Earlier today, Greta Christina posted a nice piece on the negative definition of atheism. I left a brief comment there, but wanted to post this much longer and perhaps actually coherent bit on positive and negative definitions, religion and atheism. It’s long, so you might want to pour yourself a drink first.
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A month or so ago, I had a student come out to me, as a budding atheist. I am not going to share any of his writing—it was an honor to have been trusted, and I will not violate that trust—but I do want to talk about it in the abstract for a bit.
I feel like it took very little effort for me to shed the religious shackles, and I never did have a lot of social pressure bearing on me, but upon reflection it did take several years, and I was at a place far removed from my old church, from my parents, and from the bible belt. There was very little pressure, one way or the other; conversely, there was very little support, one way or the other.
My student is in more or less the same community he has lived in his entire life, and now he feels he no longer believes; this is a far more difficult position than I was in. The people he would ordinarily talk to about such things are precisely the people he would not want to talk to. He has spent his entire life thus far with one variety of people, and has no one to lean on; he feels lost, like he’s the first or even the only one of his kind. He doesn’t believe in the things that used to bind him to his community, but feels some serious guilt about rejecting the worldview of his family and friends.
Cuttlefish University does not have a secular support group, or freethinkers group, or atheist group or agnostic group or any such animal. It does have (at least) six Christian groups, two Jewish groups and an interfaith group (official student organizations). I had not, until quite recently, really seen the need for a secular group (I frankly had not seen the need for the religious groups, either, since they could meet at their houses of worship), but now of course I have changed my mind. I may have to take a hand (well, a tentacle) in helping to organize one.
Those of you who have done so, or are members of student or other secular groups—any advice? What has worked? What has not? What sort of charter does such an organization have? And what questions am I not asking, that I probably should?
If thy right eye should offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee
You should sacrifice the bad to save the good
But to rip up Bible sections, is to flaunt the lord’s protections
So you shouldn’t do it, even if you could!
Every word, nay, every letter, couldn’t ever be made better
It’s the only perfect book that’s ever been!
So the Backyard Skeptics Rip-Off is the thinking person’s tip-off
That they’re really only there to make a scene.
Who could disagree, that urgin’, if your wife is not a virgin,
That by biblical pronouncement she be stoned?
If we start to choose and edit—challenge whether Jesus said it,
We’re committing sins that cannot be atoned!
End the sin of eating shellfish? Why, that’s nothing less than selfish!
What the bible says is good enough for me!
Why, these godless pick-and-choosers are the saddest sort of losers
With their addle-pated game of “thinking free”!
Explanation, after the jump:
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Inspired by PZ’s post, back just prior to Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene hitting the east coast, about David Silverman’s appearance on Fox. Basically, Silverman was invited on so that the hosts could ask him how atheists prepare for storms, and then make fun of him for not praying.
Of course, preparing for a potential disaster takes many forms, but the forms that are actually effective have one thing in common: they are among the things that atheists would do. Batteries? Check. Water? Check. Food? Check. First aid kit? Check. Prayer? Not so much. Candles? Matches? Check; check. Rosary? Nope. As Silverman said, the best thing you can do is prepare like an atheist.
Which got me thinking, and then composing. So below the fold is… not a verse, but a song. In my head it even has an actual melody and accompaniment–original, not a parody of any song I am aware of. For style, think John Hiatt, with a gospel choir backing him up. After the jump:
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Stephanie Zvan, over at Almost Diamonds, has a nice bit up on privilege, billboards, and thinking of the children. Oh, and an introduction to yet another person you should be reading. Given how busy today is about to be, I’ll post this one from the old blog and let you go read Almost Diamonds.
When they pass the plate on Sunday, and we put our money in,
They assure us that it lets the Church do good
So we dig a little deeper—being selfish is a sin—
And we donate like the Bible says we should.
Though we haven’t got much money, we still give as best we can,
Every Sunday morning, roughly ten o’clock
Now we see our small donations help a much, much bigger plan,
Cos we’ve got the biggest billboard on the block!
Every church around has got one, and there’s some with five or six
Praising Jesus and inviting folks to come
There are dozens in the city, and there’s more out in the sticks
And they must have cost a mighty godly sum!
When “Our Lady Of The Blessed Heart”, the local Catholic Church,
Put their new one by the highway overpass
We just couldn’t let it stand like that, with us left in the lurch;
Our humongous billboard really kicked their ass!
We’ve competed now for decades, with our steeples and our signs,
Till the megachurches left us in their dust;
And it might be steeple envy, if you read between the lines,
But there’s something now that fills us with disgust!
Yes, the godless heathen atheists, the lowest of the low,
Have a billboard that they want to put in town!
If they try it, though, I’m telling you (and really, I should know)
If they put it up, we’re gonna burn it down.
What a waste of their resources! Why, that money’s better spent
Housing homeless, feeding hungry, helping poor;
For a message on a billboard should be strictly heaven-sent—
That for all your problems, Jesus is the cure!
quite a bit more, after the jump:
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I’ve gotten a few comments and other sorts of feedback on yesterday’s verse from the old blog, and since today is such a busy day, I’m just going to throw two additional old “I thought I saw an atheist” posts up, with contexts and all, from the old place. The verse form lends itself to these things, and two incidents came up which needed commenting on.
After the jump:
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I thought I saw an atheist, once, walking down the street.
I checked for horns, I checked for tail, I checked for cloven feet;
Began to tremble frightfully—my heart was in my throat—
Then sighed in happy recognition, for ‘twas but a goat.
I thought I saw an atheist, down near a swollen stream
With scaly skin, and blood so cold, I couldn’t breathe to scream!
I looked into his bulging eyes, and prayed “God, grant my wish”
Then laughed in my embarrassment—it only was a fish.
I thought I saw an atheist, with fur and pointed claws,
And wicked teeth for chewing up Judeo-Christian laws,
I ran, and tripped, and fell to earth, then hid behind a log—
It caught me, though, and licked my face—of course, it was a dog.
I thought I saw an atheist, though cleverly disguised
Not giant and reptilian, but human, normal sized,
It looked to be engaging in productive, useful labor;
But no, this was no atheist—this person was my neighbor!
I thought I saw an atheist; in fact, I saw a few!
My neighbor, and the grocer, and the cop, and maybe you!
I even found some in the church, right there beneath the steeple;
It turns out, to my great surprise… that atheists are people.
A few comments after the jump:
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By request.
My faithful friends were wondering,
And I was wondering, too,
When atheists get together—
Just what all do they do?
They have no common purpose,
And so I find it odd,
To think they join together
And talk about “no god”.
My faithful friends were arguing,
I made my case as well,
Which people went to Heaven
And which ones went to Hell.
Which version of our Holy Book
Is better than the rest,
And, ultimately, which of our
Religions was the best.
My faithful friends were fighting
And I, too, joined the fight
God’s Holy Word demanded it
And so we felt it right.
The heretics and infidels
All needed to be taught;
God will not stand for people
Not believing what they ought!
My faithful friends were killing
As we have throughout the years
An internecine battle with
Our brothers and our peers
With countless souls in suffering
And countless hearts in grief
To show that there is nothing
More important than belief
My faithful friends were dying
By the dozens, by the scores
In random city bombings
And in major bloody wars
We lose our lives as instruments
Of God’s own rightful wrath;
And when we’ve gone, our children too
Will follow in our path.
My faithful friends were wondering,
And I was wondering, too,
When atheists get together—
Just what all do they do?
They have no common purpose,
And so I find it odd,
To think they join together
And talk about “no god”.
Inspired by PZ’s post here, and the linked article from The Age, “2500 people with nothing to talk about?”
There are worse things than having nothing to talk about.
The church that runs the boarding house where little girls are beaten
Finds the media attention rather odd
It exemplifies the problem with America today—
We put little children’s safety over God.
The republicans out courting votes, to energize their base
Call the global warming scientist a fraud
“We are taking back the country from the liberals, because
They trust scientific findings over God.”
A polygamist in prison, on a hunger strike for days
Thinks his trial was a ludicrous façade
And the problem with humanity is obvious to all
We’ve been following the law instead of God.
As I look through all the stories I see daily in the papers
I see we use our language rather oddly
To describe the sick behavior that religions may engender
We too often use the adjective “ungodly”
thoughts, after the jump:
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Our little FreethoughtBlogs family is growing, with a whole slew of new little ones here today! Oddly enough, they don’t seem all helpless and drooling; this is more of an Athena-from-Zeus’s-head birth, fully armored and ready to fight. Not like your usual babies at all.
But in welcome, a bit from my old digs about “atheist babies”, after the jump: