Today was the last day of my psychiatric nursing clinicals. We used the time to tour local homeless shelters where we made beds and served lunch. We also visited a mental health day facility and a low income housing hotel. The experience was interesting for me on a couple of different levels. First, I experienced the perspective of an atheist walking into a Catholic homeless shelter. My

My instructor this quarter loves to have class discussions. Many of us agree on most issues, but there are a few issues that will always bring about controversy. One day, she asked us about euthanasia. This brought about some very emotional responses from people. I'm not the type that usually speaks up in class. But, that day I did. We have a few classmates who have made it known from the

The saga continues in my son's first grade classroom. He came home yesterday and told me that the kids in his class "told" on him. Of course, I asked why and he went on to explain that they were talking about god again. It seems as though the other kids were trying to convince him that god exists. When he asked questions about why they thought this, many of them couldn't answer to his

For the past month, I've been enjoying my time off from school by doing things around our house like organizing the basement and garage and putting in a backyard and fence. It felt great to get everything done that has been bothering me. I was living in my own little world enjoying my life. Then, the kids went back to school and I was brought back to reality with a bang! My kids are in

I just finished writing my first letter to the editor :) There have been many times when I've been tempted, but this time put me over the top!In last Friday's edition of "The Spokesman Review", there was an article informing the public that 2 of our health board members have asked to cut ties with Planned Parenthood. You would expect that there would be some sort of evidence to back up this

I had to laugh last night as I read an article about the new town Ave Maria. Last year was the first I had heard of it and at that time it was being advertised as a town in Florida for Catholics only. It was to be a town based on the strictest Catholic principles. The center of the town is a huge catholic church encircled by the town's streets. There will be no birth control, premarital sex,

This is just typical. No sewer plan has been made for the Rathdrum Prairie and a megachurch has put in plans with the county to build a church that will seat 3500 people, have 9 buildings total, and be about 458,000 sqare feet. Since there is not a sewer plan, this monstrosity will need a septic system. Oh, and by the way this megachurch will sit directly on top of the area's aquifer. Oh

One great thing about our new neighborhood is that there are kids everywhere for my kids to play with. They've made some fast friends and it seems like we always have someone over at our house playing. Yesterday, they were playing outside on the slip n slide with one of the neighbor boys. All of a sudden he burst into the house and said, "Hey, do you guys believe in god?" This caught

I just finished listening to one of my weekly podcasts, The Atheist Experience. This week's episode was about deconversion from Christianity to Atheism. This episode was great because it touched on some common misconceptions people have about atheists, why people believe, and why people become atheists. (Go check it out...episodes can be found in audio and video through their website) Tracie

It has been a long time since I've had a chance to sit down with myspace! Being the procrastinator that I am, I left my big school project to the last minute and have been scrambling to finish everything in time. Now, I am done with this quarter's assignments, but I have started preparing for my first quarter of Nursing school. That has proven to be quite time consuming as well. So, I'm going

I recently watched a CNN special that was a follow-up episode to a previous show. The first show was supposed to address the issue of why atheists experience discrimination. However, the round table discussion consisted of 2 Christians and a Jew...no atheists involved. These people ended up bashing atheists, one Christian woman in particular was the worst. Check out that discussion here. The

A little history: I discovered blogs a little over a year ago and have many that I love to read daily. Then, last fall, I discovered myspace and created my own page. I started blogging a bit on that page and really liked it. The only thing I don't like about myspace is that someone needs a page of their own if they want to leave a comment on my blog. On some topics, it doesn't matter to me