Happy Mom’s Day

My kids always ask me what I want for ______ (fill in the blank with Mother’s Day, birthday, Christmas), and every time I tell them the same thing. Don’t get me anything. I don’t want stuff. Write me a letter and tell me what I’m doing right. Yet every time, I get a store-bought card with someone else’s words (and being boys, they are not so much into words as into the funny noises the body can make). So, either I’m not doing anything right or my kids are trying to tell me that they don’t like to write. Seeing that I used to make them write book reports over the summer and critiques of commercials they watched on public TV, I get that. When you’re a mom, you just never know if what you’re doing is right. Sometimes great ideas turn out to be mistakes. Sometimes mistakes turn out to be great ideas. I now know that forcing my kids to write did not foster a fondness of it.

A good friend of mine once said, it doesn’t matter how many mistakes you make with your kids, as long as there is love in the home and your kids feel it, that makes up for everything. That’s what I’m counting on to cancel out all the times I lost my temper or dropped the ball. That’s what I hope is true for all of us, stumbling through life, just trying to be the best mothers, daughters, wives, sisters and friends we can.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the great moms out there who are working hard to develop a product (kids) that will make a better future for everyone. And thanks to all the men who encourage us.

Peace, love, hope and hugs.

Holy Communion!

One more thing today….It’s a little strange that some Catholics believe that, “Catholics who promote gay marriage should not try to receive holy Communion.”

…the archbishop of Detroit, Allen Vigneron, said Sunday that Catholics who receive Communion while advocating gay marriage would “logically bring shame for a double-dealing that is not unlike perjury.

Let’s get this straight. The church is riddled with priests who either participated or covered up pedophilia, and they can take communion and give it, too? Then there are the annulments granted (for a price, of course), birth control, and the usual sins (some of them deadly) pardoned over and over and over again. Whether you’re a priest leading mass or you’re a parishioner sitting in the pews, isn’t everyone rejecting what the church teaches on a daily basis? I mean, Jeez. They’re making my head spin with the hypocrisy here.

It seems to me embracing two people who love each other–and who are harming no one with their love–should not be considered sinful. But who am I to say? I’m just a lowly woman who wouldn’t be allowed to offer up my voice even if I did believe.

So, who doesn’t “double-deal”? I just don’t understand. Does accepting gay marriage somehow emasculate the church? Through communion, Catholics believe they are actually eating another man’s body. How gay is that?

Good games

Two things I wanted to share…What does it mean to be a nonbeliever? Not that we go out and try to convert others to think like us; just that we go out and try to be as kind as possible as often as possible. Right? Isn’t that the crux of it? (As saab93f says, we follow the Golden Rule.)

And I thought I’d share this with you if you don’t already know: http://www.kerbalspaceprogram.com. We learned about this program through my older kid’s AP Physics class, and my 14-year-old loves it, too. It’s a great investment, especially at $23. If your kids, no matter the age or gender, love video or computer games, this one is fun, educational and nonviolent. It’s a “physics-based flight simulation” that flies and crashes as it should (as it says on its site). Players can build a rocket and launch it into space. But let me tell you, it’s not easy. You have to build the thing correctly, so it will fly, and there’s always the chance that you might be able to launch it, but it won’t be able to orbit. This is not an advertisement; I know nothing save for what I’ve seen watching my kids use the program and from reading the info on their site. I’m just giving you my humble opinion because I think other parents want to provide as many positive learning opportunities as possible.

I rather teach kids how to think and to create things that help man rather than to destroy…

Good Friday

I’ve told my kids to say no to a lot of things that might hurt them. I never thought about this.

Yesterday, as soon as I saw my 14-year-old, he immediately tells me about a video one of his teammates at school played for him and a friend. Kids see a lot of sh*t on-line and on their smart phones (though mine still does not have a smart phone), so you know they get exposed to a wider range of things at an earlier age than we did.

This video was different. It was a snuff video, and I honestly didn’t know a video of this sort could be accessed on-line. Naive, I guess. I thought they were illegal. I’m writing this now so you can forewarn your children, if you don’t know, and save them the horror of seeing man at his most evil. The kids call it “three men and a hammer,” but the killers are also referred to as the Dnepropetrovsk maniacs. Tell your kids if someone wants them to watch, say no thanks. Or, if your kid is like mine, you ask, “Do you want those images forever stuck in your memory? What do you think you should say?”

My son was disturbed by it. Throughout the rest of the day, he kept returning to the same questions: Why would “those guys” do something like that? Why do people murder? He said he couldn’t get the awful images out of his head. “It’s not like when you watch a movie. This was real. This guy was really being killed.” He told me it was the worst thing he’d ever seen. His friend, who my son had never seen get upset, was troubled by it, too.  This was a good thing: the more kids disturbed by evil, the better.

How do you explain wickedness when you have no devil to pin the blame on? I remember asking a college professor about the problem of evil, and he told me that evil was a necessary contrast to know good. This might be true, but it still is not an answer to the fundamental question of why evil exists. If you’re Christian, how do explain that those three guys, given the chance to repent and accept Jesus as their savior, will be saved by God? Just like that. Or, if man is created in God’s image, what does that say about man’s creator? I know, some will say that’s a simplistic way of looking at God, but it seems to me, if it’s a simple question, there must be a simple answer. (Mine would be, it’s yet another nail in God’s coffin.)

As in an earlier post, when bad things happen, you have to tell kids that bad occurrences are few and far between, that most people do not harm others. It’s important for kids to know that evil is a choice. They can always choose to do the right thing. A campaign at Northern Illinois University showed that college students who thought their peers drank in moderation, drank less, too. Rather than tell kids that binge drinking is the norm and that they should avoid it, researchers presented students with evidence (and made it known on campus through a campaign) that most of the students drank 5 drinks or fewer at parties. (Still seems like a lot of drinks to me—I’d be hugging the porcelain goddess at that point.) This idea has other applications. If we tell our children most people do the right thing, perhaps we can raise the next generation to believe that they live in a world where most people choose good, and maybe the world will become that. Wishful thinking? Perhaps. (I say this as Kim Jong Un is throwing a hissy.) But if you have a better suggestion, I will follow.

And so, on Good Friday, we are reminded that people, for thousands of years, have ganged up on and killed a lone man or woman. Where someone had the power to step in and stay, stop, no one did.

As much as things change, they stay the same.

Parental Rights

It’s kind of ironic that, here in Texas where citizens scream that they want big government out of their lives, that the government is always welcome 1. in the bedroom; 2. in a woman’s uterus; and 3. at the gun range. So it’s not surprising that a 16-year-old girl, who cannot support herself and is remaining unnamed because she’s a minor, is suing her parents for putting pressure on her to abort her fetus. You can read more about it here.

What strikes me about this article and others I’ve read is the very sad fact that these teenagers are being used by this organization, Texas Center for Defense of Life, to promote their cause. The Center, which is affiliated with the Alliance Defending Freedom (the largest Christian legal group) contacted the young woman and offered her free counsel. A quick look at board for this nascent organization shows that its long list of supporters include Texas judges. Last year, it took on the legal battle for a 14 year old girl.

Most likely, the 16-year-old girl and her boyfriend will need support in order to keep and raise their child. A Texas judge ruled that the girl’s parents must pay half the hospital bill if she is not married to the father. (Wait a second….The parents have to pay for someone else’s baby in a state that openly rejects Obamacare?) I know, you’re probably wondering why the Texas Center for Defense of Life doesn’t have to pay since they have pitted the girl against her parents. And who will pay for the child after the understandably resentful parents have done their duty to pay for half of the hospital bill? Certainly not the girl’s parents, who are being sued. The boy’s parents? Perhaps. If they can afford to take on the support of two minors sans high school diplomas and their baby. Most likely, the housing, feeding, clothing, education and health insurance for that child will fall upon taxpayers. And in Texas, we don’t want to support welfare moms. Or, maybe we just don’t want to support welfare moms of color. I’m not sure which. But I do think it’s incredibly hypocritical.

Minors cannot enter into a contract, yet they can sue their own parents? That hardly seems right. This is not a case of abuse. This is a case of parents advising their child what they believe is best for her. Why hasn’t anyone brought in the “statutory rape” bomb which is so often employed by angry parents? Statutory rape laws state that a person under the age of 18 cannot legally consent to intercourse because they are not emotionally, physically and financially ready to make adult decisions, such as having a baby and raising a kid.  It just doesn’t make sense. If she can’t decide for herself to have sex under the age of 18, if she can’t even be responsible for her own medical bills, then should she have the sole right to determine if she can keep her fetus? But wait….it’s really not the girl or the parents who get to decide here. It’s the people with a cause and the judge who agrees with them.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. This is just wrong in so many ways. I’m not taking sides on whether abortion is right or wrong or when a fetus becomes a baby. I’m taking sides with the parents, who have had their rights yanked from them for no other reason than they put pressure on the girl to get an abortion so she can continue on with her adolescence. (Because, you know, the Texas Center for Defense of Life is a 100% unbiased organization.) Now the girl’s mom and dad have a parent/child role with the court as they must bend to the will of the judge. To promote an agenda, and for a few minutes of fame, the Texas Center for Defense of Life has intervened in a (not uncommon) family crisis and caused rifts that will, no doubt, change the dynamics of these families forever. That daughter, those parents–they are not just a few clumps of cells–will they ever heal their relationship?

Why do some believe that their way must be everyone’s way? Can they not see the hyprocrisy of their words and their actions? Why is it that those of us labeled “liberal” are sometimes more conservative than conservatives?

The Pope Divorces

So Pope Benedict has given up on the Catholic church. It’s become too big, too bad and too ornery for one old man to control. He’s has finally been worn down by the unruly priests, butlers and anyone else affiliated with the church and by the constant battle to keep believers in the same conservative, unchanging mindset. It is an indication of the health Catholicism when its CEO says, it’s too much for me. So much corruption; so many troubles.

I used to think that religion was necessary for some people, that some folks need religion and God to live moral lives. Yet just a glance at Catholicism–or any religion–will offer proof that there is no correlation between morality and belief in God, unless your morality is lying, cheating, stealing and abusing. In fact, Catholicism has the opposite effect because, no matter what you’ve done, your ever-loving, omnipotent God the Father (who lets children be sexual fodder for priests) will forgive a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g.

Humans are not so forgiving, and life here on earth, at least in our country, demands that you follow certain rules of humanity. If people were accountable to each other, here and now, perhaps there would be less bad behavior.

As many nonbelievers know, mainstream religions preach that, without God, you and I cannot have morals. It’s frustrating to try to explain to a believer that religion is irrelevant because the idea that religion=morality is so deeply ingrained in some.

A few weeks ago, a commenter on this site mentioned Ted Talks. If you have time, here’s an interesting video about the morality of primates and other animals.  And they have no god.

The Sex Talk

Christians have made a mess of sex, and not in a good way. They’ve created a Schizophrenic attitude toward a completely natural, human desire. They teach abstinence and guilt and unhealthy attitudes. Sure, blame it on the Puritans, but all of America’s big religions are culpable.

If you think about it, the entire Adam and Eve story is crazy. A lonely God created Adam, who was also lonely. So then God decided to make Eve, only to set them up for a fall with a manipulative snake, a phallic creature that outsmarted Eve. OK. So now they know about s-e-x. They had forty-seven children, but only two boys survived. And you know the question that everyone asks next: Well, how did they have children?

Somewhere along the line, man started figuring out how babies were made. And the guys started to realize, hey how do I know this kid is mine? And the gals started to ask, hey how do I know who my baby daddy is? And the Stone Age came along and man knew that he could fashion weapons and tools so that he could 1. Make stuff and 2. Kill people to take their stuff. So they started “stuff accumulation.” But they needed to know who to give their stuff to when they died. (Bear with me.) So that’s when people needed to know exactly whose baby belonged to whom.

Whew. Then church came along: The Roman Catholic Church, which was not, of course, the only church, but it was sure big and powerful. The more kids parishioners had, the more members the church had. And the more money it had. But that worked best in families, where there was income that could be used to support the family as well as tithed to the church. The church became adept at controlling women: no, you cannot participate in the service; you cannot be a priest. You cannot use birth control. You cannot decide to terminate a pregnancy—any pregnancy. You cannot. You cannot. You cannot. You have to model yourself after the Virgin Mary. Pure. Chaste. Not slutty like those prostitutes in the Bible.

So, that is the very, very short version of why we have so many issues with sex in our country, which has since been aggravated, as I mentioned, by our Puritanical roots. So how do we help our kids develop healthy attitudes about their bodies and about sex, especially since we don’t have religion to throw at them?

I agree with Christians on one thing—our bodies are temples. I’ve told my kids this over and over and over again. It’s the same for boys and girls. You have to respect it—not only in the way you treat it, but how you feed yourself and whom you share it with. I started this talk early because I didn’t want my kids to learn about sex from someone else, a kid in class or some stranger in the park. Sex is serious business. It is good business, but something you should not enter into unless you’re an adult. By then, you will have (hopefully) established good relationship skills. By then, you should be able to list out the reasons why you like a girl or a boy. Christians got it right in teaching their kids to save themselves—but not because it will keep them “pure.” Because sex is not bad or dirty. They should save themselves because sex is emotionally costly and physically risky. You do not want a kid you’ll have to live with or a disease you’ll have to live with for the rest of your life. These are the things I tell my children.

I hope they will wait until they find someone really special. Because they want to share this experience with someone they know and really like, not just share an experience with a stranger. Sex is not something given or taken, but shared. For both genders.

Feel free to share how you do it (the sex talk) at your house.

Sunday Mornings

Sunday Mornings are nice. The family and I get out to restaurants before the church folks, so we can get a table without an hour wait. The unchurched have longer weekends, and on Super Bowl Sunday, that’s even better (I was tempted to say “super.”)

It’s one of the few times in the week when the four of us actually get to sit down to a meal together. In the past, I’ve used Sundays as a time to talk about religious topics, though of course, religion and God experiences are woven into our weeks by the people we encounter. The thing I have in mind to discuss today is an article on CNN called, A killing, a life sentence and my change of heart, by Jeanne Bishop. In 1991, the author’s pregnant sister and husband were murdered by a 16-year-old with a “history of violence.” The kid bragged about the killing, even attended the funeral, and the murder victim’s family was glad when the he was put away without parole.

We should be, too. One less violent criminal on the streets and in our neighborhoods.

But then Bishop had a change of heart—and this is not a new story—she repented and recanted her stance on juvenile life sentences. She thinks that her sister’s murderer deserves a second chance, and you have to wonder if juveniles who have been incarcerated, who have lived among our nations most violent criminals for the majority of their lives, even have the ability to be rehabilitated. Ever.

It’s this Christian ideal that “God makes people for a purpose” that is the impetus behind Bishop’s change in ideology. She, and others like her, believe in loving the killer, but not what he did. God wants his followers to forgive everyone, even the most violent, most innately evil people. In theory, it’s a wonderful idea. But I want to know this: if you have ever been in a loving relationship, what does it mean to love? Does it mean treating someone with kindness, speaking gently, taking care of each other? Can you truly love someone you don’t know, or are you just loving an idea, a concept, an image?

Why do I bring this up? Because statistics show that within 3 years of release, 67% of ex-offenders are back in jail. Do we really want kids who kill, who’ve never learned how to be good, who’ve been brought up in the violent prison atmosphere, to be released to live amoung us and our families? What good can come of it?

So Bishop—and others—believe that juvenile life sentences should be abolished because no one “is beyond the forgiveness and redemption and purpose of God.”

And it’s this logic that concerns me, because if a god redeems and forgives and gives man purpose, then why was this young man, as a teenager, forsaken by god to begin with?

It seems to me that this god makes people do stupid things sometimes. The idea that you have to forgive because HE wants you to: that defies common sense. How can you forgive because a stranger you’ve never met “wants” you to? People show who they are through their actions and their words and to assume they can be someone else is naive.

This is what I want to ask my kids: When and why should we forgive? What are the costs and benefits of forgiveness? Are some people irredeemably bad?

God Influences Sporting Events

Thanks to Trishia Jacobs who sent this link from CNN.

27% of Americans believe that God plays a role in who wins sporting events (I suspect that percentage is much higher here in Texas…say around 95%).

One of the contributors to the article said that, “these figures reflect many Americans’ belief in a very active God.” So I guess, if you’re like me, you’re wondering where the heck is God the rest of the time, when he’s really needed to affect things like wars, violent crimes and natural disasters.

The article quotes one of the players, Raven’s linebacker Ray Lewis, as saying,

“God doesn’t make mistakes. He’s never made one mistake. … God is so amazing.”

Not one mistake?

When life is good for you, your god doesn’t make mistakes. When life is not good, well….that’s not for us to understand.

Thanks again, Trishia, for sharing.

Boy Scouts

Word is that the Boy Scouts will discuss removing restrictions on sexual orientation. That is a good thing.

Currently, you also have to believe in God to be a Boy Scout. We know because the younger son tried to join. He went to the meetings, made some friends, earned some badges.

Then he had to earn a religious badge. “But we aren’t religious,” I told the Scout Master, leery to use the “a” word. “It can be any God, any religion” he said as he went through his list of acceptable religions.  I finally told him we don’t worship any god.  To which he replied, “We gave up our tax-exempt status so that we could require that our members worship a god.” Oh. I said. I presented this to my son and asked him if he wanted to earn a badge from any religion of his choice. “They shouldn’t force me,” he said.

So it is OK to be anything but homosexual and agnostic/atheist. According to Chief Justic Ronald M. George in California,  “The Boy Scouts is an expressive social organization whose primary function is the inculcation of values in its young members.”  Ah, that pesky word values. I wonder if their definition of values includes love, tolerance, acceptance and open-mindedness. Or perhaps it includes teaching children how to discriminate, exclude and marginalize people who have the same hopes, dreams and feelings as everyone else.

Hopefully, the Scouts will change their anti-gay policies. Perhaps the next step to a new and improved Boy Scouts will be admitting nonbelievers.  Seeing that the Nones are on the rise, this would not only be a good thing but a necessary thing.