Agnostic Mom

I can’t ignore the fact that loyal readers like Ed and Jason reach out at random times, wondering if the blog is dead. I’d say it definitely died, but perhaps resurrection is real after all? It’s so good to hear from you guys.

Here I am, almost exactly one year after promising to pop in once in a while, which I’ve never done. How about I catch you up on what I’m doing and if any of you are hanging around you can catch me up on where your lives have headed?

My Second Full-Time Job

I have two competing full-time jobs now. I’m still a SAHM, but I also host an internet scrapbooking tutorial show. I have professional weekly videos, a weekly live show, and regular blog articles at Paperclipping.com.

This is where my AgnosticMom blogging time has gone and why I haven’t felt like I had any minutes left to write here. I still miss you guys, though. Maybe now that my blogging skills have improved I can stop in once in a while with some short posts. No promises this time, though.

I’m Now A Vegan

This was one of the best streets I’ve ever turned down. I love having an animal-friendly, cholesterol-free, whole-foods plant-based diet. Feels good.

The Great Gatsby

We rescued this sweetheart from the animal shelter. Gizmo was horrified at first but now they’re best friends. I love being a mommy to two dogs and find myself wanting to go back for a third, even though my allergist says I should never have gotten the first one.

The kids…

…are growing and we’re enjoying the wonderful little people that they are. Blake is teaching himself to animate, chose the school at which he wants to learn film and computer graphics, and has named his own production company for movies.

Trinity has become such a graceful ballerina and blows us away with her ability to beat anyone at any time in the game, Memory. She’s definitely visual.

Aiden is strengthening his natural inclination for music and will be starting full-day kindergarten next month.

All three are amazing kids.

What about you, my long-lost friends? Where has this amazing life taken you over the last year?

I love this article in The Times Union about one of my editors from the Humanist Network News commuting by canoe down the Hudson! Outrageous! You’ll enjoy the details and the pictures, so please go read it.

Ummm, yeah, summer is approaching its end, isn’t it?

My husband and I began putting major efforts into some other projects earlier in the year. For a while I’ve been unsure what to do about AgnosticMom because I love this blog, but it’s hard to do something well when your attention is split.

Once summer came, that was it. Trying to keep my children from turning into little vegetables on the couch, or monkeys in the rafters, is consuming so much time! Every summer surprises me with its demands. And this one is no different.

So, I’ve devoted all my extra time to our other projects. I told the Humanist Network News that I was taking the summer off from writing and that I hope to be able to pick things back up again when school starts. Even with the return of my usual schedule, I am unsure about this blog. As long as I write my monthly HNN articles, I will at least post a link here.

I have thoughts I want to share here all the time. And I wonder about those of you I’ve gotten to know through your comments. I’ve also been interviewed a number of times over recent months. I was interviewed on a Canadian-based international radio station at Easter (that was interesting!). Most recently, an Atheist organization interviewed me for their newsletter. I’d like to post that interview here when I get the chance.

But if I don’t, I hope you are all happy and doing well. We’re having a fun (and overly active, in my opinion) summer. Everyone is generally healthy. And I have been enjoying the fact that we are receiving a whole lot of love from friends and family who don’t mind that we “nonbelievers.” I know not everyone is so fortunate.

I promise this isn’t my last post, but I can’t promise how often I’ll be around. You may want to subscribe to my RSS feed so that you can be prompted when I do pop in. Thanks for sticking around! And thanks to those of you who have tried to check up on me!

Kristen Chase of Motherhood Uncensored will be interviewing Dale and I regarding the book, Parenting Beyond Belief, tonight. Follow the link to the interview site.

Our interview starts at 9:30 EST, but the actual show starts at 9pm with an interview of Julie from Mothergoosemouse. Julie is an atheist and some of you old-timers might remember her commenting on AgnosticMom.

You can call or email the host with comments or questions, so come prepared. If you can’t make it tonight, the show will be archived and you can listen to it at your convenience.

Some of you wanted to know which publications are refusing to run reviews of Parenting Beyond Belief. I contacted Dale McGowan and he responded that the publisher will not specify which ones actually refused and which ones just haven’t answered. Naturally, there are relationships to maintain and that is understandable.

That doesn’t mean we can’t help. Here is what Dale said we could do:

A polite expression of curious interest combined with excitement for the appearance of such a reasonable and respectful book — that’s the ticket. Something like this:

Dear Mr. Windybottom,

I just came across a great new parenting book and wondered if you’d heard about it. It’s called “Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion” and is co-written by a number of prominent authors ranging from Richard Dawkins to a Unitarian minister. Early reviews are praising it as evenhanded and down-to-earth, not an angry screed. As a longtime reader of [insert mag name here], I’d love to see a review of this book in your pages. Would you happen to know if that’s in the works? I look forward to hearing from you!

Regards,
Sandy Subscriber

As for the list of mags I’m most eager to break into, here’s my top ten:

Parents Magazine: www.parents.com
Parenting Magazine (circ. over 2 million): www.parenting.com
Informed Parent – includes prominent book reviews: www.informedparent.com
Brain, Child – very good content fit: www.brainchildmag.com
Family Resource.com – prominent reviews: www.familyresources.com
Gay Parent – many gay parents are secularists: www.gayparentmag.com
Cookie Magazine: www.cookiemag.com
New Parent Magazine: www.newparent.com
Wondertime Magazine: www.wondertime.go.com
Mothering Magazine: www.mothering.com

I’d be very grateful for help in gently contacting the editors at these publications. Thanks Noell, and thanks to your readers!

Some days my seven-year-old daughter believes there is a god. Hers is a god of lost pencils and favorite foods. On other days, when said god doesn’t come through to grant a wish, she announces, “I guess I don’t believe in god anymore.”

To read more, follow the link to this week’s article in the Humanist Network News. Feel free to write a letter to the editor in response. Or come back here if you’d like to comment on my blog.

I wanted to thank everyone for the great response to the previous post about Parenting Beyond Belief. It was great to see so many links back to my posting and to the book; so many purchases, even multiple purchases, and gifts to local libraries! Awesome.

Somebody asked which of the magazines and stores are rejecting the book. I contacted Dale McGowan about this. So far he is waiting to hear the specifics from the publisher. Once he gets the information I’ll be sure to update you so all the interested activists in this readership can start writing letters.

Here is a positive review from Library Journal. This is a publication that is instrumental in getting libraries to purchase copies:

McGowan, a professor, freelance writer, and novelist, has collected essays from some of contemporary secularism’s big names, e.g., Richard Dawkins, Margaret Downey, in support of those nonreligious American parents who seek to “articulate values, celebrate rites of passage, find consolation, and make meaning” sans religion. Contributor Ed Buckner writes that secular means “not based on religion” rather than “hostile to religion.” Though a few entries do evidence anger or resentment, it is clear that all of these astute essayists have thought carefully about God’s nonexistence. Most of the 30-odd contributors recommend imbuing children with the ability to think well independently; when pressured or rejected by real and figurative institutions that tend to favor the religious (e.g., schools, scouting, holidays), parents are advised to stick to their nontheistic guns. The book considers parents as pedagogues, recalling Deborah Stipek and Kathy Seal’s Motivated Minds: Raising Children To Love Learning. Engaging and down-to-earth, this collection balances the scores of religious parenting titles shelved in the average library and is highly recommended for large public libraries and parenting collections. — Douglas C. Lord, Connecticut State Lib., Hartford

Thanks for your interest, everyone! Don’t forget to stop over to HNN for a little reading.

The author, Dale McGowan, sent this update to those us who contributed articles to Parenting Beyond Belief:

Several parenting magazines are declining to review the book for fear of offending religious subscribers, and a few retailers are declining to stock the book, claiming there is no market for it. It is essential that we demonstrate otherwise, so please put all promotional oars in the water as soon as possible.

I know that a huge percentage of AgnosticMom readers have blogs. Will you please promote the book on your sites? You can also send a link to the friends and family members on your email lists. Plus, if you can spare the change, how about ordering one for your local library?

Here is a link to the book, Parenting Beyond Belief. Let me know when your order your copy!

If you’ve been reading AgnosticMom for a long time then you know about my position on morality and ethics. While most religious people think morality comes from their god and some non-believers think it is purely a social construct, others of us (including myself) believe that humans have an innate moral sense which is a compilation of states that evolved in humans.

I have long expressed that empathy is a key factor in a person’s morality. Empathy is a state that the human brain evolved a capacity for. Guilt is another. Our social upbringing also comes into play, but only because an ability to experiences these things first evolved within the brain.

Gregg100 sent me a link to an article that tells of a recent study on this subject. I’ve pulled out a few statements that summarize the main points of the article but I recommend you read the whole thing so you know the specifics and the limitations to how far the study extends.

Damage to the part of the brain that controls social emotions changes the way people respond to thorny moral problems, demonstrating the role of empathy and other feelings in life-or-death decisions.

“Part of our moral behavior is grounded … in a specific part of our brains,” said Dr. Antonio Damasio, one of the study’s lead authors and director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at USC.

The ventromedial prefrontal cortex processes feelings of empathy, shame, compassion and guilt. Damage to this part of the brain, which occupies a small region in the forehead, causes a diminished capacity for social emotions but leaves logical reasoning intact.

Researchers found no difference among groups in their responses to scenarios with no moral content, such as turning a tractor left to harvest turnips.

This study is not in isolation. Without even looking for them I come across studies with similar or related conclusions quite regularly. The conclusions have perspective-altering implications that might challenge the way religious believers expect their god to hold people accountable for their “sins.” Or the way societies deal with criminals. Such implications and how we should deal with them are complicated. But I think this is an extremely important area to learn more about if we are ever going to understand human nature and hope for a more peaceful world.

My article on death and the soul (or lack thereof) is in today’s issue of the Humanist Network News. As you can see, I used Dale’s symphony analogy (and quoted him, giving him proper credit) for the title.

Thanks for all your thoughts on the last two posts! They were amazing to read. And they just kept coming and coming. So many of you posted for the first time and I really appreciate it. You’re all welcome back if you have more to say!

My apologies, by the way, on my wording of the first question in the last post. It made the assumption that we have a soul and that was purely accidental.

But for now, if you don’t already get HNN in your inbox, head on over to read my article, When The Sympony Stops Playing. If you have thoughts you can write a letter to the editor at HNN or you can comment here on my blog.

This topic and all the comments it generated in the last post has been fascinating. I am writing next week’s HNN article about it right now. I’ve grown curious to know how many of you believe in the continued existence of the soul after death. Even more than that I wonder if you feel fear or despair at the idea that our consciousness totally ceases.

Would you do me a favor, even if you’ve never commented before? Even if you want to use an anonymous name and a fake email. Please sign in and tell us:

1) Do you believe the soul continues to exist after death?
2) Have you found peace with the probability that when it’s over it is really over? Does this fill you with fear and dread? Or are you somewhere in between (please explain).

And please, this one post is just for the non-religious only. If you’re religious and feel a need to comment, please leave it in the previous post.

Thanks in advance!