It has been several months now since I have written my last post. Since last February, I have attended the largest American Atheists conference in history, almost learned how to roll my kayak, and have gone on a roller coaster of stress and professional growth at my day job. In the meantime, this blog has been the last thing on my mind. I am hoping to put an end to the long drought of posts starting this month. Now to come up with ideas 
Jul 24, 2011
A long overdue update
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Jan 9, 2011
What Inspires Me
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It’s like the universe screams in your face ‘Do you know how grand I am, how old I am, can you even comprehend what I am? What are you compared to me?’
And when you know enough science you can just smile back up at the universe and reply
‘Dude, I am you!’
One thing on my bucket list is to go somewhere where the sky is really dark at night and get a good glimpse of the Milky Way with my own eyes.
Jan 9, 2011
My Take on the Alabama Atheist Billboard
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Here is the latest billboard from American Atheists, to advertise their first regional convention in the south, the Southeast Regional Atheist Meet. In the interest of full disclosure, I have been a member of American Atheists for several years and they are an organization I am proud to support.
I have somewhat mixed feeling about this particular billboard. On the one hand, I think it is a good thing for atheists to be able to stand up and proudly state that we do not believe in any of the religions. Especially in the largely religious south, where atheists are particularly nervous about “coming out” for fear of being judged as a bad person or worse.
On the other hand, I can see why religious people may be legitimately offended by it. Not that there is any right in this country not to be offended. Given the reaction of some religious people in Louisville to the LouisvilleCOR billboard, which stated “Don’t believe in God? You are not alone,” there are clearly those who are offended by any statement that atheists exist and that atheism as a good thing. As far as this billboard goes, I fear that it paints with a too broad of a brush. I think the claims of religions are all false on their face, but there a lot of people who reinterpret and reinvent their religions with a more humanistic and humane interpretation. It would be a shame for us to isolate those who identify with some sort of religious tradition but still might be our allies on issues such as the separation of church and state. Maybe I would prefer if the wording on the billboard were different, and that the use of all-caps were nixed. But I also have to be honest in saying I have not yet come up with a good slogan that would fit in one line on a billboard.
On the whole though, I like the billboard and I think it has done well in its purpose of drawing new members into American Atheists and in creating a media buzz that reaches far beyond Huntsville, Alabama.
You can read more about the billboard here (I actually just found this page, and they do address the concerns I brought up about more liberal religions. It is worth a read.): http://www.atheists.org/atheism/Religion_is_a_scam
Jan 2, 2011
2010 in review
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The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is on fire!.
Crunchy numbers
A helper monkey made this abstract painting, inspired by your stats.
A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 3,400 times in 2010. That’s about 8 full 747s.
In 2010, there were 23 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 73 posts. There were 7 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 337kb.
The busiest day of the year was January 5th with 115 views. The most popular post that day was Yoga and Skepticism.
Where did they come from?
The top referring sites in 2010 were friendlyatheist.com, facebook.com, blogger.com, twitter.com, and starseyer.blogspot.com.
Some visitors came searching, mostly for atheist yoga, secular yoga, yoga for atheists, i don’t need god, and yoga skepticism.
Attractions in 2010
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
1
Yoga and Skepticism July 2009
7 comments
2
Why I don’t need God or religion October 2009
8 comments
3
My Ice Breaker Speech September 2009
4
Who is the Skeptical Seeker? January 2009
5 comments
5
Where does joy come from? August 2009
2 comments
Dec 21, 2010
Happy Winter Solstice!
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May your days grow ever brighter and warmer until Spring comes again!
May 6, 2010
National Day of Reason
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Happy National Day of Reason!
Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. -Thomas Jefferson
Feb 28, 2010
A lesson in stick-to-it-ativeness
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Today I read the word “crowbar” in a book, and winced a little bit. I have a vague memory that when I was very young I used that word in front of my father, and got a quick life lesson in word connotations. He instructed me not to use that word, but rather say “pry-bar” because “crow” was a racist slur against black people and the word “crowbar” had racist connotations. Whether that is true about the word origins or not, the larger lesson is true: racism is bad.
That was not the only value I learned from my parents growing up.
Mom also had a thing with words. One I learned from her was “stick-to-it-ativeness.” Basically that is the idea that you should finish what you start–a tough lesson for a kid who would want to quit and do something else as soon as the fun had gone out of a task. It’s a lesson that has served me well up to this point.
Today is my parent’s 44th wedding anniversary. And that’s quite a lesson in “stick-to-it-ativeness” in itself.
Happy Anniversary! I love you both.
Jan 1, 2010
New Year’s Resolutions
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I’ve never been a big fan of New Year’s Resolutions. Most of the time they are nebulous and soon forgotten. However, I did actually manage to keep my resolutions for 2009. They were to play my flute more (I did that for the first few months), keep doing yoga (kept though most of the year), and get married (done ). If there where any resolutions that made that I failed to keep, then I can’t remember what they were.
In keeping with the tradition of making resolutions for New Year’s Day, I would like to state my intentions to accomplish a few clear goals in 2010.
I want to:
- Get my passport. Not planning any international travel just yet, but I want to be ready if the opportunity arises.
- Make some progress towards getting my Masters degree. Even if I don’t start a program this coming year, I want to take the GRE and get my letters of recommendation before the end of the year.
- Finish rest of the 10 speeches in the Toastmaster’s Competent Communicator manual. I have done 2 of them, 8 to go!
Happy New Years!
Dec 13, 2009
Name Change
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I have changed the name of the blog from “The Atheist Yogi” to “The Skeptical Seeker.” I’ve moved away from my interest in yoga, and I think that the idea of seeking for truth and reality with a skeptical mind would be a better fit for this blog.
Nov 24, 2009
Memorial Service
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My Grampa, my last remaining grandparent, died last Friday. He had been sick over the past week, and on Friday morning I got a call from Mom saying that they had taken him to the emergency room and found out that he had leukaemia. At about 2:30pm she called me at work to inform me that “Grampa has gone to heaven.” He was 90.
There is going to be a memorial service on Tuesday, at the church that Grampa attended–the one that I attended as a small child. This can be a tricky issue for an atheist in a mostly Christian family, but thankfully there is some degree of religious diversity in the family as well. That translates in most cases into a atmosphere of tolerance for different views, and a low likelihood that this memorial will turn into an appeal for the ‘unsaved’ to turn to God to avoid going to hell when they face death themselves. I’ve heard of such things from other people, but that is not my situation.
I cringe a bit inside when I hear someone say things like ‘Grandpa is with Grandma in heaven now’ or some such thing. Fine if that makes them feel better, and I’m definitely not going to pick fights with anyone over that sort of thing.
This will be a bit different from a usual funeral service. Grandma and Grampa both agreed — back in the 60′s I think I heard someone say — to donate their bodies to ‘medical science’ when they died. I personally think this is a great idea, since I think having one’s body pumped full of chemicals and buried in the ground in an expensive box is a bit wasteful. Please don’t take offence if you disagree.
So, there will be no body at the service and no burial. If it’s anything like Grandma’s memorial service, it will mainly be family members sharing memories about Grampa.
