Thanksgiving is just around the corner. I’m a bit bummed out that I don’t have a great outfit to wear to dinner on Thursday. Like one of the 30 or so anti-religious shirts my husband Butch I have created on Zazzle and Cafepress with maybe some nice black cargo pants. I just don’t think I could get one shipped to me in time. Maybe if I order soon, I can have something festive for baby jesus’ birthday.

Oh if I only had the nerve. Maybe it’s not nerve but respect for the people who throw the family get-togethers - Butch’s aunt and uncle. She’s a bit on the religious side, so I wouldn’t want to upset or offend her. She’s the kind of christian that I don’t mind at all. I know she’s a christian because she goes to church every Sunday, but we’ve never talked religion and she’s never tried to push her faith on me. She is a good person, one of the few christians I know that I truly respect, because she walks the walk without talking the talk, if you know what I mean.

Her mother, on the other hand, she’s nasty. The typical fundie moron that is unbearable and full of lies and hatred for anyone who actually thinks for themselves. As a schoolteacher, I just wish she wouldn’t be so ignorant about simple facts like oh, I dunno, maybe that we’re not a christian nation, and that the founding fathers created a separation of church and state very deliberately. Read more…

This is part two of a forwarded email I received the other day. Part One is here.

The rest of this email was all added on sometime in 2006. It was NOT said by Ben Stein. This kind of stuff drives me crazy. People forward emails because they blindly believe what is being sent. They just accept that it’s all true and important, so they send it to me, and you, whether we like it or not. I really can’t stand spam when it comes from someone I know.

Anyhoo, the following is a combination of older items about a TV appearance of Anne Graham Lotz (Billy Graham’s daughter) made just after 9-11 and the false claim that child care expert Dr. Benjamin Spock’s son committed suicide.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different:  This is not intended to be a joke;  it’s not funny, it’s intended to get you thinking.

Talking about an invisible man in the sky does not really require thinking. It is blindly believing in fairy tales, but I digress. Read more…

Personally I don’t like to talk to friends and family about politics or religion. The older I get the more strongly I feel about certain issues. While I try to remain open to more information, and am willing to learn and grow and change my thinking, my tolerance for certain behaviors in those around me wanes.

Anyway, the other day I got an email from an acquaintance. She hasn’t emailed me in about 2 years, but I guess this was so important to her that she just had to send it to her entire email list. Instead of deleting it, I thought I’d share it with you.

Here’s the email in its entirety, with my commentary thrown in after each “quote”.

Subject: is quite impressive , what do you think
Remarks from CBS Sunday Morning (everyone should read!)
I can only hope we find God again before it is too late!!

(oh lordy I’m so glad I got this email! Now I can see the light of god and I’m saved from hell! Oh wait, no. It was just a seizure.)

Read more…

Well, it is. It sure is easier to just follow the crowd, to believe forwarded emails, to think commercials and tv shows are honest and forthright, to believe everything the news tells us as fact, etc, etc….

I used to podcast a morning radio show. It was goofy fun. Amusing if a bit crass. But after awhile, I realized they never really said anything new. And they had their producer on there who was so full of lies and hate that I just couldn’t stand it anymore. It didn’t help that he proclaimed his christianity along with the hate he spewed forth.

So I gave it up, even though I had been using it to keep me company since I’m alone most of the day. I had to replace it with something. I like to listen to people talk while I do mundane things. Around the same time I found Atheist Nexus. One thing led to another, and I discovered that there’s this whole Skeptical community out there, as well as an Atheist community.

So I’ve been sampling and listening to different Skeptical and science podcasts lately. I love it. It’s intelligent, fun, interesting, and stimulating. I’ve realized several things, though, as I’ve been listening and taking in all this great new information. Read more…