As part of my pledge to post one kitten pic a day for the month of June: Here are all three kittens on the bed.
I love how they all look so expectant. Demanding even. Possibly even threatening. Hitchcock, anyone?
Month: June 2012
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Kitten a Day for June: Comet Sliding Off Ingrid's Lap
I realize that I have been derelict in my cat blogging duties. Whenever I meet people and we talk about my blog, one theme consistently comes up over and over again: “When are you going to put up more kitten pictures?” Yeah, yeah, all that atheism and feminism and sex theory is fine — but we want to see the cute kittens!
So I’m giving you this pledge: For the month of June, I will put up one cat picture (or video, when I can figure out how to do that) every day.
Here is Comet, sliding off of Ingrid’s lap.
This is just how Comet rolls. Literally. This “headfirst sliding off surfaces thing” she does is kind of inexplicable; but she’s kind of an inexplicable cat, so it sort of makes sense.
Atheism, Death, and the Difference between Pessimism and Realism
My recent piece, Do We Concede the Ground of Death Too Easily?, touched off some interesting dissension and debate, from people who think that comforting atheist views of death are somehow false, simply rationalizations of the inescapable fact that death is inconsolably terrible. I was going to write a reply, and then realized I’d already written one. Hence, this reprint of an older piece.
What is an appropriate atheist philosophy of death?
And how should atheists be talking about death with believers?
As regular readers know, I’ve been doing a project on Facebook: the Atheist Meme of the Day, in which I write pithy, Facebook-ready memes explaining one aspect of atheism or exploding one myth about it, and asking people to pass the memes on if they like. (Update: No, I haven’t been doing the Atheist Memes of the Day lately. If there’s a huge groundswell of support for the idea, maybe I’ll start them up again.)
Some of my Memes of the Day have generated disagreement from some atheists. Which is fine, of course. I don’t expect or want all atheists to agree about everything. Quite the contrary: one of the great things about atheism is that we have no central dogma that we all have to agree on, and no central authority that we all have to obey.
But the memes that have generated the most vocal and vigorous pushback have surprised me. They have consistently been the ones about death: the ones trying to show that a godless view of death can offer some degree of solace and meaning; the ones that begin, “Atheism does have comfort to offer in the face of death.” Whenever I write one of these, I can almost guarantee that within a few hours — usually within a few minutes — someone will be complaining that the comforting philosophy I’m presenting isn’t comforting at all. Or even that atheism can’t possibly present a philosophy of death that could compete with the comfort offered by religion… with the apparent implication that it’s either deceptive or deluded to pretend that this is possible, and that we shouldn’t even try.
I’m a bit puzzled by this. So I want to explain in a little more detail what I mean by these memes. And I want to try to find out why there’s resistance to the very idea of presenting an atheist philosophy of death that provides meaning, hope, and comfort. Continue reading “Atheism, Death, and the Difference between Pessimism and Realism”
Why Atheists Have Become a Kick-Ass Movement You Want on Your Side
This piece was originally published on AlterNet.
Why would any organization or social change movement want to ally itself with a community that’s energetic, excited about activism, highly motivated, increasingly visible, good at fundraising, good at getting into the news, increasingly populated by young people, and with a proven track record of mobilizing online in massive numbers on a moment’s notice?
If you need to ask that — maybe you shouldn’t be in political activism.
And if you don’t need to ask that — if reading that paragraph is making you clutch your chest and drool like a baby — maybe you should be paying attention to the atheist movement.
The so-called “new atheist” movement is definitely not so new. Atheists have been around for decades, and they’ve been organizing for decades. But something new, something big, has been happening in atheism in the last few years. In the last few years, atheism has become much more visible, more vocal, more activist, better organized, and more readily mobilized — especially online, but increasingly in the flesh as well. The recent Reason Rally in Washington, D.C. brought an estimated 20,000 attendees to the National Mall on March 24 — and that was in the rain. 20,000 atheists trucked in from around the country, indeed from around the world, and stood in the rain, all day: to mingle, network, listen to speakers and musicians and comedians, check out organizations, schmooze, celebrate, and show the world the face of happy, diverse, energetic, organized atheism.
Atheists are becoming a force to be reckoned with. Atheists are gaining clout. Atheists are becoming a powerful ally when we’re inspired to take action — and a powerful opponent when we get treated like dirt. Continue reading “Why Atheists Have Become a Kick-Ass Movement You Want on Your Side”