Happy Zombie Jesus Day to one and all

In honor of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I'll be dressing up as a pirate and saying "Arrrr" a lot.

Tags: Zombie Jesus, Flying Spaghetti Monster

I voted

Tags: Vote

Fireworks company drops parade support due to bigotry

A New York fireworks company is dropping its support for a parade of decorated yachts this year because the parade organizers wanted to be more inclusive and drop the "Christmas" from the parade's name.

Fireworks by Grucci won't lend its sparkle to Patchogue's Nov. 23 parade — decorated yachts on the Patchogue River — because the organizers have renamed it the Patchogue Holiday Boat Parade. It was the Patchogue Christmas Boat Parade last year, when the Grucci company donated $5,000 worth of fireworks.

I agree with the town mayor that fireworks aren't really a Christmas thing. I also think it's ironic that the very act of adding fireworks to a "Christmas" parade secularizes the event even more, so the firworks company's own actions support the position of the parade organizers that "Christmas" time is holiday time for many different belief systems as well as us unbelievers.

Tags: War on Christmas

How to Become an Atheist

From wikihow: How to become an atheist

Step # 5:

Consider your ethics and try to understand where they come from. You don't need a god/gods to be moral. Atheists are not unethical. Like many theists, many atheists donate to charity and live lives that are morally similar to those of theists. Atheists just might have different motivations for doing so.

It's interesting that someone put the thought and consideration into this. I like the well reasoned approach, and it does describe the process I went through starting about 20 years ago.

Tags: atheism

Skeptical Parent Crossing Carnival is up

The first edition of the Skeptical Parent Crossing, hosted by domestic dad, is up. Excellent content-I'm really impressed by the quality of posts here. There's some very interesting reading on critically thinking about spanking, teaching philosophy, green diapers, and more.

Welcome to the first edition of Skeptical Parent Crossing, the blog carnival about skepticism, critical thinking, and parenting. There are many aspects to being a skeptical parent, and as your Crossing Guard this month, I’m pleased to present 12 articles covering a few of them.

Tags: secular parenting, skeptical parent crossing, skeptical parenting

Humanist Sunday School

I've found it quite frustrating that the secular humanist community here in Denver seems to not be interested in bringing in families. The monthly meeting is on Sunday evenings, with no childcare provided, so those of us with small children are stuck with either finding (and paying for) a babysitter, or skipping the meeting altogether. I think that there are probably quite a few people here in Denver with small children who would love to have the opportunity to meet other atheists/secular humanists, and especially those with children. It seems like a lost opportunity to not only grow the secular humanist group, but to grow it in a way that ensures a strong, healthy group in the decades to come.

One solution I've heard of before (and would love to have here) is a secular humanist "Sunday School"

In May, the American Humanist Association began a campaign to educate children of agnostics, atheists and freethinkers by creating specialized curricula. Apparently, parents who want to teach their kids to question God must be intentional about it.

I don't agree that a Secular Humanist Sunday School would be about "teaching their kids to question God", but rather to instill Secular Humanist values of critical thinking, community service, and the "Eight Commitments to Ethical Culture".

The model described in the Washington Times sounds promising. I like this:

"We focus on discussion-based moral education for kids that is not based on a belief and a god," she says. "We do teach about various world religions in a way that will let kids come to their own conclusions."

Perhaps it's time to "be the change you want to see" and see if I can organize something similar.

Why Roseanne Cash Would be a Better VP than Sarah Palin

I had no idea that Roseanne Cash was still around, much less that she was a pretty talented writer. At The Nation, she tells us why she'd be a better Veep than Sarah Palin.

An excerpt:

I know Governor Palin has one distinct advantage in living so close to Russia, in that she can keep a close eye on nefarious activity across the Bering Strait, but I, too, live very close to a foreign country. Canada is less than 400 miles from my home in New York City, and you never know when it might become necessary to invade a sovereign nation that has not attacked us, as we learned the hard way. Not only that, I have a girlfriend in Austin, Texas, whom I'm going to ask to keep an eye on Mexico.