Yeah, like that.
So I vault into the holiday season with a new Stephen King tucked under my arm, repeatedly vandalized Christmas reindeer display repaired yet again, happy kids in tow, up to the mountains to have a wondrously good time.
Colorado gets a record snowstorm so we can barely get around, and half a day is consumed by getting chains for the tires of the mommyvan. Then, after our one outing that neither child enjoyed, MPC2 - the two-year-old - power vomits at a restaurant (the only one open - literally) at the exact same moment the plates arrive at the table. Poor dear proceeds to hurf for the next 13 hours. Supermom prevents her from dehydration by staying up all night and spoon-feeding her water, but child is rendered a pale and limp rag after 24 hours, at which point we end up trapped due to the snow tsunami, but it works out since MPC2 could use just a day to rest.
The King,Lisey's Story, was my least favorite of King's ever. Once in a while King experiments with other genres and styles, some of which are amazing, like The Eyes of the Dragon, which he wrote for his daughter. This one - "Lisey" - is a dud a far as I'm concerned. Like someone on Amazon said, King has written some bad books, but he's never been boring before. Someone else said that it picked up after the first section, about 100 page in. They were wrong. Give this one a pass folks.
After we got back, I caught up on my web surfing, and turned up some fun stuff:
This clever parody of the atheist fundie Richard Dawkins: Professor Richard Dawkins Speaks at Fair Hills Kindergarten Regarding Santa Claus, December 2, 2006. (Via Kottke.org)
I think Dawkins would be happier if someone got him this t-shirt.
Checking in with Dear Prudence, whose advice column is not to be missed, I happed upon her "best of 2006" article, which featured all the hell she got from folks by actually suggesting to a woman who'd turned up pregnant to - get this - go ahead and have the child. Oh, the wailing and gnashing of teeth! Oh, the slings and arrows flung at we breeders. Oh, go read it yourself!
I think those people need to watch more cartoons and just chill the heck out. (Be sure to watch "The Big Snit" and "The Cat Came Back.")
Oh, the in-laws came for Christmas dinner. We have about as much in common as duck-billed platypus(es) and actual ducks do, so usually it's a minor ordeal for me. However, pops-in-laws had some good one-liners. We were discussing all the vegetarians we know, and he said, "Here's a question...do vegans breastfeed?" I had a good snort over that.
Finally, some perspective.
6 comments:
I'd been thinking about the Y. family when the news mentioned the Colorado blizzard, and hoping you weren't suffering from it too much. Hereabouts we'd been enduring agonizing cold--sometimes down literally into the forties--until this morning, when a warm-air system blew up the Gulf bringing 70 degrees, unending thunderstorms, and a little road-flooding. No one threw up. Though I had to fling myself in front of the door to keep children from running outside to puddle-stomp, contemptuous of the continuous lightning or the raging torrents whooshing down the storm sewers.
On a related (Christmas weather) note, Offspring #2 repeatedly demanded to know why Mommy sings about a "white Christmas," and took explanations about this "snow" phenomenon with great skepticism. We may have to take her to Colorado.
And on a totally unrelated note, we're expecting yet another Eudoxus clonelet in 2007! Yeah!
Atheist fundie? Contradictory, wouldn'cha say?
Nope. It's the form of atheism where the (non)believer is convinced theirs is the only reasonable and acceptable conclusion given the evidence, and everyone else is stupid or deluded.
And of course, it's not the only form of atheism. I know many who, while they are convinced themselves, do not require everyone around them to share their opinion.
I didn't know you hung out with Dawkins.
I guess I could pin this label on someone if I actually knew them personally and was put off by their intolerance of me because of my beliefs. I don't know upon what you base your denunciation, but I hope you recognize the irony of this.
I've been meaning to read his latest book, along with "Letter to a Christian Nation" (forgot the author). I did hear Dawkins on NPR - no anti-theistic diatribe, just another average asshole plugging his book.
I guess I went off on a tangent there...
What I saw as contradictory was the idea that a distinct group of theists who base all reality on one book (e.g. the bible) which has no basis in science, and atheists who base reality on the sum total of all man's scientific knowledge to date, are painted with the same brush. How they relate to others is irrelevent. (And let's face it - no one can know what another thinks or feels, just what they verbalize. A person calling me stupid or deluded is just plain rude and boorish. )
So to me, "christian fundie" and "muslim fundie" fit, but "atheist fundie" is an oxymoron.
I guess we'll have to disagree on this one.
It's become a common concept, though: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=atheist+fundamentalist&btnG=Google+Search
It appears that some atheists try to reject the classification, but they try to hoist the rhetoric of their rejection onto the house of cards that atheism isn't a belief or organized set of beliefs like religions are. Well, poppycock. It's an ontological stance, regardless of what it is or isn't comprised of, and therefore subject to the same scrutiny, questioning, and sometimes labels that other belief systems are.
And to be clear, I really have trouble with ALL forms of fundamentalism: Christian, atheist, what have you. Because all fundamentalism rejects concepts and evidence that do not line up with its viewpoint, and the view that others might legitimately have a different, valid opinion is not usually entertained seriously.
So, I view those who think the creation stories in Genesis are literal truth (rather than allegorical truth) the same way I view those who think evolution is irrefutable proof that life arose without some sort of primary mover - I think they've gone too far. (To me, the fact of evolution suggests neither side - God or no God - it just suggests how life arose on earth.)
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