Ah, I love crazy religious mail (click image for larger version):
Any guesses as to what a metaphysicotheologicocosmogynaecologist does? My first guess would be “annoys people with insane supernatural spam,” but the “gynaecologist” part is throwing me off. I’m not sure I want to know.
(Thanks, Jeff!)
Just to remind everyone that middle-eastern Muslim clerics don’t have a monopoly on crazy wackjobbery, here’s a new supernatural hypothesis from an American Christian minister:
It has been widely broadcast that the largest Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in the nation has been built in Houston, TX. This six story tall (six is the number of the flesh man*) abortion supercenter was opened in May, just a short time before the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster began.
And because Houston has other places that provide abortion services, that’s obviously the cause of the oil leak. Yep, air-tight reasoning, right there. And while I’m pro-choice, I think testing this hypothesis scientifically may have some ethical ramifications, sooooo…yeah, let’s just skip right to calling this guy a loon, okay?
He also rambles a bit about how “nice” Christians like Joel Osteen are ruining Christianity, and something about hurricanes and babies, but hell if I can figure it out. I just like this graphic he uses of a hurricane baby:
Aha! Proof of…um…something. Maybe an overactive imagination?
(Via Jezebel)
*WTF?
During a recent Point of Inquiry podcast, Chris Mooney and Elaine Ecklund discussed the differences between first and second generation atheists (starting about 15 min in). First generation atheists are those that were once theists and raised with religion, while second generation were raised by non-theist parents. Mooney has a summary of Ecklund’s points at his blog:
On the air, Ecklund observed that the first generation atheists tend to be more critical of religion, and more driven in making such criticisms. After all, religion is something that is much more personal to them, and that they have rejected. We second generation atheists, though–for I am one–we tend to be more mellow. Or so Ecklund finds, anyway.
But I pressed her on the point. After all, although I’m “second generation,” I was pretty angry at religion when I was a college atheist activist. I was pretty driven. Yes, I mellowed with time–but I was and still remain second generation.
What’s more, I’m sure that there are some first generation atheists who aren’t particularly driven to bash religion, no matter the difficulty of their deconversion experiences or the powerful impact these had on their lives–it’s just not in their temperament.
Still, Ecklund defended the generalization despite my devil’s advocacy. In general, it is of a piece with her finding that family upbringing is a central predictive factor for later life religiosity or the lack thereof, as well as for who actually becomes a scientist (they tend to come from less religiously observant households).
While I disagree with Mooney on a lot of other topics, I’m going to have to agree with his devil’s advocacy here. There are far too many factors going on to simply pin critical attitudes on your former beliefs (or lack thereof). Now, this is a generalization, so I can’t simply say “Look at me! I’m second generation, and I’m anything but mellow!” I may be an exception to a general trend.
But I think a more accurate idea is that someone’s religious environment as a whole – not just how they were raised – helps shape how critical they are of religion. I know I just got done saying anecdotal evidence is not equivalent to good science, but forgive me while I use some to illustrate my hypothesis:
I am a second generation atheist. My dad, while he won’t label himself, is pretty much an atheist and instilled a good skepticism of religion in me. My mom is a wishy washy deist/Greek Orthodox, but she never taught me her beliefs or took me to church. I was left to my own devices when it came to thinking about religion, and for the most part I considered myself an atheist/agnostic my whole life. As a child, I really didn’t care about religion. I had a very “to each their own” attitude, and saw religion as a general force for good in the world. Everyone in my town was pretty much the same – no one really cared what religion you were, or if you were godless.
Then I moved to a conservative Christian town while simultaneously maturing and realizing the world isn’t all rainbows and unicorns.
I realized religion wasn’t simply about charity and redemption and love. I realized, first hand, that religion could lead people to believe in stupid, ridiculous, unscientific claims, and to say and do hateful and harmful things. I’ve never thought religion automatically made someone a bad person, but I did reject the idea that religion automatically makes someone a good person.
Because of this eye opening experience, I became much more vocal about my atheism and skepticism. If I had gone to Indiana University or an even more liberal college, I can pretty much assure you I would still be a mellow agnostic. “Aggression” toward religion isn’t based solely on your family, but on your experiences on a whole. If you realize the damage religion and religious belief can do, you’re more inclined to speak out against it.
And I know I’m not just one person who has reacted this way. After being President of a student organization for non-theists for three years, I’ve been around hundreds of young atheists – some first generation, some second generation. For those where Purdue is more conservative and religious, they tend to be more vocal and aggressive. For those who see Purdue as a liberal escape from their rural Christian towns (this personally terrifies me), they’re just happy to have another atheist to hang out with.
I’ve even seen the exact opposite of what Ecklund is claiming. Some of the more cooperative, friendly, pro-religion non-theists are those that come from religious families. They often say this is because they’re surrounded by religious people who are wonderful, kind, intelligent people. It makes it hard to speak out against religion when you know it has helped someone you care about and love. On the flip side, sometimes it’s hard for us life-long atheists to relate to religious people, since we don’t have family members to act as examples for us. It’s easier to fall into the trap of stereotyping all theists and religious belief as being the same negative caricature.
I also see this exception when looking at my father. He’s basically an atheist and will be vocal and critical of religion to like-minded people like myself. However, he would never say these things in public or to religious friends. He strongly believes that religion is your own business, and he shouldn’t go around criticizing something that helps so many people. My dad was raised in a religious family, the vast majority of which is still religious (some very devoutly so) – but he’s not an aggressive Dawkins-esque first generation atheist.
Now of course, my observations are not scientific and are still biased – I mostly (but not solely) interact with people who are part of a club for non-theists, which may self select for more critical voices. But at the same time, I don’t think you can say upbringing is the main factor for how atheists treat religion when there are so many other complex factors going on. Family upbringing may be a central predictive factor for later life religiosity and who will become a scientist, but that doesn’t also mean it predicts how critical you are of religion.
I also have to be skeptical if Ecklund doesn’t have other motivation going on. She’s funded by the Templeton Foundation, and it would probably be very nice if she could paint a picture of criticism of religion stemming from some sort of emotional rebellion from our parents rather than a rational realization that we need to speak up. It seems like a scholarly equivalent of “Oh, well they’ll grow out of it eventually.” Ecklund had an interesting interpretation on the frequency of religiosity of scientists in her book Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think – interesting in that she collected the data, but came to a very discordant conclusions in the discussion. That’s also where this first/second generation data comes from, so I don’t know if I can completely trust how she’s interpreting her data.
Regardless, my experiences are not scientific, and I would love to see someone do a broader study. Something that encompasses first and second generation atheists across a while range of ages and professions (the book focuses on just scientists). It would kind of also be nice if the author wasn’t funded by a biased organization, ahem…
Kazem Sedighi apparently got wind that people around the world were laughing at his ridiculous claims that immodestly dressed women cause Earthquakes. Apparently we misunderstood what he really meant, so during this Friday’s prayer sermon, he offered further explanation:
“Some ask why (more) earthquakes and storms don’t occur in the Western world, which suffers from the slime of homosexuality, the slime of promiscuity and has plunged up to the neck” in immorality, he said.
“Who says they don’t occur? Storms take place in the U.S. and other parts of the world. We don’t say committing sin is the entire reason but it’s one of the reasons,” he said.
But, he said, “sometimes, God tests a nation. … (God says) if believers sin, We slap them because We love them and give them calamity in order to stop their bad deeds.”
“And those who have provoked God’s wrath, He allows them (to commit sins) so that they go to the bottom of hell,” Sedighi said.
Oh, well, in that case, that makes perfect sense! I totally understand now. God’s relationship with humans is really like a relationship with an irrational, passive aggressive, emotional abusive person.
Me: *puts on tank top*
God: …
Me: What’s wrong?
God: Nothing.
Me: Are you sure? Do you not like this shirt?
God: It’s nothing.
Me: Okay *prepares to go out*
God: Ahem.
Me: What?
God: You should know what.
Me: I’m expected to read your mind? You know only you can do that.
God: Didn’t you read that book I gave you?
Me: Yeah, but it didn’t say anything about tank tops…
God: Whatever.
Me: Okay, well, I’m going out now.
And then three months later God slashes your tires, kills your cat, breaks your entire CD collection, and sends you to the bottom of hell.
Seriously God, if you created humans, you should really know how they learn. Punishing people months after they perform the naughty deed does not produce negative reinforcement. Our behavior isn’t going to improve if you conveniently make earthquakes and tornadoes and floods appear to be caused by natural means, irrespective of the morals of that area. Do you really want us to behave, or do you just take sadistic glee in watching the US sink into the ocean?
If I lived in Iran, I would be executed pretty quickly. Some of the things I’ve done that are death-worthy (especially the first one):
You can also be executed for:
Why do I bring this up? Iran Solidarity, headed by the wonderful atheist activist Maryam Namazie, is protesting the execution of political prisoners in Iran.
We have all been in love, spoken our minds, joined protests, political groups and campaigns, poked fun at that which is taboo and taken a stand for what we believe in.
The only difference is – depending on where we were born – some of us don’t live to talk about it.
As you may have already heard, on 9 May 2010 four young men and one woman were executed by the Islamic Republic of Iran after being falsely accused, tortured, and charged with ‘enmity against God’ in sham trials. The executions were carried out in secret and without the knowledge of their families or lawyers. Farzad Kamangar (35 year old teacher and trade unionist), Ali Heydarian, Farhad Vakili, Shirin Alam–Houli (28 years old) and Mehdi Eslamian never even got to call their families to say goodbye.
Tragically, these executions are not new. The Islamic Republic of Iran is one of the execution capitals of the world and is the only state that continues to execute minors.
From 13 May onwards join me in protest against the 9 May execution of the five political prisoners in any way you can. Protests have already been taking place in Iran and at Iranian embassies in various cities worldwide, including a successful general strike in Iranian Kurdistan on 13 May. You can join rallies taking place in your city; pass this information on; ask your friends to support the action; write letters of protest; write to the media; raise the issue at events you organise or attend and at your places of work, school and in your neighbourhoods; do acts of solidarity anywhere you can; volunteer; lend your expertise to make publicity materials, translate, fundraise… Demand the expulsion of the regime from its seat in the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women, from the International Labour Organisation and other bodies. Demand that its embassies and consulates be shut down. And call for an end to the death penalty in Iran and everywhere.
Boobquake was a lighthearted event, but there is serious turmoil going on in Iran. You can support the cause and find more information by joining the Facebook page here.
Because I don’t want to die.
It has become commonplace to hear about people being violently attacked and even targeted for murder for drawing (usually poorly done) cartoons of the Muslim prophet. The Jyllands–Posten cartoon “controversy”, the recent South Park episode that had Matt and Trey receiving death threats… Just look at the most recent case of the cartoonist Vilks, who was attacked at a lecture on free speech and has money on his head:
An al-Qaeda front organisation then offered $US100,000 ($A110,730) to anyone who murdered Vilks – with an extra $US50,000 ($A55,365) if his throat was slit – and $US50,000 ($A55,365) for the death of Nerikes Allehanda editor-in-chief Ulf Johansson.
I personally support Draw Mohammed Day and the various secular student groups that have been partaking so far. I think it’s incredibly important that we support the freedom of speech and not give religious extremists a free pass. Religious rules apply to members of that religion, and forcing those rules on outsiders with violence and murder is not acceptable. It is as if Jews sent death threats to anyone who ate pork products.
But at the same time, I’m going to be a hypocrit and still my pen. Sorry, but I think age 22 is a little too young to die. I’m not in the business of becoming a martyr – and now that my blog has had attention from Boobquake (which already walked the line of annoying Muslims), I’m not going to line up for the firing squad. Of course, calling out Muslim extrimists for being fucking insane about these cartoons probably doesn’t put me in the good.
Oh well. I’ll be ambiguous and leave you with what may or may not be Mohammed. The world will never know:
O>-<
(Via Pharyngula)
Plenty of religions are misogynist, but like to play it off as being in the best interest of the women (Burkas? Clitoridectomies? Forced childbirth? Totally for your own good, honey). But you have to give it to the Catholic Church for being honest:
“Three Catholic women’s communities in Washington state are being investigated by the Vatican. They were chosen for review as part of an extensive investigation into American nuns. The Vatican says it’s following up on complaints of feminism and activism.”
You know, I have a t-shirt that says “Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.” I think that is honestly the simplest definition for feminism – equality for women.
Splendid to know the Vatican is against that.
Instead of raging, I think I’ll let Tim Minchin take it away:
(Via Pandagon)
I used to believe in astrology.
That’s embarrassing for me to admit, now that I’m a strong skeptic – but it’s true. While I never really believed in God, I wasn’t totally immune to supernatural thinking my whole life. Between age 13 and 17 I was very into astrology. Out of all things, why that? I think it happened for three main reasons:
Now, before you laugh at me, remember most atheists were at one point religious. Is believing that planets have some sort of control over your personality really that much more insane than believing in an invisible supreme being that cares about what you eat and screw, and sends his own son (who’s also himself) down to earth to save you from something bad one of your ancestors did by dying and coming back to life?
Didn’t think so.
Anyway, when I say I was really into astrology, I mean it. I didn’t believe in newspaper horoscopes because I didn’t think they were done rigorously enough. I had books on astrology and drew my own charts. I would defend astrology and explain that it’s much more than your sun sign – that you have to look at the planets, and ascendants, and lunar nodes, and angles between all of these things, and what houses they were in… It was a complex art, and I told myself that people rejected it because they were only seeing the pop culture version of it.
Remind you of anything? Yeah, Christians versed in theology who claim people who attack “simple Christianity” aren’t really understanding what it’s really like. Astrology is no different, and let me tell you – something can be complex and nuanced and still be bullshit.
So why do I bring this up at all? Well, thanks to the boobquake media attention, I was contacted by the astrologer Eric Francis. He was a huge fan of boobquake, and extremely friendly. Even though he knew that as a skeptic I would probably think astrology is bullshit, he still wanted to do my chart for me (and gave me permission to poke fun at it). Eric didn’t know about my past relationship with astrology, which made me unable to resist. Even though I no longer believe in it, I wanted to know what a “real” astrologer would say.
You can find his full analysis here, but here’s just a taste:
“And as you might imagine, she’s got it all going on — a Sun-Pluto conjunction in Scorpio, in the 8th house (she jokingly described herself as a sex-obsessed Scorpio, though her precise Sun-Pluto conjunction in the 8th house turns up the heat by a few orders of magnitude). This powerful alignment is conjunct the asteroid Astraea, the goddess of justice. So this is passion driven by a sense of balance and integrity.
Boobquake was planned for Monday, when the Full Moon happened to be fast approaching, carrying lots of momentum — with the Moon itself reaching full phase exactly conjunct her natal Sun/Pluto conjunction. So she was in the cosmic spotlight as well as the regular one. The Full Moon so personally aspected against her chart provided a sense of emotional presence, which is why this event, while funny, was taken seriously.”
Yes, I understand all of that. How I wish I could replace my astrological knowledge with those biochemistry reactions I was supposed to memorize.
It sounds cool, doesn’t it? Seems to make perfect sense (especially if you read the whole article) and fit the story well, right? That’s why astrology can be so convincing. It relies on something known as confirmation bias – people tend to remember accurate predictions and forget the inaccurate ones. Eric was able to come up with multiple examples of things that support my personality (which he learned about from my blog) and boobquake (which he learned about from the media). But he doesn’t analyze every single relationship in the chart (see all those lines in the middle?). I’m rusty on my astrology, but I assure you there will be things that don’t quite fit in there.
What I really should have done is given Eric fake birth information for me and see if he still makes it fit his story. Something tells me he still would have been able to dig some meaning out of that different chart. Unfortunately for skepticism, I was too nice to turn his good intentions into a science experiment.
But you want to know what the really interesting thing about that chart was? When I saw it, my initial thought wasn’t “I’m going to write up a huge post debunking astrology!” It wasn’t even “Now I can write a little backstory about how I used to believe this crap!”
It was “Wow, how cool!”
Even four years after “losing my faith” in astrology, I still had an emotional reaction to it. All the emotional triggers were there, and I felt that same excited rush as when I would look at my own chart, or draw up a chart for a friend, or read about complex interactions that I didn’t originally understand. I used to not understand my religious friends when they explained the same experience. That an ex-Catholic would go to mass, and even though they no longer believed a word of it, they easily went through all the motions and had the same emotional reaction to their surroundings. That a crucifix or stained glass could trigger memories and dig up old feelings. That hearing an old hymn could make you feel closer to God, even if you now think he’s a fairy tale. That being told about the horrible torture in hell can instill fear in your heart, even if you know it’s not real.
Do these things prove that astrology or Catholicism are true? Of course not. What they show is how deeply people can get emotionally connected to their superstitions. That even after years of rational thought, certain stimuli still result in trained reactions. We all know about Pavlov’s dogs, but we have a hard time admitting it applies to us too.
Even though I know astrology is bunk, I don’t think I’ll ever totally shake the emotional connection. If people ask my sign, I’ll still happily reply “Scorpio!” out of habit (hey, at least it’s the most badass sign to have). If skeptical men use that as a dating litmus test, I’m screwed. When people poke fun at the vagueness of sun signs (the Forer effect), I’ll instinctively start explaining how it’s more complex than that, even though that’s bunk too – much like an ex-Catholic may still explain that no, Catholics don’t worship Mary, even though what they do believe is still nonsense. I’ll still poke through the Sextrology book at Borders and giggle at what my supposed kinks are because of my particular planetary alignment.
And while I still may get some enjoyment out of it, at least I know it’s not real. Now it’s similar to my fascination with Harry Potter – I can babble about how I’d totally be a Ravenclaw, but I don’t really think magic is real and my Hogwarts letter got lost in the mail. If I ever become a true believer again, feel free to stick me on the first train to crazy town – especially if it’s scarlet.
No, this isn’t me attempting to call theists stupid – it’s a new study out in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. From New Scientist:
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Schjødt and his colleagues scanned the brains of 20 Pentecostalists and 20 non-believers while playing them recorded prayers. The volunteers were told that six of the prayers were read by a non-Christian, six by an ordinary Christian and six by a healer. In fact, all were read by ordinary Christians.
Only in the devout volunteers did the brain activity monitored by the researchers change in response to the prayers. Parts of the prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices, which play key roles in vigilance and scepticism when judging the truth and importance of what people say, were deactivated when the subjects listened to a supposed healer. Activity diminished to a lesser extent when the speaker was supposedly a normal Christian (Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsq023).
Schjødt says that this explains why certain individuals can gain influence over others, and concludes that their ability to do so depends heavily on preconceived notions of their authority and trustworthiness.
It’s not clear whether the results extend beyond religious leaders, but Schjødt speculates that brain regions may be deactivated in a similar way in response to doctors, parents and politicians.
It’s always fascinating to me when we find more and more scientific discoveries that explain religious behavior. Of course, I still wonder what the causal relationship here is. Do people become believers because the logical part of their brain shuts off when presented with unsupported religious woo? Or does the logical part of the brain shut off only in believers who have been trained to accept that people like faith healers are telling the truth?
(Via Boing Boing)
No, this isn’t me attempting to call theists stupid – it’s a new study out in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. From New Scientist:
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Schjødt and his colleagues scanned the brains of 20 Pentecostalists and 20 non-believers while playing them recorded prayers. The volunteers were told that six of the prayers were read by a non-Christian, six by an ordinary Christian and six by a healer. In fact, all were read by ordinary Christians.
Only in the devout volunteers did the brain activity monitored by the researchers change in response to the prayers. Parts of the prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices, which play key roles in vigilance and scepticism when judging the truth and importance of what people say, were deactivated when the subjects listened to a supposed healer. Activity diminished to a lesser extent when the speaker was supposedly a normal Christian (Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsq023).
Schjødt says that this explains why certain individuals can gain influence over others, and concludes that their ability to do so depends heavily on preconceived notions of their authority and trustworthiness.
It’s not clear whether the results extend beyond religious leaders, but Schjødt speculates that brain regions may be deactivated in a similar way in response to doctors, parents and politicians.
It’s always fascinating to me when we find more and more scientific discoveries that explain religious behavior. Of course, I still wonder what the causal relationship here is. Do people become believers because the logical part of their brain shuts off when presented with unsupported religious woo? Or does the logical part of the brain shut off only in believers who have been trained to accept that people like faith healers are telling the truth?
(Via Boing Boing)
