Don't Be A Dick

I have mentioned the Don't Be A Dick talk from Phil Plait before. I thought I would post the video of his talk in case some have not seen it. I highly recommend it, it is a great talk.

Phil Plait - Don't Be A Dick from JREF on Vimeo.

Also, it seems the idea that confrontation is best as opposed to accommodation is not getting as much support as I thought.  Hemant Mehta at Friendly Atheist said this about PZ Meyer's recent post Confrontation all the way,

I used to think it was ok to be religious as long as you were in support of things like social justice, good science, and church/state separation.
Anyone who’s read this site for a while knows I don’t really feel that way anymore.
I don’t “attack” people who are religious, but I don’t see a need to let that slide anymore even when they agree with me everywhere else.

It is disappointing that Hemant Mehta's position on this matter has changed for the worse, and it seems quite a few of his commentators think the same. I would have thought a lot more of them would have agreed with Hemant and PZ than actually did. Here are a few of their responses to his (Hemant Mehta's) post.

 R9 Says:

“And even if the religious moderates don’t vote against gay rights and are vocal about getting rid of bad science, they’re still wrong about the god thing. That means we must keep speaking out on that issue.”

“Must” to improve the world? Or their lives? Or for our sense of self-satisfaction?

CP Says:

How nice to know that atheists function under the same rules as fundamentalist Christians. Evangelical atheists are some of the most annoying people if only because they deny that they are evangelical.

Guy G Says:

A general maxim which works for me is “If it’s not doing any harm, then really it’s none of your business”
I’ve been visiting here for a fair while, and my view on it is that your change in stance has been a negative thing. Your posts are increasingly more mocking and derisory to the religious, which is a shame, IMO.

 This one is rather long but well worth reading.

muggle Says:

There’s no need to be hostile. If their stupid imaginary friend is doing no harm and they’re not bringing it up, why do we need to? If they bring it up politely, we should just as politely disagree. If they’re hostile, fight fire with fire and tell them they’re being a dickweed and an idiot.
But — as you used to notice — there’s simply no argument when they’re not using their religion to harm. Why do you assume the ones who are open and accepting to gays are sneaking quietly off to vote against gay marriage in the voting booth? Sure the ones who say they hate the sin love the sinner are but I’ve known many Christians who are openly accepting of gays without that qualifier and I’m sure they’re not doing so. To assume they are is, frankly, prejudicial. There are denominations who want to marry gays and are prevented to by law. They are most likely voting for gay marriage. While I think evolution pretty much debunks the creation myth of the buybull, I’ve known many Christians who politely disagree with that and are outspoken against creationism in the schools. Do you really think Atheists are in the majority in Dover, PA? Naw, I don’t either. Far as I know, we’re not in the majority anywhere.
Let me stress, not antagonizing unnecessarily does not mean to actually support religion by giving to their charities, etc. You know my view on that. It does, however, extend to protecting their civil rights. Hell with them, protecting their civil rights is important because it protects ours.
I’ve got to say, Hemant, I’m really disappointed in this new bitter tone. I’m patient because I realize that you’re in a public position and, hence, more of a target for the nasty type of believer. It’s got to be harder to keep your perspective in that situation. But I’d really hate to see you come what you hate and that’s always what it seems to me when Atheists like Dawkins start with bigoted crap like they’re all delusional and Atheists are smarter, etc. They are every bit as bad as theists who say you’re amoral without gawd. Every fucking bit. There’s a reason why I read your blog every day and not PK’s.
Let’s not fall into the trap that we condemn so many theists of falling into: that’s it’s okay to follow the leaders into hateful, viral over-genralizations of people who are not like us.

Accommodation And Confrontation

*Imagine a pastor preaching to his congregation on a Sunday morning:

There is an answer, and it's on display right here in this room. The solution, the only longterm solution, is the sanity of God’s Word. The lesser struggles to keep silly skepticism out off our textbooks or to keep pseudoscientific nonsense like evolution out of our classrooms are important, but they are endless chores -- at some point we just have to stop pandering to the ideological noise that spawns these unending tasks and cut right to the source: science.
We must confront untruths; letting them lie unquestioned is simply a way to allow them to fester and grow.

No, the words above are not the latest rant from Pat Robertson nor are they from your local fundie preacher. They are not even from a Christian, but a well known militant-atheist, PZ Meyers. With just a couple key changes (shown above in italics) his statement, originally about the elimination of religion, becomes indistinguishable from statements by extremists on the extreme opposite side of the belief spectrum. This goes to show the line of thinking in both cases, fundie Christian and militant-atheist, are not far removed from one another. And it looks like it is getting worse. The Don’t Be A Dick idea is losing ground and in its place is the idea that anti-accommodation (anti-theism), expressed in the original quote above, is best.

More and more people are coming out and stating their anti-theism and they are proud of it. They are proud of the exact behavior they so radically oppose in extremists theists. It should not be all that surprising that this idea of opposing religion regardless if it is harmful or not should come from Pharyngula. You can read the blog post that is making its way through the blogosphere, from which I took the passage I quoted at the beginning of this post, here. It is your general “religion in any form is evil and must be eradicated” polemic. You can also read about it on sites such as Friendly Atheist and Blag Hag.

The post by PZ Meyers is his talk he gave to a group about accommodation and confrontation. In it he talks about the “real battle” going on today with extremists trying to undermine education and science. He has a point about this and I see no real problem with his style of confronting these types of people who wish to deny scientific fact. He then goes on to explain that this battle has been going on for a very long time and that those who oppose the extremists trying to undermine science (I assume he is only including fellow atheists here, he makes the reason why clear latter) have not been making any real success.

We have been treading water for 50 years. In one sense, that's a very good thing: better to stay afloat in one place than to sink…

It is about time, he says, that they began to make some kind of progress.

But isn't it also about time we learned a new stroke and actually made some progress towards the shore?

Okay, nothing wrong with trying to do better and actually achieve your goals.

Shouldn't we move beyond just reacting to every assault by Idiot America on science education, and honestly look at the root causes of this chronic malignancy and do something about it?

The “root causes”? Hmm, I have a bad feeling I, along with every other theist/Christian, are about to get thrown under a bus…

The sea our country is drowning in is a raging religiosity… We keep hearing that the answer is to find the still waters of a more moderate faith, but I'm sorry, I don't feel like drowning there either.
At some point we just have to stop pandering to the ideological noise that spawns these unending tasks and cut right to the source: religion.

Yup, I knew it. The rest of his post goes on to try and cast all religious as essentially evil as far as science and evolution are concerned. He tries to say that simply because atheists do not believe in religion (thus it must be false) the simple act of believing in a God somehow makes us part of a “disease”.

Religion isn't the problem, they claim, it's only the extremists and zealots and weirdos. The majority of believers are moderates and even share some values with us.
"But is a moderate superstition true?", we repeat, and "How can a myth be made more true if its proponents are simply calmer in stating it?"

Since when was this about whether or not our religious beliefs were true? We believe them to be, atheists do not. The real issue here is the extremists and more importantly their actions of attempting to undermine things such as public education. It is not about if their beliefs are true or not, but how they are attempting to force their beliefs upon others.

I mean, it's nice and all that most Christians aren't out chanting "God Hates Fags" and are a little embarrassed when some yokel whines that he didn't come from no monkey, but they still go out and quietly vote against gay and lesbian rights, and they still sit at home while their school boards set fire to good science.

No, they do not all go out and vote against gay marriage, nor do they all stand by when their children’s education is at risk. Some do, some do not. The same is true of atheists. Not all atheists go out to vote for gay marriage, some sit at their homes and could not care less. Some even vote against it (yes, there are atheists who think homosexuality is wrong). Nor do all atheists stand up when their children’s education is at risk. Some do nothing, heck, some are even bad parents and probably don’t even know their child is about to be taught evolution is false, just like some Christians.

It's all about the truth, people.

I think he really means it is all about “truth” as seen through the eyes of an anti-theist.

I have been told that I must think promoting atheism is more important than promoting good science education;

Sounds about right to me.

I've been told to hush, there are good Christians who support science, and a vocal atheism will scare them away...and I have to ask, you question my support for science education, when you pander to people who you admit will put their superstitions above science if someone says a harsh word about Jesus?

Now he is just setting up a straw man. I highly doubt those atheists who see accommodation as the best approach would agree that this is a rational framing of their reasoning.

Half of PZ Meyer’s reasoning in his post is good. The intentional undermining of things such as education by religious extremists needs to be confronted head on. However, the other half of his reasoning is nothing but an attempt to spread the blame to all those of religious belief in an attempt to throw them under the bus of ridicule and hatred thinly disguised as “criticism” and “truth”. It is nothing more than an attempt to rationalize his bigotry. And it is beginning to catch on with other militant-atheists.

To those militant-atheists who wish to condemn or ignore we theists in the middle, who believe in evolution, who do not take the Bible to be infallible and completely literal, who believe that BLGT’s should be allowed to marry, who do not condemn others to hell fire and brimstone for believing differently, who condemn the radical extremists who bomb buildings, who do not support the likes of Pat Robertson or the Westboro Baptist Church, who do not spread hatred or fear, we are here and we exist. We do not have a skewed view of reality and our beliefs do not impair our reasoning skills or our ability to function in society. To quote Christopher Titus, “now take down that cross from your back, use the wood to build a bridge, and get over it!”.

Final Videos of Jed's Visit

I got the video I took from Jed's Friday visit to Purdue up now. Here are the links to all the videos:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7

Parts 1-3 are from Wednesday, 4-7 are the new ones from Friday.

And again, Jed has a post on facebook about his visit to Purdue from Friday.

As I sat waiting for the class break, I notice students were milling around waiting for me to start.  When I began preaching, a male student got beside me and started reading at the top of his voice from Nietzsche.  This was distracting tactic.  But I am always able to outlast these kind hecklers.  Usually, I just go on automatic pilot in these circumstances and preach.  After 15 minutes the heckler switched to reading from Kant.  I would have been glad to debate with him concerning philosophy but he was only interested in disturbing my preaching, not in pursuing truth.  After about 30 minutes he had to go unto class.  By then 50-75 students gathered which is the size of crowd we maintained for most of the afternoon, sometimes building to over 100.

Article From Jed's First Day at Purdue

Found this article written by Brother Jed recapping the first day at Purdue. Apparently the Force is strong with our lesbians on campus.

Sister Cindy, who is in top form, drew a crowd, which built up to one hundred by crying out against the lusts of the flesh.  Lust was the main issue of the day, especially when it is expressed in the “gay” way.  The lesbians were out in force.  They were going out of their way to be generally respectful.  I did not deal with that many male homosexuals, but the female ones were very vocal.  At one point a man held a derogatory sign behind me, but the students shamed him into putting it down.

Rest is here.

Brother Jed @ Purdue Videos

The videos I took of Brother Jed yesterday are up.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Brother Jed

Brother Jed is on Purdue's campus through Friday. You can read about him here if you have never heard of him. I watched him today for about an hour and a half and recorded most of it. I will be putting it on YouTube sometime Thursday or Friday as I will be going back to watch him talk and, more importantly, watch the crowd tear him to pieces. That is literally what they did today. I was happy that many of the people there who said they did not believe in God, or any religion, made it very clear that their hostility towards Brother Jed and his group did not come from their disagreement with Christianity but with his method of presenting it. I think the best part was when a girl who was passing by shouted "Sit on this!" and flashed Brother Jed as he was speaking. Too bad I had my camera turned off as it happened.

The more you know about religion the more likely you are an atheist…

Or Mormon.

The Pew Forum released a new study on Americas’ knowledge of religion. Of the nine different groups surveyed atheists, Jews, and Mormons scored the highest with an average of 20 correct answers out of 32 questions. This survey has been making the rounds on the various atheist blogs and religious debate forums with non-theists shouting its results from the rooftops that atheists know more about religion than theists. However, almost all of them neglect to mention that Jews and Mormons are practically tied with them. It also seems they neglect to mention that it is knowledge of non-Christian religions that they score the highest in while on Christian topics, such as the Bible, Mormons score the highest.

Frankly the results of the survey should not be all that surprising. Most self proclaimed atheists have generally studied various religions to see if they believe them. Hence it is not surprising they would be fairly knowledgeable on this topic. It is also not surprising that Jews and Mormons are at the top as well. Jews tend to a highly educated group along with Mormons. It has even been shown that the more educated a Mormon is the more likely they are to be more involved in their Church.

Sources:
US Religious Knowledge Survey
Survey: Americans don't know much about religion

Wanting to come back to posting

I have not posted anything in quite a while here. Over the past several months my motivation for continuing in religious debate and discussion has been waning. Not because of lost of interest, but because of my coming to believe that it is rather pointless. This same thing occurred when I first started studying and debating religion as a hobby in high school. Originally I participated on a forum where the discussion/debate was between LDS and Mainstream-Christians. Eventually I got tired of constantly bashing my head against the wall there so I switched to a different forum where the discussion/debate was largely between theists and non-theists. Now, again, I am getting tired of bashing my head against the proverbial wall. So, again, I am losing my motivation. Now, I know I am not going to change the minds of those (mainly) non-theists I debate/discuss with. That was never my intention. What I wanted to do was get the point across that religion can and does have a place in the world and trying to cast it, and its adherents, as evil, delusional, handicapped, irrational, and the list goes on, is not the most efficient way to go about criticizing it. Such a method only results in alienating those you wish to reach.
I haven’t based my decision solely on my participation on a single forum. I also read quite a few big name atheist blogs (if you say my Google Reader you would think I was an atheist) and the general feeling of the posts I go through each day has also played a part. Frankly, with how many of them describe religious beliefs, I should be thankful I have the mental capacity to get out of bed in the morning or tie my shoes. I am hoping that the “Don’t be a dick” type atheists start getting a little more support but I doubt that will happen. A lot of blogs have been talking about needing the aggressive, dickish types in the atheist community. I cannot really wrap my mind around why they would think that as it is the same thing as me saying Christians need people like Pat Robertson or the Westboro Baptist Church.
Anyway, I would like to start posting again but I will have to wait and see if some topic comes up that I think is truly worth posting about.

The God Virus at Purdue

Thursday the local Non-Theists Society here at Purdue sponsored a lecture by Dr. Darrel Ray, author of The God Virus. He is also the founder of Recovering from Religion. The lecture was a condensed summary of the ideas he puts forth in his book. Those ideas being that religion is comparable to a virus in how it spreads through a society and how it causes people to react to it.

Dr. Ray used many different examples throughout his talk such as comparing viral vectors to how different religions spread or how people easily get sick when their immune system is low is comparable to how some people “get religion” when their “rational immune system” is low. It was clear he has put a lot of work into this hypothesis that religion can be metaphorically compared to a virus. But I left with the feeling of “So What?”, but I will come back to this later.

He began his talk with one of things that atheists do that really annoys me, he implied “atheism” = “free thinking” when he mentioned bringing theists into the freethinking community.* Nothing like going to a talk to only have the first thing said imply your reasoning skills are handicapped. In fact, he implied theists are stupid quite a bit (at least in comparison to atheists, yes he whipped out the “atheists have higher IQs than theists” mantra). He also brought up that a person’s intelligence is negatively related to their religiosity. This one especially amused me as the exact opposite is true for LDS members. It has been shown that Mormons tend to be more highly educated than other Christians. It has also been shown that the more highly educated LDS members are, the more likely they are involved in Church.

He was also fond of talking about theist’s “invisible friends”. I generally will instantly tune out an atheist talking about religion when they bring up this phrase or any of its variations (e.g. Pink Unicorn, or FSM). But since I knew this talk was geared towards atheists, and not theists, I kept listening. Although I did not miss the irony in how he kept insisting that his fellow atheists not intentionally piss off theists when talking to one.

With a little audience participation Dr. Ray gave us an experiment to try on someone (or I should say he gave the atheists an experiment to try on theists as he claims it will not work on atheists). He told them that should they randomly meet a religious person, such as on a plane, this is something they should try. It is supposed to illuminate the inner “demon” that is caused by religion within a religious person. First, you talk with them about something they like and pay attention to how they physically respond. They will most likely make lots of eye contact and have generally relaxed posture. Then you bring up their faith. They should instantly tense up as they are unsure if you are a friend or enemy. Then, after getting a confirmation of their faith, bring up one challenge to it. The person should get defensive. Then go back to talking about something they like. This should cause the person to go back to a relaxed state. Now, I do not doubt that the reactions that Dr. Ray described in the person who is unknowingly undergoing a physiological experiment are true. I am believed him that what he described is most likely what would happen. What I do doubt, however, are the reasons for the reactions he gives, and his claim that the more secular a person is, the less this experiment will work.

He claims that the change in demeanor in the person when their faith is brought up is due to some kind of religious demon, he compared it to the demon that possessed the girl in The Exorcism, that the person has been conditioned to respond this way by religion. I think there is a much simpler and much more logical explanation; people are sensitive about things which others may have a tendency to ridicule. It is not because of some kind of complex conditioning, the person is just not sure if they are going to be made fun of or attacked. I bet if you were to tell that person you shared their faith they would instantly go back to their relaxed state. And this is not something that is unique to theists; atheists would react in the same way to this experiment. I have read comments from many different atheists talking about how they are hesitant to share their atheism for fear of ridicule.

A persons “rational immune system” is another thing he kept hitting on. He claimed that when under stress a person is more likely to “get religion” because their “rational immune system” is lowered. He compared it to when a person is more likely to get sick under stress because of a lowered immune system. I noticed how he was implying that the choice to become religious is a negative one by setting up the initial condition to be negative. Negative cause A will lead to a negative choice B. But he gave no actual evidence that the cause he gave, lowered “rational immune system”, is true. All he did was compare it to someone getting physically sick which he himself claimed was metaphorical only. He also said nothing of religious people who lose their religion during times of stress. Are their choices to become atheists also negative and a result of a lowered “rational immune system”? Somehow I think he would try and cast their choice to lose religion as somehow positive despite the fact that it occurred in identical conditions.

He also brought up Mormonism several times throughout his talk. One thing he brought up was something called the “Fear of Mormonism” being used to keep people in the Church. Unfortunately, being Mormon, I have no clue what he was talking about. Yes, we would like to have people stay in our Church but I have yet to hear of anything called the “Fear of Mormonism”. Such a thing is especially strange when you consider that the LDS faith is one of the most, if not the most, universal faiths in Christendom when it comes to salvation. We do not believe in Hell. According to us, nearly everyone will end up in Heaven regardless of their religion or lack thereof. Now, he did bring up another point about Mormonism that I have heard and do know about. He claimed drinking caffeine is considered a sin. It is not. It is true some Mormons will abstain from all caffeinated drinks but that is a personal choice. Just about every Church function I have gone to has had Mountain Dew.

Another point he mentioned was about Catholic priests and their choice to become celibate and never have children. He compared this to a kind of genetic suicide. He then said that should we ever have a disease spread through America making people infertile we would attempt to eradicate it. This struck me as very strange considering I have been reading several atheist blogs lately talking about their choice to become childless and how it is a good thing.

Now back to my reaction to his talk that I mentioned earlier. Near the end of the lecture I was thinking “So what?”. Yes, religion may be comparable to a virus in a metaphorical sense but what is the point of the comparison? It cannot be that it somehow proves religion false for that would need to assume that anything that can be explained cannot be religious, which is false in and of itself (Read Finding Darwin’s God for more on that). It was at this point that I thought he was trying to take this metaphor of religion being comparable to a virus farther than it should be. In fact, if you think about it, religion having similar characteristics to viral behavior should not be all that surprising. Just apply a little logic to the situation. Nearly all religions believe there is a genuine reason for a person to hold their beliefs, whether it is to get to Heaven or something else. So if a person truly believes in their religion then they should truly wish for others to join them. In doing so the techniques that religions come up with would logically have become perfectly suited for this purpose over time. A virus’ goal is to spread itself as well. Over time its techniques should, logically, also become perfectly suited for this purpose. Thus, it is not religion having something in common with a virus, but religion and the virus having the same underlying goal.

There are several more points I would want to address about his talk but I think this post is getting long enough already. Overall I did enjoy Dr. Ray’s talk and he did seem like a genuinely nice guy. He also had a very good point at the end of his talk, “don’t confuse the personal with the political”. I just think his metaphor of the God Virus, while having some points, tries to take things farther than there is reason to.



* I have talked about the issue of atheists implying that to be a “free thinker” or “skeptic” one must reject religion before.

Purdue Students Going to Titan

A quick little plug for my senior design class. Me and about 40 other astronautical engineering students have spent the past semester designing a mission to Saturn's moon Titan. If you are unfamiliar with Titan it is one of the most unique planets/moons in our solar system. It is the only moon with an atmosphere and has liquid methane flowing in lakes and rivers on it's surface. One of our vehicles will be a lake lander which will explore a lake of liquid methane twice the size of lake Superior! There are also thought to be cryovolcanoes on the surface. Instead of spewing molten rock, they spew liquid water. Because of the severe cold on the surface (-300F) chemical reactions occur much slower than on Earth. Because of this Titan's environment is thought to possibly represent a snap shot of what it may have been like on Earth just before the formation of life.

We will be giving our presentation next Tuesday, April 20th, at 10:30 am in STEW 214CD. Refreshments (FREE FOOD) will be available at 10am. And do not worry about the material being over your head. We have tailored our presentation specifically so that no matter what your background you will know what is going on.

So if you have ever wanted to know what Rocket Scientists do for a living, now is your chance.

Here is the facebook event page,
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=114610135232180

You can view our website here including our final paper, all 1000+ pages of it.
https://engineering.purdue.edu/AAE/Academics/Courses/aae450/2010/spring