Learning about life at 39, actually learning real, pertinent things

[Mandy]

I am so happy lately to be learning.  I am 39 and finally learning about evolution.  I am learning about things outside of the Bible.  The Bible is not and should never be used as instruction for history or science or well anything.  The day my children are forced to learn anything from the Bible in their public schools will be the day I come unhinged and out of the closet as an atheist.  I will come out loud, proud, angry, and shouting.  I just recently told my oldest children that if this ever happens to let me know.  I told them that if they feel their teachers aren’t fully teaching them about things like evolution to let me know.  

 

We live in the Bible Belt so I’m pretty certain only the basics may be taught.  I am going to take it upon myself to make certain my children learn the truth.  Soon I am taking my girls to the Natural History Museum which is about 2 hours from our house.  I am 39 and I have never seen dinosaur fossils except in videos.  I saw a replica at the O’Hare airport but never the real thing.  The replica literally brought me to tears.  

 

I can’t explain to everyone how much happier I am to have finally fully escaped the religious delusion I was living under.  Sometimes I am angry and sad about the whole ordeal and you may sense that in my posts from time to time.  I am not simply blaming my parents for this.  The indoctrination was wrong yes, their continued pushing beliefs on me and my children is wrong.  

 

I however take responsibility for not pulling away from all of this sooner.  I take responsibility for ignoring truths which were directly in my face and I also take responsibility for my own ignorance regarding scientific truths.  I want to learn and know.  I have been watchcing a lot of AronRa’s videos lately and I’m loving it!    If anyone can point me to more learning resources I would appreciate it.  

[Geezer]

You were indoctrinate, just like the rest of us. Indoctrinated minds do not process information rationally. Indoctrinated minds process information in the way they have been trained to process it. So, don’t be so hard on yourself. You were smart enough to figure out what was happening and you overcame it. That was a major accomplishment. Congrats. 

[Wertbag]

Aron Ra has some great videos but some are so complex on deep subjects (the categories of life ones come to mind) that its often not aimed at a beginner level. 

 

I remember going to the museum for the first time and seeing the dinosaurs. I don't think you appreciate the share size of the animals until you stand beside one. They had the full T-Rex skeleton at Auckland museum, and we are so lucky these things went extinct. Humans are relatively useless, we have no natural weapons or defences, aren't great swimmers or climbers and are slower than most predators. 

[Mandy]

I have always been interested in geology, fossils, and such.  I just always set my interest aside. I also set aside my desire and love of learning and traded it instead for studying a fairytale.  I truly hope my children don’t do this but I will allow them to live their lives as they choose. 

[Bug]

I'm also experiencing a burst of learning lately and it's awesome!  I'm 27 and I went to public schools my whole life, but because of the seclusion and indoctrinated teachers, I didn't learn much of anything. I recall my teachers physically ripping chapters out of our science books in middle school and being told by my family that if I heard anything about evolution to just ignore it because it's nonsense. 

 

I happened to live on a creek-bed full of fossils as a kid, so they couldn't really keep that away from me. I loved collecting them but only recently discovered how old they might actually be.  I also always adored dinosaurs and space, but I guess these subjects were too "risky" to talk about so my current partner is teaching me more about planets this month than I learned in my entire education. I went to a state University, but my particular department was disturbingly faith based with an entirely Christian staff. They could only legally get away with so much, but it was plenty. 

 

I too have been enjoying AaronRa's content, so if you have any other similar discoveries you'd like to share I'd love to hear about them! I'll be checking back here to see what others say also, so thanks for this post.

 

It's amazing that you're excited about learning and want your kids to have the opportunity to get a solid education and make their own choices. I find it inspiring that you're rekindling a passion you set aside and I'm willing to bet your children may also find that inspiring someday, if they don't already. 

[Mandy]

57 minutes ago, Bug said:

I'm also experiencing a burst of learning lately and it's awesome!  I'm 27 and I went to public schools my whole life, but because of the seclusion and indoctrinated teachers, I didn't learn much of anything. I recall my teachers physically ripping chapters out of our science books in middle school and being told by my family that if I heard anything about evolution to just ignore it because it's nonsense. 

 

I happened to live on a creek-bed full of fossils as a kid, so they couldn't really keep that away from me. I loved collecting them but only recently discovered how old they might actually be.  I also always adored dinosaurs and space, but I guess these subjects were too "risky" to talk about so my current partner is teaching me more about planets this month than I learned in my entire education. I went to a state University, but my particular department was disturbingly faith based with an entirely Christian staff. They could only legally get away with so much, but it was plenty. 

 

I too have been enjoying AaronRa's content, so if you have any other similar discoveries you'd like to share I'd love to hear about them! I'll be checking back here to see what others say also, so thanks for this post.

 

It's amazing that you're excited about learning and want your kids to have the opportunity to get a solid education and make their own choices. I find it inspiring that you're rekindling a passion you set aside and I'm willing to bet your children may also find that inspiring someday, if they don't already. 

I’m so glad that we, all of us here, escaped the hold of religion. Suppressing truth, whatever that may be and offering instead fairytales in its place is to me a cruelty.  I understand some of why people have difficulty letting go of what they have been told is true but instead of being afraid of supposed consequences from a jealous mythical god bless want to think for myself.  I want to explore actual possibilities.  I want to learn everything I can about well everything.  I just watched a video on YouTube and I am still floored by it.  My heart is pounding.  You may find it interesting too.  I know I did.  I want my kids to see it.  Watching it with a clear mind not bogged down by religious ideology feels so liberating.  I can actually take in and consider what I am hearing  and seeing without simply shutting it out.  

 

 

 

[Tsathoggua9]

Hey, I'm happy for you, but could you explain the "The replica literally brought me to tears."  About the dinosaur replica?

[Bug]

10 hours ago, Mandy said:

Watching it with a clear mind not bogged down by religious ideology feels so liberating.  I can actually take in and consider what I am hearing  and seeing without simply shutting it out.  

 

Thanks for this, I watched it before I went to bed and really enjoyed it. I know exactly what you mean about the liberating feeling of having a clear head. In addition to learning new things, there are so many things to rediscover as well! Visiting any museum is going to be a totally different and awesome experience for me now.  There is a bee exhibit coming up in February at our local Science Museum and I can't wait to go see it with a mind that is ready to learn instead of run away. It's a huge and fascinating world when you escape that bubble!

[Wertbag]

We have named ~700 species of dinosaur, with around half being from majority complete skeletons. That is one tenth the known species of birds or one fifth the amount of mammal species. Sadly there are likely to be hundreds of species lost to time but we will undoubtedly find several hundred more in the years to come. 

[Mandy]

On 1/23/2019 at 10:08 AM, Tsathoggua9 said:

Hey, I'm happy for you, but could you explain the "The replica literally brought me to tears."  About the dinosaur replica?

I mean, the dinosaur replica brought me to tears literally.  Seeing it moved me emotionally to tears.  It was stunning. 

[Mandy]

On 1/23/2019 at 12:38 PM, Bug said:

 

Thanks for this, I watched it before I went to bed and really enjoyed it. I know exactly what you mean about the liberating feeling of having a clear head. In addition to learning new things, there are so many things to rediscover as well! Visiting any museum is going to be a totally different and awesome experience for me now.  There is a bee exhibit coming up in February at our local Science Museum and I can't wait to go see it with a mind that is ready to learn instead of run away. It's a huge and fascinating world when you escape that bubble!

I agree, I went to the library today and checked out like every science book available haha.  

[sdelsolray]

24 minutes ago, Mandy said:

I agree, I went to the library today and checked out like every science book available haha.  

 

A secular education is best obtained by studying a balance of many subjects over time.

[Mandy]

1 hour ago, sdelsolray said:

 

A secular education is best obtained by studying a balance of many subjects over time.

I hope to achieve that. 

[♦ Fuego ♦]

On 1/22/2019 at 8:57 PM, Wertbag said:

Humans are relatively useless, we have no natural weapons or defences, aren't great swimmers or climbers and are slower than most predators.

 

We have (relative to dogs) poor eyesight, poor smelling, poor hearing, mediocre fangs, and lousy claws. What we do have are brains that have a wonderful capacity for abstract thought, and that enabled us to create language, math, tools, improvements on tools, I-need-this, so-what-if-I-did-this-and-then-this speculations that led to inventions, people saw those inventions and improved on them, and so on. We created civilizations, philosophy, logic, aqueducts (What did the Romans ever do for us?), roads, books, carriages, steam engines, railroads, automobiles, nasty-ass weaponry, computers, motion pictures, aircraft, spacecraft, and sadly many many religions.

[Wertbag]

16 minutes ago, Fuego said:

What we do have are brains that have a wonderful capacity for abstract thought,

Absolutely, we rely on technology to push us to the top of the foodchain, in a natural environment we are lunch. We also can't survive heat, cold, too much sun, too much water, and only have one set of teeth that will eventually fail us. No camouflage and no exo-skeleton. 

My design for humans 2.0 will be crab people

[Mandy]

1 minute ago, Wertbag said:

Absolutely, we rely on technology to push us to the top of the foodchain, in a natural environment we are lunch. We also can't survive heat, cold, too much sun, too much water, and only have one set of teeth that will eventually fail us. No camouflage and no exo-skeleton. 

My design for humans 2.0 will be crab people

I am wondering what natural selection shall provide us . . .

[Astreja]

On 1/22/2019 at 2:01 PM, Mandy said:

Soon I am taking my girls to the Natural History Museum which is about 2 hours from our house.

 

The Field Museum in Chicago?  I've been there -- when I was down in the States for the solar eclipse in 2017, I made a point of stopping over in Chicago to see a few museums.  The Field is awesome.  (Make sure you get a picture of Sue, in the main lobby.)

[Mandy]

37 minutes ago, Astreja said:

 

The Field Museum in Chicago?  I've been there -- when I was down in the States for the solar eclipse in 2017, I made a point of stopping over in Chicago to see a few museums.  The Field is awesome.  (Make sure you get a picture of Sue, in the main lobby.)

I live in VA.  I’m going to our closest natural history museum, it’s in Martinsville.  I don’t know if it’s very large but it’s Smithsonian related so I hope it’s good.  

[Astreja]

7 hours ago, Mandy said:

I live in VA.  I’m going to our closest natural history museum, it’s in Martinsville.  I don’t know if it’s very large but it’s Smithsonian related so I hope it’s good.  

 

If the Smithsonian is involved, the exhibits should be pretty good.

 

And the next time I visit my brother in Maryland, I have a potential side trip!  I'm a big fan of natural history museums -- the last one I saw was the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta.

[Tsathoggua9]

15 hours ago, Mandy said:

I mean, the dinosaur replica brought me to tears literally.  Seeing it moved me emotionally to tears.  It was stunning. 

Okay, nice! Those prehistoric beasties were quite amazing!