3.31.2015

I'm an Atheist, Now What?

Atlanta Balcony 4
Photo by Clinton Steeds

Atheists are a diverse bunch, and we come to atheism in many different ways. Some are life-long atheists who were never subjected to any form of religious indoctrination; others had to go through a lengthy process of discarding the belief system into which they had been raised. Individual variations aside, there is at least one pattern that I have seen often enough to suspect that there may be something to it.

For many of us who were raised as religious believers and go through a period of questioning our beliefs to eventually recognize that we no longer believe (i.e., we are atheists), something fairly predictable seems to happen. We experience a sensation of being "strangers in a strange land." We look around at our religious neighbors and feel different in many ways. What was once familiar to us now seems quite odd. We turn to one another and ask, "How could anybody still believe this stuff?" We may become obsessed with The Matrix and how we are seeing the world for what it is now that we are no longer plugged in. We become aware of religious privilege, church-state violations, and the countless ways in which religiously-based laws restrict our rights and cause harm in the world.

3.26.2015

The Price of Safe Spaces in Higher Education

Sign in Niagara Falls, Ontario, warning people not to climb over guard rail

 In case you missed it, take a look at this article by Judith Schulevitz from last Sunday's New York Times. It should be of interest to anyone concerned with what has been happening on college and university campuses in the U.S. with regard to the free expression of ideas and efforts to prevent students from being exposed to ideas that might conflict with their preconceived beliefs. It also helps to shed some light on what the new obsession with "safe spaces" is all about, why it is happening, and the detrimental impact it is having on educating those who will be our future.
Safe spaces are an expression of the conviction, increasingly prevalent among college students, that their schools should keep them from being “bombarded” by discomfiting or distressing viewpoints.
Try to wrap your head around that for a moment. College students convinced that they should be shielded from being exposed to potentially upsetting viewpoints. Is it possible to learn and grow without being exposed to new, challenging, and even upsetting perspectives? I don't think so.

3.24.2015

How Will Atheists Treat Christians in the Future?

how atheists treat Christians
Dear Christians,

If Christianity and other religions continue to decline in the U.S. as some are predicting and as has already happened in many Western nations, we could eventually reach the point where there are more atheists than Christians. Gasp! This will not happen in our lifetimes, so there is no need for you to worry about that. But it could be a reality for your descendants at some point. And if it is, I sincerely hope that the atheists of the future treat Christians far better than many of your contemporary Christians treat atheists today.

I hope that future atheists will not raise their children to hate Christians. I hope that they will not demonize future Christians merely for holding different beliefs, characterizing them as immoral. I hope that they will not kick their own children out of their homes for daring to have Christian beliefs. I hope that they will not consistently elect representatives who restrict the rights of future Christians on the basis of any sort of secular dogma. In short, I hope they will treat these future Christians far better than today's Christians have been treating us.

In your own lifetimes, you have witnessed a tremendous shift in attitudes toward gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons. While equality under the law remains elusive, few doubt that it is coming. You have seen some of your fellow Christians change their minds on same-sex marriage and at least begin the process of abandoning bigotry against LGBT persons. If you are old enough, you may have even witnessed something similar happen with regard to African Americans in general and interracial marriage in particular.

3.23.2015

Atheism+ Block Bot in the News Again

Frontispiece from Matthew Hopkins' The Discove...
Frontispiece from Matthew Hopkins' The Discovery of Witches (1647), showing witches identifying their familiar spirits (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I haven't written much about the Atheism+ Block Bot, and what I have written has mostly focused on the misleading manner in which the BBC's Newsnight covered it during a 2013 broadcast and how they missed the point about why their coverage was controversial. I also noted that I find the manner in which the Block Bot has operated difficult to reconcile with freethought and skepticism. I haven't thought much about it since the fall of 2013, and I admit being surprised that it was still active when it suddenly began making news again last week.

In case you have not been following the situation, it seems that some legal questions have been raised by blogger Matthew Hopkins, who uses the handle "The Witchfinder." The central question seems to involve whether those who have been placed on "an enormous public blacklist" where they have been labeled in all sorts of awful ways might have legal recourse, at least in the U.K.

Shortly after this post appeared, I saw several tweets suggesting that the Block Bot had either ceased operations completely, been replaced by a similar service, or was still going strong. Everybody seemed to agree that something dramatic had happened, but few could agree on what it was. At the time I am writing this, the Block Bot appears to still be active.

3.19.2015

Why My Lack of Belief in Bigfoot Creatures Is Not Part of My Identity

Photo of an unidentified animal the Bigfoot Re...
Photo of an unidentified animal the Bigfoot Research Organization claims is a "juvenile Sasquatch" "Jacobs Photos" . . Retrieved 2009-09-16 . (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am an "aBigfootist" in that I am someone who does not believe in Bigfoot creatures. I am not completely certain that such creatures do not exist, that they have never existed, or that they could never exist at any point in the future. Thus, I could describe myself as an agnostic "aBigfootist" in recognition that the question of whether I believe is separate from how confident I am in my belief (or lack thereof).

How can I not believe in Bigfoot creatures? I find the evidence of their existence sorely lacking. I base my belief about the likelihood of such creatures on the available evidence. While this means that I would change my position in the face of sufficient evidence, it also means that I am not about to believe without such evidence on the basis of faith.

I can imagine someone discovering unambiguous evidence of such creatures on an expedition to a remote area and returning with it. I can imagine scientists verifying the evidence as authentic and classifying a new species. I can imagine subsequent expeditions succeeding in capturing a living specimen. We'd all end up with a rational belief in Bigfoot then in much the same way we all have a rational belief in bears. Our belief would be supported by evidence, making it rational. Faith would have no place here.

3.18.2015

Someone Disagrees With You on the Internet

Hammertime stop sign near Espoo

I'd like to make three bold statements that do not strike me as even remotely controversial but which many people seem to have trouble accepting:
  1. Just because someone disagrees with me does not make him or her crazy, stupid, or even wrong.
  2. The fact that someone disagrees with me does not mean that I am somehow entitled to treat him or her poorly.
  3. Points #1 and #2 are not specific to me; they apply to you as well.
You do not have to agree with these statements. After all, I might be wrong. But if you do agree with them, then you might find that it can sometimes be helpful to ask yourself whether the manner in which you behave reflects your agreement. That is, if someone who did not know you were to observe you for a while, would he or she correctly conclude that you believed these things? Doing this sort of check-in periodically is one way to avoid hypocrisy.

3.16.2015

My Holy Book Says That People Like You Should Be Killed

11th Century North African Qur’an
11th Century North African Qur’an in the British Museum (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Suppose I told you that I considered a particular book to be holy and/or sacred. Suppose I told you that I considered it to be the inspired word of some sort of god(s). Now imagine that you were curious and decided to read this particular book. To your horror, you discovered that it contains passages that seem to instruct people to kill people like you. What would you think of such a book? And more importantly, what would you think of me for claiming that such a book is holy?

When you confront me with your discovery, I attempt to explain away the disturbing passages you found. "They aren't intended to be taken literally," I insist. Do you find that particularly comforting? After all, I've been telling you that this book is holy, sacred, etc. "These words were meant for a different people living in a different time," I say. But the words strike you as being very clear and unambiguous instructions. And once again, I'm the one who has been claiming that this book is something special, divinely inspired even. I've even gone so far as to claim that this book is a guide for how one should live one's life. "You are just taking it out of context," I exclaim. But you have read the words for yourself. You have seen the context around them and found their meaning to be obvious. "Oh, I just ignore that part," I explain. I selectively ignore parts of my own holy book? Isn't this the same book that I claim to be divinely inspired?

3.13.2015

Who Gets to Be Christian?

Latter-day Saints believe in the resurrected J...
Latter-day Saints believe in the resurrected Jesus Christ, as depicted in the Christus Statue in the North Visitors' Center on Temple Square in Salt Lake City (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As an atheist, I find myself perfectly content to leave the decision of who is a Christian to the Christians. They can decide what it means to be a Christian and who gets to call themselves one. They can then inform the rest of us of their decision so we will know how to apply the label most appropriately. Of course, this is far from a simple task.

A few years ago, I asked my readers whether they consider Mormons to be Christians, members of a cult, or both. To my surprise, many of those who commented indicated that they did not think of Mormons as Christians. A couple went so far as to say that they regarded Mormons as being as distinct from Christians as Muslims.

For this post, I am curious about your experiences with whether Christians consider Mormons to be Christian. I suspect that this is a question on which not all Christians will agree. What I am trying to understand are the reasons for this disagreement among Christians. Does it have more to do with the many different forms of Christianity and how they may define themselves in different ways (especially mainstream vs. fundamentalist views), where one lives, or something else?

3.11.2015

Aiming at Faith Instead of Religion

Faith Street (embossed, relocated)
Photo by Eric Fischer
Influenced by a few of Prof. Peter Boghossian's videos and other street epistemology videos, I've been thinking lately about Prof. Boghossian's suggestion that we focus our efforts on faith instead of religion. The more I think about it, the more inclined I am to agree with him that faith makes a superior target and that it probably does make sense to focus more on faith than on religion. In essence, our goal would shift from one of dismantling religion to one of helping people learn to base their beliefs on evidence. It may seem like a subtle shift, but it is also one which offers several potential advantages.

To be clear, helping people realize that faith is an inadequate way of acquiring knowledge will almost certainly undermine religion. Placing a greater focus on faith does not mean that we give religion a pass in any way. Faith is the pillar on which religion rests, and it is apparent that religion cannot survive without it. At the same time, focusing on faith seems far less likely to put the religious person in a defensive posture than directly assailing religious beliefs, practices, and traditions. The street epistemology focus on helping others consider how they know what they think they know seems like it could have many advantages here.

3.10.2015

Their Freedom to Express Ideas We Do Not Like

I've said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it again: It is easy to support free speech as long as one is talking about one's own speech or about the expression of ideas with which one agrees. When we agree with the content of the speech, we are quick to recognize the importance of free speech. We even seem eager to defend it.

The test - perhaps the only test that matters here - is whether one defends the expression of ideas with which one disagrees. When we find someone who claims to defend free speech but is willing to extend his or her defense only to the expression of ideas with which he or she agrees, we do not have a free speech advocate; we have a hypocrite.

It isn't that we must all be free speech absolutists in order to avoid charges of hypocrisy. We can - and most of us do - recognize that a few restrictions on free speech are probably necessary. We must strive to be consistent in our application of any necessary restrictions, and we must recognize that such restrictions require a rationale that goes well beyond our personal offense taking and hurt feelings. It isn't always going to be easy, but that does not make it any less important.

Criticism of religious figures, traditions, and beliefs is a vital form of free speech. Criticism of secular figures, traditions, and beliefs is a vital form of free speech. We do not all have to like both equally, but we do need to allow both. Any suggestion that faith is exempt from inquiry, criticism, or even mockery is dangerous. We all lose when the expression of dissenting ideas is suppressed. And the same is true when it comes to the inquiry, criticism, and mockery of atheism, secularism, humanism, skepticism, and feminism. If their cows are not sacred, ours are not either.

At the risk of being overly repetitive, I'll leave you with the following: Our commitment to free speech is not found in our willingness to defend the expression of our most cherished ideas; it lies in our defense of the right of others to express ideas we find abhorrent.

For more on this important subject, see Samantha Clark's post at Jill of all Trades (update: blog no longer active).

Update: Post edited to improve clarity based on an excellent suggestion by a commenter.

3.09.2015

Atheism and Violence

English: Jämsä old church burning in Finland i...
Jämsä old church burning in Finland in 1925 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If a religious believer commits a violent act and tells the world that he did it for his gods, I think it makes sense to take a look at his religious beliefs. They probably aren't the only relevant factor, but I'd have a hard time preemptively concluding that they have no relevance. Would the same apply to an atheist who kills and then tells the world that he did it for atheism? It might, and I'd suggest taking a look at what such a person believed to see if might have contributed in any way.

Of course, this brings us to what should be a fairly obvious problem: atheism has no shared creed or ideology of any sort. That means that any examination of what our atheist killer believed would quickly become an examination of idiosyncratic personal beliefs that had nothing to do with atheism. Unless someone wanted to claim that an individual's lack of god belief motivated the act, we would be finished with atheism and on to other areas quickly.

3.04.2015

Religion and Violence

The skyline of Ahmedabad filled with smoke as ...
The skyline of Ahmedabad filled with smoke as buildings and shops are set on fire by rioting mobs. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Continuing on with the recent topic of the relationship between religious ideology and violent behavior, we are forced to confront the reality that only a tiny number of religious adherents commit acts of extreme violence. The murder of physicians who provide abortions by Christian extremists is an extremely rare occurrence. The murder of individuals who dare to draw Muhammad by Muslim extremists is also exceedingly rare. If religious ideology caused this sort of violence, wouldn't we have to expect much more of it?

This is a misleading question because virtually nobody is claiming that the relationship between religious belief and violence is a simple linear one that does not involve a constellation of other variables. The claim, at least as I am familiar with it, is that religious belief provides a justification for violence and a context in which certain types of violence are supported. The claim is not typically that religious believers are inherently more violent merely because they are religious believers.