Sounds like a mighty fine salad. -t

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A woman walks down the street with that salad in a jar, you know she isn't afraid of anything.

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I have a meeting in 10 minutes and more work stuff that will probably require working late and the realtor is coming over at 1 and I don't WANNA.

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I saw two Jill Stein for President bumper stickers this morning. In Kansas. Okay, Lawrence, KS so not actually that strange.

I was sort of pondering something this morning. I'm an atheist, by which I mean I don't believe in G*d or at least any concept of G*d that can be comprehended. But it often seems hard to even tell someone who is religious that I'm atheist without offending them. The reason for the offense is that they assume I must think they are dumb or foolish since I don't believe in this thing that's so important to them. I don't really. I just think they have a different worldview which I can't believe in.

There's another misunderstanding where some Christians (this seems to be mostly a Christian thing anyhow) don't believe in atheists. They assume that atheists believe in G*d but deny him/her/it because they want to sin freely or are angry at G*d for some reason.

I also don't really understand Pascal's Wager. How do you choose to believe something? It seems like it's possible to immerse yourself in information to support a certain belief over another and maybe you can change your belief that way, but mostly I can't make myself believe something.

I'm drifting here. Back to the original pondering. Is it possible to be an atheist without coming across as arrogant or offensive?

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In the last 9 years, the only vacation I've had where I didn't have to work anyway was when I was out of the country and literally couldn't access my work email. It isn't right.

Yeah, I understand occasionally working while on vacation but I don't get this. Why not say you won't be available, set up your OOO message, and just not look at your work email?

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Maybe work up to it gradually. Set aside some time every day that you will read email or answer the phone and when you get used to the idea make it longer.

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Is it possible to be an atheist without coming across as arrogant or offensive?

Atheists who bring it up first or are quick to bring up their status as an atheist are generally looking for a reaction. If you're merely debating from a point of disbelief in deities without waving an identity banner, I wouldn't feel challenged. Your Deist May Vary.

For some religious folk, running into someone who doesn't believe in a god is like Neil deGrasse Tyson running into someone who thinks the earth is flat. For them, the presence of a god in their lives is as real and factual as gravity.

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Yeah, I understand occasionally working while on vacation but I don't get this. Why not say you won't be available, set up your OOO message, and just not look at your work email?

Agreed! (And I say this as someone who did work on my last vacation. Oh, not my last out-of-town vacation, though! Anyway, I knew I had a thing to finish, set aside two hours that day, and then stopped checking email after that.)

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Yeah, I understand occasionally working while on vacation but I don't get this. Why not say you won't be available, set up your OOO message, and just not look at your work email?

Agreed! (And I say this as someone who did work on my last vacation. Oh, not my last out-of-town vacation, though! Anyway, I knew I had a thing to finish, set aside two hours that day, and then stopped checking email after that.)

For me, it was the perfect storm: I had a request for Best and Final Offer come in from the West Coast on Wednesday after business hours when I was supposed to start vacation on Thursday. It wasn't just a simple response of updated numbers--they wanted visible formulas in the spreadsheet plus clarification--and that was my piece from the beginning. Trying to download it to someone else in the time frame allotted (our response was due by COB on Thursday) wasn't going to happen.

Then, while I was working on that, a PO that we've been chasing since the beginning of the year FINALLY hit my inbox. It's for the largest single order of vehicles in the company's history, so it's also a big deal. Lots of time-sensitive things go along with it because of order and delivery deadlines, etc., and it was not possible to put them off until I came back today. I reminded my boss that I was on PTO, and he started to remind me that I was going to make very good money on this deal. I interrupted him right there, and said, "That's why I'm not telling you to go pound sand until Wednesday. You're just not going to get immediate answers." What I was irked with are the other things that I was "asked" to do that could have waited until today.

As I said to one of my coworkers yesterday, "Work-life balance my ass."

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Flip this to:

Theists who bring it up first or are quick to bring up their status as an atheist are generally looking for a reaction.

and it's a quick bias check!

I'm about to set fire to certain teams.

If I say I am unavailable, I am unavailable.I pretty much refuse to work outside normal hours. I make a few exceptions in extreme cases, but I don't even log into my email when I'm not 'at work.' (When I get stupid and do check it, I usually regret it.) NopenopenopeNOPE.

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