Because I am an atheist: Lousy Canuck

Today’s submission comes from fellow FTBorg Jason Thibeault, who writes at the brilliant and therefore deceptively-named Lousy Canuck blog.

Because I am an atheist…

I’ve been an atheist since I was 13. This is well before I knew the word, or the implications, though I had a vague inkling that a lot of people were probably wrong about a lot of things. When I further realized that my own parents counted among those people, I figured it was a very bad idea to let anyone else know what I thought about theology.

Several years ago, my sister came out to me as gay. The way she approached it was to ask me, “what is the worst possible thing you could imagine me telling you about myself?” I joked, “that you vote Conservative.” So, she apparently took that as an indicator that I’m safe, and came out of the closet.  [Read more…]

Skeptivism: Jamie’s story

My Blogathon efforts left me far more drained than I thought it would. By the time 6 hours of recording was up, I didn’t have much left in the tank for blogging. All is not lost, however, because a friend of mine from Vancouver has been engaged in some truly impressive local activism, so I asked Jamie to sum up the events for you all to take a look at:

I’ve been writing a lot about demonstrations, protests, nearly frothing at the mouth while yelling profanity, and taking my top off, all in the name of exercising bodily autonomy as a person who has two X-chromosomes. I mean a lot. This entry concerns a summary version of what is contained in all those posts, with links to the original writing.

The inciting incident concerned a woman in a sun dress, who felt particularly brave one afternoon while approaching a pro-life group that appears at the same intersection every weekend, to the Great Annoyance of the entire neighbourhood and virtually all passersby. She said “If a woman is raped and conceives from it, should she be forced to carry the child?” and was answered with “If she’s dressed like you, she should.” When I found out she wanted to organize the community to hold them accountable, I flipped all my shits. Read about it here.

Read Jamie’s epic saga; it’s really impressive.

I will be back to normal tomorrow, I bet. Plus I still owe a bunch of people cover tunes, so that’ll happen.

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Blogathon songathon: Glory Hallelujah

I’m afraid that I’m going to have to tap out at this point, Cromrades. The combination of 2 back-to-back shows with the band followed by 6 hours of learning and recording has completely flayed the fingertips of my left hand, and the remnants of my voice to boot. If I haven’t done your request, fear not: SSA Week is not over. I will keep adding videos as the week progresses. To be completely honest, I did not expect this kind of response, so I have to thank all of you for digging into your pockets the way you did.

I will leave you with this fantastic secular anthem, requested by Danny White:

Compare this to the original here.

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Blogathon songathon: Somebody Will

This next request comes from reader Julia (who is on Twitter at @djhaplo) who asked me to play a song originally performed by her group Sassafrass. It’s a rather moving ballad about how we are all, in our own way, contributing to humanity’s ascension to something greater. This one was a particular challenge for me, simply because I was totally unfamiliar with the work beforehand and didn’t have a studio version to work from. Still, I think I managed to pull it off (with thanks to Julia for sending me the sheet music).

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