27. September 2009 by Frank.

I work for a company that thrives on statistics.  Every single day we are bombarded with this year’s sales figures compared to last year’s sales figures, customer counts, percentages to various budgets, variations to forecasts, comparisons to holiday weekends even if they don’t fall on the same general dates, and a plethora of other essentially useless numbers.  All any of us peons really want to know is if we sold enough stuff that we get to keep our jobs another day.

With this in mind, the first submission to this week’s Symposium prompted me to have a facepalm moment and shout, “Statistics!  Why’d it have to be statistics?!”  Turns out that Luke at Common Sense Atheism has a good reason to cite some statistics.  Drawing from the book, Society Without God by Phil Zuckerman, he lays out some pretty impressive stats (shudder) that clearly show non-religious societies are actually among the most “well-developed, wealthiest, most democratic, most free, most entrepreneurial, least corrupt, least violent, most peaceful, healthiest, happiest, most egalitarian, best educated, most charitable, and most environmentally compassionate societies in the entire world.”  Read it for yourself right here.

I am wholeheartedly interested in a less religious society.  It seems at times that I am being constantly pressured to move back to religion, almost like any other position is completely unacceptable.  So you join up in any way that you can with other atheist and humanist movements and discover that there are like minded people.  Unfortunately, none of them seem to be where you are if you live in a small town.  So you have this weird feeling that you’re part of something but not really part of anything because you’re the only one in your group.  It’s lonely out here.

I don’t think Greta Christina is lonely but she exposes a darker aspect of the atheistic and humanist movements brought about by perceptions of them being the exclusive domain of white males.  Being a white male myself, I was not aware there was even a problem.  Or that anyone would have reason to feel excluded.  (I’m not exactly the brightest bulb in the lamp.)  But that’s why it’s so important to read as many blogs as you can from so many divers people.  Greta has an excellent two part post exposing this attitude and suggesting some very practical things to avoid letting it get out of hand while we’re still early in the game.  (Part 1, Part 2)

Greta seems to be extremely well-known by virtually everyone I read.  She’s one of the most interesting people I’ve come across online.  This view is shared by the Humanist Symposium’s own Ebonmuse who offers his thoughts on the same subject after being inspired by reading Greta’s 2 posts.

It’s far too easy to be complacent and remain unaware of very real problems of this nature.  There are major issues at stake in the political culture of our country and the world and there are voices demanding to be heard.  A great deal of the loudest and most attention getting voices want to set us back a few hundred years.  One voice that wants us to move forward is Sikivu Hutchinson.  An interview with her by Greta Christina and several of her articles inspired more than just Greta and Ebonmuse to write about these concepts, I’ve read a number of other articles Sikivu inspired recently and must say that she is opening quite a few eyes.  Bold, reasoned, and unequivocal are some of the words I would use to describe her article “This Far By Faith?  Race Traitors, Gender Apostates and the Atheism Question.”  It’s not often someone of this stature notices a humble little blog carnival, let alone submits an article to it.

Originally, I had intended to link this Symposium together with a lighthearted rambling science fiction theme which I had all worked out in advance and was planning on writing this weekend.  I had correctly surmised that the vast majority of submissions would show up just a few days before they were supposed to be posted.  I wanted to do something fun and upbeat as well as unusual.  But things don’t always cooperate.

Phil for Humanity says, “Whatever that is keeping you from being with your loved ones, your family, your friends, your lover, from your true passion, or from just living your life in general; it is not as important as you may think.”  His brief post, It Does Not Matter, hits home for me in quite a profound way.

My father-in-law died quite unexpectedly yesterday afternoon.  He had a serious infection in his leg and my wife had moved in with him this last week to take care of him.  He was a very large man and she had called the EMT’s to come take him to his doctor’s appointment but he was having some trouble so they decided to go to the hospital instead.  He died before they got there.  Just the day before he was full of life griping and complaining about everything and what a nuisance his leg was becoming.  Death is a very ugly thing.  Lighthearted and frivolous just flew out the door.

Glowing Face Man submitted a post entitled, “The length of a Human Lifetime,” that is oddly appropriate just now.  Perceived time isn’t the same as real time based on age.  By any standard my father-in-law led a very full life in his just shy of 80 years.

One of my wife’s sisters remarked last night that Thanksgiving and Christmas won’t be the same this year.  She was obviously distraught but I had just read “Humanist Rosh Hashanah” by The Purloined Letter a few days ago and thought here was a great idea that could be applied to the holidays for our family this year.  Amazing how many of these submissions were comforting and appropriate to my family situation just now.

The aptly named The Emotion Machine sent in This Too Shall Pass (A Lesson In Impermanence).  Some things you think will never change and yet they do.  The wisdom story that begins the article is particularly effective and also illustrates perfectly something very near and dear to me; that is perception.

All of my perceptions about life were radically altered by my stroke eleven years ago.  I went from wanting to be a preacher for the rest of my life to having no faith and no belief in god in an instant (although it took a long time to figure out what happened.)  But very subtle and often very simple differences in perception can change an entire worldview.  Consider these examples:  Atheism: The Essence of Morality by Towards a Rational America and an Enlightened Judaism in which reasons for moral behavior are diametrically opposed and Concentration Brings Happiness (Why People Think They Can Actually Sing) by Scientific Living in which being mentally occupied is preferable to being mentally diffuse.  Singing in the shower is definitely a  matter of perception if anyone could hear you.

Religion and science butt heads all the time often in such things as the meaning of certain words or the perceptions of certain concepts.  It’s no secret the word THEORY doesn’t mean the same thing to a scientist and a creationist.  So The Evolving Mind says that Religion is a Rotten Variable; define your terms.  Our own prolific Philly Chief makes the same sort of connection pointing out how god belief attaches itself to morality so that they are perceived as one in the same.  God Belief is a Third Wheel says Philly and you know he’s right.  Meanwhile, The Primate Diaries points out that The Unseen and Unknowable Has No Place in Science just like questioning has no place in religion.  C.L. Hanson of Letters From a Broad is quite excited about “Here Comes Science” by They Might Be Giants.  Aimed at kids (obviously) but wouldn’t you rather see more science is exciting promotion in our current American society?  I know I would.  Let C.L. explain “Why I Love ‘Here Comes Science’!!!”

The Chaplain over at An Apostate’s Chapel is outraged, outraged I tell you that a big time publisher is cowering to extremists in publishing a book about the cartoons that offended the Muslim extremists without including the cartoons themselves.  She even uses the phrase, “…should have the balls to stand up for free speech and a free press,” in her article:  Yale University Press Caves In.  That’s outrage.

Celebrating the Win Does Not Always Mean Deriding the Loser says Vjack of Atheist Revolution which again brings up how you perceive the situation.  I myself can’t help but feel good when religion loses a little more of its hold over our society.  Indeed, as religion lost its hold on me personally, I became happier and happier.  So when they lose one on the national or world stage I get a boost out of it.

And finally, a post that was perfectly in tune with my original lighthearted intent.  Symbolism Shmymbolism by She Who Chatters (great name by the way) tackles an actually serious issue involving who we are as a movement and whether or not we need symbols to identify ourselves.

My wife is doing what she does to handle her grief, she’s out talking to her friends.  And I’m here doing what I do to handle my grief, I’m writing to my friends.  We handle things much differently not only because of personality but also because of religious differences.  I’m not sure why but there has been very little god talk the last couple of days beyond some religious songs they want played at the funeral.  Nobody wanted to see the chaplain while we were at the hospital.  Being quite familiar with what passes for compassion and comfort from religious folks at these events, I was relieved not to hear the same old platitudes I heard when my mother died a couple of years ago.

But no matter what you believe, death is ugly.  So ugly that we shouldn’t fear it but do everything in our power to overcome it.  To live our lives to the fullest extent possible.  To enjoy every moment of every day.  To rejoice in our humanity and share our lives and love with one another.  What more do we need?

You can participate in the Humanist Symposium by visiting the Symposium homepage for all the details.  The next issue is on October 18, 2009 at Cubik’s Rube.  Do Cubik a favor, submit your articles early.  It will make his life so much easier!

Posted in wild guesses, listen, interpretation, communication, humor, signs, hearing, stroke, religion, emotion, education, Blogroll | Print | 5 Comments »

19. September 2009 by Frank.

This week I auditioned for
Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap at my local college.  I did not get the part I wanted (the lead naturally) not because I wasn’t good enough but because I stick out like a sore thumb from the rest of the cast because of my age.  Most of the plays I have done there have had a healthy balance of the young college age beginners and the, shall we say, chronologically advanced old timers who still enjoy hamming it up now and then.  Not this time.  The old farts like me didn’t show up and that limited the character I would be believable playing.  So I’m not Trotter, I’m Metcalf and I only have 54 lines to remember.

This is not much of a challenge and that disappoints me.  I do these things to force my memory to function better.  The only thing difficult is faking a British accent.

At the same time I volunteered to host the Humanist Symposium on September 27.  That is only one week away.  So far I have 3 submissions, two of them by the same person so essentially I have two submissions.  The Carnival of the Godless I hosted several months ago was similar, all the submissions showed up at the very last minute.  Literally.  This is hardly encouraging.

I haven’t written it yet but I have a great big idea for a theme to tie it all together (assuming I get anything to tie) that will be quite the opportunity to show off my wacky side.  It should be a great way to increase traffic here.

A couple of nights ago I was at my friend’s house to help with his incredibly feeble computer once again.  (He’s going to buy a new one but I convinced him to wait for the new machines with Windows 7 preloaded.)  Despite my protestations he insists on claiming I am a gift from god.  Nobody has my computer knowledge and my patience (which is very Job-like) and could possibly be as good as I am at it.  So the only possible explanation is that god sent me.

I’m mean shit!  I’m a flaming atheist, aren’t I?  How can I have any street cred in the computer or atheist worlds if this guy goes around singing praises to god for me?

He had the radio on to a religious news station that was reporting the teachers who illegally took kids to a church function had somehow won their case.  He was amen-ing that like it was a good thing.  Of course it was good in his worldview.  Not so in mine.

Why do these people think it’s all right to cram their religion down everyone else’s throats?

I don’t want a world without religion, some people obviously need it, but I do wish I could live in a world where declaring yourself an atheist wouldn’t get you ostracized from all your family and friends.  I’ve been on Facebook for awhile now but I have no intention of linking it to here.  Mention atheism there and I would be instantly ruined and then some.  Everyone on your friends list gets to see everything about you and what you post instantly whether you want them to or not.  I like to be me but I have to keep some things anonymous for my own well-being.

In the meantime, I have purchased a new 1TB hard drive for my soon to arrive free copy of Windows 7 Ultimate.  I wanted a Western Digital that was on sale until I discovered it didn’t come with a cable and that the warrantee was screwy.  A couple of things have turned up lately with odd warrantee protection; you must register it in a certain time or you don’t get the 3 to 5 year version, you only get one year.  Not a total deal breaker but very strange nonetheless.  My old drive with XP is definitely showing signs of imminent failure.  I have nearly 60,000 photos on that drive (and backed up on the second drive (backed up on the external drive (and backed up on DVD’s))) and I do not want to risk losing them.  Having suffered severe hard drive failures before (and learning the hard way) I am department of redundancy department certified crazy about backing up my system.

The play does have one other thing going for it.  One young woman is so drop dead gorgeous that she’s worth the price of admission all by herself.  As Jim Carey once said, “Smokin’!”  I’m quite sure she will never even give me the time of day.

So not only am I an old closet atheist who’s a blessing from god, I’m an anal retentive dirty old man with delusions of grandeur and self importance to boot.

Aren’t you glad you know me?

Posted in wild guesses, interpretation, communication, humor, listen, signs, religion, emotion, education, hearing, Uncategorized | Print | 3 Comments »

14. September 2009 by Frank.

You will risk missing the latest edition of the Humanist Symposium.  And that would be tragic, pure and simple.  Besides, it’s going to rain all day and even a cup of hot chocolate won’t cheer you up.

So make every effort to be right here for the very best (atheist, humanist, free thinking, joy of life without religion) writing you can find anywhere online.

You’ll be so happy after you read you won’t even miss the hot chocolate.

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12. September 2009 by Frank.

I’m still not quite right after 11 years since the stroke.  I have rather bizarre problems that I think about quite a bit but that I don’t discuss with anyone.  Not that I’m embarrassed, but simply that I can’t understand myself so I don’t expect anyone else to comprehend it either.

I have some huge gaps in my memory.  I was talking with my dad the other day and he mentioned how all the kids in the subdivision used to come over to my house to play,  He named quite a few names and described several regular events that went on all the time.  I didn’t recognize the names or the events.  I have absolutely no memory of any such things ever occurring.  I have racked my brain trying to remember anything he mentioned.  Nothing.

There are many many more such instances.  It isn’t just my childhood that’s gone.  It’s current events as well.  Don’t be alarmed, it’s not Alzheimer’s or dementia, it’s a huge memory black hole that sucks up things with a vengeance.  Aside from specific events what’s mainly gone is a sense of time when any of those specific things happened.

I do remember an awful lot of things but I would have a horrible time trying to tell you when any of them happened.

Actually, this is one of the main reasons I blog.  So I have a record of what I’m thinking at any given time.

You may have noticed that I have quite a few stories from my past so it’s clear it isn’t all gone.  I don’t know if you have ever experienced someone relating what they thought was a shared memory but you weren’t able to recall at all, but let me assure you it is very weird.  When you can come up with nothing at all after hours and eventually days of trying, it’s more than a little disconcerting.

Even worse than the memory problems is the not caring about anything problem.  This one is brutal.  There are things in life you have to care about like financial obligations.  Minor little things like taking your medicine because if you don’t your condition will kill you or worse.  Maintaining family and friend relationships.  All sorts of things essential to everyday living.  When I say not caring I literally mean not caring.

Nothing is important to me.

I don’t care if any of these things gets done.  I don’t give a damn about the bills.  Who needs relationships?  Who gives a flying rat’s ass if I go sit under a tree and drool on myself for the rest of my life?  This is not an exaggeration.

Fortunately for me, no one has stepped up and offered to do any of these things for me or even offered to help me do any of them.  That’s the proverbial blessing and curse all rolled into one.  I know those things must be done and since no one is going to help me, I do them despite not caring if they get done.  I could really use some help keeping focused but, at the same time, that help has to be limited or else I will not do it at all.  I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.

I went to a psychiatrist many years ago (30 – 35 years?) after I went cold turkey with my drinking.  I can’t remember how many sessions I had but even then I was studying the psychiatrist as much as she was studying me.  I learned her methods and used them later on when I was working on a christian prayer line at the TV station.  I’m not sure how it happened but we became friends and I eventually wound up playing volleyball with her and other doctors in a gym in the basement of the hospital.  This was not normal.  She also introduced me to the local theater production company.  I managed to get the lead in the first play I ever auditioned for.

(I guess that paragraph should have been in parenthesis because it’s an aside.)

I mentioned all that because it’s the reason I have no desire to seek counseling for my stroke related problems.  I’ve been far too up close and personal with these methods to see any benefit in pursuing them now for several hundred dollars an hour.  The whole premise is simply to keep asking questions until the person works their problem out themselves.  I can do that for myself without even charging me a dime.

I know a doctor who treats himself has a fool for a patient but I’m not a doctor, I just play one on the stage occasionally.

Which brings me to the auditions next week for Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap.  I do plays at the college, have been since 1994.  Before ‘98 I was just doing them for fun but since then I have been doing them to keep my mind sharp and active.  I usually manage to land the lead role which guarantees 200 – 300 lines to memorize.  It’s getting more difficult but it’s great mental exercise.  It’s part of the secret I learned to deal with the stroke.

The greatest weapon I have against the brain damage I suffered is to keep my mind active.  I read several hours a day every day.  My job involves reading and manipulating numbers, thousands of numbers.  I take training online for technology (which involves a lot of quizzes and memorizing.)  A part in a play not only requires a couple of hundred lines to memorize for my own part but essentially you have to remember everyone else’s lines, too.

At the same time I have learned to appreciate the beauty of nature and the pleasure of just going out to breathe some fresh air.  I soak in the details of the world around me and I use my camera to capture them.  My world isn’t just inside my computer.

When you add in all the pain I have to deal with as well you realize that my life is one long battle.  Believe me this level of pain sustained for this length of time is very debilitating.  I have to fight it constantly.  But it’s my own choice because I refuse to live all drugged up all the time.  It’s a functional system for me, however, because if I give into it, I’m as good as dead.

I’m reasonably sure that dead isn’t anywhere near as good as alive.

Posted in communication, humor, wild guesses, education, emotion, stroke | Print | 3 Comments »

7. September 2009 by Frank.

You could have seen the opening of the new fountain that you can play in.

You could have had some water up the wazoo.

You could have risked your camera getting wet.

Or you could have gotten hosed again.

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5. September 2009 by Frank.

This has been the mildest (coldest) Summer on record here in this part of Michigan.  Outdoor beach activities and business have been way down but the weather has been beautiful overall except for a few really stormy days which only occurred on weekends.  Basically, if you want to deny global warming this Summer just screamed, “See, there ain’t no stinkin’ global warming!”

Of course, what’s true here isn’t necessarily true anywhere else.

This is also back to school time which means all our local retailers are getting trampled by massive hordes of back to school shoppers looking for deals.  We sold 12,000 paper folders for a penny each in 3 days.  Do you know how many people brought 5 or 6 little kids with them because there was a limit of ten on the folders?  Each little kid comes through the line with ten folders and a dime.  The company does it to get shoppers in the store but it backfires on them because these people only come in for the penny items, they never buy anything else.  The corporate greed is bad enough (they’re even going to stay open until 10 PM Monday night) but the greed of the customers is just as repulsive.  The sense of entitlement and the outrage when we run out of the penny junk is ridiculous.

The shoplifters are also out in force because us just giving stuff away isn’t enough for them.  They have some incredibly complex scams and they work in teams.  My primary job is inventory control so I’m usually the one who discovers what’s been stolen.  I can’t help it but it feels as though these people are stealing from me personally.  It makes me very sad.

Speaking of something for nothing, it does pay to be in tech sales.  Take some training and pass a few tests and Microsoft will give you Office 2007 Standard and Windows 7 Ultimate.  I’ve already got my copies reserved.  Norton does the same thing with their products but unfortunately none of their stuff will run on Windows 7 yet.  A few hours of my time has netted me over $1000 of free top quality software in the last couple of weeks.  Of course, I also run mostly open source and beta software which doesn’t cost anything (except potential computer disasters) and the only thing I buy is an occasional game from the bargain bin.  Computing can be frugal.

Today is the dedication of a huge new fountain down by the beach.  It’s laid out like a giant compass and the artist renderings of it make it look like it creates some pretty impressive rotating walls of water.  I’m going to go take photos of it.  The museum/convention center complex being built next to it won’t be ready yet but they are supposed to have some of the carousel horses on display.  There used to be a very popular amusement park on the beach up until the 1960’s and it featured an old fashioned merry-go-round.  There is a local group that has been working for many years to get the horses back and restore it to it’s former glory.

This weekend is the Tri-State Regatta, an annual sailboat race featuring hundreds of sailboats.  I’m also going for a photo shoot of that today and tomorrow.  Beautiful, low humidity, mid seventies, abundant sunshine weather is scheduled.

The end of Summer is the beginning of Fall which, as you may have guessed, is my favorite time of the year.  Some trees are already changing colors and it potentially can get very gorgeous here.  The last couple of years have been marred by really weird weather which seemed to bring down the leaves way too fast.  Hopefully, this year will be different since we already had the weird weather for the Summer.  Many weekend photo excursions are amongst my plans.

I bought myself a little pedometer the other day because I really want to know how far I’m actually walking.  I used it at work yesterday and racked up three miles which is what I had estimated.  The instructions for the thing recommend you take 10,000 steps a day which I also accomplished even though my feet are blistered and are killing me.  I’m curious how much ground I cover when I’m out taking pictures for hours at a time.  It looks to me like I may be walking 20 – 25 miles every week which I think is a very good thing.  When I consider that I didn’t even know how to walk eleven years ago right after the stroke, I feel that I have really accomplished something very worthwhile.

I know all of this is off topic and probably of little interest but it’s a three day weekend, it’s beautiful, there’s some really fun things going on, and I have the time and enough money to enjoy it all for a change.  So it’s the end of Summer and the beginning of Fall.  It’s wonderful to be alive.  Life is good.  I’m completely peaceful and full of joy.

I don’t feel like this very often.  I’m going to indulge and revel in it.

Woo hoo!

Posted in communication, humor, listen, emotion, stroke, Uncategorized | Print | 2 Comments »

2. September 2009 by Frank.

Sunday night my wife guilted me into going to church with her because she was going to sing a couple of numbers.  She loves to sing and I encourage her to get confident at it and belt out those christian tunes.  Her voice isn’t too bad but she has no great amount of confidence or boldness so she lacks volume.  The entire service was to be a song service so I figured how bad can it be?

Well, they started off with several incredibly dreary hymns.  I was familiar with them all because I used to hate them when I was in my full super-christian mode.  Not every hymn is lifeless and dreary but the vast majority of them are.  They are supposedly songs of praise and worship with the purpose of glorifying god.  But what they really are are old “all men are evil worthless wretched sinners” reminders to reinforce what a louse you are and how much you need god to save you.

With lyrics like; “Prone to wander, lord I feel it. Prone to leave the god I love,” I don’t think you can exactly claim these are edifying musical statements.  The message hardly varies.  You are a sinner, you’ve always been a sinner, and you’ll always be a sinner even after Jesus saves you.  You are a wretch.  You’re weak, defenseless, useless, incomplete.  You’ll never be good enough for god but praise god he loves you anyway.

Many of these lyrics completely contradict biblical doctrines but the faithful belt them out like they were gospel.  Even in my old days I wouldn’t sing the lyrics to quite a few of these hymns because they weren’t in accordance to what I knew the bible said.  But nothing’s changed.  The congregation sang along in full agreement with these things that make no sense, unable to discern false concepts embedded within.

Then a couple got up to do a number for which they provided a long winded introduction.  Short version, they heard some professional version of it, loved it, claimed it as their own because it was just so true, so absolutely true.  The song’s idea?  My god never ever fails to meet all my needs.  They made quite an issue of that and how true they believed it was.

Many amens followed but I call, “BULLSHIT!”

If you can introduce me to someone for whom that is literally true, I would love to meet them.  No one in that church actually believes that.  They just got done singing how miserable and useless they were.  How very very needy they were.  How desperate they were for god to bless them.  And how unspeakably unworthy they were of his love.  If god never ever fails to meet all their needs how can they possibly be so needy?  How can they be so miserable?  How can they still be wretches?  How could they be dreary at all?

They should be the happiest, most joyful, most excited people on earth.

But they aren’t.  Christians are the most unhappy, miserable people on earth.  I speak from experience.  I used to have to resort to threats to get one of them to stand up and actually praise god for something.  It was like pulling wisdom teeth or shaving a fully clawed outraged cat.

The theme continued after we got home and my wife turned on a gospel music show.  She wanted me to hear a particularly pretty song so I listened and it was indeed very pretty.  The lyrics, however, were all wrong.  An approximate quote would be, “Lord, send your angels to wrap their wings around me because I’m so afraid of the dark.”  Afraid of the dark?  Afraid of the unknown?  Fear because life is too big and scary for you to handle?  If your god never ever fails to meet all your needs, how can that be?

Then I noticed some comments by a christian on a blog in which he was praying for god to protect him and his followers while they slept.  Protect them from what?  The bad dream fairies?  It hardly sounds to me like anyone believes their god never ever fails to provide all their needs.

I go to these things once in awhile to keep peace in the family but they leave me cold.  And far more certain than the last time that I was right to walk away when I did.  There is no part of that life that I want or desire.  The whole thing about fellowship is empty and hollow without the god delusion.  I get more from the birds and squirrels and other creatures I come across on my long walks.

How could you possibly be afraid of the dark/unknown if you truly believe the creator of the universe lives inside you?  And he never ever fails to provide all your needs?

Sorry, that’s just bullshit.

And you know it.

Posted in interpretation, communication, humor, wild guesses, listen, emotion, education, hearing, religion | Print | 3 Comments »