Favourite Posts of 2011

Well, I didn't write as much as I would have liked this year. There is so much I want to research, share and say, and too many unfinished posts. Having a baby has been a great journey, and I love being a secular parent. That doesn't seem to mean much at this stage of the game, but I've had a fun time connecting with secular parents through an incredible large, private group of women from around the world on facebook and immersing myself in reading the blogs listed to the right and learning more about secularism and society from some of my favourite bloggers.

My voice on issues of atheism and secularism is still small and a little tentative, I am quite proud of a few pieces I've written this year. I hope to create this space as a place to use this type of voice more often.

When reviewing my readership statistics for the past year, I was so pleased to find so many hits for
Grief and Atheism.  I poured my heart this piece because it speaks to the humanity we all share, regardless of our beliefs. Believers in god(s) sometimes have the mistaken notion that athiests either don't care about death or devastate us more than themselves because athiests do not have the comfort of religion or god. I haven't found that to be true. I hope that those who read this post were comforted, felt supported, or felt like they understood that athiests do ascribe just as much meaning to their lives and the lives of their loved ones as most folks do - it just might look different.

I had a lot of fun writing The Dilemna of Santa. I think that this is mostly just a dilemma for me although there were some pretty heated discussions about this in the facebook group I mentioned earlier. I tend to overanalyze things too much. My mom thought I was crazy when I started entertaining the notion of "not doing Santa" and what some of my reasons were. This post only sums up my own conclusions of what was actually a very difficult decision-making process where I weighed many of the pros and cons. At the end of the day though, I don't think there is only one answer on this issue.

The Problem with Pretending to Know the Future and Science Doesn't Require Faith! were mostly rants about religious behaviours that annoy me, but I hope to find the courage to approach topics like these more often. I find it difficult to address such topics in a way that expresses my feelings and thoughts in a way that is respectful of religious individuals without offering undue respect to religious beliefs that are not worthy of respect. To be clear, I support freedom of conscious and freedom of belief.  I just do not support the idea that religious beliefs shouldn't be challenged if it is being held out as some of sort universal truth. Religious beliefs, like all ideologies, if promoted as The Truth, should stand up to criticism, testing, and debate in the marketplace of ideas.

And finally, in light of the recent Reddit misongyny event, my post early in the year on Judge shows that Feminism has a way to go yet shows that misongyny still holds a place in even the courts of Canada. It's a pervasive problem in society and needs scrutiny and discussion no matter where it happens - without changing the subject.

I hope to become a stronger voice in 2012; but in the meantime, I'm glad to have gotten my feet wet in 2011.

PS. I didn't forget the cute baby posts.