Why Are Those Polyamorists So Damn Preachy?

No discussion or mention of polyamory would be complete without a monogamous person chiding the polyamorous person to not be “preachy” about their “lifestyle choice.” There will often be an accompanying anecdote about how the monogamous person once met a polyamorous person who was very “pushy” with them. “I don’t care what you do in the bedroom,” the monogamous person will assert, “But I wish polyamorous people wouldn’t be so judge me for my choices when I don’t judge theirs.” Even articles ostensibly about non-monogamy do this.

Though I don’t doubt that monogamous people have had experiences that left them feeling judged, and it is a fact that there exist some rather smug-seeming polyamorous people, I don’t buy the idea that they are as common as monogamous people make them seem. Rather, it is more likely that monogamous people are picking up on and picking on polyamorous people in an absurdly disproportionate way.
Continue reading “Why Are Those Polyamorists So Damn Preachy?”

Why Are Those Polyamorists So Damn Preachy?
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Preventing Abortions with Planned Parenthood

Years ago, at an atheist meeting, a Christian showed up, as was wont to happen every few months or so. I decided that I would take one for the team and fully engage him so that others could have the more nuanced conversations that drew most people to the meetings. Lucky for me (but not for him), his prepared topic of conversation for the time he had chosen to break bread with us baby-eaters was abortion.

He led not with a question, but with an assumption that we atheists tended to support reproductive rights. He wasn’t wrong (though of course there are some over-represented exceptions among atheists). I decided to ask him a question: “How many abortions have you prevented?”

My inquiry may have dumbfounded him for a while, but I was hardly exaggerating or lying. At the time, I was an unofficial guerrilla unwanted-pregnancy-preventer thanks to Planned Parenthood. Continue reading “Preventing Abortions with Planned Parenthood”

Preventing Abortions with Planned Parenthood

It’s Cruel for an Atheist to Pray with Their Dying Mother

Unsurprisingly given its content, a specific Postsecret entry has been addressed by several of my atheist colleagues over at Patheos.

PostSecret card of a hospital bed reading: "I don't believe in god / when I was 19 my mom was on her death bed and asked me to pray for her / I told her I couldn't because I would by [sic] lying / now she's gone forever, and I feel like I failed her as a daughter"

Hemant started the conversation, saying that he felt for the postcard’s creator and saw no way by which he could gain from refusing to pray. Matthew agreed, adding that he sees prayer as a supportive act. The people with whom I find myself agreeing not only most but actually entirely wholeheartedly are Kaveh and Cassidy, although I might amend Kaveh’s answer from “Fuck no and fuck you” to “Fuck no and fuck this question” for reasons that are not dissimilar to those of Cassidy.

It is downright cruel for an out atheist to pray with a theist relative on their deathbed: Cruel to the relative, cruel to the atheist, cruel to anyone even marginally involved, and cruel to the non-religious in general. Continue reading “It’s Cruel for an Atheist to Pray with Their Dying Mother”

It’s Cruel for an Atheist to Pray with Their Dying Mother