Why I am an atheist – DJJ

At first, I was an atheist as a sort of default state. No one had told me to be otherwise. The idea of a god or gods had not been given to me, and was not in any sort of even semi-clear form for quite some time. I do not recall when I finally was exposed to this idea.

I remember watching the Peanuts Christmas Special and being kind of confused as to what the heck Linus was talking about as he explained Christmas to the rest of the cast. So far as I was concerned, Christmas was a time to hang around with the extended family, eat delicious things, and exchange presents. What he was saying seemed like a fairy tale.

Speaking of extended family, a number of them displayed strange things in their homes. In the main floor bathroom of one set of grandparents was a depiction of the ten commandments. I didn’t know the context for it for quite some time. I didn’t ask. Some of them seemed like common sense, some of them I did not really understand for a while. I was a shy child, you understand, and tended to let people tell me what they thought was important when they chose to do so, at least at that phase of life.

Insofar as I got a clear idea about religion from my parents, my mother gave me a general sort of contempt for people using it as a reason to be complete dicks to eachother, and this may have led to me thinking the whole business was a little silly. I tended to be quiet and let people assume I was one of them. Churches were weird places to me. There was a sense of cameraderie and belonging there, certainly, and some of the singing was nice, but the words slowly felt creepier and creepier. I wondered if there were things that people were not telling me that made the whole busines smake sense, and may have been waiting for it to come up on its own.

When I moved out of my parents’ lair and in with some friends, a few hundred miles away, I accompanied said friends to the church they attended for a while, and this was pleasant enough. The strangeness began to creep back in, though, and between a Bible study session at which asking if we had some more support for this (as opposed to letting a source confirm itself, which seemed questionable at best) got me some unwelcome looks, and a guest speaker who seemed to be rejecting conclusions based upon observation as somehow not impressive enough for him, I stopped going.

Faith was becoming my problem with the whole business. The more I learned, the less I wanted anything to do with it. Just accept sometthing without support? How could a person learn anything of any use that way? Bad ideas could never be rejected, and new ones never accepted if one just accepted what one was told first without question. Mystery was not beauty, mystery was a huge target to anyone with an appetite for knowledge, and I very much counted myself in that group.

Since then, friends have tried to mend what they saw as a broken relationship with God, but missed the point. I do not hate God, I just don’t think he’s there. I’m not closed to the possibility, but neither will I accept it without rigorous examination, and have yet to find an argument for theism that is at all convincing.

Theists are welcome to keep trying, but I can’t say I think much of their chances.

DJJ
Canada

Pro-Reason Across Minneapolis

We have a pair of new billboards in Minneapolis, placed by Minnesota Atheists, that are sure to spark furious debate.

I know what you’re thinking: COMIC SANS?!?? How could they? (Do atheists ever consult with professional graphic designers before doing these things, I wonder…)

Otherwise, though, these are nice, clear, positive messages that at the same time are sure to piss some people off, and also hit people in that same emotional frame that I see all the time in theists’ billboards. There might be some people driving along who initially mistake them for Pro-Life Across America billboards, and then their heads will explode as the message sinks in.

For shame, London School of Economics

The London School of Economics has decided to replace critical thinking as a common element of a university education with simpering, po-faced homilies that ban satire and ridicule. It’s a sad situation; their student union is stamping their collective feet and demanding that the local atheists remove a cartoon that portrays Jesus and Mohammed at a bar. To their credit, the atheists seem to be the only ones standing up for principle.

The London School of Economics Student Union (LSESU) has instructed the London School of Economics Student Union Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society (LSESU ASH) to remove cartoons featuring Jesus and Mohammed from their Facebook page. LSESU ASH is not complying with the instruction and has appealed to LSESU to withdraw it.

The reactions have been amazing. Would you believe the student union called an emergency meeting, and are now tarring the portrayal of Jesus and Mo as “racist” and “bullying”? It’s absurd. This is a university, for dog’s sake — it’s precisely the place where ideas of all sorts get openly criticized, with far more ferocity than an innocuous caricature of two religious figures at the pub. And yet these pompous wankers who claim to defend religious freedom are all about silencing criticism.

Are there any grown-ups at the LSE? Any of them going to stand up and slap the ridiculous edicts of the student union down?

Why I am an atheist – cliffman

First, a complete lack of religious experience – I’ve never heard the voices of angels, nor felt the hand of the god upon me. Had a brief time in Sunday school as a child, but the stories never made any sense to me. Had people dear to me die in my presence, never felt any spirits wandering about.

Second, a good education. I’ve always preferred the explanations provided by science.

Third, reading the news, and reading history. I think the existence of the Pope pretty well proves the non-existence of the christian god, at least the biblical version.

And finally, my life is complete and happy without talking sky fairies.

cliffman

Quantum is just a metaphor

Could Chopra be any more muddled? First he claims that “quantum” is just a metaphor, and then he accuses all those fundamentalist physicists of hijacking his word and using it wrongly.

Quantum physics is a very specific discipline that currently has no direct applicability to medicine — every time Chopra opens his mouth and uses the word inappropriately, he’s committing quackery.

Why I am an atheist – BCskeptic

I am an engineer and I work in a science field, in particular that of astronomy instrumentation development. I became atheist some years ago when an atheist colleague and I started talking about religion. I argued the points that “you can’t get something from nothing”, and “what’s the point of it all then”, quite for vociferously for ~3 hrs and then went home.

I thought a lot about what I was arguing, and also the contradiction I was living. In my career, I lived everything “evidence-based”, but in my personal religious life it was faith-based. Although, even though I prayed and all that, I was never, I don’t think, a 100% hard-core believer.

I realized that I was living a life of intellectual hypocrisy, that it lacked integrity, and that I couldn’t live like that anymore. Truth mattered to me more than comfort, and the science I had learned since working in the astronomy field made the notion of the existence of an elusive supernatural deity quite frankly ridiculous.

I went to work the next day, and declared to my colleague, “that’s it, I’m atheist”. And I’ve never looked back. There is simply no evidence to support the existence of a god or gods, and in fact all of the evidence is contrary to that existence. I feel free to think and question what I like, and no longer have a ‘target’ on my back. I find that socializing with religious people is like socializing with people who really believe Santa Claus exists. Much (although not all) of my family, including my daughters and my wife’s family are highly religious. I find there is a barrier there to true communication; really getting to know people and what they are like and think at a deep level is off the discussion list, because of religion. With my family who is not religious (and they are quite well educated as well), some deep and interesting discussions occur, as happens as well with my atheist colleagues.

It came with a price, though. I believe turning atheist was the major contributing factor to my divorce, which happened a few years later. A very painful and expensive process! But now I’m with someone who is atheist as well, and life couldn’t be better. I have read many books in the meantime, starting with ‘On the Origin of Species’, many of Dawkins’ books (reading ‘God Delusion’ was like savouring a delicious meal), Harris, Hitchens, books on psychology, books on morality, and now blogs. I also believe I have a much deeper appreciation of our/my existence, the Universe, and all of the complexity and wonder involved. Life is good. Life as I know it is exceedingly rare and precious. And life is finite and must be enjoyed to its fullest. That’s what I try to think of and do every day.

BCskeptic
Canada

Good hair turns out to be a poor science educator

The requirements to be a TV weather presenter are fairly slack: an undergraduate degree with some training in meteorology is preferred, but not required, and the main skills seem to be looking presentable with nice hair, being able to dance with a green screen, and being glib and cheerful. So I guess it’s not surprising that the “scientists” leading the charge against global warming are climate-denier TV weathermen. That link takes you to a long list of quotes from various television weather personalities — including a couple from Minneapolis — who all deny reality and use their position as frontmen pretending to be scientists to delude the public. Take a look and see if your local television station has a conspiracy nut doing the weather.

Another interesting aside in that article is that all of the current Republican candidates for president are climate change deniers. Every single one. Huntsman was the only exception, and he’s out.

That prompted me to look at the two front-runners positions on evolution.

Mitt Romney, the conservative establishment candidate, is a theistic evolutionist. He argues that evolution was the tool god used to create humans (“How?” I always wonder — evolution isn’t a railroad track in which you can put a car at one end and expect it to arrive at the other). He also opposed teaching intelligent design creationism while governor of Massachusetts, which is good news — I wonder if it’ll be used in attack ads against him? So on this one narrow issue, Romney is tolerable. On everything else the corporate plastic robot would never get my vote.

Newt Gingrich is the crackpot tea party candidate and is getting progressively wackier as the campaign goes on. While he made more vaguely moderate statements about evolution a few years ago, now that he’s courting the ignorant wackaloon vote, he’s sounding more like a member of the Insane Clown Posse.

I think we can safely say that no Republican should be allowed anywhere near the reins of government. They’re anti-science through and through.

(Also on Sb)

The Brine Shrimp gambit

How adorable! A dodgy fellow has invented what he thinks is a new get-out-of-jail-free card, called the brine shrimp gambit. It’s an excuse of the form, “I’m talking about X (brine shrimp), and you’re accusing me of Y (animal abuse), therefore you lose.” It doesn’t seem to matter that no, I am actually talking about X, and you’re just trying to displace the criticism to something completely different so you can skip off without thinking about your claims. I have seen versions of this many times.

The most common example occurs when I criticize religion to someone’s face, and they immediately protest, “Oh, no, I don’t believe in that kind of religion. You’re thinking of the Fred Phelps kind of religion.”

Sorry, no. I’m quite aware of the distinction between crazy fundy evangelicals and your average, run-of-the-mill Christian who believes in silly fantasy stories. I despise Karen Armstrong almost as much as I do Fred Phelps, but for different things. I am actually jumping down your throat for your worship of evil, tiny, nasty little brine shrimp; I have not mistaken them for, say, a squadron of cats or intervening angels.

And yes, when you tell me you love black people and would even let one use your bathroom, it is not inflating a brine shrimp into a sea monster to point out that you’re being a racist. Similarly, if you defend a gender-biased selection of event speakers because, you say, you didn’t think of those other notable women you could have invited, then you are being sexist.

Just watch. You’ll be seeing the Brine Shrimp gambit pulled many times in the future, and every time it will be used as an escape hatch to justify lesser injustices by pretending it could have been worse. Add another bullet to the arsenal of silencing tactics.

Now I’m seeing it everywhere. Here’s an example from Newtie.

You really see this problem on the heels of the South Carolina primary, which Gingrich won mainly by running around insinuating racist arguments without saying them out loud, and then when he was called on it, his supporters took umbrage because they’ve put so much work into avoiding saying the N-word.

That’s a perfectly executed Brine Shrimp gambit.