Author: Nathan Colquhoun

Municipal Staff Turnover

I would estimate, that with the recent exodus of our senior staff, that we are going to see costs to the taxpayer in the City of Sarnia upwards of 1 million dollars to properly recruit,…

My City Council Campaign

I ran for city council in Sarnia and I won! I’ll post a bit more often on my Facebook page. I’m excited! Here is a transcript of a 5 minute talk I gave at a…

Changing The Golden Rule

The golden rule that I’ve been taught my entire life is to do onto others as I would have them do onto me.  Jesus said it and most religions have some sort of similar proverb…

Gas fire

Love. My choice. My feeling. My MO My change My life Love has caused me to make   choices I would not have made       have   feelings I have never felt Operate…

The Desire to Convert Is Disingenuous

Art by David Hayward (Naked Pastor) I was raised in a religious tradition that emphasized trying to make converts to our belief system.  Conversion was a central pillar of my upbringing.  There was opportunity at…

A Discussion On Faith

A few weeks ago, Josh Walters, John Silvestri and myself were invited to join the Sarnia- Port Huron – Freethinkers for a public dialogue.  There was the three of us and three folks from the Freethinkers…

On Rejection of God and Christianity

Christianity is a complex system of belief, rituals, lifestyles and systems.  It makes no more sense to reject Christianity as it does to reject God. Some would say if you reject specific beliefs (such as Jesus’…

A Timeline Of Things I’ve Held To Be True

Growing up as a white, middle-class, charismatic, straight, cisgender, Christian male has been quite a ride.  I’ve been blogging since 2004 and have published an equivalent of 1.5 War and Peace novels (838,208 words).  I…

Needing To Be Strong is Lonely

Last year, when my mother was in her last stages of liver failure and suffering from hepatic encephalopathy, I found myself in some of the most chaotic and difficult circumstances that I ever could have imagined.  She…

A Sermon on Humility

My own experience with humility has been quite forced. I grew up believing in the idea of being humble. My mom used to ensure that I would actually stay humble by constantly telling me that…

Tradition as Automation

When we are thinking, we have two parts of our brain.  We have the Neo-Cortex areas, which we will call ambassadors and the subcortical areas that we will call primitives. The ambassadors of your brain…