Personally I’m pretty sick and tired of religious individuals commenting on atheism when they have absolutely no idea what it means to not believe in God. Let me assure you, religious readers, that I am not an atheist because of an abusive or absent father (an idea so insultingly wrong that I usually choose not to dignify it with an answer). I am also not an atheist because of some secret hatred or spurning from your religion. I simply believe that the world has no need for your services, and I’m tired of your logically unsound accusations that atheism is a religion.

If your interested in hearing another baseless attack from a prominent religionist, here is science fiction writer Orson Scott Card making the common claim that atheism is a faith based belief, just like Mormonism. What is obviously missing in his tirade is any form of proof concerning his own beliefs. Card claims that atheism is somehow faith based, since we have “faith” that science will explain everything about the Universe. Card’s somehow fails to realize that science isn’t so much a belief as it is a process of learning about the natural world (I guess you can write science fiction without really “getting” it). I trust that the Earth revolves around the Sun, but this trust is only made possible because of the amount of scrutiny and work that has gone into understanding just how this is possible (see gravity if you’re confused). If I was to ever doubt the truthfulness of this claim, I can study it for myself.

Let me make this as clear as possible to avoid any further confusion: Religion makes claims that are demonstrably false. Human beings are not born of virgins. Horses do not fly up to heaven. Deceased persons cannot be resurrected. And of course, in the case of Mormonism, Native Americans are not descendants of Jews, men do not live on the moon, and do I even need to mention how stupid magic underwear really is?

Card makes the same annoying claim that atheist cannot disprove God, and yet he has nothing to offer in the way of actual proof that his religion has any idea what they are talking about. At least when a person is making a scientific claim, the burden of proof is always on the person making that claim, not on others to disprove it. This may seem like a simple truth, but to believers, the concept of the burden of proof is reversed. The actually think that we need to disprove their childish interpretation of the Universe. The tenets of their religions were quite literally plucked from the imagination of their specific prophets, who had little if any regard for such trivial things as “evidence”. Why should I be surprised that there are no requirements in religion to make proof a necessary part of belief?

I hate to rain on everyone’s parade here, but in terms of defensible cosmological positions, there are few as sound and reasonable as atheism. We simply refuse to believe in the personal Gods of religions simply because every single one of them is incapable of providing a single shred of evidence that suggests that their claims are real. In fact, their very belief system requires human beings to abandon the natural instinct to demand for proof in favor of “faith”: believing in something despite evidence to the contrary. This speak volumes as to the intellectual honesty of believers.

I know that there are many who think that their theological positions are researched, intelligent and logical. They are sadly mistaken. The simple fact is that all religions discourage intellectual honesty. At their very core, they demand that adherents surrender reason and logic in favor of mystical and supernatural interpretations of natural phenomenon. While some take a literal approach to this (like Christians that think deadly storms are the result of an angry god), others have adopted the natural understanding of science while rejecting the inevitable conclusion that the processes of nature and the Universe do not require a supernatural guardian to function. Their intellectually lazy conclusion is to include God in the gaps, which is the only way many of them can cope with the fact that as our understanding of the world improves, it becomes all the more obvious that religious claims are basically primitive mythologies that are the moral homilies of ancient storytellers. Nothing more.

Orson also believes in the popular claim that histories greatest monsters have all been atheists, and that the non belief in God must somehow make people evil. Although I won’t deny that Stalin, Mao and even Hitler had little respect for religion, believing in God does not make someone righteous, just as not believing in God does not make a person evil. There is no philosophy in the world that guarantees proper moral behavior, though there are some ideologies that are more susceptible to corruption than others. It is why, as a society, we have continued to refine out ethical and moral understanding far beyond the crude teachings of religion. We no longer tolerate stoning, slavery, rape, genocide, and cruelty; something that would be impossible if the texts of Islam, Christianity and Judaism are ever taken literally (which in some countries are). Our modern morality actually requires believers to create a practical, 21st century approach to their belief. It isn’t the other way around for obvious reasons.

Since I know I have quite a few believers that sometimes visits the site, I want to state the unpopular reality that the basic reason why all Western countries have a separation of church and state is because of how scary religious people are. Seriously. When even a few of you get in power, you create frighteningly unjust laws; your followers would gladly incarcerate people that simply defame their religion in some way. Do you think that is an adequate response to something as basic as freedom of speech? For a long time now, we have understood the simple truth that ,so long as societies were dictated by religiously motivated individuals, we would never be free to discuss radical ideas that would change the very fabric of society. We live in a world made possible only be wrestling power out of your hands.

The civilized and reasonable chose to do it in a bloodless way; the Declaration of Independence is so unique and wonderful specifically because it managed to lay out the creation of a state without making religion a crime, and where no persecution of those once in power is possible. They effectively managed to remove the ability of religions to interfere with government operations. The evidence for just how shitty the world is when you guys take control can be found in all theocratic countries. Would Orson like to live in a place where religion is mandatory and invasive? I highly doubt it.

You might still think that religion is something valuable to human development, but there is no indication that human beings are any more or less moral without it. What atheism says that scares you to your very core is that not only do we not need your services to understand the natural world (which most of us have abandoned a while ago) or to govern our politics; we also don’t need you to raise functional, moral citizens. Can someone please explain to me what’s left?

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If you’ve never heard of the Westboro Baptist Church, they are the guys that picket the funerals of soldiers with placards that says “God hates Fags” and other hate speech. The patriarch of the family is a man by the name of Fred Phelps, Nate’s father. The following is a speech he gave at the American Atheist convention in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s some really stirring stuff, so if you have a few minutes, take the time to read what he said. Here is a few passages I found interesting:

Anyone who claimed to be a believer, but didn’t subscribe to my father’s interpretation of the scriptures, was quickly declared to be excluded from god’s grace for any number of flaws in their doctrine. For example, the Lord’s Supper was to be performed with unleavened bread and wine only. If you used grape juice, you were going to hell. If the loaf wasn’t a single loaf, unleavened, broken by hand, you were guilty of desecrating the body of Christ. If you had ever divorced, had sex outside marriage, married a divorced person, felt empathy for a gay person — or simply crossed Fred — you were the enemy…

I must admit, there are few careers more suited to my father’s temperament and abilities than the legal profession. His intellect and fiery oratorical skills compel people to stand up and take notice. Early on in his legal career he discovered an untapped gold mine in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This new federal act was basically an empty shell waiting to be filled. He was up to that challenge. Filing an unprecedented number of civil rights suits earned him a reputation in the region for championing the rights of the black man. In spite of his personal and theologically based disdain for the black community he was able to sway juries, with his passionate rhetoric, to pay large judgments and even convinced the NAACP to honor him with several awards.

I always wondered how Fred Phelps went from being a Civil rights lawyer to a religious nut. Now I know that he just did it for the money while obviously secretly hating blacks. Talk about a hate filled man!

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I’m not a fear monger, but right now, the whole world needs to pay attention to what is going on in Pakistan. Taliban militants are continuing their assault, and have had a series of victories that continues to move them closer to the capital of Pakistan. It’s risen fears that the country is on the brink of collapse, and that the secular Awami National party is on the verge of being over run. If you don’t think that’s a very big deal, try and remember what they did with Afghanistan. The Taliban is interested in only one thing; Islam, and they are ready to spread the “good word” with sword in hand. The problem, of course, is that Pakistan is one of the few countries in this world that has the deadliest of swords: The Atomic Bomb.

I don’t want to be needlessly alarmist, but we cannot allow Pakistan to fall into the hands of theologically motivated wackos. It’s one thing to battle individuals based on politics, but it’s quite another to battle someone’s religion. The Taliban does not negotiate, does not compromise, and does not care for anything other than the complete submission of every Muslim.

The Taliban in control of a nuclear state is one of those doomsday scenarios that plays out like a Tom Clancy novel without the super cool international special forces. Hopefully, the Pakistani government will be able to suppress this rebellion (especially with help from the West), but it’s very likely that over time they may gain more support, especially with the quagmire in Iraq providing them with fresh recruits and political fodder.

Dark times are ahead, people.

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This video is courtesy of the Examiner’s Paul Fidalgo; it’s from a recent episode of Dr. Phil, the pedantic windbag that likes to think his predictable and facile advice is tantamount to revelation. In this episode, he’s counseling a couple experiencing theological conflict. The husband, who seems to like to read, has lost his faith in God, and the wife is worried that he might poison their children’s minds.

I’ll give Dr. Phil credit for not taking the Steve Harvey approach to dealing with atheists in couples. He suggests to the wife that she has to be patient, and accept the fact that her husband may permanently believe that there is no god. Of course, I can’t shake the feeling the general hostility this poor man was experiencing onstage. All eyes were upon him, and even the somewhat sympathetic Dr.Phil seemed to think that if the husband continues to have an open mind, he’ll convert back to Christianity. He didn’t seem interesting in probing the wife’s level of open mindedness. Why would he? She seems like your stereotypical poorly educated housewife that worries about her children’s eternal soul. She sounds like a real delight, Nick.

As Paul mentions in his article, the hubris of religious people is their belief that we are somehow missing or broken, and that atheists reject god because of some terrible religious trauma. They cannot possibly understand that the delusion is theirs because our entire society is built around supporting a false premise. How condescending and frustrating would it be for Christians if they were the minority being scrutinized by an all atheist crowd? How would they feel if the advice given to their spouse was the same?

The truth is this couple probably won’t last very long. In his book “The Third Chimpanzee”, Jared Diamond showed that the biggest similarity with couples was religiosity. Although beliefs can often be private, when children become involved, their education on the subject of God can become a powerful contentious issue. I wouldn’t want to rain on their parade, but it’s not looking too god for Nick and Mandy. Well, at least they got on Television, that’s the important thing…

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I don’t pay attention to World Net Daily, mostly because the people who write for it are religious scumbags who wouldn’t hesitate to transform the world into a Christian Theocracy.

Now they are outraged at Hasbro’s online version of “The Game of Life” which allows same sex marriages. It was too much for one woman to bear, apparently:

“You know how kids are,” the mother told WND. “My daughter noticed right away (even before I did) and clicked on one of the girls instead of one of the men and then asked, ‘Mom, how come I can marry a woman?’ And then that led into a lot more questions that, quite frankly, I was not ready to talk to my 6-year-old about.”

Yes, it must be so hard to tell your daughter that people marry each other because they want to commit their lives to one another. On the other hand, telling your child that gay people burn in hellfire for all eternity is a tough conversation, since they start asking ridiculous questions like “why would god punish people for being the way they are”, or “why can’t he love everybody?”

I don’t envy her job! Trying to tell a kid that your sky God is a vengeful, cruel despot is not something you want to have to do until they experience the sin of masturbation. Then it’s a lot easier to scare them enough so that they stop asking questions that you aren’t theologically equipped to answer.

Of course, there’s always the other option of just accepting that life isn’t your Bronze Age bullshit and shutting the fuck up. Just a thought.

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I’ve written several times about why Catholics need to abandon their institution, especially with all of the shit that the current Pope keeps pulling. Forget the terribly offensive and ignoble acts of pardoning a Holocaust denier, or quoting a 14th century Byzantine Emperor hate speech. These are small potatoes compared to his edict to cover up child abuse scandals at all cost, and now even his trusted Cardinals have begun to voice their decent at the destruction he is sowing.

In case you didn’t know, coming out publicly and saying that you don’t approve of what your Pope is doing is the career equivalent of having sex with your boss’s 16 year old daughter at the company Christmas party. You just don’t do it, even if she’s been filling out nicely. I can only imagine that these guys have realized that the way he’s running things is going to erode and destroy their precious organization completely.

I love seeing this level of chaos. If you’re wondering what these guys are doing right now to correct the situation, rest assured that they have their best men praying around the clock for the situation to change. It should work like a charm, which is to say it’ll do jack shit.

In case you thought that your leaders were out of touch, here’s a quote from the article that perfectly describes the ivory tower mentality of this institution:

Pope Benedict XVI starts the day with a 7am mass in his private chapel, followed by a lone breakfast. No press summary is brought to him. He meets a few visitors in the morning and then, after a lunch served on gold-rimmed plates bearing his seal, retires to his study to write speeches and read theological works throughout the afternoon and evening.

And the Pope said to the hungry masses: let them eat cake on gold rimmed plates…
(props to Deep Thoughts for the find)

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There are currently an estimated 170 million people worldwide that suffer from diabetes. A few decades ago, this disease was destroying lives. Children diagnosed would slowly fade away, often dying of starvation even though they were eating plenty of food. The discovery of insulin, and later it’s manufacture, has allowed what would otherwise be a deadly disease to become only an inconvenience for those who suffer from it. In other words, diabetes is no longer the death sentence it was 60 years ago.

The availability of insulin, however, was not able to save poor Kara Neuman, who died Easter Sunday last year. Her parents are followers of the “Unleavened Bread Ministries“, an online church that forbids using modern medicine and preach that the End Times are near. Kara’s parents refused to call a doctor, even as their daughter lay dying in bed. She did not survive, and now the parents are being brought to trial for child neglect.

They have chosen to make this a First Amendment issue, asking that they be allowed to practice their religion without interference from the state. They say that they are grief stricken, and that they have already been punished enough by the tragic death of their young daughter.

I don’t doubt the fact that they loved their Kara very much, or that they feel terrible about the events that transpired. They are no doubt wrestling with their theological convictions as we speak. The problem is, that the decision not to seek treatment was not theirs to make. Sure, they are her parents, and as caregivers, they are allowed a great degree of flexibility in how they chose to deliver this care. However, their own personal religious convictions cannot interfere with the well being of another human being. Kara was her own person, and her right to have medical treatment outweighs the rights of her parents to live according to their religious doctrine.

We see these kinds of cases all the time, and they haven’t stopped being so controversial. People don’t want the state telling them how to raise their children, or their lives. Although I’ve never had a problem with an adult deciding for themselves that they do not wish to seek treatment for their own illnesses, I do not agree that this right extends also to their children. To deny another human being the right to live is more than neglectful; it is a form of abuse.

Consider the Travoltas. Their son suffered from autism, a disease that the parents deny even exists. They did not seek the proper treatment, and as a result, he died of a seizure. And yet, these ignorant people have not been prosecuted. Their religious belief was more important that the life and health of their boy. It stands to reason that this type of insanity should not be allowed to continue. Religious beliefs that conflict with medical science are wrong. They are responsible for the countless deaths of innocent children who had the misfortune of being raised by people who were more interested in make believe than they were in the lives of their loved ones.

Cases like this highlight the growing rift between science and religion. Fundamentalism is forcing us to make difficult choices. Among these is the notion that parents do not ultimately have the power of life and death over their children. If a life can be saved using medical science, it will be sought. The damage to a persons religious conviction is not seen as a bigger threat than the loss of an innocent life.

Do I wish to see the Neumans in jail for the next 25 years? No, not especially. I believe that the death of their daughter was a tragedy that began with the dangerous assertions made by their church. Religious individuals need to realize that their beliefs are protected so long as they remain private, and dictate only their own personal lives, not the lives of others around them. This is a warning to parents who place their doctrine over the lives of their children: call the doctor, or get ready to call your lawyer.

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I mentioned before that many individuals believe in religion because of what they perceive to be logical reasons, and it is often based on the illusion of design, both here on earth, and in the cosmos in general. The Universe, as far as we can observe, seems to be both extremely complex and mysterious at first glance. Here on earth, the complexity of life is staggering; in a handful of dirt, there are million of organisms, some working in symbiotic co-operation while others are parasitic. All of these organisms are engaged in a struggle to survive, both with other species and members of their own group. To remain competitive, every individual organism has become an expert at exploiting a specific niche. Whether or not their strategy will continue to work is uncertain. What is known is that this constant fight for survival has many different battlegrounds, each one staggeringly beautiful and complex. It is this complexity that leads many to credit a God for its existence.

Human beings,by their very nature, are builders. Since the dawn of our species, we’ve created tools; weapons to hunt and kill our food, and clothes to keep us warm. As our race progressed, and civilizations began, we constructed ever more complex cities, bureaucracies and governments to manage them. Each new level was seen as a considerable improvement over the last one. A civilization still in the Stone Age going up against one in the Iron, or even Bronze Age didn’t stand a change of surviving. Technology was imperative for the survival of civilizations as they competed for land, resources, or even ideologies. The victors were usually the ones that were more advanced, and therefore generally more complex. Now, particularly in the West, we view technological progress as a sign of intelligence and superiority, and the complexity of modern civilization mimics some of the complexity of our biosphere. The fact that our most sophisticated technology looks downright primitive compared to the intricacy of biological life seems to lend credence to the idea that it must have been designed by an intelligence far superior to our own. In other words, the power and complexity of biological life is inferred as being the product of design from a far more complex, and infinitely more powerful entity: God

The illusion of design, for many, is a required step for the belief in a higher power. It fulfills their desperate need for the intellectual necessity of their theological axioms. The Bible, even if it is taken allegorically, still clearly implies that the universe is the product of a grand designer, no doubt the result of the simple observations of the varied  authors of the book. During their lifetime, nothing but the supernatural could explain how the Universe could have been originated, or how things would fall to the ground if thrown, and why hot things always burned. Laws were not of nature: they were of God. As science has evolved, however, the laws of the Universe have been uncovered, and appear not to require the work of a supernatural force to make them work. This is true of all the forces we know, including Evolution. Darwin’s insight shattered one of the most powerful mysteries about how the vast diversity of life originated without a designer. Everything operated as a function of selective pressure, and the only reason that human beings existed was because we exploited a particular niche, and nothing else.

The majority of Christians believe in evolution, not because of theological reasons, but rather because they understand how accurate and logical it is. They do not need the inference of a designer to justify their religious beliefs. Of course, not every religious person takes this reasonable stance. Some Christians, particularly Evangelical ones, necessitate a literal interpretation of the Bible, and in the defense of their theology, they employ the illusion of design in their creationist explanation of the universe. This “theory” has been dressed up in a cheap tuxedo and given the name “Intelligent Design”.

The idea of Intelligent Design is not especially new; most of our history we’ve been young earth creationists, believing that the earth is only a few thousand years old. We did not possess the scientific gumption to think otherwise. Besides, our respective religions discouraged the type of curiosity that might undermine the exactitude of church doctrine. As far as we were concerned, all the answers had already been discovered, and the most important thing wasn’t this world, but rather the world of the hereafter. Certainly, if you think the Universe consists of the earth, and 7 different layers or celestial object revolving around it, it’s not exactly an exciting enough place that needs much attention. But the Universe isn’t small: it’s astoundingly huge, and human curiosity is far to powerful not to want to learn more about how it all works.

Intelligent design isn’t science. It is an attempt to undermine science in favor of theological appeasement. It is irrelevant that we are inclined to believe that the elegance of nature is too incredible to be the result of only natural law; it does not change the fact that the evidence is against a grand designer. We must abandon the idea of inferring intelligence to anything that is complex or powerful without evidence. It’s true that it’s in our nature to feel that the world obeys the same rules we’ve created for ourselves, but it does not make it so.

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In today’s culture, things change rapidly. We almost seem to take it for granted that something you know today will be different tomorrow, maybe radically so. But human beings historically haven’t been accustomed to rapid changes for very long. It used to be that what your father knew, and what his father knew, wouldn’t be that different from what you did too. There were certain ways of doing things, and that’s all that you needed to be aware of. The process isn’t all that different from what happens in the rest of the animal kingdom; the young learn from imitating their parents (at least, that’s true for the higher mammals that possess lager brains and more complicated social networks). We’ve been doing it for so long that those who got the most out of it, tended to have more offspring.

In a way, this appeal to tradition isn’t something that originated only in our various cultures; there was a real need to get busy learning from your elders. Naturally, the way that most cultures developed centered around the idea that the ancient ways were always the better ways of doing things. For a long time, the West was positively mystified by the wisdom and genius of the ancients. Medieval Europe could barely build two story structures, and yet the Roman Empire had built huge temples and palaces. Compared to them, the Romans looked like they were light years ahead of them, in art, architecture, and governance. The ancient Greeks were looked on with reverence; their philosophers and thinkers were considered the leading authorities, even though they had been dead for nearly 1000 years.

In the old days, the best place for you to learn anything, to be entertained, and to be saved, was the church. Religion was your news program, your theater, and obviously, your direct line to God. And it wasn’t just yours. It was your father’s, and his father’s too, for as far back as anyone could remember. Even the priests, who knew how to read and had surely read a few books themselves, would have been totally clueless as to whether things had ever been vastly different from the way it was then. Religion was more then just a way of explaining how the world worked; it was a tradition, and like every other aspect of daily life, traditions were something important to keep, if not only for your immediate and long term survival.

Like any tradition, the way religion worked didn’t change very much with time. There was a particular way of preaching the sermons, of listening to confessions, and all the other humdrum of daily theological living. And like any tradition that exists for a very long time, it becomes particularly stylized, and very good at passing itself down. Tradition relies on mindless repetition; the more automated something can be, the better. It’s easier to pass down knowledge if it can be broken down into easy to repeat steps, especially in an age where the textbooks on how to do things aren’t very accessible, or even non-existent.

An action repeated a hundred times is something well learned. An action performed a million times, by a million people, is a tradition, and our instinctual need for tradition creates a kind of automated complacency. It’s rare that any of us actually question long standing traditions, no matter how strange they might appear to others. How many of us truly think about the origins and purpose of a Christmas tree, compared with the amount of people who buy one anyways, and put them in their home? Surely, if your neighbor began a new tradition of hanging a dead horse in front of his garage every may 14th, we would be terribly curious as to the reason why he would do such a thing. But if his father, and his grandfather, as well as yours and thousands of others were doing this for countless generation, it wouldn’t be a big deal at all. In fact, you would probably be looking forward to May 14th, having carefully picked your horse well in advance. If you think that my example may seem strange and barbaric, consider that the Vikings, every nine years, would kill and hang every kind of animal they could upside down in Pine trees around the winter solstice. The tradition of Christmas trees is at least partly influenced by this. We must remember that as time rolls on, traditions themselves become more stylized, and alter themselves according to our new needs and values.

Traditions becoming more stylized do not necessarily mean that changes happen very frequently or quickly for that matter. They require consistency above anything else, or else they run the risk of altering themselves and becoming completely unrecognizable from generation to generation, something akin to a game of telephone. The appeal of religion is rooted in the need for consistency and predictability that all traditions offer. It is far safer to go with what has been done before then to try something from scratch. Our ancestors survived for that very reason, and the desirability for such consistency is at least partly due to the major appeal of religion (especially in a world that seems to be constantly changing before out eyes).

If the stability of society lies in the creation of an institution that at least partly enforces moral behavior, religion would seem to be ideal way of ensuring moral traditions. Even though the punishment for immoral behavior may be a hypothetical punishment, the threat of hell felt very real to our ancestors (it still does for people living today). As such, the psychological tool of eternal damnation is an effective and relatively cheap way to ensure that order is maintained, particularly if your society is repressive and life is somewhat miserable.

The religions that are popular today are not vastly different from the thousands of other religions that have sprung up and disappeared over the years, except perhaps in the continuity of traditions that have been able to maintain. Although Christianity or Islam may claim that their moral guides are superior to others, the relative authoritative manuscripts they refer themselves to are not especially more sophisticated then any other ancient religion. Greek mythology is rich in moral homilies, and in some ways paint a far more accurate picture of human behavior, from vanity (with the story of Narcissus) to curiosity (Pandora’s Box). What is perhaps more unique of the “three great monotheistic religions” is the fact that their moral homilies are codified into explicit rules of living, rather then simple storytelling. Christianity became the dominant religion, unsurprisingly, after Constantine reformed the book that was later to be known as the Bible during the Council of Nicaea. His efforts transformed Christianity from cult to bureaucratic institutions, all with specified beliefs and traditions. It would be these traditions that would dictate the fate of the Western world for the next 1800 years.

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