…From *that place* that *guy* posts some questions:

What is your mission statement?

I don’t really have one. Mostly because this blog has gone up and down and back and forth in terms of topics. It started out primarily about liberal politics, then there was a huge period of primarily environmental issues, then shifted a lot to feminism, then shifted a lot to science about dinosaurs and pre-historic stuff …now it’s just a slew of things, mostly atheism… When I started the blog I did it because I had a lot of free time and it seemed like a good idea. I was reading a lot of blogs and wanted to comment on things, but wasn’t really into the whole commenting thing because I didn’t like being attacked.

Then I wanted the site to be a lot like skepchick and wanted it to be more of a group blog. (BTW - I wish I read skepchick more often. But I totally hate that there is a 100% lack of Canadian issues. They mentioned Canada once in the time that I’ve been reading and it was to link to a completely biased and disgusting attack on the CBC. Suffice to say - I think they need some sort of Canadian blogger writing for them. If they had that, I’d be more interested in reading it.) That’s when I joined eco-chick with the intent of leaving lib-deb and going full time over there. But… slowly my interest in environmental issues didn’t disappear, but definitely lessened as I got involved with the secular movement.

Why do you blog?????????

For something to do, really. I have fun with it sometimes, and I think that people want to hear my opinion, so I go with that. Now - I blog at eco-chick because I’m concerned about the environment and they need someone to break their fluffy stuff and write about something that snaps people back to reality.

We’re starting Edger because we’re students concerned about religion and the progression of the secular movement. (I don’t think I’ll be having a very prominent spot there, although I’m one of the “founders” … I think primarily I’ll just contribute the weekly radio show that will be podcasted. …That will be my… main thing to do there. Originally I was going to be “the girl” but Shalini has been brought on, so she’ll cover that bit nicely.)

Oh - and because my brother thinks he’s going to start making money off my site……… yeah.

Isa just telling Alon that it currently feels like Wednesday night - not Tuesday morning. Midnights! Screwy!

I’ve talked about last fm up and down the wall a million and thrice times - it tracks the music you listen to each week and then suggests artists you might like based on what you listen to - and compares your taste with friends. My charts this week:

So. Apparently. I LOVE sufjan. …I don’t know how anyone can listen to over 650 songs by one artist in one week. It’s ridiculous. But really, last.fm also takes what I listen to on my iPod onto account - and I listen to Sufjan to and from work everyday, and usually fall asleep listening to him, and my alarm (which is an iPod clock, so my alarm = my iPod) is Chicago, by him… So… I guess I sort of see how it can add up pretty quickly. But I am confused as to why the rest of the artists are so low. Usually my top 10 are all up in 30s or 40s. I guess this was just a very thick Sufjan week.

Also - I was going to get a tattoo as a birthday present to myself - but I really want to get it done with a particular artist, and she’s booked up for months and months and months. So I’ve got an appointment with her to design the tat but it won’t get done for a long while. …Instead, I’ve decided that when I go to get it designed I’m going to get a new piercing.

The anti-eyebrow. Now. There is a *very* good chance that this could look really silly on me, but it’s a chance I’m willing to take - because I’ve liked it for soooo long. Really the only thing that stopped me was the thought of my mom ripping it out of my face. But. That’s also a chance I’m willing to take at this point in life.

And in other totally unrelated an irrelevant news…. yesterday my friend D.QT* came over because he needed to borrow my camera and give me a hug and he told me that my other friend Spizzle* joined the army. … WTF?! Joined the army! He was in the Netherlands or some shit for like 8 months and then came back and right away joined the army. SO WEIRD. (*obviously not their real names…) I guess there is too much damage to be done being in the Canadian Army, but really - it’s still fucked up.

Also - sort of related… I was sort of unaware of this until a little while ago - but Americans think that all our police are mounties. …I just want to clear this up - they are. And they all ride horses. And there’s only about 400 of them for all of Canada.

Happy Tuesday Everyone!

So…turns out sunday nights are pretty stellar to work… I’ve been sitting at my desk playing with my phone for the past 20 mins.

Plus the girls I work with are pretty awesome, despite no one from my training group being here.

I’ve also learned the value of taking my break at 330 to watch colbert. He gives me a nice break in my 10 hour shift. But I’ve also learned that old people bitch too much…especially ones that think they should be in management. Like…shut up. You have to start at the bottom like everyone else. You can’t walk into a company and expect them to see that you’re management potential.

What’s not good at all is that its only 130 and I’m tired. 6.5 hours to go…bummer. I like the fact that I only work 4 days a week - but nights are slow. Real slow. Days would go faster because I could be taking calls. No one calls at 2 am. Sacrifice, I guess.

<3 work = school. School = travel. Keep the end in mind, nes pas? Oui oui.

I won’t write about how much I fucking loved the dinosaur exhibit, because you all probably know that I think it was PHENOMENAL… except that they said they had “expanded” their dinosaur collection - however… they just made fake dinosaurs out of plaster. There were a TON of dinosaurs that had no real bone on them. … So that wasn’t very cool. But they were still neat to look at.

I spent last weekend in Toronto with my gay boyfriend, his brother, the lovely pres of the UTSA and met up with some Guelph friends one night. We did the usual… bar… thing. We went to 4, which was actually really nice, I wish we could have stayed there. But we had to go meet people at Crews … we went too late, and it was full of hot sweaty gay men. And ran into like 4 people I haven’t seen in a long time and had awkward conversations.

Anyway… after all that craziness I decided it was probably in my best interest to spend Sunday doing some downtime sort of things. So I went to the ROM, since I missed out on it when all the campus people went. When I walked in, this was the first thing I saw:

Seriously. There is NOTHING more adorable than kids loving dinosaurs. I’d of hated to be the person inside that costume, but they kids loved it so much.

I think the most interesting stops of my day were - Canadian History, Darwin and the top floor Japanese art exhibit.

Canada through the history didn’t actually sound that good, because I already know all about Canada’s history - but after seeing a painting of some aboriginals, and the art’s description of being humbled in front of his own painting - I decided to press on. On of the things they had set up was decor. They showed what people’s houses would have looked like during the first settlements, then with French influence… etc. when it got to the “modern” section it was weird. I was staring at what was supposed to represent my era.

It was a read couch, with a curvy top sitting low to the floor, and a couple super modern looking chairs and like funky looking lamps. The only thing I could think was “Uh, my house totally doesn’t look like that” really.. rich people’s houses were the ones that looked like that. It made me sort of second guess everything I had just looked at. Who actually had the french influenced furniture? Just the rich people? Was anything the correct depiction of how everyday people lived?

The only downside of that exhibit was that it didn’t once mention Sir Isaac Brock, and I love him. <3

The Darwin exhibit was pretty good. I felt bad for the animals they had caged up for entertainment, people knocking on their glass, taking pictures and pointing. They just looked sad. The history of Darwin’s life was good to read, and all the information on evolution was no news - but again, glad to see it was there and being read by so many people.

There was a “tourist” group going through…. so I attached myself for a little bit. Turns out they were a Christian group, and that was interesting. The tour guide would bring them to a section of the exhibit that said on the display “evolution is the only explanation for life science has thus far” and would read it as “obviously evolution isn’t the only explanation” and would make up their own science.

Shanghai Kaleidoscope was the japanese art exhibit on the top floor - I recommend EVERYONE go see this. It wasn’t very big, but it was SO good. The large scale video art was just amazing. I’ll likely go back to the ROM just to see that exhibit again.

I’m sorry that I talk about Hemant so much - but I really only have time to read like 3 blogs, and his happens to be the one where all the interesting stuff happens. …He has a new girl blogging on his site - Lindsay Fay. She’s really funny, young (around my age), really pretty and a member of the mormon church.

When I first heard about Lindsay going to blog on Hemant’s site I was actually pretty excited - because I like to learn about new religions and talk to people about their religions.

However, some people at the humble abode of Hemant haven’t been so responsive to the newcomer.

RobL says:
Decided at 14 that it was total mind bending nonsense and have been atheist ever since. Joseph Smith was just a skilled con artist who duped all his naïve followers. Thanks for bringing back all the things I spent years trying to forget…

kamod says:
First of all most us know about Mormonism.. Yes it does involve in believing loads of things. But this post has done it finally, I agree with being friendlyatheist and all that shit. But I can’t read this blog anymore.. Well done Hemant. Good going.

Darryl says:

I know everything I need to know about Mormonism. It’s the product of one of the most obvious cons in religious history. The only aspect of it that’s worth study is its sociological meaning. I never cease to be amazed that otherwise intelligent and educated people can actually believe this stuff. Ah, the power of the imagination.

Escualidus Arrechus says:
I have to agree with kamod, actually, minus all the profanity.

Hemant has worked himself into an interesting corner. I don’t really care that these guys can’t just STFU and skip over stuff they don’t want to read but it all raised some interesting thoughts.

The easiest way to run an atheist blog is to post things that mock religion - because that’s what a lot of people read. I’ll even admit that I like looking at that sort of stuff. And really - thats a lot of what Hemant had gotten into posting. There has also been a lot of really good recent material on atheist groups and the evolving that they’re doing. But still - a lot of that stereotypical mocking religion stuff - and the crowd that’s reading played it up even more.

The comments were probably the biggest hazing ground for the religions that were brought up in the post.

So then Hemant introduces a religious person. Not only a religious person - a mormon. Once my grandma said to me [my sister is dating a guy from Utah] “Oh, lets just hope he’s not one of those crazy mormons” and she’s been a devote christian her whole life. Most people know Mormonism is a little strange. But that’s the new very part time face of the Friendly Atheist site.

How are people supposed to react to that? A lot of us who are now atheists used to be something else… United, Baptist, Anglican, Mormon, Catholic, Hindu… whatever… After that gigantic flip in our lives we’ve had to search for somewhere else to fit in. Find new connections, new places to go read and new people to talk to. So for me personally - I was waiting for those comments to come into Hemant’s blog.

It’s not that these people who are commenting are totally intolerant of religion - but they had found a domain to get information and people who shared a common lifestyle and common ideas. To throw a Mormon into the mix to write about her Mormonism and to teach us all about Mormonism just had “bad news” written all over it.

I know that Hemant wants to open up dialogue with religious people, but I don’t think inviting a Mormon to come into the atheist’s cave to talk about her Mormonism and teach us all about the rules and practices of Mormonism is the smartest way to go about doing that. Most of us left religion because it was a horrible experience in our lives. We didn’t like it, we felt that it was brainwashing, it was irrational… etc. Very *very* few people are like me… who left religion, but still wants to research religions, talk about faith, explore other people’s faith and get into their minds. Most just want religion to eff off, and don’t want to have to deal with it again.