the gookins dot net

We started back to school at the beginning of August, trying to tackle the rest of modern history before we bring on the science, the math, and whatever else it is we’re supposed to be doing. I grossly underestimated the amount of time this is going to take, but that’s okay, we’ve had some really good discussions and learning going on. I’m pleased to see the kids taking more of an interest in history. Finally.

This morning we started off by finishing reading an historical fiction book, “Witness” by Karen Hesse and discussing racism & the KKK in the 1920s, which is the main topic of the book. Our discussion drifted into the Civil Rights movement of the 60s, which brought us to watching Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have A Dream” speech on youtube. Coincidentally, that speech was given August 28, 1963 - 47 years ago tomorrow.

Earlier in the morning Chris O’Donnell had posted a link to this editorial cartoon on his facebook page and I couldn’t help but see the tie-in. I showed the kids and asked them what they thought it meant and what they thought of it, and showed them a Venn diagram I had posted a link to on facebook earlier this week. Both related to the current theme of hatred toward Muslims in America. All three could see the connection of everything we had covered in just a short time, and that prejudice is still alive and well in the United States of America.

We concluded that prejudice and hatred are an all too common theme in our history, which brought us to one of my favorite quotes:

Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. - Winston Churchill.

You’d think that was the end, right? The lesson was hammered home when an old classmate of mine (all through Catholic school, mind you) made a comment on a facebook “discussion” about letting “them” know they’re not welcome here (sorry folks, no link there. avert your eyes from the spectacle).

I couldn’t have written a better lesson plan that rolled all into one connected day if I had tried.

What have you learned today?

This article from NPR chafes my hide a bit. The author is trying to explain why she has remained a Catholic even in light of all the abuse scandals that have surfaced lately.  First, let me say that I don’t begrudge anyone the right to pick which religion they belong to, if any.  However, if you are going to write an article attempting to explain your reasoning, I hope you can come up with something better than this lame-ass piece.

The basic premise of her argument is: there is both good and evil in everything and everyone. Here’s a little sample:

But then, my country is the most generous and compassionate nation on Earth; it is also the only country that has ever deployed nuclear weapons of mass destruction.

My government is founded upon a singular appreciation of personal liberty; some of those founders owned slaves.

My family was known for its neighborliness and its work ethic; its patriarch was a serial child molester.

OK, but your country, your government, and your family never claimed to have a direct line to God and have an infallible leader. The issue with the Catholic Church goes beyond a few rogue priests doing their own evil deeds. It goes all the way up into the hierarchy of the church; to the man who is now supposedly infallible in matters of faith. Apparently though he was pretty fallible when he knowingly covered up for priests who sexually abused children and even allowed the abuse to continue by not removing those priests from their duties.

If you want to be Catholic, fine. But don’t try to justify it by arguing a human standard for morality, when the Church is an institution that puts itself out there as a moral authority, and bases their morality on a divine standard.

Awhile back, I wrote about Nate Phelps, the son of the infamous Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church, and an article on his escape from a life of abuse at the hands of his father.

If you’d like to hear more of his very moving story, in his own words, he has posted the transcript of a talk he gave a couple weeks ago.

I actually came across this story about two months ago, read it, and more or less forgot about it until I came across it again tonight. It’s the story of Nate Phelps, the son of the infamous Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church.

If you don’t recognize the name, Phelps and the WBC are famous for the website GodHatesFags.com (which I won’t link to), and for picketing the funerals of American soldiers killed in Iraq amonst others. They are an extremist bunch to be sure, and not representative of the vast majority of Baptists. They preach a message of hate, and apparantly Pastor Phelps is not above mentally and physically abusing his own children. It’s a disturbing story, but it’s good to know at least a couple of his kids got away from it, although it sounds like the psychological damage will never completely go away.

Oh yeah, and don’t miss the first comment to the story, from Shirley Phelps, Nate’s sister and one of the current ringleaders of the church.

Okay, so it has a slight political angle.

The girls are in homeschool tumbling, and the group contains many conservative evangelical Christian families. (They sent out a letter before it started this year reminding everyone it is a Christian ministry for Christian families.) I tend to keep my mouth shut and my head down, lest I offend anyone and they give me the boot. Not that I am one to talk about religion or politics anyway, as you may have noticed from my lack of blogging on the subject (Don’s the mouth on that one, and just because I don’t blog about it doesn’t necessarily mean I’m in agreement with him). The frustrating thing is that they all assume that you are “one of them”. Yesterday I was told about someone’s “unsaved” granddaughter (her words) and my hands automatically went up and rubbed my face, I couldn’t help it.

Anyway, when we got to tumbling yesterday, there was a little suv with an Obama bumper sticker on the back window. All I could think was “That is one brave mamma.” Then I saw the sticker down lower:

Dog is my co-pilot.

Holy shit! I had the strongest urge to wait by their vehicle so I could shake their hand, to congratulate them on being so gutsy. But then I thought that was weird in a stalker sort of way, so I didn’t.

Am I invoking Godwin’s Law if I start off a discussion with a comparison to the Nazis?

Tom Willis, author of this article, has some ideas that seem to parallel those of…yes…Hitler. He asks “Should Evolutionists Be Allowed to Roam Free in the Land?” It’s really a long, rambling and boring article and I couldn’t stomach the entire hate-filled thing, so I jumped to the punchline where he states that “evolutionists should not be allowed to roam free in the land.” So here are some of his options for what to do with us:

• Labor camps. Their fellow believers were high on these. But, my position would be that most of them have lived their lives at, or near the public trough. So, after their own beliefs, their life should continue only as long as they can support themselves in the camps.
• Require them to wear placards around their neck, or perhaps large medallions which prominently announce “Warning: Evolutionist! Mentally Incompetent - Potentially Dangerous.” I consider this option too dangerous.
• Since evolutionists are liars and most do not really believe evolution we could employ truth serum or water-boarding to obtain confessions of evolution rejection. But, this should, at most, result in parole, because, like Muslims, evolutionist religion permits them to lie if there is any benefit to them.

So we have labor camps, a means of public identification (similar to the Star of David the Jews were required to wear), and torture. The only thing he leaves out is the gas chamber. Although, in the early part of the article he does seem to take to delight in predicting that Muslims will kill all the evolutionists during the “end times”.

It is also interesting that he makes a distinction between Christians and evolutionists, as if it were somehow not possible to both be Christian and accept the overwhelming majority of scientific evidence for evolution. The Catholic Church officially recognizes evolution as being factual. I don’t know about the mainstream Protestant denominations, but since they tend to be more progressive than Catholics, I would assume they do too. Of course, I doubt that Tom Willis would recognize Catholics or mainstream Protestants as being Christians since they’re not his particular brand of Christianity.

Even though I’m no longer a Christian, I still respect Jesus’s message of love and compassion. It truly amazes me how people can read Christ’s words and then turn around and spew lies and hatred in his name.

The Thinking Homeschoolers assignment for June 30 was:

Losing My Religion - If you had to pick a new religion, which one would it be, and why? You can not pick any religion that you have been part of in your past, and you can not pick none of the above.

At the time, I had no idea what to choose, so I abstained. But now that I’m nine days past the deadline, I’ve finally found the religion that I’ve been searching for. Googlism. They have proof of Google’s existence, Google prayers, and even a holiday. What more could you want?

I hope they don’t deduct points for tardiness. As David Lee Roth once said “I don’t feel tardy.”

You really must read Matt Taibbi’s Rolling Stone Magazine article “Jesus Made Me Puke“. The article is actually excerpted from his as-yet-unreleased book “The Great Derangement”.

Taibbi goes undercover for a weekend retreat with a far-right evangelical Christian group. These aren’t your run of the mill evangelicals either; they’re the speaking-in-tongues, casting-out-demons type of evangelicals.

Incidentally, the church that he joined in order to get this story is led by Rev. John Hagee, an influential right-winger whose endorsement was initially sought out by John McCain, but then was rejected yesterday after it became apparent to McCain just what a nutjob the guy really is.

This, my second submission to the Thinking Homeschoolers dealy, will be much shorter than my first, because I don’t have that much to say. The topic is to write about the National Spank Out Day (April 30) or the National Day of Prayer (May 1).

Both Christine and I have both written about our views on hitting kids before, so I won’t repeat all that except to say, don’t do it. It’s not good for your kids and there are better ways.

As for the National Day of Prayer, I thought I was going to write about how it’s a violation of the First Amendment to have this event officially recognized by Congress. But I’m not.

Then I thought I’d write about how the original intent was that people of all faiths could participate together, but now the day has been taken over by evangelical Christians who actually make volunteers agree to a statement of faith that excludes all non-Judeo Christian groups (scroll down). But I won’t be writing about that.

Then I thought about writing about how the National Day of Reason (also May 1) is a better alternative in which to participate. But I’m not writing about that either.

What I do want to write about is Madeline Kara Neumann. She was the eleven-year-old girl who recently died from diabetic ketoacidosis because her parents thought that she would get better without medical help if they just prayed hard enough. I won’t go on and pontificate about what a tragic waste this was. I will however post the image that has accompanied most of the news stories about her. The image of this smiling, young lady haunts me. She reminds me of my own daughters, happy and full of life. Except that her life is over because her parents trusted prayer over reason. How very, very sad.

Florida is considering approval of a special license plate that features a shining, golden cross in front of a stained glass window and which contains the words “I Believe”.

As a non-Christian, I am a little concerned. The first amendment to the U.S. Constitution says:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

This single sentence is of immense importance. It guarantees us the right to participate in any religion that we as individuals desire to take part in, or to practice no religion at all if that is our choice. It guarantees that the government of the United States cannot force its citizens to adhere to any specific religion. And not only does it prohibit the government from forcing a religion on us, it prohibits the government from even promoting or endorsing a particular religion. In order to abide by the constitution, the government has to either: 1) Not promote any religion; or 2) Allow equal promotion of all religions (or the absence of) without discrimination.

I think the majority of Americans support the separation of church and state because they realize that its purpose is not to hinder religion, but to protect citizens from theocracy. However, there are certain Christian groups, typically evangelical and/or fundamentalist, that have no problem asserting their right to practice their religion, but do seem to have a problem with allowing equal opportunity for other beliefs.

Rep. Edward Bullard, the plate’s sponsor, said people who “believe in their college or university” or “believe in their football team” already have license plates they can buy. The new design is a chance for others to put a tag on their cars with “something they believe in,” he said.

I wonder if they would allow a Jewish license plate? Or a plate promoting Islam? What about Pastafarianism? Or Satanism? Or Atheism? Hmmm. Oh wait, I think I found the answer:

Bullard, the plate’s sponsor, isn’t sure all groups should be able to express their preference. If atheists came up with an “I Don’t Believe” plate, for example, he would probably oppose it.

I figured as much.

I think I had my first crisis of non-theism last week, and I’d like to report that I came through fine.

Over the weekend I ventured into the normally off-limits area of our house known as “Jessica’s room”. There is usually some sort of reverse black-hole around her room that forcefully expels any (parental) matter, but due to some unknown anomaly in the space-time continuum, I found myself in there trying to calmly talk her out of her own minor crisis which involved the dreaded subject of “math”.

It was then that I noticed two books on her desk that made me pause. Now I should point out that Jessica goes through books like most kids go through candy. That is to say, she reads a lot of books. But these books were not her normal fare. One was “The Prayer of Jabez for Teens” and the other was “Piercing Proverbs“. I stood there thinking “why is she reading religious books?” This gnawed at me for a little while, but I soon forgot about it and went on with my day. (I should add as a side note that the irony was not lost on me that most parents would be happy finding religious books in their child’s room, but would be alarmed if they found something like “the God Delusion” or “God is Not Great“.)

Then awhile later, Jess asked me to log into iTunes so she could download some music. She had some money left in our iTunes account from some gift cards from last year, and finally found something she wanted.

And what was she downloading? Christian music! So that got me all freaked out again. Was someone trying to influence my daughter’s religious beliefs? Was it her friends? I know that a couple of her friends come from families that are pretty religious-y (and they’re not home-schooled, btw) so I had to wonder.

I brought it up to Christine that night and she responded with the simple statement, “she’s finding her own way”. Of course I know in her mind she added something along the lines of “Duh. Just chill out, you neurotic dorkwad.” She was, of course, absolutely right.

What exactly was I thinking? It took me nearly 40 years to figure out that I’m an atheist (or more accurately, an agnostic atheist) and I was expecting Jessica to avoid the religious path that I myself started her on, simply because I’ve let her know that I no longer believe in God? That’s either pretty arrogant of me or pretty disrespectful towards her as a thinking individual, or maybe both.

I may periodically need to remind myself to relax and trust in the intelligence of my children. Whether they end up Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Deist, or nonreligious really doesn’t matter. It’s about being who they are and about how they treat others that counts. I was reminded of this once again this morning when I read the latest post from Dale McGowan, who says to let them find their own way more eloquently than I ever could.

Maybe you’ve heard about the new movie Expelled - No Intelligence Allowed that is due to be released in a few days. It stars Ben Stein; you know, the guy that plays the droning teacher in Ferris Beuller’s Day Off (Beuller…Beuller…Beuller…). Except this movie is no comedy. Unless of course you think dishonesty and attempts to sway people with propaganda are funny.

The movie is about the alleged problem of academics being “expelled” from thier positions because of their belief in Intelligent Design. The truth is that the scientists they claim this happened to were all crappy scientists. And some of those profiled in the film aren’t even scientists. One is an M.D. and another a journalist.

The filmmakers also interviewed several prominent scientists who are critics of Intelligent Design. But they did so under false pretenses and used some convenient editing to use certain statements to get a reaction, while leaving out much of the scientific context.

They are marketing the movie mainly to churches and religious groups. They are trying to draw in Christian schools, and even homeschoolers by offering them the chance to win $10,000 for submitting their ticket stubs from the movie. Obviously they are trying to set up an artificial science vs. religion division. This is not an issue about the validity of religious beliefs. The theory of evolution has been accepted by Catholicism, Judaism, and mainstream Protestantism as being compatible with their theologies.

Don’t be misled; and don’t pay to see this giant load of crap.

The National Center for Science Education has set up a website (ExpelledExposed.com) that tells the true story behind the movie, and also deals with some of the larger issues raised.

The NCSE needs some help with getting the word out. If you have a website or a blog, link to ExpelledExposed.com using the word “Expelled” as the link text, like so: Expelled. At the very least, go to the website, read what they have to say, and be informed.

Note: If you have a blog or website, you could also link to the movie’s website using the phrase “giant load of crap” like so: giant load of crap

If you missed John Scalzi’s homeschooling post last week, in which people made all the typical arguments for and against homeschooling in the comments section, he has another post up today that outshines it in terms of pure, internet bickering goodness. The topic? The existence of God. OK, that’s not the real topic, but it does come up in the discussion. The post is actually about Vox Day’s book “The Irrational Atheist” in which Mr. Day (not his real name by the way) attempts to refute the arguments put forth by some of the so-called “New Atheists” like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris.

I haven’t read the book, but then again I haven’t read any of the atheist books either (except about half of The God Delusion), so I really have no opinion on that. But I do love me a good, rousing, comments-section argument complete with quote-mining, people going off on tangents, misrepresenting what others have said, and trying to change topics in mid-stream. It’s almost like watching a political campaign except nobody there is as eloquent as Barack Obama. At last check, there were 435 comments and counting. Go check it out if you dare.

Chris at the Cynical-C blog has put together a list of people or organizations that have been called bigots or accused of bigotry by Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League. There are 214 of them. They range from Howard Stern to other Catholic groups. Basically, any public criticism (real, implied, or imagined) is branded as anti-Catholic bigotry.The list really has to be seen to be believed.

I have this habit of starting posts, saving them for when I’ll have time to finish, then deleting when I finally get back to it a month later. I can’t let this one go.

A few days ago I was reading about the primaries and came across this:

Even if Huckabee wins every remaining state with 50 percent of the vote to McCain’s 40 percent, McCain would still be the nominee.

The Huckster’s response? It’s a winner:

“I know the pundits, and I know what they say: The math doesn’t work out,” Huckabee said Saturday morning at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. “Well, I didn’t major in math, I majored in miracles. And I still believe in those, too.”

It’s a good thing he’s losing ground.