6.29.2015

Changing Our Minds Should Be a Source of Pride

Habits of Minds
Habits of Minds (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Many skeptics, atheists, and/or freethinkers pride themselves on their willingness to change their mind on the basis of reason, evidence, or other new information. This should be a source of pride and should be far more common than it is. After all, we are the ones who often claim that we are not beholden to any sort of dogma, tradition, or authority. This leaves us free to follow the evidence without being locked into maintaining views that are inconsistent with reality. It also grants us the room to change our minds as we identify the shortcomings of our previous positions.

We skeptics, atheists, and/or freethinkers should not only be willing to changes our minds; we should celebrate it when others do so. Again and again, we say that this is how reasonable people are supposed to behave. If the Bigfoot skeptic was presented with solid evidence supporting the existence of such a creature, we would expect him to change his mind and acknowledge that such a creature could be real. If the third-wave feminist was presented with clear evidence calling commonly cited rape statistics into question, we'd expect her to stop repeating them as if they were 100% accurate. When we encounter someone who willfully disregards the evidence to maintain a belief (e.g., creationists, climate science deniers, GMO opponents, users of homeopathy), we tend to be critical. We seem to expect that rational people will allow themselves to learn, changing their minds based on the evidence.

6.27.2015

Obergefell as a Tipping Point

Oblique facade 3, US Supreme Court
By Daderot (Own work), via Wikimedia Commons
The news out of the Supreme Court this week (i.e., Obergefell v. Hodges) was fantastic and long overdue. Congratulations and thanks to every person who has been working to bring about marriage equality in the U.S. I have long expected that I would see this happen in my lifetime, but I wasn't sure how long it would take. Yesterday was a great day for equality!

So why didn't I join almost every other atheist blogger in posting about this big news here at Atheist Revolution yesterday? Good question. When news of the ruling broke, my thoughts immediately turned to Mississippi. You see, all of my LGBT friends who do not live in Mississippi live in states that already allow same-sex marriage. When I heard the news, I thought of those here in Mississippi and what this means for them. I thought about how we have yet another example of how the thoroughly Christian people of Mississippi refuse to do the right thing until the federal courts force them to do so. I decided to express myself at Mississippi Atheists instead of writing a post here.

6.25.2015

Time For 'In God We Trust' To Go

Flickr - USCapitol - "In God We Trust" Plaque

When you walk into a building owned and operated by your city, county, state, or federal government, you generally do so for a reason. Unless you work there or are just sightseeing, you have almost certainly come to this building for a specific purpose. There is some service provided in this building that you need. You are here to accomplish something, and that means that avoiding the building is probably not feasible. You are there because you need to be.

Now suppose that you walk into this government building one day and one of the first things you see is a sign of some sort that says, "In God We Trust." As you probably know, this has been the official motto of the United States since 1956. Despite several legal challenges from church-state activists, courts have repeatedly upheld it. Hopefully, an interesting new approach using the Religious Freedom Restoration Act will finally succeed where the others have failed. But the sign is there now, right in front of you as you enter the building.

When you imagine yourself in this situation, standing there and looking at this sign in the government building where you have come to accomplish something, what thoughts pass through your mind? How do you feel as you stand before this sign?

6.23.2015

Giving Advice to Teens Wanting to Tell Their Parents of Their Atheism

just be free
Spend any time on the atheism subreddit at Reddit, and you will see countless pleas for help from teenage atheists seeking advice for how to "come out" to their parents. In nearly all of them, the teen describes how desperately he or she wants to tell his or her family. The issue of authenticity almost always comes up in that the teen says he or she can no longer stand to hide an important part of his or her identity. It is heartbreaking to see all these requests for help, in part because many of us can relate to the struggle being described and in part because we recognize how powerless we are to provide the desired sort of advice.

What the teen almost always wants to know is how to tell his or her parents, how they will react, and how to handle their reaction. This is exactly the sort of advice we can rarely offer. We have never met the parents, and we have no idea how they will react. We also know that how the teen's family reacts may only be a small part of the consequences associated with a disclosure of atheism, especially for those who are embedded in a faith community. Some teens stand to lose even more than their families.

The teen seeking advice online rarely specifies his or her age, the nature and quality of his or her support network, or tells us much about his or her living situation that might help us assess the degree of risk from a disclosure of atheism. And frankly, even if we had this information, we'd still be guessing for the most part. There are too many unknowns.

6.21.2015

Racism, Guns, Flags, and Angry Young White Men

The "Confederate Flag", a rectangula...
The "Confederate Flag", a rectangular variant of the Battle Flag. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The recent shooting in Charleston appears to have been about racism, at least in terms of alleged shooter's likely motive and choice of target. Access to guns appears to have been relevant too in that a gun was used. I think it is perfectly understandable that some would want to discuss racism and gun control in the aftermath of this event. I also think that doing so paints an incomplete and potentially misleading picture.

While racism and guns both appear to be relevant here, they strike me as far less relevant in incidents like this than something few seem to want to discuss: intensely angry, troubled, and alienated young White men. As someone who was once an intensely angry, troubled, alienated young White man, prone to frequent violent fantasies involving the extermination of those I perceived as enemies, I thought I might weigh in on this particular topic and suggest that we do not lose sight of it while pushing our ideologically-driven agendas.

It seems difficult to deny that racism was a factor in Charleston. But would we really claim that the alleged shooter would not have committed a similar crime if not for racism? I'm skeptical. The target almost certainly would have been different, but I think it is a real stretch to say that nothing remotely like this would have happened without racism. Maybe it would have been a school shooting instead. We've certainly seen plenty of those where racism did not appear to be a factor.

6.19.2015

Explaining Trump

Donald Trump
Donald Trump speaking at CPAC in Washington D.C. on February 10, 2011. (Photo by Gage Skidmore via Wikipedia)

There are many things about the U.S. that I've never been able to explain to observers living in other countries who have inquired. Evolution denial, the election of George W. Bush, our refusal to do anything meaningful to reduce the incidence of gun violence, our love of reality television and fast food, our inability to carry on civil conversations about racism, our willingness to allow corporate interests to turn things like water and health care into commodities rather than basic rights, and so on. And then there is the top political story of the week: the announcement that Donald Trump is running for president on the Republican ticket. The difficult thing to explain is not that he announced that he is running but the fact that he has some supporters. This is what has some outside the U.S. shaking their heads in disbelief or disgust.

How do we explain Trump's appeal? Honestly, I don't think it is quite as difficult as it seems at first glance, especially not in an election that may well come down to another Bush vs. another Clinton. Many Americans are absolutely fed up with politics and have come to view most presidential candidates as interchangeable. They do not trust any of these people, and they have increasingly come to view the entire system as having failed. In a climate of disinterest and apathy, who better to wake people up than Trump? In some ways, he is the perfect candidate to reach those who have largely tuned out. Despite his faults - or perhaps because of them - he offers something different.

6.18.2015

Rebutting Accusations of Free Speech Absolutism

free expression and censorship
The subject of free speech and when it is acceptable to place limits on it is a difficult one. Opinions differ, and emotions often run high. Not surprisingly, one of the many ways that discussions on this subject can break down is through name calling (i.e., one party becomes frustrated and begins mischaracterizing the another party's position with inaccurate labels). One of the the more common accusations is that of absolutism. "You're just a free speech absolutist!"

A free speech absolutist is someone who will accept no restrictions on free speech whatsoever. In order to be a free speech absolutist, one would have to argue that individuals should be able to say anything without penalty. To keep things simple, I'm referring to legal restrictions and penalties here. At least in the U.S., most of the efforts to restrict speech come in the form of social pressures (e.g., shaming) rather than legal sanctions. I'm generally opposed to the application of these social pressures to restrict speech because I think that it is more effective to combat the expression of bad ideas with better ideas than to try to suppress them, but I'll save this discussion for other posts.

If we understand what it means to be a free speech absolutist in the context of legal restrictions on speech, it should be rather obvious how easy it is to rebut accusations of being one. All someone would need to do is find a single example of a case where he or she would agree to restrict speech. If the accused can point to even one such example, the accusation falls apart.

6.17.2015

My Worst Fear

Hospital room (Denmark, 2005)Image via Wikipedia
Like most humans, I am afraid of all sorts of things. Many of my fears are irrational. My rational mind knows that the fear is not realistic but it still manages to have an emotional impact. I'll give you an example. I am afraid of spiders. I have been for as long as I can remember. This is not a rational fear, and I suspect it can be traced back to growing up in an area where exposure to black widow spiders was relatively high. I suppose that after enough scolding to stay away from the woodpile where at least one of the spiders could often be found, the fear was pretty well established. But the degree to which this fear has generalized to all spiders leads me to recognize just how irrational it is. Fortunately, my life has not been appreciably affected by this particular fear. Even though I regularly encounter spiders, they do not provoke the same level of fear they used to.

My greatest fear is even more irrational than the relatively trivial example of spiders and is a bit more difficult to get my head around. My worst fear is a fairly recent phenomenon that seems to have developed slowly over the last 10-15 years or so. It involves being hospitalized for a serious illness or injury. But it is what happens at the hospital that is the subject of the fear. I am deprived effective medical care, allowed to suffer various indignities, and perhaps even tortured by evangelical fundamentalist Christian nurses who somehow learn that I do not share their belief in gods and decide that I am not worthy of care or compassion.

6.16.2015

I Am Both a Social Justice Warrior and a Shitlord

shitlord
See more on Know Your Meme
In the span of a week, I have been angrily denounced as a "social justice warrior" by a self-identified conservative and called a "shitlord" by an angry feminist. I know it sounds a bit cliche, but I can't help thinking that this means I might be on the right track somehow. In my recent post about the meaning of freethought, I wrote, "Sadly, the freethinker who rejects tribalism will often be labeled a traitor by all tribes." Some people are not particularly interested in thinking outside of their tribe, and the fact that I've had experiences of being disowned by these tribes is at least mildly reassuring that I am doing what I aim to do (i.e., pursuing freethought and attempting to avoid ideology and tribalism).

I got quite a laugh out of being accused of being a social justice warrior. Anybody who knows me or who has read Atheist Revolution for awhile will probably enjoy that too. I'm not sure how I could be much more clear about my distaste for social justice warriors and their outrage culture than I have. But this particular conservative (who also happened to identify himself as Christian) had a serious case of absolute certainty that he was right about everything, and it quickly became clear that he was not going to grant me the opportunity to change his mind. He was not interested in reason.

6.14.2015

Contemporary Christianity: Identity Rather Than Doctrine?

The Theotokos of Vladimir, one of the most ven...
The Theotokos of Vladimir, one of the most venerated of Orthodox Christian icons of the Virgin Mary. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One of the most common criticisms atheists make of Christians is their tendency to read whatever they want (if they read it at all) into a book they claim to regard as "holy." We are quite fond of pointing out how they pick and choose which parts of their bible to glorify and which to ignore, placing their own judgment over that of the divine entity they insist is responsible for inspiring the text. We see this as arrogant and hypocritical. And I think we are correct to do so.

Even if the bible is not inerrant as some Christians claim, it seems odd to many atheists that Christians wouldn't make more of an effort to read it and attempt to conform their behavior to its instructions. If it is indeed different in some meaningful way from all other books that have been written, it would seem that Christians would be highly motivated to approach it with the goal of living by what it says and not merely what one wants to read into it. And yet, this stands in stark contrast to how most Christians seem approach their bible (fortunately for us).

The bible is sufficiently long, ambiguous, and inconsistent that Christians can find whatever they seek in its pages. If they want passages that can be used to support the institution of slavery, rape, or genocide, they will find them. If they want passages that can be used to support aid to the poor, nonviolent resistance, or environmental stewardship, they will find them. The bible can be used to justify all sorts of conflicting views of the world. And as you are well aware, it has been used to justify some truly awful things.

6.12.2015

Loving Thy Neighbor Unless...

Westboro Baptist Church in New York by David Shankbone

When you hear Islam referred to as a "religion of peace," what is the first thought or image that flashes through your mind? Now let's try a somewhat more difficult question. When you hear an evangelical fundamentalist Christian claim something along the lines of how "love thy neighbor" or "do unto others" is the central message of Christianity and/or of some dead (and possibly non-existent) person with whom he or she claims to have a personal relationship, what goes through your mind?

6.11.2015

The Problem With Prayer

prayer
I wonder how long most prayers last. Ten minutes seems excessive. I'd guess most don't last more than a minute or two. Even the more elaborate ones I remember hearing in church never lasted longer than that. And regardless of their length, they all accomplished the same thing: nothing whatsoever.

Okay, maybe that isn't completely fair. They might have sometimes made the person doing the praying feel a little bit better for a short amount of time. Maybe that is something. But they certainly didn't bring about any sort of divine intervention, and I think that most of those doing the praying realized that this was going to be the case. At least, they acted like it was the case. And I suppose if they were correct about the existence of their gods and about how their gods work, we'd have to expect that prayer is not going to bring about anything of the sort. No, the best they can hope for is a brief respite from reality.

Many atheists criticize prayer for leading to inaction. I don't think that prayer always leads to inaction. At least, I see no reason why it must always do so. Someone could utilize prayer to briefly collect his or her thoughts and then set about the task of doing something meaningful in the world. And yet, prayer does often seem to lead to inaction. It is something many people do - or at least claim to do - as an alternative to aiding others. And that is unfortunate.

6.10.2015

The Amplification of Good Ideas

English: An amplifier by Marshall Amplificatio...
An amplifier by Marshall Amplification, MG15DFX. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As I headed into 2015 hoping to scale back my online activity a bit, I found myself asking what I might do when I did not have time to write a post. I decided I would try to do a better and more consistent job of sharing others' content on social media, helping to amplify its impact.

I have written many posts over the years in which I have argued that one of the easiest things we can all do to promote good ideas (e.g., atheism, freethought, skepticism, rationality) is to share them on social media and whatever other platforms we have available. I've generally framed these efforts as a painless way to give something back to the various secular communities, but it is larger than that. Much larger. We never know in advance who will see the content we share, and so its reach likely extends even wider than we realize. It occurs to me that the amplification of good ideas is something we can all do to improve our world.

6.09.2015

What is Freethought?

Freedom of Thought Ben Franklin

How do we acquire knowledge? How do we decide what is true? When we are confronted with a novel claim about the world, how to we determine whether it has merit? Do we believe it because powerful others say that we should, because our ancestors believed it, or because we have a hunch that it must be correct? Or do we examine the evidence and put the claim to the test?

Posing such questions is not only a good way to introduce the concept of critical thinking, it sets the stage for understanding freethought too. Since I have been making a deliberate effort to write more about freethought here at Atheist Revolution, I figured that it was time to address its meaning and what makes it difficult to put into practice.

6.05.2015

On Bloggers' Obligation to Correct False Material

Flickr UF-Journalism and Communications

I write for many reasons, but one of the big ones is that I find the act of writing often helps to clarify my thoughts in areas where they may benefit from clarification. This post is a good example in that it deals with a controversial topic about which I am conflicted. I see merit on both sides of this particular issue, and I'm not completely attached to either side in the matter. And so, I'm writing to see if my position will become clearer by doing so.

Hemant Mehta (Friendly Atheist) wrote a thought-provoking post, as he is often inclined to do, posing the question of whether a blogger has a responsibility to correct or retract information that turns out to be false. Most of the discussion sparked by this post understandably concerns the specific case to which it referred (i.e., bloggers publicly condemning Ben Radford following accusations of sexual harassment made by Karen Stollznow, accusations which now appear to have been without merit). I did not follow the details of this particular case very closely and have little interest in attempting to address it now. In their joint statement, Stollznow and Radford requested that bloggers let the matter drop. I'm perfectly content to do just that.

What I find far more interesting is the more general question about whether the bloggers who condemned Radford now owe him and/or their readers a correction, retraction, or apology of some sort. And even more interesting than that is the still more general question about a blogger's obligation to correct what turns out to be false, inaccurate, or misleading information once it is known to be false, inaccurate, or misleading.

6.04.2015

How I Became An Atheist

losing faith in humanity
Photo by Horace Ko, Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0)

"How did you become an atheist?"

The person asking me this question usually identifies as a Christian. The question is often delivered in one of two very different ways. About 30% of the time, the speaker has an angry tone. It almost feels like a challenge. The rest of the time, it conveys a genuine sense of confusion. It is as if the questioner is struggling to understand how anyone could be an atheist.

I have to consider what any given Christian may have been told about atheism. Many Christian parents and clergy seek to portray atheists in a negative light. Some insist that atheism is a conscious rejection of their particular god. And yet, almost no atheists choose to be atheists. I never chose to be an atheist. It is difficult to imagine why anyone living in the U.S. would choose to be an atheist. Why put yourself through all the hate if you don't have to?

I have written many posts about my personal journey to atheism, but I still find it difficult to summarize. This is because I went through at least two separate processes to get there:

  1. Leaving my Christian faith behind and recognizing that I no longer believed in gods
  2. Learning about atheism and coming to terms with the fact that I was an atheist

6.03.2015

'Listen and Believe' is Not Consistent With Freethought or Skepticism

Listen and Believe
Some contemporary feminists have argued that we should all "listen and believe" whenever a woman accuses a man of harassment, abuse, or even rape. We should do this rather than seeking evidence, adopting an attitude of skepticism or being patient as the criminal justice system does what it was designed to do. The core of this argument seems to be that a woman who makes such accusations (especially with regard to rape) faces such an uphill battle in terms of unwarranted skepticism, a high burden of proof, poor treatment by the news media, and a variety of other negative attitudes that it is better for us to "listen and believe" even if it turns out that she was mistaken or made knowingly false accusations. That is, even if it turns out that we were wrong to "listen and believe," doing so is preferable to the alternative.

I see a few problems with this argument. Let's start by briefly mentioning and then setting aside the obvious one that has undoubtedly occurred to you. "Listen and believe" is not going to convince most skeptics and freethinkers. In fact, many atheists are bound to have negative reactions to the suggestion that we accept personal testimony as sufficient evidence of someone's claims. Anita Sarkeesian famously said, "One of the most radical things you can do is to actually believe women when they talk about their experiences." How about if the experiences they are talking about are religious experiences (e.g., feeling the presence of Jesus, demonic possession)? If we were willing to believe this sort of thing, we would all be religious believers. We'd believe all the personal revelation nonsense about which we hear so much every day of our lives. "Listen and believe" asks us to discard skepticism, critical thinking, and freethought.

6.01.2015

Cultural Shift on LGBT Equality

Rainbow flag breeze

In a provocative article for Falls Church News-Press, Wayne Besen explained how one's position on the question of same-sex marriage has become an important indicator of how people, nations, and even religions will be evaluated by others.
At once, it divulges whether a person, nation, or faith is modern, wise, and decent. Those who oppose marriage equality are often vulgar and mean-spirited.
Besen describes how this was not always the case. Blatant anti-LGBT bigotry, he notes, used to be widespread and positively evaluated. Thanks largely to religious indoctrination, children were brought up to value this sort of bigotry, regarding it as an essential aspect of their religious identity. Not surprisingly, the consequences of this religiously-motivated bigotry were significant.

Teaching Your Children About Christian Mythology

Category:Ancient Greek buildings and structure...
Ancient Greek buildings and structures in Athens (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
If you are a parent with young children residing in a predominately Christian country such as the United States, you can be sure of one thing: it is only a matter of time until your children hear about Christianity. They will hear about it from their peers and from other adults. Much of what they hear will be markedly inconsistent with your views on the subject. Perhaps it would be a good idea for you to tell them about Christianity before they hear the "good news" from those who actually believe it.

Secular parents do not have many resources available to them to help with these sorts of conversations. Where should a secular parent point a curious child for the purpose of learning more about Christianity?

Chrystine Trooien is raising money on Kickstarter for an interesting project: an illustrated children's book on Christian mythology. She describes Christian Mythology for Kids as "a paraphrase of the bible and other christian myths from an unbiased secular viewpoint." It sounds like it could be a useful way for secular parents to teach their children about Christianity from a reality-based perspective.