faulker012

At some point a few years ago I found myself on a blog written by a Christian parent named Bill Belew. His blog seems to be generally about raising children who are ethnically different from their parents. At some point Mr. Belew had come across an OLD blog that I created for atheist parenting carnivals. I called that blog Carnival of Atheist Parenting . Because of the links involved in blogging, I found myself on his blog reading his post entitled Atheist Parenting | Who do you say thank you to for your children?   In this blog post  Mr. Belew's eight year old daughter Mia asked her father what an atheist was, presumably because of the blog carnival site. He and I had followed links back and forth a couple of times. Allow me to copy/paste his blog post here: I had to ask my daddy, “ What’s an atheist? ” before I could understand anything about atheist parenting. . “Atheists are people who think they are God.” . Wow, how can they think that? . “Well, atheists want to say ther...

Some years ago I read an article on AlterNet ( * ) called Is Atheism an Intellectual Luxury for the Wealthy?   The article explores the idea that being wealthy makes a person less likely be feel the need to carry an expectation that religion brings comfort and hope. When I read the article three or four years ago I thought that there might be something to the idea, though the article didn't really make the idea clear, nor was it a terribly provocative article. But it made me think. Remembering the article, tonight I spent some time on a humanist website based in the UK where I found a study by Dr. Tom Rees , published in the Journal of Religion and Society, suggesting that in places without strong social safety nets (serious poverty, an absence of social support, an absence of solid family support) people are more likely to rely on religion for comfort. Also, as fucked up AF as it may seem, when someone is suffering it may console him or her to think that the end of the world ...

2016 - It's a few days past Christmas and I'm sitting here thinking about what we accomplished this past Christmas in our home. Dare I call it Christmas and not the seculars' favored term the holidays .  Sure, was a Christmas Day, because that is what we call it here in our home. Others celebrate other holidays. See, it's simple like that. Anyway, we had so much family and friends for Christmas. It was WONDERFUL. Trees, food, games galore, gifts, laughter, and so much love. I would hate to miss out on the family celebration because I was afraid of the insistence from religion that this holiday belongs to them. It does not. It belongs to us. Our family had the wonder and amazing opportunity to see Christmas through the eyes of children who had never celebrated Christmas before. Ever. Seeing their mother open her mind to the possibility of a positive and secular holiday was such a gift and seeing the kids learn the true value of giving. These kids had never h...

This afternoon as I was driving around running some errands I was listening to a story on NPR about a Muslim women living here in the United States wondering if she should put up a Christmas tree. It was a very interesting perspective piece that really got me thinking about the ideas of right and wrong. You see, so many of the comments of the woman who was trying to figure out if she should put up a tree ended with her wanting to do no wrong . She wanted the tree for the cultural fun of it all as she has been living in the States for over a decade now but she didn't want to offend anyone who might misconstrue her efforts. Was it wrong to put up a tree if the tree is a religious symbol?  I sincerely appreciate the effort this woman was putting in to her decision. What kept me upset, though, was the fear that she kept expressing. The fear of being wrong. Look, the holidays can be an extremely emotional time for so many people, and for so many reasons. I can appreciate the sincere s...

Each year on Pinterest I post another New Years Resolution type of clip art. It's a thing that lots of people like and it generally gets pinned over a million times. I thought I'd give you all a preview of this year's New Years Resolution clip art. Look for it on Pinterest.  😉  

Last week when I was thinking how difficult it was to choose the perfect place to put my charitable donations lately? There are SO MANY very worthy organizations. Well, some of my friends are these AMAZING grassroots advocates for relief for families living in extreme poverty or in homeless situations. We have all gotten together to make a real dent in the problem here in St. Louis for some families within our ability to help. Believe me, these people are the real deal, the people with amazing hearts. I'm delighted to be a minor partner with them. If you are interested in donating dollars to a 100% SURE THING that your dollars are going to be used completely for the good of others, please send a few dollars to this paypal address: tbushy@gmail.com Use "friends and family" so PayPal doesn't take out a fee. Make your donations before December 15th so that these wonderful people can make essential purchases. PLEASE JOIN ME in this effort to meet the needs of mothers wi...

Last night as I was laying in bed I wrote this excellent blog post in my head. It was hilarious and poignant at the same time. You know, a really fascinating post . I was lying there, writing it in my head, and chuckling at the humor of it all. There was even a subplot to the post idea.  I was excited about the blog post idea because I thought that, surely my readers would be entertained by it, maybe some people would even leave a comment or two. I had been super busy yesterday so I then fell into a deep sleep. I remember dreaming about th e Serengeti Plain. Lots of large animals wandering about on this beautiful golden plain. A few spots of jungle foliage in the plain there for some reason... I couldn't seem to catch up with the large animals. No matter hard I looked, the behemoths were always out of range. But I was okay with this.  It seemed to be mostly rhinoceroses. I've been kind of enamored with rhinos lately. I woke up one time during the night to go to the bathroom a...

Everybody's got goals. One of mine is to be Bad Ass. I spent dang near fifty years wanting to be a Good Girl and I've found that pursuit to be completely disappointing and dull and not the slightest bit rewarding. I've decided to change my entire approach to life and to become Bad Ass. It's going to be a journey because I still have Good Girl baggage to shed. For example,  I still want people to like me. I still want to be considered Nice . I'm not good at voicing dissenting opinions. I can't post things on Facebook that are unpopular or that some might consider bitchy . I definitely can't spout uninformed opinions without doing the research. And I know some people who have very very inaccurate images of me because they have gotten their information from other people and I can not and and will never address their misconceptions. I'm 54 Years Old!!!!!!! I can do this. I can break these milquetoast habits , erm, personality traits and I can tak...