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Religion and Small Children

January 2, 2009 | 3 comments

My son is quickly nearing the age where he’s going to start asking big questions, like “where are we from?”, “why are we here?”, “what’s God”, etc. I’m faced with a problem which I’m unsure as to how to solve: what do I tell him?

I’ve long thought that indoctrinating small children with religion is not without its problems, as religion seems to me something that one should decide on for themselves. For something that can alter one’s life so much, it seems wrong to me to teach kids this way or that way from an early age. If we can get them to believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, we can get them to believe in anything; to use the innocence, and frankly, gullibility of children to put them on whatever path the parent (or whoever) has chosen seems rather unfair to me.

But of course, I can certainly understand why this happens, particularly now that I’m in the position of the parent. You have to tell your kid(s) something, because rest assured, if you don’t, someone else will. But the big question is, what do we tell him? I consider myself Buddhist, but due to my feelings on the issue, I don’t really want to just say “this is it, kid; this is the way to be.” Buddhism is the choice I’ve made for myself, but I’m really not sure it’s my place to make that choice for him, nutty as that may sound coming from a parent. I’d introduce him to a variety of religions and let him decide, but at his age, I think all that would accomplish would be to confuse him – not to mention, I’d say most people I know would disown me for doing such a thing. :) While I may not agree with all of them, I can’t completely ignore social norms. I’m not sure how well it would go over in first grade if he went in and said that he’d decided to be Muslim or Hindu; we do, after all, live along the Bible Belt.

Then again, perhaps I’m agonizing over this for nothing. Perhaps, regardless of what we tell him, he’ll find his own way in his own time. I was raised in a Christian family, and I’m certainly not a Christian now. On the other hand, I’ve known people who were raised following one religious path or another, and it caused them endless trouble as an adult as they struggled to figure out their own beliefs and thoughts.

So, here I am. I’m in the position of needing to give guidance on this issue, but unsure as to what guidance I should give. Any ideas on this one?

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If You’re Dead, Can You Still Get Life Insurance?

April 18, 2008 | 12 comments

I wrote back in August of 2007 that my father was receiving mail from Physicicians Mutual, the life insurance company; most of the mail had Welcome back! in big letters stamped across it. There’s nothing wrong per se with getting mail from life insurance companies, except that in August of 2007, my father had been dead nearly 2 years. He died in December of 2005.

Well, fast forward to now: my dad is still getting mail from Physicians Mutual. As time has gone on, the slogans have gotten better and better. The latest (and perhaps greatest, pardon the cliché)?

It’s Not Too Late!

Oh yes. I believe it is. If you’ve enough money to toss out, you can get life insurance when you’re direly ill, but when you’re dead? I’m afraid not. Perhaps Joshua was right, though, with his comment on my previous post about this: Physician’s Mutual just wants to be, ahem, prepared in case my dad claws his way out of his coffin and zombie-walks back home. If he does, they’ll be ready to accept him right back into their fold. :)

It’ll be the next sector that life insurance companies expand into. “Buy life insurance for your dead loved ones! You never know when they might come back!” They could borrow stock photos from old horror movies.

(And to make it abundantly clear: I’m not at all angry about this. I think it’s hilarious. I suppose I could rant and rave about how insulting it is, etc., but – well, I just think it’s funny.)

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Happy Turkey Day!

November 22, 2007 | 5 comments

Today is, in America at least, Thanksgiving Day. Being American, I take part in it, even if I don’t buy into all of the reworked history that is spouted about. (More on that down below.)

Considering the day, I figured I’d put together a little list of things I’m thankful for:

  • My family, of course. Really no explanation is needed, but if you want one: they’re wonderful, and they allow me to indulge in silly hobbies, like blogging.
  • Buddhism. After much poking around and shaking my head, I believe I’ve found a religion / life philosophy that works for me.
  • Books. To use Jefferson’s quote: “I cannot live without books.” To be fair, however, perhaps I should share the whole quote: “I cannot live without books; but fewer will suffice where amusement, and not use, is the only future object.” I should probably take that to heart and stop buying / mooching books until I’ve finished reading my (extremely) large backlog.
  • The coming presidential elections. That’s not quite right, I suppose; I am more thankful for the fact that the elections will mark the coming end of Bush’s reign. He can’t (legally) run anymore, and that’s something to be thankful for.
  • Freedom of speech! Why, without that, I could end up in prison for what I wrote above. ;)
  • Coffee. I could certainly function throughout the day without it, but it would be much more difficult.
  • Last – but certainly not least! – 9rules and the members I get to hang out with there. Truly a top notch group of folks.

So, what are you folks thankful for? I demand responses! :)

For those of you who are American (or those of you who are just interested in history), do read up on the real deal about Thanksgiving. Here’s a good article; if that doesn’t fill you up, here’s another article (in 3 parts) by the same fellow.

There should be another post about Thanksgiving in a few days. We’re having our big family get-together on Saturday, and I’m sure at least a few things will happen that day that will be “bloggable.” Just don’t expect it Saturday evening; Battlestar Galactica: Razor is on. :)

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A dog-like duck – jumping for food.

September 18, 2007 | 4 comments

This past Saturday, I was at a family picnic at the local state forest. We were at one of the lakes, which had quite a decent sized flock of ducks in it. We of course had to feed the ducks, so at one point, we took three hot dog buns and started tearing off little bits, tossing them to the white, waddling birds. One in particular was quite cool – instead of looking at the food and wandering with the other birds, he (she?) kept coming right up to my feet, standing and looking up at me. At me, not at the food in my hands. It was very dog-like. A bit strange, for sure, but still pretty neat.

What’s more is, this duck would jump for food. It was one of the strangest things I’ve seen in quite a while. I’d hold a piece of bread up, he’d bend his knees, and jump (usually flapping his wings a bit while in the air). I’ve got a picture of him in mid-jump; as soon as I dump the photos off of the digital camera I’ll put the photo on this post. I really liked the little guy. If I had any idea as to how I’d care for him, I might have considered bringing the guy home.

Apparently, I and my family aren’t the only ones to have discovered that ducks will sometimes jump for food. The top results for “jumping duck” at Google Video yields some goodies.

Update: I added the photo of Super Duck. If you look at the bottom of the picture, you can actually see where his feet aren’t on the ground.

jumpduck.jpg

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A brief note to Physicians Mutual

July 10, 2007 | 7 comments

Dear Physicians Mutual,

My father, who had life insurance with you, died in 2005. We received the insurance payment from you after we provided proof that my father was, indeed, dead. Kaputt. No more. Pushing up daisies. He had kicked the bucket. So on and so forth. Deceased. (In fact, he was in a similar condition to the parrot in this video.)

Today, I received a letter from you. It was addressed to my father (see above regarding his current, and everlasting, condition). In this letter, you offered a welcoming back to my father. You offered a new insurance plan for him, with discounts, bells and whistles, and fanfare.

Again. Note what I said above. He’s dead. You paid out the insurance for him. How do you propose you put life insurance on someone who’s deceased? While I’d be all for him coming back for a while, I’m fairly confident (100%, in fact) that he won’t be returning.

I think this is a case of one of your departments not knowing what the other is doing. While I’m certainly not angry or upset over the letter (in fact, I found it to be pretty funny), you might want to look into the left arm / right arm coordination. Something is clearly messed up, unless you all know something about dead people that I don’t.

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