Guess I gotta be a Catholic now

Much has been made on the net lately about Leah Libresco, a "prominent" atheist blogger who has converted to Catholicism.  Forgive my quotes, as I've never heard of her until this conversion.  Now, I don't mean to imply that a person can't be prominent if I don't know of her, but I'm pretty familiar with various atheist bloggers and forums, so I'm just going to have to take everybody's word that this was a person who held some importance in the online atheist community.

Since she's converted, I guess that I have no choice but to become a Catholic myself.  Never mind all of my objections to things like the supernatural, the idea of a god, Christianity in general, Catholicism in particular; if an atheist has converted, then obviously I need to follow suit.  So, this Sunday I'll be there at mass, and I'm going to get me some prayer beads (that is a thing, right?) and learn how to do the sign of the cross properly.  I'll also take a mental note of all the commandments I've broken this week and get ready to confess them.  (What's that?  Why can't I just pray directly to God and tell Him myself?  What do I look like?  Some frikken' Protestant?)

At least, this was the plan until I learned about a couple of Catholics who converted to Islam.  Maybe I should just skip the middle step, declare that there is no God but Allah and that Mohammed is his prophet, and then I'll start pointing East and praying to Mecca twice a day?  (Five times?  Dang.)

Of course, it gets even more complicated that there's a Muslim who converted to Catholicism.  Am I doomed to live my life in an endless flip flopping of confession booths to prayer mats?

Maybe I should just start again from square one.  After all, there was an agnostic who converted to Judaism.   Antony Flew became a deist.  A self-described "belligerent atheist" became a Hindu!

Crud.  What the heck am I going to do?  This is difficult enough, especially considering that I once considered myself a Christian and would eagerly argue in favor of the existence of (The Christian) God.  Not only that, but there are many nonbelievers out there who were very religious at one point.  Some of them were even members of the clergy!

Because let's be honest, every time a Christian hears about somebody who leaves the faith and becomes a nonbeliever, all of those Christians drop their Bibles and immediately renounce their faith.  I mean, that's the way it works, right?

Or maybe it's a better idea to not get too caught up in who's converting to what.  Maybe the important thing is to pay attention to the reasons for believing in various religions and/or not believing in any of them.

Years ago, I was reading the book Into the Wild.  In it, the story recounts a man who declared himself to be an atheist because a young man whom he admired died while living out in the wilderness.  He figured that there was no way God could exist and let that sort of a thing happen.  What was my reaction to all this?  I didn't think: "Yes!  One more to add to the ranks!"  No.  I thought:  "That's a bad reason to be an atheist."  After all, a god could exist, and that god could be cruel or indifferent.  Shoot, even the "mysterious ways" argument might be true (although I can much more easily accept one of the former ideas over that one).

What about Leah Libresco though?  She spells out her reasons here.  She strikes me as being sincere.  One thing that I will not do is question her motivations and/or accuse her of not being a "real" atheist.  Honestly, it seems to me that she is just being honest with the way she sees things and feels about the world.  Now, I think that she's mistaken and gone off the rails, but then again, maybe I'm the one who's mistaken.

Reading her post, I get a bit lost in the philosophical talk at the beginning.  I'm not very well-read in all of that, so maybe there's something that I'm just not getting.  Still, there isn't anything in there that directly addresses my objections to faith, or most of the arguments you hear from my fellow nonbelievers.  In other words, her conversion isn't having much of an impact on me.  I'd be more impressed if they discovered verifiable, historical documents for the life of Jesus or something more tangible like that.  Instead, it's all a bit too heavy on the philosophical side of things, and it strikes me as an argument that she's believing something because she likes the idea of it moreso than she's believing it because it's actually been proven.  Maybe I'm wrong.

And that's what we need to take from anybody who changes their mind about something.  What were their reasons?  If a guy I really admire, like Neil deGrasse Tyson, said tomorrow that aliens are visiting us, then I respect him enough to at least read what he has to say on the matter.  However, if he gives the same kind of "evidence" for this that we get from the usual loons, then I'm not going to be convinced of that either.

It's the reasoning that's important - not the person.

This latest thing that Obama has done

No doubt by now you've heard the latest thing that our so-called Commander In Chief has done.  Does it surprise you that he has done this thing?  It certainly doesn't surprise me.  Real Americans like me have been warning that he would do things like this thing that he has done ever since he ran for office.  Was Jeremiah Ayers not enough of a hint to let you know that he believes these things that are not the things which one should believe?

Of course, all of the liberals are coming out defending him.  Some are saying:  "I'm pretty sure that Bush did this exact same thing, and you didn't seem to have a problem with it."  Others are saying:  "Actually, he didn't do that thing at all.  You shouldn't believe every email forward you read."  Then, the most laughable of all:  "You're not even being specific about what this thing is that he's done!  It sounds like you're judging it to be bad simply based on the fact that Obama did it, whatever that thing actually is.  Are you sure that he even did something?"

Well, what else can you expect from LIBTARDS who, when confronted with facts, must resort to calling people names?  These are the very same people who all make sweeping generalizations about a group of people.  Every single one of them always speaks in absolute statements, and not one of them ever allows for any sort of nuance whatsoever.  Don't get me started on how redundant they are, what with their way of essentially repeating themselves only with changing up the wording a little.

This President is managing to destroy this country.  Yes, that's right.  This country, the greatest one of all time which has seen a Revolution, a Civil War, The Great Depression, two world wars, and the invasion of Grenada is going to be completely annihilated because of this one President and his hatred of America.  That's right.  He hates America.  What proof do you need?  What more do you need than the fact that he did this latest thing that I wrote about at the start of this?

Hell is empty and the devils are here!

Betcha thought I was going to do a rant on religion when you read that title, eh?  Well, I hate to disappoint, but that's a line from William Shakespeare's The Tempest.  You know Shakespeare, right?  He also wrote such famous works as Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet, and a bunch of sonnets that some people think proves that he was gay.

Turns out this Shakespeare fella still has a bit of a following, and there are Shakespeare festivals all around the world.  The closest one to me is CalShakes.  For our 10th anniversary, my wife bought us season tickets.  The plays are The Tempest, Spunk, Blithe Spirit, and Hamlet.  No, the middle two aren't Shakespeare plays.  I'm fairly certain that it's pretty common for these things to have some non-Shakespeare works as part of the program.

I'm most excited about Hamlet since that's probably in my top five favorite things ever written, along with the facts that I've taught it for several years and seen many movie versions of it.  The two non-Shakespeare plays I don't know, but after reading about them, they certainly seem interesting, and I'm sure that I'll be entertained.  As for The Tempest?  That's one with which I am mostly unfamiliar.  I knew that there was a guy named Prospero and he was some kind of magician, and I also knew that it involved an island and some sort of tempest.  Beyond that, it was a new one for me.

I decided that I wanted to read it first, since sometimes that Shakespeare fella's language can be a bit confusing; however, if I go in with some familiarity, then I'm able to follow along pretty well.  I'll be honest though - for as much as I like Shakespeare, I don't know if I can say that I enjoy sitting down and reading his plays all by myself.  Ideally, I'd have a bunch of my friends with me, and we'd all pick parts and read it together.  I don't think that this is so strange, as the man wasn't trying to write novels.  He was writing for the stage, and it was meant to be heard out loud.

Basically what I'm saying is that I only got through about 1/4 of it.  I brought it with me to the play though, and since we arrived early, I was able to get through about the 2/3 point.  I figured that would be good enough for me to follow along and know who's who and what's what.

So, what did I think?  I loved it.  While the characters seemed interesting enough on the page, seeing some good actors bring them to life really did the trick for me.  This was especially true in the scene where Ariel, a fairy, pleaded with Prospero to free her from his service.  Erika Chong Shuch was able to create a character that was believable as a fairy-tale creature but still had some genuine emotions that made me empathize with her.

I've been to a few performances at CalShakes before, and I haven't always liked all the actors.  This one though?  I don't think that there was a weak link in the bunch.  Everybody did their parts rather well - which is really saying something considering that many of them played multiple roles (and I'm not just talking minor characters here - they'd jump from one major part to the next, and sometimes they'd do their costume changes right there on the stage, but the director did a good job of keeping the audience focused on something else as that would happen, then BOOM, the actor would be a different character!)

As is usual, a lot was cut out of the text.  I usually don't mind that, but I was looking forward to seeing the part of Gonzalo, as he was rather amusing; however, his part was completely cut.  Also, they tossed in a few lines and modern references.  That sort of a thing can get tedious, but the director reigned it in and saved it for the comedic bits, which is where it works best.  (I suppose I could check the text, but I have a feeling that Shakespeare didn't make a reference to tilapia in the original.)

For those who don't know the play, I'm not going to get into a plot summary, but let's just say that the play is neither a comedy nor is it a tragedy.  It's considered to be one of Shakespeare's romance plays.  If you're only familiar with the first two though, then it definitely leans heavier toward what you find in the comedies.  There are a lot of laughs and everything gets wrapped up rather nicely instead of a bloodbath.  The main theme that I picked up on dealt with forgiveness being preferable to revenge, as Prospero starts off rather bitter and angry at the beginning, but witnessing his daughter fall in love tends to soften his heart a bit.

There's also a nice bit where Prospero addresses the audience directly, and from the reading I've done, this has been taken as Shakespeare's way of inserting his own thoughts rather directly into it.  The director added a nice bit to all that as Prospero tries to turn on a light bulb using magic.  However, since he has given up his magical powers, it obviously doesn't work for him.  So, what does he do?  He walks up to it and flips the switch.  It was a pretty powerful statement on how theater is like magic in a sense, and when it's all over, we have to go back to playing by the rules of the real world.

We are such stuffAs dreams are made on; and our little lifeIs rounded with a sleep.

Antitheism?

I wrote a post about being an atheist as a result of my skepticism a few days ago.  In that post, I also identified myself as an antitheist.  What is an antitheist?  According to Wikipedia, antitheism is "active opposition to theism. The term has had a range of applications; in secular contexts, it typically refers to direct opposition to organized religion or to the belief in any deity, while in a theistic context, it sometimes refers to opposition to a specific god or gods."  Upon further reflection, I've decided that antitheism is too broad of a term for me to find it a comfortable fit.  Let's break it down a bit at a time to look at why I don't quite like it.


First of all "direct opposition to organized religion".  Well, I do kinda resemble that remark.  I don't have a lot of good things to say about it.  I've written several blog posts about it.  However, do I go around picketing my local churches and other houses of worship?  No.  When somebody tells me that they're going to church, do I make it a point to say, "Why are you doing that?  That's hella STOOPID!"  Not really.  Also, this is just too broad of a term.  It makes it sound like I oppose everything that every organized religion does.    Back when I visited a church a few years ago, one of the things that I thought was good was the sense of community that was there, and it was cool how the people knew that their fellow church-goers would be there to help them out in times of need.


Next up is the bit about opposition to the belief in any deity.  If everybody was taking my opinion as to whether they should believe in a god or not, I'd say:  "Umm...no."  However, do I oppose it?  That's too strong a word.  I realize some people probably think that I go up and confront every theist I see, but I really don't do that.  My in-laws believe in a god, but they don't really talk about it that much, and I've never tried to convince them otherwise.  Plus, I have maintained some pretty good relationships with former students who are believers over the years, and somehow I doubt if I was like that in person that they'd want much to do with me.  Again, yes, I write about this stuff, and I even post my blogs to Facebook.  But the way I figure it, I'm not forcing anybody to read it.  Folks know where I stand, and they can skip it or check it out.


But honestly I don't care if a person believes in a god or not.  I used to believe, and I don't think that I was a danger to myself or anybody else as a result of it.  Now, if they want to tell me about decisions that I need to make based on what this god wants, that's a different story.  However, I don't find this happening all that much with the theists I know.


Lastly is the part stating that antitheism "sometimes refers to opposition to a specific god or gods".  Of course, this is a weird idea if you don't believe in something, how can you be opposed to it?  I mean, I guess I'm opposed to Voldemort.  Does that mean I'm an anti-Voldemort?  (Damn right I am!  I don't care if he is the heir of Slytherin!  He's a lousy mudblood!  Tom Riddle, indeed!)  In all fairness though, I think that this is basically saying that IF certain gods were to exist, you'd be opposed to them.  Does that fit me?


Well, I guess it all depends on which god we're talking about, doesn't it?  Now, I also don't want to make a blanket statement and say that I would oppose the Christian God if He were real, mainly because there are so many different ideas as to exactly what that means.  So, let me just go with the predominant notion that Jesus is God, died for our sins, and anybody who believes in him will have eternal life; whereas those who do not will be condemned to eternal hellfire.  That version?  Yeah.  That sucks.  I couldn't even begin to pretend to love such a being.  I could go into reasons, but that would probably be another post all together, and haven't all the "New Atheists" covered why this is screwed up enough for anybody who cares to know?


Other versions of Jesus?  Well, tell me what you got, and I'll take it as a case-by-case basis.  Beyond the Christian God, I don't care for the other versions of him that are described in the other Abrahmic faiths either.  I also think that Zeus seems like kind of a tool, and his dad Cronus had some issues.  Odin is ridiculously capricious, and I'd hate to think that he's up there calling the shots.


However, there are some gods that, if they were real, I'd dig them and probably find it worth my time to offer praise and/or prayer.  Who are the gods I like?


Prometheus - Here's a guy who not only gave us fire but taught us how to get one over on all those nasty, mean-spirited gods of Olympus.  Plus, he was willing to be tortured FOREVER (take that, Jesus!) as a result.  Not only that, but when Zeus wanted to completely wipe out humanity in a flood (not even being as magnanimous as Yahweh and spare a few folks) Prometheus was there to make sure that humanity endured. Basically, Prometheus has our backs, and he's getting his liver pecked out so you can enjoy barbecue.


Thor - He kills Frost Giants and all kinds of awful creatures.  I've never met a Frost Giant, but they seem pretty nasty.  I'd be willing to wear a Mjolnir amulet around my neck to thank the big guy for doing us a solid like that.


Ninkasi - She gave us beer.  'Nuff said.


So, am I an antitheist?  Kinda, but not really.

Rest in peace, Oliver

This morning I had to say my final goodbye to my cat, Oliver.  We had the mobile vet come over to put him down, as we wanted his last day to be as stress-free as possible.  And as most people who own cats know, a car ride can be pretty stressful.  Our vet is a half hour away now that we've moved, so it was good to avoid that.

Unfortunately, he really hated getting the shot that gave him the sedative.  He growled and struggled with it, but after that you could see that he was getting groggy, and then laid down to relax.  When the final shot was put in, he didn't put up a fight at all, and the last thing he knew was me scratching him behind the ears.

The reason my wife and I decided to put him down was that he had what looked like a tumor in his eye.  Last week, Kirsti noticed that his eye was all cloudy.  We figured that maybe he had cataracts or had injured it while playing with the dog or our son.  Since it didn't clear up in a few days, we took him to the vet.  Our vet recommended that we take him to the eye doctor, but he feared that it was a tumor.  Like any good doctor, he didn't want to make any wild speculations, but I got a sense for his attitude about the situation when I mentioned at the end of the appointment that Oliver was behind on his shots.  The doctor replied, "Let's wait and see what's going on with this."  Oddly enough, that reply makes me more likely to trust him, as he could have made a little bit of money off of me right there, but he had a suspicion that it probably would have just been a waste.

Sure enough, the eye doctor concluded that it was most likely a tumor, and it also looked like it was spreading into his other eye.  Of course, she went over all of our options - which included everything from putting him on medication to removing his eye - neither of which really had a guarantee or high likelihood of adding a significant amount to his life and well-being.

I didn't want to go through all that.  The thing is, he was still his old self, and it didn't seem to be bothering him.  However, chances were high that it would start to get painful for him. I figured that I'd keep him for a few more days, spoil him, and then put him down on a good day. Is it possible that he might have had a lot of good days left in him?  I suppose.  But I'd rather make the mistake of putting him down while he's happy than waiting for him to start suffering.

Ollie was a great cat.  My wife and I got him from animal control shortly after my cat, Tyson, had to be put down.  They said that he was five years old; the vet said more likely around three.  Either way, this guy was likely a scrapper and a scavenger for almost half his life.  I could make out little scars on his nose, and there was a tiny chunk of his ear missing if you got a real close look at it.  He also hadn't been fixed, so he was probably the father of many of the cats that were there.

Basically, we gave him five years of restful retirement.  He was a good house cat, and while he could sometimes be annoying in the mornings, as cats can often be, he was a good-natured guy.  He would almost always greet me at the front door when I got home, and he was the type who preferred to sit next to me rather than on top of me, which was good considering that he was 19 pounds of puddy-tat.

I used to feel bad that we let him get that fat.  He was already pretty husky when we adopted him, but he definitely put on a few pounds after that.  The thing is, it's not like when you have a dog where you can take the guy out for a walk to get some exercise.  Also, I tried cutting back on his food, but that resulted in a less-than easygoing cat who would randomly attack the dog and follow me everywhere cursing at me in cat-ese.  I basically figured I could have a fat and happy cat who died early or a thin and nasty cat that I wished was dead.  I went for the former.  However, I felt less bad about it when three different vets told me similar stories about either their cats or cats they knew.

The best thing about Oliver, and the one thing that I will never forget, is how good he was with Logan.  (Feels weird referring to him in the past tense when I was petting him earlier this morning.)  My son would climb all over him and use him as a pillow, and the most extreme reaction was that Ollie would give him a quick nip on the arm - not even enough for Logan to register any pain.  I can tell you that if I, or anybody else, tried to manhandle that cat the way my son did, we'd get a claw-full of pain, but for some reason, Ollie had the patience of Job when it came to my son.  He was also incredibly patient with my dog, Freyja.  When Freyja was just a little puppy, Ollie would roll over for her and play with her - again putting up with stuff that he'd never tolerate from any adult.

And while I realize that I said the same thing after Tyson died, I have no plans to get another cat for the time being.  Perhaps when Logan is older, we'll consider it, but right now there's just no guarantee that we'll get one who's willing to be that patient with a toddler.  Lucky for us, Logan is too young to understand, and will likely not remember Oliver.  Too bad.  They were pals.

When the aliens come after the apocalypse...

If there's one thing that everybody knows me for, it's that I'm hip.  Now, now, you old fogies out there.  By "hip" I'm not referring to "A projection of the pelvis and upper thighbone on each side of the body in human beings and quadrupeds".  What I mean is that when it comes to kids and what's going on in their lives, I'm what you'd call "with it".  The kids know that I can "dig it" and that I'm a "cool dude".  And no, I'm not talking temperature.  The youngsters today, Fonzie, and myself all know that means what you geriatric types would call a "wingding".  In other words, I can name all four Beatles:  Ringo, Justin Bieber, Fabio, and Coolio.

Still, with all of that, I'm probably going to shock you with what I am about to reveal.  There is one thing that seems to remain rather popular these days, especially among young people, that I just don't get, and I'm going to sound like one of you old fellas.  Why on Earth would anybody ever want to spend more time at the mall than is absolutely necessary?

I really can't complain too much.  My wife isn't that big on shopping, so I can't even say that I rarely get dragged to the mall.  I NEVER get dragged to the mall.  That doesn't mean that I never go, because once in a blue moon (about 1-2 times a year) she'll need to go to a particular store there and will ask me if I want to come.  Since I know that when my wife says that she'll just be a half hour, that she'll actually be there for a half hour, I have no problem tagging along.

The last couple of times, I used it as an excuse to walk Logan around in his stroller while Kirsti took care of her shopping.  Once upon a time, there were at least a couple of stores that interested me there.  One was that place that had all the movie memorabilia and DVDs.  When I collected action figures, I also liked the toy stores.  However, even though I wouldn't want to buy anything at either of those stores nowadays (mostly because I can't afford to) I wouldn't mind doing a little browsing if they were still there.  But they're not.

What do they have there now?  Well, there's a shoe store.  There are also some clothing stores where you can go if you want your daughter to just barely cover herself.  There's also a shoe store.  I saw a store or two that sold crap that would entertain you for about fifteen minutes and then become something that took up space in your garage.  Then there's a shoe store and another shoe store.  They have a couple stores that play really annoying music and sell clothes for borderline-anorexic teenage girls.  If I was hungry, I might check out a few of the restaurants in the food court, and if I wanted just a little something sweet to earn back all those calories I burned from walking the mall, there are places that sell pretzels, muffins, and cookies.  Oh yeah, and there are shoe stores, shoe stores, and more goddamned shoe stores.

I guess when you only go there once or twice a year, things that might not seem strange to others stand out a bit more.  I kept wondering what aliens would think if they were watching us and couldn't understand our language.  Would they simply see it as a place where we purchased goods and services?  What would they make of all the unnecessary crap that you can find for sale there?  Would they get that same queasy feeling when they saw the store that sells "Native America" knick knacks and stuff?  (Maybe all the profits go to Native American causes - that would make it forgivable, I think.  But it seemed kinda patronizing to me.  "Oooh, lookee!  I use every part of this paperweight I just bought!")

I also had to wonder what sort of messages my son, and every other little kid, was getting when he was there.  I think if you told the aforementioned aliens that it was the temple to the predominant religion of our culture - Consumerism - they'd easily believe it.  Buy stuff!  Buy stuff!  Buy some more!  And when you can't buy anything, then wander about aimlessly and look at stuff that you want to buy!

I guess that this is nothing new, as George Romero already tackled the idea in the original Dawn of the Dead.  After about a half hour of that place, I'm starting to worry that somebody's going to try and take a chomp out of my arm.

Comics Roundup for 6/20/12

Some good stuff this week, which means that I probably won't have too much to say about them.

Avenging Spider-Man #8 - I was actually thinking of dropping this title.  Not sure why, as it has been consistently entertaining, and this issue is no exception.  Actually, this one is a companion piece to what's been going on over in the main Spidey title, even though it's not required reading to understand this story.  It's a fun, done-in-one, issue involving Doctor Doom, Silver Sable, and Doctor Strange.

Avengers Versus X-Men #6 - While this issue wasn't anything too special, I do like the dilemma that it sets up.  Basically, the X-Men have gotten what they want, and they essentially rule the world.  The Avengers have decided that they need to stop them.  But should they?  The X-Men seem to be making it a better world; however, does anybody have the right to wield that much power?

Wonder Woman #10 - This really doesn't feel much like a superhero book, but at the same time, it rings very true to what I've always understood that Wonder Woman was all about.  It's a bit more Greek epic than anything else, but you've got a strong and compelling female lead instead of the usual male.

The New Avengers #27 - This issue was decent, as it's tying into the main AvX series.  It's nice to see Iron Fist's mythology playing a greater role in the Marvel Universe, and it's good to see that Spider-Man has something significant to do in this whole conflict.  Hopefully it will go beyond telling Hope that "with great power comes great responsibility" though.  That's a good start, but I'm going to want to see more.

Winter Soldier #7 - Nothing too special about this one storywise.  Still, it has one of the best executed action sequences that I've seen in a long time.  I credit Michael Lark's storytelling skills for that one even more than Ed Brubaker's writing.  The cliffhanger ending makes me look forward to the next issue as well.

Daredevil #14 - One thing you can say about Mark Waid's run on this character is that it certainly doesn't feel like I've read this stuff before.  DD in Latveria?  Cool.  Still, the way they're messing with him seems a tad bit arbitrary.  I hope that Doom himself shows up in the next issue.