You are not alone

How are you?

Hope you are vaccinated. 

Have you struggled with having COVID-19 - or perhaps are even still struggling?

Are you trying to convince stubborn family members to get vaccinated?

Are you attending funerals for people who have died from COVID-19?

Are you a flight attendant, a restaurant worker, a grocery worker who is struggling with customers who aren't vaccinated and won't wear masks and seem bent on putting you at risk?

I'm not sure how to console you.

Just know that there are people all over the world who are also struggling, also trying to convince others, also fighting misinformation, also dealing with assholes. 

You aren't alone. And as long as we aren't alone, all is not lost. 

If you can't find others around you physically, go online and find your comrades. 

Stay strong, keep learning. 

No doubt?

Atheists hear this question a lot from people who believe in a "God" or "Gods":

You don't have any doubt about God? You don't consider the possibility that maybe you're wrong and there is a God?

Here's what I'm 100% sure of:

• No "God" or "Gods" have ever comforted me. If a "God" or "Gods" do exist, he or they have most certainly harmed me through his/their inaction or "divine plan." 
   
• It is a huge relief not to try to justify the actions of an asshole - the God or Gods that either ignore millions of people being tortured or causes it." That torment in my mind ended when I decided to embrace my disbelief. 
   
• It is glorious to evaluate people by their actions and the content of their character instead of trying to decide if they follow the "right" magical invisible omnipotent friend. 
   
• When I stopped trying to follow a religion, when I stopped trying to "open my heart" and "let Jesus in" and all that, I went from feeling desperate and hurt and hopeless and abandoned to feeling like I was a part of something so much bigger than any religion, in a universe with far more possibilities than any religion has ever described to me. I felt like I belonged, and felt a huge burden lifted off of my heart. 
   
• As a child, talk of the devil being after me, being after my family, was terrifying to me. It was terrorizing. It was abusive. As I listened to stories of how I would burn alive forever in the eternal fires of hell if I didn't submit to Christ - and when I lay there is a little girl crying in bed, begging Jesus to come into my heart, and he didn't, and me thinking that I was in the End Times and I was doomed, there was no magical voice comforting me, no peace that entered my heart - it was just sheer terror. The first step in embracing a universe without a God or Gods was my realizing that there is no magical demon plotting my pain and demise. That moment of realization became a moment of relief, a moment of cleansing - the solace I needed. I have no doubt about how comforting and wonderful it's been not to live in fear like that. 
   
• Atheism has brought me a more hopeful feeling for right now and for the future. It's made me feel like possibilities are endless for human potential - and for my own potential. 
   
• I have gotten far, far more comfort from watching Cosmos, reading history, experiencing art in its many forms, and learning about science than any church service or sermon has ever given me.
   
• Atheism vastly improved my mental health, whereas attempts to "believe" harmed me mentally and emotionally. 
  
• Religion or attempts at "belief" have never brought me the enjoyment and opportunities for hope and love anywhere near what atheism has. 
  

Of these realities, I have no doubt at all. 

Does your belief in God bring you joy? Or does it make you unhappy because all you see are your supposed shortcomings? Does it give you comfort and strength or does it tell you there is a demon making you unhappy and trying to tempt your family with evil and you need to pray more and study the Bible more? Does it dictate your choice in friends, your choice in books, your choice in music, your choice in what you should enjoy? And do those boundaries bring you joy or give you hope? Are scientific discoveries a challenge to your faith so much so that you feel you have to refute practices that science promotes, like taking vaccines or wearing masks to protect you from an infectious disease - which actually puts you and your family in danger?

Maybe doubt about your God wouldn't be such a bad thing. 

Also see:

• Finding hope
• Magic, Kindness and Hope
• Quotes that comfort
• The power & the glory of hope, WITHOUT a God
• Satanic Suffering
• "Would Satan tempt me through the kindness of macaroni and cheese?"
• The Atheist Response to Tragedy
• Seeking comfort with Mr. Rogers
• Why I love being an atheist

Leaving a religion, losing your family/community

Turning away from your family's religion can come with a very high cost: it can leave a person without family, without friends, without members of their immediate community, perhaps even co-workers as well. Just when a person is in most need of support to handle the upheaval in how they practice their beliefs, they are abandoned by the people they love most.

In this respect, I am so lucky not be from a close-knit family. They all practice a Christian faith - one brother is Catholic, my sister is an evangelical Christian, my Mom goes to a Methodist Church most Sundays, etc. I rarely hear from them. I've gone years without seeing them and more than a year without getting even a phone call from some of them, not because they are angry, but because that's just not my family. And when I decided to admit that I did not believe in God, or Gods, or anything supernatural, I was living on my own and I was financially independent. It didn't come at any family cost to finally admit it to family members when the need arose.

But not everyone has that luxury: they see their families every week, if not every day. The family prays together, talks about what they see is evil - certain kinds of music, certain kinds of food, ways that women might dress, women pursuing careers, certain romantic pairings, women wearing masks, women not wearing masks, etc. - and that talk can make a family member who is doubting the religion, or never believed in it but has never said so, to feel sad, lonely, even desperate. A person may love their family deeply, so much that they keep their mouth shut rather than disappoint or ostracize their family. But that stress weighs heavy on the heart and mind.

In 2020, two young women jumped to their deaths in West Jerusalem, leaving behind a note explaining their choice and noting how their struggles with faith and religion played a role. In short, they preferred death to disappointing their families.

It broke my heart beyond anything I can put into words. I think of all these people out there, either having to live a lie in order to be a part of their families, even their society, to get a job, etc., or "coming out" about their lack of belief in a magical invisible vengeful sometimes, merciful other times super being who ignores the pleas of tortured, dying people but cares deeply in who wins the Super Bowl - and facing ostracism from their families... or worse. What a horrible choice. 

Look around online for an online group for atheists. You might want to join it under a different name than your real name, if you are at all afraid of your family or community finding out. It's a good way to get emotional support and relevant advice for your particular situatuion. 

Read up on the religion of your family. Dig deep into the theology and the history - the real history, not just what your religious book says. Becoming an amateur scholar about the religion of your dominant culture is a great way to both affirm your atheism and to hide your atheism - people will think very highly of your scholarship. I know - it's what I did in the Bible Belt of the USA as a teen. 

If you are feeling desperate about the pressure to conform to the point of considering the ending of your life, please look for a national suicide prevention hotline in your country. In the USA, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. In Canada, call Crisis Services Canada at 1-833-456-4566.

There are specific groups to help people leave specific religious faiths - a group called Footsteps can help those trying to leave the ultra-Orthodox community. There are groups that can help people that want to leave an Amish order. There are groups that help people, particularly young women, leave Mormon communities. There are groups that help people leave Scientology. There are groups that help people leave the Jehovah's Witnesses. Use Google or Duck Duck Go to find those groups and to find their online resources. There are groups for ex-members of all these and many other religious groups - and finding them is relatively easy on 

If safety might be an issue, or you want to make absolutely sure no one in your household can find out what you are reading online, put a password on your computer and your smart phone. You might want to clear the cache after each computer use as well. 

There are far, far more atheists out there than you probably imagine. We're in every community. Sometimes, we're sitting right there are kneeling right there beside you in a church, temple or mosque, going through the motions because it's easier than admitting our truth. I hope knowing that we're everywhere can give you strength on your journey to being able to live your life out in the open, without apology. 

Online secular mindfulness meditation

Join others for an online secular mindfulness meditation led by Rick Heller, followed by a discussion.

To join the meeting, just visit this URL:
https://zoom.us/j/7527417634

No experience is necessary. All welcome!

These meditations have been collected into a book published by New World Library: Secular Meditation: Practices for Cultivating Inner Peace, Compassion, and Joy.

There is an associated Facebook page.

I'm not affiliated with this, FYI. 

Meaningful ways to fill your hours during a pandemic

How are you? I hope someone in your life is asking you that, sincerely. If not - tell me. 

Things are rough for so many people. People haven't paid rent in months because they don't have work. Small businesses are going out of business. Nonprofit art groups are folding. So many, many are struggling. 

Little Miss Privilege here has a home and someone paying her way, since she's under-employed. 

I wish I could help you financially. I can help you if you are feeling useless and bored:

I hope you have made it a point to amplify science-based info, and if you haven't, I hope you will do so. Your voice online is important! You have a role to play right now: countering misinformation online. 

I regularly repost things from my county's health department. I comment positively on those posts as well, to counter all of the negative comments they get - and am pleased that my comments get far more likes than the conspiracy theorists trying to convince people that masks are oppressive and un-American. I also retweet @nursekelsey a lot: she's a trauma ICU nurse and provides regularly updates both about her work experences with COVID-19 patients and how she handles her home life - it's inspirational and the reality check I need. 

I also have been looking up services in my local community that help people with rent, with food or with mental health services, and sharing them on social media. Has it helped anyone? I don't know. But I know that info is needed - and I notice it gets reshared every time I do it. 

I also spend my days writing postcards and emails to elected officials, telling them to GIVE PEOPLE MONEY. And amplifying information about how to volunteer with food banks and Meals on Wheels, nonprofits that are desperate for volunteers. And trying not to get the 'Rona myself. 

I hope you got to see Jupiter and Saturn in one telescope shot, something we've never been able to do before and, if you are my age, won't be able to do again in our lifetime. If you didn't, look around for some other upcoming thing-to-see-in-the-skies. I live in a town where street lights abound and, yet, I still get some pretty good views of astronomical events, if it's not raining. Just throw something down on the ground, lay down and look up at the night sky for a while. Even just 30 minutes. It's amazing what you'll see. 

If you want to take a break from doom scrolling, I highly recommend transcribing some historical documents so you make them more searchable and accessible to everyone, particularly researchers. Some examples of efforts you can join: 

• Climate Cardinals. An international nonprofit working to translate climate change research and information, making the climate movement more accessible to those who don’t speak English. Here's the description of what volunteers do. 
   
• Colored Conventions, hosted at the University of Delaware. From 1830 until the 1890s, already free and once enslaved Black Americans came together in state and national political meetings in the USA called "Colored Conventions." Before the Civil War, they strategized about how to achieve educational, labor and legal justice at a moment when Black rights were constricting nationally and locally. After the Civil War, their numbers swelled as they continued to mobilize to ensure that Black citizenship rights and safety, Black labor rights and land, Black education and institutions would be protected under the law. Online volunteers transcribe newspaper accounts of these meetings,  to allow this historical records to be more easily accessible and searchable for students and scholars across disciplines and for community researchers interested in the history of activist church, civil rights, educational and entrepreneurial engagement. 
   
• DIY History is an online volunteering project from the University of Iowa’s Digital Library. Online volunteers transcribe digitized artifacts related to Iowa history so that they become searchable, allowing researchers to quickly seek out specific information, and general users to browse and enjoy the materials more easily. Scanned documents that need to be transcribed and tagged include diaries, letters and newspaper articles from war time and manuscripts related to early Iowa lives, social justice, fanzines, recipes and cookbooks. 
   
• FamilySearch. Transcribe scanned family records (census records, property deeds, marriage records, etc.). Tags: history, historical. 
   
• Old Weather project: online volunteers transcribe hand-written weather observations made by Royal Navy ships around the time of World War I; using old weather observations can help predict our climate's future. Tags: history, historical, climate, science. 
   
• Smithsonian Digital Volunteer program. The Smithsonian seeks to engage the public in making its collections more accessible. "We're working hand-in-hand with digital volunteers to transcribe historic documents and collection records to facilitate research and excite the learning in everyone." Transcription turns handwritten and typed documents into searchable and machine-readable resources, creating an incredibly valuable asset for art, history, literary and scientific researchers across the globe. From high school to graduate studies, transcription allows students to engage with primary source materials – a key part of the learning experience. Transcription preserves these historic documents for future generations. 
   
• The Freedom on the Move (FOTM) public database project at Cornell University is a major digital database effort to make the search of North American fugitive slave advertisements in newspapers from regional, state, and other collections from the 1700s and 1800s easy to search and the data easy to evaluate. Online volunteers add data tags to the screened entries and transcribe the ads. Here is an excellent article on about the database, from which Dr. Mitchell's quote is taken. 
   
• Indiana World War I Service Record Cards is a project by the Indiana Archives that engages online volunteers in transcribing service record cards that detail the military service of Indiana men and women who served in the armed forces at the time of World War I. It also goes by the name of Indiana Archives and Records Administration Virtual Volunteer Program. 
   
• Library of Congress By the People (crowd.loc.gov). Launched in the autumn of 2018 at the LOC's very first transcribe-a-thon and on the 155th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Online volunteers can transcribe, review and tag digitized images of manuscripts and typed materials from the Library’s collections. These transcriptions improve search, readability and access to handwritten and typed documents for those who are not fully sighted or cannot read the handwriting of the original documents. The site also offers a free guide (PDF) on How to host a transcribe-a-thon (PDF). Note: I wrote the LOC folks on Twitter about all you students wanting letters to confirm you are doing this service. They responded: That's awesome! We have a few spots on our "About" page explaining how to obtain service documentation. e-mailing us at crowd@loc.gov is the best way to get specifics. We provide verification for students all the time! 
   
• New York Public Library's collection of historic restaurant menus. If menus have been transcribed by other volunteers, then online volunteers can review transcriptions for errors, or can geotag the location of restaurants on a global map. 
   
• 1947 Partition Archive is "a grassroots, non-political, 100% volunteer run effort to document and preserve eye witness accounts from the partition of British India into present day India, Pakistan and Bangladesh in 1947." Online volunteers can help with transcription of interviews (many interviews are in English), translation of interviews and other materials from/into Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, Urdu, Sindhi, and English, video editing, online outreach or legal advice. Tags: history, historic. 
   
• New York Public Library building inspector transcriptions. Online volunteers are helping to annotate digitized insurance atlases that map the history of the city's buildings and streets. Online volunteers can help to draw and check borders of property lines and buildings, enter addresses written on the maps, classify colors, and find place names. "Imagine if maps had a magic switch that let you explore the geography of the past. The Library wants to do this for New York City, turning historical atlases into time machines. To do it we need to harvest all the fantastic detail from the original maps: building footprints, addresses, place names, construction materials etc. — clues that will help unlock a million stories. With this information organized and searchable, you can ask new kinds of questions about history. Peel back the layers of the city and replay its growth. 'Check in' to vanished establishments and meet their ghostly proprietors. Or discover related historical documents (newspapers, photographs, business directories…) linked by place and time." Tags: history, historic. 
   
• Royal British Columbia Museum Transcribe project (Canada). Online volunteers transcribe various collections from the museum, including diaries, government papers, and more. "The transcriptions you create will become searchable data, facilitating learning and research around the world. Whether you choose to transcribe one page, one hundred pages, or just browse our collections, you’re helping us share the stories that matter."  

If you are looking for something inspiring: watch Cosmos. If you have never seen the Cosmos reboot, you should. The second season is showing on Fox now, but if you've missed it, look online for the DVDs of the first season for sale. There are some affordable used ones out there, if money is an issue. I've cried watching almost every episode - it just gives me a feeling of hope and a feeling of being a part of EVERYTHING, in a good way. I hope you find it comforting as well. 

Take care of yourself. You can do this. All the best in 2021. 

Stars

💫

nearly all of the elements that make us up are born from dead stars, 

churned up in their stellar cores and then injected into 

the interstellar medium upon explosion.

we never *really* die. 

we are recycled within the cosmos, 

forming new bright lights, 

star dust eternal.

- Sarafina Nance @starstrickenSF, Astrophysics PhD student at UC Berkeley and NSF fellowon Twitter (but the phrase breaks are mine)

✨

We are a way for the universe to know itself. 
Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. 
We long to return. 
And we can, because the cosmos is also within us. 
We're made of star-stuff.

- Carl Sagan, Cosmos.

☀️

Every ingredient in the human body is made from elements forged by stars. So are all of the building blocks of your food, your bike and your electronics. Similarly, every rock, plant, animal, scoop of seawater and breath of air owes its existence to distant suns.

from Science News for Students, published by Society for Science & the Public

👩🏻‍🦲

I have no idea why these statements comfort me.

But they do.

- Your Atheist Muse

Kindness and community make sense

Atheists have their genesis in different places: some atheists are brought up in a family that is entirely secular, with no religious belief at all, and that lack of belief in a magical invisible friend, or group of friends, sticks for life. Others are brought up within a religious family, either marginally or deeply religious, and either reject that religious belief at some point or it just never takes hold.

Either way, whatever their origins, many atheists contemplate and create - and continually re-visit - a moral structure through which they can ponder life’s ethical and philosophical questions and human behavior. It's not true of all atheists, but many of us are on a continual journey of questions and exploration and considerations.

As I've said in many blogs, one of the things that lead me away from the religion I was brought up in, Christianity, was the lack of emphasis on good works being fundamental to the practice of Christianity, and the lack of emphasis on being happy in this life here on Earth.

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves:

it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.

Ephesians 2:8-9

According to the Bible, to be close to God - which is the only thing we should be focused on - and to gain happiness after death - as gaining in this life is not important - is possible only through faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, rather than by human effort or good works. Baptism, church membership or church attendance, sacraments, or even being kind - I was taught, as a Baptist, that none of these were fundamentally important - they are nice, but not at all, ultimately, necessary. And your soul, your salvation, is more important than feeding the hungry, helping the sick, or being a positive force in your community.

What always got downplayed in the church sermons and Sunday school and Vacation Bible School classes I attended was

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 

Matthew 22:37-39

It just never felt right to me to downplay the importance of kindness to others as a fundamental part of a righteous life. By contrast, empathy and compassion has always felt right to me. The story that stood out to me most in the Bible as a child and teen, that always resonated with me, was the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). 

And make no mistake: while compassion and kindness and justice all feel so right to me as moral guides, they are not always easy. In fact, most of the time, they don't feel easy. I don't always benefit when I show empathy and compassion or when I engage in acts that I believe are a part of pursuing a just society. In fact, I've been burned quite a few times as a result of being kind or considerate or pursuing justice, by putting myself out there to help someone or a cause, and as I grow older, I hesitate more and more before I decide my help is needed. Yet, I keep doing it, because I just cannot get away from an overwhelming compulsion to do so.

As I said in an earlier blog, I believe morality comes from our human capacity for empathy and from reality. My morality is rooted in a sense of compassion that most humans are born with (the exception being sociopaths). It's also rooted in my logic: kindness makes sense. Justice makes sense. Equity makes sense. The benefits of kindness, justice and equity, in the long run, are worth the work. I get a personal benefit from a healthy community that I contribute to which, in a way, makes thinking communally a selfish interest. 

And all this is my very long-winded way of saying: wear a fucking mask. 😷

And #BlackLivesMatter.

Also see:

God hates your feelings. And your reason.

Atheist Morality.