Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Count Me Among the Faithful


 I am still Homeschool Atheist Momma!
There is no god Secular homeschool am I am atheist I don’t believe in God doubting god and religion Atheist parenting secular parenting freethinking parenting
One of the problems that seems to confuse the good believers of the world is that religion has claimed, co-opted some very good and useful words:  blessing, faith, belief, etc, and has caused mass confusion by claiming a single meaning for these words, religious meaning, slanted meaning.

But words cannot be owned. Meaning of these co-opted words can be as beautiful and as varied as the people that use the words. Words are not tiny, hard, immovable things.


Therefore, I reclaim any and all words that any group in the world claims to own.

Gospel, bible, prophet, catechism, teacher, alter, preach, church, heathen, word, father, doubt, zealotry, confession, marriage, redeem, acolyte, communion, covenant, atone, mission, heretic, god, baptize, belief, religious, absolution, glory, disciple, ...wafer, and many more words.

I reclaim all words!

From this moment forward words have accurate meaning, secular meaning without reference whomever chooses to limit the use of words for their own purposes.

When a believer uses the word faith, for example, they are referring to faith over all, including doubt. Likely there are people who are religious who use this word their own way. But when I use the word faith in this post and at all times, I am referring to the propensity to trust in that which has happened again and again.
  • I have absolute faith that my husband will fill the gas tank before bringing the car home.
  • I have faith that John will tell the absolute truth.
  • I have faith that my friends love and support me.
  • I have faith that the car will start when I turn the key.
  • I have faith that the fan will keep me cool.
  • I have faith that the tide will continue to respond to the gravitational pull of the moon.
  • I have faith that Elizabeth will absolutely come alive at the beach or near bodies of water.
  • I have faith that when I drop a thing it will fall in the direction of down.

I do not claim faith because I ignore facts and nature. Nor because I fervently wish for these things to be true and I am willing to overlook all evidence to the contrary.

No, I claim faith because these things that I have faith in have acted in dependable ways again and again over time. It is upon these reliable ways that I can count on again and again. 

In this sense, YES, I have complete faith in the scientific method, in reason, in secularism.

And don't even get me started on the incorrect use of the word THEORY...

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You may also enjoy these blog posts:

Gratitude
I am an Atheist
Just in Case He's Real
Mind the Gap

1 comment:

  1. "A thing will fall in the direction of down."

    I Like it!!!

    ReplyDelete

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