Bart Ehrman

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There is ONE good thing about being stuck in bed (I have a pinched nerve in my back and it's accompanied by very painful leg cramping), and that's the excellent video viewing time and book reading time I have. I have read through several of those excellent books on my table that I haven't had time for and I've been watching some great stuff on Netflix. I've watched the entire third season of Orange is the New Black.

Today is the crown. A couple of weeks ago on my show The Secular Parents, we had an episode on deconversion where a lovely guest on the show named Lori McFarlane told me about a book that she read by Bart Ehrman. I'd heard of Bart Ehrman of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, for years but hadn't read anything by him. I'm finally reading him and I need more! His books are fairly dense and intellectual (at least Lost Scriptures: Books that Did not Make it into the New Testament is).

I'm beginning to think that Bart Ehrman is one of the most important philosopher, Biblical scholars of our time. I deeply appreciate his adherence to historical accuracy and validity in the over twenty-five books he has written during his study of religion. I've read many books that seek to understand and explore historical accuracy and inaccuracy in Christian tradition and this one that I am reading, Lost Scriptures, is among my favorites so far. I'm a sucker for source documents, context, precedent, and history.

I also recommend reading books by Karen Armstrong, Richard Carrier, and David Fitzgerald if you are doing a study of a contextual bible. It looks like Karen Armstrong has a newer book out that I haven't read yet called Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence. But I might just read Misquoting Jesus, then onto Jesus, Interrupted by Bart Ehrman next and keep on reading until I've had enough!

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Other Posts You Might Enjoy:
Sex, God, and Shame
Are You a Courageous Believer?
It Takes More Faith to be an Atheist

Time4learning

time4learning review

My son and I have been looking at online curriculum lately. He definitely needs more structure and he's very motivated to take on more lessons. In the past we have never even considered doing lessons in this way, so the entire world of online curriculum is new to us, except for courses like those from The Great Courses through The Teaching Company, which have been truly excellent. 

After spending a few hours together looking at various online curriculum, John and I have decided to give Time4learning a try! First, it is affordable. Second, I love that we can select various "levels" of a given subject at any time. Being hardcore homeschoolers we're never really sure what grade he is working in and it has simply never been important to us. So the freedom to move through the levels is essential to figuring out John's starting point and his trajectory through the material.

Third, while looking at animation on other sites John would just cover his eyes and shake his head. How is an educational site going to compete with the animation on games these days?! They can't, of course, but the animation that we demoed on Time4learning didn't attempt ridiculous humor and didn't... try too hard, if you know what I mean. It was entertaining at times, but didn't use stupid humor like others we looked at.

Fourth, the Time4learning lessons seem preferable and more flexible to us than other online programs we looked at, which include Calvert, Oak Meadow, and a few others I can't recall the names of right now. Fifth, John actually looks enthusiastic about starting the work...and I'm happy about that. Sixth, I'm looking forward to not having to purchase hundreds of dollars of materials (as Calvert required) because all materials with Time4learning are all available online.

If you are using time4learning

 please comment below 

and let me know what you think!  

And STAY TUNED for our experiences with this program!

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Posts you may also enjoy:
My Son Doesn't Like to Write 
What if They Never Learn to Read?
Do You Need A Homeschooling Strategy?

A Little Gratitude

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Do you know what I have?
A happy life!

I don't know if the gratitude that fills my heart comes from the happy or if the happy comes from the gratitude, but today I have to express it! The joy is spilling out! I am so aware of the beauty of the life around me.

I'm grateful for:

Megan and Me

• Social media and how it brings people together
• Heating pads and painkillers
• Family and friends who help you through the hard times.
• Gentle rain.
• Crickets.
• Youtube and seventies music.
• Reconnecting with my sister Brenda
• Having an excellent relationship with my other sister Linda
• My sister's goodness, Linda.
• Comfy couches. 
• Root beer barrels.
• Laughing baby videos on youtube.
• Friendly neighbors.
• Reruns.
• Jerry's dinners,when he cooks or BBQs.
• The kids doing laundry.
• When people snort when they laugh genuinely. 
• Jon Stewart.
• When the kids can "pet sit".
• Melissa.
• When people support small business.
• A warm hug, a strong shoulder.
• Sharp kitchen knives.
• Instant messaging.
• The Wassup? app on my phone.
• When people smile with their eyes.
• Herman Kempf.
• Open discussion about sexuality.
• When friends share the results of their own interests and research. (Rayv)
• Yard sales that sell donuts.
• The smell of lilac.
• Hot baths.
• Tervis cups.
• Sharf's produce farm. 
• Freedom.
• Video of George Carlin's gigs.
• Marathons of "Orange is the New Black"
• Having someone tell you fond memories that they have of you
• Sharing books with friends.
• Laughing until I cough with phlegm.
• When people have warm hands.
• Sepia-toned family pics from past generations.
• Serendipity.
• Kindred spirits.
• When the bashing political ads and propaganda is over.
• Having enough
• Healthier meals.
• When someone saves the last piece of cake for me.
• Beautiful tile in the bathroom.
• Naps.
• Knowing that I have so much to be grateful for that this list could go on and on.
• LOL moments.
• Friends who agree with me that certain posts on social media are absolutely, frightfully ridiculous.
• Free thought.
• Family Game Nights.
• When I can hear my son's imagination as he plays.
• When I can hear my daughter's song.
• When the checker at the grocery store knows me.
• Loving sex.
• A freshly-swept floor.
• That my kids still play in the rain.
• When people appreciate what I do for them.
• My husband.
• My children.

Can you add to this list?
Let's ignore the ignorant postings on Facebook today and, instead, talk about that for which we are grateful.

Are you in?

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Other Posts You Might Enjoy:
A Thank You Note to LIFE
Gratitude
Gratitude

I No Longer Have the Time

self-esteem atheist parent atheist parent atheist parent

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Who I Am, Who You Are

Build a Bridge

You Decide Who I Am

This I Believe

A Thank You Note to LIFE

Not Just for the New Year

Who I Am, Who You Are

who are the people who have helped you to become who you are?

Life is such a circuitous proposition.  In my little world I don't know a single person who can say that their life has been a straight line from point A to point B. My own lifeline looks alot like the cord of your earbuds after they've been in your purse for about an hour...or for five minutes.

I have a couple of teens in the house right now and I notice that they spend an inordinate amount of time acting as though they have their shit together, trying to convince me of that, trying to convince themselves of that. 
I remember being there, that place where appearing competent was essential to who I wanted to be. In fact, I thought it was just me that did that! It was exhausting and unending work keeping that facade up there.

It was a relief getting into my twenties and discovering the freedom to acknowledge the many things that I didn't know that I didn't know. In fact, confessing my ignorance in something, as I recall, was a wonderfully freeing thing for me back then. I learned that most important of lessons: acknowledging that you don't know a thing paves the way for true knowledge and wisdom to enter.

I can't talk about the beauty of growing into a better person, a more authentic person, without mentioning the people who helped me to become who I am, for better or for worse.


First there was Brenda. She was a neighbor woman who kept me from feeling entirely untethered for nearly a decade. She moved into the house across from me during my teens and she became super important to me. I can't help but wonder, now, if she wished I would stay home some days! She was a mother figure to me at a time when I didn't have one, and hadn't had one for awhile. She was a friend. She was a philosophical explorer with me. Brenda was imperfect, but her presence in my life in my late teens and early twenties helped me to feel heard, noticed, cared for.  And I think I did that for her too, in return. Although I haven't had significant time with her for years, to this day I feel a tremendous explosion of love for her whenever I think of her.

When I was a teen I got into the most important love affair of that time. Brian. We were together for almost four years. From that intense relationship I learned to not give up parts of myself in order to keep holding on to someone who can't love me for exactly who I am and who I am becoming. I also learned important things about parenthood, personhood, religion, and kindness.  OH, and sex. I am grateful that that type of intensity doesn't typify most relationships in the world. But OH MY!

Several years later, in my mid-twenties, I met the mother of my dear friend Lara, Jean. I can't say, concretely and consisely, what Jean exactly did for me. She was just there. She didn't go out of her way with me to do stuff, but that is what was so remarkable. She made it normal for me to be included and to feel important to her. She helped me work through some of my life story and to feel empowered at the end of it...somehow.

I had two therapists who were particularly important to me and who were genuinely caring toward me during their time.

My friends Lara, Rebecca, and Jamie. During my undergrad years, these women kept me grounded. From them, I felt admiration for my good qualities. That may seem like an odd thing to notice, but I felt authentic with them and they loved me for it. I can never thank them enough for their loving hearts.

Linda on the left and Brenda on the right
My disapproving brother in the center
with the Spirograph symbol.
I just don't think he'd appreciate being on my blog.
This was taken after Dad's death;
Linda hates the pic because she's talking.

My sisters Linda and Brenda have been vastly important in my development of my sense of self. Our closeness has waxed and waned over the years, but we have always loved one another deeply. They mean everything to me.

I had an excellent instructor in graduate school named Gary Behrman who really brought some good things out of me as a professional and as a human being.

My husband and my children are key to who I am now. Jerry is so freeing and generous and loving. I am truly my authentic self because of him.

What about you? 

Who are the people who have helped you to become who you are?  

I would be honored to hear your stories.

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Satan

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When I was a believer nothing, and I mean NOTHING, was more blood-curdlingly, blood freezingly frightening than the idea of the devil, any powers or beings related to the devil, and anything related to demons. The church had me so scared of this mythical being that I was frightened of my own thoughts, of images, of stories about the ultimate evil, Satan. You want to make an adult human being tremble in honest fear, talk openly about Satan with a Christian or a Muslim.

I clearly recall rooms full of adults wailing in panic and in fear that an actual evil spirit was at play in the world and wanting to target well-meaning people and their families. I remember sermons and talks given that were especially intended to stir up an infectious alarm of imminent contact with evil incarnate. One human causing ultimate terror in another person.

Eliphas Lévi's Sabbatic Goat
(known as The Goat of Mendes
or Baphomet) has become
one of the most common symbols
of Satanism.
(From Wikipedia)

Deep fear of symbols, sounds, words, thoughts, ideas, designs. This is the kind of fear that makes a body shake and quiver and feel on the edge of the abyss. The kind of fear that makes a pitiful, powerless mortal grasp onto anything offered as a lifeboat against such damnable evil. This is the thing that gets into one's head and grows and stews and taints everything. It scares the beauty and the joy away. That is the kind of fear of Satan that some churches teach. 

I remember being one of those people who feared that which I did not understand or that which was different from me. One afternoon, I'll never forget it, my dear friend stormed into the house after one of her Evangelical meetings and started asking me about Men at Work's song Land Down Under. Did I even know what vegemite was? Could it be of the Devil? A trail head full of zombies?! What does it mean the land down under where women blow and men plunder?!!!!!! 

Could this be a demonic song?, she asked, wide-eyed, fearful that she had missed an obvious demonic presence on the airwaves and on MTV. 
I had to admit that I did not know!
Now, of course, I see that Men at Work were seriously evil. *wink* 

Most of today's Satanists have an admirable goal in mind when they use the metaphor of Satan. They are saying that, historically, wisdom and intellectual discovery and individualism have been treated by some churches and churchgoers as signs of evil at work in a person. Hence the anti-intellectual movement of these recent years. But Satanists are forthrightly claiming intellectualism and individuality as highly-desirable goals for a well-lived, honest life. Today's Satanists use the allegorical Satan to celebrate a crisis of faith, the admirable awareness of free will, and a strong grasp of personal liberties as positive personal human traits to celebrate and to encourage.

For this post I did some reading from The Church of Satan and The Satanic Temple, among others and I was unimpressed, unmoved. I guess that is because I found them to be mostly putting on a show, trying to shock, etc., when the message is far simpler than the show. While I appreciate their deliberate actions to unsettle the comfortable, I feel that the message is lost.

On the other hand I've talked with several people from the Church of Satan who were really amazing people. Very intelligent, very compassionate. People I'd totally choose as friends. 

In the meantime, I believe in Keep It Simple, no need for membership in a group of any kind:

• Be Yourself
• Keep Learning
• If It Feels Good and Doesn't Harm anyone else, do it
• FREEDOM 

And I don't need a group of people that I belong to to have that.

What do you think?

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You Might Also Like This Post:
Growing Up Godless
Ten Questions No Atheist Can Answer:  LOL
Ex-believers, Come Hither
An Unfortunate Necessary Evil
Atheists Cannot Experience True Joy
Knockin' on Heaven's Door

The Ten Commandments and My Ten Suggestions

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What if, instead of climbing Mount Sanai to a burning bush or whatever to get essential rules for living, someone important had asked me for some ideas? In fact, I wish they had because I know I could have done better...especially had I known my messenger was going to have to carry huge stones with the words written on them; couldn't I have invented papyrus first?!

What is with the ridiculous commandments that some Christians consider so stellar and beloved?

I mean, have you read them lately? 
If you had the chance to leave enduring hallowed imperatives, wouldn't you take your time and really make them count? I'm sure I can't be the only person to think about this, but why are the Ten Commandments so ...weak?  
In case you haven't read them lately, allow me to remind you:

Did you really read those? If so, certainly you have some questions about them.
Why would anyone waste two important tenets for one's own self-aggrandizement? Actually the first four. And let us not covet forgoodnessake because that would be bad. Like one of the worst things. Not to mention the many, many, many essentials of community living that are completely absent from the list.

It's not just comical, it's almost criminal that the Ten Commandments are so useless. It amazed me that so many people consider the Ten Commandments to be imperative in anyway. Many Christians consider the commandments to be an exhalted and fixed set of guidelines for moral behavior from on high. But there must be some Christians somewhere thinking this is it? These are the words from Our Lord? 

Just one specific comment though, I always found the fifth commandment Honor thy father and thy mother kind of funny when this is also in the book:  

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, 

and mother...he cannot be my disciple.

(Luke 14:26)

That's one of those things that occurred to me when I was a teenager but it doesn't really refer to the commandments.  Let's at least look at a few things that the Most Holy could have said:

• Lord Krishna at least said  ...destroy with the shining lamp of knowledge the darkness born of ignorance...
• Buddha said: all component things in the world are changeable. They are not lasting.
• Ra said:  Listen, Oh hours, the requests are addressed to you, act on your account, among you! The place of your rest is your pylons, your breasts are in the darkness, your posteriors in the light.     Ahem.

I won't insult your intelligence with criticism of each commandment specifically, only to say that the list is woefully inadequate. With all of the time in the world, or so they say, seems this list would be exquisitely relevant. 

While writing this fairly intelligible piece of drivel of a blog post (I'm on painkillers for a pinched nerve, maybe this post isn't as erudite as I imagine...) I decided to create my own set of suggestions, you know, for now, until something better comes along.

 

Enjoy my suggestions or, better yet write your own.
Because after all, there is no hell and it's your life.

To show them special mercy, I, dwelling in their hearts, destroy with the shining lamp of knowledge the darkness born of ignorance. - See more at: http://harekrishnaquotes.com/category/quotes-category/authors/a-lord/01-ord-krishna/#sthash.4gOAkfKX.dpuf

To show them special mercy, I, dwelling in their hearts, destroy with the shining lamp of knowledge the darkness born of ignorance. - See more at: http://harekrishnaquotes.com/category/quotes-category/authors/a-lord/01-ord-krishna/#sthash.4gOAkfKX.dpuf

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Other Posts You Might Enjoy:
All-Knowing, All-Powerful, Ever-Loving God
Relativism and Atheism
It Takes More Faith to be an Atheist
Knockin' on Heaven's Door

A Poem by a Friend

Jeffrey is an amazing human being; so glad to know him.
Thank you, Jeff, for allowing me to share your poem.

Phil Zuckerman

atheist parenting atheist parent atheist parent
Phil Zuckerman, author of the study mentioned in this article: http://jezebel.com/godless-parents-are-doing-a-better-job-1682844001 , will be on our show The Secular Parents later this month.

Any questions or issues you think we should ask him about?

Take a Bite