Fish in Space

Stop me if you've heard this before: "You can't be an atheist because atheists believe there is no God!" Maybe you've said it yourself, I don't know. Whether you've said it or simply heard it, I would like to explain why this statement is pointless no matter what definitions you've embraced. Labels aren't important. They're really not. We use them as mental shortcuts to help us decide how to respond at a glance. You may be aware of my previous comments on mental scripting if you want a more in-depth examination on the topic, but the point here is that these shortcuts don't tell the whole story. Labels are descriptions of things, they're not prisons. I am a liberal. To you that may mean I want to steal all your money so I can redistribute it around to make everyone poor. It may mean you think that I support killing babies to slake my lust for blood. If you're stuck in the Nineteenth Century you might think it means I support unregul...

I don't often talk about my personal life here for a variety of reasons. Nevertheless, recent life events brought an issue to the forefront that I feel deserve a few words. Namely, marriage and relationships. For some background I was married before while I was living in Australia but that didn't work out. I left my wife and two children behind to find work back in my native United States, and she decided not to follow. She sent me divorce papers and forced me to move on with my life so I did. Shortly after, I accepted a friend's invitation to join his game and there met the woman who would ultimately become my second wife. We've been together nearly ten years and look forward to the next ten years with great eagerness. She is in all matters my partner and my best friend, an achievement that I hoped for in my first marriage but never accomplished. How did we do it? How did we succeed this time when I failed before? That's the rub. At our wedding my best man (and one...