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Atheist and skeptic tribe- Fall/winter 07-08

12K views 370 replies 89 participants last post by  fullofgrace 
#1 ·
Looks like we lost our old tribe, anyone interested in starting a new one?

Atheist mom of three
 
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#4 ·


Atheist mama of a 5-year-old DD. DH is also an atheist. His parents are lapsed JW's and my mom is agnostic, my dad secular and I don't actually know what he does or does not believe.

I've popped in and out of the other thread occasionally, but haven't really been up to date with it lately.

This time of year is a very interesting time to be an atheist. Luckily I have a pretty secular family, so I blend in ok, but we do still get the forwarded emails about keeping Christ in Christmas from my aunt. My family never prays, but at TG dinner this week my cousin (aforementioned aunt's son) actually had his daughter say a prayer before eating. I am thankful that I was not asked to participate.
Bleh.
 
#5 ·
If you guys have any questions, let Courtenay know. The thread was pulled due to review:

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#6 ·
Wow, what happened to get the thread pulled... that's a bummer.

anyhow -- it's that time of the year isn't it? I was thrilled to find out that a neighbor of ours is also an atheist! She is an older lady, so I guess it was a surprise to me (I don't often meet older ladies who are openly atheist) but it came up in casually talking about what we each did for Thanksgiving. made me smile!

Anyhow -- I wanted to mention the book for kids called "People"
http://www.amazon.com/People-Peter-S...6006049&sr=8-3
Great all around book, and the only one I know that mentions in it's religion section that many people choose not to believe in any god(s). Refreshing!
 
#8 ·
Thanks for your patience! I'm reopening the thread, with a gentle reminder about the purpose of FYT. Finding Your Tribe was created so that members with commonalities could post. It was not created to be anti-anything. Please keep in mind that the User Agreement states:

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Thanks, all!
 
#9 ·
HI everyone! I am an atheist mama of 2 with one on the way. The Christmas season is never too bad for us since my husband's family, although extremely religious, live in central america. My family is religious but not too pushy about it.

But I am having some troubles with JWs coming to my door. I have never been very good at dismissing people, and it's tough when they are moms like me and bring their kids along (DD always wants to run out and play with them).

Our latest encounter happened on Thanksgiving; they stopped by to give us some stuff on keeping out kids safe...sigh
It's not like they couldn't see we had company...10 cars parked outside, tons of people in the windows...

I told them we are not interested, but I don't think that will end it since they have come back before...
 
#13 ·
Oops. I didn't know why the old one was taken away. I didn't know there would be a problem for starting a new tribe. I didn't open this one to talk about whatever it was that took the old one away (I have no idea honestly
) So sorry AM. I just wanted us to have our tribe. Plus I changed it, or I should say started a different kind. This is for atheists and/or skeptics.

Again, this is not a thread to discuss whatever got the old one shut down (not knowing what that was I am giving my word on good faith, so to speak)

But yeah atheist mommies! (and any soon-to-be's)

xoxo Kim

Blasphemy is a victimless crime.
 
#14 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by carriebft View Post
HI everyone! I am an atheist mama of 2 with one on the way. The Christmas season is never too bad for us since my husband's family, although extremely religious, live in central america. My family is religious but not too pushy about it.

But I am having some troubles with JWs coming to my door. I have never been very good at dismissing people, and it's tough when they are moms like me and bring their kids along (DD always wants to run out and play with them).

Our latest encounter happened on Thanksgiving; they stopped by to give us some stuff on keeping out kids safe...sigh
It's not like they couldn't see we had company...10 cars parked outside, tons of people in the windows...

I told them we are not interested, but I don't think that will end it since they have come back before...
Stopping by on thanksgiving to give you information on keeping your kids safe? Um, that's interesting
What kind of information was it?
 
#15 ·
i too am an atheist - just wondering how do you or not do christmas, we celebrate christmas but we celebrate it as a time to give to the ones we love. we do tell our kids about santa as well because its quite impossible not to. also dh is a big christmas lover. he is unknown in his religon. so what do you do? how do you explain x-mas, my ds is only 3 the day after and dd is 18 months so the whole story has not been needed but im still curious. when do u tell them what others think?
 
#16 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by Ecstatic View Post
Another atheist here. My baby is not earthside yet.
My partner is an atheist as well (obviously - or, at least for me, as I wouldn't be able to be with someone who didn't share that with me).
Congrats on the baby-on-the-way!

My husband is not an atheist -- and neither was I when we got married nearly 13 years ago. I was still shaking off my fundamentalist xian upbringing then and figuring out exactly what it was I did believe without the oversight of a church or a patriarchal father. At the end of my journey of discovery I found myself a hard atheist married to a lapsed Catholic who doesn't like to think about religion at all, even to doubt it. It should make for some interesting discussions with the children when they're older (our oldest is 6).

How about everyone else? Is your partner an atheist, a believer or something in between?

Quote:

Originally Posted by utopia760 View Post
i too am an atheist - just wondering how do you or not do christmas, we celebrate christmas but we celebrate it as a time to give to the ones we love. we do tell our kids about santa as well because its quite impossible not to. also dh is a big christmas lover. he is unknown in his religon. so what do you do? how do you explain x-mas, my ds is only 3 the day after and dd is 18 months so the whole story has not been needed but im still curious. when do u tell them what others think?
Utopia -- We celebrate Christmas. My kids are 6 years old, almost 4 and 2 years old. Right now we focus on celebrating our family and the season. I frame Easter celebrations in the same way. My kids totally believe in Santa, thanks to my husband (grrrrrrr). I don't like for them to be exposed to the idea of omnipotence -- Santa is too much like God in my opinion -- but it was really, really important to my husband to do the whole Santa thing, so for now they're believers. When my kids get older and want to know about Christmas I will explain its significance to Christians but also talk about similiar winter celebrations practiced by other religions. Many of our Christmas traditions are taken from what Christians would call pagan religions. December 25 is the traditional birthday of both Mithra and Ishtar. The Romans' winter holiday, Saturnalia, was held on December 17 and featured gift-giving. Holly and mistletoe were sacred to the Druids. Many many religions mark the winter solstice in some way. I plan on teaching my children that we humans enjoy celebrations and marking the changing of the seasons. We may not now believe the myths at the root of our holidays, but that doesn't mean we can't still celebrate and enjoy them.
 
#17 ·
Christmas!

OK. So we didn't celebrate christmas for many years. After our second kid got to "that age" my DP started feeling nostalgic for christmassy things, the tree, santa etc.

So. Starting that year, a few years ago, we have got a tree, hung stockings, told the kids *gasp* about santa, left cookies and milk for santa, carrots for the reindeer etc. We don't buy them presents (except the stocking stuffers) and any gifts sent by family or whatever go under the tree. We have a christmas morning of sorts. I work christmas usually so I stomp some ash around in footprints, make the cookies look eaten and go to work. DP sits and opens presents with them.

There is no religion involved. I was hesitant to even do any christmas at all, but I thought it would be nice for DP.

I like solstice, I do my own thing that night. Not a religious thing, but remind myself where we are at the calendar and light candles.

Pretty boring.

Oh, someone said "santa is so much like god"

We don't really talk much about santa. Like the whole "omnipresent" thing usually attributed to santa, we don't talk about that. And, santa, if they ask, we will tell them, yes, it's a lie
And their souls are not at stake if they are skeptical of santa
 
#18 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by orangebird View Post
Stopping by on thanksgiving to give you information on keeping your kids safe? Um, that's interesting
What kind of information was it?
Just one of those magazines they always give out-- tower or whatever...I didn't read it because I knew it would upset me so I just trashed it but it was called "Keeping your kids safe" or something like that.
 
#20 ·
So I had an interesting experience at the playground a few days ago. Ds is SN and I had some woman say "God Bless you" to me in a really weird, kind of pitying way to which I stupidly replied "thanks".

How would you guys handle situations like that. It really irked me...
 
#21 ·
I might say something like "I AM blessed." (I don't mind using the term "blessing", as I do perceive that a lot of what I have and where I am is purely by chance and not my own doing.) I'm sure she meant well but you hate to have your kids called out like that.

I'm here! SAHM atheist mama of two-- ages 3 and 18 months. Planning to homeschool but wish I didn't have to do it in the Bible Belt.
 
#24 ·
Hahaha....that reminded me of this one time....

My oldest Dakota was 2, Patrick was 1 and Sydney was about 3 months old. I took the kids to the park during the day when I knew everyone would be at work or school. This older lady comes by walking her dog. She sees me trying to breastfeed and chase two crazy boys around the play structure and break up some sibling rivalry....then as I lift Sydney up to burp her, she pukes all over my shirt...lol She says, "Boy oh boy, did god ever bless you!" I responded, "Are you sure?? Cuz right now, this kind of sucks!"


 
#26 ·
Slightly amusing story:

So I went to the post office to buy a book of stamps yesterday and the teller holds up a book of stamps of the virgin mary and jesus. He says "do you want the christmas stamps" then he holds up a book of stamps with trees, teddy bears, gifts, etc and says "or the pagan stamps"?

I said I'd take those (pointing at the so-called 'pagan stamps')

He says "I had you pinned to pick those"

Dh says "well, we would have taken the 'God is a big phoney' ones but you seem to be all out."

 
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