Growing up godless

From the reading I've done around the internet I seem to have come from a fairly rare perspective on the whole atheism thing as my parents did not raise us to follow any particular faith.  It was never really something I'd given a whole lot of though to until I started noticing how many "how I became an atheist" stories there are on the blagoblag, reddit, and even among the big gun atheists' books. 

All those stories of lost faith, increasing skepticism and unanswered (unanswerable?) questions are almost as foreign to me as stories of faith, unquestioning belief, and how "Jesus is the answer"....simply because I never lived the transition.  My parents...at some point....did the hard work for me (us...I suppose including my siblings).  I think it's something I really need to ask them about.  We've honestly not had any really in-depth conversations about faith....at least not since I've been an adult.  About the closest we've come was last summer, when discussing plans for my youngest sister's funeral....when looking for an officiant, my father, specifying his preference, stated that "we're not very religious" and also made sure to insist that we had a "moment of reflection" and not a prayer. 

I remember asking when we were kids why we didn't go to church...but I don't remember the answer.... and when I asked what the hell I was supposed to do when I started in a new school, in a new town, in a new province at the beginning of grade 6 and we started every day reciting the lord's prayer.....which I had never heard in my life (ok...I probably had...but I sure didn't notice it) my mother told me to just stand quietly. 

So, I don't really know what happened to split my parents from the church, but for whatever reason they did.  Maybe it was both my mom's parents dying when she was in her early twenties (about 6months apart, from unrelated causes)....maybe it was something else.  I don't really know much about my mom's family, but I do know there's a fairly wide spectrum of religiosity on my dad's side that we lie at one extreme of.  His mother was a very regular churchgoer and was quite involved in church activities.  His twin brother still took my cousins to church when we were growing up.  My aunt was a very regular and involved churchgoer who actually married a well-known (by Saskatchewan standards) anglican reverend in her later years.  Some of my dad's cousins are very religious in the evangelical christian style.  We used to sit around the campfire at family reunions with the more moderate folks enjoying a beer or two and joke that they were probably saying their bedtime prayers for us. 

As a kid I always wondered what the big deal about church was.  I remember having my weekends free to play with my friends and my brother, or to play sports.....but there were always friends that were busy at church on sunday mornings.  Or even worse were my mormon friends that were doing "family time" all day on sundays and weren't allowed to play at all that day.  Seemed like a big waste of quality kid-time to me.  And it was inconvenient for my social calender as well.  If I wanted to play with those kids on the weekend it had to be on Saturday.  If you had a birthday party...and you wanted them to come....Saturday or nothing.  And there were no sleep-overs on Saturday nights because they wouldn't be home Sunday morning, and that just wouldn't so.  I really didn't understand what this designated family time was about..... I was available to play from breakfast until bedtime.... if I was home my dad would play with me....and if I wasn't...we caught up over supper....or the next day.  Why were their parents so selfish?

When I was a teenager it became less of an issue.  More activities on weekends (early morning hockey practice...yay!), and we'd moved so those particular mormon friends were long gone.... During my really (REALLY!!!) awkward loner phase I do remember being approached by a boy from my school and his "mentor" (?...fucking creepy older guy that helps you convert vulnerable teens to your creepy cult?...what do you call that?) about whether I'd accepted jesus and blah blah blah.  I dodged their questions for a while and eventually they just left me alone.  When it came down to it, this kid was probably even lower on the social ladder than me (at least I played hockey on top of my geekiness, shyness, scrawniness and general social outcast status)..... he was just a fat kid with asthma who wasn't even smart enough to get good grades....and he was hanging out with some dude twice his age.  Being seen with him definitely wasn't going to make me the hip kid on the block. 

I really think I started thinking of religious kids as losers around this time.  I mean...I was a social outcast, I was bullied, I got picked on, beat up, teased, all of it....but I didn't need some club of churchy losers and their imaginary friend to make me feel better about myself. 

Then when I went away to college it seemed to really disappear.  I fell in with a crowd of really good friends and we tended to keep busy on the weekends with definite non-church activites.  It's kinda funny.  College is supposed to be the time for the discussing of ideas great and small and for really figuring out who you are....but I think pharmacy school is a little different.  It's such a focused 4 years, with such a pre-determined class load that you don't really have time to take more than the bare minimum of "humanities".  You were required to take a few elective classes, but these were mostly picked for their lack of difficulty and their relatively light course load.  Given the choice between taking the easiest 101 level classes in 5 different things or following one pathway through more advanced courses you'd have to decide whether you really wanted to do pharmacy plus life, or pharmacy plus a bunch of time consuming essays and group projects.  Nope....there was definitely not much incentive to get past the 101's and their 300 student class sizes and their multiple choice, same every year tests. 

I definitely had friends and classmates who went to church.  At least in the twice-a-year-catholic style.... but it never really got discussed.  I really never knew what most of them were into until it started to become wedding and kids time.  Then all of a sudden it's time to start taking the "classes" that their church offer so they can get married there.  Gotta pick out the best bible verse about love.... fucking corinthians (I always laugh at the fact that assuming it's the bride that picks that verse out......they've obviously never read a few pages before and after that verse where there are all sorts of good old-fashioned nuggets about the rightful place of women....).  And you've got to get the kids baptized.  And you really should start going more often so the kids get a good moral foundation (you know....as long as they ignore pretty much the entire book the church holds up as its guiding document....)


So here I am, out of school almost 15 years now and starting to finally put a solid framework around all these things I always kinda knew....but were never more than a gut feeling.  You could almost say that I used to believe I was an atheist but now I know it.  I have to thank my parents for not indoctrinating me into any outdated immoral belief system, but I kinda wish they'd helped me a bit more with my skepticism.  Part of that is my own fault.  I've never been the type to publicly (or privately) ask questions if I think I can find the answer myself.  Too much fear of ridicule (thanks teen years....) but, at the same time it's a good quality to have to a degree.  I think when my little girl gets older I'm going to try to be a bit more forthcoming with the conversations about this kind of stuff.  In the end it'll still be her choice what she decides, but when presented with the options I hope she picks the most logical one.

Doctor Who

This past winter, with my wife incredibly pregnant and a 1 month "vacation" with my soon-to-be-born daughter pending, I finally gave in to my curiosity and watched an episode of Doctor Who.  I don't know why, but I just knew that once I dipped my toe in the water that I'd have to dive in whole hog.  Here in North America it's really the red-headed step child of sci-fi series.  There's Star Wars folk, there's Trek folks.... and then a sprinkling of big fans of some of the other big franchises.... but not a whole lot of Doctor Who. 

I did an informal poll at my work not long ago....and out of 10 people I asked...only 1 knew what I was talking about and really only that it was some show her husband watched.  So....not really a big thing with that crowd (admittedly, pharmacy people aren't nearly as geeky as you'd think they'd be)....  Honestly....you'd think people would have heard of it by accident...it's only been on TV for fifty freaken years.  But yeah...I dragged my wife along and gave it a try.  (Charge: Sweetest woman ever....Evidence Exhibit A: puts up with my geekery)

Sure, there was the chance that I'd watch an episode or two and decide that it just wasn't for me (a-la Star Trek), but being a huge anglophile (at least as far as TV tastes) I didn't think that was likely. (I can get into that in another blog post).  So...we watched a few episodes of the "new series" and we're hooked. Then, Vera was born and I got a bunch of time off from work.

Nothing gets the happy new parents through those rough midnight to 2am hours like a couple episodes of Doctor Who.  There were times we almost wished she'd start fussing at the end of an episode so we'd have an excuse to watch the next one.

I've watched some of the old episodes on netflix (and have downloaded a few more), and while plot-wise they read pretty good...probably as good or better than the "new series"....the special effects, and costumes, and even some of the acting falls into the so-bad-it's-good category.

So yeah, I'm officially a "fan".  One of the things that finally convinced me to give it a try was that Steven Moffat was one of the main writers/producers and in the last few years became one of the "show runners". (basically the big boss in BBC-speak).  To most canadians his name will mean pretty much nothing....but if you have any liking of British TV you can go through his filmography and you'll probably L-O-V-E-love his work ***.
Sherlock  - Modern-day Sherlock based on the original stories with a modern twist
Coupling - England's "friends" - not really....but to sum it up in 2 words....sure
Jeckyl - A modern day twist on the Jeckyl and Hyde story - AWESOME!
The Adventures of Tintin - Ok...a movie and not TV....but not terrible either...

(*** unless you're a feminist.... the internet world is full of posts that despise his treatment of female characters ... not something that has jumped out at me .... but being male you'll have to excuse my obliviousness.... the way I see it, except for Coupling his main characters are almost exclusively male, so it seems reasonable to expect them to be the most well rounded characters....yes the female characters tend to be more one-dimensional, but from my male perspective so do his secondary male characters.)

Alright...enough of that. 

Doctor Who fans are some of the most dedicated out there.... there's this entire website dedicated to people who have built or are building their own T.A.R.D.I.S.

I even have a new tardis ipad case on order...as we speak ...

from Etsy:MyGeekyBoyfriend


I'll let you know how it is when it arrives.

Unfortunately, the new Doctor Who series isn't on netflix in Canada.  There's about 6 of the 4-episode serials from previous years on there and there's the Torchwood spinoff (seems decent so far but working on about 1/3 of the budget and it looks it).  Extra unfortunately the DVDs of the seasons tend to be priced much higher than comparable sets of more popular BBC shows.  I'd say go hit your local video store and rent them....but I think they're all out of business.  Zip.ca might have them, but it might take forever to get to the front of the line.  You could always illegally download them....but you know what happens to people that illegally download things.... oh yeah....nothing (at least in canada....for now...) .   I'd recommend that route then.

The Chosen Ones

Alright...so...when I'm feeling lazy, I'm just gonna throw a cool picture or link up that I've found.  Then at least you know what I'm looking at on the computer....besides porn of course.

This one really sums it all up for me though.

The Bible of ...

 

I'm never quite sure what to think when I see a book that's called "The (Something-Somthing) Bible".   Is it completely outdated with questionable relevance to any present-day application?

Or what should I think when a respected colleague tells me to look something up in this or that reference book because it's "The Bible of....(insert specialty here)" ....    Is it a compendium of poorly documented, one-off case reports about improbable impossible things with not a sniff of legitimate science to back it up?

My examples above are simply what came up in the first page when I searched "the bible" on amazon and then clicked on a bunch of different subtopics (excluding religion and history, and any book that was referencing some other bible....)

Just for fun...try the same experiment...with "the torah" or "the quran/koran"....just on my brief overview...it's pretty much 100% translations of the original or references to the original.....  there's definitely no "Marijuana Grower's Koran" or "Torah of Halal Cooking".   Unfortunate really.

Well, ignoring the situation of a colleague suggesting a legitimate book with really poor selling skills... what should we do with this sub-genre of nonfiction?  Well, for starters, they generally don't look like the most legitimate expert opinions on their chosen topics.  "The Disaster Survival Bible"....it's probably just one page...with one word on it.... "Pray".  

Additionally, the topics are generally kinda dodgy things to be experts in anyways.... marijuana growing, herbal medicines, fur trapping (for fucks sake... from the amazon page this is a 2nd or 3rd edition even).  Seems like mostly areas where there's really crappy science at best, and "expert opinion" and dogma at worst.....just the kind of specialties where a bible would come in handy.

Well, for what it's worth, there are 2 (maybe 3...) books in my home with the word bible in the title.  One (or 2) actual bibles that are just good to have around (when you need a doorstop, or to press a flower, etc).....and this

I'm actually quite looking forward to reading it with my daughter when she's old enough.  Since it consists of very accurate illustrations of stories from the Old Testament...that'll probably be in 20 or 25 years....