Help me find the right word
The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter–it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.
MARK TWAIN, Letter to George Bainton, 15 October 1888
Well into the writing and research for my book on religious/nonreligious marriages and ready to start blogging it a bit. As I did with Atheism For Dummies, I’ll be looking for your help to chew on some ideas. If you give me even half of the terrific input you gave last time, I’ll be grateful. It really helps.
Right now I’m looking for the perfect, concise term to denote the marriage of religious and nonreligious partners.
I can pretty much guarantee we’re not looking for an existing word, at least not one used in this context. We’re going to need a new coinage here, or at least a repurposing. The term should denote this kind of marriage without including other mixes, such as marriages between adherents of two different religions. For that reason, “mixed marriage” and “interfaith marriage” don’t do the trick, though they are useful for the larger categories.
The ideal word would be concise — four syllables is an absolute max for a single word, maybe five for a two-word term. And even though its meaning doesn’t have to be obvious at first glance, it would be nice if it didn’t rely too much on knowledge of ancient Mediterranean languages to make sense.
If I introduce the term up front in the book, I can then use it in place of long, tedious phrases (“When couples in which one partner is religious and the other is nonreligious…”). The new term might even make it into the title, who knows. In any case, if you coined it, you’d certainly get a loud shout in the Acknowledgements.
So help me find le mot juste here. Help me find the lightning.
How you can help after the Boston bombing
The humanist members and staff of Foundation Beyond Belief extend our hearts to everyone affected by the tragic bombing in Boston on April 15.
FBB has become a touchpoint for compassionate humanist action in the freethought community. That’s a responsibility we take very seriously. When a tragic event like this one happens, many atheists and humanists contact us to see if FBB will mount a crisis response drive. We examined the Boston situation carefully and decided we could be most helpful by pointing toward existing efforts.
If you would like to assist the victims of the bombing and their families, here are a few ways to help:
The Harvard Humanists shared the news that one of their volunteers and her daughter were badly injured in the bombing. Celeste and Sydney Corcoran are both enduring extensive surgeries, and Celeste lost both legs below the knee. Consider making a donation to help the family cope with the financial burden. You can learn more about Celeste and Sydney here.
The One Fund Boston is a fund started by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino to assist the families most affected by the bombing. Individuals and businesses are contributing to this fund, including a $1 million commitment from John Hancock and donations from many other corporations. “The One Fund Boston will act as a central fund to receive much needed financial support,” according to Governor Patrick.
Those looking for a specifically nontheistic response might consider the drive currently underway through We Are Atheism, Atheists Giving Aid. We Are Atheism intends to distribute the funds to local Boston agencies and/or directly to the families affected.
The Red Cross reported that, thanks to generous donors, the blood supply was adequate to meet demand after the bombing, but people across the country can always schedule an appointment to donate blood.
Feeling the planet
- April 12, 2013
- By Dale McGowan
- In Science, wonder
- 4
The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas-covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.
DOUGLAS ADAMS
You’ve probably seen the petitions going around to end the Daylight Savings Time Hokey Pokey we do every year. I’ve always liked it myself. It shakes me up twice a year, makes me say things to the kids like, “Ooh, remember how dark it was at this time yesterday?” It’s nicely weird.
But it hit me this morning that I’ve got it all wrong. I really ought to hate it.
So now I do.
I’ve always loved things that make me feel like I’m on a planet and hated things that paper over that astonishing fact. Most of the time it’s easy to forget our actual situation, to lapse into the illusion of normalcy Douglas Adams talked about. But sometimes I manage to feel the real deal for a minute.
Years ago, in our house in Minnesota, I could lie in bed at a particular time of night, look out the window at a gable that jutted into the night sky, hold very still, and watch the moon ever so slowly break into view from behind it. I could see the Earth turn.
Thierry Cohen’s spectacular photographic series “Darkened Cities” is a sad reminder of the planetary perspective we’ve lost because of city lights.
(I won’t copy the copyrighted images, but if you haven’t seen them, oh my gourd, GO.)
When I lived in LA, I was properly terrified of earthquakes. But after each decently big one, I always got a little twinge of schadenfreude watching that cocky city grind to a halt for a few hours: Oh riiight, we live in smooshable bodies in breakable buildings built on a jittery crack in the surface of a whirling ball! Scary, but nice in its way.
So here’s the deal with the time change. If we left the clocks alone, we’d feel the shrinking of the day in the fall and the expanding in the spring more than we do. Without those two artificial twitches interrupting the big planetary respiration — without the Wait, wut? of the downshift and upshift — we’d feel the annual breathing of night and day gradually, naturally. Mornings would be too dark for too long in winter, and too light too early in summer, and we’d have to deal with it. In the process, we’d get a better feeling for the shape of the year, and we’d be in a little bit less denial about what we’re sitting on. Maybe.
Anyway, I’m for it.
Amazon.com(ments) — Part 2
Two years ago, after Raising Freethinkers had been out for a while, I posted about emails I’d been getting:
One of the funniest recurring topics in my inbox concerns the reader reviews for Parenting Beyond Belief and Raising Freethinkers. The reviews are 95 percent good, a gratifying thing. Surprising, too — given the sensitive topic, I was ready for a barrage of negatives from certain quarters when each book came out. It just hasn’t happened, which is awfully nice. Who needs the distraction?
But negative reviews do appear, including some I think are entirely fair. And when they do appear, fair or not, somebody somewhere ALWAYS drops me an outraged note. Some even suggest that I ought to (somehow) get the offending thought deleted. Really.
Now I’m getting a steady flow of the same thing regarding Voices of Unbelief and Atheism For Dummies. It really is sweet of y’all, but (a) I have no special powers, and (b) I wouldn’t use them if I did. I’m a free expression fundie.
Once again, most of the reviews are gratifyingly good, and readers can generally figure out whether the negatives are worth taking into consideration. (My current favorite starts by saying “I have to admit that I haven’t read this book.”)
As I said before, I really do appreciate it when people take the time to review my books, no matter what they think. If there’s an existing review you want to vote up or down or comment on, or if you want to write your own review, Amazon makes it easy. Go on, have fun, and thanks:
Write a review for Voices of Unbelief: Documents from Atheists and Agnostics
Write a review for Atheism For Dummies
Double the members. Double the donations. Double the good works.
Foundation Beyond Belief, one of the loves of my life, is going through a pretty profound transformation this year. Thanks to the generosity of a few extraordinary donors this year, our programs are expanding rapidly, including a pilot for an international humanist service corps that launches this summer. (Much more on that soon.)
But the humanist giving program remains at the heart of what we do — over 1,350 individual humanists contributing what they can on a monthly basis to make the world a better place. We’ve supported over 100 outstanding charities since our 2010 launch and expect to clear $1 million in total donations by year’s end. And every dollar designated for our featured charities goes to those charities.
I know a lot of Meming of Life readers are also Foundation members, and that seriously warms my cockles. If you invite a friend to join and they tell us you referred them, you’ll be entered in a drawing for some cool thank-you prizes, and so will they! (Deets here.)
If you’re not a member yet, now is a GREAT time to join. For one thing, you’ll help us reach our goal of doubling our giving membership by the end of 2013. The giving is simple and fully in your control. You choose your own giving level, starting as low as $5 a month, then distribute your donations among our five cause areas based on your own vision of humanism.
So why not join us now, or watch this video, THEN join, or learn more here, THEN join. Thanks!
Win a free signed copy of Atheism For Dummies!
There’s a new Facebook page for Atheism For Dummies, and for the next four weeks I’ll be posting a quote a day from the book, including some in the form of shareable memes.
Share any quote or meme from that page between March 16 and April 13 and you’ll be entered in a drawing for a free signed copy of the book! Talk about easy. Four winners in all, one per week.
Drop on by and Like the page, then start sharing that sweeeet dummy love.
Endings
- March 09, 2013
- By Dale McGowan
- In death, My kids
- 0
[Reposted from January 2008.]
An animated video of a kiwi with a dream nabbed “Most Adorable” in the 2007 YouTube Awards, along with 14 33 million views to date. As you’ll see, there’s something more profound going on here than mere adorability:
My kids all loved it. Connor watched it again and again, sorting out the implications of and emotions around the kiwi’s decision.
This morning Erin asked to see it again, and I got her on the YouTube page. She watched it once, then clicked on one of the video responses that popped up. Suddenly she was clapping and woohooing.
“What happened?” I asked.
“THE KIWI LIVES!” she crowed. “He doesn’t die at the end! He LIVES!!”
I walked to the computer, puzzled. She replayed what she had just watched. Somebody had done a 15-second remake of the ending:
Most interesting of all are the comments on that one — mostly irate, convinced (as I am) that this revised ending robs the original of its poignancy and power. I agree, but I LOVE what it reveals about the human inability to accept, or even think about, death.
In addition to death itself, the original raises issues about the right to die, the consequences of free will, the power of the creative spirit, and the dangerous beauty of singleminded dreams. It’s incredibly rich and provocative. If instead you prefer a dose of denial with your entertainments, the revision’s for you.
Or, if you prefer no remnant of redeeming features, there’s this:
Checking in on FBB
Foundation Beyond Belief, the humanist giving community I first announced on this blog, is continuing to grow, and I realized recently I haven’t been keeping Meming of Life readers in the loop very well. Bad Dad.
We now have over 1,300 contributing members and have raised over three-quarters of a million dollars for more than 100 charities since our 2010 launch. Volunteers Beyond Belief now includes teams of humanist volunteers in 23 cities across the U.S., and we’re launching our first international affiliates in Canada and Australia later this year.
Here’s a peek at our current slate of beneficiaries:
Now why not join up?
Come and giddit!
I’m pleased to announce that Atheism for Dummies is now available! Amazon has both the paperback and Kindle editions.
It’s especially fun to share this with those of you who followed the process from the first announcement nine months ago (isn’t THAT adorable) through the short daily posts of the Dummies Diary, during which you all helped tremendously with some knotty questions.
I’m deeply grateful to a lot of good people for help with this complex project. I’ll post my Acknowledgments page below, and those of you with an eye for bold font may catch a hat tip in your direction:
AUTHOR’S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks first of all to the great and friendly atheist Hemant Mehta, the first person to think I’d be a good person to write this book. I’m deeply indebted to Ed Buckner and Amanda Metskas, two giants of the freethought world who took the time to read this book while it was in progress and whose rod and staff guided me when I went astray.
Greta Christina and Jennifer Michael Hecht are the two great writers and thinkers on whose work I’ve drawn more than any others for this project.
Immense thanks to the staff and interns at Foundation Beyond Belief who kept things humming while I wrote: Airan Wright, Brittany Shoots-Reinhard, Claire Vinyard, Kelly Wright, Walker Bristol, Cathleen O’Grady, Andrew Geary, Sam Shore, Sarah Hamilton, Kate Donovan, Chana Messinger, Corey Glasscock, Lauren Lane…and special praise for the dynamic duo of Noelle George and AJ Chalom.
A hat tip to my blog readers at The Meming of Life who helped plumb the depths of several big questions.
Many thanks to the professional and supportive team at Wiley, especially Anam Ahmed and Chad Sievers, and my splendid agent Dr. Uwe Stender.
Finally, all thanks and love to my wife Becca, who also read and improved every page, and our three spectacular kids, Connor, Erin, and Delaney. You make it all worthwhile.
If you feel moved after reading the book to leave a review at Amazon, that would be swell. Reviews are especially important in the early going. And if you have questions about the book once you see it, click the Ask a Question button. I’ll get to as many as I can.
Now shoo!
Q&A: Black youth in secular families and the black church experience
Q: I am a white mother with two fantastic African American sons who were adopted from the foster care system. I have some guilt assocated with being a nonbeliever and not exposing my sons to the culture of the traditional Black church. On the other hand, I worry that if I take our sons to a church of that nature, that they will fall prey to fear-based beliefs that could hold them back in life. I suppose I am just not 100% sure that I am doing the right thing by them. What do you think you would do in my situation?
A: This excellent question is outside of my own knowledge or experience, which is my cue to defer to those better grounded in the topic.
Nonbelieving black parents confront the same question you’ve raised, of course, so I spoke to Mandisa Thomas, founder and president of Black Nonbelievers, board member of Foundation Beyond Belief, and a mother of three.
“There is often a misconception that [the Black church experience] is something that all Blacks must embrace, which is simply not true,” Thomas said. “My suggestion is if the boys do not express an interest in attending a Black church, then don’t make them go. So it isn’t something that she HAS to expose to her sons, unless they ask her. Then it would be fair to take them to a service for the experience.”
Author and activist Dr. Sikivu Hutchinson notes that the black church is not a necessary element of the black experience for all African Americans, though there is a common misconception that it is. “Despite high-profile sex abuse and financial scandals, the Church is still perceived as the ‘backbone’ of the black community,” she writes in Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars (2011). “[But] the notion that there is a ‘marching in lockstep’ black religious community is outdated,” she adds. And for all the community and identity benefits found in black church communities, there are also troubling downsides of involvement, especially for kids. Hutchinson cites the overwhelming opposition among many prominent black churches to marriage rights for gays and lesbians as a “morally indefensible” position with which many others in the African American community, including black atheists, strongly disagree. She goes on to cite regressive gender attitudes and other undesirable messages frequently woven into the black church.
So it seems that there are at least as many pitfalls as advantages in connecting them with the black church, and that most of the advantages of cultural connection can be had by other means. I strongly recommend you pick up Sikivu’s book, which addresses many of these issues brilliantly. But as Mandisa Thomas suggests, going with them to an AME or other traditionally black church — not as regular members, but on occasion, as part of their religious and cultural literacy — and talking about it afterward, can be a valuable experience.
Finally I spoke to Ayanna Watson, an attorney in New York and founder of Black Atheists of America, who offered alternative ways to expose young African Americans to their cultural heritage.
“While the church is extremely influential, there are ways to get around it,” she said. “She can most certainly take her children to events that are outside the church. While the influence of religion will still be there, it will likely not be as much. Some examples include museums, art exhibits, performances, and plays. If she has not already, she should make sure she has plenty of books/online articles that she can proffer to her children discussing prominent members of the black community. Black nonbelief is nothing new, it’s simply a topic that is often avoided by the masses. By exposing her children to these individuals and instilling (and reinforcing) critical thinking skills, I would think she would be fine.”