DYFL

Rise of the Machines

2012-02-07T19:03:00.001-05:00

I like to think that I'm pretty reasonable in most circumstances. I'm not generally given to hyperbole or paranoia. Sure, I talk occasionally about how conservatives and Republicans and Christians and Muslims are going to be the end of the world, what with their repressive social agendas, their thirst for war and general disdain for science and rationality. But although I do truly believe those things about those groups to varying degrees, I don't really think that the world is going to end. Sure, the oceans may rise, polar bears may go extinct, Israel and Iran may bomb the Middle East into rubble, same-sex marriage may never be legal in South Carolina and women may have to cross state lines to get a legal abortion. But the world and the human race will plod forward in some fashion. History is full of peaks and valleys and I'm sure that the 21st century will be no exception. When I say otherwise I am merely talking out of frustration, not insanity.

So when I speculate about the future of humanity in the face of technology, I am merely posing a question. I don't actually think that we are about to create SkyNet and go toe to toe with militarized robots in a struggle for our survival. But I have to wonder about our role in the future. Specifically, how will (what I perceive to be) the natural ends of Capitalism and industry leave humans? Capitalism and industry work together in symbiotic unison, each using the other to advance.

This is the part where I'm afraid I'll sound paranoid and delusional: please remember that this is just a question for discussion.

Technology has been rendering humans redundant and superfluous at an increasing pace. From the wheel to animal domestication to engines to computers, each step seeks to replace expensive and hungry and needy human labor with a well-behaved, reliable machine. Of course, there have always been plenty of jobs for humans to perform, but it isn't at all certain to me that this will continue to be the case. Manufacturing jobs are largely performed by machines and, in places where they aren't it is because human labor is either less expensive or more intuitive. But as technology improves and gets cheaper, this will be less and less true.

And there are plenty of cases where human involvement is simply a hindrance. If mass transit could be reinvented from the ground up, I'm sure that human input would be extremely minimal. It doesn't take much imagination to envision technology advancing to overtake virtually any current human tasks: pilots, maintenance workers, cooks, farmers, soldiers, firemen. All of these jobs may not be vulnerable just yet, but I don't think it is outrageous to suggest that they never will be.

Certainly humans have imagination and art and passion and curiosity, so there may always be gainful employment for some humans. Perhaps there will always be places for scientists and musicians and politicians, but are there really enough of those jobs for 8 billion people? My question is this: what will we do when machines do all of our jobs and hundreds of millions of people are no longer able to find work? Will our technology cause our population to actually shrink? Will we become a society of science surrounded by technology?

I want a time machine!

Atheists in the Architecture

2012-01-25T19:36:00.000-05:00

A common complaint about atheists is that we're mean-spirited, obsessed with snuffing the light from the lives of believers. "If it isn't harming anybody," the believer might say, "why not just let it go? I don't care if you don't believe in god, so why do you care if I do?"

It's a fair argument, although I believe that to a large degree religion does cause harm, and not just to the individual believer. Like second-hand smoke, religious belief can have consequences for those around. Nonetheless, I believe that atheists should reserve judgement when possible and only interject or intervene when the fight is absolutely worth having.

A related issue is that of setting up an identity that is anti-something. It turns out that atheism is a pretty one-dimensional philosophy, which is why most atheists are also something else. I, for example, consider myself a humanist, or a vegetarian, or a political progressive, or a dog lover, or a gamer before I think of atheism. I am proud and happy to be an atheist, and I consider my god-free life to be significantly better than one based on religion, but being an atheist simply defines my attitude toward religion, which only comes up in specific contexts.

All of this brings me to atheist temples. From the linked article: ‘Why should religious people have the most beautiful buildings in the land?’ he asks. ‘It’s time atheists had their own versions of the great churches and cathedrals’.

I have a real problem with that. Atheists don't need their own versions of great churches and cathedrals. Atheism is simply a lack of belief in a deity, full stop. There should be no further baggage. The proposed 'atheist temple' certainly does look beautiful, but there are plenty of structures that I find beautiful: banks, hotels, even rest stops can be beautiful. To my mind, any building that is not specifically a church, mosque or temple is an atheistic building. But I get it: there is something appealing to the idea of a building devoted to the beauty of nature and of scientific knowledge and reason. But a building that has no real purpose other than to be a 'fuck you' to religion is a bit absurd, as much as I like to give religion the finger myself.

There are already plenty of places where religious ideas do not hold any power: libraries, scientific labs, universities, national parks, museums, planetariums, etc. Believers are welcome at all of these places, but they are not designed with religion in mind. Anyone can read a book or marvel at the cosmos. Religion only fogs the lens of those who let it.

I give up: a post in two parts

2012-01-15T18:16:00.001-05:00

Part 1

Despite having no religion, I am not a nihilist. My morality is based on reducing the suffering and increasing the happiness of others, and I extend this principle to as many creatures as I can. I stop short of caring too much about viruses and bacteria, and although I no longer kill bugs just for the sake of it (as I did when I was a kid), I don't feel too bad about a dead mosquito.

As those who follow my blog may know, I have been struggling with the idea of exploiting animals (and humans) for food and convenience. I am a vegetarian, which was an easy step and one that I have not once regretted or reconsidered. I don't use any leather, which was a bit more challenging, although I did end up finding pleasant solutions. Most recently I have been trying to go completely vegan. This is partially fueled by health concerns as well as some practical ones. I am lactose intolerant, so cutting large amounts of cheese and real milk from my diet made sense. I've grown to love almond milk and vegan cheese pizzas, and I don't miss ice cream as much as I thought I would. And I certainly don't miss the predictable and painful stomach upset that used to accompany those items.

I wanted to avoid hypocrisy, and I truly wanted to stay as close as possible to my principles of decreasing suffering and increasing happiness. Dairy cows are not happy animals. Laying chickens are not happy animals either. In fact, an argument could be made that some of these animals are worse off than their bred-for-food counterparts. I don't know if I would agree with that perspective, but I've heard it made and it's a compelling idea. So the step toward veganism makes sense. Except that there's a step beyond that. And one beyond that as well. No matter how far I go to be kind and gentle and humane, there are people and sentient creatures who are harmed and humiliated and killed.

I can't help the harm that is caused to bring me the lifestyle that we are all used to. And just because I can't be perfect, it doesn't follow that I shouldn't even bother. But after a point it becomes tiring and I don't know if my spirit is really up for it. Chinese workers threaten mass suicide because of appalling conditions at the plant where they work building the XBox that I spent all day playing. I know this, I feel terrible about it, and when my current XBox dies I will drive out immediately and buy a new one.

So yes, I am hypocritical. I am aware that my actions cause pain to others and damage to the environment. And for the first time, I think I understand the motivations behind people who are aware of the horror of factory farming and still eat meat. I don't agree with their decision, but I understand it. I don't agree with my decision to eat eggs and butter.

Part 2

This is all a part of my decision to withdraw a little bit. I was wandering through a bookstore recently and walked past a stand of conservative political books. I was struck with a violent anger toward all of the bigoted idiots and cruel assholes who write and read those books. And then I had an epiphany. I knew that those people would never understand. I briefly entertained the notion that they might have some valid points, but I discounted that. I don't think that they do - sure, I might be wrong on a great number of things, but I don't imagine that Glenn Beck is right on anything at all. And the thought of being an ambassador for good was just depressing and tiring. I want to change the minds of conservatives because they are destroying the world, but I don't think any progress can be made. So I gave up.

Roughly coinciding with the New Year but not being related to it, I have resolved to no longer give a fuck. I want to live in an echo chamber and talk to people who share my point of view. I'm tired of fighting over things of substance. I still want to write about the things that enrage me and I do want to practice what I scream about, but I'm not particularly interested in changing anyone's mind.

So I have stopped listening to Citizen Radio (a podcast that I really can't recommend highly enough) even though (or maybe because) they were the only people who constantly challenged me to be a better person. No one else in my life really does that. Everyone else is happy with me the way that I am; everyone but me. But I'm tired of feeling guilty about everything. I'm tired of trying to be better. For now I'll just try to be good.

A brief ramble about virginity

2012-01-11T23:59:00.001-05:00

I'm sure I've written about this before, but as usual I'm too lazy to actually look it up.

We've been watching Downton Abbey (late to the game again, but we're catching up!) and without going into spoilers or plot points, someone's virginity/virtue is taken and she is considered by everyone, including herself, to be a lost cause. Simply because she had sex without being married, even though the sex [spoiler alert, I guess] was kind of rapey. Once again I find myself enraged with the absurd reverence placed on virginity. I grew up in a very conservative, very religious home, so the idea of virginity as a kind of currency is not new to me. It isn't really new to anyone - we in the modern world (in America, at least) place a very high and almost ubiquitous premium on virginity. It's in our language (think 'virgin forest') and it means 'unspoiled.'

Clearly this is an idea taken completely from religion, since a woman's virginity (I know that men can be virgins too, but no one cares about that) has no real relevance in secular society. It's true that there is an evolutionary basis for jealousy of a kind, but from a modern, practical standpoint there is no difference at all between a woman or man who has had sex with one, two, fifteen or twenty different partners.

I guess I don't have a real practical solution to propose here. It's just something that bothers me because it's a stupid, pointless and potentially damaging thing to value. And I don't mean to suggest that virgins are just as good as non-virgins; I mean that virgins are just as good as Virgos. That is, the very definition has no value and should not be used.

Security vs Freedom

2011-12-18T15:46:00.003-05:00

A recent discussion about holiday travel led to the inevitable complaints about TSA and egregious security checks. I haven't actually flown anywhere in over three years and haven't had the pleasure of experiencing a humiliating pat-down or an invasive x-ray. My coworker, who is black, complained that he was nearly always picked for extra scrutiny. Then he shocked me by suggesting that the TSA should be focusing on Arabs, not black Americans. "I don't exactly fit the profile of a terrorist," he said.

Notwithstanding the fact that there are plenty of African nations that are predominantly Muslim, I was compelled to point out that approving racial profiling of any sort is absolutely terrible. Liberals are often falling over themselves to point out that there are plenty of dangerous white, Christian terrorists. And it's very true - mosques are torched, Muslims are terrorized and abortion clinics are routinely attacked and intimidated by right-wing lunatics who have far more in common with Pat Robertson than with al Qaeda (although, in truth, the difference is predominantly just in the name of the religion. Otherwise Christian terrorists and Muslim terrorists are very similar in their ideologies). Nevertheless, although Muslim Americans and abortionists are Americans, the attacks on our country from external forces are far more likely to be Muslim and Arab than European or Asian. If we are honest with ourselves, and if security truly is the number one concern, then we really should focus our security screenings on Arabs traveling to and from and throughout the United States. Not exclusively, perhaps, but there should be special emphasis placed on these people because they are far more likely to be involved in a terrorist plot than most other demographics.

But security is not our number one concern, nor should it be. There is a common, and fairly gross, bumper sticker traveling around the nation on the backs of pickup trucks and SUVs that reads: "Freedom ain't free." The implication being that our freedom is protected by the American military. That is, freedom is paid for by security. An entirely separate conversation can be had on that topic, but I believe that the relationship is entirely reversed. Freedom is lost to security. That is, the more freedom we have, the less security we have and vice-versa.

Right now our country is relinquishing huge tracts of personal freedoms in exchange for security. (This too can be a separate conversation, but I'll grant the premise that America is truly safer as a result of our extreme security measures, even though I don't actually believe it to be so.) Is it worth it? Is it worth relinquishing personal liberty and freedom for the sake of security? Because it is undeniable that our personal freedoms have been severely truncated over the past decade. It's a bit hyperbolic to call this country a Police State, especially when we compare it to actual police states, but we are drifting closer and closer to that point.

So this brings me back to the original point: why not profile Arabs? Because it isn't fair. Sure, we'd catch more terrorists and we'd ostensibly be safer, but we'd also curtail the freedoms of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. The TSA and the Department of Homeland Security needs to wind down a bit. Send us through metal detectors - that's a fine and fair idea. But allow liquids on the plane. Allow passengers to board with their dignity intact.

I don't know if this desire is universal, but I'd certainly rather live with a little more freedom and a little less security.

Here's the Onion to take us out. FAA Considering Passenger Ban.

The inevitable post about Christmas

2011-11-29T17:51:00.001-05:00

This blog is a really fantastic place to try to untangle and organize the jumble of thoughts that I am working on. One problem, however, is that I often try to approach an issue that is far too big for a single post, or even a series of posts. I hate capitalism. I've tried to write about this on a number of occasions, leaving behind large tracts of text that will never be read. It's a really difficult idea to put into words, especially when I'm not particularly educated on economic and political theory.

Consider this a small element of that conversation.

The latest Black Friday insanity was shocking; shootings, pepper spray and general insanity lead me to rethink the whole Meaning of Christmas. Obviously Christmas has no spiritual significance to me. But there is plenty still to love. The wealth of classic Christmas memoirs and stories simply proves that there is deep cultural relevance to the entire season, and one that I fully embrace.

But now Black Friday is as much of a holiday as Thanksgiving and Christmas. I draw on a wealth of Christmas movies when I laugh at the cinematic trope of shopping on Christmas Eve. It just seems to be a lazy storytelling device to establish time and infuse it with sentimentality. This year, for the first time ever, I saw this as a historical holdover. Years ago, decades even, perhaps Christmas shopping truly did occur largely on Christmas Eve. And suddenly this makes a whole lot of sense. It makes shopping for gifts more immediate if not more heartfelt. And it dramatically reduces the time that consumers spend thinking about gifts and shopping.

I like that. I like that Christmas is a week-long event (or a 12 day one) rather than a 45 day shopping extravaganza (If I were insane, I might compare this to our similarly commercialized election cycle). And yet, like so many of my fantastic ideas, I fail to take my own advice. We still get a tree at the top of December. I'm already halfway done with my shopping. All of this brings me to the quintessential Christmas film: A Charlie Brown Christmas.

I have a complicated relationship with A Charlie Brown Christmas. Obviously I dislike the overtly religious element to the story, but even when I was still a Christian, that part was foreign and unwelcome. It felt like the bitter pill that the rest of the charming story was made to mask. As a child, Charlie Brown's lamenting over the commercialization of Christmas really resonated with me. I understood what he was saying; garish decorations and greed are just distractions from the real joys of the season: traditions and generosity - ideas which have been handily perverted.

So A Charlie Brown Christmas is a valid and vital holiday movie after all. It might even be the perfect holiday movie. You just have to edit Linus' monologue down to one phrase: "Peace on Earth and goodwill toward men."

You see? I don't hate everything! This is as much a surprise to me as anyone else. Although if I were king of the world, holidays would be among the first items on the chopping block.

You're probably wrong

2011-11-23T16:24:00.001-05:00

I'm pretty certain that no one goes through life with the idea that they are close-minded. We all think that we are open to evidence and that our positions are all reasonable and correct. The mind-boggling array of opinions held by the whole of humanity suggests otherwise. And yet I'm comfortable with most of my views. Obviously I wouldn't believe something to be true that I actually thought was false. This is natural; not only that, it's the only functional way to go through life without falling into the trap of solipsism. So I hold my beliefs in an open mind and trade them out when new data is presented.

It has come to my attention that I am not very good at this. Over the past few weeks I have read several books and articles that have changed my perceptions, sometimes subtly, sometimes in larger ways. In doing this, I have noticed myself resisting the new ideas because they did not fit comfortably in the narrative of facts in my head.

Politics are a terrible cesspool of stagnant ideas and stubborn beliefs precisely because of the problem of being close-minded. I was listening to NPR yesterday (I know I promised to stop, and for the most part I have, but I do peek back in from time to time) and there was a story about the economy. The story posited that, although the Left and Right disagreed on many things about the economy, they did agree about some basic things. The eventual ends of Medicare and Social Security, due to insufficient funds and too many users, was mentioned as a point of agreement between both liberal and conservative economists. I'm not going to link to the story or even provide many details about it because they aren't important. The point of this story is that I immediately reacted negatively to the very idea. It didn't fit my narrative about our economy. I don't know if the story accurately portrayed two valid views on the economy or not. I'm not an expert, nor am I terribly interested in researching the health of Medicare right now. I have no right to just dismiss the entire premise out of hand. It was pretty shocking to see this behavior in myself and it makes me wonder how many of my other beliefs and opinions I have formed with blind eyes.

The problem is that I don't know how to proceed without making these assumptions. It's a joke but it's true that stereotypes are a real time-saver. I prejudge nearly every single person I meet based on their clothing and language and posture. I filter every news story through my set of assumptions. I imagine that we all do. Just because we can't agree on basic facts doesn't mean that everybody's right. It just means that most of us are wrong.

Birthdays and sneezes

2011-11-11T17:00:00.001-05:00

Birthdays were a big deal in my family. I understand that not everyone makes such a production about them, but that's where I'm coming from. My sisters and I had our birthdays spread out over the course of four months and those months were sacred to us, they were ours. I still feel a small pang of ownership when November rolls around. I wish I didn't, but there it is. November is my month. Eleven is my number. On our birthdays we got to choose the meal, the dessert (I always chose a chocolate coconut cake) and ate everything off of a red plate that read "You are special today." That was our birthday plate.

I no longer find birthdays terribly compelling. They are fantastic for children, but after a certain age, I wonder what value they have. For my own part, I have a feeling of entitlement that I am very uncomfortable with. I have a relatively short fuse as it is and any complications on my birthday are compounded because I imagine that the universe somehow owes me a good day and feel betrayed when I get stuck in traffic or lose a button. I have learned the lesson of the Red Plate, I suppose, and imagine that I truly am special on my birthday.

When I sneeze I expect someone to acknowledge it with a simple "bless you" and am offended when my sneeze goes ignored. It's absurd and I recognize that. I am similarly offended if no one mentions my birthday, yet few people do because, perversely, I make it a point not to tell anyone. I don't tell people because, in my saner moments, I know that it isn't important and I don't like to be the center of even a small amount of attention.

Because what's the point? There's nothing different about a birthday; I'm not a year older than I was yesterday, I'm a day older, or maybe just a few hours older. An hour older now than I was at the start of the post (I had to discard a few paragraphs - don't judge!). So marking anniversaries seems pointless and silly to me, the metrics we use to catalog time are more or less arbitrary. But humans love patterns; birthdays, weeks, months - they are all just artificial categories that we sketched over nature. So we commemorate another year, another successful trip around the sun. Is that really cause for celebration?

I shouldn't say that few people wish me well on my birthday because I have received a large number of birthday wishes (thanks, Facebook!) and I am keeping those people in mind when I write this. I do feel appreciated and loved for all of the attention. And maybe that's the point. Because I do like to acknowledge birthdays of others, and I enjoy giving gifts. I like to celebrate and acknowledge my friends and family, to thank them for being in my life and being good people. Birthdays provide as reasonable an occasion to do that as anything else. I guess that graciously accepting congratulations, love and birthday wishes one day out of the year is a small price to pay to have so many great friends.

But I want to be clear: birthdays are absurd and pointless. Patton Oswalt says it best:

PETA and Animal Advocacy

2011-09-29T09:07:00.001-04:00

Gizmodo ran a story today that was clearly written by someone shaking with rage. I know because many of my own articles are written with rage. It stood out to me because Gizmodo is often witty but generally dry and emotionless. This was a rare opinion piece and I happen to disagree with it.

The article can be read here, but if you don't want to read it, it involves a man fishing for sharks who was then attacked and mauled by the shark. He's in intensive care and PETA is using his story as awareness about fishing. The Gizmodo writer's contention, as well as the title of the post, is that PETA doesn't give a shit about humans.

Here's the thing: PETA is an animal advocacy group. Specifically a non-human animal advocacy group. I'm sure that if the man was attacked by a shark while rescuing a child from a sinking rowboat PETA would not discuss his death at all. But the man was fishing, trying to kill sharks. So when a shark (almost) killed a human, PETA is supposed to care? Do we expect PETA to care when a matador is gored by a bull? Here in America, I think we all cheer for dead matadors. Do we expect the ACLU to care when someone in power is shut down?

I don't agree with everything that PETA does, but I am very glad that they exist. I am proud to support them. Their job isn't to care about the lives of human animals, their job is to care about the lives of non-human animals. Good job, PETA.

September 11, 2011

2011-09-10T16:19:00.001-04:00

I feel bad saying this, because I think it makes me a legitimately bad person or, at the very least, is an indication that I have no real soul. However, I dread each September because I can't stand all of the "Never Forget" 9/11 propaganda.

I'm sure that I have, at some point in the past, mentioned my desire to eliminate all religious and cultural holidays and exchange it for a more generous, more universal but less inconvenient generic holiday system. I'll outline it in detail some time. I detest bullshit holidays like Labor Day and Memorial Day, and although I enjoy the cultural aspects of Christmas and New Year's (don't get me started on Thanksgiving), I would prefer that the world didn't grind to a complete halt. With that in mind, try to imagine my reaction to the discovery just last year that September 11 has been christened Patriot Day.

While I (to no one's surprise, I'm sure) do not really find the commonly accepted definition of Patriotism to be a particularly good quality, I am at a loss to understand how this particular day can legitimately be called Patriot Day. Assuming, for the moment, that patriotism is a good thing, how are the victims of the tower attacks patriots in any way? They are surely no more or less patriotic than any random cross section of American citizens; the manner and circumstances of their deaths do not imbue them with any special qualities. They were victims of a tragic event and their memories do deserve to be honored, but no more so than any other dead human.

So what are the practical effects of Patriot Day? For one thing, it allows stores to sell cheap 9/11 crap. Commemorative plates, flags and tacky bumper stickers are easy to come by any time of the year, but around September 11, it's difficult to even open your eyes without seeing something terrible being proudly sold or worn. Another product of Patriot Day is that it completely hijacks the news. All of it. If I were a crooked politician and wanted to pass some controversial law, I'd probably try to bring it forward in early September while all the "journalists" are pulling musty 9/11 props out of the closet.

The real problem, however, is that it stirs up anger against a phantom enemy. I'm not saying that al Qaeda isn't real, or that Osama bin Laden was framed, but they aren't larger than life supervillains. They are all just people like us with normal abilities and marginal worldviews. The only special thing about them is that we have given them pedestals to stand on, we have framed them as world-class villains and treated them like evil masterminds. I am convinced that every time Americans shout "never forget," an al Qaeda soldier gets an erection. And here's the thing: we now associate the September 11 attacks with our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. So Patriot Day turns civilians innocent of war (with the exception of the Pentagon attack) with a war that they had no association with.

To me, Patriot Day is a celebration of warfare, a reaffirmation of our absurd military adventures in the Middle East. "Never Forget" sounds an awful lot like "Remember the Maine."

I Give Up

2011-09-07T20:10:00.000-04:00

I don't really know how to say this, so I'll just come right out with it: I give up. I will no longer worry about the state of the planet or the plight of the poor and disenfranchised. That isn't to say that I no longer think that the problem exists, but I no longer believe that significant change can be made.

Because the thing is, the world is a disaster. The American political system may be irredeemably corrupt at this point. I no longer believe that voting will solve all - or any - of the problems. Short of an Arab Spring style revolution (which is inappropriate, but maybe not as inappropriate as it first seems), there may be no real solution. And I am certainly not advocating armed revolution, or even non-violent revolution. But that is what it will take. Corporations own our politicians. This sounds reactionary, but I really believe that it's true. There's no substantive difference between Democratic or Republican lawmakers, and although there may be a dramatic difference between Democratic and Republican voters, the gulf there is not as large as it may at first seem.

I truly believe that our politicians use the energy that we (the voters) generate each year to distract us and keep their shell game running, and the media is complicit in all of this. I know that this sounds like the paranoid ramblings of a lunatic, but that's why I'm giving up. I've realized that I'd rather spend my time playing video games and listening to music and reading fiction and watching TV and movies than fretting about the fucked up state of the world. I'd rather spend time banging my head against the walls of religious stupidity than bang my head against Republican stupidity.

And yes, this is exactly how the game is intended to work. The Target CEO makes campaign donations to a pro-business homophobe and we, as progressives, are supposed to boycott the store. But they know that we won't. And I don't. I like their brand too much to care what their agenda is. So we get distracted with flashing lights and bright candy and they go about their business. I just don't care anymore. I guess I never really cared in the first place, since all I did was give money to causes, which is something that I will continue to do. I'm not going to attend protests or engage in discussions because they don't go anywhere and the only people I really talk to are members of the choir like me.

I still think that, on balance, factory farming is worse than the holocaust. I truly do. I guess I don't see the difference between human animals and non-human animals as being that great. We're all just tiny ants on a ball in space; are some creatures inherently more valuable than others? But aside from not eating meat or purchasing leather, there's not too much that I can really do about it. So I'm giving up.

I also think that global warming is real and the future of our species - and all species, to be honest - is in real question; I'll continue to recycle and be as environmentally responsible as possible, but I'm no longer going to worry about it. To be honest, I have very little emotional stake in the future of the planet. I don't have kids, and although I know some children, I really can't do too much about it. So the corporate oligarchy wants to burn the world up for their own immediate financial gain and wants to distract us stupid bullshit. I say "good" and "go fuck yourselves."

I've stopped listening to NPR. I'm listening to fewer political podcasts and focusing on entertainment podcasts. I'm hoping to do more writing, which has always been an interest of mine. I'm just going to turn back inside and try to have fun in my life. It's just too frustrating a world for a vegetarian, atheist, socialist who is trying to land on the right side of history.

The False Choices of Party Politics

2011-08-06T14:53:00.000-04:00

I've got a bit of a shameful and embarrassing history of voting. The first major election I ever voted in was Clinton v Dole. I voted for Dole for no real reason except that I had heard from family and church how terrible Clinton was. And although I did vote for Dole, I was in college at the time and I filled out an absentee ballot and I really can't recall if I ever even mailed it in.
I didn't vote in the 2000 election. At the time I was extremely apathetic about politics and didn't appreciate the impact that they had. I understood that government was essential, but I saw the differing candidates as kind of a Ford v Chrysler debate: both were cars and I didn't care either way so long as I had a way to get to work.
And then it turned out that Bush was a terrible president. His first term changed me quite a lot. The differences between candidates became apparent and I eagerly jumped into the Democratic Party. I even bought a bumper sticker. In the next two major elections I voted straight party line; I even took the party recommendations for judges and amendments. I was an enthusiastic supporter of Howard Dean and then John Kerry in 2004 and was bitterly disappointed with the results.
Bush's second term was worse than the first. What began as religious apathy turned into agnosticism and finally ended up as atheism. I credit Bush and bin Laden in nearly equal measures for the spark. Although I was frustrated (and still am, to be honest) that Bush was never voted out of office, I was happy just to see him leave. Midway through his second term I was imagining that the opposing candidates would be Hillary Clinton and John McCain. At the time I remember thinking that I didn't care who won because I respected them both. Either would have made a fine president. By the time the election came around, I was incredibly excited for Barack Obama. I watched his debates, I listened to his speeches, even digging old ones up on YouTube. I still find his oratory skills amazing.
So here we are now in 2011. It is clear that President Obama is quite a different man from Candidate Obama. I don't really like President Obama. He has lied and broken promises for three years. In many respects, his policies are worse than Bush's. And now I am faced with a difficult decision: do I vote for him again next year? I don't know who is going to be the Republican candidate, but I am fairly certain that they would a worse choice than Obama. Common wisdom (and perhaps even common sense) tells me that I should just vote for the lesser of two evils. And this is the problem. This is the false choice that we are presented with.
There is a fantastic Simpsons Halloween episode where the aliens Kang and Kodos assume the forms of Bob Dole and Bill Clinton, planning to take over the United States. When their plan is exposed, Kang (or possibly Kodos) reminds us that the US is a two party system. "Go ahead," he jeers. "Throw your vote away!"
I've been thinking about that scene a lot lately. It does seem wasteful to vote for a candidate who is going to lose when there is so much at stake (potentially). If Michelle Bachmann is the Republican candidate, that would be disastrous.
But that's an awful decision to have to make. And, as I said, a false choice. Because there are other candidates. We don't have to pick between Kang and Kodos. We can elect someone who will represent us fairly and do what is right for the country, not just his or her shareholders and corporate sponsors. I don't know who I will be voting for next November, but I'm pretty sure it won't be for Obama.

Conservatives and Their Bad Ideas

2011-07-27T20:57:00.001-04:00

I've gotten a little hateful and hyperbolic on Twitter lately, shouting things about conservatives and Republicans that I probably shouldn't say. Not that I don't mean those things, but I could probably manage a bit more tact. Especially since my main complaint about Republicans (and all conservatives, in fact) is that they're cruel, selfish and mean.

I really do think that, however bluntly I said it. There are obviously many points of contention between conservatives and progressives (political parties are irrelevant in this discussion, by the way. I can't think of a single Republican who I would call progressive, but I can think of a great number of Democrats who I would call conservative. I no longer call myself a Democrat. I'll expand on this in a future post) but instead of trying to address each and every one, I'd like to examine what I believe to be the root cause.

The way I see it, conservatives value themselves to the exclusion of all else. The further to the Right a person goes, the worse it gets. Progressives, on the other hand, value others and society in general. Think of how this relates to different policies:

Taxes: Progressives want higher taxes to expand social programs. Conservatives want lower taxes because "fuck the poor." There goes hyperbole again. Let me try putting it another way: Conservatives want lower taxes because they earned the money and they should get to do what they want with it. This is a valid argument to a point, but the fact is that we live in an interconnected society and we have an obligation to contribute to things like roads, education and social welfare.
Welfare: Progressives want expansion of welfare programs to reduce suffering and to help people get on their feet. Conservatives want to reduce the welfare programs because the poor people deserve to be poor. I know that sounds like more hyperbole, but I honestly think that it's a pretty close guess. There's no other reason to dislike social welfare programs.
Environmental protection: Progressives believe the scientists and want to keep the earth habitable for as long as possible. Conservatives may or may not believe the science (depending on their brand of faith) but it doesn't matter because the government shouldn't interfere with business, no matter how destructive the business is.
Business regulation: Progressives want businesses regulated by the government because the bigger businesses get the more resources they draw from society as a whole. This is the problem with capitalism (perhaps another future post). Conservatives value business and industry above all else. They see it as the ultimate self-realization and a gross injustice and an infringement on their (generally hypothetical) personal liberty.
Individual rights: Progressives, ironically, are for expansion of personal liberty and equality. Women and minorities should all have the same rights as white males. Conservatives tend to cling to 'traditional values,' which keep power and liberty concentrated with white males. As with the social welfare bullet point (above), this is the most charitable motive I can think of to ascribe to conservatives.

I really do wish that I could have a more open mind on these issues. I wish that I could see the point that conservatives make, but I really just can't. I mean, I do see their point, but I can't bring my self to be that selfish. I want to help the poor and disenfranchised. I want to tax the rich and redistribute the wealth so that everyone can live comfortably. I want to protect the environment and the animals who live there. Most conversations about these things just start a point so far away that I can't concede an inch.

So do I hate Republicans? No. Do I hate what they stand for? Absolutely! I hope that clears things up.

Vegans are Obnoxious Assholes!

2011-07-15T20:21:00.000-04:00

I know that I've discussed my frustration with the way that skeptics are treated in film and television. It's obnoxious and misleading, but from a storytelling perspective, I get it. Even I would prefer the film in which the skeptic who doubts aliens or magic is wrong - aliens and magic are cool.

What really bothers me, however, is how vegetarians and environmentalists are portrayed. They are always shown to be self-righteous and smug, they are always hypocritical and annoying. Perhaps these people really do exist in real life, but I've never met anyone who is environmentally conscious or vegetarian (which is a highly environmentally friendly lifestyle) for anything other than good motives.

I was watching the not-so-great movie Baby Mama the other night. Tina Fey's character worked for a highly exaggerated caricature of Whole Foods. At one point she went on a date to a raw food/vegan restaurant. They made comical faces at the yeast balls and seaweed they were served. Then after some hilariously awkward conversation, it turned out that, despite working for a company that was environmentally friendly, healthy and natural, she still liked to eat meat. Of course she does! Just because the company is full of obnoxious hypocrites, that doesn't mean that Tina Fey's character is a hypocrite. She loves to eat meat!

It may seem like a harmless stereotype, an easy joke that does no real damage, but I think that it is a real problem. It is important to point out that "environmentalism", and everything that entails, is a good thing. Climate change due to human activity is a scientifically established fact. Recycling and renewable energy are positive actions. Likewise, it is a fact that factory farms are a significant polluter and eating a meat-free diet is better for the environment than changing from a Hummer to a Prius. However you feel about the suffering of animals, most people value human life and comfort, and climate change affects us all. My point here is not that everyone should become vegetarian or reduce their energy and plastic consumption - I obviously do think that they should - but that we should not treat those who do those things as assholes or objects of ridicule.

I honestly do not know where the trope of the self-righteous vegan originated. As I said above, perhaps these people are real, but I can't understand that attitude and I seriously doubt that it makes up a large portion of the vegan/vegetarian population. At the core of this stereotype (I think) is the idea that vegans and vegetarians are hypocrites. The idea that they really do love to eat meat just like the rest of us, but they abstain in some kind of absurd and impotent protest. Not to speak for all vegetarians, but I don't abstain from meat for my sake. I do it for the animals. However much I might like the way a hamburger tastes, I don't eat it because of the animal that lived a miserable life and died for the sake of a cheap sandwich.

The point of all of this is not to be preachy. The point is that I am tired of seeing good deeds and noble aspirations mocked so easily and carelessly.

To give credit to my favorite television comedy, Britta from NBC's Community is a vegetarian and, although the character is sometimes obnoxious, she is well-rounded and a good person. Her vegetarianism (and atheism) is never made into a punchline.

Mine!

2011-06-29T21:56:00.000-04:00

I've tried to tackle this subject many times before and for some reason I've had a difficult time organizing my thoughts. As I mentioned in my last post, I'm in love with Google Music. It's actually opened up my CD collection and made it extremely easy to use and infinitely versatile. But to me, it really is exactly that - my CD collection.

It makes me wonder what the next generation will think of music and property. With a CD or DVD or LP or VHS tape or, more to the point, a shoebox full of photographs, I register a sense of personal property. These physical items belong to me and if a CD is scratched or damaged or a photograph is torn or creased then that physical item, that memory is now gone forever. In some cases the loss can be regained, in some cases it is impossible, but in every case there is a cost involved. With digital media, the idea of loss almost doesn't make sense. Obviously data can be lost if a computer dies, but backups are easy to make, and, I would argue, the very idea of value has been radically changed.

I am obviously in no position to know the answer. I am a product of my generation, and I have virtually no contact with anyone from the next generation. So this is all purely conjecture. But I would imagine that a child born in the past five years would develop a sort of ambivalence to physical media. What is the point of owning a CD when you can simply stream it from the internet? Why buy DVDs when you can, for a very reasonable fee, have access to any film of your choosing - via Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, etc.

Even the quintessential high-value photo album has taken a big hit. Not long ago, amateur photography involved money and time. Photographs were, for practical purposes, irreplaceable. Now photography is so cheap and easy that there's almost no point. When I first got a digital camera, I treated each picture like a trial, deleting the ones I didn't care for and keeping only the best of the bunch. In other words, I treated it like film, but with the benefit of easy editing. Now I don't even bother to delete anything but the most incomprehensible images. Memory is cheap and plentiful and this has had the effect of devaluing most photographs to the point that I don't even really mind losing them. I lost a computer last year. Most of my documents and photos were backed up on other machines, but many of them were not. Those are likely gone for good. But I don't mind because photos are cheap.

This is not to say that I don't value photographs at all. That isn't the case - I have some pictures that I sincerely would hate to lose. But my photos are spread over the internet (Facebook, blogs, web storage, etc) and this makes each photo practically worthless.

So my question is this: is this merely the beginning? Will the concept of "owning" music and art eventually be lost? Because the only people who are panicking right now are the music studios and publishers as they try to find ways to cram new media into the business model of the past. Soon enough a new generation will take the helm of media publication and resale and their ideas and attitudes toward ownership will shape the industry.

Cloud Music

2011-06-27T20:58:00.000-04:00

I'm old enough (barely) to remember the emergence of Compact Discs into the music market. I remember my family getting vinyl records in the mail and I had quite a number of cassettes that I loved madly. Truthfully, however, CDs have been the media of my life. I remember clearly our very first CD player and the first CD I ever bought (Hunt for Red October soundtrack). I have quite a fondness for CDs. They are convenient, elegant and sturdy. I still love music stores (more on that in a bit) They will very likely be around for the foreseeable future.

We have a very large CD collection (that's it to the left). It represents a substantial investment in money and time. I am very proud of it, and I love adding to it. When we lived in Orlando, we went to the local independent record store regularly. It was how we found new music.

At first, MP3s were just a convenient way to port around your CD collection. As Napster came and went, and iTunes arrived, digital music established itself as a perfectly viable medium. I resisted. I turned a blind eye to digital music. I proudly announced that my 2GB iPod Nano still had plenty of space on it. I only used it when I walked the dogs, after all. But the digital tide has been coming in.

For me it started with my beloved Android phone - I turned it into a music player and it was so convenient! Then I noticed that, in many cases, MP3 albums were significantly cheaper than CDs. And then the cloud formed. Google Music has been too good to pass up. I'm all in now. Every single CD I own is on the cloud and I can access it from anywhere. I feel kind of guilty about abandoning physical forms of music, but this is so much easier to use and has the potential to revolutionize the way that I listen to music.

Seriously, if you have any desire to try it out, you should request an invite from Google Music.

The American Military Machine: a Force for Good or for Evil?

2011-06-22T14:54:00.000-04:00

When I was a child, everything I loved was violent. I read and subscribed to multiple military history magazines. Since I was home schooled, I don't remember grades so much as I remember phases of interest, and those I remember with clarity. There was an American Revolution phase, but ever the Anglophile, I didn't like having Britain as the enemy, so I focused on the French & Indian War. There was a World War I phase, an American Civil War phase which lasted quite a long time, and a World War II phase which, arguably, left the biggest impression on me. The only distinct field of interest that could compare to my military interest was of Disney animation.

I will make no guesses why, exactly, but my choice of fiction was usually picked from a generation or two in front of me. I read original Hardy Boys books, Doc Savage, Tarzan and Lone Ranger pulp books and Batman and Superman comic books. I remember that I used to feel frustrated when the heroes failed to kill the villains. They specifically set out to disarm or disable their opponent rather than use lethal force. I remember enjoying Tarzan for his particularly brutal deaths, but those books were exceptions.

I a violence-loving child. Maybe we all are. Maybe that's part of our wild animal heritage. When we got Lux home from the breeder (something I no longer condone, by the way - adopt a shelter dog!) she was only 8 weeks old, and the first thing she did was to pounce on a toy and give it a terrifying death shake. She had very little experience at being alive, yet one of her first instincts was to kill. So maybe it's a part of our DNA.

All of that eventually leads to my main point:

A few days ago I tweeted some dissatisfaction with the military. I felt compelled to retract some of those thoughts, but the more I thought about it, the more I agreed with my original sentiment. The military may be important and vital in protecting our interests, but it seems to me that our current military has strayed very far from that goal. It is clear (to me it seems more than obvious) that our military is far bigger than it needs to be to simply protect our borders. Our military is expeditionary; it is designed to build an empire.

Do we need a military presence in Afghanistan? Iraq? Libya? Japan? South Korea? Germany? England? No, we do not. To those of us on this side of our weapons, our military is just an industry. To those on the other side, it is an oppression, a threat and a danger. I understand the allure of a strong military, but I sincerely believe that it is completely unnecessary and extremely harmful. This whole idea came from movies, where the military - often even the US Military - is the primary villain. With only a handful of testosterone-fueled exceptions, the military is portrayed negatively in film, and I think that this is a fair reflection of reality. When military force is good, it's because times are terrible and everything else to that point has failed. Times aren't that bad right now. We aren't under attack. In every case, we are the aggressors. We are the villains in other people's war stories.

Now that our adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan have reached the decade mark, Americans are increasingly unhappy with the wars. Yet there is a strong compulsion to support the troops. I do agree with this - I do not bear any serviceman or servicewoman ill will. I mourn the loss of life, although I firmly reject the idea that those who have been wounded or killed did so 'protecting freedom.' Their sacrifice was for nothing because nothing good has come of these wars.

As I said at the top, I understand the impulse to go to war. I am enamored with the trappings and sexiness of the military, I love the heritage and history, the stories of courage and nobility and sacrifice. Wars may make good stories, but they make a terrible reality.

It's My Life

2011-06-13T20:46:00.000-04:00

I'm sure I've written about suicide before, although I couldn't find the post to link to. At any rate, I doubt my position on the subject has changed much. I am essentially in favor of legalized suicide. As with many issues, I find myself relatively alone on this one. As many conservative/religious people have noted, liberals often take a view of death that seems, at the onset, to be completely absurd. Taking my own position as an example, I am against killing animals, but for abortion rights; I am against the death penalty but for suicide.

Many progressives are in favor of assisted suicide for terminally ill patients as an alternative to hospice care, or for patients whose brains are effectively dead but the bodies are kept alive. I am in favor of these things as well - they seem to be obvious. When someone's medical future is so bleak that they have nothing to look forward to but more suffering, how on earth is it immoral to end that? In fact, how is it moral to preserve this suffering for them? When our dogs and cats are near the end of their lives and are in pain, no one would think twice about euthanizing them. And why? Because we don't want to see them suffer. I don't recognize a significant difference between animals and humans (more on that in a moment), but plenty of people do, and those people place a higher importance on humans. Why would they want their beloved grandparents to suffer to death while they release their dog from the pain?

It's because, in that difference between humans and animals, human life is somehow sacred. Human life is special in a way that precludes the application the logical rules of morality and basic kindness. There are numerous reasons that people give in their opposition to assisted suicide, most of which refer to this very notion of the sacredness of human life. But another commonly given reason is rooted in fear of abuse. And while I do oppose the idea of compulsory suicide (think Logan's Run), which is essentially murder anyway, I am fine with the idea that someone who is otherwise healthy might want to end their life for completely personal reasons.

Suicide is a sad thing. It comes from a place of desperation and misery and fear. To me, the real tragedy in the story of a suicide is the journey to that point. Once there, the rest of society should do what we can to ease the pain. If we are unable to do that, we should allow the sufferer to end his/her own life. And, like abortion, it should be legal and safe and, for the sake of the rest of us, easy to clean up. Why force the pain into the corners? And how is one sad human's life the property of the collective of society? How is suicide illegal? Why is it our responsibility to keep every last person as alive as possible?

To be clear, I am not advocating suicide booths on every street corner. I am not suicidal now, but I have entertained such thoughts for extended periods of time (not recently). I'm sure many of us have. I am very glad that I didn't follow up on it, although I do wish that I had had access to psychiatric help to help me sort my head out. At the same time, even though I am happy now and glad that I never took steps to end my own life, I maintain that it was my mistake to make. If, after therapy and medication, I was still of a mind to die, I should have that option.

This all comes back to quality of life vs. quantity of life. Life is a precious gift (metaphorically speaking), but if it is full of pain and suffering, it is not worth living, and we should be under no obligation to see it through to the bitter and painful end.

My struggle with milk and eggs

2011-06-01T22:14:00.000-04:00

There is a free book involved. Details below!

I try very hard to live my life as honestly as I can. There are, of course, many mistakes that I make, many cruelties that I inflict, many acts of kindness that I knowingly avoid. In spite of this, I have only a few consistent regrets, only a few constant sources of guilt. One of which is that I am not vegan.

My view on vegetarianism is simple and straightforward: eating meat is morally wrong. Obviously factory farmed meats are reprehensible, but that says nothing about the actual act of killing for food. And I consider the act of killing for food to be immoral. Essentially it comes down to the right of one being to end the life of another and the reasons for doing so.

In America we consider the thought of eating dogs reprehensible, yet there is no real distinction between dogs and other animals. Any perceived difference between dogs and pigs is arbitrary and cultural. Pigs are at least as smart as dogs, and have social and family structures. And yet even the most "I LOVE BACON" carnivore would not consider eating even the stupidest dog.

Is this an emotional argument? I confess that a part of it certainly is, although there is compassion and logic to it as well. And as I follow the logic, I can't find a cause to call the consumption of animal products (milk, eggs, honey) immoral. Now, as with meat, factory-style dairy farms are clearly evil, but if I can be sure that the milk and eggs come from ethically run dairy farms then I will eat cheese without guilt. I even like the idea of raising my own chickens some day.

So this is my dilemma. It has an easy answer, and that is exactly what makes me feel so terrible about it: I shouldn't eat dairy products unless I know where they came from. But pizza! And cheese on sandwiches! And pastries! And breakfasts pretty much anywhere! This requires sacrifice and a disruption of my life. I am aware of the hypocrisy involved. I feel better - both spiritually and physically - when I eat only vegan foods. Eventually I believe that my guilt will overtake me and I will be a responsible, moral consumer.

My wife has pointed out on numerous occasions that the more I learn, the worse I feel. This is an undeniable fact. I would be happier not to know where meat comes from. Now that I do, not only am I unable to eat meat, but I am unable to even view a hamburger without feeling an immense sadness. As I mentioned above, my diet will eventually come in line with my morals, but what next? There is seemingly no end to the products produced through exploitation. Electronics, clothes, food, energy - all of these conveniences and necessities come at the expense of someone. Where do we draw the line? Maybe some lines cannot be reasonably drawn today, but that does not mean that we shouldn't try, right?

Free book details:
I have several copies of Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals. It is a book that I highly recommend. It is not preachy or difficult to read. He presents the arguments for vegetarianism/veganism in a very simple and compelling manner. I am happy to give copies of this book away to anyone who is interested. Just email me and tell me your address and I will send you a copy (for as long as I have copies available). This is not a publicity stunt for me or the publisher. I simply purchased a number of copies and am giving them away to interested and curious parties.

Left of the So-Called-Left

2011-05-26T23:06:00.001-04:00

I want to be evenhanded in my opinions. I want to imagine that I've given a fair chance to the opposition before settling on my eventual position. Some bias is expected, but I like to think that I've been generally open minded. So it bothers me when I find myself dismissing positions and policies and ideas put forth by Republicans without even evaluating them. I hear that they're from Senator (R) of State and I immediately tune out.

When I go back to review a bill or statement by a Republican, I inevitably find that my knee-jerk reaction was correct. It bothered me tremendously until I figured it out; I don't take Republicans seriously because I've been buying into the false dichotomy of American politics. We have two political parties, one conservative, one ostensibly liberal. But that isn't necessarily the reality. In truth, one is conservative and the other is super-conservative. Republican and Democrat are our only real choices, but it isn't a real choice. It's a choice between Oligarchs; Kang v. Kodos.

By all measures that matter, Reagan - hell, Nixon - was more liberal than Obama. And yet we are still faced with decisions. In 2012 will it be Obama v. Bachman? Obama v. Huckabee? Obama v. Pawlenty? These are ridiculous choices. If conservatives (not the insane ones, to be clear) are clear-headed enough, they'll vote for Obama. Republican contenders (not yet chosen, to be fair) are, so far, fascist lunatics. Without them for contrast, Obama would appear to appeal to the conservative base. Sure, he's pro-choice and not homophobic, but is that really the only measure we can use to judge legitimate candidates? He's proven to be pro-war and pro-big business, he's failed to follow up on most of his 2008 campaign promises (closing Guantanamo, scaling back the wars, reforming health care in any real sense, adding oversight to industry, etc, etc). Only by modern political standards is he liberal.

So my problem is not that I can't take conservatives seriously or entertain their ideas. My problem is that the Democratic party of 2011 is as conservative as I am willing to go and there isn't really a real liberal party. Sorry if this is too "Godwin's law," but the Republican party had may as well be fascists or the Taliban for all the respect I feel that I owe them. I seriously disagree with many, if not most, Democratic policies, but I feel as though I can have a conversation with them and see their point of view.

Once I realized that, I felt relieved because I knew that I could have some legitimate and intellectually honest political discourse. I also was profoundly depressed because I saw that our country was completely fucked, because choosing between Republicans and Democrats is like choosing between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Post-rapture.

2011-05-23T19:02:00.000-04:00

So the rapture didn't occur last Saturday. I was pretty sure it wouldn't. In fact, I was as sure that nothing extraordinary would happen as I am about anything. It was purely the popular presence of the idea that got me thinking, "What if the rapture did happen?"

Well, a Biblical rapture would indicate that the Biblical god was real. As an atheist, that would be problematic, although in the actual presence of a deity I would certainly change my position. I would no longer be able to call myself an atheist, that is certain. But what else would it do to me? The question is obviously an impossible one to answer, but I can certainly try to guess.

Assuming that the Biblical god was real and true to his many (inconsistent) descriptors given in the Bible, and assuming that I was able to maintain my rational state of mind - that is, my "heart was not hardened" or I was compelled to fall into senseless or uncontrollable adoration - I would be torn. On the one hand, I would desperately wish to avoid an eternity in hell. On the other hand, I would also want to avoid an eternity in heaven giving praise to a being whose moral sense is so divorced from my own. Because that's what the Biblical idea of heaven is, if I am not mistaken. Heaven is not about your childhood pets and departed friends and relatives so much as nonstop and eternal worship.

Why is that a problem? Because the Biblical god is not a good guy. He is inconsistent, he is capricious and mean. He is manipulative and ridiculous. There are many reasons for my position, and it would be distracting to get into them here; I have written about many of them at length previously, although I am happy to discuss them again should the need arise. For now, let it suffice to say that the character of god is so full of inconsistencies that they are largely responsible for my loss of faith.

If this character were revealed to be real, I would face a real emotional and moral dilemma. I'm fairly certain that I could never freely worship him, but faced with the choice, would I prefer to be tortured by him? I really don't know. Fortunately, that is a decision I will never have to face. I am as certain about this as I am about anything.

Death Penalty

2011-05-11T13:21:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I've written regularly here. I'm not going to apologize (although I really want to) but I do hope for this to be a new phase of the blog. As a result of this, I may end up rehashing some old ideas. This isn't done to avoid writing new material so much as it is done to avoid rereading everything I've posted over the years and making sure I'm not overlapping too much. If I don't care, then it doesn't matter. Also, I am sure that my views have changed on a variety of subjects.

Capital punishment. I am against it. And as I consider my arguments, I realize that this may end up being a fairly short post.

For our society to be successful, we have to all agree on a set of guidelines that we call morals. Obviously these guidelines aren't really discussed. They've long since become instinctive. We all understand the basic premises of the Golden Rule; we all understand that killing and stealing and lying are wrong. We don't have to take time to consider how our actions will impact society as a whole when faced with a moral decision (most of the time). Bees have an entirely different, entirely alien moral code from ours, but it serves the same essential function: propagating a successful society.

Our society deals with rule-breakers by removing them from the system. This can be time out for toddlers or prison for adults. Or, depending on the society and the offence, it can be death. I'd be a fool to insist that there be no punishment for crimes, but the purpose of punishment should be to allow the system to operate more smoothly. An efficient justice system should do more than just remove an offender, it should also serve as a deterrent.

Revenge is never a good idea. It seeks to address a wrong with a wrong. This is what capital punishment is. It is vengeance. All arguments for capital punishment seem to stem either from emotion or ignorance. The iconic emotional argument is the Dukakis question: "If your wife was raped and murdered, would you favor the death penalty for the murderer?" It's a ridiculous question. Obviously if my wife were raped and murdered I would want the murderer to die. I would want to kill him myself. I might even want to torture him to death. Our passion for vengeance is strong. That does not make it right. The other argument is that it acts as a strong deterrent. This is just clearly false. A brief look at statistics show that violent crimes do not decline at all when a death penalty is present. This graph shows that the murder rate actually increases - granted, it is from an anti-death penalty website, but I found dozens of these stats and none showing an actual decrease in murders. For my argument I don't need to show that capital punishment makes things worse, simply that it doesn't help.

But what is the alternative? Life in prison? Clearly there are people who need to be permanently removed from society. Serial murderers, sociopaths, rapists, pedophiles, etc. should not be slapped on the wrist and sent to a therapist for six months. They should be incarcerated for the rest of their lives. So why not the death penalty for these people? Now the argument is simply one of efficiency. Now the argument becomes about money and how much it will cost to keep the prisoner alive vs. how much it will cost to kill him. Or her. I don't really mind this discussion, but it loses much of the righteous fire that the previous two arguments had.

Well, so what? So what if I disagree with the reasoning? I mean, I do agree with the measure of justice that is being carried out, even if I think that life in prison is better than a death sentence, so isn't it just a matter of degrees? For one thing, the current methods of execution are not painless. The lethal injection chemicals aren't even used by vets to euthanize dogs and cats because they are so unpredictable and potentially painful. I believe that lethal injection is the only execution method in use in the United States, but around the world there are firing squads, gas chambers, electric chairs and hangings. None of these are painless; I understand that comfort isn't really a huge concern when killing convicted offenders, but mistakes in sentencing are incredibly common. Many on death row still affirm their innocence, and if even one man is executed incorrectly, then the entire system is a failure. But we know that many more than just one have been wrongfully found guilty. We are human, after all, and we do make mistakes. The death penalty is one mistake that cannot be unmade.

The death of Osama bin Laden

2011-05-06T15:30:00.007-04:00

Before any of this gets misconstrued, I want to be clear. I hated Osama bin Laden as much as I hate anyone and I am very glad that he is dead.

Here's the thing, though. His death felt more like revenge than justice, and even then it was oddly unsatisfying and even a little unsettling. The attacks on the World Trade Center happened just under a decade ago, and since then we have engaged in two, maybe three (depending on how you're counting) wars, ostensibly based on bin Laden's actions. Now, in 2011, the goals of the wars have changed so many times I'm not even certain what our current objectives in Iraq and Afghanistan (not to mention Libya) are. And a war without an objective is very difficult to win. More on that in a later post.

So where does Osama bin Laden fit in to all of this? Well, he was our primary villain for a decade, the face of al Qaeda, even though his relevance seems to have waned considerably since he was forced into hiding. And then we assassinated him. Assassinations are essentially murders; state-sponsored assassinations are death penalties without trials. And that doesn't bother me as much as the uncertainty that necessarily goes along with covert operations like this. We've all seen that famous "situation room" photo, where the President and his cabinet are waiting to hear the outcome of the raid. Imagine how that scene would have played out if they identity was not confirmed? What if the man they had killed were not bin Laden? Would they be disappointed? Would they have considered the lives that had been unnecessarily taken? Would they have expressed condolences? I tend to doubt it.

Just listening to the bravado and victory swagger over his death kind of makes me sick. Sure we killed a bad man, a man responsible for the deaths of thousands of others. So there may be a bit of justice, but the celebration has been far more bloodthirsty. It makes me think of Superman and his archenemy, Lex Luthor. Superman is invincible, impossibly strong. Luthor is brainy but physically unimpressive. Imagine a story where Superman tires of dealing with Luthor's scemes and just decides to punch through Luthor's face or smash him to death with a boulder. It would be relatively just, and it would solve a lot of Superman's problems, but would Superman be seen as a hero? Are we heroes when we swat a mosquito?

Bin Laden was a bigger threat than a mosquito, certainly, but cheering the death of a weak and weird old man at the hands of a Navy SEAL team just seems ugly. Don't misunderstand me - I'm a horribly ugly person myself. I would have loved to hear that bin Laden died by other means - say his cancer finally overtook him, or he died of food poisoning or pneumonia or fell down the stairs. I tweeted earlier in the week that I will be extremely happy when Fred Phelps dies, and I mean that, so long as he isn't assassinated.

A few of the best commentaries on his death that I have heard. I highly recommend them.

Common Sense with Dan Carlin

Citizen Radio

The fire is out

2010-11-14T09:01:00.000-05:00

I've been consuming so much lately that I'm having a very difficult time actually producing anything. I watch a lot of TV, I play a lot of video games and I listen to hours of podcasts every week. And in the midst of all of this I find that I have nothing to say. That is, I have nothing new to say. I feel as though I've said everything already before. Every time I want to write something on my blog, it feels familiar. Even this feels familiar. I know I've explained and excused my long absences from writing before.

I'll be back presently and posting regularly, whether it's a rehash of old ideas or not.

Original Sin. Also, the Simpsons

2010-10-11T13:13:00.001-04:00

**After re-reading this, I realize how emotional it is. Sorry about that. I'll try to post something a little more rational next time**

There is so much misery in the world. There is so much suffering and cruelty, that I can hardly stand it. As I mentioned yesterday on Twitter, I stormed out of a Farmer's Market when I saw a booth playing a video of how they slaughter chickens. To be fair, the reason that they show this video is probably to demonstrate that their farm is humane and not a factory farm. Which is great, I guess, although I would still argue that it is morally indefensible to raise animals for the explicit purpose of harvesting their flesh. But that's a slightly different issue. The video shook me terribly and made me reflect on the horrible things in the world and what little I can do to stop or slow the parade of pain and suffering.

The scope of suffering in the world is so staggering and broad that someone would lose their mind trying to deal with it all. I am trying to be a good person. Not for any kind of bragging rights, but because I don't want to cause suffering. And yet it really doesn't matter what I do because I am still causing suffering. As I have said before, I find it nearly impossible to make a move without causing pain to someone or something. My laptop was likely built in Asia by underpaid workers - how else could I have bought it for $500 in 2006? My car, modest though it may be, runs on oil and spews carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. I recycle where I can, I use an aluminum water bottle, I don't get disposable coffee cups, and yet I still produce waste, still pollute, still add to the burden of the earth and the misery of my fellow humans, not to mention animals.

I flatly reject the traditional religious idea of original sin. I you aren't familiar with that concept, it is that since the fall of man in the garden of Eden, all mankind, the entire earth, in fact, is cursed and evil. So simply being born is enough of an offense to warrant eternity in hell. The Catholic church developed the idea of Limbo around this doctrine, because it gave an out to the infants and children who died before having an opportunity to either reject or accept the salvation brought by the gospel message. Original sin casts a blanket and preemptive judgement on every single human. It is absolutely essential to the mechanism of religion - without sin there is no need for redemption.

It should come as no surprise that I find that idea repugnant and corrosive. And yet, as I think about the world that we live in and how deeply saturated it is with misery and suffering, I can't help but draw a parallel. I find it impossible to be good, no matter how hard I try. I can not eat animals and therefore benefit from their misery. But if I eat a sandwich, there are likely eggs involved. I can take public transportation which is better than driving my own car, but still uses fossil fuels, still pollutes. I can get a bicycle, but there was certainly petroleum burned in the construction, not to mention shipping it to my location. So what? Like my wife pointed out yesterday, there is literally no end to the suffering that I can find in the world, no end to the opportunities to feel guilty, no matter how good I try to be.

This is what reminds me of original sin. It is inescapable. From the moment we are born, we are practically forced to participate in corporate machinery. This sounds like a conspiratorial hippie idea, and perhaps it is, but I think it's true. We have a choice to abstain, but if we want to participate in society then we have to consent to walking on the backs of the less fortunate. Unlike Christian original sin (I'm not familiar enough with other religions to comment) there is no redemption from this one. Our planet is burning, our animal cousins are dying, our human brothers and sisters are starving to death and, aside from completely abandoning the comforts of civilization there is always something more that we can do. The problem is just so overwhelming that it inspires many people to just give up in despair. And so the problems and evils of our modern society will continue to run largely unchallenged.

I can't think of a solution.

Instead, enjoy a dark, dark Simpson's couch gag. I haven't watched the Simpsons in years, but this was all over the internet this morning. I'm very impressed.

The Crimes of Atheism vs the Crimes of Catholicism

2010-10-02T09:11:00.000-04:00

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, is an intensely unlikable person. It's tempting to run further with ad hominem attacks, but I'll hold off for now. Instead I will discuss his statement regarding atheists and Nazis.

The pope cited Hitler today, asking everyone to "reflect on the sobering lessons of atheist extremism of the 20th century." Immediately, the British Humanist Association got its back up, accusing the pope of "a terrible libel against those who do not believe in God."

The pope did not go far enough. Radical atheists like the British Humanist Association should apologize for Hitler. But they should not stop there. They also need to issue an apology for the 67 million innocent men, women and children murdered under Stalin, and the 77 million innocent Chinese killed by Mao. Hitler, Stalin and Mao were all driven by a radical atheism, a militant and fundamentally dogmatic brand of secular extremism. It was this anti-religious impulse that allowed them to become mass murderers. By contrast, a grand total of 1,394 were killed during the 250 years of the Inquisition, most all of whom were murdered by secular authorities.

Why should atheists today apologize for the crimes of others? At one level, it makes no sense: apologies should only be given by the guilty. But on the other hand, since the fanatically anti-Catholic secularists in Britain, and elsewhere, demand that the pope—who is entirely innocent of any misconduct—apologize for the sins of others, let the atheists take some of their own medicine and start apologizing for all the crimes committed in their name. It might prove alembic.

I'm so tired of this ridiculous line of logic, this narrative that proves the dangers of atheism. On the face of it, it almost makes sense. Although the Nazi party was not founded on atheist principles (which don't exist, as I'll get to in a minute) the regimes of Russian and Cambodia were explicitly godless. So that's a perfectly fair association. And yet the fact that they were godless had nothing to do with their murderous policies. It's so easy for people to stop at that one thing and assume that it was the driving force behind their cruelty. I suppose people are generally insulted or bewildered by atheism and it makes a convenient, intuitive (to their minds) scapegoat.

But atheism has no principles. Truly it does not. Atheism is simply a response to the proposition of a god. Atheism does not, can not compel action. There is simply nothing actionable in the idea of atheism because it is not a philosophy. This all comes from seeing atheism as another flavor of religion, which it is not. Catholics, Presbyterians, Muslims, Mormons, Baptists are all different flavors of theism, yet they each have a distinct, actionable philosophy. My actions, my compassions, my social conscience is informed by Secular Humanism. Clearly Stalin and Pol Pot were not Secular Humanists.

I want to be clear about this: although atheism cannot be blamed for the suffering and death of millions, the Catholic Church can be blamed for the Inquisition, since it was explicit church policy for centuries. I was amused by Donohue's shrugging specificity of the number of deaths by torture at the hands of the institution that he represents. I suppose we should all be glad that the Catholic Church did not manage to kill more. Now, although I believe the Catholic Church is to blame for many crimes, including complicity with the Third Reich (The Sound of Music notwithstanding) I would not expect or ask for an apology from modern Catholics. Just as I would not be willing to apologize to descendants of American slaves or Native Americans for the crimes of my ancestors. Their crimes are not my crimes.

The Pope bears no personal guilt for the inquisition, although he, like Donohue, represents the entity that mandated the actions. An apology for past crimes is not particularly useful. What is important, however, is an apology for current crimes. While sexual abuse by priests is not Catholic policy, their administration has shown a marked enthusiasm for covering it up. Those involved in the molestation as well as those involved in the cover-ups bear personal guilt. The church's policy on condom usage, however, is evil, and a crime against humanity.

I think that this is an appropriate as a closing argument:

Vegetarian Evangelism (I want to give you a book!)

2010-09-29T19:27:00.000-04:00

I recently read Jonathan Safran Foer's book Eating Animals. Although I was already a vegetarian, it did inspire me to be a better vegetarian - that is, I no longer eat fish and I am trying to cut back on dairy products. Before becoming vegetarian, I wrestled with the idea for quite a while. If this book were available at the time, I am sure it would have been hugely influential in my decision to stop eating meat.

I really cannot recommend the book highly enough, and I truly believe in what it says. Therefore, I have an offer: if you want to learn more about being a vegetarian, I want you to have a copy of the book. I only have a limited number of them, so this is an offer for the unconverted.

This is a very important issue to me, and I believe that the moral choice is obvious. I am convinced that my fellow humans would not support the factory farm industry if they were more aware of the conditions and the way that the animals are treated. This is my attempt to test that hypothesis.

There are no strings attached to this. Actual vegetarian conversion is not a condition, but if you find that the book has changed your life in some way, I would love to hear about it.

If you would like a copy of the book, please email me and we will work out the shipping details.

Free Will vs Determinism

2010-09-16T10:43:00.000-04:00

Apologies in advance. This post may be incoherent. I tried to simplify this incredibly complicated idea that I can only just grasp. I do recommend the Reasonable Doubts podcast for further clarification if you are interested in further discussion.

As I have mentioned before, when I was a Christian, my theology/philosophy (theological philosophy?) was Calvinism. I liked the cold, cruel logic of predestination. It wasn't very comforting and didn't reflect much mercy or love from god, but it made perfect sense. The fact that the pieces fit together without too many gaps was what kept me calling myself a Christian for so long.

The funny thing is, now that I am an atheist, I have roughly the same views. That is, I am what you might call a determinist. One of the main objections to both determinism and Calvinism is that the popular concept of free will is compromised. For those who are unfamiliar with determinism, the basic idea is that one thing causes another - think of a domino falling into another. Then just expand that idea - think of a Rube Goldberg device. Even if it doesn't work, the sequence of events was inevitable and, given all the exact conditions (including the atmosphere, temperature, etc) it could never happen any other way. So then take this idea and put it into the realm of our minds. Things that seem to be decisions we make are really inevitabilities based on the physical properties of our brains, and the physical form of our brains are formed by a seemingly endless trail of cause and effect. Just as the apparently random path of a water droplet on a window is actually inevitable, predetermined to run its course by gravity, the angle of the window, defects of the glass and grime on the surface, so too is our own life a series of dominoes in the middle of an inescapable pattern.

Where people run into problems is that they assume that all of this means that they can't change their lives. In one sense, of course, this is true. But from a practical standpoint it is not. Determinism is not a practical philosophy. It is primarily a mind game with limited (although real) philosophical benefits, which I will address in a bit. One common reaction to determinism is to just throw up your hands and wonder why you even bother - if everything is already determined, then what is the point of trying to improve your life? Determinism is very different from the ideas of fate and destiny.

The best thing to do is to look at the past because all of those decisions have already been made. And I do use the language of decision making because it describes the mental process that we go through, even if the outcome is not really up to us. So look at the past - think about where you are right now in your life. Then think back to the decisions that led you there. It rapidly blooms into a web far to dense and complicated to follow. You think about the interactions between yourself and other people, or objects that were formed or moved by people and then the people before those people whose decisions led to the way things are today. If things were only slightly different fifty years ago, certain people would not have met when they did, which would change the sex partners or even just the conception date which would change the offspring produced. The apparent possibilities are staggering - infinite even - but they aren't really possibilities. Every decision, no matter how nuanced, has a single outcome.

A simple example is lunch. What are you going to have for lunch? That depends on where you are going to go. Although you may have as many as a dozen potential restaurants to choose from, your eventual decision will rely information that is already in your head: images you have seen on your way to work, advertisements, the physical location of the restaurants and the comparative difficulty of getting to one versus another, your history at one restaurant, the prices of the food. Although there are truly many paths, only one will be taken and that was the inevitable one. So we still have to make the decision, but it is really just our brain clinking through the gears and dominoes until it gets to the answer.

As I said, it is a mental game and should have no real impact on your approach to problems. Where the philosophy does have merit and value is in understanding our roles in the world. As with Calvinism, determinism devalues and humbles all of us (although a stark difference is that there is no god of value) to the point where we are all equal. All living creatures are on rails of iron, intersecting with each other millions of times a second.

It is tempting to end the process there and say that because we are all stuck in our eventual paths then there's no need to be kind or generous or caring. But that's a false assumption to make. We can't see the mechanisms of our mind, so it is best to act as though we are making decisions. Make good decisions and remember that your actions influence the eventual decisions of others. So what if free will is ultimately an illusion? Where I eat for lunch is going to be, after everything has been taken into account, the place where I most want to eat.

Magic Highway, USA

2010-09-13T10:15:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the incongruity, but this video just blew my mind!

For the sake of controversy

2010-09-09T15:32:00.000-04:00

As an atheist, I have a unique perspective on blasphemy. Burning a Bible or a Koran or any other sacred text is pointless and silly. There is literally nothing that could be burned in effigy that would bother me. There are, of course, subjects that do offend me, such as flip attitudes toward animal cruelty or child abuse, and I will address those on a later post. But there is no such thing as a sacred symbol. To me, the only point it makes is that the arsonist is a jerk. I suppose that Terry Jones, the preacher of a tiny, worthless little church in Gainesville (of whom everyone has now heard) is getting the reaction he is hoping for: no one doubts his opposition to Islam. Also, he is enraging the world of Islam, which isn't terribly difficult to do.

But look at what is actually happening. He and his followers are burning books. In 2010, they are burning books as though it matters, as though it is somehow eradicating information. If anything, the bookstores from which his congregation purchased the Korans might stock more, just because they see a spike in sales. To me, burning a book is like throwing feces. It makes a similarly eloquent statement. And the fallout from all of this is that Americans are overreacting just like they always do. Before Terry Jones' dickheaded stunt, before the Ground Zero Mosque most Americans didn't really care what American Muslims did. Everyone has an opinion on Islam - I know I certainly do - but it doesn't really matter. Now Americans are bending over backwards to defend Islam.

I'm glad that the Muslims are getting support, but there comes a point where it will just be insulting, as though we are afraid that they won't be able to cope with some crazy with a match and a stack of Korans. Or maybe we're just afraid of Muslims - after all, what is General Petraeus warning us about? He is warning us that burning the Korans will result in rioting and increased violence against American troops. This may well happen and if it does our cultural guilt will kick in. We will blame Terry Jones for the death of the soldiers, which is like blaming a stripper for getting raped. If Muslims react to the book burning with violence then it is their fault alone.

This is what makes Islam is such a tricky subject. Suppose a crazy extremist mosque in Somalia or Saudi Arabia or even France decides to burn Bibles on Easter, or copies of the US Constitution on Independence Day. Some people would be outraged, but collectively we would shrug, maybe laugh a little bit and then go back to watching Jersey Shore. Think of Fred Phelps and his WBC. They are about as offensive and provocative as possible. We just don't care. It doesn't matter to us. We might be offended but I can guarantee that there would be no worldwide outcry and no danger of violence. But offend the Muslims and the infidels of the world had better watch out!

So where does this leave us? Terry Jones is an idiot. He is making a statement, but not a clever one. The Muslims have every right to be offended by his foolish bonfire, but they have no right to react with violence.

Motivation from Dragon*Con

2010-09-08T11:56:00.000-04:00

It is a common thing for people to go to conventions and conferences and be charged and motivated to change their life. I think of my youth and going to Christian 'revival' style multiplex conventions. I don't remember a single shred of substantive information from them, but I of course remember how excited I was to be a better person; or I think of the dozens upon dozens of motivational speakers I hear in my line of work at hotels. Clearly they are hoping that their audiences will take their messages into their next week. Well, about a day or two into my Dragon*Con experience I noticed that I was motivated to go home and watch more TV and to play more video games. I had a fantastic time this weekend and I fully intend to go back next year and to make it a regular event. Photos will be posted on my photo blog: NXNC.

Fortunately, I did find some actual motivation there as well: I was motivated to spend more time on my blog, and to spend more time on each entry. I know that my entries often come off poorly formed because I simply do not even read them over. So look for more regular and, hopefully, more carefully written entries. I will also roll out yet another redesign.

So I want to thank you for sticking with me so far and I hope that you will enjoy the new look, new content and new ideas.

Long Con

2010-08-26T13:59:00.000-04:00

Good news, everyone! In one short week, Bronwen and I will be on our silly ways down to Atlanta to participate in the nerdiest thing we have ever done - maybe even the nerdiest thing we could possibly ever do: we're going to Dragon*Con. Getting prepared is, of course, a big project in itself. We're working on some last-minute costuming and just practical things, like hotel reservations and arrangements for Lux and Ira.

We're very excited - as I said, this is the first time we've ever done anything like this and, as an employee in the convention business, I'm thrilled to be on the other side of the service wall. For once I'll be able to relax and enjoy the exhibits and lectures.

Among the many things that I am looking forward to is the skeptic fan track (Skeptrack) with a very impressive lineup of speakers, including James Randi, DJ Grothe, Desiree Schell and, of course, Adam Savage. It'll be a great time. I'm hoping to do some networking with bloggers and skeptics. If any of my limited readership is planning to attend any part of Dragon*Con (I really have no idea about that star in the middle of the name. It kind of annoys me, but it seems to be official) please feel free to contact me. Maybe we can try to find a place to eat a vegetarian lunch!

Both Bronwen and I will be taking tons of pictures - I hope to do some random uploading to our photo blog at NXNC. Please check in and see how much fun we're having.

The Mosque

2010-08-23T10:37:00.001-04:00

This whole 'Ground Zero Mosque' controversy has me very conflicted. First of all, I am firmly and without reservation in favor of building the Ground Zero Mosque (even though it isn't being built, and it isn't at Ground Zero and it isn't even really a mosque). So I want to make that clear. There is also a very obvious legal and constitutional aspect to this: the local Manhattan Muslim community has every right to worship wherever they please. And on a personal level, I don't really care what American Muslims do or where they build their mosques, any more than I care where American Christians build their churches. In fact, the only thing that really offends me about some churches is that they are architecturally boring. Here in Raleigh, I get to see quite a number of very beautiful churches and, in my mind, that leaves no excuse for bland buildings.

At the same time, I am a little dismayed (although hardly surprised) by the response of the left. They have jumped all over this issue and defended the Muslims, which is good, but they have also implied that anyone who distrusts Muslims must have a lingering hatred for anyone who is not white. They have ignored the fact that Islam and Christianity are not identical religions. They are not equally benign. Here in America they may well be, but world-wide they most certainly are not. Each religion, at their purest form, has the potential to be equally vile and violent. I'm not too familiar with the Koran, but I know that the Bible is practically dripping with blood and tears and may actually be worse. But in their current cultural states, it seems obvious to me that Islam is far more dangerous. We need only think of the frightening and violent reaction to a series of cartoons to see that this is not the case of just a few dozen extremists but of thousands and thousands of Muslims all around the world. It's easy to forget that when we want to help them build a mosque.

I'm all for a future where Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jews and Hindus can live side by side with nonbelievers. I'm for a future where religion is a less powerful cultural force. And, despite what Sam Harris says about religious moderates (that they provide cover for the truly dangerous extremists) I think that religious moderates are the key to a secular society. I believe that with science and truth and peace we can dilute religion - all religions - to the point that they are no longer dangerous.

The Park 51 Community Center (as the controversial mosque is actually known) is perfectly legal and will undoubtedly provide happiness, shelter and inspiration to a large number of New Yorkers. I hope it is built as planned. But in many ways it is a red herring, because it distracts us from any number of important related issues.

Movie of the Week

2010-08-10T21:13:00.000-04:00

One of my first encounters with political philosophy came when I was about thirteen or fourteen. Until that time, my political philosophy was basically the right-of-center position of my father. And, to be fair, I don't really know what my father's political views really were. I've got a slightly better idea of what they are now, but back when I was young, I just assumed that we were Republicans.

There are days in my childhood that I remember fairly vividly: I remember the day that the Challenger orbiter blew up mid-launch - we watched every launch from our back yard and saw this one with my own eyes, free of commentary and the filter of television. I also remember the day that Clinton was elected. I remember everyone (everyone in my family and church) talking about how terrible he was going to be for our country. It was pretty frightening. I just couldn't fathom why anyone would even vote for someone who was so awful.

Then one of my uncles quipped that "The Republican party was essentially evil and the Democratic party was essential incompetent." I don't know if this was his thought or if he was quoting someone else, but it stuck with me. At first I bristled at the thought that Republicans were basically evil, although I enjoyed the thought that Democrats were inept. This little ditty has stayed in my head and is replayed every time I vote or think about politics. I heard it when I voted for Dole in 1996 (I was still a Republican) and when I didn't vote for Gore or Bush in 2000 (I assumed that both were bad choices) and when I voted and canvassed neighborhoods for Kerry (Bush's first term had made a solid Democrat out of me, and was on its way to making me an atheist) and when I was fired up for Obama.

Through all that time I constantly recalled that little truism, but I focused on the first part. And that is a very important part. Of course the Republicans are evil. It's so obvious! Slightly less obvious, however, is how very inept the Democrats are. They are inept, they are weak-willed, and they are too worried about what the Republicans would say about them. Honestly, it reminds me of the Jocks vs. Nerds narrative. Jocks don't have anything but power, persuasion and crude bullying on their side. Nerds are smart, humble and try to make good decisions, but they spend their time and considerable talents trying to woo the hot girl (voters, in this case) and, instead of just being themselves, they try too hard to emulate the Jocks.

I'm proud to be a Nerd. I'm proud to be a liberal and a progressive, although I'm growing less and less enthusiastic about the "Democrat" label. I wish my team would stop trying to impress the Jocks and the cheerleaders and focus on being themselves. But maybe my uncle's little ditty was right. Maybe the Democratic party is incompetent. Maybe the periods of Democratic control are just little breathers, little rests between the steady push of the Republican, conservative political agenda into a sort of corporate oligarchy.

Come on, Dems! Show some courage! Paint your faces like Maori warriors and make a stand!

Prepare for Another Wave of Poorly Reasoned Arguments

2010-08-08T09:39:00.000-04:00

I'm really very happy (although hardly surprised) that California's infamous Prop 8 was overturned. I'm even more pleased with the language the judge used in his ruling. "Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and women." Well put, because it cuts to the heart of the anti-gay marriage argument: aside from moral disapproval, there is no argument.

And yet I am not happy that we are now subject to another round of poorly reasoned (if reasoned at all) arguments why gay marriage will destroy our country. In theory, I respect the views of anyone. To be clear, I respect the right of anyone to hold any kind of view. But I don't feel any obligation to respect the particular views of everyone and I absolutely do not respect the views of anti-gay marriage advocates. They simply have no facts on their side. No matter how their argument is framed, no matter where it comes from, be it the Bible or long disproven "facts," once reality and science have torn away the irrelevancies and ignorance, it comes out to "Gays are icky and I don't like them."

I know plenty of people who are against gay marriage and I would love to have more respect for their arguments, so I would love to be proven wrong about this, but it simply won't happen. I've heard all of their arguments and they are weak and pitiful; they are all bark and no bite. I'm glad to live in an age where every published word and every spoken opinion is caught forever in the internet, like moths in a spiderweb. This way we can go back and compare ideas from today to the ideas of the future and we can laugh at the conservative politicians who will inevitably insist that they were for gay rights all along.

Target Makes My Life Even More Complicated

2010-08-07T09:03:00.000-04:00

I don't usually buy the idea that life was better in times past. There are technological innovations that I cannot imagine living without, there are medical advances that I would, most likely, not be alive without and there is social progress. While my own status in society (as a straight, white male) might not be too diminished, it is obvious to even the most casual observer that things are better today than they were even a decade or two ago for virtually every demographic. So when faced with the mindless question of what decade I feel that I should have been born in (a question generally intended to explore your fashion and architecture aesthetic) I have a difficult time answering anything but "now." In fact, if I weren't so nervous about global warming, environmental destruction or the still looming fear of nuclear war, I might even say that I'd like to live several decades in the future.

That said, I find myself longing for a time when accountability was easier to trace. I've written extensively on the subject of animal cruelty and how difficult it is to wash my hands of these crimes. But it goes beyond that. We learned this week that, thanks to the new ruling by the Supreme Court, Target's CEO donated $150,000 to a politician. The politician is a conservative republican who, among other things, favors tax breaks and is adamantly opposed to same-sex marriage and even civil unions. I can't imagine that Target's CEO donated the money on the basis of the anti-gay platform, but was most likely looking out for his own interests in regard to taxes. All of this resulted in a boycott and yielded an apology (although the money has been donated and the damage has been done). If I don't boycott Target, am I contributing to the discrimination of Minnesota homosexuals? In past decades, if a farmer were abusing his animals or a grocery store donated to an unsavory political cause, you could talk to the person responsible, or at least avoid their products until the situation has been resolved. But now everything is connected, we are all related and we are all responsible for each other.

I hate being responsible for the crimes of other people. I hate to put so much research into the politics and practices of every single product that I buy. I'm not a bad person, and I guess I just assume that everyone else is good too, but that trust is often betrayed and in order for me to keep my conscience clear, I have to avoid those who do things that I wouldn't. I have to question sources of clothing, sources of electronics and even the distributors of those products. The boycott of Target proved that it has an effect. I doubt that the Target corporation will donate any more funds to politicians, although it's possible that they will. This means that I should boycott products that I would otherwise like to purchase.

It's so complicated. Why can't everyone just be good?

Finding a Balance

2010-08-04T21:28:00.000-04:00

There is a very funny episode of a show that I don't think even has a name. It was a pilot episode for a show that was never picked up and was included on an issue of Wholphin. The name of the episode was The Pity Card (linked above and recommended - it's very funny) and in it the protagonist, on a first date, took the girl to the Holocaust Museum. He realized how terrible a location that was for a first date, but was surprised to discover that the girl had somehow never even heard of the holocaust before. Hilarity and awkwardness ensue.

I feel like that with regard to meat sometimes. Not to compare the factory farming industry to the holocaust, although I don't know that the distinction is too great, but because of the way I feel when I am forced to think about it. As I said, not eating meat is extremely easy for me. It's inconvenient at times, but in the two and a half years (more on that in a moment) since I made my decision, I have never once been tempted by a piece of meat. So I go through my life not eating meat and not really thinking about it too much. I play games, watch TV and movies and go shopping and never think about why I don't eat meat. And then some times when my attention is focused and I am reminded why I made my decision in the first place.

Factory farms are places of so much horror and misery and absolute evil and greed that it makes my stomach drop. It is depressing and I feel helpless, powerless to stop the absurd cruelty. I can't believe that this goes on now - today - and no one even cares. It makes me want to scream. That's what my last post was. It was a scream. I wrote it last night and today, just like always, I was no longer standing on the table and wasn't even repulsed when I walked past the deli at Kroger.

I will probably continue to consume dairy products but in limited amounts. I will buy eggs from local farms (easily available at local farmers markets) and will avoid milk products where possible. When eating out I will eat eggs and dairy that were likely procured with pain and suffering. I will feel terrible about it. It is nearly impossible to avoid leather completely, especially with shoes and belts. I will continue to buy leather shoes and I will continue to use all of my currently owned leather products until they are no longer usable. But I will feel guilty about it.

There is just no way to avoid the guilt. There is no way to put enough distance between myself and the humans who cause so much pain and destruction because I am a part of the problem. We are all a part of a violent machine and cannot escape. I called this our original sin. I still think that this is apt, except that there is no real salvation. I can avoid meat but it is still harvested with or without my support; besides, I will still feel the guilt for the three decades in which I ate meat with abandon. I can drive sparingly but I have a car and live in a city where relying solely on public transportation is impractical, so I am a part of the oil problem and a part of the environmental destruction.

There is an argument to be made for ignoring all of this and simply living my own life. At the end of the day, I really am only responsible for my own actions. It is truly tiring and mentally numbing to be responsible for the actions of everyone on the planet. But if I ignore these things, if I just keep quiet and forget about it all then they will continue. The balance is very difficult to find.

I am constantly reminded of the movie Year of the Dog. It is flawed, but definitely worth the time. It chronicles the emotional journey of a woman who is faced with the reality of animal cruelty and the weight of the world and does not know how to handle it. Her beloved dog dies (saddest scene in a movie ever, by the way) and she suddenly cracks. She goes from omnivore to vegetarian to vegan, she tries to adopt a dog from a shelter and ends up with the entire death row in her house. Wackiness ensues (it is a comedy, after all). At the end she joins PETA to travel the country protesting animal cruelty. When I watched it I didn't get it. I thought that her solution was absurd and illogical, but now I think I understand. That is the logical, pure, selfless endpoint for this problem.

I'm not going to do that. I'll live in my house and enjoy my electronics that are made with human misery. I'll drive my car that runs on the oil that is destroying the planet. I'll keep my money in banks that are widening the poverty gap in this country by the minute. I'll shop at Starbucks because it's convenient and delicious. I'll eat cheese because I love it and eggs because I just can't imagine having a salad for breakfast. I'll talk a big game but when it comes down to it, the rock is just too big to move.

I am sorry if my last post was too accusatory and mean. I do recognize that, for some people, extra protein is imperative. Humans are omnivores and most of us can easily cut meat from our diet. Dogs are not so versatile and so I will continue to feed my dogs off the shelf dog food and treats made with factory farmed meat. I'm lazy and the thought of buying locally slaughtered goat and cow to prepare and feed them is just too daunting. It's easier for me to just pour out processed brown pellets. This is why the problem is still here. Because people like me, who are outraged and disgusted by the practice, are also hooked on it. We are born into this machine. I suppose I could go "off the grid," a la Colin Beavan, the No Impact Man. I hear that the book is better than the movie - thanks for the tip. I'll check it out. But from here it seems as though extracting myself from the machine is a full time job and at the end of the day I really do appreciate modern science and technology.

It confuses me. It's very hard to find a balance.

Vegetarian's Dilemma

2010-08-03T22:50:00.000-04:00

There has not been a single decision I have made in my life that I feel better about than becoming vegetarian. And yet I have not been able to enjoy my decision. I have to contend with how I am perceived - I don't want to appear too radical or intense and I certainly don't want to appear smug or superior. I also have not been able to rest with my own apparent hypocrisy. As I have noted before, it is inconsistent for me to abstain from meat for moral reasons while still eating eggs and dairy products and wearing leather.

The decision to become vegetarian was not an easy one, although it was always the obvious choice. It was just easier to ignore the pressing guilt. I know that I am not alone - in my conversations about vegetarianisms with others I invariably hear "Good for you! I could never do that." Meat is just too delicious and the source is too easy to ignore. That's a real shame, because I have become convinced that meat is an obvious and objective cruelty. This is rapidly becoming a very important cause for me.

Eating meat in itself is not cruel. Although I will never eat meat again, I acknowledge that the consumption of animal flesh is not inherently wrong. However, in our modern society, 99% of all meat (this includes beef, pork and poultry) is produced on factory farms. These are absolutely cruel places and there is no moral justification I can think of that would mitigate the consumption of these creatures. I have to imagine that people who eat meat do not know how cruel and inhumane (an odd word) factory farms actually are. I have to imagine that if people knew, then they would stop eating meat instantly. If I thought that people knew what the farms were like and continued to eat meat, continued to support this viciously cruel industry without so much as a blink, then I would be forced to dismiss their "morality" with contempt.

I realize that this makes me an asshole. I realize that this means I think fully educated carnivores are bad people. I am truly sorry for that. Please believe me when I say that although I see a vegetarian diet as morally superior in every aspect, there is no sense of competition for status with carnivores. I would like nothing more than to be a friend to all humans, but I simply cannot. This is too big of a problem for me to ignore, too big for any of us to ignore. The welfare of animals is more important to me than the possible hurt feelings of humans.

This is a link to a film titled Meet your Meat. It is vicious and hard to watch. It isn't slaughter - it is deliberate, intentional and unnecessary cruelty toward animals that are obviously suffering. If you are unable to watch (as I am), if you are unwilling to see what goes into the making of your food because you know what you will see then you should follow the obvious moral path and change your eating habits.

As I said at the top, the implications of all of this are not easy, even for me. It was easy to give up meat and leather, but not so easy to give up dairy - I am still working through the logistics of that. It is also difficult for me, as a dog owner. I have no illusions about the source of the food and treats we provide our pets. I honestly don't know where this leaves me. Although the cruelty of the food source is undeniable, there are no health issues associated with a vegetarian diet for humans - in all the research I have read, a vegetarian diet is healthier. But dogs are carnivores. Meat is essential to their diet. I can't deny them what they require, but is the relative health of my pampered pets worth the life and happiness that other animals are forced to give up? I don't have an answer right now.

I have just finished reading Jonathan Safran Foer's fantastic book Eating Animals. I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in the subject. I feel so strongly about it, in fact, that I am willing to purchase a copy and send it to you if you are unable to procure it for yourself. I promise that it is less abrasive than I have been in this post. And I really am sorry for the terse tone. I don't want to come off as a morally superior asshole, but I am motivated by the plight of billions of beings who are suffering for the sake of industry. I am certainly not blameless, I am not proud of myself, but I strongly believe that eating meat is morally indefensible. I would like nothing more than for all of my readers to become vegetarians.

I welcome all comments, as well as ideas for dog food.

Friends in a time of crisis

2010-08-03T10:49:00.000-04:00

Winston Churchill has a famous quote about age and political philosophy. It made sense to me and I always just assumed it was essentially true. So I was surprised to find that, as I age, I have drifted further and further to the left. It is an awkward place for me to be because I am far, far left of the current liberal political establishment - so much so that, although Republicans and Democrats are certainly not identical, I think of Democrats as the legitimate conservative party (Republicans are just pure fascist evil).

So to keep my head on straight, to keep myself from feeling lost and adrift in a sea of conservatives, I have found a bundle of podcasts that help me cope. I highly recommend these to everyone.

Best of the Left
The Young Turks (it may be best to just go to their YouTube page)
Citizen Radio (this page opens with music, which I find pretty obnoxious. Subscribe to them on iTunes)
Reasonable Doubts

I'm sure that there are more progressive blogs and podcasts that you all enjoy. Please share them with me and I will post all of these things on a sidebar (coming soon).

Why do we even have Republicans?

2010-07-30T09:23:00.000-04:00

What do Republicans stand on these days? What is their main agenda? Obviously my concern is toward social politics - I'm neither educated nor am I terribly interested in economics, so I don't put too much focus on those policies. Of course there is substantial overlap, but since I don't often understand the issues, I prefer not to get too involved. And as a result, I just assumed that Republicans, being the party of social and fiscal conservatism, had some good points regarding the economy. I mean, it makes sense to me in a weird, narrative way if I think of the two political perspectives as two sides of a brain. You have the liberals acting as the right side of the brain and the conservatives acting as the left side of the brain; both sides help keep the government balanced and focused on the task at hand. It's a limited analogy, but I think you see what I mean.

But the more I learn about Republican politics and policy, the more I learn that there isn't a good idea among them. Obviously I disagree with every single element of their social policy, but it turns out that I might just disagree with every single element of their fiscal policy as well. From tax cuts to health care to war spending, I really can't support - or even have respect for - a single facet of Republican ideology.

That doesn't mean that I am happy with Democrats either. The more I learn about (modern) European politics, the more I am convinced that most of our liberal politicians would likely be conservatives over in Europe. I'm a pretty liberal guy. American politics are frustratingly conservative to me. There are things in our country that seem obvious, things that I would think Democrats (and even some Republicans) would see as obvious as well, but they just don't. Health care and economic reform, for example. The bills that barely scraped by with only Democratic support were so weak that they were practically unrecognizable. Of course, it's better to have a weak law that can be built upon, but still I just can't wrap my head around the fact that these are the only ideas that a slim majority of senators and congressmen could agree on.

Although I am liberal and was never likely to vote for any Republican, no matter how moderate, I used to respect the ideas of fiscal conservatives. I still do, in fact, but I don't think there are any fiscal conservatives in the Republican party.

Addictions: why it is so hard to be good

2010-07-28T21:37:00.000-04:00

I want to be a good and responsible person, but it is so difficult. Some things are easy: recycling the waste I produce is a thing I have control over. Using CFL bulbs and watching my energy and water usage has a real (if negligible) impact on the world's resources. I give blood and have a growing stable of regular charities that I donate to. But I still have to watch every single place that I step, every bite that I eat, every thing I buy. Driving a car uses oil and produces carbon pollution. I don't abuse animals, but if I eat butter, then I am giving money to people who do. Buying clothing or electronics will likely give money to abusive and unfair factory owners.

It isn't enough to be a good person - I have to think about everyone else too. I have to consider every single thing I do for what far-reaching impact it may be having. The Western World is addicted to oil. We all talk a big game about pulling the needle out and going cold turkey, but it just isn't possible. I am as appalled by oil companies and pollution and global warming as anyone, but I still drive my own car. It is possible for me to go without, and I have considered it, but it would involve a bicycle or bus or taxi and, frankly, it is too much work for me; I know that what would involve great personal sacrifice would have no measurable impact on the planet. Even if I did sell my car and bike to work, I would still shop at Target and patronize our capitalist system that is the real cause of all of our problems. Trucking goods from one side of the globe to another uses tons of oil and produces tons of pollution. One day, and probably sooner than later, we'll have to switch from oil to some other primary power source, but until that becomes absolutely necessary, I will continue to be a participant in this corrupt and evil system of usage and waste and pollution.

Being a human involved in modern society is startlingly similar to the doctrine of original sin. In fact, this is an idea of guilt that I will even get behind. If I were to go 'off the grid' immediately and for the rest of my life, I would have still been party to irreparable damage to the planet. I have an impact and in my short time I am afraid that it has been mostly negative. As I said at the top, I don't abuse animals. I don't even kill spiders if I can avoid it. I feel a twinge (but just a twinge) of guilt and remorse when I kill a mosquito. I have even taken my love and respect for animals to the point where I no longer eat them. But it has become increasingly obvious that this is not good enough. Sure, not eating chicken is a fine (and essential) moral position, but by simply eating eggs, I am contributing to the suffering of the chickens who lay the eggs in equally (if not worse!) miserable conditions. And then I have to consider not just omelets, but also pasta and bread and cookies. And then - did I just become a vegan?

I don't want to hurt people or animals or damage the planet. I want to be a good person, but the problem is that by simply existing and consuming goods and appreciating art (and you can't convince me that television and video games and movies are not art) I am inflicting harm on someone. We are addicted to harm, hooked on pain. The engines of progress are run on damage and lubricated by blood. That sounds melodramatic, but in a way, it is perfectly true and none of us can avoid it. As I said earlier, even if we stop now, we will always have blood on our hands.

Our generation may be irredeemable. The difference between our guilt and the (false) idea of original sin is that it isn't implicit in our nature to be cruel. Greed and ingenuity have caused us to sidestep our moral obligations. Our participation in society and the machinery of Western society has stained our hands with the blood of the disenfranchised, from genetically modified (but no less sensitive to suffering and torment) chickens, pigs and cows to abused and underpaid workers who make (the regional equivalent of) pennies and dollars a day. If you consider domesticated animals as a part of our society, as I think we must, then the disparity between the richest and the poorest among us has never been greater.

Further thoughts on the empirical evil of Islam

2010-07-23T10:43:00.000-04:00

As you may have read in what was supposed to be my last word on the subject of Islam, I am torn on the issue. I have nothing against Muslims, but I have everything against the religion. Love the sinner, hate the sin, is another way of putting it.

And the liberal, people-loving side of me really wants to be tolerant and inclusive. I want the "coexist" bumper stickers to reflect my personal philosophy in some way. But it doesn't. Just because all religions are equally wrong does not mean that they are all equally benign. As an atheist, I look for the truth in things. As a humanist, I look for the morality. And Islam - as a religion, of course, but also as a culture - is immoral.

Just as before, not all cultures are equally harmful, so Muslims living in Saudi Arabia are not representative of Muslims living in Michigan. I don't know too much about Muslims who are culturally Western, although the few that I have met did exhibit a slightly shocking level of misogyny and homophobia (a word that doesn't seem to capture the essence of the disdain, disregard and absolute hatred that it is supposed to define). I won't use the isolated cases of Muslims in my personal experience to speak for everyone and I won't even make any guesses about individuals in any country.

But there are facts to consider. In the Middle East it is routine for women to be stoned to death for adultery. In the Middle East it is routine for thieves to have their hands cut off. In the Middle East it is routine for homosexuals to be killed simply for being gay. This is not a sensitivity issue. It is wrong. This is simply the tip of the iceberg of problems and social injustices endemic in Islamic society, but for now I think it serves my point.

And it is absolutely true that not all Muslims approve of these practices. It is perhaps even true that some of these practices are not specifically called for by Islam but are cultural elements of a geographic society. But it is true that it is absolutely justified by use of the faith itself. Christianity is a religion that is equally false and almost equally dangerous, but it has been diluted and defanged by science and the Enlightenment and by centuries of revolutions and reformations. Practically no practicing Christian actually intends to stone women, children or homosexuals, even though the commands to do so could not be more clear.

But those caveats are red herrings. They are distractions from the fact that states like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Somalia (perhaps not much of a state these days, but whatever) routinely employ dramatic and brutal punishments for what we would consider to be civil offenses. These societies are underpinned by a viciously evil interpretation of a religion. I want to grant everyone equal love. I don't mind if everyone wants to quietly, privately practice their own religion. But when a religion is responsible for inciting brutish and primitive evil, I cannot pretend to just accept it as a healthy and normal facet of their religion. These practices are not worth keeping or even remembering as anything but a bloody bad memory. The Catholic Church should not be proud of its behavior during the Inquisition, Germany is certainly not proud of its Fascist past; so should the Islamic Middle East put this religious tyranny behind them and look forward to a peaceful, secular future.

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg

Time and space (for a Greyhound)

2010-07-21T23:15:00.000-04:00

It has been two weeks since our Julian died. I still think about him and I think that I always will. He was very photogenic, so we have hundreds of pictures of him, and I hope that in the future I will remember him when he was happy and healthy. Sadly, the strongest, most vivid memories I have of him are of when he was sick. I think of his swollen legs and his lethargy. I think of the way he had no desire to eat but desperately drank as much water as we would let him drink, even though he would throw it up if he truly drank his fill. It broke my heart to restrict his water, even though we did it in his best interests. Thinking about this time saddens me deeply. I don't want to forget it, but I also don't want to focus on it. I don't want his death to define his life.

He will always have a very special place in my heart. He is the first loved one that I have ever lost. The older I get, the more friends and family members (pets are family members, of course) I will lose. I am as ready for that as I can ever be, but Julian will stand out.

And yet I find that life goes on, even for me. I still laugh at jokes, I still watch and enjoy movies and television (Inception was mind-blowing and I can't wait for the next season of Mad Men to begin this Sunday) and enjoy the same things that I used to enjoy. There is a hole in my heart where Julian used to be, and that hole can never be filled. I say all of this because we are planning to get another dog. Another Greyhound, in fact. I want to be clear about our motivations - this has nothing to do with helping us cope with Julian's death. This has nothing to do with grief or mourning. This has everything to do with our love of animals. Throughout our time with Julian and Lux (our Whippet, for those of you who don't know - she's still alive) our driving philosophy has been that we are here for our dogs; they are not here for us. So the decision to get another Greyhound (a retired racer, of course) was not difficult. We have the facilities and the experience to take care of one.

We are not selfless, but we have the facilities, time and resources to easily care for two dogs. We could conceivably take care of more, but we would not be able to give the dogs the attention and love that we would like to give. It is perhaps out of insecurity that I write this. Sometime in the near future - possibly this weekend, possibly next weekend - I will post pictures of our new dog and I don't want to be misunderstood (that is possibly my greatest fear in life). I want to be sure that my readers, friends and family know and understand how much I loved Julian and how much I love all animals, how much I love all of life. I will honor the memory of my dear friend, but I also do not want to deny an animal the warmth and comfort of our home (and couch).

If you have the time and resources, there is an animal near you who needs your help!

In which I attend a church service

2010-07-16T19:03:00.000-04:00

I went to church this week. At least, I attended a worship service, complete with singing, a sermon, Bible reading and communion (I did not participate in any of these things, of course, since I was working). This was the first time since becoming an atheist so many years ago. In fact, this is the first service I have attended in many years; even before becoming an atheist I hadn't been to a service for years. Toward the end, my spiritual life was getting by on nothing but a whisper and some guilt.

I was actually very interested in listening to the service. I had always regarded church services as a great social resource. That is, they were like a free weekly class that (ideally) challenges your mind and teaches you something new and interesting. If nothing else, it was an opportunity for philosophical stimulation and mental growth.

But the service was very disappointing. There was no mental stimulation in any way. Perhaps it was the message, but I think that the real culprit is that my mind has changed too much. I never realized how much the Christian message depended on the Christian preconceptions. I know that might sound like a dumb thing to say, but I had really thought (without actually thinking about it) that the general message was more universal and that God was in the details, kind the same way that I can still celebrate and enjoy Christmas without believing in either Jesus Christ or Santa Claus. But that isn't true. The essence of Christianity is not general good will and community - those are the subsequent details. The true essence of Christianity is sin and repentance. The driving narrative is that we are all evil and corrupt and destined for eternal punishment - not only that, but we truly deserve it because we are wretched to the core. But then Jesus died for our sins and now we owe him our everlasting gratitude, love and adoration.

The funny thing is that I knew all of this. On a basic philosophic level I understood exactly what Christianity stood for and exactly why I disagree with virtually everything it had to say. But on a practical, flesh and blood level I still had (apparently) some misconceptions of what it was all about. I know that there are certainly some massive and major differences between different sects and denominations of Christianity and that if I were to look I would find one that matched my misconceptions. And the service that I observed was different from my own religious background in some fundamental ways, but in some significant ways it was very similar to what I was used to. I knew all the words to all the songs, I knew the creeds that the congregation was reciting, and I even knew the verses that were being read. It all felt very familiar and comfortable but also terribly awkward and even comical.

I know that humans are all alike. Our similarities vastly outweigh our differences. Without the benefit of the church service to lay our philosophical differences bare, I would never even think to compare us. So I don't want to make too much out of the differences, but as much as they can be, our worldviews are complete opposites. The assumptions that theists make about humanity and morality and even the nature of life itself have a measurable impact in the way in which they live their lives.

I have no regrets at this point. Although I felt a tingle of familiarity, I did not feel any desire to go back to church. I don't have any desire to go back before the veil of deception fell off, before the scales fell from my eyes, if you'll excuse the expression. Now that I have seen the wonders of the natural world and the richness that a life free of superstition can offer, I would not trade it back to believe in god. The universe is bigger and more fantastic than any god could possibly be.

Julian

2010-07-07T22:08:00.002-04:00

There are tears in my eyes as I write this.

Julian, our Greyhound, died this morning. I loved him very much. I loved him so much, in fact, and it hurts to think about him now. He had a rare and aggressive form of cancer that overtook him over the course of a few short weeks. He was a good friend and I will miss him very much. I will miss him for the rest of my life.

I really do believe that, while he was not comfortable, he was at least not in too much pain. His body was destroyed and this morning he was too weak to even stand up by himself. All he wanted to do was drink water. And although we told the vet that it was time to let him go, I don't think we really had much choice in the matter. And before you think we're cruel for keeping him alive for so long, please know that yesterday he was much better and the vet had given us a relatively hopeful prognosis. And I know that it is foolish for me to ask for too much sympathy in any case. After all, dogs die every day and although I feel the grief of his death with fire-hot intensity I know that it is difficult to feel too much pain for the death of someone else's pet.

But I don't want to focus on his death here. After all, he was a dog and dogs don't live forever. And although I was terribly sad to see him die so young (he was scarcely six years old) his death was absolutely inevitable.

Julian was a great dog. It might be overstating it to say that he was the best dog ever, but he was easily in the top ten. I remember picking him up from the Greyhound Pets of America kennel - everyone there loved Julian (formerly known as KB's Yukon). Everyone everywhere always loved him. He was gentle and compliant, peaceful and curious. He never complained, never insisted on anything. He loved to run, he loved to be scratched on his shoulder, he loved playing with his toys and he loved just going outside. He loved us and he trusted us completely. Even at the end, when he was going to the vet nearly every day to be cut open and stuck with needles he continued to trust us. He even liked and trusted the vet. (Raleigh area pet owners - I can give my full endorsement to the Care First Animal Hospital and Dr Wages) I feel comfortable saying that we never abused his trust.

I don't believe in spirits. I don't believe in heaven or hell or any kind of transcendent essence. So please don't misunderstand me when I say that Julian was an inspiration to me. There was a kind of peace in his eyes and a knowing calm in his attitude. I mean this as no insult of either beast when I say that there was a gentle bovine quality in his eyes. It was those eyes that inspired me to become a vegetarian. I firmly believe that we are all citizens of the universe, from the wisest human and the most powerful lion to the simplest blade of grass. This is how we can find meaning in the eyes of our non-human animal friends. Although Julian was not able to comprehend many things, including the future, I recognized that he had as much of a right to live as I did. He had as much of a right to avoid suffering and pursue pleasure as any human does.

Despite being equally entitled to a pleasant life, non-human animals are not equally empowered to pursue such a life. As humans we clearly have the advantage. We can easily compel other animals to bend to our will and fall to our appetites. We can confuse and obstruct an animal's natural instincts to survive and avoid suffering. It is absolutely incumbent on us to protect those creatures who are less aware than we are. We are all relatives; we all inhabit the same family tree.

Throughout all of this, my guiding principle has been that I am here for the dogs. We will let our grief run its course and then we will get another dog. It won't be a replacement. No one replaces a lost friend or relative, and neither can we replace a lost pet. But there is a conspicuously empty place on our couch. There are plenty of dogs who need care, homes and love. We have the time and attention and resources to care for two dogs and it would be unfair and selfish for us to deny an animal that space.

Obviously Julian had no way of wanting anything, so to ask you to do anything in his memory is absurd. Nevertheless, I wish to ask you to consider what you can do for your fellow animals. If you have some money, please donate to a worthwhile cause. If you have the resources and time (and it does take time and resources) please adopt a shelter dog or cat. If you have the resolve, please don't eat any animals at all.

Islam

2010-06-16T11:12:00.000-04:00

I like video games, but one element of video games that I have always disliked is driving a vehicle. It is always maddeningly difficult to make a vehicle go in a straight line. Different games have different controls, and some of those are better than others, but the overwhelming problem is that the complexities of driving in a narrow, usually twisted path do not translate well to what are essentially left-right controls. As a result, I spend a lot of my video game driving turning too far left, then too far right and then too far left again, all in an attempt to compensate. A delicate touch is required for driving, which is why our real life vehicles have wheels that are moderately difficult to turn. But in video games, I usually end up with my vehicle perpendicular to the roadway and although it happens quite often, I have no real idea how I got there or how to avoid that problem again.

I feel like that with regard to Islam. I veer too far to one side and then I try to explain myself and end up overcompensating in the other direction. What I hope to do here is to slow down and make my points very carefully. I want to be clear about my position.

So to start, I will admit that I know very little about the actual teachings of Islam. I have not read the Koran or investigated the religion in any meaningful way. I am a "Christian atheist," if you will. I am not really concerned about the verifiable aspects of the Islamic faith. I have rejected religious philosophies and worldviews completely because I find that there is no use for them. When I gave up Christianity, I did not (and do not) feel the need to replace one faith with another. There have been so many faiths and ideas throughout the history of the world that it is absurd to imagine that we should examine them all before making a decision. I have seen enough to know that there is no scientific or factual merit to Islam, Christianity, Scientology, Buddhism or Hinduism.

As a social phenomenon, Islam is a bit more complicated, and this is where I typically start to swerve. As a liberal, progressive Westerner, I am inclined to accept all diverse philosophies and cultures as acceptable and valid. This is my mistake. As much as it pains me to say it, Islamic culture is objectively worse for its citizens than Western culture. I want to be clear that this does not grant Christianity any extra weight or value as a cultural force. I think that if Christianity (and Judaism) were observed as literally as Middle Eastern Islam is observed, it would be just as terrible. But Christianity has been effectively de-fanged by secularism. People aren't stoned to death for working on Sunday (or Saturday), even though the Bible (and Torah) specifically demand it. Christian apologists come up with all kinds of reasons for why these kinds of capital and corporal punishments are no longer required, but the truth (in my mind) is simply that they are more secularized and their morality has been improved dramatically as a direct result. Because this sort of secular dilution has not happened in Islam, their culture has not had a chance to improve. This makes Islam, as it exists today, a distinctly negative cultural force.

I feel comfortable saying this without the benefit of intimate details or experience. I can see practical effects of Islam. Even if I were to discount the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism that seem to occur on a daily basis as the actions of a lunatic fringe, there is still the suppression of women, the oppression of homosexuals and the generally immature and unhealthy attitudes toward sex, virginity and the idea of purity. These things are, again, objectively bad for society.

But what of Westernized Islam? What of those Muslims who live among us in the United States and Canada and Europe, who go to Mosques instead of churches and pray to Allah instead of Jesus but are otherwise indistinguishable from other citizens of a secular society? For those who do not think of or treat the women in their families as property, hate the Jews or have no interest in spreading their religion, then I have no distinct quarrel with them. Of course, I would still say that their religion is absurd and hopelessly outdated, providing no real unique benefit that cannot be obtained from a secular source.

Where does this leave me? Islam, purely as an idea, is no better or worse than Christianity. Islam, as it is practiced today by millions of people, is an endless source of potential evil. Not every Muslim taps into this source, but many of them do, and to different degrees. I just finished reading Ayaan Hirsi Ali's phenomenal, shocking and heartbreaking book Infidel. That book is a perfect study in the varying degrees of danger that Islam can pose, from casual misogyny and Antisemitism to rape, theft and murder.

Do I hate Muslims? No, I absolutely do not. Many of them are prisoners of their own abhorrent ideology. But I do believe that Muslims (via Islam) pose a real and dramatic danger to secular society and citizens who value free expression and personal freedom.

This Land is My Land

2010-06-02T19:15:00.001-04:00

I have been lucky (so far) and have not lost any friends or relatives, so I have not had the experience of dealing with death. I wonder if my attitude toward it will change in any way when a close friend or beloved pet dies. It's certainly possible, although I'd like to think that my feelings are grounded enough that once the emotions have run their course I will come through with the same basic philosophy toward our inevitable end.

I do not really intend to discuss much of that philosophy here, but I do want to give the idea of burial a piece of my mind! My first thought was that it is a phenomenal waste of space: a plot of land that is given to the exclusive use of storing a dead body (and, in the case of modern burials, preventing the body from actually decomposing properly). The deceased clearly has no further use for a body, much less land and resources. I can't imagine that graveyards take a significant portion of usable land, so this is certainly not a pressing or urgent concern. And it seems entirely possible that even as our population of gravestones inevitably balloons exponentially we might still find places to inter their bodies. At any rate, it seems like an obvious waste of money and land intended to hedge off superstitious concerns. One of my least favorite tropes in movies and television is the scene where survivors take precious time to bury a dead companion. Of course the plot will give them all the time they need, but I still find this to be highly frustrating. "Just leave them there!" I want to scream at the screen. "They are dead. They'll be fine."

At the start of this post, I was merely out to denounce burial plots. Now upon reflection, I have to add to the list of graveyard offenses. I think that perpetually mourning our predecessors is unhealthy and leads to a twisted idea of death. I suppose that graveyards could serve as visual reminders that life is fleeting, but I don't think that is what happens. We see gravestones and we mourn. As I said at the top, I am sure that when the time comes, I will mourn. I will miss my deceased friends. But if they are buried in the ground, I doubt if I will ever visit. It just can't be healthy to treat the dead as though they were still alive. Although cremation is a perfectly reasonable solution, (and likely the route I would opt for if my intention to donate my body to science falls through) actually keeping the ashes seems absurd to me.

Death is a major component of life and these various methods of memorial seem (to me) attempts to muffle or mask that fact. I spent quite a while today trying to find a way to frame this subject (choosing in the end to go with the direct approach) and as I was thinking about it, I came across a beautiful article on CNN about the creation of sand mandalas by Buddhist monks. I've never heard of this before but it is pretty amazing and it provides an excellent counterpoint to what I have been talking about. The monks spend six days (a lifetime) creating a beautiful and exquisite work of art. Then at the end, the sand is swept together and ceremonially poured into an ocean or river or similar symbolic body of water. Nothing is left but the memory.

A quick postscript: I most certainly do not intend to disrespect anyone's grief or cherished memories of deceased loved ones. As I have said many times already, my opinion is not informed by experience. If you have a different opinion, I would love to hear it.

That CNN article would not embed (I recommend you click the link here or above and watch the video), but I found another video that I can embed. Enjoy!

Squirrels!

2010-05-24T19:10:00.000-04:00

It takes a sincere effort to understand someone else. We may think that we understand them, but all we are really doing is interpreting their experiences through the filter of our own. It is even more difficult to understand the life of someone who we have never met, or the life of a different species. I'm not any kind of an expert, so all of my understanding is based only on my own assumptions and observations. Nevertheless, I try to understand other creatures. I try to understand what they want and need and fear. I want to know what motivates them and what makes them happy, or if that is too anthropomorphic of a concept, at least what makes them content.

I don't think that the world has anything to teach us. I don't believe in any kind of duality; humans don't have souls and no dogs (or whales, cats, chimps, or pigs) go to heaven. As I have said before, humans are not more valuable than mosquitoes or squirrels. We are simply more capable of asserting our will. All of this does not mean that morality is irrelevant. In a cosmic way, I suppose, morality is irrelevant, but on a global scale - and certainly on a social scale - it is very important. As you all know, I have been trying to sort out my moral philosophy on this blog. It is a very difficult thing to do because the more honest I am with myself, the more inconvenient I find morality to be. It is easy to give up eating meat, but then do I give up eggs and milk? Do I also give up leather? For those who are curious, I do not buy leather products if I can avoid it (I usually can) and I do still consume eggs and milk (and the occasional fish) but I try my best to buy from local sources whose animals are treated with respect and given comfort (it does bother me a bit, to be honest).

As is the case with many ideas, I found the subject of animal intelligence coming up repeatedly in conversation. Animals are dumb. That seems, on the surface, to be an objective fact. Some animals are more clever and adaptable than others (crows, chimps, and everyone's own dog are good examples) but since none of them have a real language and cannot communicate with humans, we are clearly more intelligent. And yet the fact that humans have a larger capacity for understanding does not mean that we have more rights than others. Take squirrels for an example. They are manic and unpredictable, dashing out into streets right in front of cars. Sometimes they cross the street safely only to double back and get killed. To us this looks like complete foolishness. How could they not know better? I may be speaking only for myself, but I subconsciously think of our history with squirrels and know that they have all grown up with cars as a fact of life and should have figured out not to cross the street in front of them. And this, I think, is where understanding comes in. A squirrel does not know what cars are or what they are capable of doing. Although squirrels and automobiles have coexisted for decades, that is nowhere near enough time for them to develop any kind of evolutionary understanding of them. And I don't know for sure, but I imagine that when a squirrel heads into the street in front of a car, it is terrified. Bugs caught behind windows buzz against the glass because they simply cannot understand why they are unable to pass the barrier.

So what? I don't intend that we should stop driving cars for the sake of the squirrels. I would encourage everyone to slow down and try not to hit them, but that is all. What I do want is for us to try to understand the perspective of animals who do not understand the world around them. Intelligence is not a reasonable category to judge worth. Non-human animals necessarily do the best that they can with the understanding that they have. If they do not perform to the best of their abilities they die.

This kind of consciousness raising is difficult and painful. At some point I am going to have to stop trying to empathize because it will reduce me to complete immobility. I can't drive past roadkill without thinking of the confusion and fear that animal must have felt when it found itself on a roadway surrounded by cars. I don't want to buy leather, I don't want to hit squirrels or kill spiders. I even give mosquitoes a kinder eye before I kill them. It's a slippery slope and it is a good deal easier not to care or think about what goes on around you.

Hitchens and Rushdie speak

2010-05-13T10:08:00.000-04:00

This is a fantastic video, although it is a bit long (80 mins) and the sound is very low. If you have the time, it is highly recommended

Why I support Draw Muhammad Day

2010-05-08T07:12:00.000-04:00

Thanks to my big mouth and general misanthropy, I am forever compelled to explain my attitude toward Muslims. I don't hate them any more than I hate anyone else. What I hate is their ridiculous warlike religion. But Nathaniel, you counter, Christianity is just as... I'm going to stop you right there. Yes, Christianity is terrible and if you've read any of my blog you'll see that I don't care for that religion either. In fact, I am pretty much against any religion that compels adherents to 'spread the word.' More specifically, I am against the evangelical aspects of religion, and these days Islam is particularly brutish about it. What with the bombing and beheading and other such violence. Of course these things (generally) don't take place in America and I have been told that American Muslims are just as shocked by these activities as American Christians and American atheists. But just because they take place in a foreign land does not mean that these acts are not dictated by a certain understanding of their holy book and thus are a byproduct (if not a direct product) of their religion.

May 20th is Draw Muhammad Day. No, I won't be drawing a picture of Muhammad, mainly because I can't draw and also because I have no platform to display it. I recognize that it is nothing but offensive, but there is a bigger reason. It will help (I think) to establish a precedent for non-Muslims to be able to freely do what they want to do. Just as eating cheeseburgers is a right that non-Jews and non-Hindus have, working on the Sabbath is a right that non-Christians have, drawing pictures of Muhammad is a right that all non-Muslims have and we should be free to exercise that right without fear of retribution. If Draw Muhammad Day accomplishes anything, it will cause Righteous Indignation Fatigue in Muslims and they'll move past it.

I promise that I'm not really out to offend different cultures. That isn't my goal in life. I don't go around with profanity-strewn tee shirts just for the sake of proving that I don't care what anyone thinks. As vocally anti-religious as I may be on my blog, I do not approach Christians and start arguments. I don't mention my atheism unless asked directly and even then I am not combative. I am certainly not ashamed of it, but I really don't enjoy conflict when it is unnecessary. My complaint is not against Muslims. I do think that their religion warps their social mind a bit - perhaps in the treatment of women and animals - but unless their religion interferes with my ability to live my life without their religion, I don't care what they believe.

I am sorry that Draw Muhammad Day will cause offense to millions of humans. But they should realize that it doesn't matter. Like it or not, we all have to live together, so the rules we govern our society by can not bother itself with the dictates of religion. This is what makes America so great and why it is factually wrong to say that America is a Christian Nation. If it truly were a Christian Nation then homosexuality would be illegal, women would not vote, much less rule, divorce would be illegal but spousal abuse would not, children would be killed for being rude and women would be killed for any number of minor offenses. Since we live in a secular society, if someone disagrees with these ideas, they are free to do so. I may not like the fact that certain Christian denominations do not allow women to be ministers or do not allow homosexuals to participate, but it is their option to make those rules. It doesn't matter what I want or think about their religion, and it doesn't matter what they think about my ideas. We have to construct laws that allow all of us to coexist and forbidding certain drawings because they offend some people - and even if they offended most people - is just ridiculous.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali talks about South Park

2010-04-22T09:02:00.002-04:00

I'm not sure what is going on with this embedding. Here's the link to YouTube if it isn't showing up properly on your screen.

The threatening silence of Islam

2010-04-20T19:08:00.000-04:00

The Western world is terrified of Islam. Take the recent Swiss ban on minarets as a case in point. Islam makes coexistence extremely difficult. Even the moderate, tolerant and patient people have a hard time with it. My own views on Islam are varied. I read news stories and my reaction is to hate it and to discredit every single Muslim with a single sweep. But then I think about how many Muslims there are in the world and I realize that they can't all be terrible people. They aren't even mostly terrible.

But here's the thing: they are worse than most other people. Why is the world afraid of Islam? They might contend that it is because they speak the truth, but it is clearly because any time anyone says anything bad about them they have a legitimate right to fear for their lives. It's difficult for me, even now, to keep a level head about this. I am tempted to push all Muslims into the trash bin again, but I have to exercise restraint.

South Park, no stranger to controversy, is the latest item to receive death threats for their comedy. Of course, the first thing that I want to do is to assume that it is only the radicals who do this, the wingnuts, the WBC of the Islam world. But the difference between between Islam and Christianity (apart from the fact that no one fears Christian retribution for blasphemous jokes in the first place) is that when a lunatic like Fred Phelps makes attention for himself, the rest of Christianity hastens to distance themselves from it. But where are the moderate Muslims in all of this? Where are the Muslims who reassure the rest of us infidels that they don't mean any harm? Where are the Muslims who are content to shop at IKEA with the rest of us? Where are the Muslims who watch South Park and laugh? Why aren't they putting out their own fires?

It is this silence that is the most unnerving to me. I feel like moderate Muslims see the insanity of their more reactionary brethren and don't think it all that insane. I fear that they agree with them. And then I think that all Muslims are complicit in a seething hatred of all things modern and all things non-Muslim. And then I think that they are just waiting to jump on the Jihad train when it is big enough. Of course this is most likely empty paranoia. But tell me, moderate American Muslims, why do I feel nervous clicking "Publish Post?"

Euythyphro's rabbit hole

2010-04-19T18:36:00.000-04:00

I recently had a conversation with a friend who remarked that the idea of morality is more difficult for an atheist than it is for a theist. Theists, he said, could simply defer to their texts and writings for moral guidance while atheists had to provide a rationale for everything without the benefit of a codified ethos. This is true, but it really shouldn't be. In a perfect world, even theists would research their own moral code instead of taking "God's" word for it.

Of course, this would lead straight down Euthyphro's rabbit hole. If the theist has any kind of moral integrity (I may be assuming a lot) then they would all arrive at the exact same conclusions that an atheist would. And all of this reinforces the idea that there exists an objective moral truth, and that truth exists in the universe completely independent of any kind of deity.

It really isn't all that difficult to come up with a general moral framework. If more people tried it, then more people would understand why atheists don't simply rape, murder and steal whenever they feel like it. If more people actually contemplated their own morality then the world would be far more pleasant. The Bible is a shortcut to morality, and it arrives at many of the same places that I (to give an example) do, but it does not give reasons for why it says what it does. The reasons are as - if not more - important than the conclusions.

Theists: take a minute and think about your morality. If your answer to moral questions is simply "Because god says so" then you have more work to do.

The stuff that dreams are made of

2010-04-13T11:19:00.000-04:00

Getting past the god of the Bible (and, presumably, any other religious text) is not terribly difficult once we start to think about it. But for many of us who have spent a large portion of our lives under the assumption of a deity it can be pretty tough to let go of the concept of god. Some people might choose to define god differently. Perhaps they like to maintain the loving, benevolent aspects of the traditional Western-style deity and dismiss the evil, petty and hateful parts. Perhaps they imagine that god is everywhere and is all of us. Perhaps they think that god created the universe and walked away. But there is no reason to believe this. It is merely a palliative to help ease the loss of a beloved father-figure.

Many people accuse atheists of worshiping science in the same way that Christians worship god. This is absurd and false, but there is a grain of truth to it. Atheists and theists both have the same questions about life and the universe, but they look to different sources for answers. It is my belief that religion was originally developed as a kind of science, as a way to answer questions whose answers aren't immediately apparent. Over time, of course, both religion and science developed into two entirely separate entities. Some people believe that religion answers questions that science has no interest in, although I strongly disagree. I think that science can be made to address any issue. And this is why I don't think that bringing in a surrogate deity is helpful. Any thing we might develop to take the place of the missing deity would, by definition, be a fiction. Granted, I can't imagine that anyone's personal, benevolent deity would be specifically harmful to anyone, but if it is a false construct then there is no real benefit to it either.

How could I know it is false? Personal deities are (usually) responses to emotional and spiritual feelings that people may experience. I don't think that anyone has physical proof that a god exists. The argument I hear most often is, I just think there has to be more to life than this. Maybe there is more to life than this mean experience. But I can find absolutely no reason to think so. Since the dawn of time, or at least since the dawn of observation and curiosity, we have attempted to answer questions about our universe. As I mentioned earlier, we might have tried to answer those questions with gods. Apollo brings the sunlight, Prometheus brings fire, the Muses bring inspiration and so on. These explanations are not actually bad, although they are obviously wrong. In fact, from our perspective here on Earth, the sun truly does seem to arc from one side to the other. Without any further education in the matter you would be forgiven for not seeing the model of our solar system in the motion of the sun. But we have learned more and more and more and continue to learn. And over the centuries we have developed ideas and discarded them in favor of better and more accurate ones. And of all of the things that we have learned, "god" has not once been an answer. That terrible - yet highly consistent - track record is what gives me the confidence to say that personal gods are all false.

Even if belief in a personal deity is benign, it is still damaging in the sense that it pollutes and dilutes the understanding of the world. Just as early humans (and perhaps chimpanzees and elephants and whales) saw the sun and thought that it simply moved from one side of the horizon to the other, our experiences with spirituality (at least as it relates to gods and ghosts) is most likely a trick of the mind.

The floor under your feet

2010-04-11T09:40:00.000-04:00

I think that a lot of people are bothered by the thought that the universe does not blink, does not know or care that we exist. We don't have to zoom our camera out very far at all - sometimes just past our street - to find that our lives have almost no impact on anyone or anything at all.

It may be comforting to think that someone out there does care (and he cares deeply) and it is unsettling to find that this is not the case. It is up to us to find meaning and lend empathy to the world around us. While the universe does not care if a squirrel gets run over by a car, or if a suicide bomber blows up a city market or if an entire nation is wiped out by disease or warfare, we can care. I care if my leg hurts even if the universe is indifferent. If I see a squirrel run over by a car, it haunts me for weeks.

Finding out that humanity is not the focus point of the universe is more than a little disconcerting, but believe me, the new perspective is as liberating as it is frightening. For one thing, it takes the sting and terror out of death. I have never been less concerned about facing my own death than I am now (although I do worry that I might suffer before I die). It also allows us to marvel at the wonders of the universe without constantly deferring to mythology. For a beautiful look at this universe, I recommend Carl Sagan's Cosmos. It is educational and entertaining and speaks to nearly every level of understanding.

I used to be so proud of myself because I thought I knew the answer to The Big Question: What is the Meaning of Life? I would recite back that it was to 'glorify god and enjoy him forever.' Obviously I no longer find any value in that answer, but I also find little value in the question. When you know that life is just a series of chemical reactions and that our lives are dangling from the absolute thinnest thread of coincidences (although 'coincidence' is a concept that only has value in retrospect) then the idea that our lives are important is a little silly. And yet our own lives have meaning to ourselves and from that we can see that everybody values their own lives. And from there we can see that life does have meaning of a kind. I like to think that my meaning in life is to make sure that Lux and Julian are happy, safe and comfortable. Other people can expand that mission to include scientific discovery or reducing suffering. I'm not particularly good at those things and so I stick to what I am capable of.

I guess that the point of all of this is that if we find ourselves missing the presence of a benevolent deity (even if it was an imaginary presence) we should do what we can to make those attributes a part of our own lives. The god of the Bible cares for every flower and every bird - so should we, because the universe is not going to.

My definition of god

2010-04-10T20:19:00.000-04:00

A response to a question.

A comment that I often hear is that atheists are absolutely certain that a god does not exist, when this is obviously unknowable. I would never say that I am absolutely certain that a god does not exist because I may be wrong. But this question is loaded, because it forces atheists to admit that there is a possibility that a god exists and that - in the minds of some theists - opens up the argument to a 'what if you're wrong?' style of rebuttal. I think that the first step is to define god.

So how do I define god? Obviously there are many different attributes and definitions we have granted to the idea of a deity. But which ones do I mean when I say that I do not believe in god? First of all, I generally mean the god of the Bible, the god of the Torah, the god of the Koran. I don't believe that any of those characters exist in any real sense. That I believe flat out, and with very little reservation. I feel confident stating that I am absolutely certain that god - as represented in the Bible - does not exist. The character in the Bible is not consistent with what we know of the world, what we know of nature and science and history. Now if a being named Yahweh does indeed exist, and if he truly expects obedience and worship at the threat of punishment and eternal damnation then he is either wicked or incompetent, for he has not properly revealed himself to humanity. That is my first answer.

But what of the beginning of time? How did the universe get started? And even if we accept evolution as an explanation for the ascension of life, is it inconceivable that it was prompted and maybe even nudged along by a powerful, or even an omnipotent deity? No, that is not inconceivable. But if it happened, then that deity has gone to great lengths to hid his or her or its tracks and clearly that deity should not expect any kind of worship or devotion from humanity. In this case, we have essentially defined a deity that is synonymous with 'nature' and since we already have a concept of nature, then there is no need to confuse the issue.

How about intangible things, such as love and wonder and longing? It may be possible that those are simply neurological functions, or perhaps even side effects of more basic brain functions. But what if our deity is outside of nature and only manifests itself in these ways? Well then god is love and again, we already have a definition of that.

At the end of the day, anyone can define god in any way they wish. It only matters when that god demands things of them. If no demands are made, then a personal deity is little more than a guess and a romanticization of a preexisting idea.

Some Easter Cheer

2010-04-01T11:45:00.001-04:00

I Hate Social Conservatives!

2010-03-26T09:54:00.000-04:00

In the past I have railed blindly against Republicans, seeing them as my de facto enemy. Some refinement is in order. It isn't Republicans that I hate, or even conservatives; what I hate are Social Conservatives. Perhaps even then I am painting with too broad a brush, but I think that my meaning is now clear. I hate what Social Conservatives in America stand for.

Generally speaking, they stand for diminished rights, although that is certainly not something that they would ever admit out loud - or maybe even to themselves. Diminished rights for women in the guise of giving rights to unborn fetuses. This is merely the tail end of a long, nasty fight for rights - voting rights, property rights, etc. Diminished rights for homosexuals - also at the tail end of a fight - for marriage rights, military service, Equal Opportunity Employment protection, all of which is done in the name of protecting families. Immigrants and (non-human) animals lose rights simply because they aren't American citizens.

The funny thing is that I think Social Conservatives imagine they are granting rights instead of denying them. Their priorities are just reversed from mine. Take health care reform as an example. They oppose universal health care because they don't like the idea of the government telling them that they have to have health care. So in a way, they are right - the government will diminish their right to be uninsured. They would prefer to have the power of health care rest with insurance providers rather than in the hands of the government. Perhaps they see insurance providers simply as hard-working American citizens. Perhaps they see the government as an evil Orwellian dictatorship. Clearly I do not understand their point of view.

I tried to see things from their point of view for a while, but it just got frustrating. To me, Social Conservative positions are all dictated from religion. Perhaps it is a good thing. Maybe they are the brakes that keep Social Progressives from spiraling out of control into Utopian bliss. I joke, of course, because I can't see a single disadvantage to any one of my social perspectives. Nevertheless, I am sure that our different points of view help to keep our society balanced. And that's a good thing. Without that balance we might all believe in evolution and social justice. We might have universal health care and the metric system. We might not be engaged in pointless wars in the Middle East. We might even be living on the moon! Thank goodness for Social Conservatives.

I apologize for the poor organization of this piece. I really wanted to send out a tweet that said: "I detest social conservatives" but I didn't think that would be appropriate without some discussion. Consider this that discussion. I welcome all comments.

Sam Harris on TED

2010-03-22T15:12:00.000-04:00

An amazing TED video by Sam Harris:

Finding an objective morality is something that I have been thinking about for quite some time. I am convinced that there is such a thing, but I reject entirely the idea that Christianity (and certainly Islam) has a lock on what it is. Large portions of Christian morality are, frankly, offensive to me. The search for right and wrong goes on.

Amazing Grace

2010-03-19T11:29:00.001-04:00

One of the things that makes the Bible (and, presumably, the Koran) so different from other mythologies is how pathetic the humans in the stories are. Consider, for example, the story of Jephthah and his ill-fated daughter. He makes a Faustian deal with God (before Faustian deals were cool) to sacrifice the first thing he sees when he returns from battle if God will help him be victorious. As luck would have it, he beloved daughter is the first thing he sees and he fulfills his debt to God by killing her. Imagine if this story were transposed into Greek or Roman mythology: Jephthah would have made the same deal with God but would have spent the rest of the tale outsmarting God. Perhaps he would have substituted an animal, or perhaps he would have created a mechanical doppelganger. But the point of the tale isn't about God's pettiness or inflexibility, nor is it about man's ingenuity or cleverness. It is simply about God's overwhelming need for obedience.

Christianity (again, I'm not familiar enough with other religions to speak for them) has a problem with allowing humanity to have any dignity or autonomy. The doctrine of Original Sin, which colors every human as wretched and evil and deserving of hell from conception onward (but wait - have you heard the good news? God has given you an opportunity to escape the torments of hell - all you have to do is accept Jesus Christ!) is absolutely central to the church. It creates an instant master/slave relationship and makes accepting the central tenets of the faith a matter of life and death. It is sick how common this thought is and how easily it is accepted. Hymns are full of this idea - even the most famous one: Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound / That saved a wretch like me. The singer accepts the label of a wretch without so much as a whimper of protest. Human dignity is stripped away and replaced with failure and impotence.

It is true that humanity is capable of horrible, horrible things. We have habitually waged campaigns of genocide, we have -until very recently - owned slaves and we have created factory farming (click the link, read the articles and look at the pictures if you don't think that it qualifies as one of humanity's worse offenses). A recent French game show (fake, of course - and the centerpiece of a documentary that I am very eager to watch) compelled contestants to kill an actor by way of electric shock and the audience to encourage it. Although no one really died and the producers of the game show were aware of the deception, the contestants and the audience were not - their behavior would have likely been identical if a life really were at stake. In groups it is true that humans can be unspeakably cruel. It is easy to see how the idea of original sin is believed and perpetuated.

The insidious trick of original sin is to convince us that there's nothing we can do. But there is something we can do. We are doing it right now, just by living. I'm convinced that our modern society is better, more moral and less cruel than it was in the past. We discover our offenses and, one by one, amend them. Sixty years ago America actually had laws that prevented people from accessing basic social services based on the color of their skin. Fifty years ago our current discussion of gay rights would have seemed ludicrous. And the very fact that most people don't like to even think about where meat comes from is evidence that we find it repulsive and cruel. Fortunately for the carnivores in the crowd we hide our meat factories away so that we can eat without feeling guilty.

All of that is collective humanity. It says nothing about individuals who may have moments of pettiness and cruelty but are, by and large, nice people. Even the participants in the above-mentioned game show are likely to be perfectly kind and decent human beings. My point is not that humans are not cruel and evil. It takes only a moment of reflection to think of a dozen things that we have done that we are ashamed of. The point is that we need to rise above our actions. To call it 'our nature' to be cruel is to ignore the kindness of our nature, and to brand everyone with 'original sin' makes us worthless wretches. We are not worthless wretches.

Postscript
I certainly do not mean that humanity is the pinnacle of evolution or the masters of the universe. We are not even masters of our own planet - every time the earth shudders and shakes hundreds of us die. I don't intend that our dignity should turn to arrogance. The universe and life are worthy of respect. And humanity, as members and participants in both the universe and life, is worthy of the same respect.

Anti-Science and Fear-Mongering Infomercials

2010-03-11T18:31:00.005-05:00

Watch and laugh:

It would have been amazing if Billy Mays had lived to sell this tale.

This video is absurd in many, many ways, such as the laughably transparent way the spokesman tries to spin irrational fear (politicians, bankers, end of the world) into a sale. I'm not even going to address the supposed catastrophe that makes these seeds so goddamn valuable. That's just boilerplate fear mongering - no big deal. What bothers me is the odd emphasis he places on the fact that these are non-hybrid seeds.

I can't imagine a world where that is of any value. Suppose there is some sort of apocalypse; suppose the bankers and politicians and possibly the Mayans finally succeed in bringing the machinery of our society to a grinding halt and we are glad that we bought seeds back when times were good. Just suppose. Why on earth would you want non-hybrid seeds? And by non-hybrid I assume he means genetically modified. Suppose you have a neighbor who has genetically modified crops. Would you laugh at him because his tomatoes were fatter and his grain produced more each harvest?

Now, not every kind of genetic modification results in practical benefit. Some may even be dangerous. But it is just foolishness (not to mention arrogance) to abandon the entire idea of genetic modification. This kind of product makes perfect sense, however, because the people who would be worried that the world will end in chaos (and that seeds are the key to survival) will be the exact same people who regard scientific progress with skepticism.

It reminds me of the [spoiler alert] tragically terrible series finale of Battlestar Galactica. It may be true that technology can cause harm, but abandoning it altogether is certainly the wrong attitude.

Read Amelie Gillette's article here.

Nice Guys Don't Finish Last

2010-03-06T09:03:00.005-05:00

There is a particularly dangerous idea that has existed for decades, perhaps centuries: "Nice Guys Finish Last." It takes less than fifteen seconds of thought to see that this little meme is patently false and just an iteration of the Sour Grapes fable. Nevertheless, it persists because it perfectly fits the ego of the lonely, sexually frustrated male. The Nice Guy is playing by the rules but will always lose because girls prefer jerks and cheaters.

On the face of it, the idiom might appear to be a harmless ego balm, but at its root is the idea that women can't make good decisions. Otherwise why would it even matter? The Nice Guy in the story clearly doesn't respect the women's personality, because if he did he would realize that the object of his desire was simply a poor match. Obviously our Nice Guy only desires the woman's body.

This meme strikes early. Young males desire females sexually, but often lack the self-confidence to bring their desires into reality. So they have to watch the males who are confident take the females. This is just a part of growing up and because this situation is so commonplace and universal the story of the poor Nice Guy is firmly embedded in our collective consciousness. Many boys outgrow this attitude. I suppose they gain the confidence necessary to see the situation from a more reasonable perspective. Many boys never outgrow it, however, which is why it is a staple storyline for so many songs, movies and TV shows. Good Charlotte's (a generally shitty band anyway) popular song Girls & Boys displays a particularly nasty expression of this idea. In television and film this story often ends up with the oppressed and nerdy Nice Guy getting the hot girl after all, but in most cases (that come to mind) the Nice Guy has to pry the girl away from the jerk. All of this fuels the meme.

I don't pretend to have a solution to this. I don't even completely understand all the angles, and I'm sure that some of my thoughts and actions are informed by some (hopefully diluted) iteration of this idea. I nearly didn't write this post - actually, I've been working on it for a week, widening and narrowing my focus, writing and deleting whole paragraphs. Even now it seems to be nearly unreadable and incoherent, but I want to finish it. And I want to fully understand this problem even though I know I never will. Misogyny is one of the biggest, most enduring problems with human society. We have come a long way since the Bronze Age, but there is still quite a lot of it lurking around. We may never be rid of it completely because it is so entrenched in our culture in surprisingly subtle ways. We can point to Victorian ages or modern Muslim society as being overtly misogynistic, but even our relatively enlightened culture is a confusing grab bag of ideas. The waters of feminism are dangerous and difficult to navigate. The difference between empowerment and objectification is sometimes impossible to see. I am not extremely educated in feminist philosophy, so if I make a blunder in this post, please feel free to correct and educate me in the comments.

I have a friend who recently gave a fantastic talk at our local Ignite event (video of the presentation can be seen here: look for her at the 12 minute mark) about how some women(specifically "Nerd Girls") are being ignored by advertisers and by society at large. This post was inspired by her presentation as I started to think about the nerds who are being advertised to.

Remembering What it Felt Like

2010-02-26T08:00:00.003-05:00

When I became and atheist and started to post publicly on Facebook and on this blog I was interested in a dialog. I still am, in fact. The problem with dialog between atheists and theists is that it is almost necessarily uneven. For reasons previously discussed at length, the approaches to the subject of a deity will result in wildly different outcomes. For example, a rational and purely empirical approach will reveal that there is absolutely no evidence for supposing a deity exists, while a faith-based and emotional approach might end up with any number of deities. This disparity is the cause for the frustration on both sides.

And yet both sides want desperately to be understood by the "opposition", especially by new converts. I was recently reminded (by a video, linked here and below) of this feeling and my frustration that no real dialog existed. At this point I understand the difference of mindset and don't care so much. So what was my issue before? What was my problem? I think it was - as expressed in the video - that no one cared. Not one of my Christian friends or family members really cared. Sure, they tried halfheartedly to "bring me back", but they never tried to understand why I left the faith in the first place. It hurt because I felt that I had just discovered the key to the universe (or, more accurately, I discovered that what I had thought was the key to the universe was really just a fairy tale) and no one was interested in hearing about it. It's certainly possible that they were able to read all about my reasons online. Whatever the case, it doesn't really matter because I know now that nothing anyone could have said would have led to anywhere constructive.

I am still open to a dialog, but I don't really care that much about it. I have seen the conversation play out a hundred times and it's pretty much impossible to resolve without major concessions made on one side or the other.

The idea for this post was inspired by YouTube user Lovingdoubt's new video.

Video: Context!!!!!!!

2010-02-22T09:54:00.004-05:00

This video is pretty funny. And it rings true to anyone who's ever tried to communicate with a theist how repulsive the Bible actually can be. It's true that the Bible isn't actually a manual for dealing death and calamity, but it contains such passages with such regularity that they are impossible to ignore.

And as NonStampCollector points out, what context could possibly justify these passages? What context would make slavery, rape and genocide okay? Beyond, of course, the whims of an omnipotent and capricious deity? In which case why does my (apparently) god-given sense of morality bristle at the actions of purest holiness?

Uncomfortably Numb

2010-02-19T11:03:00.003-05:00

This isn't an issue that's necessarily big news or sweeping the world with controversy, but I read it and here it is. A New York Times Op-Ed piece discusses the possibility of engineering feed animals with a reduced ability to feel pain. As the author himself admits, "If we cannot avoid factory farms altogether, the least we can do is eliminate the unpleasantness of pain in the animals that must live and die on them. It would be far better than doing nothing at all." It's true. It is practically the least that can be done.

One of the fundamental philosophies behind (non-human) animal rights is that humans are not special beyond their specific abilities. That is, humans are not blessed by god, they were not created uniquely for a higher purpose and the life of a human animal is not inherently more valuable than that of a non-human animal. If there is greater value in the life of a human, then it would be because the fully-functioning human brain has a higher potential for pleasure and pain than that of a so-called lower animal. Beyond this occasionally enhanced potential for pleasure or pain, there is no reason (in my mind) to give an animal capable of pleasure or pain less consideration. Not to say that all farm animals should be given houses and furniture and fancy meals, because I don't imagine a cow or goat would appreciate those things. But I'm sure that even if the standard broiler chicken wouldn't appreciate Wi-Fi or indoor plumbing as much as I do it would still prefer not to be crammed in a cage with its beak sawn off. Even if it could be bred to not feel the pain of its amputated beak or its overstressed bones and joints the restriction of movement would still cause it mental anguish. It would live its pathetic life in fear instead of fear and pain. In a sick way, I suppose this is progress.

WWJD? (What Would Jefferson Do?)

2010-02-13T10:32:00.004-05:00

It may well be true that Keith Olbermann and MSNBC are the Progressive/Liberal parallels of Fox News and Glenn Beck, respectively. I happen to not mind, since Olbermann and, to a lesser extent, Maddow, base their news stories and opinions on what I consider to be facts. Although to be fair, I should point out that I watch very little of Glenn Beck or Fox News. I am, myself, unabashedly biased and left-leaning.

The subject in this clip comes up quite often: What did the Founding Fathers mean? When it comes to the Separation of Church and State there is a sizable portion of people who believe that Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Adams & Co. were Bible thumping lunatics (see my bias?) and they dig for quotes that support their position. Since those quotes are so rare and lines to the contrary are so plentiful they have to pull things out of context and, upon occasion, make them up. I happen to believe that the Founding Fathers, as products and disciples of the Enlightenment, sought to create a government as divorced from religion as possible.

But here's the thing: I also think it doesn't matter. I respect our heritage, I understand that this country was created by these brilliant and courageous men and most of what they wrote is perfectly valid and applicable today. But it isn't their country anymore - it's ours. It doesn't matter if, through some miracle of science, we were able to resurrect Madison or Jefferson and ask for clarification on some points. Their opinion is really of no contemporary consequence. We've modified their constitution quite a bit since their time and, while I suppose they would probably all approve of the changes we've made, it is irrelevant. They were not perfect, they were not infallible, they were not magical. I think that they would be among the first to admit that. We have deemed that their opinion on the subject of Women's Rights was incorrect and have amended the constitution appropriately. So even if they did wish to create this country as a theocracy (they didn't) it is up to us to make the best choices for today. Even if the policy of the Separation of Church and State wasn't Jefferson's idea, it is a sound principle and we would be wise to implement it now.

I recognize that this argument is worthless to any kind of public debate. It would be complete political suicide to depart from what they supposed the Founders' vision to be. That is unfortunate because it means that our country will never be able to grow or change in any meaningful way. At the same time, if the United States of America is going to spend the rest of its life in the shadow of anyone, it would be hard to find better role models than our Founding Fathers.

Superstition

2010-02-11T10:00:00.003-05:00

The universe is a humbling place. Fifteen seconds' thought can remind anyone that they are less than a speck of sand in the ocean of everything. And while we have our minds to help us make sense of it all, our minds are pretty weak when it comes right down to it. We like to imagine ourselves as intelligent beings, and perhaps we are the most intelligent creatures on earth, but we aren't as far removed from our primitive roots as we like to think.

We are susceptible to the silliest of superstitions. I don't even mean religion, although that certainly qualifies. I am thinking of the patterns of superstition that are ingrained in our minds that show how primitive we actually are. In using myself as an example, by the way, I do not mean that I think I am a fantastic example of what a human mind can be - quite to the contrary, I am acutely aware of how dumb I really am. So maybe this does not apply to everyone. Nevertheless, I will reference my own experience, as I have nothing else to go on.

I haven't been sick in months. That isn't a metaphor or a story. It's true. I haven't had a flu or cold in months. I didn't get the Swine Flu shot like I should have and I haven't been living a particularly healthy lifestyle. Last year I was all kinds of sick and I just assumed that I would be again this year, but so far I haven't. As I write this, a loud Voice In My Head is telling me that I shouldn't. After all, the Voice In My Head reasons, I might be jinxing it. Now I'll get sick this weekend for sure. I'm sure everyone knows exactly what I am talking about, because whenever someone says something like that, they follow it with a knock on wood or a kind of apology to the fates for being so open about their good fortune.

We know that this is just foolishness. There is no cosmic scorekeeper or Jinx demon standing by to level the score or, in my case, to make me sick after months of health simply because I mentioned it out loud. We know all of this, and yet we can't help ourselves. We resist the urge to speak simply because we don't want to spoil our luck. Some part of us believes it even though the better part does not. This is why we laugh nervously when the number 666 comes up, as it often does. This is why there are no 13th floors in hotels (I promise this is true - check the next time you're in one. They jump from 12 to 14). This is why Las Vegas exists.

It's possible that we'll move beyond it, but I think it is just as likely that we never will. Humanity is not some shimmering and beautiful concept, and as intricate and amazing as it may be, the human mind is not divinely inspired. Perfection is not an option. We are simply animals, and in our own way our minds are as limited as the minds of dogs and bees.

Sorry for the long delay in writing. I know that I should at least have an excuse, but I don't. The ball is rolling again, though, and I hope to keep it going. I am finishing up Practical Ethics by Peter Singer (highly recommended, by the way!) and that is having a pretty profound impact on my thoughts this past week. I'll share some of those thoughts soon. Thanks for reading!

Proof of God

2010-01-06T18:33:00.003-05:00

Well, another holiday season is behind us and the work week is back in full force. The chaos of idle time always makes writing in a blog nearly impossible. I know that I am not alone in this, however, as many of my favorite blogs also went down for the end of December. Now that I am back I am ready again to discuss the world with anyone who will listen.

One item that has been on my mind lately is my own commitment to the truth. Specifically, am I willing to accept the possibility of a deity or am I completely closed off to the idea? And if I were truly as open to truth as I like to think I am, what would it take? What kind of proof would I demand from a deity?

The reason this has been bothering me is that I can't think of anything I would accept as proof. No amount of New Testament-style miraculous conjuring would convince me. I would think that it was just a bit of sleight-of-hand or advanced technology of some kind. I certainly would not trust my own eyes. The miracle would have to be performed to an international audience of scientists and under strictly controlled conditions. Even if a giant pillar of light descended from the skies, dispensing idiomatic wisdom and demanding fealty and praise I would sooner believe it was some sort of extra-terrestrial (although what is a god but an extra-terrestrial alien?) with massively advanced technology, no more divine than you or I or a house cat.

Presumably a real deity would have the ability to convince us of the truth without resorting to 'proof.' The Biblical God should be able to simply 'reveal himself' to us. I suppose that this is the kind of proof I would need. And it bothers me because I don't actually think of myself as being such a difficult nut to crack. I'm not an atheist because I dislike god or because I want to sin and rebel, and I like to say that I'd be perfectly willing to believe if sufficient proof were shown. And yet here I am saying the opposite. I guess that the problem with god is not as simple as a lack of proof. It is also that there are numerous problems with Christianity (this post is not my manifesto, and I will not list them here) itself that make it an illogical philosophy as well as an irrelevant explanation of the world. Our history with science has proven that explanations are possible. We have a framework with which to answer our questions. Even if we do not currently know the answer, we can see that an answer is at least possible.

So what would god have to do to prove himself to me? Well, unless this god is completely unrelated to any of the religions we currently observe, he would have to come in and admit that he was really just joking about everything. The God of the Bible would have to admit that he deliberately made the world look as though he wasn't there and that he muddied his texts to the point that no two humans would interpret them in the same way. To be honest, I would require the same exact explanation for Santa Claus.

I don't particularly like this conclusion. I don't like to think that I have solved mankind's biggest question (and if I'm correct, then it is far from our biggest question) or examined every scrap of evidence, because I haven't. And yet the fact remains that I am about as certain as I could be about the state of god's existence. I no longer even look for proof. It sounds terrible, I know. It makes me sound like a conceited asshole, like a self-assured jerk. Believe me - I don't like it any more than you do.

The Problem of Atheism

2009-12-18T10:31:00.003-05:00

The subject of atheist morality has come up quite often lately and it continues to hang heavily on my mind. I read a stat sheet recently that has bothered me profoundly. There are many positive statistics on it, but the part that gets to me is:

"Conservatives are more likely to give than liberals and give more, even in blood donations. There [sic] are also twice as likely to attend religious worship... Religious people give more to secular causes than do secular people." (these statistics were compiled from Charity Navigator, National Center for Charitable Statistics, and The Center on Philanthropy).

I have no reason to doubt this. I myself am not a very charitable person. I am selfish and solitary, I give to charity only when I think of it, which isn't often. I donate blood only when it is convenient. I haven't even donated time to a charity or cause in years.

I know that atheists are not defined by any set of principles - indeed, there is only one thing that ties all atheists together and that is the lack of belief in a deity. And yet that one thing is responsible for all judgments levied against us, especially our morality. I've addressed this before, and recently, so I won't get into it too much. I certainly don't believe that atheism will make someone evil, just as I don't think that religion makes anyone good. The problem with atheism (as far as charitable giving is concerned) isn't a lack of religion, but a lack of structure. Most religions collect some form of tithes from its followers. These tithes are often (not always, of course, but often) used for charity. And beyond this, there is a culture of giving that is woven through many church communities. The social networking that takes place in church is really tremendous, and different charitable causes are brought in by the congregation. I am not so cynical to think that the religious are all hateful zealots, nor do I think that religious people give solely to causes that are explicitly religious in nature.

Atheists, on the other hand, do not do this. Instead of going to a weekly love-in to hear about the benefits of generosity, we sleep in, we work or play video games. I'm speaking primarily for myself here, by the way, although according to the poll numbers cited above, I am speaking for other atheists as well. For those of us who want to care but are just naturally lazy and selfish, we really need structure and community.

Structure and community are two aspects that I respect and miss from my days of going to church, but they have nothing at all to do with the authenticity of religion. Simply because religious people give more money to charity it does not follow that any religion is correct. In fact, I would say that the charitable giving happens because of the people and community and in spite of the religion. There are plenty of atheists who donate money and time. I mean no disrespect to them at all. The numbers in the poll may be wrong. But it would make sense to me if they were correct.

I really intend to give more blood, more money and more time this coming year. However, history and an intimate knowledge of myself tells me that it probably won't happen. I want to be a good person - not just a pleasant person but a person who has a positive impact on society. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Raising the moral standard

2009-12-07T11:48:00.003-05:00

In the "Is there/isn't there?" debate between theists and atheists, each side has arguments of which they are very proud. Any reasonable theist knows that most atheists will not respond to threats of violence (hell) or testimonies of personal religious experiences. Atheists (again - most atheists) look for logic and reason to guide these questions. As such, one of the arguments I hear the most often from theists is the argument of morality. Where do we get it if it does not come from god?

My first thought is "Who cares?" Does it really matter where morality comes from? Say it comes from a deity of some kind. That still does not mend any of the other myriad problems that I have with theism in general and Christianity in particular. But I don't mean to avoid the issue.

So my second thought is that theists are wrong when they say that without a god there is no explanation of morality. There is an explanation, but they simply do not accept it. My explanation is that morality is not objective and does not point to any kind of universal truth but is an adaptation and a byproduct of civilized life. Just as "Logic" is the language we use to make sense of the physical universe, "Morality" is the language we use to make sense of social interactions. It is far from the theist trope that atheists must all be seething with a desire to rape, murder and steal.

"Why don't you just kill whomever you please?" theists ask. "If there's no moral standard, then what's keeping you from shooting me in the head and taking my money?" I don't do these things because I don't want to do them. And why not? Well, firstly I don't have an intense desire to kill or take anyone or anything. We humans are sociable and while we can easily point to deviants (serial killers, etc) I would say that those exceptions prove the rule rather than otherwise. If humans were all bloodthirsty monsters, we wouldn't notice someone like Charlie Manson. And beyond the actual desire to kill, there are rigorous social institutions in place to keep these things from happening. It is unhealthy for a civilized society to allow murder and theft, so it finds ways to keep those under control. Even if I wanted to kill someone (and I don't, I assure you), I would think very seriously about it because I would very likely be caught and punished severely. It is very likely not worth the trouble.

Rape and murder are extreme examples. Let's discuss theft and dishonesty instead. In general, telling the truth is a good policy. This keeps social interactions functioning efficiently. What would I do if I found a $20 bill on the side of the road? I'd look for someone to whom it might belong. If I found no one, I'd keep it. What if I found myself alone in a parking lot staring at a convertible with the top down and a wad of bills rolled up in the cup holder? No one could see me take the money, no one would find out, but the owner of the vehicle would come back to find $100,000 gone. I wouldn't take it. It isn't mine, and more than that, it is someone else's. I would hope that someone else would respect my property the same way. This is the trust that we need to have in order to keep our world from tumbling into anarchy and Golding-esque savagery.

It makes more sense to me that morality is something that we all work for, a standard that we all hold up together. This way we can constantly raise the level of our social ethics. If morality is an exclusive dictate from god, then it is also arbitrary, contingent on his pleasure. If god dictated that toes were an abomination, then suddenly toes are immoral. Theists insist that it is far from arbitrary precisely because it is from god. This is why the argument for the existence of god from morality doesn't make a convincing argument.

I am content to have my morality be flexible and plastic, dependent on the situation. I am happy that our social morality has evolved beyond our primitive roots. I am glad that it is continuing to evolve, that the bar will continue to be raised. I hope that one day, centuries from now, future humans will look back on our time and remark how vicious and evil we all were, just as we look back on good people from throughout history - those who cheered at gladiator arenas, those who owned slaves, those who beat women. One day we'll respect the rights of all animals, caring for the earth and all of those who reside on it with equal care. We'll never get there if we're always striving to reach a moral code that is centuries behind the times.

The Declaration of Bigotry

2009-12-02T08:21:00.004-05:00

The seemingly new Manhattan Declaration would be outrageous if it were not so unsurprising. It is basically an attempt to ratify bigotry and to consolidate the Conservative Christian political base. There are three primary tenets to the manifesto, helpfully laid out on the front page:

1) The sanctity of human life.

2) The dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife.

3) The rights of conscience and religious liberty.

The sanctity of human life is a concept which I reject completely out of hand. Humans are important to me, to be sure, but we are not the apex of nature nor are we the culmination of millions of years of evolution. We are simply a stepping stone, a branch on the tree of life. Evolution has not labored to produce us, nor has it decided to stop here. I anthropomorphize evolution and nature simply for the sake of convenience. The idea that human life is more important or more valuable than other kinds of life is something that I see as a big problem. I imagine that much of this mindset is built into our genetic programming. Our genes seek to perpetuate themselves as carefully and completely as possible. Just as a wolf does not particularly care about the welfare of rabbits, so humans do not care about the welfare of rabbits, cows, chickens, turkeys, pigs or fish. It just isn't in our nature. But from our evolved sense of consciousness and awareness we can see that we are not more special than other animals.

Now, this first point is really intended not to address animal rights, but to provide a moral padlock against abortion. This is a thorny issue, and in my mind it comes down to a scientific determination of when the fetus is capable of feeling pain. Not to get too deep into a discussion of the abortion issue here (I'm not afraid of it and have plenty of opinions that I'll be happy to discuss at a later date) but I see two extremes: one is a live, birthed infant, breathing air and using instinct to stay alive. The other is two (presumably fertile) people about to have sex. Obviously killing a healthy infant is wrong and deciding not to attempt to fertilize an egg is fine. Someplace in between is the murky moral swamp of abortion, and I don't believe that there is an easy answer. Regardless of the outcome, the sanctity of human life should have nothing to do with it. I contend that it is less moral to force pigs to live unnatural and painful lives for the simple sake of a Bacon Double Cheeseburger than to kill an 8-month-old human fetus, even if it experiences a moment or two of pain. I want to be clear that this is merely my opinion - I don't know how much (if any) suffering a fetus goes through during an abortion procedure, although I am aware that science does exist on the development of the nervous systems of both pigs and humans. To me it would be a simple scale of avoidable suffering. And I also point out that I would view both as immoral if they cause unnecessary suffering. This is another issue I don't want to delve too deeply into today because it causes me to go far off track. For now I will simply summarize my opposition to point number one by saying that there is nothing in nature that would grant human life any special place in the universe.

The dignity of marriage is another term that I reject completely, and also I think it is grossly out of place on this list. Not that this list needs my approval, but including marriage completely invalidates this manifesto. It is such a petty thing to include alongside such other vital discussions. I dismiss this item as nothing more than a cheap power grab and will discuss it no further here.

The final item is fairly confusing as written in the summary, but further reading of the entire document (it opens as a pdf document) seems to state that because of religious liberty, Christians have a right to legislate their religious dogma into public policy. Which is pretty much the opposite of religious liberty. The drafters of this manifesto seem to be unaware that the religious liberty they enjoy is extended to everyone who lives in America. Not all of us find same-sex marriage to be the abomination that some Christians do and not all of us find the abortion debate to be quite as easily dismissed as they do. And certainly some of us think that if the Christians don't like abortion or gay marriage then they shouldn't have to participate in such activities. But it is not an infringement of their rights to allow other citizens to follow the dictates of their own conscience.

Apparently there are plenty of liberal Christians who oppose (and maybe just ignore) this ridiculous Manhattan Declaration. Good for them! As of press time, well over 230,000 people had signed it. I'm sure that Fred Phelps and the entire congregation of the WBC have already given their endorsement.

Good Atheists

2009-11-10T18:59:00.004-05:00

Apparently there are people who don't trust atheists. I know! I was surprised to find out too. All kidding aside, this is a relatively common criticism. We are immoral because there is no overriding ethos or moral structure. We are immoral because there is no oversight. If we want to do something, we go ahead and do it.

The problem is that people can't imagine life without their god or Big Brother and they don't realize that they don't actually need this authority figure. I insist that my morality comes from common sense and from our collective history as social creatures. Theists would counter that the morality I assume is from nature and social structure is actually from god, because god is the definition of morality. There's no real way to prove or disprove this, of course, but there are some good logic puzzles we can play.

There are two options: either god is the author of morality or he isn't. If he is, then anything he says becomes moral. If he isn't then he himself is capable of committing an immoral action. Let's assume that he is the author of all morality. This means that not going to church on Sunday and having lustful thoughts truly are sinful. It also means that, should he decide to do so, god could make rape a moral action. I'm not saying that he ever has or ever would, but let's just pretend. Suddenly rape would be moral. I would be immoral for not committing rape. Christians have no choice but to agree that if god suddenly appeared and told them to rape they would do it. They might point to the Abraham vs. Isaac story, calling it a test of faith or proving trust in god. The problem becomes evident. Morality is arbitrary and 'being good' simply means being obedient. And arbitrary morality is exactly what theists accuse atheists of. If god is not the author, then it doesn't really matter what he says.

So what about me? Where does my morality come from? From myself. I make my own judgments. Everything has to go through my own morality filter. I do wish that there were an absolute rule, but there isn't. Life is too complicated. My latest thoughts of morality have been informed by Peter Singer, where suffering is a major consideration. It isn't a perfect system, but it works for now. So, in my head, eating meat is largely immoral, but lusting after my neighbor's wife (or just women on the internet) or coveting my neighbor's items is perfectly healthy and normal.

If everyone is their own morality filter, then why on Earth would anyone trust an atheist? Why would you trust me with your money, your secrets or your children? Why would you trust anyone? If I betray your secrets I lose your faith. If I steal your money or damage your children, I lose my freedom and self respect. Believe it or not, I don't actually want to kill, rape and steal just because I won't be punished in the afterlife. Punishment in this life is enough for me. In fact, Christians simply have to pray for forgiveness. Look at the Catholic Church! Pedophile priests are an actual thing, causing untold damage to countless children every year. There's really no incentive to be a good Christian. For an atheist, this is the only life there is. And hurting others is not the best way to enjoy it.

Are there bad atheists? Of course there are. But a quick peek at religious affiliation in prison populations shows that atheists are underrepresented. according to this study, atheists represent about .2% of the prison population vs. 8-10% of the rest of the population. This poll is dramatically out of date and I cite it only for illustration purposes. Even if it were commensurate with the population it would make my point. If atheists are not more moral, then they are certainly no less moral than the standard Christian American.

I am a good person. When I die it won't matter. But I am a good person now because I value life and comfort and fairness and happiness. I want to make the world a better place. Why? I don't really know, but I'd imagine it's for the exact same reasons that anyone else has.

In fairness, I don't want to make it seem as though I have come up with these arguments and examples all on my own. I have certainly borrowed from several sources, including (but not limited to) The Atheist Experience and Theoretical Bullshit.

Pinko!

2009-11-09T09:35:00.002-05:00

We recently watched Pickup on South Street, a 1953 film noir/spy hybrid with heavy anti-Communist themes. The movie itself was interesting, but it got me to wonder about the apparently intense anti-Communist attitude of the time.

At first I didn't really understand this attitude. I mean, Communism isn't necessarily evil. It is an economic/political philosophy that is directly opposed to Capitalism but that doesn't make the conversation unnecessary. So what confused me was the blanket use of the term "Communist" as the ultimate pejorative. I understand that Stalin was evil. No doubt about that, but that doesn't make all Communists evil as well. I also understand that the USSR was framed as America's de-facto enemy during that time. So I suppose that "Communist" was a blanket term used to describe a political and military enemy. The fact that Communism can refer to something other than a Russian with nuclear weapons pointed at grandma's house must have been lost on many Americans.

So I would like to take this opportunity to point out how far our culture has come in just a few decades. Our enemy this time stems not from a political philosophy but from a religious one. Our enemy this time is Islamic Terrorism. Our enemy is not Islam, just as our Cold War adversaries were Soviet Communists and not simple Communism. The very idea of treating Muslims among us as we treated Communists a few short decades ago is appalling. It is true that they may have a tougher road than most Americans but we would never dream of calling them out and denying them jobs based on their religious leanings.

I'll admit that I have been less than generous to Muslims. I still think that their religion is immoral and dangerous, but only slightly more so than Christianity. The point is that I think we are better at separating the actual enemy from others who carry the same label.

But I'm not a political scientist and I clearly don't know what I'm talking about. I don't want to give that impression. Maybe all Communists are evil and maybe all Muslims are terrorists who hate America, freedom and women.

Is that where Jesus would spend your money?

2009-11-05T08:48:00.002-05:00

Warning: Harsh and profane language to follow...

First of all, watch this video. It'll get your blood boiling.

Ahem.

God-motherfucking-damn it! The Christ-eating Catholic fucking church spends half a million dollars just to sway public opinion. Why do I hate religion? This is fucking why. Because there is no reason at all to restrict gay marriage without religion. None. The weak bullshit excuses that it isn't normal or historical or natural are worthless. So "traditional marriage" is exclusively between one man and one woman? First of all, that's complete bullshit - historically speaking marriage has been between one man and dozens of women or girls. And in many places today it still is. But even if marriage had always been truly one man and one woman - so fucking what? Change the definition! It isn't hard to do. If King David had hundreds of wives (it was a different time, defenders say) then who's to say that today King David shouldn't have a husband too?

But there's no reasoning with them. Or with you, if any gay marriage opponents are reading this (doubtful). But if any Christians do read this, please tell me what reason you have for opposing gay marriage. And if it involves homosexuality being "an abomination" then you lose! Unless you own slaves and beat your children, in which case you're a good Christian. Keep up the good work, you good and faithful servant.

But aaaaarrgh! You fuckers! You know that you're on the wrong side of history, right? In fifty years when gay marriage is accepted you'll be looked on with revulsion and all of your good deeds will be marred by your work in this matter.

Assholes. You completely ruined my week!

The Future of Possessions

2009-11-03T08:11:00.003-05:00

After writing my last post about Christian book (Bible, even!) burners, I have been thinking about the futility of book burning as a means of destroying ideas. Much of the credit for that goes to the dual developments of computers and the Internet; the access and ubiquity that these two forces have provided have given us some pretty interesting social developments.

Odd as it may seem, the advent and progress of the Information Age has made me less materialistic. I may be alone in this, but I find that my desire to possess physical objects has been steadily declining. I say "physical objects" because my desire to engage in the world has not changed. In fact, it has increased.

Take photographs as an example: ten years ago I took all of my photos on film. A roll of film contained 24 to 36 frames and all of it needed to be developed. This forced me to think of each shot as something special and important. When I had the pictures developed, I had them. They were unique and personal and physical. I usually got duplicates (because why not?) and might give one away. I still have all of these photos, weighing down a few boxes in my closet. I'll probably have them until I die. Digital photography has changed that for me and I sincerely miss the care I had to take with my pictures. I still take care to frame and shoot each photo, of course, but my camera's memory card will hold over 300 photos, so there's really no need to worry if a picture is 'good enough' to take. I'll also miss the excitement I got when picking up the photos from the developer. I'll miss opening the envelope up in the car and looking through them all before leaving the parking lot. And, of course, I'll miss having the photos in physical form. Sure, I can print them out - I don't have a photo printer, but I can certainly get a fine one at a reasonable price - but there's not really any need. Why load up more boxes with photos when I can just burn them to a data DVD and keep them that way?

And see, that's exactly where the divergence begins. I have so many digital photos from the past five years saved to multiple CDs and DVDs, not to mention hard drives and scattered across the Internet. There's no concept of a unique or original photo anymore so each one becomes less important. And although these digital photos are relatively secure, it is unlikely that I will look through them very often. In fact, there are plenty - hundreds if not thousands - that I will never see again. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a thousand pictures simply becomes tl;dr.

Is this a bad thing? I don't think so. I am no longer obsessed with these photos, no longer concerned with their safety. I don't have to watch them any more - I have given them over to the Internet for safekeeping. The same could be said for music, although I have stubbornly resisted (and will continue to resist for the foreseeable future) digital music. But the principle is there. Music bought on iTunes is more easily forgotten than music bought at a record store, even if it sounds exactly the same. Movies and television are similarly fated. We still buy the occasional DVD, but those purchases are very rare anymore. With Hulu and Netflix, we have essentially got an unlimited and very convenient video library at our disposal. Even our personal computers are becoming disposable. I am in the market for a new one and I realize that, aside from the above-mentioned need for photo storage, I have very little need for any kind of physical memory. Practically everything I do is online.

I still buy DVDs, I still buy CDs, I still buy games and books and magazines. But the day is coming when those things aren't going to matter to us anymore. Think of children growing up today and their attitudes toward hard-copies of various media. When they are 20 years old they won't buy books or CDs - they'll simply download them. And nothing will really change except that the information is shared instead of owned.

Maybe this is the creeping communism that everyone was worried about. It isn't difficult to imagine a world where no one needs more than a bed, some clothes and an Internet login. We could be headed to a worse future, for sure.

Bonfire!

2009-10-31T09:34:00.004-04:00

There was a recent local color/news event in which a small (tiny, actually) 14-member church announced that they would be burning books on Halloween. Included on their list of perverse and demonic texts: Bibles - pretty much any version that is not the King James Version. So that has obviously sent the atheist community into giggle fits. But I have also noticed an undercurrent of disapproval, as the burning of books is as close to a sacred cow as atheists seem to have.

Book burning is not what it used to be. That is, it used to be an effective way of ridding the world of a specific piece of information. There is much information that has been lost to bonfires throughout history and it is not something to take lightly. And yet I have a hard time feeling the same way about book burning today. In many ways, burning a book (or a flag) is like burning a figure in effigy. It is a statement and an insult and nothing more. Information is so inexpensive and ideas are so widespread that stamping them out is impossible. Suppose a very determined entity decided to rid the world of On the Origin of Species or even The God Delusion, never mind NIV Bibles or Korans. It would be nothing but a losing battle, obvious to everyone from the start.

It may be an entirely different situation in a place like North Korea, where the citizens do not have ready access to the internet or bookstores or libraries. In that case, burning a valuable book truly becomes an unforgivable crime. Here in America, however, there is no such information hurdle. I can obtain just about any text in a matter of hours or days, depending on how much money I want to spend on shipping. Many books (Origin of Species, every conceivable translation of the Bible) are available to read online, and for free. So burn away, people of Canton, NC. Burn everything you can get your stupid hands on. I hope you go to your local Barnes & Noble to buy books specifically to be burned. Because the only person you are keeping that information from is you.

Heaven is a Return to Eden

2009-10-26T10:40:00.006-04:00

As many of my readers (presumably) know, my move to vegetarianism has been propelled largely by a concern for animal welfare. It is my attempt to reduce global suffering. Maybe I am a coward, but I have never liked to know where meat comes from. As a vegetarian, I would like to forget it entirely, but I cannot.

We went to the State Fair last night - it was really quite a lot of fun and, as advertised, "A Whole Lotta Happy." There were also a whole lotta animals in various stages of food preparation, from adorable, wet-eyed calves to deep fried cheeseburgers. But although I see the calves and lambs and chicks as future meals, all they can see is the immediate present. All they can see is their food and bedding. Hopefully this is adequate and comfortable and free from fear, pain or torment. It is very fortunate for the animals, therefore, that they cannot see very far into the future. They aren't like the barnyard animals from Babe, who not only recognize their fate, but also accept it with a sort of grim acquiescence.

Every single one of us dies. Every single human, chimpanzee, pig, bumblebee, ear of corn or lily pad, whether we are hunted or deep fried or harvested. All living things die and while our self-awareness may have been a singular advantage in our drive to the top of the food chain, it is a definite downer. We can no longer simply live in the moment, because we see death looming over us, lurking around every turn and we know that every lapsed second brings our inevitable end closer. This is decidedly unsettling and maybe this is why we have developed an idea of the afterlife. We do not like to look our mortality in the face; we do not like to see a void at the end; we do not want to picture ourselves in front of the butcher and imagine the lights in our eyes going out forever. So believing in an afterlife is like putting the blindfold back over our eyes. We cannot forget what we have seen, but we can believe in something else, something unseeable and unprovable, we can return to the bliss of ignorance.

Why is this a problem? Why does it matter if someone chooses to believe that their death isn't actually the end, that all dogs really do go to heaven? For one thing, it is probably wrong, so if people have any kind of intellectual honesty, I think that they would actually prefer to know the truth. But in a practical sense, I suppose that it doesn't really matter if people believe that they will continue to live in some way after they die. But if the problem with an afterlife isn't the destination, then it's the ticket and the baggage. The question of How We Get To Heaven is enormous. It causes wars and enslaves whole demographics, it cuts the foreskins off of infant boys, it forces women to feel ashamed to be themselves, it causes guilt and grief on a global scale every minute of every day.

On one hand, I miss the thought that I will continue to live in bliss after the darkness comes. But on the other hand, I enjoy knowing that this life is fleeting. It really is a strange mix of relief and exhilaration, because I want to get all the good I can from life because it is the only chance I'll ever have, but I also don't have to worry about how the insignificant details of daily life may effect my afterlife. It is fantastic to live like this, to dance right up until the very end.

And that thought is fine for me, fine for people who think like Dead Poets Society, who go to a coffee shop and order a birthday cake, but what about those chickens packed together, what about those children starving to death or dying of diarrhea because they don't have clean drinking water? Their lives are dark and miserable and painful from start to finish.

So carpe diem! Seize the day and eat your cake, but try to make it a good place for every living thing. Remember that you don't have to believe in heaven to experience pain and fear.

___

A few points that I wanted to make but couldn't find a way to include them gracefully.

First. I know that the subject of an afterlife is a basically unknowable proposition. It should be apparent which side of the debate I am on. I think that there is ample reason to believe that there is no afterlife, but I want to be clear that whatever opinions we may hold on the merits of heaven, hell or anything else have nothing at all to do with the truth. So whether you like the thought of heaven or hate it, it makes no difference to the actual truth of heaven's existence, whatever that may turn out to be.

Second. I know that pain and suffering are not uniquely caused by humanity. Although I believe that a large portion of the quantity of pain and suffering experienced globally every second is caused by humanity, the basic circle of life has plenty of capacity to create pain all on its own. Every antelope that gets away from a cheetah means a hungry cheetah. And when a polar bear fails to catch a seal, he may starve to death. That is life and although it truly breaks my heart, I know that this is the vicious chisel that has been used to shape our world for millions of years.

Cutting the Baby in Half

2009-10-23T11:34:00.003-04:00

I have heard the phrase "Cut the baby in half" several times this week, and this has caused me to reflect on the story that inspired this grotesque idiom. It is another one of those stories from the Bible that always bothered me when I was younger and now that I am older, I can read it without cringing, safe in the knowledge that it is nothing more than folklore.

The story is brief and well known:

1 Kings 3:16-28 (New International Version)
A Wise Ruling
¹⁶ Now two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. ¹⁷ One of them said, "My lord, this woman and I live in the same house. I had a baby while she was there with me. ¹⁸ The third day after my child was born, this woman also had a baby. We were alone; there was no one in the house but the two of us. ¹⁹ "During the night this woman's son died because she lay on him. ²⁰ So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while I your servant was asleep. She put him by her breast and put her dead son by my breast. ²¹ The next morning, I got up to nurse my son—and he was dead! But when I looked at him closely in the morning light, I saw that it wasn't the son I had borne." ²² The other woman said, "No! The living one is my son; the dead one is yours." But the first one insisted, "No! The dead one is yours; the living one is mine." And so they argued before the king. ²³ The king said, "This one says, 'My son is alive and your son is dead,' while that one says, 'No! Your son is dead and mine is alive.' " ²⁴ Then the king said, "Bring me a sword." So they brought a sword for the king. ²⁵ He then gave an order: "Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other." ²⁶ The woman whose son was alive was filled with compassion for her son and said to the king, "Please, my lord, give her the living baby! Don't kill him!" But the other said, "Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!" ²⁷ Then the king gave his ruling: "Give the living baby to the first woman. Do not kill him; she is his mother." ²⁸ When all Israel heard the verdict the king had given, they held the king in awe, because they saw that he had wisdom from God to administer justice.

What bothered me is how this is set up as the example of King Solomon's excellent wisdom. This is a terrible solution to the problem! It isn't difficult to imagine a different ending where both women responded to his threat in a reasonable manner. What would the great King Solomon have done if neither woman wanted to see a three-day-old infant sliced in half in front of them? I have trouble picturing these circumstances on an episode of Law and Order, a show I, admittedly, never watch.

I am forced to regard this story as a complete fabrication. And yet there may be a shred of truth to it. It was a difficult time. No doubt the people who live 500 years from now will look back on this moment in history and say the same about us. Perhaps the Israelites (and all of the random tribes that lived in the Middle East) led such desperate, hard-scrabble lives that the death of a child wasn't that big a deal. Maybe the bereaved mother really would have preferred to see a child die that wasn't hers. But (to me) it is relevant only in the context of an outdated book of values. These women were not modern women and maybe the author of the story was correct in his estimation of the reaction of these women. Maybe the tale is even based on actual anecdotal evidence. But that is all the more reason not to use the Bible as any kind of moral guide.

I know that I can't have it both ways. I can't say that the story is false because the women wouldn't have responded in the way that they did and then turn around and use their reactions as examples of how society behaved in the bronze age. I have no idea. In the end, I have to simply let this go as a cruel little fable that has absolutely no relevance to modern life. It is also a terrible signifier of great, god-given wisdom.

The Anglican/Catholic Merger

2009-10-20T12:14:00.004-04:00

Since I know next to nothing about either the Anglican Church or the Catholic Church, I don't know what to make of this story.

The Vatican said Tuesday it has worked out a way for groups of Anglicans who are dissatisfied with their faith to join the Catholic Church. The process will allow groups of Anglicans, including bishops and married priests, to join the Catholic Church some 450 years after King Henry VIII broke from Rome and created the Church of England.

The number of Anglicans wishing to join the Catholic Church has increased in recent years as the Anglican church has welcomed the ordination of women and openly gay clergy and blessed homosexual partnerships, said Cardinal William Joseph Levada, the head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Good for them. Go where you feel the most comfortable. But why bother? Why integrating the faith when they can just do whatever they want anyway? I mean, if you don't like your church, leave and go to another one. My family certainly did plenty of that when I was growing up. And if a large segment of the Anglican Church is dissatisfied with how wide their front door has become, they can simply rename and rebrand themselves. This happens all the time.

I suppose from a purely historical perspective, this has some slight significance, but from a doctrinal standpoint, it just seems like pure silliness. It also serves to underline one of the most powerful arguments against religion - that is, if God were as apparent and obvious as everyone seems to think he is, then there would be far less confusion and argument about what his policies were.

After the rapture

2009-10-14T22:11:00.004-04:00

In many ways, my atheism is simply a lack of faith, an inability to believe the impossible. I arrived at my current godless state through purely rational means. At the same time, I have taken on a bit of an anti-theist attitude. That is, I have determined that the traditional Christian god is not only fiction, but he is also evil.

This may damage my Christian credibility, but I have to admit that I never really understood the doctrine of the rapture. As a Christian, the focus was on making it into that first wave. I never thought much beyond that. But that isn't even the end. There is an anti-Christ who is supposedly some demagogue. And this occurs after the rapture. Right? So somehow the rapture happens and then there are still people who don't believe in god.

That's absurd. If half of the people on the planet suddenly disappeared, I think plenty of atheists know enough about the rapture to identify what happened. So then I try to imagine myself in that position. Suddenly the god of the Bible is proven to be real. What then? What do I do? Can god be fooled? Would he buy my false confession? Because I would have a very difficult time learning to love - or even forgive - this god. Obviously I wouldn't want to burn in hell, so I would probably try to get on his good side. But it would be nothing but self-preservation. I would be forced to believe that god existed, but if I had any honesty, I would refuse to love him.

This attitude bothers me a little bit, because I feel like it weakens the honesty of my position. It should be all about rationality and have no emotional element at all. So every time I discuss the intrinsic evil of the god of the Bible I feel compelled to explain that he is fiction first, villain second.

Live and let die

2009-10-06T19:21:00.002-04:00

The world is a horrible, vicious place, and life itself is cruel. There are times when I wish I could believe in a heaven again, although that generally comes with a hell, and what's the point of that? I wish that there was a way that life could be lived without intruding on the lives of others, but there isn't. My very existence is predicated on the daily death of millions of other life forms, both animals and plants.

Since I can't simply "live and let live," I have to do the best I can. I am a vegetarian for the explicit purpose of abstaining from eating other animals. I am very happy about this because, as I have mentioned before, I cannot even see meat without thinking of it as animal flesh. A plate of chicken wings represents six dead chickens to me. A strip of bacon makes me sad that a pig had to suffer and die so that someone could have a tasty sandwich.

I saw a problem and I solved it: no more eating meat. Easy enough. And yet the problem persists. I still use butter. I still eat eggs. True, no animals were killed in the production of these items, but what are the circumstances of their lives? I make it a point to buy eggs that say things like "Cruelty Free" and "Cage Free," but when I eat eggs (or cake, or pasta) at a restaurant, I have no idea where they came from - in fact, I think it would be a pretty good guess that food service eggs are not cruelty free and come from chickens who live their entire lives smashed in between two other chickens and whose beaks are chopped off so that they can't peck each other to death because of the close proximity. So do I go vegan? I'm afraid that I am on that slippery slope.

I also have put a near-complete halt to purchases of leather goods. Since I already have a leather belt and wallet and watchband I will continue to use those things. This pretty much relegates me to buying Converse sneakers, which is certainly not a problem for me, but I am worried about what to do when I have to replace my work shoes (which are really comfortable!). I am sad to say that I will probably opt for leather shoes.

This has been on my mind for the past few weeks - I've been reading a lot of Peter Singer - and the disturbing conclusion is that I am contributing to misery at just about every turn. So I don't buy shoes that require leather (presumably reducing the aggregate demand for leather) but who knows the conditions under which Converse produces their sneakers? If I follow my coffee back to the farmers, or the tee-shirts back to the textile manufacturers, or the food that I feed my dogs back to their multiple sources, I am sure that misery and unfairness and cruelty would spring up almost immediately.

So what can I do? Should I jump to every cause? Should I research every item of clothing and only patronize entirely green and fair manufacturers? Should I raise my own chickens so that I can be assured that they are being treated fairly? Should I ride a bicycle made from bamboo so that I don't support the oil industry, the auto industry and, in turn, the textile and rubber and mining industries? I care about the world, and I want to reduce misery, but all of these things simply revolve around my own life. And then there are the problems that I am not responsible for but exist anyway that I can help with. Starving children in Africa, for example, or victims of disasters or war.

I feel like we are all piled in a giant bowl - some of us are on the top, some are not so fortunate. I am one of the fortunate ones, so every time I move to look around or try to get comfortable, I have an elbow in someone's stomach or a shoe in someone's eye. It is clear that I cannot reduce the suffering in the world by any reasonable measure so why do anything at all? If I continue to abstain from eating meat, am I a hypocrite if I eat eggs or if I wear leather or if I wear tee-shirts from Vietnam or don't go to Indonesia to help with tsunami relief?

I'm not trying to be clever or witty here. These are real questions. I'm sure I'll find a balance, but until then, I have to stop thinking about it. Maybe I need a hobby.

I'm not really an atheist, apparently

2009-09-28T13:20:00.003-04:00

I am attaching a video and I promise that I do not mean anything malicious or mean by it. The video quality is extremely poor and the poster himself is not a terribly great spokesman - he even acknowledges this himself. I am putting it here because it represents perfectly one of the primary communication problems that atheists have with theists.

The communication problem is that theists simply don't accept the atheist premise that there is no proof of a god. They cite Bible (or, presumably, Koran) verses that reinforce the idea that everyone knows, in a very real way, that there is a god. For an atheist to exist, therefore, a specific and deliberate rebellion has to occur.

Theists should know that this is patently and profoundly untrue, but if they insist on holding this position, then an honest discussion of the subject of god really cannot take place. Not only is it relatively insulting to be told that I am lying before I even open my mouth, but it also assumes my position without listening to me. In other words, if a theist comes to a discussion with this thought in his or her head, then there is no need for the atheist to even show up.

I Hate Sundays

2009-09-27T11:34:00.004-04:00

I think it's safe to say that we all stereotype a bit, we all prejudge. Because, let's face it, they really are a time-saver. In a perfect world, we would get to know every person and form our opinion of them based on what we observe. But since that's never going to happen, and since stereotypes are right so much of the time, even the most fair-minded of us form opinions on little more than clothing choices and hairstyles.

I am sure that I make mistakes, and this is a problem for me because I am sure that I am being incorrectly judged myself. If I am at a grocery store on Sunday morning and I see someone in a shirt and tie, I assume that this person is on the way to or from some kind of church. It's a pretty safe bet, and one that is mostly harmless. So when I go to work on Sunday morning in my shirt and tie, I feel very self-conscious.

I certainly never go around telling people that I'm an atheist or correcting them when they say 'god bless you,' but I also like to be clear when the subject comes up. If I am a part of the atheist movement, then the least I can do to advance my cause is to represent godlessness honestly. So when I am seen at 7:00 am walking to my car wearing a tie, I feel a pang of guilt about the assumptions I've made of everyone else. And yet I'm probably right. I'm sure they're going to church!

Addendum to the Immovable Object

2009-09-20T13:22:00.003-04:00

I have to apologize for the last post. It was a disorganized mess. I have had those thoughts in my head for quite a while and apparently they spent that time becoming more confused and jumbled. I don't really know what else to say. I wish I could just say that I was drunk. But I wasn't. Maybe it would have helped.

I promise clearer posts in the future.

Thank you for your time.

Unmovable Object vs Unmovable Object

2009-09-19T17:47:00.003-04:00

There was a recent post on the Atheist Media Blog that, while not terribly interesting in itself, has caused me to do some thinking about the tone of discourse between atheists and theists. As I said, the podcast is relatively boring - feel free to listen if you like, but for the purpose of my post here, I will summarize briefly: one man - Richard Morgan - was a new 'convert' to atheism and started, as many of us do, frequenting the message board at richarddawkins.net. There he was swept up in the so-called (with some accuracy, I will admit) echo-chamber of atheist message boards. Christians who are gluttons for punishment occasionally post there as well and the atheists, with nothing better to do, jump all over the theists with often abusive (if humorous) replies and rebuttals. One such Christian, David Robertson, was a frequent poster and was predictably abused. Richard Morgan, dismayed by the anger displayed by his fellow atheists, had second thoughts about his decision and began lurking on Christian message boards. After a time, he had a conversion. An atheist blogger, Ed Turner, was also featured on the podcast but did not add much to the conversation.

I would love to be able to just ignore the fringe, the rude people, the fanatics, I feel that I need to address them, even if briefly, because they are the most visible element of both factions. Some people are just assholes. It doesn't matter if they are Christian, Muslim, atheist or Buddhist. When those people start hanging around together, they feed each other's fire. Add to that the convenience and relative anonymity (facelessness, anyway) of the internet, and the outcome is completely predictable. Those people are not helpful, but can be, I think, safely ignored.

For the rest, it gets tricky. I am certainly not one of those people who thinks that atheists should shut up about religion. For one thing, the subject is absolutely fascinating. I enjoy discussing religion. I even enjoy having the same conversation again and again. I find that many theists are unfamiliar with what atheists have to say, and are often genuinely curious about our position. I don't mind going around the ring with them, refuting the same tired arguments again and again. I don't really get upset with Pascal's Wager because I know that, for a theist, it is a genuine question. This is why I have a blog - I really enjoy the conversation.

Beyond the fun, however, I believe that the conversation is important. It is important precisely because of the angry fringe that we would all love to ignore. If there weren't angry asshole atheists, then the calm, middle of the bell curve theists wouldn't think that atheists were terrible. And if there weren't angry asshole theists, promoting mythology instead of science, fear instead of reason and bigotry instead of fairness, atheists wouldn't have much to complain about either. In the communal conversation that I, as a member of the atheist community have with the rest of the world, it is absolutely imperative to remember that most theists are not jerks. They are not my target. It is true that I think that their beliefs are poorly-founded. I think that they are deceived and deluded. I know that their superstition is causing a lot of other people grief. And yet they are nice people. We can have perfectly wonderful conversations without a single mention of the issues that set all of us off: healthcare, same-sex marriage, evolution. I have to force myself, on occasion, to willfully ignore some element of someone's life that would preclude friendship. I have written about that here, in fact - I have a hard time taking Republicans seriously. As a resident of North Carolina, I am sure I deal daily with Republicans and theists, and yet I manage to get through each day without a single argument or angry word.

One further thing to consider is that an ugly conversation never changes anyone's mind. In the podcast I mentioned above, the atheist-turned-theist's reason for change was not based on any kind of reason whatsoever. That is not an insult - he says this in so many words. His conversion was a purely emotional (he would say divinely-inspired) response. This is what makes the religion debate so very frustrating: neither side is willing to give a single inch, and that is because we aren't really arguing in the same reality. We are like people playing laser tag in a hall of mirrors - we can interact with each other, but we are approaching the debate from completely different planes of reality.

Obamacare

2009-09-13T08:07:00.003-04:00

As I have mentioned before, the health care reform debate baffles and angers me. I feel strongly about the issue, but the opposition (Republicans, wouldn't you know?) is so uninformed and short-sighted (not to mention selfish and evil, which I'll get to in a bit) that I can't even comprehend joining in any kind of reasonable dialogue. From what I can tell - and this is just my opinion - the opposition to health care is opposed to Obama. They don't like him and so they don't like anything he says or does.

"You Lie" has become a mantra for the anti-health care crowd, which is funny to everyone else because, whatever your stance on Obama or health care reform is, the current bill does not make any concessions to illegal immigrants. But it makes sense that they would seize on this issue, no matter how true or false it may be. Because Republicans hate immigrants. They should put that on their logo, right next to a cross and a middle finger. I have a theory (untested, unscientific) that conservatives hate immigrants in general, but even they know that they can't use that. So they instead turn their focus to illegal immigrants. I think that this fascination with illegal immigrants is very revealing. I understand that illegal immigration is a real problem and it needs to be dealt with. I understand that illegal immigration can be harmful to the host country as well as for the immigrants themselves (I have yet to see a Republican talking point mention their concern of the safety of the immigrants, however). Illegal immigration is a real concern that requires a real solution.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the conservative position - that wouldn't really surprise me, since I'm not able to see it very clearly - but it seems like their opposition to this aspect of the health care plan is that it would be too awesome. But I would be proud of our country if our new single payer health care system covered anyone who came through the hospital doors. I would consider it a point of pride that we cared enough about the citizens of the world that we as a nation were willing to spend a few extra dollars apiece to provide medical care to anyone who needed it. That is simply a dream, of course. Liberals like me dream of a society where anyone can walk into a hospital and get health care. Conservatives dream of a world where everyone stays in their own country and watches with glee as the other countries scramble to feed and distribute band-aids (but not condoms) to their AIDS and malaria infested populations. Also conservatives like war.

That last line was meant to be a joke, but there is some element of truth to it. I'm not going to repeat party-line rhetoric about how conservatives pushed an unnecessary, expensive and damaging war and liberals are pushing a health care reform bill and the differences that exposes. The truth is that, as with the presidential race, this health care reform conversation is reducing people to ugly stereotypes. I don't like to listen to it, because it fills me with loathing for the other side. I also don't like it because there is another side and I detest the people on the other side of the fence. I imagine that they detest me: atheist, liberal, anti-death penalty, pro-choice, vegetarian because of animal-cruelty concerns (which means that I place a higher value on living animals than human embryos) and they are right. I do want to end our wars and spend the money to provide health care to our citizens and visitors. I do want to help the world provide safe drinking water to the most impoverished citizens. I do want to make abortion safe and legal. I do want to end religious interference in political issues. I do want the Catholic church to stop spreading lies about how condoms are useless to prevent the spreading of AIDS. I do want the commercial meat industry to be shut down completely. I know it won't happen. None of that will happen. We'll continue to kill humans, humiliate women, neglect the sick and the poor, torture animals and do it all in the name of an evil god. Can't we just have universal health care?

Heaven is for losers

2009-09-10T18:59:00.003-04:00

A question that is often asked of atheists who spend any time at all discussing atheism is "why bother? I don't believe in Santa Claus or unicorns but I don't spend any time stressing or thinking about it." It is a fair question, but one that also has a real answer. It has several answers, actually, but the one that seems most helpful is that religion is everywhere. It not only drives political policy, but it informs much of our popular culture.

This isn't the point of this post, so I don't wish to get too sidetracked here, but I want to quickly respond to another popular... critique (if you can call it that) of atheism. Maybe it's more of a rebuttal for theism. It is the trope of cultural history. That is, our Western culture has such a long history with theism that we all owe Christianity (and, to a much lesser extent, Judaism - but you can't say Christian without sticking 'Judeo' in front of it anymore) a huge debt of gratitude. Just think of all the art that religion has inspired (always with the art!). To which I say: It is true that the Sistine Chapel and the Brandenburg Concertos and Dante's Inferno may truly be irreplaceable works of art, but what evidence is there that, lacking an oppressive religion, these artists would have been left without any muse at all? Imagine what art could have been achieved if science and nature and the universe had been prevalent ideas throughout our history! But I digress.

Our culture does owe a great many ideas to our Judeo-Christian heritage. But that doesn't mean we have to be grateful. Think, for a minute, on moral values. This is a platform upon which the religious have unjustifiably stood defiantly for centuries. Their credentials on the subject of morality and good judgement are transparently, demonstrably, objectively worthless. But I won't even go into the tired talking points of slavery, misogyny, child abuse, homophobia, genocide or general common sense. Instead I want to complain about the things that effect everyone. What is good and what is bad? What is a sin and what is a virtue? What is vice and what is honest?

I was at the NC Museum of Art over the weekend and, as with most art museums, there was an overabundance of religious artwork. That is one debt to religion that society has paid in full. We need no more grim depictions of martyrdom or sacrifice, thank you. But one picture (I really wish I had snapped a photo) that I have always enjoyed suddenly stood out. It is a picture of judgement, with the top half of the canvas filled with beatific, white-robed people sitting around on clouds. Not doing anything, just sitting. Below them was a hellscape that the artist clearly enjoyed creating. Demons towered over the wretched masses, prodding and impaling them with spears, skeletons leered between the naked bodies - the whole scene was a writhing mass of naked flesh. Say what you will about eternal torment, but it excites our imagination. Hell is visceral, it is vivid, we can imagine what it is like! Why? I say it is because religion has vilified our most basic, primal instincts.

Lux, our adorable little Whippet, does not like going to her crate. For the most part, she has access to the whole house except when we leave. So when we are out of the house, she is in her crate. She does not like to go. But I can bribe her very easily by offering her a treat. What do I give her? Usually I just give her a few bits of dog food. It isn't anything special - she eats this stuff by the bowlful - but just three or four bits of dog food will get her rushing to her crate. For her, eating is its own reward. And with us, many things are gratifying. Food, drink, sex, fun - all of these things are pleasurable. All are sensual and hedonistic. When I grew up, hedonism was a bad word. It described things that were sinful, people who were evil. The pursuit of pleasure was wrong!

As I said at the top, I don't want to discuss ethics or social morality. Although sex is good, rape is bad. There are limits to the pleasures we should indulge in. My 20 pound Whippet would eat through a 40 pound bag of dog food before giving up. I know what is best for her so I keep her on a regulated diet and feed her only a small amount per day. And I know where the theists are suddenly going with this, but I disagree: we do not need a sky-king to tell us where our limits our. We know! Eating too much food is unhealthy. It will kill you if you aren't careful. Alcohol is toxic in large doses. Smoking in public is offensive to those of us who don't want emphysema or lung cancer. This is reasonable and the limits are clear to us. But we can't even have a discussion of pleasure without using biased language. We indulge in dessert. Many products are advertised as sinfully delicious. Decadent is a bad word and makes us think we're getting away with something.

This is why it is easy for us to imagine hell. But what about heaven? All we can think of is sitting there. Sitting around and (presumably) worshipping God, the cause of all that is good and righteous and boring. If I had my way, heaven would be a big giant restaurant with an open bar, video games and an orgy - never mind 72 virgins (or raisins, as the embarrassing translation might read) - this is heaven. I'd want some real sluts!

Television is good for you!

2009-09-03T11:41:00.003-04:00

One of my many, many peeves is the the stigma against various forms of entertainment. Specifically, television and video games. I am a fan of both. I enjoy spending my spare time engaged in one or the other and I resent the idea that they are mindless entertainments, that my brain atrophies when I watch an episode of Lost, Mad Men or The Soup. The default "healthy" activity is reading. I am also a fan of reading, in fact, but unless it is a book of science, philosophy or history or is otherwise particularly informative, I just cannot see how reading is intrinsically better than television.

It is true that there is a lot of terrible television that provides very little for your brain to do. Game shows, of course, although exceptions must be made for shows like Jeopardy! and Cash Cab, which challenge the watchers to think along. But I find it difficult to believe that even the terrible shows (pretty much anything on VH1, for example) are any worse for your brain than airport fiction.

I read an article in The New Yorker several years ago that was very intriguing. In doing research for this post I found the article and, upon review, I discovered that it was actually a book review. So I plan to read the actual book and am very excited to do so. But the article (and book upon which it was apparently based) says something that I had always felt: that television and video games are actually very real ways to involve your brain. I won't take credit for any of this - clearly the research was already done for me. Read the article here.

I understand that not everyone likes to watch television. There are plenty of shows that I don't watch, and that actually offend me with their oppressive (and near objective) stupidity. What annoys me is this common reaction: "I, personally, would rather spend my time doing something useful than watch television."

The Vatican is Bullshit!

2009-08-29T09:47:00.001-04:00

This is good. I'm always a fan of Penn & Teller's Bullshit.

Bible Inerrant

2009-08-26T12:43:00.004-04:00

I just finished reading Bart Ehrman's latest book, Jesus, Interrupted. It is a fantastic, fascinating read. One of the more interesting things about Ehrman is that he used to be a conservative, evangelical Christian, lost his faith and continues to teach Old Testament courses at UNC Chapel Hill. Another fascinating thing about Ehrman is why he lost his faith. I certainly don't want to misrepresent him, so I won't discuss his turn to agnosticism (he, too refuses to don the atheist label) but will recommend his book, God's Problem. What did not turn him away from faith was the discovery that the Bible is full of holes.

Apparently there are plenty of people in the world, plenty of Christians for whom the inerrancy of the Bible is not a sticking point. That is, they know that the Bible is not perfect but they just don't care. For them, the religion is about some other transcendent idea. For me, throughout my childhood and my adult Christian life, the Bible was flawless, every word was true and spoken to the (admittedly human) authors by God himself. On the issue of translation "errors" and additions, God's hand protected the content and guided those who compiled the canon. This view was instrumental in my own loss of faith.

Embarrassingly, it was reading Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code that pushed me from my seat on the fence between theism and atheism. Not to say that The Da Vinci Code convinced me by any stretch. What it did was open me up to the world of historical Biblical criticism, and in a very clumsy, hokey way, I might add. And for the record, no one book was responsible for my eventual outcome, and there was no moment in time when I realized with a flash that I was an atheist. Although if you are interested and are looking for some books on the subject, I will be happy to recommend a few of my favorites.

Enough of the distractions! After reading The Da Vinci Code, I found that the strongest link in my chain to religion was broken. I researched the issue myself and found that Dan Brown was right. The history of Christianity was full of twists and turns and drama and dark, ulterior motives. And if the Bible could not be trusted then the whole thing fell down very quickly. Why would I base my life on a text that is known to have errors?

"We don't know how many mistakes there are among our surviving copies [of the New Testament books], but they appear to number in the hundreds of thousands. It is safe to put the matter in comparative terms: there are more differences in our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament." B. Ehrman, Jesus Interrupted, pg 184.

I am genuinely baffled by those who continue to call themselves Christians who can acknowledge the many, many mistakes and errata in the holy books. Imagine those statistics applied to a dictionary or encyclopedia. We might continue to use the book, but we would certainly take every single item with a healthy dose of salt. And we would most definitely not make any life choices based on this flawed book. It was through this reasoning, through this break in the chain that I lost my own faith. Once I discounted the Bible, all bets were off. If there were a personal god (not to discount an impersonal, universal deity) then he/she/it had failed to make its presence known to me and by any standard I could not be expected to live my life in any particular way.

There were other fronts where I lost my faith, of course. There was the loving God vs the Cruel Universe front, the Creation vs Evolution front, the Many Exclusive Religions front, the Many Lost Religions front, among others. Faith lost to reason on each and every one. But it all started when the Bible gave way.

Socialized Medicine = Good

2009-08-22T10:31:00.003-04:00

I haven't been posting about the health care debate like I said I would. Sorry about that. It isn't that I haven't had the time, but I haven't had much desire to do so. I feel very strongly about the subject, actually, and my reaction to the debate is very similar to my reaction to the debate about same-sex marriage: I can't believe that this is even a debate. I can't believe we have to actually talk about this. It should be obvious! Sure there's a choice of paths to take, but one is clear, straight and paved. The others are dark, twisted, narrow and covered with brambles and littered with broken glass.

And that's what bothers me so much: I simply do not see the opposing point of view. I have had it explained to me and I simply cannot grant a single shred of validity to this point. Oh, I understand why the current health care system would be opposed, I see why insurance companies would be against it, I can see why hospitals don't want to change direction: they all make more money than they should. We are capitalists and money-makers, but first we are members of a society. Think of our society as though we were a few dozen shipwrecked survivors on a desolate island. One or two people have all of the medicine and first aid and charge for use. Medical knowledge is valuable, but it shouldn't be leveraged into a commodity.

Sorry for the digression. The opposing point of view, apparently, is simply a fear of government control. That's the term that I hear the most, actually: government control. People are afraid that the government will take control of their lives via health care. People are afraid of socialized medicine. People are afraid of socialism. I will recommend this fantastic post from Roger Ebert's blog, where he discusses this very thing.

It is "socialism." Again, yes. The word socialism, however, has lost its usefulness in this debate. It has been tainted, perhaps forever, by the malevolent Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who succeeded somehow in linking it with the godless Commies. America is the only nation in the free world in which "socialism" is generally thought of in negative terms. The only nation in which that word, in and of itself, is thought to bring the discussion to a close.

Thank you, Roger Ebert. I thought I was crazy! I have wondered what this horrible phenomenon of socialism was all about. I thought I understood what it was, but if everyone was so terrified and against it, I must have been wrong. I looked it up on Wikipedia and followed some links to read about it. As I thought, it didn't sound terrible at all. It sounded like a good thing.

Perhaps it isn't the best economic theory (that's all it is, by the way) for a productive nation, although I'm not convinced that capitalism is necessarily better (what to you expect from me? I'm a liberal - you knew that already) but surely we can compromise! Surely we can find a way to allow the government to control our medicine. Why would we want this? Because they should have no incentive other than keeping people healthy. There should be no profit motive in the administration of health care. If the government runs the entire program (like they do, very successfully in other countries, I probably don't need to point out) then it will free up hospitals and doctors to do their jobs, the jobs that they very likely want to do, and free them from worrying about something so petty as money.

Would this lower the wages of doctors? Probably. Would this put an entire industry out of work? I hope so. But don't worry, America. Your precious insurance company executives are in no danger. What I am proposing is not even on the table here. Even if Obama's proposed plan goes through unscathed (it won't), we will still have the worst health care system of any developed country. Our place in the world is secure.

I don't know how many posts I can manage on this subject. Thinking about it actually provokes a physical response (yes, rage is a physical response) and I don't like to wind myself up for no reason. I'll stick to the easier battles, like legalizing same-sex marriage and getting "In God We Trust" removed from our currency.

Welcome to the Neighborhood!

2009-08-18T08:06:00.002-04:00

There are things about living in a suburban/urban (and I don't mean 'urban' in the euphemistic sense) neighborhood that took me by surprise. For one, there is gossip. I didn't think it was real, the chatting about neighbors while leaning on fenceposts. But there it is! One week in to our new home and we're already learning about the eccentricities of everyone who lives on our block. Also, there are blueberry muffins. We got a real, live housewarming gift yesterday, when one of our neighbors brought by a plate of blueberry muffins.

There is a dark side too, like petty theft. I bought a lawnmower on Sunday, planning to mow the yard on Tuesday (my day off) and this morning, it was gone, stolen clean off our front porch. It isn't a big deal really - today it's a hassle, but in a few months or a year the money will be forgotten and the incident will just be a memory. What is bad is how it makes me feel. It makes me suspect people that are probably innocent, but the more I think about it, the stronger my suspicion grows. I know that my suspicion is baseless and completely devoid of facts or evidence. I think that the only permanent effect of this will come from my reaction. Should I live in fear and anger, seething in resentment, holding grudges against people who may well be innocent of the crime? Obviously I should just move on, learn the lesson and secure my property (although it was on my screened-in porch). After all, the mower was just about the cheapest model that Lowes sells. I can just get another one.

Deep Space

2009-08-14T05:37:00.002-04:00

I saw this video on Pharyngula this morning and just had to share it. Not that anyone here doesn't also read Pharyngula...

Anyway, it's an amazing video, so please enjoy.