I don’t know what to do.

This young man (I almost wrote “boy” – he’ll be 28 in 9 more days, but I’ve known him since he was 6) is exceptional.  He’s funny and warm and smart; that doesn’t even matter – my friend is in love with her kid like we all are.  Her heart is breaking, and I don’t know what to do.  Every time we email back and forth, I close with the same tired, lame, useless “I love yous” and “I’m so sorries”.

Adam has struggled with leukemia for the past 5 years.  As with diseases like this, there are times of false security when the bastard lays low and allows you a moment to breathe and look around, and then back he waltzes, right into the middle of your life.

Adam is an engineer, Purdue 2007, and is a classic computer geek/nerd.  I got to attend his wedding in Indiana several years ago, and the legend was that he proposed to his lovely wife Kelly after she beat him in his favorite video game.  When Adam and his brother Aaron and my two sons were little, we lived on the same quiet street.  My friend Renee, Adam’s mom, and I would discuss their passion for videogames and bounce restrictions and limits off each other to make sure we were on track.  Far simpler times; like we should have worried about that.

When the boys were little, and it was the big boys against the little boys, inevitably Adam would become the peacemaker and the Lego’s would once again become the domain of all 4 of them.  Even now Adam’s struggle, lying in a hospital bed, is not wanting to disappoint anyone if he can’t get down his daily count of calories due to the chemo and other meds.  He’s a kind, compassionate, gentle, loving man, and he’s sick, and I can’t help my friend.

On his Caring Bridge site, his guestbook is full of good wishes and good thoughts.  It is indicative of how much the boy is loved and cared about to read these posts.  Each time I visit the site, I have my fingers hovered over the keys, trying to think of what to write, how to say how much we care and want him to get well, about our confidence in his medical team, how spectacular we think he is.  As I read the other entries, I see that my fellow wellwishers are experiencing the same writer’s block.  I think about Adam and his family reading every word and the comfort they might take in the love expressed from friends, even in middle of their despair.  And all of the strength that words have ever had just vanishes.

Last year, just before Bonnaroo, Adam inboxed me to recommend a band that was playing.  I made a point to go hear them, and as I suspected, they were metally and weird, and just what you’d expect from a game geek/engineer/science/computer guy.  But I loved it just because Adam wanted me to.

And now the hospital is home, the Candlewood Suites is home for my friend Renee, and her husband David.  A few years ago, when Adam was first sick, and I was either still in massage therapy school, or just out, I made a trip up for a couple of days with Renee.  She’s probably the smartest friend I have (which is saying something with the group of people I hang with!), but also one of the kindest and most thoughtful.  I went up to support her and give her a massage and help her, but it was she who had girlie presents for me of lotion and candies and we ate like kings while I was there.   Renee and David made the drive down to Murfreesboro for my 50th birthday party, and one of Renee’s gifts to me was an engraved wine glass that read “The Greatest Ironman is a Woman”.  She has since finished her PhD in nursing and is teaching at the U of So. Indiana, and of course has had a long career in helping and teaching others.

She and I are both very expressive, so our relationship has through the years been one of many words.  Long conversations, long letters, long emails, and now I don’t know what to say.  I told her in my last email that I so wanted to say something profound and comforting, something to make her smile, or laugh, or think, and I’ve failed.  Epically failed.  It’s cliche to write it, but words are so thin and meaningless in this situation.  That’s hard to take in a relationship in which words have had such profound meaning.

I love you.  I’m sorry.  I hate this.

Wrapping you up in a friend’s arms, because it’s all I can do.

Adam and Renee at her PhD graduation celebration

Adam and beautiful Kelly

This is the boy who suggested Opeth

Dugger Fam

The first question is:  Do humans have a psychological need to believe in religion?

I think we have a need to understand our environment.  I think we see this in the subjects the myths touch on – how did we get here, what is our purpose, what happens when we die.  It is astounding how similar these myths are from one culture to another.  A great many have the story of a big flood (here, here, and here), and most have some description of an afterlife.  I can imagine these tales being told from generation to generation, with children listening in wide-eyed wonder as each village’s best storyteller would embellish and dramatize.  I think these stories brought comfort and continuity and it is completely understandable why these stories were told and retold.

The next question then is:  After science explains so many of these things, why then continue to embrace the faith?

This question is a bit more complicated.  For me, it helps to think of this in terms of columns, or supports that hold up the foundation of belief, the loss of any single one of which won’t bring down the structure, so to speak, but collective loss of several will.

One of those columns is the desire to be cared for and directed.  Life is at times troubling, and difficult, and confusing, and unfair.  The feeling I think we are seeking is that same feeling one has as a child when one sees one home and parents as protecting and complete and profoundly secure.  It is not surprising that this feeling has a great deal of appeal, even to adults.  This is one of the supports that is hardest to let go; it’s almost a Stockholm’s syndrome, a celestial North Korea, as the late Christopher Hitchens said.  An eternal, observing, intervening, judging parent.  My own experience with this was exactly that:  before my deconversion, the idea of God loving and designing my life gave me comfort; afterward, the ownership and self-direction were liberating and empowering, far surpassing any grief at the loss of the Dear Leader.  The thought that my life would have exactly the meaning with which I would choose to bestow it was as intense and humbling a moment as I’ve ever had.

Another of these columns is the desire for an afterlife.  This is entirely understandable at first thought as well.  Death is so very final, and the loss of a loved one is as painful an experience as we have as human beings.  It isn’t even about “unfinished business”; we just don’t want to say a final goodbye.  For me, this was the last strand that held me to my faith – stronger than my need for a God, stronger than my need need for community, stronger than my fear of the unknown.  Having to say a permanent goodbye to those loved ones I had planned to see again was devastating.  Letting that go, however, has had the additional effect of placing much greater value on this life, on these moments, on these people, just as we are.  There is a particular boy I want to see again, who has died.  I want to talk to him, to see him smile, to ask him questions.  I believe I won’t have that opportunity, and that is heart-wrenching.  So, instead, conversations and moments with the people I love here in this time and place become ever so much more important and precious.

"For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."

Another column is the complicated issue of morality.  As a believer, I used the if-you’re-not-a-Christian-you-can-just-make-things-up phrase from elementary school through my middle age, as if that were the worst statement you could cast toward an infidel.  I remember, though, as an Adult Class Sunday School teacher struggling to teach the lesson of the evil of situational ethics.  What were the absolutes of the faith?  Don’t murder?  Sure, except for the death penalty.  And self-defense.  And defense of others.  And euthanasia.  And war.  Truth-telling?  Again, yes, except for when you are hiding Jews in your attic or Tutsis in your hotel.  Coveting?  Thought crimes?  Really?  It’s getting messy and sticky in here.  Making decisions and judgements is hard, and comes with great responsibility, and may depend upon the details.  The drive to abdicate this sometimes troublesome and challenging process is another reason I think the church is so appealing to us.

Another column, that I’ve just recently blogged about, is the need to belong to a community.  “Everyone I know believes the way I do” is comfortable and affirming, allows a group to pull in the same direction, focuses money and energy, and is one of the worst reasons for retaining a faith that I can imagine.  We’ve just gotten through another Christmas season where, here in the south, there is a lot of conversation about the war on Christmas.  Outrage on Facebook statuses, print and electronic media reports about public nativity displays, mass emails about taking a stand for Jesus by keeping Christ in Christmas — all feed this very human need to conform and be included in the in-group.  Let me suggest that rather than, as a believer, looking for ways to feel oppressed and put-upon, spend a day or so looking at it upside-down:  see the country through the eyes of atheism, and see how firmly entrenched in Christian language, culture, and tradition our society really is.  How many visible and open non-believers are in public office?  (guess first, then check here and here)  How many US citizens identify as Christians?  Hard to be in the minority when you’re in the majority.  But these statistics are certainly revealing as we examine this primal need to be part of community.

Related to the above, and maybe particular only to me, is the verification of the faith through the test of time.  When I was in college, and was beginning to question what I believed, I put a lot of stock in the fact that Christianity had been around for so long – how could that have happened were it not true?  I don’t remember evaluating other long-standing religious ideas with that same criteria – Islam, Judaism, paganism, Jainism – and coming up with the same result.  I now agree with Tim Minchin’s sentiment:  “I don’t believe just because ideas are tenacious that means that they’re worthy”.  I explain it this way:  for every reason that you can ennumerate that falsify insert another religion here, those are the reasons I apply to Christianity.

You can tell that I’ve spent time with my children when my posts get philosophical and reflective – the little buggers have a way of forcing me to think and clarify my thoughts.  On Friday it’s back to school (2L!) and training, and the posts will be back to the law school/working out/massage therapy world. I haven’t done a 50 Things update in ages, and I’m planning out my 2012 races that I’ll blog about soon.

Thank you for reading, especially when the words are not comfortable.  I promise to always reciprocate – just bring the link!

My kids get tired of my constant reference to it, but I think we can learn so much from our evolutionary heritage.  I’m not a scientist, so all of this is amateur, but I’m learning how to apply what evolution can teach us now.

About 10 years ago, when I started on a journey to regain my health, I discovered information that allowed me to do that.  I began to study metabolic science, nutrients, human anatomy, and what that information can tell us about what to eat and how to move.

Because I chose law school over medical school, I had to learn how to learn science, starting with formulating a hypothesis, studying the process, studying the data, in this case applying it personally (n=1), and seeing if the hypothesis holds up.  So here I started with the hypothesis that maybe we should eat like our ancestors ate, since that seemed to have allowed them some survival advantage.  I’ve written a whole other blog about all of that; I mention it because it’s the method I’m going to use for this next topic.

Back to evolution.  As I study anthropology and what our societies were like before we embraced agriculture, which seems to be a real change in our history, I’m finding that we lived in small, cooperative communities, pooling resources, celebrating together, grieving together, raising children, struggling to understand our environment, finding ways to protect ourselves from the environment and predators.  Almost all of these societies, across the globe, had myths and tales about origins of the world, explanations for natural phenomena, and rituals for birth and death.  As Americans, our particular pedigree comes from the Abrahamic line, and those rituals and rules over the years have become manifest in contemporary Christianity.   The church has provided a place for gathering, to worship, instruction, support, a common agenda – all sating very primal needs.

Sometimes in my discussions with believers, the topic veers from the validity of religion to the usefulness of religion.  I absolutely believe that religion can be useful; this blog is about just that.  I also believe that its usefulness has no bearing on its truthfulness (please tell me I just invented that phrase).

As I attend secular conventions (AA in April, TAM9 in July, Skepticon 4 in November), and as an avid blog reader, and new activist, I have made the following observations about the secular community:

1.  We are intellectuals.  We can blog the hell out of any topic, including, but not limited to, gelato.  We love the process of language, we love words, we have a unique ability to explain our position, and, thanks to the interwebs, can back it up with citations and references.

2.  We own the internet.  No shit.  It is the single most effective reason atheism is experiencing the growth it is – even evangelicals are acknowledging that.

3.  The future of the movement is in the hands of college students – not individual, identifiable people, but as a demographic.  It’s the perfect window of age to be free from familial obligations of church attendance and exposure to a broad base of philosophical and social input, yet young enough not to have established personal habits of faith and superstition in their own new families.

4.  We are young and we are old.  It seems that, both through the blogs and attendance at conventions, that we are comprised of youngs (18-25) and olds (50+).  It’s not that we don’t have the middle folks – in my own local group that’s actually a large percentage of our number – it’s just that that group is busy with career and spouses and children that the youngs and the olds don’t have.

5.  Community.   Online: we have it in spades.  Every support group you can imagine – recovering fundamentalists, ex-Mormons, secular parenting.  Flesh and blood: not so much.  We’re working on it, and we’re getting better at it, but we’re no match for churches.  I think that that sense of community, rather than a devotion to the faith itself, is what keeps a lot people in church.

As our evolutionary history tells us, we are social beings.  We need to feel included, but individual, protected but not restricted, part of a group yet independent.  The contemporary church has provided its version of that; I think the secular movement can do at least that, and even do it better.

My local group of seculars (hereinafter known as: the posse) is heavy on the very group I say the movement as a whole doesn’t have:  young adults with families.  There are couple of us oldies, and the ubiquitous college agers, but we’re lucky enough to have several young couples and their beautiful, freethinking young children.   Which finally brings me to the point of this post:  my scheme to take over the world social experiment.

Our posse, instead of just hanging out and sampling the finest hops our town has to offer, is going to add a bit of intention to our efforts.  We’re going to try to make our get-togethers a smidge more family-friendly:  choosing restaurants that are easier on the wallet, more conducive to child palates (notwithstanding my moratorium on Chuck E Cheese), parties where the children are accommodated with caretakers (perhaps education majors from our local university?), scheduled activities that work around school nights and bedtimes, service projects in which entire families can participate.

So stay tuned for updates — right now I’m on my way to a New Year’s Party with said posse – best wishes to all for 2012!!

Christmas without religion.  I don’t know if it’s really that hard to comprehend, or if it’s simply too disturbing and uncomfortable to even contemplate.  Several people have asked, with differing levels of hostility, why I have an interest in celebrating Christmas.  My first inclination is to ask them what specifically are their Christmas traditions, and how do those traditions relate directly to the celebration of Jesus’ birth?  Let’s take a look…

Is December the 25th the actual anniversary of Jesus’ birth?  What information do we have about this?  Just a little research will reveal that even religious leaders acknowledge that it is highly unlikely that the date Christians celebrate as the birth of Christ is the date we know now as December 25.  However, let’s just assume for argument’s sake that we’ve simply agreed to celebrate it on this day.  But why did it get “implanted” here?  Why late December?   The pagan Roman emperor Aurelian had proclaimed December 25th as the birth of the invincible sun-god Saturn.  Christianity cleverly and strategically had begun supplanting pagan celebrations (see Easter) in an effort to “facilitate conversion”, and viola!  Merry Christmas!  In fact, there are some Christian faiths who choose to de-emphasize the celebration of Christmas altogether, basing that on admonition from the scripture not to participate in pagan festivals.

Christmas trees and greenery?  That’s an old Nordic tradition celebrating those evergreen and holly trees, with their lovely red berries, which keep their beautiful color even in the depths of winter.  I’m old-school, and will only be happy with a live tree; my mother and brother both have perfectly gorgeous fake trees, so the debate continues year to year.

Santa Claus?  That’s about as secular as one can get!  The patron saint of children, Saint Nicholas, whose day was designated as December 6, traditionally gave children gifts.  The poem by Clement Moore added to the image of the jolly old elf.  Again, many believers choose to downplay this beloved tradition in an attempt to be less confusing and more honest with their children about things that are make-believe and things that are real.

Stockings by the fireplace?  Another old European tradition about the Norse god Odin’s flying horse.  During the Yule festival, children would put carrots, sugar, and straw in their boots, and leave them by the fireplace for the great Odin’s horse.  In exchange for this kindness, Odin would leave the kids candy and treats.  In our house, the kids could retrieve their stockings before daylight, but had to wait til dawn to come wake us up for presents.  Most years, this was after our having stayed up til 3 or 4 am assembling some toy or another.  Another Christmas tradition in our house was Christmas day naps.

Family gatherings, food, singing songs?  As an end-of-the-year celebration, many people have time off and choose the recognized holidays to renew family ties.  Sometimes that includes attending church services, and sometimes not.  Schools are traditionally closed, allowing college students the chance to go home and see their parents and siblings.  Special and celebratory foods go hand in hand with this, as does game-playing, song-singing, laughing, talking…well, that’s how it is in my house!  Our favorite holiday foods – dark chocolate walnut fudge, boiled custard made with fresh eggs, sausage and cheese balls and gooey yeast cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning.

Gift-giving?  I believe that’s as old as mankind itself.  The tradition of expressing gratitude, or love, or affection through the exchange of gifts is carried on even now; the wrapping and decorating are an expansion of that.  We all know that we’ve taken this too far in our society, and have overcommercialized that aspect of the holiday, but it’s still integral to the season.  My go-to is always books, books, books, but I always get a little something sparkly for my precious mother.  And get this, my dad’s birthday is December 25, and I really do go to the trouble every year of getting him 2 gifts, and wrapping one in non-Christmas paper!

As for me and my family, our Christmas traditions now are almost identical to the traditions we observed when we were believers, leaving out only attending the Christmas services at the church.  We do a lot of eating/cooking/baking/drinking, a lot of game-playing (this year’s favorite is Apples to Apples), a lot of talking and laughing and gift-wrapping and arguing and debating, some movie watching, hiking on the farm, gathering old friends, and this year, a lot of relaxing post-finals, as my kids and I are all in school, save our one graduate intern.

Our unique traditions include:

A psycho collections of nutcrackers that is WAY out of control.  It started when the kids were little, and has grown to over 100.  Son Sam gets devious pleasure out of “reorganizing” my display by having them all turned to face the wall, or all turned to face each other, or hiding in my cabinets looking at me when I open the door.

Also, this truly bizarre assembly:  we have recently added this very unconventional (surprise) and darkly interesting event.  The kids and I share with one another our annual memorial plan update.   Yes, that memorial plan.  How we wish to be memorialized when we die.  We add some ghoulish delight by making it a drinking game (you’d have to understand my brilliantly quirky kids).  We end the affair by expressing yet again our love for one another, and our humble and profound appreciation for every single breath we draw in this, our one and only life.

So, that’s what Christmas means to me.  And I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that most believers participate in the same traditions as I’ve just described here.  If you want to put religious significance into this celebration, enjoy!

I’ll end with my favorite Christmas song….ever.

Best of the season to you and yours!

Thanks for reading!

It’s the Monday after my First Year Final on Friday, it’s 11:30 in the morning, and I’m still in bed.

I haven’t posted recently about school, not because I didn’t have anything to say, but because I have been so consumed with studying.  Our final consisted of essays in all three subjects:  Contracts, Torts, Criminal Law, and 100 multiple choice questions.  Doesn’t sound so bad, does it?  It’s not, until you throw the time pressure in – 1 hour each for the essays, that we could easily have used 2 hours for, and 1.8 minutes per multiple choice question.  Just for fun, here’s an example:

Paolo’s daughter, Maria Elena, was getting married at home on December 25. Wanting to make the palazzo as nice as possible for the big day, Paolo signed a written contract with painter Diablo who agreed to paint the house. Mindful of the importance of getting the job done on time, the contract contained an express provision that all painting must be completed by the wedding date and that time was of the essence. To prevent any misunderstanding the writing also stated that any modification to the contract must be in writing.

After signing the contract, Diablo was offered another lucrative job by another rich client. Diablo called Paolo on the phone and offered to upgrade the quality of paint from store brand to designer top-grade if Paolo was willing to delay completion of the job until January 31. Thinking that the house maybe didn’t look so bad after all, and how much nicer it would look with top-grade paint, Paul orally agreed that if Diablo used the better paint he could have until the end of January to finish the job.

When Paolo’s wife, Strega, returned from a business trip on December 15 and asked why the house was not painted as planned, she became furious about Paolo’s new deal with Diablo. Paolo, before going to sleep in the dog house that night, remembered the provision in the contract stating that all modifications must be in writing, so he called Diablo telling him that he needed the job done by December 25 as stated in the written contract. Diablo refused, stating that he was already working on another job and could not get to Paolo’s house before the 25th. When the wedding day came and went without the house being painted, Paolo sued Diablo for breach of contract.

Will the court likely find that Diablo breached his contract with Paolo?
(a) Yes, because the oral modification violated the Statute of Frauds.
(b) No, because the written contract was modified.
(c) Yes, because the modification lacked consideration.
(d) Yes, because the contract expressly provides that any valid modification must be made in writing.

How’d that go?  Did you even get the question read in 1.8 minutes??  Now add that in most of these questions, usually 2 and sometimes 3 of the answers are actually RIGHT, but only one is the MOST RIGHT.

So, I’m still in bed.

Flying to Arizona for a last-minute study session with my study partners is what made it tolerable.  I blogged about them earlier; they are one of my favorite parts of law school.  It’s sadly one of the things we most feel we miss attending an online program like ours.  It’s the tradeoff we make for attending lectures in our jammies in our big comfy chair in our own living rooms with a glass of wine and a blazing fire in the fireplace.

old school

new school

My school is a 4-year program, unlike the traditional 3 years at a bricks-and-mortar.  It allows me to see it in terms of my high school and undergraduate programs:  I’ve finished my freshman year.  My dad has always liked this little saying:

Freshmen don’t know, and they don’t know they don’t know.

Sophmores don’t know, but they know they don’t know.

Juniors know, but they don’t know they know.

Seniors know, and they know they know.

So that puts me ending the year that I didn’t even know that I didn’t know, which is pretty accurate.  My reflections on this past year are:

1.  Law school is harder than I expected.

2.  Law school has no bearing on the Bar Exam.

3.  Law school appears to have no bearing on the practice of law.

4.  Law school makes for some incredible friendships.

5.  When I don’t think I’m going to pass, I think of all the people who are lawyers, like Dan Quayle, Michelle Bachmann, and Judge Roy Moore, and I get sick to my stomach.

My class now gets the much-anticipated break in which we get to enjoy not studying for the first time since last January, that is delightfully tainted by the fact that we don’t get the results of our final, and consequently, the results of whether or not we’ve passed the first year.  Happy Holidays!

In this break of time I want to read, work, cook, watch Project Runway with my daughters who are home from college on Christmas break, clean the house (a little, don’t get all crazy), and go out to Colorado and ski with the sons.  I have to go back to a real to-do list for a while; for the past 3 months, it has only had one thing on it:  STUDY.

I love law school.  I know that’s not the conclusion you were expecting from all the above.  I love it in SPITE of all that stuff.  And I love my school in particular, imperfections and all.  I love being at my own pace, I love clicking off the modules on the timeline, I love chatting with my fellow students in our virtual classroom, and more than anything, I love learning this stuff.

Like a law princess version of Rumplestiltskin, I wish I could spin that passion into grades….but for now, I’ll just have to wait to learn my fate.

If you sent me a note of encouragement, a text of support, a phone call of I-believe-in-you — THANK YOU!  I’ve cherished every word and I promise to try to live up to your faith in me.  I can tell you I really did the very best I could.  Free legal advice for EVERYONE IN THE BAR!

As always, thanks for reading!

The minute you read something that you can’t understand, you can almost be sure that it was drawn up by a lawyer.
Will Rogers

(a) Yes, because the oral modification violated the Statute of Frauds.
No. This contract does not fall within the SOF.
(b) No, because the written contract was modified. Yes. Although the
contract contained a clause prohibiting oral modification, courts
typically view a subsequent oral agreement as a waiver of the clause,
particularly when it is supported by consideration, as it is here.
(c) Yes, because the modification lacked consideration. No. The
agreement to upgrade the paint quality was sufficient consideration to
support the change in date.
(d) Yes, because the contract expressly provides that any valid
modification must be made in writing. No, for the same reason that B
is correct.

So…I had a conversation with a friend recently, about thankfulness, and the idea of blessings.  I’ve just written a  post about being thankful, without having an entity to thank.  My friend is a believer, and our discussion was about how he felt that all those things for which we are grateful were actually blessings from God, whether I acknowledged that or not.

What followed was a discussion about why God would choose to bless certain people with so much, and keep any blessings from the vast majority of others (say, most of the continent of Africa).  Most of the world does not have clean water, or enough food, or safety.  He said that sometimes God blesses us because we’ve been faithful, and sometimes he blesses us because it’s a part of His plan that we don’t understand, and vice versa – that sometimes we lose things because we’re disobedient, and sometimes we don’t understand why because we don’t understand His plan.

I asked if He thought God’s plan included any compassion on the part of God.  Why, whatever His plan may be, allow children to be born into starvation, in a war-torn country, to suffer for 5, or 6, or 7 years, witnessing death, feeling pain, to die a horrible death – whatever could God’s plan be with that kind of misery, multiplied by the thousands?

He hesitated, but then concluded that maybe all of that suffering was a way to get the attention of each of us, individually, to turn to Him.  This is not an immoral man.  I think because he’s heard this his entire life he’s accustomed to how it sounds.  It was not unfamiliar to me, as a former believer, and yet even only a few years away from the faith myself, I was utterly horrified at hearing him say this.  I asked if I could repeat back to him what I heard him say.  I described what life could be like for such a child, the things she might see, and feel, the pain, the agony, the absolute and complete suffering, all to get me to talk to God?  When He could, in the blink of an eye, say that to me Himself, and save this child, and thousands like her, from this fate?  I don’t know if I tried if I could come up with a more blasphemous thing to say.

He backpedaled and said he reconsidered.  He said no, maybe that was not the reason.  He’s imperfect and he should have thought a little deeper before he answered.  He said what he should have said was that, no, God did not do that.  God was only the author of all things good, that the evil and suffering in the world were the work of Satan, and sin.  This “metaphorical child” (yes, he said that) was in pain and sorrow because Adam had originally sinned, the world became imperfect, and evil came into the world.  Now she suffers because of that.  I pointed out that that was really a variation on what he had just retracted.  Could God or could God not intervene and alleviate this child’s suffering?  Yes, he said, He could, but He just chose not to….right back to getting our attention through the suffering of this child.

He reconsidered again, and said that he thought he could express it best this way.  God knows ahead of time how to get the most people to turn to Him, since that’s what he wants from every single person on the planet.  It hurts him to see suffering, he doesn’t want those people to suffer, but in the aggregate, that’s the way to get the most “bang for your buck” (my words, not his).  I think he took my stunned silence as acceptance of his position.

Of all of the reasons I push back against religion, this is probably the one that motivates me the most.  This is a good man, a moral and loving husband and father.  I think his compassion lever is malfunctioning, and it’s malfunctioning because he has had a lifetime of having to justify the unjustifiable, to moralize the immoral, to accept the reprehensible.  The Bible does tell about God’s judgement and wrath and killing and destruction to achieve his means, very clearly, and in numerous places.  Believers are left having to “do” something with all of these passages.  And that something fucks up the system.  Our natural compassion is blunted.  When a tsunami kills thousands of people, and it’s a given that God is in control of the tsunami, we have to come to terms with what to do with that information, and we push it and shove it and hammer it in, until the workings of an imperfect but highly functional biological, social, and psychological system of care and compassion are skewed beyond recognition.

Life is random.  And unfair.  And sometimes we get the good stuff, and sometimes we get the bad stuff.  There are things we can do to affect our fortune, for the good and bad, and there are things we cannot effect.  The danger with thinking that the good things in your life are there because God loves you so much, is the unspoken implication that the bad things in someone else’s life are there because God doesn’t love them quite so much.  And if God doesn’t care about them, maybe we don’t have to either.  My friend tried to back away from this, and stepped right into the next steaming pile of poo with his argument about God’s plan.

The problem of suffering.  Think.  Think again.  Then think again.  Just don’t call me blessed; I want no part of it.

My Thanksgiving post has been, as former GOP candidate and excuse-generator extraordinaire Herman Cain said, “twirling around in my head” for almost 2 weeks now.  And now that I am afflicted with the I-can’t-sleep-for-worrying-about-my-test syndrome, I find myself with the opportunity to write it.

I had a delicious and delightful season of Thanksgiving.  I was able to share it with my daughters and SO’s in Johnson City, TN, where one of my girls lives and learns.  The weather cooperated beautifully, even to the point that we were able to have our feast in the afternoon sun in the backyard, complete with the ubiquitous Boo under the table.  Our food was traditional, save the English marmalade gravy contributed by our very own royal subject, and Glenda’s squeeze, Sam.  The food was scrumptious, the atmosphere intoxicating, the conversation stimulating, and the moment unforgettable.

shamelessly stealing from Google, because epic fail at picture taking myself - our picnic looked a lot like this

There are times, as I’m sure everyone has, when I am so moved by a moment, that I am not only rendered speechless, but physiologically affected with breathlessness and tachycardia.  I have more of these moments in the presence of my children that at any other time.  Thursday was just such a day.

We had enjoyed the usual routine of the pre-preparation activities of grocery shopping, about a half-dozen of us in the store to accomplish that task, and had enjoyed the bawdy hilarity of that spastic chaos.  Then the next day we enjoyed the full day’s preparation of chopping, and stirring, and baking, and sipping, and mixing, and tasting, and hauling the table and chairs to the yard, and carrying the wine and dishes and glasses and flatware until finally it was time to feast.

I’m one of THOSE moms.  I had insisted everyone write a haiku as our pre-meal reflection.  Each of us read another person’s, and in those haikus, some reverent, some not, all creative, as we raised our glasses in toast to gratitude itself, I had my moment.  Looking into the faces of these profoundly important people, I was overwhelmed with how absolutely and completely fortunate I am and have been.

First, to have been here at all.  Of all the millions of biological combinations that could have been at the moment of my conception, and it was my particular egg and sperm, in this country, at that moment, to those people.  To have had the opportunity to have the education I have had, with that family and those friends, the travels I have made, the relationships I’ve been part of, the health I’ve experienced, culminating 51 years later in a sunny backyard in Tennessee with these beautiful people, that wonderful food, in this spectacular country, in this unique time.

same girls, different picnic - epic photo fail, 'member?

I have always had a recognition of how very fortunate I have been.  When I was a believer I attributed it all to God, and often said a prayer of thanks; for a god who could create universes and intervene in physics and change weather, my little life, while important to me, was not a nanosecond’s work, but I was grateful nonetheless.  As an atheist, who holds no belief in divine intervention, I am utterly astounded at my good fortune.  Daily.  Hourly.  By the second.

My believing friends comment pretty regularly to me that this is a piece of my non-faith they do not understand, this disregard of blessing.  Do not misunderstand me.  My variance with you on the source of the joys in no way detracts from my gratitude for it; in fact, it substantially enhances it.  I remember visiting Arches National Park years ago as a Christian, being moved by the beauty of it, thinking how wonderful it was for God to have simply created it, in the blink of an eye.  Looking at the same view with the eyes of a secularist, processing the years, and forces of wind and water, and effects of gravity and physics, left me silent with deep wonder and awe and respect.

I close with my haiku, which I suppose I could have substituted for this entire post:

Thankful, but to whom?

No, not “To whom?” but “For what?”

Family, life, love

And, as always, in the spirit of gratitude, thanks for reading!

It’s so central to my life, I take it for granted everyone else knows about it, til I check and it has been weeks since I mentioned it!

So on it goes.  I am closing in on the end of my first year; this program is 4 years, as opposed to most bricks and mortar law schools which are 3.  My final exam is December 3, over which I am appropriately freaking out.  Then the real fun begins.

Because my school is based in CA, the CA Bar requires the taking of the First Year Law Students Exam (FYLSE), affectionately known as the Baby Bar.  It’s a great idea:  you can’t continue in school if you don’t pass it.  In 3 tries.  Well, you CAN, but you get the idea.  I begin my second year in January, and don’t take the FYLSE until June 2012 – halfway through my 2nd year!

Both tests consist of 100 multiple choice questions and 3 essays.  Easy, right?  Sure.  Subjects are Torts, Criminal Law, and Contracts.  They each have their interesting parts, and each have their tedious parts.  The trick is having memorized the rules, the exceptions, and the exceptions to the exceptions, and to be able to analyze and answer the questions, and analyze and write the essays.  1st world problem.

So my study group is a bit unconventional.  (I know, big surprise.)  We have virtual study sessions where we’re on skype reviewing subjects.  Sometimes we’re on the phones, sometimes we’re using email or text.  But this past weekend, we went all out.

happy to finally meet!

Our study group met in 1000 Oaks, California, at the home of Charlene and Rick, and their son Kevin.  I flew in from TN, and Rosine and Myra drove from Tuscon.  We converged on a Friday afternoon, and I don’t really know how, but we managed to squeeze in 4 meals in restaurants, hours of studying, a 2.5 mile walk, at least 4 practice tests, and loads of laughing and socializing, all before I took the redeye out on Sunday!

Charlene and Rick were hosts above all hosts.  Here’s a study area:

Rick grew the roses

And here’s our study tshirts:

I'm not tellin

Then there’s Rick, Char’s long-suffering and patient husband, who waited on the students beyond anyone’s imagination:

afternoon snacktime

Nicest. Man. EVER.

And this was the lovely environment in which all this studying took place:

morning coffee, anyone?

And I can’t leave out Kevin, who gave up his bedroom and bathroom for 2 nights, engaged in a philosophical conversation with me (one of my favorites), let us take over his house for the weekend with no complaint (reminder:  he’s 16), and was an all-around good sport about our endless probing questions into his life and interests.  And can I also add this boy is a 4.0, AP, perfect SAT, Harvard or Yale prospect track star??

Char and Kevin

I can’t believe I didn’t get a picture of Sparky, our beagle companion, who added so much to the group dynamic.  She had a lot to say, and as she is refining her “size-reduction techniques”, commiserated with the rest of us about the challenges of that!

The Tuscon contingent

All in all, we had a wonderful weekend of study and friendship.  We hope to do it again in February and April, before our big test in June, and we hope to do at least one of those sessions here in TN.  Myra, who is in graduate school, but not law school, says she wants to work on the farm.  I said to bring her boots.  If we make this happen, we’ll have a throwdown/bonfire for the school posse to meet some of my TN posse.

So much legal brainpower in one shot

Our little group before our walk to....breakfast, of course.

Rick, Kevin, Charlene, Myra, Rosine, Sparky — thank you for a fabulous weekend!

Thanks for reading!

“From the beginning of this conflict, there have been those who have attempted some form of accommodation with Darwinism. In its most common form, this amounts to some version of “theistic evolution” — the idea that the evolutionary process is guided by God in order to accomplish his divine purposes.

Given the stakes in this public controversy, the attractiveness of theistic evolution becomes clear. The creation of a middle ground between Christianity and evolution would resolve a great cultural and intellectual conflict. Yet, in the process of attempting to negotiate this new middle ground, it is the Bible and the entirety of Christian theology that gives way, not evolutionary theory. Theistic evolution is a biblical and theological disaster.

….

Thus, the vise of evolutionary theory is now revealing the fault lines of the current debate. There can be no question but that the authority of the Bible and the truthfulness of the Gospel are now clearly at stake. The New Testament clearly establishes the Gospel of Jesus Christ upon the foundation of the Bible’s account of creation. If there was no historical Adam and no historical Fall, the Gospel is no longer understood in biblical terms.”

(Emphasis mine, entire text here.)

When I was a believer, I chose not to take a position on the evolution/creation debate.  It created internal conflict for me, it wasn’t relevant in my life, I didn’t know what to do with it, so I simply didn’t address it.  (I know, right?)  I do not believe I was the only Christian who felt this way.  Which is what Dr. Mohler’s first two paragraphs are referring to.  “Theistic evolution” is such a comfort for moderate, modern, science-minded, reasonable, rational Christians.  However, come along on a little virtual field trip with me and see how very very far from that position a portion of the believing population is.

Gayle’s trip to the Creation Museum, Hebron, KY, October 17, 2011

Here I am, right outside of Cincinnati

I attended the Free Inquiry Group’s 20th anniversary meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio.  I posted about the events of the first day, and I’ll throw in a bit more about the second day in this post.  It was delightful and stimulating and inspiring; exactly what I’ve come to expect from a secular gathering!

In particular, on the second day, we listened to Rabbi Robert Barr, who gave a presentation on the Creation Museum.  I’ve been interested in this since it opened, enjoyed the coverage given to it in the movie Religulous, and was riveted to Rabbi Barr’s description of it.  In addition to that, it was 10 minutes outside of Cincinnati; of course I had to go.

In the parking lot on the way in

The structure is beautiful – expensive stone, spacious and open lobby, friendly staff.  The first thing you notice is all the dinosaurs.  Dinosaurs at the entrance, dinosaurs in the foyer, hanging from the ceiling, on the program, on the ticket.  These people want you to know that they believe in dinosaurs!  Why, here’s one right here…

…beside this child.  This human child.  This homo sapiens, Paleolithic Era child.  But They Believe In Dinosaurs!  They only missed it by a few million years.  About 230 million.  And how do they explain that?  How to explain the fossil record?  Just listen in to these two scientists discussing their discovery:

animatronic archeologists

“Different conclusions based on where you begin.  If you begin with the bible, you end up with a different conclusion.”  Boy, howdy.

It's not really any more complicated than this

Rabbi Barr said that his impression of the museum is that it is a sermon.  And not just any sermon.  A children’s sermon, with a children’s premise:  The Book Says So.  There is very little science in this “museum”; just a lot of pictures of good, happy images labelled God’s Word versus negative, bad images labelled Human Reason.

Represent

Guess who?

Noah looks good for 600 years old

The story of the flood is as important to the story as creation itself.  There are a lot of panels about how the flood fits in to modern science – both Pangaea and the Ice Age occurred after the flood.  There are thousands of pieces of evidence from thousands of scientists and researchers that disprove this, but remember, all of the panels refer you back to The Bible Said So.

I call this shot: Saddled Triceratops Facepalm

Do I still think there is room for Theistic Evolution?  I think it’s better than embracing no evolution at all; I even think it’s where most believers would land if asked.   Do I think you can have the idea of Jesus and salvation and redemption without the fall of man in a literal sense?  It’s not an argument I would like to spend one more moment of my life thinking about and trying to make sense of.  Establish the veracity of the book; then we can discuss the contents.

Get one now for the impressionable children in your life!!

Thanks for reading.

or

How Finding my Atheism led to my Fitness

(This was a guest blog for my friend JT Eberhard, who resides at Scienceblogs.  The “everyone” in the first line was directed at his atheist readers, as that was the context in which this was discussed and then written.  I’ve written about this before, but never all in one post…so….here it is!)

Everyone of us has one of these stories.  Everyone’s is interesting, and everyone’s is different.

It gives me joy beyond measure to recount mine.  It may seem like I’m taking license to have the two branches of my story to run so parallel, but it only seems unusual now, after the fact.  At the time, it just happened.

In 2000, I turned 40, mother of 4 teenagers, active in church and community.  I was also active in my Southern Baptist Church, a Sunday School teacher, Missions Director, and committed to the faith.  And 60 pounds overweight.

The evening of my 40th birthday party, surrounded by friends, I came to the conclusion, which later I began to describe as an epiphany:

That the first 40 years of our life, we can treat our body pretty brutally, and it will respond, for the most part, to the demand; the second 40, however, are quite a different story:  we have to treat our body with deep respect and reverence in order for it to respond to the demands of life.

I had attempted diets before, lost a few pounds, then, ad nauseam, reverted to old, comfortable, established habits.  Walking into the bookstore left me more frustrated than helped, facing the wall of books in the Health/Fitness section, some of which were in direct opposition to the one right next to it.  Fuck that.

This was in the year 2000, when the internet was a toddler, and I spent hours at the public library looking up nutrition information, going directly to the study when I could.  I don’t have a medical background, or even a degree that was heavy in science (education), so I had a lot of remedial work to do.  Maybe that even worked in my favor since I had to start from scratch understanding human anatomy, physiology, metabolism, nutrients.

For two years I applied what I learned to my routine, tweaked, applied, and tweaked some more.  I lost 60 pounds, and became so interested in and excited about my new lifestyle I became a trainer to try to help others struggling with health issues.

Clipboard: yes. Whistle: not so much.

Parallel to this information-gathering, exercise-implementing, nutrition-experimenting journey was a gradual, slow, dawning of realization relating to religion.  While I had never been an actual creationist, I was a believer of the Bible, an advocate of a personal savior, even a teacher in my church.  My view of the beginning of human history was that whether it was Eden or evolution, Goddidit, and resolving the particulars was irrelevant to me.

As I began my study of nutritive science, however, I found that I needed to study our human anatomy and physiology to make sense of the process.  That in turn led me to study our evolutionary heritage:  what were we to eat to make us truly thrive?  What had we eaten for the thousands of years that we did thrive?  While the answer was simple:  whole, unprocessed, fairly accessible natural foods, the implication was greater.  Evolution was an absolute, undisputed by any scientist, and the evidence was abundant.  Hmmmm.  Not a show-stopper for the faith, but certainly a proverbial chink in the wall.

I visited Christian apologetics sites and read several books trying to reconcile my new acceptance of evolution with the broader picture of my faith.  I knew there were Christians who accepted, even embraced evolution, and I was eager to understand how I was to do this.  It was completely contradictory to the version of humanity’s beginnings in the Bible.  The general explanation was that the events that occurred in Genesis were “poetic”, not literal, that they were representative of God’s relationship to us.  Hmmmm.  Again.  My next question was:  When did the poetry end and the reality begin?  Noah?  Abraham?  David?  The apologists diverted at this point:  some said that during the course of evolution when we became modern humans, the history then became literal.  Some said that the poetry continued through most of the Old Testament.  But most certainly they all agreed that when Jesus entered the picture, why then it was all literal.

Or.

Not.

The brevity and simplicity of the paragraphs above belie the drama and torment of the process.  In sharing stories with other atheists, I have heard from former believers who left the faith kicking and screaming, who begged God for a word, who didn’t want to be atheists, who fought for years against acceptance of the truth.  While mine was not quite so vehement, it was painful, it was sorrowful, it was traumatic, and it was humbling.  I had to grieve anew those folks I had only said goodbye to “temporarily” – my grandparents, some friends.  I had to recollect every Sunday School lesson I had ever taught with confidence and arrogance.  I had to grasp the separation this was going to create with my already fractured extended family.  I had to reevaluate my morality.  I had to redirect my compassion and drive and creativity and time that for years and years I had devoted to my church.

But do not misunderstand me.  Although the journey was unnerving and unknown, it was thrilling and exciting and liberating.  My 4 teenage children had been making journeys of their own in the same direction, and we spent countless hours discussing and debating and researching toward the same conclusion.  This brought me absolute, sheer delight.  Watching their beautiful brains develop their critical thinking skills and refuse to accept dogma made me as proud as their mother as I had ever been.
I love reading former believers’ coming out stories.  I love commiserating with the struggles and rejoicing in the victories.  I feel the pain of lost relationships and the joy of new discoveries.  This is mine.  I am honored to share it.

Thanks for reading.