Category: Atheism

What kind of man are you, Robert?

Here’s the offending document, from Skepchick.

Here’s my response.

 

Dear Robert,

I was interested to read your email to skepchick.  I have a number of questions.  I am sure that your email box is full, so I’ll give you a couple of weeks to shovel your way out from under the uptick in mail volume to respond.  There is always the possibility you were pranked, so I am keeping my questions civil. Here they are.

Are you implying that your reaction to a woman’s appearance is more important than what she has to say on the subject of atheism?

Are you implying that because you do not like a woman’s appearance you have an obligation to ask her to stop commenting on atheism?

Are you implying that your personal preferences regarding a woman’s appearance should factor into whether she continues to make comments about atheism on youtube?

I ask to confirm that you were indeed serious.  If so, kindly direct me to your youtube account so I may critique your videos regarding atheism in the light of your personal appearance.  If you have none such, allow me to express disappointment, as the world of atheism would undoubtedly be better off with your contribution to it more readily accessible.  If you weren’t serious, please advise how I was supposed to know you were joking from the context of the email.

In the spiriit of tolerance and inquiry,

Allegra Sloman

ER

I may have mentioned Jeff and I are working our way through the entirety of ER (when we need a palate cleanser, 2nd season SG1).  We’ve had 8 seasons of getting to know, love and hate various people.

I took a book out of the library about Must See TV, the part of the nineties when NBC had groundbreaking shows like Third Rock from the Sun and ER and Seinfeld and Cheers and Frasier and Will and Grace and Mad About You and Friends, shows that were ALL ABOUT THE WRITING.  In the last chapter of the book, it was made abundantly clear that NBC no longer gives a tinker’s cuss about writing – sales and marketing runs the show and they run the least offensive shows that cost the least amount of money to make.  In defence of the current iteration of talent management and development at NBC, ER had a 44 market share and a top ten hit show in 2012 has a 13 (Julianna Margulies was comparing ER and The Good Wife, her current show), and it’s because there’s a lot more TV happening especially competition from HBO and AMC and Showtime, so it’s harder to have a hit.  But honestly, folks, without the writing and the courage to try something new, good tv DOES NOT HAPPEN.  It’s happening on cable  – that’s where the action is.

Well, in my little universe of time-shifted tv, main character Mark Greene just died of brain cancer, and I wept non stop for an imaginary character for 20 minutes.  Under the circumstances, mocking the ability of other people to believe in God seems a tad uncharitable…. must resolve to quit every doing it.  My imaginary friends…. sigh.

And Anthony Edwards, the actor playing Mark Greene, is back on TV, and the show description is so lame I don’t want to watch it.

Wrote 850 words of backstory on Midnite Moving Co last night.  Oh lady of the deep waves, how I love you.  Trying to write a human alien character who doesn’t speak is freaking hard….  But I now have the story of how she met George, from his perspective.  Writing it from hers will be very hard.

Off to church now.

I salute thee cherished female progenitor

My mother kept an email correspondence going with her cousin Reck for about ten years, until shortly before he passed this past spring. I have just edited 150 pages of it (it’s 800 pages in total) being the portion just before and just after Obama was elected. IT IS AMAZING. They talk about politics and family history and philosophy and ethics and Reck casually mentions that he emailed Malcolm Gladwell regarding an idea – which may have contributed to his thinking when he wrote Outliers. And my mother defends atheism with a verve and trenchancy I could only dream of emulating. Just feeling blown away right now.

My twitter comments about the current furore over A+ (Atheism Plus)

From the bottom to the top…..

Allegra Sloman ‏@TheCorrection

But hey, sorry, life isn’t like that. Life ain’t life without struggle, self-improvement, sorrow, loss, and metric crapstacks of hard work.

And I want praise for being me, glorious me, and I never want to lift a mental finger again. Or a physical one truth be told….

No matter who we are we want to rest after a battle. They want praise for being atheists, not a lecture about the next battle.

Raised atheist, but I still have to fight internalized sexism, racism, transphobia, neuro-difference, and preference for English.

If you’ve had a long journey getting to atheism, being told you’re still a clueless asshole about sexism really smarts. Hurt lashes out…

From PZ Myers’ address to the Australian Atheists in 2012

Science has the power to transform our sense of identity. Some of us are no longer people of the Word. We are no longer members of a special tribe bound together by the words in quaint old books. We are instead the people of reality. We are united by common knowledge, by our sense of universality, and by a commitment to evidence…. The words of my people, of our people, are written in the strands of DNA I find in every cell of my body and the story they tell is clear and inspiring. We are all products of the natural world. Stars died to create the elements we are made of and four billion years of churning life struggled and was born and died to shape us. We are close kin to every human being on this planet, without exception. There is no tribe outside our family and, even deeper, we are related to every living thing on earth. You simply cannot get any more universal than the scientific story of life.

I transcribed this from the video.  Wording is close but not guaranteed to be exactly as he spoke it.

A repeat from September 2004

Quoted from Mr. Damon, who has since moved away from the internet.

 

Now let me be clear about something. I am not a Christian, but I am neither anti-Christian nor anti-church. I recognize and support modes of thought and faith and communion that provide people with solace, strength and a sense of vibrancy and blessing. I DO NOT have a high regard for fundamentalist, literalist philosophies and the oppressive, narrow and, in some cases, violent behaviors that they promote. That has little to do with religion and Spirit, in my opinion, and a whole lot do with fear, control and ambitions toward dominion.

To bring harm, hardship, anxiety and death to your enemies — who are in fact your human + natural relations — in the name of a deity, or with a notion of divine guidance + supremacy, is an act of utmost ignorance and an affront to all of that which is our true nature and purpose.

Any day I don’t have to scrape or defog the car is a good one / Resolution list

Katie’s coworkers reacted to her new boots (she WORE THEM AT WORK for the last half of the shift, they is that comfy) with a gratifying display of jealousy, appreciation and WTF that her mOm would spend that much money on her.

Wednesday, probably, I go have dins with my old beau from the bike shop.  Looking forward to catching up with him.  It didn’t work out between us (he has a sweetie in Seattle, where have I heard THAT before) but I still appreciate him for his complete and blithe disregard for whatever is fashionable in favour of what he likes.

Check this out.  Laughed my ass off.  http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/horoscoped/  It is a wordcloud of all the words in 22000 horoscopes, with A COMPLETELY GENERIC horoscope at the end.  So much for augury…..

Per the tarot reading which said I have so many, I have prepared my new years resolutions. Being ten in number, as recommended.

Remember to bring cans, rice and pasta for the food bank at least 3 out of 4 Food Bank Sundays.  I keep forgetting and it really feels bad.

Prep for taking on the duties of a Secretary at Beacon (I expect to be acclaimed, and still no Treasurer, bah).  Since this involves a lovely long lunch with Carol and Sue on my dime, I can’t imagine this one taking too long to tick off.

Lose 20 pounds by this time next year.  Awk, oh well.

Attend at least one Humanist meeting, even though there are two regular attendees whose smooth and seemingly impenetrable pomposity I would like to test a laser on.  Oh Allegra you are really doing them a favour aren’t you.

Attend at least one Lunch Bunch meeting.  It means I have to be on vacation or take a day off, but I have an evol plan for that.  It means connecting with some of the church elders, whom we do not have with us forever.  Their wisdom and humour is the reason I keep going back to church and yet I never socialize with them.  Wrongo me bucko, as they say.

Go to one open mic per month, except in January.  I plan to map out the ones closest to the house thanks to http://www.openmicvancouver.com/

Gather up all my homilies for publication.  Yeah, I know.  I will self-publish but it’s easy to do for cheap and I’m enjoying the notion of my mother having something to send her strict Christian relatives.

Monetize the web site.  Yes, start selling shit or advertising.  Seeing as how I will have to stop linking all over the web thanks to SOPA, I might as well start covering costs, cheap as they are.

Track the amount of time I spend watching TV (this, not the weight loss, is the real asskicker).

Get good or at least fun at making hats for cats and steampunk jewelry.  Cindy says she will tutah me.  Might even be a revenue stream, who knows.  It won’t be until I’ve recovered the $100 I’ve spent on supplies – I am keeping track.

And there you have it.  2012 will be all about connecting and creativity.  And hopefully some relief for my poor tubby knees.

Monday linky-lous

This is wonderful– a list of unlikely meetings.

Take your granny to the mall today. Remember, when it gets hot, you can prevent deaths by banging on the doors of your elderly neighbours and making sure they stay hydrated and cool.

Nancy the sheepherding …… chihuahua?

In keeping with the “Fuck, it’s hot” theme, today is the anniversary of the first day napalm was used on human beings.

This speech aligns well with my thinking about filk.

Jeff and I had a conversation about this the other day and thankfully he pulled the quote for me.

YAY!!!!! Google applies Boots of Buttkicking to Malware’s ass.

Jeff and I watched Dawkins on Darwin. Man, there are a lot of stupid people in the world.  I’m still having a hard time understanding exactly how people can tie themselves in the cognitive knots required to deny evolution.

Merry Christmas

Einstein, 1949:

I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being.

Christmas Eve Service was not well attended, but we sang the old carols lustily, and I admired Erin’s little one, and said hey to Rob, who got two whole days off from driving bus. Peggy read so sincerely that I could feel tears welling up – and they spilled.  For unto us a son is given…. and I’ve had that magic, a little life I built (with help) myself and held in my arms for the first time a very long time ago.  And now he’s all big and opinionated, but not so opinionated that he doesn’t love it when I pick him up a milkshake on the way home from church.

No church this Sunday – off to Victoria.

I should go upstairs and wrassle the bird.  For some reason I don’t feel like cooking stuffing.  Must be something wrong with me.

That’s about right.

Indeed.

Yesterday my mother celebrated her 75th birthday.  Now if we’d been from the other side of the family we’d have piled in cars and gone to see her and had a damned big party but this is what we did instead. Not a single one of us bought her a present.  Not a single one of us sent her flowers.  Nope, nor a card.

I wrote my mother a poem (picking up from where an earlier one left off) and made all her descendents call her on the phone.  You can call me chintzy, but all I can do is thank my ancestors that they conveyed to our family a very sturdy notion of what is important and what is not in family life.

My mother taught me a lot of things.  In most of these matters she had help from my dad, but not always.

Civility costs nothing.

Get a good education and then worry about what you’re going to do to earn your bread.

Be kindly towards the religious expressions of others.  Atheism will always be a minority opinion so don’t be rude about it.  Bob your head for grace; sing the carols; kneel and stand when you’re s’posed to.  Absolutely nothing about being an atheist gives you a hall pass to be rude about the religious expressions of your relatives; may as well generalize and extend the civility requirement to anybody who isn’t actively trying to kill you.

Given a choice between spending the time and spending the money, spend the time.

Stay busy.

Housework sucks, but the requirement for it doesn’t go away, so learn to do it efficiently and without whining.

Be authentic about what you love even if it looks silly to other people.

Human beings need to touch each other and baby human beings need lots of touching.

Budget the luxuries first.  This entirely counterintuitive take on personal finances has assisted in keeping me happy.

Better two good friends and true than 50 dubious acquaintances.

There’s no excuse for being a shitty driver.

Alcohol and recreational drugs are not necessary for any aspect of life.  Painkillers on the other hand are a must.

Let the medical students experiment.  It isn’t fun but it’s soon over.

Beauty, truth and goodness are everywhere.  So are evil, waste and want.  If you adjust your vision to see the former more than you see the latter, you may not have a more accurate view of the world but you will have a happier one.

Music is important.

Privacy is important.

Don’t fight in front of the children.

There are only a few criteria for determining whether you have been a successful parent.  1. Child survives to breeding age.  2.  Child does not go to jail.  3.  Child stays pretty much continuously and voluntarily employed at job or household tasks and arranges personal life so as not to be dependent on the state.  4.  Child stays out of mental hospital.  5.  Child comes to visit you voluntarily.

If your child meets these criteria, you have been a successful parent and lying around moaning about any aspect of child’s life, from choice of spouse to wacky UFOlogy paradigms, just makes you look like an ass. Bonus points for grandchildren, but you don’t have any control over that.

Your family can never be too big.

If you look hopelessly square and do not attract attention by odd behaviour, people will leave you the hell alone.

Getting old is not for sissies.

Whining is something other people do.

quhat a day

Quhat being Scots dialect for What.

The night before I didn’t contact the volunteers.  I was SO anxious and phobic that I literally could not pick up the phone.  (Most of the time I’m not affected by anxiety to that extent but making phone calls is really hard for me, and I’m trying to work out why.)  I realized that I was a wreck and went to bed.  I got up at 4:30 am, picked out and edited the poem I read for the children’s story, printed it, edited the homily a couple of times more for clarity and accuracy and printed it, went through the undifferentiated piles of emails that are the complete mess that is cooperative ministry right now and found to my surprise that I did in fact know who all the volunteers were (amusingly, Paul was supposed to do set up this weekend but he left town… Luc covered him) and they were all sober and reliable people who of course all showed up.  So my list of cooperative ministry (the volunteers who bop about the church and make things happen on Sunday morning, from the extremely amazing Sally (aesthetics) to the extremely amazing Laura (coffee) was actually accurate!

I even put in all the announcements that Rev Katie emailed me, AND put in a different graphic for the front cover AND got the order of service printed all by about 7:30.  Then I packed everything up, had a shower, and realizing I had a WHOLE HOUR before I had to get to church, so I did the sensible thing and made Jeff waffles for brekky.

Saw Margot crawl into the garden plot and flatten herself to the ground to become ‘invisible’ waiting for the juncos to come back through the quinoa.  Sorry kiddo… you ARE NOT invisible.

Went to church under overcast skies – I was the first person there so there’s that great feeling of unlocking all the doors and turning on all the lights

It’s time to play the music

It’s time to light the lights

It’s time to meet the Muppets on the Muppet Show tonight.

That kind of feeling, and then getting out the mats for the kids to sit on and helping set up the table for the altar and hauling out the podium and consulting with various folks, and watching as Sandy hauled out the enormous cart Tom made for the sound system. (Brief aside – we have hard of hearing folks in the congregation so we have a bunch of wireless headsets for amplification and all that stuff is in the cart, along with the board and the cabling etc etc.)  Then the greeter’s table is set up, and then parents come in to set up the kids (the older kids were off at a Catholic mass).  And just greeting people…. and then Tom and Peggy and Marnie show up, and music starts happening (12 string, stand up bass and piano).  Getting asked, once again, why it is I don’t consider ministry…. what am I supposed to say?  God told me not to?  I do not have a vocation, peeps!  When you get the call it’s unmistakable.  The only time I get a call that’s unmistakable it always ends badly, with me yelling “You freaking telemarketers, how did you get this number?!”  I’ll tell you why I’m not a minister…. because I read the behavioural standards that I would be expected to adhere to, like not sleeping with parishioners and ceasing to be nude in public on occasion and being somewhat less vivid and colloquial and vehement in my speech.  And don’t get me started on the drugs and alcohol stuff, it’s just unconscionable.  I’m also, not to put too fine a point on it, making the same amount of money as our current minister, who is 13 years out of school.  Ayuh.

Then it all started and it went very well.  I made the aside about being asked about which version of the Bible I was using for the verse and answering “Sheesh, Mom, what difference does it make to an atheist?” which got a huge laugh.  I have a lot of people to email the homily to.

I remember gazing at the congregation during the meditation and seeing Erin shifting her little one around trying to get her to latch, and passing my eye over all the mothers in the congregation and they (and a few of the men, truth be told) were all grinning.  They knew the feeling… after the service I went up to Erin with a mock look of distaste on my face and said, “Baby did NOT get memo about staying quiet during meditation!!!” and all the women clustered ’round her cracked up and chided me, and that’s when I told Erin how many people were smiling with their eyes closed as they heard the baby – I think she was pleased.

Delivering the homily and feeling comfortable enough to wander around the stage instead of staying glued to the podium like I have always done previously, remembering to look up often enough to connect with folks. It was easily the most attentive group evar….

Having all the handouts disappear. Anne in particular liked Carl Sagan’s baloney detection kit; somebody else, can’t remember who, saying that the little List of Cognitive Biases would make for an amazing conversation starter at Thanksgiving dinner.

Bringing strawberry twizzlers for snacks, and helping myself.

Talking, talking, to lots of people afterwards. Giving Carol a lift home in that magical fall sunshine that feels like summer filtered though dreams.

Blowing through the door like a hurricane and frying up the pork and onions for the stuffing, firing up the oven, stuffing the turkey, draping it with four pieces of thick cut bacon, jamming it in the oven, and ignoring it for about four hours. Katie calling to ask me if I’d forgotten anything and then showing up with cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie and whipped cream.  (She called ahead and offered!  I am not a failure as a parent! subtext).  I then hauled the bird out once and basted it and put it back in while Katie and I made veg.  Falling asleep on the upstairs sofa and awakening to see that Mike and Rozo had arrived, which triggered another round of Holy Crap, Must Feed People.

Final dinner arrangement;

Me Jeff Katie Mike Rozo:

Turkey with pork, onion, apple, brown bread, sage and garlic stuffing; hubbard squash drizzled with maple syrup, black pepper, garlic and allspice, boiled carrots, mashed potatoes, dripping gravy, green salad and dun tot (egg tarts from Anna’s Bakery OMG provided by Mike & Rozo) for dessert.

I came upstairs and both of the cats were on the dining room table.  Margot was inspecting the last of the gravy…. Eddie looked hideously guilty and was licking his chops rather inelegantly (his tongue was out an inch) but Katie couldn’t find anything missing.  Eddie’s expression made me howl with laughter.

I then bopped over to Planet Bachelor with Katie in tow (didn’t feel like going over there by myself) fed Kira who was most happy to see us, and then came back, watched some tube with the folks, and then announced around nine-thirty that I’d had a most excellent but also most lengthy day and I was going to have to say my goodnights.  Katie slept over and now I’m going to get up and make her a breakfast that will be awesome.

And that was my very long, very happy making, most excellently wonderful Turkey Day.

Today I plan to drink beer and wash clothes.  There IS nothing else on my to do list that I will do today.  Well, actually, if I want to keep things copacetic with Jeff I should clean the kitchen and run the dishwasher.  It’s pretty thick in there.

Oh, I lie.  After breakfast I have to run to the bank and get some money.  I think I may be buying a guitar today.

Heron Woman does it again. I do nothing for days and then explode into non stop action.  It is my way.