The Atheist Mama

I recently wrote a letter to the NC school board as well as our house representative and senators concerning a sign that is prominently displayed in my children’s public schools. The sign is a framed poster reading, “IN GOD WE TRUST.” The letter follows. I will be sure to post the replies I receive…

I am a resident of Lincoln County North Carolina. I have two school age children that attend public schools here. It has come to my attention that in both of my children’s schools there is a framed sign reading, “In God We Trust.� This slogan on display in a public institution of education highly offends me. Not only do such references foster oppression and discrimination they are unconstitutional.

I realize that this motto was adopted by congress in 1956, however this does not make it right or just. Please note this is also the congress that launched communism witch-hunts and trampled the civil rights of numerous people. This antiquated slogan symbolizes one of many injustices forced upon a religious and culturally diverse nation.

This nation is comprised of people from all walks of life. It is their right to live the life they seek free of religious subjugation. Our constitution grants us freedom of religion. Thomas Jefferson speaks eloquently of this freedom in respects to a wall between church and state. This separation of church and state is vital to the livelihood of our great nation.

Ask yourself how could this slogan on display in a public school affect a child of a non-Christian or Jewish upbringing? A Wiccan child prays to a Goddess, Buddhist honor Buddha, Muslims pray to Allah, we may even have those that still believe in Zeus or Thor. How about the family that does not believe in a deity? We cannot assume that all honor the God of Abraham or any other supernatural being. To ask them to do so goes against the very fundamentals this nation was built upon.

Schools are a place to nurture the mind, an institution that embraces all equally. The subject of God and religion is a private matter to be discussed in the confines of one’s home or religious institution. Human history is deeply scarred and stained with blood shed in the name of God and religion. The issue of religion, forced worship and subjugation are among the deepest rifts in the fabric of this nation. To include such a volatile and potentially oppressive subject in our educational system is doing children and this nation a deep disservice. Our government and all government operated institutions are supposed to be secular so that Americans can be theist or not with out fear of oppression and discrimination.

It is time to step up correct the wrongs that have been visited upon this nation and its constitution. This is our home; it is enriched by diversity and opportunity. Please don’t take this for granted. We need to learn to respect one another and to keep our religious dogmas out of public schools and other government run institutions in order to maintain our rights and liberties and create an environment in which we all can flourish. These signs need to be removed from our schools for the sake of freedom. God does not belong in our schools any more than the government belongs in our churches.

My 10 yr old daughter has aspirations of becoming a scientist. She’s back and forth on the specific field of study but her heart has always led her to science. As a parent I feel its my job to provide her every opportunity possible to explore her thirst for knowledge.

We often have discussions pertaining to science and how the world and universe work. Lately, we have been discussing evolution. We have discussed the facts of biological evolution and are starting to get into some of the hypotheses as far as species evolutionary paths and relations. I recently suggested asking her teacher when and if they were going to cover evolution this year. As she came off the school bus yesterday the first thing out of her mouth was, “Mom! My teacher said it was against the law to teach evolution!� To say the least I was floored.

I realize that evolution is consistently under attack from the religious right based on their interpretation of biblical accounts regarding the creation of life. I can fully respect ones right to exercise their religious freedoms. However, I do not believe that the educational system needs to omit scientific reasoning, theory and hypotheses from curriculum in order to placate religious doctrine. The study of scientific evidence, fact, and theory are critical elements to understanding how science can be used to research and understand the world and universe around us. To leave out elements due to religious protest not only skews scientific data and understanding, it crosses the separation of church and state as outlined in our Constitution.

Although, I may not agree with some peoples choice to shelter their children from studying evolution, I support their right to practice their religion. If the studying of scientific data interferes with ones religious beliefs opting out of portions of science class that are thought to be contradictory or sac religious, as many do for sex education, is completely acceptable.

Honestly, I have been very happy with our school so I was shocked to hear that evolution would be a banned topic. I have started researching the issue. Web searches were varied and contradictory, as expected. However the names, numbers and addresses of our county board and state board are easily found on the web. This morning I placed several phone calls to members of both state and county school boards. No one was available at the time, so I left messages stating I was curious about some specific curriculum policies. I have received three varied responses. Oddly enough no one has been able to answer my question; Is there a law or policy prohibiting the teaching of evolution in public school?

One lady I spoke with admitted that she didn’t know much about evolution to begin with. She actually said, “its the idea that apes turned into humans or something like that.� I was a bit speechless over the comment. I mean this woman is one our county school board officials. In fact she is the chairman of the Curriculum advisory committee!

So I sit here this evening in a bit of shock and bewilderment. What started out as a quest to find out if evolution is a banned topic in North Carolina schools has turned up not only conflicting information but seems to have scratched the surface of what could be a grossly incompetent school board.

Cross posted on broadstripes.org

RR from Rescuing Reason has set up a forum for our Game!! Thank you!!

Make sure you go by and register!!

Just a bit of history in case you are new -

The War on Easter was declared on April 11. I set out on my mission soon after. We then began “The Game.” Since we now have over 160 comments on that entry, RR was great enough to start a message board dedicated to “The Game.”

Go check it out! But don’t forget about my blog! :-P

From The Washington Post:

Ancient fossils fill gap in early human evolution

An international team of scientists have discovered 4.1 million year old fossils in eastern Ethiopia that fill a missing gap in human evolution.

The teeth and bones belong to a primitive species of Australopithecus known as Au. anamensis, an ape-man creature that walked on two legs.

The Australopithecus genus is thought to be an ancestor of modern humans. Seven separate species have been named. Au. anamensis is the most primitive.

[…]

Then we have this from a days ago.

Paleontologists have discovered fossils of a species that provides the missing evolutionary link between fish and the first animals that walked out of water onto land about 375 million years ago.

The question is: What will it take for a creationist to believe that evolution is what is responsible for man?

(Apologies for this post changing before your eyes. When I started it, my son hit my keyboard and I didn’t realize that it had published)

So, with the last post on the subject of morality, we’ve reached over 20 comments (which is a lot for this little blog). Thanks to all of you who are participating.

In the comments, The Atheist Jew posted:

>”Murder” is fine with many people wrt the death penalty.
If a child rapist murderer admits to doing horrific crimes to children, there will be a lineup of people giving their blessings to murder the person. Of course, there will be many who think that it is immoral no matter what to kill this guy.
>That is relative. The fact that you state abortion is immoral and I don’t in most cases means exactly what I’m talking about. It is relative.

I’m starting a new post on this because 1) I tend to get lost with all of the comments, and 2) I have to point this out.
What TAJ said above is along the same lines of what I was thinking this afternoon.

Here is a very, very basic example of morality being relative: In the United States, the majority of Christians (I have no evidence to support this so if anyone can prove that wrong, please do) are pro-life and see abortion as immoral. There are also millions of Americans who would disagree and say that abortion is NOT immoral (I would be one of those Americans).

In the same previous post, I asked about a few situations in our world that the majority think are immoral, but obviously not all do. I asked Noell what she thought should be done about these situations and she suggested that one option would be for countries to band together and “put social pressure on the governments who are causing these atrocities” (not advocating military force).

Keeping the above in mind, should the Christians in our own country put social pressure on our government to put a stop to abortion? Well, that’s exactly what is going on right now. South Dakota is the perfect example. So what I see happening is one group of people imposing their morals on another, and they are winning at this point.

Then you have the whole death penalty controversy that TAJ mentioned above. A whole new can of worms.

To me, this is a perfect example of morality being relative, and why one set of morals for the entire world just isn’t possible, and even dangerous.

I knew it was coming one of these days. Yesterday, I sneezed and my oldest son said “G’ bless you!” My first thought was, “Wow!! Very impressive!” My second thought? “Who the hell taught him that?”

My husband and I don’t have a sneezing etiquette. We don’t say anything. We sneeze and get on with our lives. When it comes to the kids, we make a “WoooooOoOOOoO” sound and it makes them laugh. In our opinion, there is not reason for blessings from God. Now, I do say “Salut” or “gesundheit” when I’m in public or around family. I just do it to be polite. But we never really did that with the kids. I guess we’ll start now. I know that this came from school. I don’t want teachers to mistake the fact that he’s not saying “God bless you” for being rude.

So I explained to him that he didn’t have to say “God bless you” when I sneeze, but I thanked him. Then I introduced “salut” to him. It’s amazing. This would be the first time that he’s been exposed to the word “God,” and it was by his teachers.

I’ve been thinking of this a lot in the last few days, because of the past few posts and comments. So, what is tolerance?? I mean, I know what it is, but I decided to look it up and see what the dictionary had to say.

>tol·er·ance
n.

> 1. The capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others.

The above is just one of the definitions, and the one that is relevant to this post.

Tolerance is what is expected from people in today’s world. Once upon a time, that was certainly not the case.
Today, to be intolerant is to be bigoted, narrow-minded and hateful.

So where does one draw the line? Who decides what is to be tolerated? Isn’t the intolerance of one groups views, no matter what those beliefs are, being intolerant?

Right now in Ohio, DeWine is backing a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Isn’t that intolerant? Of course it is. DeWine is a Roman Catholic, by the way. Being from a Catholic family myself, I know that the general beliefs of Catholics are anti-gay. They do no tolerate homosexuality. They also do not tolerate abortion, divorce, masterbation, pre-marital sex, etc. So why should I, as an atheist, tolerate their beliefs?

Evangelicals are intolerant of science, in my opinion. It is the tolerance of this that will damage our schools and ultimately the education of our children.

Does it all come down to morality? But then what is moral? What isn’t moral? In my opinion, morality is relative. What is considered moral to someone in, well, lets just say Iraq, isn’t at all moral here in the United States. But do we tolerate them? Do we tolerate acts that we consider crimes? Wouldn’t that be the PC thing to do?

Obviously, I don’t know the answers to a lot of these quesitons. This post is basically me, brainstorming. I’m very open to input and thoughts.

Actually, 2 of the more recent posts. The ones that I am talking about are here and here.

Let me share my thoughts and beliefs with you in regards to religion.

It is my belief that religion is nothing but a means for one group of human beings to control another group of human beings. I believe that this world would be much better off with out religion and the belief in a god, by anyone. Religion is no longer necessary in our world, and I think that it should be phased out. I don’t think that human beings need religion in their lives. Period.

Now, I get that now all atheists agree with me. You don’t have to! There are plenty of pro-life atheists out there. There are strong atheists, weak atheists, apathetic atheists, positive atheists, humanists, brights, agnostic - the list of names for people who don’t believe in god goes on and on.

In a comment in one of the previous posts was this:

>We will never improve our image as atheists and agnostics as long as some of us make such illogical and intolerant statements.

I understand what you are saying, but I can’t be someone I’m not… I do believe that religion is the “root of all evil” (or at least one of them).

If this makes me illogical and intolerant, well then so be it I guess. Not all atheists are as accepting of religion being forced down our throats as others are.

:-) That is all.

So this year, I’ll be celebrating the vernal equinox by cleaning up puke. My youngest isn’t even keeping down water this morning. When I went into their bedroom this morning, I was greeted with that horrible stench and I knew instantly how my day was going to go. At some point last night, one of them (we think it was the oldest one because he’s been puking randomly for about a week) had thrown up. But there was no crying last night, no asking for help, nothing. So they were both sleeping in it (just happened to be a night that they slept in the same bed) and it was dry by the time I walked in.

At least I got to get outside and work in the yard some yesterday. Here’s the list of plants that I see popping up - tulips, hyacinths and crocuses (of course), lemon balm, salvia, rudbeckia, hollyhocks, and some of the chives that I had planted last year are coming back. I think I even saw some chamomile. I cleaned all of the dead stuff up yesterday. When it’s warmer out I’ll get out there and turn the soil. I have some great compost from last year ready to add. I can’t wait. If you didn’t know, I’m a plant lover and a gardener (when I can take the heat). My blog will probably really slow down once spring fever really sets in.

I came pretty close to driving on out to DC yesterday to visit my mother and check out the “Die-In” that’s going on today at the Pentagon. I thought that it would be a pretty interesting experience. My mother had plans to go into DC today anyway and may be stopping by, so hopefully she’ll come home with pictures. I’m glad I didn’t decide to go though, with the kids sick like they are.

So, that’s all I have for today. Have a great day. Consider yourself lucky if it’s warm where you are today.

It was in May in 1997 that I found out that I was pregnant.

I was 18 years old. I had graduated highschool the summer before. Instead of going to college (I did have the opportunity but turned it down), I chose to move from Northern Virginia to Asheville, North Carolina with my boyfriend.

I was living every young hippie’s dream. The mountains, a dog, a few cats, and 60 acres of land. I spent my days hiking and studying the medicinal plants that grew all over western NC. My dream was to become a midwife or an herbalist, or Dr. Quinn - Medicine Woman.

When I wasn’t pretending to live in Little House on the Prarie, I was working as a hostess at a fancy Italian restaurant near the Biltmore Estate. I probably made no more than $6.00 an hour. My boyfriend was working for our landlord building houses. He made $7.00/hr. We had a 6 month lease on this house, and it was in the month of May that our lease was up. See, our landlord rented this house out for the winter and in the summer months, his parents would come back to NC from FL and live there. So, instead of searching out another place to rent for the summer months, the landlord offered to put us up in one of his campers rent free so that my boyfriend could continue to work and live close by.

Since it was to be rent free, I decided to stop working for a while so that I could “study” (this was all independent study) full time. So we were bringing in a little over $13,000 a year. We were staying in a 20′ camper. It was actually pretty cool. We looked at it as camping for the summer. We stored most of our stuff and filled the camper with books and food and music and flowers. It was parked on the land and we were plugged in to electric. We were young, we were poor, we were childless, and we were camping for the entire summer in what we considered paradise.

Things slowly started to go sour though. Living in this small trailer was not easy. Yeah, it would have been fun for a week or two, but we were crazy to think that it would work for as long as we were planning for. It was hot. The water situation was just horrible, and we ended up with no running water. The landlord was being stingy with the pay and hours, and we were making next to nothing. We turned into slaves of this man. He was taking advantage of 18 year old kids, and we were having a hard time finding a way out. We didn’t have enough money to make a deposit, pay a month of rent, get utilities turned on, get gas in the car, and eat, so we felt very stuck. Both of our parents lived 8 hours away. It was then that I found out that I was pregnant.

After taking the 3rd pregnancy test, we accepted it. We spent a day straight crying. But we made the decision. We had to have an abortion. Bringing a child into the horrible situation that we had gotten ourselves into would not have been good for anyone. We didn’t have health insurance. We didn’t want to end up on welfare, and WIC, and food stamps. While we were in a tight spot, we KNEW that we would have pulled out of it eventually. But there would have been no chance of that if a baby had come into the picture.

I called the clinic (this clinic was later bombed and shot at) the next day from a payphone, and tried to make an appointment. It turned out that I was way to early in the pregnancy to actually have an abortion, and that I would have to wait 2 weeks before having the procedure. We’ll just say that it was the longest 2 weeks of my life.

When I finally was able to make the appointment, I put the $450 on a credit card. My appointment was on a Saturday morning. We drove up to the clinic and had to drive through the mass of protesters standing outside of the parking lot. Luckily the clinic had a large chain link fence around it, so we were able to park and go into the clinic without having to walk through them. But you could still hear their screaming and yelling. I remember the word “whore” clearly.

I won’t go into much more detail about the procedure. It was painful, it was scary, but it was done, and I was thrilled to be able to go on with my life. I was able to make a choice about my own future. It was a choice that I will never regret. I am where I am today because I was able to have that abortion.

We pulled ourselves out of the misery that we were in. We moved on with our lives. Later, we split up. There were some big differences between us. One of the biggest being the fact that he didn’t want to ever have children.

I’m writing this in response to South Dakota’s Governor, Mike Rounds and his decision to strip the women of his state their Constitutional rights. Fuck you Governor Rounds.

I am a woman. IT’S MY BODY. Let ME choose.

Please see Miz BoheMia’s post and Pia’s post.

Need an abortion but your state won’t let you have one? Here’s another interesting link that Jim posted about.

Sorry, this post isn’t very organized. I have a lot to say, and it’s not easy organizing my thoughts right now. I’m having a very hard time wrapping my head around the fact that the government is taking my rights away. I knew it was coming in SD, but it’s really hitting home now. Please, if you haven’t done so already, sign Planned Parenthood’s Save Roe Campaign. Write letters, make phone calls, SAVE WOMEN and their futures!!!

Public schools, according to Nicholas Jackson. He is the Executive Director of Reform America here in Columbus, Ohio.

Here’s what was published in The Columbus Dispatch today:

>Public schools immoral places for children
Monday, February 27, 2006

>In December, I submitted a resolution to the State Convention of Baptists in Ohio, urging pastors and parents to investigate the indoctrination of our young people into the homosexual agenda and to encourage concerned Christian parents to remove their children from public schools.

>At the heels of the recent 11-4 decision by the State Board of Education to censor any criticism of Darwinian evolution, it has become clear that our young people are being indoctrinated into not only a pro-homosexual, but a humanistic religion, as well. Ohio schools have become officially atheistic, godless and toxic, morally, intellectually and spiritually, to our precious children. Ohio evangelical leaders and pastors must urge parents to remove their children from Pharoah’s oppressive schools and give them a thoroughly Christian education, through either Christian schools or home education. Why send them to Sunday School, only to have their faith torn asunder Monday through Friday? It is time to let the children go. NICHOLAS A. JACKSON Executive director, Reform America Ohio coordinator, Exodus Mandate Newark

Maybe he (and his followers) should move to South Carolina or Domino-ville (thanks for the link, Dave)?

It’s up at The Education Wonks

Check it out - lots of great posts. It’s always interesting to see other points of view on the state of education.

So I finally got my battery in the camera charged, so now I can show you the cake that I made for Heliocentrism Day. :-)

The hardest part was trying to figure out what all of the planets should be.
Oh, and to get black frosting, don’t use vanilla. Ugh…

Edited to add:

I thought I would post the details of the cake for you. Also, you can learn from my mistakes!!

I used a Dark Fudge Chocolate Cake (I just looked for something really dark) and made it in a 10″ cake pan.

Frosting -
I used vanilla. Mistake. I should have used the white frosting so that I could get a true black color. But anyway, I used the vanilla (2 containers, which was way too much - I could have gotten away with one easily) and managed to find black food coloring. I used the entire little bottle of food coloring. Yikes… It ended up this very dark brown, and actually almost a coppery/silverish color.

I spread the frosting on very thin and used a long spreader to try and make it as smooth as I could.

I purchased a tube of white icing for the orbit paths. That was not easy… I don’t suggest the tubes. Make white icing and put it in a piping bag instead. It would be much easier to squeeze.

Sun - The white icing from the tube mixed with orange and yellow food coloring. I didn’t have red, but that would have been even better.

Mercury - Frosting with a little bit of food coloring to make it light grey. I honestly don’t remember how I ended up with the color…

Venus - Just plain vanilla frosting.

Earth - A blueberry smeared with vanilla frosting.

Mars - LOL!! I cut a small circle from a piece of pepperoni!!

Jupiter - Yes Colin, that is a pancake. I cut a circle out of a pancake and I even put a little bit of the frosting from the sun on it for the “red spot.”

Saturn - Mustard. Yup, Gulden’s Mustard with a strip of icing over it for the rings. Make sure you scrape that off before eating!!

Saturn - Frosting with food coloring.

Uranus - Frosting with food coloring.

Pluto - I cut a tiny circle out of a whole wheat tortilla. A regular flour tortilla would have been better for color, but it’s so small that it doesn’t really matter…

I scraped the planets off before we ate it. If I had more food coloring available, I would have been able to make the ones that weren’t really edible (with the cake anyway) so that I didn’t have to scrape it off.

The boys loved it!! Of course, they didn’t really understand. When I was telling my oldest that we lived on the blueberry, he told me I was silly. LOL!!

Yet another day to celebrate science! Today is Origin of Life Day. But no cake for this one!! Know anything about Alexander Oparin? Well here’s a little bit about him.

Happy learning!!

In celebration of the birthdays of Nicolaus Copernicus (born February 19th, 1473) and Galileo Galilei (born February 15th, 1564), it’s Heliocentrism Day!

My children are still young, but I think that fun celebrations like this are great for memory making and of course, for education (theirs and mine). Take some time out today to learn, and to teach what you’ve learned to others.

Thanks to RBH at The Panda’s Thumb for posting the text of this resolution.

>Resolved, that the Superintendent of Public Instruction be, and she hereby is, directed to take the following actions immediately:

>1) Delete the model lesson plan, Critical Analysis of Evolution, from the state board-approved curriculum and remove its availability from print sources, technology sources, and any other Ohio Board of Education/Ohio Department of Education mechanism that makes it available for use.

>2) Delete the following sentences from Grade 10 Life Science Benchmark H: “Describe how scientists continue to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory. (The intent of this benchmark does not mandate the teaching or testing of intelligent design.)â€�, and delete Indicator 23 in its entirety, and adjust all print sources, technology sources, and any other Ohio Board of Education/Ohio Department of Education documents to reflect the removal;

>3) The Achievement Committee of the Sate Board of Education is charged to consider whether the deleted model lesson, Benchmark H and Indicator 23 shoud be replaced by a different benchmark, lesson, and indicator, and if so, to present any recommendation to the entire State Board for adoption;

>4) Communicate the fact of the above actions to all public school superintendents and high school principals in Ohio.

“The Hot Issue” for February 15, 2006 at The Columbus Dispatch website: Should analysis of evolution be included in state school science standards?

Go weigh in. The comments are pretty interesting. It does require a quick, easy registration to comment and vote.

Edited to post the comment that I added here:

>Feb 15, 2006 09:56 am - No

>Besides the fact that creationism has no scientific ground, what needs to be remembered is that this is a clear violation of our Constitutional rights. Religion must not be mandated. The study of evolution does not lead to atheism (which is NOT a religion). The survey that Discovery Institue commissioned here in OH that claimed the majority supported ID in science classrooms, is a clear representation of the uneducated citizens of Ohio. The questions that were asked during that survey were misleading as well, claiming that there was scientific evidence behind ID.

>The Ohio Board of Education voted 11-4 to delete material encouraging students to seek evidence for and against certain elements of evolutionary science. [Link]

Nice!!! 11-4 - I wonder if Cochran was one of the 4….

Thanks to The Panda’s Thumb for the tip (I’ve been waiting all day).

~ Edited to add that the no’s were: Cochran, Owens-Fink, Grady, and Westendorf.

Thanks Russel, for posting the info in the comments! It’s too bad that Cochran’s term isn’t up until December 31, 2008.

So most of you read my post re: my son’s school and Valentine’s Day.
He came home with a little bag full of those little valentines. Very cute. I started looking through them and I was thrilled because now I have all of the names of the kids he sees everyday. I only knew a few names before.

Then I came across a Veggie Tales valentine. I kind of rolled my eyes because I know that the mission of Veggie Tales is to “promote biblical values and encourage spiritual growth.”

I turned it over to look at the other side, and I see:

>…God loves you.

>Deuteronomy 23:5 NIV

UGH. WTH? I’m sure that no one at school even noticed, but hello??? What was the parent thinking??
What if I had sent my little boy to school with valentines that said, “God is just pretend.”

I just can’t win.

So believe it or not, I actually showed up, in my jeans and t-shirt, with my 17 month old!!!
I didn’t stay for more than 30 seconds though because my son went straight for a phone.
My origninal plan was that he was going to fall asleep on the way there. It was just about his nap time. If he had fallen asleep, I could have stayed. He would have been in a comatose state. However, he didn’t fall asleep. LOL!!

The guy who signed me in was very nice and when I left, he followed me out and told me that I was welcome to come back in when I was ready and that I didn’t need to sign in again, just grab a pass.

They weren’t on the subject of ID anyway. I have no way of knowing when they are going to talk about it…

But hey! I tried… I got some funny looks and I’m sure I scared the hell out of some people (bringing my kid in) but that’s ok. I’m not disrespectful; I would have never let him disturb or inturrupt the meeting.

Should I be embarrassed that I showed up, dressed down and all??