’t do for me, but once a week for an hour would. I still have stories to tell about that first adventure we took, and maybe now that I have a little peace and quiet I’ll get around to it (as well as a bunch of other topics many of you requested I blog about) over the next few weeks.

So, for thirty minutes we observed butterflies, dragonflies, lizards, and other moving creatures. Aiden always likes me to hold him not long into our trek, so I get to add thirty pounds to my weight with him on my back, I can hike at a faster pace, and I get some exercise while my boy and I bond and observe nature.

At the right time we headed off to Aiden’s preschool (”for the development of the whole child”) where he sang to his teacher right away. We realized during his newborn days, and again when he was two and started singing to us, that he is musically inclined. Other people notice it all the time, too. He loves to sing. And he loves to hear music.

But back to me. I am on my Ikea chair, the dog is sleeping on my footstool (thus, my feet are not inclined), I have my laptop where it should be and a cup of Chai Tea next to me that I just finished.

Should I make a third cup, just to celebrate?

I did not expect my children to receive a personal lesson, intimate instruction just for them, on why they should pray.

Let me first qualify this post with the explanation that, prayer-lesson or no prayer-lesson, I am so thankful for my brother and sister-in-law who cared for my three children (and our dog) for four long days. They refused the money we tried to pay them. They brought bags of games and activities. They made homemade play dough. They’re both mathematicians and taught the kids math.

We also came home to an immaculate and happy household. A spotless house on the return from a trip is highly unusual.

So please don’t mistake my story for a gripe. It is a story to share. I’d lose at least half my readers if I only talked about science and didn’t share my personal stories.

It wasn’t until we’d been home for a few days when Trinity informed us that their aunt taught them at a meal that, “we should always pray so that we can thank Heavenly Father for the food he gave us.”

I stopped what I was doing. I exchanged looks with my husband. And I noticed that Blake was watching me, waiting for a response.

I smiled at Trinity and asked her, “Does Heavenly Father give us our food? Or does Daddy work really hard everyday so that he can earn the money for us to buy our food?”

Trinity’s big, cute smile appeared and her giggly voice belted, “Daddy!” Her expression was as if to exasperate a comment like, “How obvious!”

I laughed with her and was glad to see how easy it can be sometimes to demonstrate reality to children.

Of course, I had to wonder if my in-law thinks we believe in prayer but are lazy and just never took the time to teach our kids about it. Or did she make the conscious decision to teach my children a concept she knows we reject?

I used to dwell on these types of experiences and let them work on my emotions and patience. In addition to my personal frustrations at such an invasion, I also worried that lessons of this nature would influence or confuse my children.

In the past year I have learned not to worry so much about these types of actions from others. They’re quite entertaining. I also realize that my own words, along with the reality that the kids observe around them, hold much more sway than the religious-speak of others. Though sometimes the kids are unsure and want to hear my opinion, they often think the religious statements people make are down-right absurd.

When the kids pass along another person’s admonitions that they should pray, a simple reinforcement from me such as, “Well, that’s their religion,” seems to be enough most of the time and they dismiss the idea.

In fact it was just yesterday that Blake’s friend (who I am distancing Blake from because his rude behavior hit its peak when I heard him make reference to certain anatomy on his mother) tried to convince Blake to become a Christian immediately after Blake told him I didn’t want them to play together any more. Blake giggled as he restated to me his friend’s lesson about the best heaven and the worst hell you can possibly imagine.

I realize these outpourings from the religious are inevitable. They will continue to happen. Now that I have observed my children’s confidence in their family’s beliefs and non-beliefs, I can look on these attempts with a little more humor and a lot less outrage.

I’ve had some time to read some of the earlier posts. I’m interested in the idea that “nature is all there is”. [I’m thinking, nature = the physical world] If I understand post #8 correctly, this is a position you hold.

I see two, somewhat different, implications:
1) the universe, as a whole, quite likely produces a consciousness; something that might be called “a god”
2) there is no meaning or value in life, other than what a particular individual attaches to it. And related: concepts of good and evil must be relative to the individual.

So, would you be interested in a conversation in that direction?

(Disclosure, if it matters: I hold a Christian worldview.)

Dan, you are accurate to sum up my position that “nature is all there is.” I am a materialist.

But when we look at the two implications you listed, I do not subscribe to either of them. The reason I don’t agree with either of the two optional implications is that I am aware of a third implication.

There is a growing science that says the human species evolved certain psychological traits. As a quote on my previous post on Darwin Day stated, our understanding of evolution is creeping into all kinds of areas. It is changing the way we understand medicine. And it is changing the way we understanding human psychology and human nature. While Evolutionary Psychology is still young in the field of science and has much work yet to do in substantiating its claims, it contributes a third implication to Dan’s list of only two; an implication to which I currently subscribe.

In his book, The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker explains:

In the study of humans, there are major spheres of human experience–beauty, motherhood, kinship, morality, cooperation, sexuality, violence–in which evolutionary psychology provides the only coherent theory and has spawned vibrant new areas of empirical research. Behavioral genetics has revived the study of personality and will only expand with the application of knowledge from the Human Genome Project. Cognitive neuroscience will not shrink from applying its new tools to every aspect of mind and behavior, including the emotionally and politically charged ones.

Later he clarifies what evolution means for psychology:

Natural selection works to homogenize a species into a standard overall design by concentrating the effective genes–the ones that build well-functioning organs–and winnowing out the ineffective ones. When it comes to an explanation of what makes us tick, we are thus birds of a feather. Just as we all have the same physical organs (two eyes, a liver, a four-chambered heart), we have the same mental organs.” (pg. 142)

What does this have to do with finding meaning in life or understanding whether concepts of good and evil are relative? Here is what a materialist view implies when combined with the view that evolution provided us a certain innate psychology:

To quote Pinker again on pg. 145:

Regardless of IQ or physical strength or any other trait that can vary, all humans can be assumed to have certain traits in common. No one likes being enslaved. No one likes being humiliated. No one likes being treated unfairly, that is, according to traits that the person cannot control. The revulsion we feel toward discrimination and slavery comes from a conviction that however much people vary on some traits, they do not vary on these. This conviction contrasts, by the way, with the supposedly progressive doctrine that people have no inherent concerns, which implies that they could be conditioned to enjoy servitude or degradation.

Do you see how this homogeny implies a certain generality when it comes to the meaning of life or ethics/morality?

We all have the capacity to feel pain and happiness. We all want to avoid pain and increase pleasure and happiness. We also all know this is true of one another (the ability to understand even that is likewise inherent in our natural cognitive abilities). These three simple facts are enough to provide us both a compass for ethics/morality and for meaning to life.

I find meaning in the fact that I can increase my own happiness and I have the ability to help increase happiness in others. So I guess in some ways a materialist point of view may imply that “there is no meaning or value in life, other than what a particular individual attaches to it.” But in consideration of a shared human nature, or the idea that humans share certain innate traits, I do not agree with the implication.

I find value in life from the mere fact that I have approximately seventy years (if I live an average life-span) of conscious existence. If that is all you think you have, and you do not imagine another life after, what can you possibly value more than life? Not only your own life, but the lives of others?

I personally find meaning in the fact that I can do things to increase my own personal happiness and the happiness of other people. The quotes from Steven Pinker above imply that this could be a universally human objective when it comes to finding meaning in life. It implies that all humans want to be free and pursue their own happiness.

But what about the other half of the implications you listed for a materialistic worldview? Dan said it was that “concepts of good and evil must be relative to the individual.”

Some materialists do hold this view, but it does not necessarily follow as the only consistent conclusion to materialistic thought. Many scientists, philosophers and atheist writers speak of an innate “moral sense” in the human species which evolved through Natural Selection.

A few of the more popular ones that I have been referring to recently are Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Robert Wright, Daniel Dennett, and James Joyce.

Wright lists a number of traits that combine to make up this natural moral sense:

Altruism, compassion, empathy, love, conscience, the sense of justice–all of these things, the things that hold society together, can now confidently be said to have a firm genetic basis (The Moral Animal, pg. 12).

I have to qualify this quote with my own statement that I would have to review his book to find out what Wright’s sources are for the “firm genetic basis” of the traits he listed. But Pinker agrees with him when he makes a similar list which he referred to as an innate “emotional repertiore–-sympathy, trust, guilt, anger, self-esteem.”

Pinker gave this explanation for the evolutionary endowed moral sense while discussing the dilemma of conflicting self-interests among individuals:

. . . there are reasons to believe that the solution to it–a moral sense–evolved in our species rather than having to be deduced from scratch by each of us after we’ve picked ourselves up out of the mud. Children as young as a year and a half spontaneously give toys, proffer help, and try to comfort adults or other children who are visibly distressed. People in all cultures distinguish right from wrong, have a sense of fairness, help one another, impose rights and obligations, believe that wrongs should be redressed, and proscribe rape, murder, and some kinds of violence (The Blank Slate, pg. 187-8).

And this is what I meant when I told Dan that there was a third implication:

The alternative, then, to the religious theory of the source of values is that evolution endowed us with a moral sense, and we have expanded its circle of application over the course of history through reason (grasping the logical interchangeability of our interests and others’), knowledge (learning of the advantages of cooperation over the long term), and sympathy (having experiences that allow us to feel others pain).

Steven Pinker, then, made a comparison of a religiously endowed morality to an evolutionary endowed morality:

How can we tell which theory is preferable? A thought experiment can pit them against eachother. What would be the right thing to do if God had commanded people to be selfish and cruel rather than generous and kind? Those who root their values in religion would have to say that we ought to be selfish and cruel. Those who appeal to a moral sense would say that we ought to reject God’s command.

. . .The history of religion shows that God has commanded people to do all manner of selfish and cruel acts: massacre Midianites and abduct their women, stone prostitutes, execute homosexuals, burn witches, withhold medicine from dying children, shoot up abortion clinics . . .(pg. 189).

But let’s also compare the theory of an innate moral sense to the theory that morality is relative and should not be part of the human dialogue at all. Pinker gives one example (among others) of why it is dangerous to disregard and deny this innate nature that provides us with a moral sense:

Feminism, far from needing a blank slate, needs the opposite, a clear conception of human nature. One of the most pressing feminist causes today is the condition of women in the developing world. In many places female fetuses are selectively aborted, newborn girls are killed, daughters are malnourished and kept from school, adolescent girls have their genitals cut out, young women are cloaked from head to toe, adulteresses are stoned to death, and widows are expected to fall onto their husbands’ funeral pyres. The relativist climate in many academic circles does not allow these horrors to be criticized because they are practices of other cultures, and cultures are superorganisms that, like people, have inalienable rights. To escape this trap, the feminist philosopher Martha Nussbaum has invoked “central functional capabilities” that all humans have a right to exercise, such as physical integrity, liberty of conscience, and political participation. She has been criticized in turn for taking on a colonial “civilizing mission” or “white woman’s burden,” in which arrogant Europeans would instruct the poor people of the world in what they want. But Nussbaum’s moral argument is defensible if her “capabilities” are grounded, directly or indirectly, in a universal human nature. Human nature provides a yardstick to identify suffering in any member of our species (The Blank Slate, pg.172).

This understanding of human nature is vital in preserving the freedoms of all people. White southerners justified their actions against black people, both while they were slaves and after, by pretending blacks were less than human in order to deny them the characteristics that would make their enslavement wrong. They created stereotyped caricatures of black people to portray a difference in the nature of black people compared to white people. A universality in human nature defines this as clearly wrong, not just morally but also factually.

To summarize, theories in Evolutionary Psychology regarding innate and homogeneous needs and desires across the human species provides its own implications to the materialist. In addition to the idea that humans can find meaning in life by virtue of the fact that we exist with capacities for pain and happiness, we can assume a shared concept of the meaning of life: the pursuit of happiness, both for ourselves and others. It also means that morality is not relative. The subjugation of and infliction of pain on another being is not acceptable and good to some people in some cultures. Human beings cannot be socialized to desire servitude and pain. Human beings, no matter the environment or culture, do not want pain or servitude. Therefore ethics and morality exist in real terms as revolving around this idea: we do not have the right to purposely cause others pain or deny them their happiness and freedom.

I mostly ate fruits and vegetables while there. I love the tropics because of the wide availability of fruits, the mango being my very favorite. But since we drank a bit more than usual (just a bit; I’m not a big drinker) I was concerned about all those extra calories.

Not to worry. There was plenty to do at the resort to keep us active. Besides the fact that we walked everywhere and never once took the elevator to our third floor room, we rode bikes and played tennis, rode kayaks, went snorkeling, and danced in the evenings. We also played pool and table tennis. I doubt those two activities burned very many calories but I know they burn more than lying on a lounge chair at the pool consuming chips and pico de gallo.

We also spent a lot of time with our camera. My husband taught me some of the technical details of photography: setting the shutter speed, the F-stop, and light sensitivity. We went around the resort taking lots of cool photos. Maybe some day I’ll take the time to learn the simple art of putting those photos on my blog. Or into my empty flickr account. Yes, I realize I am probably the only blogger who hasn’t taken the five minutes to learn how to do that. I just have too many interests.

Our last evening in Cancun led me to an unexpected conversation. After three days of small talk with people from the company that I see once a year, I found out that one of the wives is a professor of Archaeology. Well, of course, that perked my ears. Not long ago on this blog there was a weeks-long debate that spanned at least four or five blog-entries in the comments. The debate was a bit confusing as it covered a few different topics at once, but one of those topics was Evolutionary Psychology, a subject that will probably appear in my next blog entry. One reader, whose degree was in Archaeology, could not stomach the field of Evolutionary Psychology and seemed to think it conflicts with all things archaeological.

So, not wanting to start a debate with this new friend on our vacation, but curious to see her reaction, I asked her, “Do you know about, and if so do you despise, the field of Evolutionary Psychology?”

And her answer was, “Yes! I despise it! All these years we have been moving successfully away from racism, and Evolutionary Psychology comes right back to racist beliefs.”

When she said she despised E.P, I hoped she’d have a more compelling disagreement than the racist card. I already know about claims of racism. I have studied enough of E.P. to know that that point is not valid. It is untrue. In fact, there are many reasons why the claims of E.P. should lead us to more compassion and understanding toward our fellow human beings.

She also made the common argument that it is deterministic. This is also not necessarily the case. In my readings, I have only come across one proponent of the field who is a determinist and he admitted that when his peers reviewed his book, they all disagreed with him on that point. When I hear claims of racism and determinism with regard to E.P, it usually means the person has read about the field from its opponents, but have not read the research itself.

I wanted to hear valid arguments against this field. I told the professor that I was trying to determine the various weaknesses and strengths of Evolutionary Psychology and that, while I have heard the claims that the field leads to racial and deterministic beliefs, my readings show otherwise.

I asked her if archaeologists unanimously disagree with Evolutionary Psychology, as one of my readers implied. She said it is split, practically down the middle. And then a funny thing happened. She admitted that as she has just begun reading on the subject recently, she is warming up to it. She read the work of one scientist about the differences in male and female sexuality and she said she could not deny it sounded accurate. And there are a few other things she has been learning from the field that also sound right to her.

We both agreed that some scientists, in an effort to get their name on a new theory, propose theories within the field that do not have strong evidence or support. Of course, these theories don’t go far. They also do not invalidate the rest of the entire field of research.

So in the end, the discussion evolved from her “despising” Evolutionary Psychology, to the fact that she is just beginning to learn about it and, in the process, is warming up to it.

In addition to the topic of E.P, she also told me that she teaches Evolution and that every semester she has a student(s) who make a point to challenge her on its validity.

I told her about my blog. She asked me if I know of Michael Shermer and the Skeptic Society. We played the “Do you know so-and-so?” game of scientists we read, as well as the “Have you read such-and-such?” game regarding books.

It was a nice detail to add to my trip of tropical fun and relaxation.

See you on Sunday!

I was reading the Sunday paper so I tried to do a little dodging. “You have to learn all the elementary stuff before you learn the college stuff. That’s why we go to elementary school first.” Then I added a classic line, “Go read a book. Reading anything will help you prepare for college.”

Yes, I was dropping the ball.

Blake contined to prod me for some type of brain-food activity. I noticed a funky multi-colored bouncy ball on the table. It reminded me of a movie Israel and I just watched, Match Point. I only need to tell you that Woody Allen directed it to give you an idea of what type of movie it was.

The story revolves around the luck factor. In tennis, there are times when your ball hits the net and bounces straight up. Where it goes from there has nothing to do with your skill, but pure luck. Chance.

As much as we like to factor our skill and talent into our successes, we often fail to note the innumerable avenues on which luck travels around us.

The bouncy ball on our table provided me an idea for an activity to occupy Blake. I told him to get a piece of paper and a pen. He dashed around the room in exhilerated bliss. He came back with the items. I handed him the ball and told him to let it drop straight down onto a line in the floor that he chooses. He was then to record the direction the ball headed after the first bounce. He would do this ten times. Here are the results:

1. Right
2. Under the line.
3. Right.
4. Under.
5. Under.
6. Right.
7. Under.
8. Over the line.
9. Over.
10. Over.

I asked Blake if he saw any kind of pattern in the direction the ball went. He said, “Not completey. But it is starting to go over the line all of a sudden!”

He was excited, as if he was onto something.

“Do you think there is something causing the ball to go in a certain direction? Maybe the way your hand drops it, or a crease where it hits the floor?” I asked.

Those possibilities didn’t interest him. He felt there was something within him that was predicting the direction of the ball, but he didn’t have his finger on it yet. This is a topic I’ve been wanting to experiment with Blake on because he thinks he can make accurate predictions based on his feelings.

He’s often asked me questions like, “Mom, what do you think the percentage is of people who go to college?”

My reply is something like, “Well, I don’t know. I’ve never paid attention to that statistic so I’d have to look it up.”

And he comes back with “I think it is . . . 60 percent. No, 63! That’s it! It’s 63 percent.”

“Interesting,” I answer back. “And what information do you base your answer on?”

“It just feels like that’s what it is.”

“Is that an accurate predictor? Your feelings of what it is?”

“Yes.”

No matter how many times I’ve explained to Blake that his feelings can’t give him an accurate answer at that type of question, he doesn’t get it yet. I realized this is something I’m going to have to show him.

So I changed the direction of our experiment with the ball. I turned the paper over to the other side. He was now going to predict which direction the ball would bounce, then drop the ball, and I would record whether his guesses were right or wrong.

Here are the results:

1. Wrong
2. Right
3. Wrong
4. Wrong
5. Right
6. Right
7. Wrong
8. Right
10. Wrong

Before showing him the results on paper, I asked him if he thought he had been right most of the time or wrong. He said, “I think I was mostly right.” This surprised me because we spent a lot of time in the middle of the experiment talking about the third and fourth tries being wrong. And the last try was also wrong. Still, this didn’t give him the lasting impression of having mostly guessed wrong. At least he has confidence in his abilities!

I showed him the paper and added them up. Six wrong guesses and four right guesses.

I then asked him, “How many possibilities were there?” His answer was four: Over the line, under the line, right or left.

My next question was, “What if this activity had 100 possibilities? Would that have made it harder or easier to make a correct guess?”

He answered, “Harder.”

“This activity only had four possibilities, making it easier to guess correctly just by chance. Still, you guessed wrong more than you guessed right. Do you think there is a pattern here for where the ball goes, or do you think it is all random chance, both where the ball goes and whether your guess is right or not?”

It was interesting because he made the connection, and yet he still wanted to hold onto the idea that he had some ability to predict the direction of the ball.

In Michael Shermer’s book, How We Believe, Shermer shared his hypothesis of a human Belief Engine. “Humans evolved to be skilled pattern-seeking creatures. Those who were best at finding patterns (standing upwind of game animals is bad for the hunt, cow manure is good for the crops) left behind the most offspring. We are their descendants. The problem in seeking and finding patterns is knowing which ones are meaningful and which ones are not.”

Blake made four “hits,” as Shermer calls them, or in other words, Blake made four accurate guesses when he was making his predictions about the balls. Sometimes it only takes one accidental hit for someone to think they are onto something. I explained to Blake that this is why some fortune-tellers, astrologists, self-proclaimed prophets and the like, think they have the power to predict. They got a hit. A lucky guess. Sometimes they get many hits. But how many misses do they also get in the process?

This activity with Blake was just a seed. I think it will take a few similar experiences such as this before he gets it. Shermer stated the following about the tendency to think the way Blake does:

It is normal. It is in all of us. Stuart Vyse shows, for example, that superstition is not a form of psychopathology or abnormal behavior; it is not limited to traditional cultures; it is not restricted to race, religion, or nationality; nor is it only a product of people of low intelligence or lacking in education. There is variance in magical thinking among individuals, or course, but all humans posses it because it is part of our nature, built into our neuronal mainframe. We do not live in a Pleistocene environment, but our minds were built there and often function as if we do.

The good news is that the more answers we have to life’s mysteries, the less we rely on superstition and errors in our pattern-seeking. For this reason, my focus in raising my children has less to do with telliing them there is no god and more to do with teaching them accurate ways of finding answers.

The unexpected death of a young person is especially tragic. The wife, sister, and sister-in-law who planned yesterday’s ceremony executed it the way every funeral should be. In my opinion. It was full of stories. Lots and lots of stories. And while this man was religious, and the tone of the funeral reflected his faith appropriately, religion was not the dominant player in this scene. The man who died was.

One of the brothers played an audio tape of my husband’s uncle from when he was just a boy. What a surprise that was. On the tape he talked about all the brothers and sisters, even a cousin, all close family who were present at the funeral. As any child is, he was funny. “And do you know what?” he started every single sentence. “Russ came over today. Sometimes he was good. But sometimes he was bad.”

Knowing Russ as we all do, we had an extra laugh for that statement, which he rephrased at least three times!

My husband’s brother coordinated the life sketch with a slide show of photos. With the exception of the few words from the church leader at the end, all of the talks were stories about the quirky personality, the unique interests, the endearing strengths.

It was a celebration of this man’s life. Not so much what he did, but who he was.

In the days before the funeral, the wife, who I am closer to than the uncle, called to ask if I would participate. “I don’t know where you’re at with the Church,” she said, “but I’d really love it if you would lead the music. I understand if you’re not comfortable.”

I was so glad that she wanted to include me in the program. I love that she was sensitive to my differences with the religion.

Leading the music would mean singing and leading the congregation in song about Jesus, life after death, and a number of other beliefs.

“I’m not a believer,” I confirmed. “But you’re my family. I want to be a part of this.”

I reminded her that none of my dressy clothes agree with the church’s standard of modesty. I wasn’t sure what she or the guests would think of me standing at the front of the chapel in slacks and a top with spagghetti straps (with 115 degree weather, it’s all I buy).

“You know he never cared about stuff like that, Noell. He would have wanted you to just be you. And if that bothers anyone else, I really don’t care. I just want you to lead the music.”

As long as she was happy I was happy. In fact, the only person who dared comment on my non-Mormon attire in the chapel was a fellow ex-Mormon family member. He is one who especially loves to tease.

Not to make such a big deal of what I was wearing! What I am trying to say is that the experience at the funeral reflected this man’s nature of openness, down-to-earth honesty, caring and acceptance for others, and having a firm stand on his principles. At the funeral I reflected on that nature and how it is typical of most every family member, both on my husband’s and my own sides.

So while I often harp on problems I see with religion, it is good to make note of the many, many religious people who want to walk their chosen paths and allow others to do the same. To my husband’s family members who read this: thank you.

Although I was sure after my hours-long quest in the temple that it was false, I had not actually been expecting that conclusion. It came as a surprise I wasn’t ready for.

So the grand finale of that six-month search became the beginning of another six months of continued church involvement, a smidgen of hope for the slightest reason to think I was wrong, along with the question of where the truth was, if not in the Mormon Church.

I wondered which Christian religion was closest to truth. Would I find one I could be comfortable in?

And then the new year came around and the adult Sunday School class began studying the Old Testament.

Our discussion and reading of the great and wacky O.T. was probably what planted the idea that it was all wrong: the Mormon Church, Christianity, the entire Bible, and God in general (that changing god who evolved from one personality to the next depending on the culture and popular understanding).

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

But let me back up a bit. If you’ve ever studied the Old Testament with Mormons then you know that the introduction of every O.T. class is not actually on that particular book of scripture, but on one of the Mormon scriptures, The Pearl Of Great Price.

Part of The Pearl Of Great Price is, according to Joseph Smith, a “complete” version of certain scripture that supposedly went missing from the first five books of the O.T.

Another part of The Pearl (excuse my shortcut-nickname) is the writing of Abraham, himself. It was this part of our gospel study class that got interesting. Actually, it is where I began to get angry.

We started our study of the writings of Abraham with a review lesson on how Joseph received it. The teacher reminded us that some guy came traipsing about Mormom-Town in Illinois selling ancient rolls of papyrus and mummies from Egypt.

Joseph Smith took a look at them, and God told him the rolls were the writings of Abraham himself! So he bought them and “translated” them.

Now I realize God may have maneuvered this transaction. But it all sounded so very opportunistic to me. It was the kind of line I would have pulled out as a kid when I used to tell my friends I wasn’t really Noell, but her twin Dutch sister.

I went home feeling angry that I hadn’t seen through this story before.

It was no more than a couple days later when my son, Blake, brought me a kids magazine he was reading and he asked me to explain a page to him. I looked at it, and my jaw dropped open. It was a picture of papyrus with drawings of ancient Egyptian burial rites. It was almost exactly the same picture as this one in The Pearl.

While Joseph Smith explained that the drawing was that of Abraham almost to be sacrificed as a child by his father who was a priest, the authentic one in the magazine explained very well what these drawings really were.

What made this experience all the more enlightening was that I had seen pictures of these before, probably in high school. And I never made the connection between them and the drawing in the Pearl.

Many ex-Mormons know all about this doctrinal dilemma. I am leaving out all the many details of how wrong Joseph’s make-believe translation is, now that Egyptologists have a greater knowledge of those ancient artifacts. And many Mormon apologists have given bizarre justifications for it. But this was all new to me. It was almost like divine intervention. An answer from on high that all of it was. . .stupid.

By this time, though, I was done with thoughts of a Being from on high. Over the previous months, since that last temple visit, I watched my relationship with what I thought was Heavenly Father slip away. I had grown far distant from that god who had seemed always at my side.

I didn’t see this as tragic or lonely. It was empowering! All the strength that I had derived from this imaginary god-partner growing up had really come from within myself!

For example, I have always been a happy person. It takes a lot to get me down. And I bounce right back. When I was younger people often asked me how I was so happy. This is embarassing now, but I actually used to tell them it was because I was a Mormon. And because I had such a close relationship with God.

I felt a little guilty saying this because I knew plenty of devoted Mormons who were miserable. But I continued with that story nonetheless. It was my missionary tool.

When God disappeared from my side, I realized I was still the same me in every way. I was still a happy person. And all the sides of me that I thought were God supporting me, or God’s gifts to me, were actually me.

I had now come to know myself and appreciate myself more than ever before in my life.

It was good.

This affected my interpretation of things people would say at church. I remember when a member of the bishopric, who apparently didn’t know about my waning spiritual state, expressed to me how I had inspired him with something I said and that I “had such a strong testimony.”

I smiled and thanked him but knew inside that it was just my happy nature that he was misinterpreting as my testimony shining through. There was no testimony.

My new paradigm of self also contrasted with the guilt and self-criticism I witnessed in many of the women at church. They never felt they were good enough. They could never meet the demands and expectations of religion.

It got to the point where I left every church meeting angry about something someone taught. I had resigned to continued church attendance, not out of belief, but out of a desire for spiritual sustenance. Instead, church was becoming a spiritual vacuum.

At one point, our congregation split and a small handful of us, including only one of my real friends, got reassigned to a different one. I knew almost no one in church now, which made it easier for me to become more anonymous and less involved. My one remaining good friend, who I really admired (because she and her husband were extremely intelligent and the only Mormons I knew who went to prestigious universities) inspired new hope in me. She told me she wanted to go to the temple with me, and asked me to get my recommend.

This friend was normally so busy, I was thrilled to have an opportunity to spend time with her. This really motivated me. At the same time I had a sister whose temple wedding was coming up the following month, so it really was vital for me to get a glimpse of a testimony back so I could get a temple recommend.

My new motivation drove me to a two-week, two hour-a-day scripture study and prayer obsession. That’s right. I read and prayed for two hours. Every day. In the process I lost any remaining hope that it might be true. I couldn’t believe it when later my mom suggested I didn’t show enough faith to get an answer from God. Two hours a day for two weeks isn’t enough? How about a year of desperate searching?

Around this two week period I flew up to Utah for a weekend to meet with my parents and family. We took a trip to the center of the Mormon organization in Salt Lake City, Temple Square. We ooh’d and ahh’d at the new Conference Center. It was an amazing and magnificent building. The woodwork was unmatched. And while my family interpreted the building’s beauty as another testament to the truthfulness of the Mormon Church, all I could think about was the money it took to build the thing.

I remembered when my husband and I were struggling with a baby, sometimes unable to buy groceries. Yet there was the obligation to give an entire ten percent of our income to the Lord. So that he could erect this building. Nevermind the many poorer families who don’t have money for food or medicine. They need to help provide for the Church’s desire to build more buildings.

We left the gorgeous wooden money pit and went outside where my parents showed me that the Church convinced the Mormon-dominated legislature to give them the city’s main road so that they could build over it. The main road through temple square is no longer a road. Commuters now have to circle around Temple Square and then veer back to the road, as I understand it.

“Were a lot of the non-members around here furious when they did this?” I asked.

“Oh, they just need something to be angry at the Church for. It’s really nothing,” was the response of one of my family members.

Seemed like quite a lot to be upset about to me.

This trip to the new and improved Temple Square both impressed and disgusted me.

Between that experience and my two-week devotion to get an answer once-and-for-all, I was now ready to accept the facts: it was all bogus. I was ready to add the “ex” to Mormon.

It was exhilarating. Life was exhilarating. So much to learn! So much to explore! New paradigms to view my world through. New questions to ask.

I walked into the most exciting time of my life.

And everything about it became better. My husband and I are stronger friends, closer than we’ve ever been.

I appreciate the fragile lives of my children more.

I can accept people for who they are.

I can be honest about who I am without pretending to live up to another person’s ideal. Because of this I am finally able to make real friends. I hadn’t had real friends since high school. You can’t be a real friend when you have a picture you have to portray.

I was a happy Mormon. I am a happier agnostic.

If you want an update on the family situation, Gizmo, my puppy, seems to have nothing severe. He tested negative for all the usual problems. His symptoms are probably from allergies. And the lethargic state he adopted was from the allergy medicine we started him on. Since stopping that he has gotten his energy back (although he’s still not eating much). The latest symptom that had scared me was a giant purple-red spot in his skin that surfaced over the weekend. It turns out that is where they drew blood for the tests and it is probably a giant bruise that will fade over the next couple weeks.

That’s the good news.

The other update concerns Trinity. I’m not sure if I mentioned her twenty-five minute fainting episode a few weeks ago. We ran tests in E.R. and went to her pediatrician. Yesterday we got a final verdict from the Neurologist that Trinity had a seizure. The tripping, the falling, the wail of a cry, was part of the seizure. The loss of conscious was the sleepy-state that follows a seizure so the brain can “reboot.” At least that is my understanding from our meeting.

The doctor ordered an EEG (to measure brain waves) and an MRI so that we can rule out the possibility of a tumor. After that, if it all goes as planned (the plan being no tumor!), then we just have to wait and see if she has more seizures. Multiple seizures can develop into Epilepsy.

The fact that she’s had a number of panic experiences since her seizure, where she thought she might do it again, leads the Neurologist to think she may be feeling what they call an “aura.” This is where a seizure is in the introduction stage, the person recognizes the initial feelings, but then the brain successfully overrides it and no seizure follows.

It’s the “aura” thing, the possible tumor, the potential epilepsy, and and the upcoming tests that have me a bit, oh, freaked out. One minute I feel great, and the next minute I can’t concentrate enough to comprehend what someone is saying to me. But I’m pushing ahead and trying to relax enough to give my three babies lots of love.

Thank you all for the wonderful comments and well-wishes. They mean so much to me.

In addition to the routine summer schedule of daily swimming lessons, the kids’ workshop at the two local museums, and all the regular errands, we had five different medical appointments last week. Yes, between the kids, the dog, and myself, I attend medical-related appointments at least once a week. But last week there were five. Five!

All but two were routine. Something is wrong with my cute little dog, the puppy I consider my baby. We have been trying different things to figure out what the problem is. Much of my attention has been on him and not on AgnosticMom-related topics.

Also, I was ready to move away from the topic of death, which has dominated this blog lately. Then my husband’s young uncle died last week. He died at thirty-six years old. He stopped breathing while his wife was out getting medicine for him. So it keeps the topic front and center in my mind. It is hard to fathom someone’s life vanishing with no warning like that. One day you’re sharing dinner with a person at a family gathering. The next week they are gone forever. I am worried about his wife.

And last night I got to remember what it is like to be a new mother. I took one of my sister’s three babies for the night to give her a break. She recently had twins (new siblings to her toddler) and the pregnancy induced congestive heart failure. She is having trouble healing because she can’t get any sleep between the three babies. Can you imagine?

So, I guess I decided to go ahead and throw all of this out at you.

Those of you who have been waiting for Leaving the Church, Part 4 can rest assured that I am beginning to work on that now. I can’t promise it will be out before Tuesday. Trinity goes to the neurologist tomorrow and I plan to take my dog back into the vet for a new bizarre symptom that has surfaced. But I will post it by Tuesday at the latest.

To hold all you ex-Mormons over until then, let me introduce you to C.L. Hanson, author of a new book I will be writing a review for called, ExMormon. She just started writing her own deconversion story and you can read part one here. If that isn’t enough for you, go to her post here to see a list of other Mormon deconversion stories.

And if you’re interested in reading something other than Mormon-related stuff, Hanson also wrote a post that has to do with my earlier entry about how our current culture has become safer for children than in the past. She has very interesting theories on why that is so and outlines some even more interesting ideas for what that it means regarding sex and birth control.

Now I have your attention, don’t I?

And one last note to Dan, if you are still out there. Unless something else pressing comes up, I will soon post my entry regarding the implications of materialist philosophy that you requested. No, I haven’t forgotten.

Fortunately, this week’s installment of HNN released today and you can read my artlcle, The Line. Come back and share your thoughts. I know you have many!

I have been checking out your site. I have a question for you, do you know how old you will be when you die? Will you be 70 or 45?

Did you know 155,000 people die every day. That is right ten out of ten people die. The truth is you don’t know when your day will come. One second you are here, the next, you step into eternity. Your life is like a vapor here today and gone tomorrow.

Do you know what the Bible says? The Bible says it is appointed once for a man to die and then comes judgement. To be asbsent from your body is to be present before the Lord. When you die and stand before the Lord do you know if he will send you to Heaven or to Hell?

I thought Bishop Rick gave a fine response, one that exemplifies why Christianity makes absolutely no sense, whatsoever, to me:

Do you really believe there is a Hell…a place with fire and brimstone and eternal agony? If there is such a place, would you send one of your children there?

Do you really believe there is a devil…a being that can influence your thoughts and lead you to do evil?

Would you send your children to a totally foreign place/family after robbing their memory, and leave it solely to chance as to whether they join the right religion, and learn the right principles, and depending on whether they get the test questions right, they get to come home (heaven) or go to Hell?

I have little interest in attacking the validity of Christianity in order to deconvert the religious. I prefer the conversations with Christians on this blog regarding philosophy, ethics, and science. But when a Christian comes to me with dire warnings of a vengeful god, I have no qualms saying I don’t buy into the threats and it’s not worth more than a sentence of response. Like Bishop Rick, I want to ask, “You really believe that?!”

But Cody inspired a topic that I think will be interesting for my atheist, agnostic, and deist readers: Do you wonder if you will return to religion in a time of desperate need? Would a fatal accident involving one of your kids put you back in church? Will a heart attack at 50 years old make you reconsider religion? When you find yourself terminally ill will you be one of those “death-bed converts” that Christians love to talk about?

I used to wonder these things.

We have experienced some close-encounters recently. Last year my brother-in-law pulled my two-year-old from the bottom of the pool. None of us saw him fall in. How close was Aiden? Two minutes?

Not much later he ingested an unknown amount of Advil. And two weeks ago my six-year-old fainted and was unconscious for about twenty-five minutes. I spent a day in ER with both kids.

All of these experiences knock a parent to their senses. It brings us to an appreciation for what we have. Perhaps it brings some to their knees. I have never, in all of these near-tragedies, felt a need to invoke the help of a god. I can’t compare this, though, to the devastation of actually losing a child or spouse.

Last week my father-in-law seemed to imply in a conversation with me that I might change my world-view if I did have such an experience. It’s hard for me to imagine, but maybe he is right. If I did, would that emotional desire to hope for an after-life equate to the actuality of an after-life? Does this type of conversion give us any evidence of God’s existence?

Is the willing sacrifice and personal conviction of a suicide bomber evidence of the existence of Allah and his gift of virgins? No. It is just evidence of his conviction.

And conversions from tragedies are only evidence of the hope that exists within humankind. They do not give an ounce of evidence of truthfulness. While I used to wonder if I would convert during a time of crisis, I also felt that I would know inside that my conversion had nothing to do with belief. Only desperation from loss.

I stopped asking myself these questions a couple of years ago. I found a lump under one of my breasts. While this lump worried me, I procrastinated day-after-day, never getting around to scheduling an appointment with the doctor. All of a sudden one day the lump felt different. It had hardened and was larger. This was the motivation I needed to finally pick up the phone. Why had I waited so long?

When I described the lump and the sudden change to the nurse her voice took on an urgency and she insisted I come in right away. Never have I been able to get a same-day appointment with my doctor before. But I had kids in school who needed me to pick them up at different times and I couldn’t figure out how to manage that with their available times. Since it was Friday, the nurse made an appointment for me the following Monday. I’d have to wait the entire weekend.

Because of the surprising urgency of the nurse, and because I had let so much time go from when I first discovered the lump, I came to grips with the possibility that I may have breast cancer. Not only that, but I realized I may have waited too long. During a slow and pensive shower I accepted the possibility that I may not be around very long. It was a drawn-out two-and-a-half days as I considered everything about my life. Have I lived a fulfilling one? Am I happy with what I have done? Am I at peace with my belief that there is no god or an after-life? Do I feel good about the way I raised my children? Would I wish I taught them something else if I die early?

These questions gave me a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment I could never have enjoyed without the very real thought that I may not be around much longer. I was happy with who I was. I have lived out a number of my life-long dreams. I have experienced life beyond the easy world of a modern spoiled American. I have chosen my beliefs and non-beliefs with careful analysis and they are more beautiful to me than religion ever was. I am satisfied with what I have taught my kids. I wouldn’t change a thing except to focus more on my family than I do.

On Monday I went into the doctor prepared for any diagnosis. Thankfully, my lump was not cancerous. It was a build-up of fatty tissue. But I do not regret the weekend of preparation for a possible end. It gave me new confidence and gratitude.

Not long after that I watched what became my favorite movie, Touching the Void. It is a documentary/docudrama of two mountain climbers who ascended the Peruvian Andes in 1985. When one of the climbers, Joe Simpson, found himself in a position impossible to survive, hanging alone with a broken leg in a crevasse with no apparent bottom, I related when he said that while waiting for death to come he confirmed his own atheism as he felt no inclination to return to his Catholic upbringing and pray for help.

Thank you, Cody, for the reminder that life is short. For some of us it could end decades shorter than we anticipate. And while I am really not concerned about what the Bible says my fate will be, I agree that it is good to contemplate whether we are ready for a possible untimely end.

Just in case you haven’t, and just in case you need something to put you in the holiday spirit, watch this short video. It’s happy.

And if that isn’t enough, you can watch this one, too. Who ever knew that juggling could produce a spiritual moment? Watching this video, even the third time around, somehow causes a chemical rush that induces excessive water production in my eye sockets. You can laugh at me. Or you can agree with me. Just let me know in a comment.

A special thanks goes out to my favorite scrapbooking celebrity/paper and life artist, Ali Edwards for the heads up on the happy-Matt-video.

Then this morning Israel said, “You know, someone was just telling me that in Portland the government put a bunch of yellow bikes around the city so that anyone can just grab one and ride it to where ever they’re going, then leave it there for someone else to use.

And I thought, Wow, yet another reason to go visit Portland.

I’ve been dreaming of a vacation to Portland for a long time now.

When his comment drew my positive response he smiled and added, “I remember a time, a number of years back, when you told me about that bike program and you talked about how wasteful the government was to be buying bikes and handing them out for free.”

Suddenly the idea became familiar. That’s right, I did say that!

That was back in my Rush Limbaugh days! Back when Rush’s Word was the other Word of God. Back when I thought that if global warming really was real, it would just be a part of God’s second coming and the destruction of the earth.

Nothing to worry about.

Tackling pollution was not a priority to me. I guess the ability to see the mountains from my home was not a priority, either. And I didn’t realize my son would have asthma, so there’s another effect of pollution that would have meant little to me.

Thank goodness for the freedom to change our minds.

Note: After doing some minimal research, I have found that it was a non-profit organization that started the bike program. It later received government endorsement and the contribution of a warehouse. All bikes, repairs, and other services were a donation. This should provide solace to any conservative readers who may now be raging at the idea of a government-run bike program.

I envy Europeans in cities where walking is a life-style. I would love for my town to adopt biking as a major mode of transportation, the way Amsterdam has done.

Let me name a few benefits off the top of my head. . . better health, cleaner air, and lower stress levels. Those are just the obvious ones.

In the United States, we did not make ourselves a walking/bicycling society. But given the current climate of social, political, and health trends, maybe now is the time to train a generation of bicycle-commuters.

Last Mother’s Day my husband gave me the gift of my dreams. We went to the bike shop and equipped the entire family with bikes (as much as my three-year-old wanted a bike, and as much as he surprised us by riding circles around the store, we attached a trailer to my bike for him to sit in).

Every weekend we go out together. I take the lead, the kids follow me, and Dad monitors from behind. We leave our neighborhood and cross the major road which leads to an elementary school parking lot, where Dad teaches the kids bicycle tricks, or we go to a greenbelt with sidewalks that wind around. On the way we teach the kids the rules of the road:

1. The side of the road to ride on.
2. Hand signals.
3. Right-of-Way.
4. General traffic rules.

During the week when my husband leaves early to work, I take the kids around the neighborhood. Since Dad is not here to watch from behind, I take up the rear and my eight-year-old son gets to play the leader. Because of this we have always stayed within our own neighborhood and avoided the major road.

I was so proud recently when, after only a few weeks of this practice, I felt Blake was ready to lead us across the main road to the other side. It was a risky venture, but we tried it and succeeded! He did great! We are now one step further in my plan to raise a generation of bicycle-commuters.

We will keep practicing through the summer and then I will take the next step forward when the kids are back to school. I’ll leave the comfort of these two neighborhoods and begin biking my youngest to preschool. I have already made a practice trip to verify the route is bicycle friendly.

Next I will begin making my way down the major roads to learn which have bike paths. I will start training myself to commute to the coffee shop, the scrapbook store, the grocery, and wherever else I think I can ride to. In the meantime I am making note of which roads have bike-paths and which shopping centers have places to hook up the bikes.

Once I’m comfortable biking around my town, my husband and I will start leading the kids around. We’ll teach them how to commute. And we’ll start commuting as a family to our favorite places.

My major goal is for the family to bike the two-and-a-half miles from our house to Tropical Smoothie. We’ll rest for a nice, cold drink, and then ride back home again.

So what do you think? Will you join me in my mission to raise a new generation of bicycle-commuters? Do you think we can transform the American way of getting from Point A to Point B? It doesn’t require a move to Amsterdam. It is a choice.

And if my dream to see bicycling become mainstream is unrealistic it will not take away from the benefits and my own pleasure at being a bicycle commuter. Even if it means being a lone one.

AgnosticMom debuts in the Christian Science Monitor! Uhh, probably not.

The great Duncan Crary from the Humanist Network News sends me PR leads pretty regularly. A few of them are exciting and as they go through (rather, if they go through) I will continue to announce them here. Some of them are more experimental. Like the one from Christian Science.

One of the writers for the Christian Science Monitor put out a query on how summer time for children has changed from when we were kids. Well, I was already planning to write a post on the subject and, not knowing if they’d want to hear from an agnostic humanist, we decided to see what would happen if I sent the writer an email with a description of my thoughts:

I have been comparing my own childhood to that of my three children lately. When I was a kid the mantra was, “Go outside and get some sun!” We played outside all day! Riding bikes, exploring the neighborhood (including its canals and sewer systems), harassing the other homeowners, and who knows what else.

Although I currently live in a much safer neighborhood than the one I grew up in, I don’t dare let my kids, including my 8-year-old son, go out without me.

Their great-grandmother and my own mother always tell me, “You just can’t let the kids out these days. It’s not like it used to be.”

Well, I don’t think that is the reason. I don’t think we were any safer way back then than we are now. I think we are just more aware.

So, yes, this has effected the way my children spend their long summer days out of school. There are two major differences. Our days are scheduled with structured activities, and we spend a lot more time together as a family, instead of the kids spending the days with their friends.

It is that second difference that I have really been thinking about. In order for my kids to go out and play, I take them outside to the park and we all go, whether each one wants to go or not.

One difficulty this brought me was that my oldest son couldn’t go riding on his bike. We solved that dilemma with a slightly expensive, yet healthy solution. We all got bikes. Since my youngest is a toddler and can’t ride, we attached a trailer to my bike for him.

Almost every morning I take my kids out biking in the neighborhood or hiking through trails. Every day we have swimming lessons. We have summer camps at museums and activities with our local moms organization.

While it would be nice to send the kids out to “go get some sun!” especially since it would give me a little peace and quiet, I don’t mind giving up that privilege. Not only are my children safer, we are a closer family.

The writer liked what I had to say and called me for a short interview.

The tone of the resulting article surprised me a bit. She painted me as a little more nostalgic and sentimental toward my childhood summers than I actually am. I am nostalgic, but it sounds like I regret the changes. Really the major point I wanted to make was that while people like to mourn the loss of past innocence, our society is actually a safer place now than before. And our current lifestyle can be more family-friendly.

This was not my own article though. And I can’t complain since she quoted me in the beginning, the middle, and the end. Knowing I am an agnostic writer.

The main disappointment is that she didn’t publish my credentials, which I listed at the very beginning of my email. I hoped she would mention HNN, ClubMom, and my blog. But she didn’t. So it really wasn’t a PR opportunity after all.

Oh well. The good news is that people are interested in what I have to say. It’s good to know I am quotable.

On to other things!

Richard Dawkins had an interesting idea for combatting this. In a lecture called, Science, Delusion And The Appetite For Wonder, he cited a clarinet teacher who told Dawkins that his only memory of science in school was “a long period of studying the Bunsen burner.” This rings true in my case, too. With the exception of a few occasional moments in biology classes, I found science to be completely intolerable to my artistic-leaning mind.

My newer adult fascination and interest in science convinces me that my science education backfired. The potential to grab my interest was there. The educators failed to take advantage of it.

And this was Dawkins’ point when he mentioned the clarinet teacher.

Now, you can enjoy the Mozart concerto without being able to play the clarinet. You can be a discerning and informed concert critic without being able to play a note. . . Couldn’t we treat science in the same way? Yes, we must have Bunsen burners and dissecting needles for those drawn to advanced scientific practice. But perhaps the rest if us could have separate classes in science appreciation, the wonder of science, scientific ways of thinking, and the history of scientific ideas, rather than laboratory experience.

Who do we approach to advance Dawkins’ idea of Science Appreciation classes? I think this might have done it for me!

Here is another analogy. My son, Aiden, has a fear of water. A life-long fear. Two different swim teachers who dunked him against his will, along with a near-drowning experience last October, exacerbated the fear. Now that summer time is here he is in swimming lessons again. While most of his class spends half the time learning swimming skills, Aiden and a few other water-shy students stay in the baby pool playing fun games with the purpose of getting them comfortable with the water. They are learning to associate it with fun.

There is no purpose in teaching Aiden the technicality of swimming if all he can think about is his fear that the water will approach his upper body.

But this is exactly the ineffective approach many of the schools take. They teach all kinds of technical lessons before students have learned to associate any meaning to it. Even if the student is able to memorize the lessons well enough to get good grades in the class, the student must have a real interest and understand the significance for it to last in the long-term memory.

In fact, I have a confession to make. When I took the ACT (the university I sought after, and went to, did not use the SAT), I did not recognize a single question in the science section. The only science class I took in all of high school was the required sophomore biology class. If there were any biology questions on the ACT, I did not recognize them.

I shut the book and colored in random circles.

Thankfully I did well on the other sections and my average score was high.

But now here I am, 15 years later, and one of my favorite subjects to read and blog about is science. All I needed was a reason to make it meaningful to me.

We are wasting time and driving away interest by having the schools teach technical science without first instilling an appreciation for, and a positive association to, science.

At least, as parents, we can work on doing this ourselves. Dawkins gave an example of a fun science-fascination activity to do with the kids.

To show how real astronomical wonder can be presented to children, I’ll borrow from a book called “Earthsearch” by John Cassidy, which I brought back from America to show my daughter Juliet. Find a large open space and take a soccer ball to represent the sun. Put the ball down and walk ten paces in a straight line. Stick a pin in the ground. The head of the pin stands for the planet Mercury. Take another 9 paces beyond Mercury and put down a peppercorn to represent Venus. Seven paces on, drop another peppercorn for Earth. One inch away from earth, another pinhead represents the Moon, the furthest place, remember, that we’ve so far reached. 14 more paces to little Mars, then 95 paces to giant Jupiter, a ping-pong ball. 112 paces further, Saturn is a marble. No time to deal with the outer planets except to say that the distances are much larger. But, how far would you have to walk to reach the nearest star, Proxima Centauri? Pick up another soccer ball to represent it, and set off for a walk of 4200 miles. As for the nearest other galaxy, Andromeda, don’t even think about it!

Don’t your kids love these types of activities? Just the attention from the parents and a family outing experience is positive enough for children. Combine that with a sense of wonder about the mysteries of the universe and you have an experience that may spark a reason for the child to learn the science behind it.

To go along with Dawkins’ activity, I found this page on a website, (thanks to a flippant, funny, and irreverent atheist blog called The WorldWide Rant) that demonstrates a comparison of sizes between the planets and suns. Blake thought it was pretty cool.

Show the web page to your kids, do Dawkins’ activity over the weekend, and come back here to tell me about it.

I gave in to the requests of my three-year-old (because giving in is so much easier than saying “no”) and now I am an accomplice in the murder of Blake and Trinity’s friend-bug.

It was a florescent green happy flying bug. Even its wings were outlined in beautiful neon-green. The kids told me it was their friend. But Aiden was asking for the fly swatter.

Blake and Trinity protested! They pleaded for their friend’s life. I assured them that Aiden was too awkward to actually hit his target.

And that is where my guilt lies festering. The Jiminy Cricket of my mind told me that Mr. Green Bug was slow. And Aiden just might be able to get it.

“Don’t worry, kids. Aiden can’t actually hit bugs yet. He’ll miss it.”

WHACK!

If only you could see their faces. I have sensitive kids.

Dear Noell Hyman,

First let me thank all of you for providing your names or e-mails as supporters of Darwin Day — the Celebration of Science and Humanity. If there is anything our nation currently needs, it is a better understanding of Science and a mutual appreciation of all Humanity.

I’m very pleased to be able to report that this year’s celebration on February 12, 2006, was a tremendous success, with more that 650 events being held around the world. Most of the Celebrations were held in English speaking countries, but in recent years there has been a growing participation in Darwin Day throughout the world. For instance, events were held in 13 different countries, including 26 events in Italy, where 15 of the major universities held celebrations. Other countries with Darwin Day celebrations include Canada, England, Ireland, Chile, Australia, Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Ecuador, Germany, Guatemala, India, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Together we made news this year receiving Darwin Day coverage in over 150 newspapers, E-news articles, and even on prime time TV news! In addition, our Website www.darwinday.org remains on-line year-around as a source of educational material about Charles Darwin’s life and the science of evolution.

Together we have created a very effective system for communicating the history and logic of Charles Darwin’s pioneering discoveries and the convincing scientific evidence for evolution. We have nearly 1500 people who have a strong interest in Darwin Day’s activities, and we have communicated with nearly 67,000 academic and medical people who have advanced understanding of the scientific process. We can e-mail to them at low cost to coordinate the public Celebrations on Darwin Day, when we who understand Science and respect Humanity share with the rest of the world the importance of evolution for interpretation of biomedical research.

Darwin’s bicentennial birthday will arrive on February 12, 2009, and we need your help. If you could make a donation of 25 to 50 dollars it would make it possible for us to expand our communication network to the entire world. For US taxpayers this donation can be tax deductible. Your support will enable our staff to develop the Web site so that by the fall of 2006 it will appear in at least 8 of the major world languages. Your support will enable us to create downloadable posters, songs, lesson plans, banners and slogans that can be used at any time to keep Darwin Day and science advancing. By going to http://darwinday.org/englishL/donate/index.html, you can make a donation conveniently through Pay Pal or by other means.

Please make a donation to this very worthy cause that we all support intellectually!

Yours sincerely,

Robert J. (”Bob”) Stephens, Ph. D.
Emeritus Director, Cell Biology Program
SRI International (formerly Stanford Research Institute)
President, Darwin Day Celebration, a nonprofit, tax-deductible 501(c)3 corp.
http://darwinday.org

This first one is regarding the encroachment of religion into science education in the name of Intelligent Design. Remember the book, Intelligent Thought: Science versus the Intelligent Design Movement? It is compilation of articles from 16 leading scientists regarding the fallacy of Intelligent Design. Those same scientists wrote and signed a letter, which they sent along with a copy of the book, to each and every member of Congress.

Here is the letter:

June 16, 2006

To Members of Congress:

We, the authors and editor of Intelligent Thought, are sending you a copy of the book in hopes that you will consider its message. The book is largely about Intelligent Design (ID), the latest incarnation of creationism. ID is a movement that threatens American science education and with it American economic predominance and credibility.

The recent federal court decision in Dover, Pennsylvania found that ID was not a scientific theory, but a form of religion in disguise. Judge John Jones III, a churchgoing Republican appointed by President Bush, concluded that teaching this doctrine in the public schools represents both bad education and an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment. President Bush’s science advisor, John H. Marburger, has affirmed that ‘evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology’ and ‘intelligent design is not a scientific concept.’ And Newt Gingrich has stated that ID has nothing to do with science and shouldn’t be taught in science courses.’

Reason and law triumphed in Dover. But ID and its spinoffs continue to threaten American education by ignoring the massive evidence for evolution-the central principle that unites all the biological sciences- and by substituting adherence to religious dogma for the scientific method.

Our country cannot afford substandard science teaching. Indeed, a national science test just administered by the Department of Education showed a decade-long erosion of scientific proficiency among American high school seniors. We won’t cure this problem by questioning scientifically established facts (evolution) and theories (natural selection) and replacing them with unsupported conjectures based on faith.

The controversy over ID vs. evolution is not a scientific controversy. Every scientific body in the US has opposed ID and affirmed the reality of evolution. The “controversy” is about whether sectarian religious views should be taught in the science classroom. Most theologians readily accept evolution, finding it compatible with their faith. In 1996, Pope John Paul II officially endorsed evolution, and even with a recent change in Vatican leadership, the Catholic Church’s position has remained unchanged.

As the world grows more complex, and we face scientific challenges such as addressing global warming, developing sustainable energy sources, and preventing the spread of pandemics, it is critical that America remain in the forefront of science. And the key to our preeminence is education. The study of evolution has practical benefits: it is the basis for breeding food crops, choosing animal models that can be used to treat human disorders, conserving species and their habitats, predicting which vaccines should be made to prepare for epidemics like avian flu, and manufacturing those vaccines. Science education that incorporates unscientific issues like ID is a sure path to America’s failure against competing countries. Conversely, given its importance for biology and for science in general, evolution deserves to be properly taught in American classrooms.

I love this letter! I thought they did a phenomenal job with it. One thing that stood out to me, and surprised me, was the statement that Evolution is a fact and that Natural Selection is the theory. I don’t recall seeing scientists state it that way. I know they regard it as fact, as it is the basis of so much of our medical success. But it is quite different to make it a public statement.

Has anyone ordered and received their book yet? I admit, I keep forgetting to get online and order it. It’s on my list of things to do this weekend.

I have an idea of what you can do to celebrate it. Some of my articles are now up and running on ClubMom. You can rate them and leave comments at the end of each article. All of them have appeared on this blog at some point but I have edited the ClubMom versions. Some have only slight changes while others are very different.

Make your statement to the mainstream folks by rating my articles and leaving a comment about why these topics are important to you!

Note: If you want to find my articles from the homepage, look under the main box to find the button, “Expert Writers.” Then click on “Religion and Beliefs” (yes, that is how they classified me) for a list of all the writers in that area. Scroll down until you find me, Noell Hyman.

Having moved to a new area, I had the luxury of introducing myself and my family for who we really were: a family struggling with religion. I scheduled an appointment with my new bishop right away to let him know that the happy family singing the hymns was not a family to call to teaching positions or leadership roles at this time.

We met in his office and I laid my concerns out for him. He did exactly what a good Mormon bishop is supposed to do in such a situatioin. He ignored the specifics and shared a few scripture passages that had nothing to do with my questions. Then he bore his testimony. (For the non-Mormons out there, the term, bearing testimony, means to state your beliefs and convictions about the truthfulness of doctrines or Mormonism).

The reason for evasion, the reason to bear testimony and share scripture is the hope that the Spirit would touch my heart. There are no answers to many of the questions. But if I can feel something inside when the bishop says, “I know Joseph Smith was a true prophet,” that should be all a person needs.

I sat in that chair, watched the man from the other side of the big desk, listened to his words, and I felt nothing. And I didn’t pretend that I did. As a result, he kept talking, and talking, and sharing, and bearing testimony.

Because of that meeting, I received my first ever calling (church responsibility) that did not require teaching doctrine or receiving inspiration. The bishop called me to be the Christmas Program Choir director. And I was happy with that.

Still, this didn’t stop him from asking me to speak in church on the subject of charity. Although still committed to going to church, I must have acquired a slight rebellious streak. I based my talk on a speech that Steven King gave at a college graduation ceremony. Steven King practically equates to the anti-Christ for a lot of Mormons, so I was happy to mix a little white into the black of some members’ black-and-white thinking.

Despite my nod to rebellion, I did not take my salvation lightly. I wasn’t about to throw everything away because I had some doubts. I continued to go to church every Sunday and be a full participant. I maintained all the standards of the Mormon church. I prayed and read scripture daily for answers to my questions. I read only Mormon sources (that includes the Bible) as I tried to find my answer.

The more I read the Book of Mormon, the more problematic it became. Why did it describe the relationship of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in very clear terms like the non-Mormon Trinity instead of the very different Mormon Godhead?

And why did the Book of Mormon never talk about the three kingdoms (Celestial, Terrestrial, and Telestial), which is a fundamental part of Mormon doctrine, but instead described salvation according to typical protestant beliefs?

Why did God seem so racist? And mean?

Why were the various people in the Book of Mormon beginning to feel more like flat characters of a poorly written story rather than real complicated people?

So many questions. The more I read the Book of Mormon, the deeper it cut into the wedge in my faith.

I had to find a different source that would inspire me to feel the Spirit of God. What better place than the journals I wrote on my mission? That was the most spiritual time of my life! I dug one out, opened it up, and began reading.

That experience was worse than the Book of Mormon. It was so arrogant! My writing revealed that I thought I knew everything. I based my knowledge on how I felt. It didn’t take me too many pages of reading to know that my mission journal was a strike out. I kept reading the Book of Mormon.

Six months into this process I realized my temple recommend was about to expire. Mormons have special sacred temples where only members who keep certain standards may enter. The temple must maintain integrity as a sacred and holy place where God himself could come.

To visit the temple, you must have a temple recommend renewed every year. To get, or renew, your temple recommend, you have interviews with the bishop and the stake president (a leader of many congregations). In that interview you must be able to bear testimony that you believe Jesus is the Christ, the Mormon Church is his one true church, Joseph Smith (the founder of Mormonism) was a true prophet of God, and that the current president of the Church is also a prophet. I couldn’t say yes to any of these questions, although at the time, I thought Jesus was probably still the Christ.

I had one last chance to go to the temple before the time would come that I would have to answer these questions in the negative. I had gone in once before during this period of questioning and, to my disappoitnment, felt nothing. Six months of praying, going to church, and reading scriptures had only brought me to the belief that it was all wrong.

I made time in my schedule to visit the temple as soon as Israel came home from work. I prayed and told God that I had exercised all my faith and the lack of an answer was leading me to leave the Church. I told him that my upcoming temple visit would be my last act of faith because it was time to make a decision. I begged God to give me just the slightest seed of hope; I just needed a positive feeling in my heart to keep me going.

I went to the temple. I was determined to get an answer. I told God I was staying until he gave it to me.

I stayed until the temple closed.

Three hours of praying and I felt nothing. One of the workers approached me to say they were closing for the evening, but that they would wait for me until I was ready. He left the room. I told God, this is my last chance. WHAT IS THE ANSWER?

Nothing.

I returned home in shock. I told my husband, “The Church isn’t true.”

We sat on the bed; even he was dumbfounded. And I cried.

I think I cried myself to sleep.

But I went back to church the following Sunday. I didn’t want it to not be true.

Part 4 to come.

I would be interested in hearing here from anyone else as to how they approach the subject of death with their children. How do you do it? If you don’t have children, what is your own view?

I would be interested in hearing here from anyone else as to how they approach the subject of death with their children.

So far in previous comments on my blog and in my article, only Jen, Hifi, and I have shared what we say to our children about death. This is probably our most difficult task. I, myself, would like to hear more thoughts.

Currently AgnosticMom gets about 80 individual readers a day, so I know there are lurkers out there who have dealt with this. Please share!

Anyone? Anyone?

I quoted two AgnosticMom readers who contributed to the discussion about death in the comments section. Since it would have broken the flow of the article to name them, I wanted to acknowledge Jen and Hifi in this blog entry and thank them for their insight.

To begin reading HNN from the beginning, click here (and make sure you subscribe if you haven’t already!).

One of the other regular columnists, Doug Thomas wrote an article on ethics called, The Evolution Of Kindness, that is another version of the arguments I have been making about morality (no, Hifi, I have not had time to respond to your last three or so comments. I hope to get to them soon). Thomas uses slightly different wording than I do, words like “love” and “kindness” which he lifted from Bertrand Russell, where I prefer to use words like “empathy.”

But utlimately Thomas is making the same claim I made: that evolution provided us with some helpful characteristics in addition to some hurtful ones. We can use another of our evolved traits, rational thought, to choose the helpful characteristics (love, kindness, empathy) in our dealings with others. Here is a quote:

How do humanists explain their need or desire to perform charitable acts? Oh, of course, there is the pragmatic argument — what goes around comes around — a kind of “What’s in it for me?” approach. However, that does not explain the altruism performed without thoughts of pay back that I notice among my fellow humanists. I think it goes beyond a secular belief in “karma.”

Go enjoy some time with other humanists reading this week’s HNN. Feel free to start a discussion on one of the article topics in my comment area.

Note to the fans of my “Leaving The Church” series. I am glad that a number of you have been enjoying it and have expressed anticipation of part 3. Please be patient as I have a few topics to work on first. It’ll come, I promise.

Ben is right. Religious leaders did (do) not just throw a dart on the wall to randomly pick rules of conduct. But many of the rules sure seem arbitrary, especially when you see headlines like this one from the Los Angeles Times:

“Reverend equates kneeling at wrong time to ‘mortal sin.’”

Surely there is more to this story than what the title says, I thought when I saw it.

Well, there is! It’s not just a story of one power-hungry ecclesastical leader who believes that kneeling during the service “is clearly rebellion, grave disobedience and mortal sin.”

The Diocese of Orange is in on it, too! There are two of them!

According to the article, members of a dozen different U.S. parishes are committing a mortal sin RIGHT IN CHURCH despite the Vatican’s new instructions of four years ago allowing bishops to play god to decide whether worshippers should kneel or not.

The article begins, “At a small Catholic church in Huntington Beach, the pressing moral question comes to this: Does kneeling at the wrong time during worship make you a sinner?”

What lies at the heart of this problem is change of time and culture. What may have seemed appropriate at one time in one culture can be inappropriate to another because of customs and associations.

And I’d add the power-hungry need to control dominions is also responsible for the standing dilemma.

So while rules of conduct may have made sense at one particular time in history and were not actually arbitrary at conception, they can sure appear arbitrary to an outsider. At the very least, they become meaningless over time. This is especially problematic since we have become a global society. Many of the rules of various sects conflict with each other.

Plus, some people become obsessed with rules. Why is the pressing moral question of any group something as miniscule as kneeling versus standing? Are there not more critical crises to worry about?

Many people lose sight of what is important because they are so worried about the rules.

And it is not just specific rules that cause a problem. Even more general principles about lying, gossiping, “going the extra mile,” etc. can, in certain situations, do more harm than good when we place them in a context of morality. We have to make all kinds of exceptions for those principles.

For example, we have no qualms about publicizing the residence of a child molester even though to do so is public gossip that causes real social and financial harm to the perpetrator. How do we justify this gossip when religion says gossip is a sin? Because it helps decrease instances of even worse harm to innumerable innocent children.

Even not-so public gossip can be important and helpful in personal situations and small group communities.

These rules, and even principles, do not stand the test of time or specific situations.

This is why I propose a system for morality that is based on situational analysis rather than rules.

We can teach our children to use their powers of reason and empathy to evaluate whether their choices would increase overall happiness or pain. Including their own. (There is a balance).

So going back to the topic of this post: Religious ideas of morality can become irrelvant and meaningless. But was my use of the word “arbitrary” inaccurate, as Ben suggested? I think so.

Can anyone come up with a better way to phrase it so I can improve my article (before I submit it to ClubMom)?

Leave your ideas (about a better word choice, or about the concepts of this blog entry in general) in a comment, please!

If you ask my son what his favorite holiday is, he’ll tell you it’s Christmas. Then he’ll tell you that his second favorite is Darwin Day.

What is Darwin Day? It is a “global celebration of Science and Humanity.” Charles Darwin’s birthday is on February twelfth. There is a giant movement to make this day an “International Celebration to show our appreciation for the enormous benefits that scientific knowledge, acquired through human curiosity and ingenuity, has contributed to the advancement of humanity” (this reference is from www.darwinday.org, the official site for the international recognition of Darwin Day).

Why single out Charles Darwin for the celebration of what science has offered us? An article on the website of Rutgers University had an articulate answer to this question. The article is called, Why is Evolution Important in Teaching, Science, and Society? (Dobzhansky, T. 1973) and contains the subtitle, “Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution.”

Here is a summation of why:

“Evolution is the central theory of life. An understanding of evolutionary process and evidence is necessary for considering, not only the history of living things, but also many modern questions. For example; Why should we be concerned with a bird-flu epidemic? Why is HIV so difficult to treat? How does research on lab rats apply to humans? How did humans evolve from apelike ancestors? What is the best strategy for delaying the onset of pesticide resistance? Increasingly evolutionary understanding is required for appreciating basic questions in fields traditionally apart from basic biology and anthropology. Major areas of psychology, philosophy, computer sciences, and other fields now require a solid grounding in evolutionary thinking.”

What better cause have we to celebrate? I hope that the religious and non-religious alike will recognize the benefits that Darwin’s work has given us and join us in the celebration.

A goal of the Darwin Day movement is to build momentum and increase the number of celebrants and celebrations until the year 2009, when it will be Darwin’s 200th birthday, and the 150th anniversary of his book, On the Origins of Species.

How do we celebrate Darwin’s Day? If you go onto the website, www.darwinday.org, you can click on the events page which contains a world-wide list with links, ranked by country alphabetically (U.S. celebrations are toward the bottom under “U”).

Most events have speakers. A humanist organization in my hometown has had fish at a seafood restaurant (as in the Darwin fish). The organization pushing the Darwin Day movement describes having a “Phylum Feast”, a feast with an enormous variety of meats from various phylum.

Some groups celebrate for one day, on the actual birthday. Others extend the celebration out for the entire week.

As a mom who wants her kids to grow up with an appreciation for science and an understanding of evolution and our origins, I have created our own tradition of celebrating that is both fun and educational.

We have a five to six night celebration over the dinner hour. Our celebration centers on the book, The Tree Of Life: The Wonders Of Evolution by Ellen Jackson. Our meals over the evenings represent the various stages of life forms as Jackson outlines them in her books. I decorate the table according the the life form we are focusing on (two evenings take place under the sea, one has to do with dinosaurs, etc) and we quiz the kids with questions and evolution trivia throughout the meal. Each meal ends with a surprise treat that has to do with the life forms for that evening.

Mark your calendar for February twelfth and join us as we celebrate the advancement of humanity through scientific discovery!

Happy upcoming Darwin Day!

What finally motivated me to get it done? The great founder of COTG, Brent Rasmussen of Unscrewing the Inscrutible (Brent, what do you call yourself in relation to COTG? Probably not the founder?) commented on one of my recent posts and wrote up a little blog entry on AgnosticMom.

That was all the motivation I needed.

Amazing how all this time I’ve considered submitting an article but it just seemed like work I didn’t have time to do. It took, oh, about three minutes to pick the post and send the email.

So maybe I’ll get on the ball and submit all the time.

Anyway, if you don’t know what a blogging carnival is or you’d like to see one that is godless, click here and go have some fun. Get to know some of the other godless bloggers out there.

I am convinced that all religious people experience cognitive dissonance at multiple points in their lives. This is where a belief we regard as truth does not match up with the reality we are witnessing or experiencing. During the time that Israel contemplated the truthfulness of our religion, cognitive dissonance became the pesky telemarketer who failed to take my name off the calling list.

For two weeks I watched Israel read scriptures and search for an answer. And yet, after the two weeks were over, he was more sure than ever that he was not a believer.

I never imagined he wouldn’t get the answer he was supposed to. God had promised to answer prayers about the truthfulness of his church. It didn’t happen this time.

Cognitive Dissonance.

Now we had to decide what to do about Israel’s nonbelief. I was suddenly reeling at the idea of him not baptizing our children or attending their temple weddings. And what would it be like for the kids to grow up with one of those “inactive” dads?

If there was one thing religion taught me how to do, it was to use guilt to manipulate. I reminded Israel that despite what he believes now, I married him with the understanding that we were going to be a Mormon family. He couldn’t just walk away from that.

We agreed that he would continue to go to church. Meanwhile, the doubts that had crept into my heart years earlier began to bear their ugly teeth at me. The more I read from the scriptures, the more contradictions I saw. It’s not that the contradictions were new. It’s just that I had always told myself that God would someday explain it all to me. I compartmentalized every contradiction into its own individual hiding place in my brain, all to come rushing out at the same time when God didn’t answer Israel’s prayers.

Extreme Cognitive Dissonance.

I began my own effort to receive an answer from God that The Church was true. I didn’t realize at that time that it was too late. My paradigm had shifted. For the first time ever I had already peeked through Door #2, the door marked “It’s Not True!!!” Once you’ve looked through that door, going back is like trying to pretend that Santa is real once you know he’s not.

It would be a year before I was willing to give up, though.

Just a month or two into this life-changing phase, we moved to Scottsdale, Arizona to be closer to Israel’s job. We attended church the first Sunday. Israel came with us, as usual. Sitting in the chapel that day was a pivotal moment for me. Israel dislikes church hymns, but you would never know it for the zeal with which he sings them!

I kept looking from him to the bishopric on the stand. They were ecstatic at seeing a new family. A family of four. With a husband who loves the hymns! As soon as the meeting concluded the entire bishopric was at our seat, introducing themselves and sizing us up for new callings (volunteer positions).

At that moment I knew I shouldn’t have Israel going if he didn’t believe. On the way home I told him I preferred it if he stopped accompanying us to church.

For months I would become the mom who had “the courage” to bring her two little ones to church on her own.

Part 3 to come.

Hi, I’ve been reading your blog for a few weeks now and I really enjoy it. I have a problem and I’m hoping you can share a few words of wisdom. I was also raised LDS. My heart left the church a while ago but my body is still very active. I’m curious as to how you made the transition. I have a very LDS husband and extended family as well as about 90% of my friends. I’m having a hard time letting go and even imagining my life after. I think only someone who has been there can understand. Care to share your story?

While I don’t make recommendations or give advice about whether a person should leave their religion, I am happy to share my story.

My entire life, until I was a mother, I had no doubts that I was a member of the one and only true church of Jesus Christ, the Mormon Church. At the age of 14 I had sought a testimony, which is a spiritual witness from God that something is true. When you seek after experiences of that nature, it’s not hard to create them. I had many of what Mormons call “spiritual experiences” on a regular basis throughout my life. I was a spirit-addict.

I obsessed on religion more than I obsess on my agnostic blog now. I studied scripture daily for thirty minutes minimum. Often I spent hours on my bed referencing and cross-referencing topics in the Book of Mormon, Bible, and other LDS scripture. At the age of twenty-one I fulfilled my seven-year-long dream and became a full-time missionary. For one-and-a-half years I lived in the incredible Philippines as a missionary with no vacations and only two phone calls to home per year. With my companions I walked long distances from 9am to 9pm visiting people and sharing the gospel. I spoke a language with words like “pananampalataya” (faith) and ate all kinds of foods. Most delicious, but some scary.

I woke up one night with a large rat I had dreamed was a puppy, I crossed swinging makeshift bridges, I washed clothes by hand, and taught people about the Mormon religion all day.

I returned to American life a more experienced, wiser, and spiritual twenty-two year old. Within days I was back to school (BYU, the private Mormon University) and immediately became a teacher at the Missionary Training Center as well as the president of the woman’s organization in my congregation (Relief Society). I went to the temple every single week (in addition to weekly church meetings).

You could say I was over the edge with religion and spirituality.

I never watched t.v. at that time.

And I sold my favorite album, Tori Amos Little Earthquakes, because I didn’t feel it was good for my spirit.

That is the picture of Noell just eleven years ago. Surprisingly, when I met Israel he thought I was sane enough to marry.

Israel liked the practicality of religion, but not so much the mystical aspects. Okay, now I know some of you are raising your eyebrows at the two words, “practicality” and “religion.” That was the perspective of a religious person.

We struggled with communication when religion came up because Israel was just interested in living his life and didn’t want to think too hard about the doctrine. I wanted to immerse myself in the doctrine and linger on it moment after moment. So yes, while our relationship was good, there was some tension about religion.

When my oldest child was a baby I had my first ever experience of doubt. DOUBT!!!! This was all new to me. It came from the New Testament and it was pointing at the Mormon Church specifically, not Christianity. I was scared and ashamed. What would people think of me if they knew?

I couldn’t tell anyone, including Israel. Even though he was on a different plane than I was with religion, I worried he might think less of me for actually having a doubt. I grew up with the idea that the “elect” of God recognize and know truth at once, while the not-so elect had to work harder at it. I was one of the elect. Or so I thought.

I shut that Bible up, decided not to read it anymore. I buried the memory of my doubt away and continued on with my life.

Later I became a Relief Society President for the second time. Experiences regarding that responsibility brought more questions to my mind. This time I let myself think about them for at least a few days. I wondered if God was actually inspiring any of us leaders in The Church. I even wondered if President Hinckley was actually a prophet in the same sense that Joseph Smith was supposed to have been.

But I continued to move forward and all was well into my next responsibility as president of the children’s organization (Primary).

I had moved on from previous moments of doubting. Everything was good.

And then I got a phone call from my husband, Israel, who was on his way home from work. He prepped me for a few minutes to receive almost the worst possible news: he told me that he did not believe The Church was true.

Despite what you might think, this did not knock me down. Israel promised to spend two weeks reading scriptures and praying before making a final decision. I “knew” that as long as someone tried to get an answer by praying, they would get it. So I wasn’t really all that worried. Things were going to return to normal.

Part 2 to come . . .

So here I am at an internet cafe on a computer in Mexico where all the symbols are in different locations from what the keyboard says. Have you noticed my lack of contractions? I cannot find the apostrophe. Nor the exclamation point.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know I am alive. I will be back on Monday with much to say and a lot of comments to respond to.

Until then, I will be eating fish tacos, drinking Piña Coladas and thinking of you.

Hasta Luego.

Some of you were following along on the morality discussion in the comments section of Breaking It Down. A couple of days went by before I was able to get back to Ron and Hifi’s comments. I have since taken a more organized approach at responding point-by-point. If you were following along but didn’t realized we resumed the conversation, you can start here and read through the latest comments.

I promised Lilly I would write up a post about my leaving religion. I will start working on that and hopefully I will have it up soon.

INTELLIGENT THOUGHT: SCIENCE VERSUS THE INTELLIGENT DESIGN MOVEMENT is a compilation of articles by some of our favorite scientists.

In the Editor’s Note is a copy of an email he received which should be “a stark reminder of why this book is necessary, why it belongs on your bookshelf, and why sixteen of the world’s leading scientists (and Edge contributors) dropped everything to write essays on a crash schedule so the book would be published before the end of the school year.”

The email:

Date: Mon, 8 May 2006
From: Maulik Parikh
To: John Brockman
Subject: Intelligent Design

John,

I have been teaching a new course on the frontiers of science, required for all freshmen at Columbia. These students are mostly sharp, capable, and open-minded. Still, many of them think that intelligent design should be studied in the interest of being fair and balanced. What’s troubling is that even those who accept evolution often treat it as a matter of belief, of political persuasion, as if it were akin to being for or against free trade. And if they reject intelligence design it’s often not because they can see its vacuousness as a scientific theory, but merely because the religious and conservative stripes of ID can sometimes look a little uncool. As for science, reason, evidence — what’s that?

—Maulik

These articles are sure to be worthy of your ownership when you consider the list of contributors:

Steven Pinker, the scientist with which I am most enamored (and not because of his curly hair, but because he strikes me as being one of the most intelligent and knowledgeable men on the earth today), contributed an article with the title, “Evolution and Ethics.” The summary: An evolutionary understanding of the human condition, far from being incompatible with a moral sense, can explain why we have one.

(Hmmm, that reminds me of my on-going discussion with Ron and Hifi on Morality. Looks like I’m not the only one who talks of that subject. In fact, I can think of some other scientists who do too. I still need to get back to them on that. But now that I think of it, Pinker is a proponent of Evolutionary Psychology, along with his allies Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett. That’s some serious intelligence backing up that Evolutionary Psychology, isn’t it? But that’s another topic, heehee).

Speaking of Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins, they are also contributors to this book on why Intelligent Design has no part on the scientific debate.

Dawkins’ article is called, “Intelligent Aliens.” Here’s the summary: Natural selection is not some desperate last resort of a theory. It is an idea whose plausibility and power hits you between the eyes with a stunning force, once you understand it in all its elegant simplicity.

I love a scientist who is also a powerful writer. Did you notice that language?

Dennett’s contribution is called, “The Hoax of Intelligent Design and How It Was Perpetrated.” And again, the summary: Evolutionary biology certainly hasn’t explained everything that perplexes biologists, but intelligent design hasn’t yet tried to explain anything at all.

The article that Quantum Mechanical Engineer, Seth Lloyd, wrote interests me. It is called, “How Smart Is The Universe?’ and the summary is: Scientific knowledge is by definition resilient. In societies where government or religion has tried to replace it with ideologically inspired fictions, scientists and nonscientists alike have resisted. Scientific lies can fool some of the people some of the time (even to the extent of being published in reputable journals), but exactly because scientific ideas are designed to be tested, in the end scientific lies fool no one. The universe is scientific.

To see the list of the remaining contributors, along with their photos and a summary of their articles, go here and scroll down.

I’m ordering this book! Anyone else? Maybe we can discuss some of these articles once UPS pays us a visit!

The concept of the 5-Minute Room Rescue works great for young children. Every morning before school, and at other times when I feel the need, my kids race around their room picking up everything they can before the timer goes off. I inspire as much urgency as my own energy-level allows me. When the time is done, they are done.

This works wonders for kids who buckle under the overwhelm of a messy room. They don’t have do a perfect job. They don’t even need to get it done. They just need to do the most they can in the given amount of time.

Starting last August, my tumultuous, yet manageable, life has plunged further and further into the endless pit of chaos. That manageable part is fading from my view. For a while I was still able to keep the home in decent order. But now it’s more like decent disorder.

Blake probably doesn’t realize the reason his room has become so unmanageable is because his baby-brother is now a kid-brother and I have not rearranged things to fit all the bigger kid toys and books.

Taking responsibility for his life, and always the idealist, Blake announced to me last night that he should be doing 10-Minute Room Rescues! I agreed, but wondered what it is about my son that he is so eager to inflict this upon himself?

And do you know what else? He doesn’t let me start the timer until he is at the doorway. Sometimes I am in a hurry (rather, ALWAYS I am in a hurry) and I just want to push the dang button and get back to work. But Blake won’t allow it until he is in his room, ready to go.

I used to think that, brilliant as he is, he must be utterly lacking in street smarts. Wouldn’t he prefer to waste a good twenty-seconds of time, which I am perfectly willing to relinquish?

I am sure he inherited my perfectionistic genes, but maybe it is partially the result of a room-cleaning concept that doesn’t demand unrealistic amounts of perfection. Perhaps the concept gave him the freedom to acquire his own desire for a clean room, rather than to always be fighting MY desire for one. Maybe the concept of a 5-Minute Room Rescue allowed him to take responsibility for himself.

Today, the day after his announcement of self-inflicted discipline, I told him it was time to do his Room Rescue. I wondered if he remembered his idea to make it a ten-minute activity. And if he did, would he still be up for it?

Sure enough, he yelled across the house as he positioned himself in the doorway of his room, knees bent, feet in a stance ready for action, arms out and poised to grab onto STUFF, “Set it for ten minutes, Mom!”

And I did.

In a comment on AgnosticMom, Hifi posted a link to an article from the Humanist Network News with the title, “Church of England Report: Youth No Longer Need Supernatural Props.”

While the topic of the article is worthy of our discussion (feel free to read it and then share your thoughts), I am interested in Hifi’s reaction to the article. After posting the link, he left this comment on my blog:

The entire rest of the modern world is coming around. What is wrong with America? As much as I do appreciate it, really, having to resort to an online enclave for support should tell us something.

Michael Shermer of Skeptic Magazine offered a theory as to why America is clinging to religion while the rest of the modern world seems to be letting it go. In his book, How We Believe, Shermer cites Andrew Greeley, a sociologist of religion at the University of Chicago.

Greeley delivered a paper to the American Sociological Association in 1997 discussing the rise of religiosity and beliefs at a time when all sides predicted the secularization of America. The paper was called, “Pie in the Sky While You’re Alive: Life After Death and Supply Side Religion.

The data from Greeley’s research led him to the following conclusion:

. . . the different levels of religious behavior that one can observe in various regions of a country like the United States and in various countries are the result of the available “supply” of religious services. In a controlled religious marketplace, they assert, religion becomes a lazy monopoly because the Established Church (or Established Churches as in Germany) need not compete for “customers.” On the other hand, when there is no legal monopoly various “firms” must compete for “customers” and hence provide more industrious personnel and more services. In such situations religious activity increases.

That’s a theory that makes sense to me!

Maybe what we need is a little Supply Side Secularism. In the past I have made fun of all the different variations of non-theists. Could be that it’s our greatest asset?

Now, if we can only find a product that compete with Life After Death . . .

Are you wondering why?

It’s not because this local Mesa blogger is obtaining new writing opportunities.
It’s not because of any activist involvement on my part.
It’s not about my agnostic/secular viewpoints at all.

It is because I use an ottoman for a coffee table.

That’s right. You heard me. Trinity has been calling herself famous because the Tribune has an interest in coffee tables, especially our ottoman-coffee table. They’re so interested that they interviewed me on the phone, came to my home, and took 50 pictures.

“Well, right now my kids are playing poker on it,” says Noell Hyman, a Mesa mother of three, before she reminds her chidlren to wipe their hands before continuing the game.

The sand-colored ottoman in the Hymans’ living room is upholstered in microfiber, a highly stain- and kid-resistant material. Which is good for days like today, or other days when 3-year-old Aiden plays marbles on the ottoman while eating Oreos.

“Stains wash off really well,” says Hyman.

When Blake, 8, Trinity, 6, and Aiden aren’t playing games on the ottoman, it can easily be transformed into a more adult version of a coffee table by placing a tray on top to hold drinks or hors d’oeuvres when Hyman and her husband, Israel, have company.

The couple purchased the ottoman after they had kids, fearing that a coffee table made of wood or another harder materiral would pose a danger for toddling youngsters.

“I didn’t want my kids falling on hard corners of a wood coffee table when they were learning to walk,” says Hyman.

But she said she was surprised at how versatile the ottoman turned out to be. Now, Hyman says her favorite part about the piece is its addition to family movie night.

“We can pull it right up to the couch, so a few of us can snuggle and stretch out like it’s a bed.”

Did I really call it a couch? Ahem, it’s a sofa.

Note: If any of you live in the East Valley of Phoenix, you can find this article on page H4, the At Home section of the May 20th (Saturday) paper.

We’ve gone into some more complicated specifics and I feel I the need to break my system down into its smallest parts. Please excuse the nature of this post as it is more of a brainstorm than a concise article.

I think there is some confusion between what I am trying to say and what I am NOT trying to say. Maybe I can clear it up.

What do I mean when I refer to right and wrong, good and bad, moral and immoral? And what about that extreme word, “evil?”

Wrong: Causing another person unnecessary pain or increasing the amount of pain and suffering in the world.
Bad: Causing another person unneccessary pain or increasing the amount of pain and suffering in the world.
Evil: Causing another person an excruciating and horrific amount of unnecessary pain or increasing the amount of pain and suffering in the world.
Immoral: Knowing you are causing another person unnecessary pain or increasing the amount of pain and suffering in the world. And doing it anyway when you have a choice to do otherwise.
Right, Good, and Moral: The opposite of the above.

I did NOT say anything about violating the laws of a diety, nor did I say anything about a universal “force” of good. I don’t believe in either one. Morality comes from our ability to perceive, reason, analyze and be aware of others.

In the tradition of Existentialism and materialistic thought, it all breaks down to this:
We exist.
We can have pain and suffering. We can have happiness, peace, and joy.
We have the capacity for empathy: we are aware of others’ pain and suffering.
Morality and ethics are about experiencing happiness in ways that do not unnecessarily add pain to the world or others.

I am NOT saying that we have the ability to do this perfectly. I am not saying that there are not times when it is impossible. I am not saying that life is simple and without tricky dilemmas. The system is still the most reliable.

We need to nurture empathy to be able to better recognize pain and suffering in others.
We need to nurture wisdom to better recognize HOW to avoid causing pain.

What else did I NOT say? I did not give a list of specific rules regarding what I think is right and wrong. Religion does that. There are major problems with trying to tell others what actions are right or wrong (what I call “Rules for Morality”):

1. Life is far too complex to reduce every varying situation into an absolute list. For example, sometimes it is moral to be dishonest (think Holocaust, the Underground Railroad). Therefore, dishonesty, in and of itself, is not bad.

2. Science continues to discover new facts, so we must always be open to reevaluating our understanding and assumptions. For example, do chickens feel pain when we kill them for food? Do their fellow siblings miss them when they are gone? If science can conclude that the answer to both questions is no (and that is my understanding, but I am not sure), then MAYBE it is not immoral to eat them. Unless we find that chickens are more like us than we thought. Well, then it might be moral to learn to use tofu!

3. Cause and Effect is too vast for us to accurately draw absolute conclusions. For example, Hifi and Ron talked about how our economic structure, and most everything that we buy, relies on the pain and suffering of others (for example, child slavery, but go read the comments of the above post to see the specifics).

It would seem like the moral thing to do would be to only buy organic and grow your own food, make your own material and clothing, abstain from driving cars, and a whole number of other things. At least this is what Hifi and Ron both hinted at. Perhaps in another post or comment I will explain why I think this action will cause greater pain and suffering, while also not fixing the situation. Maybe at some point I will explain why I think there is a more effective approach to changing the system, one that already seems to be pushing things in the right direction (albeit at a slow pace). And if that is so, then THAT would be the more appropriate choice. (I don’t want to get off on a tangent by delving into that here).

But maybe I am wrong on the moral dilemma of buying the products of child slaves. Once I share my understanding with you, maybe you can enlighten me on why I am wrong.

Does this exemplify why I am not trying to outline a list of specific rights and wrongs?

I do not believe in Moral Relativism. There is one principle that stands true and transcends all cultures and religions: It is immoral to cause unnecessary pain and suffering in the world. This is the one moral absolute that exists and this absolute is not relative. All others are just RULES for morals that could be wrong depending on the situations. This is why I am a proponent of Situational Ethics.

When evaluating the ethics or morality of a certain action, we do not need a handbook of right and wrong. We must individually measure it by the one absolute I have outlined: Does it cause unnecessary pain and suffering? You and I may come up with different answers. That is okay with me. We also may not always have the willpower, or even the ability, to choose that action we think is right. The important thing is the general direction we are going.

Okay, now that I have outlined my views in their most basic form, does this clarify the topic or muddle it? What are your thoughts now?

Have you heard of ClubMom.com? It’s a mainstream mother’s website, an affiliate of momcentral.com, which has a new spot on the Today Show called, Parent Central. ClubMom has three million subscribers.

Thanks to my editor, Duncan Crary of the Humanist News Network, ClubMom has asked me to become an “Expert Writer” for the website. According to our agreement, I will be providing them with 25 prewritten articles (the “non-attacking” stuff you read here and in my HNN column) over the next month or so.

They said they love the unusual niche (and my writing) regarding parents who want to raise their families without religion. They said they see a need for this!

The “Expert Writers” are pre-published book authors, professional writers who ClubMom compensates with publicity. They made an exception for AgnosticMom, a non-professional, non-book author, because they like the topic! I think we’re making a little headway here.