“The Church Of Self-Worship” (or, “are you faster than a unicorn?”)

You don’t believe in gods or demons,
Spirits, souls, or elves—
You’ve got to worship something,
So it has to be… your selves!

You don’t believe in hell or heaven,
So I’ve heard you say
You say my God is make-believe—
To whom, then, do you pray?

You look to find life’s meaning
With no God to help you search
You call it “Sunday Fellowship”—
We both know, it’s a church

Nearly everything you tell me
You can see, I’ve had to change
But there’s one thing I see clearly—
Your religion sure is strange!

So my aggregator keeps trying to point me to a story someone wrote about the “atheist church of self-worship” (nope, not gonna link). Now, the Sunday Assembly is not for me, but I have nothing against it whatsoever for the people who enjoy it. But, please–it is not an atheist church (that label was not chosen but was thrust upon it by others), they do not gather to worship anything at all, and they are not the ultimate in egotists, worshipping themselves in place of a god.

It’s as if there is a narrative that must be followed–that the writer can get to the point of “they don’t believe in God”, but can’t follow that path one step further. Whom do they worship, if not God? To whom do they pray, if not to God? Why would anyone gather with like-minded others on Sunday morning, if not to bother God?

It’s like one person claims that unicorns are really really fast; another says “you know, unicorns don’t exist”, and the first concludes “you think you are faster than a unicorn! How presumptuous of you! What arrogance! What ego!”

And no, that makes no sense. Neither do the “atheists have made gods of themselves” crowd. It’s just annoying.

Natural Experiment On Gun Availability

If you give the people weapons, is this good or is it bad?
I suppose it all depends upon their aims
Up to now, there’ve been no data, so the arguments we’ve had
All rely on someone’s a priori claims

“But of course we’d be much safer if most everyone was armed!—
Cos the criminals would know they could be shot!”
“No!—more guns would mean more shootings, and more children being harmed!”
But it’s arguments, not evidence, we’ve got.

Now a natural experiment (Missouri” is its name)
Has an answer—and for some, it’s no surprise;
Cos a jump in shooting homicides has policy to blame—
Ease of access means that murder rates will rise.

Via the BBC today, a report (from the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting, like yesterday’s post) on a natural experiment on the effects of gun control legislation. Missouri, in 2007, repealed their requirement for licensing and vetting by local law enforcement before purchasing a handgun. So… was this good or bad? My gun-loving friends would predict an immediate drop in crime, now that handguns are easier to purchase, and potential victims are more likely to be armed. The data?

Reporting soon in the Journal of Urban Health, the researchers will say that the repeal resulted in an immediate spike in gun violence and murders.

The study links the abandonment of the background check to an additional 60 or so murders occurring per year in Missouri between 2008 and 2012.

“Coincident exactly with the policy change, there was an immediate upward trajectory to the homicide rates in Missouri,” said Prof Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research.

“That upward trajectory did not happen with homicides that did not involve guns; it did not occur to any neighbouring state; the national trend was doing the opposite – it was trending downward; and it was not specific to one or two localities – it was, for the most part, state-wide,” he told BBC News.

So… stopping a bad guy with a gun might involve making it harder for that bad guy to get the gun in the first place. According to the data. Which might explain why the NRA worked so hard to keep the data from being compiled and analyzed.

These arguments, these questions–they do have answers. There are data that could be examined. We need not simply argue from first principles.

And my friends who believe that the most important freedoms of all are those protected by the second amendment can start framing their arguments in terms of how many lives this freedom is worth. Freedom isn’t free, after all. We can *expect* a cost in human lives–like in war, some things are worth a cost in blood and lives.

So… 60 extra murders per year in just one state. Freedom isn’t free. But hey, these deaths buy you the ability to buy a handgun without a background check! So you can feel safer! Mind you, the actual data show that this feeling is an illusion, but you have a right to this illusion!

“Sports Chaplains” Hunting Big Olympic Game

I’ve come all the way to Sochi
With an overarching goal-
I’m not here to win a medal—
No, I’m here to save your soul:

Have you ever heard the story
Of the savior on the cross?
Who redeemed us all from sinning
Through his sacrifice and loss?

I can see it in your eyes—you’re
Too polite to walk away;
So you’re gonna hear a story
I can talk about all day

You have shown your dedication
You’re the best at what you do
Every moment here is precious
Let me waste a bunch for you

You are here for competition
On your skis, or skates, or board
But myself, I’m on safari—
Hunting athletes for the lord!

I’ve got lots of pins for trading;
By the waterhole I lurk—
Yes, I’m here among the heathens
Doing missionary work

And I hope I bag a trophy—
Grab some big, athletic name—
Or it’s just a paid vacation
Hunting Big Olympic Game

Via NPR this morning:

There are probably fewer American fans in Sochi than at previous Winter Games, partly because of concerns about security, and partly because of the time and expense it takes to get to the Russian resort town on the Black Sea.

But Americans are represented there, with gusto, by a group of evangelical Christians who call themselves the International Sports Chaplains. Members of the group have been going to the Olympic Games since 1988.

On a recent sunny day at the Olympic Park, with bands playing and fans strolling around the venues, the chaplains move through the crowd in teams of three or four.

Reminds me of the cult recruiters I’ve seen on campuses; similar tactics, and many of the athletes are roughly college age. Sometimes they advertise their purpose, but often it is a bait-and-switch tactic:

When people see the pins, they want to trade, Gardner says. He says trading pins is a good opportunity, because he’ll say, “Hey, I’ve got a pin I’ll give to you, it’s got a story. Can I share with you that story?” Through the pins, they share the Gospel.

Gregory tells the story to a young volunteer near the entrance to the park. “See this dark area on the pin?” she asks. “That represents those choices that we make that are probably not the best choice. I want to tell you that red represents that God loves us and that he sent his son Jesus to die for us. And when we accept his love and his forgiveness in our life, he makes us clean and white, just like snow.”

Next Olympics, I want to be an atheist chaplain. My only duty would be to intercept christian chaplains on the hunt. Throw myself between the athletes and the hunters.

The Templeton Foundation’s Big Bad (Really Bad) Questions

If you’re listening to the voices—
Those that no one else can hear,
Just a disembodied speaker
When no mortal soul is near—
If you’re listening to the voices
And you think they’re in your head,
There’s a Ph.D. with Templeton
Who thinks it’s God, instead.

If you’re listening to the voices
And you know that you’re alone
You could claim “hallucination”—
Such phenomena are known—
Or a slight misapplication,
An heuristic acting odd;
Or, it’s rational, says Templeton,
To think it could be God

These heuristics often help us;
They’re some helpful rules of thumb
We ignore them at our peril,
So denying God is dumb.
Hearing voices in the static
Seeing faces in a cloud
Why, of all the explanations,
“Cos it’s true!” is not allowed?

If you’re listening to the voices
And you think it’s just your mind
There’s another explanation
That we’d like to help you find:
If you want to say you’re hearing God
But logic says you can’t…
Call the Templeton Foundation
And they’ll offer you a grant

Sometimes I hate my aggregator. It’s one thing when I see ignorant comments in comment sections; it’s quite another when people who should know better are spouting ignorant nonsense; it is still worse when this spouting ignorant nonsense is precisely why somebody is giving them money.

So, yeah, the Templeton Foundation is behind “Big Questions Online“; the current Big Question is “Is Atheism Irrational?”, by Kelly J. Clark. It begins with a misunderstanding of the nature of atheism (which, as you know, is a privative category), conflating it with positive belief. It proceeds with an exploration of “belief in God” (rather than “belief in a god”), as if the perceptual heuristics he speaks of are all leading perceivers to observe the same thing, when in fact the people who claim to be listening to God disagree tremendously. He suggests at one point that atheists don’t see God because we, like autistics, have a cognitive deficit with regard to those heuristics:

If there is a God, one who occasionally speaks to people, then in at least some cases of unbelief, there may be a plausible scientific explanation. Autistic individuals lack, to varying degrees, the ability to impute thoughts, feelings, and desires to personal agents. This undergirds their lack of empathy, which hinders, to varying degrees, their ability to enter into normal interpersonal relationships. The loving parent may speak to them, reach out to them, and embrace them, but the autistic child may be incapable of recognizing and responding to them.

In short, some autistic individuals may be incapable of cognizing a personal God (if there is a God): some are as constitutionally incapable of recognizing a personal God as they are of recognizing a friend.

Recent studies demonstrate a correlation between atheism and autism—one is vastly more likely to be an atheist or agnostic if one is autistic. The higher up one is on the Autism Spectrum, the more likely one is to be an atheist.

(mind you, this does not explain those of us who came to our atheism after decades as believers) (also, I am really doing my best, but now failing, to not mention the correlations between schizophrenia and religious ideation)

And now, the crux:

According to a culturally influential narrative, religious beliefs are irrational because they are caused by unreliable cognitive mechanisms, whereas atheism is rational because it is the product of rational reflection on true beliefs. We have debunked a portion of the narrative: atheism, at least in some cases, is correlated with and mediated by a cognitive deficit.

Some atheism is the product of rational reflection. It’s not at all a requirement, though. Some disbelief in gods (depending on the gods) is shared with religious believers (I’m fairly certain Clark shares my disbelief in Thor). Some is an accident of birth. Some comes from an understanding of physics, or biology, or psychology–but only of one science, and not the others, or perhaps of all. There simply is no single path to atheism, so Clark’s “culturally influential narrative” is a straw man.

Yes, some people have personal experiences that are very moving, and in the absence of a complete understanding of the cultural, biological, and psychological factors involved, those people might rationally decide that their experience is evidence of a god. It would be, too, in precisely the same manner as the face in the clouds is evidence of a man in the sky, or that a tornado is evidence of an angry storm-entity.

But we do know about these cultural, biological, and psychological factors. It is not that the individual following personal experience is irrational, it is rather that he or she is missing the parts of the puzzle that would allow a natural explanation. Given their available evidence, they are quite reasonably arriving at a conclusion that just happens to be wrong when more evidence is brought to bear.

And while individual atheists may be rational, irrational, reasonable, or unreasonable, atheism itself, as a privative, is “none of the above”. This “Big Question”, strangely enough, has a very simple answer: “Mu“.

Pissing Off The Atheists

They took the crosses down, that used to stand at City Hall
The took the face of Jesus from its place there on the wall
They didn’t leave a single thing—they took them, one and all
So I’m hatching up a plan to make them pay!
You put a cross in your yard, and I’ll put a cross in mine
For every cross they’ve taken down, we’ll put up eight or nine!
They’ll be visible from everywhere, as proof of the divine!
And the atheist complainers said… “Ok.”

Clearly, that was insufficient, so we’ve got to do some more
We can airbrush the Last Supper on our walls, or on our door
We can proudly fly the Christian flag, and tell them what it’s for
Or explain it on a billboard or a sign
They say we’re not a Christian town—well, this will give them proof
We can paint a crucifixion scene on every Christian’s roof
We’ve been humble long enough; we can’t afford to be aloof
And the atheist complainers just said… “Fine.”

If the godless won’t get angry, then it feels like they have won,
Though we’ve crosses by the hundreds more than when we’d first begun
If it doesn’t bug the atheists, it isn’t any fun
Having crosses scattered all across the town
If we try to bug the atheists, and all they do is yawn
Once the crosses on the public lands were taken down and gone
And our crosses are a nuisance when we try to mow the lawn…
Well, screw it, then, I’m taking my one down.

So, over at The Blaze (don’t blame me!), they are reporting on that story from a couple of days ago about Stratton, Ohio, where the mayor took the solicitor’s advice and is removing the unconstitutional crosses, and relocating them to private yards where they are constitutionally protected. A perfect illustration of both the establishment and free exercise clauses of the first amendment. We (and they at The Blaze) do note that a number of citizens are upset at the reeling in of privilege, and that there is more than a bit of snark in noting that, in their new locations, the crosses will be more visible than the had previously been.

As if the visibility of the crosses has been the problem, rather than the unconstitutional locations of the crosses. And the commenters at The Blaze (who inspired today’s verse, and are hilarious) are certain that the FRFF (variously a communist, socialist, marxist, atheist, or muslim organization) will be terribly upset that the crosses are even more visible than before, and just you wait, the atheist/muslim/marxist/communist/socialist FRFF will soon begin phase two, where even privately displayed crosses are verboten. Because Christianity is under attack by atheists and muslims, communists, socialists, marxists, darwinists, southpaws and redheads. Even though majority rules and this is a Christian country and you atheists, muslims, communists, socialists, marxists, darwinists, southpaws and redheads had better never forget it!

Yes, the real goal of the FRFF (“I know I read it somewhere”) is that there be no more crosses anywhere, public or private.

Frankly, I want everyone who wants to, to have a cross up in their own yard. And I want them to feel free to raise one, or not raise one, or put up a crescent moon, or a star of David, or a flying spaghetti monster, or whatever, if they want to do so, and on their own property. Given that freedom, the unfettered ability to erect the symbol of your choice on your own property, then and only then would I honestly wish for everybody to realize that the world is a more beautiful place without all that clutter, and decide, each for themselves, not to put one up.

I don’t claim to speak for anyone else.

“We Assert That Images Of The Spiritual Leaders Of All Religions Should Be Deemed To Be Respectful”

So… if, by law, religious figures
Are deserving of respect
From the meditating Buddha
To the Manson, spittle-flecked,
From the image of Mohammed
To the memory of Jim Jones,
From Joseph Smith to Jesus Christ
To dusty relics’ bones
From the ancients on Olympus
To the modern Kanye West,
I’m required to respect them
Shall we put this to the test?
Say “there is no god but Allah”;
Aren’t you disrespecting Thor?
And if “Jesus is the only way”
That’s disrespect, once more—
If we see such disagreement
On what is—or not—divine
Can you force me to respect your views
Without respecting mine?
I won’t ask for your approval
Of the way I choose to live
(Which is fine, cos we both know it’s not
A thing that you would give)
I won’t ask you bow to other gods
I know you’ve got your own…
And in exchange, the thing I want,
Is left the fuck alone.
Your holy rules apply to you;
Their holy rules are theirs
You break each other’s holy rules
And no one really cares.
I have no god I worship, so
It’s really plain to see
Your holy rules apply to you…
They don’t apply to me.

(We all are bound by civic law,
And that is quite enough;
You want me to respect your god?
My one-word answer: tough.)

Context, and Cuttlecap tip to Ophelia.

Victoria’s Secret Kicks Out Nursing Mother

When a woman at the mall began behaving, well, parental
And she used her breasts to feed her baby boy
Some employees of a store that features breasts as ornamental
Tried to force her to behave a bit more coy

When they lavish them with laces, or with padding supplemental,
It’s no Secret that Victoria loves breasts
Thus it’s foolish and ironic that they’re acting so judgmental:
Nursing mothers being seen as second-bests

Now, it’s possible—not likely—that the slight was accidental
Though it really wasn’t handled with aplomb
If you’re known for lace and spandex, it behooves you to be gentle
And you never want to pick a fight with Mom.

Store policy is to allow nursing. Texas law allows breastfeeding in public. And Victoria’s Secret has made a fortune exposing more breast in their catalog pics than a nursing mother does (well, given that babies are rarely as sheer as fabric, and are, while nursing, kinda sorta blocking the breast from public view). This should have been a no-brainer.

Employees at a Victoria’s Secret in Texas banned a mother from breastfeeding in the store, even though nursing is allowed under company policy, Today.com reported.

A store employee in Austin last week told a mother to take her crying son into the alley outside of the store to breastfeed him after she requested a private changing room to nurse, she told a local TV station. Ashley Clawson, a 27-year-old mother of two, had just finished shopping and spent $150 at the store at the time of the request.

I’m sure the employees quickly realized their mistake…

She filed two complaints before the company told her she’d receive a response in the mail. Clawson received an official apology and a $150 store gift card after her interview with the local Fox affiliate, Today.com reported.

Any bets as to whether their apology gets bigger before it goes away?

Pennsylvania Voter ID Law Struck Down

A judge in Pennsylvania
Did his utmost to explain: “Ya
Gotta let the people vote—and make it easy!”
He said “Voting’s fundamental!”
And the message that he sent’ll
Go a ways to fix a process that’s, well, sleazy.
Court Judge Bernard L. McGinley
Found the state’s case spread too thinly
And the “voter fraud” more mythical than real;
Ruled in favor of the plaintiff,
Might become the voters’ saint, if
His decision isn’t scuttled on appeal.
His opinion was well reasoned,
Any thoughtful reader sees, and
You can bet your bottom dollar they’ll appeal

It’s another decision worth reading–not because it is as beautiful a smackdown as the recent same-sex marriage decisions, but because it is just so damned thorough. I especially liked the examination of different sorts of acceptable forms of ID (noting, for instance, that the requirement of an expiration date on an ID has absolutely nothing to do with whether that ID can actually verify a voter’s identity), with the conclusion that (my paraphrase) the only common factor was that they added additional hoops to jump through, barriers (to mix metaphors) between potential voters and the ballot box.

The judge also noted the history of misinformation on the part of the state, with official letters to potential voters telling them one (untrue) thing, but no official retractions, no official correct information, only uncredited TV or radio ads (without the authority of the government behind them) telling people the correct information.

Voting laws are designed to assure a free and fair election. The voter ID law does not further this goal.

Of course, comment threads are full of people who clearly have not read the decision, and who have drunk the kool-aid of voter fraud hysteria. Some of the comments can be directly countered on Snopes, they are so popular; others are anecdotal accounts of one or two alleged incidents. The real (and evidenced) threat to democracy, though, was in a voter ID law that would have disenfranchised perhaps half a million eligible voters, systematically members of particular minority groups. The patriotic rhetoric of the complainers does not match the reality of who (in this case, Pennsylvania’s Republicans) are really out to commit fraud.

(oh… given that the actual decision is over 100 pages of judge-speak, you might want the NY Times coverage instead. But I do recommend the ruling itself.)

Just Marking Their Territory

Everywhere the big dog goes, he leaves his little sign
Alerting all the other dogs, “This property is mine!”
“This is mine, and this is mine, and this and this and this!”
He makes a claim of ownership, and seals it with a piss
He roams the streets and alleyways, and all around the town
He leaves his little messages, in yellow or in brown
He’s never paid a mortgage on the land he claims as his
He doesn’t pay the taxes; all he does is take a whizz
There are signs at every crossroads, half a dozen at the mall,
In the yards of private citizens, and one at City Hall—
These little signs are adding up, with more and more each day
But whenever I complain, they tell me “look the other way”

Take a look–Searcy, Arkansas has a dog problem. No, a God problem–I always get those two mixed up. There’s been a big God sniffing around and marking His territory all over town:

Seriously, those little white crosses are aesthetically crap–they must cost the church well under a buck apiece to make, they are not imaginative, nor artistic, nor historical, nor anything but tacky little ways for this God to mark its territory.

Around Cuttletown, there are people who post signs at intersections, advertising goods or services… and there are other folks who mark these signs with large, obscuring stickers that label the signs “LITTER” (which, legally, they are). The little white crosses, if placed on one’s own property, are nothing more than a sign of your tolerance for the tacky, a Christian equivalent of a plastic flamingo or ceramic garden gnome, but cheaper. If they are a sign of your faith, the sign’s message is “I love Jesus, but not enough to spend any money on Him–just enough to put up a tacky cross everyone knows they give out for free.”

No, the crosses serve no function other than that of a dog’s urine: they say “I’m the god (or dog) in charge here.” And the sheriff of Searcy rolls over and exposes his neck to appease the church, instead of picking the litter up off of the lawn and throwing it away.

“What If You’re Wrong?”

So I was looking at a hilarious church/state violation in the news (might write on it tomorrow, so no spoilers), and after a video played, in the “suggested videos” was prominently displayed a video entitled “what if you’re wrong?”. No, I didn’t even look at it; I’ve seen enough. It’s one version of Pascal’s Wager, and it’s asked as a “gotcha” to atheist speakers (because, of course, they are the only ones who can be wrong). But this time, I heard “what if you’re wrong?” (just that phrase, not the whole thing) to the tune of “I’m a gnu“. So, yeah, this one is not a verse, it’s a song. And, given the tune, it scans wonderfully… so if it does not scan for you, clearly, you are doing it wrong. (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.)

What if you’re wrong?
What if you’re wrong?
What if the Greeks were right all along?
What if you should have been followin’ Zeus or Apollo, in-
Stead of some carpenter’s son?
What if your praying and kneeling just isn’t appealing
To gods that just wanna have fun?
What if you saw Aphrodite in only her nightie
You still think your faith is so strong?
What if you’re wrong?
What if you’re wrong!

What if you’re wrong?
What if you’re wrong?
What if you hear Heimdallr blow his Ragnarök song?
What if you should have been loadin’ a toast unto Odin,
A flagon of honey-sweet mead?
What if you found, if you say a quick message to Freyja
She’ll give you whatever you need?
What if you stutter and stammer at Thor with his hammer
Who smashes your head like a gong?
What if you’re wrong?
What if you’re wrong!

It’s simple probability—to join, or not to join
It’s the bet you place on black or red; the flipping of a coin
With that little pesky detail—which religion should you join?—
That exposes Pascal’s Wager as a scam
There are gods by tens of thousands; maybe millions; maybe more
Should you offer up a sacrifice, do you say which god it’s for?
And if others might be jealous, is this something to ignore?
True Believers may, themselves, be in a jam!

What if you’re wrong?
What if you’re wrong?
What if both you and the rest of your throng?
What if, of all the gods listed, one only existed,
And that one, no longer believed?
You’re in the church of your father, but god says “why bother?”
And all of your life, you’re deceived?
What if I mess up my timing and force all my rhyming
This impudent verse to prolong?
What if you’re wrong?
What if you’re wrong!