I Chose Not To Believe
I think that the one of the most compelling reasons that I have chosen not be believe in any supernatural god(s) can best be summed up by the picture below. Look at it. Think really hard about it. If you do you will begin to understand what lead me to shed my supersitious beliefs.
By hull612 (Otherwise known as Jon)
The Secular Humanist Anthem
My pick for a Secular Humanist (or agnostic, or atheist, or just plain sensible) anthem:
Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one- John Lennon
Random Secular Stuff
Here is a fun little drawing of Charles Darwin riding a tortoise.
Here is the link to the original: http://ahohesensei.deviantart.com/art/Darwin-riding-a-tortoise-160649209
The drawing is by ahohesensei. Her work can be found at http://ahohesensei.deviantart.com/gallery/.
I also came across this quote by Friedrich Nietzsche. I’ve read it before and have always liked it.
“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. “
The True Miracle of Life
I’ve tried to express here on many occasions why I feel that we need to live this life to the fullest and not waste our time expecting any kind of afterlife. I have tried to describe why this is important, but it seemed that my words could just not express the beauty of this life and what we can experience in it.
Fortunately, I’ve found someone who can.
“When my husband died, because he was so famous & known for not being a believer, many people would come up to me — it still sometimes happens — & ask me if Carl changed at the end & converted to a belief in an afterlife. They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again. Carl faced his death with unflagging courage & never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I don’t ever expect to be reunited with Carl. But, the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief & precious life is. We never trivialized the meaning of death by pretending it was anything other than a final parting. Every single moment that we were alive & we were together was miraculous — not miraculous in the sense of inexplicable or supernatural. We knew we were beneficiaries of chance… That pure chance could be so generous & so kind… That we could find each other, as Carl wrote so beautifully in Cosmos, you know, in the vastness of space & the immensity of time… That we could be together for twenty years. That is something which sustains me & it’s much more meaningful…
The way he treated me & the way I treated him, the way we took care of each other & our family, while he lived. That is so much more important than the idea I will see him someday. I don’t think I’ll ever see Carl again. But I saw him. We saw each other. We found each other in the cosmos, and that was wonderful.“- Ann Druyan, talking about her husband, Carl Sagan
Sexism Among Atheists and Skeptics
There is a great blog post from PZ Myers that discusses sexism in atheism. I just want to add that this problem is also found within the skeptical community as well, perhaps not quite to the same extent, but close.
This is just a microcosmic example of what we find in society at large. I would say that the problem of sexism in the atheist and skeptical communities isn’t nearly as entrenched or as vicious as in, say, the gamer, science, or other similar communities, which is a good thing. If we can make the efforts that PZ describes, we can be leaders in including women as equals.
As atheists, skeptics, and secular humanists, we already have a greater sense of, and support for, social justice than the population at large. We need to keep working to include all segments of society in our communities and show the often bigoted, sexist, and racist religious believers what real brotherly, and sisterly, love means.
Embracing Randomness – Why Mathematics and Statistics Negates God
I had an interesting FB conversation with a couple of fundie friends of mine. I had posted a quote to the about the ineffectiveness of prayer. One replied with how she has prayed to God and that because of that she now is with a wonderful man who treats her and her kids great. I responded that I am with a wonderful woman who treats me and my kids great, and I never prayed for anything. The other friend then replied that he had prayed for me, implying that it was his prayers that brought me this wonderful woman.
Believers will ascribe all the wonderful things in their lives to God. The fact that others who don’t believe in God, or in their particular god, also have wonderful things in their lives doesn’t seem to have an explanation within their world view. A rational view of this data would indicate that good things happening are random throughout any given population (as are bad things). Another factor is how specific people view the things that happen to them. What seems a good thing to one person could be considered not to good to another. It is a matter of one’s outlook on life. Is the glass half empty or half full?
For me, knowing that events are basically random makes it easier to deal with bad events because I don’t have to worry if I am pissing off some invisible sky man. Conversely, I also don’t have to waste my time and effort trying to please said sky man or thank him for a random event. I can then focus on how I must deal with things.
That’s not to say that I don’t feel that I’m about due for some good things to happen in my life after all the shit I’ve been through. Some would take this as a sign of karma. Personally, I see it as a sign of the law of averages. Since the past 20 years have pretty much sucked. With all things being equal, the fact that good things are now happening (and I believe, will continue to happen) is pretty much a matter of things averaging out. Regression to the mean. Mathematics and statistics are much better and more consistent at explaining the why good or bad things happen to us than is the idea of some benevolent (or malevolent, depending on how you look at it) god making things happen.
Science and Relition are NOT Compatible
Ophelia Benson at Butterflies & Wheels reviewed an interview with Chris Mooney in which he discusses the compatibility of science and religion. In talking about the Catholic Church’s support of evolution and its contention that god intervened by giving humans souls, Chris Mooney supports this stance as being perfectly compatible with science.
“Mooney says that’s all right provided it’s a supernatural claim, because science can’t say nuffink about that. If the Catholic church said humans have souls and we can prove it and here’s the data, then it would be a scientific claim and science could say No, but as it is, it’s not, so science can’t, and that means science and religion are compatible.”
Basically, what Mooney is saying is that as long as you can come up with any concept, idea, or belief that is falsifiable then it is compatible with science. This kind of argument breaks down very quickly though. The classic example of how this is nonsense is Carl Sagan’s, “Dragon in his garage”, argument. I will quite it in its entirety:
“”A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage”
Suppose (I’m following a group therapy approach by the psychologist Richard Franklin) I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you’d want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!“Show me,” you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle — but no dragon.
“Where’s the dragon?” you ask.
“Oh, she’s right here,” I reply, waving vaguely. “I neglected to mention that she’s an invisible dragon.”
You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon’s footprints.
“Good idea,” I say, “but this dragon floats in the air.”
Then you’ll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.
“Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless.”
You’ll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.
“Good idea, but she’s an incorporeal dragon and the paint won’t stick.” And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won’t work.
Now, what’s the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there’s no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I’m asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so. The only thing you’ve really learned from my insistence that there’s a dragon in my garage is that something funny is going on inside my head. You’d wonder, if no physical tests apply, what convinced me. The possibility that it was a dream or a hallucination would certainly enter your mind. But then, why am I taking it so seriously? Maybe I need help. At the least, maybe I’ve seriously underestimated human fallibility. Imagine that, despite none of the tests being successful, you wish to be scrupulously open-minded. So you don’t outright reject the notion that there’s a fire-breathing dragon in my garage. You merely put it on hold. Present evidence is strongly against it, but if a new body of data emerge you’re prepared to examine it and see if it convinces you. Surely it’s unfair of me to be offended at not being believed; or to criticize you for being stodgy and unimaginative — merely because you rendered the Scottish verdict of “not proved.”
Imagine that things had gone otherwise. The dragon is invisible, all right, but footprints are being made in the flour as you watch. Your infrared detector reads off-scale. The spray paint reveals a jagged crest bobbing in the air before you. No matter how skeptical you might have been about the existence of dragons — to say nothing about invisible ones — you must now acknowledge that there’s something here, and that in a preliminary way it’s consistent with an invisible, fire-breathing dragon.
Now another scenario: Suppose it’s not just me. Suppose that several people of your acquaintance, including people who you’re pretty sure don’t know each other, all tell you that they have dragons in their garages — but in every case the evidence is maddeningly elusive. All of us admit we’re disturbed at being gripped by so odd a conviction so ill-supported by the physical evidence. None of us is a lunatic. We speculate about what it would mean if invisible dragons were really hiding out in garages all over the world, with us humans just catching on. I’d rather it not be true, I tell you. But maybe all those ancient European and Chinese myths about dragons weren’t myths at all.
Gratifyingly, some dragon-size footprints in the flour are now reported. But they’re never made when a skeptic is looking. An alternative explanation presents itself. On close examination it seems clear that the footprints could have been faked. Another dragon enthusiast shows up with a burnt finger and attributes it to a rare physical manifestation of the dragon’s fiery breath. But again, other possibilities exist. We understand that there are other ways to burn fingers besides the breath of invisible dragons. Such “evidence” — no matter how important the dragon advocates consider it — is far from compelling. Once again, the only sensible approach is tentatively to reject the dragon hypothesis, to be open to future physical data, and to wonder what the cause might be that so many apparently sane and sober people share the same strange delusion.”
Just because someone believes something that cannot be proved doesn’t make it compatible with science, in fact, the scientific method demands that we reject such a hypothesis while keeping an open mind to future positive evidence.
Using this standard, there is no difference between the “Dragon In My Garage” hypothesis and the” I Believe In God hypothesis”. From a scientific point of view we must reject the God hypothesis due to no supporting evidence while keeping an open mind the possibility of future positive evidence.
When you look at it this way, science and religion are not at all compatible and to call yourself a scientist, as Mooney does, and insist that they are compatible requires either self-delusion or deceit. I’ll give Mooney the benefit of the doubt and hope that he is merely self-deluded.
Christian Theology – Defending The Indefensible
William Lane Craig is a respected Christian theologian whose writings are well read and well regarded by many mainstream Christians. In a recent post on his site he explained why genocide and infanticide were not just approved by God, but ordered by him.
He uses the passages in the Bible where the Israelites are told by God to kill all of the Canaanites to support the idea that God meant to punish the adult Canaanites for their wicked ways.
In the Bible, the Israelites are ordered to kill every Canaanite; men, women, children and infants. You would think that there could not possibly be any justification for killing innocent children and infants, but according to Craig, you are wrong. Because these Children were innocent, he argues, they were granted instant and everlasting salvation in heaven, so killing them were both just, and to their eternal benefit.
Yes, you read that right; not only does Craig justify infanticide, he also sanctifies it. Killing children and babies, as long as God tells you to do so, is not just OK, it is an act of God’s loving grace!
Greta Christian has an excellent response to Craig’s post, which I strongly suggest that you read. One of the things she says is worth sharing here:
“Religion, by its very nature as an untestable belief in undetectable beings and an unknowable afterlife, disables our reality checks. It ends the conversation. It cuts off inquiry: not only factual inquiry, but moral inquiry. Because God’s law trumps human law, people who think they’re obeying God can easily get cut off from their own moral instincts. And these moral contortions don’t always lie in the realm of theological game-playing. They can have real-world consequences: from genocide to infanticide, from honor killings to abandoned gay children, from burned witches to battered wives to blown-up buildings.”
She goes on to tackle the idea that without religion, or belief in God, there can be no morality. She contrasts Craig’s despicable rationalizations in defense of his god and religion with the clear thinking of non-believers, the vast majority of who are appalled at the idea of genocide and infanticide. Without the corrosive influence that faith can have on our moral compass and rationality, we can clearly see that these acts are horrible beyond belief. Faith, on the other hand, requires us to check our rationality and morality at the door, to be substituted by the morality of a vengeful, terrible “God of love” who orders the killing of innocent children and infants.
Not only does Craig justify the killing of innocent children, he goes on to paint the Israelite soldiers as the real victims:
“So whom does God wrong in commanding the destruction of the Canaanites? Not the Canaanite adults, for they were corrupt and deserving of judgment. Not the children, for they inherit eternal life. So who is wronged? Ironically, I think the most difficult part of this whole debate is the apparent wrong done to the Israeli soldiers themselves. Can you imagine what it would be like to have to break into some house and kill a terrified woman and her children? The brutalizing effect on these Israeli soldiers is disturbing.”
This is the point where rational arguments go out the window and I all I can say is, what kind of sick, twisted fuck could ever dream up something as vile as this, and then justify it, simply by saying, “God did it, so it must be right”?
William Lane Craig’s rationalizations are no different than those of any despot who, throughout history, have found ways to justify doing the most heinous things imaginable. In Craig’s case, he isn’t doing it for personal power, but his ideas and justifications could easily be used by those who would.
This is why I rile against religious thought so often and so forcefully, because when you can manage to justify the darkest, most evil urges of the human heart by appealing to a higher power, we are all in very grave danger of being next on God’s hit list.
Christianity is Spoiled Rotten
From The Guardian we find the latest example of privileged Christians (they are the state church of England, after all) crying hysterically about ”aggressive secularism”.
“The leader of the Catholic church in Scotland has used his Easter address to attack “aggressive secularism”, suggesting there were “those who would indeed try to destroy our Christian heritage and culture and take God from the public square”.”a
Aggressive? What could be more aggressive than a state funded, state sponsored organization that can claim virtually every baptism, marriage, and funeral in the land?
We hear the same thing from the Catholic Church and many fundagelical Christian organizations as well. They put up billboards from God; they put bibles in every hotel room; they preach at the opening of many public, government sponsored, events from the opening of legislatures to high school football games; they knock on doors in neighborhoods across the land, and yet it is the secularists who are being aggressive?
This is nothing but a spoiled child whining about having to share his toys with his younger sibling. He spent his first years with the undivided attention of everyone around him and now has to share that attention, and he hates it. In fact, he gets hysterical and stomps and yells. This child is the privileged Christian, and instead of sharing gracefully, he is lying on the floor kicking and crying and insisting that he is being treated unfairly.
It it time to grow up, my Christian friends. You aren’t the only child anymore. Deal with it.
Update — I received comments from someone in the UK telling me that the Church of England isn’t the behemoth that I made it out to be. Thanks to Cerlaire for pointing this out. Here is part of the comment:
“The religious climate in the UK is very different. Friends who’ve lived in certain parts of America tell me that they get funny looks if they say they don’t attend church. Over here you get funny looks if you say that you do attend church. It can make British Christians a bit inclined to feel defensive sometimes.”
“The Church of England doesn’t claim every marriage, funeral and baptism. There are lots of different denominations and lots of secular options as well. People only come to the C of E if they want to. It’s not obligatory.”
I guess I need to do my homework in the future before I go spouting off. Shame on me.
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