I remember discussing the work of William Styron in his books Sophie’s Choice and The Confession of Nat Turner and how I love the way that his language flows so that the reader is enveloped in the story. The person with whom I was discussing it complained that Styron has tendency to show off his vocabulary, to “use a fifty-cent word when a ten-cent word will do.”

To all Christians: I apologize for being so uppity. I promise to be good. My hat is in my hand, and excuse me while I go to the back of the bus and get off at my stop and hope that none of you are dishonored again by having to look at me.

I am aware that people have negative impressions of atheists, that it is a choice of word that can lead people to dislike me or claim that I am being fundamentalist or arrogant. I hold that the atheist position is just as honorable as any other position that anyone else has in regard to religion and theology and that it can’t be made more palatable by atheists shying from the word. So I tell people when they ask me, “I am an atheist.”

Loftus said that they are not wrong nor stupid for being religious and even discussed the skeptical nature of the most intelligent of the apologists. Loftus made the case that, in fact, people such as William Lane Craig are probably more intelligent than he is. I can name some religious thinkers far more intelligent than I am. The issue with religion is not intelligence. The issue is that of core values, and presupposition.

This county road runs on a diagonal, northwest-southeast. Most of the time this doesn’t cause a perspective problem for me, except when I approach it from an east-west road…as I always do when coming from home. For some reason, my perspective overrides my rational understanding of directionality. It overrides my knowledge that the sun rises in a generally easterly direction and sets in a generally westerly direction depending on the time of year.

Undyed, a flag is a piece of cloth. Dyed with the symbol of a state, or a country it gains meaning. What we need to remember is that this republic is not a “homeland” in the sense that Swaziland is a “homeland,” or that Germany was considered a “Fatherland.” It is a cobbled republic, whose borders weren’t even established as they currently stand until 1958. What I have been observing the last eight years, since the attacks on the World Trade Center, is a large degree of confusion over what a republic is and should be.

I have found in working with my own kids on their homework that I don’t have the patience to be a teacher. Since I grasped many of the things they work on rather quickly, I expect them to do the same when they approach new problems and assignments. I assume that they are wanting me to do the work for them, because they look to me to provide the answers.

I will tell you now that I am more interested in having a beer with a creationist than I am with someone who insists that he or she knows the “right approach” to build enthusiasm for evolution. I get to the point where I can’t stand to be around people who know this answer, but can’t see the irony in the idea that they have come to this conclusion on how to increase the acceptance of science without using science to find out.

What I want to tell them is to take this opportunity to get into the nascent renewable energy fields. What I want to tell them is to shake their ideas that Al Gore invented global warming so that he cold be more powerful and better-liked by the country that gave him an electoral majority in 2000. What I want to tell them is that if painting contractors are not getting bids that can support them, it is time to learn how to apply materials that capture sunlight. What I want to tell them is that there is money to be made.

This is your time to start focusing your activity and shaping the party that you belong to. Enter resolutions, discuss them, vote on them, volunteer. Get excited about getting active. Meet people who share at least some of your goals. Be cynical but friendly.