Reading Time: 5 minutes I have 22 posts jostling for attention at the moment, but a Saturday night conversation with my girls has sent all other topics back to the green room for a smoke. The three of us were lying on my bed, looking at the ceiling and talking about the day. “Dad, I have to tell you […]
Death & Dying
Grappling with the difficult questions of death and dying from a secular, nonreligious point of view.
Posted inCritical thinking, Death & Dying, Parenting & Family, Science
integrity
Reading Time: 7 minutes It’s confirmed: the statistic over which I was so amazed — that 39.6 percent of prominent scientists lost a parent when they were kids — is twaddle. Thanks to blogreader Ryan (who sent the full text of the article I had quoted), I am spared the fate of including a bogus stat in a sidebar […]
Posted inDeath & Dying, Parenting & Family, Science
can death give birth to wonder? (revised)
Reading Time: 3 minutes [NOTE: In preparing the following blog entry, I fell prey to a classic critical thinking error that goes by several names: “selective reporting,” “confirmation bias,” and “being an idiot.” Though the first several paragraphs are impeccably sound, the section on the Woodward paper is, unfortunately, complete rubbish. I say ‘unfortunately’ because it would have been […]
Posted inDeath & Dying, Education, Parenting & Family
yakety yak
Reading Time: 4 minutes By the time our children are of school age, we take their talk for granted. We have turned all our attention to their reading and writing, not realizing that talk is still the motor that drives their intellectual development. –from Raising Lifelong Learners by Lucy Calkins One of my favorite things about dadding this family […]
Posted inDeath & Dying, Parenting & Family
the days keep coming
Reading Time: 2 minutes Once again I’m humbled by a child. And this one’s not even mine. One of the questions I get most often is how on Earth we can help our children to be “OK” with death. Or words to that effect. Like so many oft-repeated questions, it’s not quite the right one. It implies that I’m […]
Posted inDeath & Dying
endings
Reading Time: < 1 minute An animated video of a kiwi with a dream nabbed “Most Adorable” last year in the YouTube Awards, along with 14 million views to date. As you’ll see, there’s quite a bit more profound going on here than mere adorability: My kids all loved it. Connor watched it again and again, sorting out the implications […]
Posted inDeath & Dying, Parenting & Family
the heartbreak of all-done
Reading Time: 4 minutes Last year a client asked me to look over a rhyming children’s book she’d written. It was cute as a bug, but something wasn’t quite right. I picked one page and read it over and over. At last it hit me: it had ambiguous feet. As opposed to this… Left foot, left foot, right foot, […]
Posted inDeath & Dying, Parenting & Family
the unconditional love of reality
Reading Time: 4 minutes …CONNOR AT THE WORLD OF COKE (…after the Tasting Room) A Christian friend once asked me what it is about religion that most irritates me. It was big of her to ask, and I did my best to answer. I said something about religion so often actively standing in the way of things that are […]
Posted inCritical thinking, Death & Dying, Parenting & Family
When good people say (really, really) bad things
Reading Time: 8 minutes The angel informs Abraham that Jehovah was only kidding. Without [religion] you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things — that takes religion. Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg Weinberg’s quote misses the mark only slightly. Religion is one thing that causes good […]
Posted inDeath & Dying, Parenting & Family
L’Actualité Q&A: “Growing Up Without God”
Reading Time: 10 minutes As noted in an earlier post, I was interviewed for the cover story (“Grandir sans Dieu,” or “Growing Up Without God”) of the November 1 issue of L’Actualité, the largest French-language magazine in Canada with over one million readers. Because the interview was by phone and subsequently translated into French, I’m not in possession of […]