New research: Raising children without religion may be a better alternative.

[1monster]

68. I have a different take on life... More and more, I believe Everything is sentient...

That the whole universe is one ginormous connection of sentient entities.

We've seen videos of turtles showing empathy (and the Golden Rule perpaps), in helping another turtle get back on its feet when it flipped on its back.

Scientists have discovered that crops and other plants send out super sonic screams for help during droughts. The ants that invade the classrooms when the rains come show self-awareness and knowledge that each individual is in danger when a finger comes at it as it tries to hide under a book or paper on a desk.

I am sometimes haunted by the memory of a young live oak tree that grew very swiftly in our back yard. Our drain field was no longer working and we had to have a new one built. The health department, which issued the permit for the new drain field, said the live oak had to go.

As the tree surgeons began to first trim off the large branches, the tree began to tremble and shake. Even when the saws were silent and the men stepped away from it to adjust the ladders and other eqipment, the tree did not stop shaking until it was down.

I believe that the whole of everything is on a constant cycle of life, chage, death, renewal and rebirth. "Therefore," as John Donne once wrote, "never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for there."