Somnolent Aphid

On Faith

2012-02-09T05:21:00.000-08:00

Faith is a form of belief. We cannot function in the world without it. Otherwise we would spend all of our time reasoning whether something were true, or were about to happen. Often, we need to make snap judgements, size things up, make decisions and act. Often there is little time for careful, thoughtful reasoning. So faith plays an important role in our day to day actions. My form of faith is that of basic optimism. But all faiths are based on assumptions that are unproven.

There are three classifications of faith. Of these there are the faith based on direct experience, that the sun is going to rise again tomorrow because it has risen every day preceding. Faith based on the knowledge of those we consider experts, that the medicine will make me better. And finally, faith in things we know to be false, but we are told that just need to have faith in, that there is a god of some form or another. There are more of course, and I'll add to this list.

My optimism is similar to a belief in god, in that I believe things will get better, but I have no proof. Or worse, I don't want the proof. My fear is that they will slowly slide into the abyss. I look for signs of improvement and I see them some days. I'm not that different from you.

Faith, belief and trust are closely linked.

Praise the Lard

2012-01-31T07:12:00.001-08:00

Through the lard all good things happen. Have you ever had a lard pie crust? Orders of magnitude better than Crisco.

Maybe that's the problem with modern society. People have turned away from the lard.

Also... remember to praise cheeses... because a little Gruyere in the crust makes it heavenly.

Questions

2012-01-08T16:17:00.001-08:00

Who am I?
Why am I here?
How then shall I live?

A Deal with the Devil

2012-01-03T10:58:00.000-08:00

Never make a deal with the Devil. He doesn't really exist, so you're really just betting against yourself!

Goodbye Hitch

2011-12-16T09:55:00.001-08:00

You freed up a lot of minds during your short stay. Thank you for that. And for seeming brave through it all.

Dogs and Cats

2011-12-16T09:54:00.000-08:00

What if Pavlov had used a cat?

What if Schrodinger had used a dog?

dinner with a new friend

2011-10-25T18:49:00.000-07:00

he asks... so what's your favorite sports team, to which i answer, i'm not really a sports guy. he seemed perplexed by this answer, like I had just said I didn't believe in god, or i was a vegan or something.

SEX !!!

2011-05-24T04:17:00.000-07:00

READ IT! (and weep?)

Camping out!

2011-05-23T08:47:00.000-07:00

I love these post-rapture stories that start off claiming that the problem was that Camping's math was incorrect! No! No! No! The problem is that the entire story is wrong. Take a fairy story to start with and inject some numerology into it and it can't get any more wrong! And you want to try to add precision to that by taking into account leap seconds? Puh-leeze people!

There's no rapture - except for the story that helps sell all those fantasy books. Because in the end, it's all about having a good story to tell so they keep coming back for more.

BTW, there's no Bilbo Baggins either.

Brilliant

2011-03-03T06:55:00.000-08:00

When you meet your maker, give him hell, too. Fair's fair - mr. thornhill

new year 2011

2011-01-03T07:29:00.000-08:00

New Year !!

And I just now found out about rationalwiki. Very cool.

Got there from this link http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Time_Cube, which came over from Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish

Original Sin

2010-09-28T06:08:00.001-07:00

I was thinking this morning about the nature of original sin and how the christian bible got it wrong. It wasn't that snake got Eve to eat the fruit of the tree. It's that she ate the snake. No symbolism intended.

When life, before we could have recognized it as such, began. There had to be some sort of proto-organisms, free of DNA, self forming, that grew through absorbing minerals and nutrients. We know that they didn't eat other things because there were no other things to eat. And then somewhere along the line one of them invented eating, absorbing not just nutrients but the physical matter of other proto-organisms. It was a big step.

Eating, that is the taking of life so that another organism might live, seems to me to be the original sin. It requires each of us to kill in order to live, even though the killing might be just the harvesting of green leafy parts, or the outright slaughter of animals. We kill to live. There's no escaping it. It is the way we evolved, the way we are, it is the original sin. It's the reason I give thanks at each meal, for those that I'm about to devour, the lives they led, be they bean or beast, and how they nourish me for these few coming hours until I will need to eat again.

Maya Angelou Quote

2010-08-16T12:23:00.001-07:00

I love Maya Angelou, but one must remember that poets generally make up the worst sort of common knowledge and wisdom. She says: "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

What's wrong with this? It's just feel good pap. Scientific research shows us that memories of feelings are among the most malleable. That how we think we felt about someone or something in the past is very much dependent upon how we feel in the current moment. People will not only forget about how you made them feel, but they will tend to get it completely wrong.

Never trust a poet to communicate actual knowledge, other than knowledge about poetry itself.

Facebook Security

2010-07-30T08:07:00.000-07:00

Facebook security is a lot like god. People seem to have faith in it. People write quite a bit about it. Much energy is put into fretting about it. But in the end neither actually exists.

cracker story

2010-07-26T07:26:00.001-07:00

http://dogblog.dogster.com/2010/07/26/dog-eats-god-canine-receives-communion/

Looks like a dog has outdone PZ.

A Believable Fiction

2010-07-13T08:26:00.000-07:00

Rambling, I know...

I've been working on this idea of narrative. The idea that we all carry around a story inside of us about who we are, what we do, and how we came to be the way we are. Some of it is true, and the gaps are filled in with fictions, fictions that meet certain needs.

I remember at a very, very young age being told by some adult that I was a shy young man. I remember distinctly the conflict I felt. No, I said, I was not shy. But the adult persisted, and I came to understand that even though I was not shy, if this adult, whom I trusted, said I was shy, then perhaps I should try to be shy. Yes, it seem ridiculous that a very young child would think this way, let alone be conscious enough to recognize this thought pattern. The diffidence of knowing you are one thing, but needing to be something else in order to match someone else's idea of who you are, or who you should be.

This speaks to a central theme of religion. Which when I have more time I'll write about.

But for today, I just wanted to say that while standing there peeing in the men's room, this thought came back to me. That we are at times called to "be" certain ways in order to fit others expectations of who they need us to be. I'll talk more about that at some point as well, but not now.

Today I want to take that idea and twist it just a little more, introspect some, if you will. I noticed that I need to "be" certain ways for myself in order to fit with my expectation of who I need to be. How strange is that?

I was standing there saying, OK now she did this and I did that and that reinforces this behavior, but if I focus on a little part of what she did, it not only reinforces the behavior, but it reinforces the narrative. She's mean, I'm good, the narrative holds.

The narrative is a fiction, a believable fiction that we tell ourselves about who we are, and how we got to where we are. And like so many stories, it needs to be taken down once in a while, and examined for what it is. So I'll talk about this more in a latter blog as well.

All of this Believable Fiction idea really struck me when a facebook friend posted a picture of a billboard. The billboard said "Contrary to popular belief I don't hate anyone who's gay", and it was "signed" by god. Well, OK, this speaks to believable fiction. When one group believes the fiction that god said, well anything really, but specifically that god hates gays, my recourse is to say that, well, that's a ridiculous fiction because god doesn't exist, and therefore can't "say" anything. So this statement is really advancing a political point of view held by someone who gains power by putting it out there. Likewise the repast, this contrary billboard, takes the god belief and just restates it to their political point of view.

In either case, both parties are trying to create a Believable Fiction, a fiction that meets their needs.

I'll write more about Believable Fictions and personal narratives in future posts.

Oil Spill Prediction

2010-07-03T05:43:00.000-07:00

We've not seen the worst. My prediction is that the BOP will collapse into a hole that is being eroded, unseen, beneath it, and that the whole thing will just go blorp, and continue going blorp for many, many years. There is precedent. And there may be evidence to support this view.

The French call this la marée noire. The black sea. On bad days, I think that we're looking at just the tip of the iceberg. That in reality it's so bad that we don't even know how to be scared enough, so we'll just remain calm.

On the other hand, I might be a victim of belief bias. I have few actual facts to go on. So I don't really want to be alarmist. Yet, I blog anyway.

I think the real question is what can be done, what remains? How to protect the earth, the biosphere, our country, our interests, our families, our selves? That's a hell of a lot of oil, that is.

It's only a cracker

2010-06-30T04:02:00.000-07:00

From: Married to the sea
It is, regardless of PZ's take, still only a cracker.

All we can do is pray...

2010-05-29T08:58:00.000-07:00

regarding the oil leak.
Let's hope not, because we all know how well that works!

science and religion

2010-05-28T12:14:00.000-07:00

If they are properly understood, they cannot be in contradiction because science and religion concern different matters. - F. J. Ayala

Exactly my point. Science deals with things that exist. Religion, things that do not.

Bumper Sticker

2010-05-26T15:31:00.002-07:00

"Don't make me come down there - Gd"

Which kind of makes him sound like an absent, abusive drunk parent who's too busy watching the tele while getting his hootch on to care what's going on with his kids, so he'll just threaten them with abstract punishment and really mess them up for the rest of their lives as they try to figure out how to make this distant yet menacing figure love them.

Dalai Lama

2010-05-26T15:31:00.001-07:00

http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/05/26/grayling-on-the-dalai-lama/

just about what I expect...

So I'm thinking...

2010-04-25T13:39:00.000-07:00

So I'm thinking, what with all the earthquakes and volcanoes recently being the wrath of an angry god, and all that, this is what I am going to do.

I'm just saying here and now, that people better start treating me real nice, giving me gifts, throwing money, taking me out for nice dinners, inviting me to fancy parties. All that. Knob Creek bourbon, I have a fondness for that stuff too.

Because if y'all don't start treating me like royalty, I'm going to do whatever I can think of to piss off this god of your'n and then he's going to go all old testament on you. Kinda wide spread destruction. Seeing as his wrath seems to be a fairly blunt instrument, taking out the airline industry in northern Europe because certain women are too jiggly, that kind of thing, I think y'all better ante up and give me my due. Otherwise, I don't know... could be some global warming headed your way, or higher gas prices, maybe a tornado or two. Don't say I didn't warn you.

S.A.

Creationist Telecast

2010-04-19T11:02:00.001-07:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Robert Andrescik
Director of Public Relations
Northland, A Church Distributed
Phone: (407) 949-7147
E-Mail: robert.andrescik@northlandchurch.net

Monday, April 19, 2010

Tens of Thousands of Christians to Participate in International Creation Care Simulcast
Believers from 30 countries will be participating, on the eve of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day.

LONGWOOD, FLA. — In just two days, on the eve of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, Northland Church will host an international simulcast called Hope for Creation. It promises to be the largest gathering of Christians supporting creation care ... ever.

The simulcast will be broadcast online from Northland’s site in Longwood, Fla., this Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. EDT. So far, more than 60,000 people from 30 countries—including Hungary, Italy, India, Thailand and Russia—have indicated that they will be participating in the event.

"This is an effort to recast the environmental movement into its proper perspective—as a biblical issue that Christians should care about,” explains Dr. Joel C. Hunter, Northland’s senior pastor. “I believe the Church should be leading the conversation, and this event will give us all the chance to do just that.”

Participants can join in online, at home or with a small group. Many pastors are planning church-wide gatherings. There’s even a zoo that has signed up.

The simulcast will feature music and speakers, along with a preview of a new film series from the makers of the popular NOOMA series. There will also be an interactive town-hall conversation live with audiences around the world featuring Dr. Matthew Sleeth, founder of Blessed Earth and the visionary behind this event.

Dr. Sleeth’s journey from emergency room physician to creation care activist began just a few years ago. Well-respected and at the top of his career, Dr. Sleeth and his wife, Nancy, lived with their children in a picture-perfect town in a three-story New England house, complete with library, guest suite and four bathrooms. But something was missing.

“We had all the nice things that were supposed to make us happy, yet at the core we still felt hollow,” remembers Nancy, author of Go Green, Save Green: A Simple Guide to Saving Time, Money and, God's Green Earth.

Matthew adds, “I had started seeing changes in disease based upon the environment and changes in the environment in general. These changes have been profound.”

One day, Nancy asked Matthew a question that would change his life: “What do you think the biggest problem in the world is?”

He explains, “I thought for a moment, and I said the world is dying. I began a search to try and make sense out of the world.”

That search led to the Sleeths downsizing their lifestyle and upsizing their efforts to preserve the planet. Matthew eventually quit his job to put all his energy toward creation care.

“Environmentalism is the only activity we can carry out where we worship God all the time. When you begin to live more humbly, or meekly as Christ would put it, you begin to grow as a spiritual human being,” Dr. Sleeth says.

To learn more about Hope for Creation simulcast, visit blessedearth.org. To view Dr. Sleeth’s video testimony, visit youtube.com/servegodsaveplanet.

2010-04-19T05:42:00.000-07:00

I love the SNL send up of ICP on hulu But is it a parody of a parody?

ICP

2010-04-12T11:42:00.000-07:00

I've decided that ICP is parodying denialism in America.

QoTD

2010-04-11T07:28:00.000-07:00

"I was raised to believe that you can't serve two gods." - Ray Charles

Fight us some magical thinking

2010-03-17T05:12:00.000-07:00

I mean really people... what the fuck? Is there no end to the bullshit?
"Despite initial scepticism from the Darwinists, who refused to believe that individual organisms could act in harmony, the Gaia theory has been widely accepted and now underlies most atmospheric science."

Robert A. Heinlein

2010-03-08T10:18:00.001-08:00

A religion is sometime a source of happiness, and I would not deprive anyone of happiness. But it is a comfort appropriate for the weak, not for the strong. The great trouble with religion - any religion - is that a religionist, having accepted certain propositions by faith, cannot thereafter judge those propositions by evidence. One may bask at the warm fire of faith or choose to live in the bleak certainty of reason- but one cannot have both.

[Robert A. Heinlein, from "Friday"]

QoTD

2010-03-08T10:16:00.000-08:00

Morality is doing what is right regardless of what you are told
Religion is going what you are told regardless of what is right

I'm not sure where I saw this, but it rings true to me. Maybe something on Youtube? Possibly. If anyone has an attribution let me know.

David Foster Wallace

2010-03-07T15:37:00.000-08:00

Granted, this is taken completely out of context but David Foster Wallace was an idiot when he said, "Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism."

The man was a prolific and brilliant writer, and I'll never hold a candle to him. But he still got stuff wrong. I think the brilliant and acclaimed can often blather, as we all do, but in their case there's the risk that it will be taken as meaningful. Blather is still blather.

The Atheist Version

2010-03-07T09:11:00.001-08:00

So, what makes the Atheist version more compelling? Is it that the Atheist, who is well loathed in lore-americana, gets his one uppance for being so forthright? Or for muttering the words "oh god", instead of saying "oh shit", or "I'm, fucked".

Well, we all know that time cannot stand still, that a presumed sky god cannot actually talk to someone, that a bear has never spoken, lacks the physical ability in fact to do so, has never spoken let alone become christian. These things cannot happen and we all know that they cannot happen.

But they'd be funny if they did... at least to us, the on lookers, not to the Atheist.

So basically, it's saying that, true, all that, but fuck that Atheist anyway for pointing out the obvious. And Ha Ha. At least that's how I read it, and that's what possibly makes it funny.

A Christian was walking through the woods

2010-03-07T08:39:00.002-08:00

A Christian was walking through the woods.
"What majestic trees"!
"What powerful rivers"!
"What beautiful animals"!
He said to himself.

As he was walking alongside the river, he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him. He turned to look. He saw a 7-foot grizzly bear charge towards him.

He ran as fast as he could up the path. He looked over his shoulder & saw that the bear was closing in on him.

He looked over his shoulder again, & the bear was even closer. He tripped & fell on the ground. He rolled over to pick himself up but saw that the bear was right on top of him, reaching for him with his left paw & raising his right paw to strike him.

At that instant the Christian cried out, "Oh my God!"

Then the bear ate his liver.

OK, the Atheist version is funnier.

An atheist was walking through the woods.

2010-03-07T08:39:00.001-08:00

An atheist was walking through the woods.
"What majestic trees"!
"What powerful rivers"!
"What beautiful animals"!
He said to himself.

As he was walking alongside the river, he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him. He turned to look. He saw a 7-foot grizzly bear charge towards him.

He ran as fast as he could up the path. He looked over his shoulder & saw that the bear was closing in on him.

He looked over his shoulder again, & the bear was even closer. He tripped & fell on the ground. He rolled over to pick himself up but saw that the bear was right on top of him, reaching for him with his left paw & raising his right paw to strike him.

At that instant the Atheist cried out, "Oh my God!"

Time Stopped.
The bear froze.
The forest was silent.

As a bright light shone upon the man, a voice came out of the sky. "You deny my existence for all these years, teach others I don't exist and even credit creation to cosmic accident." "Do you expect me to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count you as a believer"?
The atheist looked directly into the light, "It would be hypocritical of me to suddenly ask you to treat me as a Christian now, but perhaps you could make the BEAR a Christian"?

"Very Well," said the voice.

The light went out. The sounds of the forest resumed. And the bear dropped his right paw, brought both paws together, bowed his head & spoke:

"Lord bless this food, which I am about to receive from thy bounty through Christ our Lord, Amen."

On why I'm godless

2010-01-30T19:18:00.001-08:00

I haven't always been an Atheist. Maybe just the last 2 or 3 years. But I am now. I like it. It seems to hold better answers for me and feels more honest than anything else I've worked through. And maybe more importantly, I feel like I have a spiritual identity, that I belong to a spiritual community, and that we share a common understanding. I've wanted that for a long time, and it has driven my search for God since I was little..

I grew up without a church. We simply didn't talk about God very much. My mom's family believed in nature. My dad came from a Catholic background but only went to church twice as far as I knew. But other people around me when I was young had a strong religious identities, and who you were seemed to be important. I felt that I was missing that whole religious thing in my life. Maybe that's why I sought it out.

I grew up in Skokie Illinois. Skokie, at that time, was largely Jewish. In fact most of my friends were Jewish. I remember getting really upset in first grade because all my friends got to wear yarmelkes and go to Schule. I cried. I didn't get to do those things. They were my friends. I wanted to be part of their community. But of course I couldn't. It was a different culture and it had something to do with God.

Now Skokie was not entirely Jewish. There was a dividing line. Ironically, it was Church Street. To the south mostly Jewish. To the north, mostly Catholic. We lived right on Church street, very much unchurched. Right on the dividing line. Living between cultures, being accepting of them while not belonging to them.

Behind us, to the north of the dividing line, was the Catholic School. I had friends there too. We'd play baseball and shoot hoops on the playground. That's where I was first asked the question, “What are you?” It was just a bunch of kids trying to figure out how I fit in. But at that age it was already important to Be something, to define yourself. This has been a common thread in my journey.

I told them I was Catholic. I tried to pass. I lied so that I might fit in. I couldn't say I was nothing. I mean, I wasn't nothing. I didn't know what an agnostic, or an atheist was. To me, at that time in my life, there was Jewish and there was Catholic, and I didn't go to Schule or wear a yarmleke so I had to be Catholic.

So that's what I told them, but of course they all went to Catholic school just as my Jewish friends went to Schule. I didn't know any of the right words or lessons or the names of the Saints. They saw right through me. But it turned out OK because somebody knew me and said I was a pretty good outfielder, and we went back to playing baseball.

So in grade school I was thinking about God, and my relationship to this mysterious thing that most other people, besides my immediate family, seemed to have some connection to, but I clearly did not. And this debate has gone on inside me most of my life. What was God? What should I believe? Why should I believe? How would I even know what to believe if I chose to believe? Is there some evidence or proof one way or the other? Or did I just have to possess a deep, deep faith and stop thinking about it so much? Could I believe in something one day and not the next? Did consistency even matter?

With all these questions, someone told me that it sounded like I was becoming Agnostic. Finally an identity! And I liked the way it sounded. “Agnostic”. I liked being Agnostic. I felt like I could go to any church or synagog or religious service and find I it interesting. I could talk to people about what they believed. I could look for answers. It was good.

But at that time I was a Boy Scout. And being Agnostic didn't help when it came time to get my Eagle Badge.. Being Agnostic I wasn't certain if there was a God or any kind of Supreme Being. I was still questioning these things. And unfortunately you had to say you believed if you wanted to get this award. Well a great friend of mine spent weeks, trying to use logic and reasoning to get me to believe, but unfortunately every logical argument had a hole. Every emotional argument fell flat.

And that's kind of how it's been for me over the years. Some days looking for proof. Thinking I've found something solid, only to see the hole in my reasoning the next day. Some days thinking I should just let go and just have faith. Some days just pretending to blend in with what ever group I happened to be with.

I spent a lot of time and energy thinking about my relationship to this thing called God. For a few years I even wanted to become a Catholic. Obviously that didn't work. Then I found out I was a better Pagan than I was a Catholic. At least I didn't have to believe in a supreme being to be a Pagan, and being Pagan brought me closer to my mother's tradition of just believing in nature.

It was about three years ago, I finally said to myself, I cannot prove that God exists any more than I can prove whether or not there teapot hovering in outer space. There's a very small probability indeed. So small as to not matter. Minuscule. So let's just say that God doesn't exist and see how that changes things. And as for multiple lesser gods and spirits, if I cannot even prove that even one God exists, how can I support a whole pantheon of them? No God. No gods. I think I sound like an unbeliever. An Atheist.

The problem then, was what the problem had always been. My real problem, was that at the crux of all of this was this idea of wanting to belong, to be accepted, to have an acceptable religious identity. I didn't want to be an Atheist and to be alone in the world of believers. Everything I had read said that Atheists were lonely and depressed and that they were full of hate and anger and they were not to be trusted.

Well, Here's what changed for me.

A couple years ago, I read Richard Dawkins' book. “The God Delusion” and it clicked. I got it. Everything I had thought about was in that book. It brought me full circle to my current understanding that there is no God, no Gods, and that it was OK. And then he pointed out that those reports about Atheists being mean and evil were all published by religious organizations and that they were simply made up and completely untrue. Atheists are actually pretty much the same as other people. No better. No worse.

And then I read Christopher Hitchens and other authors. And then I started to find a whole body of people who thought the same way I did, and who were vocal about their godlessness. And that's when I realized I'm not alone. Far from it. I had found a spiritual identity and I had found other people like me. Hourray!!!

So that was my spritual journey. But I want to say that that the journey is not over. I'm still growing and learning.

I got involved in a debate just a couple weeks ago. Where do morals come from? How do we decide what is good and what is evil? Are these feelings universal through out human kind? And if so, does this universal sense of right and wrong, could that possibly be endowed in us by God? And my Atheist answer was this, “No, there is no God. So morals cannot come from there. We have to look deeper. ”

And that is the luscious point of all of this. In finally admitting to myself that there is no God, it has allowed me to look deeper. Deeper into my life. Deeper into the meanings of things. Deeper into how things work. And ultimately, this makes me happy.

Being godless helps me understand the world, and how it works and why I'm here, and what I want out of life. It is life affirming. Instead of being good today for some reward I might achieve in the afterlife, I can just choose to be good today. Instead of praying for something to happen, I'm likely to take direct action. Life is even more awe inspiring when you consider that it doesn't have an author, designer, or a profound reason. That it just is.

Harvey Harvey

2009-12-21T04:25:00.000-08:00

Harvey Solipsist everyone!

Loving Louis Lapham

2009-12-16T08:46:00.000-08:00

http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/essays/the-courtesy-of-god.php?page=1

QoTD

2009-11-16T14:06:00.001-08:00

“Faith is no reason.” - K.Peters

some saint i suppose

2009-09-17T14:29:00.001-07:00

our lady of perpetual anguish

enfer

2009-09-15T19:40:00.000-07:00

someone asked, what does it mean to infer, and I almost shouted out...

"Infer", say lez otters.

ok, fairly random, even I will admit.

enfer, c'est les autres.

The Portable Atheist

2009-09-11T20:04:00.000-07:00

This book may have made atheism so boring that i'd just about be willing to try any religion that promised to keep me awake. yadda yadda, there is no god. i get it. why so many pages!!! jeeeze

Darwin based toys

2009-09-02T12:26:00.000-07:00

"HEY MOM, WHERE DID HUMANS COME FROM?"NEW EVOLUTION TOYS FROM CHARLIE'S
PLAYHOUSE HAVE THE ANSWER

Scientist Mom Creates Line of Kids' Toys Teaching Darwin's Theory of
Evolution

Pawtucket, RI (August 28, 2009) - It happens to all parents at some point.
Their child looks up with big beautiful eyes and asks an impossibly
difficult question: "Where did humans come from?", or "What came before the
dinosaurs?" or worse, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" Questions
like these inspired one scientist mom to create a toy line that introduces
kids to evolution. Charlie's Playhouse, named affectionately after Charles
Darwin, offers kids as young as 4 years captivating games and toys to
stretch their scientific literacy.

"Our children deserve to know about the dazzling history of life on this
planet," explains Kate Miller, PhD, founder and president of Charlie's
Playhouse. "Toy stores are brimming with educational toys on every
science -- physics, chemistry, geology, even biology -- but nothing on
evolution. Dinosaur toys are everywhere but they don't talk about evolution.
We know from our research that parents and teachers are looking for these
products."

Dr. Miller has created the first-ever line of products that fills this
gaping hole. Shop Charlie's Playhouse online at www.charliesplayhouse.com or
at select museum shops and specialty retailers for the following products:

Giant Evolution Timeline Playmat * $49 * Ages 4+
The flagship product of the company, this richly illustrated mat lets kids
skip, jump, and play through the history of life, accompanied by "Charlie"
Darwin, 67 amazing creatures from the fossil record, and much more. The size
of a coffee table book when folded, it expands to fully 18 feet long. The
playmat is printed on an environmentally friendly synthetic paper called
Polylith(tm), and comes with a boisterous Activity Guide for ages four to
ten, a glossary and FAQs for kids, adults and educators. Printed in the US.
This product just won the Dr. Toy Green Products Award.

Giant Evolution Timeline Poster * $29 * Ages 4+ The same graphic as the
Giant Evolution Timeline Playmat, but smaller and suitable for hanging on
the wall. Ten inches tall and twelve feet long -- perfect for hanging at
child-eye height in a hallway! The poster comes with a boisterous Activity
Guide for ages four to ten, a glossary and FAQs for kids, adults and
educators. Printed in the US.

Ancient Creature Cards * $19 * Ages 4+ Each of the colorful 67 creatures
from the Giant Evolution Timeline gets its own card with illustration, fun
facts, size comparison figure and more. Printed on generously sized 8.5" by
5.5" cards. Great alone or in combination with the Giant Evolution Timeline.

Apparel * $11.19 and up * Sizes Infant to Adult
Show off your scientific literacy on all-things-Darwin with these clever
tees, totes, hats and sweatshirts with slogans like "98% Chimpanzee" and
"Product of Natural Selection."

Taking the toy line one step farther, Dr. Miller blogs on a range of topics
at www.charliesplayhouse.com. Parents and children can click and discover
such topics as:

... nyctosaurus, a pterosaur with a difference. It had no hands on its
wings, so it couldn't climb or crawl -- scientists think that it rarely ever
landed on the ground, staying afloat in the air for most of its life!

... meet Socotra Island, plopped in the Indian Ocean and cut off from the
nearest land for 18 million years or so. And yup, it's got bizarre plants
and animals not to be found anywhere else. Check out the Dragon's Blood
tree, or Dracaena Tree.

Click on the resources tab at Charlie's Playhouse website (www.
charliesplayhouse.com) and you can also find a free bibliography of
children's books on evolution, including picture books, story books,
pop-ups, comics, coloring books, activity books, books in Spanish, very old
books, very new books -- all for readers aged three through fifteen.
Charlie's Playhouse has highlighted its top twelve picks and selected some
"recession buster" books that everyone can afford. The company also links to
recommended science websites where parents and teachers can learn more about
evolution.

The toy industry and the general public has taken notice of Charlie's
Playhouse. This month the young company won the Best of Rhode Island 2009
Award featured in the August issue of Rhode Island Monthly. Dr. Toy anointed
the Giant Evolution Timeline with her Best Green Product for 2009. The award
honors green products made by companies striving to inspire children to
appreciate the environment and help them learn to take better care of our
natural resources. And TD Monthly featured Charlie's Playhouse in its June
2009 New Toys column for Science and Nature.

Evolution Explained - Dinosaurs, Chimps and Hallucigenia - Oh My! .... It's
an
unequivocally huge hit with the kids around our place. What kid doesn't love
animals? And particularly dinosaurs. It features amazing creatures from the
fossil record that are intelligently arranged on sea, land and sky. The
poster is perfect for hanging at kids' eye height in a hallway, and my kids
love to walk on the play mat and act out evolution in their own highly
creative and hugely inaccurate way. Educational for everyone, hilarious for
the onlookers!
--The Opinionated Parent

Evolution is a controversial topic, admits Dr. Miller. "I discovered that
our national science standards don't mention biological evolution until high
school, or middle school at earliest. I was raised in a household where
evolution was normal, like gravity, so hearing about evolution for the first
time in high school strikes me as odd, like learning that the Earth revolves
around the Sun sometime around your junior prom. As a member of the
standards panel later told me over coffee, that recommendation was driven
not by children's inability to grasp the concepts but by elementary
teachers' discomfort with the material," explains Dr. Miller.

"Why is there no infrastructure for presenting evolutionary ideas to young
children? No doubt it's due to political concerns in corporate America, yet
for most people evolution does not contradict their beliefs in any way." Dr.
Miller continues, "Many parents who have been looking for evolution-themed
toys have found their way to me; these parents are religious, they are
secular, they are home-schoolers, they are mainstream, they are everyone.
Why should this majority be deprived of educational fun stuff for their kids
because of the few who politicize the issue? At the very least, kids have to
be aware of evolutionary ideas for the same reason that they need to know
about religion: it's basic cultural literacy."

Working against the notion that evolution is at odds with religious belief,
Charlie's Playhouse has teamed up with Butler University Professor Michael
Zimmerman, creator of The Clergy Letter project. This project gathers
signatures from numerous clergy of various denominations on a letter
affirming their embrace of evolutionary theory as a core component of human
knowledge, fully harmonious with religious faith. In February 2009, Dr.
Miller distributed Giant Evolution Timelines to five clergy signatories in
RI, who used them in their sermons or schools. In 2010 she plans to offer
products nationwide to all signatories of the Clergy Letter Project.

ABOUT CHARLIE'S PLAYHOUSE

Rhode Island-based Charlie's Playhouse LLC makes the first-ever games and
toys that teach children about evolution, natural selection and Charles
Darwin. The company was founded by scientist and mom Kate Miller, Ph.D.,
after she was unable to find fun, educational products for her two young
sons that addressed evolution.

Dr. Miller is a consultant to the Evolution Readiness Project at Concord
Consortium in Concord, MA. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the
project is creating a computer-based curriculum to teach fourth graders
about evolution, to be tested in a dozen schools in MA, TX and MO.

Prior to founding Charlie's Playhouse, Dr. Miller researched women's
reproductive health in sub-Saharan Africa and the United States. She holds a
Ph.D. in demography from the University of Pennsylvania and a Masters of
Public Health from Columbia University. Visit www.charliesplayhouse.com for
more information.

just feed me to the lions

2009-09-01T18:10:00.000-07:00

and get it over with. or, wait, that was the x-tians. why do they get all the fun? first come first served?

no god

2009-07-16T19:55:00.001-07:00

no hell below us, above us only sky - lennon

it's easy

2009-07-16T07:52:00.001-07:00

it's easy
you get to choose
you can try to force the evidence line up with your worldview.
or you can let your worldview line up with the evidence.

either way, is a journey
we all have to take
either way, is a journey
fraught with peril

it's the best game in town.

Sarah Palin

2009-07-14T06:05:00.001-07:00

Honestly, all this coverage of Sarah Palin. I'm tired of it. It is distracting. It seems like the R's just put her out there as a lightning rod for the party. All the hoopla around her resignation is the best thing that ever happened to them. Takes all the pressure off everybody, including Rush and Hannity and Beck, for all the other stupid stuff that's going on. Just wait, this is not a ploy about Palin, it's a ploy for the R's in general to regroup under the cover of this smokescreen they put her up to. Grand Circus. Just wait and see.

I wanted to say that this Palin escapade is her Jumping the Shark, but, no, I think it is far more well thought out than that.

Palin hasn't quit politics. She IS politics.

The Black Swan

2009-07-03T05:40:00.001-07:00

A rambling book by a glib and self indulgent author. It is laced with anecdotes and illustrative stories even while cautioning against the use of such devices. The central theme is that random and unforeseeable events (such as the "discovery" of black swans when all swans were thought to be white) have a great impact on our lives, and that most of what we see as progress is the result of these discontinuities, as opposed to the results of hard work. He calls for skepticism in all things.

I think he's looking at things the wrong way, and cherry picking to support his arguments. He also sounds like the kind of person I would get stuck listening to at a cocktail party. Clever, but without direction.

One primary theme throughout the book is that sudden change comes about suddenly and is of greater impact than the daily machinations of the average person. He gives several examples, the internet being one, as if it just sprang into being one fine day without decades of work being put into it by thousands of scientists and enginners. OK, so we can forgive his blindspot. When something arrives to his conciousness he might well think it just happened recently and miraculously without any forsight, and it might indeed have great impact on him. But that doesn't mean it "just happened". This is the kind of thinking leads one to believe in saltation of species as opposed to the slow and methodical processes that we know to be true.

Much of it seems wrong, being based upon reasoning by analogy. Much of the rest seems obvious, such as the admonishment not to cross the street while wearing a blindfold. A lot of it is pretty obviously made up, such as the story about Yevgenia Krasnova. In the end, there's very little you can take away from this book, except perhaps fodder for your own cocktail conversations.

Faith v Reason

2009-06-15T17:44:00.000-07:00

Read an interesting post recently about Faith vs Reason, and I think it was off the mark entirely. Yes I know that Martin Luther called reason the enemy of faith, but let's face it, he was just another religious whack job.

Here's my reasoning. Or you can take it on faith. Faith depends on reason. Why? Well, take any of them, judism, xtianity, islam, they all derive certain rules, laws, morals, etc. from whatever "sacred" texts were handed to them. They start from certain givens, and through reasoning, i.e. some thought process, they arrive at their conclusions.

Reasoning is central to creating dogma, to creating a church, to creating a faith. If you just start with the sacred texts, you don't have much to form a society on. So, religious folk use reasoning to support their conclusions based on whatever their starting point or givens were.

Great. So reasoning is essential to religion. Then how did someone as smart as Martin Luther, let alone others, ever come to the idea that reason was bad?

Here's my thought. religious and non-religious reasoning use the same mental tools, but they start with different givens, and possibly stop before they've reached their ulimate conclusion.

So, a bible literalist might start with a 6,000 year old earth, and then use reasoning to support what he sees today. He starts from a given, sees fossils in the grand canyon, and comes up with reasoning to support the conclusion in light of the given.

A rational person might look at fossils, not start with a 6,000 year old earth, but rather start with a knowledge of processes that produce fossils and come up with a much older earth.

So starting point or givens, and ending point, in something that needs explaining, and the reasonable and creative thought process that one needs to undertake to connect the two.

The genius is the ability to explain things appropriate to your givens, and be able to support it, or not really support it, but support your givens, so that enough other people who support the givens will also pick up your thread of reason.

Reason is the workhorse of the faithful, not it's enemy. It's just that the faithful have different starting points than most of us, so that our reason scares them in some way. It's still the same creative process.

An epiphany, or realization, is the changing of a fundemental starting point. I came to the realization that x... it changes my starting point, that I had to change my understanding or belief in order to support what I see around me to be true. This has far reaching consequences.

Scientology

2009-05-25T09:57:00.000-07:00

On trial in France for alleged organized fraud but I ask you, which religion cannot be considered organized fraud? h/t dawkins.net

All in your head

2009-05-19T20:53:00.000-07:00

NPR asks "Is god all in your head?" To which I answer, "No, duh, where else would it be?"

30 Rock quote

2009-05-14T20:24:00.000-07:00

“Science was my most favorite subject, especially the Old Testament.” - Kenneth

Religion questions

2009-05-01T07:40:00.000-07:00

Religion answers the unanswerable? Or is it that Atheism questions the unquestionable?

God Man

2009-04-29T18:44:00.000-07:00

http://www.salon.com/comics/boll/2009/04/30/boll/index.html

Starting the countdown

2009-04-25T15:52:00.001-07:00

I'm starting the official countdown to the time the first evangelical announces that the swine flu is brought upon us by wrath of an angry god.

Misplaced thanks...

2009-04-24T07:39:00.001-07:00

I'm eavesdropping. A guy says to the phone, "If there is a god I'd like to thank him for getting these scanners installed and reducing our workload." (The woman on the other end says, "Yes, I know exactly what you mean"). In this case it is either misplaced thanks, or meant to be shorthand thanks for the dozens of people that went into making that scanner project a reality at his office. Wouldn't it have been nicer for him just to thank George, the guy whose idea it was to get the scanners in there in the first place? I have no idea what the woman was thinking. Did she know exactly what he meant? Did he mean that there really is no god but he'd like to thank someone anyway? I have no idea what he meant. Funny.

Saints

2009-04-14T04:02:00.000-07:00

Science has produced no saints, but why would it? Saints are theological constructs.

admirer?

2009-04-12T15:07:00.000-07:00

"I like the contradictory nature of your name; sleepiness combined with an insect considered to be one of the most destructive pests!"

even a tiny aphid has big dreams

Google Books

2009-04-12T14:45:00.000-07:00

What a fine thing Google Books is for primary research.

Happy Yeaster

2009-04-12T05:19:00.000-07:00

The yeast is risen.

Even Better Saturday

2009-04-11T08:48:00.000-07:00

The yeast is definitely rising.

On a side note, many photos and stories of whack-a-loons flagellating themselves, tying (and even nailing !!!) themselves to crosses and parading themselves through the streets. I guess nobody has the lock on lunacy.

Good Friday

2009-04-10T08:34:00.001-07:00

The yeast is rising.

Hot Cross Buns

2009-04-06T05:27:00.000-07:00

One of the things I really like about christian culture... hot cross buns. I love the flavor and the texture, the raisins, and the lemon. You know, they probably are not christian in origin. Like so many good things they were probably co-opted. I'll have to look this up some day.

There are actually many things I like about christian culture. I'm sure I'll think of some. You know, if it were not for christian culture there would not have been all of those churches and monasteries for my ancestors to plunder back in the middle ages. All that wealth to redistribute. Then where would we be?

Plundering buns.

Is it?

2009-04-05T04:48:00.000-07:00

Is the yeast risen yet? Is it? No? Soon then. It will certainly be a miracle when it happens.

Mn Indulgences

2009-04-04T05:43:00.000-07:00

I remember taking a history course in 7th grade and talking about Martin Luther and how one of the things that split the church apart was the selling of indulgences. Most of us laughed about how stupid the idea of indulgences sounded these 500 or so years later.

But now they are selling them again in Minnesota

Aposty in Argentia

2009-04-03T04:22:00.000-07:00

They are renouncing their catholic souls down south, as well they should.

http://www.rue89.com/2009/04/03/un-millier-dargentins-renoncent-a-la-foi-catholique

Battlestar Galactica

2009-03-22T11:28:00.000-07:00

On the whole I have liked this Battlestar Galactica series. But the overwhelming god content and focus on intelligent design of the last hour just left me reeling. Yuck!

Oh look there are hominids on this planet, and they have DNA that is compatible with our own, we could mate with them, (why would we want to?) this is proof that there must be a universal divine creator / designer. WTF?

Evil Giants

2009-02-16T16:07:00.000-08:00

This is precisely the case that we are talking about. Pascal's wager in a nutshell.

Marriage

2009-02-15T08:02:00.000-08:00

"God created sex. Priests created marriage."- Voltaire
or not... S.A.

If it were not for the church we would have have a Valentine's day to celebrate, and maybe we'd be all the better off for that.

Evidence

2009-02-13T13:25:00.000-08:00

There really is no scientific argument against the evolution at this point. There hasn't been for many decades. There are religious and cultural arguments against it, but not scientific arguments and certainly not scientific evidence against it. So where we are today is we have religious and cultural "leaders" hoping to wrap themselves in opposition to evolution in order to gain power of the poorly educated masses. The dumb leading the dumb.

Let it go

2009-02-01T10:54:00.000-08:00

You should fear losing your religion. Once it is lost, it is lost for good. But also for the better. All those things they tell you about going to hell, about having no morality, about being empty and bitter and having no joy. That's what they have to tell themselves about us. They have to fear the great transition from believer to unbeliever. To build this artificial barrier. This barrier to competition. But once you give those things up, one by one, realize you're not going to hell, that you've always been the master of your own morality, that you are more full of joy and full of life than ever before, that you can let go of empty promises of an afterlife that is never going to happen and live in the moment. You can be at peace. No guilt. And the best part? You can still pray and mediate and whatever else you want to do and nobody is going to judge you. Prayer and meditation work to calm the spirit even if you don't believe in the deity that you might be praying to. I've been known to use phrases like "god damn it", "lord only knows", and "amen to that", because I like the way they sound. They have a place in the language. So even though billions of smarter people than me have found excuses or reasons for wanting to believe, just take my advice and let it go. You'll be happier that you did.

the revealed truth of God

2009-01-24T10:37:00.000-08:00

"We have nothing against freedom of religion. Everybody should be free to believe whatever they want, and no religion should get special treatment. But when it comes to the Bible, we aren't talking about religion. The Bible is the revealed truth of God." h/t - mt

HHS Increases Doctors' Conscience Protection

2009-01-15T17:47:00.001-08:00

...employees who refuse to participate in care that they find ethically, morally, or religiously objectionable.

So, if they find it objectionable to provide health care to an atheist, or member of another minority group, would they be covered by this law? I don't really know. But I'd like to.

Tex us puh leeze

2009-01-13T12:42:00.000-08:00

Texas School Board says (by way of discovery institute) ...students to examine the "strengths and weaknesses" of scientific theories in order to strengthen students' critical thinking skills.

See, I am absolutely for the idea that students should strengthen their critical thinking skills. I know that I should strengthen mine as well, as far as that goes. And this is why I completely agree that students, especially those in Texas, should examine the strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories. Very few of us understand the degree of critical thinking that goes into proper scientific method, and if we did understand we would hopefully see things in a clearer light, one that can lead to true progress. So comparing something built on critical thinking, such as the current scientific body of work, against something that is not at all built on critical thinking, this might just strengthen America's future. And more importantly, the result of such an examination, leading to honed critical thinking skills for the Texas student population that , would inexorably show the so called holy books for what they are, nothing other than myth and superstition. So given that, let's do battle in Texas.

Well written

2009-01-11T07:49:00.000-08:00

http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/3194231/studying-islam-has-made-me-an-atheist.thtml

goD in the Comics

2009-01-02T05:27:00.001-08:00

I used to poke fun at BC for Johnny Hart's's blatant xtian ramblings. But they seem to have toned it down since Johnny hart passed on in 2007. For the last week or so we've had Jumpstart's little infants asking questions about gd. Today's was so funny because it implied that some god exists that actually has the power to dial a phone and call the police, clearly mistaking parents for a higher power. We had some godheads in Zippy last month as well. I wonder what other people feel about using comics in this way? For me, it clearly answers the question of the existence an imaginary creature that a large part of our culture has adopted and empowered to guide and control their lives. I just keep wondering what purpose it serves them?

Abstinence Pledges

2008-12-29T15:02:00.000-08:00

We aphids have made the observation before that abstinence pledges are a good example of a self replicating meme. No matter how untrue or unworkable it is, an abstinence pledge tends to work in favor of populations that promote it. Parents that tell their kids that abstinence is good will end up having more grandchildren sooner (because their kids will have more unprotected sex), expanding the population of believers. The aphid kids on the other hand, while sexually active, are all birth controlled up. And so the rational aphids will tend to diminish over time as a percentage of the overall population.

Happy Monkey

2008-12-25T04:17:00.001-08:00

'nuff said

Let Christmas be Christmas

2008-12-24T05:11:00.001-08:00

I say let Christmas be Christmas.
I have no need to step on your holiday.
No squidmas, or newtonmas or giftmas for me.
No renaming or coopting of that which is holy.
Celebrate the birth of your savior,
that I might celebrate that which is holy to me.

I've never understood the need to place alternative displays on the town green or at the statehouse for that matter. It is your holiday, not mine. If I had an atheist holiday, then I might want to put up a display myself. But I don't. I do understand that a lot of traditions have their celebrations at this time of year, and want to be recognized too. I have no truck with that.

As for the town green and statehouse, yes, I grew up with displays in those places and I never understood the controversy. Separation of church and state I suppose. But I liked them there. Without them, how could the kids carry on the tradition of stealing the camels? Or the baby Jesus for that matter?

So I suppose if you are going to allow them to be put in a public place, then you have to allow all faiths and demoninations to put up a display in a public place. That or nothing at all. Yeah, that makes sense.

Wow, could you imagine if competing christian faiths disagreed on the specifics of the creche scene? If some thought there were 5 wisemen instead of 3, or if some used weasels instead of camels, and what about the catalonian caganer? Would we need multiple creche scenes put up side by side, each depicting the details in its own way, each taking up additional space on the town green?

And "Happy Holidays". That has slightly rubbed me the wrong way since I was a kid. Mom explained that it was a way of sending the same holiday card to all our friends, no matter what they celebrated. What's wrong with Merry Christmas? Or Happy Hanuka? Or Happy Kwanza? Or Happy Monkey? Or Happy Solstice or whatever? Why lump them all together? Don't you know your friends and what they celebrate? Can't you get the right card for the right family? And anyway, chances are they only celebrate one of them, so what's with the "Happy Holidays" anyway? Why not "Happy Holiday", and get rid of the plural? Except that it acknowledges that we all have our own special holidays to celebrate, and is kind of a scattergun approach to saying the world is holy at this time of year. I suppose that's right.

But, you know, I'm being far to serious today. Sure, I'd like it if we didn't make fun of each other's traditions. I'd like it if we all had something sacred and holy to hold onto all at the same time of year. And I'd like it if there was one true thing that we all knew and held onto that gave us hope and spirit. But liking it to be true, wanting it to be true, doesn't make it so. I find the hope and spirit in all of us and count myself among the lucky, the very, very lucky.

And I wish you peace in the coming year and good wishes to all.

Intelligent Design

2008-12-22T04:00:00.001-08:00

Just as a watch could not exist without a watchmaker, a god cannot exist without a godmaker.

A god is supreme in that it is intelligently designed to be supreme. If there were a more perfect design for a god, then it would be natural for us to replace the lesser design with the improved one, just as watch designs have improved over the past few centuries. If there were a better, more perfect god design we would have ourselves a new god-template and soon put it to use. This is something we see manifesting itself in modern culture, with the many offshoots of any particular religion, each claiming to be more correct than the others, each trying to win converts from the others, each competing in the marketplace of ideas.

And what is a god-template? Clearly, the christian god-template is the bible, a book which describes, albeit abstractly, the many attributes of their god. The fact that it is abstract allows it to be interpretted in many ways, and gives us many flavors of the same kind of god, just as we have many different types of watches.

Now the question remains, who made the godmaker? Which is almost the same as saying who make the god-template? And that is one for another day.

Discrimination

2008-12-19T16:50:00.001-08:00

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on religion. But I wonder if it has ever been tested with regards to Atheism?

The One True Religion

2008-12-13T20:27:00.000-08:00

Well, anything besides Atheism is just made up. So of course it is the one true religion.

Tis the season...

2008-12-12T13:03:00.000-08:00

Hey, that's just a made up holiday !
Oh wait...
They're all just made up holidays, I get it !

Doesn't mean I cannot enjoy a made up holiday, as long as there's food and fun and friends any excuse for a party is fine by me.

Full Moon

2008-12-12T07:25:00.000-08:00

The quiet Atheist remembers that there are pagan legends and myths just as there are christian, and that they all need to be treated with equal skepticism. Tonight is the full moon which is ripe with tales of lunacy. Which isn't to say they aren't fun. Just not to be taken seriously.

Intolerance

2008-12-08T16:04:00.000-08:00

Is my intolerance any less excusable than yours?

Quote of the day

2008-11-30T16:21:00.000-08:00

You can’t debunk something that isn’t already bunk - Phil Plait

Brave Atheist

2008-11-30T13:10:00.000-08:00

Good friend and long-time atheist NZ told me of her Thanksgiving visit to her out-laws house. They began prattling on about how atheists are no good, hateful, evil, people who don't have any morals what-s0-ever. But they didn't realize they had one in the room there with them. NZ spoke up and helped change their opinion. And I guess that's what we have to do, engage in useful conversation on dinner at a time.

Thanksgiving

2008-11-27T13:48:00.000-08:00

Somnolent Aphid will spend this day sucking the nectar of life and then falling asleep in front of a warm and cozy fireplace, remembering all the friends and family members, both fallen and and still among us, who are all well loved. The "traditional" thanksgiving of youth with large family and 20 types of stuffing and meats and farces and the bird itself, wild celebrations taking the entire day and troupes of relatives coming and going, drunken and sober, a mere remembrance. This having been transformed each year now into something different, into, starting with our first lentil loaf vegan feast some 30 years ago, thanksgiven, thankstaken, from turkey day into tofurkey day, transformed so many times so that the transformation itself is something to be celebrated. Thanks from the atheist heart without reservation for all the richness we share and all the people who help and who have helped make it so.

Somnolent Aphid

2008-11-27T13:37:00.000-08:00

It is about time I set up my own blog.