Atheist Educators-Your Participation is Requested!

In my former life, I was a teacher of young minds. Yeah, I know, right? Me! A teacher.

No seriously.

I was.

Please stop laughing. It’s true.

Anyway, I will always remember this one little girl in my class who had trouble learning to read. Not because she was challenged in any way, but because she just didn’t care. See, she fancied herself a psychic medium. She would stand for hours talking to the air. She would quietly mumble under her breath, dance, clap, laugh, and hold entire conversations with a wall. When asked to come in from the playground, if she was engrossed in a "show" for her ghosts, she would become oppositional, pretend she was deaf, and I had to resort to physically lugging her chunky, tapioca-scented body inside. As you might guess, she had very few friends after a while, mainly because she simply ignored the other children.

As I was tasked with getting this child to, you know, learn stuff, this became a problem. So, a parent-teacher conference was scheduled.

Lo and behold, it turned out that her mother actually encouraged her daughter to communicate with “ghosts and angels.” I’ll never forget, she said, “She sees spirits. Everyone in the family knows she can. We push her to reach out and contact them. Lately, she’s been talking to her granny who passed away two years ago. She has a gift.”

I remember that I felt an epic, whatdafuh head tilt of biblical proportions coming on, but I resisted the urge. Her response to her daughter’s apathy toward her lessons in lieu of designing choreographed dance routines for ghosts was blasé. She showed no overt concern that her daughter would actually strike out at her teachers like a little badger when they tried to engage her while she was “in a trance.” She apparently felt that her daughter’s psychic talents were first and foremost in importance. I felt utterly helpless.

Fortunately, about a year after this, the child finally realized that all of her classmates had passed her by, and she began eagerly seeking her teachers out for lessons instead of stubbornly dissociating, snarling, hitting at us, and ignoring her instruction.

This leads me to why I’m posting this. See, as one who did not believe in the afterlife and angels, I had to quietly nod and respect the spiritual beliefs of the mother and my student. There was no way I could criticize their particular choice of fantasies, even when the family's embrace of the "spirit life" and their gleeful encouragement of this kind of magical thinking stood in direct opposition to their young child’s education. This was not as benign as when my students would ask me if I believed that baby Jesus was our Savior every Christmas (smile and nod), or when I was repeatedly invited by the parents to attend church services and revivals (smile and nod).

Smile and nod. In other words, I felt like I couldn't tell the truth.

In the South, it’s okay to say that you don’t go to the same church as your neighbor, but it sure isn’t okay to say that you don’t go to church at all.

***

Here is a chance for you to speak up!

I received this call for interviews earlier. If this sounds like you, I encourage you to respond!

---

Atheist K-12 Teachers - Are you a Conservative, Republican, or Libertarian? Do you Live Rural? Are you African American? Are you Out There?

Craig and Aimee Howley at Ohio University are doing research on K-12 educators who are also non-religious. Having collected many interviews already, they are now hoping to expand their dataset for wider representation.

A great deal of research in education focuses on the experiences of marginalized groups. The aim of this study is to investigate the experiences of one such group — teachers who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics, or freethinkers. Little is really known about the experience of atheists in any realm of life in the United States, and no study has yet investigated the experiences of nonreligious people who are employed as K-12 educators. The role of teacher is particularly interesting as a site for studying the experience of atheists and other nonbelievers because teachers are considered to be bearers of community standards, and few communities uphold atheism (or other nonbeliever perspectives) as a legitimate point of view, let alone as a principle on which community life is grounded.

If you’re up for sharing your experiences as an African American, rural, or conservative nonbeliever educator, your contribution would be incredibly valuable to the outcome of this project. Email the project (marsged@gmail.com-- Marged Howley, M.Ed.) to learn more or schedule a phone interview! All interviews are held to the highest standards of confidentiality, and if you are interested, we can make sure to notify you once we publish the results of the study!

---

My Five Stages of Atheism (with Cats!)

Everyone’s heard of the Five Stages of Grief, the hypothetical progression through which people cope with profound loss. The Kubler-Ross Model, as outlined in Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ 1969 book, On Death and Dying, describes these five distinct phases: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.

Intro psych class is dismissed. You’re welcome.

My path to the realization that I was an atheist, however, didn't conform with the typical grief stages, though there were some similarities. I never denied or bargained, for example. But this may be because I was not wholeheartedly religious to begin with-so I had nothing to grieve. But it was a process nonetheless.

Please be aware that I just made this up this morning while drinking a cup of Donut House coffee with Pecan Praline creamer. Your experience may be different, but this is how it went for me.

Now, with the help of the Internet’s most famous cats, I will illustrate.

My Five Stages of Atheism

(with the Internet’s Most Famous Cats)

 

1. Oblivion (Lil Bub)

Isn’t it just sublime sitting in the warm afternoon sun on the porch with your bestest stuffed dragon friend, staring up at dust specks floating all sparkly above your whiskers? The clouds drift lazily by and you just ate some yummy cat food. Was that a squirrel? That cat food was yummy. You sure love your stuffed dragon toy. Is there anything more to life? No, there is not.

This is how it was before I was aware that I was a nonbeliever, or that there was a word for what I was. See, Lil Bub knows that today is good, but she doesn’t care that today is called Tuesday.

I always knew I didn’t get much out of God and church and nativity scenes and incense and hymns and hand bells. I didn’t question why that was so. I just went along with it. I knelt when I was told to kneel and I stood when I was told to stand. I didn’t even realize that my most disconcerting thoughts, like when I prayed with my eyes closed, hands clasped in childlike imitation, and I secretly posited, “I’m just talking to myself inside my head,” were normal. I was young, happy, and oblivious about what I believed.

2. Discovery (Maru)

There’s a coupon flyer on the floor. It looks like it might fit you, but you aren’t sure. Perhaps, if you just try. You get your nose in. It smells funny. Your ears get stuck. Must fold them down. You are a Scottish Fold, after all! Why look! It makes a perfectly bonnie bonnet, lassie! Congratulations! You’re gorgeous and ready for the Glasgow Fair!

Maru knows that anything is possible, but exploration and defiance make all the difference. No one can tell the Queen of Small Spaces that the little empty tissue box won’t fit her fifteen pound rump. Even if it doesn’t fit, she sits. She seeks out challenges in her small, immaculate existence in a tiny flat in Japan, and each time she crams her fat, fuzzy ass in a new container, her world expands. At the bottom of those boxes, Maru travels to distant lands of tuna and houseflies. She puts the smack-down on that Chihuahua next door and steals his bone.

When I was nineteen, I read Cosmos by Carl Sagan. The book started a snowball of discovery for me. Sagan’s humanistic world view and expansive descriptions of the intricacies of the universe caused my heart to soar. It was like finding a box that fit me perfectly, but it wasn’t really a box at all. It was a paper portal that opened to the world, like the back of the wardrobe to Narnia. I learned that there was a word for what I believed-and that I wasn’t alone in my views. In my perfect cardboard pizza box rocket ship, I felt like I could fly.

3. Urgent Outreach (Buddy the Barking Cat)

That dog in the street is so misguided! He still thinks that he can actually catch his tail! But you know the Truth! And you must share it with all the naïve dogs out there. So you perch yourself in the window and bark. Yes, that’s right, I said bark. You bark with all your might to spread the message to those dogs-that they don’t have to live in fear of never catching their tails! (No one is watching, so don’t worry about betraying your regal cat status. Bark loud and proud!)

(Until your human catches you on video. Then act casual and slowly revert to your usual soulful meowing.)

Yes, Buddy the Barking Cat feels so passionately about his new, expanded views on life that he has learned another language. He reaches across the aisle to share what he has learned about tails and begs the neighborhood dogs to open their eyes and accept that they don’t have to run in endless circles anymore!

This is how it was when I truly embraced my skepticism. I was done glossing over it, done finding excuses. I wanted to bark from the rooftops! I was an atheist! I wanted to proclaim, “You don’t have to hide in the shadows anymore! Be free! Be counted!”

4. Anger/Apathy (Tard the Grumpy Cat)

You’re surrounded by idiots. Your human uses a vacuum cleaner and doesn’t even realize that it steals souls. The dog is a complete, ass-kissing sellout, and that damned bird is a repetitive, squawking snitch. Every time you try to explain that you’re dying of boredom and you don’t think you can make it one more day in this house of morons, the human just giggles, “Oh, such a sour puss, look at that face. What a sweet little man! C’mere, you little fluffer-bottom, I just want to eat you up!” Imbeciles. Will no one ever learn the glorious, mind-blowing subtleties of the kitteh universe?

You give up.

This is when I slid into what is called antitheism-when everything religious turned malignant and corrupt. Antitheism is when religion becomes all about politics, power, greed, and money. Those in charge use it to control their followers and profit off those who have nothing left but desperate hope and who utter urgent pleas to the invisible, mysterious, and divine. Televangelists churn stomachs and politicians pander and dance the line between creationism and science, so as not to piss off any demographic. These snake oil salesmen are suddenly not driven or shallow, but soulless.

At this point in my journey, I became aware that I was mad. I was angry that I saw so many people getting hurt or conned in the name of God. Anger turned to apathy. What’s the point? I’m in the minority. People admit they neither know, nor care, what they believe, yet they keep warming pews week after week because it is expected.

Forget it. No one listens. Not even belly scratches can make you feel better at this point in the process.

You may have noticed it has been many months since I last posted. This stage, right here, is the reason. I was temporarily mired in apathy, but I think such resignation may be a necessary, painful, sometimes recurring pit stop along the road to…

5. Acceptance (Frank the Happy Cat)

You know what?  It’s cool. The human just closed your tail in the door, and sure, it hurts, but that’s okay. You know he loves you and you got some albacore tuna from the shiny blue packet by way of apology. (Sorry, Charlie!) Your litter box is terribly filthy, but darn it, it’s your filth, isn’t it? When it’s cold in the house, you must admit it is nice to curl up in the dog’s belly to warm yourself. It doesn’t matter that he smells funky because he rolled in dead worms. Your human and the dog, they are your friends, after all. 

I finally accepted that everyone finds their own way in life. No one belief is right or wrong. If our days were without challenges and we all thought the same, what fun would that be? I’d say, “You know, I think this,” and you’d respond, “Yeah, me too.” The end. No debate, no exchange of ideas, no learning. It’s diversity that makes the world go ‘round.

And in the end, whether you prefer pizza boxes, soda can boxes, or giant refrigerator boxes with holes cut to look like jolly windows, our commonalities trump our differences.

Be happy, happy cats.

The Most Unspeakable Evil

There are many forms of evil in this sad, cold world. But I think we can all agree there is one insidious force that trumps them all. Something so vile, so putrid, that it can tear apart loving, Christian families, destroy the purity of our children, and release a scourge that is so malignant it can take on a demonic, haunting life of its own!

And a movie is finally being made that exposes this rotten, stinking assault on the wholesome, Jesus-fearing American family.

The film trailer opens with the familiar “found footage” style, shaky camera scene depicting a man who apparently has just purchased a digital video camera, “You know, how we talked about before, how we want to document our family…”

First red flag, ladies. You know why your pervert husband really bought the camera.

But wait, amateur bedroom filming may not be the only problem here. The youngest son has been seeing a decrepit, female demon in the home.

“EXPERIENCE THE TERROR!”

“You let something in. Where there was light, there’s dark.”

“EVIL IS UNLEASHED!”

“The boys are so…infected.”

“A GENERATIONAL CURSE!”

“I’m begging you. You have to stop this.”

“THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A SECRET!”

“It’s like there’s something both living and dead.

It is not harmless!”

Yes. It’s a haunted box of porn.

No, I’m not joking.

"Harmless is a feature film shot in the popular found footage style. It’s the story about a husband and father and his battle with a box of porn that is found in the closet. Once opened, the box of porn begins to torment the family, much like a poltergeist. It’s sort of a social commentary on how pornography can destroy a family." (from the official site)

So, there you go. Now, flogging your log doesn’t just give you hairy palms. No, riding the great white knuckler won’t just make you go blind. Be warned! Oiling your pogo stick will unleash a lurching, vicious, pale, blood-thirsty haunt upon you and your family who will follow you to the ends of the Earth until you banish the heinous box of porn to the curb…and then you just start watching porn on the internet and erasing your browser history, like most normal people do.

Enjoy!

First Atheiversary

One year ago today, I had a hair-brained idea to start a blog about what life was like for me as an agnostic atheist in my new small, coastal town on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. I chose April 20th because all up and down the beach, I was witness to people in prayer groups, standing in the gentle, turquoise waves, holding hands, muttering silent pleas for the recovery of the Gulf, on the first anniversary of perhaps the worst man-made disaster in the history of the United States, the BP oil spill.

With the looming mass of oil slowly drifting toward shore in the spring of 2010, prayer vigils were organized in desperation. Church leaders and their followers vocally implored the oil to stay off their shores. Prayer chains were formed, one stretching twenty-six miles and consisting of thousands of deluded local residents who thought that a human, hand-holding barrier of hope could ward off millions of gallons of American folly. Naive sentiments like the following frequented the local news.

"We're not ones to sit there and take it lying down. Were going to come and fight and this is the way to do it right here."

The [prayer chain] appears effective so far. Despite media reports, Mississippi's governor says very little oil has shown up in his state.

Yet the oil washed over the pitiful, orange, bobbing booms and hit the beaches.

I was angry one year ago. I was sad that people were walking past trash on the beach to sing songs and wave their hands in the air when instead, they could be spending their time on much-needed community reef restoration projects. They could have donated money to my friends who had gone out of business due to the loss of tourism, or volunteered as a oil spotter. Anything, but instead, they chose to show up on one particular day, have their faces seen on the local news, and pretend to make a difference in the name of their God.

After I cathartically cut my BP gas card to shreds and vowed to walk and ride my bike wherever I could from then on, I wrote my first post. 

In one year of blogging, I have made wonderful connections and learned so much about all of you and myself. I have discovered that I love to write. You have reached out to me seeking solace and advice. You, fourteen year old Midwestern teenager ostracized by your devout parents, young mother shunned by her Christian mommies group, gay teen punished by your father and forced to talk to a pastor, and hilarious Southern Vietnam veteran who took the time to tell me you had a laugh at my words.

More than anything, I have been told that I have helped a few of you. And that rocks my socks off.

Even if it was a just a chuckle at a silly kitteh picture or the realization that you are not the only one who enjoys jokes about Mormon boys with unintended erections, I am glad beyond words that I put my pride aside and just started writing. It makes me happy, like dis much!

You’ll be pleased to know that, because of this blog, I have been offered a deal to write a Hollywood screenplay!

So far, it is the story of a mild-mannered blonde girl, who, by day, masquerades as a Hooters waitress who must stuff her bra to earn tips. She enjoys the sweet, wholesome things in life, like splashing in puddles, watching VeggieTales, and collecting rubber duckies. The picture of innocence and good, she exudes pure Christian values. She never questions authority. She vacuously asks questions like, “If we evolved from monkeys, then where did I put my Hello Kitty t-shirt?” 

But by night, she transforms into a sinister, disgusting godless atheist scourge upon the planet. She drinks the blood of innocent Cabernet grapes, kills the mold on her shower curtain with bleach, dominates her pals on Words with Friends, and eats innocent baby spinach salads! She sheds her blonde, bubbly persona for the devious pursuit of reading books and asking questions. Since she has no moral compass, she freely commits heinous acts such as recycling, feeding stray animals, and donating money to charity! She confronts authority and seeks her own path in life. Oh, the humanity!

So, I guess it’s kind of a Jekyll and Hyde story.

Oh, and I forgot to mention. Her evil sidekick is a kitten in a roller skate.

 

So, anyway, thanks for a great year. Look for my movie, The AtheDitz, in August of 2013 at selected theatres near you.

The Best Sleep

Death.

Somehow death has gotten a bad rap. Death is just a part of life. Hear me out.

Think about it. Were you bothered by or afraid of your own mortality, your nonexistence, before you were born, before you existed? As Mark Twain famously penned, "I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it."

I like to imagine death is the best sleep you’ll ever get. Like after a glass of warm milk and a backrub-purring kittens on your feet, electric blanket, wave machine, pitch-dark room, post-coital glow sleep. There is no dreaming, no stirring. There is just blissful nothing.

Humans have a problem with the notion of nothingness, though. You probably picture nothing as blackness, silence, or that ominous, rolling cloud on The NeverEnding Story. But that is still something, isn’t it?

Sure, the death of someone you love is scary. Unthinkable. You may have lived your whole life with this wonderful, supportive person by your side, and it is terrifying to even fathom what life will be like without them. You can’t fathom, but you know it will hurt. Your life will go on, though. 

And when your time for death approaches, you might linger before you succumb. You might fight and thrash and struggle. But that will pass as you do.

No one knows what happens after death. For millennia, humans have invented their own particular fluffy ideas of an afterlife. Is this simply because of the crushing fear of the unknown? Seventy-two virgins, pearly gates, a shiny soul in a new body? Are the legends of heaven, reincarnation, and eternal life there because of the all-too-human need for a cognitive crutch to mitigate that fear?

Perhaps.

All I know is that since I started embracing the wonderful vastness of the universe, and I realized how lucky I am simply to be here, statistically, right now, pondering death with you, dear reader, I became unafraid. Why fear something that is unavoidable and inherent for all living things? Death just is.

I hope to live as long as possible. I take my vitamins, drink plenty of water, and eat leafy greens.

But someday I will die. And that’s cool.

It’s a nice story that someday you’ll be with your loved ones again. It’s a comforting tale to think that if you just say the right words and follow certain rules, you might be rewarded with immortality along side a photogenic divine creator with nice teeth and flowing hair. If you need that, go for it.

I’d argue, however, that the realization-that in all likelihood, there will probably be no glowing clouds, rainbow bridges, angels’ harps, ethereal light, paradise, or reincarnation as a pampered housecat-makes every moment burning, vital, and fleeting.

There is no place for grudges with that realization. No room for pride, cruel words in the heat of an argument, or a guilt trip to get your way. There is only room for kindness, forgiveness, and happiness. If you love someone, you better say so. If you are involved in a toxic relationship, it would behoove you to move on. Have you been hurt? Try to let it go, for your own sake. If you were planning on making a mark on this world, you should probably get to it.

Go, do that now. I’ll wait here.

As the wise Homer Simpson once said to his son, Bart, before tucking him into bed for the night, “Don’t let Krusty’s death get you down, boy. People die all the time, just like that.

Why, you could wake up dead tomorrow…”

…Well, goodnight!”