OK, I don’t know quite what to make of this: it’s a site called The Atheist Conservative. I know there’s no obstacle to being both godless and conservative, but this one is ’round-the-bend freaky far-right Bush-lovin’ conservative. I don’t know how an atheist could write a review of Ann Coulter’s Godless that contains gooey dollops of praise for Coulter — that book was one flaming bonfire of stupid. But hey, if there are conservative atheists out there with tears running down your cheeks because you’re reading this pro-atheist site by a crazed liberal, maybe you’ll be happier over there.
Oh, and they’ve got their own symbol for atheism: it’s the square root of 2. Oy. Everyone’s gotta be different.
(via The Friendly Atheist)
While this guy sounds like he might be a troll, I’ve often thought that folks don’t have to march in lock-step with party platforms generally. It seems to me that someone who agrees with the right about social issues could at the same time disagree about economic issues, or the war, or corruption.
Penn Teller’s a Libertarian, to the point where his Libertarianism occasionally overrides his skepticism and critical thinking (witness some of the stuff he’s said about secondhand smoke and later retracted, for example).
But praising Ann Coulter’s Godless so effusively? Geez, that’s just crazy talk, especially from an atheist.
You know, the srt(2) is irrational number… without further research into the site, I’m guessing it’s parody or satire.
Orac:
“Penn Teller” should be “Penn Jillette”. Otherwise, what you said.
Penn Jillette. Teller is the guy who doesn’t talk.
Any site that calls Coulter “a rational political analyst ” has to be a parody, right?
Isn’t escape velocity equal to orbital velocity times the square root of 2? Is there any other significance?
Peculiar how most atheists are bloody liberals.
I don’t see the connection; one is a scientific view on the existence of a higher being, the other is a political view.
You’d think rational though (atheism) would be coupled with more rational thought, not irrational though (liberalism). Rational thought: no connection to any particular party whatsoever as in being a single issue voter, as Hitchens is.
I am a strong agnostic and conservative in values and wish the Conservative Atheist well.
Ack!
It’s what’s known as doing a quick comment while having lunch in my office…
Ah philos: you’re the guy who was clueless as to how atheism was defined by the atheists you were criticizing, right?
Not exactly a strong endorsement of your rationality.
You do realize that not believing in IPUs does not also necessitate being throw-caution-to-the-wind liberal?
Personally, I am conservative (by Canadian standards, which makes me nearly a communist by most US standards, I suppose) because I don’t believe that social change should be legislated and that we, as a society, should proceed forward cautiously – conservatively – instead of rushing into things which seems to be all the rage right now. I would like to see less government interference in people’s lives and more personal responsibility… a decidedly conservative position, but even in that, I think it’s a goal to be migrated slowly toward, not tossed into tomorrow.
I don’t understand how the Atheist Conservatives can say that they have strong patriotism, […] respect for traditional institutions and customs, […] happy tolerance of others’ beliefs, including religious beliefs and still claim to be “rationalists”. How is it rational to blindly adhere to traditions and customs, especially when many of those are based in religion? How is it rational to be blindly patriotic? How is it rational to tolerate views that are not themselves rational, especially when they impact on the political system?
Atheism doesn’t necessarily logical imply liberalism, but I would think that, if it is based in rationalism, it sure rules out traditional conservativism.
Aren’t the Ayn Randists all atheist conservatives?
I did a quick search and found out the the site is run by a Jillian Becker.
Her, badly written, bio can be found on Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jillian_Becker
Here’s the scoop about her new web site:
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=755990
The square root of two, because they’re so radical? :-D
philos wrote:
I touched on a Christian-Republican similarity in my blog post Global Warming and Christian Denialism (which mentions PZ and this blog). I think some of the reason the views are connected are simply because the people who hold these beliefs tend to stick together. There’s nothing explicitly connecting liberalism and atheism, and likewise there isn’t anything explicitly connecting Christianity and anti-global warming. But sometimes our views are derived simply because we hold many other views similarly within the group we consider most important in our lives.
There’s a guy who does a lot of spots on Freethought Radio named Ernesto Haibi who runs an outfit called National Atheists — he’s an outspokenly conservative atheist, but I don’t think he’s a wingnut. But conservative atheists are out there.
It may be parody; their Irrational symbol is a bit too on-the-nose.
As for American politics, it seems to me that currently the most evidence-based group is clearly the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
Which isn’t saying much. But then again, when the Republicans joyfully enshrine willful ignorance and anti-science as load-bearing beams of their platform…
Todd:
That’s a truly horrible article… probably too obscure to get much attention from the Wikignomes, but it desperately needs it.
Guys, he explains why he chose the root of 2, and I like his explanation. All you have to do it click on the link. It’s just as good a symbol as the Atomic Atheist symbol or the Scarlet A, though maybe a little more convoluted.
I’m an atheist conservative, tending towards libertarian. One effect Godless had on me was to go back and read some of Coulter’s earlier work, which on first reading seemed exuberantly irreverent and mockingly funny towards American leftist shibboleths. Unfortunately, after Godless, the dreadful possibility dawned on me that she might actually believe much of what she writes.
Libertarian hardly qualifies as “conservative” these days — the “conservatives” are the one promoting Big Government, state spying on citizens, discrimination of individuals based on personal private sexual practices, attacking personal use of recreational drugs, etc. etc. etc. If I were a libertarian, I certainly wouldn’t call myself a “conservative”.
Once again, everyone is stuck on the 1D series that is Left or Right.
Open your minds a little. There are at least two directions for contemplation in politics, the fiscal side and the social side. You can be a social liberal and fiscal conservaitve (Libertarian), social conservative and fiscal liberal (Republican) etc.
Look up the Nolan Quiz.
And how about we label the religious with a SQRT(-1) just to point out they are imaginary.
SQRT(2) is just Pythagoras’s constant.
Tulse wrote:
Heck, if I was even conservative I wouldn’t call myself a “conservative.” I think that’s probably partly the reason liberals are now calling themselves “progressives.”
I know some conservative atheists. My theory is that, during their process of enculturation, they picked up certain “moral” beliefs that are religiously based; although they dismiss the religious basis for these beliefs, their is still some religious “residue” in their thinking and paradigm.
Oops. “their is still some” should be “there is still some”
I’ve only spent … say … 10 seconds looking at this site but have you noticed he only goes after Islam? Even going after my *cough*Representative*cough* Keith Ellison?
The atheists-are-liberals thing is just an American peculiarity caused by the fact that our Right has come to be dominated by theocrats. This is (hopefully) not a permanent condition. On a broader perspective almost any kind of weird combination will occur. For example in France between the wars, the Action Francaise was a nominally monarchist but really proto-fascist group led by Charles Maurras- an atheist anti-Semite who strongly supported the political power of the Catholic Church. Figure that one out!
It’s been a long, long time since Coulter has been funny about anything. In her Darwinian struggle to survive as an acerbic pundit in an increasingly toxic political environment, she’s been reduced to pure viciousness. Her claim that she is simply using hyperbole to make a point is too flimsy an excuse for her strident and uncouth yammering. These days she’s merely rabid.
From the sqrt site:
When the ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras realised this, he resolved that it should be kept a secret because if hoi poloi (the common people) came to know it, they would stop believing that the world was divinely created on a rational design.
Secret information only kept by mathematicians and philosophers, Huh? I detect the rotten stench of a Straussian.
I often find that someone who does not know what atheism is also does not know what liberalism is. I am looking at you Philos! I must presume that since you dislike liberalism so much the concept of the individual’s rights being considered to have primacy over those of the state are anathema to you. Also you clearly do not think that there should be equality of oppertunity. Either that or you really do not know what these words you use means.
Here is a hint. Liberal does NOT mean left-wing.
yoshi:
Honest question: What makes Ellison a “coughesentative”?
Really Weird!
The problem I have with the conjunction of Atheist/Conservative is that when you go to the website and look at the page of “About Us” Nowhere do you see a plain statement of: “I see no evidence for the existence of God”. I think it is a shill for the usual suspects!
Christopher Hitchins is a genuine Conservative/Atheist and he sees no evidence for the existence of God.
DenisC
I find the labels liberal/conservative unhelpful, and prefer the labels progressive/reactionary. Progressive thinking can use any approach that leads one into solving the problems of the future — for instance building a new dam to increase water storage (seemingly anti-enviromental, pro-agriculture), that replaces on old dam which killed a river and a vibrant salmon spawning ground (pro-environmental). Trying for the win-win, without being ideologically dogmatic, but always adding to the present.
And reactionary? The position that everything was perfect sometime in the 1950’s. All problems are due to having made changes from that idealized past. In other words, all viewpoints on issues are necessarily subtractive in nature.
I’m conservative, I suppose. I’m atheist. I’m appalled at most of what George Bush has done.
More important, though, political ideology is the enemy of effective public policy. Conservative, liberal, libertarian…who cares? That is, why don’t we (in the US, at least) base public policy on what works instead of what matches our ideology?
For example, developed countries around the world have tried various approaches to providing health care. Let’s look at what provides the best health care for the most people most efficiently. Who could argue against that? However that turns out, whether it involves government-run insurance or private health savings accounts or both, why don’t we have policy-makers advocating evidence-based policies…without reference to political ideology?
Another thought —
A progessive atheist: There is no god. Must solve own problems.
A reactionary atheist: There is no god. All problems are due to somebody else. I hope they are progessive atheists.
“…why don’t we have policy-makers advocating evidence-based policies…”
$ka-ching$
The first post on that site, “Anti-Zionism is Racism”, betrays a serious lack of critical thinking skills, not to mention Google savvy.
Ha ha! Well put, True Bob (#36)!
But why don’t they even offer up a few hypocritical, empty platitudes in feigned deference to evidence? Why not, “Here is the [cynically-manipulated] evidence that my policy works” instead of what we actually get: “Blah blah socialized medicine blah blah evil drug companies blah blah soft-headed liberals blah blah cruel, heartless reactionaries….”
Err, what I meant was the oldest post on the front page.
Clarity is not my strong suit today, apparently.
I wouldn’t bother calling myself conservative or liberal as these terms have been stripped of any descriptive power they may once have had. Thanks to certain authoritarian elements in the republican camp, the words have been reduced to simple labels: us vs. them. This is the most basic, visceral, primitive, and destructive of social dynamics. Chimps are capable of greater sophistication.
That’s not atheism. That’s Stalinism, endorsing false information, disinformation, and propaganda. Damn fools never can tell the difference.
Conservatism, as currently manifested in the US, is nothing more than authoritarianism. In its rejection of a supernatural authority, and as the result of skepticism and free thought, atheism is inherently anti-authoritarian; and in its rejection of government control of personal choices and support for civil liberties, liberalism is also inherently anti-authoritarian. Therefore, there is an inescapable correlation between the two. It is not an accident that most prominent, as well as obscure atheists are also liberals.
___________________________
I think it goes farther than that. Much of what passes for modern American conservatism is based on an appeal to authority or an appeal to consequences. Which most atheists seem to disregard. It’s not so much that atheists tend to liberalism but that the republican party took such a hard right-authoritarian turn since Nixon implemented his southern strategy that our definition of what is right and left politically has shifted.
Obviously, the square-root of two is a symbol of how rational he is. ;D
I also consider myself a “conservative.” However, I am more the Goldwater/Ron Paul type. Probably more Libertarian. But these guys are confusing. The Ann Coulter stuff really threw me off.
Richard
http://lifewithoutfaith.co
Wait! This isn’t the liberal position? Let me check my year 2000+ dictionary. Nope, it says right here, as someone else has already stated, “Conservative: Obsession with laws to control social order, radical change to fit one universal social standard, which is to be defined by as delusional a interpretation as possible of 1950s society as possible (or 1550s in some of the more insane cases).” Mind you, the only claim you are making that **is** part of the conservative play book right now seems to be, “Slow change over time.”, if you can call “no change”, or “glacial”, the same as “slow”. And imho, that isn’t always as productive as a sudden lurch away from the current norm, especially when the current norm is so radically idiotic compared to most other western nations on some issues, and the only thing the conservatives seem to want to do is frantically try to legislate everything back to some imaginary perfection, in which all the same stuff still happened (sometimes even more often), but people just didn’t talk about it on some national TV show with Dr. Phil.
You can’t stop social change, and slowing it isn’t too practical either, it happens at is own pace. You can only guide or drastically accelerate it. Liberals mostly get that. Their biggest problem is that most rarely have one clear consistent concept of where to *guide* things, and instead have a screwball idea that not guiding it at all, and just letting social change happen completely randomly, will promote a “better society”. This is a bumper car theory of social change, where who ever isn’t thrown off the tracks wins, and is no more sane than the Libertarian nutso position that throwing out thousands of laws enacted to *prevent* abuses by businesses will actually make those businesses behave better… It never gets you any place. “Conservatives” instead start to panic when ever something happens faster than they prefer, and desperately try to apply breaks, drag things to a stop it or, in the worst cases, throw anything they can find, from Bibles and faith based programs to slander and lies in the path of the cars. It never occurs to them even once that this can not just stop progress in the direction they don’t like, it can cause a 50 car pileup.
Neither side wins any prizes for rationality, and, in my experience, most people, if they didn’t arbitrarily pick sides over single issue causes, are not justified in calling themselves *either* one. They are in fact *both*. Its only the degree of interference or lack that differs, the degree of freedom vs. tradition they think is most reasonable, etc. And because they arbitrarily pick one or the other, while the so called leaders take positions that are far less centrist and more radical, you get situations where if you have 1,000 people in two groups, shouting at each other over something like abortion, only about 50 of those people are likely to be intransigent radicals, but the other 950 will stand there and shout at each other, call each other names, and insist they are right, and the other side wrong, even if, separated from the 50 radicals, they would all “together” be able to find a compromise in between that, while no one would be 100% satisfied with, would *still* be acceptable to them.
Mind you, this assumes that both sides are stocked with normal people. All too often one side is going to be stacked with 95% radical pro-lifers, while the other is stocked with 95% anti-lifers. Its still only 5% of the entire fracking populous making noises about something the other 95% could, if they had a chance, find a decent compromise over.
The only reason I call myself liberal is that, despite all the UFO nuts, alternative medicine quacks, and general clinically insane fruit loops on this side, right now, they are still make logical, rational and forward thinking than the majority of current “conservatives”.
I’m pretty sure a decent-sized portion of the leadership in the Republican party do not believe in God. They talk about it, though, because it gets them power.
phat
phat wrote —
I’m pretty sure a decent-sized portion of the leadership in the Republican party do not believe in God. They talk about it, though, because it gets them power.
I think they believe in god — a god called MONEY. And it sure gets them plenty of power.
Oh, an Ron Paul doesn’t believe in the separation of church and state.
phat
Karl Rove, for one, has said so openly (“I am not fortunate enough to be a person of faith”.)
BrotherRichard wrote–
…I also consider myself a “conservative.” However, I am more the Goldwater/Ron Paul type…
I wish someone could explain to me what this means. Goldwater is physically dead, and founded no political schools of thought that I am aware of. And Paul is intellectually dead — in the interviews I have seen, he offers no new ideas whatsoever. From his website:
Dr. Paul tirelessly works for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies. He is known among his congressional colleagues and his constituents for his consistent voting record. Dr. Paul never votes for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution.
See my previous post re: REACTIONARY.
Conservative = Anti-intellectual.
Anti-Intellectual = Stupid.
Therefore:
Conservative = Stupid.
All this “I’m a conservative but not like Bush” is just a bullshit attempt to salvage the conservative brand. George Bush is exactly what conservatism stands for. Everything that good old ‘Saint’ Ronnie desired, Bush the Lesser got. This – the current state of government – is exactly what conservatism’s stated goals were.
Conservatism is a failure, and I won’t allow them to deny responsibility for getting what they always wanted.
Atheists in the US will tend to be left in their politics as long as the right continues to run on a platform of anti-abortion rights, anti-gay, pro-faith based initiative and other such issues that are driven by strong religious fervor. The legislation trying to get the 10 Commandments displayed are generally not introduced by Democrats.
The right has made no pretense about pandering to the believers. Why would athiests support that? Granted, it’s not like the left has pandered to non-believers, but at least they aren’t blatently pandering to religious.
Don’t forget everyone, there’s a difference between conservative and neo-conservative.
Guys, he explains why he chose the root of 2, and I like his explanation.
His explanation is a myth*. Is a myth really the best way to symbolize disbelief?
* Several things are wrong with the story: Pythagoras was DEAD when Hippasus of Metapontum discovered the irrationality of the number. Even were he alive Pythagoras would have been aware that the hoi poloi did not share his theology to begin with so keeping the secret would have had other designs. If the knowledge was kept secret “for hundreds of years” it was done exceedingly badly since Theodorus of Cyrene provided a proof of the irrationality of the square root of two (as well as all the other irrational square roots up to 17) within a decade or two of Hippasus’s discovery, within the century Eudoxus of Cnidus provided a strong mathematical base for the proof and by 300 BCE irrationality comprised an entire chapter of Euclid’s Elements.
The atheists-are-liberals thing is just an American peculiarity caused by the fact that our Right has come to be dominated by theocrats.
I think there is lots of truth to that. Goldwater (who has been getting some mention here) was adamant that he would not be told what to do by ‘religious nuts’.
Despite CalGeorge’s formula, I see plenty of anti-intellectual attitudes across the board. It just seems to be about different things. Put a genetically-modified soybean in the hands of a homosexual, and you could chase large swaths of the non-thinkers on both sides all over the country.
I’m an atheist, a scientist, and a modulated libertarian. I know some of the pure-breed libertarians are nuts, and that government is essential. But not as much as liberals and conservatives want to impose, in my opinion.
WTF is a “free market” again? Markets are constructs of the state, aren’t they? So someone can “believe” in free markets all they want, but you gotta pay for them. and the state’s creation of a market mechanism entitles the state, in this case We the Peeps, to regulate it in any way they deem fit, F you very much, globalizationeers. What’s a free market again? Oh yeah: THEY pay for it (ie anyone not me) and I profit from it. Duh.
I think the atheist/liberal connection is a marriage of convenience, brought about by political conditions in the US. I’m both liberal and athiest, but I don’t see how either one necessitates the other. It may be practically impossible to be an American-style “conservative” and be atheist, but that’s a state of affairs local to this place and time in history.
1) An economic in which the wealthy do not answer to anyone. They can for example:
a) Hire Pinkertons to murder their employees who start to demand better wages and time off.
b) Allow dangerous working conditions.
c) Follow no environmental regulations.
2) A fairy tale in which the Jonah Goldberg’s and Mark Steyn’s will have luxurious homesteads earned with nothing but their toil at manly man’s work… with guns and discussions of philosophy and ponies for all.
I suspect that evidence-based platforms aren’t offered because they don’t have the us vs. them, sports team attraction of conventional politics. Making the best choices instead of trying to beat the other guy? Solving problems by thinking instead of shooting from the hip? Yawn. How do you expect to get voters to sign on to that instead of protecting America, saving the family, defending freedom (whether it’s Bush’s 1984 version or actual freedom), saving the planet, or some other exciting ideal?
This assertion I’m making now isn’t evidence-based, but that still proves that I, at least, am too lazy to bother with facts instead of my armchair conjectures. Too bad I’m not some flavour of pseudoscientist, or I could win already by using myself as a solitary example consistent with my claims.
I don’t know if anyone has mentioned this yet, but the Conservative Atheist was recently interveiwed on the Dogma Free America podcast and I thought it was decent.
http://dogmafreeamerica.com/index.php?post_id=234686
He has a book called: Damned If I Do, Damned If I Don’t, Reflections Of A Conservative Atheist.
garth,
I think I just got dumber by reading your post. The government creates the market? Is there any support for that in any setting anywhere? Show me one culture in the history of humanity that did not rely on barter and exchange for mutual betterment.
Yup, you must have gotten dumber all right. Why do you think the creation of true markets in places like China has to await the government creating laws and enforcement mechanisms to support private property and contracts? Good luck staying in business for long without a court system to enforce your contracts.
If you want to talk about what the “default” situation is, then from the beginning of the Sumerian city-states and extending for a very long time afterward, it was that everything is the property of the king. Anything like true market economies (and no, primitive barter systems in village-level societies are lacking many features of fully developed markets, and anyway receded into the background with the advent of that mixed blessing we call civilization) was a very late development.
If you’re looking for right-wing evolutionists and atheists, then Darwin Central (www.darwincentral.org) is the place to find them.
They are mostly refugees from the Free Republic wingnut site (yes, they are that kind of conservative) who were told that their brand of rationality and science was not welcome even if they did hate Hillary Clinton and all things liberal.
I don’t mind a political site with an atheist bent. (It would be worse with “The Conservative Atheist”.)
Though it is scary that someone like Becker, who worked politically on terrorism issues, would accept Coulter’s lies. And that she works with a group which main goal is to bring “Britain out of the European Union”.
She doesn’t seem very concerned with facts and reasonable possibilities.
Yes, she (Jillian Becker) does. It is actually more well considered than the latest try here, though not as likely to be identifiable:
I don’t mind a political site with an atheist bent. (It would be worse with “The Conservative Atheist”.)
Though it is scary that someone like Becker, who worked politically on terrorism issues, would accept Coulter’s lies. And that she works with a group which main goal is to bring “Britain out of the European Union”.
She doesn’t seem very concerned with facts and reasonable possibilities.
Yes, she (Jillian Becker) does. It is actually more well considered than the latest try here, though not as likely to be identifiable:
The Sumerian city-states are not the default condition for humanity. The default condition for humanity is hunter-gatherer tribes, which have rather loose government (if it even deserves the name). Trade exists among humans unless someone is actively strangling it – and springs up again as soon as they let go. Making everything the property of the king required constant violence (yes, it actually WAS inherent in the system) toward people who didn’t respect the king’s claim to own everything.
Because it will replace the government actively suppressing anyone who tries to have a market.
It may or may not be possible for government to provide a space in which markets can work more effectively. But they will work on at least some basic level as soon as you stop actively screwing them up.
If you think that active government support is necessary for a market to exist, how do you explain black markets?
Aren’t the Ayn Randists all atheist conservatives?
No, Libertarians and Objectivists are radical anarcho-capitalists.
As for markets, if you use the definition of “market” to include “all economic activity between agents”, then it’s not necessarily government created. However, at that point the definition gets in the way of understanding what you are actually talking about.
“Free Markets”, like the “State of Nature”, are cute little Platonic ideals that never actually existed and never will. Perhaps useful (although I have my doubts about that) in philosophical discussions, but they shouldn’t be taken seriously in the real world.
wildcardjack:
There’s even an unimpeachable precedent for this: didn’t God himself call himself “i am that i am”?
(I think that should be “j am that j am”, for the engineers, unless I’m thinking of physicists.)
I think the belief that atheism and liberalism must go together must be a US thing – because of the Republican party’s close links with the Xtian right.
Here in the UK, there was a very prominent, very rightwing politician in the 1980s called Norman Tebbit who was, and as far as I know remains, atheist (he was also screamingly homophobic, but didn’t resort to the bible to justify his prejudices).
I describe my own politics as economically social-democratic and socially libertarian. I think liberal/conservative are simply too vague to have much meaning in themselves.
Electrical engineers. Y’see, the letter “i” was already taken (it symbolizes current) but “j” was available…
Incidentally, anyone surprised at a “conservative”, i.e., auuthoritarian, atheist needs to go spend some time hanging around the forum over at the James Randi Educational Foundation. The place is just infested with people who are both godless and right wing authoritarian in outlook.
The square root of 2 is obviously an in-joke reference to Kronecker and then finitists, intuitionists and constructivists, and a playful dig at atheists along the lines of “What? You won’t believe in a God but you have no qualms about accepting the existence of the square root of 2?”
http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2007/05/the_axiom_of_choice.php#comment-446449
As a mathematical fictionalist, I don’t believe there’s an independent (of human thought) square root of two either …
A conservative atheist is basically an “I got mine” personality without a god-belief. They enjoy watching the poor suffer and bombing foreign countries for continued global hegemony, but they don’t think God tells them to do these things.