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Dave’s Mailbag: Who is a true follower of Jesus Christ?
tl;dr: Below is a 1,500-word No True Scotsman fallacy I received. I replied with nothing but a simple link to a YouTube video explaining what the No True Scotsman fallacy is.
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Received this today; below is my response.
i dont wish to write alot. but i have watched some of your videos. i just wanted you to know that i heard you were a worship leader for yeras before walking away. First of all i wish to note, that i dont know what this means. Were you a protestant Holy Spirit filled Christian who had HOly Spirit and sat under a church that preached against sin? Or were you a part of a church that believed we are all Gods children and that God doesnt wish for sin to be preached against? I just wanted to note that it depends on where your start was because anyone can call themselves a minister. Even atheists can call themselves a minister because the christian term for minister has been taken out of context so much that even atheists, gay advocates all call selves minister.-Question is who is a true follower of Jesus Christ, following way disciples did in book of Acts where they were led by Spirit, preaching at all times. I dont know where your beginning came as a minister, but if your christian upbringing was in Universal Church, here lies beginning of issues. Number 1, people have to be under solid teaching, people tend to fall away because narrow road get very hard, they dont like to hear truth about what in bible about homosexuality being a sin so then people fall away because of that or well they choose to walk away because things get very difficult in there life, or they have really dont know real character of Lord, a God who is Love and Just, a God who loves all mankind, hates sin but loves sinner. This does not exclude Gods nature though that He is Just. God never made hell for people, he made it for the demons, but because man chose to rebel and themselves make satan there god, well they send them selves into hell now. Gods purpose for hell was never meant for humans and he does not take delight in humans going to hell. He weeps for souls that choose to go to hell. For God wishes no man to perish. He wishes no man to perish. But if they choose to make satan there god, they are choosing for themselves to go to hell because there is a choice, choose whom this day we must follow Jesus or satan. Either one or other.-Now if you truely know you received Holy Spirit in your life and didnt grow up in under a church where they taught you things that contradict bible and you were truely told how to come to Christ and what true christian life consists of, such as perseuction, open air preaching, etc etc etc, and you fell away cuz the walk got very hard, then i would say dear one come back. Go forth confess all known sins (james 5:16). then go forth and preach gospel openly NONSTOP. be willing to be arrested for sake of Christ and let your whole being and energy be given into preaching message of salvation to the lost.-Now if your scenario is that you were raised under a church that preached surface stuff and never told you truth and alot of time people just are raised under religiousness and never told how to be saved, then you only can go to God and make sure you were truely saved, that you understand you are a sinner, that there is a parallel, in order for truth to be truth it can only be one thing, it can not be a thousand thing or else it ceases to exist as truth. Cuz truth is not a thousand things. Christianity is parallel, ther is a God and satan, heaven and hell, good and evil. its orderly cuz God is order.-that is why true christians i guess in many nonbeleiver eyes is that we are “narrow minded” well, if we beleived in a thousand beliefs then it would cease to exist as truth and have order, you cant be open minded and it still be truth cuz open mindedness allow a thousand thing to be considered as truth and a person then is not stable or orderly in there belief system they are ike house on a rock that has no foundation. our foundation is not knowledge itself. it is HOly Spirit who is real God inside of us when we chose to surrender our heart to Jesus Christ, beleiving that He is only way truth and life. He became ultimate Lamb on cross. Jesus is God for only God can save man, not just any “man” could die for sins of world. He rose on third day defeating sin on cross.-When aperson comes to Jesus Christ and they truely recognize there sin, the evil deep evil deeeds of there heart they have done, the deepest depravity of there heart, i mean the kind of guilt in your heart that you let no one see but if exposed youd go running behind a curtain, you cannot wash away that guilt, the deepest deeds of the heart, the deepest addiction a person cannot be delivered of those deep embed demons on the heart, in the heart, and growth in the heart. Only one who has power to save a person from this is Christ. He is one whose blood has power to save. So if you once truely received HIm then He still is in your heart. If you have not received HIm then it is pretty hard for a person to know what it like to have Holy Spirit when you are tryin from the outside to always figure out GOd when He wants you to come as you are, in al your sin and dirtyness and see all evil deeds of the heart and how you cant redee your heart and you cant wash away the guilt or shame, and He can do it for you and come in your heart and then you go forth and live out truth faith by Preaching his name openly all the time, confessing sins and nonstop to preach his name. our warfare is against demons.-So if you are a true christian who fell away you can return to Lord. if you never truely received him then it is hard for you to know God cuz you stand outside of HIm instead of humbling self like a child, surrender head knowledege, and come as you are in all depravityand receiving what He did for you on cross and receivng HIs love into yoru heart and go forth and living out Christian walk. And many that fall away is not cuz God has left them it is cuz tey have chosen to leave God which bible said many would fall away cuz they are ashamed of HIm. God weeps cuz He cares but God will still always be Lord no matter what man does or thinks of HIm. What right do we have to raise our fist to a God who didnt deserve to die on a cross for our sins, we deserve to die for sins WE COMMIT. God never forces us to sin. we are ones that choose it. yet in his Love hE said i will go down and save them, wow what a Savior to wanna do that so we could have him in our heart. we can have a new victorious life in Christ if we receive what He has done and then actually live it out. reason why a person isnt victorious is cuz a person has to live it out also, confess sins all known sins, and then be filled with HOly Spirit, and go forth in power to preach repentance and salvation to others ALL THE TIME.-Anyways, i dont wish to do alot of email bak and forth. i only wish to do one. Im not here to fight against al bible knowledge you have stored up i just only wish to share a little bit because i cared. Reason why sometime peopel dont always get into debate with those who are filled with all bible knowledge trying to persecute Christ is because you have already made up in you mind. You have knowledge set before you how to receive HIm, and what do to to live out a victorious life, now you just have to live out vicoriously. if you have in your heart then begin to turn back to HIm and preach openly HIs wonderful name and repetanc and dont stop. Wish you best Sir
by the way i do want you to know that some of us do truely care. we really do. i would hae never written to you cuz it hought maybe he is just a christian who cried out ot GOd and was really try to find his way back to Lord. it could be thator only you know if you were truely received him. but if you did receive him and fell away it cuz your battle is demon inside of you and on heart and you have to go forth and produce fruit with repentance and preach salvation openly all the time. Why not try preaching salvation openly and be serious about it and trying to read bible openly in seriusness With care if you wish to be a true christian.
Dave Muscato is the Public Relations Director for American Atheists based in Cranford, New Jersey. An atheism activist, blogger, and public speaker, he is also a board member of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday; twice monthly for the Humanist Community at Harvard, and monthly or more on SkepticFreethought.com. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com
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Dave’s Mailbag: BB wants to save my soul
This is from a comment thread on a YouTube video of mine. This fellow, BB, posted 14 comments back-to-back due to character limits. I told him I’d respond in a blog post rather than leave a huge string of comments in return. Here are his posts reconstructed into one block, and my response:
BB:
have you accepted God into your life and turned away from sins and shared the gospel with everyone you care about and know?
Dave:
Um, I’m the Public Relations Director for American Atheists.
BB:
Well, you probably make a living selling books on the philosophy of Atheism. Which is a motivation for thinking you might be intellectually dishonest as your living relies on selling this philosophy, which makes it hard to ever convince you otherwise.
If not then we can have an honest and open discussion based on just logic without any agenda behind it from both our parts.
Dave:
No, I don’t sell books for a living. I’m not a bookstore. I do public relations.
BB:
You seem like a cool intelligent guy. I can convince you that no religion, no church can ever cleanse you of sin, only sincere repentance, and trusting Jesus Christ as your lord and savior.
If it’s true we just go in to the ground when we die then you can’t say ‘See, I told you I was right’ and I can’t tell you ‘I’m sorry I was totally wrong’. But if it’s true there is a heaven and you can go there, wouldn’t it be logical to find out how to get there?
Dave:
There’s no such thing as sin. It’s an imaginary concept. Sin (i.e. “transgression against divine law”) doesn’t really exist, because “divine law” is imaginary.
Yes, IF it were true that there is a heaven and you can go there, it would be logical to look into it. But there isn’t, and you can’t. If you want to claim otherwise, you have the burden of proof. Good luck.
BB:
ok well the burden of proof is actually on you as you claim to have proof that God doesn’t exist. If you’re not saying that you have proof then I respect your intellectual consistency and honesty. This is because the best we can do is follow the evidence, because nothing can be proved.
You can’t prove that you walked the earth yesterday. We have to go by evidence such as eye witness testimony.
So we’ve recognized that proving anything is impossible. So the next step is to trust Evidence. We can only trust Evidence if it is shown to be reliable.
So the only thing stopping you from investigating heaven and grabbing the only ticket that will get you there is because you are unsure if there is such a thing as sin.
Well I can tell you that there is such a thing as sin.
There is such a thing as sin because sin is defined outside of culture. Everyone refers to a moral code outside culture because if we lived in a culture where gassing jews or slavery was ok, it still wouldn’t make it right.
That’s why Ghandi and Martin Luther king and others like them existed. They went against their culture because they put objective moral law on top of cultural laws.
No one can live atheism out in real life consistently. For example if you found your wife in the arms of another man you wouldn’t say hey it’s your right to believe unfaithfulness is wrong so I’m not gonna judge you for it.
Loyalty is right not because anyone defines it, it’s right because that’s what we know in our hearts to be true.
God says he has written these moral codes in our hearts. These objective moral laws are intelligently and lovingly created by an intelligent and loving being.
God respects our free will to choose to do right or to do wrong, that’s why people choose to be unfaithful and others choose to be faithful.
So if there is no God then morality is subjective, it’s all relative so Hitler was right in his opinion and I am right in my opinion. Then chaos erupts.
No God, no harmony, no justice. Just chaos and destruction.
Which speaks allot to the condition and the reason for the condition of some parts of the world today.
So once we’ve deduced rationally that there is a God who gives us objective moral values and we can choose or not choose to follow these, then we can go on to find out what happens if we choose to follow these or not.
If we don’t then God grants us our desire. Eternity away from him. If we do then God grants us our desire. Eternity with him.
I’d say I wouldn’t want to find out what eternity is like without him, why? because Satan is without God by his own choosing and he rules hell. Would you want to meet Satan and find out what kind of gastly things he would do to you?
I’d prefer heaven where everything is awesome.
Also I want to take as many people with me to heaven cuz I love my fellow human being. 100 years is nothing vs eternity.
If someone gave me a billion dollars to be without God I’d rather be a homeless person with God because this life is so short anyways.
Okay, so we’ve defined how God exists, what’s good and evil, free will and what sin is.
Now we have to find out what God wants from us. 1. Put your trust in him to guide your life. 2. To show loyalty, love and trust, then turn from sin, otherwise you become a hypocrite.
No sin is worth going to hell over. Remember Jesus spoke more about hell then he did about heaven. He described it as a lake of fire. I would assume that it’s a place of total destruction and chaos. Maybe the equivalent of a dentist poking your nerve for eternity.
Not paradise. lol
In the end, not sinning and praying sincerely from forgiveness isn’t hard.
I don’t think if someone offered you 100 women to pleasure you sexually outside the blessing of God, but you had to site in a dentists chair and take him touching your nerve for 8 hours, you would absolutely deny it. Why? Because it ain’t worth it.
That’s just 8 hours. lol imagine forever. So in perspective it’s good news.God offers you a free ticket to heaven, just take it man and share it with as many people as possible, especially those you wanna see in heaven with you such as your loved ones.
Dude, I’m pleading with you just do it. Any reputation or wealth in this life is not worth it. Now why would I sit here and write a 13 comment reply to you, not asking for money, not to join a religion or to even go to a church, spending my own time?
I don’t believe in silly things. Please for the love of God, do it.
Thanks for listening. Any other questions you might wanna ask?
Dave:
You’ve got to be kidding me. First of all, just, wow, 14 comments back to back. I’m strongly considering banning you, except that skimming them, it appears you are sincere. I’m going to respond to this, but not here; I have a blog and I’m going to do it there. The blog is at muSASHA . o r g. I can’t do it tonight but I’ll get to it when I can.
And here’s my full response:
If you are making the positive claim that a god exists, you have the burden of proof. Same goes for sin.
I agree with you about your stance on evidence and our inability to prove things with 100% certainty. It’s called the problem of induction and I’m totally with you there.
I’m not “unsure” about the existence of sin. I mean, in a very technical sense, I’m agnostic about it, but for all practical purposes, I don’t believe sin exists, because I don’t believe in divine law, because I don’t believe in anything supernatural. If you want to convince me sin exists, you first have to show me that divine law exists. In order to do that, you have to convince me that a divine lawgiver exists. So really, being “unsure” about sin is NOT the “only thing” holding me back. I don’ t believe in your god, either.
You speak of objective morality. Objective from what? You mean, outside of culture? It seems like that’s what you’re saying. If all life in the universe were to be wiped out at the same instant, would slavery still be unethical? I don’t know if we can really answer that. It wouldn’t matter at that point. Ethics, the subfield of philosophy that prescriptively tells us how we ought to act, is a human invention—and we are the only species that has them, that we’re aware of—but morals (a subfield of ethology, that descriptively tells us how animals interact) evolve in cooperative species all by themselves. There’s a lot of game theory involved but this is not a mystery to science. If you’re interested in how morality evolved, I recommend Matt Ridley’s wonderful book, “The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation.” Other good books are Robert Axelrod’s “The Evolution of Cooperation” and Samuel Bowles & Herbert Gintis’ “A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution.“ The last two are pretty math-heavy but they do an excellent job of explaining how this works, and Richard Dawkins wrote the forward of the former.
Slavery is wrong because we decided that people have rights and shouldn’t be owned by other people. That’s not objectively provable, and it wasn’t always the case. Our society has progressed ethically from the time when slavery was the norm (although by raw numbers, not per capita, there are more slaves in the world today than at any point in history). I disagree with your conclusion that sin exists and we can know this because everyone “refers” to a moral code outside of culture. I don’t, for one. Moral codes are inextricable from culture from an ethology perspective.
On to your next point: You say “no one can live out atheism consistently” because, for example, if I found my wife in bed with someone else, I wouldn’t be okay with it. What?…
First of all, that’s a non sequitur. Atheism is the simply the lack of belief in the existence of all gods. This has absolutely nothing to do with sexual ethics?… You seem to be missing about a dozen premises between your first premise and your conclusion there. Second of all, you don’t know me. I would be fine with that; I’m polyamorous. I would hope that she’s being safe about it, but I wouldn’t begrudge someone for having consensual sex. My wife is not my property and as an adult, she can make her own decisions about who she has sex with. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s none of my business, but I would not be mad or jealous. Please note: I’m speaking hypothetically because I’ve never been married, although I was engaged for awhile once.
Then you go on to say that loyalty is right not by definition but because “we know in our hearts” that it is. Yeah, that’s the evolved morality thing we were talking about earlier. See 3 paragraphs up. By the way, loyalty is not always right; it depends on your system of ethics. Hitler’s troops were following orders when they gassed Jews. I think we’d both agree that what they were doing wasn’t ethical, even though they were being loyal when they did it.
Next you claim that God has written these moral codes in our hearts. A couple of major problems here: You jumped right into “God has…” without first showing that a god exists in the first place. What is your argument for god’s existence? Secondly, what do you mean he has “written in our hearts” blah blah blah? I assume you don’t mean that literally; a heart is a muscle and I’m pretty certain there’s no classical Hebrew etched in there, although I haven’t physically checked because that could prove rather tricky 
If you mean that God has imprinted a gut feeling of these moral codes, then we can work with this. First of all, I try not to think with my gut; I try to think with my brain. The reason I try not to think with my gut is that my gut and your gut can disagree and there’s really no good way to resolve that as far as knowing who’s right and who’s wrong. Only with evidence and logic can we systematically rule out wrong answers and settle on right ones. Second, again, we have this problem that you haven’t shown your god exists at all, let alone that he has done any such thing as imprint moral codes into us. Citation needed!
You wrote:
These objective moral laws are intelligently and lovingly created by an intelligent and loving being.
Bare assertion. Citation needed.
You wrote:
God respects our free will…
I’m not even remotely convinced that humans have free will. Free from what, anyway? The laws of physics? First define “free will,” then convince me that we have it, and we can go down this road. And you still haven’t explained how you know a god exists at all, nor how you claim to know that he respects our free will, even if we have it.
Next you go off on a spiel basically saying that if there were no god, then there would be ”no harmony, no justice. Just chaos and destruction.”
Well, that pretty much seems to be the case. The universe doesn’t know or care that we exist. Nature just does what it does, following simple patterns, or as we call them, laws. Complexity can come out of this, e.g. life on Earth as we recognize it. We have perfectly adequate, natural explanations for all of this. What makes you think there IS justice? Sometimes bad things happen to good people, and sometimes good things happen to bad people. Lots of people in the world are dying of starvation and elsewhere in the world, someone is tying $4,000 to some helium-filled balloons and letting it float away just because he can afford it and he’s bored. Look around, man. There’s no justice. The world is what we make of it.
Reading through the rest of your post, I don’t even really see the point of continuing from here. Your argument is a mess and since your later premises depend on your earlier ones, I think you need to go back and revisit them before we can move forward.
Feel free to try again! Thanks for your message(s).
Until next time,
Dave
Dave Muscato is the Public Relations Director for American Atheists based in Cranford, New Jersey. An atheism activist, blogger, and public speaker, he is also a board member of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday; twice monthly for the Humanist Community at Harvard, and monthly or more on SkepticFreethought.com. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com
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Dave’s Mailbag: Why do you deny the existence of God?
I received the following from “Anon Imity”:
Hi Dave,I came across your name on the CS website where you scored 100% on a religious quiz. I only scored 94%,I missed two questions. Anyway, it made me want to know a couple of things about what you believe and why.
-I am curious to know why you deny the existence of God. What makes you so sure that God does not exist, andabove all, what if you’re wrong. Please tell why you are convinced, and what evidence you may have that makesyou willing to bet your eternal destination that you are right. It has to be pretty compelling, eternity is a long timefor any of us to be wrong.
-I know that you’re probably very busy, but I really would appreciate it, if you would take the time to reply to me.I just want the best arguments for your denial of the existence of God. I truly am looking forward to hearing fromyou. I hope you take the time to write.
-Thanks Dave.
-Anon
Hi “Anon”!
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Thank you for your email. I appreciate you taking the quiz and hope you enjoyed it.
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I wouldn’t say that I deny the existence of gods. I’m simply not convinced that any gods actually exist, the same way that most people simply aren’t convinced that unicorns or Santa exist. If I were to be presented with good evidence that a god or gods exist, I would readily change my stance. Despite years of searching for such evidence, I haven’t found anything that I consider even remotely convincing.
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I would never make the claim that God does not exist – I have no way of knowing that! I think that is a common misunderstanding of what the word “atheist” means. Atheists do not claim God does not exist; rather, it’s a question of what we believe.
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As far as wagering eternity, I would say to you that you too are wagering eternity. If you are a Christian, you are wagering that Islam is not true. If you are a Christian and Islam is true, you are going to the Islamic hell. If you are a Muslim, you are wagering that Christianity is not true. If you are a Muslim and Christianity is true, you are going to the Christian hell. And so on and so on for many other religions.
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To quote Stephen F. Roberts, “When you understand why you dismiss all other gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” Or another good one from Richard Dawkins: “We are all atheists about most of the gods humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.”
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As far as the best arguments for the non-existence of gods, I think the single best line of reasoning is simply that god is unnecessary to explain the world. Science does an excellent job of that. In the past, before we had the scientific method, it may have made sense to attribute certain things we didn’t understand to gods – lightning was caused by Zeus throwing down lightning bolts, or Thor striking his hammer, for example – but now we know where lightning really comes from and we no longer think a god did it. It’s the same for every mystery throughout history so far and we have no reason to think this won’t continue.
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I hope this has been helpful to you. I encourage you to continue asking questions, and feel free to keep the conversation going if there’s more you’d like to know.
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If you’re looking for reading material, I recommend the website http://www.godisimaginary.com, and the book “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins. The aforementioned website has 50 simple explanations of different reasons we can feel confident that there are no gods. “The God Delusion” is quickly becoming a modern classic and is a favorite among American Atheists’ membership.
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Thanks for writing!
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- Dave Muscato
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Public Relations Director
American Atheists
Until next time,
Dave
Dave Muscato is the Public Relations Director for American Atheists based in Cranford, New Jersey. An atheism activist, blogger, and public speaker, he is also a board member of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday; twice monthly for the Humanist Community at Harvard, and monthly or more on SkepticFreethought.com. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com
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Well, at least he’s not doing anything useless… wait…
Last week marks the end of an era: Pope Benedix XVI delivered his final public blessing, according to CNN Breaking News.
The Pope said he will continue serving the church by, according to the article, “taking up a life of prayer and meditation.”
Um… what?
How is this serving anyone or anything?
Meditative prayer has been linked to things like reducing stress and lowering blood pressure, but let’s not kid ourselves here: The Pope is not serving anyone by taking up a life of prayer. What is a life of prayer, anyway? That’s essentially saying, “I’m done contributing to the world.” There has never been a proper double-blind study that has shown any statistically significant effect of intercessory prayer. Not one.
At best, the Pope is no longer doing damage as leader of an organization which rails against condom use, abortion, stem-cell research, gay civil rights, women’s rights, etc, etc, etc.
Roy Speckhardt, Executive Director of the American Humanist Association, made an excellent point in a Huffington Post article that I think bears repeating: A new pope, regardless of whether he is more liberal or more conservative, will be a good thing for rational people. If the new pope is liberal, he will work to enact policy changes that are better for stem-cell research, AIDS prevention, abortion access, women’s civil rights, LGBTQ civil rights, and relations with secular people. If the new pope is conservative, he will drive even more “C&E” Catholics (Catholics who only care about their religion on Christmas and Easter) away from the Church and toward the wonderful world of reality in the 21st century.
Until next time,
Dave
Dave Muscato is the Public Relations Director for American Atheists based in Cranford, New Jersey. An atheism activist, blogger, and public speaker, he is also a board member of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday; twice monthly for the Humanist Community at Harvard, and monthly or more on SkepticFreethought.com. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com
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Saying goodbye to an old friend **Updated**
**UPDATE** See bottom of page.
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Hello all,
It’s with a heavy heart that I update the SASHA blog today. Here goes:
Once is too often; unfortunately this happens more regularly than that.
Dave, please mail my late dad’s book to me at [address removed]. I wish you the very best in life, but I have to delete you on Facebok. You take pride in making fun of the reason I have a peaceful spirit and a happy life. I have other atheist friends who are not so blatant. I just can’t deal with being made fun of constantly. I don’t find those types of posts even remotely humorous. We obviously are on opposite ends of the spectrum with respect to God. Humor me for one second here. If God exists, I will have to stand before Him at the Great White Throne of Judgment and be a witness against you. I do not want any part of that, Dave. I like you too much for that. No hard feelings. I just want peace and not sick feelings when I read posts. Take care and thank you, in advance, for mailing my dad’s book.
Hi [name removed]!
Thanks for your message. It makes me sad to hear that, although you like me, you’re not interested in being friends with me anymore. I make a deliberate effort only to criticize the beliefs themselves, and not the people who hold the beliefs with which I disagree. It was never my intent to cause you sadness or pain.
As you may have heard, I was recently hired as the new Director of Public Relations for American Atheists, a non-profit based in New Jersey that advocates for separation of church & state and civil rights for atheists. I’m actually moving to New Jersey this Thursday.
I apologize for the delay in responding; I wanted to find your book before I wrote you back, and I finally found it today. I will mail it to you as soon as I can.
If you ever change your mind and decide you want to be friends, my door is *always* open. I care about you and your family very much and I sincerely hope this isn’t the last time we speak. But if so, I want you to know that I think you guys are great, and I thank you for being such an important part of my life the past 13 years.
Take care [name removed],
Dave
I do not apologize for my views on religion. I think it is the single most harmful and deleterious invention humankind has ever come up with. In the words of Christopher Hitchens, it is without exaggeration that I believe religion poisons everything. I of course recognize that religion has some redeeming qualities—providing a social safety net, providing a sense of community—but there is no need for dogma or superstitious silliness in order to have these things. In fact, in my personal experience, Humanists do it better.
Until next time,
Dave
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**UPDATE** She responded to my message saying that she would like to remain friends outside of Facebook; she just doesn’t want to have to see posts about atheism on her feed. I feel so much better now! It really is a huge relief to learn that our friendship has a more-solid foundation than I feared. Atheist readers, are you good friends with any very religious people? How do you handle it? Thanks in advance for your comments.
Dave Muscato is the Public Relations Director for American Atheists based in Cranford, New Jersey. An atheism activist, blogger, and public speaker, he is also a board member of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday; twice monthly for the Humanist Community at Harvard, and monthly or more on SkepticFreethought.com. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com
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Does stress cause leukemia? A skeptic asks two experts
Hello all!
It’s been awhile since we’ve done a good skeptical debunking—most of our articles lately have been counter-apologetics and so on, so I thought it was time for a change of pace! Enjoy.
A friend of mine recently posted on Facebook:
Did you guys know that stress can lead to leukemia?
As it happens, my parents are both hematologists/oncologists & cancer researchers. FYI, leukemia is cancer of the bone-marrow stem cells.
I responded:
Is this like in the way drinking water can lead to leukemia?
She responded:
There is peer-reviewed research.. but it’s like connecting the dots. I had my blood levels checked a few months back and saw that I had high MPVs [editor's note: mean platelet volume] from stress. Then, I went on to learn about large blood platelets which have an average life span is 5-9 days. So if the stress were to continue consistently for long enough, leukemia could develop. I did so much digging only to realize that I needed to find a way to chill out, asap. The stress was from neuro-lyme.
I was skeptical of my friend’s claim that stress can lead to leukemia, especially since it seems to be based on anecdotal evidence, and so I asked for my parents’ opinions. They are both Ivy-League trained, practicing clinicians with medical degrees. My father has authored about 16 research papers in proper peer-reviewed academic journals, and my mother about 5. Between them, they have over 60 years of experience treating and researching cancer, and are both Fellows of the American College of Physicians. For their full credentials and CVs, please visit marymuscato.com and joemuscato.com.
My father and mother (left and second-from-left) with two other doctors at a 2006 American College of Physicians conference
I called my father and asked if stress can cause leukemia. He said:
Nope. Of all the diseases where I think it couldn’t be related, that would be it.
My mother asked if she could supply me with a written response, so I’m just copying & pasting what she wrote. Here’s what she had to say:
Where do I begin? Normally, platelets live 10 days, and are big, juicy, sticky platelets when they “hatch”, and come into the bloodstream, from the marrow. As they age, they put lots of “fingers in the dike,” and the resultant platelets are smaller. If the MPV, mean plt volume, is big, it means that platelet turnover is increased, suggesting a shortened plt survival, less than 10 days. The most common cause of this is “ITP”, which means idiopathic (now autoimmune), thrombocytopenic purpura, where a person has antibodies against the platelets. This is an autoimmune problem, where the person, for unknown reasons, makes these antibodies, that attack the platelet membrane, and alert the spleen that there’s something wrong with the platelets. The spleen then does it’s assembly-line job of removing these abnl platelets from the circulation, destroying them in the spleen. Hence, the shortened platelet survival time, and the new baby plts, made, maybe 10-100 times the nl rate, are big. They work really well, and people who have this disease don’t have as much bleeding as one’d think, as the plts are extra big and sticky.
If someone has low platelets from decreased production, rather than increased destruction, as in aplastic anemia, or leukemia, where, in the former, the marrow is pretty empty – no seeds in the garden, so no platelets will be made and released to the circulating blood. This usually occurs with red cells (anemia), and white cells, (no white cells to fight infection, phagocytize bacteria and then engulf bacteria, killing them). People with leukemia don’t have empty marrows, but their marrows are overrun with infant marrow cells, that don’t mature into normal red, white cells or plts, but stay as infant cells, almost always the white cells, neutrophils, and the marrow gets tons of these useless infant cells, called blasts, or myeloblasts, that take up all the room in the marrow, so there is no room for normal clones of cells to do what the body needs – normal red, white cells and plts.
Those people with AA or leukemia, have decreased production of plts, and their MPVs are NOT increased – they’re not making much of anything. They have terrible problems with bleeding, infection, anemia, often need transfusions of red cells and platelets, need to be in the hospital as they’re totally vulnerable to get infections w/o having good, mature white cells. The MPV is a result of not making many plts, and is the effect of decreased production. It is not the CAUSE of anything, but the result of not making new platelets very quickly.
The MPV is not a cause of leukemia at all. It is an effect of not making lots of platelets, as baby plts are big. True, true and unrelated. [emphasis added]
Leukemia is formed when an abnormal clone of white cells gets a directive to grow faster than the normal clones, so the bad clones overrun the good marrow cells.
I added to my friend that I’d be happy to pass along citation numbers for any papers she finds that show a causative link between stress & leukemia, if she’d like my parents to give them a look and respond to them. If that happens, I’ll post their responses on the blog as well.
I’m not saying I agree nor disagree with my parents; I have zero knowledge of this subject. However, my parents do have knowledge of it—expert knowledge of it—and I think it makes sense to trust the experts until or unless a convincing body of good evidence is presented that indicates they’re wrong. That’s really how we should approach all claims like this, if you ask me. Experts can be wrong sometimes, sure. But we go with the best information we have, and trusting people who know more than you do is necessary for making our way in this world.
I think it’s irresponsible to post things like “Did you know…?” as though this is an absolute fact, if this is not the consensus view of professionals. In this particular case, it happens to be physically impossible as well, given the actual mechanisms of leukemia.
Have a great Friday, everyone!
Dave
Dave Muscato is an atheism activist, blogger, and public speaker. He is also a board member of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday; twice monthly for the Humanist Community at Harvard, and monthly or more on SkepticFreethought.com. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com
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My Book, Your Book, Their Book, No Book: Exploring Secularism (panel discussion)
Hello all!
Last Wednesday, February 13th, several SASHA members, plus Dr. Dennis Kelley (Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Missouri) participated in a panel discussion at Mizzou called “My Book, Your Book, Their Book, No Book: Exploring Secularism.”
The panelists were (from left to right) me, Dr. Kelley, Katie Huddlestonsmith (undergrad and SASHA officer), Robbie Curran (undergrad and SASHA officer), Theo Tushaus (undergrad, SASHA member, and President of TriCo), Tony Lakey (undergrad and President of SASHA), and Jeremy Winn (doctoral student and SASHA member).
Video of the panel is now live on YouTube. Enjoy!
The panel was organized by the University of Missouri Chancellor’s Diversity Initiative with the help of the student ambassadors and Charlie Parker, Jr of the CDI office. We’re very grateful for their help with this!
If you like it, please feel free to share on Facebook/tweet to spread the word if you like it! You can also upvote it on Reddit.
Until next time,
Dave
Dave Muscato is the Kansas/Missouri-Area Volunteer Network Coordinator for the Secular Student Alliance. He is also a board member of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A non-traditional junior at Mizzou studying economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday and twice monthly for the Humanist Community at Harvard. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com
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Dave’s Mailbag: Accommodation vs. Confrontation; Avoiding activism burnout; The internet as a source
Hello all! Dave Muscato here. It’s time again for one of my favorite types of posts: Reader mail!
I received the following about my previous post about the Vatican and youth culture. Hang on tight, folks; this is gonna be a long one!
Dylan C. writes:
Hey Dave, hope you had a pleasant day at the courthouse. [NB: I had jury duty the other day]
I’m curious about something. It seems to me from a great number of your recent postings that you have grown increasingly paranoid and irrational in your analysis of information and subsequent conclusions. I assume that as a self-identified activist, you have taken the time to search out and discover things that are important to keep in mind as an activist. In other words, what are some of the key principles that an activist ought to follow in order not to allow their identity as an activist to become all-consuming and deterministic? I ask this because I am concerned for you, for your health, for your sanity, and for your reputation.
“It becomes very difficult for a pastor to get away with lying for Jesus, when anyone—especially young people—can whip out a smartphone and find real answers on Wikipedia faster than you can say the Lord’s Prayer.”
I’ve noticed that you enjoy coming up with and using catchy one-liners such as this to add humor and emotionally-charged content to your posts. But I’m going to have to challenge you on this practice. You of all people should know the significant dangers and limitations inherent to the use of Wikipedia and Google for discovering the “truth”. And young people especially tend to be completely ignorant of how to avoid these dangerous pitfalls. Anyone can post information on the internet, and for just a little bit of financial investment, they can also utilize search engine optimization to make their information more highly visible. A lot of this information is of course from activist groups, some much more biased than others, but all significantly biased nonetheless. The fact that we have labeled this the “Information Age” is a horrible joke to me at best. In fact, from the internet, equally as much as from the “pulpit”, young people are told what to believe. This is REALITY, and I dare you to disagree with me.
Here’s my response:
Hey Dylan! I really appreciate your feedback. It is true that I have shifted more toward a “confrontationist” approach to religion, as opposed to an “accommodationist” approach. There is actually a division within the secular movement about this: There was a debate/panel discussing the topic at the Skepticon 3 conference that’s worth watching if you’re interested.
Many atheists believe, although we disagree about the existence of gods, that churches have a lot to offer and the best course of action is to work together on “interfaith” activities to make the world a better place. Confrontationists, on the other hand, see religion as dangerous, and see religious moderates as enablers for fundamentalists. The accommodationists dislike that confrontationists add to the stereotype of “angry atheists,” and the confrontationists dislike that the accommodationists give irrationality a free pass.
I’m reminded of the conflict between hellfire & brimstone preachers versus welcoming congregations. The hellfire & brimstone preachers dislike that the welcoming congregations permit gay people, etc, while the welcoming congregations see the hellfire preachers as turning people away from religion and not teaching the “loving” aspects of Christianity.
The infamous “hellfire” campus preacher (and friend of mine), Brother Jed Smock
I feel I must stress that my natural inclination is to be an accommodationist. It feels right to me, and it’s difficult for me to criticize religion as a whole, when I have personally enjoyed so many positive experiences as a formerly religious person, and considering I have many friends whom I love and who are religious.
However, the more I research religion, the more I come to realize that religion is the root of virtually all of the things I consider wrong. The Biblical theme that some God “gave” humankind dominion over the the whole of the Earth and all the animals on it, along with the idea that this God is “in control” of the environment and would not allow us to perish before Jesus returns, is directly at odds with the urgency of the global environmental crisis, and with vegetarianism/veganism. The Biblical theme that woman are subservient to men is directly at odds with feminism. The Biblical theme that souls exist and life begins at conception is directly at odds with reproductive rights, abortion access, and stem cell research. The Biblical theme that there is an afterlife is directly at odds with the secular humanist priority of making this life count for everything it’s worth because you only live once. The Biblical creation mythology is directly at odds with the science education and the teaching the scientific fact of evolution by means of natural selection. The Biblical theme that a man should not lie with another man is directly at odds with LGBTQ rights. Etc, etc.
In fact I am hard-pressed to come up with a cause I care about that DOESN’T have its root conflict in religion. I care about a lot of things and wish I could be an activist for them all, but I understand the prudence in picking one’s battles. Fortunately, it’s not a hard choice: By choosing to focus on atheism activism, I am in effect also fighting for LGBTQ rights, women’s right to choose, birth control access, stem-cell research, science education, vegetarianism, secular humanism, and critical thinking.
I’m curious as to what you mean by “increasingly paranoid and irrational in your analysis of information and subsequent conclusions.” Correct me if this isn’t what you meant, but I assume in effect you mean my increasing willingness to blame religion for social ills. As I stated, it is true that it’s becoming easier for me to criticize religion as a whole. I assert that this is because I am learning more about the pervasiveness of religion in society as the source of many twisted beliefs. These beliefs cause people to do many terrible things out of ignorance and just plain indoctrination.
I am intolerant of bigotry and make no apology for this. If that makes me a confrontationist, so be it. Because I have a conscience, I cannot stand by idly when I see violence, whether physical or structural. I cannot stand by idly when I see irrationality guiding moral decision-making and public policy. These things are just too important.
You ask:
…What are some of the key principles that an activist ought to follow in order not to allow their identity as an activist to become all-consuming and deterministic?
This is an important question and I’m glad you asked. This applies to activists of all stripes, not just within the secular movement. Here are what I consider key principles to avoiding burnout:
- Make a conscious effort to separate your work and your life. For most professional activists I know, their activism began as a volunteer passion. Sometimes, it is difficult for them to turn that “off” when they go home at night. If you are accustomed to spending your free time doing activism, and you then find yourself doing it professionally, you have to make the decision to spend your free time NOT doing activism. This means having hobbies, and making time for them. For me, this is photography, playing music, and taking road-trips. I always make sure to practice my guitar or bass at least a half-hour a day, to keep up my chops but also to take a break from the computer.
- - Have some friends who are not part of your cause. I make a conscious effort to make sure my relationships with my religious friends stay strong. It’s also good to have friends who share your values but simply aren’t activists about it. It gives you some perspective.
- - Read/watch fiction. This is very difficult for me personally but I think it’s good advice. It’s important to have an escape. I tend to read only non-fiction, and I like to watch documentaries, but I make an effort to watch funny TV shows and occasionally read a novel.
- - Regularly study the opposing point of view. Understand that other people do not share your perspective for a reason, sometimes even good reasons. I make every effort to read apologists’ books when they are recommended to me, if for no other reason than to critique them and practice the name-the-fallacy game.
Now on to our third and final point: the internet as a source.
Of course, I do not recommend that anyone interested in atheism or secular history use Wikipedia as their sole source. Wikipedia is very good for certain subjects and less good for others. But what I love about Wikipedia is that hard sources are provided at the bottom of every article, and information without solid citations is flagged and removed.
It is equally important, if not more so, to read proper history books from credible historians. But I disagree with you about using Google to find sources. Google indexes not only blogs and interest-group websites, etc, which may be heavily biased and contain factual errors and logical fallacies. Google also indexes accredited university websites, peer-reviewed academic journals, and fact-checked magazines and so on.
These are legitimate sources for correct information and I completely disagree that people searching on Google are being told what to believe equally with what comes from the pulpit. Not believing what comes from the pulpit brings with it the threat of “Hell,” for one thing. Not believing what comes from the pulpit, for many young people, comes with the threat of losing internet privileges, games, toys, etc, and sometimes even food. In extreme cases, though unfortunately not all-too-rare, not believing what comes from the pulpit comes with the threat of being disowned and being homeless.
It is simply not true that people are being told what to believe equally on Google and at church.
With regard to Internet sources, the information is simply there. People choose to read it or not, and choose to accept it or not. They can choose to explore opposing points of view with just a few clicks, and just as readily access training on how to think critically and examples of various logical fallacies.
So-called “Internet literacy” is a skill that must be learned—fact-checking information from one site against other sites, using logic and critical thinking to see if the information is coherent with what you already know, and making sure what you’re reading is internally consistent and contains no fallacies. There is a very famous example of teaching Internet literacy regarding a fictional “tree octopus” that’s worth a read if you have time.
I think the most important thing, when it comes to claims of any kind, is to be skeptical. I consider myself a skeptic—SASHA stands for Skeptics, Atheists, Secular Humanists, & Agnostics—and skepticism is an important part of my worldview. Skepticism is, in my experience, NOT taught or encouraged in religious settings. In fact in my experience, I have seen it actively discouraged, painted as the work of Satan, trying to trick people into losing their faith in Jesus. Frankly, I find this ridiculous, although I more-or-less believed that myself at one time in my life.
As I mentioned above in #4, it’s important to regularly study opposing points of view. It expands your mind and forces you to think critically, which I think is never a bad thing. As Sam Harris wrote in Letter to a Christian Nation, “I know of no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too desirous of evidence in support of their core beliefs.”
I hope this article has been helpful to you. Thank you again for your message, and please let me know if there is anything you would like me to clarify.
Until next time,
Dave
Dave Muscato is the Kansas/Missouri-Area Volunteer Network Coordinator for the Secular Student Alliance. He is also a board member of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A non-traditional junior at Mizzou studying economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday and twice monthly for the Humanist Community at Harvard. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com
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Breaking News: Pope Benedict XVI will resign on February 28
Hello all, Dave here.
This just in from the Wall Street Journal and AP:
Pope Benedict XVI will resign on February 28th. According to NBC World News, he “doesn’t have the strength anymore.” He is 85 years old. Here is the text of his speech about it.
There has been a lot of controversy over Ratzinger’s reign as head of the Catholic Church. Personally, I’m glad to see him go. Although he has said he is “deeply ashamed” of the church’s problems with pedophiles, he has not done enough/much at all to put a stop to it. Just earlier tonight I was having a conversation with a friend about these sexual abuse cases, making an analogy to restaurants: If there were a chain of restaurants in which some of the chefs were caught molesting customers’ children, and the restaurant chain’s response was simply to shuffle these chefs to other restaurants, there would be a mass boycott. The chefs would be immediately imprisoned and there would probably be threats on their lives. No one would ever eat at those restaurants again. But when it’s the Catholic Church, Catholics make excuses. It’s ridiculous.
Ratzinger was also a member of the Hitler Youth, although this was compulsory at the time and he was not a willing member.
Ratzinger is also a proponent of intelligent design, saying that humans are ”not the products of chance and error.” Good riddance. At least John Paul II gave credence to evolution.
One of these men will very likely be the next Pope. We’ll see what happens!
More to come as details unfold.
- Dave
If you like this post, please upvote it on Reddit.
Dave Muscato is the Kansas/Missouri-Area Volunteer Network Coordinator for the Secular Student Alliance. He is also a board member of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A non-traditional junior at Mizzou studying economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday and twice monthly for the Humanist Community at Harvard. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com
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Why not live and let live?
This article originally appeared on SkepticFreethought.com and is reposted here with permission.
Hello everyone! Dave Muscato here.
This is a difficult post for me to write. I’ve spent two days on this, actually. For most of my life, I’ve been natural inclined to be non-confrontational, and I think my friends and family would characterize me as a gentle person. It is not easy for me to say these things, but I feel like the time has come for me to take a stand.
I had lunch with a friend the other day and the subject of religion came up—I know, big surprise. My friend’s girlfriend had posed to him a question about the purpose of atheism activism:
“Why not live and let live?”
Aside from being intellectually wrong, what’s so bad about believing in a god? What’s the harm? Is it just academic?
Some background: His girlfriend is “not religious, but open-minded,” and teaches their 3 kids to be accepting of all different religions. He is an atheist and passionate about critical thinking and skepticism. He is concerned because he overheard one of their children praying before going to bed.
He asked me, “What can I tell her?”
Here’s my response:
Because they’re not letting us live and let live. Because, for no rational reason, gay people can’t get married in my state. Because they’re teaching the Genesis creation myth as fact in science classes. Because they’re teaching “abstinence-only” sex ed, which is demonstrably ineffective. Because, despite Roe v. Wade recently celebrating its 40th anniversary, we’re STILL fighting for abortion and birth-control access. Because priests are molesting children and nobody is getting in trouble for it. It’s been said before, but if an 80-member religious cult in Texas allowed some of their leaders to molest children, there would be a huge outcry. It would be front-page news. People would be up in arms! But when it’s the Catholic Church, we barely even notice. It’s gotten to the point where we’re not even surprised anymore—it’s barely even news anymore—when another molestation is uncovered. Like the saying goes, “The only difference between a cult and a religion is the number of followers.” Or worse, “One rape is a tragedy; a thousand is a statistic.”
I brought up Greta Christina’s wonderful book, “Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off The Godless,” and told him to read it, and to ask his girlfriend to read it. Nothing would make me happier than to live and let live. I dream of a world where humanity spends its time solving “real” problems, doing medical research, exploring space, fixing the climate, making art and music, studying philosophy. I would love for there to be no need for atheism activism. But I can’t do that, because I have a conscience.
He agreed with me on these points, but wanted to know about the problem with liberal churches. What’s the harm of religion so long as it supports gay marriage, comprehensive sex-ed, etc?
First off, it’s important to distinguish between believing in a deity, and believing in God. If we’re talking about a deistic creator, a god who allegedly sparked the Big Bang and hasn’t interfered since, I don’t really see any harm in this, other than that it’s unscientific and vastly improbable. I’d call this harmlessly irrational, on par with crossing your fingers for good luck. It’s magical thinking, which I think should be avoided, but it doesn’t really hurt anything.
But once we start talking about Yahweh, the Abrahamic god, the god of the Bible, we get into some sticky stuff. I’m not the first to say so but the reason moderate religion is bad, even dangerous, is that it opens the door for religious bigotry and worse. If a religious moderate believes the proposition that the Bible is the inspired word of God, who is he to fault a religious extremist for actually doing what it says to do?
If you use faith as your justification for moral decision-making, you cannot reasonably point at someone more committed than you doing the exact same thing and make the charge that they’re wrong. A religious moderate cannot call a religious extremist crazy without being hypocritical.
There is this idea among moderates that religious tolerance is an ideal condition. The whole “COEXIST” campaign is a prime example. There is this idea that all religions are somehow valid, despite contradicting one another. That no matter how much we disagree with someone, if it falls under the umbrella of religious tolerance, we should make every effort to find a way not to be offended.
To paraphrase Sam Harris, the idea that all human beings should be free to believe whatever they want—the foundation of “religious tolerance”—is something we need to reconsider. Now.
I will not stand by and tolerate the belief that it is moral to mutilate a little girl’s genitals.
I will not stand by and tolerate the belief that it is moral to hinder the promotion of condom use in AIDS-ridden regions, because they believe wasting semen is a “sin.”
I will not stand by and tolerate the belief that it is moral to lie to children and tell them that they will see their dead relatives again, or give them nightmares about a made-up “Hell.”
I will not stand by and tolerate the absurd and unsubstantiated proposition that humans are somehow born bad or evil, that we need to be “saved.”
It is offensive to me that, in the year 2013, people still think intercessory prayer works. Every time I hear about some poor sick child who has died because her parents decided to pray instead of take her to a hospital, I am horribly offended. When religious moderates tell me—although they also believe in intercessory prayer—that they, too, are offended by this, I am appalled at the hypocrisy. We should know better by now than to believe in childish things like prayer.
I am so sick of this crap. There is a time and a place for being accommodating of differences of opinion. If you think tea is the best hot drink, and I think it’s coffee, fine. No one is harmed by this. Insofar as your beliefs don’t negatively affect others, I do not care if we agree or not. But, I contend, your right to believe whatever you want ends where my rights begin. Religious moderation is literally dangerous because it opens the gate wide for religious extremism. A moderate cannot point to a religious extremist and say, “You are wrong. You are dangerous. You must not be allowed to continue.” However, I can. To stand up to religious extremism, we must come from a place of rational thought, of freedom to criticize, of ethics that do not depend on revelation or arguments from authority.
I make no apology for asserting that secular humanism is the most reasonable, most ethical, and best way for us to live. It is more rational than superstitious faith. It is more productive and humane than any religion. It is the ethical choice. To quote Sam Harris, “There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.”
We must become more reasonable if we want to survive. Our planet is in trouble. There is no divine guarantee that the Earth will always be able to support us nor that we will always be here. There is no life after this. What matters is how we are remembered, and the contributions to society we make while we’re alive. I assert that there is nothing more important or more urgent than this: Atheists, I call upon you to stand up to absurdity. If you see something, say something. Start the conversation.
I know that it is difficult to make waves. I know that it can be intimidating, especially when you’re outnumbered. But the facts are on our side, and the stakes are high. We must not be afraid to call bullshit where we see it. We must not allow religions to dictate what is and is not moral. We must speak up in the face of wrongdoing. We must make ourselves known. It can be as simple as correcting someone for using the word “fag,” or mentioning that you are an atheist if the subject of religion comes up.
Ending the danger and oppression of religion will not be easy, but if we work toward it, we can make it happen.
Until next time,
Dave
Dave Muscato is the Kansas/Missouri-Area Volunteer Network Coordinator for the Secular Student Alliance. He is also a board member of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A non-traditional junior at Mizzou studying economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday and twice monthly for the Humanist Community at Harvard. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com
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