The Onion Turtle and All That

Christmas is easy for us. We talk about tradition. We talk about sucessive cultures adopting the celebrations of earlier cultures and adapting them for their own use. We point to things like the Chinese New Year and how we can enjoy the celebrations, but that no one really believes that the firecrackers really keep away demons, they are just simply part of the fun. We like the message of "Peace on earth and goodwill to all men" and enjoy the gift giving and the eating and getting together with the family and sharing time together. Living in Australia, where Christmas coincides with the hottest times of the year, anything to celebrate the shortening of days and the return to cooler weather is something to be celebrated.

As Atheists, my husband and I decided that it would be hypocritical of us to celebrate easter though. The link between the bunny, chocolate and the supernatural resurrection of a human being was tenuous at best, with my daughter noting rather dryly that it wasn't much of a sacrifice if one knew they were immortal. Thus we saw the birth of the onion turtle.

It started as a bit of a joke with the onion turtle travelling the planet giving children the healthy onions of wisdom. The easter bunny of course, muscling in on the whole operation with faster delivery and better marketing and PR. The onion turtle, however refused to go away quietly however, and in this family we celebrate onion turtle day. Sometimes he is able to coincide with easter, sometimes he beats him to it, sometimes he is a little late. When he arrives, we have onion soup, chocolate eggs (well turtles lay eggs too), chocolate turtles, in fact all things turtley (it's a word now). Onion Turtle has a life of his own now, and we have built a great back story about his beginnings and his many travels.

I think it is time that Onion Turtle came out of the atheist closet, and I am going to work on a series of children's stories based on his life and adventures.

Here's to Onion Turtle. Long may his stories be told.

I hope the kids can remember the details.

गोद्लेस Increase

The number of Godless have gone up!

By smartymarty66

The latest census has shown that the number of people who are brave enough to say that they do not believe in a God has risen over the last 10 years. I think we will find that the number is even higher. There are several people I know personally who identifu themselves as being Catholic who do not believe in god, but because of their family history will label themselves as such. Of course there is teh usual rantings about the decline and fall of society as we know it, and "wasn't the world a nicer placer when everyone were regular church goers?" sorts of wishful thinking going on. Maybe it was, unless you were a monority group, disabled, orphaned, illegitimate, mentally ill, a victim of domestic violence, lived anywhere that defined it's various groups by the religion they followed and then used that old "Rules do not apply" arguement to inflict horrific crimes against each other.
That sort of narrows the list a little, doesn't it.

If you want to be truely scared, then go and checkout conservapedia. and look up kangaroo.

I like to get people to visit the site at least once. It has it's roots in the right wing conservitives in the US complaining about wikipedia, the truely egalitarian (thanks, Lewis Black for that description) , even handed complitaion of the collective knowledge of mankind being assembled (if you get bored with the entries then read the debates raging about what is kept and how things should be phrased if you ever worry about the scrutiny the entries undergo, the debate is the most robust I have ever seen) has a left wing bias IE- It doesn't agree with them so it must be wrong- and it must be deliberate. It really should be called fundamentalpedia, admittedly more mental than fun.
If you want to break out into a cold sweat in the middle of the night then read the section on Tony Blair and remind yourself that the people who write these entries, really do believe this and have great political sway in the halls of power on the only Country in the world that has ever dropped a nuclear weapon in anger on another country, have even bogger bombs (lots and lots of them), have already indicated that they would spend gazzillions on war, and that death and suffering is referred to as collateral damage Really, really, really believe in the whole armageddon, rapture, second coming of christ thing and would love to do their little bit to bring this about.

Hi There

I probably shouldn't call it Godless Parenting- It makes me sound like I lost God somewhere, and that if I look really hard, behind the couch, I'll find him again next to the mummified apple core and the lost pens. I have started this blog as a response to the many people who are concerned that, all other things aside, the only way we have a moral guidepost is through religion (usually theirs). and that without god as the uberparent we would all lose our way and civilisation would cease to exist as we know it.

I am raising 4 children ranging in ages from 10-15. I will use this blogs to talk about our experiences, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometime irritating. you might heartily agree or throw your hands up and say "but Martine, think of the children". feel free to comment.

I will add the interesting websites that I find
Here's the First
Atheist Parents