Hemant: “Draw doodles! What would the lovechild of you and various famous Atheists look like?”
Sleep deprivation induced doodle, or accidentally insightful commentary on diversity in the atheist movement? You decide.
I think Hemant just wanted a cute drawing of our latte colored lovechild.
This is post 46 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.
From formspring.me: What is your theory on the meaning of life?
42
*bows*
…What, you want a real answer? Okay then. Life has no inherent meaning – it has whatever meaning we choose to give it.
*bows again*
…Alright, I really just wanted to devote the 42nd post of Blogathon to the meaning of life question because I’m a big Douglas Adams geek. Not only am I tired, but I hate answering these sort of philosophical questions when I’m awake. So I leave it to you guys:
When asked what is the meaning of life, how do you respond?
This is post 42 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.
The likelihood of me making inappropriate sexual posts has just increased by an order of magnitude. Hooray! To kick it off:
Yay atheism.
(Via PostSecret)
This is post 34 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.
From formspring.me: I have a friend who condescendingly asks me to “explain to him why god isn’t real”. I am not a confrontational person, and I don’t know how to say my part without stepping on his toes. Should I just be straightforward with him…almost harsh or avoid it?
You should do whatever you feel comfortable doing. If you’re not a confrontational person, you don’t have to confront him. Politely say something along the lines of “I don’t feel comfortable discussing a personal issue like religion because I don’t want it to come between our friendship. I don’t ask you about your beliefs, and I would appreciate it if you don’t ask me about mine.” If you want, offer to give him resources that will explain what atheist thinks, and say something like “I don’t want to debate, but if you want to understand my position these do a great job.”
I know why you may feel like you have to “say your part” since we’re in a minority and constantly stress how vocal atheists need to be – but you’ve done your part. Simply admitting you’re an atheist does more good than you may think. You don’t need to be an expert debater on top of that, especially when it seems someone is just looking for a fight.
Can anyone suggests particularly good summary pieces about atheism? Or maybe other advice you would give?
This is post 32 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.
This is a guest post by Mike Brownstein, political science graduate student and blogger at Politics and Pucks.
At the SSA conference last week, Greta Christina said one thing that has been on my mind all week. She said that the secular movement is the first political movement where she has been a part of where she felt that people had her back on LGBT issues. As an ally I take this as a great compliment. One thing that atheists and LGBTQ individuals share it is a sense of pride about their causes and communities. In many cities around the world, LGBTQ communities share this pride with parades and a variety of other events. In some places it is very warmly received. For example, the Stanley Cup made a visit to the Chicago parade. However, in some places LGBTQ events are met with stark religious opposition. One of these places is in Israel.
The pride parade in Jerusalem is one that continues to be starkly opposed. In years’ past, the parade has seen its members severely insulted, and murder is not uncommon. Most of this opposition comes from the very religious nature of the city. This year, deputy Mayor Yitzhak Pindrus suggested the city run a “donkey parade” alongside the pride parade as a counter-protest. Pindrus claimed he wanted to show the “bestial nature of the pride march”. Luckily, the municipality was not in favor of sponsoring this. Although this idea was shot down, counter-protest occurred. Organized protests had posters that claimed that homosexuality is a voluntary disease, “sick perverts, leave Jerusalem”, and even a parade of puppet donkeys. Having been to Israel, this doesn’t surprise me. It is one of those major cities (similar to Cincinnati, OH), that has a conservative mind set. It should be expected for the religious symbolism, but at the same time, hate like this is unacceptable.
If there’s something to take from this, it is that LGBT as well as church-and-state issues exist globally. Israel, like the United States, has problems with ignorance on issues of LGBT and religion. Although America’s problems with religion are different, the similarity with Israel is sometimes sickening. The religious institutions there are very entwined with the government too. Even in another highly democratic country exist the same religious conflicts.
Something else that we should take into consideration, is that the LGBT community is our ally and vice versa. After hearing Greta Christina’s speech I’m even more convinced that our groups should be supporting one another. For one, there is considerable overlap between the communities. Not to mention the Purdue Society of Non-Theists are a part of the Queer Student Union. We should be using that to our mutual benefit, because we are fighting the same people about similar issues. As an ally, I’m proud to be a part of the secular movement, and happy that my LGBT peers feel safe that people like us exist!
This is post 26 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.
From formspring.me: How do you personally come to terms with “having to close the book before it reaches the climax”?
For anyone who’s confused, that’s a line I use in a post earlier today for describing death.
And to be honest, I don’t have a very satisfying answer. I just kind of… don’t think about it.
That doesn’t seem like a good method, but it’s the best one I have. Obsessing over death can be paralyzing, and I used to fret about it way too much when I was younger. But one of my mantra’s in life is “Don’t worry about anything that may happen that you have absolutely no control over,” and I’ve learned to apply that to the issue of death as well.
Since I’ve done that, I’ve been significantly happier. It just does not help to stress about the inevitable. I will die. You will die. We can take actions to increase the probability of that happening when we’re much older, but we can’t achieve immortality (at least not yet). Wasting the precious time we do have on our planet worrying about the inevitable seems like a shame to me.
People often give atheists a hard time, saying that our outlook on life is bleak because we think this way. They say even if we enjoy life and aren’t all committing mass suicide, the lack of an afterlife is just too dreary for them to ever be an atheist. There may be many good arguments against religion, but that comfort alone is enough for them to believe.
To an extent, I think they’re right. Certain ideas about the afterlife are very heartwarming. Like I said before, I’d much prefer reincarnation over ceasing to exist. Even heaven would be nice. That’s an area I think atheists really need to work on if we’re to deal with our growing numbers, and keep them growing. We need psychologists, philosophers, poets, artists – whoever – to come up with equally comforting but true messages about atheism.
But to be honest, I was much more depressed, worried, and stressed about death when I was an agnostic and deist. Basing my philosophy on unknowns just led to constant pondering – no, obsessing about death. I’m not saying all agnostics and deists are this way, but it just did not work for me. “Nothing happens when you die” was a much more comforting message to me than “You have no idea what happens when you die, so constantly freak out about which outcome is actually right.”
Thinking about death still makes me a bit melancholy. I’ve been lucky to not lose anyone extremely close to me yet, and I do worry about how I’ll handle it when it happens. The Flaming Lips have a line that goes, “Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die?” It still gets to me whenever I hear that song because, well, it’s not exactly a cheery thought. But then I think of some of the religious people (granted, a minority) who are actually happy when people die. Who rejoice when their love ones pass away because they think they’re actually in a better place. Who can’t wait for death themselves. I rather know the truth and appreciate the true loss and sadness of a friend dying. To deny that, to me, is more terrifying than death.
This is post 21 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.
Loving County, Texas is the only county in the US that does not have a single religious group:
…What? That’s because the whole county only has a population of 67? Oh, well then. They have plenty of space if we all move there, then! Just think, a place for all the ostracized atheists in the US. Need to run away from fanatically religious parents? Sick of being the town atheist? Have I got the place for you!
…What? It looks like this? Oh, well then… It looks so, uh, quaint. The kind of place you’ll learn to love, especially if hordes of atheists take it over. I mean, just imagine how awesome it would be to never have to worry about accidentally offending religious people, or creationism being taught in schools, or religious laws being passed. If we bought enough land we could take over the local government!
…What? Libertarians already tried to do that and failed? Oh, well then… …poop.
Libertarians, always dashing my dreams.
(Via r/atheism)
This is post 19 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.
I like the blog Atheist Revolution, but I think Vjack may have missed the boat this time:
Look at the trailer for the upcoming film, “Easy A” and imagine what this could do to the meaning of a favorite atheist symbol. If this ends up being a hit, people will likely mistake our symbol some sort of odd promotion of the film. Admittedly, almost nobody outside the atheist community seems to recognize this symbol, but now they might assume we are die hard fans of this flick.
Here’s the trailer for “Easy A”:
Vjack makes it clear that he knows the scarlet A stood for adulterer long before atheists chose to use it as our symbol… so then what’s the problem? We co opted it because it was a symbol of religious persecution. If this movie helps publicize that, then good for it! The general public is way more accepting of sexual promiscuity than atheism anyway – it doesn’t exactly hurt our cause to be associated with it. Hell, we already are.
From the trailer alone, I’m actually kind of excited about this movie. Taking a dig at judgemental religious people? A strong willed female standing up for sexual women at her own risk? And doing that because it’s the right thing to do, not just for personal gain? I’m having a geekgasm over the possibility of feminist teen movie!
This is post 17 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.
People in the skeptical and atheist movements often ask, “Where are all the women?” We’re here, but we’re still a minority. The next question someone will ask is, “How can we get more women to feel welcome?” Greta Christina hit the nail on the head during her talk at the Secular Student Alliance conference:
Defend us.
I don’t mean you have to act like our knight in shining armor, swooping in to save us frail women when someone says something particularly nasty. Implying that we can’t defend ourselves is belittling. But joining us in calling shenanigans on sexism helps us feel welcome.
For example, Greta commented on why GLBT people felt so comfortable in the atheist community. Whenever she would read something homophobic in a forum or blog comments, a swarm of straight allies would descend to rip that idiotic argument to shreds.
When you’re in the minority, it helps to know that even the majority has your back. For one, it gets tiring being the only one defending a certain topic – and when you’re already in the minority, you can devote a considerable amount of time and effort to its defense. For once Greta didn’t have to lift a finger, and that felt good. But more importantly, it lets you know that you have allies. It’s a lot easier to feel comfortable in a community when you know others got your back.
Life isn’t quite as pleasant when you go around assuming all men are misogynistic pricks. And the vast majority of feminists do not believe that, despite our man-hating stereotype. But that stereotype is so persistent because there are women who are on their guard – I’m sure we’ve all met at least one by now. But when you think of it, it makes sense. When all women see are either misogynistic men or silent men, it’s easy to incorrectly lump the silent ones with the misogynists.
The same thing happens with Christians. Christians who are homophobic, misogynistic, and downright nasty are in the minority. But when pro-gay, feminist, friendly Christians are silent, we wrongly assume that the silent ones are the same as the unsavory ones. It means a lot to see a Christian group actively defending gay rights because it makes gay rights seem less like a secretive minority agenda.
And the same holds for women. The more men rip apart sexist arguments without needing prompting, the more comfortable women will feel. I love it when a sexist asshole comments here and is absolutely obliterated by my blog readers – it makes me feel safe in my community.
Now, I don’t mean you should blindly defend everything any woman ever says. Women can be wrong too, and yes, even women can say sexist things sometimes. But I do recommend counting to ten before calling out a woman as saying something sexist. I’ve seen a lot of comments here and elsewhere who think they’re calling out sexism, but are actually pretty damn sexist. If you feel like you need to brush up your knowledge on sexism, I’d recommend the Feminism 101 FAQ.
I think PZ is an excellent example of an ally. For example, take the end of his post on the Girls Gone Wild “implicit consent” debacle (emphasis mine):
As you might guess, skeptical women are clear that this was a violation, and they can reasonably feel threatened by such a decision, but even worse — they can feel threatened by fellow skeptics and rationalists who react inappropriately to this case. I was left feeling rather queasy about the discussion on the JREF forums. A good number of people did respond appropriately, deploring the decision, but quite a few others react by either making jokes about breasts (way to make women welcome, guys), or by legalistic analyses that justify it in various ways, which all boil down to the “she was asking for it” defense, with a bit of the “she was too greedy to ask for so much compensation” argument.
Look. It’s simple. Violations of personal liberty are wrong. There is no reasonable excuse to justify pulling someone else’s clothing off in public, against their will. There is no reasonable excuse for profiting off such actions. Don’t even try to defend it, accept it and move on. Don’t make jokes about the inherent humor in assaulting women. Don’t make it easier for women to be made uncomfortable in the presence of men.
[…]There has been a lot of discussion of “dicks” in the skeptical community lately, where “dicks” are people who are rude and brash. I think we’ve been using the wrong definition. If you’re someone who does any of the above, or who thinks with a pretense of calm rationality that we can justify what happened to that woman, then you are a DICK with capital D-I-C-K.
So, men, if you want more women in the skeptical and atheist movement? Call out the dicks.
This is post 15 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.
I know some of you donors may have been perplexed:
Secular studs, indeed.
(Hat tip to Martin for pointing this out (and for donating!))
This is post 13 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.
