If You Weren’t An Atheist, What Would You Be?

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I have a nosy question for my godless readers. If you had to pick a religion to belong to, which one would it be?

Is there any religion that appeals to you, with rituals and politics and practices that strongly resonate with you? Do you ever have moments, listening to a church choir or attending a peace march, when you wished you had whatever it is believers have — and if so, which believers made you feel that way? Is there any religion that you’d kind of like to join, if it weren’t for that pesky business of believing in God?

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To put it another way: Let’s pretend God exists. Let’s say He/She/It appeared to you, in a way that completely convinced you that He/She/It was real and not a figment of your imagination. Let’s say He/She/It asked for your worship… but said you could do it any way you wanted to. What would it be?

Quick guideline here: “I’d worship God by sitting on the sofa eating chocolate chips and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is not an acceptable answer. As Russell’s Teapot said, it has to be a real religion, “not just made-up by someone.” 🙂

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Myself, I usually lean towards Quaker. I like the leaderlessness of it: the idea that a worship service involves anyone speaking who feels moved to do so, instead of one person who supposedly knows more about God than anyone else standing in front of the room telling everyone else about it. I like the peacefulness of it, the spareness, the quiet. I like the idea of a worship service where you sit together in a quiet, unadorned place, each person looking inside themselves but everyone doing it together.

Plus I like the idea of a religion that has, as one of its central tenets, the notion that they don’t know everything; that truth is available to everyone, not just Quakers; and that believers need to be flexible and adaptive about their beliefs.

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And of course, I like the whole social justice aspect of it. I like the Quaker history of involvement in the Underground Railroad; their history of anti-war activism; their history of supporting racial and gender equality.

If it weren’t for that pesky business of believing in God and Christ, I’d be all over it.

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But Christ is a deal-breaker for me. There are way too many things about the Christ myth that give me the willies. And besides, Christianity has been in my face my entire life. It’s by far the religion I’m most intimately familiar with… and as a result, it’s the religion that angers and upsets me the most. Christianity in America is, overwhelmingly, a ghastly example of political and cultural hegemony at its worst, and I want no part of it — even a radical, progressive, alternative-y part.

So paradoxically, the very thing that makes the Quaker religion feel familiar and resonant — the fact that it’s part of the Christian tradition, where my own cultural roots lie — is the very thing that makes me flinch away from it.

Continue reading “If You Weren’t An Atheist, What Would You Be?”

If You Weren’t An Atheist, What Would You Be?
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Carnival of the Godless #79, and Humanist Symposium #11

Carnival time again!

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The Humanist Symposium #11 is up at The Greenbelt. The Humanist Symposium is probably my favorite blog carnival; it’s the godless carnival that focuses on the positive side of non-belief. My piece in this Symposium: Godless is the New Black: Is Atheism Just a Trend? My favorite other pieces: Life Without Death at Questions and Chaos, a beautiful exploration of why the finality of death is such a necessary part of life; and Join Me in Welcoming … (Name Withheld), an extremely touching piece on the difficulties of being in the atheist closet.

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And Carnival of the Godless #79 is up at Sexy Secularist. My pieces in this Carnival: “A Relationship Between Physical Things”: Yet Another Rant On What Consciousness And Selfhood Might Be, and the abovementioned Godless is the New Black: Is Atheism Just a Trend?. My favorite other pieces in this Carnival: Margaret Somerville is at it again from Metamagician and the Hellfire Club, on why a visceral “yuck” reaction does not constitute a serious ethical position, and Your Almighty Update at Riding With Rickey, a very funny piece on the latest manifestation of the Divine in a food substance.

If you’re a godless blogger and want to participate in the Carnivals, it’s easy. Here are the submission forms for the Carnival of the Godless and the Humanist Symposium. See you in the atheosphere!

Carnival of the Godless #79, and Humanist Symposium #11

Thanks

I was planning to put this up on Thursday, but I was out of town for the long Thanksgiving weekend, and it turned out that I didn’t have wireless access and couldn’t connect my laptop to the Internet. Sorry for the late-itude. I’m home now, and will be back to my regular blogging schedule as soon as I get some sleep.

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It’s traditional, on or around Thanksgiving, for writers to write about the things they’re grateful for. Family and friends; happiness and comfort; health and home — these typically lead the pack.

Of course I’m deeply grateful for all that. But I don’t think I have anything very original or interesting to say about it. So I want to say this instead:

I’m grateful for the atheist blogosphere.

(Or, as I’ve been calling it lately, the atheosphere.)

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The quote unquote “new atheist” movement, and in particular the atheist blogosphere, has given me the sense of being part of something bigger than myself. It’s given me the experience of participating in an important social movement that’s changing society in ways nobody can predict, and that’s touching people I will never meet or even know about. It makes me feel both powerful and humble… both in really cool, amazing ways.

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I haven’t felt this way since I was immersed in the dildo wars, the raging debate over porn and sex toys and bisexuality and SM in the feminist/ lesbian communities of the late ’80s and early ’90s. When I get emails or comments from people saying that I changed the way they think or live, that I helped them out of a suffocating religion or inspired them to write, it gives me that rare flush you get when the chatterbox in your head shuts up for ten seconds and you feel completely present in your skin, and in your world. It makes me feel alive, and connected, and like the meaning of my life is being fulfilled. Being part of the atheist blogosphere makes me feel like part of history; like I’m jumping into the river and helping to shape its direction, instead of just camping out on the riverbank watching it go by.

And it’s more fun than a barrel of monkeys.

For all of that, I’m grateful.

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Gratitude can be a tricky emotion for the godless. When we feel grateful for good fortune that we didn’t particularly earn, we don’t always know who to thank for it. Sometimes there isn’t anyone to thank, and the gratitude just sort of floats out into the ether with no object to attach to, in a way that feels vaguely disconcerting.

But in this case, there are people to thank. And so I’m thanking them.

I’m not going to thank all my favorite atheist bloggers by name. I know I’d miss someone, and that wouldn’t be right. But I am inexpressibly grateful that, when I started to blog, the atheist blogosphere, and the contemporary atheist movement, was here for me to come home to. Y’all rock.

Thanks

Perfect Porn and Other Myths

This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog. Please note: This piece discusses, not so much my personal sex life, but my tastes and preferences in porn, and it does so in some detail. If you don’t want to read that, please don’t.

It’s almost a throwaway line. And yet it’s stuck with me for weeks.

“I figured out pretty soon that, to get a video that pushes all your buttons and doesn’t grate on any squicks, you have to win the lottery and produce it yourself.”

Adele_school
This is spanking model Adele Haze, in a blog piece titled Why I Modelled for Lupus Pictures. It’s a smart, insightful piece about why she was willing — not just willing, but happy — to perform in a spanking video for a production company that she knew was going to physically push her much, much harder than she liked. The piece has some compelling implications, not just about spanking porn or even porn in general, but about any kind of sexual relationship, and indeed any kind of job.

I’ve written about those implications elsewhere. But right now, I’m fixated on this one comment she made almost in passing. Again:

“I figured out pretty soon that, to get a video that pushes all your buttons and doesn’t grate on any squicks, you have to win the lottery and produce it yourself.”

I think this is one of the smartest things I’ve read about porn. I think it has important implications, for both porn critics and porn consumers alike. And I think it has even bigger implications for porn creators.

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I’ve been a porn consumer for close to thirty years now, and a porn critic for over a decade. And as both a consumer and a critic, I’ve definitely fallen into the trap Haze is talking about. I’ve griped about porn — videos, stories, photo collections, comics, whatever — being too arty, and I’ve griped about them being too raw. I’ve griped when porn took forever to get to the good parts, and I’ve griped when it rushed to the sex too soon. I’ve griped when the porn I was watching was too soft-focus and romantic, and I’ve griped when it treated its characters like meat. I’ve griped because the performers didn’t spank as hard as I liked, and I’ve griped because they spanked too hard.

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In other words, I’ve definitely griped about porn because it either didn’t push all my erotic buttons just right, or because it grated on some of my squicks. I’ve griped when it hasn’t fallen into my perfect window: the perfect amount of artistry without sacrificing spontaneity, the perfect amount of teasing and buildup to get me worked up without getting me frustrated and bored, the perfect degree of roughness or kink to be convincingly real without being terrifyingly brutal.

And I — along with every other porn consumer and porn critic — have to acknowledge that this really isn’t fair.

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Of course I have a right to my erotic buttons. I have a right to express those erotic buttons. And I have a right to seek out porn that pushes them. Absolutely. But it isn’t right to act as if porn creators have done something wrong for failing to push them.

Besides, and much more to the point…

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The porn that I’ve loved most passionately hasn’t necessarily pushed my erotic buttons at all. And some of it has definitely grated on my squicks. The porn that I’ve loved most passionately has been the porn that most effectively got across how the people in it felt about the sex they were having — regardless of whether the sex they were having was sex I wanted to have, or even wanted to fantasize about.

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If I can be drawn inside the head and the skin of the performers/ characters/ models, if I can be made to really feel what it feels like to be this person/these people having this sex and to feel what they find hot about it, the actual content can be just about anything. It can be content that would usually bore me, and it can be content that would usually squick me. If I can get why they find it hot, I can generally find it hot myself.

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This is the main reason I’m so rabid about authenticity and enthusiasm in video porn. An authentic, enthusiastic performance in a porn video will completely bypass the presence or absence of my erotic buttons, and will turn me on by the sheer force of the performers’ own excitement. A competent piece of push-the-buttons porn will only get me off if it hits my buttons successfully.

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And I think that’s a lot of what’s wrong with so much porn. Mainstream video porn especially, but it’s true of almost any commercial porn. I think way too much porn focuses way too hard on maximizing their button pushing and minimizing their squick-grating (emphasis on minimizing their squick-grating). They spend way too much time and energy checking off boxes on the “positions and sex acts” checklist (did we get the blowjob? did we get the reverse cowgirl? did we get the anal?) and making sure none of the “avoid at all costs” boxes get touched (did the guys’ dicks touch each other? does the girl look even slightly fat?). And as a result, they all too often forget the entire point of the exercise — namely, to show how exciting it feels to have great sex.

Perfect Porn and Other Myths

Atheist Limericks!

Over at Friendly Atheist they’re having a contest for who can write the best atheist limerick. I’ve submitted several of my own, and thought y’all might like to see them.

First, I just had to do a Nantucket one:

Nantucket
An apologist man from Nantucket
Had excuses that started to suck it.
His mind twisted and turned
And he feared he would burn,
‘Til at last he decided, “Oh, fuck it.”

Then we have the one actually based on my own blog:

Preacher
Said the Reverend, “I know I’m too smart
To rely on just faith a la carte.
My belief isn’t treason
It has evidence and reason —
Like this warm fuzzy glow in my heart.”

Then there’s the one that I consider the best of the lot (although it does require some familiarity with standard atheist/ creationist debates):

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Why reject our dear Lord’s great command
When the reasons for faith are so grand?
There’s the Bible so sweet
The flagellum so neat
And bananas fit right in your hand!

And finally, we have my sentimental favorite:

Harry_potter_half_blood_prince
Harry Potter’s a sin? Quick! Escape!
From the Christians who’d whip me in shape!
But I’d join any church
Leave my pals in the lurch
If it meant I could do it with Snape.

If you want to pitch in with your own, please do. But do cross-post at Friendly Atheist, since that’s where the contest is, and some of the submissions are doozies.

Atheist Limericks!

True or False? Helpful or Harmful? The Two Different Arguments About Religion

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There’s something I’ve been noticing lately about the ongoing, increasingly-robust religion/ atheism debate. And that’s that it’s really two debates. Very different debates… which sometimes get confused and conflated.

By both believers and atheists.

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There’s the debate about whether religion is true or false. God, the immortal soul, mystical spiritual energy — do they exist, or do they not exist? Is religion an accurate hypothesis about the world, or is it a mistaken one?

Or, to be more accurate, since the God hypothesis can’t be definitely disproven: How plausible is it that God exists? Is it a reasonable hypothesis supported by evidence, or is it a self-contradictory myth that requires a metric shitload of circular defense mechanisms to support it?

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And then there’s the debate about whether religion, on the whole, has a positive or negative influence on the world. Does it provide comfort, hope, social cohesion? Does it promote gullibility, intolerance, the rejection of reality in favor of dogma? If both, then which is more common, or more important? Can the good things done in the name of religion really be chalked up to religious belief itself, or would people have done them anyway, and religion just gave them the inspiration? What about the bad things done in the name of religion, ditto?

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In this debate, one side typically lines up Gandhi, Martin Luther King, charities and hospitals run by religious groups for centuries, etc. The other side lines up the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, witch burning, 9/11, and so on. And these avatars for religious evil and religious good all duke it out on the Internet, like some wild, absurdist multi-player computer game. (The Simpsons episode where Homer’s hallucinations and Mr. Burns’s hallucinations get into a battle in the ski cabin comes to mind…)

The thing is, these really are two different debates. Religion could theoretically be correct, but still overall be a harmful influence on human society. And it could theoretically be mistaken, but still overall have a beneficial effect. (Although… well, we’ll get to that in a moment.)

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But I’ve noticed that these debates tend to slop over into each other. People will be arguing over whether some piece of religious doctrine is plausible… and then someone will start going on about Martin Luther King or the Inquisition.

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The reverse also happens, of course. People will be debating whether religious charities and social movements outweigh religious atrocities and intolerances, or whether it’s the other way around… and then someone starts saying, “But it doesn’t matter, because my religion is the Truth, inspired by the True God, and all the religious atrocities in the world aren’t an argument for why it’s false.” Or they start saying, “But it doesn’t matter, because religion is a mistaken theory about how the world works, and all the charities in the world aren’t an argument for why it’s true.” The slopover happens from both sides.

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And that makes for some very muddled, meandering, frustrating debates. It is worth remembering that each side could theoretically be right about one of these questions and wrong about the other. Again, religion could theoretically be correct, but still overall have a harmful influence on human society. And it could theoretically be mistaken, but still overall have a beneficial effect. These really are two separate arguments, and I think we might be better off keeping them separate.

Except…

See, here’s what makes this even more confusing. Here I am, arguing that these are two separate debates, and that in the interest of clarity we should try to keep them separate.

But I also think they’re connected.

Because if religion is mistaken — and I think that it is — then that makes it harmful.

By definition.

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Basing your life on a false premise is going to lead to you bad decisions. It’s the old “garbage in, garbage out” saying about data processing. You can see this in very mundane, practical areas of life. If you think fish are poisonous and inedible, you’re more likely to starve and die out when you move to an island nation. If you think malaria is caused by unhealthy vapors in the atmosphere, you’re more likely to make bad decisions about public health policy. Etc.

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Of course this applies to religious premises as well. Possibly even more so. If you believe in a rain god, you’re more likely to make bad decisions in times of drought. If you believe that God will be on your side in all battles because he wants your people to conquer the world, you’re more likely to make bad decisions about military strategy and foreign policy. If you believe the Apocalypse is coming in the next century, you’re more likely to make bad decisions about the need to prevent global warming.

And when the premise is not only a false one, but one that actively resists correction the way religion does — one that actually has an elaborate system of defenses against correction — the “garbage in, garbage out” problem is compounded.

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In particular, the idea that religious faith (i.e., believing in something for which there is no hard evidence and can be no hard evidence) is in itself a virtue, something that makes you a good person… this idea leads both individuals and societies not only to a resistance to reality that contradicts their faith, but to a general gullibility. It makes people extra-vulnerable to faith healers, charlatans, frauds of all stripes, from Jim Bakker to Richard Roberts. And that’s harmful for very obvious, very pragmatic reasons.

So in other words:

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Even if there were no religious intolerance or oppression; no Spanish Inquisition or 9/11; nobody burned at the stake for being Protestant or Catholic or insisting that the earth moves around the sun… even if none of the awful shit that happens in religion’s name ever happened, or had ever happened in all of human history, I think religion would still, on the whole, have a harmful effect.

Simply because it is mistaken.

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What’s more, I agree with the point Daniel Dennett made in “Breaking the Spell.” He argues that, because religion isn’t based on actual reliable evidence but only on tradition and personal experience and other stuff people made up, and is in many cases flatly contradicted by both evidence and reason, this actually makes people cling to it harder, defend it more passionately… and behave more oppressively and intolerantly towards non-believers and infidels and others who put chinks in the armor.

Intolerance
Obviously there are exceptions to this rule. There are individual people and individual faiths that are tolerant and ecumenical, towards people of different faiths and towards people with no faith at all. But alas, hostile intolerance toward those who don’t share the faith appears to be the rule in religion, not the exception… so much so that it seems to be, not a foundational cornerstone of religion exactly, but one of its most natural and common consequences. Intolerance towards doubters and outsiders is one of religion’s primary defense mechanisms, one of the main ways that it stays alive.

So back to the actual topic at hand:

I do still think that, as a general rule, the “true or false” and the “helpful or harmful” arguments are different arguments, and that the religion debates would be more productive if they were kept more separate.

But I also think it’s worth remembering this:

A mistaken idea is pretty much always a harmful idea.

Just by definition.

True or False? Helpful or Harmful? The Two Different Arguments About Religion

Commenting Problems

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Typepad is having sporadic problems with commenting on their blogs, including this one. Occasionally, for no apparent reason, people are posting comments that are showing up in the “Recent Comments” list (as well as in my own blog management software), but that aren’t actually appearing in the comments themselves.

If this happens to you, please let me know. When it happens, I can fix the problem temporarily by re-publishing the entire blog. (Typepad is working to fix the problem permanently.) So as always, if you’re trying to comment and it’s not working, please let me know. Sorry for the inconvenience, and thanks for your patience.

Commenting Problems