At the beginning of this campaign John “It’s only a theory” Tory made the ill advised promise to extend public funding to all religious schools to balance the inequity of the current system. Unforunately Mr. Tory the real solution to the problem of funding Catholic schools is not b yfurther diluting the public funds but by putting all PUBLIC moneys into PUBLIC schools. This is what the Civil Liberties Association (as well as many ontarions) is calling for.

The problem with funding Catholic schools is not that we do so at the expense of other religious schools but that we do so at the expense of Public schools. If one chooses to indoctrinate their children they can do so in one of their tax-exempt houses of worship and not in side by side with where they learn facts.

Children are cruel and creative enough to find reasons to out group and tease each other without our adding Religion to the mix. Religious schools separate children by their parents beliefs and do not give them the chance to get to know one and another before deciding whether they should mingle or not.

Many of these issues are not the fault of Mr. Tory’s proposed funding but they will be at worst exacerbated by it and at best maintained by it.

I would like to thank Mojoey of Deep Thoughts for adding this humble blog to the Atheist Blogroll. I welcome the readers of the blogroll and look forward to their comments and adding to the convers

During her acceptance speech at the Emmys Kathy Griffin admitted that Jesus had nothing to do with it and this has angered the Catholic League because apparently stating that Jesus (if he existed) doesn’t give 2 shits about who wins TV awards is hate speech. This is ridiculous! For years celebrities and sports stars have been thanking Allah, Jesus and Xenu for there successes which is offensive when you think that if these gods were out there shouldn’t they get busy with world peace or curing disease rather than winning superbowls?

In the four short years my son has been alive he has had to deal with the loss of quite a few loved ones. Two Great-Grandmothers, A Great-Grandfather, A Great-Uncle and 2 Dogs. I have been careful when explaining every death in truthful and honest terms. In each situation I have tried to make him understand what had caused this loss and that he would never again see or here from that loved one but that he could always remember and love them.

A couple of these occasions have drawn wondering looks from friends and relatives as they expected for me to fall back on the standard “always be with you” or heavenly glossing over of the situation but I could see no reason to take these times of loss to feed misinformation to him.

A co-worker of mine is due to have his first child anytime now and being the supporting guys that we are me and some of the other guys that are fathers already have been giving him a hard time. We have been telling him the usual horror stories of sleepless nights and screaming babies. Now this fearmongering is fairly standard talk between men in regards to impending fatherhood.

Now for the Truth:

Fatherhood is the hardest thing I have ever done but by far the most rewarding. I have never been happier than June 27 2003. There is a reason I have pictures of my son in my wallet, on my desk and any where else I can put one up. I look forward to getting home every night and seeing him smile as I walk in the door and hearing him giggle as we play around. I enjoy taking him to the park, watching him learn new things and just being himself.

Every night before bed I sneak into his room and sneak one last peek before I go to sleep. I wouldn’t do all this if Fatherhood was as bad as we make it out ot be sometimes…

When you slow dance with life’s big questions you tend to go around in circles, and I have danced around this issue most of my life and have finally reached a place where I am comfortable stating that I am an Atheist.I have tried many paths and have come to terms with a vision of the cosmos and the world around me that does not have any supernatural aspects.

I was raised a Catholic, but I am not sure if I ever really bought into it probably due in part to my Father (my mother is Catholic, I believe my father is Agnostic though I have never asked), by the time I reached my mid to late teens I had become fairly comfortable being Agnostic and not overly concerned with the existence or non-existence of God. My twenties brought a time of introspection and research into Christianity, Budhism and miscellaneous other forms of Spirituality but nothing really moved me until I got sick. Battling and surviving Cancer brought a certain urgency to my “soul searching” as did the birth of my son. I found myself relapsing into Christianity to find the answers to life, and how to raise a moral and balanced boy. As I sat and listened in the pews and the books the more I felt like a fraud, going to church and singing the hymns was easy but accepting the “truths” was not. The moral teachings I found in the church were either ones I already held and believed regardless of religious teachings or a supernatural being and the ones based on scripture and religious teachings that I could not adhere to.

My search began again by digging through philosophical texts and the proverbial light bulb went off when I read Albert Camus’ “The Myth of Sisyphus” in which he proposes the problem of an omnipotent god. If God were omnipotent then he would be the root of evil in the world and if Humans were the cause of evil then God is not omnipotent. This brought me to the argument of destiny and free will and it snowballed from there. The final nail in God’s coffin was hammered home with the principle of belief conservation. The principle states that we cannot hold something to be true if it requires us to reject too many other beliefs that we already know to be true. For me to accept a supernatural universe I would have to reject too many truths about a natural universe, I could think of no rational reason for me to do this.

One of the major arguments for Religion is that it is the rock on which to base you morals, well I do not think morality comes from religion, I think religion got morality from people. Morality and ethics stem from a human sense of empathy and sympathy for one and another, it is also an evolutionary tool since we would not have reached he heights we have without a moral fabric to hold us together and enable us to work as societies. I also believe that teaching values and morality through the use of empathy is a much better tool that scaring them with eternal damnation, it is more honest and more tangible. A child can relate to the feeling of having his toy taken but not to supernatural repercussions for bad acts.

When I first realized I was an Atheist ( and had been for some time ) I felt liberated. Living for today and basing my life on facts and learning. Putting faith in humanity and our ability to live, learn, evolve and prosper by relying on ourselves and each other. From what I have lived, experienced and read, Atheists are not morose godless people, they are in fact life affirming, humanity praising people that want us to do our best for our own sake not for the Spaghetti monster’s.

I could go on point by point enumerating the various ideas and theories which I believe a scientific and rational view wins out over a simplified religious one but there are people that are far more intelligent and well versed in such debates that I will leave it to the experts. Suffice it to say that I hope people will continue to learn and hopefully one day they too will see the beauty in a natural universe.