I have had a really odd epiphany. The NonStampCollector meme has made me aware that I actually do think of atheists as what they're not. I do think there is a difference among a Roman Catholic brand of atheist, a fundamentalist atheist, a Muslim atheist, and a straight up atheist.. I am the Catholic school, choir singing Roman Catholic atheist; my son is the straight up atheist - oops, sorry, non-theist, nonstampcollector type. He is in his 20's and says not raising him with any religion was the greatest gift I could have given him (that, and i never bought soda). He also believes I will never know the world as he does, because I will always have some residual Christianity. So I don't think I am wrong in seeing atheists as different types. The ex-fundamentalist may have the toughest row to hoe, primarily if they are creationists. At least Catholics don't have that burden! This has led me to actually soften towards Catholicism. A Catholic school education never hurt anyone.

I don't laugh at creationists. As an American, I am embarrassed that perhaps the most lame brained religious belief out there is held almost entirely by Americans - as if we weren't lagging behind in science enough already. Throw in those other American cults, Mormonism (LDS) and Scientology, and we make the principal of religious freedom look like a bad idea. One fun evolutionary fact to know and tell is that chimps and bonobos are more closely related to humans than they are to the other great apes, gorillas and orangutans.

The thing that really chaps my ass about IDists, aside from the fact that there are almost certainly brilliant children who could make great accomplishments being mis-educated, is the related fact that this simplistic view reduces all the marvels and wonders of our planet and the universe or even universes to a child's story. How sad that everything is reduced to embarrassing simpleness. If there is a god, wouldn't (s)he be insulted? Taking this train of thought one more step; evolution and belief in god directly making humans are not mutually exclusive. There is a point at which something human is created. It's not even ridiculous to believe that there was divine intervention. People are unlike anything that has ever existed in 6 billion years. Evolution played out, I believe, 3 times almost from scratch, and nothing like a human, with our combination of intelligence, verbal ability and manual dexterity has ever lived on this planet (except the Nanderthals, who seemed to be well on their way). If you want god in the story, insert her there. The idiocy of creationism is no laughing matter - the waste of humanity that is lost with the children of these ideologues is a tragedy.

I have an opinion on everything, but that's only because I care so very, very much.


"When considering the truth of a proposition, one is either engaged in an honest appraisal of the evidence and logical arguments, or one isn't. Religion is one area of our lives where people imagine that some other standard of intellectual integrity applies."

~ Sam Harris