Blogging the First Year

I have completed my first year as a blogger. I have posted on topics from the legislature in Utah to my children and from Community Theartre to many posts on Atheism. I have transformed in the last year from an atheist to a militant atheist willing to challenge openly what seems to be absurd. No worries friends....No guns...I became militant when I openly stated my opinions.

I have gained 9 followers in the last year. Two are my own family members and the rest are friends and strangers who I have come to know from their blogs. I have found my blog listed on blogrolls on other bogger's sites and I have been flattered. I lost 1 facebook friend that I know of and could have lost more who silently blocked my content.

I have had prominent exmormons like Jeff Ricks leave comments on my blog and other known Mormon apologists like Valoel leave their marks.

The blog has been a jumping off for conversation in my home. Sometimes comments have included exasperated remarks like "what have you done now!" The conversations have raised interesting points and I have also been emphatically forbidden to discuss some topics..."I don't want you to write about this....not now!"

I hope to continue to blog at even a more frequent interval than I have in the last year. I suspect my content will be as controversial as it has over the last year. For that I will not apologize but I will say that I don't set out just to stir the pot. I write about things that are important to me and that I feel strongly about. I believe that free speech is not free and there is always a consequence to stating your opinion. I hope to gain new friends and to keep old ones.

Here is to a second year! Happy New Year!

Christmas...means less now that my baby doesn't belive in Santa!

This time of year is very aggravating to me. We have a bunch of expectations to meet and even in times of plenty I struggle to succumb to the commercialism of the holiday.

When I was a kid who still had a belief in Santa...and in a god...this season was all magic. From the decorations to the cookies and fudge to the gifts and the anticipation. I loved the stories of a Night Before Christmas, The Little Drummer Boy, and A Christmas Carol.

As I grew older Christmas became tainted by the domestic issues my parents had and the expectations that my father had failed to meet or the unrealistic expectations that my mother had of him. But, for most of the years I lived at home there was someone who believed in Santa Claus.

I easily shed my belief in god at about age 16. The belief in Santa had be be pried from me at age 12. I suffered greatly at this time of year. I worried about the emotional health of my family and if Santa knew what I wanted for Christmas. The night before Christmas I would lay awake the entire night listening for Sleigh Bells and wondering how Santa would get down that chimney; which would lead him to the basement where I slept, and get upstairs without me hearing him. I became a Santa apologist. I was a hopeless romantic!

When I started having children of my own I still loved the whole idea of Santa...but hated the financial pressures the season brings. We did little to raise our children as Christians in fact we avoided most references to Christ in the season. When my oldest, Skyler was about four he was watching a "First Christmas" program on TV. He turned from the TV and asked emphatically..."who is this Jesus dude anyway?" When my youngest boy, Michael, was about 10 he was helping my wife set up a small nativity in the great room. He handed her a figurine of the baby Jesus and said, "Don't forget Noah". He only knew about Noah from the Veggie Tales cartoon that my Mother-in-law lent him despite my objection.

My youngest, Kiera, shed her belief in Santa last year telling us she had caught us a couple of years ago. She kept up appearances because of the "If you don't believe...you don't receive" mantra my wife would repeat all season.

For a Curmudgeon, I love to entertain, decorate my home, and to cook great meals for my family and guests. I am a designer at heart and each tree I put up is an experiment in a new theme, color pallet, each center piece is an opportunity to show Martha Stewart up!

I started this blog as a result of struggling with this question...'Why does an atheist celebrate Christmas at all?' A year later I an no closer to answering this question. I spent most of today shopping for gifts and supporting this artificial economy we have built around this holiday. I believe more this year than I did last that Christ was a legend and not a real person. I struggle to justify the celebration in his name or the financial stress this holiday puts on me and most of middle America. I celebrate it because my wife still loves it.....And I design a mean Christmas Tree!

Beware Vitriol Disguised as Benevolence

Lavar Christensen appeared on KCPW the other day pushing the Sutherland Institutes agenda. He believes that religion is under attack in the country and that the United States is a religious nation and that is what the founding fathers wanted it to be. Okay, I recently addressed the Christian Nation thing in a prior post and I am not going to rehash that now.

During the interview Lavar Christensen spoke in the soft monotone we are used to hearing during the LDS General Conference. But is is what he says not the manner that he says it that is troubling. When asked what he sees as the biggest threat to religious freedom now he says:

I think it is the loss of our moorings and our anchoring faith. The
confidence that our nation exhibited demonstrated in its first 150+ years as a
nation, marked by the adoption of the adoption of our national motto 'In God We
Trust', and the of the Pledge of Allegiance. All of those signs of
faith which are so much a part of our American culture are now being
chipped away.

I know that history is inconvenient when it does not support your position. The national motto that his country was founded on and one that still appears on our money is "E Pluribus Unum" which is Latin for "One from many" or "One from many parts." That is the secular motto that was born with the country.

The new motto "In God We Trust" did not come to us until 1956 at the beginning of the cold war. It is not the motto that gave us our exceptional ism as he alleges. The pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892, it was edited again in 1924. Both versions excluded references to god. In 1954 in the middle of McCarthyism and the "Red Scare" congress added "Under God"

You see we have not been marching away from god in the country. We have been marching toward god. It is in the last 50 years that we have pushed god on to our citizens because if they believe in god they are not communists. It has been less about god than it has been about pushing fear and imposing religion on the citizens in the same manner that "god" was taken from the peoples of communist nations.

Today it is the assertion that we are a Christian Nation. Because if we are a Christian Nation we are not Muslims. We use religion as a way to homogenize our people, a way to bind the tribe and to be able to determine who our enemies are. God is not a benevolent tool....It is a way to direct our vitriol

Sex Ed...Health Issue or Moral Issue?

KSL, had an artice on it's website today that I found interesting. Syphilis rates are up dramtically in Utah. Whenever we see this as a trend it opens up a debate as to whether we give more sex education to our children or we push abstinence. One method reduces infection the other has proven to not. The following comment was posted with the article and I found it disturbing:

No, this is NOT a health issue, it IS a MORALITY issue. And those who choose to use their agency incorrectly will suffer both the spiritual consequences and in this case many times the physical consequences. People can try to ignore the consequences of sin, but they can not change them. Many people have become so far desensitized they are almost "past feeling" and no longer remember what it felt like to be pure and clean and have almost fully adopted their fallen state of being as "normal" reality. To them, the world is dark and to them it seems normal. These are the voices who usualy speak loudest agains purity and righteousness because they can no longer see or feel it and to them it is as if it no longer exists. They find their daily feed in the media which helps them to reinforce in thier minds thier fallen state as a normal reality, which keeps them from coming to the Lord and repenting so they might be healed. Indeed, as Paul said, "of such, turn away..."

Really? I am not sure how you can use your agency incorrectly...you either use it or you don't. I wonder what the conversation will be at the poster's kitchen table when this poster's child comes down with syphilis or worse...HIV? Darling child you have a disease that was delivered to you by god because you ignored his teachings. Sorry you need to suffer because you were unclean.

COME ON PEOPLE! What are you thinking. Humans are sexual beings. It is in our DNA to have sex. Kids make decisions based upon emotion and desire. There is rarely any thought given to going to hell but tell them they could get sick....They will think twice about the method if nothing else.

Utah needs to pull its collective head out of the sand. Parents do not teach sex ed. They fail in that regard in every way in this state. When you combine religious voodoo with an ineffective policy you write a recipe for disaster. I believe the argument for comprehensive sex ed is the fact that your son might date my daughter!

Christian Nation?

We are romping into the holiday season and in the United States that means Thanksgiving kicks off the Christmas season. I personally have a love/hate relationship with Christmas. I decorate for the holidays and have a great time doing it. I do not believe however that Jesus was the Christ or even a real person nor do I think someone else's death will give me salvation.

This season also brings out the pre-legislative session bills and those who claim there is a war on Christmas and Christianity. I read a facebook status today that for some reason got under my skin.

Let's see how many people on fb aren't ashamed to show their love for God and admit that Jesus is their Savior... We need to get God back in America... If you're not ashamed, copy and paste this in your status... P.S. - "Question with boldness, hold to the truth, and speak without fear!" - Glenn Beck

Now I personally do not care how many people on facebook profess their love for god or admit that Jesus is their savior. I think that is their right and conversely they should leave me to my atheist rants as well because that is my right. I am however concerned about the idea that we need "to get god back in America"!?! I watched a Brian Dalton lecture the other night resonated with my feelings on this subject. Brian Dalton does the popular "Mr. Deity" series on YouTube. Here is a clip;




We continue to operate under the premise of American exceptional ism stating boldly that 'god wanted us to settle this country and we are the greatest country in the world because god wants us to be'. This belief is not only foolish but it is dangerous.

When we are demanding that god be returned to our country are we demanding it be the Christian god only? Or if we bring god back can it be the Muslim god? How about a Hindu god? You see I firmly believe that god only exists in our individual minds. Your definition of god is not the same as your neighbors. In fact no two people in the same congregation will see god in the same way. The problem is that as humans we are willing to kill each other over who we believe is right.

As we move into the 2010 legislative session our conservative legislature is lining up a series of bills that will help return god to our country. The first in the series now out is a push to remove the phrase "Liberally Construed" from the rules. Not because it is bad for the agencies who are charged with the rule to "liberally" interpret or to loosely apply the rule but because it has the word "liberal" in it and liberals are against god. The Salt Lake Tribune Columnist Paul Rolly recently drew a line between the movement of Conservapedia to the Eagle Forum who is pushing to have the language removed from the rules(and there are many). The Eagle Forum has the second biggest voice on the hill next to the LDS Church. This gives the Neo-Conservative Fascist Gayle Ruzicka more access than the average citizen because she represents what god wants.

I would challenge any and all religious people to put their focus on their fellow man. This year especially. Forget about getting god back into America and look out for all Americans not just your fellow Christians. Don't do it because god wants you to or because its what Jesus would do but because it the the right thing to do.

Organic Community - Arts

I had a discussion last week with a friend about community. I live in a planned community (Daybreak) where many of our early experiences, when the community was in its infancy' were socially engineered to bring people together. We all had one thing in common: we chose to buy homes in a neighborhood that was designed from the sidewalks up to create a tight nit community. When we first moved here there were activities and they were well attended by the community members. Over the last five years something has happened to change the community. The community has grown to over 2000 individual family homes and the quaint community that we enjoyed in the beginning has been eroded.

I see the cause of this threefold. The first is the size. When you have two thousand homes and three villages you are going to see a regionalization of community. Folks will opt to know, do service with, and recreate with their neighbors. Second, the community management has failed support organic community in such a large neighborhood and also has demonstrated a lack of understanding of the local culture. The third reason was partially discussed in the last sentence. As our community started to grow the neighborhood started to develop the majority of its community inside of local LDS ward houses.

I guess that the community management recognized on one level that the community was fragmented and there was a need for a change. They fired Lifestyle Director and started a search for a replacement. However, that replacement must also come with a plan to stimulate organic community. It is fair to recognize that people with huddle in their neighborhoods and there is nothing wrong with celebrating a block, region, or village. There is also much to be said about formation of groups that serve niches inside the community as a whole.

The new community manager also has to figure out how to open the relationships between the local LDS community and those who are not members. The LDS community has a self contained social structure that dominates daily life and there is limited opportunities for cross over. Children and adults have a regimented schedule that does not leave much time for activities outside. Many families find that between church, school, and maybe some sports activities there is little time or energy left. As my friend and I discussed, they do not need community outside as much as those of us outside need community.

I have been involved in a form of organic community that seems, for some, to have bridged the gap. It has not been perfect and it is certainly not been a panacea but, it has worked very well and filled a void in our community. That specifically is our local community theatre group, South Jordan Community Theatre. This group formed as a local group of friends got together and produced a show in the neighborhood. The obvious need for this type of outlet was immediately apparent. Our neighborhood management declined to be involved in this project long term and so four of us formed a board a directors and have produced 5 shows in 12 months with great success. Our organization serves our local area and has expanded into other counties and cities. It has brought together people of all walks of life including religious and non religious folks. We have an advisory board of 19 members who are teachers, lawyers, carpenters, authors, and politicians who all have a common goal of providing quality performance arts opportunities to children and families of our local community.

I believe we have been successful because it has addressed a need, taken into account the three things listed above, and has a very targeted focus. Additionally, it has a board of directors that has made it about the product and not the individuals who serve on the board.

Children are the Challenge-Kiera

Kiera is my youngest child. She is spunky, spirited, manipulative, smart, and cute. Of my five children she has the strongest need to fit in and to be liked. This makes her very susceptible to peer pressure. I have seen this child make decisions that are contrary to her own personal welfare or interests to keep friends and she is only 10. Unfortunately she believes what her friends tell her and does not frequently challenge them. I personally think that Kiera’s has more of a fear of rejection than a need for acceptance.

Kiera has lived in three different homes two in the same neighborhood. It was our last move that has proved to be the most difficult. Kiera has found herself on the outside looking in. In our other neighborhoods we had plenty of non-religious families in the neighborhood and Kiera had a choice of peers. The one we are in now she has been excluded from Sunday play while the religious families and their kids associate and play together.

Recently, Kiera has been invited to attend “Activity Days” with the girls who attend the local LDS Ward. I have, until this last week, approached this cautiously. Wanting to provide her with the opportunity for association but wanted to limit opportunities for indoctrination. This unfortunately proved disastrous this week. Two weeks ago they all went up to the Temple to have their picture taken. This week they made frames for those photos. Now on its face it seems okay. I don’t have an issue with the Temple. It is a local landmark and my daughter is cute!

The one thing that rocked me back on my heels was a booklet that I found on the end table: “Faith in God for Girls.” The booklet was distributed at the activity last week. The booklet outlines what the child must do to achieve their potential as a child of god. It assumes that first the child had been baptized and second the parents are on board. In my neighborhood it is not secret that I am not on board. I explained to Kiera that I do not agree with the contents of the booklet. She became very upset with me and demanded I give her the booklet back. She went on to tell me that she wanted to go to the activities because she had fun. She also stated they had started a binder for her to track her “personal progress”.
The content in the booklet may be fine for the parents of her friends but it is not acceptable in our home. There is little probability that she would be able to meet the achievement or the award at the end of the program because she is not a baptized member and her dad does not see it as harmless.

I do not spend anytime indoctrinating my children to be atheists. We just do not give them a religious identity. One of my favorite quotes from Richard Dawkins is

“There is no such thing as a catholic child…Only a child with catholic parents.”

In his example he applies this concept to other religions and political philosophies. Religion has to be taught and as a result, for most of us, the religion we end up with is the religion of our parents. It is that phenomenon that allows religions to regionalize. There is a certain smugness that results from believing we have the answer and as a result we do not have to stop and consider the other person or family that may be affected. In Kiera’s case the activity days are agenda driven and she will not be attending in the future. This will be viewed as a harsh decision but they would feel the same way if I invited their children in and told them why I don’t believe there is a god.

This video illustrates the above paragraph. The discussion starts at about 5 minutes in.