Tag Archive for atheist

Ellen Lundgren | January 19, 2012
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Civil Rights Complaint to be Filed

The Freedom from Religion Foundation will be filing a complaint alleging that Twins Florist of Cranston, Rhode Island for violating civil rights by discriminating on a delivery of flowers orders for Jessica Ahlquist because of her lack of religious belief.

Three other Cranston florists and more in Warwick all denied the FFRF, and they had to go the next state over, Connecticut, to get flowers delivered. Anne Laurie Gaylor of the FFRF said her foundation has a copy of the order receipt from Twin’s Florist that states “I will not deliver to this person.”

Category: Current Events, News | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Astrid Lydia Johannsen | January 11, 2012
One comment

The Freedom of Out

July of this year will mark the ten-year anniversary of an experience which would alter my life forever. In 2002, I attended the Oregon Country Fair in Veneta, Oregon for the first time. I had no clue what to expect other than it would be filled with the unwashed hippies and sparkly-woo new-agers of Eugene. I was still living in Corvallis at the time, and was attending the Fair with the belly dance troupe I was in. While I had studied belly dance for about five years, I didn’t actually do any dancing in the troupe. Instead, I was one of the musicians, playing the flute. We had been invited to perform, not at the Fair itself, but at one of the campgrounds along the lake. It was a sensuous experience with the pungent aromas of food carts, incense, and body odor; the visual cavalcade of wild costumes, painted faces and breasts, and glow sticks splattered on shirts; and the aural ambiance of music and drumming and dance. It was overwhelming.

At the Fair itself, I lost track of my troupe almost immediately after walking through the front gate. So I was left on my own to meander the strangely dizzying figure-eight layout of the Fair. In my decidedly less-than-extravagant tanktop and shorts, I wandered in to behold the weirdness that was the Oregon Country Fair. I ate kebabs and drank mead. I occasionally stumbled into clouds of cigarette or pot smoke. I admired the topless women with their beautifully painted breasts. During the day, a wandering thought wafted into my mind like a wisp of lavender in a dense fog of nag champa: “I wish I had breasts so I could paint them and walk around topless.” The thought rattled me to the core, and I was temporarily immobilized. You see, dear readers, I am transgendered, and this was my moment of clarity. I had turned back once before, but this time it was for keeps. I had to transition or perish.

I had spent my entire life wrestling with the unbearable burden that I was a boy, but I desperately didn’t want to be one. I spent a lifetime in the closet about being trans, leading my friends and family to assume that I was probably gay but hadn’t worked up the courage to come out about it. It turned out I was gay, but in a different way than everyone initially figured. By the mid 1990s, I rediscovered who I wanted to be, but I was terrified to come out as transgendered. My only experience with transsexualism at that point in my life had come from daytime trash television, which was hardly the best way to learn about something this complicated. I didn’t want to be feminine, I just wanted to be a girl. I was a tomboy who had the luxury of spending my childhood as a boy, so I didn’t have to wrestle with the kind of gender policing bullshit that tomboyish girls had to go through. Instead, I only had to go through an acute kind of body dysmorphic disorder related to going through puberty into manhood when which was the last thing I wanted. I can’t even imagine how much worse my experience could have been if religion had been lumped in there with it. I grew up in a family that did not practice religion but promoted free thinking, so I didn’t have to wrestle with any theological implications of being transgendered. I imagine if I had, I likely would have committed suicide a long time ago.

Coming out as transgendered and coming out as atheist were surprisingly similar processes. In childhood, around age five, I just knew I wanted to be a girl, and I just knew I didn’t believe in God. But as I grew up, and society had its opportunity to fill my mind with doubts, I buried the transgender feelings deep within my psyche, and I tested the waters with religions because that’s what I thought I was supposed to do. The first religions I experienced were Christianity and Judaism, and neither of those looked upon sexual deviance with any favor. I settled on Wicca because it seemed to be pretty relaxed about gender, viewing male and female as opposing and equal forces. However, I was angry that I had to be transgendered. If there was a God, then why would such a being create a person such as myself who would be so absolutely miserable in the shell which had been (presumably) crafted for me? No, there was no loving and just God, not when there was so much misery and suffering at once in the world and within my own mind.

Religious institutions are powerful, and powerful enough to shape the very psyche of the culture in which we live. These monolithic powerhouses demand conformity and obedience over personal liberty and happiness. The social draw of religion is strong. Whether an person is gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, or suffer from socially taboo maladies like clinical depression or bipolar disorder, or is atheist or questioning religion, it takes a brave and determined individual to be able to stand up, come out, and say “I choose to be who I am, not what religion or society says I’m supposed to be”.

Being transgendered shaped absolutely everything about me, yet to spend ten years of my life more-or-less in a closet of my own devising by not being out and open about being trans, I’ve wound up in a similar kind of isolation and self-loathing that I experienced when I was still a guy and silent about my gender dysphoria. So here, now, ten years after my life-changing experience at the Fair, I come out again. I’m fortunate to have gotten through this process relatively unscathed, but for the scars on my forearms and memories of emotional pain. I did not have to endure exacerbated psychological scarring from a religion which would condemn me to an eternity of suffering before seeing me as a transgendered person at peace with myself. I’ve learned that there is far more diversity and community than I ever could have dreamed of when I was still petrified and in the closet, both in the queer community and atheist community. I’m glad to be a part of both of them.

I am an atheist. I am transgendered. I suffer from clinical depression. These things do not make me weak, they make me who I am. The sooner we can eliminate the taboos imposed upon society by backward religious dogma handed down throughout the centuries, the sooner we can all strive toward healthier, happier, brighter lives.

Category: Focus on Religion, General, Lifestyle, Opinion, Religion | Tags: , , , , , , , ,
brendan.murphy | January 7, 2012
2 comments

Atheism, Mental Illness, and Coping

I want to preface this piece a little bit. I originally wrote it several months ago, when the storm of blogging about mental illness was just getting started among the popular atheist community bloggers, as an argument for why Skepticism should pick up mental illness as a talking point. We’ve seen Jen McCreight and Greta Christina come out and discuss mental illness, JT Eberhard give a tearjerker talk at Skepticon IV, and many others come out to our community (including your own Ellen Lundgren). So while I may have missed the boat a little bit, it is never too late to discuss something which afflicts a very significant portion of the population, claiming many of those lives as well.

I don’t suffer from mental illness, but I’ve become intimately acquainted with it in many folks whom I love and care for, and they deserve my help and support. So, color me an advocate.

Time and time again, when dealing with socially defined taboos – and the groups of people directly affected by them – we see that closets with closed doors leave the isolated in the dark. And in combating this, we’ve seen various movements towards yanking these closet doors wide open within the skeptic & atheist, LGBTQ, and mental health communities. As is often discussed (here by Greta Christina), the relationships between and, albeit partial, intertwinement of the LGBTQ and atheist movements have offered both groups new and effective coping mechanisms. Atheists have learned how to come out of their closets and into the streets in droves, and the LGBTQ community has been offered more prominent humanistic perspectives and secular reasoning to add to their, and everyone’s, arsenal for why people with non-heteronormative sexualities deserve to be treated as humans. Sufferers of mental illness deserve this same support network, and it’s time for secularism to help blow the doors off the closet of neurochemical imbalances.

Psychological studies have shown that, in later life, depression and psychological decline can be abated by the presence of religious influence1. In their review, “Religion and depression in later life,” Braam et al. found that late-life religiousness mostly negatively correlates with depressive symptoms, and the association is more pronounced in elderly Americans in poor health. Further, they outline four dimensions of religiousness which may affect psychological states, to varying degrees: cognitive – beliefs and convictions, affective – spirituality and religious trust, behavioural – church attendance and private practices, and motivational – personal importance. It is clear that cognitive and affective religiousness can directly influence psychological states related to depressive moods, and the social support networks present in religious communities are exactly why so many skeptical people within churches fear the dive away. And once depressed, it’s possible for affected individuals to positively influence remission through religious salience.1

So how does secularism even begin to touch that? It’s often argued that even if beliefs and hopes are false, they should be left alone if people find personal comfort in them; PZ Myers will be one of the first to say that false hopes are socially damaging and should be avoided (he noted this in a panel discussion at the University of Minnesota in 2011), but how can atheism work to replace the documented positive effects of religiousness in certain mental health patients? We start by talking about the origins of mental illness, delusions, and neurodegeneration in reality-based, scientific terms.

The mind/body duality, as well as allusions to divine intervention, promoted by various religions and philosophies over the centuries are intrinsically damaging to the acceptance and treatment of mental illness. Colloquially known as the “it’s all in your head” falsehood, the concept of mental illness as being separated or excluded from obvious physical illness is cemented by the very idea of separation between the psyche and the body. Depression, social anxiety, and the hosts of other neural misfires from which many of us suffer, are rooted in neurobiology and neurophysiology – but so are the emergent properties of the “mind”, e.g. consciousness and self-awareness. So, the sooner the secular movement stabs at this duality misconception within the context of recognizing mental illnesses as physical diseases, the sooner taboos are killed and closets are emptied.

For the social-network savvy younger generations, taking the plunge and admitting to suffering from mental health issues, without the motivational benefits of religiousness, is less difficult than for those of greater generations. And to address the issues of mental health, false hopes, and atheism at more advanced ages could prove exceedingly hairy due to familial and social implications. The existence of religious community and support networks justifies addressing these issues at such a pivotal time in the human condition, and yeah, we atheists have those too. So with such a plethora of safety nets at our backs, why not start addressing mental illness from a secular perspective – at any age? Especially considering that “atheistic belief-based coping can be as effective as religious belief-based coping in helping individuals adapt to various issues that accompany ageing and old age”.2 In their findings from a case study pairing 11 subjects with strong atheistic beliefs with 8 strongly religious subjects, Wilkinson and Coleman write the following:

“Considering Dawkins’s four traditional functions of religious belief [explanation, guidance, consolation, and inspiration], [-], this study provides some evidence that a strong atheistic belief system fulfils [sic] the same role in people’s lives as a strong religious belief system in terms of the explanations, moral guidance, consolation and inspiration that beliefs bring. While science has arguably long surpassed any religion’s explanation of life and the universe, and while man’s moral nature is beginning to be examined in terms of evolutionary psychology, Dawkins admits that religion may trump an atheist’s worldview when it comes to issues of consolation (Dawkins 2006). He no more than suggests that an atheistic outlook on life is just as inspiring as a religious one, if not more so (Dawkins 1998, 2006). Virtually all the interviewed atheists at some point mentioned how inspiring they find science and that their understanding of one’s infinitesimally small position in material reality helped them transcend their own problems.”

If religion truly trumps atheism in the consolation and comfort of mental illness patients, it is only through external consolation and the deportation of control and personal influence. In accepting our depressions, our anxieties, and our personality disorders as physical ailments of the brain, we’re rejecting the religiously-enforced idea that there is something metaphysical about our minds – that there is an impassible gap between our bodies and the roots of mental illness. In discussing mental illness and coping mechanisms within the secular movement, we’re creating a safe space for affected individuals outside of organized religions. And in offering up our communities and compassion to closeted sufferers of mental illness, atheists can protect and advocate for yet another bloc of misinterpreted, misunderstood, and mislabeled people.

Sources

  1. Braam, A. W., Beekman, A. T. F., and van Tilburg, W. Religion and depression in later life. Current Opinion in Psychiatry. Volume 12(4), July 1999, pp. 471-475.
  2. Wilkinson, P. J., and Coleman, P. G. Strong beliefs and coping in old age: a case-based comparison of atheism and religious faith. Ageing & Society, Cambridge University Press. Volume 30, 2010, pp. 337-361.
Category: Opinion, Religion, Science | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Elizabeth Knapp | December 31, 2011
2 comments

Knowing the Difference between a Counter-Protest and a Jeering Mob and How to Avoid the Latter

A few weeks before the end of the semester my Center for Inquiry Club at Broward College teamed up with our campus’s Gay Straight Alliance to go sign-to-sign with the Westboro Baptist Church. Shirley Phelps herself, the wife of Fred Phelps, attended along with a nameless brown-haired man. I learned a lot from this experience and I would like to pass this knowledge on to my fellow skeptic peers.

Our CFI Vice President Leads the charge with the message, "F*ck Hate"

The Website godhatesfags.com told us that the WBC would be visiting our very own campus on December 8th, just the day after our end-of-the-semester holiday party (the last CFI Club meeting of 2011). The college asked the GSA not to represent their club (I guess their reason was that a college club protesting a sue-happy organization would make them liable)–they didn’t say anything to the CFI Club but we took the hint–and so, technically, we only protested as a group of random individuals.

The Westboro website vaguely stated that they would protest at Broward College from 1:40 to 2:10 pm (yeah, weird timing…) but did not specify where exactly. On December 8th at 1:30 pm, according to plan, all protesters met in front of the Broward College Central Campus library while one of my friends circled the campus in her car to find “them.” Once she spotted them she called me to tell me their location. I announced this information to the growing number of protesters outside the library: they were by the Ruby Tuesdays at Nova Dr. and Davie Rd.; a block away from the actual BC campus. There was a mass exodus of people as we jumped in cars and drove to the site.

On the corner of the intersection: Shirley Phelps and her accomplice in hatred

I’m not sure how many people came to counter-protest, but I would guess the numbers exceeded 50. Many policemen had parked their motorcycles or vehicles nearby in order to oversee things. The cops wouldn’t allow the counter-protesters to cross the street to where the WBC were. We became two separate islands with two opposing views between a sea of cars; we couldn’t interact with them at all.

you can see for yourself how crowded it was....

Two Westboro Baptists vs. one very big number of people. The WBC were on the opposite side of the street by the bright yellow, pentagon-shaped "people crossing" sign

Later I would learn to appreciate this separation…

The Website mentioned that they would be protesting sequentially at two places in our area: Broward College and Stranahan High School. Our counter-protest lasted about ten to fifteen minutes before the Westboro Baptists walked away and drove off in their white rental car to the High School.

We followed them, of course. At least our group followed them–a smaller number of protesters were in the area when we arrived.

The police at the Stranahan High School were hardly involved, although plenty of cops watched over us. Their regulations were not as strict. The barrier of police men between “us” and “them” no longer existed, and I learned that this changed the dynamics of the protest and the protesters immensely.

Things began to change. Now we were allowed to cross the street. Now we were allowed to stand next to the Westboro Baptists; dance in front of them, point signs at them, interact on a whole new level. Its amazing how such a small change can produce such a drastic transformation of tone…

 

I didn’t realize the extent of what was going on until I crossed the street. Things were relatively peaceful in the beginning, like when the photo above was taken, but as time went on verbal exchanges became a little less reserved.

I heard people yelling sarcastic propositions to the Westboro Baptists like, “Can I suck your ___?” and “Can I lick your ___?” Other people occasionally called out names like, “whore.” At one point a portion of the protesters were chanting, “God will not forgive you.” And amidst all this I began to lose my enthusiasm for our counter-protest cause, because our cause had been trampled into the mud of hypocrisy.

If we return hatred for hatred, then what is the difference between “us” and “them”? I understand the rage that one feels when one looks at the offensive language and signs of the WBC, for I also feel that rage, but does this mean that we lower ourselves to their level of disrespect, hatred and intolerance?

Saying “God will not forgive you” is equivalent to saying, “You are going to hell.” Calling someone a whore is just as derogatory as how the WBC uses the word, “fag.” Our purpose as a counter-protest should be to actually counter the position of whoever we are protesting. We can’t do that if we mirror their message or their behavior.

 

These are the differences between a Jeering Mob and a Counter-Protest:

* A Jeering Mob desires some sort of retribution; to lash out vengefully. To hurt target of anger.
A Counter-Protest desires to get a point across; to teach, raise awareness of an opposing viewpoint and respond maturely to a view that is disagreed with.

* A Jeering Mob is disorganized and rowdy – from the outside looking in, one sees a group of people upset at something or someone. The purpose or message is not clear.
A Counter-Protest understands that a group with a cause is one hundred times more effective when organized. It has a plan in how to clearly display the essential purpose or message.

*A Jeering Mob is out for blood.
A Counter-Protest is out for change.

 

What I have learned from participating in my first counter-protest:

I organized the protest by creating an event page on facebook, but I shouldn’t have stopped there. I should have typed up some guidelines for my fellow protesters to democratically discuss and agree upon. I should have also had some meeting prior to the protest to get all the protesters together and organize an effective course of action (like a song we could sing together or signs to coordinate). Since I did not do this, chaos was the result. Everyone was trying to yell over the voices of their fellow protesters; a mess of voices and actions jumbled together in confusion. I think that if I could have organized our cause better, we would not have just been able to make an impression on the community as a whole but, perhaps, even the WBC protesters.

I hope that my mistakes will help my secular peers in any counter-protest that they will be tackling…

 

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt

Category: Activism, Campus Updates | Tags: , , , , , , ,
Ellen Lundgren | October 10, 2011
2 comments

Coming Out after Christmas?

When did you come out to your families? Were the holidays a deciding factor? Do you still celebrate Christmas with your family?

20111010-003604.jpg
via PostSecret

Category: Lifestyle | Tags: , , , , , , ,
Nicholas Smedes | October 7, 2011
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An Atheist Gardener

She awakes

Fresh morning dew slumbers soundly

The sun not yet awake, herself

Life is calm

The shade recedes slowly over this mote of dust

The mote of dust content as the third child of Sol

The Atheist Gardener knows of the chaos each morning as dew rest

The mind begins to storm, but is calmed by the aroma of brewing coffee

Content washes over as the Atheist Gardener stands on the porch overlooking a lush garden escape

Sol begins to awake

Reaching out her hands in a lover’s embrace upon the dust lain over an iron core rock

Dew glimmers a marvelous spectrum across the land

Humming birds beat through the garden

Beating continues

Life awakes anew

Manifestation of heaven, among us

This heaven not as an empty promise built on forced good.

But here waiting to be seen upon this grain of sand we call Earth

The Atheist Gardener looks upon her creation

Grateful to the billions of years of gradual change

Deeply appreciative of her natural world of past present and future

Knowing that the Universe cares little for the follies or advancements of man

The Atheist Gardener finds her meaning

She knows her morality can exist without peering eyes from a metaphysical veil

Love

Gratitude

Compassion

Mercy

Respect

Tolerance

All within her like the garden she has worked to create

Her gifts of the utmost grandeur she bestows upon her fellow sisters and brothers

Is sowing seeds of reason

Seeds of hope

Seeds of inquiry

And most importantly seeds of doubt

The Atheist Gardener knows the one true absolute is there is no true absolute

A contradiction that risks unsteady foundations to be built upon

But to our Atheist Gardener this simple idea although contradictory

Feelings of divine comfort and tranquility encompasses her mind

Continuation of a glorious day in the eyes of the Atheist Gardener

She knows not to squander these moments

She knows she was born into just one life

She knows she will leave this world

But never in vain

A legacy she has worked hard to achieve will be carried forward into immortality

Joining with the multitude of a growing collection of stories

Stories of loving individuals who live their lives…

 

And it is Good.

 

Category: Creative | Tags: , , , , , ,
Ellen Lundgren | September 18, 2011
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Living without Religion, Living with Anxiety

Two weeks ago, I was invited to be a participant for Center for Inquiry-Michigan in downtown Grand Rapids on their “Living without Religion” discussion panel as coverage of our new billboard. My first thought was, “hell no!” since I’ve been a lifetime introvert and I have pretty extreme social anxiety, especially speaking in front of crowds. But as I thought about it, I realized that I really wanted to speak on this panel and have my story heard on what it’s like to live without religion as a person happy and content with being an atheist. I finally responded with a ‘yes.’

So last Wednesday night, I showed up and sat on a panel with four other active area CFI members and we shared with a room of 100+ people what it’s like to live without religion. The crowd was mostly other CFI members so it was a friendly room, but we have been heard in the community as MLive.com had an article covering the event.

via MLive.com - T.J. Hamilton | The Grand Rapids Press

The comments on the article still baffle me as all of the ones I’ve read have been arguing over the comment about sending their kid to a Christian preschool. Many commenters seemed to miss the point that even though they were atheists, they were willing to pay to send their second child to a private Christian school. They knew that their daughter would be taught about the Christian belief system and they were okay with that. They only thing these parents were “guilty” of was telling the truth by not lying and signing a statement of faith in God. Not mentioned in the article was how Cathy said they were okay with their daughter learning Christian values at the school but when their enrollment was rejected, they said their daughter still learned a different perspective on “Christian values” that day.

No mention of my comment…

…religious history, when looked at from an academic perspective, appears more akin to mythology. [I believe] science offers a better basis for understating the natural world.

Alas, my voice was still heard and I’m happy I did this. Dealing with anxiety has been a long journey for me and I’ve just recently been gaining a better understanding and a better handle on tackling it. I’ve also recently learned that Sam Harris also had a debilitating fear of public speaking and his article here sums up what I have also learned quite well. I am not a great public speaker yet, and I don’t think things would go well if I were the only one on at a podium in front of more than 50 people. But I’m getting better, and I’ve especially become adept at steps 1-4 that he has outlined.

Coming out as an atheist as well as being more public about the stress of anxiety has helped me tremendously in both areas of my life. I’m proud to be an atheist, and I’m happy that my passion for this movement is helping me to deal with my anxiety.

Category: Activism, Opinion | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Daniel Sprockett | September 11, 2011
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9/11 Changed the Face of Atheism

It has become almost cliché to say that the attacks on September 11, 2001 were the Pearl Harbor or Kennedy assassination of our generation.  Ten years later, nearly all of us remember what we were doing the moment we heard the news.  The day is seared into our collective memory not simply due to the emotional impact of the moment, but because of the startling realization that our lives would never again be the same.

The events of that day profoundly affected our way of life. Not just foreign policy or airline safety standards, but also our sense of security and our relationship to fellow human beings. For many people, it even changed their relationship with their god and religion.

The American Humanist Association’s most recent newsletter features one woman’s story of how 9/11 influenced her journey from Catholicism to Atheism. Diqui LaPenta, a biology professor in northern California, tells of losing her boyfriend, Rich Guadagno, on Flight 93, the flight that crashed in Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania.

…My parents arrived two days later, having driven all the way from San Antonio, Texas, and we flew to New Jersey for a memorial service for Rich. Some very religious relatives planned to meet us in New Jersey. I asked my parents to ensure that those relatives refrain from religious platitudes. I didn’t want to hear that Rich was in a better place or with God or that it was all part of some plan that God had for us. From the moment I heard that Rich and thousands of others had been killed, I knew that the all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful God of childhood stories absolutely could not exist. Rich was not in a better place. There was no place he would rather be than with his dog Raven, me, his family, and his friends. I would never see Rich again, as there is no afterlife. Pretending that I would see him again would make it impossible to heal.

Before 9/11, I’d never considered myself an atheist. After that day I was, and I let people know it. When asked what church I attend, I reply that I don’t. If prompted to explain why, I say that I’m an atheist. Some people say, “But you have to believe in something!” I do. I believe in the power of rational thought and critical thinking. I believe that we should live thoughtful, peaceful, moral lives because it’s the right thing to do and not because we’re afraid of punishment or hopeful for a reward beyond the grave. We have this one life, and we should make the best of it for the short time we are here.

Diqui isn’t the only one that felt compelled to be more forthright about her atheism after 9/11. As the CNN Belief Blog points out, the religious nature of the attacks provided the impetus for many atheists to come out of the closet and openly criticize previously unassailable religious beliefs.

Atheists were driven to become more vocal because of the 9/11 attacks and America’s reaction, says David Silverman, president of American Atheists. He says many atheists were disgusted when President George W. Bush and leaders in the religious right reacted to the attack by invoking “God is on our side” rhetoric while launching a “war on terror.”

They adopted one form of religious extremism while condemning another, he says.

“It really showed atheists why religion should not be in power. Religion is dangerous, even our own religion,” Silverman says.

Atheists are still the most disparaged group in America, but there’s less stigma attached to being one, he says.

“The more noise that we make, the easier it us to accept us,” Silverman says. “Most people know atheists now. They knew them before, but didn’t know they were atheists.”

In fact, atheists have gained so much public acceptance that David Silverman gave a public address this morning on the main steps of the Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg, in an event hosted by the PA Nonbelievers.

While some atheists began speaking out, others began writing. As Newsweek reports, Sam Harris began writing his bestselling The End of Faith on September 12th, 2001 – directly in response to the attacks.  Harris’s recent blog post on the 10 year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks succinctly summarizes his perspective on the distance we have left to travel:

Ten years have now passed since many of us first felt the jolt of history—when the second plane crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. We knew from that moment that things can go terribly wrong in our world—not because life is unfair, or moral progress impossible, but because we have failed, generation after generation, to abolish the delusions of our ignorant ancestors. The worst of these ideas continue to thrive—and are still imparted, in their purest form, to children.

On the other hand, while some atheists began speaking out in public and openly critiquing religious ideas, others saw the attacks as a call for greater unity and love.  Chris Stedman, a Fellow for the Harvard Humanist Chaplaincy, will be honoring those lost by spending today packaging 9,110 meals to be distributed to hungry children in Massachusetts.  As he stated recently in Washingtion Post’s On Faith:

9/11 will live on forever in our nation’s memory. We suffered an incomprehensible loss at the hands of extremists who believed that religious diversity must end in violence. But as people of diverse religious and secular identities, we can counter them with our unity. By building bridges of understanding, we can act on our shared values and learn-from and with one another-how to be our best selves.

No matter the reaction, the attacks on September 11th caused the public face of atheism to drastically change.  The 10 years since that day has seen many changes in way the world community approaches religion, but no one can say that religious beliefs are as protected from criticism as they were a decade ago.

Many non-believers have very strong opinions about the best way to prevent similar attacks in the future. Despite the ongoing debates, it seems clear to me that the courage to work with religious community groups in areas where our interests overlap, paired with the freedom to directly and openly criticize bad ideas wherever they occur in the public sphere, will be the tools that we must use to build a safer, healthier, and happier future.

Category: Activism, Current Events, Ethics, History, News, Religion, Religious Recovery | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Matt Foss | September 3, 2011
2 comments

Why some people don’t accept evolution: a layperson’s perspective

I’ll come right out and say that I am not especially well-educated in science.  I studied the liberal arts in college and never took a course beyond Intro to Biology.  I do think that I gained a fundamental literacy of the science through my minimal classroom study (and copious independent reading as a child), to the point that I can understand what science journalists and bloggers are talking about even without being able to make sense of the raw data myself.

Image credit: Ethan Hein

I do understand, at the most basic level, how evolution works and why it works, even if I can’t wrap my head around the intricate processes that drive it.  I’d be out of my league attempting to teach it to someone or to debate a creationist on it (a position in which we atheists too often find ourselves, as if we’re all PhD biologists in the minds of creationists).

Even as a layperson (especially as a layperson?) I feel that scientific literacy is a vital part of being an informed citizen.  I’m troubled by the widening knowledge gap I see between scientists and everybody else, and particularly by the anti-intellectual sentiment that is rising alongside populism.

Denial in favor of design

To many atheists (and even theists who are skeptics about most everything but gods), it may seem shocking and frustrating that so many people in the United States dismiss evolution as wild conjecture.

When we see the notion of “intelligent design” being taught alongside actual science in biology class as if the two had equal weight, our first reaction may leave a palm-shaped depression in our foreheads (or a forehead-shaped indentation in our desks).

Sure, there are a number of people so hopelessly dedicated to ancient origin stories that they don’t want evolution to be true. It would turn their entire world upside down were they to accept that they are part of a 3 billion year old solar-powered chemical reaction rather than a unique, purposeful creation apart from nature.  It would mean to them that they are no better than their animal kin and take away all incentive for civilized behavior in their minds.

The threat of such a crisis of conscience has been used as an argument against evolution since Darwin first proposed it.  It was used by the prosecution in the infamous John Scopes trial, and even today is rehashed and regurgitated by creationist groups like Answers in Genesis.

I’m not so sure that there’s a way around this roadblock. How does one persuade a person to step over a ledge if said person is utterly convinced that they’ll tread onto a slippery slope?

Framing it like a religion instead of science

There are others still who are taken in by deceitful rhetoric like “evolution is just a theory”, people who don’t believe the science because they don’t understand it.

I suspect that a major reason why people don’t “get” evolution is that they try to understand the theory as something that it’s not: an infallible history that’s conveniently spelled out for them.  Unfortunately, science doesn’t offer the romance or clarity of religious mythology, no matter how badly our human minds want it to (not to say it can’t be exciting in its own right if you embrace your inner nerd, but most don’t).

The narrative of Darwin on his epic odyssey through the harsh environment of the Galapagos, suddenly experiencing a “eureka!” moment as the idea of natural selection dawns on him, is false.  It is nevertheless taught that way to schoolchildren to make the subject more fun (the same goes for the myth of Newton and the falling apple revealing to him the concept of gravity).

On the Origin of Species was a breakthrough 150 years ago, but it isn’t a sacred text.  A century and a half of new discoveries have rendered it obsolete, and the biologists of the 2160s will likely say the same about our most cutting-edge scientific literature today.

Unfortunately, people don’t seem to want an amendable explanation that says “We can’t know for sure, but this is what most probably happened based on what we’ve found so far.”  It doesn’t satisfy that desire for certainty that nags at all of us.  It leaves room for doubt, and makes many people uncomfortable.  No, people want an ironclad explanation that says “We know that this is what happened, for these irrefutable reasons.”

Science can’t offer that.  It’s driven by uncertainty – that’s what leads to new discoveries and new questions to be answered.  Until the American public learns to accept that, how can we expect them to accept evolution?

Category: Science | Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Daniel Sprockett | September 2, 2011
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The Path to Non-Belief

The freethought community is full of extremely diverse opinions on a wide range of subjects. Some members of my local student group are socialists, feminists, anarchists, libertarians, and yes, even a few conservatives. Collectively, this diversity is one of our major strengths.

Having such widely varied opinions, we tend to find common ground most readily in our skepticism of religious claims.  In fact, my student group emphasizes that while the Kent State Freethinkers is not expressly an “atheist group,” it is a group that contains many atheists, agnostics, religious skeptics and secularists. Simply put, we don’t exempt religious claims from our bologna detection kit.

But being in a group of skeptics, it is easy to forget that many of us come to our non-belief from very different backgrounds. Some of us have never been religious, while some of us consciously decided to leave religion. While non-theists of all stripes are of course welcome at meetings, it is important to remember that we all took very different paths to get there…and sometimes picked up very different types of emotional and philosophical baggage along the way.

For example, many atheists who have never been religious tend to view religious ideas with the same sense of anthropological bewilderment usually applied to the exotic customs of foreign tribes. It is sometimes difficult for them to comprehend how otherwise intelligent adults can so fervently believe such blatant hogwash. These never-believers tend to have trouble debating religious people because some religious concepts are so cloaked in a veil of transcendental mumbo-jumbo that it requires real effort to even begin talking. Starting conversations with the devout sometimes requires a suspension of critical faculties that these non-believers have never experienced. Their thought process might look something like, “Okay, so Jesus died for our sins, but then rose from the dead? So basically, he is alive. How exactly is this a sacrifice again?”

Conversely, non-theists who have made the difficult decision to leave the comfort and familiarity of their religion are usually better able to put themselves in the shoes of believers. People leave religion for many different reasons, but I’ve found that the circumstances of their departure can have a huge impact on how they continue to view religion, especially their former faith.

Many people leave religion after a nasty falling out, such as institutionalized abuse or conflict with religious leaders. I know of at least one student who left the Catholic Church after her grandfather was denied last rites (the last blessings before death), because he neglected to include the church in his will. Other, more serious examples abound, such as instances of rape, corruption, and violence. While most religious members are not direct victims, many leave after seeing such deplorable behavior from a group they had thought was a paragon of morality. Being so burned by faith often ignites a deep seated hatred of all things religious, and while this allows them to be extremely passionate proponents of freethought and secularist ideals, these anti-theists often become extremely emotionally entangled in arguments.  They may be prone to making hyperbolic statements about the evils of the church, which may end up hurting their credibility. Other anti-theists may still have very raw feelings about religious groups, and may prefer avoiding the discussion altogether.

In contrast, many non-believers left the church simply because religion has faded away into the realm of irrelevance, often times due to apathy or in response to a better understanding of how science explains the natural world. They find the claims and promises of religion to be lacking when examined in the harsh light of day – a light that shines from scientific literacy. They may begin calling themselves an atheist or agnostic after many years of being a non-practicing (or rarely practicing) religious member. In many ways, this type of non-believer is more similar to the never-theist than the anti-theist.

Of course, this list isn’t exhaustive, and many non-believers have had a very arduous ascent into freethought, and retain very complex emotions and opinions about religious faith. Many people that attend meetings may still be making that climb toward enlightenment. They may still be overcoming obstacles to unbelief that most of us have already cleared, or they may be dealing with obstacles that many of us have never had to clear. Then again, there are some atheists are so anti-religious that they see freethought groups as an underhanded attempt to create a secular church.

My point is, as current and future freethought leaders, it is important to recognize and appreciate the various perspectives, talents, and biases that your members bring to the discussion table. If a diplomat and a firebrand are arguing over the tone of your group’s advertisements, or debating which speaker you want to bring to campus, it is often helpful to recognize that those differences stem not just from the side of the table they are sitting on, but also the path they took to get there.  I’ve found that some of the most helpful and enjoyable meetings have been where we take turns describing where we stand philosophically in relation to religion, and talk about the often convoluted paths that led us there. I highly recommend dedicating some time to this discussion at one of your early meetings this upcoming semester. It will definitely help you understand the perspective of someone that you may disagree with.

Category: Managing Your Campus Group, Religious Recovery | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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