faulker012

A few weeks ago, Karen Garst of Faithless Feminist blog included some of my writing as a guest on her blog. I've been noticing a great deal of sharing of my writing from her blog; it feels quite wonderful knowing it is being read. Karen asked me to write for her regularly, maybe weekly. I hope you consider keeping an eye open for more of my writing there.  *smile* I've been reading some of the other writings on her blog. Wow, she has found and shared many good pieces of writing. I highly recommend checking it out of you have some lovely time to sit back and read, specifically if you have a nice cup of tea, as I do.    ☕ I, especially wanted to share a piece from Faithless Feminist that I read today called The Problem with Faith: 11 Ways Religion is Destroying Humanity written by Shanna Babilonia. I just thought most of you would enjoy the piece! I looked for more writing by Shanna and found this excellent piece called Why Organized Religion Fears Educated Women ......

I don’t care what others think of me, which is pretty damn liberating. How many people worry that they’ll say or do the wrong thing and someone—god or a friend-- will judge or dislike them? Those are shackles we put on ourselves. If there’s one thing I learned from being atheist, it’s that it just doesn’t matter what others think. I don’t need approval – from anyone. And when I screw up, I can forgive myself.    Kids Without Religion I have spent decades Dec!!! Ades!!!! of my life worrying. I used to worry a great deal about what others thought, kept myself buttoned up and tamped down, kept close tabs on my emotion. I used to almost never deliver opinion publicly. Hard to believe, I know. Some of this tremulousness came from my slightly-anxious personality; some of it likely came from family-of-origin dynamics. But those days are OVER .  Never again will I tiptoe around those who bugle their voice all over the place. Never again will I tuck my chin down, lower my ...

The beginning of wisdom  is found in doubting;  by doubting we come to the question,  and by seeking  we may come upon the truth . Pierre Abelard (1079-1142) I want to give this idea some thought, the idea that doubt is a virtue. Let's unpack it a little. I would venture to say that every single person who ever claimed to have or claims to have a religious outlook on life has had periods of doubt in their life. It is a very human thing. In fact, the church holds faith, over doubt, as one of the highest virtues one can hold. Much of the church's teaching, in fact, tells that having faith even when doubt is sucking one's mind into the unending fire is the highest virtue and is, therefore, essential to being in good graces with the Christian god. Furthermore, doubt is considered a form of pride in the church. Another sinful thing, pride. It seems that the church wants nothing more than to save all believers from the sin of pride, the sin of doubt, by encouraging them to...

A bunch of years ago my friend Judi sent her saliva to get the genetic testing thing done and she kept urging me to get my testing done.  At the time I wasn't very interested, though  I understood her excitement about the ability to gain knowledge of ourselves. Recently I decided that the time was right. I sent my saliva sample to 23andme about six weeks ago. I was surprisingly excited to get my results, after all of these years. Well, they finally arrived. Today. YAY.  😀 In my family, a little on both sides, there is some belief in an Italian background. And Swiss, tons of Swiss. But generally we expected German. Forever back, German. It turns out that some of that is correct and some of that is incorrect. Here's the breakdown: Not a bit of Italian in the bunch and lots more Irish than I thought, or ever even considered. It's a rather unremarkable ancestry, all things considered. Also, I would venture to say that nearly everyone in my hometown has an ancestry that woul...

They say that the very idiosyncrasies that appeal to us about our partners in the beginning of a relationship are the very things that push couples apart as time goes, the very reason that most couples fall out of love. And this is the exact thing that scared me for years as a single person. I thought the real me would push my eventual husband away. I am kind of annoying. I could list my shortcomings and you won't believe me, but trust me, there are many. As a young woman growing up I would fret about all of this because I was certain that my future amazing husband would eventually leave me for my many irritating parts. And for the snoring.   Lucky for me, I married Jerry. He is STILL, inexplicably, in love with me. And I am still in love with him, even with the things that could annoy me about him. We are damn near opposites of each other so we could find about a million things to dislike; but we don't. His sense of humor still cracks me up. It's silly AF, pe...

SUPERSTITION. It is bloody everywhere in American society. Don't get me wrong, I love my country. But there are churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, and other buildings for worship on every stretch of road. I can hardly drive down the road without reading some ridiculous church sign that mentions the blood of Christ , sacrificial lambs , blessings and curses from deities, requests for special courtesies, begging the deities for favors, praiseprayergracefaithheavensalvation , or the one I saw recently If being hurt by the church causes you to lose faith in God, then your faith was in people, not God . Obviously I'm mostly surrounded by Christians with just a tad bit of Muslim thrown in there, as the signs suggest. I mean, how RUDE to admit to being hurt by the church...  😠 This week John and I were passing a church sign that mentioned sacrificial lambs and atoning for sins and I honestly thought OH YEAH, People believe in stuff like that, I forgot!   People actually be...