Author Archives: Bee

Staying Strong in the (Lack of) Faith

June 30, 2011 8:34 am \ 2 Comments \

As far as my (lack of) faith goes, I’m fairly new to atheism. This means I must learn news ways of dealing with stress and life situations that does not involve prayer. I still find myself wanting to cry out to “god” when I’m frightened or worried. I catch myself before I do and try to remember that these physical responses are all part of my natural instinct to survive. I suppose when I comes down to it,  I’m technically agnostic. I just lean more toward the belief that there is no god. I think if there is a higher power, it is most certainly not any of the gods that man has created here on Earth.

I also still find myself buying into spiritual crap. For example, there’s a local radio station with a morning show I listen to out of sheer morbid curiosity. It’s so ridiculous that I can’t believe I listen to it, but still…I do. Every couple of weeks they feature a famous psychic – Gary Spivey. This man is able to help people with their problems and can “guess” remarkable information about people. I find myself buying into it and often have to change the radio station because of the doubt it places in my mind. As a Christian, I was taught that psychics were “of the devil.” They were false prophets who did more harm than good. Now I see them differently – they are counselors of sorts. They have the gift of reading people, and that’s what I have to keep in mind. Even though I still believe that psychics do more harm than good with their talk of angels and the afterlife, they seem to do more good than many pastors I knew growing up.

Every day is a struggle to keep my feet planted solidly on the ground. I learn more about myself every time I tap into that natural instinct to calm myself without reaching out to a higher power that doesn’t exist. It’s funny, I still feel more free than I ever did as a Christian. I grow and learn every day, and no one tells me what to believe. I decide that for myself. I love life even more now that I know we truly are beings with a free will.

Posted in: Christianity, freedom, life as an atheist/agnostic

The Terrible Fours

June 13, 2011 7:46 am \ 3 Comments \

Well, it’s been a while since I last posted, and that’s mostly because my oldest daughter is going through a rough stage. She’s acting more tween-like than preschooler-like. Whew. It’s not easy. We’re trying to help her understand how her actions and attitude affect those around her. She seems very self-absorbed lately and I’m sure it’s a normal part of discovering her independence. We just have to guide her and make sure she understands that she is not the only person in this house, or the only kid in her classroom at school.

She’s also been asking a lot of questions about life and the world, and I’m doing my best to foster a sense of curiosity in her. She’s so smart and I know she’s going to enjoy growing up with the freedom to decide for herself what she believes is true about the world. That’s something I never had, so I must admit – I’m a little jealous. 🙂

Anyway, sorry for the delay in posting. I’m hoping to post more as time allows. Stay tuned for more photography as well!

Posted in: parenting

The First Atheist Hymnal

March 29, 2011 8:28 am \ Leave a Comment \

The “he” is always lowercase. Hahaha!

Posted in: Atheist Humor, Videos

Encouraging Choice

March 9, 2011 8:53 am \ 1 Comment \

I like to think I’m playing my part in phasing religion out of American life. One of the biggest changes I can see between my parenting style and that of my (divorced) parents is the emphasis on making good choices. I was never encouraged to make good choices. I was never asked to weigh the alternatives and examine the information to decide what course of action to take. I was simply told that the Bible is the end-all and be-all of authority and what is contained in that book is the absolute truth.

Therefore when it came to making choices about having sex, drinking, or pretty much anything, I fled to the Bible to find my answer. This made me a fearful and anxious person. I was constantly afraid of sinning, lest I bring god’s wrath down upon my head. Even though I knew I was saved, I didn’t really feel anything – except fear.

But, I digress. My parents never explained how important choices are in life. They never encouraged me to go to college (How dare I broaden my mind!) and they never encouraged me to make choices because I thought the choice was the right one to make.

Now that I have kids of my own, I find myself asking them questions constantly. When my oldest asks, “Why?” I always ask her, “Well, what do you think?” She spouts off her thoughts and then I explain the whys and why-nots to her. And most importantly, the I-don’t-knows. It seemed like my parents were afraid to say that. “What makes rain?” I would ask. “Rain is just god’s tears,” my mom would say, “and thunder is god bowling.” Yep. There’s nothing wrong with not knowing. Just because the answer isn’t obvious doesn’t mean it needs to be explained by something someone made up.

Ask my 4-year-old what makes thunder and she’ll tell you how lightning cuts through the air, causing it to slap back together to make a loud boom. It’s beautiful, and it helps me feel good about my non-religious parenting. My girls will grow up being able to analyze information and make proper choices, and I will always encourage learning and curiosity in their precious minds. I can only hope that they realize the value of this and pass it on to their children. Maybe someday the real truth – the provable truth – will prevail in our society. Maybe someday the person who believes in the imaginary man in the sky will be the weird one instead of the other way around. We can only hope.

Posted in: encouraging free thought, kid questions, life as an atheist/agnostic, parenting, science

So, I attended a Christian Funeral Today…

February 28, 2011 9:26 pm \ 4 Comments \

And it was awful. The grandmother of a girl I grew up with passed away last week. I remember her most from church as a kid. She was always nice to me and she hoped I’d be a good role model for my friend.

I decided go to support this friend because I know she has had a rough time lately. The service was being held at the church where I grew up, and I knew there would be a lot of people there that knew me in my evangelical Christian days. It was the worst funeral I’ve ever been to (not that I’ve been to that many, maybe five in my whole life). It was also the first organized Christian event I’ve attended since I realized that my doubts about god were more than just fleeting feelings.

The woman was a Christian, and I’m sure it was the type of funeral she would have wanted. It had old-fashioned hymns, prayers, and lots of talk about following Jesus. In fact, it had too much Jesus talk. The woman’s life was turned into a sermon, the pastor rehashing the requirements for salvation over and over again. I would think a funeral should be used to honor someone’s life, not try to persuade someone to follow a religion. Perhaps that’s what this woman wanted her funeral to be? Near the end, the pastor stated that the family had asked him to explain to people exactly how to become a Christian. Which he did. For ten minutes.

Most of the rest of the service was repetition of the fact that this woman had met her maker and that all should be happy for her because of that. Be happy that she died? Really? It just doesn’t make sense to me.

Beyond the fact that almost a quarter of the ceremony time was spent asking people to subscribe to bullshit, I was asked at least six times by different people when I was coming back to church. I suddenly saw myself, 17 years old and pious as the Pope, himself, begging my friends to go to church. I saw myself judging others based on their lifestyles and condemning anyone who didn’t believe what I did. I realized, as they asked me sweetly where I go to church these days, that as a Christian, I had no concept of people believing differently than me. I had no idea I was making people feel so uncomfortable. It was one of the worst experiences of social interaction I’ve ever had.

I had to hold my tongue. I was with my own grandmother, who is a dedicated Christian woman and a respected elder in the church. I knew that opening my mouth would only break her heart, so I sang To God Be the Glory and The Old Rugged Cross with the same vibrating, church-music voice I used as a teenager. Only this time, I didn’t mean a word of it.

When the service was over, and after being asked a few more times when I was coming back to church, I was dying to get out the front door. The second I stepped into the sunshine, I felt like I could breathe again.

I was reminded today that even though my path might be rockier, there’s a reason I chose it. I am more free and liberated from my sins than those people will ever be.

Posted in: Christianity, death, life as an atheist/agnostic

I Can’t Hold My Tongue

February 20, 2011 9:32 pm \ 2 Comments \

But I should. Or should I? I don’t know. Saying what’s on my mind in a public way seems only to lead to frustration, rapid heartbeat, and outbursts of anger all around. I feel very passionately about some things and my opinions are usually rooted in personal experience, beliefs and research. So when something comes up that makes me feel that warm rise of anger in my gut, I am compelled to share my thoughts. I found out this week that even in a “safe” place with people who supposedly believe similarly to me, it’s not exactly safe to share opinion. People will jump on any flaw in order to discredit a person, even if it’s not really a flaw.

It’s necessary to comment on blogs to join the conversation and build links back to my blog, but I’m not so sure I’m comfortable putting myself out there like that just yet. I mean, I’m barely comfortable sharing my new belief system with people I know or with someone face-to-face. Why should I give a stranger the opportunity to make fun of me for putting a word in italics?

I’ll tell you why – because even in the freethinking world there are assholes, and assholes aren’t worth stifling my voice. So, there you have it. Make fun of me, world, for feeling passionately about the need to educate my freethinking children about the religions they will be around as they grow up. Make fun of me for believing that the atheist/agnostic community should stop bashing religion and instead, act with the intelligence and open-mindedness we claim to have. I will continue to share my opinions, both online and off, and will refuse to let pettiness get the best of me. Arguing online is pointless. In the end, someone always ends up looking stupid. It’s not going to be me.

Posted in: atheist/agnostic community, life as an atheist/agnostic, religious education

Nature Macro Photography

February 10, 2011 9:41 am \ 2 Comments \

As part of my love for science and inquiry, I’ve developed a passion for insect and nature macro photography. I wanted to share some of my favorite shots here on my blog. Most of the insect shots are from last spring. The snowflake shots are from the massive storms that hit Oklahoma this week and last. Enjoy!

Posted in: nature, photography, science

Choice

February 6, 2011 12:56 pm \ Leave a Comment \

The “Us vs. Them” battle is raging in Washington D.C. and I have to say, it’s frightening on both sides. It should be so simple to decide what is right and what is wrong but so many people don’t seem to understand that right vs. wrong is not the issue here. Our differences seem so broad but really, they’re so simple. It comes down to choice.

I see it much like Dale McGowan writes in Parenting Beyond Belief when he says, “The key distinction is the attitude toward difference.” Our attitudes determine our life stance. The problem I see with some viewpoints is that the choice is taken away. For example, I believe it is wrong to force my children to pray before bedtime, therefore I do not force them to pray. A conservative believes that it is wrong to have an abortion. So, instead of just applying that belief to their own family, they attempt to apply it to everyone. Why not just abstain from abortion in your own family and let the rest of us have the right to choose? If you believe it’s wrong, then so be it. It sucks that abortion has to happen sometimes, but I believe the choice is what’s important. Why must our choices be taken away because of one group’s belief?

It’s frustrating to me that conservatives cannot see how they are stifling our choices. I do not force their children to believe in evolution, so why must they attempt to force my children to pledge allegiance to a god? I will fight that until the day I die.

I’ve never been a minority in my whole life. But I certainly am now, and I recognize the difficulty of life as a minority more and more each day. I know it’s only going to get more difficult as my children get older and start attending elementary school, but I’m preparing myself to fight the good fight. I’ve always been one to stand up for my principles, and standing up for choice is one of the noblest battles I can think of.

So let us be different, for a world where we’re all the same would be incredibly dull. But let us all have the choice to believe and do what we want as long as we aren’t hurting others. After all, this country was not founded on god, but on the freedom to choose to believe whatever we want to believe.

Posted in: abortion, conservatives, freedom, liberals, pro-choice

Sometimes nothing happens…

January 17, 2011 4:31 pm \ 1 Comment \

and that’s when I wonder if my kids are learning anything from me. Some days go by and there don’t seem to be many (or any) opportunities for learning. Nothing spectacular or blog-worthy takes place. But my dear husband reminded me that for children, every moment is an opportunity for learning.

Every reminder to use manners, every hug between Mom and Dad that the kids can see, every time a scraped knee or bumped head needs comforting, every time a sibling argument needs a mediator – all are moments during which I can teach my children how to be caring, loving, and giving without religion.

More and more, I’m learning how to live this lifestyle. I love that I’m teaching my children to be respectful and kind not because they’ll go to hell if they don’t, or because some invisible man says they should, but because it’s the right thing to do. More and more, I relish my newfound freedom.

Posted in: life as an atheist/agnostic

Letting Go of the Hatred

January 4, 2011 10:47 am \ 2 Comments \

I don’t hate many things. In fact, I can only think of a handful of things off the top of my head, and none of them is a living thing. I hate putting clean dishes away, though I don’t mind putting the dirty ones in the dishwasher. I hate putting clean laundry away, but I like putting the dirty ones in the washer. (There’s a pattern here, you think?) I don’t want to hate those things, but they’re necessary to the success of my household and therefore I tolerate them and complete the tasks as needed.

I feel much the same way about religion. I don’t want to hate it, and I’m not entirely sure where my hatred for it comes from. Perhaps it’s because I now fully understand the ridiculousness of it all. And perhaps it’s because I can now see how genuinely stupid some people are. My eyes have been opened to the world and all the bad that religion has done. It’s difficult for me to see the good through all of that.

I think my religious upbringing was good for me in some ways. I moved out of my dad’s house when I gradated at 17 and rebelled wildly against all that was taught to me as a teenager. I stopped going to church, I found comfort in the worldly pleasures of life that were once so taboo I couldn’t even speak of them. I often wonder if I would have been wild had religion not contained me, like maybe that wildness was ingrained in me. But I also wonder if religion is the reason I had that careless disregard for consequences. I don’t feel like was robbed of my childhood, but I do wonder how I would have turned out if I had been raised in a family that believed in free thought and education. Religion probably did some good for me, but I couldn’t see the bad it was doing at the time.

So, I have this deep hatred for religion – the conservative Baptist faith in particular, probably because that’s the denomination with which I am most familiar. Every time I read about the bullying of a gay person or the church’s stance on abortion rights, an anger swells inside of me that rivals that which I felt toward Satan as a believer. An evangelical feeling comes over me and I feel the need to shout to the world how crazy these people are. I feel the need to convert people (I was a major harvester of souls for the Baptist church) and I want to post on all my social networks links that expose the backwardness of the church. The trouble is that I know this is not the way to go about giving atheism and agnosticism a good name. The beauty of my new belief system is that I am not required by a higher power to share my beliefs or gain converts. It’s difficult to move past that way of thinking.

Since I have the dawning of a new year at my doorstep, I’ve decided to work hard to let go of that hatred and to move past that unfounded need to harvest “souls” for my new belief system. As my mind becomes more open and accepting of all types of beliefs, I have to realize that religion is one of those necessary things in life. It will always be part of the world. Some people need religion to live “normal” lives. Therefore, it’s just one of those things I must accept. It’s going to be a process.

Posted in: life as an atheist/agnostic