The Good Atheist

Hey, just a reminder to everyone out there, if you feel like asking questions, don’t hesitate to email me! I’ve setup a new convenient and easy to remember email for everyone who wants to get in touch, so if you’ve got something on your mind you’d like to share, or if you have a question or comment you think is funny, don’t just keep it to yourself, dammit! Today’s hilarious mail comes from Mike:

I’m a long time atheist and I’m always uncomfortable after somebody sneezes.  Typically, I just say “bless you,” but I feel kind of disingenuous.  I’m currently moving to saying Gesundheit! (to wish them good health) — I’m writing to find out what do YOU say to somebody after they sneeze, if anything?

Well, most of the time I just say “put your fucking hand in front of your mouth you disease bag” (it might be my recent paranoia of getting the Swine Flu before I can get the vaccine), but I agree that it would be fun to try a new one. Maybe the next time someone sneezes you can just tell them “pax in terra”, which is Latin for “peace on earth”. Any thoughts guys?

NOTE: Mike’s been busy, and asked a bunch of far more qualified atheists what they thought:

PZ Myers – “If necessary, I ask them to please cover their mouths. Otherwise, nothing.”

Phil Plait – “I don’t say anything. ”

Don Baker (Atheist Experience) – “I usually say Gesundheit.  It’s hard to de-program yourself from all the kneejerk phrases that our culture has programmed us to say.  I still say “God damn it” sometimes when I’m angry.  Silly, huh?

Matt Dillahunty – “I usually don’t say anything…though I’ve said gesundheit in the past. The idea that we should say anything is a little absurd (what do we say when someone farts or hiccups?), but it’s not a big deal. The response is almost as involuntary as the sneeze. I’m not the slightest bit bothered by “bless you” or even “God bless you” and I’ve known plenty of atheists who have said both.

I personally find it pretty painful and embarrassing to listen to D’Sousa talk. At least Wright takes the stance that it could be some mysterious force out there in the Universe that directs evolution (it’s stupid, but lots of really smart people believe in this bullshit). D’Sousa, on the other hand, tries to make the claim that Christianity is the most scientific of all faiths, despite the obvious fact that his system of belief discourages skepticism and relies on a rigid and nonsensical dogma. I guess he’s got to defend what he believes, but it doesn’t stop his ramblings from being painful to hear. Luckily, he gets spanked by the Horsemen.

You might need to turn up the volume. For some reason it’s crazy quiet. Props to Sam Harris for posting this up on his blog.

Will Phillips is officially the coolest kid in the world. A few weeks ago, he refused to take the Pledge of Allegiance at his school so long as gays are treated as second class citizens. At first he got in big trouble (prompting the principle to take disciplinary action), but since no one can be forced to recite it (yet), Will isn’t in any trouble, although school officials have refused to apologize to him (man, how embarrassing is it when an 11 year old is the most mature person in the room?).

Poor Will has been at the butt end of anti-gay slurs, but he appears undeterred in his quest for justice. Man, when I was a kid all I cared about was candy and video games; I wish I had bothered to take a bit more of an active interest in the world. You know, so long as there are good people like Will around, there’s definately lots of hope for the future.

So what did you fucking accomplish today?

(props to TGA host Jeff Jones for the find)

The sexy cabal that is Skepchick recently interviewed Neil deGrasse Tyson on their podcast, so if you’re as big a fan of the guy as I am, then you might enjoy this. Now just to warn you, the interview is actually conducted by a dude. It’s the only one they have, so I have to imagine he’s a sex slave or something.

I was lucky enough to go to one of Dan’s lectures when he came to Montreal a few years ago. Dan is one of the “Four Horsemen”, but he doesn’t really get the respect he rightly deserves. Dan is funny, provocative, and looks like a cross between Santa Clause and Charles Darwin. What’s not to love? I know it’s long, but WATCH THIS!

Isn’t it fun when you can just make up shit and then pretend it’s true? Be sure to check out the crazy picture at the end with Jesus wielding a sword, riding a crazy steed; it’s almost as good as the one of him holding a rifle.

Today is Friday the 13th, and considering the fact that there are still lots of people out there who seem to think a number can be unlucky, I thought it would be fun to try and find out the story behind this superstition (you know, to seem all smart and shit). While there are lots of theories as to its origins, the truth is no one know exactly why it persists. I suppose it may not even really matter; so long as people are told that they have something to fear, typically they will respond in kind. Statistically, fear of this day actually causes people to act more cautiously, and car accidents have been reported in many countries as actually being lower than most other Fridays of the year.

2009 was a bit unique, as it has three Friday the 13th’s (that’s the most you can have in a given year). The next year when this occurs is 2012. You all know how disdainful I am of the crackpot theory that the earth is supposed to end on Dec 21, 2012, and I have to wonder if any of these idiots will try to make a correlation between all those “Black Fridays” and the stupid belief that an invisible planet will collide with Earth. Here’s hoping I didn’t give them another talking point!

I say spend the time walking under ladders, breaking mirrors, and stepping on every crack in the sidewalk.

Remember that video I put up with Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchens debating about whether or not the Catholic Church is a force for good? In one part of the video, a well meaning woman stood up and commented on the fact that she was a Catholic and didn’t really have any issue with Fry’s homosexuality. Stephen responded by saying that the position of the Catholic Church regarding homosexuality is clear, and even though individual Catholics might differ in their opinion, it didn’t change the fact that they support a bigotted institution.

In Washington, a Catholic Charity has threatened to cut its services if it’s forced to comply with new same sex laws that would make it illegal to discriminate against gays. The opposition from the church comes from the fact that they won’t be able to actively promote their bigotry and hatred for homosexuals. Their arguments are, as usual, very unconvincing.

“Lets say an individual caterer is a staunch Christian and someone wants him to do a cake with two grooms on top,” said council member Yvette M. Alexander (D-Ward 6), the sponsor of the amendment. “Why can’t they say, based on their religious beliefs, ‘I can’t do something like that’?

Pretend that instead of having two grooms on the cake, it’s an interracial marriage, and the baker refused to bake a wedding cake because mixed marriages are against his “religious convictions”. We wouldn’t stand for that shit for a second. True, I dislike the idea of anyone being forced to do the right thing, but we cannot allow people to be treated like second class citizen, and we have to do our best to stamp out bigotry in the same way we’ve tried so hard to stamp racism (it’s a long process, obviously).

“The issue here is they are using public funds, and to allow people to discriminate with public money is unacceptable,” Rosenstein said.

The city is taking a pretty hard stance on the issue, and won’t allow itself to be bullied by the Archbishop, who wants to dangle their charitable services as a free license to practice open bigotry. I say fuck’em. Sure, it’s harsh and it sucks for the people who were benefiting from their services, but human beings are a charitable bunch, and I’m positive that other organizations will be more than happy to pick where the church left off. We cannot ignore the evils of an institution simply because it hides behind a facade of charity, especially when this same institution tries to use its position to blackmail secular governments. Not fucking cool.

**NOTE** It’s not the first time this happens, and it certainly won’t be the last.
(props to Simon for the find)

How many killers have proudly flaunted the fact that their crimes were the result of their religious convictions? It’s honestly too numerous to count, but every time such a tragedy occurs, you don’t see anyone blaming Martin Luther, Joseph Smith, or any other religious leader. That doesn’t stop some shitty writers, who have a clear interest in attacking evolution, from blaming everything they can on Charles Darwin:

In America, where Darwin’s writings on morality and race have come under particularly intense critical scrutiny because of the enduring creationist debate, he has been accused of fostering moral nihilism and scientific racism, and even of promoting an ethic that found its ultimate expression in the Holocaust. Most startling of all, a connection has now been drawn between Darwin’s theories and a rash of school shootings.

Actually, the only one making this connection is the author of the piece, who seems convinced, like all creationist morons, that Darwin was somehow responsible for the Holocaust, racism, and just about every terrible atrocity you can think of. You would think that humans had never committed mass genocide before Darwin’s Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection.

The religious right is very good at building straw men and them tearing them down mercilessly. Darwin is one of their favorite scapegoat, and it’s not too difficult to imagine why; they fear science, and most of all the implications of natural selection. We are still the only species on this planet that refuses to accept its place in the tree of life (admittedly, we are also the only ones capable of doing so). We are apes, and no amount of kicking and screaming will change that fact. Deal with it.

The basics of evolution are much more accessible and are taught in every high school, so it should not be surprising that Darwin seems to be emerging as the inspiration for the more dim-witted schoolboy sociopath.

It seems as though the author is trying to make the conclusion that teaching evolution is bad, because a few disturbed people have twisted the theory to fit their own psychopathic beliefs. Well, if we have to get rid of “dangerous” ideas, why are we allowing texts like the Bible, which condones, slavery, genocide, rape, infanticide, and the murder of adulterers and homosexuals, to exist?

This entire article tries to paint Darwin as a crusty racist who wanted the extermination of other humans. In actual fact, had this fucking scumbag bothered to read the Origin of Species, he would have remarked that Darwin himself did not advocate Natural Selection for human beings. He saw the laws of nature as entirely savage and inhuman, and he was a staunch abolitionist. Of course, there’s no reason to believe the author cares about the truth, let alone journalistic integrity, although it’s nothing compared to his flawed understanding of history:

…Truths that the founders of the United States had held to be self-evident — that all men are created equal and had certain inalienable rights — were being denied by the promoters of Darwinian science. By the end of the first world war, it was not only blacks who were deemed genetically inferior by many of America’s top geneticists and biologists, but Italian, Greek and Jewish immigrants too.

Has this fucking guy ever read a history book? Was he not aware that the Founding Fathers had black slaves? Does he really think that the inequity of race relations is entirely the product of Darwinian theory? It’s quite obvious that these prejudices existed long before we knew that all life shared a common ancestor. Natural Selection means that we are all related, and anyone who twists this idea is not a true scientist, but rather, like the author, someone interested in furthering their own agenda.

This shitty writer leaves us with this closing thought:

The more sinister implications of the world-view that has come to be called “Darwinism” — and the interpretation the teenage nihilists put on it — are as much part of the Darwin story as the theory of evolutions

So, he’s assuming that a few teenagers who kill indiscriminately is as much a story about one of the most fundamental scientific theories in mankind’s history? Is he fucking serious? Look buddy, there will always be disturbed people who hijack an idea or ideology without properly understanding it. You’re proof that there is still a lot of learning that needs to be done from the general population concerning not only Natural Selection, but also the man behind the idea, Darwin. No, he did not “invent” the Holocaust, eugenics (that was actually his cousin, Francis Galton), slavery or racism. Stop trying to paint this brilliant (and like all humans, flawed) human being as some kind of monster. Why don’t you address the relative truth of his arguments rather than making outlandish accusations that aren’t based on any facts. For anyone interested in punishing themselves, check out this author’s latest book, which is like this article, except 320 pages long. Enjoy your torture!

(props to new TGA patron Annabel for the find)

Our love affair with alternative “medicines” still demonstrates the fact that as a species, we still have a lot of growing up to do. The persistence of reiki, acupuncture, crystals, homeopathy, and just about every other bullshit “medicine” is due mainly to the mysterious placebo effect, which seems to suggest that our bodies respond positively to treatments, even when they do nothing at all.

I think we can easily dissect this phenomenon if we accept the fact that human beings are social animals who require just as much comforting as real medicine. A person who visits a homeopath is often given a great deal of time and attention, much more than they would have going to the doctors. This simple act alone has a profound effect on the health of the “patient”, and it’s what makes fighting this flim-flam so difficult.

I think it’s sad that the gap between medicine and well being is being filled with nonsense. I would be lying if I claimed that it didn’t at least help some people heal faster, but I also can’t forget about all the people who have died because they chose alternative medicines rather than the real thing. I’ve often been asked “is it ok to believe in a lie if it’s comforting, or is it always better to tell the truth?”. On an individual level it’s hard to argue that the truth is better, but that’s only if you discount the external effect of one’s belief. Think about all the people who have died because they refused to listen to the truth about their diseases (Andy Kaufman, why did you fall for such a simple scam as psychic surgery?). Do you really believe that ignorance is a virtue, people?