Category Archives: Personal Story

My looming nightmare: midnight mass

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I was raised Roman Catholic. Mine was a particularly liberal faith, but I was a whole-hearted adherent. I was a member of the church choir, I was a reader at mass, I even taught Sunday school for a while.

During the entire course of my faith experience, I was constantly opposed to the edicts that came from the Vatican – I found their attitude towards gay people offensive, their opinions of abortion completely anti-scientific, and their view on birth control to be face-palmingly moronic. And yet I still considered myself Catholic. After all, most of the Catholics I knew were also decent people who ignored the Pope and lived decent lives.

As I began learning more about this history of the Church, I came to realize that I was a member of an incredibly evil organization. The fact that I personally was not an evil person, and that I personally did not endorse its nonsense became less and less satisfying as a justification for this cognitive dissonance. The few things that my Catholicism had in common with my personal beliefs were overwhelmingly outweighed by the growing moral bankruptcy of the organization.

Long before I left belief in God, I left belief in the Church. Those of you who are not Catholic may not know that at every mass there is what is known as the Profession of Faith. After listing the number of trivia about Jesus/Yahweh, the Profession ends thusly:

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
The Holy Catholic Church,
The communion of saints,
The forgiveness of sins,
The resurrection of the body,
And life everlasting.

I started omitting pieces (starting with the bit about believing in “The Holy Catholic Church”), bit by bit, until eventually I just stood there silently while those around me muttered the platitudes. It was in church, in fact, that I came to the full realization that I didn’t believe any of those things.

Christmas has always been about family for me. Last year my parents flew out to Vancouver to stay with me, and for the sake of preserving at least one tradition, I accompanied them to church on Christmas morning. I hated every second of it, but I was willing to tolerate it for my family’s sake.

This year I am flying back to Toronto for Christmas. Both of my parents remain Catholic (although I am relatively certain that my father is agnostic), so family time involves church. They may not expect me to attend regular services anymore (they know I don’t believe), but they will undoubtedly be expecting my presence on Christmas morning.

Here’s the crux of my problem: the Catholic Church is really fucking evil. It’s no longer simply a matter of toughing out an hour of stone age nonsense; my presence grants implicit approval to the Church’s anti-humanity agenda. It’s bad enough that I’m still considered Catholic when the Vatican counts its numbers, but to actually have to show up and participate?

I’m happy to attend a speech I don’t agree with, provided there is an opportunity for Q&A at the end, where the speaker can be challenged on her/his assertions. Catholic mass offers no such forum; it is quite literally being preached at for 30 minutes, followed by a pagan blood sacrifice ritual. While I can appreciate the aesthetic appeal of mass in languages other than English, I have no interest in Catholic mass, and it offends me to even be in the room.

So I am stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place – either I attend an event hosted by an enemy of humanity for the purpose of pretending to be part of a community to whom I feel no connection, or I risk a fight and subsequent alienation of my parents (on Christmas Day, no less).

As it stands now I am leaning toward just sucking it up and going. While it is incredibly dishonest and violates my personal beliefs, my own personal discomfiture at being a hypocrite is somewhat outweighed by my wish to survive the holidays. Plus, I got my cousins to donate to CFI in our annual charity Kris Kringle, so I feel I have asserted some level of my personal beliefs into the proceedings.

Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Blessed Festivus, Happy December?

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On Tuesday night the Saskatoon Secular Family Network is getting together (kids + parents) to commemorate the month of December, and I’m at a loss as to what kind of activities we should do to mark the holiday season.  Our Secular Parenting group’s aim isn’t to be anti-theistic, so there won’t be any baby Jesus piñatas to hit — but I also don’t want to be so accommodating of religion that I inadvertently condone religious myth as legitimate.

Come to think of it, it’s a tenuous line to walk as a parent who wants to raise her kid as a freethinker.  I don’t see my aim is to raise her as an “atheist.” I’m not a fan of dogma in any form, whether it’s of a religious stripe or otherwise.  I do want my little girl to have a working knowledge of the world’s religions — but there’s always a part of me who’s afraid that religion’s allure may prove to be too enticing and one day she’ll get sucked into a vortex of religious ideology.

Which brings me back to some of the dilemma I face in planning Tuesday night’s activities.  Part of me thought it would be interesting to have a sampling of all the different ways humanity commemorates December — I have a dreidel we could play with, and we could discuss Hanukkah; I’ve got a couple nativity sets the kids could look at; and I’ve even got a Kwanzaa book we could read.   But there’s another part of me who thinks it would be better to just focus completely on the secular components of the season — talking about the Winter Solstice (the science and metaphorical response to the longer, darker days), and talk about the giving/sharing of families during the holidays (that night we’re collecting donations for the local crisis nursery).

What do you think?  I’m hoping to get some ideas from parents of what you do with your kiddos during December, or anyone else who does something this month to commemorate the season we’re in.  Help?

Where’s the love hope?

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The other day I got an interesting email from a religious friend of mine. Twenty years ago (!!), the two of us were grade-school buddies, and now we’re vague “friends” on Facebook.

My FB list is a lovely mix of godless connections and a few scary-evangelical types — a combination that makes for interesting interactions.  Usually when I get messages from religious friends from my past, it’s full of horror and condemnation at my current (outspoken) godless ways.  But this message I received from my past friend was of a different sort — she was seeking my godless perspective on what it means to have hope as an atheist.

She wanted to hear how I found hope without a belief in a God.  Her brother, who recently rejected his faith, is struggling with depression and she wanted to hear ways of how she could reach out to him and give him hope.  She wrote: “He feels that hope is the key to happiness, but that he has no hope. As I’m trying to email a response, I find that all of my hope comes from my religious faith … Where do you find hope?”

Here’s some of what I wrote in response to her:

The question you ask about hope is such an important one! If there’s one misunderstanding between believers and nonbelievers, it’s found here. A couple years ago at the funeral of Jerry’s grandma, I can remember how bad I felt when his minster brother made the statement that “those without God have no real hope.” I don’t think that statement is true, at all.

I guess the best place to start would be to define what you mean by “hope.” So much of my past Christian hope revolved around an all-knowing, all-loving God who was actively involved in my life — or at least, so I thought. I also had hope in an afterlife, which is hope for the process of death. Now that I’ve rejected my faith, and am agnostic as to whether or not there is a God, my hope has changed to more of what *this current world* has to offer, rather than invisible hopes.

So I have hope all around me. I see the world changing, in terms of new opportunities for my little girl, and that gives me hope. There are moments when someone unexpected gives me help or says to me words of support, and I have hope there. I get hopeful when I think of how science is advancing, of the technology that makes our world better, of how borders are getting smaller and the world isn’t as segmented as it once was.

What’s different now for me as an atheist, versus when I was a Christian, is that I have to look around me for hope. It requires more of an effort, and not just wishful thinking on my part. And, there are days that can be dark and sad — but another part of having hope in this current world is that I know these bad days pass, and they aren’t due to something I’ve done wrong (necessarily).

My friend’s question has been with me all week — as atheists/skeptics/freethinkers/etc, where do we find hope? How would you answer that question if someone asked you?  I’m really curious about all of your responses.

So much of our stance as atheists is refuting who we aren’t.  Right now I’m interested in clarifying who we are.

Raising Canadian freethinkers

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A quick update on what’s happening lately with the Saskatoon Secular Family Network:

  • I’ve been asked to be a contributor on the Parents Beyond Belief blog, and my first post is about our successful Freethinker Family Camp, Camp Hoodoo.  Keep an eye out on the PBB blog for more posts by different parenting groups across the US and Canada.
  • Later this month our group is having a book club discussion about the parenting classic: How to Talk so Kids will Listen and Listen so Kids will Talk.  I can tell I’m going to love this book, especially after reading its first line: “I was a wonderful parent before I had children.”
  • In December we’re hosting a December Celebration and Cookie Potluck night, where we’ll celebrate many aspects of the season that don’t necessarily evoke the supernatural or virgin births.  Does anyone have any suggestions of atheist-y or humanist activities/crafts we could get the kids to do?  The Friendly Atheist posted a link to an Atheist’s Xmas coloring book (PDF) that looks like a lot of fun.

The other big secular parenting news is that I’m going to be working in conjunction with CFI Canada to help start secular parenting groups across Canada.  Right now I’m compiling some materials to make an information packet to send to people who are interested in getting a group going in their area.  If you’re interested in receiving some of these materials or are looking to swap ideas, feel free to email me at sksecular.parenting at gmail.com for more information.

Announcing CFI Edmonton

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Centre for Inquiry Canada has made its way to Edmonton! We had our first business meeting the other day and it went very smoothly; I assigned some executive roles, we did a ton of brainstorming, and we already have a loose schedule for some upcoming events.

I suppose the Ben Radford event I wrote about earlier was the first ‘official’ CFI Edmonton event, but we really had very little to do with the event; the speaker was from CFI Calgary, the room was booked by the University of Alberta Atheists and Agnostics, and the Greater Edmonton Skeptics Society helped out with a ton of the logistics. The only CFI Edmonton person involved with the event was myself, but I was also representing the other organizations…

Despite CFI Edmonton’s minimal involvement, I think our first official event sets a good tone for CFI Edmonton; cooperation between different groups working towards a common goal. It’s certainly not a bad way to start off an organization, and I hope to maintain that kind of productive and mutually beneficial cooperation as we grow CFI Edmonton.

The beginning of CFI Edmonton was originally mired in a little bit of controversy. Other atheists/skeptics had already tried to get a CFI Edmonton started before yours truly had entered the scene. Unfortunately, CFI Canada at that time was spread a little thin starting up CFI Calgary, and poor communication led to frustration here in Edmonton. However, now that CFI Calgary is more established, a larger portion of CFI Canada’s resources can be dedicated to helping start up CFI Edmonton. I’ve been working to smooth relations here in Edmonton and it is going quite well. It’s not really anyone’s fault, but it should be acknowledged and discussed so the same type of mistake can be prevented from happening again. Many of the folks who were interested in setting up CFI Edmonton originally (but ended up a little frustrated) attended the first business meeting and made meaningful contributions. I’ve made it clear that all are welcome to get involved and help out; no one is shut out from getting involved.

I’ve been spearheading the campaign to get a CFI here in Edmonton since August, and it’s beginning to bear fruit. But there’s still a lot of work to do. Our membership is still very small, not all the executive roles have been handed out, and no events are concrete yet. But Rome wasn’t built in a day now, was it?

Hopefully in the next little while we’ll finalize some events and get a regular event series figured out. Either way it’s very exciting to be setting up a CFI here. I sure hope CFI Edmonton continues to grow and prosper, and I’ll do my best to make sure that happens.

Gnu Atheist Questions

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By Andrew Komar

The factually challenged wingnuts over at the  Discovery Institute have asked the scary new atheist movement some questions. I’ll do my best to answer them, but if the courtier’s reply applies, I’m going to use it. I’m an engineer, damnit, not a doctor of philosophy.

1) Why is there anything?

One of the defining principles of quantum physics is the fuzziness of reality, provided you are looking close enough. Call it the uncertainty principal if you want, but nature as we know it has some inherent randomness  ’built’ into the universe. One of the stranger aspects of this is seen in the phenomenon of virtual particles, which are bits of stuff that pop into and out of existence in time spans shorter than we generally notice. This weirdness also manifests itself in the decidedly spooky Casimir Effect, but the take home lesson is that points of what we think of as empty space actually are teeming with vacuum energy.

The laws of reality allow matter and energy to pop into existence, given small enough time frames and small enough distances. Our cosmological model has that the early universe being of just this fuzzy size, so small and energy dense that time itself got squished into another spatial dimension (see: A Brief History of Time). This was just before the inflationary epoch. which expanded the size of the universe by a factor of 10 followed by 43 zeroes. If Stephen Hawking and the string theorists are correct, than a self-consistent understanding of physics demands that universes can and will be spontaneously created from nothing. We’re just lucky enough to be in a universe that happens to support our kind of life and allows these questions.

Now, it should be noted that we are beyond any experimental evidence regarding the ‘creation’ event, even in theory.  As for the ‘why’ bit, that implies intentionality, which is straight up silly. Try asking gravity ‘why’ it is keeping your butt in the chair. Moving along.

2) What caused the Universe?

Again, ’caused’ implies intentionality, but I think I’ve just explained that the universe is essentially self-caused, randomly, as a necessary outcome of the way physics operates.  This question also seems to require time existing independently of the universe, as causality requires time for a sequence of events. Asking about sequences ‘before’ the universe, or what caused the universe without time existing is as meaningful as asking what is north of the north pole.

3) Why is there regularity (Law) in nature?

I’m going to invoke the anthropic principle here, it’s doubtful that we’d be here to ask that question if the universe wasn’t ordered enough for complex life to arise. If our universe is a probabilistic fluctuation in some grander design, than there are also an infinite number of other universes that would not have perceived regularity, because their variation on the laws of nature wouldn’t allow for beings capable of observation. Call it a self-selection bias with a sample of 1.

Besides, just because we call an observed pattern regular doesn’t make it so; ask the financial markets. The two theories that best explain different properties of our universe are mutually incompatible, but we consider both laws. All we can do is attempt to characterize our observations in a systematic fashion, incorporating them into self consistent models that explain and predicting relevant aspects. Science is the endeavor of weeding out the bad explanations based on evidence, but you are still left with models that are limited by what we know, or even can know.

4) Causes in nature proposed by Aristotle (material, formal, efficient, and final), which of them are real? Do final causes exist?

Buh? Anyway, I don’t know what injecting a thinker who didn’t even get inertia has to do with a modern scientific understanding of the universe, but honestly, I have no idea what to say to this question.

5) Why do we have subjective experience, and not merely objective existence?

I think consciousness, an intrinsically subjective experience, is a property of a functioning brain. The specific mechanics of this process are still an active field of research, but I think we have the basics mapped out. We certainly understand the underlying behavior of chemicals, but the 100 trillion or so neurons all interacting with each other in potentially infinite ways is a particularly difficult problem to tackle, but I suspect it is all our neurons firing in a time-dependent fashion that causes our subjective consciousness. That is, mind is what brain does, and consciousness is an epiphenomenon. The fact that it isn’t ‘real’ in some objective sense is no more consequential than the fact that this website is no more than a series of ones and zeroes being interpreted by machinery.

6) Why is the human mind intentional, in the technical philosophical sense of aboutness, which is the referral to something besides itself? How can mental states be about something?

Courtier’s Reply. I don’t really know what is being asked, but if this is some question intended on injecting some mind-body dualism into the mix, I’m not biting. Mental states are, as far as I’m concerned, a product of neuro-biological phenomenon in time, and it is an unnecessary step to include some soul. You are your brain, and your brain is you.

7) Does Moral Law exist in itself, or is it an artifact of nature (natural selection, etc.)

I think it is much more likely that ‘moral law’ is something humans made up to help us make sense of the world as it relates to us. That is, right and wrong are words we use to describe events that happen to humans, as opposed to some set of events that are objectively right and wrong. By this definition, we can understand how moral law has changed through human history (see: slavery, genocide, CO2 emissions) because moral law is simply how we define the rightness of any given action.

However, to assert that your particular preferences on right and wrong are some objective feature of the universe is offensively self-centered. All I can say with any certainty is what I think is right and wrong, and if we agree on those definitions, than maybe we can build a society together that implicitly respects our definitions. We might even build institutions (like a church, or a police force) to enforce those definitions, but they are not, nor have they ever been, objective things in a universal sense.

8) Why is there evil?

Evil is a matter of definition, overwhelmingly as actions relate to us (see the last answer). Sometimes, events like earthquakes happen that affect humans, but the events themselves are not intrinsically evil, because they are the result of a non-thinking process that is incapable of intentionally causing harm. The universe on grander scales is completely indifferent to the trials and tribulations of the little apes on the pale blue dot, but what we do have in our control is how we act towards each other. We are what we choose to be, and if our fellow monkeys choose to act in a way we think is evil, we have the choice to accept or challenge that.


Ultimately though, ‘evil’ will die with the last human being that understands what is meant by evil. The universe got on just fine for 13.7 billion years before us without our metaphysical hand-wringing about evil, and I suspect it will do just fine when the only remains of humanity are our electromagnetic transmissions speeding endlessly through the cosmos.

Any questions?

Atheist/Skeptic Groups Work Together in Alberta!

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Since this blog seems to be in a constant state of raging shitstorm lately, I’m going to write about a successful collaboration between a bunch of freethinker groups in Alberta. Hooray for teamwork and co-operation!

Paranormal investigator extraordinaire and managing editor of Skeptical Inquirer magazine Ben Radford was brought to both Calgary and Edmonton to give presentations on paranormal investigation. It was only possible through the successful efforts of 3 different atheist/skeptical groups in Alberta! The Greater Edmonton Skeptics Society, CFI Calgary, and the University of Alberta Atheists and Agnostics all played important roles in making the collaboration successful!

Ben first came to Calgary to give a presentation, then was driven up to Edmonton for another presentation, then will be driven back to Calgary today to give a workshop on paranormal investigation.

Maybe it’s not that amazing, but I think it’s something worth appreciating.  There was excellent communication between all three parties, and it was mutually beneficial to everyone involved.

This is an example of great teamwork and friendly co-operation. We do have common goals, and while we may not agree about what is the best way to go about achieving those goals, we can still collaborate every now and then to make awesome things happen.

Good-Bye Canada!

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I hemmed and hawed about whether or not it was a good idea to use this site as a personal “GUESS WHAT!” blog for just this one time and to add in some shameless self-promotion, I obviously decided it was fine. :)

Today I  received an amazing contract for a job in Korea starting March 2nd!

  1. I still plan on writing for Canadian Atheist (despite no longer being in Canada OR an atheist…geez, I’m stretching it a bit, aren’t I?) as there will be tons and tons and tons of crazy born-again-Christian things in Korea. I’m excited to be in a country where there are so many younger people fired-up about God, and I’m sure it will make some interesting stories for you guys.
  2. I started a blog where people can follow my goings-on in Korea, pre-during-post my stay. I’ve been adding to it very limitedly but now that I have a contract I plan on going full force. Check it out and follow along; White Girl in Korea! (Be warned, it is very pink.)
  3. The position is in one of the middle/upper-class neighbourhoods of Seoul that is well connected to the downtown core. I’ll have my own single housing and the working hours are surprisingly short for a private school. I expect that I’ll be doing a lot of preparation, but that’s okay. The setting is absolutely perfect for throwing myself into the culture and the major happenings.
  4. There are 2 others there that I met through the various CFI/SSA conference… maybe we’ll start a CFI South Korea? :)

I’m totally excited. It’s not necessarily official yet since I haven’t actually signed the contract (there are a couple spelling errors and stuff I want to change… most important my name) but it will be soon. I’ll be a busy bee collecting all the necessary paperwork for departure while finishing up my silly degree. I’m not sure how long i’ll be in S.Korea but for at least a year, probably 2 or 3. I’ll miss all my angry atheists. :)

Knowing Your Priorities

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I grew up in a small town. We didn’t have a lot of money, but in this town houses cost like $75 000 and to put a pool in your backyard was no big deal because your friend up the road had all the materials anyway. After that I lived in suburban Mississauga, the wealthy city of Victoria and the semi-wealthy town of Guelph. I had never left North America in my entire life until this summer. Thus I had never been exposed to visible and uncomfortable looking poverty before my trip to China.

We were walking down Nanjing Road, which is a pretty popular tourist road with a lot of shops and over priced restaurants. There are people selling really strange glow sticks and things that fly high in the air. There is loud music and little trains that run along the sidewalk filled with people. It was quite cute but I had just arrived in China so I was tired and it was late. We decided to go back to the hotel and to go around the block to get there. So we made one turn, and then another turn and all of the sudden we were on a small side street that was definitely not made for tourists. Less than a five minute walk away we had gone from one of the largest tourist districts to an area of extreme poverty.

It was night, so we walked pretty quickly through the scary little street but went back the next day because I was curious to see more. We walked through and I saw people bathing in the alley, one bedroom houses that were really dirty, clothes drying by hanging them out of the windows on sticks and piles upon piles of garbage lying all over the streets. For the first time in my life I was seeing people with little to no money… with no running water… with very little sanitation… and with very little fresh food.

This wasn’t the only area that I saw this. There were places all over China that I was exposed to where people lived in “slum” like dwellings (as someone who has studied urban settlements for 4 years I use this word “slum” in this context very loosely). I tried to tell myself that it wasn’t as big of a deal because so many people lived like that in China that it was less undesirable than living in Canada… but you can only lie to yourself like that for so long.

What does this have to do with Canadian atheism? One night I was just getting back to my hotel after a walk through a particularly poor, dark and sorta scary area of Beijing. Before going to bed I popped onto a computer to send a “hello!” to my mom, sister and brother and to delete all the irrelevant e-mails in my inbox (if I didn’t delete stuff once in a while on my trip I’d have come home to like 2000 e-mails, of which like 40 would be worth reading) and came across some stupid e-mail thread about something going on in one of the atheist groups I’m involved in. I don’t remember exactly what the bickering was about but I assure it was something that wasn’t worth anyone’s time…

The next day I was talking to John explaining that the whole situation had made me skeptical about so many intelligent and motivated young adults devoting their time to the advancement of secularism in a country like Canada. Is religion even that big of a deal in Canada anymore? I mean, we’re not Iran or the States… we’re pretty inclusive in Canada. Would all of our time be better spent devoting our talents and energies toward educating people in places like China where education really is an issue?

I’m not saying that I want to stop working with atheist and secularist groups. I just feel like we all have an obligation to try and make the world a better place and I’m starting to wonder if the secularist movement is really the place where we can be making the biggest impact. What are your thoughts on this? Why do you think be an atheist activist in Canada is still important? Do you devote your time to other causes and organizations? If so… which ones?

“Sometimes insiders make the best outsiders”*

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One of the local groups I help facilitate in Saskatoon is Café Apostate. Here’s how the group is described:

Are you a recovering religionist? A former fundy? Someone who grew up deeply involved in the faith, and now has gone all heretic? Or did you escape any religious indoctrination, and are just interested in hearing stories from the formerly religious?

If so, then you should come out and join us for coffee and religiously-based rants at Café Apostate. It’s a low-key way to interact with other freethinkers who have “left the flock,” and share stories and maybe even brainstorm some strategies of how to deal with religious friends and family members who don’t understand your godlessness.

Café Apostate: A cupful of heresy!

The intention of our group isn’t quite along the lines of the Recovering from Religion groups, or even the Living without Religion group out in Ontario — while we do have similar aims.  Maybe it’s the rebellious ex-evangelical in me, but I wanted the name of our group to be less support-group oriented.  I also didn’t like how the other two names gave the (unintended) impression that the ex-believer’s life is now disempowered or is lacking something.

The little group we’ve got in Saskatoon is growing quite well, and at each of our monthly meetings, I’m always surprised at the range of people we have attend.  We’ve had everyone from former evangelicals (*cough*me*) to retired Catholic priests, former Hindus, past new-Agers, and there’s always a few from-the-cradle atheists attending, too.

You can imagine that this kind of melange makes for many interesting conversations!  I love how our group is open to both former-believers AND never-been-believers.  I find that having the mix of the two really helps to open up conversations and disseminate stereotypes, for either perspective.

As someone who once was an active Christian, and is now turned an active heretic, there have been times where my background of being a former believer has been considered a liability by a few fellow nonbelievers.

Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but I hate it when there’s needless hierarchies and us/them divides, especially when you are all heading in the same supposed direction.  This isn’t to say that I find myself in a place of privilege over someone who has never been in a faith system — but, likewise, I don’t think it means that I’ve been forever marred with a deluded/indoctrinated mind, just because I was once an evangelical Christian.

If anything, there’s a need for both types of us atheists — those who have not been in a faith system and those who have.  We each have different perspectives to lend to our movement, and if anything, the two groups make for one hell (pun intended) of a tag-team against irrational religious belief!

[*I'm pretty sure I heard this quote attributed to Dan Barker, a fairly prominent apostate leading the Freedom from Religion Foundation in the States]

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