The Sam Harris Delusion.

I suppose we could agree to argue, as Sam Harris has, that Islam is more violent and more oppressive than, well, everyone else; playing the oppression olympics.To me this type of arguing seems misleading and thus I remain skeptical of Harris’ conclusions; I think you should too. Don’t take my word for it; let me explain.
Our intuitions suggest that “life is good” in the US but it’s really easy to be white, and male (like Harris), making it even easier to distance ourselves from the problems that riddle our country. Which is to say that maybe our types of “evil” (read: oppression, racism, sexism, violence) might not be as obvious as the blatant human rights violations we can see on the nightly news. So, what are the oppression olympics and are they really worth our time always arguing for a 1st place?

Oppression olympics is the attachment of a moral dimension to oppression. Which is not to say that oppression has no moral implications, but that those moral implications make those who are deemed “most oppressed” are made worthier of our savior attitudes, or criticisms. By doing this a Sam Harris has trivialized oppression effectively underplaying the importance of the experiences of oppressed people.

Why play then? I suggest that this gives a savior mentality to the arguer who, while both setting up and knocking down his own chess pieces, feels justified in doing so because he’s created a false dichotomy to do just that. Allowing ourselves to argue from a position of seemingly clear moral high-ground only aids this delusion.

Historically this type of argumentation has been used to completely ignore intersectionality AKA: the crazy idea that people experience oppression in varying configurations and in varying degrees of intensity. Cultural patterns of oppression are not only interrelated, but are bound together and influenced by the intersectional systems of society. Examples of this include race, gender, ability, class, and ethnicity. But to be more fair to Sam Harris, i’d like to use an example that he cites in his recent “response to controversy”, and then casually dismisses.

“They never dig for the religious motive behind apparently terrestrial concerns. The game is rigged. This is how an anthropologist like Scott Atran can interview dozens of jihadists—each of whom rattles on about God and paradise—and come out thinking that the doctrine of Islam has nothing to do with terrorism.”

I take issue with this because Anthropologists like Scott Atran can’t just “dig” for their own personal conclusions. Like any good scientists, even Anthropologists must go where the evidence leads them. Within the scientific world bias is the exact kind of thing we want to avoid in order to obtain accurate data. So if Harris really wanted to address his concerns of Atran’s findings, in good conscience, he could analyze his methodology and search for bias or conduct research to find out if he is or is not correct. That’s how a neuroscientist would react to claims they think are unscientific, right? Sam Harris is most definitely not an Anthroplogist and I believe he oversteps himself with great gusto.With that thought in mind my intuition suggests to me that Harris still wouldn’t consider this  reasonable because he would just as well assume that anyone of or related to the Islamic world is lying about all of their value based claims and so he posits that there is no sufficient socio-political context that be reasonably thought to have create ‘this level of violence’ in the middle east.

Tl;dr – Islam. Sounds like a bit of conspiracy to me. One might even go so far as to say a faith based belief, because in light of contrary evidence, Harris continues raving.

Meanwhile within the United States Sam Harris operates from atop a seemingly ‘moral superior bastion’ (though he does not claim this). Remember now, we live in a country in which we no longer have lynch mobs or public hangings. Instead we confine most of our bigotry to structural inequality. We frequently keep it behind closed doors, under whispered breaths, written as legal jargon on otherwise unrelated bills, embedded in the language of power and control, through the lens of a camera and within the commentary on a screen, etc. It’s this type of subtle irony that seems almost in denial of the current socio-political climate of our own country. Maybe Harris could, at the very least, focus on our country before we start trying to save the world.

I recognize that my argument isn’t particularly strong, or even specifically critical of what Sam Harris has said. This is due in part my unwillingness to dive into what I feel are bad claims for reasons I’ve stated above and that Harris likes to quickly dismiss all challenges with little consideration. So surely there is a better way I can convince you that Harris’s arguments really aren’t that great? Let us assume that Sam Harris is right, and  he has successfully rationalized that Islam is ’uniquely evil.’ The next question is, “what does Sam Harris suggest we do to solve this complex problem?”

He says his position is simple, “We should admit that we know what we are looking for (suicidal terrorists) and that certain people obviously require less scrutiny than others. We should scan everyone’s luggage, of course, because bombs can be placed there without a person’s knowledge. But given scarce resources, we can’t afford to waste our time and attention pretending to think that every traveller is equally likely to be affiliated with al Qaeda.”

While Harris operates under the pretense of ‘just being rational guyz’ he ends in a conclusion that we should start profiling people most visibly likely to be jihadists. At the very least his only success for arguing for profiling is that it would be the “most secure.” This is an important claim to criticize, especially if you consider yourself a Secular Humanist. But why? It’s rather easy to highlight the problem by simply defining one of the several values of Secular Humanism via the Counsel for Secular Humanism.

“Secular humanists hold that ethics is consequential, to be judged by results. This is in contrast to so-called command ethics, in which right and wrong are defined in advance and attributed to divine authority. “No god will save us,” declared Humanist Manifesto II (1973), “we must save ourselves.” Secular humanists seek to develop and improve their ethical principles by examining the results they yield in the lives of real men and women.”

Sam Harris: So goddamn rational it hurts, literally. 

In this case Sam Harris could not likely be a consequentialist as it seems he would rather rationalize away the rights of his fellow citizens for his own sake of mind; his very fear of imminent suicide bombing remains questionable. For that matter, Harris could not be considered a Secular Humanist either. If Harris’ primary concern is really a most secure system, why stop at infringing the rights of anyone profiled as ‘Muslim’? Why even bother allowing people “suspect” of being Muslim to board airplanes; why even allow Muslims to enter the country? Why bother giving rights to Muslims in the first place? Clearly Harris is willing to dole out preemptive justice to even innocent parties by graciously allowing the limitations of their rights, of which we all so greatly enjoy. It is really easy to simply rationalize away all of our human rights if we employ this type of gross rationalism. If Harris is really arguing for a ‘most safe’ system why not replace freedoms with forced predictability by limiting outcomes (behaviors) of agents legally and giving only predetermined sets of allowances? Truly this type of guilty (of suicide bombing) until proven innocent approach is absolutely ridiculous and a “most secure” system like this ensures that the people’s rights are being encroached upon.

Personally, I’m not willing to agree with Harris because he’s reached a “rational” conclusion that involves breaching human rights for his own sake of mind. I cannot consent to that and also call myself a humanist or reasonable. Perhaps rational, but not reasonable at all.

 

 

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.

–

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.

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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.

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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.

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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

Shortly afterward I received a second email:

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.

My email back:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HJrAaGJudw

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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and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!

We pray together

During the Boston Marathon, everyone in our city cheers for each other. We help each other across the finish line. When terror struck, we acted as a family. Throughout the chaos, courageous people ran toward danger to help strangers in need.

Now we cry together. We pray together. We help each other.

No one can replace what we’ve lost here in Boston. But today, and in the weeks and months ahead, we’ll get through it together — through sorrow and anger, rehabilitation and recovery. That’s what families do.

Where do you think this excerpt came from? It sounds like part of an editorial, or maybe a church-sponsored ad, right? Not quite. This is part of a message I received this evening from the barackobama.com email server, promoting the rather honorable cause of donating to The One Fund Boston.

Now that’s all well and good, but it got me thinking.

We pray together.

Do we? Is this phrase really appropriate to include in an email to people who signed up to be part of a political campaign? But this kind of attitude toward our *wink wink nudge nudge* “secular” government is quite prevalent. A speech from a politician without “God bless America” at the end is often criticized for being unpatriotic.

At this point it may sound like I’ve just got my atheist panties in a twist over something so small, but hear me out. These examples are part of the overall American mindset toward religion, and it’s overwhelming; from the general assumption that someone is Christian until you find out otherwise, to the defense of churches’ tax-exempt status despite activities that disqualify them, the bias toward religion can be found in just about every corner of the country.

To truly have our separation of church and state, and even to simply be a place of equality, we have to stop looking at everything with Jesus-tinted glasses. Take God out of the schools, the government, the politics, and especially my damn emails. Put him back in the churches where he belongs, and let’s work on ways to actually make progress without falling into the rut of religion.

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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and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!

The Right of Marriage

Inspired by The Rite of Marriage, on Columbia Faith and Values

So much talk about gay marriage lately with the SCOTUS hearings and this being Pride Month at MU, it is really a blast for someone like myself that loves talking politics, religion, and philosophy, as this can encompass all three. It can, however, be frustrating at times when one comes across opinions like those linked above. For those unwilling to stomach another bigoted editorial, the argument can be summarized to:

1. Marriage is only important in the religious sense.
2. My religion says homosexuality and gay marriage are wrong.
3. Gay marriage should not be allowed because it is wrong in the only important aspect of marriage.

Clearly, I don’t care what anyone’s religion says about homosexuality, there is nothing wrong with it, but I’ll set that aside for now, as I can deconstruct the argument without having to show why it is not wrong. It hinges on the idea that marriage is a solely, or at least foremost, a religious institution. Such a stance was decided upon by first consulting Merriam-Webster’s definition:

“a (1) : the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law (2) : the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage <same-sex marriage>”

But, that included same sex marriage, so it was not good enough (although, the cited reason that it was disregarded was because it also said marriage was consensual and “that is not the case in all cultures, so there must be a better definition”). From there we naturally turn to anthropologists to see how they define marriage….Wait. What’s that? We went to Catholic doctrine afterward? But the MW definition didn’t say anything about religion or spirituality. It talked about contracts and legal recognition. Okay, well what did the Catholic version say:

“Marriage is not a purely human institution despite the many variations it may have undergone through centuries in different cultures, social structures and spiritual attitudes. These differences should not cause us to forget its common and permanent characteristics”

I’m sorry but I fail to see how marriage is anything but a purely human institution. Currently only humans are capable of getting married or recognizing a marriage. This quote also does not explain what the “common and permanent characteristics” of marriage are. Luckily, the author agrees that this is also an inadequate explanation, although they accept everything stated. From here I’m sure we go on to the anthropologists or sociologist to figure out these common and permanent characteristics, right? NOPE! We turn to the Quran , The Torah (conveniently also considered canon in Catholicism), and the New Testament, where it largely details that marriage is between a man and a woman.

At this point, the argument is incapable of effectively being used to to explain why marriage should not be a right that is extended to homosexual couples. Marriage has existed long before these religions which makes them poor standards for deciding what is common and permanent about marriage. Additionally, this idea of “common and permanent” characteristics reeks of appeal to tradition, especially since no reason is given as to why such characteristics should be adhered to or even a good explanation of what they are. Finally, and most importantly marriage is not solely a religious institution in our culture. In fact, it need not require any religion whatsoever. A couple could simply have a marriage license signed by a government official and get the legal benefits. This is still referred to as a marriage, not some other term. If you want to use this argument to say that the Catholic church should not allow gay marriages, fine. By all means push the church further into irrelevancy. But with what has been provided here, there is no reason not to allow legal marriages for same sex couples recognized by the government. It does not hurt you, your church, or your marriage. You may think it is sinful, but you also think not being a christian is sinful, and you would not advocate for making it illegal to not be christian, would you? If not, then “because my religion says it is wrong” is not a good enough reason to make something illegal.

—————-

Tony Lakey is the President of MU SASHA. He interned with the Center for Inquiry On Campus in Amherst, NY and was a volunteer Teacher/Counselor at Camp Inquiry. He is an activist for atheism, secularism, feminism, and LGBT issues.  He is in his fourth year at the University of Missouri – Columbia majoring in Philosophy and Sociology.
Twitter: @TonyLakey

Jesus, Take The Wheel!

Jesus, you’re facing the wrong way.

I hope you’re all staying inside gorging on chocolate bunnies (you damn gluttons), because Christians are rallying around demonstrations of faith, one of which is removing their hands from the steering wheel of a car for five minutes and letting their savior drive.

Ok, just kidding. It’s a fake event made up by us evil atheists to exemplify the stupidity of entrusting everything to a divine being. And if anybody actually does it, then I suppose today will live up to my nickname for it: Natural Selection Day.

But it’s true that some religious folks are going somewhat nutters in their application of faith to real life, and to the rational-minded their actions are no less ridiculous than suggesting that Jesus will take over and steer you safely down the highway.

We have our fair share of medically-preventable deaths because of the “faith healing” fad: a boy whose appendix burst died from infection that was not successfully prayed away, and his parents aren’t serving any jail time; a woman and her newborn died from childbirth complications after her pastor refused her parents’ requests to stop praying and take her to the damn hospital, but at least there was a $100 million compensation awarded by a jury; a couple is in prison for six years for failing to seek help for their two-month premature baby, who lived for nine hours before his underdeveloped lungs and staph infection overwhelmed his little system; Jehovah’s Witnesses routinely refuse such mundane and common medical treatment as blood transfusions, which severely limits any other procedures that can be done- many surgeries are out because they would require such transfusions, and a girl who needs a liver and kidney was removed from her parents’ custody when they refused the transplants.

The faith healers don’t even believe in what they do (I presume because they’ve seen their dismal success rates), and this guy went to the hospital for cancer treatment while he let a 15 year old girl die of cancer under his prayer care.

So tell me how these cases are any different than suggesting you pray your car to the grocery store.

Ask me again why I can’t just live and let live, and leave the innocent religious folks alone. I will by no means claim that most religious people are this extreme, but these few cases are more than enough to show the potential dangers of superfaith, and if you give me this bullshit you’re too far gone for help.

Show me a place that encourages faith and is able to entirely objectively separate that from law and I will concede that religion can be safe or even good. But for now I still think it’s just like our wisdom teeth: good for our ancestors, but now a pain in the neck and dangerous until removed.

New Pope, old ideas

I’m sure most of you have heard by now that the next Pope has been chosen. It’s this guy.

Photo credit: Natacha Pisarenko / AP

His real name is Jorge Bergoglio, and he came from Argentina. As Pope, he will be called Francis. And other than that, we don’t know a whole lot about him. He was discussed this morning on the Diane Rehm Show, and as I was listening during my morning commute I appreciated the insight of Father James Martin, an American Jesuit priest. The transcript of today’s show hasn’t been published yet, so I must paraphrase his comments:

‘Bergoglio is a conservative Catholic, so I don’t see him changing the Church’s policies towards gays or contraception.’

Fair enough. A little disappointing, but not surprising for the leader of an oppressive worldwide religious institution.

But then Martin goes on to stick his foot in his mouth, as religious folk are wont to do. Once again, I paraphrase:

‘But the Pope shouldn’t really be worried about social issues like that. Now is a time to bring the gospel to the people and introduce them to Jesus.’

Oh. Is that so? You’re kind of a prick if you think the head honcho of the religion that preaches love should ignore the suffering of the LGBTQ community, ranging from simple marriage discrimination to execution. Contraception was discussed in the context of financial inequality, but apparently the Pope gets to disregard the plight of even devout Catholic families with too many mouths to feed. Father Martin, if you really wanted to introduce more people to Jesus’ teachings of tolerance and support for the poor, you could start by following his damn example.

Besides dismissing the blatant opportunity to emulate the good deeds of your savior, you suggest that more people need to be introduced to Jesus. Really? Christianity is one of the largest religions in the world and has a vice-grip on social and legal policies in many regions, but you still think spreading it further is a higher priority than alleviating suffering? Either you lack the compassion you claim to hold so dear, or you’re stupid.

Not that it’s even the Pope’s responsibility to reach barbarians who haven’ t heard the good word yet. That’s what missionaries are for. And then local priests reinforce it. No, Francis will ride around in his Popemobile, trusting God to protect him with bulletproof glass and speaking Latin. He might announce that God spoke to him about those social issues we should be ignoring, but he sure as hell won’t be telling clergymen how to keep their parishioners in line.

On a rather tangential note, SASHA has been having our own Popewatch for the past several weeks, and I was really hoping we’d end up with this lovely fellow.

Photo credit: Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images

This is Angelo Scola of Italy, and he has the coolest God-damned stick of any of the major Pope contenders. Sure, Francis has bling, but this guy knows where it’s at. Ah, well. At 71 years old, he’s five years Francis’ junior, so maybe he’ll be around for the next conclave.

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, and

above all, what if you’re wrong.  Please tell why you are convinced, and what evidence you may have that makes

you willing to bet your eternal destination that you are right. It has to be pretty compelling, eternity is a long time

for 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 from

you.  I hope you take the time to write.
-

Thanks Dave.
-

Anon

Here is my reply:

Hi “Anon”!
-
Thank you for your email. I appreciate you taking the quiz and hope you enjoyed it.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.”
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Thanks for writing!
-
- Dave Muscato
-
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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and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!

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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and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!

Saying goodbye to an old friend **Updated**

**UPDATE** See bottom of page.

—

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

—

**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

Follow me on Facebook
Follow me on Google+
Follow me on Twitter
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel

and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!