Warm fuzzies aside, I’m having problems with Skeptic North’s final installment in their otherwise excellent Skeptic’s Guide to Magical Thinking series. Specifically, I’m taking issue with what writer Erik Davis’ has to say about “The Problem of Religion”…

Whether you believe or not, there’s no disputing that many religions provide significant value to adherents… religion provides certain comforts that cannot easily be gotten elsewhere. A belief in an ordained purpose to life, in a god who has our interest at heart, in a death that’s not final – these are ideas that help people get through an existence that can be spirit-crushingly difficult for many.

Ok, so far so good. I myself have written how difficult it was to let go of the religious security blanket he’s described. Continuing on…

And while I’ve heard the atheist argument that self-delusion is not the best way to deal with those difficulties, the pervasiveness of magical beliefs in our mind design simply belies that notion.

What? How does the mere existence of magical beliefs negate the idea that there might be a better way to handle “an existence that can be spirit-crushing”? Has Erik done extensive research into the efficacy of the various methods we might employ to help people deal with their existential angst? Does he know how effective religion really is at helping people through angst? Why do people drop in and out of religion? Why does so much church shopping go on? Why is atheism/agnosticism the fastest growing belief category in Canada and the U.S.? Is it possible that, if we opened our eyes to other options, religion might be replaced as a preferred mechanism for helping people handle the realities of existence? The phrase, “If I can do it, anybody can” comes to mind. Let’s not assume believers are too weak and or stupid to make the transition from belief to non-belief and come out the other end happy, functioning human beings!

After all, how different is this than our delusion of love, or of free will? If we can admit that those things are valuable, then we can certainly admit the comforts of religion into the same camp.

I’d say that the illusion of free will is vastly different than belief in a deity! Why? Well, first, I’m guessing most people never give the idea of free will even a glancing thought, whereas, most also think a great deal about death, suffering and a god that will make everything better once they die. Second, where is the cult of freewillians who go around proselytizing the free-will gospel, and influencing public policy based on their freewillian world view? The analogy is weak. Worse, it and the analysis that precedes it implores us to give religion a free pass due to it being a sort of default method for helping people. Personally, I think humanity can do better… but maybe that’s just me. Anyway, onward…

I think the first thing we need to do is stop being such purists. The skeptical community includes a disproportionate number of atheists… …religious belief isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and that they will continue to be confronted with the magical thinking that underlies it. We need to remember that everyone thinks magically about some things and that’s not necessarily so bad. And we need to focus on the a more important objective, which is reducing the harm religion can do when left unchecked. In short, we need to focus on ways to encourage religious moderation.

First, in a truly skeptic community, I would hope that there would be a disproportionate number of atheists compared to within the general population, just like I would hope there would be a disproportionate number of people against homeopathic medicine in that same group. I honestly don’t know what value there is in making this statement about atheists. Is it because Erik believes atheism too often hijacks skeptical discussion? Is it because he is afraid of alienating skeptics who also happen to be believers? Is it because he thinks that attacking religion may result in aligning skeptics with unsavoury “new atheists”, thereby diminishing the skeptic’s influence in other areas?

These are questions I feel I must ask in response to atheists being singled out in the article. I feel compeled to say that many atheists are skeptics too – we are skeptics who specialize in debunking *a specific kind* of magical thinking. Please don’t marginalize our favorite subject – doing so suggests that criticisms of religion are not as important as being critical of other skeptic targets.

All of this reminds me of something from my theist to atheist de-conversion experience. It was during my de-conversion that I learned how to be skeptical – a lesson and attitude that carried forward into virtually every other corner of my life. After ditching God, I was eager to apply the same hard-nosed rational thinking process to every belief I had.

In other words, ditching religion was the gateway to my becoming a skeptic. This, I think, is part of the reason many atheists are so vocal and passionate about sharing their atheism – not only because we feel belief in God is incorrect, but because we’ve learned that when such deeply held beliefs are destroyed, it can lead to the birth of a freethinking skeptic. We believe that someone who can break free from the shackles of religion can question anything. We think it’s worth the effort.

Ok, I flogged that one enough – let’s finish up…

For example, as much as I may not agree with publicly funding the Catholic school system in Ontario, I’m at pains to point out any material societal harm that’s caused by it. The fact is that Catholicism in Canada, and in the west generally, is pretty moderate. That wasn’t always the case (see: “Inquisition, Spanish”), but it certainly is today. And that moderation pushes Catholicism westward on our matrix.

The existence of the Catholic school system in Canada is a slippery slope with major implications. The United Nations rightly pointed out that funding it is discriminatory to other faiths so, the choice becomes, fund none or fund them all. In Alberta (where I live), I can tell you the latter is the case – more and more faith schools are being funded. And I can state as a matter of fact that there are faith-based schools teaching creationism and undermining science in Alberta. This can lead to nothing good – and we need only look south of the border to see the downstream effects of religion in schools. 40% of American believe the earth is less than 10,000 years old – as well a lot of other bunk that comes with that world view. Need I say more?

In one sense, I agree with Erik. We do currently have it good in Canada. However, I’m concerned – very concerned – that our society will suffer in the long-haul if we ignore the problem.

And thus what I’ll call The Problem of Religion for Skeptics – which is that the best way to moderate religion and reduce its potential for harm may simply be to let it flourish. Protect religious freedoms, debate the beliefs honestly in an open marketplace of ideas, and focus most of our efforts on curbing the worst abuses. If the Ontario Catholic school system survives, but everyone in it must get vaccinated no matter what their beliefs, I’d say the skeptics win.

That’s one way. Another way is to teach critical thinking and skepticism and show that the underlying belief system is wrong and potentially harmful. Instead of putting out fires, why don’t we focus on the root cause of those fires?

Peace to you my fellow skeptics – and thanks for getting me out of my writing slumber. Oh, and keep up the good work, Skeptic North!

God Has Far Too Much Time On His Hands

From a very young age, I remember reading and being told that God knows everything. He knows what you’ve done, and what you will do. He even knows your thoughts. Hell, he even knows what you will think before you do.

I’ve heard Christopher Hitchens call this the “celestial surveillance camera”. How perfect. God, with all his responsibilities for creating universes and making sure everything works tickety-boo has the time and interest to spy on each and every thought we will ever have.

The evilness of this mental torture has no equal… except perhaps for the concept of eternal punishment. Children are brought up thinking that even a fleeting bad thought is being recorded, tallied and judged. As an adult, you cannot even look at the spouse of another person without the thought that God knows that you have coveted, and are therefore guilty of breaking one of his commandments. Punishing natural, human desire is a despicable concept in my books.

Spirits Among Us?

Even ‘spiritual’ people who don’t think much about God are susceptible to the idea that their most private thoughts may not solely be their own. Because so many of them badly want there to be an afterlife, they gravitate toward mind/body dualism and, from there, invoke the supernatural idea of souls.

Unfortunately, where there is one disembodied soul, there are probably going to be others (e.g. ghosts/spirits) with otherworldly abilities who carry with them a cornucopia of surveillance possibilities.

Atheism is Peace of Mind

There is no feeling of mental intrusion in a skeptical, naturalistic, atheist view of reality. In our world, consciousness is merely what trillions of brain cells do and, since a mind reading machine will not likely exist in the near future, our thoughts are purely our own so we feel safe thinking whatever we want. After all, to us, thoughts are just thoughts.

This godless gift is truly, truly awesome, and I can say without reservation that this one thing alone was worth the price of admission. Being godless brings a freedom and peace of mind I never even came close to having when I was a believer.

Highly recommended.
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Part of the interview an atheist survey I recently completed asked why I think living as an atheist is better than living a life under God.

In retrospect, my response wasn’t nearly as good as it might have been. For starters,  I wrote it right before bed time. And that led me to only partially answer the question – I left a lot of awesomeness out!

At any rate, the question is excellent blog fodder which I hope to fully consume in a series of posts starting with this one. Here in this post, I’ll set the stage by clarifying some things about my atheism, and how things besides my atheism factor into the awesomeness of being godless.

First, Some Basics…

• What is atheism? Atheism is disbelief in the existence of deities including the Abrahamaic gods and the thousands of other gods contemplated throughout history. Atheism is nothing more than this disbelief.

• What is not Atheism? Atheism is not a world view. It does not come all packaged up with a set of beliefs.

The bullets are a reminder that we should never assume atheism means anything more than it does. Not all atheists share similar beliefs and world views. We are not all humanists, anarchists, liberals, or materialists, and not all of us disbelieve in supernatural concepts such as souls, ghosts, karma, past lives and E.S.P. In other words, we are a diverse group of people who tend to share only one thing – our disbelief in the existence of deities.

I imagine that’s one of the reasons it’s often said that atheists are harder to herd than cats.

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Can We Narrow the Field Down a Bit?

At the risk of riling up the herd, I’m going to suggest that one sub-set of atheists tend to have commonalities. The sub-set I’m speaking of (the one I am a part of) is best understood by how they arrive at atheism:

• Some atheists haven’t given belief/non-belief much thought. They haven’t really pinned down the reasons they do not believe. In this group you may find atheists believing in things that fall under the category of the supernatural – even though they do not believe in god(s). This is not the sub-set I want to talk about.
• Some atheists are not really atheists. These are the folks who call themselves atheists, but who misunderstand the meaning of the concept. These are the atheists who are rebelling against a god they still believe exists. Although I haven’t met one of these, they are the straw man atheists that apologists like James Spiegal like to mislead people into thinking are the only type of atheists. This is not the sub-set of “atheist” I want to pin my discussion on.
• Some atheists arrive at their atheism after having listened to the arguments for and against gods, having gathered and weighed evidence and having used their powers of reason. These atheists rely on the tools of skepticism (not to be confused with cynicism) and the scientific method to attain an understanding of the universe they live in.
  

  Master of Skepticism Carl Sagan

That last group of ‘skeptical atheists’ is the one I will try to represent (I’m sure they’ll tell me if I do a poor job!). But, hold onto your horses because I’m not done defining them.

Naturalist Charles Darwin

It’s Natural

Reason, skepticism and the scientific method tend to lead my group of atheists in consistent directions. Most notably, it leads us to reject the existence of not just deities, but anything supernatural. That is to say that we tend to be naturalists. That is, we hold the view that the world can be understood in scientific terms, without relying on spiritual or supernatural explanations.

Wrapping it all up…

Context helps us understand and appreciate the things an atheist would consider to be awesome about godlessness. The context for myself (and I presume other atheists like me) is that I am not just an atheist – I am also a skeptic, a rationalist and a naturalist. And with all of that priming the pump, I can finally talk about the awesomeness of godlessness. Stay tuned for part II!
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Your comments are now banned – everything you post will be deleted as soon as I see it. To make things even more clear, I am GOD here and I have chosen to wipe your existence from my universe. Bye bye now.

Godless Girl recently wrote about how she gets past the anger, which inspired vjack from Atheist Revolution to begin a series of posts on getting past anger.

I enjoyed Godless Girl’s post and am looking forward to reading vjack’s thoughts. Check them both out!

Metal Art Sculptures

A bit of shameless pimping here – check out my brother’s new Metal Art Sculptures site!

PZ Myers

A couple of weeks ago I suggested we stop using the word ‘spiritual’ when describing feelings of awe, wonder, connectedness etc. and use ‘sublime‘ instead. The main thrusts behind my argument were that:

1. Spiritual is defined and understood by most people to have religious connotations.
2. Attempting to re-cast ‘spiritual’ in a less religious light is, in my mind, a pointless, frustrating waste of time.
3. ‘Numinous’ – a word that tends to be favoured by Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins has the same difficulties (to a lesser extent, but still the same religious connotations exist.)
4. In my mind, sublime perfectly fits the bill (read my post for my rationale).

PZ Myers is wondering if we should use a new word – ‘Scientility’:

Describes the sensation that a scientist or amateur of science experiences when he/she observes an amazing phenomenon, for which his/her qualifications or knowledge makes them experience it a greater degree of appreciaton and joy than people without that knowledge.

I’m sticking to my guns – I still much prefer using sublime. First, because I think it’s an awesome word that already has the meaning we want to convey. Second, because I do not think the emphasis should be placed on science-based experience/knowledge, but rather that a more broad-based secular word (like sublime!) is what is needed. And third, because I’m just not very fond of the proposed word.

What do you think?

Edit: I spent some time perusing the comments on PZ’s site and it looks like I am not alone with my preference for ‘sublime’. Might they have read my post from last week?

The thought is on my mind because a theology student recently asked me to answer some survey questions (he’d been assigned an “interview an atheist” project). I’m not sure if the questions were his own, or if they’d been fed to him by a professor, but the bias in them hurt my brain and caused me to feed on baby flesh.

Anyway, while all the questions had bias (I may post the others later), one in particular got my goat:

James Spiegel wrote in The Making of an Atheist that most people are atheists or agnostics because either one or both of the following are true: (1) there was a major disaster earlier in life that made the person angry toward God (perhaps a death of a loved one or disappointment with some people in the church), (2) the person simply does not want God to be a part of their life. Do either of these descriptions fit why you think there is no God? When did you become an atheist/agnostic, and what would you say brought this about?

Not Enough Options

The claim that there are only two options is incorrect. Including those mentioned above, I can think of four possibilities (I’m probably missing some):

1. A person could grow up in an atheist household and know virtually nothing about religion or god.
2. A person could use rational thinking and an examination of evidence and history to conclude there is no god.
3. There was a major disaster earlier in life that made the person angry toward God (perhaps a death of a loved one or disappointment with some people in the church (part of the original question).
4. The person simply does not want God to be a part of their life (also part of the original question).

Analysis

1. Why does the author see only points 3 & 4 as possible reasons for a person being an atheist? Is it because he is a shallow thinker? Or is it because he is purposefully misleading his readers?
2. Both reasons 3 & 4 mischaracterize what it means to be an atheist:
   • Definition of an Atheist: A person who does not believe in the existence of deities (Christian, Islamic, Judaic, Hindu, Greek & Roman gods – among thousands of other deities – all included).
   • Author’s Definition (my interpretation): A person who has been alienated from, or is angry with God and who, as a result, has decided to force god’s existence from their minds by an act of mental will.
   • The author’s definition seems very similar to a person who is angry with their father and decides to shut him out of their lives. Note that, in this example, the father still exists, but he is avoided or ignored or pushed far away from the person’s daily life and thoughts.
   • The author’s conceptualization of what an atheist is, is a grossly ignorant, dishonest misrepresentation of the concept. Atheism is simply a lack of belief in deities. It is not an emotional rejection of something a person knows to exist.

One More Thing

It is entirely possible for a person to begin their journey toward atheism based on an emotional/traumatic event, but to arrive at their destination based on rational thinking. In other words, emotion can be the trigger that leads to further investigation, that leads to a weighing of evidence, that leads to a non-emotion based abandonment of belief.

In my case, I became an atheist at 40 years of age after a lifetime of trying to believe. Certainly, there were troubling events in my life, but they did not solely lead to my atheism. My decision to abandon belief in god was based on the combined impact of these major findings (among others):

1. That religions do not adequately explain the problem of evil.
2. That there is no evidence for any god or deity.
3. That the existence of thousands of religions – all claiming to be the exclusive holders of truth and none of them providing compelling evidence for their claim suggests that none of their claims are to be trusted.

It’s important to realize that, for a long time, I really wanted to believe but, the more investigation I did, the less I was able to stomach the Kool-Aid.

One More, One More Thing

We are not mad at God. We simply do not think your god exists. Would you accept my claim that you are angry at glow-in-the-dark, spacesuit-wearing six-legged chickens? Or that you are mad at the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

No? Well, now you know how ridiculous we view your claim that “atheists are just mad at God”.

Baba Brinkman doing his thing...

I’m going to start this post by saying I’ve never cared much for rap music. I suppose I could use the excuse that I’m a an over 40 year-old, white, raised-on-a-farm Albertan Canadian, but I know others in that same demographic who love rap so, so much for that excuse.

Uber-Skeptic Desiree Schell

Last week, Baba Brinkman was on my favorite Skeptical podcast – Skeptically Speaking with Desiree Schell and now, suddenly, I really like rap music. Well, I really like Baba Brinkman’s rap music, anyway.

So that leads me to think that my disconnect with rap has been because what the rapper’s where saying didn’t resonate with me.

Well, what Baba Brinkman has to say resonates with me.

What does Brinkman rap about? Rationality! Freethinking! Science! Evolution! And Darwin baby! DARWIN!

Baba Brinkman is getting the word out about these things in a new manner, and to a new audience. For those who don’t ‘get’ things like the theory of evolution, his songs are terrific consciousness raising experiences and, for those of us who do ‘get it’, they are powerful anthems.

You can find Baba Brinkman:

• on his website
• on CBC Radio 3 were you can listen to him online (my favorite one is ’Natural Selection’) and, from there, buy his music on iTunes.
• on his Skeptically Speaking interview
• and on youtube where you’ll find a good selection of videos including the one you see embedded below – the Rationalist anthem “Off That”.