Heaven

Just as every church has its bells and marquees to proclaim to the world how to get to Heaven, I have my words to proclaim why I don't need directions. If that offends, ain't my fault.

Joseph Campbell called it "bliss". That's a pretty good word for it. I'd also call it "enlightenment", at the risk of offending the sensitive folks who are opposed to such things but who dislike being called stupid.

Yes its true. Kentucky has a Creationist museum that proudly proclaims that science upholds a literal view of the Bible.

Please...if you are in another state...DO NOT JUDGE US ALL! These are freaks of nature with $20 million of God's money to waste. I would have preferred a planetarium.

Hunting The Past

Are neopagans in touch with ancient spirituality, or are they engaged in sad puppet shows named after long dead ideas?

Evolution Books

Pharyngula's excellent list of evolution books, inlcuding books for kids! Very cool.

Psychic Police

http://www.wildhunt.org/2007/05/shutting-down-psychics.html

Is it cool to shut down fortune tellers, even if they are full of shite?

The Laughter Begins With A Wee Lad

Sometime in the late fall or early winter of 2004 I was sitting at my drawing desk in the wee morning hours and my wife made her way to the bathroom. When she emerged she had this look on her face that was a mixture between “We just won the lottery!” and “I’m afraid to move…”

That’s right. A baby was on the way. We were pregnant (yeah, I know…she was the pregnant one…but you get the idea). So then in July of 2005 our son was born. A monumental experience, especially for a couple that had been together for 15 years with no children. We were both terrified and joyous at the same time. Of the many, many thought swimming around in my laughing brain one kept clawing its way to the top.

I’d better have my ducks in a row.

I mean, this kid is going to be asking the hard questions. What am I? Where did I come from? What is death? Where is god? Yikes.

So I've embarked on a learning journey. I was a smart kid, I guess, but I never applied myself to the work of learning. I just soaked up what was most interesting and sort of let the rest slip into nothing. Sure, I can blame a lot of that on teachers who were not very interested in teaching or who were just not that interested in the subjects they were teaching. But much of it is because of my inherent lazy gene. Falling asleep in class and dropping out of college after 3 years were not the wisest things I ever did.

This learning journey is kind of focused, I admit. I'm not necessarily reading books on grammar or geography. Mostly my interest lies in science, creativity, and the intersection between these things and society. I'm a natural skeptic, never having accepted church doctrine as a child and finally rejecting it wholesale by age 16 or so (with one minor fallback to Jesus-ism when I was 19).

I'll just be honest. The one thing that really hit me between the eyes is the simple fact that someday someone will look at my son and say "Without Jesus you'll go to hell."

This infuriates me in a way I can't easily or politely express. I have many dear loved ones who probably believe that statement to be true and I don't ever want to hurt their feelings...but I will vigorously combat this kind of barbaric mind rape against my child. We have no need of such superstitions.

I want my son to be given the best toolkit possible for exploring life freely and with compassion. So my wife and I are learning. We're exploring ideas. We're engaging in discussion with people of different beliefs. We're reading books. We're opening our minds to possibilities filtered by natural reason.

And we're raising our wonderful, handsome child in an environment of ideas, play, and love.

Hell is for ninnies. My son will have the universe.