Apologies for the pun, but a bit of prose for you. The power was out, so I just collected some recent thoughts. They don’t rhyme, but I hope they reason.
How Do You Know? (bulk of essay after the jump)
“Keep the rum, give me straight Dr Pepper”
Said the decade-long-sober 12-stepper
She’s an atheist, too,
Which may counter the view
That A.A. sees the godless as leper
Headline: My Faithlessness: The atheist way through AA
Ok, not a headline, but from CNN’s Belief Blog. Hey, I only just got power back; any port in a storm.
AA (that’s Alcoholics Anonymous, not American Atheists) has never quite seen eye to eye with AA (that’s American Atheists, not Alcoholics Anonymous) due to the former’s explicit references to a god or higher power. This article is a really nice, if brief, story of an atheist who decided not to throw away a source of help just because she disagreed fundamentally with their axiomatic assumptions.
I like this. It views AA (the first) functionally, by what it does, rather than by what it claims. By the same token, we can see the social functions of many nominally religious institutions (hospitals, kitchens, etc.). Yes, the good that they do is due to their hard work, like it is for all of us. They can pray like theists, so long as they work like atheists.
So Cuttlemom (who has, of course, no idea that this blog exists, let alone that her son writes it) had roughly eight hours of surgery yesterday. It was needed, and it went well, and because I am a cuttlefish, that’s about all I’m going to say about it. Except. Cuttlesis (again, no idea of…) has been in charge of keeping everyone informed, and the long list of family and friends shows that this is a good and a necessary thing. Being Cuttlesis, she ends her emails by thanking everyone for their continued prayers.
At least three of the families on the list are atheist, I know. Many are devout bible-thumping christians, yes, but she knows that these three families have just heard “oh, this message doesn’t really apply to you.” It’s not a big deal, just yet one more example of privilege; when you are in the majority, you don’t have to think about what the minority thinks.
Anyway, though. I won’t ask for your kind thoughts toward my mother; you don’t know her, and there’s nothing those thoughts could do to help. What I will ask, though, is that the next chance you get, take a friend to a blood drive with you. If you can’t donate… take two friends.
I’ve said this before, and usually a small handful of people report back that they have done so. But really, if only one unit of blood gets donated, it’s got prayer beat.
On that note, one from the old place:
image thanks to PZ, who thanks Brian Flemming, who thanks Maria.
Let’s fold our hands and bow our heads
And mumble something low,
Or pray to tens of millions on
Some television show.
Let’s take a silent moment, and
Have others do the same,
So those remaining talking can
Be sure to feel their shame.
Let’s know that we are better, cos
We spent our time in prayer,
Than atheists and heathens who
Are working over there.
Let’s say a prayer for Washington,
For Darfur; for Tibet;
Let’s say a prayer for hunger, and
To fix the nation’s debt.
Let’s say a prayer for miners, trapped
In tunnels underground;
Let’s say a prayer for missing kids
In hopes that they are found.
Let’s say a prayer for polar ice
And students gone berserk;
Let’s say a prayer for everything–
It sure beats doing work.
Via the Digital International Atheists Group (@DIAGroup on twitter), a letter from Don Boys. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time until PZ posts it in comic sans, but I’m going to use it here as a reason to post an old favorite.
First, the letter:
Tell us that you do or do not believe the unsupportable, even outrageous teaching that nothing created everything. I promise not to laugh out loud–maybe only a snicker or two. And don’t try to flimflam us common people with scientific jargon, but make your points in clear English.
Tell us how all the scientific laws evolved such as gravity, inertia, the First and Second Laws, laws of planetary motion, etc. How does a scientific law evolve? If they did not evolve, where did they come from?
Did the evolution of those laws precede or follow the Big Bang?
Can you provide any example of an explosion resulting in order?
Tell us how life first formed on this planet made up entirely of rock? All atheists want to sit down beside
Darwin’s warm little pond and watch the first forms of life, but I demand to know much more than that if I’m expected to consider the idea has any possibility.
Do you, or do you not, believe in spontaneous generation? No honest scientist will agree to that fable.
Where are the ancestors of insects?
Why are meteorites not found in ancient rocks? Could it be that the rocks are not ancient?
Tell us how men and women evolved at the same time in history at the same location? What if “early man” had been all male!
Which evolved first, the mouth, the stomach, the digestive system or the elimination system? What good is a mouth if there is no stomach or a digestive system and what good are the three without an elimination system?
Tell us why we are here and where we go when death finally comes for us? Why have people all over the Earth since the beginning of time been concerned with that concept?
What happens if you are wrong and I am right? After all, any real scholar will admit that possibility.
Since the God of the Bible is real and eternity is in everyone’s future, don’t you think it might be wise and safe to consider this issue more carefully? If it is only possible that there is a sovereign, all-powerful God out there, then that is the most staggering truth ever faced by any mortal, and that truth will affect every person on the face of the Earth.
Is atheism really worth the risk? Eternity is a long time to be wrong. If I am wrong about eternity then it costs me nothing, but if atheists are wrong, they have lost everything, including their souls.
If you think there is not a word there that hasn’t been tried before and found wanting, you’d be right. Ignorance, more ignorance, and yet more ignorance, with Pascal’s Wager as the cherry on top.
My favorite, though, is the bit about men and women evolving separately. It gives me such a warm feeling inside to know that there are people out there so intent on not understanding. Oh, and it gives me the chance to tell you the story of Lonely Percy.
Percy would wander for years at a time;
He was terribly sad and incredibly lonely—
Percy was looking for love, but too bad;
The world had, so far, evolved male creatures only.
Percy was restless, and anxiously watching,
He knew what he wanted; he wanted a wife.
(Although, since the female had not yet evolved,
He had never seen women in all of his life!)
For long generations, his forefathers sought
For some womanly tenderness, softness, and mercy,
But cold evolution denied them their wish;
Now the burden was borne by poor, motherless Percy.
From Grand-dad to Father, from Father to Son,
Generations would pass, without calling for sex.
I haven’t a clue how they managed to do it;
The method, it seems, is a little complex.
Percy has walked tens of thousands of miles
In search of a hopeful mutation or two.
You see, he has parts that he thinks may be useful,
Which haven’t, as yet, had a damned thing to do.
Far away, on the shores of a vast, distant ocean,
A small population is camped by the water,
Where all by themselves, they just sit there evolving,
Granny to Mother, and Mother to Daughter.
Someday, perhaps, as he wanders and wanders,
Percy could find, with a great deal of luck,
He may stumble upon this remote population,
And finally end up with someone to love.
The flip of a coin
Tells which group you will join;
There is no more investment than that.
It’s a “minimal group”
But you’re one of the troop
And you’ve taken up arms in the spat.
If the star-bellied sneetches
Are best on the beaches
Then what would the plain-bellies say?
The most trivial stuff
Can be more than enough
To let intergroup biases sway
And as quick as you know
You’ve turned friend into foe
For as near as no reason at all
Just the flip of a dime
And a moment of time
And you’re ready and willing to brawl
If you think that a fight
Over which side is right
Means that something important’s at stake
Just remember, it’s known
We will fight for our own…
And a coin flip is all it might take
The bad news is, skeptics are fighting among themselves. The good news is, skeptics are fighting among themselves.
“Minimal Group” experiments (Tajfel and colleagues, in the early 70s) showed that something as simple as the flip of a coin was enough to engender ingroup/outgroup bias effects. The Hatfields and McCoys had generations of feuding to generate ingroup/outgroup bias; Tajfel found that biases did not need much at all to get started.
Now, I’m not saying there are not very real and meaningful differences. I’m just saying that the fact that people are sharpening pitchforks and lighting torches does not mean that the differences they fight over are worth fighting over. People choose up sides at the drop of a hat. Oh, and once they do, and do so publicly, we start hearing less about Tajfel and more about Festinger. We are motivated to maintain and defend our publicly stated opinions… even if, yeah, the original differences in opinion were trivial.
Let’s throw one more classic name in social cognitive psychology at you–Muzafer Sherif. Sherif is the name thrown about when we try to join groups together, instead of dissecting them apart. His solution? Superordinate goals–common goals that redefine two separate groups as part of one larger group. For example, Reagan (more than once) claimed that our differences with the Russians would disappear if earth were invaded by Martians.
Too bad it seems that it takes the presence of a common enemy to bring peace. But one hopeful possibility is that the skeptics are fighting among themselves because the common goal is closer to resolution than in the past. Without the clear and present danger, we have the luxury of fighting among ourselves.
Still and all, I’d really rather we didn’t.
In the seeking of knowledge,
From cradle to college,
No matter the issue or task
It’s a pretty good bet
That the answers you get
Will depend on the questions you ask
The answer, my friends
Very often depends
On what question was asked, and of whom?
In the world that we face
It’s not often the case
There’s an expert right there in the room
It’s a process. We ought
To use skeptical thought
But the thing is—unless we’re omniscient,
You are different from me
So we might disagree
On what evidence we find sufficient
One man may be liable
To look to the bible
Another may look to his heart
If they honestly question,
Then here’s my suggestion:
That’s all we can ask, for a start.
I hesitate to weigh in too much on the skepticism/atheism kerfuffle, mainly because I suspect that much of the kerfufflage is the result of overreaction on both sides. A specific complaint is seen as a general one, colorful language is used, et voila! Molehills, mountains, teapots, tempests.
So, although I could be wrong, I don’t think this is a big deal. Of course skepticism and atheism are not the same thing; that’s trivially true and easily demonstrated. It’s not a major issue. One can easily be a skeptical Christian. I was, and it led to my atheism. My sister was, and remains a Christian (in my opinion, she asked the wrong people, and was shown bad evidence, but that’s a very easy thing to have happen where she lives; she has also been able to avoid science classes in her education, and may be ill-prepared to evaluate the evidence she gathers).
The real reason for writing this post, though, is to share this video. This man was a skeptic while he was a Christian, and does a great job describing the sorts of questions he asked, the answers he got, the puzzles he puzzled… His experience was different from mine (for one thing, he left Christianity younger than I did), but it had a familiar feel to it for me, and he is (unlike me) a comfortable speaker just telling his story, without notes, to a rolling camera.
And as of this writing, it only has 190 views. It deserves more.
(The title is satire, not hate speech. I don’t want anybody killed.)
Atheists are hateful (1); they’re annoying, rude, and loud;
They’re a total waste of oxygen (2), the godless and the proud
They are spiteful un-Americans, rejecting Jesus’ call—
The solution? Let’s just shoot them. Shoot them all(3).
Those atheists are radicals, and militants as well;
For their blasphemous beliefs they’ll all be heading straight to hell
We could wipe them from the planet, and be grateful for the loss—
The solution? Fucking nail them to the cross(4).
They deny the Holy Spirit; they deny a God above
They deny that Christ was crucified to save us through His love
By rejecting God’s forgiveness, they choose nothingness instead
So they all deserve a shotgun to the head(5).
We should crucify their leader; shove a spear into his side
Let him know the pain that Jesus felt, the hours before He died(6)
So that maybe he’ll appreciate what Jesus Christ is worth—
Nah, let’s wipe the fucking godless from the earth.
I follow in Christ’s footsteps; I adore the Prince of Peace,
But these atheists grow bolder as their numbers have increased
It’s my patriotic duty now, to walk where Jesus led
And He wants these godless bastards fucking dead.
(1) Michael Perri
(2) Casey M Jones
(3) Joe Martinez, Casey M Jones, Bob O’Connell, Joseph Sneckenberg
(4) Chris Dunn, Mike Holeschek
(5) Joe Martinez
(6) Chris Dunn
Source.
Edited to add: Here’s another source for a bit more of the background. It is noted there that, although these comments were taken down quickly by site owners (Fox News’s facebook page), Chris Dunn’s comment got 19 “likes” in the few minutes it was up.
I believe in love and kindness
I believe in helping hands
I believe in strong opinions
I believe in taking stands
I believe cooperation
Overcomes the steepest odds
I believe we have a fighting chance
I don’t believe in gods.
I believe in education
I believe in learning science
I believe we see much further
When we climb atop of giants
I believe in writing poetry
And verses praising love
I believe that there are mysteries
But not a god above.
I believe in art and music
And the power of a voice
I believe in nature’s beauty
I believe we have a choice
I believe we have a future—
We’re in charge of how it looks—
I believe in sharing knowledge, too
But not in holy books
I believe we came from nothing
And to nothing we’ll return
I believe we don’t know everything
But much of it, we’ll learn
I believe we’re all connected
I believe all sorts of stuff
I believe we are humanity
And isn’t that enough? [Read more…]
At the site of a horrible loss,
The Memorial now holds a cross?
The community center
Was told “do not enter”—
Guess we know which religion is boss.
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.
