The Know-it-all Atheist

Every so often, someone will tell me that atheists are impossible to debate, because they think they know it all. Someone will tell me that I am dismissing their claims before I have even heard them. They accuse me of shutting out the “evidence” they have to “prove” god’s existence. They say I am doing what I accuse them of doing: sticking fingers in the ears and screaming, “La-La-la! Can’t hear you!”

Well, they may have a point. I guess.

The truth is I’m not really doing this. I’m not sticking my fingers in my ears. It’s just that I’ve heard this before. Care to guess how many times I’ve been approached with the first cause argument? Or the argument from design? Or pascal’s wager? Or the ontological argument? Seriously.

I help run a student organization at my local university. One of the things we are doing now is going over these arguments that are so common; they may as well be mantras. A few of the younger members haven’t heard these before, and I want them to understand that these are not new arguments and they have been refuted by people WAY smarter than I long before I could spell atheist.

So if I cut someone off when they begin with, “Everything has a cause…” and insert immediately, “What caused god?”, it’s not that I have fingers in my ears, it’s I’ve heard this before. When they begin with, “God is the greatest thing we can imagine…” and I cut them off with, “So you admit god is imaginary,” I just want to skip the long explanation I know is coming. And when they fall back to, “What if you’re wrong?”, I just smile and ask, “What if you’re wrong about Zeus?”

It’s not that I know everything. It is completely possible that there is an argument out there I’ve not heard and will actually have to consider. Thus far, that has not happened.

Oh, and back to my student group: We entertained briefly the idea of having “mock debates” where one of us would take the opposing side and argue for it. We wanted to be sure we were not attacking strawmen and that the actual arguments were justly represented. But when this came to practice, we couldn’t figure out how to do it in a way that would not at least appear that we were attacking strawmen. So we just present the argument and refute it in a discussion.

An atheist’s profession of faith

An atheist’s profession of faith


Someone once asked what I did believe in if I did not believe in god.  This was my response.

I believe in freedom. I believe that choice is the backbone of freedom. As choice expands, so does freedom; as choice contracts, so does freedom. I believe the freedoms granted to Americans in the Constitution are awesome.



I believe in liberty, justice and equality for all. I believe these belong to everyone regardless of race, creed, color, national origin or sexual orientation. I believe that denying persons rights and liberties based on any of these is a slap in the face of liberty.



I believe adults should be able to make decisions about what does and does not go into their own bodies. I believe adults should be able to decide who they will and will not have for sexual partners. I believe laws governing what adults consume and the reasons they chose to have sex are wrong.



I believe consenting adults should be able to marry other consenting adults.



I believe love, not blood, makes a family.



I believe my family is the source of my joy, happiness and fulfillment.



I believe in fidelity.



I believe children have rights, and parents should enforce and protect those rights. I believe parents who do not do this should not be parents. I believe in coerced sterilization for such failed parents.



I believe people have the right to live as they see fit, so long as they harm none.



I believe people have the right to die as they see fit, so long as they harm none.



I believe it is the prerogative and duty of youth to carefully analyze and evaluate the institutions of the elderly.



I believe in honesty.



I believe “animal rights” is an oxymoron.



I believe the wisdom I have today will not be sufficient to solve tomorrow’s problems. If I am to meet the challenges of tomorrow, I must grow and expand my wisdom, or watch it stagnate and fail.



I believe I could be wrong.



I believe I may be right.



I believe I earn every dollar I make.



I believe the difference between love, lust and infatuation is hindsight.



I believe in education. I believe in comprehensive sex education for teens, and age-appropriate health education for younger children. I believe abstinence is cruel, dangerous, and unhealthy.



I believe science should be taught in the science class; history should be taught in the history class, etc. I believe much can be learned from studying the world’s religions in a religion class, but NOT the science class.



I believe yesterday offers experience, tomorrow offers hope, and today is all that is.



I believe in compassion.



I believe in kindness.



I believe in forgiveness.



I believe it is better to ask for forgiveness than permission.



I believe the meaning of life can be found in a combination of mastication, meditation, and masturbation.



I believe it is the duty and responsibility of each individual to create, follow and modify a personal code of ethics. I believe the goal of this code should be to become more moral today than you were yesterday. I believe this can only happen when we are honest with each other and ourselves in regards to our successes and our failures.



I believe in you.



I believe in me.



I believe there is no god; no omniscient, omnipotent being that watches us. I believe waiting and praying for miracles is a waste of time. I believe if we dislike what we see in the world, it is our charge to make change happen.



I believe god isn’t here; we are.

The Afterlife is an illusion

I was listening to a debate between Dan Barker and Dinesh D’Souza. They eventually got to the afterlife as D’Souza has recently written a book about it. D’Souza explained his evidence for the afterlife as follows: There are thousands of people who have experienced a Near Death Experience, or NDE. Where are they? They are walking around, driving cars, going to work, etc. If the mind is producing hallucinations at the time of death, how did the brain reverse this death process? How can you explain these thousands of people having very similar experiences and ALL of them have had their brains shut off and come back? Why does the atheist dismiss all these thousands of examples and evidence? That’s crazy! Yes, D’Souza, that is crazy. Crazy wrong. Let’s begin at the beginning.

Have you ever seen a magic trick? It’s an illusion. A mind trick performed by someone who’s goal is to make you think you see one thing, while doing another. You don’t actually need a performer to trick you mind. Ever seen one of those optical illusion pictures? You know, is this circle bigger than the other? No, they are both the same size. Is this picture moving? No, it is your eyes playing tricks on you. Ever heard of “phantom limb syndrome”? This is when an amputee feels pain or an itch on the missing limb. An arm has been removed, yet the person feels the missing hand clenched tightly in a fist. To solve this issue, you can’t convince the brain that it is wrong, you have to trick it again. You set up a mirror so the person can see the reflection of the other hand relaxing a clenched fist.

Now my point in all this is that you have seen a circle before. In other words, you have a good frame of reference to be able to see if one circle is bigger than another. The illusion is actually using that against you. You have made a fist in the past. You know what it feels like to clench and relax a fist. And still your brain has been fooled. Still you have seen things that are not there; felt things that are not real. How many times have you died? Indeed if there is ANY experience that we should expect our brains to misjudge, it is death. We have no real reference to it until we have died. Thousands of examples, D’Souza? There ought to be MILLIONS or BILLIONS of examples. This isn’t exceptional; this is mundane. This is as common as the awful fart that stunned unsuspecting people in the room. This isn’t evidence for an afterlife. It’s a bad fart joke.

Now I know the NDE is common. We can actually produce them on demand. In training for space travel, astronauts are placed in a centrifuge that spins them so that the force is equal to several times that of normal gravity. The usual reaction is the passenger passes out. They often describe an NDE. You can do it on your own, but I don’t recommend it. But have you ever lost consciousness suddenly and seen flashes of your life, or a light in a tunnel or something like that? I bet you have. In fact I bet most people have. But I think most people just don’t bother to mention it, like the stinky fart that cleared the room.

And what value does an afterlife have, anyway? This is the life that is worth living. This is the life we have to make a difference. We are charged with leaving the world better than how we found it. Because god isn’t here; we are.

Holy Child Abuse, Batman!

Holy Child Abuse, Batman!


The weather ‘round these parts has been really bad lately. Snow, ice and all forms of frozen poo has fallen from the sky. So I was unable to tune into my favorite fundy radio station and had to listen to the Catholic radio station instead. I didn’t listen long. What I heard so disgusted me, I had to turn it off. That has never happened on the other fundy station.

The program was a call-in show. The host was a shrink who wanted to field questions about family and faith. She was telling her personal story so that she could relate to the potential caller. Her story shocked and appalled me. She said she was the oldest of nine children, and that her family was poor as she grew up. She recalled many times she was the “server” at the dinner table, and was happy if there was anything left for her to eat. She said that she served the other kids first, and if there was any left, she would be able to eat, but often, there was not enough to go around to her. I had to turn off the radio. I thought I was going to be sick.

It is one thing to have too many kids. This is selfish and repulsive in itself. These children did not ask to be born into a family so large the kids must raise each other. The “octo-mom” has been rebuked time and time again for thinking only of herself and not of her children. I think this is a fair assessment. But to have so many children you cannot feed them is outright abuse. Further, to force the children to choose who among them will and will not eat is nothing short of abuse. It is vile, sick and unacceptable.

What really pissed me off was the fact the host of the program was not condemning the actions of her abusive parents, but instead using this story as an example of her experience with sacrifice. She said this was how she was introduced to the concept of fasting and denial of the body. I was even more horrified. To think the parents of this child told her that this was a gift from god, that she would go hungry this evening as a part of some spiritual guideline, is abhorrent. I simply could not stomach it. I had to stop listening.

Perhaps she would have explained to me that it was her choice to go hungry, and that her parents also did not eat. I can’t see how that makes things better. More starving people as the result of these asshats not being able to budget for their family does not improve the situation, nor does it remove the abuse this poor child suffered. Worse, since she thinks this was a good experience, these child abusing asshats have not been brought to justice, and instead think they are pious, righteous and “good Christians”. How infuriating!

People wonder what the harm is in allowing people to believe in imaginary gods. Children are abused, in this story, both physically and emotionally. This is harmful. It must be stopped.

Ad Hominem, Ad Nauseam

A theme has formed in my discussions recently online. People are telling me that I'm attacking them, not their ideas. Now, I'm pretty careful not to do this. I want a discourse about how we disagree on a topic, not whether or not you have a deformed head. If your opinion is different than mine, perhaps it is because you know something I don't. Perhaps I've not considered what you have to offer. Perhaps I have, and dismissed it as false or unreliable. Perhaps you would also care to know if your position is false.

Look, I am not my ideas. My ideas change all the time, and I think I'm a fairly constant person. If I begin wanting a cheeseburger and end up eating a taco, I don't feel as though the core of my person has been challenged or changed. So when I propose that your ideas are wrong, I do so for my benefit, not necessarily yours.

See, I'm the kind of person that cares if my ideas are accurate or not. I want to believe as many true things as possible, and as few false things as possible. The best way for me to examine my ideas is to find people who disagree and discuss it. Of course I think I'm right. Why would I hold a position if I was convinced it was wrong?

So this is what's bringing this to the blog. I got an email a while ago from a dude who supposedly had the best argument for the existence of god ever. You remember that guy; I refuted him here. Now he claims I've gone on a rant of ad hominem attacks. I disagree, but he didn't actually quote anything I said that he claimed was an attack. He only accused me of attacking him. On Facebook, I got into a bad debate over a different idea. When I tried to offer a counter argument, the original poster accused me of attacking her personally. I didn't. So I explained that I expected her to be able to defend her position. She again claimed I was attacking her right to be herself.

This happens a lot when I challenge a position people hold not because they came to the position through reason and logic, but through emotion and feelings. Belief in a god might make you feel good, but so would heroin. Putting heroin users in jail might make you feel good, but that doesn't make it the right thing to do. Further, if you think we should base ANY form of public policy on this position that makes you tingle, you better be able to defend it with REASON when challenged and not tell people who challenge you that they hurt your feelings.

Let's be clear. I have some dumb ideas. But how will I be able to identify them if they are never challenged? That's why I keep the wife of mine around. She has NO problem telling me when I have a dumb idea. And I know she's not attacking me as a person; she's pointing out the dumb idea. You might imagine the look of surprise I get when this happens, and you might also imagine how often I must recant or revise my position due to her argument. That's called growth, people.

So to the dudes who get offended personally when their ideas are challenged: "Bugger off!" If you don't like your positions challenged, don't say them out loud, ever. Don't type them online, don't speak them to anyone, ever. Have a reason for your position, or abandon it.

How I answered a Stump an Atheist Question

You can find this at Stump an Atheist.com. The following is how I answered, ""So what do you believe happens when you die if there is no God? You don't believe in any afterlife AT ALL?! If so…doesn't that bother you?"

 

I hate to make it sound like the atheist was stumped, but I feel the uncontrollable urge to comment and re-direct. The question was, "Doesn't the idea of no afterlife bother you at all?" It once did. Very much.

Back when I was a believer, I contemplated the afterlife all the time. What heaven would be like, who I would meet, where I would go, etc. I even contemplated hell, and the torture the people there deserved. Since I was Catholic, I also considered limbo and purgatory. As apostasy became inevitable, the afterlife became an obsession.

It bothered me that my path was paved in reason, guided by logic, and led to hell. It bothered me that I still WANTED to believe, but if I wanted evidence, I could not. It bothered me that I could not unlearn or undiscover what it meant to unleash logic and reason onto my religious faith. It bothered me that the only advice I got from clergy and teachers and friends was to pray.

It bothered me that I can easily see how our flawed human system of justice has multiple layers of punishment, and an all-just, all-loving god has but one. It bothered me that even Star Wars knew that only Sith think in black and white and the Jedi understood the world is grey. It bothered me that the people around me didn't seem to be bothered at all.

Now I focus my attention on living. I fear not death or what it brings. My life is what is important, not my death. How I live is more important that how I die. I guess for most atheists, we just don't consider the afterlife to be worth worrying about anymore. We're too busy living to be bothered with it.

What Happens to the Former Believer’s Salvation Story?

If you're a believer, and you don't have a salvation story, you need to get one. Fast. Every believer has the story of that unexplainable thing that happened to them that has convinced them god exists and he cares about what we do and think. So many atheists today are former believers. What happened to the salvation story?

I suppose it would be best for me to tell you my old salvation story. When I was young, 8 or 9, I would tell my family that after an exceptionally grueling session of prayer, I could FEEL grace pouring over me. I still remember the sensation. Like water, only there was no water, running down my back. Cool, refreshing, and pure. I remember I loved that feeling I got, and regularly experienced it after a grueling prayer session. Later, in the pre-teen years, I would tell people that after a particularly intense session of prayer, I could feel god speak to me in feelings, emotions and images. I would read the bible for hours and report intense feelings and at the same time a strange and powerful calmness. In my teen years I remember thinking I could almost hear the voice of god.

I rarely shared my salvation story. It didn't seem to be something anyone else could understand. The feelings and sensations were mine. What would I gain by sharing them?

So what happened?

I realized I had fooled myself. I recognized that this was not evidence at all. I came to understand what evidence is and what it is not. I found that I ought to be able to find evidence OUTSIDE myself for a being so great it made the universe. I turned logic and reason loose upon the superstitions I held. I didn't think they would fall apart. I honestly thought they would come through unscathed. How else could religion have survived all these years if it was not true? I had so much to learn.

The former believer has re-evaluated the salvation story. I had to come to a place where I knew what an appeal to emotion is, what an argument from ignorance is. That is not to say this story holds no merit for me today. It serves as a reminder that I was once fooled by the same mechanisms that fool the believers today. Once I held the position that if there is no better argument, I am justified in holding any position until proven wrong. There was a time I thought the first-cause argument was solid.

Perhaps it is good for the former believer to remember his former salvation story. It may give him a place to start the conversation with a believer.

Pining for Piety

Pining for Piety




Back when I was a believer, I was sure of so many things. I, or god, had everything under control. There was no need to worry about global warming. God would not allow the earth to run out of resources. Fallen people and dark angels were the cause of all bad things, and god still had everything in his plan. I was safe, and jesus would make sure I stayed that way. Then, I lost my faith, and things changed.



One thing is certain: I can’t go back to fooling myself into believing in god. Even if I wanted to do so, I could not. Not without evidence, and that is unlikely. I may not have arrived in my old faith by way of reason, but that was indeed the road I took to atheism. To leave this position, I’d have to be able to reason my way out. Evidence would have to be a central part of such a journey.



I was talking about this with my wife, who has shared my apostasy with me. She’s been a part of the end of my journey. She asked if I ever missed the old days of knowing for certain. I reminded her that I was certainly wrong, and she agreed, but also said that there was a time when I thought I was genuinely right. And that was comforting. Wasn’t there a part of me that wanted to put the bubble back together?



I had to say no. I care too much about believing things that are true and not believing things that are false. I want my beliefs to be able to withstand scrutiny. I need to be able to show the supporting evidence for what I say is true and what I say is false. I may no longer be able to claim piety, but I can now claim intellectual honesty. That is way better to me.

Bumper Sticker Faith

Bumper Sticker Faith




It’s the winter holiday season, and with it comes trees, lights, wreaths, and holly.

We even get billboards and marquees that answer each other’s controversial statements. The American Atheists have a billboard that says, “You know it’s a myth. This season celebrate REASON!” And some religious folk have countered it. And I’m sure that there’s another campaign here or there that will be having similar competitions.



Not that I’m against these campaigns. I think it’s great that we as atheists are getting the word out that it is okay to be an atheist, especially at this time of year. I think it’s great that the billboards are causing controversy. They ought to do so. I hope they make people think.



The other day at work I was talking with a couple of ladies who turned out to be evolution-deniers. I was taken off guard. These are intelligent people and the last people I would have suspected to have such bat-shit crazy ideas. I tried to explain evolution to them, but I kept getting swept away at the sheer craziness of their ideas. I was dumbfounded when one suggested that Adam and Eve had been dinosaurs. I’ve never heard that before. I could only say with utter bewilderment, “Do you think Adam and Eve were dinosaurs?!” She seemed to think that if they were, that would not contradict Genesis at all, but the idea that all living things share common ancestry would. Actually, I never got to say “common ancestry” to these ladies. Their nonsense left me speechless more than once. If you happen to know me in real life, you know the idiocy has to be at dinosaur level to stump me.



Looking back, I should have known better. One of these ladies has tried to get me to believe that homeopathy was good medicine. She was aghast when I said acupuncture was bullshit. And I think the whole “Adam and Eve were dinosaurs” conversation began with me calling PETA the “People for Extortion and Terrorist Activity”. In other words, I already knew these ladies were into “woo”, but didn’t realize the woo was part of a much deeper pool of crazy guano.



In any event, I tried to explain what evolution was and why creation was nothing more than a fairy tale. I could not. As I tried to give the explanation, they would shut down and tell me they didn’t understand. If I couldn’t condense my answer to less than five words, it was too complicated. I said that was disingenuous, and they couldn’t understand the word. I told them they were not being intellectually honest, and they didn’t care. She told me it was easier to believe Adam and Eve were dinosaurs than to believe evolution happens. I doubt they understand what evolution is, but I asked why she felt it was easier. It fit on a bumper sticker.



It was true; intellectual honesty was not her concern. Nor was winning a debate. Her objective was to keep from having to learn something. Her objective was to be able to keep her head up her ass and try not to look foolish in the process. She hid behind the bumper sticker and ran, because it was quickly evident that once the dumb-stun wore off, I was going to be able to dissect and destroy her position. I only wish I could have shaken the stun off more quickly.



I want to end with the fact these ladies are not idiots. I mean, they may be IDiots, but they are not stupid people. They are quite intelligent and because of this, they illustrate very well how smart people have been trained to do mental gymnastics to keep religious beliefs separate from the rest of their lives. I just worry when it seems to leak in the form of woo.

Sorry, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus. There is no god, either.

Sorry, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus. There is no god, either.




I got into a discussion the other day with a couple of evolution deniers at work. I’m not exactly in the closet; I have one of my Secular Student Alliance group’s flyers posted on my desk. The conversation began with how I think PETA is bull, and ran into evolution somehow. So eventually, the santa vs. god argument came up.



Now, the argument was that Santa is based on a real person, St. Nicholas. But did the actual St. Nick live at the North Pole? Did he fly around the world in a sleigh pulled by magic reindeer? Did he have a workshop filled with magical little people? Was he even a fat, bearded old dude? Nope. None of these describe the actual person. But they do describe the legend of Santa Clause, who is certainly a myth.



So why try to make Santa real? The person was trying to make a connection to what was real and the beliefs she held. She wanted to make the connection between Christmas and Christ, but there simply is none, well, at least not one in reality. Perhaps a legend links the two, but there is not a shred of real evidence linking these together.



Now, I realize it’s about that time of year when those “persecuted Christians” get all uppity about non-believers like me pissing on Christmas. Well, I don’t piss on Christmas, just on the Christ part. I think peace on earth and goodwill towards men is a fine idea. Generosity and charity are just dandy. But what pisses me off is when religious clergy distribute toys to children so they can cop a feel. What angers me is when a nativity scene makes an appearance in front of a courthouse or other public institution, especially when other groups are forbidden to do the same. My son is six. He understands that santa, line the easter bunny and the tooth fairy, are all imaginary games we play with children. Like the money we use in Monopoly isn’t real, neither are these characters. But they are still fun. Mostly, I tell my son that I bought the presents because I want the credit. I paid for them; I want the thanks. He gets it. This year, I’ve got They Might Be Giants “Here comes science” album on CD and DVD for him and his cousin. I still can’t believe I missed that album.