SashaSagan

I am so lucky because I have many, but one that just popped into my mind was when I was little, like elementary school age, on weekends he would sometimes take me to his classroom at Cornell and let me pretend to be the teacher and ask questions and he would raise his hand and pretend to be the students in the class and I LOVED that.

I think rituals and traditions are not intrinsically good because they're old, if someone is being hurt that is totally different to me than something that's neutral or innately positive. I think human beings need to process change like births, deaths, coming-of-age, changing seasons and that's why we have created so many rituals. Those of us who don't believe still need those touchstones in some form. For me what is so powerful about science is not that it's always perfect, or always used for good, but that there is an error-correcting mechanism. Challenging what everyone believes can be the pathway to new understanding, questioning is good, that which cannot stand up to scrutiny must fall away. I think that's a good approach if your goal is to gain the deepest possible understanding of our universe as it really is. (I don't begrudge anyone else their faith, I just have a different outlook)

Thank you so much!! If by planned you mean some non-linear sentence fragments in a word document then yes!

Hahaha not exactly but I did definitely say "I KNOW DAD" from time to time. He did often find new and interesting ways to share his sense of wonder.

YES! I still have 5 or 6 Calvin & Hobbes books he bought me and we spent lots of time reading them together. Great call.