DangerousTalk

For most atheists, when we get into conversations with the religious, we tend to discuss facts and evidence. When we argue, we use logic, reason, and point out fallacies. But when the religious argue, they use personal connection.

Religious people will try to get to know you. They don’t really care about the details of your life, but they believe that they can use those details as a form of argument aimed to convert you.

Most religious people know that logic, reason, facts, and evidence are not going to convert anyone because those things are not on their side. Emotion is their only real tool and the best way to employ that tool as a weapon is to get to know their target personally using the personal details of their lives to ignite strong emotion.

The thing is we can use personal connections too. One tool I use when discussing religion with the religious is to find out how they became religious in the first place. Where did the delusion begin? What were the circumstances of that initial conversion? What were the strong emotions used? Was the person raised religious and become “Born Again” through indoctrination?

I also think that if we start making personal connections with the religious, they will stop seeing us as baby eaters and start to see us as people. When we ask them if they think God is just for allowing all non-believers to be tortured for all eternity, it might actually start to mean something to them when they begin to realize just what that entails. They might even start to see their God as a being they no longer wish to worship.

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Whenever someone makes a life and death decision, there will be a theist around to claim that someone is “playing God.” The thing is that when it is a life or death decision, we aren’t playing. Unlike theists, atheists view this life as the only life we have. We don’t view life as a game used to decide whether we win eternal bliss or lose and get tortured for all eternity. Atheists don’t play God, we live life.

Living life means that we have to take responsibility for our decisions. Do can’t really say that whatever happens is God’s will. We have no excuses. This means we have to think about the consequences of our actions.

Here is a great video I saw on this topic:

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I get into a lot of conversations with a lot of fundamentalist believers. Even though I love these conversations it sometimes seems like I am having a conversation with a wall. We have all had these types of conversations. But sometimes we forget that there might be flies on that wall and they might benefit from the conversation too.

I have a few really good examples of this. The most recent was at my 9/11 Birthday barbecue. I was having a conversation with my Christian friend and became very much aware that there were other Christians who were more mainstream listening to our conversation. At some point, I switched my focus. While I was still conversing with my Christian friend who takes the Bible very seriously, I was steering the conversation to better benefit those listening to us rather than to the person I was conversing with.

Another great example of this was a few months ago when the Jehovah’s Witnesses came to my door. After conversing with two of the younger women, an older woman came in and we were debating a bit. The thing was that I focused my conversation with the older woman to appeal more to our audience (the younger women).

Both of those fly on the wall conversations I was aware of and played into, but there are many instances in which we might not be aware of who else is listening to our conversations with the religious or who else is reading an online message board. So even if you think you are talking to a wall, don’t forget about the flies.

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Last night I attended the monthly meeting of the Freethought Society. This month’s guest speaker was former American Atheist President Ellen Johnson. Johnson was promoting her new organization called “Enlighten the Vote” and she said a lot of very interesting things.

First, I want to point out that while I think what Ellen Johnson said was very interesting and definitely worth hearing, it wasn’t anything new. I have been saying much the same as have many others. The problem is that many in the atheist community just don’t listen.

Enlighten the Vote was previously named the Godless PAC and a few years ago they made a lot of headlines when Elizabeth Dole used them in an attack ad against her opponent who did her best to distance herself from the Godless PAC. Enlighten the Vote is a re-branding of that Political Action Committee.

They goal is to create an atheist voting block so that politicians will be more willing to support our issues. The PAC is also actively looking to support atheist candidates for local, state, and national offices. They endorse candidates, donate to candidates, and even advice candidates if needed.

As I talked about in an Examiner article, there is currently an open atheist running for Congress in Virginia, Dr. Wynne LeGrow. Enlighten the Vote is trying to get atheists to donate to their organization which will in turn pass those contributions onto LeGrow’s campaign. Donating through Enlighten the Vote will help to show the strength of the atheist community and if we can show that we can really help a campaign, then other politicians will attempt to solicit our support.

I agree with this plan, but there are a few problems with it. First, atheists are very cheap. We give Jews a run for that stereotype. There are always excuses like “donating money is too much like religion” and “I’m poor.” I have of course discussed these before. I am unemployed and poor and still have a few dollars to donate. Enlighten the Vote isn’t asking for a fortune, but if you really want to fight the Religious Right, you need to put up or shut up. Freedom isn’t free and we all need to make small sacrifices (not vicarious blood sacrifices like Christians). So get over being cheap and donate a few dollars to Enlighten the Vote.

Second, there are the nay sayers. I talked about this one pretty recently already, so I will just put a link to that blog HERE.

If every atheist in the country donated to an atheist running for political office, we would have a powerful voting block and we would be able to elect more atheists and convince non-atheist politicians to take us seriously and actually listen to what we have to say. So I am asking you to buy two less beers, one less pack of cigarettes, go to one less movie, etc. and donate $5, $10, $20 to Enlighten the Vote.

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I recently had a conversation with a Christian whose concept of God is so vague that he couldn’t define it. Now, I often talk about how Christianity has two main God concepts, the first being the character of God as portrayed in the Bible and the second being some sort of vague higher power concept. This third concept however, is vaguer than vague.

When I talked about the Vague Higher Power concept of God, I usually use terms such as all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving. These are admittedly vague concepts hence my phrase “Vague Higher Power Entity.” Nonetheless, my Christian friend saw this as too restricting of a definition.

So how can one argue against a concept so vague that we can’t even quantify it at all with words? I asked him to define what he means by God and he couldn’t even answer. He asserts a proposition which has no substance at all by his own admission.

I fear that this might become the new tactic of Christian apologetics. It views even Anselm’s God as too restrictive because the greatest conceivable being would be one which could not even be conceived by flawed humans. So if we can’t even conceive of a deity how can anyone argue against a being which cannot even be thought of or described in any way?

Of course this is nonsense and we need to insist that if a Christian is going to introduce a proposition that some super vague being exists that they at least need to define that proposition. Otherwise there is nothing to discuss. We should also call them out when they make the leap from a vague or super vague higher power concept to the more particular character of God has he is portrayed in the Bible. That’s bullshit and it is even intellectually dishonest.

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Over the weekend at my 9/11 Birthday Barbecue, a Christian friend claimed that I never have anything positive to say about religion. I told him that there are actually a few things that I do admire about Christianity and I think atheists can learn a few things from Christianity… without of course believing in ridiculous things on insufficient reason and evidence.

The first thing that comes to mind is Christian community. I could walk into just about any church in the nation and tell them that I am also from that denomination and just moved there from some other part of the country and ask for help moving and right away I would have a number of volunteers willing and able to help one of their own. If I were a Christian, I could go to my church and tell them that my grand mother needs an operation and ask for money and within minutes, a collection would go around and I would have hundreds and maybe thousands of dollars.

Atheists have no such community. Our community is at best online and most atheists shy away from donating money on a person to person level. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing since people do lie and no one wants to be cheated. We tend to demand evidence and we tend to prefer to donate to reputable organizations rather than person to person.

It is true that atheists and humanists are starting to organize and form local communities, but we tend to meet on a monthly basis and without massive tax-exempt buildings. Without a home and meeting so infrequently, our community is just not as personal. This may change over time, but it is something we can learn from Christians.

Along the same lines, we just don’t have a “fellowship” (for lack of a better term) with out fellow non-believers that Christians have. I talk about this a lot and I hate to do it again, but we really need to start supporting our fellow atheists in their endeavors. When Christians go out and talk about how they are trying to “spread the word of Jesus,” fellow Christians donate tons of money to their efforts. But when atheists are out here promoting reason and very few of our fellow atheists donate to our efforts. Now, unlike Christians I am not expecting people to donate their last dollar or their rent or mortgage money, but I do think that we should be donating to atheist endeavors (contribute button is in the sidebar… hint hint —->).

My Christian friend then asked me why I think atheists don’t do these things. The answer is pretty simple. I told him that every time I suggest these types of things, I get comments and e-mails telling me that these things seem too much like religion and they don’t want atheism to be though of as a religion because it isn’t one. These people are correct in that atheism is not a religion, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t do anything that religious people do out of fear of being perceived as a religion. We are going to be perceived as a religion no matter what we do because Christians like to try to lower our position down to their level. So if they are going to make the accusation in any event, why should we allow their accusations to tie our hands behind our backs?

The fact is community is a good thing and we don’t need to believe in ridiculous stories to be able to build a community to help each other. While we make feel smug that our ideas are better than religious ideas in the free market of ideas, we still have to promote our ideas in a market which is not free. That type of promotion costs money and religious groups have tons of it and atheist groups and individuals tend to have very little. Yes there are more of them than there are of us, but we could be contributing more money than we do toward the cause of reason.

Let me conclude by asking you (without guilt or the fear of eternal torture) to do a few things. First, join your local and national atheist/freethought/humanist groups. Help to build those communities. Second, start donating money to atheist blogs, podcasts, youtube channels, etc. that you read, listen to, and watch, even if it is only $10 or $20. I recently donated to some atheist blogs and every one of those bloggers sent me a nice personal e-mail back thanking me profusely and I didn’t even donate all that much (because I am unemployed and poor). If I can do it, so can you. No excuses! Okay, so there is a little guilt, but still no threat of eternal torture.

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Over the weekend, I had a barbecue to celebrate 9/11 (which just so happens to be my Birthday). Even though many people jokingly inquired about burning some holy books, no holy books were burnt during this celebration.

I did want to take a moment to thank all the people on facebook and twitter who sent me birthday wishes. While it seems like a small and insignificant thing, it really does mean a lot to me.

One of the great things about my barbecues is that I usually have a good mix of people from various religions and religious intensities. This generally makes for some really great conversation and this year was no exception.

Obviously I tend to have a lot of friends who are atheists but not all of them are part of the greater atheist community. Some just live their lives without religion and have no desire to criticize religion or fight back against the religious domination of society and culture.

Then there are my Christian friends. Some are more “Sunday” Christian in the sense that they go to Church and believe in some vague concept of God but don’t really let their beliefs affect their lives. They are for all practical purposes secular. One of my friends however is not so mainstream about his Christianity and I will talk about that later in the week.

I also have a few Wiccan friends at my barbecue. This year I had a few less than usual, but still enough to keep the conversations interesting.

Throughout the week, I will be talking about some of the more interesting topics that came up. But for today, I just want to discuss the diversity of it all. I really enjoy the fact that I have such a diverse group of friends and I wonder if other people have an equally diverse group of friends that you guys discuss religion with.

For my atheist readers, are most of your friends atheists? Do you have mainstream Christian friends who don’t really talk about religion? Or have you cultivated friendships with more fundamentalist/evangelical/born again believers? Share you experiences please.

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We all know that nine years ago Islamic terrorists flew planes into buildings and changed the world forever. What most people don’t know is that 36 years ago on that very same day a dangerous talker was born.

I often joke about how former President Bush decided to turn my birthday into a national holiday. Because I am such a strong patriot, he named the holiday Patriot’s Day. Obviously, President Bush is no fan of mine. In fact, I doubt he has ever even heard of me, but if he had heard of me, he would surely not be my fan.

Many of the Dangeorus Talkers who read this blog are my fans, so I am going to ask you guys to do a few things in honor of my Birthday. First, I want you all to start re-posting my blogs and especially my Examiner articles on your facebook & twitter pages. Get some discussions started. Second, please post the articles you like on Digg, StumbleUpon, and especially Reddit (atheism). Don’t forget to vote them up, too. Third, please, please, please donate a few dollars every now and then to Dangerous Talk (Contribute button is in the sidebar —->).

With that out of the way, I want you guys to keep this dangerous thought in mind. 9/11 was a wake up call for many atheists and the start of the current rise in atheism in America. On that day we saw what true faith based devotion was capable of and that America’s only response seemed to be more faith based bullshit. I can’t even remember how many signs I saw that said, “God Bless America” just following that tragic day. Many atheists felt like we were surrounded by religious fanatics even in mostly secular areas.

So while the attacks of 9/11 were extremely tragic, there was a silver lining to that day. Atheists started to wake up from our complacent slumber and we started to fight militantly with books and blogs and stuff. Even many religious people took a deeper look at their religion after that day and realized that it was just as ridiculous and perhaps dangerous as the beliefs of those who weaponized airplanes.

As for me, I will be barbecuing with some friends and family this 9/11 to celebrate.

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A lot of times, Christians will insist that their belief was not a product of brainwashing, indoctrination, or some other form of emotional trickery. They will insist that there are logical and reasonable reasons for their belief. Okay, what are they? They will give you a million different arguments for God and Christianity but which one of those arguments actually convinced them of the “Truth” of the Christian system?

None! I have never met a Christian who became a Christian because of some argument. The only Christians I have met have been indoctrinated or became “Born Again” due to highly charged emotional experience that bypassed the reason center of their brain.

The honest truth is that Christians don’t reason their way into religion. Religion is not reasonable. They may make up arguments which they think are reasonable, but those arguments didn’t convince them or anyone else.

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One thing that I love to point out to proponents of the “One True Religion,” (whichever religion that might be)  is that no one has yet disproven past religions. The fact is that even though no sane person still believes in the God Zeus, no one has actually disproven Zeus’s existence.

Why is it that no one believes in Zeus any more? I’m not advocating such a belief, but I do wonder about it. Perhaps the newer mythologies of the Abrahamic religion resonate more with people than the Hellenistic religions of the past. Perhaps even newer religions like Scientology will take over. Or just maybe, we can acknowledge the fact that all these religions are make believe.

This doesn’t mean that we must erase these religions from history. The fact is that the Hellenistic religions are just as popular today as they were back in the day. The difference is that they aren’t worshiped as religions any more but rather as mythology.

Recently, Clash of the Titans was remade earning a fortune at the box office. A number of years ago Disney made the film Hercules. Even though no one believes these stories are real any more, that doesn’t seem to matter. People can still enjoy them as stories.

Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are stories. We can stop believing that they are real and still believe that they make entertaining stories worth reading, watching, and thinking about. But just as no one bothers to argue over the Historic Hercules, we should no longer waste our time arguing over the Historic Jesus. It’s fiction!

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I was talking to a Christian over the weekend and he asserted that there are three kinds of knowledge, empirical, rational, and faithful. I think this is a brilliant move to assert that faith is a kind of knowledge. What is the argument for that? Where is the evidence? Oh wait, if there is an argument to be made in favor of such a thing as faith knowledge, that argument would be rational knowledge. If there is evidence, then it would be empirical knowledge. So what kind of knowledge is Faith knowledge?

As it turns out, faith knowledge amounts to naked assertion. If someone claims to know something on faith, there is no way to contest such knowledge. It can’t be argued rationally and it can’t be disproved empirically.

Faith knowledge is the ultimate conversation stopper. Anyone can claim to know anything on faith knowledge and there is no disputing it. It is the ultimate proof that God exists. One knows it on faith. Of course, we can also know that unicorns exist on faith knowledge too.

This ridiculous idea of faith knowledge is the last refuge for the intellectually bankrupt. The fact is that any knowledge must be independently verified and testable. As much as I like the idea of rational knowledge, it doesn’t really exist either. There is only one kind of knowledge and that is knowledge which can be tested and independently verified.

The ancient Greeks defined knowledge as Justified True Belief. We must be justified in thinking something is true, it must be true objectively through independent verification, and we must believe it to be true. Believing something to be true alone does not make it true nor does it make it knowledge.

Filed under: anti-intellectualism, conversation, faith | 4 Comments »

Even though physicist Stephen Hawking has been an atheist for quite some time, this seemed to be breaking news yesterday. Don’t get me wrong, I think Hawking did make breaking news yesterday, but it wasn’t his lack of belief in a deity.

The media has a really short attention span, because it was just three months ago that they had the same breaking news when Hawking gave an interview in which he stated, “There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.”

Still, for some strange reason, the media is convinced that Doctor Hawking was a fundamentalist Christian because he stated in his book, “If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we should know the mind of God.” To a scientist, such a statement is equivalent to saying “God bless you,” when someone sneezes.

As for the real breaking news, Hawking stated that the gap in our knowledge which was filled with God pertaining to the creation of the universe has been closed. According to Hawking, based on the evidence there is no reason why a deity would be needed to create the universe. He has actually suggested something similar before, but now he has the evidence to back it up.

This means that a god is not needed to fill the role of a creator and toward the end of the year Sam Harris will show the evidence which will close the god gap in morality. As we keep closing these gaps, God is finding a hard time finding things to have done. In other words, Christians are running out of things to give God credit for. Soon, the only thing left for God to claim credit for will be some touchdown or rap award.

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Yesterday, I received an e-mail from someone who works at a state agency in the Bible Belt. The head of the agency often uses working lunches and meetings to conduct a short prayer session. According to the e-mail, this happens often and most people just go along with it rather than risk their jobs. Most may even be religious and have no objections to it.

First, this is illegal and anyone who experiences anything similar to this should contact their local ACLU right away. These types of religious people have no problem forcing their beliefs on everyone else and they are not afraid to break the law to do it. In their view, they are obeying God’s Law.

In addition to the ACLU, there is someone else that should be contacted. I am a member and former board member of the Freethought Society. At the time that I was a board member, we were mainly just a Philadelphia organization, but now the organization is becoming more of a national group. This organization has been trying to document discrimination against atheists. This information might be used in larger national cases down the road, but for now it is just important to document them and make sure they are on the record. Find out more about the Freethought Society’s Anti-Discrimination Network HERE and if you are a victim of discrimination due to your lack of belief, please download this PDF form and send it to Margaret Downey of the Freethought Society.

Filed under: atheism, church/state, People of Reason | 3 Comments »

It seems that no matter how jolly I am when it comes out that I don’t believe in a deity; Christians always assume that I must be bitter and angry just because I don’t believe in their deity of choice. While I can be critical of their God and their whole religion for that matter, I rarely do it in a bitter or angry way despite the fact that Christianity ought to make any sane and rational person angry.

It seems that the fundamentalist Christian view is that without Jesus, people are bitter and angry by default. Perhaps they believe that only atheists are angry and bitter. It seems to be a stereotype that Christians have about atheists that has no real basis at all. Being in the greater atheist community, I rarely if ever meet atheists who are angry and bitter people. They do exist, but no more than in the general population.

On the other hand, there is a stereotype that many fundamentalist Christians seem to exhibit. It seems that fundamentalist Christians often are as George Carlin put it, “more then happy.” They seem to hide their true emotions and put on a Ned Flanders type front. Underneath the super jolly front, they hid a lot of anger and bitterness.

Maybe these fundamentalist Christians are just projecting their own anger and bitterness on atheists. Or perhaps they see atheist actually express their feelings openly rather then hid them as they do.

Filed under: culture war, discussion, Religious Manipulation | 1 Comment »

Of course atheists are charitable. That is a pretty silly question. We can point to the fact that atheist billionaires have donated half their fortunes to charity and have encouraged other billionaires to do the same.

The fact is that most atheists don’t donate in the name of atheism. We just donate to organizations on our own as individuals. But how much are we donating to atheist infrastructure?

Almost every atheist organization I know is always in need of funds. Whether it is a local atheist group or larger groups like American Atheists, American Humanist Association, Center For Inquiry, or others are all in desperate need of donations. While it would be great if Brad Pitt and Bill Maher would donate a ton of money to these groups, the fact is that atheists with slightly less money need to donate too; even if that is just a $35 donation every now and then. Consider these donations to be investments in reason.

Speaking of donating to atheist causes, let me remind you that there is a contribution button on the sidebar… hint, hint.

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A number of years ago, I met a young Christian who was telling me his story about how he used to be addicted to drugs, alcohol, and sex. He told me that his life was spiraling out of control and no one he could do could save him. Then along came Jesus to the rescue. Now that he was “Born Again” his life had gotten so much better and he couldn’t have done it without Jesus. So I had to tell him about the one true God, Jean-Luc Picard.

The story that this Christian told me is a very popular narrative and I have heard it or some variation of it many times. Of course Jesus had nothing to do with the Christian’s recovery and Captain Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation made the best argument against Jesus saving these people’s lives.

There was an episode called Devil’s Due in which the Enterprise received a distress single from a planet that was suffering from mass hysteria. The people on the planet have lived in peace and relative harmony for a thousand years and now all of a sudden everyone was in a panic and violence was breaking out. According to the Bible… I mean “ancient scrolls,” a thousand years ago there planet was at war fighting over resources, there was lots of pollution in the air and water, and the planet was in general bad shape. Then the Devil came and offered them a thousand years of peace in return for their immortal souls at the end of the thousand years. Well, now the end of days has arrived and the people of this planet feared the Devil’s return to collect.

Captain Picard of course tried to reason with them and to assure them that there is no Devil, but the people on the planet insisted that they could not have saved themselves and that the story about the Devil was real. To Captain Picard’s surprise, the Devil actually showed up.

Picard of course had to challenge the Devil in a sort of trial and at one point he had the planet’s president on the stand for questioning. He asked him about the state of the planet prior to the deal with the Devil. Again, the president was convinced that the Devil saved the planet and that they couldn’t have done it without the Devil’s help. When Picard asked the President about the actual nuts and bolts of the changes that occurred, the truth was revealed.

Did the Devil wave her magic hand and stop all wars? No, the leaders of the various nations got together and realized that they could not keep fighting over resources so they made a series of treaties. Did the Devil wave her hand and magically clean up the air and water pollution? No, the people switched from an industrial based society to an agrarian based life. Did the Devil hand out food to the hungry? No, with the new agrarian lifestyle they had plenty of food to feed the hungry. Did the Devil “even so-much as pick up a single piece of trash?” The answer to all of the questions was obvious. The Devil didn’t do damn thing, it was the people of the planet that did all the work “all by themselves.”

Now, swap out the Devil for Jesus and the planet’s problems for the problems of drug addicts, alcoholics, etc. Did Jesus magically suck the poisons out? Did Jesus flush away the hidden stash? Did Jesus even pour a single glass of alcohol down the drain? No, the addict did it all, all by his or her self.

All Jesus actually did was to provide an excuse for the addict to decide for themselves that it was time to clean up their act. Jesus at best is a placebo and at worst, Jesus acts as a replacement addiction. Christian simply trade one addiction for another.

Filed under: delusion, Hope, humanism, Religion, Religious Manipulation, responsibility, sin, wwjd | 1 Comment »

I always have to laugh when some Christian cries about the horrible persecution they suffer because they aren’t allowed to discriminate against gays or force their religion and values down everyone the throats of others like they used to. Woe it is to be a Christian today, lol.

Yesterday, I blogged about how the Catholic Religion is nearing the tipping point that might send it into the pit of dead religions. Well, after tweeting the link to the blog, some Christian sent me a link to his page where he talked about how in Britain, Muslims don’t have to wear a motorcycle helmet and no one objects to Muslim women wearing their head scarves at work yet one airline apparently prohibits the wearing of crucifixes.

Let’s analyze this a little bit. First, while I think he makes a valid point about the motorcycle helmets, I don’t typically think of Muslims rolling in on Harleys. It is a bit weak. As far as no one objecting to the head scarf, that has to do with people’s attitudes and belief in tolerance. Interestingly enough, there is currently a case in which a woman was fired from her job for wearing her head scarf in America. The issue was to do with work place dress codes. This ought to apply to crucifixes too as it appears it does with that one airline in Britain. It isn’t about religion at all.

This Christian then complained about how Christians can’t run adoption agencies on “Christian principles” because they want to discriminate against gays. Cry me a river. Oh know the western nations are actually treating Christians equally instead of giving their ridiculous cult special exemptions from the law; except of course the whole exemption from taxes, the free advertising on currency, in our national motto, in our pledge, and from just about every politician in the nation. And that is just the beginning of Christian woes in western nations, lol.

What a bunch of whinny bitches, no wonder Christians are always so nostalgic for the past when they could discriminate, torture, and burn people to death just for a hint that such people might not agree on the official Church doctrine. Ah yes, George Carlin put it best when he said, “Do you believe in God?” “No.” Boom! Dead. “Do you believe in God?” “Yes…” “Do you believe in my God?” “No.” Boom! Dead. “My god has a bigger dick than your god!” What he should have added was, “Do you believe in my God?” “Yes.” “Do you believe in my God in my way?” “No.” Boom! Dead.

Filed under: culture war, discrimination, Offensiveness, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 2 Comments »

While the media has a short memory and have already stopped talking about the massive child rape, child molestation, and the Vatican’s efforts to cover it all up, many actual Catholics haven’t forgotten so easily. As a result, many Catholics are leaving (or at least attempting to leave) the Church. How close is the Catholic Church to the tipping point of doom?

The problem isn’t just the sex scandals; they have been going on for decades. The Church is facing other challenges that the former Pope recognized, but that the current Pope does not. Modernity is a bitch and she is slapping the shit out of the Catholic Church.

Don’t get me wrong, the last Pope thought that homosexuality is a sin, that condom use is mass murder, and all the other absurdities. The difference is that this Pope is actually saying this stuff out loud in a very vocal fashion. In America, the Catholic Church now has a fundamentalist wing most represented by Bill Donahue’s Catholic League and now Michael Voris’ Real Catholic TV. The Catholic Church has clowns running around as their spokespeople and a nut as their ringleader.

The Catholic Church has been around for almost two-thousand years, so I don’t expect it to come to and end overnight. But if they continue on their current course, they may reach the tipping point and start going down hill very quickly. With that in mind, I think it is important to keep the pressure on them and to continue to expose the dangers of even moderate association with the Church.

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Yesterday, I shared a video from my new favorite Christian, Michael Voris. When I first saw his videos, I wasn’t sure he was for real. Many other people had similar doubts. On the other hand, many atheists who initially watched Edward Current videos on YouTube thought he was for real despite being so over the top in his obviously satirical fashion. What does this mean?

I think that it is really interesting that Christians have gotten so bat-shit crazy that it is actually hard to tell the Christian satire from the real thing. How do you lampoon a religion which pretty much lampoons themselves? I am not sure how one can do religious satire anymore with out someone thinking that they might be serious.

I wonder how over the top a satirist has to go for people to say, “Oh, that is obviously satire.” What if a “Christian” advocated a dictatorship? Would that be so over the top that it just couldn’t be a real Christian? Surely something that ridiculous must be a satire, right? Wrong, my favorite Christian Michael Voris had just such a video. It seems that his video got a lot of negative reactions from people so he took it down. But not to worry, once someone says something that crazy in front of a camera, there is no way to erase it. For the record, I actually did see the original on his channel a few days ago and Voris actually commented on the video in another of his daily self-lampoons.

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Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Catholics, Religion | 1 Comment »

Despite the fact that I strongly disagree with Christians on the nature of reality and I think that Christianity is the most dangerous force humanity has ever known I have nothing against Christians as people. It isn’t their fault they have been so fooled by the Christian system. Because no two Christians are the same, so I do have my favorites. Especially among the evangelical and apologist Christians I have my favorites.

Last week, thanks to the all powerful Twitter, I stumbled upon a Christian evangelical apologist I had never heard before on YouTube. I watched a few of his videos and I have to say that this guy is great. In fact, he is my new favorite Christian.

What I like about this guy is that he is completely ridiculous. When I first watched one of his videos, I actually wasn’t sure he was for real. Part of me actually thought his video was satire, but as it turns out he is completely serious.

I also love how in some cases, he actually argues against other Christians and in so doing, makes my points for me. The thing is that he is too wrapped up in his own bullshit to realize that the arguments he makes against the other Christians apply just as well to his own brand of Christianity.

So without further ad due I give you Michael Voris of Catholic TV:

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I think this is a problem with any minority group which has had to fight for acceptance so I don’t think atheists are in general pessimistic. In fact, most atheists I know tend to be pretty optimistic. But for some reason, whenever an atheist is trying to make a difference and to do something for the good of the community there tend to be those atheist nay sayers.

Here is a great example. Over the weekend, I wrote an Examiner article about a candidate for US Congress who is openly atheist. While I certainly got a fair amount of people who are encouraged by this and who have decided to donate a few dollars to his campaign, I got far more responses from people telling me how this guy can’t win because atheists can’t win in politics.

Now maybe these nay sayers are just trying to come up with an excuse for not donating to his campaign, but there really shouldn’t need one. No one is guilt tripping them into donating to his campaign (but it would be helpful if they did). The best thing about the internet is it is anonymous. So how the fuck would I know if some other atheist in Nebraska didn’t donate to some politician in Virginia? No one is watching how much money to put into a collection plate if anything at all. I think it is helpful to donate to an atheist politician who values reason and has a progressive agenda. But that is just me.

What isn’t helpful is this bullshit that the guy can’t win because he is an open atheist. It is that type of negative attitude which helps to keep atheists from actually running for office and prevents other people from taking us seriously. We have an up hill battle for acceptance as it is and there are always going to be negativity from religious people about everything we do. We really don’t need Debbie Downers from our own camp.

With that being said, constructive analysis is always welcome and encouraged on any endeavor, but the defeatism is just unproductive. What would these nay sayers have us do, give up and let the Religious Right demonize us unchallenged? Should we just let the Religious Right continue to force their ridiculous superstitions on us and not attempt to fight back or stand up for ourselves?

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In this final installment of my response to Jeffrey T. Kuhner’s article “Why God is Great,” I want to talk about a few paragraphs within his article dealing with sexuality. In fact, I would like to even focus on Mr. Kuhner’s particular view of masturbation.

First, I would like to give credit where credit is due. Kuhner actually did have a paragraph in which he came close to articulating Christopher Hitchens’ actual position on a subject. While in the last blog article, I pointed out that Kuhner claimed Hitchens only hates the Catholic Church because of their alleged anti-communistic position, but in the previous paragraph of his article, Kuhner went on to give some of the real reasons Hitchens has such a dislike of the Catholic Church. Is Jeff’s memory so short that he couldn’t remember what he had written just one paragraph earlier? Here is what Kuhner has to say:

“The one institution Mr. Hitchens despises above all, however, is the Catholic Church. In his view, it is a primitive, medieval institution founded upon lies, anti-Semitism and sexual oppression – the means by which a clerical theocracy controls human beings by dictating their sexual behavior. He has smeared – without any concrete evidence – Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict not only for purportedly coddling pedophile priests, but for encouraging mass “child rape” and “child slavery.” Moreover, he stresses that the church is directly responsible for the deaths of millions of AIDS victims because of its stance on contraception – despite the fact that, if followed, the church’s teachings make the sexual transmission of the disease impossible.”

For the record, the Catholic Church is a primitive, medieval institution. It certainly wasn’t created yesterday. Also, since the Church has yet to prove the existence of their deity and has arguably built a business and an empire around lies, this claim seems to also be true. Does anyone remember indulgences? That was the practice in which the Catholic Church told people that they would go to Heaven if they paid the Church enough money. I have to think that the Church officials at the time knew this was not true. I can’t believe they could have honestly been that delusional. But I guess when dealing with the deeply religious anything is possible.

The claim that the Church was at one time and perhaps still is to some extent anti-Semitic is obviously true. This isn’t to say that all Catholics are anti-Semitic, but it is to say that at certain points during the Church’s history the leadership was certainly anti-Semitic. Hitler was a Roman Catholic and the Church leadership at the time did give some support to his efforts. With that said, there were of course brave clergy who did the right thing during that difficult time and hid Jews just as there are brave clergy today who do what they can to protect the victims of clerical rape. But the leadership of the Catholic Church is not so brave.

As a point of fact, there is evidence to support the claim that John Paul II knew that child rape was going on and gave the current Pope the job of dealing with it. There is also stronger evidence that Pope Benedict before becoming Pope was chiefly responsible for moving priests around the world to evade being caught. This is of course the current scandal which has gotten a lot of press all over the world.

As far as the AIDS epidemic on the African continent goes, the Pope’s view of contraception and the Catholic Church’s propagation of the idea that it is better to die from AIDS than to use condoms and live costs millions of lives a year. That is a stone cold fact.

But Kuhner also mentioned that Hitchens believes that, “clerical theocracy controls human beings by dictating their sexual behavior.” This is where I will post another brief paragraph of this article:

“Mr. Hitchens also champions anti-Catholic bigotry because the church opposes the left’s radical sexual agenda. Mr. Hitchens is a virulent supporter of abortion, homosexuality and even – I am not making this up – masturbation.”

That’s right folks; Jeffrey Kuhner is not making this up. Christopher Hitchens actually supports masturbation. Holy fucking shit. After centuries of Catholic lies to school aged children about masturbation causing hairy palms, boldness, and eternal torture in Hell, here comes crazy old Hitchens telling people the truth that masturbation is completely harmless.

As much as I find it interesting that Kuhner considers a woman’s right to an abortion and homosexuality to be a “radical sexual agenda,” the fact that he considers masturbation to be even more radical is fascinating. Yeah, we have all heard the Church’s position on abortion and homosexuality before and yeah, we have even heard the Church’s opposition to masturbation before. That isn’t anything new. But few Catholic apologists actually focus on masturbation these days. To my knowledge, no one except Kuhner considers it even more radically deviant than abortion and homosexuality. That’s kind of new to me.

If that is really Jeffrey Kuhner’s priority then there is no wonder he is so sexually frustrated. He probably has a huge hard on for Hitchens but is afraid to masturbate to him. It does seem like all these wacky Christians who are anti-gay turn out to be gay, so I wonder if Kuhner will get caught literally with his pants down any time soon.

As for me, I plan on printing out Mr. Kuhner’s article and masturbating all over it just so God will send me to Hell for it. How awesome would it be if when I got to Hell, Satan asked me why I was there and I told him that I “spilled the seed” on Jeffrey Kuhner’s crappy article. Of course there is no Satan and no Hell, so maybe I’ll just settle for going to a Catholic confessional and relating my “crime” to some sexually frustrated priest. But if he asks me to go into the back room, I am so out of there.

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Filed under: Blasphemy, Catholics, conversation, Religion, sex | 3 Comments »

In my forth blog post addressing Jeffrey T. Kuhner’s Washington Times article, “God is Great” I will focus on Kuhner’s ignorance about history and logic. I will also discuss his unquestioning political dogmatism. In the article, Kuhner makes a point to his fellow conservatives that Christopher Hitchens is NOT a “fellow traveler,” but rather Hitchens is an evil Communist. *Face Palm*

“Because of Mr. Hitchens’ support for the war on terror, many conservatives have falsely embraced him as a fellow traveler.”

Really Jeff, do you not know the history behind the phrase “Fellow Traveler?” This was a phrase used largely during the McCarthy Era to describe Communist supporters. So in one simple line of this article Kuhner equates conservatives with Communists. The irony is that almost half of Kuhner’s article deals with trying to label Hitchens as a Communist.

“That Mr. Hitchens remains a militant atheist should come as no surprise. He is an unadulterated Bolshevik.”

This is the text book definition of the ad hominem fallacy. Before we get into the nearly half of the article which attempts to label Hitchens as the before mentioned, “unadulterated Bolshevik,” it really needs to be pointed out that one has absolutely nothing to do with the other. Labeling Hitchens as a Communist does nothing to discredit his arguments addressing religion nor does it support any arguments in favor of religion. It is simply a red herring.

As mentioned before, Kuhner took almost half of his article to attacking Hitchens’ alleged political leanings. He went on at some length to point out that Hitchens opposed the Vietnam conflict and many of Reagan’s foreign policy decisions. This he considers supportive of Communism. The interesting reality is that most Americans were opposed to the Vietnam conflict and many Americans considered the particular foreign policy decisions of Ronald Reagan that Kuhner points out to be poor and even illegal. While Kuhner has every right to try to defend the invasion of Grenada and arming the Contras, calling those who disagree with him on these issues Communists is silly.

I don’t think one can put simple labels on Hitchens’ political philosophies throughout the years. While he certainly supported certain aspects of socialism it is ridiculous to insinuate that he supported the systematic murders of tens of millions carried out by Stalin. Despite the lengthy attempt to link Hitchens to the worst crimes of Communism, Kuhner really doesn’t go into any real depth in the nuances of Hitchens’ positions. Kuhner’s argument amounts to, “Hitchens thought Lenin was a great leader, therefore Hitchens is an evil Communist who supported everything Lenin and anything other Communists did.” One can admire someone’s leadership ability and even some aspects of their philosophy without having to support everything they do.

Why is all this important? It really isn’t, but according to Kuhner, “Mr. Hitchens loathes Catholicism for one simple reason: It was the Church that stood as the most powerful and consistent force against the communist occupation of Eastern Europe.” And I thought Mr. Hitchens loathed the Catholic Church because large numbers of Catholic priests fucked and continue to fuck children and the Catholic Church systematically has tried to cover it up. Among other atrocities of course.

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Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Catholics, communism, conversation, logic | No Comments »

Today’s installment of the series dealing with Jeffrey T. Kuhner’s article entitled, “Why God is Great” deals with one of my favorite subjects, morality. But Kuhner isn’t making the old moral grounding argument this time. Instead, he is making the moral norms argument.

Interestingly enough, I first heard this argument while watching Christopher Hitchen’s film “Coalition.” In the film, Hitchens and fundamentalist Christian Douglas Wilson go behind the scenes of their debate tour. Wilson introduces quite a few arguments in the film and Hitchens does not counter them in the film. This “moral norms argument” is one of the arguments Wilson makes.

This argument asserts that the western world has received our morality directly from the Christian tradition. The interesting thing about this argument is that it actually refutes the better known Christian moral grounding argument. In other words, we have two competing arguments for the origins of morality from Christians. The first is that God has divinely grounded morality in every human being’s soul and the second is this argument that Christians are responsible for the moral norms of society.

While there is some overlap within these two ideas, they do actually compete. Both of them cannot be true at the same time in the same way. Either God put morality into our “souls” or Christians created our moral norms. Yes, Christians claim to have gotten those norms from God, but that isn’t enough of an overlap to solve this contradiction.

The really interesting part is that Wilson and Kuhner are in some cases correct in this “Christian moral norms” argument. There is no doubt that at least some of America’s moral norms do come from the 2000 plus years of Christian tyranny. I will get into some of the specifics of those “moral norms” in a later article in this series.

Kuhner states in his article: “He (Hitchens) denounces the existence of God while simultaneously living off the ethical norms established by the Judeo-Christian tradition.” He claims that one example is “the sacred nature of human life,” which Kuhner claims is a “direct result of our Christian heritage.” While I am willing to admit that some of the moral norms in America do come from a Christian heritage, this isn’t it.

It seems that according to Kuhner, the only reason why Americans consider human life sacred is because the Bible says so. In other words, every tradition that was not established by the Judeo-Christian tradition must not value human life. The Jains must be stone cold killers.

I think atheist George Carlin put it best when he said that “the leading cause of death was God.” He went on to say:

“Do you know where the sanctity of life came from? We made it up. Why? Because we’re alive; self interest. Living people have a strong interest in promoting the idea that life is sacred. You don’t see Abbott and Costello running around talking about this shit, do you? We’re not hearing a whole lot from Mussolini on the subject. What’s the latest from JFK? Not a fucking thing because Abbott and Costello, Mussolini, and JFK are fucking dead and dead people give less than a shit about the sanctity of life.”

Sorry Jeff, but the sacred nature of human life doesn’t come from Christianity. In fact, most of our moral norms don’t either. It seems that the only moral norms that actually do come from Christianity have to do with Christianity’s hatred of sexuality. But that is an article for later in this series.

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Filed under: conversation, morality, Religion | 1 Comment »

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In Jeffrey T. Kuhner’s article, Why God is Great, he makes the ridiculous claim that, “Mr. Hitchens is unable to restrain his anti-Catholic bigotry.” This is not a new claim that Catholic apologists make and I have probably even written about it before. But it is worth addressing again.

You can’t be a bigot against an idea. I know that people are indoctrinated into religious ideas to the point that many people seem to think that religion and race are the same, but they are not. Race is something you are born into and cannot change (Michael Jackson not withstanding). Religion is an idea which can be abandoned in light of better ideas.

In a resent article on The Daily Beast, Sam Harris wrote the following:

“It is not a form of bigotry or racism to observe that the specific tenets of the faith pose a special threat to civil society. Nor is it a sign of intolerance to notice when people are simply not being honest about what they and their co-religionists believe.”

Harris was actually talking about Islam here, but it just as easily applicable to any religion including Catholicism. Just as Islam is not a race, Catholicism is also not a race. So one cannot be racist against a religion nor can someone be bigoted toward a religion. Hitchens is very good at criticizing the Catholic belief system and he has no problem criticizing the behavior of particular members of the Catholic Church (i.e. pedophile priests, Vatican officials, and the Pope).

Criticizing an idea, belief, or belief system is not the same as hating people who hold those beliefs. In no instance that I am aware of has Christopher Hitchens stated or implied that he hates ALL Catholics. All Mr. Hitchens is guilty of is criticizing the beliefs that Catholics are supposed to hold (note that not all Catholics actually hold all those beliefs).

On the charge that Hitchens is a “Catholic Bigot,” Jeffrey T. Kuhner fails to prove his case. The idea is that the term “bigot” has a negative connotation and so Kuhner thinks that he can win points by labeling his opponent with such a term.

A good way to cement this point is to use the old Nazi analogy. It is important to note that whenever Nazis are used in an example people want to make the leap that a comparison is being made with the Nazis. This is not the case and I want that to be very clear. The Nazis are used in an example because they are universally despised (rightly so).  Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, here is the analogy:

If someone were to make a statement that the Nazis did lots of immoral things, few if anyone would consider this a bigoted statement against all Nazis. Surely, one isn’t suggesting that every single Nazi was immoral. But rather that the Nazi leadership did immoral things and/or that Nazis ideology is immoral. Like Catholicism, people aren’t born Nazis. It is an ideology. So when someone like Hitchens claims that Catholicism is immoral, he is not claiming that every individual Catholic is immoral, but rather the leadership and the doctrine are immoral. That is not a form a bigotry.

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Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Catholics, conversation, Religion | 5 Comments »

On Friday, a Dangerous Talker sent me an interesting article from the Washington Times. The article was written by conservative columnist and talk show commentator, Jeffrey T. Kuhner and was entitled, “Why God is great.” It was basically an attack piece on Christopher Hitchens.

After reading the article, I thought that I would spend a week or more addressing some of Mr. Kuhner’s points because they are ridiculously weak and some of them have been used by other religionists on a somewhat regular basis.

I know it seems odd to spend this much time on one article, but I think it will be worth the journey. There are many interesting points in this article and are worth dissecting. Keep in mind that I said “interesting,” not “valid.” Sometimes the worst arguments for a position can be just as interesting as the best arguments. At nothing else, the worst arguments are at least entertaining.

I will make one note in advance that while I am planning to write at least a week’s worth of blogs on this one article, if some other breaking news story or issue of interest comes up, I might have to interrupt this series.

If you would like to read the article, here is the link. But I should warn you in advance that it is long and crappy. Part 2 of this series will be about the idea of “Catholic Bigotry” or any type of religious bigotry or that matter.

Filed under: conversation, culture war, Religion | 8 Comments »

I know the Anne Rice thing is getting old. The story has been around for a few weeks now and I just can’t let it go. Like I did with Stephen Baldwin, I have written an open letter to Anne Rice. I am confident she will read it since she has been so accessible in the past. Let me know what you think before I will send it to her on Monday.

Dear Anne,
I was a big fan of your Vampire Chronicles growing up. My favorite book was Pandora. But when you had returned to Christianity I was crushed. I am glad that you left Christianity again, but I worry that the tentacles of the Christian system of belief still has such a hold on you.

Many of my atheist and humanist friends consider Christians to be stupid. They often think about the Fox News watching, fundamentalist, homophobes who blindly reiterate the talking points of their priests and popular fundamentalist apologists when they make such claims. I never really thought that Christians were stupid though. I have many Christian friends who are very intelligent and there are also many famous Christians who are obviously intelligent like Francis Collins. Of course, most atheists and humanists were also at one time Christians and yet many of these very same people are the ones calling Christians stupid.

The point I am trying to make here is that despite the fact that the Christian story has more plot holes that a Michael Bay film and is ridiculously stupid, it has created a system of belief which can bypass the intellect of moral people of all levels of intelligence.

It starts at a young age. Most people in our society are indoctrinated with religion before they are able to think clearly and independently. People learn about God before they even learn about Santa Claus. Even if some people like yourself are about to break away from this indoctrination, it is still there. It lies dormant and waits for the right moment to reassert itself. People don’t reason back into belief because the story of Christ is unreasonable. No, the belief waits until someone is in emotional turmoil. It waits for when a person’s emotions are clouding their intellectual abilities and then it reasserts itself as a callback to the time when the person was young and felt the joy and comfort of a child.

The comfort of our childhood is linked to our indoctrination in religious ideas and beliefs. So the brain is tricked into accepting these ridiculous ideas out of a craving for our youthful innocence and comfort. This is how religion gets people, Anne.

What happened in your life which brought you back to religion back in 1995? Were you in emotional turmoil or did you reason the Christian system of belief after reading the divine logic that is the Bible. Surely the vicarious redemption for wrong doing through barbaric blood sacrifice is not intellectually convincing? Such a convoluted scheme is not worthy of any all powerful deity and yet even though you have rejected Christianity, you still seem to cling to the belief that Jesus died for people’s sins.

The evil of the Christian system of belief is that it is extremely difficult to break from that belief system even when one breaks from the religion itself. While it is sometimes more comforting to believe in happy fairy tales, the reality of this world is infinitely more comforting in the long run. It is the knowledge that we are still learning and that we don’t yet have the certainty that religion claims o have. It is the knowledge of human potential and that while we were not created special by an all powerful being; we have the ability to become special through our continued education about the universe we live in.

Look at what we have learned about the universe we inhabit. We discovered these things as a species. This wasn’t divine knowledge passed to us passively. No, we figured this stuff out on our own and we are still figuring things out because we are smart and clever. We have devised a system that helps us to learn what is true and what is not. That system is the scientific method and it doesn’t rely on someone’s chaotic emotional state, but waits until someone is as clear minded and objective as one could be.

Faith and Science are in conflict Anne. Faith is belief based on things hoped for by yet not seen. It is belief with no evidence. Science and reason are based on the evidence.

We are all on a journey to find meaning in our lives and while I am happy that your journey has taken you away from Christianity, your journey has not yet come to an end. Please Anne, keep searching for meaning and keep examining your beliefs and re-examine your beliefs. Socrates once said that that un-examined life is not worth living. With that in mind, I wish you all the best on your journey.
In Reason,
-Staks Rosch

Filed under: conversation, de-conversion, faith, Religious Manipulation | 1 Comment »

There are a lot of Libertarian atheists out there for some bizarre reason. Many worship Congressman Ron Paul the way Christians worship Jesus even though Congressman Paul considers America to be a Christian Nation. I wonder what these Libertarians think about Paul’s position on Proposition 8.

Libertarians always tell me that they want government out of people’s private lives and on the issue of gay marriage… or straight marriage for that matter, Libertarians often take the position that government should not have any involvement at all in issuing marriage licenses. This is a position I actually agree with, but recently the Pope of Libertarianism Congressman Ron Paul came out against same-gender marriage in favor of Proposition 8 which for a short time was a California constitutional ban of same-gender marriage largely funded by the Mormon Church.

I find it interesting that the guy who wears the Constitution on his sleeve seems to have not actually read it. I guess it is a lot like Christians who wear the Bible on their sleeves. I discussed this before when Paul claimed that the Constitution was “replete with references to God.”

Paul’s position is that the people voted to deny gay people the right to marriage and therefore, the State of California should have the state’s rights to deny gay people the right to marry. However, the Constitution (particularly the Bill of Rights) was designed to protect people’s rights from the government (federal and state).

The tenth amendment makes it clear that the states have the power to do whatever they want when it doesn’t conflict with the federal Constitution. It’s a sad day for Ron Paul because the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution provides equal protection under the law for all everyone.

The philosophy behind the Constitution is that we are all born free and that the job of the government is to protect person freedom as much as possible. People can’t simply vote other people’s rights away. That’s not how the Constitution works. Could you imagine if it did? Next election, we could vote away the rights of Republicans to vote.

Filed under: Gay Issues, Law, Politics, Ron Paul | 3 Comments »

I have been a vocal atheist for almost twenty years now and have been an active member of the greater atheistic community for about half that time. Over the years, I have discussed and argued with people from many different religions and many different sects of the varying religions. A few years back, I even had the opportunity to appear on television as a representative of the atheist community for a half-hour debate show seen all over Pennsylvania. But I have not had the opportunity to speak in front of a group of people before… until now.

The Lehigh Valley Humanists have asked me to speak at their October meeting. I am pretty excited about it and have a few different topics I am thinking about discussing. As the new coordinator of PhillyCoR, it seems like I should probably speak about organizing atheists and atheist groups. This type of talk would deal with the “good cop/bad cop” problem within atheism. Such a talk would also include the rise of internet atheism and the rise of atheism in America.

On the other hand, my expertise has always been in the argument front. A discussion about de-conversion might be the way to go. This discussion would feature the corruptive force of the Christian system of belief and how it preys on people at their weakest moments.

I might even do a combination of the two. It could be a two act discussion. In any case, it is pretty exciting and I am really looking forward to it. I hope to be able to do more of these types of speaking engagements in the future. Some of the discussion afterward might even help me with the book I am slowly working on writing. Let me know if you have any thoughts about what should be included in my talk.

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