Okay, on Facebook recently, discussion about a friend’s link led to me, at request, and with said friend’s permission to go off-topic, I was asked to explain my psoition on the Separation of Church and State. In case you haven’t been paying attention, I am an atheist and this discussion had a very charged give and take with someone that I’d refer to as an evangelical Christian, and the request for my opinion on Church/State separation came from a devout Christian, but I wouldn’t go so far as to describe him as evangelical. What follows, is what I typed, verbatim. No edits have been made, save for bolding the quote and italizing the quoted amendment, but I felt like I should probably share it with those that aren’t able to go view it on Facebook.

Now, as for the separation of church and state. The text reads as follows:

I DO NOT think that the government should be atheist. The government should be non-religious. Whenever the government (police, public schools, local to federal state elected officials, firemen and the military, to name a few governmental organizations) express a non-specifict belief in a higher power, they alienate 12% of the population. (http://www.americanreligionsurvey-aris.org/reports/ARIS_Report_2008.pdf) Any law passed that imposes religious principles upon all of the population is therefore unconstitutional. Likewise, any law that would require religious persons to cease practice of their religion would be unconstitutional.

All the more reason to pay attention to who has the power to nominate Justices. No matter which political side you take.

The very first story I wrote upon nearing the completion of my college education was an autobiographical tale of the internal fears of going into a world filled with uncertainty and faced with the challenges of a marriage and the physical limitations of a malady caused by years of doing the very thing that I loved. In it, I confessed that at times in my life I had even considered ending my own existence. I titled the book after one of the motivators for continuing my journey through the world, and that was a fear of dying. Not necessarily for the fear of the concept of dying, but for the sense that I wouldn’t be done. I had too much to do, and it seemed inevitable to me that upon dying, one is almost certain to leave something unfinished. That comic, Too Scared To Die, was my first foray into comics, and it was very personal.

Eight years later, as I set forth on another journey, not completely of my own choosing, I think back on that work and many times I’ve tried my hand at a sequel. Once was during a particularly low point when I was involuntarily unemployed. A couple of times I attempted to continue it as a journal comic. At no point did any story seem right. Maybe it’s because I’m not looking at dying in the same way anymore. Call it the gift of atheism, as I know what the end result of our mortality has in store, and thus, every moment is precious and should not be wasted. If I have a story to tell, then I should bloody well share it and not wait to do it.

Now, one would think that as I stand on the precipice of another life-changing event, I would feel that the time is right for a sequel. Well, not just yet. I’m really chomping at the bit to continue Jet-Pack Jenny. Also, this stage is incomplete and to start documenting it would take away from the point of any story I want to tell.

With the moving plans, the progress has slowed as I pack my studio up for a full move. A lot of things that have just accumulated are being thrown out, as I can’t imagine anyone wanting some of this stuff, and a few things might find their way onto eBay or craigslist.

Stay tuned.

PS: In the next few days, Too Scared to Die will wind up in the store for purchase. I just have to find the time to do it.

As a Skeptic, and an Atheist, I really like this video from the JREF.

Here’s hoping Randi does well with his health challenges in the new year.

Those of you that come here for comics will be saying that I should just be drawing, but this has been sitting in my head for a few days, and this blog is also a home to skepticism, rationalism, and logic, so please bear with me. Those of you that here for skepticism, you’re welcome.

James Burke used to host a program call Connections, which detailed how seemingly unrelated historic events of varying magnitude led to a major invention in use today. That’s what astounds me, especially given some recent developments in my own life .

You’ll hear people, especially people in love, talk about how their current position is destined to happen. Usually this is in relation to their relationships.  This is where the skepticism comes in. The natural exercise is that for two people to be destined to meet, fall in love, etc. then their parents had to be destined to meet, and their parents, and so on, until the beginning of time. See how I can have a problem with that?

If we look back at our own lives we see all of these seemingly random events and some of them quite tragic. I’ve had my share of tragic events – the death of a sibling, a divorce, bouts of financial hardship, pretty much the same things everyone goes through at one point or another. However, there have been really happy occurrences as well. Christians will say “whenever God closes a door, he opens a window.” I find that extremely cruel. What higher purpose did the death of my brother serve? Even if it led to me winning a Pulitzer prize, it wouldn’t be worth it. I still miss him, although the pain of that loss is greatly diminished today. For it to serve a vague purpose makes God a cruel deity in my opinion.

Even if we don’t invoke the deity, calling it the universe instead, destiny, or whatever, you’re not doing anything different. It’s still invoking magic, and I think watching a few episodes of Connections will show you that there’s no such thing as destiny, just a lot of stuff that leads to a series of decisions.

So the idea struck me a couple of weeks ago to do science /skeptic /atheist greeting cards.  I wanted to express a particular sentiment in a greeting card, and didn’t think it’d be out there. I looked online at the cards people have done and while there are quite a few for Christmas, and birthdays are usually covered with a plethora of non-secular cards, there’s a dearth of greeting cards aimed at people who don’t want to give the impression of belief. Also a problem is the antagonistic nature of skeptic/atheist cards that people have done and not to mention that most of them are just bad. These things can be funny, they can be touching, and they can be reassuring.

That being said, I decided, with some inspiration and urging to create some greeting cards like I wanted to see made. It’s about time that creative skeptics and free thinkers got off their asses and did something with their talent.  I went with zazzle.com out of the reviews I read online when looking for a place to sell print-on-demand greeting cards. Take a look at the cards and products I’ve already done below and watch the lower right corner of my web site for occasional items that I think are worthy of you checking out, and if you feel so inclined, buying.

create & buy custom products at Zazzle

I also started doing t-shirts with printfection.com. I got one done as part of their $2.00 test shirt promotion and it washed and dried very well with no discernible deterioration of the image. I’m going with them because of this promotion. Zazzle seems to have a problem with t-shirt printing from what I can tell from reviews, but Printfection doesn’t have the capability of doing cards well.

If you order something of mine from either of these places, and have a serious problem with it, please let me know. Photos would be great, so I can make changes in my merchandising choices.

The sequel to To Scared To Die Is in the works. Officially.

Initially the plan was to start the story with my return to North Carolina, but if didn’t seem that it was the proper place for a narrative to begin. Conversations I’ve had with people led me to believe that the story needed to take a different form from the one night in the life narrative found in the initial autobio work. Four pages are plotted and the storytelling format will very between traditional autobio narration and traditional comics storytelling, that some scenes will need. Hell, I may even break up the autobio to let other cartoonists tell the scene from their perspective since the period will roughly be the nine month period since my ex-wife first told me that she wanted a divorce.

So what’s the point of telling that story, other than to gain sympathy? Well, it’s to explain how atheism saved my life. Anyone who’s been through a divorce will probably tell you that it’s a hell on Earth. You will cry, you will wail, you will want the pain to stop, and yes, you may just think about ending it all. You want to know a secret about that last one? I never did want to die. Ever since I became an atheist, I have never been suicidal, not even at my deepest level of despair. I’ve tried to explain this in just words, but it’s difficult to explain how because this is the one life we get, I don’t want to waste it. Just like in Too Scared To Die, there’s more I want to Say, but fear has nothing to do with it, and from the second it was told to me, the line from B.A. Baracas was gonna be a central theme of this work.

“We all got to accept death, that way you don’t have no fear.”

That’s what Atheism taught me. We’re all gonna die. You get one chance. That’s it. So with this chance, tell your friends that they count, show those you love that you love them, and do what you want to be remembered for. Try to tell this to believers and you find it difficult. So, that’s the goal for the book. I may be contacting some of my friends to help write this, if for nothing else, to get their perspective and make this something other than just another autobio work.

I just went back and re-read this, as I’m prone to do. It’s from last October (and has been since changed to private status) and it still applies, so I’m re-posting it now.

Is it bleak and dark? Yes, at times. Now, for a spiritual person, this is the time that they fall back on their faith. However, I am not a spiritual person. True believers that do not understand the atheist mindset would say that someone in a hypothetical situation like mine as having no reason to continue. So why do I just not end the suffering now? After all, it’ll probably be bad for some time. However, I know that this is all the life I get. It’s more precious to me than it was when I was clinging to faith. I will not throw it away in the hope of something less painful waiting after death. I have this one life and when it’s done, there’s nothing left. I will not throw it away.

For the record, I have been an utter asshole during my life, especially to my ex-wife. I have many character flaws and much of my life has been a continuous effort to repair them. However, I have always been devoted to my friends and willing to drop everything if they needed me. Whenever someone has called me in tears, I’ve been willing to spend hours on the phone with them. If they told me that they needed someone with them, I would be there. If you’re one of my friends, I want you to know that, because I don’t think I’ve said it often enough.