“The study of Kay” - a blog about religion, agnosticism, atheism, science, politics, ecology, animals, books, humor, television, movies … the list goes on
Zoe, on her blog, wrote a heart-wrenching tale about growing up with the knowledge that her dad, at one time, considered suicide. I won’t say anything more about her thoughts, other than to point you in her direction.
In the response to her post I wrote:
“Oh wow Zoe. That is so damn sad. I can’t imagine living with that. I have no words other than to say ‘I’m speechless’ and ‘here’s a hug’ and other piffles such as that.”
What I wrote was true at the time that I wrote it - to a point. It is sad. I was speechless.
But you know what hit me this morning as I wandered back over to catch up on the comments?
I CAN imagine what it was like living with that. My mother tried to kill herself when I was about 8 years of age.
I have NO IDEA why I wrote that “I couldn’t imagine living with that.”
Why did I write that? It’s not like I forgot. And yet, when I wrote that response, I had forgot. It didn’t enter my mind at all.
You might be able to offer me some simplistic explanations, but honestly, this has got me baffled.
I’ve read in a few places lately - a book I’m reading, a few blogs - the phrase (or something like it) : “When I decided to be an atheist …”
I think that’s an odd phrase.
How do you choose to be an atheist? How do you decide to not believe that God exists?
Isn’t that like waking up one morning and saying “I think I’ll not believe in Santa Clause any more,” when the day before you wholeheartedly did believe that Santa Clause existed?
How do you choose a negative? Isn’t it more like the loss of a positive?
I had faith and it went away. I had belief and it faded. I lost it. I didn’t wake up one day and choose to not believe any more.
So why do theists (and oddly enough some atheists) make the claim that atheism is a choice? I don’t get it.
Edit to add:
I understand that you can be an atheist and not have ever had a belief in God. You never did. That makes you an atheist by default, I think. And a person in this position isn’t likely to say “When I chose to be an atheist,” anyway, which means I ain’t talkin’ to you!
I think light on dark webpages are aesthetically pleasing. I had one myself for quite a while. However they ARE very difficult to read for any length of time. Eventually, at least for me, things start to blur and my head starts to hurt.
Well someone who has the same problem (and who is smarter than me knows java) decided to do something about it. The link at the end of this post will take you to an article (with the same complaint as mine). At the bottom of the article you will find a bookmarklet called ‘A Lovely Bookmark.’ Drag that bookmarklet to your toolbar and then the next time you come across a light on dark blog that you find hard to read, give the bookmarklet a click. Watch the magic happen.
If any of you out there are using Internet Explorer, could you please tell me if you can see the background image on this blog? It is a light gray fractal sort of thing. It shows up perfectly fine on Firefox, but I can’t see it on my IE. And yes, I have the latest version of IE.
And oh, what do you think of the theme tweaking? I’ve been working my ass off on it all day. Truly, my ass is now gone.
Anyone have a good replacement for “Oh God!”? Something that won’t spoil the, uh, “mood”?
And this answer has had me giggling all morning:
Nothing beats the double-entendre of “Touched by His Noodly Appendage”.
Ummm, yeah, my mind immediately painted it all out in intimate detail:
That happiest of moments gradually building … getting closer and closer … and closer and closer … and closer and closer … and then BAM! “Oh his noodly appendage! Oh his noodly appendage! Oh his noodly appendage”
And my husband going: “Noodly? Who you calling noodly?”
