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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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 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?

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!

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 . . .

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 . . .

The last thing I expected when I got married was to face the possibility of giving up Santa and the Easter Bunny. Deny my future children the magic of believing in those imaginary characters? Staying up late into the night, hoping to catch a glimpse of what no child has seen before. Knowing that the most popular person in the world thinks of you every year. The truth is, I knew they weren’t real for one or two years before I finally admitted it to myself. I made the joy last as long as I could.

My husband’s siblings, though, did not grow up “being lied to,” as they put it. My mother-in-law insists that learning about Santa devastated her as a child. She felt her mother betrayed her trust and lied to her. While some of the family members are still staunch against the tradition, a few of the others agreed to go along with their spouses, including my own husband.

With Easter only days away, I thought this a good time to discuss the topic. One question that enters the minds of some young atheist and agnostic parents is whether or not to have Santa and the Easter Bunny, if you decide to celebrate those holidays at all. How do we justify giving our children the fantasy of an Easter Bunny while denying them the security of a Jesus?

I love Santa and the Easter Bunny. I cannot imagine my childhood without those wonderful nights of exhilarating anticipation. They brought a joy that only Disneyland could match. Discovering they were not real did no damage to my psyche. It was more like discovering the secret to a great magic trick.

Having considered my mother-in-law’s experience, I set up a number of guidelines regarding the fantasy characters that grace our holidays. Hopefully, the use of these guidelines will not only prevent the rare devastation that a handful of children feel. They will demonstrate the difference between imagination and reality; between our perceptions and the facts, between the stories humans tell and the actual truths they represent.

First, parents need to take into consideration the child’s character. For example, my mother-in-law has an inner drive to get her facts accurate. In her mind, you don’t move forward on something without first verifying each detail. Most children are not this way, which is why most children walk away from their Santa beliefs with a smile and a tradition to pass on to their children. If you, yourself, are more like my mother-in-law, then you can guess that some of your children are likely to be the same way, as well. If this is the case with you, then you may consider banning Santa and the Easter Bunny altogether. But I think revealing the truth at a younger-than-average-age is also an option.

Age, in general, is another factor to consider. For most children, somewhere between six and eight is a good time. Part of the devastation, when it happens, is because the child has been defending Santa’s existence to friends. It is socially humiliating for an older child to learn they have been asserting something that everyone else knew was wrong. A good way to know it is time to reveal the secret is when the child asks you directly, “Is Santa real?”

So how do we make the Santa/Bunny scenario work to our advantage as atheists and agnostics? I figured it out as I was trying to avoid my mother-in-law’s mishap of my children perceiving us as lying. I made a decision at the beginning that I would not tell elaborate stories of how Santa gets his belly down the chimney or how the bunny gets those baskets into the house.

When my oldest son, Blake, starting asking these questions, I replied with my most common of all replies, “What do you think?” I encouraged Blake to think the problems through. The Santa/Bunny scenario provides an opportunity for both critical thinking and imaginary play. At the younger ages, imagination really goes to work. As they get older, they adopt critical thinking. As skepticism creeps into the questions, you know revelation time is near.

I prefer to wait until the child asks straight out, “Is Santa really real?” With many children, like myself and my first child, the desire to believe hangs on longer than the actual belief. We should allow them to believe for as long as they want. But when they want the truth, parents must give it.

And how do we handle the truth? We could say, “No, Santa and the Easter Bunny aren’t real.” But I don’t think that answer demonstrates the reality, nor the reason for the stories. As Joseph Campbell taught, humans have always couched real principles into stories we tell over and over and pass on through generations. Santa and the Easter Bunny are stories of life, love, and the joy of giving. Parents are Santa to kids in ways they won’t understand until they become parents themselves. Like the Easter Bunny, parents bring life and hope to their children.

So when it comes time to answer the golden question, a more meaningful reply is, “Do you know who Santa is? Mom and Dad are Santa and the Easter Bunny.”

Parents can use this revealing of truth to explain how humans are a story-telling people. We have always told stories to express ideas. Some stories generate more belief and conviction than others. The Bible is a compilation of stories which many people have come to believe as literally true. Santa is a good analogy of how people want to believe in the stories of gods. Most stories have an amount of truth within them, as well as an amount of embellishment.

I finally told my oldest child the truth before Christmas last year as he was turning eight years old. When the day ended, I asked Blake if Christmas felt different now that he knows Mom and Dad are Santa. He told me that maybe it did a little. But that somehow, seeing the unwrapped Santa gifts, and going along with the game for the younger siblings, the magic still felt real.

“The only scientific explanation for it is, Magic Does Exist! And if it does, then I believe in Magic!”

The character’s faith statement then released her into the air as a spinning propeller, which I would guess enabled her to accomplish some unearthly feat. Based, of course, on science.

Maddox had strong convictions about what he referred to as states’ right:

These included the view that blacks were intellectually inferior to whites, that integration was a Communist plot, that segregation was somewhere justified in scripture and that a federal mandate to integrate schools was “ungodly, un-Christian and un-American.”

His opinions were no less fixed on other issues. He was opposed to drinking, smoking, liberal clergymen, atheism, socialism, the press, civil rights workers, “do-gooder foundations” and the wearing of miniskirts in the state Capitol. He advocated short haircuts for men, the Baptist Church (at least, its more conservative members), the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and the singing of “God Bless America,” a tune for which apparently he had an insatiable appetite. He liked it so much that at one public event, he ordered that it be sung no fewer than three times, and people in the crowd could see tears in his eyes.

If you believe in God, and in our ability to feel of his spirit, would you think a man with the above opinions capable of feeling it? Of being inspired by it?

Considering how he probably interpreted the song, “God Bless America,” would you expect God to infuse Maddox with his spirit at the level of moving him to tears?

In 1966, Georgia elected Lester Maddox as state governor. The Times article explained, “Mr. Maddox, who had never before held elected office, explained that God had been his campaign manager.”

If you believe in God and his inspiration, do you imagine God would inspire and bring to office a man like Maddox?

From the same article: “Mr. Maddox explained his segregationist views to The New York Times in November that year, saying his position stemmed from “a love for my people, because I believe it to be Christian and . . . American.”

How do you explain his definition of love? Of being Christian and American? I am sure every one of us here (and most Americans, for that matter) despises Maddox’s beliefs. But Maddox truly believed them. Maddox had convictions. And he thought the strength of those convictions meant they were godly.

I remember the semester I went back to school, just a week after returning home from my Mormon mission. I was at the top of my spiritual game. I decided to do a cultural history research paper on the Quran. If you are not familiar with Mormon missionaries, you need to realize that having immersed ourselves in religion, religion, religion for such a long period of time, our way of thinking when we get back is . . . let me just say it is skewed.

Somehow my cultural history paper turned into an attack against a point of religious doctrine in the Quran. In my reading of the book, I got “inspired” about a flaw I saw in the doctrine. This inspiritation, which I felt as a fervent message from the mind of God, himself, practically pushed the keys on the keyboard as I wrote a paper I was sure would transform the perspective of my professor. Never noticing that my “inspired paper” had gotten completely off-subject, I turned it in.

It wasn’t until I got the paper back with a big “C” at the top, after I’d had distance from the religious fervor of the writing moment, that I began to question my experience. Did God actually direct me to write a misguided paper on a subject different from the assignment? As time went on, I began to sense that my paper was a product of my own religious arrogance.

So my final question, as you consider Lester Murddox and the passions he was sure came from God:

How do you know that your inspiration from God,or your beliefs from God, aren’t just the power of the human mind to have enormous, emotion-driven convictions?

Blake: In the Muslim Bible, does it say Jesus is God?

Me: The “Muslim Bible” is called the Quran and they call their god, “Allah.” The Quran doesn’t say Jesus is God. It says “Allah” is God, and Jesus was a good prophet.

Blake: So they’re bad then, aren’t they?

That was one of those questions that makes you wonder if someone is abducting your child at night and feeding them information you know you didn’t pass along. All the while I’d been thinking Blake was on the on-ramp to the Agnostic Highway. I guess somewhere along the way he exited for a pit stop at Christian Town.

Perhaps I haven’t been direct enough about my own beliefs. I like to encourage the kids to come up with answers themselves, so when they ask me questions, I usually say, “What do you think?” Still, I am pretty sure I have given a direct answer in the past that I don’t believe that Jesus is God, nor that there is any actual person who is a god. Of course, I usually turn it back to them with, “But what do you think?”

I could be more direct, but the kids seem to change the channel on their attention-dial when I start talking instead of asking. This time I figured out a way to be direct, impactful, and ask a question at the same time.

When Blake asked me if Muslims were bad because they were voting for the wrong god, I asked him back, “I don’t believe Jesus is God. Does that make me bad?”

First was the look of wide-eyed shock that stunned me as much as my question stunned him. And then, within seconds, a big smile crept upon his face as he laughed at the idea of Mom being bad and he belted, “NO! You’re not bad!”

While the ending was effective, there’s also that nagging question of why he would compartmentalize like that: good people vs. bad people. Why would he decide an entire group of people are bad because their religious beliefs differ? I know that part of it is his awareness of all the recent turmoil in the Middle East and Europe involving Muslims. But I always remind him that not all Muslims are that way; that most Muslims are good people.

Blake is a logical-thinker. While he loves fantasy, he is enthralled with math and science, which contribute to some of his fantasy world. I understand that linear-thinkers like Blake tend to see things more in black and white than artistic thinkers do. I have noticed this pattern again and again.

There is also the lingering affect of the primitive world humans evolved in, where we adapted and survived by aligning ourself with our own tribes against other tribes. Now that we live in a global world where we mix with sll types of races and religions, will we someday evolve away from this natural instinct to pit ourselves against groups of people unlike us?

I guess it will take time for Blake to have more exposure to different people, to various religions, to conversation between us. And that’s okay.

Do you point out “In God We Trust” on coins and make an issue of it with children? How do you tell your children to react when they go to school and are asked to pledge allegiance to “one nation, under God”?

I prefer to pick my god-battles, and a statement of supernatural diety on our coins is not one of them. I won’t be pointing it out, and if my children ever ask me about it, I would just explain that our country has a religious majority and a history of both religion and Deism.

I already have two children in school, and they do say the Pledge of Allegiance. Remember, my kids still figure there is an existing god, although whatever that god is like in their minds, they can’t possibly feel it is a great significance in their life. I guess I am approaching the Existence-of-God topic the same way we approach the sex-subject: Give honest answers as their questions come up or as our experiences point in that direction, and in the amounts that they seem ready to digest.

At some point I will teach them the history of The Pledge and how the “Under God” phrase was added in in 1954 I will ask them, “How do you think it made many Americans,who believe in more than one god, feel?” And, “What message did that send to all the families who don’t even believe in a god at all?”

Rather than push an issue onto my kids, I prefer to follow their lead on this. If they want to say The Pledge, they’ll continue to say it. If at some point they want to opt out, I’ll be happy to inform their teachers. If they want to write letters to the local newspaper, the school, or the school board, I’ll help them find the addresses and proof-read their letters. But these actions would stem their own desires, not mine.

I personally would not turn what might be MY issue into my children’s issue, placing a burden on them for a stand they might not be passionate about. The Pledge is an issue I would prefer to let my children decide on their own when they are older.

How should they react when asked to pray for a friend or relative?

Usually a person asks others to pray for them because they are in great distress. I do not feel this is a time to voluntarily vocalize a disbelief in the very thing the distressed person is relying on for help. At the same time we must maintain personal intregity. An appropriate response is, “I am sorry for your difficulties. You will definitely be in my thoughts.”

Rarely would it extend beyond that, but if the person wanted to press the issue, get an actual prayer commitment, then an explanation with an offer for actual help (if applicable) should be enough. “I’m sorry, but I don’t practice prayer or religion. But I would love to help out by (fill in the blank).” I would teach my children to respond the same way.

“I was envisioning a situation wherein you might be at someone’s home for dinner and before the meal, someone says, “Shall we thank God for this food?” and one of your children “blurts out, “We don’t believe in God”" Of course it could be any situation in which someone wishes to invoke some type of reference to God.”

We experience prayer situations a couple of times a month when we have dinner with my in-laws. Two thirds of the family bow their heads and close their eyes, while a third of us (my husband and I are not the only ones who don’t participate for various reasons) stand there quietly watching the group. And sometimes Israel and I wink at each other.

Once in a while the kids fool around and we have to remind them to be quiet while others are praying. That is precisely how I would have my kids behave in all situations in others’ homes or churches while they pray; to give others respect by allowing them to pray without making a scene.

I think respect is the key. Not respect for religion, but respect for other people and their choice to believe in it. Some very intelligent and well-educated people are religious. Also, people we love, like our extended family members, are religious.

As another example, in the Mormon religion, the phrase, “Oh my God,” is almost as offensive as the F-bomb. It can be jolting to the senses for many Mormons. We teach our children not to say it for their grandparents’ sakes. I told them that even though it doesn’t mean anything to us, and so many of their friends say it, we would prefer they don’t because it would really hurt their grandparents if they accidentally said it around them out of habit. It is just our request, not an order. They don’t get in trouble when it comes out by accident.

On the other hand, if my children ever blurt out, “We don’t believe in God,” I can’t imagine being worried about it unless they did it in a manner to make fun of someone else who does. I think I would just smile.

Here is a variation on the subject of prayer and references to God: Blake has a best friend named Zach. Zach spent the night at our house once. When it was time for them to go to bed, I heard Zach telling Blake that they had to say their prayers. Blake told him, “I don’t pray,” but Zach became insistent that Blake wouldn’t go to heaven if he didn’t pray. And Blake was insistent that he doesn’t pray, but he couldn’t get Zach to leave him alone.

I poked my head into the room and said, “Zach, it’s really nice that you want to say your prayers. Our family doesn’t believe you have to pray to go to heaven,” (I said this to reassure my son), “but I understand your family does, so you should go ahead and say your prayers. Don’t worry about Blake.”

So far these types of situations have not caused my children any anxiety. Blake is very confident with how we choose to live our lives. And while we have giggled at a few religious beliefs (he thought it funny that the Bible says God made Eve from one of Adam’s ribs), I have never seen him show disrespect for other people’s choices to worship.

I have one more question to address, regarding Easter, which I will do in a Part 2 post.

Also, Ron wrote a letter to the Humanist News Network, praising them for giving a column to AgnosticMom. He copied it in a comment here. What a huge compliment. He made some points that I want to focus the rest of this post on:

Ron said:

“The easily cited presumption by the religious culture is that we do not thrive because we lack the moral fortitude to be strong, joyful, loving families. Humanism in all its forms must not be invalidated as a fringe group of rebelious students, or codgers with too much time on their hands and bad experiences with the church.”

This comment interests me for two reasons. First, I have heard and read comments in the newspaper and on the radio, such as, “You never see any athiest charitable groups!”

Clearly we have an image problem. And we lack visibility. There are, in fact, athiest/agnostic, humanist, and other secular groups, doing charitable work. Charitable work is one of the foundations of the humanist philosophy, since we cannot wait for a god we don’t believe exists to solve the world’s problems. We have to do it ourselves.

But we are a minority. People don’t know of our organizations. Also, Americans are still scared of athiests. So our tiny groups don’t get the news coverage of, say, the Salvation Army.

I will admit, there is also some in-fighting. Secularists are individualists. We fear being locked into a box where we won’t agree with every stand an organization takes. The result: either we stay isolated, or in rare instances, we make a new organization. This fact comes to light with the various names and groups representing secularits: “Brights,” “freethinkers,” “the godless,” and “existentialists” are just a few to add to the typical list. And then there is the spectrum of athiesm and agnostism: strong athiest, weak athiest, positive athiest, athiest-agnostic, etc. Why do we care about these minute details? We are all secularists and we are dealing with the same issues.

In the past, this spectrum of secularist groups allowed the concern of defining themselves override the idea of banding together to unite in purpose. Only recently, in light of the growing power of the religious right, are these groups beginning to set aside their differences, start pooling resources, and work together.

It is time that people get to know us for the good we want to accomplish: strong families, strong democracy, strong ethics, and the freedom to exercise a moral choice based on our own beliefs, not to be compelled by someone else’s.

The other reason I am interested in Ron’s comment: he mentioned how religious folks dismiss us as people with bad experiences in the church. AgnosticMom has received a few comments from religious readers, apologizing for bad experiences they thought I had. Maybe they have made an assumption. Or maybe I have portayed myself with some inaccuracy. As Ron implied, not all of us are here because of bad experiences with religious life, myself included. I am in here because I wanted truth.

A few people have referred to the “oppressive religion”of my past or “strict childhood.” I am sorry I gave the wrong impression. I say this, both to clear up any misunderstanding about myself, and also to give the Mormon church a little slack. I was a happy Mormon. I loved being a member of the church. I loved my religion enough to make the choice to serve a mission for a year and a half when I was twenty-one. I accepted, and sought after, responsibilities within the church. I held a number of leadership positions in my congregations.

Over time, contradictions and issues I didn’t agree with, accumulated to a degree that I had to face the existence of my serious doubts. Confident that God would answer my prayers and bring me back to complete faith in his church, I set out to get some answers. The more scripture I studied, the more inconstinencies I discovered. Six months later, I felt sure the LDS church was not true. Still, I could not walk away. I hope this demonstrates how much I loved being a Mormon. It wasn’t until another six months later that I was ready to leave. It is only in retrospect that I have since become aware of what I now regard as the silly little insanities of Mormonism, which I sometimes refer to in my posts.

I know that some Mormons who leave say they felt oppressed, or that they couldn’t live up to the standards. I implied this when I referred to my childhood hero, Nephi, in the post, “What’s Missing Is A System.” I was mostly joking when I made the comment, “No wonder I have overwhelming and unrealistic expectations of myself.” Nephi didn’t really cause me anxiety. I expect my perfectionism is related to some degree, but I give most of the responsibility to my genes. And I am not complaining about my over-achieving tendencies. I never had feelings of inadequacy as a Mormon.

Some concerned religious readers lamented that I wrote off all religion as a result of my Mormon experience. This was not the case. After questioning the Mormon church, I naturally sought after Christianity in general. In my studies, I found the Bible to be just as problematic than the Book of Mormon. I learned about the history of the various and evolving manuscripts that became the Gospels. I also noticed the changing personality of God from the Old Testament to the New, to modern times, including the very American Jesus so popular right now.

Religious readers: I appreciate that you come to my blog. I appreciate that you are not afraid of us agnostics here. I appreciate your willingness to understand us. That is what we want. I appreciate your concern for my family and me. I don’t want to persuade you that your religion is wrong. I just want you to understand where I am coming from. My agnostic readers are here to support each other, to make a place for their families, and to help each other to leave a positive mark on the world.

I received my first correction! After reading, America In Decline, Skysinger clarified for me that we do not have a cure for polio, just a vaccination. Well, that makes sense, doesn’t it? I’m sure I’ve got many more corrections coming in my blogging future, so I am glad the first one came in such a nice manner; a warm-up. Thanks for your input, Skysinger!

Mary said:

I enjoy reading your blog because, regardless of my religious leanings (I’m still trying to figure that out), I most definitely believe in science as the basis of humanity.

Because my children are not yet in school, I understand that I am now free to remain “blissfully ignorant” of the extent to which religion is impeding true learning in our public schools. But at least I know where in the world (here! and your new column!) to go for an opinion I can respect.

Mary, I’ve wondered if you were even agnostic and what motivates you continue to read my blog! Now I know. I am glad that I don’t offend (at least too much?) my thoughtful and reasonable religious readers. I harp on religion, mainly when it infringes on my life as a secularist. And sometimes I tease and make playful jabs, but I am not trying to convince anyone to leave their religion. I just hope they will understand the plight of the secularists.

As for religion impeding learning in public schools: maybe I’m wrong, but I doubt you will find your California schools as affected as in places like Kansas and Dover. Regardless, the lack of a basic understanding of science is a national dilemna with national consequences to come if we don’t turn it around. I’m glad you and I have a common respect for science.

Speaking of science and American culture, Ron made an interesting observation at his local Barnes&Noble:

I was at Barnes and Noble today – and they moved the Science section, they also reduced it in size. They moved it over near blank journals – where no other literature exists – somewhere west of the bargain books!
There is ONE shelving unit of science books (not including the specific section on physics)! That is 33% the amount of space they give to ‘religious fiction’ (possible oxymoron) – and roughly 20% of the space ‘devoted’ (literally?) to religious books. At Barnes and Noble! The religion shelves are all centrally located in the store, as well – with a good 6 or so signs leading you to them.

It’s unnerving to enter a huge ’secular’ bookstore and see that the history, and science sections barely add up to the amount of space allotted for religious books.

I am so glad you brought this to our attention. Tami and I were there last night, and realized that ours has an extremely small science section as well. I doubt it reflects Barnes&Noble’s values, rather the demands of the customers. Nobody’s buying science-related books! We have a long way to go. Do you all feel our country is taking giant leaps backwards? (Oooh, wait until you see what I have to blog about next! Look for a future post regarding women. We’re going backwards, people).

Well, I have a few more comments to respond to tomorrow. Thanks for being patient with this unusual weekend format. We’ll be back on track next week lots of hot topics.

Silence filled the space that my loss for words left. I stared at Blake for a minute. What other heroes have I introduced to him? Rosa Parks died not long ago, and we discussed her. Black again. I searched my brain files for any other heroes I must have introduced to him.

A-ha! Benjamin Franklin! We have a video about Benjamin Franklin learning how to harness electricity. In the movie, Franklin had to battle a religious fundamentalist who was trying to impede his research. It took much perseverance and faith in himself to finally prevail. Blake loved that video.

“Well, they’re not all black, honey. Benjamin Franklin was a hero, and he wasn’t black.” It was a step in the right direction, but clearly I had failed to provide my son with more than three or four examples of excellent human beings.

Growing up, the hero of my childhood was Nephi from the Book of Mormon. Nephi was a perfect person, with the exception of one tiny flaw. Nephi’s one sin was that he sometimes felt anger toward his wicked brothers who were trying to kill him. No wonder I have overwhelming and unrealistic expectations for myself: the biggest childhood hero of my life was AT LEAST as perfect as Jesus.

When I had kids, and especially when I left my church and all of its out-of-this-world heroes, I vowed I would expose my children to the world’s many great real heroes. I am now facing the reality that I haven’t done so well.

Yesterday, as I analyzed, and over-analyzed, the situation, I realized what is missing. I realized one of the reasons we, as agnostic parents, are feeling such a great need for a guiding source. We are missing a system for imparting our values to our children, that religious families normally get from their church.

The Mormon Church is the master of systems for teaching children. This is why the community is so tight, their familes are so strong, and such a large percentage of them actually make it to marriage in pure and complete innocence!

Let me show you how structured the Mormon community is in regard to teaching their young:

• Weekly church and Sunday School lessons
• Weekly Monday night Family Home Evenings (lessons)
• Daily family prayer and scripture reading
• Monthly visits from Home Teachers (each family is assigned two men who come to the home to give a lesson.)
• Weekly activities for teens, monthly activities for the children
• Monthly children’s magazine with lessons, stories, and learning activities
• Multiple free handbooks for family lesson plans on various moral and doctrinal topics

It was SO EASY to be a Mormon parent. The church put material directly into our hands. Agnostic and athiest parents have to conceive our own system for providing “lessons” to our children. Even more difficult, we have to do our own research to find the material. No one is giving us free handbooks with activities to demonstrate our values, arranged in formats that appeal to children of all ages.

I actually have been developing a system of timing. I’ve been using holidays as a sort of schedule to trigger ideas.

Some examples of holiday-triggered values:

• New Year- goals, ambition, ability to change and improve
• Civil Rights Day- courage, accepting others, forgiveness
• Easter- nature, spiritual rebirth
• Independence Day- patriotism, democracy, liberty and freedom
• 9/11- awareness and gratitude of our local firefighters and police officers and their families, community

I think the holidays, regular reading time, play groups, and other day-to-day experiences provide an adequate scheduling system to cover all the important things we want to share with our children. The difficulty is coming up with the tools for sharing the ideas, such as activities and books. That is the part that requires so much research when you don’t have a handbook given to you from church.

Civil Rights Day was so easy, because the school recommended books. The other holidays will require much more research. And since many of those other holidays also demand planning for giant feasts, extra shopping, and other activities, that just doesn’t leave as much time for educational research, does it?

I am going to continue what I started this month, which is to share my ideas and resources for educational and values-sharing activities and books for our children. They will mostly happen around the holidays, but I will add some other topics in here and there. I hope some of you will share your ideas as well.

“Then what DO you believe?”

At the time I was still trying to figure it out. Agnosticism is all about what we CAN’T or DON’T know. Agnosticism on it’s own is empty.

Through my studies of science, I grew fascinated with the nature of the human mind and our enormous capabilities. I began to consider how in a very short amount of time, humans figured out how to fly across the world, how to communicate with anyone in real time, how to cure all kinds of diseases.

The tsunami that affected so many millions of people last year? We knew about it here, on the opposite side of the world, within minutes of its occurance. Nations were able to gather resources and get them to the countries in need within days. We still have improvements to make (and we WILL make them), but imagine this same tsunami occuring only 100 years ago. How long would it be before anyone who could help would even hear about it? How much longer before we could get that help to the people? How much less help would we have to give?

Becoming agnostic, and reexaming my beliefs gave me greater hope in the amazing capabilities of human beings. I came to believe that we have the potential to solve the world’s greatest problems. Searching the internet for other secularists, I found a name for my faith in humankind: Humanism. Specifically, Secular Humanism.

Here is a definition from wikipedia:

Secular humanism is that branch of philosophy that advocates the use of reason, compassion, scientific inquiry, ethics, justice and a presumption of equality within a worldview centered upon human beings. The term was originally coined in the 20th century to make a clear distinction from “Christian humanism”. A perhaps less confrontational synonym is scientific humanism, which the biologist Edward O. Wilson termed “the only world-view compatible with science’s growing knowledge of the real world and the laws of nature”.

Its basic tenets may be simplified as:

* Humans have value and can solve human problems;
* Science, free speech, rational thought, democracy, and freedom in the arts go together;
* There is no proof for anything supernatural.

Below are some organizations that work toward the humanist ideals listed above. Their mission is to educate on humanism, and also work to affect public policy. The last one has links to local chapters who meet regularly. Maybe you have one in the area you live!

The Institute for Humanist Studies

The Continuum of Humanist Education

Council for Secular Humanism

American Humanist Association

Maybe I’m naive. Maybe I have too much faith in the human race. Or maybe some people just don’t have enough of it.

Pat Robertson is not representative of all Christians. I don’t want you to mistake me for lumping millions of good religous people into the same box as fanatics like Pat. But he does have a huge following who supports his judgemental rantings. If it weren’t for them, he wouldn’t be able to continue this nonsense.

Yesterday I heard one of these nuts call into a radio station, with this comment about Sharon’s stroke, “He’s killed a lot of people. It’s a long time coming.”

It seems Pat has become their modern prophet, speaking for their god, except that his prophecies often come after the fact. This group of fanatical religionists is growing larger and more powerful. They have become bold in their political interference, effectively changing the definition of science for some school boards, convincing pharmacists that they don’t have to fill doctors’ prescriptions if they are religiously opposed to them, and intruding on a married man’s right to make decisions concering his wife who, for years, has been in a vegetative state.

I really don’t care if people want to have outrageous beliefs. But when they are powerful enough to effect the social policy of our country in way that is damaging, we need to reverse the trend. I’m at a loss for how.

If I can make it past Trinity’s birthday party today without needing a nap afterward, this is what I plan on doing with my kids, before we start the party (party, as in: Israel and I are getting old and can’t stay up past ten anymore, so we will play games with the kids, and go to bed like any other night):

1. Look through the scrapbook from the previous year with each child.
2. Ask the following questions:
What did you do this year that you are proud of?
What is your funnest memory?
What did you try that was new?
3. Write down the answers for their scrapbooks.
4. Ask: “What would you like to try or improve for the coming year?”
5. Write it on a piece of paper, and tell the child that you are stashing it away until Easter. Easter, a holiday about new life and rebirth, is a great time to review the goal and check on the progress.

I thought I’d share it in case any parents out there are looking for some ideas on involving their kids and adding meaning to a holiday that usually focuses on partying adults. I like my adult parties, but since this day is also my daughter’s birthday, it’s hard to justify not being with her.

Israel and I both grew up with Christmas. Even though I don’t believe Jesus was born of a virgin, or that he rose three days after his death, I choose to celebrate Christmas because I believe traditions are healthy for the soul. I also recognize the power of ritual and symbolism, which religions capitalize on. What is it about the human mind that is so effected by ritual and symbolism? Christmas is rich with symbolism.

As a child, this memorable holiday provided benchmarks for my life. It added a magical, mysterious element to my world that I would never deny my children. Christmas gave me evenings with my family, playing games, trying new foods, bringing treats to friends and neighbors.

As an adult, Christmas has taught me to be more aware of others. I am not a natural gift-giver. To some people, nothing says “I love you” better than a gift. I am more receptive to gifts of praise! While I enjoy receiving a present, it’s not important to me. This is why, I have also never been good at thinking of what someone else might want. Over the years, because of Christmas, I have worked on improving my gift-giving skills. Preparing for Christmas has taught me to pay more attention to others and the things they enjoy.

I want to extend an invitation to my readers. I am curious to know how many athiests, agnostics, and other non-religious types, celebrate a religious holiday for this season. Whether you know me personally or not, whether you have commented before or not, I hope you will participate and give the following information:

1. Explain your non-belief or beliefs (example: I am agnostic).
2. Tell us whether you choose to observe one of the religious holidays of the season, and which one.
3. Explain why you justify celebrating or not celebrating.
4. Tell us if you have adapted the holiday a certain way to accomodate your secularism.

Kareena and I bonded when we met outside my family’s pop-up trailor. We would become long-term pen pals. After we sealed our friendship the day we met, Kareena decided to introduce me to her family. We approached her trailor, parked behind mine, and she invited me in.

The first words her mother spoke to me came as an interrogation, “Are you a Christian?”

Even though I was, in fact, a Christian, and would remain one for more than twenty years, I often thought back to that day and the question that disturbed me. I had become aware that a common religion is a pre-requisite in some social circles.

This fact became more concerning when my first child, now part of our agnostic family, started school and began to make friends. I had just joined The MOMS Club and was making new friends of my own. I worried about the inevitable moment when I would have to confess to another mother, that we were not Christians.

Eventually the time came, as conversations became more personal. To my surprise, it hasn’t yet been a problem. Perhaps the integrity I have already displayed is enough to take the stigma away? Or maybe I am just with the right kind of people. The more tolerant type.

My confidence flourished as I got to know two Christian moms a year ago. One of these moms claimed to be a true, believing Christian, but excused herself from being an example of righteous living. She was “weak in the flesh”.

I remember my shock the day these two friends told me about an evening a year earlier. They were drunk, and decided to get revenge on a friend who upset them. They drove to her house (yes, I believe they drove drunk) and egged it.

These ladies are moms. In their 30’s and 40’s.

That day I decided I was not ashamed of my disbelief of religion. I stopped worrying about others judging my morality. Since then I have had the confidence to say, with a smile, that I am not a Christian. I am an agnostic humanist.

Last week I finished “The End of Faith” by Sam Harris. What a fascinating and very different book. Harris outlines the unique position the world is in currently. For thousands of years, people have tortured others in the name of religion. But never has there been a time when fanatic religious people had access to weapons of mass destruction.

Harris warns that this is an era when suicide bombers, who want to “destroy the infidels” off the face of the earth, could actually accomplish their mission. He claims that tolerance of moderate religious faith gives credence to fundamentalists, who will go to extreme measure to accomplish their goals. What if those goals are to annihilate all others of a different faith?

This book gave me more reasons to stand up for myself and my beliefs.

Am I a Christian? No I am not. I am an agnostic humanist.