Video below the fold.
I’m there for roughly a nanosecond, about a quarter of the way in.
I am so proud to be part of this movement, I could burst.
Atheism
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Godless is the New Black: Is Atheism Just a Trend?
“This atheism thing is just a trend.”
“I’m so bored with this atheism fad.”
“You’re just calling yourself an atheist because it’s cool right now, and everyone else is doing it.”
“Oh boy, another hanger-on to the (Dawkins/ Hitchens/ whoever) bandwagon.” (I was particularly entertained when a recent commenter in this blog accused me of parroting Hitchens — when I haven’t even read his damn book yet.)
“You’re just being trendy.”
I’m beginning to see this argument — if you can call it that — a fair amount lately. The newly visible, newly vocal atheist movement… it’s just people trying to be cool, jumping on the bandwagon, finding a new and exciting way to piss off their parents. Denying the existence of God, restructuring your life philosophy to a naturalistic worldview with no permanence and no intent behind it… it’s just a fad.
Like hula-hoops, or swallowing goldfish.
So I want to talk about the trendiness of the atheist movement.
And for the 4,626th time, I’m going to make an analogy to the gay rights movement.
There was a period of the gay rights movement, right around the early ’90s, when “gay” suddenly became very trendy indeed. The news media was doing tons of stories on us; movies and TV shows were being made about us in droves; publishers were publishing our books; politicians were sucking up to us; advertisers were all over us like white on rice.
And then the trendiness passed. Fewer news stories, fewer movies and TV shows, fewer books being published just because they were about being queer. (I suppose I should be sad about this last one, but it’s hard to work up much grief over it, since a lot of those books were really, really bad.)
Now for today’s lesson.
Does any of that mean that the queer movement wasn’t important? That being queer and coming out was just a fad, a flash in the pan, something people did to be cool? That the queer movement was, and is, trivial?
No. Of course not.
The queer movement had been happening for decades before it became trendy. And it’s continued to carry on after the trendiness faded. It’s continued to have major social impact, has continued to shape culture and public policy. Our visibility continues to increase — not in an, “Oh, my goodness, gay people!” way, but in a “taking us for granted and just assuming we’re part of the picture” way. The trendiness came and went; the movement continues.
In fact, none of the trendiness had anything to do with the actual queer movement itself. Nothing had happened within the queer movement to make us trendy. We hadn’t all suddenly started dressing cool or something. (We’ve always dressed cool.)
What had happened was that our visibility had achieved a sufficient critical mass for the rest of the world to sit up and take notice.
The trendiness was not created by us. The trendiness was created by the mainstream world, the largely-straight world. We were willing to ride the wave and use it to our best advantage; but the wave was not of our own making, except insofar as our efforts towards greater visibility and recognition created the conditions in which it could happen.
So what does this have to do with atheism?
It would be foolish to deny that atheism has a certain cachet right now. Atheism is trendy — in the sense that the mainstream world, the mostly-not-atheist world, is suddenly realizing that we’re here… and is finding us fascinating.
Does that mean that atheism is “just a trend”? That atheists are “just being trendy,” and when the fad passes most of us will move on to some other popular philosophy?
No. Of course not.
Like the queer movement, the atheist movement had been going on for some time before it suddenly became trendy. And it would surprise me a lot to see it just disappear. There is a world of difference between the realistic acknowledgment that atheism is somewhat trendy right now… and the dismissive attitude that it’s “just a trend,” or that atheists ourselves are doing it “just to be trendy.”
The fact that atheism is having a big rush of attention and prominence in the public discourse right now doesn’t mean that it’s “just a trend.” Quite the opposite. I think the trendiness phase is a natural side effect of any movement whose numbers and visibility have reached a certain critical mass.
I’m sure there’ll come a point when there are fewer atheist books being published, fewer articles about atheism in the newspapers, fewer people gassing on about atheism on talk shows. But that won’t mean that atheism will just disappear into the invisible margins again. Again, I think it’ll be the opposite. Atheism won’t lose its trendiness when the “fad” passes, when everyone stops doing salsa and starts swing dancing instead. It’ll lose its trendiness when it starts being taken for granted. It’ll lose its trendiness when it becomes part of the cultural and political landscape.
Besides… do you really think people could become atheists just on a whim? Any more than people could become queer on a whim? They’re obviously not exactly parallel situations — I don’t think anyone is claiming that people are born atheist, the way people seem to be born queer — but belief isn’t subject to your wishes in that way. You can’t make yourself not believe in God when you really do… any more than you can make yourself believe in God when you really don’t. It’d be like Pascal’s Wager in reverse.
The “atheism is just trendy” trope is essentially a way of trivializing atheism and the atheist movement… without actually taking the trouble to point out anything that’s wrong with it, or to engage in debate with people who are part of it.
It’s the cool, detached, hipster’s way of dismissing the movement without bothering to think about it.
And phooey on that.
If you don’t want to engage with or think about the atheist movement, then don’t. Nobody’s making you. But if you don’t have anything to say about it, then don’t say anything about it. Don’t go into atheist blogs and forums, don’t get into conversations and debates about the atheist movement, if all you’re going to do is unthinkingly dismiss us by saying that our movement is “just a trend.” It’s insulting and trivializing to us… and it makes you look like a high school kid who thinks that not caring about anything makes you look cool.
Carnivals: Godless, Feminists, and Pozitivities
Blog carnivals!
Carnival of the Godless #79 is up at Aardvarchaeology. My pieces this time: How Can You Have Meaning Without… ? and The Meaning of Death: Part One of Many. My favorite other posts in this Carnival: Why I Am an Optimist by Franklin, on why he finds atheism to be a more optimistic philosophy than theism; Religious Privilege: How Religion, Religious Groups, and Beliefs are Privileged from Austin Cline at About.com; and The Night I Stopped Believing by Susie Bright. This is, I believe, Susie’s first entry into the Carnival, so go say hi and make her feel welcome.
Carnival of Feminists #47 is up at Ornamenting Away. I don’t have any pieces in this carnival, but it still manages to be a good carnival nevertheless. My favorite piece: The Rule, by Natasha at Homo Academicus, on Alison Bechdel’s Movie Rule (“1. There must be two or more women in it; 2. Who talk to each other; 3. About something other than a man”) and how it applies to Pixar films.
And the International Carnival of Pozitivities is up at Slimconomy. This is the first time I’ve been in this carnival, a carnival devoted to HIV and AIDS, and I’m pleased and honored to be part of it with my piece Short Memories: AIDS Denialism and Vaccine Resistance. My favorite other piece in this carnival: HIV/AIDS: The Brazilian Response at The AIDS Pandemic. Happy reading, everybody!
Macro-evolution” Vs. “Micro-evolution”: More Video Fun
Correction to this piece: I was apparently mistaken about the use of the terms “micro-evolution” and “macro-evolution” by reputable biologists. My apologies. I still stand by the gist of this piece and the video it links to; but I regret the error and any confusion it may have caused.
And now, yet another video from my new science video hero, cdk007.
This one is on the supposed difference between “micro” and “macro” evolution. In case you’re not familiar: One of the arguments used by creationists is that, while of course “micro-evolution” (i.e., the evolution of small changes within a species) can be observed in the field and in the lab, “macro-evolution” (i.e., the evolution of one species to another) hasn’t been observed… and therefore it can’t happen by itself, and needs an intelligent designer to intervene and make it happen.
First, just so everyone’s clear: “Macro-evolution” and “micro-evolution” are made-up words concocted by creationists to make themselves sound scientific. Biologists don’t use them. They’re scientifically meaningless. They’re just different stages in the evolutionary process; “macro” is just “micro” over a longer period of time.
Also, “macro-evolution” (if people insist on calling it that) has been observed, both in the field and in the lab. Just so we’re clear.
So this video makes clear the absurdity of this argument, with a beautiful and elegant analogy. Video after the jump.
Continue reading “Macro-evolution” Vs. “Micro-evolution”: More Video Fun”
“If he is infinitely good…”
Just got this in my Quotation of the Day email list, and thought I’d pass it on:
“If he is infinitely good, what reason should we have to fear him? If he is infinitely wise, why should we have doubts concerning our future? If he knows all, why warn him of our needs and fatigue him with our prayers? If he is everywhere, why erect temples to him?”
– Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), from The Necessity of Atheism.
Damn. Leave it to a Regency poet to state the “Omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent — pick two” paradox in such a beautiful, eloquent way.
Solipsism 101, Or, Why “What Is Reality?” Is Not An Argument Against Evolution, Or, Why Scott Adams Is An Idiot
I was having way too much fun at Friendly Atheist the other day, and Ingrid insisted that I share the joke with the rest of the class.
Warning: I have disabled my snark checker for this post.
So via Friendly Atheist comes this story of Scott Adams — yes, of “Dilbert” fame — who is apparently some sort of anti-evolution Galileo fallacy crank. Except only sort of, and in this totally half-assed way. He said the following in an interview on the Freakonomics blog:
Q: What do you see as the actual flaws in the Darwin-esque explanations for evolution, and what possibilities can you see for alternate explanations of the phenomena and evidence?
A: Evolution passes all the tests of science to be treated as a fact. But if physicists someday demonstrate that our perception of reality has no connection to actual reality, which I consider likely, then evolution is just a point of view, albeit a useful one.
My main criticism of evolution has to do with the way it is presented to the public. And beyond that, I enjoy yanking the chain of people who think they believe things for actual reasons as opposed to taking a side.
Okay. Deep breath. Solipsism 101, for Scott Adams, the very slow student in the back:
If our perception of reality bears no connection to actual reality, then NOTHING we see or know or understand is true. NO theory of reality is better than any other. NO theory has more evidence to support it than any other theory — since all evidence is false.
Therefore.
We need to either discard the “our perception of reality bears no connection to actual reality” theory as both useless and highly unlikely (after all, how likely is it that our species would have survived if our perceptions bore no connection whatsoever to reality)…
…or STOP WASTING THE CLASS’S TIME WITH YOUR STUPID ARGUMENTS! If no theory is any better than any other, then why are you wasting all our time trying to convince us that yours is right?
Now, if your point is that our perception of reality distorts actual reality… like, duh. But that, in fact, is exactly why we have the scientific method — to screen out human error and bias and the distortions of our perception and understanding, as much as we possibly can.
And the theory of evolution is overwhelmingly supported by the scientific method, from every relevant scientific discipline there is.
In other words, that’s not an argument against evolution.
It’s an argument for it.
I mean… “what is reality?” You’re really trying to argue “what is reality?” “What is reality?” is only interesting to college freshman. Maybe college sophomores, if they smoke too much weed. It’s an important point to understand… but it’s also an important point to move past already. As many commenters on F.A. pointed out — what, you think we’re living in the Matrix?
And as to the part about liking to yank people’s chains: Oh, for the love of Mike. Not the gadfly fallacy again. “Geniuses throughout history have gotten under people’s skin and made them angry. I get under people’s skin and make them angry. Therefore, I must be a genius.”
If that were true, then Bill O’Reilly would be freakin’ Einstein.
“What is reality.” Please. Grow up. As people in the F.A. comment thread pointed out, when your opponent starts saying, “Well, how do we know what’s real, anyway?” you know you’ve won the argument.
And on that note, I’d like to leave you with yet another video from cdk007, YouTube science video maker par excellence. Titled “All Ideas are NOT Created Equal,” it’s a very clear, very funny video explanation of why we don’t, in fact, have to give all ideas equal time and equal weight. Tagline: “Truth is not a democracy.” Video after the jump.
Liar, Loony, or Lord; Or, How Atheists Make C.S. Lewis Cry
I hate this argument.
It’s the “Liar, Loony, or Lord” argument for why Jesus Christ must, in fact, be the divine son of God. It’s been cited by many Christian apologeticists (apologists?), most famously C.S. Lewis. It’s worded somewhat differently by different people, but it goes more or less like this:
Jesus Christ claimed to be the divine son of God, who everyone has to believe in if they expect to be saved. Anyone who would make that claim would have to be either crazy, a liar, or actually be God. But Jesus can’t have been crazy or a liar. Because…
…and right around here is where the argument starts to break down. But it usually goes something like this: Because he was so cool. Because he said so many wise things. Because many people who saw him at the time believed he was God. (I’ve actually seen it argued that Jesus had to have been God, because his Apostles wouldn’t have sacrificed their lives for him otherwise… as if nobody ever sacrificed their lives for liars or whackos.) Because he inspired so many people. Because he founded a major world religion. Because he just couldn’t have been.
That’s the “Liar, Loony, or Lord” argument.
And I hate it, hate it, hate it.
It’s not just that it’s a bad argument, shot through with more holes than Bonnie and Clyde. Although it certainly is that.
It’s that it’s such an emotionally manipulative argument. It’s an argument meant to make people who argue with you feel like mean, bad people if they keep arguing. It’s an argument designed to prevent further argument.
But let’s talk about the logical holes first.
Continue reading “Liar, Loony, or Lord; Or, How Atheists Make C.S. Lewis Cry”
Humanist Symposium #10
The Humanist Symposium #10 is up at Letters From a Broad. This is the ultra-nifty “atheist blogging on what’s good about atheism rather than what’s bad about religion” blog carnival: it’s always full of smart, interesting godless blogging, and this round is no exception.
My pieces in this Symposium: How Can You Have Meaning Without… ? and The Meaning of Death: Part One of Many, on the meaning of life and the meaning of death, respectively. My favorite other pieces this time around: Why do I care? at Skeptic’s Play, on the excitement of being part of the current atheist movement, and The Universal Moral Grammar at Cafe Philos, on how a universal moral grammar could be hard-wired even though the moral languages vary from culture to culture.
If you’re a humanist blogger and want to get in on the Symposium, here’s the submission form. Happy blogging!
True Love Waits⊠And The Rest Of Us Get On With Our Sex Lives: The Blowfish Blog
I have a new piece up on the Blowfish blog — True Love Waits… And The Rest Of Us Get On With Our Sex Lives — about the not-so-joyful joys of waiting until you get married to have sex. The jumping-off point is a letter I saw on Scarleteen (the sex ed for teenagers website), about a couple who had decided for religious reasons not to have sex until after they got married… and found themselves stuck in a marriage with a seriously disappointing, incompatible sex life. Here’s the teaser:
There are so many directions I could go with this. I could talk about the ridiculous over-emphasis our society places on marriage: the absurdly high expectations we place on it, the idealistic glow we place around it, the assumption that it will magically transform everything, including and especially sex. (And that’s speaking as someone who is herself married — ritually, if not legally — and who does think that her marriage has changed both the relationship and the sex for the better.)
And of course, I could get on my atheist high horse, and talk about the fucked-up effect religion so often has on sexual happiness. That would certainly be a fruitful direction. Of all the dreadful sources of sexual misinformation and general bad sex advice in the world, religion has to take the cake — because it can’t be argued with. It isn’t based on evidence, it’s based on scripture and religious authority and personal faith… and it’s therefore singularly resistant to change, to adaptation in response to evidence or data. About sex, or anything else.
But I want to go in a different direction here.
I want to express my gratitude for the fact that I — and most of us — don’t live in that world anymore.
To find out why exactly the whole “waiting for marriage” thing makes me kind of sad — and why exactly I’m grateful for the sexual world I live in — read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!
The Blind Watchmaker Makes a Watch: A Nifty Video About Evolution
This is beyond neat.
This gets at both the precision and the beauty of the theory of evolution in a way that’s completely clear, and really fun to watch. (If you’re a nerd like me, anyway.)
It’s an animated video demolishing the “watchmaker” argument for creationism.
If you’re not familiar with the “watchmaker” argument, it goes roughly like this: The awesome complexity of the human body proves that it had to have had a designer. It could not have evolved naturally, any more than the parts of a watch will evolve naturally into a watch. (Or, as the more modern version of the argument goes: The complexity of the human body evolving by “chance” or at “random” is as likely as a bunch of machine parts in a hurricane assembling themselves into a 747. “Chance” and “random” in quotation marks, because natural selection isn’t random chance… that’s the whole point.)
The main problem with this argument is this: Of course watches and 747s don’t evolve naturally. They’re not alive. They don’t mutate, and they don’t reproduce.
So cdk007 (who has a bunch of other evolution videos on YouTube) created a computer program putting a bunch of clock parts together that could combine, mutate, and reproduce; put them in an environment where the ones that kept time the best were more likely to survive; and ran the program. Several times, with an assortment of different parameters such as rate of mutation and number of teeth on the gears, to make sure his parameters hadn’t been accidentally fine-tuned.
And got clocks.
Functioning, accurate clocks.
Several times over.
What I really like about this video — apart from just, you know, everything — is how neatly it demolishes the “transitional forms” argument against evolution. You know: “Where are all the transitional forms? Why are there these sudden jumps in the fossil record?” Of course there are transitional forms in the fossil record — lots and lots and lots of them — but there are also some sudden (well, “sudden” by geological standards) jumps. This video makes it very clear, in a vivid, visual way, exactly how and why that happens in a completely natural system of natural selection. If a mutation comes along that’s a very big improvement, it’s going to spread very quickly indeed — so quickly that it probably won’t be captured in the fossil record. Note in this video the rapid transition between the Age of Pendulums and the Age of True Clocks.
BTW, you don’t need sound for this video. There’s a very nice song in the background by Coldplay, but the actual content is all visual. (Not that I’m saying you SHOULD watch it at work…)
Video after the jump, since putting videos before the jump screws up my archives.
Continue reading “The Blind Watchmaker Makes a Watch: A Nifty Video About Evolution”