Atheist Homeschool

In Rancho Cucamonga there is a billboard that says “Imagine no religion” and it was posted to get people to do just that. How can a culture who embraced John Lennon’s “Imagine” still be so hung up on religion. Society doesn’t need religion to function. It does more harm than good. How can people not see that? Religion creates a false sense of morality and detaches people from true spirituality. Not that spirituality is necessary, I believe myself to be a bit on the spiritual side, but that’s just me. I don’t think there’s scientific way to prove any of it, so how can people devote their lives to following those silly rules? It’s just ridiculous, I say.

Hmm, it seems that everyone has an opinion about the whole Santa thing.   I still think that it’s playful and fun.  I wonder if people who were traumatized by the lie chalk it up to the way that they first learned of it, or if they blame it on the lie itself. It’s all in perception. To be honest, I think of it more as a game. Or a gift. I don’t look at it as a lie, but maybe if I felt lied to as a child, I’d have a harsher view of the topic. I feel sad for people who were traumatized by it, but I have to wonder. Is their perspective defined by their reaction, or by the reaction of the people around them. I think of the lady, whose teacher asked the 3^rd grade class “Who here believes in Santa?” and the other kids laughed when she was the only one to raise her hand. I wonder, first of all, what was her teacher thinking? Second of all, if she had been of a different mindset, would she have been able to handle the situation without getting traumatized. I just wonder these things. I wonder if there has even been a formal study of the whole Santa thing, and if anyone has ever cross referenced the results with the overall pessimism or optimism of the people involved.

One family’s reason.. This lady, an Atheist mom, explains in her own words how she came to be an atheist homeschooler. I don’t know how any kindergartener can survive so many hours in a classroom. It really does seem like torture. Anyways, she started off in Arizona, and apparently the school looked like a prison, so when she moved to Oregon, they decided to continue homeschooling, but they participate in a free school program (not “free school” but “free” school. There’s a huge difference in a John Holt Unschool kind of way.) Anyways, her comments are thoughtful and the blog is really nice. You should totally go check her out. Let her know that we sent you. Have a great day.

Remember all that hype over the fact that the writer of the Golden Compass was an atheist. What the heck was that all about? That was the looniest load of crap I have ever heard. If God is so magical and amazing, then how do they possibly think that a book or movie is going to “kill” him the immortal? I bought my oldest daughter the three-set of Pullman books for Christmas last year (yeah- we do Stockings and the tree every year, I love holidays, gift-giving, and funky decorations. Not for any spiritual reason, but just because it’s fun) Anyways, I kept meaning to read them. Maybe I should. In the movie, the girl had on the most amazing knitted sweater thing. And I’m not the only one who noticed either, I researched it for an article I wrote back then, the knitting message boards were going nuts. You should totally see that movie. The hype was insane.

I always liked that line, but the rest of the song kind of sucks. “You better watch out” Why, is there something to be afraid of? “You better not cry” because expressing emotion is naughty or something. “You better not pout” because at this point passive aggressive pouting is really all you’ve got left if you can’t cry “I’m telling you why….Santa Clause is coming to town” And apparently if you don’t conform to society’s standards of behavior, which means never expressing your displeasure, then you will not get any presents, right? Nevermind that for the rest of the year, kissing butt in order to get presents makes you, well, a greedy butt-kisser. During the holidays it’s your job, OK. Yeah, that’s how it works apparently. I love the new ads, though “Be Good for Goodness’ Sake.” Because darnit, isn’t that what life is all about? And you know what, you’re going to get some presents just because giving is fun, OK. That’s all. And if you wanna cry fine, I will comfort you in my arms until my head hurts, and then I will go away and take some Tylenol. Just being honest.

I’ve always thought that church would be so much fun if it weren’t for the lame religious aspect of it all. Picture this- a community of people who help each other out, get together for potlucks, chip in a few dollars each month to keep this building full of fun stuff so they can meet together and the kids can hang out. Clubs with social activities and community service projects to help the less fortunate or the homeless. Book clubs and other activities where moms get together and things for dads to get together, couples events, and part of the focus is encouragement and self improvement. Imagine- what a fantastic place. Too bad it’s all under the guise of religion, what’s up with that?

Sometimes I see people bashing atheists and their premise seems to be that atheists hate God. This isn’t really true. While some atheists happen to be hateful people, so do some religious people. In my life, I’ve known more hateful religious people than hateful atheists, but I’ve also known more religious people so perhaps the percentage is the same. Either way, atheists as a rule don’t hate God. Surely, some atheists were brought up in horrible homes and suffered spiritual abuse in the name of God, and were driven to Atheism because it was so easy for them to see the fraud of religion. The rest of us, though, just don’t want to play the pretend games of religion. Not hateful at all, but indifferent. How can you hate something that doesn’t exist?

 In the words of James Richardson , “Atheists don’t hate God any more than they hate trolls or unicorns, since they assert that none of those beings actually exist.”

I understand that humans have traditionally celebrated during the darkest part of the year. It’s normal to want to bring joy and happiness to the dreary dark winter. I always thought it was interesting to hear the stories about how the Christians stole the holiday from the pagans so that they could force their political beliefs upon society. I wonder how the modern day Christians feel about the old crusades, I wonder if they are glad that their religion was able to prosper by murdering other people, or I wonder if they think it was horrible. I wonder if they ever compare it to the hate crimes that occur nowadays.

I overheard those words on a commercial for some kind of educational something. Guaranteed to bring skills up one full grade level in 36 hours or less. I have so many thoughts about this. First, if it’s possible to excel one grade level in a subject in 36 hours, then 6 subjects (or should I say 3 if we’re talking reading, writing and arithmetic) then an entire year’s worth of school should be done in 6×36=216 hours. 6 subjects is being really liberal, though because schools don’t do testing for 6 subjects, they do testing for the three R’s, so actually an entire year’s worth of school should be done in 158 hours. If you average that out over the course of a ten month school year, then each child should be able to get by with 15.8 hours worth of school per month. But they don’t, it’s more like 6 hours a day times 20 school days a month which is more like 120 hours a month so basically schools are wasting 104.2 hours each month, or over 1000 hours each school year.

But it’s all bullshit because every child doesn’t require the same skills for success, it’s ridiculous to assume that everyone needs to know the same things to be successful in life. We’re all different for a reason, plain and simple.

I don’t often spend my money buying brand new curriculum for the kids. I’m more of an unschooler, but when we need books for school, we usually get them used. This is a fantastic article about how find used homeschool books. It lists places to look and ways to solicit help from your local support group.

Since many homeschooling families (atheist and christian) have only one source of income, saving money whether it;s on groceries or buying used homeschool books, then it’s a smart thing to do. Some of the ideas were checking ebay and craigslist and advertising with your local group. There were other resources listed for cheap and free homescholing at the bottom of the article (conveniently in the resources section)