Month: January 2010

Atheist woman lives with Christian family for 30 days, everybody wins

~ Jeremy ~ 14 Comments

Last night I went to bed with my laptop. I had a busy day yesterday, and I wanted to catch up on my blogs.

Debunking Christianity’s John Loftus posted a video from the 30 Days series on FX about an atheist woman who goes to live with a Christian family in Texas for 30 days.

I thought that it was a fair treatment through editing. I don’t think the Christians or the atheist were made to look nutty or like morons. The Christian husband seemed to have the hardest time accepting the atheist while the Christian wife seemed to really get a grasp of what it was that made the atheist who she is.

I really enjoyed the bible studies in which groups of Christians really asked questions about the atheist and they seemed to be forced to re-evaluate their misconceptions of non-belief.

I have probably said too much. My point is that I REALLY want to encourage anyone who is either a Christian dealing with an atheist in their family or among their friends to watch this video. It might do well to dispel some misunderstandings about what it’s like to live in the same space as one of us.

Here’s a link for the video. It’s very much worth watching.

I’ll admit it, I got burned

~ Jeremy ~ 11 Comments

I bet you’re thinking that a believer popped into Le Café and dogged me on some piece of undeniably great piece of evidence.

Think again.

I literally got burned last night. It appears that Tina cannot leave me alone. The last time Tina went out with a friend for dinner, I was cleaning T’s teapot, it broke, and I got stuck with a $1500 injury. You can see the damage here.

Yesterday, I was making myself dinner, and I threw a frying pan of potatoes in the oven to finish. I removed the frying pan with a oven mit, moved on to another task. Returned to the stove and picked up the goddamn frying pan by the handle.

If you’ve ever seen “Fight Club,” the burn that Tyler gives the narrator looks a lot like my new bubbly blister.

The moral of the story: Tina can no longer have dinner with friends.

I have first and second degree burns all over my palm and fingers. The only thing that can be done for first and second degree burns is wait it out. It’s recommended not to use ice, but cool water. All night last night, I had my hand immersed in cool water. When I pulled it out, it burned like the dickens. I didn’t know how I was going to sleep.

The plan I came up with was simple. I was going to hold onto my metal water bottle until it became too lukewarm. Then I would exchange it for another metal water bottle sitting in a bucket of cold water beside me on the floor. I would alternate until I fell asleep (if possible). I switched the bottle out once, and then fell asleep. I was out like a light until about 4:30. At that point, the burn had subsided and I no longer needed to hold the bottle.

Here’s a fun picture to sear into your memory. Look at that honker on my palm! There’s another good blister up by my ring finger and the puckered searing you can see all over.

That’s the power of conditioning. Conditioning is an addiction. I’ve been conditioned my entire life to think that a handle is always cool and touchable with a bare hand. Now that I cook every night of the week, I have to restructure my brain to think that handles aren’t always handleable … or the consequences can be quite painful.

This applies to everything in our lives. Routines are sometimes damning. Eating habits are addictions. Television habits are addictions. Just because you’ve done something for years or thought one way for decades, doesn’t make it correct or right. It means the conditioning has edged out the conscience and rationale has taken over. Religion is a conditioning. It’s an addiction. And if it’s not broken or sought out, it will sear into the mind without question. Oftentimes, I believe, faith is confused for an addiction to a conditioned ideal.

This is the first time I’ve designated the “asinine” tag for myself. I’m sure it won’t be the last.