I so wish I could have gone on the SSA trip to the Creation "Museum", but alas life kept me here in Texas. BUT! But there have been some fantastic descriptions and insightful commentary on the things witnessed.
My favorites so far:
http://blaghag.blogspot.com/2009/08/creation-museum-part-1.html
http://blaghag.blogspot.com/2009/08/creation-museum-part-2.html
and
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/08/the_creation_museum_1.php
The pictures alone are to die for.
Showing posts with label atheism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label atheism. Show all posts
Monday, August 10, 2009
Monday, August 3, 2009
Read until your Irony Meter detonates.
I remember back when I was not a boy scout. It was the whole of my twenty four years of life from the outside looking in and being vaguely envious of those jerks and their camping trips. But the thing that almost made me take the plunge was the idea of merit badges.
The whole concept appeals to me to this day. Reward and recognition for learning a new skill? Hot damn.
Their compliment, the Girl Scouts, do basically the same thing except for chicks since both groups have genital based discrimination policies. (There are some skills I am sure they do not want to issue merit badges for.)
So I was surprised when I read this article about a girl being given the highest honor available for teaching children about creationism, acquiring a creationist library for her church, and building a model of Noah's ark.
Now, on the surface these seem nice. Working with kids and helping your church are community service, building a model of some sort is some great arts and crafts, and talking about creationism is creative story telling. (Which if they offer a badge for story telling I am so kicking myself for not joining the scouts way back when.)
The part that had me laughing was the name of her project. Alternate Reality. I shit you not. I can only imagine this statement being delivered with a straight face, followed by beaming pride and possibly a single tear rolling down her cheek.
Which brings to light, if that is what she believes her teachings and statements are, then WHY IS SHE TEACHING THEM TO CHILDREN.
According to dictionary.com:
Alternate ( awl-ter-neyt)
Reality (ree-al-i-tee)
This alone should bring to light that she is deriving something other than the reality we all live in and teaching it to small children. That is so many levels of not right that I don't know why it could, or would be honored in the slightest.
Then again, maybe I am being a bit harsh. I don't have all the details, so it may be a different situation all together (if so let me know). But based on what is here, I think my envy for the scouts has waned just a tad.
The whole concept appeals to me to this day. Reward and recognition for learning a new skill? Hot damn.
Their compliment, the Girl Scouts, do basically the same thing except for chicks since both groups have genital based discrimination policies. (There are some skills I am sure they do not want to issue merit badges for.)
So I was surprised when I read this article about a girl being given the highest honor available for teaching children about creationism, acquiring a creationist library for her church, and building a model of Noah's ark.
Now, on the surface these seem nice. Working with kids and helping your church are community service, building a model of some sort is some great arts and crafts, and talking about creationism is creative story telling. (Which if they offer a badge for story telling I am so kicking myself for not joining the scouts way back when.)
The part that had me laughing was the name of her project. Alternate Reality. I shit you not. I can only imagine this statement being delivered with a straight face, followed by beaming pride and possibly a single tear rolling down her cheek.
Which brings to light, if that is what she believes her teachings and statements are, then WHY IS SHE TEACHING THEM TO CHILDREN.
According to dictionary.com:
Alternate ( awl-ter-neyt)
| 1. | to interchange repeatedly and regularly with one another in time or place; rotate (usually fol. by with): Day alternates with night. |
| 2. | to change back and forth between conditions, states, actions, etc.: He alternates between hope and despair. |
| 3. | to take turns: My sister and I alternated in doing the dishes. |
| 4. | Electricity. to reverse direction or sign periodically. |
| 5. | Linguistics. to occur as a variant in alternation with another form. |
Reality (ree-al-i-tee)
| 1. | the state or quality of being real. |
| 2. | resemblance to what is real. |
| 3. | a real thing or fact. |
| 4. | real things, facts, or events taken as a whole; state of affairs: the reality of the business world; vacationing to escape reality. |
| 5. | Philosophy.
|
| 6. | something that is real. |
| 7. | something that constitutes a real or actual thing, as distinguished from something that is merely apparent. |
This alone should bring to light that she is deriving something other than the reality we all live in and teaching it to small children. That is so many levels of not right that I don't know why it could, or would be honored in the slightest.
Then again, maybe I am being a bit harsh. I don't have all the details, so it may be a different situation all together (if so let me know). But based on what is here, I think my envy for the scouts has waned just a tad.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Chasing the Dragon of Eden
When I was a young, I went to church. Like most middle income American families, Sunday was an affair as regular as clockwork.
1.Get up early
2.Put on 'church clothes'
3.Go to Sunday school (little of which I remember outside of cookies)
4.Congregation/Sermon
5.Stand around while old people talk
6.FOOD
Somewhere along the line, I got really caught up in the whole affair. They had me in there, hook line and sinker. Hell, I was a member of the Royal Ambassadors. (Kinda like hella religious boy scouts, instead of just kinda religious.) I went to Vacation Bible School, and even to some summer camp that was just the bees knees and something to look forward other than catching up on reading over the tedious break.
I lived for this. I lived to try and be what I thought the Bible said I should be. I wanted everyone to do the same. I was excited when my parents gave me my very own personalized Bible for Christmas one year.
Then we moved. I was in the sixth grade, and we didn't just leave my neighborhood, or the city. We shipped out of state. Gone were the foundations of my life that I had built on for so many years.
My parents jumped around from church to church, but they never seemed to stick any where, and eventually we stopped going while we were in Austin. When we moved to Houston, more wandering but never settling.
It was during this time of exposure to the secular world, with no real religion in my life, the idea of any kind of deity took a back seat to my reading about epics and learning about history and science.
Man, science. It blew me away when I was first introduced to the method and really GOT it. The teacher honestly and whole heartedly cared about his subject, and I felt something awaken in me. A sleeping dragon woke, and it was more fantastic than any story I had read up to that point.
This dragon was voracious and insatiable. I had to KNOW things. How they worked, why they worked, what drove them. It burned through books and devoured journals and articles. It continued on like this, until my sophomore year of high school, when I changed schools.
I hung out with a group of people while there that were either into New Age nonsense, or devoutly Christian. Still just barely standing on my critical thinking legs and still in awe at the incredible vastness of the universe and I bought a lot of what they said hook, line, and sinker. I was drawn back into Christianity fast and hard. But even caught up in the fervent torrent of worship a small voice in my mind continued to doubt. It continued to question what I had been pulled back into. I had a habit of ignoring the answers, especially when they contradicted what I believed. But it got harder and harder to do so as time went on.
Especially one morning early in my second semester of that year.
An answer appeared. It wasn't gradual. It wasn't slow. It wasn't even nice. It came down on me like a ton of bricks and knocked me senseless.
I no longer believed that god existed.
A new dragon had reared its head. This one ancient, and from an age long past. I could not abide that this had happened, that I had become so skeptical. So I started tagging along to church with my friends in the hopes of easing this trouble in my mind as the two dragons fought for supremacy.
At first I tried to reconcile the two. I thought that they could exist together and that there was no problem. I would just go to church and reacquaint myself with god.
I prayed. I sang. I read. I talked with the minister about what was going on.
But the dragons never slept. One was always there, reminding me that nothing I was being told could be proven, and much of it contradicted what I knew to be true.
I prayed on, listening to the biblical teaching that god guides us when we call on him.
Finally, after so long, I explained it once again to my minister and he said. "Jarrad, you are trying to get something from god, but that's not the way it works. You must not be selfish. Instead, open your heart to Jesus Christ, and you will find peace. You must be honest and humble."
So I did. That night after everyone had gone to bed, I sat up to be alone with my thoughts and god. I closed my eyes, and prayed. I asked for forgiveness for my foolishness, and that instead of talking, I should have been listening and that I was ready to be the man I was called to be. That I gave myself willingly to serve god and that I opened myself up to him and his message of love and grace.
All I heard was the echo in my own mind. Not a literal one, but just an empty feeling as if I had been talking to the air except worse. At least the air had substance.
The bottom dropped out of my stomach, and I sunk with it, trying to implode on this hollow emptiness.
The dragons stirred once more. The Dragon of Eden, who I so much wanted to believe in because of the promise of life everlasting, guidance, and protection. But the dragon who I had been trying so hard to suppress, the one who knew how to find REAL, tangible answers. It could find things that I could touch, taste, and see their effect on the world around me. It promised me no comfort except that double edged blade of understanding.
While I just lay there, feeling lost and empty, these two notions raged on in my head. I was powerless to stop them, as my mind seemed out of control and in the grip of directionless emotion.
Then, it hit me. The reality of what I had thought. That this was the key to reality. I understood what I saw for the first time. There were no gods hiding in the wings, making magic and shooting rainbows and happiness.
The reason the world looked so harsh was because I compared it to a fiction. The fiction of perfection. This notion that I was not good enough, that the world was falling apart, all stemmed from this idea in my head that there was something better.
There wasn't. This was it. I had to make the best of my life under my own power. The wonders of the world blossomed before me. The wonders of the solar system, the beauty of the cell, all here just because. No reason, just IS. It was beauty manifest.
But a cold sunk in as well. If there was no god, who was there to guide my hand towards good? Why should I even be good? This passed quickly as I realized that I guided my hand, and that every action was my responsibility.
What need have I of gods or devils when both powers lay within myself?
As one image of heaven faded, and with it its totalitarian lord, a new one replaced it. In my young mind was planted a seed. A picture of a world undivided by petty tribal notions of angry deities. A world where we were free to love, and play, and help each other not because it was ordained, but because it was right.
The dragon of reason stopped fighting the phantom of Eden. There was nothing there to combat. No substance. Just empty promises and ancient folk tales. A shadow of the once ominous creature that had ruled over me.
Today I have grown, and with each piece of new knowledge the beauty and potential of our species and the planet we inhabit grows. The flames of reason burn brightly and magnificently.
I do not know if a god exists, and as those around me are fond of saying, yes, when I die I might just find out. But as it stands now, no matter the cost, I stand by my decisions. It becomes more and more apparent as time goes on that we must stop chasing phantom dragons. We must stop longing for a world beyond this one, and instead fight to make this life the best we can. If there is a god, and it has a plan (as many are quick to claim) then let it work, and if there is not, then we will die knowing we did the best we could under the circumstances. Either way we must cast off these shackles to our thought. Do away with the blinders that close our eyes to the beauty in THIS world.
Only then can we be free to explore our potential, be truly equal, to look on our fellow man as brother instead of enemy.
Then, when that is in our grasp, will the lovely, intricate, ever changing, delicate universe we live in open up to us.
Then we will see with unclouded eyes what we are.
I do not say this in an attempt to goad people into taking away religion. I say this only because it is the way I see it.
That is why I am an atheist.
1.Get up early
2.Put on 'church clothes'
3.Go to Sunday school (little of which I remember outside of cookies)
4.Congregation/Sermon
5.Stand around while old people talk
6.FOOD
Somewhere along the line, I got really caught up in the whole affair. They had me in there, hook line and sinker. Hell, I was a member of the Royal Ambassadors. (Kinda like hella religious boy scouts, instead of just kinda religious.) I went to Vacation Bible School, and even to some summer camp that was just the bees knees and something to look forward other than catching up on reading over the tedious break.
I lived for this. I lived to try and be what I thought the Bible said I should be. I wanted everyone to do the same. I was excited when my parents gave me my very own personalized Bible for Christmas one year.
Then we moved. I was in the sixth grade, and we didn't just leave my neighborhood, or the city. We shipped out of state. Gone were the foundations of my life that I had built on for so many years.
My parents jumped around from church to church, but they never seemed to stick any where, and eventually we stopped going while we were in Austin. When we moved to Houston, more wandering but never settling.
It was during this time of exposure to the secular world, with no real religion in my life, the idea of any kind of deity took a back seat to my reading about epics and learning about history and science.
Man, science. It blew me away when I was first introduced to the method and really GOT it. The teacher honestly and whole heartedly cared about his subject, and I felt something awaken in me. A sleeping dragon woke, and it was more fantastic than any story I had read up to that point.
This dragon was voracious and insatiable. I had to KNOW things. How they worked, why they worked, what drove them. It burned through books and devoured journals and articles. It continued on like this, until my sophomore year of high school, when I changed schools.
I hung out with a group of people while there that were either into New Age nonsense, or devoutly Christian. Still just barely standing on my critical thinking legs and still in awe at the incredible vastness of the universe and I bought a lot of what they said hook, line, and sinker. I was drawn back into Christianity fast and hard. But even caught up in the fervent torrent of worship a small voice in my mind continued to doubt. It continued to question what I had been pulled back into. I had a habit of ignoring the answers, especially when they contradicted what I believed. But it got harder and harder to do so as time went on.
Especially one morning early in my second semester of that year.
An answer appeared. It wasn't gradual. It wasn't slow. It wasn't even nice. It came down on me like a ton of bricks and knocked me senseless.
I no longer believed that god existed.
A new dragon had reared its head. This one ancient, and from an age long past. I could not abide that this had happened, that I had become so skeptical. So I started tagging along to church with my friends in the hopes of easing this trouble in my mind as the two dragons fought for supremacy.
At first I tried to reconcile the two. I thought that they could exist together and that there was no problem. I would just go to church and reacquaint myself with god.
I prayed. I sang. I read. I talked with the minister about what was going on.
But the dragons never slept. One was always there, reminding me that nothing I was being told could be proven, and much of it contradicted what I knew to be true.
I prayed on, listening to the biblical teaching that god guides us when we call on him.
Finally, after so long, I explained it once again to my minister and he said. "Jarrad, you are trying to get something from god, but that's not the way it works. You must not be selfish. Instead, open your heart to Jesus Christ, and you will find peace. You must be honest and humble."
So I did. That night after everyone had gone to bed, I sat up to be alone with my thoughts and god. I closed my eyes, and prayed. I asked for forgiveness for my foolishness, and that instead of talking, I should have been listening and that I was ready to be the man I was called to be. That I gave myself willingly to serve god and that I opened myself up to him and his message of love and grace.
All I heard was the echo in my own mind. Not a literal one, but just an empty feeling as if I had been talking to the air except worse. At least the air had substance.
The bottom dropped out of my stomach, and I sunk with it, trying to implode on this hollow emptiness.
The dragons stirred once more. The Dragon of Eden, who I so much wanted to believe in because of the promise of life everlasting, guidance, and protection. But the dragon who I had been trying so hard to suppress, the one who knew how to find REAL, tangible answers. It could find things that I could touch, taste, and see their effect on the world around me. It promised me no comfort except that double edged blade of understanding.
While I just lay there, feeling lost and empty, these two notions raged on in my head. I was powerless to stop them, as my mind seemed out of control and in the grip of directionless emotion.
Then, it hit me. The reality of what I had thought. That this was the key to reality. I understood what I saw for the first time. There were no gods hiding in the wings, making magic and shooting rainbows and happiness.
The reason the world looked so harsh was because I compared it to a fiction. The fiction of perfection. This notion that I was not good enough, that the world was falling apart, all stemmed from this idea in my head that there was something better.
There wasn't. This was it. I had to make the best of my life under my own power. The wonders of the world blossomed before me. The wonders of the solar system, the beauty of the cell, all here just because. No reason, just IS. It was beauty manifest.
But a cold sunk in as well. If there was no god, who was there to guide my hand towards good? Why should I even be good? This passed quickly as I realized that I guided my hand, and that every action was my responsibility.
What need have I of gods or devils when both powers lay within myself?
As one image of heaven faded, and with it its totalitarian lord, a new one replaced it. In my young mind was planted a seed. A picture of a world undivided by petty tribal notions of angry deities. A world where we were free to love, and play, and help each other not because it was ordained, but because it was right.
The dragon of reason stopped fighting the phantom of Eden. There was nothing there to combat. No substance. Just empty promises and ancient folk tales. A shadow of the once ominous creature that had ruled over me.
Today I have grown, and with each piece of new knowledge the beauty and potential of our species and the planet we inhabit grows. The flames of reason burn brightly and magnificently.
I do not know if a god exists, and as those around me are fond of saying, yes, when I die I might just find out. But as it stands now, no matter the cost, I stand by my decisions. It becomes more and more apparent as time goes on that we must stop chasing phantom dragons. We must stop longing for a world beyond this one, and instead fight to make this life the best we can. If there is a god, and it has a plan (as many are quick to claim) then let it work, and if there is not, then we will die knowing we did the best we could under the circumstances. Either way we must cast off these shackles to our thought. Do away with the blinders that close our eyes to the beauty in THIS world.
Only then can we be free to explore our potential, be truly equal, to look on our fellow man as brother instead of enemy.
Then, when that is in our grasp, will the lovely, intricate, ever changing, delicate universe we live in open up to us.
Then we will see with unclouded eyes what we are.
I do not say this in an attempt to goad people into taking away religion. I say this only because it is the way I see it.
That is why I am an atheist.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Yule Tide Swag Day
So, I have a joke.
A Catholic, an atheist, and a Muslim sit down in front of a Christmas tree. Suddenly, the Baptist busts into the room and says:
"Happy Yule Tide Swag Day!"
OK, so it really wasn't a joke, it just sets up like one.
In all seriousness though, what do you do when the holiday season rolls around and you have friends from so many walks of life? Do you exclude them? Do you truck on and hope for the best?
No, because that is foolish. This holiday is supposed to be about being together, and about peace. Also, presents. Giving lots and lots of presents.
Thus I proposed a year or so ago that we switch out the name, toss on a new label, and bingo! All inclusive holiday that can mean whatever you want it to. No more having to list 60 different holidays that all land in or around the end of December, no more "war on Christmas".
Now, you might ask, what is the point if it isn't celebrating (insert religious reason here)?
Well, here are a few starters for you:
1. You are alive. (Good going by the way, its a rough world out there)
2. You have an excuse to gorge on an insane amount of whatever tickles your fancy. Why have a turkey, ham, or goose when you could have Basalmic battered fish? (or nachos, a personal favorite)
3. All those small things that you forgot to sweat over, but ended up working out in the end.
The list goes on. If you can't find a single reason to celebrate, then you are probably one unobservant individual. Even when things are awful, they could always get worse.
Thats what YTSD is all about. It is about stepping back, taking a breather, and not taking yourself too seriously. It is a time to put all of the bullshit aside and toss the noisy dog on the other side of the fence a new ball or treat.
If that isn't worth celebrating, then I don't know what is.
A Catholic, an atheist, and a Muslim sit down in front of a Christmas tree. Suddenly, the Baptist busts into the room and says:
"Happy Yule Tide Swag Day!"
OK, so it really wasn't a joke, it just sets up like one.
In all seriousness though, what do you do when the holiday season rolls around and you have friends from so many walks of life? Do you exclude them? Do you truck on and hope for the best?
No, because that is foolish. This holiday is supposed to be about being together, and about peace. Also, presents. Giving lots and lots of presents.
Thus I proposed a year or so ago that we switch out the name, toss on a new label, and bingo! All inclusive holiday that can mean whatever you want it to. No more having to list 60 different holidays that all land in or around the end of December, no more "war on Christmas".
Now, you might ask, what is the point if it isn't celebrating (insert religious reason here)?
Well, here are a few starters for you:
1. You are alive. (Good going by the way, its a rough world out there)
2. You have an excuse to gorge on an insane amount of whatever tickles your fancy. Why have a turkey, ham, or goose when you could have Basalmic battered fish? (or nachos, a personal favorite)
3. All those small things that you forgot to sweat over, but ended up working out in the end.
The list goes on. If you can't find a single reason to celebrate, then you are probably one unobservant individual. Even when things are awful, they could always get worse.
Thats what YTSD is all about. It is about stepping back, taking a breather, and not taking yourself too seriously. It is a time to put all of the bullshit aside and toss the noisy dog on the other side of the fence a new ball or treat.
If that isn't worth celebrating, then I don't know what is.
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