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carolelaine's picture
New here

Hello all.

I am new to this site but not new to atheism, I live in the north eastern part of Massachusetts and, if you watch the news you know that we had a christmas snow storm. Because of the that my husband had to work, called in at 1:30am and worked until 3pm. My daughter spent the night with us but woke up sick and stayed in bed most of the day. So...I spent the day alone. I had hoped to have a quiet day with them, nice breakfast, cookies all day, You get the picture.

Well, in a moment of weakness I posted on Facebook that "anyone who says they love snow on christmas is getting a snowball in the face". The very first reply was from a woman I know who never comments on ANYTHING telling me that what I said wasn't nice and the snow on christmas is a gift from god. UGH! I think she is one of those who only go to church on holy days and have no idea why she made the comment. I have many christian friends, one, a church youth minister, replied with "Ouch, I felt that" . It was a joke, sort of, more like a rant. I was stunned by her reaction. So here I am, hoping I can be myself.

Thanks for letting me tell my tale.

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algebe's picture
Welcome Lorac.

Welcome Lorac.

Snow is a gift from god? That's a weird one. Snowflakes are the perfect illustration of how natural forces can create illusions of design in inanimate matter. That's the marvel of snow.

Old man shouts at clouds's picture
Welcome Lorac...snow *shudder

Welcome Lorac...snow *shudder* I live in Western Australia where it a lovely 26 degrees celsius today and a warmer 29 degrees tomorrow. You can have your ever damned snow. Blech.

carolelaine's picture
Thanks Old Man! It's

Thanks Old Man! It's currently -10.5 celsius right now and getting colder as the week goes on, Have I mention that I hate snow?

Old man shouts at clouds's picture
You live in the wrong place,

You live in the wrong place, I was born a Scot...and have never hankered for the snow covered glens....I'm a tropical baby. I used to live above the 26th parallel in Western Australia, now apart from the cyclones (hurricanes to you ) it was lovely. My home was in a small town that rarely got above 38 degrees and even in winter never below 19 degrees...and maybe one cyclone a year.
My cousin lives in Canada (the loon) but all his kids have seen sense and live down here now!

Alembé's picture
Hi Lorac,

Hi Lorac,

Welcome,
You look like the mirror image of my friend Carol ;-)

carolelaine's picture
Alembe ~ you are the first

Alembe ~ you are the first person to catch this! ;)

Tin-Man's picture
Awwww... Did the poor little

Awwww... Did the poor little church lady get offended because you criticized snow? Oh, my. Goodness gracious. Perhaps she should seek therapy for her precious touchy little hurt feelings. And if snow is a "gift from god", then it was incredibly generous of him to give a gift that shuts down roadways and businesses and causes power outages in some areas. By golly, THAT'S a gift that just keeps on giving! Then again, I guess it's the thought that counts, huh?

Welcome, Lorac. Pleasure to have you here. If you need to vent and blow off steam, you are in the right place. And being yourself is strongly encouraged. See you around.

algebe's picture
I thought you were a Dr.

I thought you were a Dr. Seuss character.

Tin-Man's picture
@Algebe

@Algebe

Yeah, I thought the same thing myself. But it is Lorax in Dr. Seuss. Hmmm.... Maybe Lorac could be the female version of a Lorax?

carolelaine's picture
OK, you found me out. I am

OK, you found me out. I am the female version of the Lorax.!

I'm thinking I'm going to like this site.

Aposteriori unum's picture
Lorac, piacere. I hope you

Lorac, piacere. I hope you are here to engage in the ever relevant , constant conversation. I think you'll find it rewarding.

Sushisnake's picture
Welcome Lorac.

Welcome Lorac.
I reckon it would have been a more impressive gift from god if it snowed here. I'm in Australia and it was over 100 degrees Fahrenheit Christmas Day.
Are you reserving the right to tell the lady who gave you a hard time it was a gift from god and she ought to be grateful if a blizzard blows her house down? I would. But I'm nasty. :-)

carolelaine's picture
Well Sushisnake, I try not to

Well Sushisnake, I try not to be too nasty on a public forum. I have a reputation to uphold.

I am a bit jealous of the weather you are having. It was 1 degree fahrenheit here this morning. Wondering if she considers that a gift from god too.

Sushisnake's picture
Of course she does, Lorac!

Of course she does, Lorac! Think of those poor Australians, suffering through 92 ° F days! That's what it is right now. I'm looking at the garden and the stuff I need to do and thinking, nah! After sundown. Relative humidity's 91%. I'm melting like the Wicked Witch. It's supposed to rain later, so it'll be hot and wet. Nice in the bedroom, not so nice in the garden. ( Sorry. I stole that from "Good Morning Vietnam" )

mickron88's picture
i live in the Philippines.

i live in the Philippines. well, too bad for us Filipinos that god didn't grant us such gift(snow). sad :(

anyway, we'll die from hypothermia if snow falls in the Philippines. Lol

and lorac, im also new here. welcome to us. i just signed up and started posting comments.

Flamenca's picture
Hi, @Lorac, and welcome. It's

Hi, @Lorac, and welcome. It's always nice to meet a fellow female atheist, since we are a minority here. Are we really talking about the weather, lol? Well, in Madrid we're having a very weird winter, unusually warm (in December and January, the average is 10ºC max. and 1ºC min), today it's been around 15ºC at noon, and for the week it's supposed to remain the same, and this is not in the Tropic of Capricorn, so I guess some divine entity must me punishing us with no snow (my bet is because of our disgraceful president).

Qu@si, welcome to you too. I'm really surprised that filipinos and filipinas are not getting such a wonderful present, since you're from one of the most Catholic countries in the world (thanks to my "kind" ancestors)... Why would the RCC god wouldn't want you to get some snow?! Btw, there's a couple of filipinos who usually write in the forum, and both are RCC.

carolelaine's picture
Hello @Flamencabot, I never

Hello @Flamencabot, I never thought about weather I was in the minority or not, I just know how I feel. Thanks for the welcome!

mickron88's picture
thanks for the warm welcome

thanks for the warm welcome Flamenca. well i haven't met them yet (fellow filipinos). but i'm hoping and if possible we'll work on some issues here in the philippines and share it to AR, and invite as much new atheist filipinos on this site. thanks again and you'll be hearing from me here, sorry if my english is kinda awkward. really appreciate it.

(Mabuhay ang mga Pilipino).!!!

DarkkWolfe's picture
Welcome Lorac and Qu@si!

Welcome Lorac and Qu@si!

Snow sucks. Not as much as vapid twits on facebook... but still. I find the invasively religious type of person on facebook to be one of the more irritating individuals on the planet. Me: "My car broke down" Them: "Oh, praise god no one was hurt!" *facepalm*

Ya, I'll praise god. Right after he visibly manifests to miraculously heal my car so I can get back on the road. Until then, I'm going to keep assuming that he isn't actually there. Grrr!

@flamencabot: Are female atheists in the minority in general, or just on this forum? I'm newly deconverted... I have no in-person experience at conventions or anything to see the gender balance.

Flamenca's picture
@flamencabot: Are female

@flamencabot: Are female atheists in the minority in general, or just on this forum? Hi, DarkkWolfe. Well, I don't have any data to support it, but my experiences in both cases tell me so, 'cause I have a hard time meeting fellow female atheists in person, and I've noticed disproportion here as well, but again, just my personal view.

Also, I think we women, in general, enjoy less leisure time than men (I'm an exception), and I also think most women don't feel comfortable giving their opinion regarding intellectual matters, and I'm sorry for providing with a personal anecdote, but cannot think of a better example to illustrate my point:

I attended a weekend cycle on master lectures on violence against women and at the end of each section (2-3 hours), there was a time to give an opinion or ask questions to the speakers. Most of the women who intervened either apologized for wasting our time or warned us about her question (or she!) being stupid... well, undermining themselves, their speeches so brief and their voice so insecure... No men who talked did anything like that. One could tell they felt very confident instead. I've have seen it before in other public spaces of opinion (especially non-virtuals), but we were in a feminist space (for f***'s shake), and those women seemed to be apologizing for thinking! Later those women thanked me for pointing that out to them.

I guess when it comes to patriarchy, like religion, being sth indoctrinated, it requires an effort to get rid of the damages to our subconscious, and it takes time to overcome. Sometimes a lifetime. Both patriarchy and most of the religions dictate that a good woman is just a complement of a man; she must be obedient and silent (and some practices like "mansplaining" reinforce that idea), so I guess those are the reasons you will find less atheist females in public spaces of opinion like this.

Sushisnake's picture
@DarkkWolfe

@DarkkWolfe

" Are female atheists in the minority in general, or just on this forum? " You'd think the answer would be a simple google search, wouldn’t you? But you'd be wrong. It's surprisingly difficult to get the figures. The first issue is atheists simply are not being given much opportunity to self-identify at all. It's almost like we're a dirty little secret :-)

In addition, the countries in the West that include a "no religion" category in the census don't break it down any further than that, so we can't tell how many are actually atheists or what gender they are. I did I get a gender split for the "no religions" in the UK, and it's 55% male/ 45% female. My country, Australia, has 31% of the population self -identify as " no religion" and I'd hazard a guess our gender split would be similar to the UKs. I can't find a gender split for the Australian "no religions." In the US, the gender split is 57% male/ 43% female for the "no religions".

So based on what can be found, I'd conclude female atheists ARE the minority, but the gender gap is nowhere near as wide as comments like atheism " is a guy thing" and it doesn’t have an " estrogen-vibe" imply. I think part of it is the squeaky wheel gets the grease syndrome and men have louder voices than we do.
:-p

One weird gender split is the supernatural beliefs of atheists along gender lines: the women tend to believe in ghosts, psychics and astrolgy, and the men tend to believe in visits from extraterrestrials, cryptids and Quantum Woo. I can hear some forum members protesting atheists can't have supernatural beliefs, but they can and do. Atheism =/= scepticism. Atheism is a broad non-Church.

http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/gender-composition/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/13/uk-losing-faith-religion-y...

Flamenca's picture
@Sushi, thank you very much

@Sushi, thank you very much for the data. I must have been too tired thus clumsy since I was unable to find any reliable source at the time that helped me make my point. It was just a feeling women are less present, but I tried to explain, and as you accurately conclude it's not a "guy thing", as it is often perceived.

What I was pointing point out in my last post was basically that there also must be more atheist women than it seems because we are outnumbered by men in all public (and of management) spaces, in political or any other kind of intellectual debate, mainly because of two reasons:

1st. we usually have extra housework (According to the "Harmonised European Time Use Survey" of 2014, in Spain and ALSO in Italy, women dedicate every day 4 and 5 hours to housework and men around an hour. 1460 hours a year, that's the difference between a proper lifetime or not. If any man reading this is not doing 50% of the housework, you should, especially if you're among the ones who claim to be in favor of equality in forums.

2nd. Patriarchy -another word that scares the sh** out of some people for no obvious reason- is strong in those girls been brought up as Christian girls, taught not to express personal opinions in public, and especially to revere men... Fortunately, being an atheist, I was always a rebellious against my own indoctrination, 'though I have to admit, that I'm still fighting, 30 years after becoming one, to get rid of some stupid poisonous ideas I was indoctrinated in.

algebe's picture
@Flamenca: "in Spain and ALSO

@Flamenca: "in Spain and ALSO in Italy, women dedicate every day 4 and 5 hours to housework and men around an hour"

That's amazing! A whole hour?

I found an article that looks at the history of women in securalism/atheism.

https://blog.nsrn.net/2015/04/03/she-has-forgotten-her-sex-on-the-histor...

Old man shouts at clouds's picture
I would not think that is

I would not think that is much different here in Australia except that most women now have work outside the home so it would probably be closer to 3:.5.

carolelaine's picture
4 to 5 hours of housework a

4 to 5 hours of housework a day!!!! I don't think I do 4 to 5 hours a week :)

I'll have to read the article.

Flamenca's picture
Wow, Lorac, 4 to 5 hours a

Wow, Lorac, 4 to 5 hours a week! I'm a total loser. I don't have kids and even when having a full-time job, I did no less than 2 hours a day (now it's much worse, first case from the left on the picture, and it's like 4 hours a day to none) and according to most of my friends' standards, I'm a terrible housewife.

In this article, they show it's even worse in some scenarios. This is from an important Spanish newspaper (only heterosexual couples with kids under 18). http://www.eldiario.es/piedrasdepapel/Genero-domestico-Tiende-Espana-igu.... I'm sorry it's in Spanish. They included the picture I attached and I translated the concepts.

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carolelaine's picture
@Flamenca ~ Please tell me

@Flamenca ~ Please tell me how you managed no less than 2 hours a day of house work! My kids are grown and out of the house so it's just me, my husband and the dog. I am retired, but do take care of my disabled daughter when she needs me but there are days when all I have to do is make the bed, and take care of dishes and pots and pans after I cook. Maybe the Spanish women have higher standards than I do.

Flamenca's picture
@Lorac, it's insane and I

@Lorac, it's insane and I shouldn't care a d*** about it honestly, but it's another crazy indoctrinated thing, I should have got rid of it already: "Perfect RCC girls take good care of their houses and men". And you have more important things to do, we have pets, but I don't have to take daily care of any human in need, as you do.

Maybe the Spanish women have higher standards than I do. Yes, I've always thought patriarchy is worse here, mostly thanks to RCC powerful influence.

carolelaine's picture
@Flamenca ~ "Cleanliness is

@Flamenca ~ "Cleanliness is next to Godliness" . I heard it from the nuns, EVERY DAY! I think I was only half listening though, LOL

algebe's picture
@Lorac: "Cleanliness is next

@Lorac: "Cleanliness is next to Godliness"

LOL. That sounds hilarious from the people who used to call lice and fleas the "pearls of god". I recall a story about a Priest or Monk in Chaucer, who was described as "smelling of sanctity", and I don't think they meant incense. The medieval church worshiped filth and stink.

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