Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Chocolate - a Really Guilty Pleasure

It's so hard to do the right thing all the time isn't it? Sometimes it's ignorance and sometimes it's selective remembering but when confronted with the truth of something that is really wrong, we try to do the right thing.

We're Atheists. I don't know why that word seems so aggressive but it does. I sometimes say we're Humanists as it sounds less confrontational. The point is, we don't believe in God (or any god). We also don't think you need a religious ideology in order to be ethical. It's perfectly fine with us if you do, we're not going to light flaming torches, go crusading and bop you over the head till you join the fold! See, completely non-threatening fluffy Atheists here.

It's Easter and, as with Christmas, there are issues to contend with when you have small enquiring minds who ask probing questions. We're not about to let them miss out on the fun parts of both occasions. We're Atheists not Sadists. Fortunately for us the Christians co-opted other earlier celebrations to do with Spring and the Winter Solstice so we can tell them, "Some people believe...and others believe..." and still find a reason to have the Easter Bunny visit and eat chocolate that doesn't feel too hypocritical. Although our stance is made more tricky by being in the Southern Hemisphere and so the whole new life, spring celebration thing is a hard sell.

We focus on the being with family, enjoying life and each other, and eating chocolate angle.

Well, that was till the child slave labour thing! So, I'm off to Oxfam to buy fair trade chocolate and I'll be filling these adorable old school cardboard eggs with something that hopefully hasn't abused the rights and body of a child somewhere in the world.


2 comments:

  1. Can you get Green & Black chocolate there? It's one of my favorites.

    Though we aren't Atheists, we aren't Christians, either, so I completely appreciate your point about being ethical and also about explaining various religious holidays. One of the many complications of the inquiring minds of children!

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  2. Oh yes, we get Green & Black and Cadbury Dairymilk is also now fair-trade certified. So it was mostly un-egg-shaped chocolate this year...

    I'm curious now though, are you guys Buddhist (my dad is), Wiccan, or?

    I recently read an article from an Atheist who put it really succinctly for me. Some people have a harpsichord string inside them that plays the most incredible music when the right type of faith is tuned to them. Some people (us) don't have or feel the lack of that string, our lives are none the less full and full of meaning for us. That's not to say that we would ever begrudge anyone that music...

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