Happy Mabon

Gwyl canol Hydref or Mabon: (pronounced May-bon. Also known as Harvest Home, Harvest Tide, Fall Equinox, Autumn Equinox etc.),

[Terri] Also known as Alban Elfed.
Also, I have never pronounced it 'May-bon' in my life.[/Terri]

Actual Date and Time of Autumnal Equinox : 14:33 20 Mar 2005 (sast) Technically, an equinox is an astronomical point and, due to the fact that the earth wobbles on its axis slightly , the date may vary by a few days depending on the year. The autumnal equinox occurs when the sun crosses the equator on its apparent journey southward, and we experience a day and a night that are of equal duration. Up until Mabon, the hours of daylight have been greater than the hours from dusk to dawn. But from now on, the reverse holds true. Mabon marks the middle of harvest, it is a time of equal day and equal night, and for the moment nature is in balance. It is a time to reap what you have sown, of giving thanks for the harvest and the bounty the Earth provides. For finishing up old projects and plans and planting the seeds for new enterprises or a change in lifestyle. Mabon is a time of celebration and balance. This is the time to look back not just on the past year, but also your life, and to plan for the future. In the rhythm of the year, Mabon is a time of rest and celebration, after the hard work of gathering the crops. Warm autumn days are followed by chill nights, as the Old Sun God returns to the embrace of the Goddess. The passing of Mabon is inevitable and The Sun God should be mourned. We too, must remember that all things must come to an end. So the Sun God journeys into the lands of winter and into the Goddess' loving arms, but endings are a good time to celebrate our successes, thank our selves and those who helped us, and take part in the balance of life!

Taken from a site I wouldn’t visit without sunglasses , however the info is good.

Allways bearing the scientific facts in mind:

Because we count sunrise and sunset from the moment when the first sliver of sun appears, and when the last sliver disappears, and because the Earth's atmosphere bends sunlight so that the sun is actually completely below the horizon when it appears to be touching the horizon at its lower edge, 20 March is not the date when night and day are equal in length. For that, we have to wait until the 24th, and from the 25th onward the nights will be longer than the days as we head toward winter.

(From the South African Astronomical Observatory )

Something to Cheer About

Omniscience Annex is included in TRA's Carnival of the Godless. Make a stampede over there now

Changed My Mind...

..about the links.
Go take a look at The Raving Atheist today.

Yes I know we link to him permanently, but this rant is special-the boy's in good form today.

No Links From MeToday...

Poor Simon Gear.

The television weatherman hosts a midnight-to-four talk show on Radio 702, and I wake up early enough to catch the tail end of it, sometimes.

This morning the poor man read out, for a laugh, an email he’d received from a listener who wanted to know if the later rising of the sun these days was due to global warming, or was it because of the tsunami?.

He’d hardly had one chuckle, when some woman called in to say that she too was worried about the sun getting up later in the morning recently.

That’s funny, I guess.


What’s not so funny is the reflection that these two women are not alone-they’re not even a small minority.

There are millions of people in this world who just don’t bother to do any thinking in their entire lives

What has this got to do with atheism?
Pretty obvious really.
If this is how a lot of people conduct their lives-and I have every experiential reason to believe that many do, if not in degree then in kind, well then we shouldn’t be too surprised when they soak up all the dogma, all the unauthenticated stories, all the simple lies of religion. I used to do it-expect that learned people whose business it was to know these things really did know what they were talking about.
I got the shock of my life when I finally began to grow up, around the age of 40, and actually investigate these claims for myself. Not too good for a scientist.
Many, many people suppose, in the same way that I once did, that credentialed folk really know what the fuck they’re talking about.
Fact is, they frequently don’t, and are either perpetuating deceits of long tradition, or they have neglected to do the research thoroughly.
In some cases, notably the fundie creationists, I suspect that they’re making things up, and know that they’re lying.But it doesn’t seem to matter to them.If it gets souls for their master, it’s rationalized.
Thanks, but I’ll take note myself of when the sun rises, and investigate the reason for it. I’ll go with the honesty of atheism, and in some cases agnosticism, every time. As I’ve already mentioned elsewhere-it’s very difficult bow for me to accept the word of a theist on anything at all anymore.Even if she’s a physicist, I’ll be more inclined to do my own research before I accept their word, if they’ve proved themelves so disingenuous on other matters