Donors Choose: Feedback

Mrs. Holloway, Ms. Kelly, Mrs. Hickman, and Ms. Smith
Have each written to convey their deepest gratitude
So I thought I’d share their message, and I add my thanks as well,
I assure you, it is more than just a platitude.
But the contest isn’t finished; no, the battle’s just begun
Since Scicurious is mustering her readers—
Thus, I post this brief reminder, of the challenge and the stakes;
You know cuttlefish have never been conceders.
Lest we somehow grow complacent, and Sci’s minions start to surge
We must keep up with the pressure and donations
And no matter what the magnitude of victory for us
What’s at stake, for real, is children’s educations.

I go all NPR on you after the jump:
[Read more…]

Becoming An Atheist

You’ve started to question; the merest suggestion
Is making you queasy inside
The falsehood’s been busted; the people you trusted
To tell you the truth? Why, they lied!

You’re starting to find that you’re changing your mind
And it’s rapidly filling with doubts
You’ve opened your eyes, so it shouldn’t surprise,
Your religion is now on the outs

You’re feeling a hole where you once had a soul
Since you found it is all an illusion
Now the things that you feel have a difference—they’re real—
It was bound to create some confusion

In a bit of a lurch when you should be at church
You’ve instead got a morning of freedom
If it feels like a crime, you can donate your time
And your money to people who need ’em.

Or just lie there in bed, watching football instead
As reward for a busy week’s labors
Or make something to eat, for the house down the street
Cos it’s nice to be nice to your neighbors

If you’re feeling the loss of your crescent or cross
Which you wore round your neck every day
With your thoughts unconstrained, you’ll be freer unchained!
(Or you might try the atheist “A”)

When it’s time to go vote, though the church may promote,
Just ignore them and think for yourself
There is no need to look in a dusty old book
So the bible can stay on your shelf

As your freethinking world, like a flag that’s unfurled
Opens up to display all its glory
With your thinking now freed, look around you and read–
And the truth is a much nicer story

When you free up your thoughts from the church-imposed ‘oughts’
And insistance that free thought is sinning
The wonder around you may rightly astound you
And your new life is only beginning

Now with each passing day, old beliefs fade away,
And your new thoughts feel less and less odd
You’ll just go through your day in the usual way…
But no longer believe in a god.

In Case Of Bear Attack…

The headlines, it is true, will claim
That vicious killers were to blame
Which now are merely “wild game”
And good for shooting
And that it’s true that wolves, or sharks,
Or grizzly bears in wooded parks
Have taken humans as their marks
I’m not refuting
But I’m the one who’s out of place
Invading in their wild space—
And should they choose to eat my face
I hold them blameless
But most of us, I’m guessing, still
Would want revenge—a justice kill—
And so I’ve put it in my will
(I’m really shameless):

“Should I be taken unawares
Feed the bears.”

Context, after the jump: [Read more…]

Do Not Taunt The Bionic Monkey

When historians of later years look back, as well they may,
It’s clear the reign of cybermonkeys had its start today
Electrodes let a monkey’s brain control a robot’s arm—
It’s scientific progress! There’s no reason for alarm!

My comment for the scientists: I’m questioning the need
For monkeys that can fling their shit at hypersonic speed
I’m not against technology; that’s not my major fuss;
It’s just… shit-flinging monkeys are already too like us.

Real story, after the jump:
[Read more…]

Donors Choose

“But look at the good that religions can do;
The hospitals, daycares, the soup kitchens too
They all let the love of the savior shine through
Like the light of the overhead sun”

Your invisible god has a bit of a quirk:
That good—every bit—is from people at work;
And working, not praying (“just clasp hands and shirk”)
Is how you get anything done.

So please join with me, and this atheist squad
(though your money’s still good if you worship a god,
Or an idol, a tree, or a cephalopod—
There’s really no way you can lose).

And click on the widget; follow the link
Root round a bit, and give it a think
And you’ve really helped students, as quick as a wink
By giving to Donors Choose

more, after the jump:
[Read more…]

One Person Per Car

Look at them driving—one person per car—
Some driving forever; some not very far
They want to be somewhere that’s not where they are
So off they go driving, one person per car.

Some drive for a living; some drive just for fun
Some drive to the gym, then get out and go run
Then a bottle of juice and an energy bar
And away they go driving, one person per car

It’s not that they’re lazy, or selfish, or mean
Or under the thumb of some wastefulness gene
It’s not that they’re stupid; they’re not unaware
And it’s certainly not that they just don’t care
They’re the same as I am, and the same as you are
But off they go driving, one person per car

The drivers are heard to complain as they pass,
Of the costs of insurance, the high price of gas,
The taxes, inspections, repairs and the lot,
And there’s practically never a good parking spot
And the traffic! Imagine the time they have lost
As they sit, breathing everyone else’s exhaust
Till the roofs of their mouths taste of asphalt and tar
And they sit there—just sit there—one person per car

The car manufacturers sound a bit troubled;
They wish that their mileage could somehow be doubled
Without major changes—or any at all,
Cos the public won’t buy if the car is too small
It has to have room for a trip to the shore
With a couple of riders, perhaps three or four
And they need to have room for the blankets and gear
For the trips they might take, maybe one time a year
But of course they spend most of their hours, by far
Just sitting in traffic, one person per car

If the energy used as they try to explain
How they can’t take the subway; they can’t take the train
How they can’t join a carpool or hop on a bike
But drive to wherever, whenever they like
If the energy used as they make their excuses
Were tapped, for the energy bullshit produces…
Distill it, refine it, and fill up a jar
And off they’d go driving, one person per car

slight rant after the jump:
[Read more…]

Headline Muse, 9/30

The direction this country is heading
Is exactly what bigots are dreading!
What’s the danger they feared?
It’s that chaplains are cleared
To officiate at a gay wedding!

Headline: Military chaplains allowed to perform same-sex weddings

Headline: Military Chaplains May Perform Same-Sex Unions

Why two links? The first is CNN; the second is Fox. The stories are quite similar–there’s not much to do but report the facts–but the comment threads are clearly from two different planets.

Secular Student Support–Advice?

A month or so ago, I had a student come out to me, as a budding atheist. I am not going to share any of his writing—it was an honor to have been trusted, and I will not violate that trust—but I do want to talk about it in the abstract for a bit.

I feel like it took very little effort for me to shed the religious shackles, and I never did have a lot of social pressure bearing on me, but upon reflection it did take several years, and I was at a place far removed from my old church, from my parents, and from the bible belt. There was very little pressure, one way or the other; conversely, there was very little support, one way or the other.

My student is in more or less the same community he has lived in his entire life, and now he feels he no longer believes; this is a far more difficult position than I was in. The people he would ordinarily talk to about such things are precisely the people he would not want to talk to. He has spent his entire life thus far with one variety of people, and has no one to lean on; he feels lost, like he’s the first or even the only one of his kind. He doesn’t believe in the things that used to bind him to his community, but feels some serious guilt about rejecting the worldview of his family and friends.

Cuttlefish University does not have a secular support group, or freethinkers group, or atheist group or agnostic group or any such animal. It does have (at least) six Christian groups, two Jewish groups and an interfaith group (official student organizations). I had not, until quite recently, really seen the need for a secular group (I frankly had not seen the need for the religious groups, either, since they could meet at their houses of worship), but now of course I have changed my mind. I may have to take a hand (well, a tentacle) in helping to organize one.

Those of you who have done so, or are members of student or other secular groups—any advice? What has worked? What has not? What sort of charter does such an organization have? And what questions am I not asking, that I probably should?