Bad News – A good friend of mine was diagnosed with a cancerous growth in the bone on his leg. This was a very scary thing to hear, for both his family and for all of us that know and love him. It’s terrifying to realize that in my twenties I kept hearing about different friends getting married or having kids … and now in my mid thirties the news is about illness, divorce and death.

Good News – The cancerous growth was removed and the prognosis is excellent! The expert opinion is that he is going to be A-OK and with some monitoring and follow-up, will live a good long time.

Great News – My brother has proposed to his new girlfriend and given her a beautiful engagement ring!

Weird News – my gf and I went to see Body Worlds 2, at the Boston Museum of Science. It’s a display of real human bodies and body parts that have been ‘plastinated’ and put on display. It was interesting to walk around and see human skeletons, bones, brains, hearts, lungs, livers, and much else besides. It was more then worth it!

Etcetera – A co-worker / associate of mine wanted to point out that his latest blog entry contained some clever ‘atheist’ quotes from famous historical people. The quotes are thought provoking, and the page is low-key and non-pushy.

What annoys me about this and most other efforts by atheists is the interestingly filtered view of history they tend to display. While very few Christians are or have ever been rabid, violent, or offensive – that is ‘Christianity’ itself is displayed. While the Crusades and the Inquisition are often mentioned, I rarely ever see a reference to the Abolitionists, Women’s Suffrage, the Red Cross, or the modern Civil Rights Movement. These were all organized by Christians and supported by Christian values and advocated from Church pulpits.

Do you know what else I rarely see a reference to in all of this ‘xtians just leave us poor little atheists alone’ material? I rarely see references to Mao, Pol Pot, or Stalin. These were Communist atheists who attempted to create new ‘perfected’ states and killed millions of their own citizens. The combined (estimated) body count? 34 million people. So, ‘godless’ governments killed more people and in significantly fewer years then all of the Crusades and the hundreds of years of the Inquisition – combined. Funny, how this rarely comes up.

So, on the one hand not all Christians (or religious folk in general, regardless of faith) are the intolerant devils poisoning our culture and retarding the liberalizing progress of our society; and on the other hand not all atheists are the thoughtful, progressive, tolerant vanguard trying to pull society up and out of the tar pits of superstition and violence.

What can I say? She was right. If I can go to an Irish Gift Shop to buy imported shamrock lava lamps or something, then why not a Sisters of Sapho CD Shop to pick through their selection of Indigo Girls, Tracy Chapman, and K.D. Lang?

So, I reverse my earlier position. Though I am still not entirely comfortable with hanging out with “Men of the Foreskin United!”