My Life Has Taken Over + Meme

Readers of my blog have probably noticed I haven’t been around much.  Things have gotten extremely busy for me and I have not had the time to my previously normal twice weekly postings.  I do check in and read my favorites, but I just haven’t been able to write lately.  As any blogger knows, it can be time consuming, and writing articles about atheism, creationism, evolution, and religion can take some work.  I tend to be at least a little meticulous about making sure I at least appear to know what I am discussing, and finding the time to research to write a good post has been unavailable lately due to an increased workload and having two school kids in extracurricular activities (and a hyperactive 18 month old) have left me exhausted.

Evanescent tagged me with the latest meme going around, and even though I am late to this particular party I will give mine.  Hopefully this will light a little fire under my butt to be sure I at least get back up to weekly posts. 

When I started my blog I had no intentions of discussing atheism, religion, and my wife’s beliefs.  It just kind of ended up that way as you can see below:

1.  At first I tried to be cute and all of my titles were lyrics from songs, mostly heavy metal but I mixed in a Beatles tune.  My first post on religion and atheism was really my 5th or 6th overall and it was titled The Orders Came From High Above They Say.  Reading it now, it really is a very simple post, but keep in mind I had not read any blogs concerning atheism at this point–I didn’t even know that world existed.  I was just writing random thoughts.  The key to this post and why it was important was I used wordpress’ tags.  After I published that post I did a few searches with my own tags and found blogs like de-conversion (then agnosticatheism), The Friendly Athiest, and Evanescent.  Suddenly I realized that there were many others that were writing about atheism.

2.  After a few weeks of reading dozens of atheism blogs and posting a few of my own, I made the post That’s How I Got Where I Am.  Here I went into how I became an atheist in my youth because I actually read the bible trying to understand it’s mysteries.  Rereading this post you can see I have a few ideas that will come up in later posts.  This particular article made it into the 3rd The Humanist Symposium.  This was my first atheism post to start receiving a good number of hits and I realized I had an audience.

3.  My blog had now “evolved” into an actual atheism blog.  While I enjoy reading a lot of the more militant atheism blogs as the debates are entertaining, I knew my style of writing wouldn’t be a good fit for that type of blog.  I decided to write a lot about my relationship with my Jehovah’s Witness wife and how we cope with our differences in belief.  I feel as if there are a lot of blog writers out there that have better biblical and science knowledge than myself, and I knew I would write better about what I know.  A few posts into this decision to write about myself and my wife and I wrote A Blood Problem.  This post gets a number of hits every week, I am assuming from someone wondering why JW’s don’t accept blood transfusions.  Hopefully that article has been at least a little helpful.

4.  Now I was fully enveloped in the atheism blogosphere.  I actually was becoming quite addicted, reading and commenting on other blogs and writing my own.  I started paying attention to politicians views on religion, and researched more on religion and history since I had been in college over 20 years ago.  On July 1 a murder-suicide happened in my city, and it was pretty big news as the perpetrator was a prominant dentist in town.  On July 3, my local newspaper ran an article claiming the perpetrator was a “good Christian.”  I read this article at lunch and then wrote Dentist Found Slain With Wife Was a Good Christian, which was also the headline in the paper.  No other article that I have written to this point gets as many hits as this one.  The day I wrote it and the day after my hits spiked 1000%.  I still get 35-30 google searches weekly on this article and local individuals that knew the parties involved have commented as recently as last week.  While the comments have now spiraled into a different topic, I think the original concept of why I wrote it, that labeling people based upon their supposed religious beliefs instead of their actions, stands up very well.

5.  I haven’t written a post in a few weeks, but my last real post, My Awakening, pretty much sums up where I am at this point.  I have 3 posts halfway written that I will get out there soon, including my post on Julian, for those in suspense. 

An interesting sidenote that I hope I will continue to discuss over the next year or so.  I think my wife is gradually realizing the faults of Jehovah’s Witnesses and religion in general.  I cannot say for sure, because she has a hard time talking about it, but I can tell you that she has went to only one meeting (sermon) since July, and previously she would go weekly plus go to at least one bible study a week.  My children have only went when they have stayed the night over at their cousins, which has been maybe twice.  I do not know for certain if she will stay this route.  I am not trying to influence her as I want the decision to be hers.  But I can tell something clicked in her a couple of months ago, and I am hoping we have another free thinker on our hands eventually.

That’s all for now, and I will try to get back to my own posting and commenting.  I won’t forward this meme as the blogs I read most have already been tagged.

I Love This Woman

Last night I am reading my comments as well as the comments on Mary’s post about preaching atheism on de-Conversion (not used to the name yet).  Without me noticing her presence, my wife starts reading over my shoulder.

 Uh Oh.

I had told her about me writing a blog, and she knows I participate in some message boards about sports.  But I hadn’t really told her I was writing as much as I have.  And that it had turned to be more specific about atheism and included some Jehovah’s Witness information that I don’t agree with.

My wife isn’t much into computers, she can work her way around google and youtube and type a letter in word, but other than that she avoids them.  She was initially more concerned I was chatting with women.  Once that was resoved she read some of my posts.

Then we talked.  And we talked some more.

She asked some questions, like why we don’t talk about some issues, like the blood issue I wrote about earlier this week or the post I wrote about when I was younger and decided I didn’t believe in God.  And I told her the truth.  My wife is an emotionally driven person.  If she is upset she will argue.  If she is happy she is radiant.  If she is sad she will cry.  Even in a mild disagreement she will raise her voice.  Imagine in a topic she is passionate about.  I don’t need these types of arguments, when I can have them peacefully on the internet.  I even showed her Mary’s topic above, which is what she caught me reading anyway, and my comment about her on that topic, that she could never be swayed and I know that and am fine with it. 

But she wouldn’t let me off that easy.  She wanted to know why I thought she couldn’t be swayed.  I told her it’s simple.  I could show her some evidence and she would still believe.  So we briefly discussed some Bible issues that we haven’t talked about in years.  We also briefly touched on parts of my wife’s life that stay with her today.  I am not going to do into detail, as I probably already reveal more than she would like me to on here.  Let’s just say she didn’t have the best childhood, and luckily both her and her family worked their way out of it.  And they will all credit religion and Jehovah’s Witnesses for helping them along the way.  Obviously I will say it was their own resolve, but I will never win that disagreement.  Her blunt bottom line is there has to be something else, because life sucks too much for this to be all there is.  I have to admit she makes me want to wish she was right.

Did I mention I Love This Woman?

Tagged

I thought I was going to make it and not get tagged after Load of Bright and Spanish Inquisitor bypassed me.  And then I get it twice from Evanescent and The The Anonymous Atheist.  Ah well…. 

Here are the rules:

* We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.

* Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

* People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.

* At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

* Don’t forget to leave them each a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

 

1.  I am a sports junkie.  Especially football (American, sorry evanescent).  In the fall my wife knows that on Sunday I do nothing.  We have to get all of our stuff done on Saturday as I won’t move for about 10 hours starting at about 10am.  I will watch most other sports, but I am not as addicted as I am football.

2.  I rarely watch any TV shows other than sports.  The only two current shows I watch semi-regular are Scrubs and Lost.  And even with that I still have the last three episodes of Lost on my Tivo but haven’t watched them yet.

3.  I can tell I am getting older because I do not like most new music (just say no to the Strokes and Coldplay).  I prefer hard rock and metal, but not the serious thrash stuff-no In Flames or Biohazard, etc.  The hardest I get is pretty much Megadeth or Pantera, some Slayer also.  I also like pretty much all old rock and roll, doesn’t have to be heavy, Led Zeppelin, Eagles, Beatles, Stones.  Thin Lizzy is one of my faves.  I also like a lot of the better 80’s metal bands like Scorpions, Van Halen and Tesla.

4.  I have bowled a 300 and an 800.  A 300 gets all the glory but I can tell you the 800 was much harder and is much less common.  Bowling is my sport of choice now since you can drink beer and eat nachos at the same time.

5.  I have a one year old son.  My other two kids are almost 11 and 9.  They were EASY kids.  Either I have gotten much older or forgotten the bad times with little ones.  He never sleeps through the night on a regular basis, is into everything and has a “look” that neither of my other two had, that says “I rule this house you just deal with it!”  I love him anyway    plus he it looks like he is going to be big and tall, so maybe he’ll be a linebacker or a power forward and take care of his dad in his old age–or at least get a scholarship and save me $60,000+. 

 

 

 

 

 

 6.  I have always liked hispanic women.  I grew up in Colorado, moved to Albuquerque, NM, then to Las Cruces, NM, and now reside in El Paso, TX.  I moved because of a previous job, but maybe not so coincidently I kept moving to a higher and higher percentage of Mexican-American women to choose from to be my wife    

7.  While I don’t watch a lot of TV, I do like movies.  Some of my favorites of all time in no particular order:  Memento, Goodfellas, Resevoir Dogs, Glengarry Glen Ross, Fight Club, Bladerunner, The Godfather I & II, The Matrix (first one only), any movie from Pixar.

8.  I went to college in the 80’s to become a systems analyst/programmer.  I had to leave after two years as my parents started going through a divorce.  Then I got sidetracked and got into sales and eventually owned my own business.  While doing this I got my degree (in business).  To come full circle I am now a Manager of Information Systems at a medium sized company.  The only bad thing is all my Fortran/Cobol skills went to waste.

 

Most of the blogs I read regularly have already been tagged.  I will attempt to tag these assuming they haven’t been already (I was real tempted to tag all the writers at aA-now de-Conversion’s site, but that wouldn’t be fair would it?  I’ll just have to go get a couple of the contributors):

Slapdash  (I know you’re new, welcome to the club!)

I wonder as I wander

Mystery of Inquinity

Religion and Politics (He’s a theist, a good writer and a good sport)

crimsonmai  I think she’s been busy but I am running out of candidates

seekism I haven’t seen roopster around lately, let’s see if we can get him posting.

Sailing to Byzantium same with Kullervo, although he has been posting some, one of my favorite blogs even if we are totally different

cwonder because her site is totally different then all the rest above

 

The Evolution Of My Blog

Pun definitely intended.  

I have been out of the blogging world the past week, travelling to Reno, Lake Tahoe, and San Francisco with my wife sans children.

                                                                           While I have been away my blog has been linked from a couple of websites which has caused my blog to get quite a bit more traffic than it was previously getting.  I mainly wanted to say thank you and I enjoy reading blogs with similar and even not so similar beliefs and situations as my own. 

This blog didn’t initially start out as an atheist or religion based blog but it has turned into that and I like it.  I am unsure if I will continue to discuss tax situations or give CD reviews on this site or do that on my other site.  However I do get a number of hits on search engines based on these topics as well.  How long it can go and how many atheist/theist topics I can discuss are unknown, but I will continue to bring up topics and read and comment on other sites until I am no longer interested, which I doubt will happen.

I am still in vacation mode right now, though, so this will be continued next week and I am looking forward to it.