Tag: News

I Do, I Did, I Don’t: Getting Sound Mind out of Cognitive Dissonance

By Carolyn Lueders Burica

Staff Writer

My latest favorite word phrase is “Cognitive Dissonance.” This is the internal, cerebral struggle that occurs when behavior and belief do not align with one another. For me, that misalignment came from the years-long struggle I had between believing in god versus scientific evidence to the contrary.

I was baptized into the Catholic church as a baby. Every week, my mom would bundle as many of us up as she could and we’d trudge off to church, where I was constantly being told not to misbehave or wiggle so much otherwise “god would be angry”. And after each mass, I would ask my mom to grade my behavior for god, to see if I was that “good little girl” he demanded I be.

Platitudes, Schmatitudes

By Carolyn Lueders Burica

Staff Writer

“God has a plan for you…”

“When God closes a door, he opens a window”

“It was God’s will…”

“Don’t be sad, he (she) is with God now…”

I have always cringed when someone spoke any of the above phrases to me. I haven’t been able to figure out why until recently when I had to grit my teeth and, with clenched jaws, hear them spoken again and again coming from people who were too happy to witness my world start to crumble down around me. They just didn’t sound authentic to me. And honestly, all these smarmy phrases did was just make me angrier and more depressed.

Meet An Atheist, Brittany Wilcox Arnold

By Brittany Wilcox Arnold

Meet An Atheist

I’m an atheist living in Wisconsin, there aren’t too many of us in the up here, but I still love northern life. Most folks are nice until you say you’re an atheist and then they ignore you or cut you out, which has happened with friends and family. I’ve been blocked by numerous relatives and in laws who won’t even acknowledge my existence anymore. I had one of my cousins completely cut me off after the whole transgender bathroom ordeal, and in-law who did the same, especially after I told her that I’d trust my transgender friends in the bathroom with my son before a Catholic priest, and another in law that never said a word to me before she knew me because I got pregnant before my husband and I got married. My immediate family isn’t like that; my mother is pagan and both my sisters are agnostic. My home was never super religious growing up, thankfully.

An Open Letter to Christianity

By Carolyn Lueders Burica

Staff Writer

Dear Christianity:

Well, you’ve lost another one here. After years of believing in God, going to church, taking communion, and all the other things that revolve around Christianity, I’m giving up. I’m done.

I was raised a Catholic, but am now in recovery. In fact, I’m an atheist now. And yes, I’m sure many of you Christians out there might respond: “Well, I hate Catholics too, so don’t give up ALL Christian religions just because you hate the Catholics. That’s not fair to God and Jesus, right?”

The Damage of Shaming Others

By Carolyn Lueders Burica

Staff Writer

Whenever I need a quick pick-me-up, I head over to http://www.dogshaming.com to look at the humorous pictures of dogs caught in shameful situations. Being a dog owner myself, I can relate to a lot of the pictures. Nothing says “I’m a beagle, I had to do it” better than a picture of one in a near coma from having eaten an entire ham — while the remaining evidence is still on the dinner table, resting in the background. I’ve been there. I just wasn’t able to catch Lilly in the act. She’s sneaky that way.

But, fortunately for dogs, their short-attention spans and the apparent lack of a guilty conscience keeps them from feeling shame for any longer than, say, the time it takes them to lift their hanging heads and look at you with liquid pools of love as if to say, “I wuvs you, mommy. You wuvs me too?” I fall for this every time.

Coming Out Atheist

By Carolyn Lueders Burica

Staff Writer

I spend a lot of time on Twitter and Facebook, perusing the following hashtags: #catholic #religion and #atheist. Why? Because I enjoy learning what’s going on in people’s heads and disseminating these blurbs between what is just opinion and what is fact. Right now, in the game of logic, fact and reason, the #atheists are winning hands-down.

What saddens me is the idea that atheists need to “come out” of the closet and profess their non beliefs. This is comparable to homosexuals needing to remain silent about who they are, out of fear or threat of ridicule, violence and discrimination.