A few quick things

Just a few quick things I wanted to bring to people's attention:

First something I should have mentioned when I talked about my aunt's death. There's now a Facebook page called "Grief Beyond Belief" that's there to provide support and resources to non-believers facing death and other things to grieve about. The religious often have communities to aid them through grieving, but these usually come with phrases such as "she's in a better place" or "they're with God now." Obviously, that's not very comforting to non-believers. So, if you have a need for grief support, or wish to help provide some, or have ideas to help, go there, read the Info page, and if you wish, "Like" it.

Second, another Facebook page (ok, they're all Facebook pages). This one is "Support the Secularity of Public Schools." It seeks to gather together those who support maintaining the separation of church and state in publicly funded schools in the USA, and doing things like keeping non-science such as creationism out of the classroom. One really cool part? The admins are Damon Fowler, Jessica Ahlquist, Harrison Hopkins, and Zack Kopplin. The first three I've talked about before, but I haven't mentioned Zack. Zack's the guy who went toe-to-toe with the government in Louisiana to repeal a law that was clearly a stealth move to get creationism into the classroom again. He succeeded too. Seriously, check out his story, and join the group.

Third, there's a new political party being formed, and they've got a Facebook page, complete with charter and platform: National Atheist Party. Now, I'm not going to come out and say I fully and one hundred percent endorse this. I have a few quibbles with parts of the platform (needs more emphasis on education, for example), and frankly, I'm not sure that this is the best idea for moving forward with the atheist cause, or the humanist cause. But I'm not sure it's a bad idea either. If the goal really is to get candidates that are avowed atheists elected, well, that might be discriminatory as well. I'm personally happy to vote for someone who's not an atheist, so long as I can find sufficient common ground with the candidate's views and policy proposals. I also think the name might backfire from a PR perspective. However, I still appreciate what they're trying to do, and the platform positions I mostly agree with, despite quibbles. Therefore, I wanted to bring this to people's attention, and let them make up their own mind. So head on over there, take a look, and make a choice.

Oh, and one more thing. Apparently, I've fallen from the Light Side and joined the Dark Side, because I signed up for Twitter: @NathanDST. Still trying to figure it out (sorta), and not sure if I'll keep with it, but I'm there for the moment. Do what you want with that info (oh dear, that wasn't a Facebook page, was it? whoops).