The Duggar Family: 19 and Counting...my thoughts

Michelle and Jim Bob with Josie

You’ve heard of the television show on TLC, 19 and Counting…, right? If you haven’t, it is about a family living in Arkansas. The married couple has had 19 kids in 20 years of marriage! In fact, the mother, Michelle just found out that she is pregnant with her 20^th child. They see children as God’s gift.

I think having 19 kids is outrageous! Is it fair for the older kids to look after the younger ones because the parents don’t have time to look after them? If you cannot give your children proper attention, should you really have 19 kids?

Michelle had preeclampsia in her last pregnancy, resulting in a dangerous very early term delivery of her daughter Josie at just 25 weeks old. If she knows that there are risks for having a child at age 45, why would she continue getting pregnant? There is a high chance that the child is not going to survive or have complications. In my opinion, it will be their fault if the child dies. This is a selfish act of irresponsibility. Josie went through a lot of pain. She was only 1 lb. 6 oz. when she was born. She has had serious breathing issues since her birth. She is also prone to illness. If the Duggars are pro-life, why are they risking Michelle’s life and the unborn baby’s life?

There are 7 billion people in this world. The world is already over-populated. If everyone had 19 kids, what would our world be like? The Scientific American stated that the biggest impact a U.S. citizen can have on the climate change problem is to have fewer children. Every American child born today will add roughly 9,441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere under current conditions. Having one fewer child would reduce a family’s climate burden 20 times more than driving a fuel-efficient car or using energy-saving appliances.

Also, there are a lot of kids who need a loving home. Why should you have a child if there is already one out there that you can help? Why not adopt?

People may say it is not our business. However, since this is a television show, people are being influenced by it. It is our business. People may now think that it is fine to have that many kids. Do we really want to promote that? The Duggar children already think it is okay to have that many kids.

The goal in life is not to necessarily get married and have kids.

11 Reasons Why I Don't Believe in God

I was raised as a Methodist. I went to church with my parents every Sunday. I was even confirmed to the church in 8^th grade. I volunteered at vacation bible school in high school. Honestly, growing up I never really thought about the existence of God or questioned anything. I did what everyone did and went through the motions. I learned the bible stories and sang the songs.

It wasn’t until college that I really started thinking about God, Jesus, religion, etc. I decided to join Navigators at the University of Wyoming. I thought it would be a place to meet people and to learn more about the bible. I felt like an outsider. I found it weird when people started throwing their arms up and closing their eyes. I couldn’t understand why they were so passionate about god. I stuck with it and when I was a Sophomore I went on their annual retreat. One thing I did not agree with was when they told us to love God more than our family. How could I love someone that I could not see? I have never felt God or seen God. I can’t find examples where he has helped me in my life. It was at this time that I decided to no longer be a Christian.

I believe in gay marriage. I believe in women having the right to have an abortion. These things are wrong according to the bible. How could I go to church and follow teachings in the bible if they say these things are not allowed?

I live my life according to what I think is right. I believe I direct my life.

I cannot prove that God doesn’t exist but here are reasons why I don’t believe:

1.       If there were a god, why would evil exist?

2.       There are many religions out there with many gods. They can’t all be right, but they can all be wrong.

3.       The bible is not consistent with history.

4.       I haven’t seen anything supernatural. How can I believe in the supernatural stories in the bible?

5.       I rely on science more than faith. There is no scientific evidence that god exists.

6.       There is no good reason to bother believing.

7.       I believe in evolution. Design does not require a designer.

8.       There is no evidence that stories actually happened from the bible.

9.       I don’t want to believe in a god that sends nice people to hell just because they didn’t devote their lives to god.

10.   It is not helpful for me to know that there is a god who will make everything better and is controlling everything. If something isn’t going right I will try to fix it instead of praying for things to get better.

11.   I have gotten by perfectly fine without believing in god. I found the love of my life (Kyle), I have had many fun and interesting jobs, I am not in debt, I have a loving family, and I am healthy.

The pledge of allegiance in schools

There is a huge controversy over having the pledge of allegiance recited in schools. The pledge was originally composed in 1892 and the words “under god” were added in 1954. Students have the choice of whether to stand and say the pledge of allegiance. There have been cases in which particular students have not participated. Some of these students have been ridiculed and called “unpatriotic”. This is a free country. People don’t have the right to tell people what to do. I applaud the students who stood up for themselves!

I was faced with an interesting situation when I worked at Primrose School of Fort Collins. They are a private school and they sing a song about god before snack time and meal times. The end of the song states, “Thank you God for everything.” I don’t believe in a God and could not sing this song. I told the director and she told me that I didn’t have to sing the song. I was relieved. However, I still felt awkward being the only one not singing! I received my degree in Elementary Education. If I were to become a teacher, I am sure my school would have the students say the pledge of allegiance. I know we have a right to not say it but I don’t think it should be in the schools at all.

I don’t believe we are a nation with liberty and justice for all.

2011 Headlines

●September 8, 2011: Group wants Pledge of Allegiance pulled from Mass. Town schools: The group says the pledge didn’t have any educational value, and the students who refused to say the pledge are being bullied.

●October 24, 2011: Air force veteran upset daughter’s class recites pledge of allegiance: Mother said she enrolled her daughter at the John Stanford International School because it promoted a multicultural perspective and celebrated diversity. She says the pledge policy retreats from it. Her daughter is half-Jamaican. The school started saying the pledge to comply with the school district’s policy.

●November 8, 2011: Michigan Republicans introduce bill that forces students to recite pledge of allegiance: People against the bill state that children aren’t even old enough to understand a pledge. They also state that many students are not even citizens of this country.

Thoughts on Marriage

Kyle and I got married on August 21, 2011. We were engaged for only a week and told our parents that we were getting married on my birthday which is August 17^th. We got married in an untraditional fashion. Many people may disagree with what we did or think that we were selfish. We did have a wedding celebration a couple of weeks later so that our parents could meet and we could celebrate with them. This is what Kyle had to say:

“Marriage, to me, is a way for two people who are in love to show the rest of the world that they have chosen to commit their lives to each other. It is a decision that the two people involved should make for themselves as something to do if and when they are ready. While a married couple can share their lives with friends and family, the decisions that determine how their relationship to one another will progress should be made by the couple themselves. This is how I see marriage; two people deciding for themselves how to live their lives as individuals and as a couple. I am a non-traditionalist meaning that I rarely do something simply because it’s a tradition. The act of wedding two people in front of a large crowd in an extravagant ceremony is how marriages traditionally begin. Many young girls are said to dream of their wedding day since a young age, but the stress and high cost of today’s weddings would probably be avoided by more than a few couples if they were bold enough to break tradition. Colorado is one of the only states that allows a couple to solemnize, or officiate, their own wedding process. This means that no judge, priest, or captain of a ship is required to make a marriage “official”. The wedding couple is allowed to make their own marriage “official”. For this reason Erica and I hiked into Lake Haiyaha in Rocky Mountain National Park on August 21, 2011 and solemnized our own wedding. We hiked into the lake (possibly the longest bridal march in history) an engaged couple and hiked out as a married couple. We chose to do this to avoid the high cost and stress of planning an extravagant ceremony and to symbolize the fact that the course of marriage will be controlled by us as a couple from the wedding process until death does its part. We don’t wish to criticize or condemn others who wish to have a traditional wedding ceremony, we just wanted to explain what we are doing and why.”

We are both happy that we did not start our marriage in debt. We believe that our money could go to better things like travel rather than decorations and dresses. We also did not want to spend a lot of money. Kyle did not get an engagement ring for me. Instead, we bought wood rings after we got married. Instead of calling them our wedding rings we call them our marriage rings. We decided to get wooden rings for ethical reasons. Many diamonds go through sweat shops. Also, the workers mining diamonds in Africa don’t receive fair wages. We got wood rings because they are unique. We went through a company called touchwoodrings. It is a couple running the business. The husband makes the rings and the wife does the administrative work. They live in British Columbia. The wood they get is from downed trees, bug killed trees or scrap wood.

Vegan French Toast

I was a big french toast fan before becoming vegan. I found out that you can substitute bananas for the eggs. The bananas give the french toast a great flavor!

Ingredients:

2 bananas

3/4 cup soy milk

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon vanilla

oil (I use olive oil)

bread, any kind is fine!

1. Blend bananas, soy milk, cinnamon and vanilla in a blender.

2. Pour into a wide bowl.

3. Dip bread slices in the mixture, coating both sides.

4. Fry in the oil on medium high heat until golden brown.

5. You can put whatever fruit you would like on top:) I love blueberries and strawberries. Top with maple syrup if desired.



Eating Animals

Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer is an extraordinary book!!! It is not one-sided. He looks at ethical farms and good farmers. If there were more ethical and family farms, I would be more likely to eat meat. However, factory farming has taken over. It's all about the money and how to produce as much meat as possible with as little money as possible. Animals are not treated as living things but as mere objects. Here are some notes I took while reading:

1. The lights are turned on 20 hours a day so that the egg-laying hens think it is Spring.
2. Peta would rather euthanize a dog than have it living its life in a kennel.
3. "When we walk around thinking we have a greater right to eat an animal than the animal has a right to live without suffering, it's corrupting."
4. Every turkey sold in every store and served in every restaurant was the product of artificial insemination.
5. KFC chickens are almost always killed in 39 days. That's how rapidly they're grown.
6. How much suffering will you tolerate for your food?
7. On average, Americans eat the equivalent of 21,000 entire animals in a lifetime.
8. Vegetarian diets tend to be lower in saturated fat and cholesterol, and have higher levels of dietary fiber, magnesium and potassium, vitamins c and e, folate, carotenoids, flavonoids, and phytochemicals.
9. Excess animal protein is linked with osteoporosis, kidney disease, calcium stones in the urinary tract and cancers.
10. Vegans have lower blood cholesterol levels, lower risk of heart disease, lower blood pressure, lower risk of hypertension, lower risk of type 2 diabetes, lower BMI and lower cancer rates.
11. The highest rates of osteoporosis are seen in countries where people consume the most dairy foods.
12. In the National school lunch program more than half a billion of our tax dollars are given to the dairy, beef, egg and poultry industries to provide animals products to children.
13. Nearly 1/3 of the land surface of the planet is dedicated to livestock.
14. Animal shit seeps into rivers, lakes and oceans killing wildlife, polluting air, water and land in ways devastating to human health.
15. Farmed animals in the US produce 130 times as much waste as the human population.
16. Less the 1 percent of the animals killed for meat in America come from family farms.
17. What kind of crime is animal agriculture, which uses 756 million tons of grain and corn per year, much more than enough to adequately feed the 1.4 billion humans who are living in dire poverty?

Vegan for ethical reasons

The way we are killing animals is absolutely discusting!!! Many people don't want to know how animals are killed. Once you know the process, you will be less likely to eat that burger again!

Birds:
1. Chickens are crammed into densely populated sheds where waste accumulates. The resulting ammonia levels commonly cause painful burns to the birds' skin, eyes, and respiratory tracts.
2. To cut losses from birds pecking at each other, farmers remove a third to a half of the beak from chickens, turkeys and ducks. This causes severe pain and in some cases they are unable to eat and starve.
3. Rapid growth rate has been accompanied by painful skeletal deformites and ascites.
4. Egg-laying hens are packed in cages and can become immobilized and die of dehydration or asphyxiation.
Pigs:
1. The pigs get depressed and won't care if their tail is biten off. To solve this problem, the tail is snipped off. It is now more sensitive and the pigs will now care if another pig is nipping at it.
2. The ends of their teeth are snipped off with pliers.
3. Males are castrated.
4. Because of improper stunning methods, many pigs are still conscious when they are dumped into scalding-hot water.
Dairy Cows: 
1. Dairy cows are killed once thier milk production declines.
2. Dairy cows are usually unable to nurse their young. Most calves raise for veal are males from the dairy industry.
3. She is kept constantly pregnant.
4. In the wild a cow would live 20-25 years but on a dairy farm they are lucky to live 4 years.
Veal Calves:
1. The calf spends most of it's time in complete darkness in a small crate, in which he cannot even turn around. Darkness keeps calves quiet and reduced the restlessness and boredom of standing in a bare wooden crate.
2. The calves are deliberately kept anemic so that their flesh is will be pale and tender.
Cattle:
1. Castration of young males is a common procedure. Branding is also a common practice.
2. Dehorning is another painful procedure. Horns just take up room in the feedlot and allow for the dangerous possibility of the cattle attacking each other.
Free-Range Farms:
1. Poultry meat may be labeled free-range if the birds were provided an opportunity to access the outdoors. This could mean 20,000 birds crowded inside a shed with a single exit leading to a muddy strip, saturated with droppings.
2. The cage-free label for eggs is not regulated by the USDA, nor does it guarantee that the hens were provided access to the outdoors.

Many people ask me why vegan and not vegetarian. In my opinion it would be better to eat meat than eggs and dairy because dairy cows and egg-laying hens are treated the worst. They have to live longer....no freedom, little movement, darkness. If you drink milk you are supporting the veal industry. Milk is meant for the young. Do we drink our mother's milk when we are 40?


*Information from Vegan Outreach, Vegetarian Society of Colorado, PETA