Observations on the Cosmos

And Now, Something Original

2012-01-29T08:09:00.000-07:00

So, since I've now posted two book reviews that some of you may not have been able to read, and since I am apparently one post behind on my one-post-per-week quota so far (not sure how that happened; must have been a busy weekend...), I present to you something original. I recently dug out an old attempt at an original story that I wrote in high school, and after re-reading it, I decided to take a stab at re-writing and trying to finish it. So here, for your reading pleasure, I present a rough draft introduction to the story's premise and a short scene between two of the characters from later in the story. Enjoy!

Once upon a time…

Every child has grown up hearing stories about Tai’a’Sharen, the Land of Magic. It was a beautiful country, divided into five kingdoms that represented the five elemental magics: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Spirit. Each kingdom was well-suited to the element it embodied and the magic wielded by its residents, and each was ruled by a royal line of kings and queens.

There was no war between the kingdoms; peace was kept by means of a yearly council between the kings and queens, held at the castle fortress that stood in the very center of the land. The fortress protected the Great Tree, which was the source of the country’s magic. The tree was enormous; its crown could be seen for miles in every direction, it dwarfed the castle built around its trunk, and it took a fast runner at least an hour to circle its base. The tree’s bark was a vibrant brown and soft to the touch and its leaves, which never fell unless called down by a magician for use in a spell, were shaped like five-pointed stars, as big as a man’s hand, and a vibrant emerald-green that pulsed and glowed with an inner light.

The tree was cared for by the oracles. There were still mysteries, even in Tai’a’Sharen, and the oracles were the greatest one of all. No one knew what they were or where they came from. They were spirits of a sort whose very presence replenished the Great Tree, though they could not interact with anything or anyone and were rarely even seen except when passing on a prophecy. Prophecies from the oracles were rare, but extremely important, and they shaped not only the future of the world of magic, but also shaped the mundane world as well.

Because Tai’a’Sharen was connected to the world of men through hidden doorways, and the oracles’ prophecies usually involved the coming of Heroes to the Land of Magic: mortals who were touched by a great destiny, who entered the magical world to assist in its protection and preservation, then often returned to the mortal world to precipitate changes there as well. These mortals were revered by those in the magical world; their names and stories were carved into the stones of the fortress surrounding the Great Tree so they would never be forgotten.

Though there was peace and prosperity within Tai’a’Sharen, it was a tenuous stability, preserved only by constant vigilance along the country’s border. The roots of the Great Tree only spread so far, and beyond their reach lurked the Darkness. It was a daily struggle to prevent the denizens of the Darkness from crossing the border, gaining strength from the magical power that infused the land, and wrecking havoc or, worse, escaping to the mundane world to cause wars, disasters, disease, famine, and death. The magicians were vigilant, though, and had held off the swelling tide of shadow-folk amassing on their border for thousands of years, and stragglers that broke through and escaped into the mortal world were few and far between.

But then came the day of the Prophecy; the day the leaves of the Great Tree began to fall.

An emergency council was called. The shadow-folk had suddenly gained in strength and numbers, and all the power of the five kingdoms’ armies could barely hold them at bay. When the five kings and queens met at the fortress, they saw immediately one possible explanation for this change in their fortunes: the star-shaped leaves of the Great Tree were fluttering from is heights unbidden. The oracles were swarming the tree, their ghostly movements unusually hasty and full of fear, but they had no answers for the council, or any acknowledgement of their presence at all. As the kings and queens sat and discussed plans for increasing the strength of their armies, strategies for pushing back the shadow-folk, and treaties for coming to one another’s aid, a heavy sense of dread and futility hung in the air.

Suddenly, an oracle appeared in their midst, silencing them all as it hovered over the center of the council table. Then, it began to speak, its voice seeming to come from all around.

“The time has come at last; the future of all worlds hangs in the balance. The firstborn of royal blood must be sent to the world of men. Ignorant of their true selves, they will return when the time is right, bringing with them the heroes that will destroy all to save all. When the dream comes again, the one who is left behind will lead the way.” Then it vanished.

Silence filled the room as the kings and queens all looked at one another, fear and sorrow filling all their faces as the meaning of the oracle’s words sunk in. The king of the Earth Kingdom went very pale and his wife began to sob; their first child, a son, was almost two years old. The king and queen of the Water Kingdom also grieved—they had just given birth to a daughter—and the queen of the Fire Kingdom looked at her husband with sorrow and understanding, for though they had told no one yet, they had discovered just before departing their castle that she was pregnant for the first time. With twins. And she knew for a certainty that one of those children would be ‘the one who is left behind,’ because only one of them would be her firstborn.

Once the sacrifice the five families were being asked to make had sunk in, the Water king finally broke the silence. “So what are we to do now?”

“The children who have been born must be brought here so the oracles can send them to the mundane world,” the Spirit queen said, for she had the gift of understanding prophecy, “and we must continue to fight. For though no war will be won until our children and their heroes return, it can still be lost before that day comes if we do not keep the darkness at bay.”

“But what of those who have no children to lose?” the Earth king growled, glaring accusingly at the king and queen from the Spirit Kingdom, who had only just been married and raised to their position, and at the king and queen from the Air Kingdom, who were barely more than children themselves.

“We will all lose a child in the end,” the Fire queen spoke up, sparing her sister the pain of interpreting the most difficult part of the prophecy. “They will be lost to us before we have a chance to know them, but we will miss them all the same.” She suppressed her own grief as she put her arm around the Spirit queen’s shoulders to comfort her. “This will be a tremendous sacrifice for all of us, but it must be done if we are to save our world.”

“And we must not lose hope,” the Air queen spoke up in a sweet, sad voice, “for if the prophecy is true, we will see our children again… some day.” And they all took her words to heart, for they were a small, flickering flame of hope in the darkness that had fallen over their souls.

When they got to the small house where Maia and Kaelin lived, Maia was sitting by the front door, crying. Darren ran to her, Kari close on his heels.

“What’s the matter? What’s happened?”

She looked up and cried, “He’s doing it again!”

No further explanation was needed. Kari immediately turned and ran into the forest, heading for the quarry. She left Darren to take care of Maia; he knew her better, after all.

The old rock quarry had been hollowed out long ago to build a lord’s castle. Now, it was simply a giant crater. A fifty-foot drop from sheer cliffs ended in a crystal-clear lake built up from years of rainfall. As Kari neared it, she slowed. There he was again, just sitting on the edge, looking down. His curly black hair, ruffled by the wind, fell into his eyes, and his balance wavered as he reached one hand up to push it back. Kari made sure to make plenty of noise with her feet as she approached so as not to startle him.

“Hello, Kaelin,” she said as she sat down next to him on the steep cliff.

“Hello, Kari,” he said, never moving or looking up from the water below.

“What are you doing?”

“Sitting here. Thinking.”

“About jumping?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

Now, the real question. “Why?”

“Why what?” he asked innocently.

“You know what. You come here all the time, sit here almost every day. You’re terrifying Maia; she has no idea what’s going on inside your head. She’s afraid one day you just won’t come back, but she’s more afraid to try and stop you. Why do you do it?”

He finally turned his head to look at her, his grey eyes full of mild puzzlement. “I thought you’d know why. You must think about it yourself sometimes.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? I’d never want to jump.”

“You don’t belong here any more than I do. I knew it from the first time I saw you.”

That opened her eyes. How could he know? “What makes you say that?” she asked, trying to keep her voice level.

“I’m not sure. There was just… something the first time we met. I’ve always known I don’t really belong to this world, but you’re the only other person I’ve ever met that I was certain didn’t belong here either.”

Could he really know? Was he one of the ones she was searching for? She knew Danil was one, and his very life was in danger as a result. If Kaelin was one too… But what did his fascination with the quarry have to do with any of this?

“I don’t want to sound harsh or anything, but you’re evading my question. Why do you keep coming here?”

He looked back down into the quarry. “For as long as I can remember, I’ve been searching for the way back to… wherever it was that I came from. I don’t know where that is, but the first time I came across this quarry, I knew the answer was down there somewhere. I know the fall won’t kill me. I’d jump right now if it wasn’t for Maia. I can’t leave her behind. Wherever I belong, even if she doesn’t belong there too, I’m not going to go without her. I thought once that that meant that I’d never get to go home, but now… ever since I met you… I don’t want to jump any more. I came here today because things got really bad, but… I’m not going to jump as long as you promise to take us with you when you go.”

“Take you where?”

“To the place where this no longer frightens people.” He held his hands up. Blue lightning crackled along his fingertips.

*He is one of them!*

Kari rejoiced, not even bothering to hide her broad grin. She held out her hands to him, conjuring fire in her palms. “Don’t worry, cousin. I know the way home.”

And Just When You Thought Things Couldn't Get Any Worse...: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

2012-01-28T08:30:00.000-07:00

(Author's Note: DO NOT read this review if you have not already read The Hunger Games, unless you don't mind being completely spoiled on the ending of that book. I also would suggest that you wait until you have read Catching Fire before reading this review, as there will be minor spoilers. - S)

Catching Fire opens with Katniss Everdeen doing her best to adjust to her new life as a victor in the Hunger Games. She has a new house, money enough to provide for her family, and her victory ensures that all of District 12 will be well-fed for an entire year. But, at the same time, she is frightened. She knows that her stunt at the end of the Games, though it allowed both her and Peeta to survive, has put her family and friends in danger, and that they are all being watched for signs of further rebellion. Though Katniss herself is uncertain exactly what made her do it--was it an act of love, like she is forced to make everyone else believe, or was it defiant rebellion, or was it simply survival?--she knows what she needs to make everyone think in order to survive, but she also knows--or at least learns over the course of her Victory Tour in the first third of the book--how others chose to see it. Seeing someone standing defiant, forcing the Capital to change the unchanging rules of the bloody contest that defines their power over the districts in order to keep from losing it as a symbol of that power, appears to be the last straw that a lot of desperate people needed, and despite all Katniss, Peeta, and the Capital tried to do to spin her act of defiance into something else, people have chosen to take it as they saw it, and not as the propaganda wants them to see it.

Catching Fire is a faster-paced book than The Hunger Games, covering more ground and giving more insight into the power behind the dictatorship that runs Panem, and revealing it all to you through Katniss's eyes and thoughts is a fascinating, if sometimes frustrating, window into her true transition from child to adult: seeing that actions have consequences, that they are not always what you would expect, and that the world is a much more complicated place than it appears. One lesson that both Katniss and the leaders of Panem should learn but really don't over the events of this book is that you cannot control what others chose to do as a result of your actions or your example. All Katniss wants to do is protect her family, her friends, and the two young men that she cares about and that care about her. She is willing to do anything and everything towards that goal, but she is destined to fail because she has no control over the fact that the people in the other districts have chosen to use her act of defiance in the arena as the spark that is lighting the fire of rebellion across the country. And, in truly despicable fashion, the country's leader, President Snow, chooses to make her feel responsible for everything that happens as a result.

Though this book is very much the middle book of a trilogy, dropping you into the action from the very beginning and ending with no satisfactory conclusion, it is well-paced and pulls you through the events with breathless alacrity. Everything for Katniss happens in a whirlwind, and she is fighting every step of the way just to keep her friends and family safe. You feel her helplessness and desperation acutely, you rage at the injustice of President Snow's continued punishments, and in the end your heart breaks with hers over what she loses even as you are picking up the next book in the hope that everything will turn out alright in the end.

Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins

"Hits My Brain Like Lightning": The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

2012-01-21T22:38:00.000-07:00

If you haven't at least heard of this book some time in the last year, you have probably been living in a cave. The Hunger Games trilogy is one of the latest novel crazes to sweep the nation, and if you really haven't heard of it yet, I guarantee that you will once the motion picture being made of this first book comes out in a few months. It's not as big as, say, Harry Potter, but, to be fair, it is also a lot darker and a lot more harrowing. The first time I read it, I was surprised that it could be marketed as young adult fiction, but maybe that's only because, as a teenager, I was a lot more innocent and naive than most.

(Note to those interested in reading this book: there will be minor spoilers in this review. Nothing that should ruin the book for you or take away from the many twists and turns the plot takes, but if you want to go into it unknowing, I suggest you stop here and come back to this review once you've read the book for yourself. Thanks - S)

The Hunger Games is the first in a trilogy of dystopian fiction novels set in a ravaged, futuristic version of America known as Panem. The country has been divided into twelve districts, each specifically tasked with providing a certain good or service to the Capital, where the country's dictatorial leaders and wealthiest citizens live. Many years before, the districts tried to rebel against the Capital, led by a thirteenth district that was subsequently wiped off the map when the Capital put down the uprising. And now, as continued punishment for that rebellion, along with a number of other hardships, each of the twelve districts are forced, every year, to randomly choose one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the Hunger Games, a free-for-all battle to the death that takes place on live television, with everyone forced to watch and celebrate.

The main character in this story is a sixteen-year-old girl named Katniss Everdeen who ends up volunteering for the Hunger Games when her twelve-year-old sister Prim is chosen. The story is told in the first person, so you learn a lot about Katniss's personality from the very start, and you experience the horrors and tragedy of the world she lives in firsthand.

The story is made even more gripping and personal because Katniss's fellow tribute from her district, a baker's son named Peeta Mellark, is a person with whom she has a complicated history, most of it unknown even to her. I think, no matter how many times I read this book, the most heartbreaking part of it is the way that the love story unfolds between Katniss and Peeta. You see everything from Katniss's perspective, of course, but her description of Peeta's words and actions, divorced from her belief that everything he does is in furtherance of his own victory in the Hunger Games, are enough to tell anyone who's been in love before that he really does love her. He's been put in this horrible, impossible position that any person with a heart should want to do everything possible to save him from, and he's manipulated into using that love in furtherance of her survival when she doesn't return it.

The love story aside, though, this book is an amazing yet difficult read. When explaining to someone today that I was so on edge because I was about to finish the book (for the second time, I might add), I said that the story "hits my brain like lightning." It's not just that I can't put it down; even though I know how the book ends, reading it sets my every nerve ending on fire. I have dreams about it, it distracts most of my waking thoughts, and once I am finished with it, all I can think of is racing through the other two books so I can get the whole story out of my system and get my brain back to normal. Even sitting here, writing this review, I am jittering with nerves just thinking about the plot and about what I know comes next.

This book is both a hard and an easy read, and I am willing to bet that it's not for everyone, but it will make you cry, make you angry, make you think, and make you believe in both the best and the worst of people. I could write an essay on my thoughts about any society that could allow something like the Hunger Games to even take place--and probably will at some point--but for now, I think I will just encourage you to read the book and join me in crossing my fingers and hoping that the movie will be just as good. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a sequel to go read...

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

Not Your Ordinary Magical Time-travel Story: The Freedom Maze, by Delia Sherman

2012-01-08T10:02:00.000-07:00

The ability to imagine is a wonderful gift, especially for a child. It can take you to faraway lands, backward and forward in time, and to worlds where nothing is impossible. Every child, I am sure, has used the ability to imagine as an escape at some point in their lives, either just for fun or as a brief respite from a bad situation in their reality.

Sometimes, though, the ability to imagine yourself away from your life doesn't seem like enough. Any kid who has loved books like The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe or Alice in Wonderland has likely at some time wished that they could really travel to that magical world, have all those wonderful adventures, and be home before anyone knew they were gone. This is definitely true for thirteen-year-old Sophie Martineau, who, at the start of The Freedom Maze, isn't having an easy time growing up in 1960s Louisiana. Her parents are divorced, her father's moved to New York, she's having to move to a new house and school and leave all her friends behind, and, because her mother now has to go to school and find a job, she is being sent to spend the summer with her grandmother and aunt on an old plantation down on the bayou.

Sophie feels out of place everywhere she goes. She is a bookworm and a late bloomer, she lost all her friends in the scandal that is being the child of divorced parents in the 1960s, her mother is constantly lecturing her on how to be a proper lady, and the house she is visiting and the people living there are all still mourning a way of life that was lost when the Civil War ended. She initially thinks she's going to hate spending the summer with her relatives, but she cultivates a positive relationship with her aunt, who allows her to go exploring all around the old plantation without lecturing her about acting like a lady, and while she's out exploring the old garden maze and the bayou, she hears a disembodied voice that talks to her and teases her and answers questions like the Cheshire Cat. Sophie is eager to believe in magic and fairytales, and she is desperate for an adventure like the kind she reads about in her favorite books, so after a big fight with her mother when she comes to visit, she asks the voice to send her back into the past to have a grand adventure. The voice obliges, and sends her back in time to the same plantation in 1860, where she gets mistaken for a slave.

Believing that she will find her adventure soon enough, Sophie accepts this as part of the trickster spirit's plan for her and does her best to adapt to her new life. Initially, when things get hard, she begs the voice to send her home, but when it tells her that he can't until her story is over, she begins to accept this as her life, even to the point of almost forgetting that she is from the future and has a home and family back there to return to. And yet, accepting slavery as her adventure turns out to be good for her. She makes friends, has her prejudices turned on their head, learns some hard truths about herself, and comes home a strong, confident young woman who is now willing and able to stand up to her mother and begin to make her own way in the world.

This book was a uniquely realistic take on the time-traveling adventure story. The writing style was straightforward and descriptive, but did a wonderful job of painting clear pictures of the setting--Louisiana in 1960 and in 1860--and of the characters. Parts of it near the beginning and in the middle seemed to drag on, and the ending comes abruptly and leaves a lot of stories unfinished, but the pacing does not detract from the overall story, especially when you are being pulled along initially by the desire to find out how she ends up back in time, and through the rest of the book by the desire to find out how she manages to get home again.

The Freedom Maze is both good fantasy and good historical fiction, as well as a great coming-of-age story for any pre-teen or young teenage girl. It is also a well-written window into a time, place, and social perspective that is all-too-often glossed over or ignored completely, especially in young-adult fiction, and would make a great conversation-starter with young people on the culture and attitudes in the United States that allowed slavery to last as long as it did and that allow racism to persist to this day.

The Freedom Maze, by Delia Sherman

I'm Back!

2012-01-01T19:39:00.000-07:00

So, 2012 is here, and I suppose now is as good a time as any to start up this blog again. Over the last year or so, I've been working hard on my writing, and the encouragement I've received from everyone I can bring myself to tell about it has led me to start thinking seriously about the possibility of becoming a published author some time in the future. And if there is one piece of advice that anyone who is a serious author already has for aspiring authors, it's that nothing is more important than writing. And not just writing that one novel, but writing blog posts, or short stories, or news articles, or... well, anything.

And almost as important as writing is reading. I've never had any trouble with that; I love reading, and have been devouring books since I was old enough to recognize words on a page. But I'm the first to admit that I rarely read for anything but entertainment, and I rarely pay attention to a story's structure, or an author's style, or anything else about a book beyond whether I liked it or not. Since trying to become a serious writer myself, though, I've been trying to change that. I am not above reading books more than once--I'm kind of known for reading books over... and over... and over--so when it comes to reading for technical structure, style, or anything else, I have plenty of great books to choose from. Plenty of books, in fact, that I would love to share my opinions of with all of you.

So this blog will finally have a focus.. sort of. My hope is to post at least once a week, and the majority of those posts will likely be book reviews, sprinkled with snippets of stories that I'm writing, the occasional piece of short fiction once I branch out that far, and possibly a post or two about my ideas on politics, atheism, and other observations on the cosmos. Happy New Year, everyone!

It's Finally Done!

2010-09-12T18:52:00.002-06:00

Well, it's official. The second draft is finally complete. For those of you who have been following this from the beginning (or nearly), you can find the last chapter here, and the epilogue here. For those of you who have been waiting for me to finish before starting, you can find the first chapter here.

And now is finally the time for all that constructive feedback I know you have all been dying to give me! If possible, I would appreciate you posting it in the comments section of this blog post, so that I can easily respond and carry on a discussion with anyone willing to help me edit this thing. I know it needs a lot of work: I am already working on cleaning some sections of it up for the next draft, but I think that you should all know that I am getting more serious about publishing it by the day, and for that I really need any editorial help you would be willing to give me. So, if you loved it, let me know. If you hated it, let me know why. And if you think I could do something better or differently, don't be afraid to tell me so. Every good novel has an acknowledgements section after all; no one does this sort of thing alone. Thanks to all of you who have been hanging on my every word so far. Enjoy!

The Place For Comments

2010-05-14T18:09:00.003-06:00

The next chapter of my story is up, and I find I am fast running out of things to say in a separate blog post for each chapter. I had hoped for more feedback on each chapter, but since that is not forthcoming, from now on this will be the place to post any and all comments about the current and future chapters. I hope that people are enjoying the story; don't hesitate to let me know if you are, and really don't hesitate to give me constructive criticism.

http://www.orionstarmedia.com/foreststory/chapter_eight.html

A New Chapter, and a Few Other Changes

2010-05-09T17:33:00.002-06:00

Here is the latest chapter of the story that still has no title:

http://www.orionstarmedia.com/foreststory/chapter_seven.html

Also, I have reformatted the webpage I was posting the story to, posting every chapter on a separate page, and I have updated the links in previous posts to reflect this. Let me know if this new layout is good, or annoying, or whatever. Enjoy!

Another Chapter is Live!

2010-05-04T15:30:00.002-06:00

For those of you who have been waiting with breathless anticipation, I give you... Chapter Six!

http://www.orionstarmedia.com/foreststory/chapter_six.html

Chapter Five Is Live

2010-04-28T17:34:00.001-06:00

See what I did there?

http://www.orionstarmedia.com/foreststory/chapter_five.html

And Now For Chapter Four

2010-04-26T13:24:00.002-06:00

No big intro this time. Chapter four is up. Enjoy!

http://www.orionstarmedia.com/foreststory/chapter_four.html

To read the story from the beginning, go here: http://www.orionstarmedia.com/foreststory/chapter_one.html

Chapter Three Is Up

2010-04-22T18:12:00.004-06:00

I don't know how long I will be able to keep up this blistering pace, but chapter three of my story is now up at http://www.orionstarmedia.com/foreststory/chapter_three.html. You can read the whole story from the beginning at http://www.orionstarmedia.com/foreststory/chapter_one.html. And, not that I'm begging for comments or anything, but if you are reading this and enjoying it - or not - please drop me a line in the comments section of this post and let me know what you think. Thanks, and enjoy!

Chapter 2 Is Up!

2010-04-20T08:04:00.004-06:00

The second chapter of the story with no title is now available for your reading pleasure at http://www.orionstarmedia.com/foreststory/chapter_two.html. As requested earlier, please leave any comments or constructive criticism in the comments section of this post. I am currently most interested in critiques of my writing style, especially since this chapter moves between the main character's past and present. I have tried to make those transitions seamless yet recognizable, but since I know where they are already, I don't feel that I am a good judge of my own effectiveness at conveying them. Let me know what you think, and enjoy!

As Promised: Something to Read

2010-04-16T16:46:00.004-06:00

So, as I mentioned in my previous post, I have taken a brief hiatus from my epic, never-ending story to write a few (relatively) shorter stories. I have finished the rough first draft of the first of these, and am now ready to share it, chapter by chapter, with anyone who is interested in reading it. I hope that everyone who does read it will give me feedback, or at least let me know whether you like it or not. If you wish to leave feedback, please post it as a comment on this blog post.

I make no promises as to the frequency of my posting of each chapter except to say that I will put each one up as soon as it is ready. The first one is available now at http://www.orionstarmedia.com/foreststory/chapter_one.html. The story has no title yet, but I'm sure inspiration for one will come in time. Enjoy!

Sometimes, There Is A Good Excuse

2010-04-16T15:18:00.013-06:00

I can't believe my last post on here was over six months ago. I don't think even I've looked at this blog in six months. However, there is a very good reason for that:

As those of you who are actively involved with my life and what I do in my spare time know by now, I have spent the last year and a half working on what is evolving into a truly epic story. I completed a rough draft of that story over a year ago, but decided after doing so that it was not nearly complete, and that the ending was not at all what I wanted it to be, so I decided to start over and just write down everything that came into my head about the characters that I had come up with, their pasts, and what had brought them together, in hopes that something would come together out of it. Whenever I would reach a standstill in one character's story, I would move on to another character and see if I could take them further along the story's timeline than the first. The result is that image above: fourteen journals, all handwritten, detailing the backstories of the five main characters of said unfinished novel. So why am I posting about this now, when the novel is nowhere close to done, much less readable? Partly, it's so I can update and inform everyone about the story's status because I am currently putting it on hiatus in order to work on a new story (see the next blog post for information about that). But mostly, it's so I can brag, because the other day I accomplished something big.

Back in January, when I finally ran out of characters to write about and realized I still had no idea how the story was going to end, I also realized that I now had too much reference material to reasonably carry around with me if I wanted to do my writing anywhere besides my desk at home. I insist on doing all first drafts by hand - I write substantially slower than I type, so it gives me a chance to think through what I am trying to say, makes it easy to glance back over what I've written, and keeps me from getting overly verbose - and I need access to all that information to continue the story, so I decided to transcribe it all into the computer. I have a little netbook that is the perfect size to carry around with me, so I took on the lengthy task of transcribing all of my current work, with minimal edits, into that computer. I finished this project just a few days ago. And the total number of pages I have written, when typed out in ten-point Verdana font, was...467.

467

That's over the course of approximately one year, and the story contained in those pages covers only about a third of the whole story that I want to tell once the book is finished. So now you see why my blogging has been sporadic. Even I was blown away when I realized that that's more than one page of typed text per day. And that was when I realized that this writing thing has become a pretty serious hobby of mine. This story isn't just going to fade away, even though I'm not currently working on it. Ideas will come back to me, and in the meantime new ideas for other stories have come to me, which I have already started working on and plan to share with you here on this blog, starting in my very next post. And, insofar as this hobby has become this important to me, I ask you this: Is it okay for me to call myself a writer now? I always felt that I wouldn't deserve that title until I had something to show others for it, but I think I am more of a writer now than I am a gamer, or a programmer, or an animator, or any of the other titles I have given myself over the years that pertain to my hobbies. And I do have something to show for it. It may not be a manuscript that I am ready for others to read, but that shelf full of notebooks is proof of my dedication to my work, and to finishing what I have started nonetheless. So, I think that I can say now that I'm a writer, which I think is pretty cool.

As a footnote, here is the breakdown of the five separate manuscripts by images of the journals they are in and the number of pages each one was when typed.

Four journals = 109 pages typed

Four journals = 154 pages typed

One journal = 46 pages typed

Three journals = 112 pages typed

Two journals = 46 pages typed

Oh yeah, and one final note to put all this in perspective. The original story I mentioned, the one that started all this? From start to finish, it was only 119 pages long.

A Cosmic Observation: We Need to Colonize Mars

2009-08-29T09:41:00.003-06:00

There is nothing I wish to see more in my lifetime than a stable extraterrestrial colony of humans. In fact, if civilians are able to live on another planet within my lifetime, I will be one of the first in line to volunteer. Not because I don't like the Earth - it is my home, after all - but because I dream of being able to go beyond our atmosphere, to see the wonders that the rest of the Universe has to offer firsthand. Do I think that this is likely to happen in the next eighty to one hundred years? I don't know. I definitely think it's possible, but I also believe that we will need the cooperation of most of the world to make it happen, and it will require a fundamental shift in how we think about humanity and our place in the cosmos for people to realize why it is necessary. But whether it is possible or not, it is a goal that we must start working towards. Humanity needs to start thinking seriously about expanding into the rest of our solar system - specifically, exploring ways to set up a stable human colony on Mars - because our very survival as a species may depend on it.

Now, I am not talking here about the petty little threats to our survival - pollution, global warming, nuclear war, and the like. I am talking about the threat of our extinction at the hands of something completely out of our control - the vast, dangerous, uncaring nature of the universe itself. This year is the International Year of Astronomy, and that, as well as the fortieth anniversary of the moon landing, has sparked some mild interest again in the potential of space travel, as well as discussion of its worth to humanity. Why, many people may ask, should we spend so much time, money, and resources on looking and traveling out into space when we could use that time, money, and resources to fix problems here on Earth? It is a legitimate question that does not have an easy answer. I hope that this post will show why it is also not a question with an all-or-nothing answer. I believe that we need to have a balance of time and resources spent on fixing the problems of the present and keeping an eye on the future as well. And space travel must play a part in the future of humanity.

Stephen Hawking made a very important observation in his famous lecture on Life in the Universe, one that gives a potential answer to the Fermi Paradox: the contradiction between the high estimates of the probability of the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life and the lack of actual evidence for such life. When the universe is looked at mathematically through hypotheses such as the Drake equation, it seems statistically unlikely that we are the only intelligent beings in the universe. However, no contact with another intelligent species has ever been made. There are obviously many possible reasons for this - I will not list them here - but the one that Hawking proposed is one that has direct and serious implications for the survival of the human race. He states that one of the reasons why the universe may not be teeming with evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence is because most planets on which any life evolved may have had that evolutionary process interrupted before it could get to a complex enough state to develop intelligence - by asteroid impacts.

It is roughly estimated that asteroid collisions with Earth-sized planets occur every one to twenty million years. The last major impact to our own planet, the asteroid impact that is thought to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, occurred seventy million years ago. Even by statistical standards, and accounting for the fact that Earth is protected from more frequent collisions by the massive gravity well of Jupiter, we are long overdue for another one. And while life would still survive in the event of a major collision - bacterial and microbial life would almost certainly survive, and anything up to small mammals also, depending on the size of the collision - large and complex life-forms, humans included, would almost certainly be completely wiped out. It took 70 million years for the small mammals that survived the last great collision to evolve into intelligent human beings, and the evolution of actual intelligence has only occurred within the last several million years. So, even if microbial life, or multi-cellular life, or even recognizable speciated life has occurred on other planets in the Universe, which is quite likely, it seems equally likely that asteroid impacts and other extra-planetary disasters may have hindered continuous evolution to the point that intelligence is vastly more rare and difficult to achieve than we previously thought.

So what does this have to do with colonizing Mars? Simple. If we distribute the human race among the other planets in our solar system - even just sending a small, sustainable colony to one other planet - then we completely remove the risk of having our entire species wiped out by a single catastrophic global event, such as an asteroid impact. And why do I think this is important? The simple answer is obviously that no one wants to see the entire human race wiped out so easily by something completely beyond our ability to control. But more importantly, consider the possibility, as outlined above, that the evolution of intelligent life in the universe is vastly more rare than previously statistically calculated. Consider the very frightening and awe-inspiring possibility that we may be the only intelligent beings currently in existence. In the entire Universe. Now consider the fact that the Universe does not - not for one second - care about that fact. It is through extreme luck and marvelous circumstances that we have been able to survive and that we are aware of that fact. And we have within our power to thwart chance and to find some way to survive despite the statistical odds stacked against us. No other species on this planet has that ability. And we owe it to ourselves, our future generations, and maybe even the Universe, to do everything in our power to preserve the human race. Otherwise, we risk allowing something extremely unique and rare to be destroyed, maybe never to come again.

And though sending people to Mars may not be possible yet, with our current technological and social limitations, it is a goal worth working towards. Because the next asteroid may not come for another seventy million years, but it could come within the next thousand years, or the next hundred. And it will probably take at least that long to get people to realize the importance of finding ways to preserve and protect all of humanity along with improving it. We have the technology and the foresight to start working on this now - there is no reason to wait.

And you don't have to take my word for it, but can you really justify ignoring Stephen Hawking?

The Best Poem I've Ever Read

2009-07-10T10:12:00.002-06:00

I know, I know, two posts in one day... absolute insanity. But that last post left me feeling a little down, so I decided that I would go and read something to cheer me up. And nothing makes me more certain that life is good and joyful and worth every second despite the little troubles than the following poem. A good explanation for what it is can be found here, in an old post from Daylight Atheism, my first and favorite atheism-themed blog. What follows is only an excerpt of translated verses from the full poem, but it is truly one of the most beautiful things I've ever read, and it expresses my worldview far better than anything I could ever say on my own.

From The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

The bird of life is singing on the bough
His two eternal notes of "I and Thou"—
O! hearken well, for soon the song sings through,
And, would we hear it, we must hear it now.

The bird of life is singing in the sun,
Short is his song, nor only just begun,—
A call, a trill, a rapture, then—so soon!—
A silence, and the song is done—is done.

Yea! What is man that deems himself divine?
Man is a flagon, and his soul the wine;
Man is a reed, his soul the sound therein;
Man is a lantern, and his soul the shine.

Would you be happy! hearken, then, the way:
Heed not To-morrow, heed not Yesterday;
The magic words of life are Here and Now—
O fools, that after some to-morrow stray!

Were I a Sultan, say what greater bliss
Were mine to summon to my side than this,—
Dear gleaming face, far brighter than the moon!
O Love! and this immortalizing kiss.

To all of us the thought of heaven is dear—
Why not be sure of it and make it here?
No doubt there is a heaven yonder too,
But 'tis so far away—and you are near.

Men talk of heaven,—there is no heaven but here;
Men talk of hell,—there is no hell but here;
Men of hereafters talk, and future lives,—
O love, there is no other life—but here.

Look not above, there is no answer there;
Pray not, for no one listens to your prayer;
Near is as near to God as any Far,
And Here is just the same deceit as There.

But here are wine and beautiful young girls,
Be wise and hide your sorrows in their curls,
Dive as you will in life's mysterious sea,
You shall not bring us any better pearls.

Allah, perchance, the secret word might spell;
If Allah be, He keeps His secret well;
What He hath hidden, who shall hope to find?
Shall God His secret to a maggot tell?

So since with all my passion and my skill,
The world's mysterious meaning mocks me still,
Shall I not piously believe that I
Am kept in darkness by the heavenly will?

The Koran! well, come put me to the test—
Lovely old book in hideous error drest—
Believe me, I can quote the Koran too,
The unbeliever knows his Koran best.

And do you think that unto such as you,
A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew,
God gave the Secret, and denied it me?—
Well, well, what matters it! believe that too.

Old Khayyám, say you, is a debauchee;
If only you were half so good as he!
He sins no sins but gentle drunkenness,
Great-hearted mirth, and kind adultery.

But yours the cold heart, and the murderous tongue,
The wintry soul that hates to hear a song,
The close-shut fist, the mean and measuring eye,
And all the little poisoned ways of wrong.

So I be written in the Book of Love,
I have no care about that book above;
Erase my name, or write it, as you please—
So I be written in the Book of Love.

Honesty Isn't Always Easy

2009-07-10T08:04:00.004-06:00

The Honest Scrap award is given by other bloggers who consider a blog’s content or design to be brilliant. The awardees must then post ten honest things about
themselves and pass the award on to other bloggers who fit the bill – in other words, whose blog is brilliant.”

Okay, so I know that getting this award from a friend is nothing more than a poorly disguised attempt to get me to post here again *grin*, but since I have been meaning to anyway, I figure - what the heck - might as well take the opportunity. I don't usually do things like this, but I have been realizing lately that the person that I know I am may not be the person that other people see me as (I am planning a rather lengthy post on the subject soon), so posting ten honest things about myself is probably a good way to start helping people understand the real me: the way my mind works, why I do and say the things I do, and that the things going through my head probably aren't that different from the things going through anyone else's head. So, anyway... here goes...

I am in the process of working on a truly epic work of fiction that I think is absolutely the best writing I have ever done, but I don't think anyone else will ever read it. I made the mistake of posting a short draft version of it online several months ago, and the ensuing criticism and lack of interest from everyone I told about it was such a blow to my self-esteem that I would have given up on the whole thing right there if the story hadn't been consuming my every creative thought at the time. I know that I probably took the whole thing too seriously, but I have a really hard time accepting criticism or lack of interest in my accomplishments from people because I don't think I am as good at anything as others seem to think I am, and that belief needs very little outside reinforcement.

The hardest thing about hanging out with my friends is that I know I will never be as close to any of them as they are to each other.

Realizing that I was an atheist has made me a much happier person...

But on the downside, I am absolutely terrified of my dad finding out. We had a major falling-out several years ago when I moved in with my husband before we got married, and it took a long time for our relationship to recover. My hope would be that he'd accept me and that it wouldn't change anything, but I don't want to risk what I just got back on that hope.

Sometimes I get disappointed and frustrated with myself because I know I could be doing and accomplishing so much more with my life, but I enjoy just taking it easy. I have so many nebulous plans for the future, but I feel like I lack the ambition to actually accomplish anything.

Through a number of situations and events I don't know if I could have prevented, I have managed to drive away every girl I was every really close friends with. I still have friends who are girls, but I don't really feel close enough to confide in them any more. Sometimes I miss that.

I am a horrible procrastinator. Always have been. For some reason, no one ever believes me when I tell them that.

My greatest fear at the moment is that I will never feel grown-up and mature enough to have children.

No single activity gives me more joy than singing, but I am usually too self-conscious to do it when anyone else is around. I love games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero because they give me an excuse to sing in front of other people without feeling the least bit self-conscious.

And, last but not least... I write this blog because it gives me a way of expressing myself that I find hard to do in person. I have so many thoughts and feelings and opinions about things, but I have a really hard time expressing myself verbally, so I write it instead. That is why I want everyone to read what I write... because I am writing the things that I can't say out loud, because my brain just doesn't work fast enough to have coherent conversations about stuff that really interests me. I will be going more in-depth on this in a future post.

So there you have it. Ten honest things about me. Some good, some bad, some that may be hard for others to hear, but all things that I feel are worth people knowing about me. I have no one to tag in order to pass on this award, so instead, I will just invite anyone who doesn't have a blog to stop and consider: What ten things would you tell others about yourself if you wanted them to understand you better?

Happy Darwin Day!

2009-02-12T11:12:00.003-07:00

As all (or many, or some, or none) of you may know, today is the 200th birthday of one of our most famous presidents, Abraham Lincoln. However, Lincoln is not the only famous person born today. It is also the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin. Yes, as amazing as it seems, these two men were born on the exact same day in the exact same year: February 12, 1809. So why is today Darwin Day, then, you ask, and not Lincoln Day? Well, for one, Lincoln already has a day, President's Day, set aside for honoring him. And, for another, this year marks not only the 200th anniversary of his birth, but also the 150th anniversary of his greatest work, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, more generally known as The Origin of Species.

The celebrations of Darwin's life and legacy that are happening all around the world today and over the course of this year (for more information, you can go to the official website) fill me with hope. Over the past few years, I have watched with horror and disgust as creationists and religious people of all stripes have tried to undermine the teaching of the facts of evolution to students in the public schools. As a student of science myself, and as someone who recognizes that society will get nowhere if it does not embrace the realities of the world and work to understand them instead of trying to bury them because they do not conform to ancient dogmas, I mourn for every child who grows up without an honest understanding of evolution. To see educators and scientists and laypeople all coming together to celebrate science and reason for once, and to do it around the figure of Charles Darwin, whose theories still remain controversial despite being absolutely true, is very inspiring.

And that is the most important thing to note about Darwin's Theory of Evolution. Unlike almost every other well-known scientist whose discoveries opened up a whole new field of study, Darwin's observations and conclusions about evolution and natural selection remain as true to reality today as they were in 1859. They have been enhanced, and modified slightly by the discovery of new evidence, specifically by the understanding of DNA as the source of genetic distinction and the mapping of genomes to determine the similarities and differences between all living organisms, but the discovery that all living organisms on this planet have evolved from other organisms, and continue to evolve through the method of natural selection, is a fact of the universe.

And what an amazing fact it is! To think that even human beings have changed over time, and are still changing, that what we are now is not all that our species will ever be, is mind-boggling. Add that to the idea that our intelligence and self-awareness, the things that we have always used to set ourselves apart from the animals, may not always be unique to us, and to recognize traits of intelligence and self-awareness in other animals is incredibly humbling. We owe the ability to see our world and ourselves as more connected and more ever-changing than we could have imagined to Charles Darwin, and if that is not something worth celebrating, then I don't know what is.

Happy Darwin Day!

Why I Am An Atheist - Part 3

2009-01-30T10:22:00.005-07:00

The lightning strike came in the form of a 2006 BBC documentary called "The Root of All Evil?" that was written and presented by a man named Richard Dawkins. Dawkins has gained notoriety over the past few years as one of several highly-educated non-believers, sometimes derisively called the "New Atheists," who have spoken openly and passionately about the harm that religion and belief in God and the supernatural are doing to society. If you wish to watch the documentary yourself, I highly recommend it. It consists of two parts; The God Delusion and The Virus of Faith. More information on Richard Dawkins can be found at his website, Richarddawkins.net.

Everything within that documentary spoke to me in one way or another, but the majority of it was stuff that I had already recognized about religion, and I had also come to realize that the existence of religion and the existence or non-existence of God are not mutually inclusive. Just because there is religion doesn't mean that God exists, and just because religions are divisive or harmful or evil does not mean that God does not exist. But there was one point that was brought up in the documentary, so brief as to almost seem an afterthought, that struck me like a bolt of lightning from a clear blue sky: the idea that belief in the existence of God diminishes the awesome majesty of the world around us.

It was something I had never considered before. I was never a young-earth creationist or anything - I understand and accept evolution, the age of the Earth, the depth and complexity of the cosmos, and everything that science has found out about the world so far - but it had never occurred to me to question the belief that something out there bigger than us had to have been ultimately responsible for our existence, and that that something was God. Take away the assumption that the creation and evolution of human beings, of the world, and of the universe was in some part guided by an omnipotent being, and consider that instead it had all just come about by a myriad of natural processes that we do not yet know about or fully understand: it still blows my mind to think about it in those terms.

Inventing a deity to explain the complexity of the universe may seem like an easy way out, but it really raises more questions than it answers, especially when the definition of that deity requires that it exist outside of time and space and nature, everything we are capable of examining and understanding (this is the definition of super-natural: if it is outside of nature, how can we ever have a hope of examining or understanding it?). But stop to contemplate that the vast complexity of space and time around us is the result of nothing more than billions upon billions of natural processes, each one tiny but important, most of which we have not even imagined much less begun to understand, and it makes our world, our existence, and our ability to try and understand everything we see around us all the more amazing.

And the thing that makes it so amazing, at least to me, is the fact that it means that we are nothing special. If the natural forces that created the universe one tiny step at a time were able to create us, then intelligence is not something unique or impossible to understand. If it is a natural phenomenon, and not a God-given spark, then we may not be the only intelligent beings in the universe, or the only species on our own planet capable of being intelligent. And the realization that, even with our intelligence, we are no more special or unique than any other animal that has evolved physical and mental character traits that allow it to survive and manipulate the world around it totally changes your view of the world. Once I took God out of the equation, even for a moment, I realized that the world doesn't need him to explain its existence, and therefore neither did I.

I had discarded religion because there was no way of knowing who was right, and there were too many people telling me too many contradictory things about how the creator of the universe wanted me to live my life. I discarded worship of God when I realized that he could not be the all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving deity that I had been raised to believe he was, a realization best described through the words of the Greek philosopher Epicurus:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?”

And I discarded belief in God entirely when I realized that the universe did not need such a deity in order to exist, and is in fact a more amazing and wondrous place without him. When I reached the end of the documentary, and heard Richard Dawkins speak so eloquently about how he, as an atheist, placed the highest value on this life, because it is the only one we have and we are infinitely lucky to have it, I realized that I was an atheist too.

It has taken a lot of reading, thinking, and refining of my own ideas about the world, life, and where I stand on issues of knowledge and belief, but the real reason why I am an atheist now, and will continue to be one for the foreseeable future, is because I no longer see any reason to believe in the existence of something for which there is no factual evidence. This hasn't diminished my view of the world in any way; in fact, finally discarding a belief in God made me a much happier person. I realized that the world is more complex and amazing than I could have imagined, I decided that any purpose I choose to make in life will be guided by my own hand, and I discovered that I am still the same good and decent person I always was, even without an all-seeing vindictive deity in the sky analyzing my every thought for human weakness. And I am also a much more complex person than the label of 'atheist' can cover. All I am as an atheist is a person who does not believe in the existence of God. But life is more than a series of labels, obviously, and in future posts I hope to move away from examples of what I am not and instead focus on who I am and how I see the world.

I would like to conclude this extremely long topic with two quotes by one of my favorite authors, and favorite atheists, the late Douglas Adams. I was surprised and overjoyed to find, when I discovered the writings of Richard Dawkins, that he and Douglas Adams were both great admirers of one another. I would ask that anyone who is a fan of Adams read the wonderful tribute to his life written by Dawkins; it appears at the end of The Salmon of Doubt, and you can also find it here, along with Dawkins' eulogy to Adams. I could probably fill a whole new post with my favorite Douglas Adams quotes about atheism, but these two quotes by Adams sum up my reasons for being an atheist in a way that I never could alone.

Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?
-- Douglas Adams, from Last Chance To See

...imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.
-- From a speech given by Adams at Digital Biota 2. Later quoted in Richard Dawkin’s Eulogy for Douglas Adams.

Why I Am An Atheist - Part 2

2009-01-29T10:16:00.004-07:00

Okay, so tomorrow ended up being a very relative term when it came to the deadline for this post, but it's here now. Also, I ended up having way more thoughts than should be put in this post, so there will be a third part to all of this, which WILL be posted tomorrow. Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, I had just explained how specific events in my childhood had led me to question the nature of God and religion as it had been taught to me in church, at school, and at home. My mind was open to an understanding of religious faith, and I was not afraid to question my beliefs, but it took a long time for me to even consider questioning the existence of God or any other higher power. I realize here that saying that it took a "long time" may be misleading - long is a relative term when one is young. I had accepted that there were very few hard facts about religious belief by the time I was twelve, but it took me that many years again before coming to the conclusion that God himself did not exist. If I look back on that period of time from my fifties, it will probably seem like a very short span of time, but looking back on it from my twenties, as I am now, it has taken almost half my life to sort through and decide where I stood on one specific idea about the world. And it was both a long, slow process and a lighting bolt of revelation at the same time.

To be fair, most of my teenage years were spent not thinking very much either way about religion or the existence of God. I was still growing up within a family, a community, and a larger society that took the existence of God as a fact, so while I questioned the details of religion or aspects of God from time to time, and debated those details with others, the reality of a moderate religious childhood is that religion rarely touches many aspects of your life outside of Sunday mornings. I grew up with more religion than most because of my Catholic school upbringing, but once I entered public high school, it became almost a non-issue against the backdrop of my education and my social life. Looking back, I see a thousand tiny events that have influenced me in one way or another, but the big change did not come until I left home for the first time and moved to college.

College is the place, I am sure, where many children brought up in a religion begin to question their beliefs. Not only are they on their own in the world, without their parents looking over their shoulder any more, they are also being exposed to a whole new level and style of education that is not present within primary and secondary schooling. In college, in order to fully learn and understand one's chosen field, students are encouraged to ask questions, to do research, and to develop their own way of viewing and interacting with the world. They learn not only facts, but they learn how to add new knowledge and information to what we already know. In college, I was encouraged to develop my critical thinking skills, to understand why the things I was taught were true, and that asking questions about the world was the only way to find real answers. But that was not what changed everything, because I had already been willing to do all those things when examining religion.

What changed everything, my entire way of looking at the world, was the fact that I woke up one morning, less than a month after moving away from home for the first time, to watch the collapse of the Twin Towers in New York City. The events of September 11, 2001, turned my world upside down. I was away from home, in a big city without any family or close friends around, and I had just seen an act so evil that it was completely out of the realm of my understanding. I didn't know why it had happened, or who could have done such a thing, and I had to find answers. Delving into the investigation, and the realization that it had been committed by an extremist religious group for religiously-motivated reasons opened my eyes to an aspect of religious belief that I had never seen - or even knew existed.

I had prided myself on my understanding of different faiths. I had studied many other religions - I knew their similarities and differences to Christianity, their principle beliefs, and how they practiced and expressed their faith. Or at least I thought I did, until I was introduced to the idea of religious extremism. And not just Islamic extremism, but the extremism of all faiths. Before leaving home for college, I had very little exposure to the reality of events in the outside world. I did not have reliable access to the internet, I did not read newspapers or watch the news on television, and I was more or less oblivious to the amount of hatred and violence that went on in the world. When I went to college, I suddenly had free and ever-present access to information about the world, and the wake-up call that led me to start looking at that world with open eyes was only the beginning of the horror I felt when I saw that religious belief was more complex and more invasive than I had imagined.

Once again, I don't want you to get the impression that it was the evil I saw religious people doing that "pushed me away from God," because it wasn't. I recognized then, as I still do now, that people have done both great good and great evil in the name of religion. The same is true for many other philosophies. But recognizing that religion does drive people to do horrible things - to hate, to murder, to terrorize their fellow man - it has to make one question the all-good, all-knowing, all-loving God that in whose name those people hate, murder, and terrorize. Gaining an adult perspective on the world finally gave me the means to start asking the hard questions: If God is all-loving, then why is there evil in the world? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why are people of drastically differing faiths, or no faith at all, just as good or as bad as anyone else, if only God can show you how to live a good and moral life? And why do some people believe that committing obviously immoral acts are good if done in the name of religion?

The news media gave me a full view of everything that was going on in the world, and the internet gave me access to the entire world's opinion about every event, significant and trivial. I was exposed to the true diversity of life, of human experience, and I realized that the world was darker and more complex than I could have ever imagined. And as I slowly began to question everything I had thought to be self-evident, the lightning struck.

Why I Am An Atheist - Part 1

2009-01-20T09:53:00.006-07:00

I had to think long and hard about what to put in this post, which is why it has been delayed. It is not easy for me to pick out the elements and events in my life that specifically led me to realize that the god I had believed in probably did not exist; when I examine everything, I find that my life is just one long continuum of events and experiences that has led to my current mindset, and each day I am adding new information that modifies and enhances my view of the world. This is going to be a long post, so I am breaking it into two parts for convenience. Part 1 will describe a few events in my childhood that made it possible for me two question the validity of religion and the existence of God, Part 2 will describe the events that led me as an adult to conclude that God probably does not exist.

I was born to a family of moderate Lutherans, but my childhood had more religious emphasis than many other moderate Christians because I went to a Catholic school for kindergarten through eighth grade. Fortunately, it was a fairly progressive Catholic school (only the eighth grade teacher and the principal were nuns) but we did have religion class every week and we did attend a children's Mass every Friday. Each class took turns sitting up at the front and leading the readings and the prayers, so at the age of six, as the only student in my kindergarten class who could read, I vividly remember standing up at the pulpit to give the readings every time our class led the Mass. I was introduced to religion in the way best-suited for childhood indoctrination; as a subject to be studied, understood, and taken as fact alongside math, science, history, reading, and writing. It never occurred to me to question the existence of God, or to even consider the fact that there may be people out in the world who heard the same things I did and did not believe it to be true, or that there were people who believed entirely different things, or did not believe at all. At least not at first. But there were two inevitable clashes coming that I can directly link to my questioning of the validity of religion and the existence of God.

The first was the fact that I was being raised in two religions. Every week, I was being taught the basics of Catholicism - their interpretation of the Bible, their rules and rituals - and every Sunday, I was being schooled in the Lutheran religion. And I was proud to be a Lutheran, to be a member of the church that first split away from Catholicism and dared to find a different way of interpreting the Bible. I imagine that you can see where this is going. I was learning about the way that Catholics interpreted the Bible, and I was constantly asking questions about why they saw it one way and Lutherans saw it another. And as I began to learn about the existence of other religions, and as I came to understand that even different Protestant religions had vastly different understandings of the Bible, I just couldn't stop asking why.

My favorite example of this: I learned during a Sunday school class on other religions that Catholics, Lutherans, and other Protestant religions all have different ways of interpreting the phrase, "Take, eat, this is my body. Take, eat, this is my blood" (I'm paraphrasing here). These are the words that Jesus said over the bread and wine at the Last Supper, and these are the words that most priests and pastors say over the bread and wine at the Eucharist when they consecrate it, or turn it into the body and blood of Christ. The Catholics believe that when the priest says these words over the bread and wine, it LITERALLY turns into the body and blood of Christ. They put their emphasis on "This is my body, this is my blood." Lutherans believe that the bread and wine turn into the body and blood of Christ while remaining bread and wine, but that the transformation does not occur until it has entered the person's body. They put their emphasis on the "Take, eat" and "Take, drink." All other Protestant religions, I was told, view the changing of the bread and wine as purely symbolic - it is a representation of Christ's sacrificial body and blood, but it is not literally transformed. One simple phrase, interpreted different ways, leads to three separate types of religion. And although it may seem to be a trivial difference, these differences of interpretation occur in one of the most vital expressions of the Christian religion. If you are of one religion, it is not acceptable for you to participate in the sacrament of the Eucharist of another religion because you have not gone through the training that allows you to fully understand the significance of the ritual. Wouldn't you think, if this expression of one's belief in and devotion to God was so important, that it would be easier to interpret?

Anyway, my opportunity to study other religions and my desire to understand why they did not all believe that same things, since it all seemed to start out so easy to understand, led me to constantly question why other people believed the things they did. This inevitably led to me questioning why I believed the things I did, something that I still do and will probably continue to do for the rest of my life. Though the ability to question why one believes the things she does does not make one an atheist, it certainly makes it hard to be religious, because eventually every religion has some things you are supposed to accept without question, and that wasn't something I was willing to do. But there was another event that started me on the path of questioning not only the validity of religion, but the existence of the God that so many religions claim exists.

When I was in the fifth grade, a very close friend of mine, a man named Denny Medill, committed suicide. The event in itself was a traumatic experience for me, but since I had experienced the death of friends and loved ones before, it did not cause me to question God in the way you may expect. I knew that people died, and went to heaven, and were in a better place, and that I would see them all again when I died. That was a fact of life, as far as I was concerned. But Denny's death put me at odds with a religious teaching that I was only just starting to learn about: the existence of hell.

My religious teachers were very savvy, and they knew that exposing a small child to the fullness of their ideas about hell right off the bat would be a traumatizing and cruel experience. So when I was just learning about religion, I believed that hell was a place that only the worst people in the entire world, like Hitler, went. I was convinced that hell had to be a fairly empty place, because no one could be so bad as to deserve to be punished for eternity. Except for Hitler. (I don't know why, but I once imagined that Hitler was the only person in hell. I think he was the only person that I could imagine had done something bad enough to deserve hell. I was, and still am, very optimistic when it comes to believing in the goodness of people.) But as I got older, the list of things that people could do, or not do, during their lives that would land them in hell grew longer, and longer, and longer. And Denny had not only committed suicide, but he had also been non-religious. A double-whammy. I was terrified at the thought that I would never see him again because of that. My parents tried to comfort me by telling me that God knew what he was thinking before he died, and that there was still a chance that he would go to Heaven, but all I heard was that there was a chance that he would not. He had been the nicest, funniest, happiest man I knew: I was having a hard enough time, at such a young age, wrapping my head around the question of why someone who seemed so happy and full of life would kill himself; the thought of him being punished for all eternity for a moment of terrible weakness was just too much for me to understand. So I did the only thing I could do in that situation: I rejected the idea of hell. I told myself that it did not exist, that the God I believed in would not allow such a thing to exist. But the problem with rejecting one aspect of a belief system is that it leaves you open to questioning and rejecting other aspects of it as well. And if the God that I believed in was suddenly not the same God that everyone else believed in, if he was now different because I refused to accept the existence of hell, then what did that say about the whole idea of God?

I will conclude this essay tomorrow with Part 2, when I will explain the events in my adult life that led me to the conclusion that there is probably no God.

Atheism and Agnosticism: Defining the Discussion

2009-01-04T09:07:00.008-07:00

Happy New Year, everyone! In an effort to get this blog off on the right foot, regular-posting-wise, I figured that my first post of the new year should be about defining some terms. Since I am planning on discussing my views on religion and atheism regularly, at least for the time being, I imagine that it will be helpful for all of you to understand what I mean when I use words like 'atheist' and 'agnostic.'

The first thing that is important to understand about the way that I, and many other atheists, use these terms is that we do not consider them to be mutually exclusive. "Atheism" means "without belief in a god or gods," and "agnosticism" means "without knowledge of god or gods." Given this distinction, many people who define themselves strictly as agnostics may find that they have never asked themselves where they fall on the theist/atheist divide.

The best way to understand this distinction between belief and knowledge is to recognize that there are differing degrees of atheism and agnosticism that people use to further define themselves: strong and weak. A strong atheist would most likely say, "I believe that there are no gods," while the weak atheist would say, "I do not believe that there are any gods." It may seem like a small distinction, but it is not, because it is the difference between saying that you refuse to believe that something exists and saying that it may exist but you are not willing to believe in it without some evidence. It may come as a surprise to some to find out that most atheists, even the most outspoken ones, consider themselves to be weak atheists. It may not come as a surprise to others, because most atheists value reason and an open mind and would not be willing to dismiss the possible existence of anything, even a god; they just will not act as if that god actually exists unless they have some tangible proof of its existence. I consider myself to be a weak atheist for this reason: I am not going to close my mind to the possibility of the existence of a god or gods, but I see no reason to believe or act as if they exist until I have some evidence that they do.

There are also strong and weak definitions of agnosticism, allowing us to further clarify the distinction between knowledge and belief - a distinction that I consider to be vital in a world that seems to enjoy blurring the lines at every turn. A strong agnostic says, "I do not know whether or not gods exist, but neither do you," while a weak agnostic says, "I do not know whether gods exist, but someone might." Some theists would probably see themselves as agnostics under this definition: having faith in something makes it completely possible to believe that a god exists while admitting that you don't actually have any specific knowledge or evidence to support that belief. Granted, very few people would ever concede to believing in something with absolutely no reason for their beliefs, but it is possible, on a personal level, to believe in something with no real proof of its existence. Though I did not realize it at the time, I was an agnostic theist for many years before I finally became an agnostic atheist, but that's an explanation better left for the next post.

I consider myself to be a weak atheist, but a strong agnostic. I will not discount the possible existence of an entity containing the characteristics of a deity, but I will not believe in one without evidence, and I do not think that anyone currently has any knowledge, scientific or otherwise, that could bring us any closer to discovering the existence of such an entity. But the great thing about this position is that it allows my beliefs to be malleable while giving me a position from which to critically examine the claims of knowledge that others bring me, because I will not accept claims of knowledge (since I do not think anyone has such knowledge) without strong, testable, scientific evidence.

I hope this has not completely confused everyone reading it, but if it has, I invite you to please ask questions in the comments, and I will do my best to clarify any points that may not be clear. I would also like to state that, while I have found these definitions to be a good explanation of my position, and that of many of the atheists that I read and communicate with, I do realize that not everyone recognizes these same definitions, so it always helps to ask others what they mean when they define themselves as a theist, atheist, or agnostic before engaging in a discussion.

That being said, though, if you consider yourself to be an agnostic, but not an atheist or a theist, I would ask you to think long and hard about whether or not you actually believe in the existence of a deity. It's fine to admit not knowing something, but if that lack of knowledge means that you do not believe in a deity, it is important to realize that that makes you an atheist by the standard definition of the word. It seems to me that a lot of people simply use the word "agnostic" to describe themselves because they see the word "atheist" as a pejorative. If more people recognized the distinction between knowledge and belief and chose to recognize that they are atheists if they do not believe in a deity, the true definition of the word would begin to overtake the pejorative definition, allowing us to have more open discussions between believers and non-believers, which is all that most atheists, myself included, really want.

Reconciling Christmas Stories

2008-12-18T08:04:00.005-07:00

So after looking over the list of ideas for posts that I have come up with over the past month, I have realized that most of my posts, at least initially, will be about my views on the world and how they have changed, or not, since I became an atheist. That being the case, I will be making several posts in the next few weeks explaining my views on atheism and what led me to stop believing in God. However, there is a certain holiday fast approaching, and I would be remiss if I didn't at least comment on my personal thoughts and feelings about Christmas.

I love Christmas. It has always been my favorite holiday. When I was younger, I used to spend months deciding on the perfect gifts to give everyone in my family, and now my husband and I spend the week before Christmas making homemade cookies and candy to give to everyone we know. I love getting out the Christmas decorations and putting the ornaments on the tree (even though the one I have right now is only a foot tall) and I love listening and singing along to all my favorite Christmas carols. Christmas is a chance to spend time with family, and an opportunity to show the people I love just how much they mean to me. But for the last couple of years, I've felt really uneasy about Christmas, and I think it has something to do with the fact that my favorite Christmas song is "Do You Hear What I Hear."

It is not that I have any problem with the religious overtones of Christmas, because it has evolved into a holiday that everyone can enjoy, no matter what their religious beliefs. I have not met anyone, religious, non-religious, or atheist who does not love to celebrate *something* during the holiday season. As the image above indicates, there are many parallels that can be drawn between the religious figure of Jesus, whose birth is celebrated at Christmas, and the secular figure of Santa. And therein lies the difficulty that I have been struggling with for the last several years, ever since I became an atheist. You see, I was raised to believe that one of those Christmas figures was just a nice myth that inspired people to be good and kind to one another, and that the other Christmas figure was a real person whose story was absolutely 100% true. And I bet you can guess which one was which.

It comes as no surprise to me that I am having a hard time demoting the story of Jesus from fact to myth. After all, it took me many years of suspecting that Santa Claus was actually my parents before I finally had to admit that he wasn't real, and it has taken me many years of study and personal reflection to come to the conclusion that God isn't real either. But every year at Christmas, when I hear my favorite Christmas song, I remember how much it meant to me to believe that there was a supernatural being who would "bring us goodness and light." Santa never brought anything but toys, which really paled in comparison to peace on Earth and goodwill to all men. It hasn't been easy to demote something that wonderful from reality to fantasy.

Of course, every year it gets a little easier to see the story of Jesus as just another myth, and Christmas as just a wonderful holiday that inspires people to give of themselves to one another, so I'm not about to dismiss the Jesus part of the holiday altogether. Trying to ignore the Christian element of Christmas would cut out so many of the things that I love about it, and so many of the icons that make Christmas what it is. But it is also a constant reminder that letting go of long-held beliefs is not an easy thing to do. So now, when I listen to my favorite Christmas song, I remember that there is nothing wrong with the ideas that the story of Jesus inspires - that we should be kind to one another, give to the less fortunate, and do our best to make the world a better place. But there is one word that I substitute in the last verse of the song, because I would rather *work* for peace.

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and have a Joyous New Year!

Lyrics to "Do You Hear What I Hear"

Said the night wind to the little lamb
Do you see what I see
Way up in the sky little lamb
Do you see what I see
A star, a star
Dancing in the night
With a tail as big as a kite
With a tail as big as a kite

Said the little lamb to the shepherd boy
Do you hear what I hear
Ringing through the sky shepherd boy
Do you hear what I hear
A song, a song
High above the tree
With a voice as big as the sea
With a voice as big as the sea

Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king
Do you know what I know
In your palace wall mighty king
Do you know what I know
A child, a child
Shivers in the cold
Let us bring him silver and gold
Let us bring him silver and gold

Said the king to the people everywhere
Listen to what I say
Pray for peace people everywhere
Listen to what I say
The child, the child
Sleeping in the night
He will bring us goodness and light
He will bring us goodness and light

So About This Blogging Thing...

2008-12-05T18:17:00.002-07:00

Where does the time go, anyway? It's been two months since I promised myself that I would blog more often, and suddenly I look up and it's been over a month since my last post! I could blame my job and the holidays and the annoying muse of fiction deciding to camp out in my brain, but the truth is that I have always been a horrible procrastinator. No one believes this about me, but it's true. Yet somehow, I always manage to accomplish what I want to accomplish, and I am trying really hard to do something with this blog.

I have some post ideas, which I will start working through next week, but a little motivation is always helpful. So, if you happen to be reading this blog, tell me! That's what comments are for, and knowing that even one person out there is reading what I write will be a great motivator. Also, if you have any ideas for topics or things that you would like my opinion on, I'd be glad to address them in future posts. I'm still trying to find out where I am going with this blog, so I am happy to write about anything and everything.

On that note, I would like to leave you with an amazing piece of reporting on the Mumbai terrorist attacks from, surprise surprise, The Daily Show. If more news organizations could cut through the bullshit and explain events with this much clarity, maybe I would watch them too. Enjoy!

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Mumbai Tragedy

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Cautiously Optimistic

2008-11-01T19:23:00.001-06:00

With just a few days to go before the election, I am proud to say that I voted today. I filled out my absentee ballot and turned it in. I am also proud to say that I am, for the first time in a long time, feeling cautiously optimistic about the outcome of this particular election.

I turned 18 just a few weeks before the 2000 presidential election, and I was so excited to cast my ballot and take part in the political process. I followed the election closely, and made an informed decision, then sat back and watched the democratic process crumble before my eyes. For four years I seethed under the governance of a president that I did not vote for and that was not elected by the people, only to see him get elected by the people the second time around, thanks to a lackluster opposing candidate who did not stand up for himself and did not know how to inspire people. At the start of this election cycle, I found that I had grown cynical. My voice had not been heard before, and the party in which I placed my trust seemed weak and ineffective, unable to stand up to a bullying opponent who had been able to convince so many people to go against their own best interests for as long as I had been paying attention to politics.

But somehow, this election ended up being different. The Democrats finally managed to field a young, inspiring candidate who was not willing to back down in the face of mudslinging and personal attacks. I watched as the Democratic convention came to my home town, as the state that I lived in became a major swing state after voting Republican for so long, and as friends and family members finally were willing to discuss politics in a positive light. Obama's messages of hope and change do not only apply to what he promises to bring to the Presidency, they apply to his campaign, and to what he has done for the Democratic party and the way that people view and talk about the political process.

I am still only cautiously optimistic in regards to the outcome on Election Day, however, because I have experienced nothing but disappointment so far. I am sure that many other young people my age feel the same way. The pride I felt participating in my first presidential election was shattered when the decision was made not by the people but by the Supreme Court, and my faith in Americans to make good choices was dashed in my second presidential election in 2004. To make matters worse, the Colorado ballot is proposing an Amendment this year, the first in the nation, that would legally define a human being as a "person" from the moment of conception, which, due to the highly generalized wording of the amendment, would make abortions and most forms of birth control illegal in my home state. This concerns me greatly because our state very easily passed an amendment banning gay marriage several years ago, and with the lack of avertisement for the current amendment, I am very much afraid that it will pass without much resistance and really screw up people's lives. Additionally, as an atheist, I often feel disenfranchised by a political system that loves to use us as boogeymen and paint us as evil, immoral, and unAmerican. I don't know if any of that will change any time soon, but I am doing my best, in my own small way, to stand up and make my voice heard.

A Sad, Sad Day for the Atheist Blogosphere

2008-10-12T10:58:00.002-06:00

After not having posted on this blog for a very long time, it is with a heavy heart that I return to posting with news that saddens me greatly. One of my favorite blogs, Possummomma, has gone dark after some very serious harassment of her and her family following what I can only summarize as a malicious case of mistaken identity. Since I am not privy to specific details, being only a reader of her blog, I will not endeavor to explain much more, but details about the incident can be found at The Calladus Blog, and at Berlzebub's Inferno.

So why is this so important to me, you may ask? Well, to put it simply, I was not always an atheist. I was raised religious, and only came to atheism in my 20s while at college. Now, I have a wonderful husband who is also an atheist, and I know that some day we will want to have children and raise a family. But when I look back at my personal experiences of childhood, and when I look to the adult role-models in my life that I would reach out for advice about raising children when the time comes, I find myself surrounded by religion. It is a hard thing to escape. Being an atheist, how do I explain death to my children when I was raised to believe in Heaven? How do I raise them to be moral and kind and caring and generous without relying on the Ten Commandments or the stories of Jesus? The thought of trying to raise children without ever reverting back to the moral instruction I received by way of religion used to terrify me.

Possummomma's blog changed all that. Her frequent posts about raising a non-religious family, despite her religious upbringing and recent deconversion, were truly inspiring. Her stories and photos showed a family that was happy, stable, kind, and loving, children who were smart and independent and thought for themselves, and parents who, despite many personal hardships, were able to put the really important things first and get through both the good times and the bad without religion. I admired her for her courage in putting so much of her personal life online, despite the fact that she attracted the worst sort of trolls because of it. Hers was the first blog that I ever chose to comment on, and it was her blog that inspired me to start one of my own.

And now, her blog has gone silent. And it makes me angry. Angry that people can be so pessimistic and suspicious that they would take any act of kindness and charity by people towards someone they had only met online and assume that the person receiving the charity has to be duping those who would wish to support them. Angry that a person who is brave enough to show the world that you can raise an amazing family without the crutch of religion would draw the ire of so many people who think the worst about atheists without even getting to know one. And it makes me angry to see the very worst aspects of human nature lash out and cause so much pain to people who are only trying to embody the best aspects of human nature (I am speaking about both PMomma and her supporters here).

But mostly, the silencing of PMomma has just made me sad. I find the Internet to be such an amazing place because it makes it possible to connect with people that you would never get a chance to know otherwise. PMomma is an amazing person, and she has become one of my role-models. I have so much to thank her for, and I am sorry that I never really got a chance to tell her so myself. Though this blog post has been a chance for me to vent my feelings on an occurrence that has greatly affected me, I am also using it as a call for personal action. I started this blog because of Possummomma, because I was so inspired by her frank, unapolagetic sharing of a family life without religion. She is one of the few that I have found that are willing to put their life up for scrutiny and say "I'm really just like you. I may be part of a despised minority, but I am your next door neighbor, your friend, your family member." If more people, more atheists were willing to put their lives as ordinary people on display, then maybe the people who doubt the existence of happy, ordinary, moral atheists would not be able to attack so easily.

So, this is my call to action. I am going to stand up here and now and say this: I am an average, ordinary person. I am happy with my life, I have a wonderful marriage, and I have the same plans and concerns about the future as any other ordinary person. I am also an atheist. I am the girl next door. I am your sister, I am your daughter, I am your friend. And I am an atheist. Doubt me if you must, but that does not change the fact that I know who I am, and that, from now on, I am going to own it, be proud of it, and tell everyone that I know about it too.

Humanist Symposium #16

2008-03-09T10:54:00.002-06:00

The latest Humanist Symposium is up at Glittering Muse! I encourage you to check it out. I found the introductory essay especially moving and insightful. My favorite article in this Symposium is the article on abortion. Jeffrey Stingerstein of Disillusioned Words has an amazing and provocative piece on the grey areas surrounding the pro-choice, pro-life debate, putting into words my exact thoughts on the issue that the debate on abortion is not as simple as the politicians and the activists on both sides make it seem.

I also really enjoyed the two articles on free will, specifically because I have been thinking a lot about human intelligence and what it means for us as compared to other animals now that I no longer believe in the concept of a "soul" that makes human beings unique. I hope to post my own thoughts on this idea soon.

The next Symposium will be up at Mind on Fire on March 30th. Hope to see you there!

Why We Need Each Other

2008-03-05T15:09:00.002-07:00

So, today I added a list of my favorite atheist blogs to the sidebar of this blog. When I first started writing here, I was planning on keeping the atheist angle low-key, but an experience I had this weekend changed my mind. I have decided that, more than ever, it is important that I express my views on atheism and add my voice to the atheist blogosphere, because we atheists need all the publicity we can get.

The incident in question occurred when I brought up this article in the company of a group of friends on Sunday night. A brief explanation is in order: I am very close with this particular group of friends. We have known each other for many years and I have always found them to be a very open and understanding group of people. However, one of the few things that I do not know about any of them are their specific thoughts or feelings on religion. I know that some of them are nominally religious, most of them seem to be fairly indifferent to religion, and I am pretty sure that non of them are extraordinarily fundamentalist or anything, but I'm not really sure. Religion just never comes up in any of our discussions. I brought up the article that I linked to above because they all had lived in Boulder at one time or another, and I wanted their opinions on whether they thought it was the "smartest city in America." I also found it funny that the author of the article called Boulder the "most delusional" city, a statement that I tend to agree with, so I mentioned that part of the article as well, which then required me to explain to them why the author would have said that about Boulder.

To summarize, the article describes a situation in which an organization known as the Boulder Atheists set up a booth at a local community festival, and in order to get noticed by the milling crowds of people, they gave out free bottles of water. While they were noticed and thanked by some people for providing such a wonderful service on a hot day, there were some people who refused to take the water because the people who were giving it out were atheists. I thought it was pretty silly that people living in a city like Boulder, which is full of a healthy mix of rich conservatives and free-spirited new-age hippies and seems to be fairly accepting of everyone, would have such a negative reaction towards a group of atheists. But, unfortunately, I didn't have to wait long to experience my first direct run-in with the way that people who don't specifically view themselves as atheists think about those who do.

I didn't even get the chance to finish summarizing the article before my friends started making fun of atheists. "There are organizations for atheists? What do they do, get together and talk about what they don't believe in? *snicker*" "It takes just as much faith to say you don't believe in God as it does to say you do." "Atheists are all just agnostics with a chip on their shoulder." I was stunned and deeply hurt. I was expecting my friends to agree with me that it was dumb to not take free water from a group of people just because they were atheists, and here they were displaying the exact same prejudices as the people in the park. I kept my cool and tried to refute their arguments, telling them that most atheists don't believe in god because of a lack of evidence, they don't generally say "There is NO god." I explained to them that the word agnostic was a description of the strength of someone's atheism or theism, not a valid position on the existence or non-existence of a deity in and of itself. And I explained that groups of atheists generally exist in response to the rising voice of religious conservatism in this country, so they are there for support against religious encroachment on their rights, not to "talk about what they don't believe in." But the one thing that I couldn't bring myself to say (to my deep shame) was that I was an atheist and very happy to be one.

I have been reading blogs about atheism for a long time trying to prepare myself for a confrontation like this, but I expected it to come from members of my extended family, who are all very religious and whose opinion about me and my life choices matters to me not one bit. I never expected it to come from my friends, who were people that I thought understood me and whose opinion of me matters to me quite a lot. It hurt me even more because I'm pretty sure that they didn't know that their ridicule hurt me as badly as it did, but I couldn't bring myself to tell them. But there was a silver lining to this depressing incident. I found myself being supremely grateful to the atheist blogosphere, even more grateful than I was before this happened, because I realized that they serve a far greater purpose in my life than I could have imagined.

Up until this point, I have always felt a little silly reading so many atheist blogs. My husband is also an atheist, but he doesn't read any overtly atheist blogs because religion was never as big a part of his life as it used to be in mine. I had always thought that feeling the need to read so much about atheism when I wasn't surrounded by extreme religiosity was a sign of weakness in my decision to stop believing in god, and I kept hoping that a time would come when I was strong enough in my convictions and arguments for being an atheist that I wouldn't need the support of people I had never met before any more. Now, though, I hope that time never comes. I have seen that even the minds of the moderately to agnostically religious have been poisoned against the word "atheist." I see that the greatest challenge I will face as an atheist is not standing up in the face of people whose minds I don't expect to change, but standing up to people whose opinion of me actually matters to me. I have seen that even though I know all the arguments, the hardest part is saying "I think," instead of "Atheists think."

So, Ebonmuse, Possummomma, Hemant Mehta, Dale McGowan, Chanson, Greta Christina, Ed Brayton, PZ Myers, and all the other atheist bloggers out there whom I have yet to discover, I want to thank you. You guys are my support group, my daily reminder that friends can have many faces and that I am not alone in my need to surround myself with like-minded people, even if it's only in a virtual space. I am a quiet person, but some day I may leave a comment on your blog, or listen to you speak at a conference, and your influence on the world and mine will grow a little larger. It is true that the only thing that brings atheists together is something we all lack, but when religion has the ability to have such a great impact on our lives, and on the lives of people we care about, we owe it to everyone to organize and make ourselves heard, no matter how isolated we as individuals may feel.

The Humanist Symposium

2008-02-18T15:20:00.004-07:00

I love reading blog carnivals. For those of you who don't know, a blog carnival is a serial post on a certain topic that showcases articles from multiple bloggers. There are blog carnivals on every topic you could possibly imagine, but the one that I have followed every three weeks since its inception is The Humanist Symposium. I post this now because the #15th Humanist Symposium is the first one to occur since I started this blog, but I will be posting the location of each one every three weeks when they are published. So, to reiterate, the 15th Humanist Symposium is now up at Cafe Philos.

So, why post this at all, aside from wanting to share the work of some amazing and talented writers? Well, the primary purpose of this blog is to air my thoughts on things that are important to my world view, and standing at the forefront of that world view at this moment is my position on religion and where it stands in the "quest for the meaning of life." Though this may not be well-known to anyone currently reading this blog, I decided several years ago that I was an atheist - which means that I weighed all my observations about the world with everything I had been taught about the idea of God as the creator of it all, and decided that there was no longer any reason for me to believe in something when I have no proof that it exists. That is the simple explanation, which I will expound upon at a later date.

However, after doing a lot of reading and self-evaluation of my thoughts and feelings with regards to being an atheist, I decided that it was not the label that I wanted to apply to myself when someone asked me what I believed in. To be an atheist is to not believe in something, and I am an atheist in the same way that I am a a-Santa-ist, an a-fairy-ist, and an a-Easter Bunny-ist. Not believing in something is not the best foundation for one's outlook on life, nor is it a good way to describe one's self when asked what one does believe in.

So I eventually came to the conclusion that I was a secular humanist - I believe that this life I have on Earth is all I've got, and that the same is true for everyone else, so I want to work every day to make the lives of everyone I meet (and those that I don't) a little better with my actions and my presence. As a humanist, I hold the care of my fellow humans above all else, but it is a secular humanism because I do not feel this way as a result of any religion or a belief in any deity. I wish I could explain it better, but I am still having difficulty expressing my thoughts and feelings about this significant change in my life.

That's where the Symposium comes in. It was started by my favorite atheist blogger, Ebonmuse, over at his blog, Daylight Atheism, and has been going strong since April of last year. The wonderful bloggers who contribute to the Symposium every three weeks express their thoughts and feelings about what it means to be an atheist and a secular humanist better than I ever could, so I will continue to follow and advertise this excellent Symposium now that I have a blog of my own.

Baby Pictures! (sort of)

2008-02-14T16:32:00.009-07:00

OK, so, as a shameless excuse to finally let people know that I have a blog, I give you... more new rat photos! (I promise this blog is about more than rats, really)

Aren't they adorable!

Myst the eternally curious

I still can't believe how tiny Pepper is!

I'm ready for my close-up

Look at those big dumbo ears

The best of friends

OK, that's all for now. I'll try and think of something more interesting to post about tomorrow.

The Year of the Rat 2 - Meet the Family!

2008-02-14T12:54:00.010-07:00

So this post is a little late in coming from my previous post, but since no one reads this blog yet anyway, I guess that's not such a big deal. Anyway... in the second post in my ongoing series about the amazing rat, I would like to introduce you to the rats that I have in my life. This post is fitting because we just added two new members to our family this past Saturday. So, without further ado, it's time to meet the family.

Maya

Maya is currently our oldest rat, and she is almost 2 and a half years old. She is a black Berkshire rat, which means that she has black coloring over her back, but has white coloring on her belly and paws, and the tip of her tail is white. She was the first rat we ever got from Camarattery, the rat breeder that we get all our rats from now, and she has been a pleasure and a joy. She is a very active rat: she runs on the wheel in her cage almost constantly when she is awake (and she is the only rat we've had so far that has run on the wheel), and she loves to try and run off into our apartment to explore whenever she is let out to play. She was the first rat to discover that she could easily jump or fall off most of the surfaces in our house (tables, chairs, desks, the couch) and not get hurt, and has used this cunning escape mechanism to get away from us at every opportunity. Fortunately, she is also very trusting and has an insatiable appatite for treats, so she is always easily lured back into her cage again.

Cas

Cas was the baby of our little family until last weekend. She is around one year old. We adopted her from our rat breeder at six months old, so she had already been given the name "Castaway," which we shorted to "Cas" (pronounced KAZ). She is an odd rat, more nearsighted than most (and all rats are so nearsighted as to be almost blind anyway), a bit aggressive and clumsy around her cage mates, and a complete homebody. She hates exploring, or even coming out of her cage. She is a Lilac Merle Variegated Down Under rat, which describes the color of her fur, that lovely light brown, and the fact that she has that color on her head and shoulders, with a white blaze on her forehead, spots of color running down her back, and spots of color on her belly. Rat coloration terms can get very technical.
Cas is a wonderfully calm rat when being handled by people. She will let you hold her without squirming, and she loves having her belly tickled. Though she has always been a little odd, we love her dearly, and her quirks are a further example of the depth and complexity of rat personality.

Myst

The first of our two new babies, Myst is an 8-week old American Blue rat. She has perfect color, and I have totally fallen for the "blue" color, that lovely silver-gray that gave me the inspiration for her name (even though I spelled it in honor of my favorite video game). Though we haven't known her for very long, and she has not yet been introduced to our older rats, I can tell that Myst is going to be as friendly and outgoing as Maya. She is as full of energy as any young rat could be, she loves to be the center of attention, and she is constantly peeking curiously out of her cage at every new sound. She is also very sweet, and already licks my hand whenever I open the cage door to say hello. I can't wait to watch her grow up.

Pepper

The true baby of the family is Pepper, our other new arrival. She is only six weeks old, and is still so tiny that she fits entirely in the palm of my hand. She is a black Berkshire Dumbo Rex rat, which means she is the same color and has markings similar to Maya, but she has "dumbo" ears that stick out straight from the sides of her head instead of pointing up, and she has curly fur and whiskers rather than smooth. She is also outgoing and rambunctious, but easily frightened and skittish as she is still so very young. She is also an attention-grabber, who will push her nose in wherever Myst is, and even tries to push or pull the larger rat out of the way when she feels she isn't getting her fair share. She and Myst are great companions already, which bodes well for their introduction to Maya and Cas in several weeks, after the mandatory quarantine period is up.

IN MEMORIUM

Maya, Cas, Myst, and Pepper are our current rat family, but they are not the first rats we have had, nor will they be the last. Though rats make wonderful pets, the sad fact is that they do not live very long, usually around 3 to 5 years, though a good diet and healthy living can extend that period. As such, we have had four other wonderful rat friends that are no longer around.

Rosco

Rosco was our very first rat. We rescued her, unintentionally, from a pet store that sold rats for food. This meant that she had never been socialized, had never been around people, and we had no way of knowing how old or healthy she was when we got her. Despite that fact, she lived with us for over three years, finally dying this past November of old age and cancer. Rosco was not very rambunctious or social, but she loved to explore and spend time running around on the couch or our desks while my husband and I watched TV or did homework or played video games. She was a great friend, and we were very sad to see her go.

Nick

Nick (short for Nicodemus - like most new rat owners, we named our first two for the rats of Nimh) was Rosco's first cage mate, we bought them both at that pet store and brought them home together. Nick and Rosco were my very first pets (besides fish), so when she got sick and died within a week, I was understandably devastated. All rats suffer from a respiratory ailment known as mycoplasma, and when they get sick or their immune systems weaken, this ailment becomes a full-blown disease that can kill them very quickly. We took Nick to the vet and got her antibiotics, but she was just too small and sick to last very long. Though we didn't know her for long, she will always hold a special place as one of our very first rats.

Pip

Pip was our second attempt at purchasing a pet store rat, this time from a major chain pet store that actually sold rats as pets, not as food. He was also our only male rat, as we thought that breeding him and Rosco and having a cage of male rats and one of female rats would be better than buying just one rat at a time. Unfortunately, he and Rosco never even got to meet, as he got sick just like Nick and lasted only two weeks, despite visits to the vet and antibiotics as well. After more experience with rats, we believe that Pip was too young to have been taken away from his mother, and that the stress of a new environment on such a tiny rat was what killed him. After he died, we decided to look into rat breeders, which led us to the wonderful breeder that we get all our rats from today.

Callie

Callie came to us from a friend who was being deployed by the Navy and couldn't take his pet rat along. We have no idea how old she was, but she was definitely the biggest rat we have ever had. She was also a sweetheart, calm and sedate, and she would grab your hand and lick it forever if you let her. We got her around the same time as Maya, so she, Maya, and Rosco were our first rat family until she died of unknown causes (probably an age-related stroke) a year and a half later. She was a great matron to our younger rats, and will always be remembered for her caring ways and adorable face.

And that's our family, past and present. In my next installment, though I will try to write about something other than rats before then, I will write about why rats are such good pets, as well as some of the things that you should know about them before choosing a rat as a pet. Until next time... a bit of trivia:

A group of rats is called a "mischief." And believe me, it is fitting.

Happy Darwin Day!

2008-02-12T07:33:00.001-07:00

Today is Charles Darwin's birthday, so it's only fitting that we acknowledge the man who started us on the path to realizing exactly how we got to where we are today: evolution and natural selection. The images here were submitted as e-card designs to RichardDawkins.net in honor of the day. And, so as not to forget that he shares this auspicious birthday with another great man, I leave you with this card as well.

Celebrate knowledge, freedom, and the wonder of life today!

The Year of the Rat

2008-02-07T13:26:00.000-07:00

In recognition of the Chinese New Year, my next few posts are going to be all about rats. The rat is the first of the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac, and people born in the year of the rat are supposed to possess the qualities of creativity, honesty, generosity, ambition, a quick temper and wastefulness. I was not born in the year of the rat, but I find it fascinating that the Chinese, as well as other Eastern cultures, hold the rat in such high regard when it has been thoroughly reviled in most Western cultures. Because the truth of the matter is that there is much more to the rat than their depiction as filthy, thieving, disease-carrying pests.

I could almost write a book on all the things that I find fascinating about rats, but most of that information is written about elsewhere. Instead, I will simply share what I find to be a few of the most amazing facts about rats:

1. Rats Laugh

Despite what people see in movies and TV shows, rats do not run around everywhere squeaking. The only time that rats make noises audible to the human ear is when they are angry or in pain. Normal rat communication takes place in the ultrasonic range, and they are not extremely vocal creatures. However, using special equipment, scientists discovered that rats make short, high-pitched "chirping" noises during playful social interactions with other rats or with people. They also found that rats are ticklish in the same way that people are ticklish; they have sensitive areas on their skin that generate more laughter than others. The playfulness, and the laughter that accompanies it is seen more among younger rats, and the tendency to laugh and play declines as rats age, indicating that it is a social construction meant to stimulate joy and good feelings among groups of young rats, much in the same way that children laugh when playing with one another.

2. Rats are Highly Intelligent and Social Animals

Pet rats have been kept since the 19th century, when professional rat-catchers would keep some of the rats they caught for exhibition or fights. When they started breeding the rats, they began to realize that rats were highly intelligent and trainable, so they started selling them as pets. Through years of selective breeding, people eventually bred the domesticated "fancy rat" away from the common sewer rat, but the similarities remain. Rats are social animals who require the company of other rats for health and friendship. They engage in play, mutual grooming, and a complex social hierarchy that dictates their interactions with one another.

In the wild, rats are colony animals that work together to find food, protect their homes, and defend against predators, chief of which is man. However, human beings have to fight constantly to stay one step ahead of the rat. Rats communicate with one another through complex scent trails - a single drop of scent can tell another rat everything about the one that left it, from their age and health to whether the food they were eating was good or poisoned. Rats follow known paths to and from reliable food sources on a daily basis. A trap set where rats are know to travel may catch one, or maybe two, but not before they have warned every other rat that passes that way about the danger. Rat catchers in New York have been known to come across nests that were lined with the shredded remains of rat traps.

Poison is also ineffective because rats have poison testers - one rat eats any new, unmarked food source first and the other ones stand around and watch to see if anything happens to him before deciding whether it's safe to eat or not. This is why the best current rat poisons are blood thinners, because immediate or fast-acting poisons are useless. Poisons and traps are only deterrents, not devices of extermination, and the rats are figuring them out almost as fast as we are designing them.

As human society has evolved, so has rat society. As our cities have grown taller, they have burrowed deeper. They outbreed us like crazy and are way more likely than we are to survive anything we may do to the planet.We will never be rid of rats in the wild, but why would we want to be? We are learning to mitigate much of the damage that can be done by rats, just as they have learned to avoid the harms set against them by us. Any species that intelligent should be respected.

3. And Speaking of Intelligence...

The final item on my list for today is one of the more amazing things I have ever heard. Rats display metacognition - also known as the process of thinking about thinking. In other words, rats are aware of their own thoughts and are capable of using that awareness to guide future decisions. They are the first animal outside of primates that has been found to have this ability. It was discovered through a study that began by asking the rats to define whether a tone that was played was short or long. If they gave the correct answer, they got a large reward, but if they got the wrong answer, they received no reward. However, at the beginning of the test, the rats were given the option of receiving a small reward for opting out of the test. Over the course of the study, it was found that if the rats started having difficulty getting the right answer, they would choose to opt out of the test, thus demonstrating that they recognized when they didn't know the answer to a question. This is a fascinating discovery in the field of neuroscience, and one that I will definitely expound upon in further posts.

Well, since this post is long enough to be a college essay, I'll leave you with this picture.

Tomorrow, I'll introduce you to my rats and talk about why they make such great pets.

First Post

2008-02-06T14:14:00.001-07:00

I might as well admit right now that I have no idea what this blog will turn out to be about. I've tried many times to keep a blog without much success, so for now I'm just playing it by ear. I have a lot of things I want to say, and not many people to share them with, so consider this a conversational blog. If I think about it, I will probably write about it.

Possible topics at the moment include:
- Observations on life in this crazy world of ours
- Books, movies, games and other entertainments of note
- Stories about my pet rats
- Politics, religion, the weather, and other controversies
- Stories from other blogs of note

... and those are just the topics I could write about right now. So, stay tuned for a series of observations on the cosmos. Love it or hate it, I hope I give you something to think about every once in a while.