Why I am an atheist – Patrick Kelley

I was raised alternately in general Protestant and Lutheran churches, and my parents can’t be blamed for a lack of trying.  I can’t claim ignorance, so I’m among the worst of the damned in the eyes of some.  I started out believing, right up until I got a less than satisfactory answer to the doctrine of ignorance and original sin and salvation.  I came from an abusive home, and obsessed over fairness since punishment in my home was often disproportionate and arbitrary.  It was at that moment I recognised God as he’d been described as an abusive parent.  I could not believe that such a being as my stepfather ran the universe, or rather one so apparently powerless as my mother stood by and allowed suffering and death.  I was eight.  This was the beginning of my doubts.  I realized that the people claiming to know God’s will were like me claiming to know when I’d be yanked out of bed over a dirty dish, or yelled at for literally doing nothing. Whatever there was, they had no idea when it would act or why.   

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Don’t go into the light…until I’ve milked this story for another book

A while back, I wrote a couple of articles on near-death experiences: The NDE delusion and Near-death, rehashed. It’s a topic I’ve been following off and on for quite a few years.

So I was quite surprised to see this name popping up in the news lately: Melvin Morse. Morse is one of those gullible paranormalists who has a couple of sloppily breathless books out about NDEs — he gets mentioned a couple of times in this nice article debunking a couple of well-known cases. His specialty is describing NDEs in children.

Yeah, children. Which adds a little extra disgust to the news.

He has been arrested for waterboarding his own daughter, punishing her by holding her head under a running faucet so she couldn’t breathe.

The daughter told police she “could never understand what she did to be punished” and felt scared, court documents reported. Once, she said, her father told her he “was going to wrap her in a blanket and do it so that she could not move.” In another instance, she said Melvin Morse told her that “she could go five minutes without brain damage.”

…

After her father did these things, the girl said she would “go outside and cry,” prompting Melvin Morse to come outside and then “hold her nose and mouth with his hand,” police said in court records.

“He would tell her she was lucky he did not use duct tape,” police said in the documents. “He would not let go until she lost feeling and collapsed to the ground.”

It sounds like he was trying to do a little “research” on his own child. There’s good money in almost-dead children, you know.

A little victory against a wingnut

Everyone go congratulate Chris Rodda. She’s been battling that dishonest dirtbag David Barton for a long time, and now he’s getting his comeuppance (although without acknowledgment of her contribution): NPR slammed him hard, and now his publisher has yanked his latest book off the shelves for it’s crappy scholarship.

Here’s a taste of his sloppy knowledge of history. Did you know the founding fathers already had the creation/evolution debate? And decided in favor of creationism?

Why I am an atheist – Darci

As a child, I was brought up in a vaguely Christian way – my mother was raised Lutheran and my father Methodist, but neither held too closely to tradition. They read me Bible stories, the non-threatening ones meant for children, and prayed with me at night; I learned to think of God as a benign watcher who would save me from bad dreams. The only times we entered a church were weddings and funerals.I grew older, and made friends with girls who went to VBS and AWANA at the Baptist church, so I of course wanted to go too. This was allowed, and I excelled at AWANA because of my great skill at memorizing Biblical verses (I am good at memorizing in general, it’s my one talent). The father of one of my close friends became more deeply involved in the church, and by the time he went to seminary school she was all covered up even in the summer and her mother listened to Christian radio all day. She had to grow her hair and it wasn’t long before I wasn’t allowed to be her friend anymore. Nobody put it that starkly, but there was a serious sense of disapproval from her parents and I got to see her less and less. It was confusing, since I was only 11 and didn’t think I had done anything wrong. It was years before I understood that I actually hadn’t. 

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Are you going to Skepticon?

All the cool kids are going to Skepticon, so if you’re not, you’re not cool. If you’re waffling, the organizers are having an IAmA on Reddit right now, for a few hours. Go pester them with questions, requests, and demands.

They’ve already answered a question about whether they’re wearing pants with photographic evidence. I think it’s safe to say you really can ask them anything.

Recovering from Religion

Lately, it’s been rage and battle and fury and berserkergang all over the place here, so how about something soothing for a change? I spent last weekend talking some with Jerry and Sarah of Recovering from Religion, they’re good people and it’s a good cause doing good in the world, so why don’t you catch your breath and browse some over there.

I think I’ll go make some soup.

Skeptics have the amazing superpower of being simultaneously fierce and timid

I like Jamy Ian Swiss, and he’s definitely a passionate speaker. I heard all kinds of raves about his talk at TAM 2012, so I was looking forward to hearing it myself, and now here it is:

Boy, was I disappointed. Well, I have mixed feelings: about 2/3 of it is excellent. I agree with him entirely that the methods of critical thinking and skepticism are essential, that beliefs in the paranormal and pseudoscience are dangerous and do great harm, I value the input of magicians and experts in spotting foolishness, and I can sort of agree with his emphasis on the ‘consumer protection’ role of skepticism (it’s an odd way to look at it for me, but OK, fine for others). He’s a good and ferocious skeptic — his story about a woman at a faith healing who was deeply worried about a lump in her breast, and who announced that she wouldn’t be going back to the doctor since Jesus had healed her, is an excellent example of why skepticism is important.

But the first half of this talk is scattered with sniping at atheists, and smug back-patting about how superior skeptics are to atheists. I would have been turning purple in my seat if I’d been there; he invites people to join him for a drink at the end, and I would have been there to chew his ear over the blinkered stupidity of these bits.

It was the fucking hypocrisy, which is getting to be one of the hallmarks of self-proclaimed skeptics. Check it out at the 28 minute mark:

We waste our valuable time and our limited resources not to mention damage our perception in the public eye when we treat fences between good neighbors as battle lines between combatants.

Oh, yeah? Then why, Mr Swiss, did you spend a good chunk of your talk caricaturing atheists and defining battle lines?

There’s a part at the 6 minute mark where he’s complaining that they’re getting distracted by the growth of the New Atheist movement, and then he pretends (despite being an atheist himself) that the problem is that atheists have a conclusion, that god doesn’t exist, while skepticism is only about a procedure. Then he goes on about how atheism does not give sufficient attention to how we arrive at our conclusions.

This is simply not true. Of course we do. Like I said, it’s mischaracterization: he’s trying to set the atheists apart as not truly skeptical. When you listen to that section, try substituting “UFOlogists” for “atheists”: would Jamy Ian Swiss single out any other subject for skeptical inquiry and announce that because they’ve made a strong and consistent case, for the nonexistence of little green men from Mars, that they therefore deserve setting apart from all other topics and that their subject of interest is a distraction?

The worst part begins at 11:30. This is where he starts reciting anecdotes. He declares that “the world is full of atheists who are not skeptics,” and gives us a few personal examples.

He was at an atheist meetup and found an atheist woman who believed in The Secret. At an atheist parenting group, he met someone who asked his wife about her astrological sign. He hates Bill Maher.

Yes? This is new? We’re supposed to be surprised that there are dumbass atheists? Of course there are.

I don’t believe in The Secret, or astrology, and I also detest Bill Maher. When Maher got nominated for the Richard Dawkins award for his movie Religulous, there were howls of protest from the atheist community, too. Portraying atheists by the stupid people in their midst is a game I can play, too — I’ve been to TAM several times.

Guess what? The world is full of skeptics who are not skeptics. I’ve met skeptics who are 9-11 truthers, at TAM. I’ve met skeptics who think ESP is reasonable and has been demonstrated, at TAM. I’ve met skeptics who believe in an afterlife and think ghosts can be detected by their electromagnetic emissions, at TAM. I’ve met skeptics whose idea of arguing with believers is to make cheesy martial arts videos of skeptics kicking woo-woo proponents in the crotch, at TAM. I’ve met skeptics who believe in goddamn Jesus, at TAM.

You want to start listing people who believe in idiotic things within the atheist movement? I can match them one for one with people in the skeptics movement. It is an utterly invalid kind of argument.

And then there’s all the backpatting. At 17 minutes, he argues that skeptics are familiar with atheism/humanism, but atheists may not have ever heard of Randi. Really? This is more of that pointless anecdote-flipping. I’m afraid he’s wrong on one thing: there are a lot of skeptics who are not at all familiar with atheism or humanism; I’ve met them too. There are also lots of atheists, as he knows, who came to our position by critical thought. We’re familiar with the tools of skepticism. Whether we’ve heard of Randi or not is irrelevant.

Next we get into the empirical part. Skeptics think evidence and testable claims are essential! Yes, no one is arguing with that. So do atheists.

I’d be happy with skeptics if they were consistent in prioritizing evidence…but then he goes on to make excuses for religion. He argues at 18:30 that religion is different, because believers say they have evidence. Maybe we don’t think it’s good evidence, but, he says, it’s still evidence…implying that skeptics are going to let religious belief slide. But you know what? People who believe in homeopathy, faith healing, and dowsing also claim to have evidence. Shall we make excuses for them, too? The double standard is incredible.

Here’s a final strawman at 26 minutes, and then I’ll give up in despair.

I believe that skeptics should unapologetically reaffirm our commitment to our strengths, and not be embarrassed by about these concerns, and not retreat from these concerns, and not dilute our priorities in the name of subjects or problems that are somehow supposed to be bigger or more important.

He specifically means that the opposition to religion is not part of skepticism. I’m fine with the skeptical movement encompassing a diversity of topics; you’ll never catch me telling people that critical thinking is unimportant, or that you have to pursue my bêtes noires of creationism and theism or you don’t belong in the skeptical movement, or are not truly skeptical. You definitely won’t find me telling the TAM organizers that they have to move their tent, and abandon criticism of ‘alternative’ medicine to tend to my concerns (well, actually, that is one of my concerns). But the modern skeptical movement is so chickenshit that even fierce activists like Swiss will take a talk that should be an enthusiastic celebration of all of skepticism (and was, in part) and turn it into an exercise in fence-building.

He wants skeptics to focus on pseudoscience and the paranormal, but apparently, religion, despite being the most common refuge of superstition and dangerous dogma, does not count, and atheists are to be made to feel unwelcome among skeptics. Even his concluding story about that poor woman with the lump was about a problem caused by religion…but no, let’s all pretend it’s only an issue of a lack of critical thinking, and not give any sign that maybe those obnoxious atheists have anything to contribute to this great problem.

It could have been a great talk. Ultimately, it just reaffirmed my regret that “skepticism” has become a label for the timid almost-skeptical, who like to reassure each other that they’re all truly the very best critical thinkers, now let the believers among us close their eyes and pray.

Give me a good hardcore New Atheist any day. Those are my people. They’re skeptical about everything, and don’t make special allowances for the benighted believers.

Why I am an atheist – Justin

I was born and raised as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and grew up in rural Canada. It wasn’t all bad- I learned how to speak in public, and a lot of basic teaching skills which have helped me in the workplace. But I was queer. This was problematic. This lead to night after night of terror, of frantically asking “what if it happens tomorrow?” Reading the book called “Revelation: It’s grand climax is at hand!” did not help much. The witnesses have a gleefully terrifying picture of the impending end of the world…

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Addressing Sam Harris

I’m going to try a different approach to Sam Harris’s accusations. Since one of the problems with grappling with the objectionable ideas Harris has thrown out is that they’re fuzzily presented and laced with caveats to hide behind, I’ll just state my position as clearly as I can on a couple of the contentious issues, and why I think that way. Maybe contrasting them with Harris’s arguments will at least clarify the differences.

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Tellin’ it like it is

I have seen that many people object to the last bit of the comment, that incredulity that half the country is considering voting for a Mormon. That, I think, is a perfectly reasonable dismay. It is not about being unhappy that he is allowed to run for the presidency — I think it is a good thing that the government cannot dictate who is even allowed to run, and it would be a violation of the separation of church and state to suggest that it should — but that’s not what the comment is about. It is that so many will willingly ignore the conflict between reason and religion to the extent that they will make excuses for why you should vote for some guy who believes his laws were handed down on golden plates to a con artist in upstate New York, and who believes it is his destiny to rule a Mormon kingdom on earth, which will be translated into the award of his own planet and harem of willing, fertile concubines.

Let’s cut the crap. I support Romney’s legal right to become the president. I want people to reject his superstitious bullshit and adherence to a dogmatic institution and not vote him into office.