I woke up still achey and worn out from a long long day standing in the rain yesterday (but it was worth it!), and you know what I have to do next? The American Atheists National Convention. It’s going on today and tomorrow, and I speak tomorrow (on “Scientists! If you aren’t an atheist, you’re doing it wrong!”) The talk is mostly in the bag, but man, I will sleep soundly on the plane home, I think.
How do I get myself talked into these things? I have two events with the slithery Chris Stedman coming up: first, he’s speaking at the Midwest Science of Origins Conference in Morris next week. He’s scheduled for April Fools’ Day, so I’m hoping the student organizers are just going to hand him an exploding cigar and then put out his flaming hair with a swirlie…but I suspect they’re actually going to take him seriously and give him time to annoy me.
Second, the day after the Global Atheist Convention, as part of their fringe events, I’m speaking at this event: PZ Myers, Leslie Cannold, Chris Stedman – The Road Less Traveled, in which I’m supposed to talk about whether believers and atheists can work together for the common good. My answer is simple: sure they can, but faith isn’t in the common good, and we have to work against it.
You know, one of my concluding lines in my Reason Rally talk was that I want to be bad without god. And by bad, I mean defy the bogus religious morality that the majority want to impose on us, and fight against the status quo.
I was raised as a Christian by my mother, whereas my father was an atheist. I never really understood what that meant because no-one ever taught me that there are people in this world that don’t believe in God. I loved science from a young age, and it all made sense to me, except that it just wasn’t compatible with what people told me to believe. I began to doubt christianity around age 8, and began to research how the world works – needless to say, I started noticing the immense amount of bullshit I’d been force-fed. When I got to high school (here, that’s age 11) I completely left christianity and began to look at my other options – I still didn’t know that it was ok to be an Atheist. I experimented with Wicca and Paganism for about 2 years, but I still had the same problem – no scientific evidence to back them up. But with a little research, and making some great friends who are Atheists, I figured out that Atheism was the path for me. Now, I’ve been an out-and-proud Atheist for 3 years and I’ll never look back. People say that religion gives you answers because you can ‘fill in the blanks’ but that’s not good enough for me. When I get an answer to one of life’s great mysteries, I want it to be the correct, scientifically proven one. I want to be as sure as possible in my beliefs – and what’s more sure than scientific fact?
Clare
Australia
I’m backstage, winding down, with Bad Religion howling from the stage. My net assessment of the day: OMFG AWESOME SQUEEEEE.
I’m sorry to say that if you missed it, oh, you should be burning with regret right now. Burning. Regret. Boy, did you make a mistake.
I am an atheist simply because I don’t believe in God, gods or anything supernatural. I cannot prove otherwise but the onus is on the claimant to present credible evidence, not just arguments from ignorance (complexity, beauty, science doesn’t know everything, etc.) and other logical fallacies.
I never believed in gods, even during the years that I attended Christian kindergarten and elementary schools. I took the Bible stories as just that — stories. And classmate’s claims that God wrote the Bible made no sense to me. God was just so…not there.
I went through a supernatural phase though. In the 1970’s, I was intrigued by Leonard Nimoy’s In Search Of, pyramid power, the Bermuda Triangle, Nostradamus, and other pop pseudo-sciences and pseudo-profundity. And Disney’s Escape from Witch Mountain had me trying to fly with the mere power of my thoughts. I could feel myself flying with my eyes closed but not when opened. Darn reality.
Also, it took some time for me to completely reject superstition. I had to be careful of my thoughts lest the universe use me as an ironic example, like choke to death on a vitamin pill, or instill cancer if I got too happy or full of myself. Perhaps it was due to residuals from Christianity and/or cosmic karma crap. I got over it. Now, there’s no more universal score keeper. Exciting! Now I can simply be responsible for my actions, not thoughts, and balance my personal needs and desires with social responsibility and environmental stewardship. No gods required.
Torsten Pihl
United States
My journey to atheism started with a discussion with a coworker who also happened to be a Christian minister.
Although I was raised Catholic, I had long ago grown out of much of the dogma. I had no problem accepting science that conflicted with church teachings and I generally tried to be a good person without appealing to the Bible for instruction. However, I still clung to the belief that there must be a god, and that I needed to believe certain things or behave in a certain way in order to get my eternal reward after death.
One evening, I watched a fascinating documentary on the Discovery Channel about some of the creatures who were direct ancestors to the dinosaurs. The next day, I mentioned it at work, specifically bringing up how the show talked about the eventual evolution of the creatures of that period into the dinosaurs. I had no idea what kind of reaction it would bring. My minister-coworker retorted with “Oh, you mean how it never happened?” He then launched into a whole tirade about how we have no evidence for evolution, and the earth is not old enough… It was basically a lot of the nonsense from AiG, although I didn’t recognize it as such at the time.
Even though I was still religious at the time, I fully accepted an old earth and evolution. To be honest, I probably would have considered myself an intelligent design proponent, had I known the term, because I still believed that humans were somehow special. The most annoying part to me was that I had nothing with which to fight back. I just flat out didn’t know enough about evolution to make a solid argument. I decided then and there that I would not be caught in that situation again. I went out and bought The Blind Watchmaker (Dawkins).
I was enthralled. I could not put the book down. I had no idea that we had naturalistic explanations not only for evolution, but for all of the processes that allow it to happen — all without having to appeal to any supernatural being. After finishing Watchmaker, I read Your Inner Fish (Shubin), and The Selfish Gene (Dawkins). I kept thinking to myself, “If we can explain how life evolved through purely naturalistic processes, what else can be explained in that way?” The next book I read was Atom, by Lawrence Krauss. Wow, we can explain just as well the evolution of the universe from the Big Bang through today as we can the evolution of life on Earth! That pushed me over the edge. Something hit me. I realized that all of my coworker’s arguments for the existence of god were appeals to the unknown. He didn’t understand these processes, so he used his god to fill in the gaps. Once I better understood how the universe worked, there were no (or at least far fewer) gaps to fill. We don’t need gods to explain any natural processes in our universe. That one single fact is so liberating!
There was still the spiritual side of things, but I was already rather thin there anyway. More reading, more walls falling. I read The God Delusion (Dawkins), The End of Faith (Harris), God Is Not Great (Hitchens), and Breaking the Spell (Dennett). The spell was, indeed, broken. For the first time, I truly saw religion as a curse, rather than a blessing. It was during that time that I decided that I was a good person regardless of my beliefs, not because of them. Truth be told, I am probably a better person today without any of that nonsense filling my head.
It makes me a little bit sad when I see or read interviews with prominent authors like those above, in which they bemoan that their works are primarily read by people who are already of like mind, and that they aren’t really making a difference. If I could say just one thing to them, it is that I am proof that they can make a difference, and I hope they never give up the fight.
Michael A Pipkin
United States
With the exception of, maybe, Caddyshack.
I stopped going to church when I was eleven or twelve. I didn’t leave in anger or despair. I didn’t leave in a huff. Religion had simply stopped making sense to me.
The reasons are pretty common, I’m sure. I had come to see churches as human institutions primarily concerned with perpetuating themselves. The doctrines of salvation or damnation due to accident of birth seemed fundamentally cruel and capricious. I couldn’t understand why an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient being was so infantile that it would demand my worship. None of it seemed moral, by any moral standard that I had been taught or understood.
Beyond that, it seemed to me that being moral was important, and that if morality was important, being moral because it was the right thing–rather than out of fear of eternal punishment–was important. The eternal punishments and rewards of Christianity–and I knew no other religion–devalued morality, rather than encouraging it. Instead of making morality the center of a good life, it reduced it to a life of brown-nosing, a way of tricking “Dad” into giving me the keys to the car, when deep inside, I would know I didn’t deserve them.
Religion (and God) became irrelevant. I didn’t so much disbelieve as stop caring. I considered supernaturality as supernatural and therefore beyond knowing. I called myself an agnostic, not because I wrestled with the existence of God, but because I didn’t care about it. I didn’t believe in God, but neither did I believe in the non-existence of God.
While that position hasn’t changed, I now call myself an atheist, recognizing that I don’t believe in God, and that atheism describes that position better than agnostic.
So, why am I not open about it? I face no individual social sanction not to proclaim my beliefs. There are no clubs *I* wish to join that would exclude me for atheism. I live in a community where acknowledgement of atheism wouldn’t affect me, personally. Churches are peripheral here, not central.
My son, however, had some brain damage at birth. He is a wonderful kid. His disabilities are not extreme, but they are present and noticeable. As a result, he is socially isolated. Secular organizations have failed completely in addressing the social needs of our sons. The organizations that have accepted him, where the kids have welcomed him and helped him be part of the group have all had religious elements. I feel a responsibility to participate in those organizations, to recognize the value their acceptance provides for kids like my son. That’s part of my own, personal morality.
Some of those organizations–Boy Scouts, in particular–do not allow atheists to participate.
I would prefer, of course, to find organizations that accept without the strains of religiosity, but I’m not in a position to make that choice. When we find something that works for us, a group where he’s accepted, we have to stick with it. I have to give back to the organizations that support those groups, even if they’re flawed.
Perhaps it would have been possible to find non-religious organizations that were accepting and supportive. We found the ones we found. I might have looked harder in the atheist community if not for its intellectual snobbery, if not for its habit of mocking those who write confused letters and e-mails.
Within the adult atheist community I see wit and intellectual consistency. I see vigorous and rigorous argument. I see courage and conviction. What I don’t see much of, is kindness. Maybe when the movement gets past the sexism and classism debates, when it’s carved out enough social space that it doesn’t feel the need to constantly be on the attack, there will be room for more of it.
bob
Jennifer Fulwiler is a treasure. She’s a former atheist who doesn’t have a clue about atheism, a naive Catholic convert, and someone who pities us atheists because “we’re trapped in a prison of reason“. She never makes sense, so she never disappoints.
And now she’s done it again. Fulwiler is babbling about the Global Atheist Conference. She’s not making sense again.
She lists a number of ‘first impressions’.
Hemant Mehta ought to worry. She likes him a lot, and is mystified that he’s not going to be at the GAC.
Where’s Hemant Mehta? He must have been busy that weekend. The blogger/author is a major up-and-coming voice in the modern atheist movement. Given the perspective he’s gained from the discussion on his blog, I would think that he would add a lot of value to a conference like this.
Yes, I agree. But you know, there are a lot atheists out there, and we can’t all go to every conference. It’s just weird to pick out one random atheist among many and wonder why they aren’t at one particular conference among many. So? Would you like me to list a few dozen other prominent atheist speakers who weren’t invited or couldn’t make it?
Just look at these headshots! With that number of speakers you’d expect at least a couple unflattering, obviously-take-with-an-iPhone shots, but they’re all gorgeous. Lookin’ good, atheists.
That’s just weird. It’s like she’s baffled that we look human.
Since I’m sure he doesn’t want to say it himself, I’ll say it for him: PZ Myers should have gotten top billing in the ads, and it’s crazy that he wasn’t mentioned at all in the audio spots. When he saw that, he had to be all like, “Do millions of blog pageviews per month count for nothing?!”
Not for nothing, but why would anyone in their right mind think that’s the most important characteristic to promote? The audience either reads my blog and knows who I am and don’t need to advertise me, or they don’t read it and I’m effectively a nobody to them. I have a realistic perspective here; my number one job is as a teacher at UMM, and that’s generally not a huge selling point, sad to say. And Dawkins/Dennett/Harris are a much bigger draw, and to an Australian audience, the local atheist celebrities are going to be much more interesting.
And then Fulwiler gets “clever”, I think…at least clever for someone gullible enough to fall for Catholic bullshit, which isn’t very. Look at this clumsy setup:
I like the part about basing laws on rational thought and evidence. It echoes a sentiment that is a driving force in the atheist community right now, namely the idea that society must develop a set of moral values that is not rooted in any kind of supernatural belief system. I think it could end up being a really good thing that the leaders of modern atheism are coming together to discuss this, because this is an idea that needs a lot more exploration.
She doesn’t believe a word of this. I think it’s quite right that not only do we need to develop a fully secular morality, but that it’s the only kind of morality there is, because her supernatural tyrant doesn’t exist. Catholic morality is not built on the supernatural, but on lies and fear, tools of priests for all time, and a secular morality is built on truth, as near as we can get to it.
How do I know Fulwiler doesn’t believe this? Because she next brings out a great big strawman on strings and dances it around on the stage of the convention.
I imagine that one day someone will get on the stage at one of these conferences, and propose a new moral code in which the the strong exterminate the weak and take all their possessions for themselves, thus ushering in a glorious age where only the most superior genes remain in the gene pool. Everyone in the crowd will gasp and fidget uncomfortably…and then realize that they cannot argue against it without stepping outside of their own atheist-materialist worldview. They’ll find themselves tempted to appeal to the transcendent to make their case, wanting to have blind faith in the fact that love should be prized above all else, believing that self-sacrifice is always better than selfishness, regardless of what the latest scientific studies say.
Riiiight. You all know what would happen if a speaker started promoting a totalitarian tyranny and demanding that we start persecuting the “weak” — they would be ripped apart rhetorically. These are the kinds of arguments that are advanced for a theocratic monarchy, you know, and we’re entirely familiar with them. At the GAC, Sam Harris would rise up and argue for an egalitarian morality without bringing in anything transcendent. Richard Dawkins would dismantle that ridiculous argument for social Darwinism with ease, and it wouldn’t be by claiming that self-sacrifice always trumps altruism.
Morality is an attribute that is only relevant in interactions between individuals. A group of interacting individuals is a community. Morality is defined within that community; the desires of a hypothetical invisible entity have no relevance to the rules that regulate that community…except when parasitic individuals use the carrot and stick of supernatural rewards and punishments to mislead the members of that group.
Fulwiler has written a bizarre fantasy that is exceeded in crudity by Chick tracts like Big Daddy. Sure, imagine some absurd caricature of an atheist getting trounced by some clever religious person — but it simply doesn’t have any relationship to reality.
Speaking of fantasy, here’s how she imagines an atheist convention ending…with all the atheists flocking to the church afterwards.
I hope that these events really will provide a forum for questioning assumptions and asking tough questions as much as they claim they will. Because when they do, the nearby churches will be flooded with post-convention crowds.
I don’t think so. Dream on, deluded lady.
Oh, if you all want a real treat, read the comments on that article. I think Fulwiler might just be the intellectual among the Catholic community that reads her drivel.
Whoa! Catholic women are much prettier than atheist women. I feel bad for all the atheist men. =(
I feel unclean now.
I think we’re getting to Ken Ham. There’s that twitchy eye, the jittery shifting of his feet, the rising blood pressure, the purplish skin tone…and the fact that he’s writing threats like this:
In recent times, various atheists have been blasting AiG (and myself) on the internet and in books for reaching children with the message of the truth of God’s Word beginning in Genesis through speaking programs and books and DVD’s etc. In fact, as I have documented, they accuse us of ‘child abuse’ because we teach children they are created and that God’s Word is true. You see, they want to reach children with their message–that there is no God–that life is meaningless and purposeless–that the universe and all life is the result of totally naturalistic processes. They want to brainwash children with their anti-God religion of millions of years and evolution.
I’m reminded of a verse of Scripture: “But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea.”
(Mark 9:42)
Man, that Bible of his has a solution for everything: pray a lot, slaughter a few goats or children, curse people, stone sluts to death, and throw atheists into the ocean with a rock tied around their neck.
It’s a wonder he doesn’t understand why we think his brand of dogma is toxic to children — because he staggers about, poisoned to the gills, acting as such an excellent bad example.
