Why I am an atheist – Garry J. VanGelderen

Let me digress just a little right up front……I do not like the word “Atheist” as it sounds so negative. I have considered words like “Naturalist”, “Naturist”, Universalist”  but these have all been appropriated by other groups for other reasons. I certainly do not like the word “Bright”, advocated by some atheists, as I really don’t think I am that bright most of the time. A more positive sounding epithet is still looked for and I would welcome suggestions.

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If you ever wanted a perfect example of why government should be secular…

…just examine the logic and evidence behind this judge’s decision to deny a transgender woman to have a name change.

“A so-called sex-change surgery can make one appear to be the opposite sex, but in fact they are nothing more than an imitation of the opposite sex,” the judge wrote in a seven-page order last year.

“Here, petitioner has not even had the surgery by which his sex purports to be changed. Thus, based on the foregoing and the DNA evidence, a sex change cannot make a man a woman or a woman a man all of which, the Court finds is sufficient in and of itself to deny petitioner’s request for a name change,” Graves wrote.

“To grant a name change in this case would be to assist that which is fraudulent,” Graves wrote. “It is notable that Genesis 1:27-28 states: ‘So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth …’ The DNA code shows God meant for them to stay male and female.”

That is a scientifically and ethically bankrupt position, driven entirely by a fundamentalist interpretation of Biblical dogma. We do not determine gender by chromosome counts; what is this judge going to do to determine the Official Sex of individuals with androgen insensitivity syndrome (XY chromosomes, but physically female)? And how can he make the leap from the book of Genesis to the “DNA code”? The Bible verse he cites says absolutely nothing about the genetic basis of sex, or whether it is fixed and inflexible in any individual.

The Bible is silent on this subject. The science tells us that gender is far more fluid than Judge Black&White thinks it is. Yet that ignoramus is trying to use both to justify a cruel and stupid decision.

Maybe the problem isn’t so much religious people as it is idiots in our judiciary, who think the nonsense their preacher thunders at them from the pulpit is actually information of worth in making a reasonable decision.

Kent Hovind writes

I staggered out of bed this morning, feeling much better — my guts are making some very peculiar noises and I have no appetite, but otherwise I’m getting by — and what do I find at the top of my inbox but a letter from Kent Hovind via some guy claiming to be his proxy. I’ve been challenged to a debate!

PZ Myers,

Recently, while researching items for Dr. Kent Hovind, I happened to stumble across your many mean-spirited attacks against him. I read on as you and your minions showed yourselves to be as the apes you claim to descend from (probably your best evidence for evolution). Since you, and most of your ape-like readers, have no point of reference for justifying morality within yourselves, you should be notified that your behavior is downright shameful.

Anyway, I have been informed by Kent Hovind personally that he is ready at any time to consider your best evidence for evolution (in writing). Further, since you have zero capacity to understand even the smallest of spiritual concepts, he is ready to also present empirical evidence in rebuttal to support his position.

While you excel at insult and insensitivity, we wonder how much actual empirical evidence feeds this pompous attitude of yours. For years evolutionists have desired to get Kent Hovind into an “email debate” and he always refused, preferring rather to meet face to face.

However, as you so joyously gloat, that is not currently possible, so you are now being given that opportunity. Kent is officially challenging you to an email debate (**white gloves smacking your face**) under the condition that only one topic at a time be discussed and that it begin with your most empirical, straightforward, undeniable evidence for evolution.

I will number the paragraphs for ease of reference and will post the debate online. I will forward said evidence verbatim to him and then I will return his rebuttal verbatim back to you. I will, that is, should you actually accept the challenge.

This challenge is posted online at www.2peter3.com

Jonn Mooney for Kent Hovind

Kent Hovind can’t write to me directly, of course, because he’s in prison and won’t be getting out until August 2015.

And no, I’m not interested in a ‘debate’ with Hovind. I’ve been following his poisonous trail for years, and one thing I’m absolutely certain of is that he knows absolutely nothing about evolution, so there would be nothing to argue about. Ignorance is not a credible side in a debate.

But I have a counteroffer, since I do have some sympathy for a guy who’s probably going stir-crazy right now (and started out in the position of the proverbial shithouse rat). Kent Hovind has lots of time to read right now. He can put down his Bible now and then and instead read some basic evolutionary biology, and then when he gets out in three years I’d be willing to have a conversation about it. Not about the Bible, but about a decent, informative text on evolution.

I recommend Why Evolution is True, by Jerry Coyne. It covers a wide range of the evidence for evolution, and would give us lots to talk about.

If Mr Mooney would send me Hovind’s prison address, I’d even be willing to buy and ship a copy to him. It would give him something useful to do to pass the time, too.

Why I am an atheist – j.

My story begins at a very young age.  In my earliest memories my family, and in particular my father, were very religious.  I was initially raised in the Lutheran church. It seems now that the Lutheran church we attended was really quite vanilla and innocuous. However, when I was 12 the church’s new youth minister had an idea: Christian Youth Camp. Mom and Dad ponied up the nominal fee and I was sent to a christian bible camp for two weeks in the summer. All my friends went. Heck, we jumped at the opportunity. It was a chance to get out of town and be preteens away from our parents and bond as budding adults.. It was something different for kids my age stuck in a small industrial town of northern Iowa in the stagnant early 70’s . Every kid that went to Trinity Lutheran Church looked forward to this excursion. For two weeks we were sent to a rural setting that for the most part, looking back, resembled a military boot camp. Cabins, mess hall, summertime activities, a canteen (yes, they called it that) and “counselors” for each cabin of 6 attendees. Every morning there was a revelry, breakfast, bible study and then you were left to your own devices (supervised of course) until lunch. Then more bible study and then you were again left to entertain yourself with canoeing, swimming, volleyball etc. etc until dinner, followed by another hour of bible study and then were freed to explore the woods, go to the canteen for a snack,  or nap if you cared to. At nightfall , however, the nefariousness began. We would all be called to a large hill next to an A-frame chapel. A massive bonfire would be constructed and the proselytizing would intensify. Now it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on here was a well orchestrated manipulation of young minds. The glowing fire, the singing, mass recital of prayer…… preteen and teen boys and girls, hormones…… very powerful stuff. Not to violate Godwin’s Law, but it was very much a nightly authoritarian rally. Flags flying, drums beating anon anon.  Being a child, it took…….. for about two weeks. Then it was back to being a preteen and summer baseball, eating apples from the neighborhood trees and generally coming home only when I was too tired to do anything else. Very, very bucolic.

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Cats, skepticism and MRAs

It struck me this weekend as I was arguing with my cat that the conversation was remarkably like some I’ve had over the last years online with so-called Men’s Rights Activists. I say “so-called” for a few reasons. First because the word “Men” implies “adult,” and part of being an adult is taking pains to see others’ points of view; second because what they advocate for  are actually ossified privileges and not “Rights,” and third because “Activists” implies something other than being on the Internet all day.

But my typical exchange with an MRA, at least when I’m in an optimistic frame of mind and don’t engage in mockery, generally runs like:

MRA: [unsupported assertions stated as bald facts, often with an unwarranted tone of assumed superiority]

Me: “Well, now, the problem with that is that [data] and thus [logical inference], especially seeing as [more data].”

MRA: “Yes, but what you fail to realize is [word-for-word repetition of the statement I just argued against, as if I hadn’t said anything at all]

Which for some reason came to mind this weekend as I walked into the kitchen to get some water. The cat came racing into the kitchen, nudged at the cupboard door where we keep the treats, and the following conversation ensued:

Cat: “MEOW.”

Me: “I just fed you your lunch. You have perfectly good food in your bowl you haven’t touched. And when I gave you treats this morning you barfed them up in twenty minutes. I’m not giving you more until you eat some real food.”

Cat, looking at cupboard and  then glaring at me: “MEOW.”

Thus engaging in a typical example of argumentum ad NOMiNOM.

It’s probably unfair to compare online arguments with MRAs to me aimlessly talking to a house pet. It may also be needlessly insulting. I mean, one of the two conversations involves a pointless attempt to communicate with a not-precisely sentient being with a brain the size of a walnut, who is mainly motivated by base, unthinking desires which he is unable to cover with a veneer of rationality. And the other involves me talking to my cat.

But the similarity is there: one person trying, in however flawed and ineffective a fashion, to communicate some data and nuance and logic, to actually move the discussion in one way or the other, and the other there only to convey his opinion without listening.

I can’t say as I really blame them. If you’re not used to it, thinking is hard work.

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Secular charities are almost there

It takes something really important to get me to burrow up out of my sickbed, especially when I was so enjoying the dark coolth nestled in a web of soft fungal mycelia and was busily contemplating the various flavors of soil. But this issue matters. It’s the final two days of the Chase Giving campaign, with multiple tiers of donations depending on the ranking. Last time I listed the three secular candidates, you all dutifully put the first two in a solid position…because each of you had two votes.

so Foundation Beyond Belief is securely on a high tier. Poor Camp Quest has the lowest number of votes. If you didn’t see the original posting and didn’t vote before, click on that link and give them a little love. Well, cash. Even better — it mulches.

The Secular Student Alliance is doing OK, but they’re teetering right on the edge of a tier. If you’ve got a second vote, make sure they don’t fall off the edge by clicking on that link!

I also want you to think about how hard it was to type this post with only a pair of tiny paired anterior ganglia and no arms. I had to do it by writhing elaborately. And now my keyboard is a slimy mess, just like the rest of me. If I can make this sacrifice, you should be ashamed for not bothering to click, you with your endoskeletons and your digits and your image forming eyes.

Why I am an atheist – Mitchell Hayden

I consider myself lucky that I never really had a faith to lose. I was raised in a Christian family, but I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t questioning the things I heard in church. I made the firm decision to reject any organized religion in third grade when the leaders at my first and only Awana meeting told me (and most of the other children) that we would burn in hell for eternity if we continued to read Harry Potter. Luckily my family is not so ridiculous that they’d keep me in such an environment, and I was free to never have to go back. From that point until late into my high school career I considered myself a Deist. Just because organized religion was awful didn’t mean there wasn’t a kind loving god right? I was happy to think this until I began identifying as a skeptic. Even after my mother also rejected organized Christianity there were still a multitude of woo filled beliefs to contend with. The more educated I became the more I began to doubt all the things I had grown up with. “The Secret,” “Angel Therapy,” tarot cards. It didn’t take long for the idea of a god to follow the other foolishness down the drain. I’m now a proud and active atheist. There was a time when I thought leaving all the comforting ideas behind would be hard, that their absence would bother me. The exact opposite is true. The more I see how harmful those ideas are, the more sure I am I’m right. I could never go back to supporting beliefs that would keep people miserable because they think that their actions will lead them to a salvation that doesn’t exist.

Mitchell Hayden

Godlessness gives strength

Ain’t this the truth?

So that’s my story in a nutshell. I highly doubt you’ll be seeing it on your current affairs television show as they tend not to like defiant, questioning, atheist cripple stories. They’re not very inspiring for the viewers.

But at least you can read Holly Warland’s story online. She was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy when she was 12, and realized it wasn’t her fault, it wasn’t god-given, it wasn’t there for a purpose: she was the unlucky loser in a cosmic lottery. And she found strength in herself. Now that’s inspiring!