What atheists want

There can be, of course, no single agreed-upon answer to this question but it makes for a lot better title than the real point of this post, which is what do I, as an atheist, want.

What I want is what I imagine most people want, a world in which there is peace and justice and freedom from hunger. So what has atheism got to do with those goals that have no connection with religion per se? It is that I see religion as breeding sectarianism and tribalism and conflict, all major obstacles to achieving them. So getting rid of religion would be a major step forward. [Read more…]

Film review: Carnage

This film did not receive much publicity when it was released although it came out recently (2011), has a stellar cast (Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz, and John C. Reilly, the first three being Oscar winners and the last a nominee), and was directed by Roman Polanski. It is set in New York City but was actually filmed in Europe, since Polanksi is a fugitive from the law in the US due to charges of rape of a minor. [Read more…]

Homophobia as self-phobia

The pattern has become drearily familiar: An outspoken opponent of equal rights for gays and lesbians is revealed to be a gay or lesbian. While such events provide opportunities for ruminations on hypocrisy, the more interesting question is why such people act in such self-denying ways. A recent study suggests that incongruence “between implicit and explicit measures of sexual orientation predicted a variety of homophobic behaviors, including self-reported anti-gay attitudes, implicit hostility towards gays, endorsement of anti-gay policies, and discriminatory bias such as the assignment of harsher punishments for homosexuals”. [Read more…]

Elite immunity from laws

It is a crime in the US to give ‘material support’ to any organization that the US government deems to be a ‘terrorist’ group, where that phrase is defined loosely and can even encompass legal advice. This statute was deemed constitutional by a 6-3 vote in the US Supreme Court in 2010 because these days judges seem willing to allow practically anything as long as you persuade them that it is against terrorism. [Read more…]