WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A week after the GOP-led Senate rejected an increase to the minimum wage, Senate Democrats on Tuesday vowed to block pay raises for members of Congress until the minimum wage is increased.
"We're going to do anything it takes to stop the congressional pay raise this year, and we're not going to settle for this year alone," Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said at a Capitol news conference.
"They can play all the games the want," Reid said derisively of the Republicans who control the chamber. "They can deal with gay marriage, estate tax, flag burning, all these issues and avoid issues like the prices of gasoline, sending your kid to college. But we're going to do everything to stop the congressional pay raise."
The minimum wage is $5.15 an hour. Democrats want to raise it to $7.25. During the past nine years, as Democrats have tried unsuccessfully to increase the minimum wage, members of Congress have voted to give themselves pay raises -- technically "cost of living increases" -- totaling $31,600, or more than $15 an hour for a 40-hour week, 52 weeks a year, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Now that's some good politics. Vote against this measure, Repubs. I dare ya. I can see the TV political commercials now ...
I surprised the super guy in my life with tickets to the premiere of Superman Returns. Fun show! Later this summer, we're trekking up to Edmonton to check it out on the IMAX screen.
I spent most of the movie in a superhero-induced childhood flashback. There's something about that theme music that brings back so many memories!
It also made me sad for Christopher Reeve -- whenever Brandon Routh would be Clark Kent, he totally pulled off the Reeves look.
Interesting movie reviews:
Catch the spoiler-ridden (and completely missing the point) review of Roger Ebert here. My respect for Ebert is rapidly dwindling. Not only are his reviews stocked FULL of plot-spoilers, but he's losing his critical touch. Case in point: Ebert gives the latest Garfield sequel and the third installment of the Fast and the Furious higher marks than this movie.
Another review to check out is the NY Times take on the film: Superman Returns to Save Mankind from its Sins. Interesting insights here. Just ask Jerry, in the first 10 minutes into the film, I leaned over to him and whispered: "Sounds a little Messianic, dontcha think?"
Many spoilers could be revealed here, but I'll hold off until they've made the rounds. Check out the movie, if only to catch a superhero in tights -- it's worth the 10 bucks.
In today's AlterNet, there's an article about the double standard present in most abstinence-only education programs. The whole article is worth a read, but here are some (not so?) surprising bits from it:
The U.S. government has a solution for unwanted pregnancies, AIDS and cervical cancer. It's called abstinence education, and the government funds it to the tune of around $178 million per year. The only problem is that study after study shows that abstinence education has no effect on the rates of premarital sex or STD infection. Perhaps that's because, as a 2004 report [pdf] from Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., showed, over 80 percent of federally funded abstinence programs contain false or misleading information about sex and reproductive health. But then abstinence-only education isn't about keeping teens safe -- it's about reinforcing traditional gender roles and ensuring girls are "pure."
Let's not get started on how the many articles and studies that show teens who "take the challenge," only to fail it (without any contraceptive use) months after signing a pledge.
The rest of the article pulls bits from the educational literature of these abstinence-only programs, and it reads like something out of Revolve:
Since girls don't like sex, it's their job to keep boys' desire at bay and to be the arbiters of chastity. "Girls need to be aware they may be able to tell when a kiss is leading to something else. The girl may need to put the brakes on first in order to help the boy." (Student Workbook, Reasonable Reasons to Wait) Because, after all, he can't help himself. "A woman is far more attracted by a man's personality while a man is stimulated by sight. A man is usually less discriminating about those to whom he is physically attracted." (WAIT Training manual, Friends First)
The only messages put forward about boys' sexuality is the idea that their urges are uncontrollable, and it's up to young women not to "tease" them. "A guy who wants to respect girls is distracted by sexy clothes and remembers her for one thing. Is it fair that guys are turned on by their senses and women by their hearts?" (Sex Respect) Another classroom activity tells the story of Stephanie and Drew, a couple trying to save sex until marriage. Stephanie is too affectionate and wears tight clothing: "Drew likes her a lot, but lately keeping his hands off her has been a real job!" Even thought Stephanie has been clear that she doesn't want to have sex, "her actions, however, are not matching her words." (Why kNOw?) No means yes, anyone? In fact, when abstinence curricula contains information about sexual abuse or assault (which they often don't), the message is similar. Girls should be preventing it, not boys.
Interesting that they should mention this whole "don't let cause your brother to stumble" argument -- the same responsibility is put on girls in several passages of Revolve. You'd think, now that we're in the 21st century, we've moved PAST the whole "she asked for it" type of mentality -- but apparently not.
Other conservative gender roles are pushed upon students, even when it's not in reference to sexual education:
Other teachings reinforce traditional gender roles that have nothing to do with sex. A program highlighted in the Waxman report teaches that women need "financial support" and men need "admiration." Another says: "Women gauge their happiness and judge their success on their relationships. Men's happiness and success hinge on their accomplishments."
OH MY.
Not only are women being treated as fetal incubators, but now patriarchal control is getting to girls when they're young and impressionable? Do I sound like I'm overreacting? I wish I could say that I am, but things are getting quite scary back home for women these days.
A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision.
The way I figure, I was in airports or in the air flying for 24 hours straight. My flight from Minneapolis to Saskatoon had to make an emergency landing in Winnipeg, which added another 2 hours to my flight this afternoon.
Needless to say, I'm glad to be back. Now I just need a bit of a breather to recuperate from my "vacation."
I cashed in some stocked up airmiles to fly home for a quick visit. As consequence, each leg of my trip had FOUR airports and liftoffs/landings to look forward to. On the way there it was
Saskatoon- Minneapolis- Cleveland- Richmond.
Today's return was
Richmond- LaGuardia- Minneapolis- Saskatoon.
My connection between Richmond and LaGuardia was only 45 minutes, and looked a little hairy if I had to change terminals. Thankfully, the transition to the gate was easy, but the 2-hour delay on the tarmac put me so behind schedule that I'm sacking out tonight at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport.
I've got two benches pushed together, a mat, and an airplane pillow/blanket. They took one of my two carryons at LaGuardia, so I'm without a change of clothes or tolietries. Thankfully (?) I've got a cheap NWA bag, complete with teeshirt and cheap-ass deodorant for tomorrow.
I'm in airport limbo, as I can't get into the actual terminal because they've shut down for the night. So, I'm outside the ticketing area, with two benches pushed together and some gymnastic kind of mats for a mattress. Bonus: I've got an outlet, and 24 hours of wireless access. Not so bonus: I'm hungry, and I'm stuck til 5am without food -- and I won't be home til after 1pm tomorrow.
Any tips of things to do when you're stranded 12+ hours in an airport? I'll be sure to take a picture of my lodgings for the night.
A woman is not a pear tree thrusting her fruit in mindless fecundity into the world. Even pear trees bear heavily in one year and rest and grow the next. An orchid gone wild drops few warm rotting fruit in the grass but the trees stretch high and wiry gifting the birds forty feet up among inch long thorns broken atavistically from the smooth wood.
A woman is not a basket you place your buns in to keep them warm. Not a brood hen you can slip duck eggs under. Not the purse holding the coins of your descendants till you spend them in wars. Not a bank where your genes gather interest and interesting mutations in the tainted rain, any more than you are.
You plant corn and you harvest it to eat or sell. You put the lamb in the pasture to fatten and haul it in to butcher for chops. You slice the mountain in two for a road and gouge the high plains for coal and the waters run muddy for miles and years. Fish die but you do not call them yours unless you wished to eat them.
Now you legislate mineral rights in a woman. You lay claim to her pastures for grazing, fields for growing babies like iceberg lettuce. You value children so dearly that none ever go hungry, none weep with no one to tend them when mothers work, none lack fresh fruit, none chew lead or cough to death and your orphanages are empty. Every noon the best restaurants serve poor children steaks. At this moment at nine o'clock a partera is performing a table top abortion on an unwed mother in Texas who can't get Medicaid any longer. In five days she will die of tetanus and her little daughter will cry and be taken away. Next door a husband and wife are sticking pins in the son they did not want. They will explain for hours how wicked he is, how he wants discipline.
We are all born of woman, in the rose of the womb we suckled our mother's blood and every baby born has a right to love like a seedling to sun. Every baby born unloved, unwanted, is a bill that will come due in twenty years with interest, an anger that must find a target, a pain that will beget pain. A decade downstream a child screams, a woman falls, a synagogue is torched, a firing squad is summoned, a button is pushed and the world burns.
I will choose what enters me, what becomes of my flesh. Without choice, no politics, no ethics lives. I am not your cornfield, not your uranium mine, not your calf for fattening, not your cow for milking. You may not use me as your factory. Priests and legislators do not hold shares in my womb or my mind. This is my body. If I give it to you I want it back. My life is a non-negotiable demand.
I'm spending an actual Father's Day with my dad this weekend -- the first in almost 5 years!
Tonight we watched the documentary The Fog of War, and we managed to be quite cordial with each other in discussing the striking similiarities between the Vietnam War and our current actions in Iraq -- believe me, this is no small feat!
I'm buried up to my neck with revising and editing and compiling and researching various chapters -- and that deadline of mine keeps creeping closer and closer.
So -- I'm putting blogging and a social life on the back, back burner for now.
Friends here and in "real life," it's nothing personal.
I just have to finish, and to do that, I think I may have to disappear for a while!
If I don't show up in a week or so, send for backup.
Walking home from an afternoon of thesis-induced drudgery, not only did the sun come out (I've forgotten what it looked like, after our week+ of rainy, gray weather) --
but I got a care package from my parents! I never get too old for care packages.
In it were some "comforts" from home that you just can't get out here on the Canadian prairies. I got a picture book of Savannah's sights, some tea-scented bath and lotion sets from The Tea Room, some mango ice tea bags (soooo good in the summer!), not one but TWO bottles of Carey Hillard's BBQ sauch (yum!), and some chocolate-covered sunflower seeds.
While all of these surprises made me feel homesick for the South, it was just what I needed on such an ordinary Tuesday afternoon.
Now I need to figure out what I'm making for supper tonight -- with the perfect condiment of some spicy Savannahian BBQ sauce!
When I was little, one of my bestest friends in the whole world was named Heather -- only, whenever I'd write notes to her, I'd leave out the second "h" and it would end up reading: "Dear Heater."
Thankfully, my spelling has improved and I still have a special Heather in my life. She's my longest running friend from "back home," and she's the kind of friend that you can not talk to for months -- and when you finally get each other on the phone -- it's as if you'd never stop talking to each other. A rare thing, that.
Our background as friends is a funny one. In high school, I was the conservative, straight-laced (nay, evangelical!) one -- and she was the wild child, liberal, free spirit. In a way, years later, our roles have reversed. Nowadays, she's a mother, a military wife, and (gasp!) a Republican!
I, however, am not.
And yet, our friendship not only works, but we're probably better friends nowadays than we were in high school. Granted, living in Canada doesn't help with visiting very often, but we've got phone calls and emails -- and, she's got an amazing habit of sending me books to read! (today I got David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day in the mail)
The older I get, the more I'm finding out that it's not the sheer number of friends you have that's important -- it's who your friends are, even if it's only a handful.
What a fiasco that was! Call - Hold - Tranfer - Hold - Transfer - Talk with someone who can't speak English - Hold - Talk - Get Cut Off - Call Back - Hold - Transfer - etc. I've got a phone imprint on my left ear.
But, all's well that ends. As of 3:15pm, I've got my loans locked into a 4.0% fixed interest rate, with it going down to 3.25% after a couple years. I decided to go with Sallie Mae, if only because they offered me a better rate and their repayment plan was VERY flexible. Here's their site if you're looking to consolidate before July 1st. If you call, ask for a guy named Ray -- he's the only one there who knows what the hell he's doing. (and I should know, I probably talked to half their staff today)
While the prospect of paying off this loan for years is a little daunting (to say the least), at least I got a good interest rate and extended payment plan to start from. And, in a few years after Jerry's loan is paid off, we'll switch to the standard repayment plan and go from there.
I'm beginning to become the queen at negotiating debt. [the invitation for donated inheritance/lottery funds is still open, should anyone feel so inclined!]
Katherine Parr spent nearly her whole life married to crotchety old men: Henry was the THIRD old fart she was forced to marry. Is it any wonder she turned to books and religion to occupy her time?
Katherine wasn't just smart, she was a tiny bit uppity, too: she almost got herself thrown in jail for arguing with His Royal Fatness about some theological issues. After Henry croaked, Katherine dropped the prim and proper act and married Thomas Seymour, a handsome, dashing pirate kind of guy who was also as dumb as a post.
Which goes to show you that even bookworms know how to get it on.
I'm currently contemplating consolidating (how's that for an alliteration?!) all of my federal student loans. They're all US Stafford loans, and as of July 1st, the interest rate is going to go up by almost 2%. So, consolidating sounds like a plan for me -- especially considering the obscene amount of money I own the US government.
Any tips? Yay or nay on the consolidating? I like the fact that I'll have a fixed rate (one company promised 4.75%, with it going down to 3.5% after 36 months) and that I can take a little longer than normal to pay off all of my debt. We're still in the middle of paying off Jerry's loans, so double reparations are not attractive at this point in our lives.
I'm going to keep shopping around for options this week, and will see if I can beat that 4.75% rate. I just want to be confident about this, because once you consolidate your loans, there's no turning back.
Any advice you can offer, oh wise readers, will be greatly appreciated.
UPDATE: Huh, I've been doing some more research on the interest rate hike that takes place on July 1st. Apparently it's because of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, S. 1932, which was signed into law by good old miserable failure in February of this year. In this bill, 12.5% was cut from the federal student loan program, forcing it to jump from a rate of 4.7% interest to 6.8% -- one HUGE cut for broke students such as myself.
Everything that I've read online is telling me that I should consolidate and lock in an interest rate while I still can -- including my #1 guru, Suze Orman. Here's what she said:
Congress has made a change in the treatment of student loans. Right now the interest rate of a Stafford Loan is 4.7%. As of July 1, 2006 that interest rate is going to lock at 6.8 %. The rate of Plus Loans is currently 6.1% but on July 1, 2006 it will lock at 8.5%. If you have not yet consolidated DO SO NOW before these rates go up and stay there forever. Lock in the lower interest rates! Defer payments if you have to.
I'm just glad I caught wind of this interest rate hike before it was too late.
A man who told police he made a pipe bomb to attack an abortion clinic was arrested Thursday, shortly before the device went off in a friend's home while authorities tried to disable it, according to court documents.
No one was injured by the explosion, which started a fire that burned the top floor of the Riverdale home, officials said.
Some friends of Robert F. Weiler Jr. had tipped off police about the 25-year-old's alleged plans Wednesday night.
Weiler then called the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and surrendered to state troopers at a rest stop on Interstate 68 just after midnight. Investigators found a handgun and ammunition in his car, officials said.
According to an ATF affidavit, Weiler planned to bomb an abortion clinic in Greenbelt and use a .40-caliber handgun he had stolen from a friend to "shoot doctors who provided abortions."
Weiler faces four federal counts including making a destructive device and possessing an illegal handgun. He was being held Thursday.
Phone messages left at Weiler's home were not returned. A car in the driveway had a frame around the front license plate that read "Choose Life" and "God is pro-Life."
A woman who answered the phone at the Greenbelt clinic said they had not heard of the threat. In 1989, 80 abortion opponents were arrested for trespassing in a demonstration outside the clinic.
That's right. I'm having to push BACK my original optimistically-set date of turning in this final draft of my thesis -- adding two more weeks to my deadline. I suppose that's the perils of working with an organic document that is always shifting and changing, the more you work on it.
I'm trying to convince myself not to feel too guilty about this -- especially since the end of June was the original date I set for myself to be finished in the first place. And heck, now I've got an actual JOB secured for July 1st -- so I can feel a little better about any of the unexpected delays that have set me back so far.
I'll be finishing up the last chapter of analysis this weekend, so that'll give me time to edit, rework, and fuse together everything into a (hopefully) coherent whole.
Part of me is going to miss obsessing over an object like I have with Revolve over the last year and a half. Then again, I'm looking forward to NOT having thesis-writing-related guilt always hanging over my head.
With the events of this past week, I reread an article in an older Harper's magazine. It seems appropriate.
I can't help but recall the words of my ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School, Dr. James Luther Adams, who told us that when we were his age, and he was then close to 80, we would all be fighting the "Christians fascists."
He gave us that warning twenty-five years ago, when Pat Robertson and other prominent evangelists began speaking of a new political religion that would direct its efforts at taking control of all major American institutions, including mainstream denominations and the government, so as to transform the United States into a global Christian empire.
At the time, it was hard to take such fantastic rhetoric seriously. But fascism, Adams warned, would not return wearing swastikas and brown shirts. Its ideological inheritors would cloak themselves in the language of the Bible; they would come carrying crosses and chanting the Pledge of Allegiance.
[...] Adams told us to watch closely the Christian Right's persecution of homosexuals and lesbians. Hitler, he reminded us, promised to restore moral values not long after he took power in 1933, then imposed a ban on all homosexual and lesbian organizations and publications. Then came raids on the places where homosexuals gathered, culminating on May 6, 1933, with the ransacking of the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin. 12,000 volumes from the Institute's library were tossed into a public bonfire.
Homosexuals and lesbians, Adams said, would be the first "deviants" singled out by the Christian Right. We would be the next.
folding laundry and hearing a "Time after Time" duet with Cyndi Lauper and Sarah McLachlan (!!).
It's one of my favorites, and hearing Sarah on it is a nice touch. It looks like Cyndi has a new album of duets out, Body Acoustic.
For old time's sake, here's the video:
When I was little, I wanted hair like Cyndi's -- unfortunately for me, my mom didn't go for it and I had to settle for a side ponytail (in my natural color).
The latest internet buzz concerns the release of the video game version of the Left Behind book series. Talk to Action has a three-part series on various elements of the game, and its (earlier) association with Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life empire.
One amusing editoral appeared in the LA Times this weekend, Angels with Ammo. Some quotes:
The game creators agreed to let me learn about revelation by playing "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" at last week's Electronic Entertainment Expo. The company's website bills the game as "the ultimate fight of Good against Evil," in which you use "the power of prayer to strengthen your troops."
... The first thing [Left Behind Game's president Jeffery] Frichner did was to have one of his Christian characters approach a civilian lazily walking down a midtown Manhattan street in the middle of the battle over Earth and stand next to him for two seconds, which instantly converted him.
I did not think converting would be as easy for my side. I was going to have to spend long minutes challenging people to guitar contests that I very well might lose.
The good thing was, however, that as Satan, I of course had the United Nations on my side. As my peacekeeping Hummer and some of my followers rolled down Sixth Avenue, the Christians outflanked me and started firing, immediately taking out several of my nurses.
The apocalypse, I was learning, was a good excuse for Christians to just go nuts and unload a lot of pent-up stuff. Armageddon is like their version of divorce.
...Frichner was so nice and open that I almost wanted to convert for him right then. In fact, the game had made fundamentalists a lot less scary to me.
Their belief in the imminent end of days is so exciting. Human history, to them, really is a video game with a wildly action-packed third act and the happiest ending imaginable. It's a beautiful thought, even when you're shooting nurses and blowing up U.N. peacekeeping helicopters.
For a moment, looking at Frichner's kind face worrying for my soul, I wished that I believed in something that could be turned into a video game.
The last line is key. Another topic for a thesis, perhaps?
Today, 18 different states have laws they have either instituted or are on the verge of instituting that will allow pharmacists/pharmacies to refuse to fill customers' prescriptions for contraceptives.
In addition to supporting pharmacy refusals, anti-birth-control pressure groups are mounting an aggressive campaign with their friends in Congress and in the states to eliminate women's access to birth control. This war on contraception is being orchestrated by the same people blocking women's access to safe, legal abortion.
As Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, told The New York Times Magazine: ''We see a direct connection between the practice of contraception and the practice of abortion. The mind-set that invites a couple to use contraception is an antichild mind-set." Brown continued, "We oppose all forms of contraception." ["Contra-Contraception," The New York Times Magazine, May 7, 2006]
It's a scary time to be of child-bearing age in America. The government recently implemented "pre-pregnant" or "pre-conception" guidelines for all women -- whether or not they're planning on having children. More on that policy here.
The more I get involved with these reproductive issues, the more I see that women are increasingly viewed as fetal incubators, and not as individuals capable of making a choice of whether or not to have a child. This battle isn't being drawn between "life" and non-life, it's boiling down to having sex for procreation -- and that, alone. Oddly enough, in this fight, it's the women who are being targeted and who are feeling the effects of this the most.
If you're in the US, take the first step by contacting your Senators/Representatives -- here's a first step. Now's not the time to be apathetic.
Great interview with Bill Bennett on the Daily Show tonight -- where do I begin? First, a quote:
Bennett:"Look, it's a debate about whether or not you think marriage is between a man and a woman." Stewart: "I disagree. It's a debate about whether or not you think gay people are a part of the human condition or just a random fetish."
From the moment Bennett stepped up to the desk, Stewart was ON. Poor Bill "abort black babies to reduce crime rates" Bennett could only respond back with empty partyline catch phrases and worn out cliches.
The most interesting point Stewart had (amongst the many) had to do with the natural evolution of America's freedoms. He mentioned the fights that took place in history whenever people or groups resisted the "natural evolution" of individuals' rights -- from slavery, women's sufferage, civil rights, up to today's battle over gay marriage. Each of these struggles to continue the discrimination eventually failed -- and what was interesting is that Stewart got Bennett to admit that the Repubs and other conservatives who are fighting this "war" will ultimately fail, as well.
Among the defenses Bennett had for his position had to do with "family" values -- and that marriage includes gender-discriminated roles. Stewart countered this by reinforcing the fact that gay people ARE members of families -- and yet the Religious Right's "gay ceiling" of denying them the benefits marriage forces them out of the stability and freedom that's available in a state-sanctioned marriage relationship.
How can you argue against that? Bennett couldn't -- and he's a bigtime conservative bulldog.
Stewart's closing line: "Divorce is not caused because 50% of all marriages end in gayness."
Bad news: I'm pretty sure I'm going to miss my self-imposed deadline of next Friday. I'm finishing up my last analysis chapter (take 2) this week -- I'm examining the ethical implications of Revolve as a Bible posing as a fashion magazine. I'm looking at how narratives/literature invite readers to actively participate in the dialogue of a text, in a sense, shaping them into the author's vision. It's still in its early works, but I think this analysis will be more solid than the last. It's interesting applying this ethical criticism to a text -- particularly one with (nefarious) spiritual implications.
Good news: I got a job. A GREAT job. A job that could open a lot of doors for me, in my future career. Details to soon follow, I'll be starting work before the summer is out -- and I am very excited. I'm consoling my lack of meeting the mid-June deadline by the fact I got a job before my degree was issued. Not too shabby.
Exactly. So we don't need God to validate our moral beliefs - he couldn't validate them. He only... His validations only work insomuch as they correspond to what IS right and in wrong. He can't make something be morally right when it's not.
Another way to put it is, it can't be a matter of God's free decision or whim what's right and wrong. People can see that morality is what it is. They know what they ought to do. But human beings are weak. We have weakness of the will. We don't always do what we know very well we ought to do. And that is... in most people produces the phenomenon of guilt. Guilt is a powerful negative force in people's minds. People hate guilt, right, guilt is a bad feeling. So you need something to prevent guilt. To prevent guilt, you need something to make you do what you know is right, but since human beings are weak, they don't always do what they know is right, but God gives you an extra motive to do what's right, beyond morality itself. Morality gives you a motive, but it's a motive which is rather fragile. Rather... you know... momentary, intermittent and easily broken. But if you've got the idea of God there, it can sort of give it some more oomph, gives it more power, and then you can do what you know is right more easily, more regularly, and that's, you know, perfectly sensible. It's reasonable... it's not unreasonable anyway for an atheist to think that maybe we need God, or people need God, because without God they can't do what they know is right.
I don't believe that myself. I think people are not as morally depraved as religious tradition says. I think most people will do what's right in normal conditions. They won't always of course, but normally they will. They don't need God. And I think people who sometimes have lived with God as their moral support, their moral whatever it is they're getting from it, when they cease to believe in God, they feel that it was not as difficult to be moral afterwards as they suspected it might be. And in fact it was better, because there's a corrupting part to that conception of God, which is the idea that you're doing something good because God will reward you and think well of you. And that's a corrupting idea. It's much better to do something good because it's good, and only because it's good, and that's your only reason for doing it. But the idea you're going to get the warm fuzzy feeling, "Oh, God's really pleased with me today. I did this.", that's not what morality ought to be about.
This is just one bit of one conversation -- there are 6 conversations in total, of talks with various scholars, philosophers, and theologians about the nature of God and religious belief. They're a companion piece to the BBC's 3-part documentary A Brief History of Disbelief (another series I'd highly recommend).
