Monthly Archive for August, 2010

Part I – How I felt when I left Christianity

Published

on August 31, 2010

DISCLAIMER - The views expressed are those of me, I do not pretend to tell people what they should believe, so please do not be offended. My purpose is to promote dialogue and understanding, so as to facilitate a more peaceful existance on planet earth.

I confess I was once compelled to carry the weight of my own sin around with me everyday. When recently asked how different I felt after giving up Christianity I first thought of the tremendous weight which lifted from my shoulders...it is this moment and exactly how I changed after giving up my faith that I wanted to discuss. But to put it into context I need to talk about how I became a firm believer in the first place.

For some, the movement between faith and non faith, or even non faith to faith is a gradual, flowing process where someone may take months or years to gradually move into their new life phase. I would argue that this depends on two things, personality, and the nature of the views they are moving into and out of. Personally, I have a very pragmatic, logical mind, and I've always tried to make sense of the world around me looking for the ultimate theories to explain things. This is how I became religious in the first place. I used to spend many nights on the farm starring up at the stars, charting nebula's and double stars, and watching out for the ever exciting meteor shower. Of course the only answer I knew to how all those starts got there was someone had to put them there. Surely order cannot arise without intelligence I thought. Here was the obvious influence of my culture shaping my thoughts even before I had a chance to question it. Culture can not only shape your questions, but it often starts you off with assumptions that you don't even question yourself. The assumption I made as an early teen was that what I was looking at was order that could only be created, not evolved and highly coincidental.

This questioning of the order of nature and the cosmos led to a gradual foundation for which religion was to be laid upon in my life. If I had grappled with the chaos of the universe and even our own world I probably would have been secularized right from start. After all the suffering of the world, and the randomness of cosmological events eliminates any idea that a god cares and is actively working in the universe, unless you've already been taught not to question how god does things and what this might say about his/her it's character.

With the foundation of religious modernism set in my psyche i was now free to be evangelized, and evangelized I was. As an avid tv watcher day after day I saw people on their knees, crying for their sins. Bored with my Anglican liturgy I went with a friend to a Pentecostal church in London Ontario and found the energy and hype that any teenager loves. If it had been a Sufi Mosque I would have been praising allah, but it was a church, and so I very quickly started to take on a very charismatic, evangelical approach to my spiritual life. I just remember giving myself to god along with all the other people at the service. And more and more identifying myself as a Christian. I must have been born again a dozen times, and a dozen times wondering why when I returned from the group high of church, that pretty much nothing changed in the world.....and then the self deception began.

I started to see god in things, because i needed to, and because I honestly thought I could find god there. I used the bible as a reference and spiritualized my dreams, my decisions, coin tosses (lots are a legitimately biblical way of deciding), my moods, and the random events of every day. When I met someone I thought god brought our paths together. When I had a sexual dream I thought I was being over run by demons. When I liked a girl who I found out was not a Christian, I thought it was a test to see how loyal I was to god, and 9 times out of 10 ended up distancing myself from them so as not to be tempted. Essentially I brainwashed myself into being a self isolating guilt laden young man seemingly constantly pulled in several different directions as my university and seminary years carried on. Quickly however there were cracks emerging in my Christian foundations. At first I wrestled with Hebrew. Studying Hebrew in university was one of the most devastating things that could ever happen to my faith. Suddenly I was not only exposed to the flaws of translation, but upon discovery that there are no original texts for the word of God, and different christian traditions use different parchments to interpret from, I also started to doubt the legitimacy of Christianity's claim to Jewish lineage....It was this strain of intellectual discourse that sealed my spiritual fate. Once I had discovered that Christianity in no way is the true er of Abrahamic religion and Judaism, my faith fell apart. It was only a matter of days, some 3 years after completing seminary that as my cousin put it, "I watched the once authoritative pages of the scripture turn to dust in my hands".

People lose faith all the time by studying, and I mean studying not self indoctrination. Learn the difference. People of all religions and world views are changing what they believe and how they live just by the small step of asking questions and getting answers. Religion often cloaks itself in a disguise of intellectual mystery. Well there is no mystery to new testament concoctions of old testament passages. There is no mystery to signs of the spirit, not once in the last 100 years of audio recording innovation has someone ever actually spoken in tongues. And one doesn't really have to dig deep, if your a Christian just ask yourself the question why you go to church on Sunday's when your scripture says your supposed to honour the Sabbath. Or why do the poorest most uneducated people tend to be the most religious in North America, and the world? No matter what your angle, sociology, psychology, textual criticism, history, if you ask you can find. Just be prepared to deal with what you find, even if you don't like it.

Part I – How I felt when I left Christianity

Published

Tim

on August 31, 2010

More on Being a Dick

Published

Anna Lemma

on August 31, 2010

From Scenes From a Multiverse by Jonathan Rosenberg

Free Will & Responsibility: A Brief Case Study in (mostly) Layman’s Terms

Published

Juno Walker

on August 30, 2010

Johnny stood impatiently at the curb edge, poised to rush across the busy intersection after his best friend, Billy. They had become fast friends after only a few weeks at training camp, and they have been inseparable since. Now Johnny sees Billy receding further into the distance; he knows it would be bad for him to try and cross now - the light is against him - and those cars and trucks are large and noisy.

Johnny is not being physically restrained, he is free to leap into traffic if he wants to. Nor is Johnny mentally deficient in any way. But he's been taught that vehicles are something to avoid, though he doesn't really understand that they can kill him. You can see he's itching to go, that he's mulling over the decision in his head, gauging traffic - should I stay? should I go? - how long do I have to wait?! At just about the point where he can't take it anymore, the light changes in Johnny's favor and he's free to cross. He does so with a mixture of caution and delight that he can now, at last, be able to catch up to his best friend, Billy.

It would seem that Johnny has a genuine choice - to cross the street against traffic (and risk getting killed), or to wait for the light to change and cross safely. It seems to us that his choice is free - he is not being physically held back (though even if he were, he could still make the choice to cross, he just wouldn't physically be able to), and he is not under any psychological compulsion to stay put - he has the same mental capacities as his peers.

So the question is: is his choice really free? To put it a bit differently: does Johnny have free will?

Most of us would answer yes - Johnny has free will, and he can choose equally between two real choices. If he chooses to cross the street against traffic, he could just as well have done otherwise - he could have decided to stay put and wait for the light to change.

But if this scenario seems a bit odd, that's because it is: both Johnny and Billy are dogs being trained to guide the blind and visually impaired. I am an instructor for The Seeing Eye - the oldest existing dog guide organization in the world - and for almost eight years I've been training dogs for guide work and observing dogs in pack-like scenarios (up to 20 dogs at a time) in our kennels.

Each dog is trained for four months, and I work with each dog each day during that time. As a pet owner and dog trainer, it would be easy for me to anthropomorphize my dogs. And as every dog lover knows, dogs even seem to be more human than some humans we know. And they definitely seem to deliberate and make choices, for good or ill.

Now, this case study is most definitely not meant to "prove" that free will doesn't exist (nor is it a lesson in training a dog to be a guide for the blind). I simply want to present, by way of analogy, a different way of looking at the problem of free will. Of course, the first step really should be getting people to even view it as a problem in the first place. It seems to me the vast majority of us take it as axiomatic that we have free will; it seems like the most obvious and most accessible thing about ourselves and our mental processes. Setting aside the more technical - and some would say pointless - philosophical arguments for the time being, what would it actually mean for us to say that our will is "free"?

Well, most people would say that, when confronted with a choice, they are able to deliberate in such a way that they could imagine themselves taking any number of options. For instance, in our example above, let's suppose that Johnny and Billy are human beings. Johnny can imagine himself crossing the street against the light - not without a good bit of anxiety at the thought of getting hit by a car - or he could simply endure the frustration of having to wait for the light to change in order to make a safe crossing. At the moment Johnny is thinking about what to do, he feels he has as much ability to cross as not to cross. It's simply a matter of making a decision to do one or the other, weighing all the factors. Johnny can take the risk of getting injured or killed in order to catch up to his friend, or he can take the risk of not catching up to his friend by deciding to wait until the light changes - who knows, by that time Billy could be long gone.

If someone were to tell us that our thought process in regard to decision-making is like a mathematical formula, or like a computer program with lots of inputs and if/thens, etc., we would surely say that they were mistaken. We are not computers, we don't run like mathematical equations - there's more to us than that. We may strive to have our decision-making run with the precision and accuracy of a computer program or formula, but we can always buck the system and choose whatever we want.

I said I wasn't going to present any philosophical arguments regarding free will; but I will paraphrase a couple dead white males on the topic. A human being can surely do what she wants, but she can't determine what she wants. In other words, each thought has a cause or causes, and each cause has a cause of its own, and so on. In order for me to say that my will is truly "free," there has to be some point along that chain of causes where "I" interject with my own, non-caused cause. Otherwise - theoretically - you can trace that chain of causes back to the point where it no longer makes sense to say that "I" chose anything.

But where does that un-caused "I" come from? Most religiously-oriented people would say that it is our "soul" that chooses. The more secular among us would say that it is our "spirit" or our "consciousness." The religious view of human beings is too common and too obvious to elaborate on. Besides, most people with a Judeo-Christian background don't believe dogs have "souls" per se anyway. The secular view is probably best summed up by what's known as libertarianism - the philosophical position as well as the political position (with a capital "L" - think Reason Magazine, John Stossel, etc.). The current Director of Programs of The Atlas Society, William Thomas, wrote an article for their website back in 2006 titled, "What Is the Objectivist View of Free Will?" I won't go into what is meant by "Objectivist" here, other than to say it gave birth to the Libertarian movement. The article, however, gives voice to the key intellectual underpinnings of libertarian thought. Mr. Thomas says that, "We observe [free will] through introspection, the inward perception of our own conscious processes...our free will resides, most basically, in our ability to direct our conscious attention."

Thomas calls this ability "focus," and the choice to focus is "the choice to think." For now, I will set aside the more philosophical problem of what it could possibly mean for "me" to direct my conscious attention. The question lying in wait for us here is similar to the question on every toddler's lips when confronted with the proposition that God created the universe: who created God? In our case, we would need to ask, "How does the 'me' direct its attention?" or "What causes the 'me' to direct its attention this way or that?" Neither the religious believer nor the libertarian has a clear answer to this question. Ayn Rand (the intellectual architect behind Objectivism and, hence, libertarianism) herself suggested that that is a question for the hard sciences to answer. Ayn Rand died in 1982, and the mind sciences have come a long way since then - but that is most definitely beyond the scope of this case study.

Thomas makes a few points that I believe are applicable to dogs as well as humans. For instance, he writes, "After all, if free will is false, how can anyone choose to change his mind on an issue?" and "Free will is simply a human capacity for action." In my work as a dog trainer - and specifically in training dogs to guide the visually impaired - I am responsible for training dogs to "think." In fact, part of my job is to train dogs to "intelligently disobey" a command if the dog thinks it will lead to danger for itself or its handler. As an example, and without going into too much unnecessary detail, I condition dogs to respect traffic. What I mean by this is that while I can't teach a dog that a car can kill it - indeed, no one really expects dogs to understand the concept of death at all - I can teach dogs to avoid them in certain situations; e.g., when a blind person is trying to cross an intersection.

I see dogs change their mind all the time. I see, on a daily basis, a dog's thought process. I can see by their body language what they are most likely "thinking." Every day I see dogs like Johnny (I don't use the dogs' real names for privacy reasons) deliberate and choose. Of course, since dogs can't speak human language, I have to rely on body language and behavior; but dog guide trainers - and dog trainers in general - are confident in their assessments of dog "thinking" because of literally thousands of years of human-canine coexistence.

But does this mean that dogs have free will? Most people say no. Why? Well, most people say that only humans have free will. But why do most people say this? Well, as I said before, most people believe in some sort of "soul" that is categorically different from what a dog has. And if they don't believe in souls per se, they at least believe that nature has produced humans as the crowning achievement of evolution and has endowed humans with a capacity that the rest of the "animal kingdom" simply doesn't possess.

But Charles Darwin postulated - and the scientific community has overwhelming concluded since then - that the tree of life is more like a bush than a tree, and definitely not like a ladder with humans at the top. Consciousness and free will (if there is such a thing) could certainly have evolved in a different species, and consciousness may have indeed evolved in other creatures - we simply have no current way of knowing this.

Regardless, most people view the difference between dogs and humans as an unbridgeable gap. Based on my experience, I view the difference between dogs and humans as one of degree and not one of kind. Dogs clearly have the capacity to choose between real options, as humans do. Dogs and humans both respond in a similar way to a system of rewards and punishments that condition their respective behaviors. Dogs and humans modulate their behavior in anticipation of these perceived rewards and punishments. In the dog training world, this is known as Operant Conditioning. Animal trainers conceive of two types of conditioning: operant and classical. In classical conditioning, a stimulus elicits an automatic response - think of Pavlov's dogs and their conditioned reflex of salivating at the presentation of a visual or auditory stimulus, instead of just food.

Operant conditioning, on the other hand, is the use of consequences to modify the occurrence and form of behavior. Subjects "voluntarily" alter their behavior based on the perceived consequences (by contrast, classical conditioning can be thought of as "involuntary" behavior). Our criminal justice system is premised on a similar type of conditioning. And this leads us to the real concern over free will: if we don't have free will, then how can we be moral? William Thomas, along with most Libertarians and almost all religious believers, offers the following lament in his article: "If our actions are not up to us, then we have no moral responsibility for them." But do we need to be concerned with the actual existence of such a faculty as free will, if our society is already set up to modify the behavior - in a moral way - of its constituents?

Thomas ends his article with, "There can be no effective guidance of human action, nor a satisfactory scientific account of human behavior, without taking into account the inescapable fact of free will." Dogs can be effectively guided in their behavior without us believing they have free will, while still believing - and witnessing - their deliberation and choices. If we were to take human free will out of the equation, and view the comedy of existence without that presumption, the comedy of existence would still play out the same: we would see humans modifying their behavior based on the perceived consequences of a system of rewards and punishments, just like dogs.

And I think that free will is far from being an inescapable fact of reality. In fact, when we think about it, its existence if far from being settled, and its importance far from being properly considered.

Free Will & Responsibility: A Brief Case Study in (mostly) Layman’s Terms

Published

Juno Walker

on August 30, 2010

Unintended consequences on holy days

Published

Jumile

on August 30, 2010

Flickr CC-BY mikecattell

Today is a holiday in England and Wales called the Summer Bank Holiday, not a religious one, best known here for being the last holiday before Christmas, the weekend of the Reading Music Festival, and is, in a way, the start of the end of summer.

With the religious origin of many holidays in mind, it was with interest that I read today’s article in Center For Inquiry by Reba Boyd Wooden, where she talks about how holy days meant to bring communities together often seem to have the exact opposite effect, driving a wedge between sects of the same faith. Some points from the article are the differences in subjects and tone fired from the pulpit by different Christian ‘denominations’, and that good people in religion can and would be good even in the absence of their religion.

After all, religion does not make you a good person any more than standing in a garage makes you a car. Surely being good for its own sake is its own reward?

Here’s a partial quote from Reba’s article:

The… minister preached a lot about heaven and hell and said that death is “precious.” … [Was] death “precious” for my nephew and my niece’s husband who died recently in their forties — one leaving two teenage sons?

Here’s the rest of the article: Theology and Ritual Divide Neighbors on Holy Days

I’ll create my own meaning, thanks.

Published

Raithie

on August 29, 2010

No, an atheists life is not devoid of meaning, purpose or happiness. Perhaps to some extent to an individual, but it's definitely not applicable to the collective. We're a diverse lot, unified only by our lack of belief in deities and don't deserve to be thrown together under one heading. Atheism isn't a world view, only a part of one and us godless heathens come in large variety of flavours. On I go...
___

Firstly, the word "meaning" is useless unless you specify and define what you're referring to. It's a human construct and will probably differ with each individual. To get the ball rolling, I will assume the (vague) definition of it being ones subjective value and perception.

That's pretty simple. We all perceive the world differently. We have different memories and experiences and prioritise these according to the emotional impact they had on us. If multiple people read the same book, each person will grasp certain details and correlations that pass over another, purely because those specifics happen to have meaning for that particular person. It's entirely subjective; derived from the context of their life and weaved from a complex matrix of interlocking factors.

Biologically speaking, us humans are compulsively drawn towards patterns. We instinctively search for disparities and form parallels between them in order to make it more appealing and understandable. To quote Richard Dawkins; the human mind is an "inveterate analogizer". We habitually find meaning in slight similarities between drastically different situations. We have a tendency to focus on particular details (subjectively prioritised) in order to extrapolate the full picture and then further connect the dots along the way with our neat, patterned and "meaning"-saturated lines.

And that's why "meaning" is merely a construct of the mind. We're drawn to it likes flies to honey. Christians, or any theist for that matter, don't get to preside over a monopoly on meaning, despite their self-proclamations. We all get a slice, whether we want to or not.

What would god add to the equation?

How meaningless must ones life be, in order to need a "higher being" to give it meaning? If you depend upon a celestial skydaddy to enrichen your life, your life can't be all that meaningful. Meaning is what you extract from your life and surroundings. It's an entirely personal discovery. You acquire it from your memories, experiences and from the people who you love and consider close. What is meaningful and special to you, is what essentially offers your life meaning. Your the one with the chisel, not any ethereal, invisible being.

I, for definite, don't need any imposed meaning in my life. I'm perfectly content with the universe being without a predefined path or purpose. What could an absolute god-given meaning possibly add to the equation, anyway? Nothing! It makes no difference. Your life is still defined by the inter-connections of reality; your beliefs, perceptions, environment and those people that you meet and depend on. Your happiness and "meaning" is still the derivative of those things, along with many other factors. Throw god in and the only thing that changes is that there's an oddly powerful creator who may or may not require submission and pampering by worship. The balance remains the same: god adds zero.

So, thanks for the offer of "divine purpose", theists - but no thank you.

Reality will suffice.

Which Christianity should rule our "Christian" Nation?

Published

Juno Walker

on August 29, 2010

This weekend in D.C., Glenn Beck gave voice to what used to be a fairly fringe element in our society, but which has been growing in prominence - no doubt in part to leading politicians and media outlets such as Fox News. His rally, called Restoring Honor, emphasized what that not-so-fringe element believes:

"Something beyond imagination is happening," he told participants who packed the National Mall in Washington. "America today begins to turn back to God. For too long, this country has wandered in darkness."

Unfortunately for Beck - or for any religious believer - is that no one can really agree on which God is meant. Of course, the Beckites will say it is the Christian god, but even then, which Christian god is meant? Is it Beck's Mormon god? Is it Thomas Jefferson's god?

Thomas Jefferson denied the divinity of Christ and rejected the Old Testament god as "a being of terrific character, cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust." To support Jefferson's view, I offer the following Old Testament verses:

Exodus 21:7 provides guidelines for an Israelite's selling of his daughter into slavery.

1 Samuel 15:2 gives just one of the many disgusting examples of the LORD ordering the murders of women and infants. I don't think I need to state more...

Numbers 31:16 provides probably my favorite Old Testament atrocity. In it, Moses - mouthpiece of God - orders his soldiers to kill all the women but to keep the young virgins for themselves. Aw, what a guy.

Thomas Jefferson seemed to venerate Jesus as a great moral teacher. I disagree. If the sayings attributed to Jesus are accurate (or even true) - and that's a big IF, considering they were written by zealous believers in a pre-literate, superstitious time - they don't seem to show a man of exemplary moral character, and the moral formulation he is arguably most famous for - the Golden Rule - has been present in many cultures not related to Christianity, and even predating it.

Aside from the Old Testament atrocities, maybe we can turn to the Ten Commandments. Should that be the basis for ruling our Nation? Let's see:

1. Have no other gods than God
2. No graven images
3. Don't take the Lord's name in vain
4. Keep the Sabbath holy
5. Honor your father and mother
6. Don't murder people
7. Don't commit adultery
8. Don't steal
9. Don't bear false witness against your neighbor
10. Don't covet your neighbor's stuff

OK. So, we should probably discriminate between "guidelines for living/morality," and "law" backed by the force of the State. If we're going to use the Ten Commandments as law, as many people in this country believe should be the case, we already have 3 of them codified: murder, theft, and perjury (which is what I'll assume "bearing false witness" means). For most of the others, I don't believe most people would think it's a good idea to fine or imprison people for making or having statues of other gods and things, nor for being envious of your neighbor's hot wife or plasma flat-screen TV. Likewise for not being able to work on Sunday, not honoring a sexually-abusive father or mother, or sleeping around - although if you enter into a legal contract like marriage, you will most likely be ordered to pay up if you cheat on your spouse.

So maybe the Ten Commandments aren't the best guide for ruling the Nation. Author and atheist Sam Harris wryly notes that the Ten Commandments - written by the hand of the supreme master of the universe himself - is not the most articulate moral document there is. The Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism appears to be a saner, more comprehensive approach to morality than the Ten Commandments - or Christ's teachings. After all, what did Christ - or Christ through Paul - teach?

Matthew 5:18-19 gives us: "For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven..."

So apparently Jesus is urging us to keep the Old Testament law. I mean, either he means "until heaven and earth pass away," or he doesn't, right? And Matthew 5:27-32 gives us "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.'But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell."

Now, if Christians really believed this is good guidance, then there would be a hell of a lot more one-eyed, one-handed politicans in public service.

To be fair, Jesus also said - in Matthew 22:36-40 - "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

OK. So that's a little better. But what about a Christian's involvement in secular government? Should a Christian be trying to change the Nation's laws at all? Let's see what the apostle Paul says in Romans 13:

"Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor."

Now, this CERTAINLY doesn't sound like the religious right we've known for so long here in America, does it? They claim our authorities are not only corrupt, but sinfully depraved; that we shouldn't even have to pay taxes, etc.

And who can forget this little gem by Paul, in 1 Corinthians 14: "...As in all the congregations of the saints, women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church."

But what if Islam should gain the ascendency in America? As we've seen with the infamous "Ground Zero Mosque" controversy, there are many Christians who don't countenance religious freedom or freedom of assembly for Muslim - how much less for a Muslim-based government!

It could happen. Unfortunately, either could happen...

Which Christianity should rule our "Christian" Nation?

Published

Juno Walker

on August 29, 2010

Phil Plait Says "Don’t Be A Dick."

Published

Anna Lemma

on August 29, 2010

Phil Plait - Don't Be A Dick from JREF on Vimeo.

Here is Phil's response to some of the criticism of the talk.

When I saw Phil's video, the main question running through my mind was "Who exactly is he speaking about?" I've never seen anyone in person simply be ugly and name call someone simply because they are religious. Is he talking about drive by comments on blogs or news stories in reply to someone's ignorant religious sayings? Or perhaps on his own blog? Or like numerous others am I getting the wrong message from Phil's talk? Perhaps he meant it as general advice, but it came out looking like he was personally slamming part of his audience and being a dick himself by calling them dicks. And why did Hal Bidlack get up an address everyone? Defensive much, Hal?

Everyone has beliefs that they probably shield from too much skepticism, but someone who calls themselves a skeptic should acknowledge that this is what they are doing. Martin Gardner was a religious skeptic who agreed and admitted that even though he believed in a god, there was no proof for said god's existence. He said that it even though there was no evidence, it made him happy. A theistic skeptic like Hal Bidlack would be a more honest skeptic if he would emulate Martin Gardner's attitude instead of trying to persuade skeptics to not be skeptical towards supernatural religious claims.

Phil did not give a very good definition of the word dick that he was using. It seems that being a dick is a condition where a person is does not act like Phil would in a given situation.

Some people are claiming I was saying we need to be milquetoasts. That’s ridiculous. I was very clear that anger has its place, that we need to be firm, and that we need to continue the fight.

Some were claiming they have a right to be dicks — I’m bemused by this, as of course you have that right. But that doesn’t mean it’s most effective, or that you should be one.

Others took issue with my initial question, asking how many people were "converted" to skepticism by having a skeptic yelling at them and insulting them. In fact, at least one person said that method does work and worked on them. That’s good for them, but given what we know about the way people argue and change their views on issues, the majority of people will become further entrenched when confronted in that way.

In other words, being a dick not only usually doesn’t work, it almost always works against the bigger goal of swaying the most people we can.

Perhaps I should have been more clear on what I mean by being a dick. I thought I had been clear, but a lot of people seem to think that I meant anyone who gets upset, or angry, or argues with emotion. I wouldn’t include satire in that category, or comedic work, or even necessarily using insults; tone and attitude count here. Think of it this way: when someone argues that way do you think to yourself, "What a dick"? I don’t; at least not necessarily. I think that way when the person belittles their opponent, uses obviously inflammatory language, or overly aggressively gets in their face.

Y’know. Being a dick.

Again, to be clear, I did not say we should back down when confronted. I did not say we should be weak against ignorance. I did not say we shouldn’t be angry. I did not say we should be passionless. In fact, I argued the exact opposite.

We need our anger, or strength, and our passion.

Matt Dillahunty over at Atheist Experience observes that Phil is making an argument from ignorance and is cherry picking.

First of all, who is Phil talking about? This seems a bit quixotic and exaggerated to me. Where are these people who scream in your face on behalf of skepticism? Where are these people whose primary tactic is to yell at someone and call them a retard? Since Phil didn't provide any examples to support the claim, we can only guess.

Secondly, this is a prime example of a straw man argument - setting up an issue that is easily toppled instead of the actual issue. Not only has he not provided specific examples, or demonstrated that this is a significant problem, he seems to be engaging in an extremely flawed informal poll (read: emotional appeal) to get his point across. The first question is a fair skeptical inquiry (have you changed your mind about something?). The second question is about as far from it as one can possibly stray.

If Phil had really wanted to discuss better ways of communicating skeptical views to others like he says in Part 1 of his reply, then perhaps he should have clarified himself further after Hal Bidlack got up and spoke.Personally, I enjoy reading or seeing exchanges where some bible thumping zealot gets taken down verbally. I also know some religious people who enjoy that sort of thing as well.

When talking to someone who has differing ideas, I don't attack their ideas directly. I find it more effective to make fun of the extreme in their religious institutions or its more extreme followers. This way we have a common ground in mocking the extreme example, and it may give the person something to think about later. I think that this has happened to a couple of people that I have known. But the process takes years. I also find that asking the right questions (going Socratic on their asses) and then not expecting an answer right away also may give someone food for thought.

Get Well Hitch

Published

Anna Lemma

on August 29, 2010

I saw this tribute and get well video to Christopher Hitchens over at The Thinking Atheist. I was sorry to hear that he is being treated for esophageal cancer.

Get well soon Hitch, the world needs your eloquence.

Is praying actually a two-way dialogue?

Published

Rob

on August 27, 2010

I stole this from another blogger, but had to share.

Religious doctors more likely to flout professional guidelines on end of life care

Published

Asleepius

on August 27, 2010

A study finds that doctors who are religious are less likely to discuss options about end-of-life care than non-religious doctors (specifically, options relating to deep sedation and withdrawal of treatment that may be expected or partly intended to end life). These findings, reported in all the major media yesterday, suggest that religious doctors break GMC guidance (the UK General Medical Council) which states that end-of-life care issues such as withdrawal of feeding, 'do not resusitate' orders, and treatment decisions that may hasten death should be discussed with patients who have a terminal illness at the earliest appropriate opportunity.

Darwin used to extol the virtues of writing down any and every thought that might refute one's favoured hypotheses, and consider them at length. The results of this study agree with how I think religious doctors are likely to think and act. So, in case I am blindly accepting empirical data with preconceived notions, let's try to consider if the papers conclusions could be wrong: that it's possible that religious physicians are NOT more likely to break GMC guidance on end of life care. Possible methodological flaws that make this more likely include:

1) The doctors to whom the questionnaires were sent are not representative of their profession, or faiths.
2) The doctors who returned questionnaires represent a biased sample.
3) The doctors who returned questionnaires incorrectly recalled (or deliberately mis-stated) how they handled the cases of their last patient who died.

The paper, by Prof. Clive Seale at London University and published in The Journal of Medical Ethics, considers each of these possibilities. With regards to 1), the sample of doctors was selected to include disproportionate numbers of palliative care specialists, geratologists, and neurologists, whom are involved in complex end-of-life cases (e.g. in the case of neurologists, multiple sclerosis, motor neurone disease). The sample is thus biased, but biased in order to better elicit a good answer to the question in hand. With regards to 2), 42.1% of the 373 doctors sent questionnaires replied, and the proportion was as high as 67.3% for the palliative care specialists. This seems a relatively decent response rate for a postal survey to busy professionals. Furthermore, the author presents data to show that responders were not significantly different in attitudes from non-responders (whose attitudes were elicited by follow-up in another study).

3) is likely to be a far more valid criticism of the study, but it is also a problem with any attitudinal/self-report study. Although the questionnaire was anonymous, if I were a devotee of a religion which held as a core tenet that life should be preserved at all cost (even if the patient's suffering is increased as a result of my belief), I would certainly want to report that I never consider treatment that might shorten patients' lives (in case my deity took note of my response). And if I were an atheist doctor, I might want to show my support for the doctrine of double effect by answering that I consider terminal sedation a great way to avoid unnecessary suffering, even (but no because) it hastens death (the study also found that non-religious doctors are approximately twice as likely to report having taken treatment decisions that might be expected or partly intended to hasten death).

The British Medical Association said in response to the study: "Decisions about end-of-life care need to be taken on the basis of an assessment of the individual patient's circumstances - incorporating discussions with the patient and close family members where possible and appropriate. The religious beliefs of doctors should not be allowed to influence objective, patient-centred decision-making. End-of-life decisions must always be made in the best interests of patients."

Likewise, Dr Ann McPherson, the Oxford academic, GP, and patron of the charity 'Dignity in Dying' added that "The fact that some doctors are not discussing possible options at the end of life with their patients on account of their religious beliefs is deeply troubling". And, in spite of being an argumentum ad verecundiam, as a recipient of a CBE for her lifetime campaigning for patient choice, as well as being a terminally ill patient herself, Dr. McPherson's views might be thought somewhat more weighty than the author of this blog.

Unfortunately for those such as Dr. McPherson who believe that patients have a right to be involved in decision-making about their treatment, where ethical guidelines clash with religious beliefs, doctors appear to prefer the codes of their ancestral belief systems instead of the latest GMC guidelines. Whilst quality of end-of-life care is ranked higher in Britain than any other country, the moral of the story is, as soon as you are diagnosed as terminally ill, ask whether your doctor is religious. Or get a tattoo.

Religious doctors more likely to flout professional guidelines on end of life care

Published

Asleepius

on August 27, 2010

Media bias…

Published

Rob

on August 26, 2010

Look, I'm no fan of Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin, but this AP news article sounds more biased than my blog entries. Please tell me I'm not crazy.

because it is

Published

Synthaetica

on August 26, 2010

i got rather lost in the flux, lately. i’d offer some sort of humorous observation on the eccentricities of life and time, but yeah, that means very little. my on-again, off-again relationship with giving a shit about things outside of my control has fed into this as well. i’m trying to keep it more to off-again, but that requires a type of mental discipline for which i seem to have so little time.

i haven’t done a broadcast in a while, now. no one seems to miss it, and i’m not sure i do, either. i haven’t found anything insightful to say, nor have i found anything of seeming importance to promote. i haven’t been looking incredibly hard, either, though. i’ve been distracted.

i retreated into the online world years ago, completely by my own choice, and with specific intent, because up here, the inherent overlayment of impermanence and superficiality is transparently obvious, unlike the “real” world, where it all gets skewed and twisted somewhere out of sight before you ever get to see it coming, let alone recognize it for what it is. i can handle the bullshit up here because the bullshit is immediate, obvious, and usually very direct. real life is usually something different, or at least it has been.

but now, all of the sudden, life in my real world has become something both more and less than what it was for me, for so many years. the simple expedient of having someone interested in me–even demandingly so, sometimes–has changed everything. i’m actually having to think about how to better use my time, how to take care of myself for more than just the obvious reasons, how to learn to love again. it’s not something i ever really expected, even when i ended a marriage for lack of anything resembling mutual, interpersonal concern.

it’s different at this age, the falling in love thing, but yes, she’s keeping me away from you, my friends, and while i miss you, there’s just no contest there. i’m not so needful of attention that i couldn’t survive without her and her impact on my life, but by the same token, she’s here, she wants to share my time, and i want to give it to her. so, i wonder how many of you are like me, spending so much time on the internet, waiting/hoping/searching for something better to come along. yes, my prolific tweeting and occasional blogging have largely been escape mechanisms, i’ll admit it.

underneath all that, there has been some discussion of late about my morality. this is a laughable thing to me because of how little anyone online actually knows me, what i do in life, the communities i serve, and the people with whom i’m interconnected. somehow, it was deemed inappropriate of me to look for a relationship after i had ended a marriage that had been loveless for over a decade. somehow, for me, it was wrong to pursue those relationships via twitter while also using twitter to simply interact with people and learn more about the world around me and the people in it. somehow, i became anathema for actually taking the time, trouble, and expense to meet some of those potential relationship partners and deciding after some consideration that we weren’t compatible that way. in fact, i am apparently morally bankrupt for having done such things, despite the fact that i maintain good relations with those people, except for the one who bailed out of meeting me after i’d driven for 16 hours to meet her.

yeah, people’s definition of “morality” is pretty whack, and that’s true even amongst us freethinkers. i must have been the only person in the world drawn to other people via our interactions on twitter.

puh-lease.

then, i had to go make things worse and take loud, public exception to what i perceived to be the desire for the touchy-feely version of humanism to operate as a trump-card to all other forms of interaction freethinkers may have with the deluded. i handled the situation immaturely, apologized for it several times in several different media, and still, i’m the bad guy not just because i temporarily lost my head in an argument, but because i disagreed with someone who has more twitter followers than i do. funny thing is, that person and i were able to see through it and past it, and carry on being friends. it’s just some of her followers who seem compelled to continue “protecting” her on her unasked behalf, or who make entertaining, loud noises as they unfollow me.

which brings me to the last thing i wanted to say today. for all the shit i’ve been going through in the past year, it continues to amaze me to near speechlessness, the amount of willfully ignorant fools we have in our “ranks” as atheists and freethinkers: people who have really only effectively traded one adamant belief system for another. i received more rude, threatening and demonstrably unthinking tirades from fellow “freethinkers” due to the altercation i mentioned in the paragraph above than i have ever received from theists responding to something provocative i’ve posted in the past. these people (and you probably know who you are) serve to remind me that it is the simple human condition which is the overriding factor to everything we do, and within that human condition, intelligence has by no means been necessary, let alone an exclusive requisite, to the survival of this species or any of its individuals.

but yes, my friends, some wear the label of “freethinker” inappropriately: embarrassingly, ruefully, depressingly inappropriately.

ugh.

of course, aside from the accidental duplicity, there’s really nothing wrong with that. it’s part of what being human is about. perhaps “freethinker” can be a label that some people wear as an aspiration: something to work towards. a silver lining on the clouds of a bullshit reality which they may, indeed, someday take hold of to reshape themselves.

was that touchy-feely enough for you? probably not. o well.

at any rate, as with every autumn, my real-world life takes me away from here. and this woman with whom i’m falling in love is an additional, highly welcome distraction in whom i already find comfort and release (and that’s….refreshingly scary). i miss my frequent interactions with you, my friends, but there is no contest in the consideration of whether or not this is right for me. we’re two fiercely independent people who somehow manage to complete each other in all the right ways despite our insistence on our respective independence. there’s no way for me to describe how attractive that is to me, and so far, it’s working out beyond any expectation i might have been inclined to have.

if my past is any valid comparison, i expect what you’ll see is a bit more focused input from me in the future weeks and months. i’ll be using this internet thing a little more responsibly, which is to say, not as much, because i’m actually not trying to evade my reality any more.

and that, my friends, is a very, very good thing.

peace.