The (Non-) Educated Atheist

There's been quite a lot of talk about diversity and such in the atheism movement.  We're looking for ways to ensure atheists as a whole aren't represented exclusively by old white men, that women and minorities and young folk get their place at the table. JT Eberhard, he of Secular Student Alliance fame, is worried we left a category out:

I feel as though the ideal atheist, as it is portrayed at present, has four PhDs including one in Everythingology.  This can be a problem in that it isolates the people not awash in higher education and makes them feel as though they do not belong in the folds of activist non-theism.  We must to find a way to really drive home the point that intelligence can be found at any level of education, and that hard work and clever organizing are just as effective contributions to the atheist cause as scientific discovery or writing 50 books.  This message must resonate if our campaign is to be welcoming to every non-believer.

Maybe I haven't been palling around with atheists enough, but I haven't felt particularly left out as one of those "not awash in higher education" folk.  When I go to events (which is, admittedly, not often - I'm not a big event person), my brains get due respect.  No one seems to care that I haven't got degrees oozing from every orifice.  I'm curious and clever and an atheist, and that's been enough.  I get folded right in to discussions about everything, make my contribution or two, and am easily part of the group.  So, no problem on that front.

Is there really a bar to becoming an activist atheist if one hasn't got a higher education?  I haven't sensed it.  But then, I'm not inclined to appear on panels, do debates, or organize stuff.  Maybe there's a hurdle I haven't seen because I've never tried that particular course.  But I haven't felt intimidated out of trying, either. 

Let me just speak to the folks who might feel that way, who think because they're working a dead-end job and have at best a course or two at a community college under their belt that they're somehow inferior to those famous atheists with their fancy-schmancy degrees and their book deals and their wildly popular blogs, who think they could never run in such exalted company.  If those folks exist, I have one word to say to them: bullshit.

Look at me.  I'm a call center phone jockey.  I walk people through resetting their cell phones and fill in little forms reporting network outages for a living.  Before that, I let people bitch at me about their credit card late fees; before that, I took orders for business forms, and before that, I sold books.  That's all I've ever been, professionally, a customer service servant.  I have a GED, not a diploma, and my adventures in higher education began at a community college and ended when I realized that I was working alongside people with the same degree I was aiming for, and the only difference between us was that I didn't have a shit-ton of student loans to pay off.  I took two (count 'em, 2) hard science courses in college and never ever completed a math course. 

Do you think that's stopped me from running with the big dogs?  Don't make me laugh.  Nearly everything I know about geology is self-taught, and yet the geoblogosphere adopted me as one of their own.  I couldn't even dissect a damned earthworm in high school biology, but after hanging around at Pharyngula for so long and reading so many books on the subject, I can at least nod in the right places when the professionals get to talking.  Lack of formal education has never stopped me from educating myself, writing about science, or holding my own in rooms full of wildly intelligent people.

If I wanted to become a full-on activist, nothing would stop me.  You don't need a degree to debate: you need information and a quick mind, and you can acquire and hone those on your own.  You don't need a degree in community organizing to organize a community: you need people skills and some talent at, y'know, organizing things.  You want to be a speaker, then speak.  You don't need a Dr. before your name to have something worth saying.

Myself, I want to be a writer when I grow up.  I learned a long time ago I don't need an MFA or PhD for that.  Louis L'Amour dropped out of school as a young teen and went on to publish about a gazillion books, many of which, despite what PZ thinks, are quite good.  Ditto Dick Francis.  There are many other famous writers who made it without a degree, much less a diploma.  You know what you need to be a great writer?  Curiosity, passion, and the willingness to educate your own damn self.  A way with words helps, but can be developed with the liberal application of blood, tears, toil and sweat. 

Let me repeat these essential traits: curiosity, passion, and the willingness to educate your own damn self.  Have you got those things?  Good.  Are you willing to work yourself to death, or nearly so, to achieve a goal?  Excellent.  Do you have some sort of native talent, whether it be wit, a strange ability to herd cats, or mad time management skillz?  Superb.  You, my friend, can become an activist, if that's what you want.  You, yes, you, can run with the big dogs.  The only thing that can stop you is you.  Yes, you.  You and your little, "But I'm not good enough/smart enough/hauling around enough degrees" defeatist voice.  You and your humility-to-the-point-of-humiliation.  You and your reluctance to stride up and take your place at the table.

You haven't got a degree to wave around, so you might have to find another way to prove yourself.  Fine.  Do it.  Demonstrate a skill.  I haven't yet run into an atheist who's demanded to see my credentials before hearing me out.  I've never yet been shunned at a gathering because I haven't got a shiny university education.  No one turns up their noses and turns away when I mention I'm the least-educated person present. Those highly-educated folk aren't going to slam the door in your face when you show up, and if one or two misguided outliers tries that trick on you, you've got a foot.  Wedge the damned door open.

You have a particular skill set you can bring.  Bring it.  Like JT says, "So long as you are passionate about the cause, so long as you work, you can be a leader in this movement.  Our roles may be different from that of Sam Harris, but they are no less necessary."

You don't believe in God, which is why you're an atheist, but there's one thing you should absolutely believe in: yourself.  You don't need a formal education to prove your worth.  Find things you're good at and do them.  That's all.  That's all you need.  Movements are built on all sorts of people doing necessary things.  You can do necessary things.  That makes you an essential part of this movement.  You, even you, Mr. or Ms. Dead-End Job, can help make humanity better.

Are you really going to let a dearth of degrees stop you?

Maryam Namazie on the Islamic Inquisition

I'm sending you all away.  For one thing, I'm busy and woefully short of advance posts.  But most importantly, there's something I think you need to read.

It's Maryam Namazie's speech at the World Atheist Conference.  You really should read it in its entirety.  But I'll put an excerpt here, because I believe this bit needs to be understood clearly by all of us:

Nowhere is opposition greater against Islamism than in countries under Islamic rule.

Condemning Islamism and Islam is not a question of judging all Muslims and equating them with terrorists.

There is a distinction between Islam as a belief system and Islamism as a political movement on the one hand and real live human beings on the other. Neither the far-Right nor the pro-Islamist Left seem to see this distinction.

Both are intrinsically racist. The pro-Islamist Left (and many liberals) imply that people are one and the same with the Islamic states and movement that are repressing them. The far-Right blames all immigrants and Muslims for the crimes of Islamism.

[It is important to note here that Islamism was actually brought to centre stage during the Cold War as part of US foreign policy in order to create a ‘green’ Islamic belt surrounding the Soviet Union and not concocted in some immigrant’s kitchen in London; moreover many of the Islamists in Britain are actually British-born thanks to the government’s policies of multiculturalism and appeasement.]

Both the far-Right and pro-Islamist Left purport that Islamism is people’s culture and that they actually deserve no better, imputing on innumerable people the most reactionary elements of culture and religion, which is that of the ruling class, parasitical imams and self-appointed ‘community leaders’.

Their politics ignores the distinction between the oppressed and oppressor and actually sees them as one and the same. It denies universalism, sees rights as ‘western,’ and justifies the suppression of rights, freedoms and equality for the ‘other.’

Civil rights, freedom and equality, secularism, modernism, are universal concepts that have been fought for by progressive social movements and the working class in various countries.

As a result of such politics, concepts such as rights, equality, respect and tolerance, which were initially raised vis-à-vis the individual, are now more and more applicable to culture and religion and often take precedence over real live human beings.

Moreover, the social inclusion of people into society has come to solely mean the inclusion of their beliefs, sensibilities, concerns and agendas (read Islamism’s beliefs, sensibilities, concerns and agendas) and nothing more.

The distinction between humans and their beliefs and regressive political movements is of crucial significance here.

It is the human being who is meant to be equal not his or her beliefs. It is the human being who is worthy of the highest respect and rights not his or her beliefs or those imputed on them.

It is the human being who is sacred not beliefs or religion.

The problem is that religion sees things the other way around.

And she quotes from Mansoor Hekmat at the end:

“Moreover, in my opinion, defending the existence of Islam under the guise of respect for people’s beliefs is hypocritical and lacks credence. There are various beliefs amongst people. The question is not about respecting people’s beliefs but about which are worthy of respect. In any case, no matter what anyone says, everyone is choosing beliefs that are to their liking. Those who reject a criticism of Islam under the guise of respecting people’s beliefs are only expressing their own political and moral preferences, full stop. They choose Islam as a belief worthy of respect and package their own beliefs as the ‘people’s beliefs’ only in order to provide ‘populist’ legitimisation for their own choices. I will not respect any superstition or the suppression of rights, even if all the people of the world do so. Of course I know it is the right of all to believe in whatever they want. But there is a fundamental difference between respecting the freedom of opinion of individuals and respecting the opinions they hold. We are not sitting in judgement of the world; we are players and participants in it. Each of us are party to this historical, worldwide struggle, which in my opinion, from the beginning of time until now has been over the freedom and equality of human beings…”  (Mansoor Hekmat, Islam and De-Islamisation,January 1999)

Remember these things, because they're important.  You need to remember them when charges of racism and cultural imperialism get thrown your way by people who would prefer you not criticize their faith.  Do not let people stop the conversation.

Got that?  Good.  Now go finish the speech.

The Morality of Religion: If This Is Morality, I'd Rather Be Immoral

I've been planning a set of posts on atheism and morality for some time now, but kept kicking the can down the road because I've had easier things to write about.  I'm still busier than a one-legged woman in an arse-kicking competition, but it's time to open me gob on the whole subject.  Consider this the prelude.

There's this perception among too many people that being religious automatically equals being moral.  Do yourself an experiment: hit random people up with a scenario.  They're on a jury, and have to decide who is the most convincing character witness for the accused.  Would they place more weight on the testimony of an atheist or a pastor?  Based on how atheists are viewed in other surveys, I'd be willing to be the vast majority of the public would plump for the pastor.

They shouldn't.

Being religious doesn't automatically make you moral.  We'll explore that in some depth in upcoming posts.  But for now, I just want to present a case study.  This is what one of the big theological thinkers had to say about genocide, infanticide, et al:

By setting such strong, harsh dichotomies God taught Israel that any assimilation to pagan idolatry is intolerable.  It was His way of preserving Israel’s spiritual health and posterity.  God knew that if these Canaanite children were allowed to live, they would spell the undoing of Israel.  The killing of the Canaanite children not only served to prevent assimilation to Canaanite identity but also served as a shattering, tangible illustration of Israel’s being set exclusively apart for God. 

Moreover, if we believe, as I do, that God’s grace is extended to those who die in infancy or as small children, the death of these children was actually their salvation.  We are so wedded to an earthly, naturalistic perspective that we forget that those who die are happy to quit this earth for heaven’s incomparable joy.  Therefore, God does these children no wrong in taking their lives.

So whom does God wrong in commanding the destruction of the Canaanites?  Not the Canaanite adults, for they were corrupt and deserving of judgement.  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[sic] 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 [sic] soldiers is disturbing.

This comes only after William Lane Craig claims God "has no moral duties to fulfill."  And an enormously long passage of nonsense that snipes at Richard Dawkins apropos of nothing, presents one of the lamest "logical" arguments for God's existence ever put forth by someone who purportedly possesses a functioning brain, and then childishly claims atheists have proven God exists if they say the God of the Old Testament did something morally reprehensible in commanding the Israelites to slaughter every man, woman and child in Canaan.  William Lane Craig has proven my (and my Christian best friend's) point that too much prayer completely rots a person's brain.

It's the Apocalypse, Isn't It?

Sorry, but under the circumstances, Los Links shall have to wait until tomorrow.  Allow me to 'splain.  Or sum up.  After all, it's the apocalypse, and we haven't got much time.

The Gnus among you are probably already aware of Chris Mooney and his history of, how to put it nicely, being an utter fucktard when it comes to all matters framing and his habit of so rabidly hating the Gnus that he happily falls head-over-heels for lying, sockpuppeting sociopaths who tell him what he wants to hear.  And then spends most of his time deleting comments on his blog that a) would've shattered his dream or b) were the least bit critical of him.  And when forced to admit he's a dupe, snivels he couldn't possibly have known, even though all he had to do was listen to a few folks who were telling him that he's a dupe.  And that coming after a long history of blacklisting people (yes, plural) and being an utter fucktard.  I'd already written him off after the Great Frame Wars of 2009; the Unscientific America debacle just put paid to the whole thing, because here we had a man who obviously couldn't get a clue even when hit simultaneously by dozens of clue-by-fours, so by the time he'd got dicked by Tom Johnson, I'd been conditioned by his own actions to merely point and laugh when Chris Mooney appeared on the scene.

In fact, it took me years to unfreeze toward Sheril Kirshenbaum because she'd been so tainted by that whole affair.  Chris Mooney, though, never displayed any reason why I should give half a tug on a dead dog's dick about a single thing he said.  He'd killed his credibility a dozen times over and done bugger-all to get it back.  If I clicked on an unknown link and ended up on one of his posts, I'd experience physical revulsion, compounded after reading a few paragraphs. It got to the point that I couldn't stand to see his smarmy, smiling face, so I blocked him on Twitter just so his Colgate grin wouldn't show up in retweets and put me off my grub.

(And for those who think I'm being too harsh, just click a small selection of the links above and tell me where the rat bastard's ever proven himself trustworthy.  Criticism is fine, but deceit, blacklisting and endless whining, plus taking forever to make even a minor course-correction after being taken in by a con, all the while proclaiming Gnus the Enemy of All because they told him he can stick his framing where the sun don't shine - no.)

This has been a rather long introduction to the apocalypse.  You see, not five minutes after I'd become so fed up with seeing Chris Mooney's mug plastered all over my Twitter feed by the people who still, for reasons unknown to me, sometimes take him seriously, blocked his butt, here was this tweet from Bora:

I was waiting for this schism for years - Mooney leaving Nisbett behind: http://bit.ly/gvrmgW Good for Chris.

I couldn't help myself.  A schism between Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum?  I had to see!  And, to my horror, I found myself cheering Chris Mooney on.  Because while I have no respect for Chris Mooney, I actively despise Matt Nisbett.  And Chris dispatches a particularly idiotic bit of Nisbettian dumbfuckery with aplomb.


Credit where it's due and all.  I decided I'd grab it for Los Links.  Look, just because I think a man is a shit-for-brains doesn't mean I can't appreciate a small spark of intelligence when it manifests.


But that is not why I believe it's the apocalypse.  This is:

Psych Evidence that Supports New Atheism http://bit.ly/esNCVw Mooney is really on a roll today, isn't he?

Oh, how that must have hurt him!  To have to admit, after so long kicking and screaming and howling that those evil, evil New Atheists would ruin absolutely everything ever, that he was actually not correct in this assumption.  Of course I had to click through to his bloody blog twice in one day.


You can tell it pains him.  He clings to his final remaining shred of plausible deniability, trying very hard to believe (without adequate evidence) that we are still icky and wrong, even though he was wrong:

In general, I believe what we know about human psychology runs contrary to the New Atheist approach and strategy. However, I do my best to follow the data, and here’s a study that suggest at least one aspect of their approach may work. The tactic finding support here is not necessarily being confrontational–that would tend to prompt negative emotional reactions, and thus defensiveness and inflexibility towards New Atheist arguments–but rather, making it more widely known that you’re actually there–as “out” atheists try to do...

Oh, Chris.  Chris, Chris, Chris, Chris, Chris.  Gather your crow recipes while ye may, because you shall be forced to eat a banquet's worth of it one day, and you have proven today might be man enough to swallow it.  After, of course, kicking and screaming and refusing to do so for too many years, but still.  At least there's the possibility you'll hold your nose and do it.  Bravo, sir.  Bravo.


But, despite this minute concession, he still misses the point by a country mile.  We must be forgiving, he's always had terrible aim.  But there's the fact that, for a subset of people, being confrontational does go a long way toward snapping them out of religion.  I'm sure some clever dick (or vagina) will do a study someday - perhaps already have done, for all I know, considering I'm not as well-read in the psychological literature as I should be - and prove even to Chris's satisfaction that he's full of shit.  But even saying he's not.  Let us be generous and grant him the conceit that shouting the truth at religious people without sparing their feelings never, ever works and only makes them dig their Sunday-shoed heels in.  He still misses the fucking point, even so.

Because, you see, New Atheism isn't about bringing the true believers into the bright light of reason.  It's about telling the damned truth without sugar-coating.  It's about breaking the spell.  And you do not, cannot, do that by treating religion with respect and deference.  If you treat religion as a thing to be respected, you end up with religion still thinking it's a thing that is entitled to respect.  And what does religion do when it and everyone around it believes it is entitled to respect?  It demands respect, it attempts to force itself on the masses, it insists all to bow and scrape to it, it bullies people and sullies science, science education, and secular government, and it basically runs around believing it owns the place.  Non-believers are treated as something nasty to be scraped off society's shoe.  And people who don't believe or don't believe all that much end up silent and cowed, because no one has told them in no uncertain terms that religion deserves no such respect, is due no such deference, and moreover needs to be ushered firmly out of the public square. 

We have no problem with doing so politely, but if it kicks up a fuss, we reserve the right to boot it in the arse.  And religion has a distressing tendency to kick up fusses.  Ergo, we apply the judicious toe to the nether regions.

There's also the bystander effect.  This atheist, for instance, would not be an out-and-proud atheist without the New Atheists.  I wouldn't be here in love with science and defending it against fundie fuckwits if it weren't for those evil, evil gnus.  I wouldn't even have understood there was a problem.  So no, standing up and shouting in believers' faces may not work directly on them all the time, but it sure as shit can be effective with people like me.

There's room for gnus and for the softer, fluffier, make nicey-nice with the believers sorts in the battle to keep creationist hands off our science.  Nothing in the rules says we can't use all of the tactics at our disposal.  And if the accommodationists would just stop sniping at gnus long enough, they might come to see the value in a good-cop-bad-cop strategy.

I will know that the apocalypse has truly come the day Chris Mooney realizes all that and apologizes for being such a massive shite to his fellow atheists.  Not holding my breath on that one.  I want to live.

But it's nice to see him take the first step on the long road.  We'll see how far he gets before he decides it's too far to walk.

Two Posts on Religion Everyone Should Read

Back before I got so completely immersed in Doctor Who and the subsequent explosions of ideas that I haven't had time for much else, I was spending quite a lot of time catching up on every post ever written by Eric MacDonald.  His blog, Choice in Dying, is one I can't recommend highly enough for those who need a philosopher's perspective on these thorny issues of religion, atheism, morality, and choices.  He reminds me a bit of Dan Dennett, one of our Four Horsemen.  All I can say is, someone had better saddle that man a horse, because we've got a fifth Horseman.

Two posts from January particularly caught my eye.  In one, Eric talks about the cost of religion:

I do not think the sums have been done. Religion is not a peaceful thing, despite all claims to the contrary. It has been protected, for centuries, just as Islam still protects its holiness, by threats of violence. The English Bible that, for all its glories, is sometimes pedestrian and dull, is regarded with special reverence, in large measure because it had to be fought for, and people died so that they could read the Bible in their own language.

And in this, about the social pathology of religion:

We are becoming so accustomed to religious oppression and pathology that we scarcely dare to talk openly about it, and to call it openly by its name. Governments and large press organisations do a clever soft-shoe shuffle around it every time it becomes too obvious to be simply ignored, but no one is saying that this religious idiocy should end, and that it is intolerable that religions should play this role in the world. It seems to be taken for granted that there is nothing that we can do to moderate these pathologies except to try to insulate them in ghettoes of religious belief, the result of which can only be a mosaic of intolerant communities intolerantly related. If Roman Catholic hospitals want to kill women by refusing them appropriate medical care, well, that is just a peculiar belief system which has nothing to do with the rest of society. And when Roman Catholics or Muslims band together to oppose the practice of contraception in a world bursting at the seams with people, well, that too is just a religious peculiarity, and we must learn to live with these things.

Eric, once an Anglican pastor, has a very clear view of the harm religion can do and does.  He doesn't believe we have to live with it.  He doesn't believe we should stay silent in the face of it, just to spare the feelings of believers or in the interests of a false social harmony.

I wish all of my friends who were still believers would read his blog, start to finish, and really think about what it is they're doing, and what religion truly is.

Darwin Day Shenanigans

I dragged my intrepid companion out to the big Northwest Freethought Coalition's Darwin Day bash on Sunday.  Neither one of us is much for large groups, but I never get to see the Seattle Skeptics - they're always having meetings when I'm working.  Besides, festivities included a birthday cake and Phylum Pheud, so it seemed essential to go.

Loved it from the moment I laid eyes on it:

Charles Darwin his own self was scheduled to attend, but excused himself on account of being dead.  I felt he was there in spirit, however, his august countenance gazing benevolently down upon us from a corner of the room.

There was a massive spread of food.  People who believe only church groups know how to put on a good Sunday feed, take note: atheists and humanists have officially kicked your arses.  ZOMFSM.  It's a good thing they had a break between the nosh and the cake, or I wouldn't have had room. 

The organizers put on a panel discussion discussing the War on Evolution.  I'll do a proper write-up of it when I've got more time.  I took notes and everything, just for you, my darlings.  For now, let me just say this: meeting Jen McCreight in the flesh was something akin to meeting PZ Myers for the first time, and all the more overwhelming because I hadn't had a clue she'd be there.  She was on the panel.  Look!  I haz proof!

The other two are Bob and Geoff.  I didn't get their last names because I'd been too busy finishing nosh to fish out me notebook in time, but I'm sure somebody somewhere will have that info, and when I do the proper post on the panel, I shall be able to tell you more than just, "These two are Bob and Geoff, and they are nearly as awesome as Jen."

After the panel came cake.  We all sang Happy Birthday as it was brought out, of course.  Just because a man's been dead for nearly 130 years doesn't mean you shouldn't sing Happy Birthday to him.  Or waste the excuse to have a really good cake.

Whist acquiring cake, I was able to actually speak with Jen McCreight for a moment!!!11!1!! - in a group with others, o' course, but still.  We had two actual biologists and two bloggers who are science fanpeople.  It's always good not to be the only layblogger in the group.  Although, thanks to you, my darlings, I am no longer so embarrassed by my layblogger status.  I'm not a scientist, but the fact I was adopted by the geobloggers means I do a decent job with the science blogging, and therefore, I can hold my head high even when standing right next to Jen McCreight.  (However, I am not a graduate student in genome sciences who started Boobquake, so I reserve the right to be a bit starstruck, mkay?)

Anyway.  Jen was pure teh awesome.  Now that she lives here, I hope to somehow lure her away from graduate studies long enough for a good chat, but I'm not sure how to lure a genome biologist.  If she were a geologist, I'd know just what to use: beer.  Does anyone here know the proper offering for a biologist?

The only thing that distracted me from Jen's awesomeness was the microbiologist next to me, a very nice and engaging gentleman who tossed a bomb: he likes PZ Myers's blogging, but doesn't think PZ's in-your-face call-stupid-what-it-is style is helpful.  Who's convinced by someone getting up in their face and yelling at them?

And so, my darlings, I'm afraid I had to raise my hand and say, "Well, me, for one."  I've only seen one other person look so astonished this week, and that was my coworker, who tried to toss me a test phone and ended up plonking me in the forehead with it. 

I Don't Get It. I Don't Understand.

Confession: I was, for a few brief months in my teens, a Bible-thumper.  So it may seem odd now that I can't get myself into the minds of believers.

I'd never been a religious kid, not particularly.  I had this nebulous idea that God existed and that he was good.  I prayed when things were beyond my control.  But we didn't go to church, and outside of the illustrated children's Bible I had, there wasn't a huge amount of God stuff around.  My parents believed, and my mother put me in a summer Bible camp once - maybe for religious instruction, maybe just because it was the best and only way to pawn me off on other people for a couple of hours so she could have some time for herself.  Considering she played Mom to the entire neighborhood, one can't blame her for needing a break.  And I learned how to glue Jesus to a wooden spoon, and stick him in a walnut shell, so it wasn't a complete waste.  One thing I do know, the people there didn't impress upon me the necessity of believing or going to Hell.  They gave me warm fuzzy feelings about Jesus and an indelible association between ancient Jewish carpenters and spoons.

A Special Holiday Message from Ricky Gervais

Happy Yule, my darlings!  Whether you're celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, the Solstice, or whatever other midwinter festival, I hope you're having a blast.

And here, courtesy of Ricky Gervais, is a nice bit of ammunition for all of those relations who might be giving you guff for being an atheist at this time o' year (h/t):

Wow. No God. If mum had lied to me about God, had she also lied to me about Santa? Yes, of course, but who cares? The gifts kept coming. And so did the gifts of my new found atheism. The gifts of truth, science, nature. The real beauty of this world. I learned of evolution – a theory so simple that only England’s greatest genius could have come up with it. Evolution of plants, animals and us – with imagination, free will, love, humor. I no longer needed a reason for my existence, just a reason to live. And imagination, free will, love, humor, fun, music, sports, beer and pizza are all good enough reasons for living.

Haven't lacked in the reasons for living department myself.  If I want transcendence, I can wander off into the mountains and soak some right up.  A nice waterfall's quite enough cathedral for me.  Communing with the universe via Hubble isn't a bad way to spend an afternoon, either.  Crack open a book on science, and I have all of the wonder I need to sustain my soul for a good long while.

And I do believe that's where all of those friends and relatives who give us atheists the old pitying stare and the firm lecture have an abject failure of imagination: they can't imagine how a universe without god can possibly be enough.  I say the universe doesn't need a god.  Gods are surplus to requirements.  It's already got an embarrassment of riches.  Gods just get in the way.  The stories about them are fun, true, and I do enjoy a good myth, but as an explanation for how the universe really works, myths are poor substitutes for the real truth.  I've never yet come across a myth that astonishes me half so much as what physics has revealed.  The natural wonders around me don't need a god to make them wonderful: geology, chemistry, physics and biology have done a good enough job of that - far better, in fact.  The stuff we humans make up isn't a patch on the breadth, depth, and astonishing underlying simplicity of reality.  

As a bonus, science doesn't require me to go sit in a church on Sunday mornings and condemn the unbelievers to hell.

For some people, I suppose, the world is not enough.  Something in their wiring requires a deity to make them feel like their life has meaning.  Sometimes, I wish I understood why.  I used to, until I gave up on the god thing and realized how very unnecessary that had been.  I suppose I used to have the same fear of falling that so many others do - felt if I didn't have a god there whipping me, I might stray from the straight and narrow.  But morality hasn't been a problem.  The opposite, in fact.  Morality's easier when it just comes down to us.  We've got to treat each other well, help each other out, because we're all we've got.  There's no one coming down from Calvary to save us.  We've got to do it ourselves.  So unfold the hands, roll up the sleeves, and get to work.

We haven't got dominion over the Earth.  We're residents, and if we tear the place up, well, we haven't got anywhere else to go, so best take care of it.  That includes our fellow creatures, who support our lives here in ways we're only just beginning to understand.  Ecology is a crazily interconnected thing.  If you think that story about a missing horseshoe nail causing a war to be lost is a good proverb about the importance of the small details, well, you might want to have a look at what happens when something so seemingly inconsequential as an insect is removed from the food web.  Even bacteria matter far more than we might have cared to admit. 

Thing is, I can see those things, now that I'm not worried about the afterlife and all.  Far from contracting, my worldview has expanded since getting rid of gods.  Anyone else experienced the same thing?  Anyone else found a universe of possibility opening up before them once they'd taken the god-goggles off?  Wonderful, isn't it?

And like Ricky said, I no longer need a reason for my existence.  I know, roughly, why I'm here: there's a whole story of evolution and reproductive biology behind that, a history of contingency and coincidence and one damned thing after another that led to the person typing this.  I don't need any more reason than that.  It doesn't concern me.  It's an inane question, really, asking why I exist and not some other combination of genetic material, what reason I was put on this earth - I've come to find out that not everything needs the kind of reason religious people mean.  I'm here.  The important question is, what am I going to do now I'm here?  And that I get to decide for myself.  There's no one set path I must follow.  I can explore, let my imagination lead me around by the nose, let curiosity drag me from one adventure to the next, without ever worrying whether it's the right thing to do.  "An it harm none, do what ye will."  I have filched that from Wicca and live by it daily, happily.

Do I feel like I'm missing something?  Yes, all the time.  I'm missing those years I wasted chasing after religion when I could have been chasing after science instead.  Aside from that, no.  There are no gaping holes left in my life, no god-shaped gap demanding to be filled.  I can't even imagine wanting a god to worship anymore.  I'm filled to overflowing with the wonders of the universe: there's no more I desire.  Well, that's not strictly true.  A bank account full enough to live off of for the rest of my life wouldn't go amiss.  More time to explore the universe, then, you see!  But that's just a fancy, nothing more.

So sorry to disappoint those fundies who love to dream and tell tall stories about those sad, crying, empty atheists who sit around miserable and alone at Christmas.  The reality's quite different.  Oh, chances are, I am alone - but that's not because I'm an atheist, it's because I'm a writer whose family lives out of state, and hence I can plead inability to get time off work and money for travel in order to squeeze out a little extra time with ye olde scribbling.  Blissful, that.  So yes, fundies, there's one consolation for you: I'm alone.  But sad, crying and empty, I am not.  How can I be?  There's too much wonder in the world for me to ever be miserable for long.

My darlings, atheists and believers and all in between, I do hope you're putting this holiday to great good use.  There's food, family, friends, fun and loot to be had.  Whatever your reason for the season, just pause for a moment to reflect on how many reasons we have for living.  There are so many, great and small, that we'd be here well into the new year before I got done listing them all.

Here's to you, and here's to life, and here's to another shopping season successfully survived!

As For Being Shrill, Strident, Etc.

Once again, the "tone" argument's making the rounds (does it ever cease?  It circles like a dog attempting to capture its own fugitive tail).  Ophelia Benson's already pointed out a few of the more annoying examples.  And she led me to this delightful bit by Jason Rosenhouse, which comes just in time, because a dear (and horribly neglected) friend of mine posted rather more sensibly on the issue (hi, Paul!).  I'd meant to come up with something thoughtful and considered that would explain my position, but find I don't have to.  All one has to do is read Jason's post and imagine me standing there jumping up and down going, "Me, too!"

I'd quote from it, but I can't find a single bit I want to excerpt because I want to excerpt it all.  But if you've ever wondered what we shrill, strident, unabashed defenders of evolution, atheism, and all things rational are thinking, this is pretty much it in a nutshell.

And remember, my dearest Paul, that we're not trying to convert the unconvertable.  Nothing we do will reach the men and women who spend their days swearing Jesus rode a dinosaur.  Politeness won't do it, any more than a good sharp smack will.  Think of the old psychologists-changing-a-lightbulb joke: the only way anything works is if they want to change.

No, we're rallying the troops and aiming at the fence-sitters.  And as one of those who got knocked off the fence and had some good sense jolted in to me by those horrible shrill Gnu Atheists, as a person who disavowed woo for science because PZ, Orac et al didn't have any trouble calling a spade a silly little shite, I can testify that being contentious sometimes does more than raise morale for the choir.  Sometimes, it awakens passion, wonder, and courage in people who might've sat it out.

It takes all kinds.  Changing the world isn't a simple task!

(For those who haven't had the pleasure, I can wholeheartedly recommend Paul's lovely Cafe Philos blog.  After a long day in the trenches, it's nice to sit with a cup of coffee and just enjoy some thought-provoking serenity.)

Sunday Read: So An Atheist and a Chaplain Walk Onto a Battlefield...

You can't miss this.  Truly cannot.  Go. Read.  And marvel at the power of faith to make dangerous ridiculous fucking morons out of some people.  I'm going to inflict it on my Christian best friend, because I do so love hearing him howl at people who put the blind in blind faith.  Perhaps someday he'll forgive me.

Actually a little appalled that sensible soldiers are risking their lives to protect this god-deluded fool.  Kudos to them for doing the job and doing it well!

In Which I Tell You About That Time I Read the Koran

George has this habit of making me think.  Last night, he voiced every thought I wish I had the eloquence to voice on the whole Koran-burning-pastor kerfluffle.  If you haven't read it, go now and do so.

Sums it up rather wonderfully.  And then, there's his promised response, Protesting Xenophobic Ignorance.   Yes!  That's how it's done!  Counterpoint to useless drivel, beautifully-delivered, and without hyperventilation.  Now, if only the religious folk would learn how to react so productively, we might have a dialogue going, and might even enjoy doing it - even when we point and laugh at each other.  Far better than overheated threats of violence and/or howls of "Help!  Help!  I'm being repressed because these people don't agree with me!"

So, that, together with PZ's take, pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter.  Besides, if the First Amendment's to mean anything, some outrageous idiot has the perfect right to burn mass-produced copies of a book on their own property.  Hell, Christians do it to Harry Potter all the time, and I sincerely hope they'll do me the same favor.  Might I suggest marshmallows with that religious frenzy?  Seems a waste of a good fire otherwise.

Anyway.  Due to the fact I had to be at work for twelve fucking hours today, I missed the whole Koran-reading thing.  That's not to say I haven't read many bits of the Koran, and actually appreciated several.  I'll cannibalize anything for inspiration, thee knows.  Back in the days when I had a desk, I used to have the self-same edition George was reading sitting by the computer.  When I got blocked, I'd have a good flip through its pages until something caught my eye.  And I thought I'd share some of those moments for Day-After-Read-a-Koran Day.

Wanna know how an atheist finds inspiration in religious literature?  Then read on.  There's even some religious conflict!

Equal Treatment

I've been watching this whole Ground Zero (and every other) Mosque kerfluffle with bemusement.  I mean, seriously, people, there are worse things in the world than a Muslim community center.  Take Glenn Beck, for instance. Believe me when I say that given the choice between an hour with him and a day with Imam Rauf, it's the imam hands-down.  We'd probably have a good conversation, and I wouldn't come away covered in spittle.

There's been a sense that, to be a good liberal, you mustn't say a single thing against moderate Islam or the community center, which is absolute bullshit.  I read an article at Butterflies and Wheels last night that rather put that in perspective:

Again, I can understand that point, and on an everyday basis of course I am pleased to see the emergence of moderates who are seeking to divert Muslims away from extremism, but, at the same time, to exempt moderates from theological and philosophical criticism on this basis is condescending to them as fellow adults and also reinforces a worrying notion that as long as a belief system isn’t likely to immediately result in a bombing campaign then that belief system should be beyond criticism.

[snip]

No-one would consider that their personal political views should be exempt from criticism just because they are non-violent political views, and it would be an absurd and worrying precedent to be set were that the case. Religion is no different. Despite the fact that religious people seem to have a lot emotionally invested in their ‘faith’, the fact remains that religion, just like politics, is an ideology, and as such it is a perfectly legitimate target for criticism and debate, even if it is liberal and moderate in its nature.

Criticism of the sort that we deal out on a daily basis to every other religion and bit of woozy thinking doesn't automatically put us in the same camp as the xenophobic frothing freaks who are busy drumming up as much anti-Muslim animus as possible.

Some folks in the atheist community aren't for the community center, nor do they have to be.  They don't scream with joy at the grand opening of every Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist or any-ol'-sect's newest building, either.  Most of what I've seen from our side is simply equal treatment - religion doesn't get a pass, not even when it's getting drenched in Glenn Beck's raving spittle.  Not that we're likely to be out there protesting, either, because when it comes down to it, Muslims have every right to build a nice community center for themselves in old clothing stores.  Or in Tennessee, or California, or wherever they may roam.  This is a free country in which you are free to waste your money on invisible sky daddies if you like.  We might critique your faith (sometimes starkly, perhaps even dickishly), and we might grumble about the idiocy of it all, but we're not going to be out there vandalizing, burning, or otherwise damaging your property, and we're sure as shit not going to be beating people up because they look Muslim.

Folks who want to lump us in the same category as the lackwits who've been out doing all of the above need to remember something:

Yes, of course we have to respect everyone’s right to hold irrational beliefs, but no of course we do not have to respect the irrational beliefs themselves. There’s a difference, and the difference matters.

Indeed it does.

As PZ says on this matter: "I don't like the Manhattan mosque, but they've got the right — as long as I've got the right to point and laugh."  This being America, and the Cons not yet having had their way with the 10,000,000,000 amendments they want to add, and all the existing ones they want to amend into oblivion, we each have that right. Though the frothing fundies don't realize it, the freedom to worship or not, where and when one chooses, is one of those things that makes America the amazing place that it is.

So, Imam Rauf, don't let the bastards keep you from building your center.  This is America, you are an American, and you can absolutely waste your time on outmoded superstition, if you like.  Good luck to you.

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Phil's Not Faring Too Well

I love Phil Plait.  I respect Phil Plait.  I follow him on Twitter, shall soon be following him on teevee, and enjoy him immensely.  But even the people I love best occasionally do things that earn them a gentle savaging from their peers.  And it seems that his Don't Be A Dick shenanigans (hereafter referred to as D-BAD) earned him said savaging.

Ophelia Benson, Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, Jerry Coyne, and now even Peter Lipson (one of the least-dickish people I've ever read) have taken some not-so-subtle swipes, when not unloading with both barrels.  I'm sure there's plenty I've missed.  It doesn't matter anyway, because the whole thing makes me tired.  This "we must be nicey-nice to the poor delicate believers!" bullshit is threatening to condemn me to a life of early dentures.

Just a few thoughts that have been going about in my head during this whole D-BAD drama, and then I am hopefully done:

1.  If you run with the skeptics, your sacred oxen are at risk of getting gored.  If you faint at the sight of blood, better not run.

2.  There is no safety in numbers.  Just because several million people believe a delusion doesn't make it true.

3.  Niceness and respect have their place, but all too often, it enables the very woo and uncritical thinking skeptics are supposed to be against.

4.  Enable one woo, and you've just thrown the doors open wide with a big welcome sign for all the others.

And, most importantly to me personally:

5.  Those "dicks" were the people who snapped me out of woo-tainted thinking to begin with.  All of the happy-joy-joy nice warm fuzzy people kept me thinking for years that some pretty inane shit was legit, because hey, they didn't seem to mind.  And I'm not a very unique human being at all, so I highly doubt I'm an anomalous data point.  Without the dicks, I'd still be susceptible to pseudoscience and magical thinking.  Sometimes, what a person really needs is a good, sharp slap by an enormous dick to snap them out of it.

Oh, dear.  I suspect that last bit came out wrong, or led to mental images that have you reaching for the brain bleach.  Sorry 'bout that.

Anyway.  What I'm saying is, dickishness has a place and a purpose.  Religious sentiment should not and must not get a safe little reservation all walled off from skepticism.  (That goes triple for you, Quinn O'Neil, oh ye of the most bloody stupid argument I've read all week.)

Religious freedom is a Constitutional right in this country, and we dicks respect that.  But respect for a person's freedom to believe in irrational bullshit does not translate into treating irrational bullshit with kid gloves, nor should it, and as for those who aren't tough enough to take it - I've got a couple of religious friends you should consult, because they might be able to advise you how to take it on the chin and keep grinning anyway.  They don't burst into tears and run away blubbering whenever I say something not nice about their faith. 

You know what all that crying tells me?  That the weepy religious believers running with the skeptical crowd aren't sure their faith is legit.  They're doubting.  Why else do they need everyone to tiptoe around them?  And how do I know this?  Because I did the same sniveling when my faith started crumbling on its own faulty foundations. And everyone who didn't do their utmost to reinforce those foundations, or at least refrain from breathing on them, seemed like they were personally attacking me.  Guess what?  They weren't.  They were going after silly superstition.  If you think your superstition isn't silly, then shore up your own damned foundations, grow a pair, and deal with the dicks.

And don't tell me that a few unkind words about your favorite form of woo is enough to sour you on the whole skeptical movement.  That's just petty and ridiculous.  Besides, there are plenty of accomodationists out there happy to wrap you in their loving embrace.  Not all of us have to.  Not all of us should.

Life is full of slings, arrows, and dicks.  You deal, or you don't.  And if that sounds harsh, well, it is.  It seems that despite some anatomical disadvantages, I am an enormous fucking dick. 

Doesn't mean I don't love you, though, irrationality and all. 

A Poem for Hitch

This is lovely, and says so many things so very, very well.  Go.  Read.

Tip o' the shot glass to Neil Gaiman.

I Think George Became Upset

And why do I think our own dear, sweet, epitome-o'-kindness George became upset?  There's a Clue contained in his most recent post:

It was about then that my predatory, reptilian atheist mind wanted to simply lunge forward and devour the theologian in two or three gulps.

Had I been there, I suspect he'd have only gotten about 1 - 1½ gulps in, because I would've been devouring with him.  So much for "friendly."

I have no idea why atheists even try to have "friendly" debates with believers anymore.  I mean, sure, when you're among friends, you'll probably keep it friendly, but these "friendly" formal debates look like an exercise in frustration, without a little fire to liven things up.  The theologian spouts vapid crap, the atheist politely shares reality, and everybody in the audience probably ends up feeling like poor dear George except those frightening folks who seem to have had the irritation centers burned out of their brains.  You know the type.  They're the ones who'll chirp, "When life hands you lemons, make lemonade!" when they've become a quadruple amputee in a horrific accident that also killed their family and their dog.

If you're not one of the latter, do go enjoy George's deconstruction of the blessed event.

A Precise Summation of Christian Teaching

For the two or three of you who don't read Pharyngula:

Not Exactly a Leap, No

Via Happy Jihad's, this answer to that sneering, obnoxious claim by theists that atheism requires a leap of faith just like belief blah blah blah bullshit blah:

Even were one to concede that some ‘absolute atheists’ know for certain there is no God, that would not require the same leap of faith as one who knows for certain that there is must take. A theist must take the word of his or her holy scriptures, her personal experience, his longstanding tradition, and come to accept that the world was created by an immense invisible being who works through mysterious means, controls the weather and occasionally demands human or personal sacrifice.

An atheist looks at the lack of evidence for god/s, notes that evolution accounts for the diversity of life, that cosmological theories such as the Big Bang account for the universe’s existence, points out that all religions seem more focused on human concerns than is logical for a creator of the entire universe, and concludes that believing in God/s is rather foolish. This is the state in which I, and atheists following last week’s definition, rest.

Our theoretical ‘absolute atheist’ then takes it one further step, and concludes that the non-existent evidence is sufficient, and takes the miniscule millimetre-wide step of faith to this statement: “There are no God/s at all, whatsoever, ever, under any circumstances.” It involves faith, sure, but about as much faith as my stating: “There are no Mars Bar farms on Pluto, whatsoever, ever, under circumstances.”

Brilliant.  Simply.  Brilliant.

I shall have to run off several copies and keep them handy.  Perhaps in nice pamphlet form, for those times when theists come out with that "leap of faith" dribble and try to hand me pamphlets about Jesus & Co.

Somewhat Famous and Other Stories From The Exile's Life

Ah, my darlings, I can't tell you how good it is to be back.  Not that I'm back much - my hands are still healing, so I'm trying to keep repetitive stress down to a minimum.  But I'll tell you, two days without any typing at all blew leper donkey dick.  Don't know what you've got till it's gone and all that.  I've missed you.

Thought of you constantly, in fact.  I wanted to tell you all about watching Howl's Moving Castle and being very moved indeed by it.  The characters delighted me.  It's been a while since I was truly moved by a set of story folk.  Gave me ideas, it did, and gave me a feeling like I'd been part of something special, and now I'm terrified to watch Spirited Away because it is, by all reports, even better than Howl's, and considering that after Howl's every other movie I watched left me saying, "That was so lame compared to Howl's," that could ruin me for movie watching for quite some time to come.

By the time my DVR rolled round to Sense and Sensibility, I'd somewhat recovered.  Enough to appreciate it, anyway.  I do love Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, and Kate Winslet.  Not so much in to the Jane Austen thing, but still, it's a good movie.  Just nowhere near as good as Howl's.

See what I mean?

I turned to Connie Willis for comfort on Day One of the No Typing Whatsoever experience, and this turned out to be a mistake.  Not that Blackout is a bad book.  Far from it.  What I didn't realize is that it is not, in fact, a full book, but half a book.  And the other half won't be out until October.  And it's literally half a book: it ends at the end of a chapter.  Now I know how the people who were reading The Lord of the Rings as its various parts were released felt.  Nothing's worse than getting to what you believe is the end of the book and finding yourself dangling right over a cliff, loose ends flapping in the breeze, not even the minimal comfort of a series, wherein at least a few plot threads are neatly tied up, there's been a climax and denouement, and all that. 

Argh argh argh.

In other news, I've become somewhat famous.  At least, my feet have:

When I saw this submission from entequilaesverdad, the word that popped into my mind was "jaunty." Also, I don't know if you can read the bottom book, but it is called "The Joy of Sects," which cracks my shit up.

I'm now very glad indeed that I had the brainwave that led to me putting The Joy of Sects beneath the Bible for my uncompromising and unashamed stand.  You can see a great many other atheists standing unashamedly and uncompromisingly upon various holy books here, here and here.  Praise be to Happy Jihad's House of Pancakes for giving so many atheists the opportunity to have so much public fun with fundamentalism!

And I have to admit that cracking Happy Jihad's shit up really made my day.

Our own dear Cujo did his own blogging against theocracy, and cracked my shit up by starting with a Monty Python quote.  Read the whole thing, not just the Monty Python bit, because his post includes such gems as this:

Most religions require their adherents to believe some crazy things. Christians are supposed to believe that their religion's founder was tortured and killed in one of the worst ways imaginable, given the technology and medical knowledge of the time, so they could be forgiven for their sins. Huh? This makes absolutely no sense, no matter how you spin it. What makes sense, given what we know of the situation, is that Christ was crucified because people found him annoying and their leaders thought he was a troublemaker.

No doubt, he was insulting the religious beliefs of the time by declaring that he had his own.

Context gives that last line extra luster. 

When you're done admiring that, go read George's spanking of morons who declare global warming a myth every time it gets chilly outside.  He explains the difference between weather and climate with an analogy even those right roaring schmucks should be able to understand but probably won't.

Right, then.  Must go back to resting the wrists and so forth.  Carry on, my darlings, and I shall see you in a bit.

Good Atheist Reading

Got a little distracted tonight.  Blame Jerry Coyne, who directed me to Greta Christina's 10 most popular essays on AlterNet.  Right now, I'm on "3 Silly Religious Beliefs Held By Non-Silly People." 

Whether you're an atheist looking for some excellent reading, or a religious sort wondering what atheists really think, they're well worth reading.  Go check them out whilst all's quietish on the pollyticks front.

The Things I Do For My Writing: Friday Prayers Edition

So I'm reading Spaces Speak, Are You Listening?  And discussions of aural space have got me wanting to visit a cathedral so I can inspect the architecture and experience the auditory effects firsthand.  There's one right here in Seattle: St. James.  They're doing a New Year's Eve concert.  I wasn't going to bestir myself from the house on New Year's Eve - I hate being out and about on holidays - but this counts as work.  I can hear how acoustics work in a building like this, enjoy some classical music in the bargain, and hopefully the place will be crowded enough that they won't realize a godless infidel's in their midst.  I don't mind mixing it up with the religious, but conversion attempts are bloody annoying.

Actually, Catholics haven't proven much of a problem in that regard in the past.  Most of my Catholic friends just give me a sunny smile when they discover I'm an atheist and move right on to other subjects.  I figure if I get cornered by a priest, he'll be happy enough to talk about the building and the music that we won't be debating the existence of immortal souls and the damnation of same.

Thankfully, my short days as a Christian way back in high school mean I do not have to suffer the acoustics of poorly-sung insipid little hymns belted out in disharmony in a crappy-ass little prefab church.  Been there, done that, ran away before they could sell me the t-shirt.  I remember the agony all too well.

So that's where research is trying to drag me.  I'm putting my foot down if research for writing ever demands a visit to Jesus Camp.  We'll just go with the movie, thanks ever so much, as if that wouldn't be horrific enough.