Dear Red States:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peace Out,
The Blue States

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

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

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

The (Many) Reasons

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Family Meals

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

My Recommendations

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

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

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

Listen from the website.

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

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

The “Out” Parent

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

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

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

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

The Podcast

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

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

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

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

My Second Full-Time Job

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

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

I’m Now A Vegan

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

The Great Gatsby

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

The kids…

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

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

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

All three are amazing kids.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dear Mr. Windybottom,

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

Regards,
Sandy Subscriber

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks in advance!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. Can I ask these questions?

2. May I ask these questions?

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

4. If so, do the answers matter?

5. Am I alone in my conclusions?

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

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

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

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

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

Which played the most dominant role?

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

Is your wife a nonbeliever and freethinker as well?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is now the time to publish this book?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ignore. Ignore. Ignore.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hello Noell,

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

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

So, is it really worth the effort?

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

Note:

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

Let me start with this observation and question:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your last question:

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

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

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

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

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

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

We’ll pray for you…

Whether you like it or not.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just when you thought red flowers were so last year…

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

The Original Layout Returns…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hmmm…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enjoy!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This post is to answer a question from Jennifer:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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