The Atheist Mama

Did anyone see South Park this week? (If you have it recorded and are planning to watch it, don’t read any further)

There was big controversy in this Colorado town because “The Family Guy” had an episode coming up that was going to show the prophet Mohammed in support of the Danish newspaper!! Fox censored Mohammed out, but there was still rioting and violence all over the Muslim world.
Then, the producers of “The Family Guy” demanded they re-air the episode censor-free. Fox caves in and again, there is chaos.
South Park wants to show the Muslims that they are not taking part in this horrible event and they decide that the best way to show that they aren’t involved in seeing and hearing about Mohammed is to bury their heads in sand.

South Park was to be continued… Will Mohammed be shown in the next episode??

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.

I came across an interesting blog tonight called Curious Little Monkey. I found her on del.icio.us but I’m not quite sure how I found her. She’s an ex-Evangelical and now defines herself as a weak-atheist. She has a very interesting diary of her journey to atheism.

Anyway, while looking around on her site, I found this:

>The Crocheted Vulva is an intermediate-level pattern in chart form. The model includes labia majora, labia minora, clitoris, urethra, and vagina. It also includes information about these parts of the female body and directions to helpful books and websites.

$3.50 - Go get yours!

Last night I stumbled upon Blog Mad.

I’ve never seen anything like this before, but apparently there are lots of different types of “programs” out there to increase traffic to your blog.

It was an invite only type of thing last night. So I got my invite and joined. It’s pretty interesting. I don’t really know exactly how to describe it, because it’s so new to me, but I guess the bottom line is to increase your traffic.
That wasn’t the reason that I joined, but lemme tell you: at this point, I’ve had 76 visitors today. That’s about double the norm. Crazy!

Anyway, check it out if your interested. Yes, I do get some kind of credit for referrals. There is some kind of point system that I have yet to really figure out. But I just thought I’d share it. I’m not sure if it’s invite only now or not. If it is, and you want an invite, let me know.

>The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Tuesday that a small congregation in New Mexico may use hallucinogenic tea as part of a four-hour ritual intended to connect with God.

Read more here.

I knew we should have stayed in New Mexico with my in-laws!!

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.

Ok, I confess: this is the first time I’ve ever been tagged and it’s the first meme that you will find on my blog.
So thanks Jill, for tagging me!

>The Rules: The first player of this game starts with the topic “five weird habitsâ€� and people who get tagged need to write an entry about their five weird habits as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose the next five people to be tagged and link to their web journals. Don’t forget to leave a comment in their blog or journal that says “You have been taggedâ€� (assuming they take comments) and tell them to read yours.

1. I drive with my left leg crossed over my right knee. Basically, I rest my left ankle on my right knee. It really freaks people out when they see me do it, but I’ve been driving that way since I was 16 and it’s so natural to me that I don’t even think about it. I think I may have started doing it because I’m short and while I could reach the pedals, my left foot didn’t touch the floor completely. So instead of letting it hang, I crossed it.

2. I have to sleep with NO socks (the opposite of Jill). My feet will get tangled up in the sheets with socks on.

3. I can’t drink the “beginning of the milk” or the “end of the milk.” What that means is that if the milk is newly opened, I don’t want the first pour, I’ll give it to my husband or one of the kids. I won’t take the last of the milk either (I won’t even give that away, I’ll toss it if no one is looking).

4. I crack just about every joint in my body. I know that’s pretty common but I’ve probably stopped about 10 times so far while posting this to crack my fingers and toes. If what I want to crack doesn’t crack, I’ll keep messing with it until it either cracks or it’s sore (my big toe mainly). Wow, that’s just sad…

5. Tortilla chips and chocolate. I don’t make a habit out of this but I do like it - dipping tortilla chips in melted chocolate. I discovered this while pregnant. It’s kind of like chocolate covered pretzels.

So, I’ll tag Michael, Jim, The Freethought Mom, Stardust and Jennie.

Thanks to Expletive Deleted for the tip!

A few days ago I opened my mail box and found the usual bills and junk mail. Among the junk was this envelope -

Front:

Back:

Inside was a letter claiming a whole bunch of crap.
It starts with (and I quote) “Dear… Someone Connected with This Address,” (I shit you not).
It talks about how their 55 year old church is “receiving divine help” in the form of better jobs, raises, buying and selling homes, and new cars.

>GOD’S HOLY BLESSING POWER IS IN THE ENCLOSED ANOINTED PRAYER RUG WE ARE LOANING YOU TO USE!!!

Wooo hooo!! I am atheist no more!! I have been given “this opportunity first… then it must go to the home of another […] who needs a blessing.”

The letter then instructs me to “go into a room where you can be alone (just God and you)” and “Kneel on this Holy Ghost, Bible Prayer Rug, or spread it over your knees.”

Here is the prayer rug -

Yes, it’s made of paper. I thought this would have been a perfect piece for the “The Temple of the Severed Goat Testicles.”

>If you need more joy, peace, health, money, a new car, a new house, healing in family communication, or whatever, we, as a very old (55 years) church, want to know about it. Check your prayer needs on page two of this letter [see image below].

This “rug” is an amazing piece of paper.

>Notice the face of Jesus on this Church Prayer Rug [4th name for the rug]. When you first look, you will notice that His eyes are closed. If you relax and continue looking straight into His eyes, you will see His eyes slowly opening…

Ok, I admit that I hung it on my refrigerator and looked at it for a few seconds. Nope, no eyes opening for me. But maybe I wasn’t trying hard enough…

So then it guilts you into putting a “seed gift to God’s work” in the envelope. You mail it on, and they claim to mail it to another person who needs the help. Of course, they’ll pay for the postage…

So I haven’t decided what to put in the envelope yet. Of course, I’m going to mail the envelope back to them. It’ll cost them $.39. Not much, but it’s something, damn it. But I may enclose something… a picture of satan??
Some chewed gum? A defaced prayer rug?? Hmmmm… Any ideas?

This isn’t a new scam apparently. George Loper wrote quite a piece on it in 2003 and so did John Matarese of “Don’t Waste Your Money”.
Of course, St. Matthew’s Churches has a Q&A on their own site about the Prayer Rug Letter.

>Question: What if I’m not interested in receiving a prayer rug letter from St Matthew’s Church?
Answer: Saint Matthew’s Church asks that you simply dispose of the prayer rug letter or any other mail sermons that is unwanted.

Tags:
atheist, Atheism, ministry, scam

In case you haven’t seen “Fuck the State of the Union,” make sure you drop by when you have a few minutes! A must read…

>Ah, the future. Brought to us by all the smarties we’re gonna educate in those Intelligent Design biology classes you’ve endorsed. I’m thinking “and then a miracle happenedâ€� might not be the answer Microsoft is looking for on its application quiz, but it’s definitely the only way we’re gonna get those little shavers through middle school.

Tags:
bush, Politics, state of the union

Shepherd Church of the Nazarene in Gahanna, OH says:

I thought this was pretty funny…

WHEN GOD GET’S BORED

Many times, in the times of the universe, God gets tired of every day things. Or… for his case, every year things.
This has happened once every ten thousand years, or so. Give or take a millenium. So, what does he do when he gets bored? Who knows?
Not me. Or anyone. But God. Anyway. Here you will find what he had done in the past to make himself… er… un… board… yes. Unboard. Or, simply, to entertain himself.
(more…)

The Evangelical Atheist posted a wonderful version of this little story, in response to Bill O’Reilly’s parody.

Egg Nog fact #134 -
The canned eggnog from Borden® will actually keep in the can for 18 months without refrigeration!

Mincemeat Spice Cake with EggNog Topping

1 (18 1/4-ounce) package spice cake mix
1 1/4 cups water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 (9-ounce) package NONE SUCH® Condensed Mincemeat, finely crumbled
1/2 cup canned BORDEN®® Premium EggNog
1 (1.3-ounce) envelope whipped topping mix

Preheat oven to 350°. In large mixer bowl, combine cake mix, water, vegetable oil and eggs; mix well. Beat on high speed 2 minutes. Stir in NONE SUCH. Pour into well-greased and floured 10-inch fluted or tube pan. Bake 45 to 50 minutes or until wooden pick inserted near center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pan. Cool completely. In small mixer bowl, combine BORDEN Premium EggNog and whipped topping mix; mix well. Beat on high speed 4 minutes or until mixture forms soft peaks. Serve topping over cake slices. Refrigerate leftover topping.

I am laughing my ass off.
So, incase you aren’t familiar with the Million Dollar Challenge, here’s the bottom line -

“…we offer a one-million-dollar prize to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event.”

So I’ve been reading The Log of Applicants and I’m laughing so hard that I’m crying.

JOHN N. MAGUIRE, Assisted by “Gosts” - note the spelling in this one. Too funny!!

The PROPHET YAHWEH, Maker of UFO’s - this is the one that I was cracking up at. It gets really funny when you get down to the end. Oh man… My stomach hurts.

Kramer, the “challenge facilitator” is just hysterical. I would LOVE to be doing his job!!

Limbo
1 theological intermediary (used)

“Constructed in the 13th century as a solution to the theological conundrum of what happened to babies who died before they were christened, Limbo has been home from home to millions of top quality souls. Liberation of Limbo by one P. Benedict (IVI) has brought this top quality theological space to the open market.”

Hours of fun!

;-)

Thanks Scott!

Tags:
bush, president, Politics, Current Affairs