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Dale McGowan's Blog (36)

Foundation Beyond Belief website is alive!

Y'all have been SO patient. At last it's October 1, and thanks to your generous support in the recent Fund Drive, the pre-launch website for Foundation Beyond Belief has gone LIVE!

This site will carry us through to the full launch on January 1. During this period, you can sign up for membership, watch a video about the Foundation, learn about our first featured causes as they are announced, nominate… Continue

Added by Dale McGowan on October 1, 2009 at 12:34pm — No Comments

Big Brothers (1 of 2)

"Dad Dad, come here, you've got to see this."

I followed Connor (14) into the kitchen, where our dog Gowser, a 65 lb. Rhodesian ridgeback mix, was eating contentedly.

Connor got down on all fours and began nuzzling his face toward the food bowl, making slurping noises. Suddenly from deep in Gowser's throat came a sound I had never heard her make – a deep, angry growl.

"Connor, stop now!" I yelled. "Back… Continue

Added by Dale McGowan on September 9, 2009 at 1:53pm — No Comments

Last 24 hours -- Let's bring it home!

Foundation Beyond Belief is a new 501c3 charitable and educational foundation created (1) to focus, encourage and demonstrate humanistic generosity, and (2) to support a nationwide education and support program for nontheistic parents.

We're now in the home stretch of our founding fund drive -- just 24 hours to go, and 24 percent of our goal remains before the drive ends on Sept 1. If we can just push through the last bit here, we will have the funds needed to see us through… Continue

Added by Dale McGowan on August 31, 2009 at 6:57pm — No Comments

Introducing...Foundation Beyond Belief

Being a humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you are dead. — Kurt Vonnegut

I don't give as much as I'd like to the causes I care about. I consider myself a pretty generous guy, and when I give, I give generously. But I get to the end of each year and realize that I just haven't given as much as I wish I had. Again.

Another thing: When religious folks give through… Continue

Added by Dale McGowan on May 31, 2009 at 11:43pm — 2 Comments

Greekology and the regular America god

by Dale McGowan

Author/editor, Parenting Beyond Belief and Raising Freethinkers

lips4432

[DELANEY, 7, takes Bulfinch's Mythology down from my office shelf and starts leafing through.]

DELANEY: Dad?

DAD:… Continue

Added by Dale McGowan on May 28, 2009 at 7:12pm — 1 Comment

Vegehumilitarianism

A couple of years ago, Becca and I had a college friend over for dinner. Hadn't seen him for years. An engineer and a gentleman. We had a great time catching up, and inevitably he asked about my work.

He listened thoughtfully as I filled him in on the nonreligious parenting book I'd just released, nodding his head, occasionally making a supportive sound or saying "Wow, that's really great stuff you're doing." But I could tell there was something left… Continue

Added by Dale McGowan on May 26, 2009 at 8:42pm — 6 Comments

Isn't this enough?

An homage to the unconditional love of reality. One of the wittiest and best-done bits I've seen in ages and ages. (Caution: Rated R for language. Deep breath, you'll be okay.)

(See more at The Meming of… Continue

Added by Dale McGowan on April 28, 2009 at 7:17am — 2 Comments

Best Practices 4: Teach engaged coexistence

Editor/author, Parenting Beyond Belief and Raising Freethinkers

Astrology survived Copernicus.

That's my simple response whenever someone suggests to me that science will eventually put religion out of business.

By all rights, astrology should have been forced out of business in 1543.… Continue

Added by Dale McGowan on March 5, 2009 at 9:00am — No Comments

A non-issue

I simply can't stand us. Really I can't. We crack me up.

I've written before about the endless obsession of the freethought community with labels: atheist vs. humanist, atheist vs. agnostic, humanist vs. secular humanist, nonreligious vs. nonbeliever vs. Bright.

I don't mind someone saying why they choose one over another, or why they switch back and forth in different situations. What I've had enough… Continue

Added by Dale McGowan on February 17, 2009 at 11:24am — 7 Comments

Raising Freethinkers is released!

Raising Freethinkers: A Practical Guide for Parenting Beyond Belief is now available at Amazon.com.

Book Description

Praised by Newsweek as “a compelling read” and Library Journal as “accessible and down-to-earth,” Dale McGowan’s Parenting Beyond Belief offered… Continue

Added by Dale McGowan on January 23, 2009 at 6:30am — No Comments

Follow the bouncing meme!

As y'all know, on December 6, a number of nonreligious parents gathered at Harvard's Fong Auditorium to get some ideas about raising kids without religion. Greg Epstein also led a discussion about how best to form a more lasting community to serve the needs of nonreligious parents in the Boston/Cambridge area.

Washington Post reporter Robin Shulman spent the day with us and wrote… Continue

Added by Dale McGowan on January 14, 2009 at 8:01am — No Comments

Pants-on-fire parenting

Give me the fruitful error any time, full of seeds, bursting with its own corrections. You can keep your sterile truth for yourself.

Economist VILFREDO PARETO, referring to the errors of Kepler

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In 1847, around the time Pareto was conceived, an obstetrician by the name of Ignaz Semmelweis noticed that pregnant women in his hospital were much more likely to die if their babies were delivered by doctors than by… Continue

Added by Dale McGowan on December 23, 2008 at 9:28am — No Comments

Santa Claus -- The Ultimate Dry Run

By Dale McGowan

Excerpted from Parenting Beyond Belief

One of the questions that came up in the Austin Q&A was the Santa thing -- and it's so clearly in the air, from Friendly Atheist to Rational Moms, that I can't even wait 'til Wednesday… Continue

Added by Dale McGowan on December 16, 2008 at 11:00am — No Comments

Best Practices 3: Promote ravenous curiosity

What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.

BERTRAND RUSSELL, in Sceptical Essays (1928)

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t5409

here was a time when I was a quiet, closeted nonbeliever. It was a smallish moment that tipped me from passive disbelief to secular humanist activism. Not some Robertson/Falwell nonsense, nor a Bushism, not the abuse of children nor the disempowerment of women nor… Continue

Added by Dale McGowan on November 25, 2008 at 4:49pm — 2 Comments

Parenting Beyond Belief Seminars on the road again

Hi folks!

We're hitting the road again: the Parenting Beyond Belief Seminar for nonreligious parents is coming to four cities in the next few weeks.

Click here for general information about the seminars.

Click on the city name to register:

Boston (December 6)…

Continue

Added by Dale McGowan on November 20, 2008 at 7:00am — No Comments

The first really, really hard goodbye

by Dale McGowan

Author/editor of Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion

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"Daddy!! Something's wrong with Max!!" Erin's face was a mask of anguish. "He's making sounds I've never heard before...and he's laying wrong!"

Erin's guinea pig Max, the first pet that was all her own, was clearly not OK. The vet… Continue

Added by Dale McGowan on November 16, 2008 at 4:00pm — 1 Comment

Blog on, ye secular parentals!

When first I turned the key on the Meming of Life, I poked around the Internets a bit to see who else might be blogging about secular parenting. I found four: Noell Hyman's Agnostic Mom, The Atheist Mama, Atheist in a Minivan, and Humanist… Continue

Added by Dale McGowan on November 13, 2008 at 2:02pm — 2 Comments

Congratulations, Dr. Ann

There are countless congratulatory messages for President-elect Obama this morning, all well-deserved. The most remarkably gifted presidential candidate of our time managed somehow to negotiate an unimaginably grueling campaign, and we, despite ourselves, managed to elect him. Shout-outs all around.

But I wanted to take a moment to recognize one of the people who by his own account helped make him what he is -- his nonreligious mother, Ann Dunham.

It… Continue

Added by Dale McGowan on November 5, 2008 at 10:10am — 1 Comment

Best Practices 2: Encourage active moral reasoning

The second installment in a nine-part series on best practices for nonreligious parenting. Back to BEST PRACTICES #1.

If the Ten Commandments had been posted at Columbine High School, the April 20 massacre would never have happened. --former Republican Congressman and current Libertarian Presidential candidate BOB BARR, at a press conference on June 17,…

Continue

Added by Dale McGowan on October 30, 2008 at 2:48pm — 1 Comment

Tray Tables Up! Flights of nonsense landing in Texas schools

The next act in the long and ugly creationist end-game will take place in Texas. After the previous two acts, my confidence is high.

One of my dearest hopes for the next generation is that they get a real shot at understanding evolution. My own teenage understanding of the theory was fuzzy around the edges, since we touched on it for all of about eight minutes in high school. I didn't encounter it again until Anthro 1 at Berkeley--at which point it dazzled me so much I… Continue

Added by Dale McGowan on October 22, 2008 at 5:39pm — No Comments