religion

Tell Me Again that Science and Religion are Compatible

Dana Hunter1 Comment

But before you do, consider this (h/t):

The official Vatican position on evolution tilts towards intelligent design. Its point man on the subject, Cardinal Schönborn, says: “Scientific theories that try to explain away the appearance of design as the result of ‘chance and necessity’ are not scientific at all, but, as John Paul put it, an abdication of human intelligence.” Ouch.

These are folks who have a fundamental, willful, and very large blind spot.  They deliberately twist science to fit their own dogma.  And that is something that’s absolutely incompatible with science.

NOMA my skinny white arse.  As Jerry Coyne sez:

So yes, the true biological view of evolution as a materialistic, unguided process is indeed at odds with most religions.  Organizations that promote evolution, such as the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), prefer to avoid this critical point: all they care about is that evolution get taught in the schools, not whether believers wind up accepting the concept of evolution as it’s understood by scientists.  (If all they want is evolution to be taught, that, I suppose is fine. But it’s not fine if they want public understanding of evolution.)

And it’s not fine when millions of people are told by their pope that science ain’t science.  That twisted, skewed view of what science is matters.  That twisted, skewed view leads people to mistrust and misunderstand science.  It leads them to believe science can be bent to their own wishes, no matter what the evidence is. 

That’s not science.  That’s religion trying to steal science’s respectability after having lost its own.  It’s pseudoscience, and it’s right on par with the cons, crooks and crazies who snatch a few words out of a science dictionary to try to make their wackaloon theories about homeopathy or magnetic bracelets sound plausible to people who don’t know any better.

It’s nice that the Catholic church is so cornered by reality that they’ve been forced to swallow a little bit of science in a desperate attempt to stay relevant and retain their power.  But it’s giving them indigestion.  And anyone who believes that science and religion are perfectly compatible isn’t paying attention to reality.

Tell Me Again that Science and Religion are Compatible
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I Don't Get It. I Don't Understand.

Dana Hunter3 Comments

Confession: I was, for a few brief months in my teens, a Bible-thumper.  So it may seem odd now that I can’t get myself into the minds of believers.

I’d never been a religious kid, not particularly.  I had this nebulous idea that God existed and that he was good.  I prayed when things were beyond my control.  But we didn’t go to church, and outside of the illustrated children’s Bible I had, there wasn’t a huge amount of God stuff around.  My parents believed, and my mother put me in a summer Bible camp once – maybe for religious instruction, maybe just because it was the best and only way to pawn me off on other people for a couple of hours so she could have some time for herself.  Considering she played Mom to the entire neighborhood, one can’t blame her for needing a break.  And I learned how to glue Jesus to a wooden spoon, and stick him in a walnut shell, so it wasn’t a complete waste.  One thing I do know, the people there didn’t impress upon me the necessity of believing or going to Hell.  They gave me warm fuzzy feelings about Jesus and an indelible association between ancient Jewish carpenters and spoons.

Then we moved to Page.  I’ve seldom lived in a city so religious.  There was a road completely lined with churches, and more churches scattered around the city, and I believe there were 2.5 churches for every household.  Kids were released for seminary in the afternoons if they belonged to the Mormon church, and nearly everyone belonged to the Mormon church.  Didn’t impress me.  People would pester me about which church I belonged to, and when I told them “none,” they’d then interrogate me about my beliefs.  I finally told them I was Tarlonian just to shut them the hell up.  It seemed easier to believe in a faith I’d made up, anyway.  It wasn’t that the Bible stories I’d read as a kid had put me off.  It was the believers, and that creepy way they had of insisting that everyone who didn’t believe just like them was going straight to hell.  I didn’t know much about God, but I figured all-knowing and all-loving meant he didn’t have much interest in condemning good people to an eternity of suffering.  When people started going on about religion, they got damned annoying.  Church, I decided, rotted brains.  Easier to be a good Christian if one avoided Christian churches.

But you couldn’t avoid such things in Page.  It came down to a choice between getting dragged there by an acquaintance I didn’t like and a rather closer friend, so I plumped for the friend.  I went on a Wednesday night, and wore my usual uniform: ripped jeans, steel-tipped boots, metal t-shirt and Slaughter headband (yes, this was the 90s).  My friend was appalled.  “Are you really going to wear that?”

Well yes, yes, I was.  If I couldn’t be accepted as a child of God despite my attire, then I’d know I didn’t belong there, wouldn’t I?

So we went, and we sat, and I got narrow looks from a lot of people.  This was a Holy Roller church.  This was Wednesday night.  Only the rabidly faithful were there.  They didn’t know what to do about this headbanger in their midst.

But Pastor Lynn Peters did.  He walked over, shook my hand, smiled, and said, “It’s wonderful to see you here.”  I’ll tell you something.  Lynn Peters was one of the kindest, most generous, least-judgmental people I’ve ever met in my life, and one of the first things that ever shook my faith in God was the fact he had to leave the congregation to get treatment for cancer.  Where was the justice in that?  Where was God when Pastor Peters needed him?

But for a little while, I fell under the spell.  I believed.  I was saved, and God was great, and I wanted everyone to share that good news.  My friend was overjoyed.

For a few months, I read my Bible and read Christian fiction and tried to live the way God wanted.  I went to church every Sunday.  And that was the first step on the road to becoming an atheist, because if you are a decent human being with half a critical-thinking brain cell left, you cannot sit in church during testimony and hear, “God healed my radio!” without thinking, “Holy fuck.  Millions of children starving and dying in Africa, Pastor Peters dying of cancer, and more tragedies than you can keep up with on the evening news, and God takes the time out of his busy schedule to heal a fucking radio?”  But it had to be true.  She’d tried and tried to fix it, but it didn’t start working until she laid her hands upon it and prayed God to heal it.  And lo, the radio was healed!

But that was just one silly woman, so my shaken-faithed self kept coming back to church, and my persistence was rewarded one day by the youth group hammering on M.C. Hammer for having some dude in a red devil costume in a video.  Yes, that M.C. Hammer.  The Christian preacher one.  But according to our youth group, he was spawn of Satan because he had some dude in a red devil costume in a music video.

I walked out and didn’t come back.

Some people may get the idea that it’s science that made me an atheist, or perhaps the evil influence of PZ.  Truth is, I was an atheist long before that.  It was a long, slow slide.  I held on to my faith, even despite some pretty intense shakes and a breakup with God or two.  Like an abusive relationship, though, I kept going back to him.  And I can’t for the life of me remember why.

I’ll tell you what made me an atheist.  Seeing how different Christian sects treated each other, every one of the hundreds and thousands of them having the exclusive line on Truth™, each sect the only who knew God’s True Will™.  Seeing how conservative Christianity had very nearly destroyed my best friend’s self-confidence, sense of self-worth, and really fucked up his ideas of sexuality.  Seeing how so many different religions all came up with different answers to the ultimate questions of why are we here, who are the gods, and what do the gods want us to do.  If other religions were myths, then why wasn’t Christianity?

But still I held on to God.  Clung to a Karen Armstrong type nebulous deity Somewhere Out There.  I was sure it was the Christian god.  Then I couldn’t be sure anymore.  After years of being pulled in a thousand different directions, I finally chose a different path.  I decided to explore other notions of the Divine in earnest.  I’d give up Christianity for good.  But before I did that, I prayed.  I said, “God, if this is the wrong path to take, show me, and I’ll turn right back.”  I never got a sign.  So I never turned back.

I worshiped Odin for a while, but mostly in good fun.  Beside, he was so much more awesome than the God of the Bible.  Did the Lord give his eye for wisdom?  No.  He already knew shit, and yet didn’t seem to know shit.  How boring.

Explored Hinduism and Taoism and Buddhism, all of which made far more sense than Christianity ever had.  But somewhere along the way, without my realizing it, I stopped believing in the reality of the supernatural.  I’d stopped believing in UFOs and ghosts and faeries, too.  Quite enough that myths and stories were beautiful and fun and made me think about what it meant to be human.  I didn’t need to believe there was anyone out there watching over me anymore.  And I really don’t even know how that happened.  The transition was too natural to take especial note of.

I started calling myself agnostic, and then one night I took the God Delusion Index test, and had to admit that I wasn’t even that anymore.  No, folks, I was pure-D Atheist.  And since then, since I admitted that, I’ve been free to explore the real wonders of the world.  Without guilt.  Without worrying about where God fits in.  Without dealing with all this NOMA shit.

And I’ll tell you something, and this is the point of all of this: the world is a far more wondrous place without deities.

I am overwhelmed every day by the scope of the universe.  It beggars the imagination.  There are things in it that we didn’t even suspect until we started looking at it with telescopes and mathematics and probes.  There are things more beautiful, more majestic, more awe-inspiring and powerful and terrible, than anything I’ve ever read in a holy book.  And when I look at pictures from Hubble, when I read about new discoveries in physics or watch a lunar eclipse, when I learn what we know about those things, I cannot imagine why on earth anyone would need to inject gods into the equation.  They feel distinctly surplus to requirements.  They feel tacky.  It’s like putting tinsel on th

e Queen’s tiara.  Some people look at this stuff and say, “Wow, what an awesome God we have, he created all this!”  And I say God didn’t have the imagination for it.  Not any God I’ve ever heard of.  Not one that stands apart from its creation.  It’s tinsel on tiaras, people.  It’s something humans, not the universe, needs, these gods.

It’s biology, not God, that made me appreciate all creatures great and small.  Evolutionary fucking biology, people.  Back when I was a believer, I’d see a spider, and promptly squish one of God’s own creations.  I sacrificed cockroaches to Odin.  When I fell under the sway of Buddhism, I started feeling vaguely guilty about it.  Fellow creature, after all.  But after studying up on evolution, I see a spider, and I’m enthralled.  They’re magnificent little things.  They’re captivating.  And there’s a story in them, of mutation and selection and a long, slow trip from single-celled critter to these beings who do utterly remarkable things like spinning webs and eating other magnificent critters.

It’s geology, not God, that made me appreciate landscapes.  God didn’t take away my fear of volcanoes, vulcanology did.  There are rocks in my house that could be beautiful to no one other than someone who knows a little something about geology.  There’s stories in the most boring bit of mudstone.  There are other worlds, vanished worlds, contained within the humblest of rocks.  Pick one up, and I used to be holding something created by God.  It hardly seemed worth bothering with, and I’d toss it aside.  Now, I cradle these nondescript brown rocks in my hands, and I see ancient mudflats.  I see the young Earth.  I see star stuff.  I am holding thirteen-plus billion years of history every time I pick up a bit of stone, because every bit has a pedigree that stretches all the way back to the Big Bang.  You religious folks want to tell me the rantings of goat herders have anything to add to that?  I don’t see it.  I don’t get it.  I don’t understand.

I vaguely remember the chasm in my life.  I vaguely remember needing so much to believe in something supernatural, frantically searching for it in myth and religion and pseudoscience, because the world seemed so mundane without magic.  But magic abounds.  There’s magic in an equation.  There’s something divine in chemistry.  Any of the sciences provide more wonder than all of the religions of the world combined.  I didn’t know that, back when religion was presented as the only way to become fully human and science was a useful something we should respect, but a mere human endeavor and not worthy of worship.  What I didn’t realize was that worship is surplus to requirements.  One does not, despite reports, need worship to become fully human.  One does not need the supernatural.  There is quite enough super in the natural, thank you ever so much.

And so now I struggle.  I struggle to comprehend why people cling so tightly to their belief that myth is really real.  I don’t remember why that felt so necessary, and I fail to see how anyone can drink even a few sips of science and need anything more. Why this overriding urge to tinsel tiaras?  Why Biologos and all of the other ridiculous attempts to reconcile science with religion?  Why this death-grip on the rantings of goat herders?  Why this insistence that the fiction be true?  I don’t get it.  I don’t understand.

I wish I did.  Not because I have a hole to fill, or because I envy the believers, but because that stubborn clinging to faith leads to so much misery and denial and danger.  Because it hurts so many of us so.  And because I’m curious as to why, when surrounded by the riches of the universe, one would choose to remain so impoverished.

I Don't Get It. I Don't Understand.

So You Know Exactly How God Did It, Then?

Dana Hunter

You know, sometimes it seems like USA has come to stand for “United States of Appalling Ignorance.”  A lot of people in this country need to read an improving book.  And I’m not talking about the Bible.  That one only seems to improve people’s ability to be smug about their appalling ignorance.


MTHellfire found this bit of outstanding fuckwittery spouted by Bill O’Reilly and took him to the woodshed over it (h/t):

“Tide goes in and tide goes out…you can’t explain that.” Bill O’Reilly recently told Dave Silverman of American Atheists, during a recent airing on Fox News as they debated the integrity of religion.

After her head hit her desk, she went on to advise that, yes, actually, Billo, we can explain how the tide goes in and out.  I’d just like to add that Billo needs to avail himself of a book I recently read, Beyond the Moon.  We are so able to explain tides that entire pop sci books can be written on the subject.

MTHellfire went on to quote, in its full misspelled glory, a screed she’d been subjected to on Facebook, wherein the correspondent (and I use this term loosely) advised that the reason people don’t trust scientists is that they can’t explain where the first speck of dirt came from, but they can tell you how life was created.

Wrong wrong wrong, and not just because the original had enough grammatical errors to make an English teacher contemplate a home lobotomy in an effort to escape the pain.  Scientists can explain how life evolved.  They’re not yet sure how it originated, but they’ve got some promising ideas.  They’re pretty certain it did not include a large bearded deity poofing the whole thing into existence.

As far as the speck of dirt goes, any decent book on cosmology can clue you in.  Dirt is formed of elements.  Elements are forged in stars.  And so on, all the way back to the Big Bang.  So yes, Facebook babbler, scientists can explain where the first speck of dirt came from.  At length, and with equations, if you like.

But it’s not like the “God did it” crowd is likely to listen to the evidence.  If they do, their eyes will all too likely glaze over, and they will take this as a sign: they cannot understand it, therefore scientists don’t really understand it, ergo Jesus!  So let me just turn this around a bit.  I like turning tables.  It adds interest to a room.

Here’s my reply to the “Scientists can’t explain every single detail exactly, so God, so there!” crowd:

Do you know every last detail of how, precisely, God created the universe?  I mean, precisely how he spoke the whole thing into existence?  The complete and excruciating details of how, exactly, God did it, from the first photon to the last squidgy bit on Eve?

No?

Deary me.  Guess I’ll have to just stick with science, then.

So You Know Exactly How God Did It, Then?

Handy Reference Guide to Biblical Rape Laws

Dana Hunter1 Comment

For those who like to take their religion literally, here’s an easy-to-use reference guide:


Lessee… had we been following those guidelines, I do believe I would’ve been married.  Believe me when I say that given the choice between that and stoning, I would have been handing out rocks.

This is one of the reasons I despise fundamentalists.  They don’t think the world has changed since Bronze Age goatherders went on a killing spree.  Oh, some of them say Jesus came and gave us a new, kinder law – then try to tell us the Ten Commandments et al are still in force.  And they somehow conveniently forget the violent bits of the New Testament when telling us how wonderful and gentle Jesus was.  And they enjoy endorsing Paul’s misogynistic bullshit far too much.

Building a modern civilization on Biblical foundations makes about as much sense as licensing only psychopaths as child care providers.

(Tip o’ the shot glass to whoever posted this on Twitter.  Alas, I cannot remember who it was!)

Handy Reference Guide to Biblical Rape Laws

As For Being Shrill, Strident, Etc.

Dana Hunter2 Comments

Once again, the “tone” argument’s making the rounds (does it ever cease?  It circles like a dog attempting to capture its own fugitive tail).  Ophelia Benson’s already pointed out a few of the more annoying examples.  And she led me to this delightful bit by Jason Rosenhouse, which comes just in time, because a dear (and horribly neglected) friend of mine posted rather more sensibly on the issue (hi, Paul!).  I’d meant to come up with something thoughtful and considered that would explain my position, but find I don’t have to.  All one has to do is read Jason’s post and imagine me standing there jumping up and down going, “Me, too!”

I’d quote from it, but I can’t find a single bit I want to excerpt because I want to excerpt it all.  But if you’ve ever wondered what we shrill, strident, unabashed defenders of evolution, atheism, and all things rational are thinking, this is pretty much it in a nutshell.

And remember, my dearest Paul, that we’re not trying to convert the unconvertable.  Nothing we do will reach the men and women who spend their days swearing Jesus rode a dinosaur.  Politeness won’t do it, any more than a good sharp smack will.  Think of the old psychologists-changing-a-lightbulb joke: the only way anything works is if they want to change.

No, we’re rallying the troops and aiming at the fence-sitters.  And as one of those who got knocked off the fence and had some good sense jolted in to me by those horrible shrill Gnu Atheists, as a person who disavowed woo for science because PZ, Orac et al didn’t have any trouble calling a spade a silly little shite, I can testify that being contentious sometimes does more than raise morale for the choir.  Sometimes, it awakens passion, wonder, and courage in people who might’ve sat it out.

It takes all kinds.  Changing the world isn’t a simple task!

(For those who haven’t had the pleasure, I can wholeheartedly recommend Paul’s lovely Cafe Philos blog.  After a long day in the trenches, it’s nice to sit with a cup of coffee and just enjoy some thought-provoking serenity.)

As For Being Shrill, Strident, Etc.

Sunday Read: So An Atheist and a Chaplain Walk Onto a Battlefield…

Dana Hunter

You can’t miss this.  Truly cannot.  Go. Read.  And marvel at the power of faith to make dangerous ridiculous fucking morons out of some people.  I’m going to inflict it on my Christian best friend, because I do so love hearing him howl at people who put the blind in blind faith.  Perhaps someday he’ll forgive me.

Actually a little appalled that sensible soldiers are risking their lives to protect this god-deluded fool.  Kudos to them for doing the job and doing it well!

Sunday Read: So An Atheist and a Chaplain Walk Onto a Battlefield…

In Which I Tell You About That Time I Read the Koran

Dana Hunter

George has this habit of making me think.  Last night, he voiced every thought I wish I had the eloquence to voice on the whole Koran-burning-pastor kerfluffle.  If you haven’t read it, go now and do so.

Sums it up rather wonderfully.  And then, there’s his promised response, Protesting Xenophobic Ignorance.   Yes!  That’s how it’s done!  Counterpoint to useless drivel, beautifully-delivered, and without hyperventilation.  Now, if only the religious folk would learn how to react so productively, we might have a dialogue going, and might even enjoy doing it – even when we point and laugh at each other.  Far better than overheated threats of violence and/or howls of “Help!  Help!  I’m being repressed because these people don’t agree with me!”

So, that, together with PZ’s take, pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter.  Besides, if the First Amendment’s to mean anything, some outrageous idiot has the perfect right to burn mass-produced copies of a book on their own property.  Hell, Christians do it to Harry Potter all the time, and I sincerely hope they’ll do me the same favor.  Might I suggest marshmallows with that religious frenzy?  Seems a waste of a good fire otherwise.

Anyway.  Due to the fact I had to be at work for twelve fucking hours today, I missed the whole Koran-reading thing.  That’s not to say I haven’t read many bits of the Koran, and actually appreciated several.  I’ll cannibalize anything for inspiration, thee knows.  Back in the days when I had a desk, I used to have the self-same edition George was reading sitting by the computer.  When I got blocked, I’d have a good flip through its pages until something caught my eye.  And I thought I’d share some of those moments for Day-After-Read-a-Koran Day.

Wanna know how an atheist finds inspiration in religious literature?  Then read on.  There’s even some religious conflict!

Ah, good, the gang’s all here.  Shall try not to bore you.

I have one completed novel under my belt, written when I was mightily annoyed at the soggy knights-in-tarnished-armor being trotted out as antiheroes at the time.  Alas, it’s set close to the end of the series I intend to write, so its dawn upon the world stage shall have to wait.  In medias res is one thing, but that would be taking the concept a bit far.  Because I write horribly out-of-sequence, and furthermore needed to know where things ended up in order to know where they should begin, I jumped to events arising out of that novel, and ran into two characters I’m going to enjoy foisting upon the literary stage someday.  One is the main evil human dude, and then there’s his accomplice, who practically worships him.  Worships for a good reason, as this passage from the Koran so eloquently captures:

From Daylight:

By the light of day, and by the dark of night, your Lord has not forsaken you, nor does He abhor you.

The life to come holds a richer prize for you than this present life.  You shall be gratified by what your Lord will give you.

Did He not find you an orphan and give you shelter?
Did He not find you in error and guide you?
Did He not find you poor and enrich you?

When I stumbled upon that, it led to much fruitful exploring of the relationship between these two characters, and the conflicts and plot twists that arise from it.  And yes, our poor dear worshiper was literally plucked from an orphanage by a lord – in this case, a Duke – which is why that passage caught my eye.

I have a short story collection planned, to be entitled Cautionary Tales.  The stories span the time and space of my story universe, which is a lot of territory.  What binds them together is the theme of mistakes, hence the title.  And wouldn’t you know it?  The Koran has the perfect title quote:

Cautionary tales, profound in wisdom, have been narrated to them: but warnings are unavailing.

I’ll take it!

There’s some fantastic end-of-days-doom-and-destruction bits in the Koran, ripe pickings for the dire stuff.  I have an entire sequence built around three quotes:

The Cessation: 

When the heavens shall be stripped bare, when Hell shall be set blazing, when Paradise shall be brought near; then each soul shall know what it has done.

The Cataclysm: 

…each soul shall know what it has done and what it has failed to do.

The Cessation: 

Whither then are you going?

Now, you’ll just have to trust me that these fragments work wonderfully well in context, because right now the context is in dire need of a good revision.  But the three perfectly capture a person balanced on the edge of a critical decision, and I love them for that.

I’ve noticed that most religious texts have bits and pieces which, when polished and placed in a new setting, sparkle very prettily.  And in historical context, some of the less-beautiful bits can shine as well.  Take this one:

When the sun shall be darkened,
When the stars shall be thrown down,
When the mountains shall be set moving,
When the pregnant camels shall be neglected,
When the savage beasts shall be mustered,
When the seas shall be set alight,
When the infant girl buried alive shall be asked
for what crime she has been slain,
When the records of men’s deeds shall be laid open,
When the heavens shall be stripped bare,
When Hell shall be set blazing,
When paradise shall be brought near,
Then each soul shall know what it has done.

My Islamic Civ professor noted that in ancient Arabia, it was terribly common for female infants to be exposed.  No value in a girl.  Mohammed frowned on that practice.  She explained that, as repressive as the Koran seems toward women, it was actually a vast improvement over how women were treated in those days.  She also taught Women’s Issues, so although I haven’t fully explored the context myself and a quick read through Wikipedia’s entry suggests a mixed bag, I’ll provisionally take her word for it.  That’s not to say Islam hasn’t stagnated and even backslid in the women’s rights department – it has, and rather severely.  But at least the Koran advised that murdering babies just because they’re not your preferred gender isn’t a righteous practice.  I’ll grant it that.

(Not surprising that Mohammed showed a wee bit more respect toward women than the culture at large tended to at the time.  His first wife was a businesswoman, and one gets the impression she wouldn’t take any shit.  He certainly didn’t risk having multiple wives until she was safely dead.  From what I’ve read of her, I wouldn’t have fucked with her, either.)

The above-quoted passage led to the religious conflict I enticed you with.  A long, long time ago in a workplace far, far away, I’d gone a bit wild with my new color printer and made up a couple of pages to hang at my desk.  One contained that passage; another contained a few quotes from the Tao Te Ching (chapters 2 and 14, if you’re interested), and a third a poem by Neil Gaiman .  During a hiring frenzy, before they ordered new cubicles, it came to pass that we had to share desks: one early and one late person per desk.  And a mystery materialized: when I came in every afternoon, my lovely little hangings were all crooked, and they were developing new tack holes in their corners.  ZOMG WTF??

A coworker explained that when my deskmate came in, she’d spend the first few minutes of her shift busily removing the art from my half of the desk, and the last bit of her shift putting it back up willy-nilly.  So I left her a note: please stop doing that.  Next thing I know, I’m in a conference room with the call center director, my supervisor, and the deskmate, who is slathered in crosses.  She’d called the meeting because she just couldn’t take it anymore.  Those icky horrid quotes from other religions threatened her Christian faith.  She babbled on and on about how very scared they made her.

Oh, yes, you may laugh.  I couldn’t.  I was staring down the barrel of some serious management-power.  After a few moments of stunned silence, in which my supervisor watched me with attentive interest, the call center director looked vaguely worried, and the deskmate looked like she was about to shit herself in fear (sheet-white and shaking she was), I finally said, “So why don’t you just bring in your own poster to cover them up?  You can even use magnets.  There’s a metal strip up there.”

My supervisor nearly passed out.  She’d been holding her breath, you see, because if she’d breathed, she would’ve been screaming with laughter.

The next day, I came in to an enormous, gawdawful Chicken Soup for the Christian Soul poem dangling over my offending art.  Management pulled me in later to advise just how very grown up and diplomatic I was, and thanked me for finding an equitable solution for all.  And yes, we all giggled a bit.  Well, the whole situation had been patently ridiculous.

To this day, if there was one text I would gladly burn, it would be that horrific offense against poetry.  But as I hadn’t bought the poster myself, I refrained from taking it outside for a smoke, though every literature-appreciating coworker begged me to.  That thing caused more angst in the call center than my little bits ever had.  If I ever run across a copy of it for sale, it is Bonfire Day at the Hunter household. 

Bring marshmallows.  I’ll pony up the chocolate and graham crackers.  For it is written, “When life hands you mass-produced ‘literature’ actually worth burning, make s’mores.”

*Update: See this post on Mohammed and Women’s Rights for a good discussion as to why historical context doesn’t mean jack diddly in the modern context.

In Which I Tell You About That Time I Read the Koran

Equal Treatment

Dana Hunter

I’ve been watching this whole Ground Zero (and every other) Mosque kerfluffle with bemusement.  I mean, seriously, people, there are worse things in the world than a Muslim community center.  Take Glenn Beck, for instance. Believe me when I say that given the choice between an hour with him and a day with Imam Rauf, it’s the imam hands-down.  We’d probably have a good conversation, and I wouldn’t come away covered in spittle.

There’s been a sense that, to be a good liberal, you mustn’t say a single thing against moderate Islam or the community center, which is absolute bullshit.  I read an article at Butterflies and Wheels last night that rather put that in perspective:

Again, I can understand that point, and on an everyday basis of course I am pleased to see the emergence of moderates who are seeking to divert Muslims away from extremism, but, at the same time, to exempt moderates from theological and philosophical criticism on this basis is condescending to them as fellow adults and also reinforces a worrying notion that as long as a belief system isn’t likely to immediately result in a bombing campaign then that belief system should be beyond criticism.
[snip]
No-one would consider that their personal political views should be exempt from criticism just because they are non-violent political views, and it would be an absurd and worrying precedent to be set were that the case. Religion is no different. Despite the fact that religious people seem to have a lot emotionally invested in their ‘faith’, the fact remains that religion, just like politics, is an ideology, and as such it is a perfectly legitimate target for criticism and debate, even if it is liberal and moderate in its nature.

Criticism of the sort that we deal out on a daily basis to every other religion and bit of woozy thinking doesn’t automatically put us in the same camp as the xenophobic frothing freaks who are busy drumming up as much anti-Muslim animus as possible.

Some folks in the atheist community aren’t for the community center, nor do they have to be.  They don’t scream with joy at the grand opening of every Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist or any-ol’-sect’s newest building, either.  Most of what I’ve seen from our side is simply equal treatment – religion doesn’t get a pass, not even when it’s getting drenched in Glenn Beck’s raving spittle.  Not that we’re likely to be out there protesting, either, because when it comes down to it, Muslims have every right to build a nice community center for themselves in old clothing stores.  Or in Tennessee, or California, or wherever they may roam.  This is a free country in which you are free to waste your money on invisible sky daddies if you like.  We might critique your faith (sometimes starkly, perhaps even dickishly), and we might grumble about the idiocy of it all, but we’re not going to be out there vandalizing, burning, or otherwise damaging your property, and we’re sure as shit not going to be beating people up because they look Muslim.

Folks who want to lump us in the same category as the lackwits who’ve been out doing all of the above need to remember something:

Yes, of course we have to respect everyone’s right to hold irrational beliefs, but no of course we do not have to respect the irrational beliefs themselves. There’s a difference, and the difference matters.

Indeed it does.

As PZ says on this matter: “I don’t like the Manhattan mosque, but they’ve got the right — as long as I’ve got the right to point and laugh.”  This being America, and the Cons not yet having had their way with the 10,000,000,000 amendments they want to add, and all the existing ones they want to amend into oblivion, we each have that right. Though the frothing fundies don’t realize it, the freedom to worship or not, where and when one chooses, is one of those things that makes America the amazing place that it is.

So, Imam Rauf, don’t let the bastards keep you from building your center.  This is America, you are an American, and you can absolutely waste your time on outmoded superstition, if you like.  Good luck to you.

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Phil's Not Faring Too Well

Dana Hunter2 Comments

I love Phil Plait.  I respect Phil Plait.  I follow him on Twitter, shall soon be following him on teevee, and enjoy him immensely.  But even the people I love best occasionally do things that earn them a gentle savaging from their peers.  And it seems that his Don’t Be A Dick shenanigans (hereafter referred to as D-BAD) earned him said savaging.

Ophelia Benson, Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, Jerry Coyne, and now even Peter Lipson (one of the least-dickish people I’ve ever read) have taken some not-so-subtle swipes, when not unloading with both barrels.  I’m sure there’s plenty I’ve missed.  It doesn’t matter anyway, because the whole thing makes me tired.  This “we must be nicey-nice to the poor delicate believers!” bullshit is threatening to condemn me to a life of early dentures.

Just a few thoughts that have been going about in my head during this whole D-BAD drama, and then I am hopefully done:

1.  If you run with the skeptics, your sacred oxen are at risk of getting gored.  If you faint at the sight of blood, better not run.

2.  There is no safety in numbers.  Just because several million people believe a delusion doesn’t make it true.

3.  Niceness and respect have their place, but all too often, it enables the very woo and uncritical thinking skeptics are supposed to be against.

4.  Enable one woo, and you’ve just thrown the doors open wide with a big welcome sign for all the others.

And, most importantly to me personally:

5.  Those “dicks” were the people who snapped me out of woo-tainted thinking to begin with.  All of the happy-joy-joy nice warm fuzzy people kept me thinking for years that some pretty inane shit was legit, because hey, they didn’t seem to mind.  And I’m not a very unique human being at all, so I highly doubt I’m an anomalous data point.  Without the dicks, I’d still be susceptible to pseudoscience and magical thinking.  Sometimes, what a person really needs is a good, sharp slap by an enormous dick to snap them out of it.

Oh, dear.  I suspect that last bit came out wrong, or led to mental images that have you reaching for the brain bleach.  Sorry ’bout that.

Anyway.  What I’m saying is, dickishness has a place and a purpose.  Religious sentiment should not and must not get a safe little reservation all walled off from skepticism.  (That goes triple for you, Quinn O’Neil, oh ye of the most bloody stupid argument I’ve read all week.)

Religious freedom is a Constitutional right in this country, and we dicks respect that.  But respect for a person’s freedom to believe in irrational bullshit does not translate into treating irrational bullshit with kid gloves, nor should it, and as for those who aren’t tough enough to take it – I’ve got a couple of religious friends you should consult, because they might be able to advise you how to take it on the chin and keep grinning anyway.  They don’t burst into tears and run away blubbering whenever I say something not nice about their faith. 

You know what all that crying tells me?  That the weepy religious believers running with the skeptical crowd aren’t sure their faith is legit.  They’re doubting.  Why else do they need everyone to tiptoe around them?  And how do I know this?  Because I did the same sniveling when my faith started crumbling on its own faulty foundations. And everyone who didn’t do their utmost to reinforce those foundations, or at least refrain from breathing on them, seemed like they were personally attacking me.  Guess what?  They weren’t.  They were going after silly superstition.  If you think your superstition isn’t silly, then shore up your own damned foundations, grow a pair, and deal with the dicks.

And don’t tell me that a few unkind words about your favorite form of woo is enough to sour you on the whole skeptical movement.  That’s just petty and ridiculous.  Besides, there are plenty of accomodationists out there happy to wrap you in their loving embrace.  Not all of us have to.  Not all of us should.

Life is full of slings, arrows, and dicks.  You deal, or you don’t.  And if that sounds harsh, well, it is.  It seems that despite some anatomical disadvantages, I am an enormous fucking dick. 

Doesn’t mean I don’t love you, though, irrationality and all. 

Phil's Not Faring Too Well

I Think George Became Upset

Dana Hunter

And why do I think our own dear, sweet, epitome-o’-kindness George became upset?  There’s a Clue contained in his most recent post:

It was about then that my predatory, reptilian atheist mind wanted to simply lunge forward and devour the theologian in two or three gulps.

Had I been there, I suspect he’d have only gotten about 1 – 1½ gulps in, because I would’ve been devouring with him.  So much for “friendly.”

I have no idea why atheists even try to have “friendly” debates with believers anymore.  I mean, sure, when you’re among friends, you’ll probably keep it friendly, but these “friendly” formal debates look like an exercise in frustration, without a little fire to liven things up.  The theologian spouts vapid crap, the atheist politely shares reality, and everybody in the audience probably ends up feeling like poor dear George except those frightening folks who seem to have had the irritation centers burned out of their brains.  You know the type.  They’re the ones who’ll chirp, “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade!” when they’ve become a quadruple amputee in a horrific accident that also killed their family and their dog.

If you’re not one of the latter, do go enjoy George’s deconstruction of the blessed event.

I Think George Became Upset