Jan Steckel's Blog: Horizontal Poet Sings Bidyke Blues - Posts Tagged "the-eloquent-atheist"
Are You an Atheist?
I'm not an atheist, but I'm not a believer, either. Nor am I an agnostic, if you take the definition of agnostic to mean someone who believes it's impossible to know if God exists or not. I just know that I personally don't know if God exists. I don't have any problem with other people's beliefs in God. Evangelical, militant atheism mildly annoys me.
Nor do I find it as important to be sure about God's existence as many people do, because I'm pretty sure that the humanistic morality my parents taught me leads me to behave in the same way as I would if I were sure about God's existence. Don't treat others the way you wouldn't want to be treated, as Hillel put it. Safer and less prescriptive than the Golden Rule,
Want a quick turnaround time for a poem, essay or story to be published? I woke up to find four poems I had submitted last night to The Eloquent Atheist were posted this morning! The last poem in the group is about Joie Cook, one of the best performers and poets I know personally. She's another Zeitgeist Press author and lives in San Francisco.
http://www.eloquentatheist.com/2012/0...
What is the basis of your conscious behavior and morality, whether you believe in God or not?
Nor do I find it as important to be sure about God's existence as many people do, because I'm pretty sure that the humanistic morality my parents taught me leads me to behave in the same way as I would if I were sure about God's existence. Don't treat others the way you wouldn't want to be treated, as Hillel put it. Safer and less prescriptive than the Golden Rule,
Want a quick turnaround time for a poem, essay or story to be published? I woke up to find four poems I had submitted last night to The Eloquent Atheist were posted this morning! The last poem in the group is about Joie Cook, one of the best performers and poets I know personally. She's another Zeitgeist Press author and lives in San Francisco.
http://www.eloquentatheist.com/2012/0...
What is the basis of your conscious behavior and morality, whether you believe in God or not?
Journal Round-Up and Reading
Last week received my contributor's copy of Askew, a Southern California (Ventura)-based literary journal in a newspaper format. I enjoyed the poems a lot, and I liked the way the editors presented my poem about my mentor ("Julia Vinograd Turns Canned Food into Poetry") and its final line "She does not deign to eat the peach" right under another poem that ended with the word "peach."
Askew is edited by Phil Taggart and Marsha de la O with the help of Friday Lubina. Phil and Friday also host readings in the Ventura area. I was scheduled to read on July 31 at Phil Taggart's reading at the Artists Union Gallery there. Unfortunately the gallery just lost its lease and the reading its venue, so I'll have to wait for another opportunity to hear the editors of Askew read.
I also received my contributor's copies of Assaracus: Lady Business, with five of my filthiest queer poems bringing up the rear, so to speak, at the end of the volume. Assaracus is a gay male literary journal edited by Bryan Borland. This was their issue of poetry by lesbian and bisexual women, and I absolutely loved it. My favorite poetry in the volume was by Maureen Seaton. Couldn't find her on Facebook -- hope to run into her work again soon.
Editor Michael W. Jones of the online journal The Eloquent Atheist was kind enough to print my poem "Downsizing the Solar System" at http://www.eloquentatheist.com/2012/0....
As I've mentioned here before, I'm not an atheist, actually. I just know that I don't know what the cosmic story is, but I acknowledge that you might, so I'm not really even a proper agnostic. (That is, I understand agnosticism to be the belief that one cannot know whether God exists.) The thing is, I have a physician's attitude that if the answer to a question doesn't change the plan of action, then I don't need the answer. Since I'd behave the same way toward other people whether I knew that God existed or not, I figure it's best just to get on with the good works and try to be as decent a person as I can. I respect the faiths of others, and also the agnosticism or atheism of others.
Lastly, I wanted to remind San Francisco Bay Area readers that I'll be featured at Caffe Greco in North Beach in SF with Julia Vinograd on Monday, July 9th. Sign-up for the open mic is at 6:30 PM. 423 Columbus Ave., between Vallejo and Green. Hope to see some of you there! Bring a little work of your own to read at the open mic if you'd like to.
Julia Vinograd is my poetry mentor. You can find a lot of her books here on Goodreads. Here's her short bio:
Julia Vinograd is a Berkeley street poet. She has published 56 books of poetry, and won the American Book Award of The Before Columbus Foundation. She has three poetry CD collections: Bubbles and Bones, Eye of the Hand, and The Book of Jerusalem. She received a B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley and an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa. She has a Poetry Lifetime Achievement Award from the City of Berkeley. She won a Pushcart Prize for her poem “The Young Men Who Died of AIDS.” She was one of the four editors of the anthology New American Underground Poetry Vol. 1: The Babarians of San Francisco— Poets from Hell.
Askew is edited by Phil Taggart and Marsha de la O with the help of Friday Lubina. Phil and Friday also host readings in the Ventura area. I was scheduled to read on July 31 at Phil Taggart's reading at the Artists Union Gallery there. Unfortunately the gallery just lost its lease and the reading its venue, so I'll have to wait for another opportunity to hear the editors of Askew read.
I also received my contributor's copies of Assaracus: Lady Business, with five of my filthiest queer poems bringing up the rear, so to speak, at the end of the volume. Assaracus is a gay male literary journal edited by Bryan Borland. This was their issue of poetry by lesbian and bisexual women, and I absolutely loved it. My favorite poetry in the volume was by Maureen Seaton. Couldn't find her on Facebook -- hope to run into her work again soon.
Editor Michael W. Jones of the online journal The Eloquent Atheist was kind enough to print my poem "Downsizing the Solar System" at http://www.eloquentatheist.com/2012/0....
As I've mentioned here before, I'm not an atheist, actually. I just know that I don't know what the cosmic story is, but I acknowledge that you might, so I'm not really even a proper agnostic. (That is, I understand agnosticism to be the belief that one cannot know whether God exists.) The thing is, I have a physician's attitude that if the answer to a question doesn't change the plan of action, then I don't need the answer. Since I'd behave the same way toward other people whether I knew that God existed or not, I figure it's best just to get on with the good works and try to be as decent a person as I can. I respect the faiths of others, and also the agnosticism or atheism of others.
Lastly, I wanted to remind San Francisco Bay Area readers that I'll be featured at Caffe Greco in North Beach in SF with Julia Vinograd on Monday, July 9th. Sign-up for the open mic is at 6:30 PM. 423 Columbus Ave., between Vallejo and Green. Hope to see some of you there! Bring a little work of your own to read at the open mic if you'd like to.
Julia Vinograd is my poetry mentor. You can find a lot of her books here on Goodreads. Here's her short bio:
Julia Vinograd is a Berkeley street poet. She has published 56 books of poetry, and won the American Book Award of The Before Columbus Foundation. She has three poetry CD collections: Bubbles and Bones, Eye of the Hand, and The Book of Jerusalem. She received a B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley and an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa. She has a Poetry Lifetime Achievement Award from the City of Berkeley. She won a Pushcart Prize for her poem “The Young Men Who Died of AIDS.” She was one of the four editors of the anthology New American Underground Poetry Vol. 1: The Babarians of San Francisco— Poets from Hell.
Horizontal Poet Sings Bidyke Blues
Bidyke writer and disabled former pediatrician Jan Steckel writes about poetry, fiction, sexuality, doctoring, poverty, and what it feels like to remember what kind of socks everyone at her readings w
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