TeachThemHowToThink

Good, right? My favorite line was “It’s the attempt to transcend the mundane, sleepwalking experience of life we all fall into, to tap into the wonder of being a conscious and grateful thing in the midst of an astonishing universe.”

I can take credit for finding it, but not writing it. There are tons of great articles over on http://parentingbeyondbelief.com. Oh - and it’s not exclusively a parenting blog - there are essays on a multitude of topics. ~JJ

On Being Awake

““Spirituality” has wildly different meanings to different people. When a Christian friend asked several years ago how we achieved spirituality in our home without religion, I asked if she would first define the term as she understood it.

“Well…spirituality,” she said. “You know—having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and accepting him into your life as Lord and Savior.”

So when the interviewer asked me if children need spirituality, I said sure, but offered a more helpful definition—one that doesn’t exclude 91 percent of the people who have ever lived. Spirituality is about being awake. It’s the attempt to transcend the mundane, sleepwalking experience of life we all fall into, to tap into the wonder of being a conscious and grateful thing in the midst of an astonishing universe. It doesn’t require religion. In fact, religion can and often doesblunt our awareness by substituting false and frankly inferior wonders for real ones. It’s a fine joke on ourselves that most of what we call spirituality is actually about putting ourselves to sleep.

For maximum clarity, instead of “spiritual but not religious,” those so inclined could say “not religious–just awake.”

I didn’t say all that on the program, of course. That’s just between you, me, and the Internet. But I did offer as an example my children’s fascination with personal improbability — thinking about the billions of things that had to go just so for them to exist — and contrasted it with predestinationism, the idea that God works it all out for us, something most orthodox traditions embrace in one way or another. Personal improbability has transported my kids out of the everyday more than anything else so far.

Evolution is another. Taking a walk in woods over which you have been granted dominion is one kind of spirituality, I guess. But I find walking among squirrels, mosses, and redwoods that are my literal relatives to be a bit more foundation-rattling.

Another world-shaker is mortality itself. This is often presented as a problem for the nonreligious, but in terms of rocking my world, it’s more of a solution. Spirituality is about transforming your perspective, transcending the everyday, right? One of my most profound ongoing “spiritual” influences is the lifelong contemplation of my life’s limits, the fact that it won’t go on forever. That fact grabs me by the collar and lifts me out of traffic more effectively than any religious idea I’ve ever heard. A different spiritual meat, to be sure, but no less powerful.”

“Man has always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much…the wheel, New York, wars and so on…while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man…for precisely the same reason.” — Douglas Adams

This has nothing to do with atheism or secular parenting, but… Jon Stewart! And Sesame Street! ~JJ

Ha! Complacent and Complaisant have very different meanings and I definitely wanted to use Complaisant.

And regarding Garofalo… I’m not a huge fan and your images are accurate, but I do like this quote. (I deleted libertyequalitybrotherhood’s images to save space - You can view them on his very entertaining blog…which I enjoy even though he’s not an Obama fan. :-D ) ~JJ

Homosexuality not a ‘disorder’

Showing one of my former college professors some blog love. He wrote an excellent letter to the editor regarding the upcoming ballot measure on same-sex marriage here in Minnesota. ~JJ

June 1, 2012

To the editor:

In a recent letter to the Independent, not to mention an exhaustive series of previous letters, Phil Drietz questioned the scientific basis for the removal of homosexuality from the official list of disorders by the American Psychiatric Association. By lucky coincidence, I happen to have a little knowledge in this area, so I will attempt to answer his question now. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is the standard reference book used by mental health professionals, a mental disorder is a clinically significant pattern of behavior that is associated with distress or disability, or with significantly increased risk of suffering death, pain, disability, or loss of freedom. The key issue here is that mental disorders involve a clinical level of pain, suffering, disability, or impairment. These features are associated with measurable symptoms, such as depressed mood in the case of major depression, or hallucinations and delusions in the case of schizophrenia.

Homosexuality is not a “disorder” because it does not have any symptoms, does not cause suffering and does not cause any disability or impairment whatsoever. It was formerly considered a disorder, but this classification never had any “scientific” basis. Hysteria in women was also a disorder at one time, along with other antiquated concepts. And let’s not forget that being left-handed was once considered abnormal and something to be treated. But being left-handed, or having red hair, or being in a minority group, or having a different sexual orientation is only that, a difference. Homosexuality is not a disorder, but it’s easy to understand why gays and lesbians might sometimes experience suffering and distress. Imagine being tormented at school or disowned by your parents because of an opinion about Leviticus. Imagine not being able to hold the hand of the person you love in public for fear of how other people might treat you. Isn’t it time to stand up for our friends and family members and say that we love them and accept them, regardless of what bits of anatomy they happen to prefer?

I, for one, am not obsessed with peoples’ personal lives. I don’t really think it’s anybody’s business, and I don’t think we need laws and regulations about what kinds of people are allowed to commit to each other and spend their lives together. That’s why I am going to vote NO in November on the constitutional amendment to define marriage.

Corey Butler

Marshall

LOL. I know. *sigh* BUT “tolerant” and “complaisant” are two entirely different things. We can be tolerant of the indoctrinated, the uneducated, and even the willfully ignorant… but we shouldn’t become complaisant and allow them to take over the dialogue. We congenial liberals don’t have to just smile sweetly and quietly disagree. We CAN speak up. We NEED TO speak up.

I’m still a little worked up over that stupid Gallup poll, can you tell? LOL. ~JJ

TeachThemHowToThink

Jun 01

On Being Awake

Homosexuality not a ‘disorder’

June 1, 2012