What no one told me about growing old

They say it beats the alternative, but sometimes I wonder.

Your eyes, around 40 they just quit working like they did, usually the first in a long list of body part failures. Then, in no particular order (and if it hasn’t happened yet you haven't lived long enough): You can no longer write your name in the snow when you pee (doesn't apply to women). Your…

My Science Fiction club was meeting the other night, and the subject of weird religions came up (most members are christians) and everybody started trashing mormonism and scientology as particularly unbelieveable, when I said: "When you realize why you don't believe in those, you will know why I don't believe yours!  This earned a nervous laugh among the "saved" crowd.  But it did recall to mind all the group therapy sessions I ran at the transitional home.  Everybody realized and agreed…

My wife and I were having dinner in our favorite Mexican restaurant, there was a ballad playing in Spanish, which I neither speak nor understand.  Suddenly, I had this vivid memory of being in a bar in rural Mexico and drinking and feeling morose over having lost my one true love!  I remembered my life, my love and our relationship.  I began crying, because of that loss, and I couldn't explain what the hell was going on.  Fortunately my wife was sympathetic and didn't have me committed.  Has…

We have all watched and read accounts of atheists coming out to their families, but I am curious if there are equal accounts of people coming out as religious to their atheist families?

I just read an article about the Federal Government wanting access to all students' "permanent records". And I remembered the time I went back to my old high school to review mine. The first thing I noticed was that every year when they asked about vocational aims, and I had duly put "cosmologist" they had corrected my obvious miss-spelling to "cosmotologist". Then I noticed that my principal had sent a note to the FBI informing them that I was a "potenital presidential assassin" a communist…

I will freely admit that I wouldn't vote for Obama again, if I had any other choice, but I fear the republican alternatives are much worse, and to vote for a third party candidate would be spitting into the wind.  My question for the conservatives on TA is: would you really vote for Perry or Bachman if they are nominated, and why?

I was thinking about all the little prayers that religious families recite throughout the day, such as: "Praise the Lord!", "god is watching", "bless you" & etc. and how they offer comfort to each other.  And, I realized that my family of ardent atheists, does pretty much the same.  But we don't acknowledge some deity.  Our prayer, nevertheless, is uttered to comfort each other in tough times, it's uttered when we're laughing, we say it when we're scared, and most times we just say it…

I was thinking, (something I have an uncontrollable propensity to do), about how all religions claim to be peaceful, but all seem to condone murder (with the exception of Janists).  Not only in their religious texts, but also in their literature.  In the Chronicals of Narnia, the first time the children meet Aslan, he teaches them to kill.  And lets not even discuss the "Left Behind" series.  It has been my general experience that when someone tells you how loving, wonderful, and peaceful…

I am confused, which is not unusual, having survived the sexual revolution of the late 60's and early 70's (when women proclaimed to be every bit as sexual as men), I now am informed that to even ask a woman if she is interested in a possible sexual liaison is harassment.  I think back on all the times I broached this subject with women of my acquaintance and been rejected by most, but accepted by some and wonder, what am I missing?  To me, sex is the nicest thing two humans can do for each…

My wife, like me, is an atheist (thank god!).  When her dad was dying the last thing he asked her was to accept jesus and go back to church.  She told him she couldn't do that (my wife is a stickler for the truth).  My reaction was to say: you should have just agreed, it would have pleased him, comforted him, made him happy, and done no harm, since when he was dead he'd never know anyway.  She said that if she had done that she'd feel guilty, and would feel compelled to at least try, though…

I spent the first seven years of my educational life in catholic schools, k-6.  It was a well know fact that I was retarded and couldn't be expected to perform at the same level as the other children, so whatever I did, the nuns just accepted and for the most part left me alone.  In the seventh grade I transferred to the public school system, and discovered the library.  In the ninth grade they tested all the students as to level of proficiency.  My parents were asked to come and meet with…

"Faith makes all things possible."  "For the magic to work, you have to believe in it." "If you Believe, it will Happen."  "Those who have faith need no explanation."

    The essence of Mysticism is that one can alter reality by the power of the mind.  If you can believe something, without a doubt, then that is reality.  There is no "absolute" reality, no one way that the universe is, there is only our belief of what the universe really is.  Ergo, to become god like, one…

My sister-in-law (I love her, but she is dumb as a stump) had a cousin who was struck down in the prime of life with paraplegia.  His legs were paralyzed from the "knees" down.  All the specialists doctors he saw said the same thing: we can find no physical or neurological basis for your paralysis.  Now the patient assumed that this meant that his illness was so mysterious and rare that the doctors were at a total loss.  They did talk to him about hysterical and psychosomatic disorders,…