Archive
Things change, Jed.
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Word Origin & History:
matrimony
c.1300, from O.Fr. matremoine, from L. matrimonium “wedlock, marriage,” from matrem (nom. mater) “mother” + -monium, suffix signifying “action, state, condition.” Related: Matrimonial.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas HarperThe word matrimony honors women as mothers. Who are the mothers in these so-called same sex marriages? These perverts do not want to be mothers; they hate children and hate God, the source of life. Nor do they love one another. We need to restore the”holy” to holy matrimony.
My response (on his wall):
Things change, Jed. The year 1300 was 7 centuries ago. Even as a Christian, since you are a Protestant, you would almost certainly be burned at the stake for believing the things that you do today, if we were to go back to the 14th century. Christianity itself has changed immensely since then.
There is a difference between a change over time, and a perversion. Also, have you ever even met a gay person? It seems hard to believe that you have, given that you are saying things like “they hate children and hate God…” I know many gay Christians who love God and love children, and I know that you do, too, because some of the people I know are also some of the people you know.
Jed, I want you to think hard about what you are saying. You are getting to that age now, when thinking about what you will accomplish is lower on your list, and it’s time to start thinking about how you will be remembered. Your grandchildren are going to grow up viewing gay marriage the same way that people of my generation see interracial marriage: as nothing wrong or perverted at all, and as a beautiful way to demonstrate their love for each other publicly to the world. If you persist in these falsehoods, these lies about gay people about which I know you know better, you are going to be remembered as an intolerant bigot. You are going to be remembered the same way people of my generation remember racists who fought against desegregation. I just want you to think about that.
My real question is, why do you feel it necessary to lie about gay people, to demonize them in this way and assassinate their character? Are you afraid that being honest and telling the truth about them will somehow make them more human, more equal? We both know that gay people do not hate children. Why would you even say something like that, if not to demonize them? Is it because you don’t actually have any good reasons for disliking them and discriminating against them, so you have to resort to lies?
Please name one gay person who actually hates children and hates God. I would like very much to meet one, and ask him some questions, if he exists. Surely there are gay people who don’t WANT children of their own, but hating children is something different than not wanting kids, just like not believing your god exists is entirely different from “hating” your god.
Looking forward to your response.
Another person, Stephen S, also posted this, which I thought was great!
in lesbian marriages there are two mothers i hope this helps
Until next time,
Dave
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current, NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
SASHA now has a video camera!
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Hey folks!
I’m really excited to announce that I got an actually decent video camera that we can now use for SASHA events. Expect lots more video coverage of our meetings/talks, tabling events, and other stuff in the future!
Here are two fun videos to get you started. The first is a talk by Alex Papulis, one of our members, about Sam Harris’s newest book, “Free Will,” from our last weekly meeting. The second video is some outdoor fun with street preachers on the Mizzou campus, Brother Jed among them. Enjoy!
For now we are using my own personal YouTube channel, but soon we will have a SASHA channel set up. You can subscribe to mine if you’d like, but FYI that is my personal channel, not the official SASHA channel, which is coming soon.
First video:
Second video:
Until next time!
- Dave
mail@davemuscato.com
(573) 424-0420 cell/text
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current, NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
Where do morals come from? Brother Jed is at it again…
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Hello all!
Brother Jed posted a transcript of his opening statement from his Monday debate with Brandon Christen on his Facebook profile. In it, he repeated, nearly verbatim, an argument he made during his debate with me last April (see the 7-minute mark or so). We went over this last year quite thoroughly (I thought), and I’m disappointed to see he’s still trotting out the same, already-refuted argument. This appears to be, it seem sto me, a textbook example of intellectual dishonesty on his part.
Here’s the relevant bit to today’s post:
If there is no God, who or what is the source and foundation of morality? Morals deal with right and wrong in our interpersonal relationships. Morals are personal; the source of morals must be connected with a personal God, who himself is a subject of moral obligation and who chooses to use his great powers morally.
Atheists affirm that all that exists is matter, energy, space and time. The problem for atheism is that these elements are not enough to support the existence of morality. Matter, energy, space and time are impersonal and non-moral. How does the personal come out of the impersonal? How does the moral come from stuff that is non-moral?
Men universally have a sense of moral obligation. “I ought; I ought not.” What is the source of moral obligation?
How, in a world which is ultimately the product of time, chance and material particles, did there come to be such things as moral obligations?
The existence of moral obligations makes more sense in a universe in which the ultimate reality is a moral Person than it does in a universe where persons are a late and insignificant by product of impersonal forces. The notion of morals requires a Moral Governor that Moral Governor is the God of the Bible.
I hardly know where to start with this. Here is what I have to say about it:
”Atheists affirm that all that exists is matter, energy, space and time.”
I think you’re 1) confusing atheists with metaphysical naturalists and 2) forgetting that matter=energy and space=time.
“The problem for atheism is that these elements are not enough to support the existence of morality. Matter, energy, space and time are impersonal and non-moral. How does the personal come out of the impersonal? How does the moral come from stuff that is non-moral?”
You asked this exact same question last year at Speakers’ Circle and again during our debate last April, Jed. I have already given you a sufficient scientific response. I have recommended to you books that thoroughly answer this using abundant evidence. Your question is not a mystery to scientists and hasn’t been a mystery to scientists for quite awhile now; in fact the answer to this question is the point of an entire field of science called sociobiology. Some of the bigger names in research in this field are E.O. Wilson, Frans de Waal, Robert Axelrod, and Samuel Bowles. Others you might want to read, if you actually want to know the answer to this question rather than just sound profound for continuing to raise it to people who haven’t heard it before, are Michael Shermer and Matt Ridley. Again, I have already told you all of this.
I think you just like to say the phrase “late and insignificant by product of impersonal forces.” Just because morality is a byproduct of impersonal forces does not mean that it’s insignificant. That’s a claim YOU’RE making, not a claim scientists have made.
You insist – and persist – in attempting to paint the origin of morality like it’s some huge mystery that has no possible earthly explanation, and therefore MUST have come from your god, while simultaneously completely ignoring the scientific explanation I repeatedly provide to you every time you bring this up.
Do you just not care that science has actually answered this question?
Evolution is sufficient to explain morality in cooperative animals, humans included. We have WAY more evidence than the minimum to demonstrate that this is the case. I recommend the books “The Origins of Virtue” by Matt Ridley and “A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and its Evolution” by Samuel Bowles if you are actually interested in the scientific answer to your question, “How does the moral come from the stuff that is non-moral?” This is an extremely well-documented concept in science.
Again, to be absolutely clear, how morals arise naturally from impersonal forces is NOT a mystery for scientists. Just because you don’t understand (or refuse to look at) where morality came from scientifically does not mean that, therefore, natural elements are insufficient to explain it.
What you are saying here is known in logic as an argument from incredulity. You are essentially saying, “I don’t understand how morality could have come about naturally. Therefore, morality must not have come about naturally.” This is a fallacy. We can readily show how morality comes about naturally, and in fact have done this in abundance in controlled settings. There’s LOTS of absolutely fascinating research that combines the game theory of economics with evolutionary biology to demonstrate it quite readily, in fact.
I would really love for this to be the last time we go through this dog & pony show, but I have a feeling you’re not even going to read this, let alone read the books I recommended. I like you, Jed, but you’ve been stuck on this idea that morals must have come from a god for at least several years now. Do you continue to raise the question because, after considering the evidence, you find the scientific explanation insufficient [in which case, what are your scientific objections]? Or have you just not even looked into it? The latter is my guess.
If you want to know where morals came from, read “The Origins of Virtue” by Matt Ridley, so we can finally put this to bed. Where morals came from is not a mystery to science, and it has nothing to do with your god. Science has answered this question; it’s time to put this to bed.
Until next time!
- Dave
mail@davemuscato.com
(573) 424-0420 cell/text
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current, NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
Is it worthwhile to debate street preachers?
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Hello all!
The following exchange took place on my Facebook wall today:
Dave:
Hell yeah!
Brandon Christen debating Brother Jed: Monday, April 16, 2012
Ed C:
As much as I love debate.. I don’t feel people like Jed ought to be given such respect.
Dave:
I’ve [formally] debated him the last two years in a row. It’s gotten our group a lot of new members, at the least. Worth it in that regard, if you ask me.
Also, I respect Jed as a person. People don’t need to earn respect; it’s a virtue of being human, and I’m a humanist. Now, a person’s *beliefs* are another story. When it comes to beliefs, respect must be earned, and beliefs earn respect by virtue of being reasonable. Jed’s beliefs are not worthy of respect, but we should be careful not to confuse someone’s beliefs with his/her identity.
Ed C:
I don’t care how many members you got.. the price is too high, in my opinion.
Dave:
I’m surprised to hear you say that, Ed. Debating Jed helped show a lot of of the Christian attendees that their own beliefs have (just as) little basis in reality, and helped some people on the fence or with doubts learn more about what the word ‘atheist’ really means. From where I sat, the whole event was nothing but a step in the right direction as far as showing Jed’s beliefs to be irrational, and to clear up misconceptions about skepticism/atheism, as well as growing our group.
Ed C:
I’m not confusing anything. There is nothing whatever disrespectful (in a personhood way) about not being invited to a debate. Such speakers should be subject to consideration of merit and decency and Jed has neither of those.
If a Christian is not capable of understanding Jed’s deep, deep flaws after 5 minutes of listening to him bark on youtube or college campuses, a protracted debate will not help him. The Christians who are not aware that some Christians are nutjobs are simply not worthwhile outreach targets; they are both too soft and too few.
Meanwhile, you’ve padded his resume and given him proof of his own legitimacy to the world. He uses you to sell himself as normal, and it works, too, no matter how badly he looks at the actual events, one day a year.
Dave:
I respectfully disagree. Jed, in a debate setting, is very cordial–professional, even. He employs fallacious reasoning and incorrect information, but he’s very much a decent person. When he’s preaching in public, he uses an intentional strategy he calls “confrontational evangelism” to get attention. He actually wrote a book about it, called “Who Will Rise Up?” He explained to me his reasoning once: Basically, he doesn’t have a captive audience the way professors, et al do. So, if he wants people to pay attention to him, he has to be outrageous. This is why he sometimes uses the “You Deserve Hell” sign & t-shirt, etc, and calls people whores. I have spoken to him at length over dinner and can vouch for the fact that he doesn’t really think all us college students are whores – it’s just a way to get people to stop and listen to him.
Jed actually is pretty consistent biblically with his preaching, in my experience. More than a lot of street preachers, at least. I also know for a fact that several people who were only culturally Christian (but who identified as Christian when asked) are now either on the fence as atheists, or out-of-the-closet atheists, as a result of attending the second debate. And it did give me experience – at the first one, I had only been out of the closet a few months, and had never done any kind of debate before.
I tend to think of it this way: If I can help just a small number of people free themselves from religion, it’s worth it. Jed is not a young-earth creationist or anything like that. And even if he was, some of the greats like Hitch, Dennett, and Peter Singer have debated, for example, Dinesh D’souza, who IS a young-Earth creationist. Dawkins declined to debate him, and I understand his reasoning, but I’m not Dawkins, you know?
Ed C:
I met and even had some one-on-one conversations with Jed when he visited here. I know there is a difference between his sign-waving screed and more conversational Jed. This changes nothing. Doing something disgusting then calling it a strategy doesn’t make it not disgusting- it makes you a crass, selfish opportunist indifferent to the outcome so long as you get your way (attention). Jed does indeed have a theological consistency, that is not my issue with him. His little hate-plays are beyond the limits of acceptable behavior. I think a great deal of debate, and inviting someone to the chair next to yours says a lot more than “this person gets basic human respect”, it says “this person is a legitimate, worthy speaker on behalf of his cause”. Sorry, I must respectfully maintain my disagreement that this is the case.
As a matter of pure strategy, I think there are much more fruitful avenues in terms of both Jed (you already know how we handled his visit, I’m sure) and debate. I would not compare Brother Jed to Dinesh D’Souza (although I don’t care for D’Souza and also would never invite him to debate). I don’t have evidence he is a YEC, in fact he has said the creationists are mistaken about evolution and called it “correct as far as it goes, but doesn’t explain everything”.
Zach C:
“If I can help just a small number of people free themselves from religion, it’s worth it.” —- How is religion hurting my personal life right now?
Dave:
Was it MLK who said “No one is free while others are oppressed”? Zach, I’m on my phone, but I can give you a quick answer. The very concept of faith makes a virtue out of ignorance. As students, you and I both should be opposed to that right there. There’s also the nearly incalculable opportunity cost of the hundreds of billions of dollars and millions of manhours wasted donating to the vicious circle of churches that simply use the money to grow themselves in perpetuity, when we have REAL problems in this world that we CAN solve if we just address them. Prayer has been proved to be useless beyond placebo effect. It’s like the bumper sticker says: Two hands working do more than a thousand clasped in prayer.
Religion hurts scientific progress. Religion forces the rest of us to waste our already limited education budgets defending why we should teach science in science class, health in health class, and history in history class. Religion encourages and in fact survives by encouraging magical thinking and demonizing curiosity (quite literally!). It is antithetical to social and intellectual progress. And in the words of Christopher Hitchens, “It is not moral to lie to children. It is not moral to lie to ignorant, uneducated people, to tell them that if they believe nonsense, they can be saved.”
Your thoughts appreciated,
Dave
mail@davemuscato.com
(573) 424-0420 cell/text
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current, NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
Faith
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Hello there,
Dave here. Today I’m going to talk about faith.
Trigger Warning: In the course of this article I will be making an analogy to sexual assault.
I apologize for the lack of updates the past few days – frankly, I have been working on this article. This has not been an easy article for me to write, but I think it’s possibly the most important one I’ve written so far.
All belief in supernatural things, by definition, boils down to faith. There is no evidence for supernatural beings, in fact there can’t be any (evidence, by definition, exists only in the natural realm). Supernatural entities are by definition postulatory, since they live or exist outside of our experience. Their existence, by definition, is not parsimonious, and must be preceded by the word “alleged.”
If we want to be intellectually honest, it’s fine to speculate about things for which we have no solid evidence, and in fact this is required in order to begin the search for evidence. You have to come up with a hypothesis and hold it in your mind, as if it were true, in order to apply the scientific method to it – that is, in order to begin looking for evidence that would disprove your hypothesis.
It is the mark of an educated mind, to be able to entertain a thought, without accepting it. – Aristotle
I want to make something very clear, because I’ve run into this a few times in the last few days from different people, and it’s something that I think skeptic-minded people sometimes take for granted. Not everyone is comfortable working in a scientific mindset, or in my experience, seems to understand the process of science. I’ll let Richard Carrier explain it:
What makes the scientific method contrary to common sense is that instead of looking FOR evidence for a belief, we actually design a test or something that’s designed to find evidence AGAINST our belief, if there is any. And that’s why science works so well; it works against the way we were evolved to think.
Humans are terribly susceptible to confirmation bias and all sorts of other fallacies. We don’t just look for information that agrees with what we already believe, but we subconsciously ignore information that shows we’re wrong. I’ve written before on this blog about confirmation bias and how easily it affects skeptics as well – we’re people, too! The key is to be alert for it. Question everything, and when someone offers you a bit of information, the most important question you can ask is, “How do you know that?“
When faced with a tough question, it’s perfectly fine to say, “I don’t know.” In fact, we should prefer to say “I don’t know” than be wrong, at least in the context of a philosophical discussion. And here is the crux of the disagreement between faith and empiricism. Skeptics are fine, comfortable even, with saying “I don’t know.”
We don’t just leave it there, of course: We do love mysteries, but even more, we love the process of solving them. We are not satisfied with having AN answer; we want the RIGHT answer.
In April of this year, I publicly debated Brother Jed Smock on the question of “Is Christianity True?”, and the central point of his argument was that Christianity offers the best, most-coherent answer to The Big Questions (see Ravi Zacharias’ 1997 book “Deliver Us From Evil,” Appendix B, “The Inextinguishable Light,” page 219), and therefore, the claims it makes about Life, the Universe, and Everything are factually true.
My response was, firstly, that that’s his opinion, and secondly, that virtually every religion offers answers to “the big questions,” but that doesn’t mean any particular set of answers are objectively the right ones. Simply having AN answer doesn’t do you much good if you place a high priority on knowledge. We want more than appeasement of curiosity. We want to be sure. Or at the least, as sure as possible, given the data we have available. And if we can’t be sure, we must be honest enough to admit that we do not know, while continuing to seek answers.
“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.” – Winston Smith in ’1984′
In the 1950s, Solomon Asch of Swarthmore College published a series of studies about conformity. Student volunteers were told they were participating in a vision test. In reality, Asch was testing how easily individuals would abandon what they know is correct under passive pressure to conform to a group consensus. In the studies, a group of students in a circle passed around cards with 1 “test” line and several other different-length comparison lines drawn on them. The students were supposed to say whether or not the test line appeared to be the same length as one of the comparison lines. In reality, only one of the students in each group was actually a subject of the experiment. The rest of the students were confederates – decoys – who intentionally gave incorrect answers, but in agreement with each other, to see if the one real subject student would give the same incorrect answer, in order to avoid standing out from the crowd.
We all like to think that if we were asked, “Which line on the second card — A, B, or C — most closely resembles the line in the first card?” we would, of course, answer “C.” They are, in fact, the same length. I’d venture a guess that, barring any vision problems, 100% of us would answer C if asked one-on-one. But what Asch found was that, over and over again, in a group setting, when the rest of the group (who were actually in on the study) gave the wrong (but consistently wrong) answer, 75% of the test subjects conformed to the wrong answer at least once, and 5% conformed to the wrong answer every time. Only 25% of the test subjects never conformed, standing by what their eyes told them and insisting that all of the rest of the group must be wrong. It takes guts to stand up to a crowd, even when the evidence is literally right in front of you in black & white.
There are good evolutionary reasons for this. I have written on this blog before about mocking as a conformity-enforcer, and its evolutionary value. From the perspective of the gene – the only perspective nature ever “cares” about – sometimes it makes sense to conform, even when what you’re conforming to is clearly incorrect factually.
We’re all familiar with the Hans Christian Andersen classic story, “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Two (scamming) weavers promise the Emperor a new (and expensive) suit of beautiful clothes with a catch: They are invisible to those either unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent. Though the Emperor himself can’t see the clothes either, he dare not mention it, for the same reason his attendants don’t, either. When the Emperor parades before his subjects in his new “clothes,” a child, too young to understand conformity, cries out, “But he isn’t wearing anything at all!”
Five years ago, I was a professional worship musician, and I considered myself very much a Christian. Between youth and adult worship services and conferences, I was playing around 150 gigs a year, for a couple of thousand people every week. I had decided at the time that, if I wanted to be serious about doing this as a life-long career, I should probably learn as much about my faith as I could. I had never read the Bible before, so I read the NIV cover-to-cover, since that’s what my church used. I found it absolutely fascinating; these were God’s very own words, and I wanted to tell everyone about it (and not just because of Matthew 28). I had a long talk with my friend Daniel, who was very much a father-figure to me, and told him that I knew that this was my calling, and asked for advice. He encouraged me in my studies and was thrilled for me, that God was using me through music to spread His Word. Another friend of mine told me that the King James Version was “more authoritative,” and so I read that, too. Then it occurred to me that this was probably not the best approach, since both were English translations, and there were dozens and dozens more besides these. I got some Greek and Latin study books and hired a tutor, with whom I met 2-3 times/week for several years, in order to learn to read as authentically as possible.
Performing
At a youth service (I'm on the left, bottom row)
Me with Charlie Hall, of the Passion Conferences
But something started to happen. The more I studied, the more I realized that it wasn’t so simple as just learning to read “The Original Greek Manuscripts.” I found out that we don’t have the original Greek manuscripts. We don’t even have the first copies of the original Greek manuscripts. Finding out about Rylands Library Papyrus P52 for the first time was a phenomenon for me, one that I will never forget. Around the same time, my mother (a deist and cultural Jew) gave me a copy of Karen Armstrong’s A History of God, not really knowing what it was about, which started to put a wedge in my “faith.” Then, in March of 2009, Bart Ehrman’s Jesus, Interrupted came out. I don’t remember where or from whom I first heard about it, but the day I got my copy, I stayed up all night reading the whole thing.
I was meeting with my pastor pretty regularly then; we’d have coffee about once a week. I remember talking to him about all these things I was reading, and asking for advice. I wanted desperately to believe, and he told me something for which I am very grateful. He said (paraphrasing Harvard theology professor James Luther Adams), “God doesn’t want unexamined faith. Step into the doubt.”
That was what I really needed to hear, even though I didn’t quite realize it at the time. Up until that point, I didn’t feel like I had “permission” to doubt these things. I thought of my reading as “studying” and becoming a better Christian. I knew deep down that I had doubts, but I couldn’t consciously bring myself to call them that word. More like “questions.” My pastor recognized what that meant, and encouraged me to explore it. It didn’t take long for me to put 2 + 2 together. Within the space of about a year, I went from devoted, studious Christian to closeted atheist.
I was still working as a worship musician at that time, but I remained silent, continuing to perform and lead others in worship, continuing to take communion, travel, record, etc, because I did not want to lose my job, my friends, and give up everything I had worked for. I’m sure this feeling is familiar to many of you.
One Sunday during a service, we had a guest speaker, a local doctor who had a two-year-old daughter, and he was speaking about his experience raising her. He told a story that shook me to my core. It was, by the account of everyone else there (about 1500 people), a lovely story. He recounted how he had told his two-year-old daughter, “N,” that Jesus is going to come back someday – and not just someday, but soon. He recounted the story told in Revelation – the tribulations, the rainbow throne with the twenty-four thrones surrounding it, the four creatures, the book of Seven Seals, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, on to the resurrection of the saints, the thousand-year reign, the judgment…
And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come, and see. And I looked, and behold a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.
He recounted how his two-year-old daughter, hearing him tell this story, looked up at him and asked:
Daddy, is it true?
And the next words out of his mouth broke my heart. He said, “I told her, ‘Yes. It’s all true.’” And as he told us that, I started crying. I think the rest of the band thought I was crying because of how touching the story was, but that wasn’t it at all. I was so angry at him, for taking advantage of her trust, for abusing her wiring in that way. We are genetically programmed to obey our parents; there is a strong fitness advantage to this. Indeed, the entirety of submission to authority as a theme in religion takes its power from hijacking our intrinsic instinct to obey our elders, for our own safety. In our troglodyte days, we didn’t have the leisure of reflecting on warnings from our parents that a saber-tooth cat would eat us if we wandered too far from the safety of the group. In those days, it wasn’t necessary to stone a disobedient child; nature would — and did — weed out disobedient children on her own. But while the threat of wild animal attacks is no longer pressing, our built-in drive to believe whatever we’re told lingers. And in that moment, I realized just how immoral my job was. I wasn’t playing music; I was actively brainwashing children, and programming them to be afraid.
That’s when I knew I had to stop. I couldn’t take it anymore. She was right there with her mother, in the front row. I remember thinking, I should say something. I remember thinking, I have a microphone, right here. I could say, “No, don’t listen to him. This is bullshit; it’s all bullshit. Just because he’s your dad, just because he’s a doctor, doesn’t mean that he knows any more about the end of the world than me or anyone else. Don’t listen to him!”
But I didn’t. I regret to say that I not only finished that service, but played the second service after it, too. I set up an appointment with my pastor for later in the week, and we went out for coffee. I told him my questions were more than questions, in fact more than doubts. I poured out everything I had learned, about the history of the texts, about the contradictions, the mistranslations, the obvious interpolations, the forgeries, the historical mismatches, the works. I’m guessing I went on for about a half-hour. Then I asked him, as sincerely and genuinely as I have ever asked anyone anything, “How can I believe?”
His answer hit me like a ton of bricks. No, more like a slap in the face. I was stunned. I was speechless. I wish I had it on tape.
He said, “You just have to have faith.”
Those six stupid little words. I didn’t even know what to say.
I am going to take some serious flack for this, but I am being truly honest in how I feel, so deal with it. I mentioned above an analogy with sexual assault. Here it is: I do not have first-hand experience with this, but as I understand from talking with people who have, it’s not uncommon for victims of sexual assault to escape into a certain mental place and just take it. By that I mean, you recognize that this is not about sex, but about control, and you know that you are powerless in this circumstance. You can fight it, fail, and get hurt in the process, or you can pretend – just in your head – that this is okay with you. Not just okay with you, but something you deserve, or even want. Even if that’s false, if you just tell yourself, like a mantra, “This is not happening,” or “I deserve this,” or even, “Maybe I secretly want this,” you won’t feel so violated. Like I said, get offended if you want, but in the purest emotional sense, “violated” is the single most accurate word I can come up with to describe the feeling I had when my pastor said that. I trusted him; I trusted all of them. I felt like, deep down, there just had to be some good reason all of these smart, educated people believed this! It just couldn’t possibly be that they were all that blind. I don’t know what I expected him to tell me when I asked, but I definitely expected some kind of actual reason. Some kind of rebuttal. Some kind of reassurance that I hadn’t been crazy to believe this crap. But he didn’t have anything. All he had was, in so many words, “You’re right. It’s not true. But that doesn’t really matter. Just stop struggling; just lie back and take it. Then the dissonance will go away, and you won’t feel a thing.”
I left that meeting feeling angry, and used. I honestly don’t remember how things wrapped up, although I remember him being nice to me, and his saying that we should stay in touch, and that he would take care of talking to the music director for me about my schedule. I remember sitting in my car for quite awhile, just trying to figure out what the hell happened.
Is this what faith is? As Mark Twain said, “Believing what you know ain’t so”? How do people do it? How can they not see that faith is a totally bullshit reason for believing anything at all? Faith fails as an argument because it is not exclusive. You can make anything “true” if faith is your yardstick. If faith is your yardstick, the Qur’an is just as true as the Bible, which is just as true as the Book of Mormon, which is just as true as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
When I came out as an atheist, I was scared shitless, but as it turned out, my world didn’t come crashing down. Far from it. My family has been very supportive, and although I lost more than a few friends, I’ve made even more new ones – people from our campus skeptics’ group, other people just like me from CFI, SSA, and American Atheists, and they are people who are real, and who admire science, reason, rationality, and critical thinking as much as I do. I no longer worry about people going to hell. I no longer have this nagging worry in the back of my mind that I’m spreading bullshit, because I’m comfortable saying “I don’t know” now if I don’t have a better answer. I’m in school, studying something that really fascinates me (the evolution of morality in cooperative species, using the tools of economics & game theory) and that is not only useful to science and the advancement of human knowledge, but is not rooted in bullshit. It’s a wonderful feeling.
When I think of atheism now, the word that comes to mind is “Freedom.” I feel like dancing. I feel honest, because I now have good reasons to believe that my understanding of the universe at large is actually true. I think science is beautiful. Lawrence Krauss says it better than I can:
In the words of Neil DeGrasse Tyson, “That makes me want to grab people in the street and say, ‘Have you heard this?’”
To N: You are five years old now. I doubt you will ever see this, and I’ll probably never see you again either, but you are the reason I am an atheist activist. I am so sorry that I didn’t speak up when I had the chance. I am sorry to all the other people I deluded. I thought I was doing the right thing at the time. I hope that one day, you will see that asking questions is good. That knowledge is good, and in the words of Krauss, that the real world, as it actually is, is not evil: It’s remarkable. And the way to understand the universe is through science.
I hope that one day, you will be brave enough, and curious enough, to see through all this, and come out on the other side, like I did. Come on and join us; the sun is shining, and the water’s warm.
Take care, kid.
- Dave
mail@davemuscato.com
(573) 424-0420 cell/text
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current,NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too! 
Dinner with Brother Jed
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Hello everyone!
SASHA’s “WWJD? – Ask him yourself!” event was featured in Mizzou’s student newspaper, The Maneater, this week. You can read the article here and my take on it here (with more photos). James Pflug (the SASHA member who portrayed Jesus during the event) had this to say about his experience. Even more photos are here.
On Friday, Brother Jed had his twice-annual open house and invited students on campus, religious & atheist alike. Although Jed travels throughout the country and preaches on various campuses most of the year, he and his family actually happen to live right here in Columbia, and so I’ve had the opportunity to have dinner with him and his family a few times now.
Jed Smock and I at Jed's open house
There were about 35 of us there, and after we all ate, there was some good discussion. I was only able to stay until about 7:30, but I did get to hear Jed reading out of the Bible a bit (Romans 1, more on this in a moment), and some discussion with my friend Michael Acuff, a Young Earth creationist & medical doctor who specializes in rehabilitation and spinal injuries.
Jed’s Bible reading was, as he put it, “food for thought.” He wanted to explore “why, according to the Bible…” – in his words, “Whether you believe in the Bible or not is another issue” – “… [atheists] don’t believe.” I did record a video of his reading, but since I did it with my cell phone, the audio is pretty hard to make out. You can watch it here if you’re so inclined; I got a text message around 11 minutes in and my phone automatically stopped recording, sorry about that:
Jed’s basic point, from Paul’s letter to the Romans, 1:16-20, is that God has made it plain to us that he exists, such that all men are “without excuse.” We (atheists) “know [that God exists] because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God hath [shown] it unto them” – but we are willfully resisting the truth, and this makes God angry.
Let’s take a look at this critically. The argument here, according to Jed, is that even if you’ve never heard the gospel preached to you, you are without excuse for knowing that God is real, because, in Jed’s words, “he has revealed himself through his creation.”
This is an unbelievably easy argument to knock down. I’m frankly surprised that Jed thought it was worthwhile enough to lead with during the after-dinner discussion. Let’s dig in.
First problem: It’s not exclusive to any particular god. Before we continue, I want you to take a moment and look at this link. Seriously, right now, click this, glance it over, and then come back. I’ll wait.
Okay, back now? You may have noticed that there are over 100 names listed on that page. There are 111, in fact. Yahweh is among them, the third from the last, right where you’d expect to find the ol’ fella, alphabetically under “Y.”
The reason Paul’s line of reasoning fails as an argument in favor of Yahweh’s existence is that you could just as easily make this argument in favor of any creator god – any of the 111 listed on that page, or any other you might care to make up on your own, and indeed, throughout history and up to today, people do just that. You could just as easily make the case, “People are without excuse for not worshipping the Flying Spaghetti Monster, who is clearly real, because he has revealed himself through all of creation.”
Even if it were true that “creation” necessarily means a creator (it doesn’t), that doesn’t tell us WHICH creator. The teleological argument, as it has been called, only gets us to Deism, not to Theism, and certainly not allllll the way down the spectrum to Christianity specifically:
In order for a hypothesis to be credible, it has to fulfill a few minimum requirements, for example, internal consistency, external consistency, and elegance. By internal consistency, I mean that the explanation you’re offering can’t be logically impossible nor contradict itself. A hypothesis is no good if it depends upon an assumption that can’t logically work. For example, if your explanation requires an omnipotent being, we can easily show that your explanation is flawed. An omnipotent being cannot exist, and we can easily prove this using “the paradox of the stone,” employed by Aquinas and others, which dates back to at least the 12th century. The paradox of the stone asks, simply, “Can God make a stone so heavy that he can’t lift it?”
If he can, than he fails at being so powerful that he can lift anything, no matter how heavy. If he can’t, than he fails at being able to make something he intends to make. Either way, he’s not all-powerful. So we can be sure than an all-powerful god does not - cannot – exist. Though the Bible doesn’t make the claim internally that God is all-powerful in the first place, Christians sometimes do, so it’s a good point to keep handy. Christianity does not depend on belief in an all-powerful god, just a very-powerful one.
The Bible does make other claims that are logically impossible, though. John 1:1 is a good example. In the Gospel according to John, the opening line states: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Well, which is it? Was the Word with God, or was the Word actually God? This violates the logical principle called the law of non-contradiction: Something cannot logically be A and not A at the same time and in the same context (in this case, the contradiction is that Christianity is a monotheistic religion, as the 1st Commandment requires, and that Christianity is not a monotheistic religion, as Christians worship Jesus as a separate entity from God the Father). You can’t put forth the statement that Jesus was a separate person, who sits at the right hand of the Father (God) and who is the “way” to God the Father, and that Jesus is God the Father simultaneously, just as you cannot logically put forth the statement that your went for a walk with your dog, and that you are your dog, simultaneously, if you want to make sense. (For a video explanation of why this is nonsense, click here.) In several places in the New Testament, Jesus makes it clear that he is not God the Father himself, yet if Christians worship him, this violates their own “greatest commandment.” You could argue that the trinity is a paradox – an argument that appears to be self-contradictory but is in fact sound – but I would say to this, explain! In what way is this argument actually sound, aside from the Bible’s mere say-so?
Just stating, “God works in mysterious ways” is another way of saying “I haven’t the foggiest.” If you don’t know, just say so. It’s okay to say “I don’t know”! What’s not okay is saying, “I don’t know, therefore it must be God.” If you don’t know, the default is that you reserve concluding either way and err on the side of caution (that is, you refrain from believing it until you have better evidence one way or the other). To do otherwise is to think fallaciously.
Another example of internal inconsistency would be if two separate statements contradict each other (rather than one statement contradicting itself, as above). As just one example, let’s take the year of Jesus’ birth:
In Luke 2:1, the author says that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, despite the fact that his parents lived in Nazareth. According to the author, Joseph and a very-pregnant Mary traveled the roughly 70 miles to Bethlehem in order to register for the census, while Quirinius was governor of Syria. When they got there, there was no more room at the inn, so Jesus was born in the stable and placed in a manger (a livestock feeding trough), where the shepherds came to pay tribute to him.
However, in Matthew 2:1, the author says that Mary and Joseph lived in Bethlehem (they were not just visiting), and Jesus was born in their house there, while Herod was client king of Judea. According to the author of Matthew, the astrologers (“kings”) from the East, following a star, came to Jerusalem to pay tribute to him, and stopped at Herod’s first to ask for directions to Bethlehem, 5 miles away. Herod asked them to come back afterward and tell him all about it, so they he, too, could worship the newborn king (although he secretly wanted to kill the kid). But the astrologers were warned in a dream about Herod’s plan, and so they didn’t go back to Jerusalem as Herod requested. Joseph, too, was warned in a dream, and so he, Mary, and baby Jesus ran away to Egypt (the Egyptian border at the time was about 75 miles from Bethlehem). Herod, unaware of this, ordered the slaughter of all the babies 2 years and under in that town to try to get the kid anyway. According to Matthew 2:19-21, after Herod died, Joseph was told in yet another dream that the threat to Jesus’ life was abated, and so they could return to their home in Bethlehem. But when they got back into Israel (Bethlehem being a city in Judea, which is another name for the southern, mountainous part of Israel), they found out that Herod’s son, Archelaus, was now on the throne, and so they went to Nazareth instead (70 miles north of Bethlehem, in Galilee), and raised Jesus there.
Therefore, the Bible cannot be correct about where Jesus was born, because it is internally inconsistent: One writer says Joseph’s house in Bethlehem; another says in a stable in Bethlehem, because having traveled there from their home in Nazareth, there was no room at the inn.
So, what do I mean by external consistency? In this specific case, we also have an external, bigger historical problem with the reliability of these two accounts: We know from extrabiblical historical & archaeological records that Quirinius wasn’t governor of Syria during the same time period that Herod was client king of Judea. In fact, Herod died in 4 BCE, and Quirinius wasn’t governor until 6 CE, about a 10-year gap. It’s not just that they didn’t rule at the same time; Quirinius was Herod’s son’s replacement, after Herod himself died and was succeeded by his son, and his son was removed from power 10 years after that. There is no mistaking this: Herod ruled from 37 BCE until he died in 4 BCE. Then, Herod’s son, Archelaus, ruled after his father’s death from 4 BCE until 6 CE. Then, Archelaus was replaced by Quirinius (the Roman government got rid of the client-king arrangement and placed the area under direct Roman rule, with Quirinius in charge).
If Matthew is correct, Jesus must have been born before 4 BCE. If Luke is correct, Jesus must have been born after 6 CE. So we can be certain that (at least) one of these two accounts of Jesus’s birth is incorrect. But we already knew that, because of the internal contradictions.
So, that’s internal consistency, and external consistency. What about elegance?
By elegance, I don’t mean that a hypothesis has to be attractively refined in its appearance, but rather, it must be precise, neat, and simple. (Easy and simple, by the way, are not interchangeable.) An elegant hypothesis leaves no glaring holes in its explanatory power, but at the same time, it is not unnecessarily complicated: It is parsimonious, meaning that it refrains from making unnecessary assumptions in reasoning: It follows Ockham’s Razor.
By way of example, natural selection is an elegant explanation of evolution because it is simple, precise, and neat. (Natural selection and evolution, also, are not interchangeable.) Natural selection is pretty easy to sum up: Over multiple generations, random mutations in genetic code occasionally give rise to fitness advantages, which, under conditions of scarcity, naturally lead to non-random, increased competitive proliferation of the better-equipped specimens. That’s it. There are no glaring holes in this hypothesis – we know random mutations occur, we know conditions of scarcity and competition are present, and we can easily see how these fit together to explain what we observe (i.e. changes in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next). It’s elegant; it’s internally consistent (non-contradictory), and it’s externally consistent (it fits the evidence without leaving any glaring holes).
God, in contrast, is not an elegant hypothesis. To say, as Jed does, that we know God exists because he is revealed “through” his creation, is basically arguing that the universe exists, and someone “must” have created it: Ergo, God. If you’re going to argue that everything that exists must have had a creator, than we’re left with the “glaring hole”: Who created God?
Some theists, Jed among them, attempt to get out of this one, by arguing that God does not “need” a creator; it’s not simply “everything that exists must have had a creator,” but rather “everything that was created must have had a creator,” and God, by the way, wasn’t created. If faced with this argument, I simply argue that the universe, too, wasn’t created. Ask also, how do you know God wasn’t created? Is that just an assertion? Well, then I assert that the universe does not “need” a creator, either.
When asked who created god, a theist might argue that he either always existed, is beyond our ability to explain at present (“supernatural,” “metaphysical,” or simply “mysterious”), or that we cannot know where he came from (beyond our comprehension).
If you are presented with this argument, just turn it right around, substituting “the universe” for “God”: Does it not make equal sense to argue that either the universe has always existed, or is beyond our ability to explain (so far at least), or that we may never be able to explain where it came from? Or if a theist wants to argue that God created himself, just say, “I argue that the universe created itself” (which, by the way, is what Stephen Hawking argues in The Grand Design).
Either way, this argument falls apart rather rapidly as any sort of proof for a god’s existence. At best, God is an unnecessarily middle-man when it comes to the existence of the universe, and barring other evidence, we should strike the God hypothesis on grounds of parsimony.
I must pause here to stress that yes, God is a scientific hypothesis in this context. Some people – particularly theists but also fans of the agnostic Stephen Jay Gould’s non-overlapping magisteria – might be tempted to say that God exists outside the natural realm and therefore cannot be explored or understood with the tools of science, which can, by definition, only examine the natural realm.
That’s fine with me, so long as you understand that this line of reasoning makes you a deist, and you understand that your assertion that “God exists outside the natural realm” is by definition unsupported by evidence, and, therefore, not rational due to its departure from parsimony. Allow me to explain.
If you want to argue that we can’t see beyond the natural realm with the tools we have, whether scientific or cognitive, that’s fine – but then you are effectively barring yourself from making any further claims about what’s out there, as well. If you are arguing that the metaphysical realm is not available to us for natural inquiry, then the most we can say about what’s beyond the natural universe – by that I mean, metaphysical ideas like God(s) – is that we can’t say anything about them. By definition they are outside of our realm. So much for what God wants, heaven, hell, souls, prayer, etc!
If you want to argue that something outside of our realm exists in the first place, I think the only way you could possibly do it is by committing the fallacy of attempting to shift the burden of proof.
Jed likes to argue that we can’t explain the metaphysical using the physical. He argues that God is a metaphysical being, and therefore off-limits when it comes to physical (natural) examination, explanation, or criticism. I say, if you want to postulate the existence of something metaphysical at all, two things:
1) You understand that such a postulation is not parsimonious
2) The moment you try to argue that God has ever interacted with the physical universe (including the initial creation!), you are no longer arguing that God is purely metaphysical. A purely metaphysical entity cannot interact with the physical because in so doing he/she/it/they would no longer exist purely in the metaphysical realm (if such a realm even exists).
In the very instant that a purely metaphysical God crossed over into our (natural) realm to interact with it – to answer prayers, to work miracles, or to come here himself… pretty much anything credited to “the holy spirit” – he would once again be on the table for natural, critical examination. This line of reasoning, by definition, excludes belief in Christianity, since a purely metaphysical god cannot, by definition, perform miracles, and this would knock belief in the resurrection off the table.
I think that an illustration might help make this point more clear. Consider the following:
Say that we live in the “natural” realm, which for sake of this example is two-dimensional. We’ll call this place “Flatland.” We can only see, interact with, measure, and know about objects that have width and/or length. We have no concept of, nor process or technology of measuring, height (read: metaphysical beings). The third dimension, height, is simply not visible to us and it is outside our comprehension, much like Jed purports the metaphysical realm and metaphysical beings like God to be.
Here is what Flatland looks like:
Here is a “side view” of Flatland;
______________________________________
Notice that there are no mountains, hills, or even buildings in Flatland. There cannot be any, since Flatland exists only in 2 dimensions.
Now, imagine that a sphere, which exists in 3 dimensions, visits Flatland. It comes down to Flatland from above, but citizens of Flatland can’t see it, because they can only perceive things which exist in two dimensions. Since they can’t “look up,” they have no way of even knowing that it’s there so long as it remains in the sky and not touching the ground.
If God exists in the metaphysical realm, the sphere is like God. It may, in fact, be there, but we would have no way of knowing this. Since we don’t have the ability to “look up,” we can’t see him, measure him, or interact with him. Until, that is, he interacts with us.
Imagine now that the sphere “touches down” in Flatland. Since the citizens of Flatland live in two dimensions, they don’t see a sphere; they can only see a dot, which grows and grows into a big circle (a cross section) as the sphere travels deeper into the ground, and then once it passes its widest point, the circle gets smaller and smaller, until it turns back into a dot, then “disappears” altogether. To the citizens of Flatland, it appears as though this thing just came out of nowhere. They can’t explain where it came from or where it went without postulating another dimension or some kind of other realm:
So, back to our analogy: It is possible that there exists another realm, beyond ours (meta-physical), and that’s where God exists or existed. It is possible that we are unable to see or measure that realm using the tools we have, since those tools only seem to work in our realm. But it is incorrect to say that we cannot apply science, which only measures “the natural,” to God, who is supernatural, so long as you also want to make the claim that God has ever interacted with the natural world (as Christianity necessarily does).
The reason for this is clear in our analogy: While the sphere is floating above the 2-dimensional plane, it’s true that we can’t see or measure it, or even tell if it exists. But the instant it “touches down,” we can! We have that little dot where it’s touching our realm. And we can see and measure that dot as it grows into a big circle, and as that circle shrinks, and as it turns back into a dot. This sort of measurement is within our realm and is possible using the tools of science. I have no problem (except for Ockham’s Razor) with postulating a purely metaphysical God, but that necessarily excludes belief in miracles, including the resurrection.
If Christians want to argue that Jesus resurrected, simply saying he was able to do this supernaturally is not an explanation. We still want to know how, and since Jesus’s body existed in this realm, this is a question that medical science can explore. If Jed wants to argue that we survive our deaths (via souls), simply postulating the existence of souls in another realm is not an explanation. We still want to know how our personalities are transferred across that threshold, and because that transfer occurs (at least halfway) in our realm, medical science can ask – and answer – these questions. The fact that there is absolutely no evidence that this happens on our side is evidence that we, indeed, likely do not “survive” our bodily deaths. Further, we can examine exactly what does happen to the energy and matter in our bodies at the moments of and after our deaths, and we can see that nothing unexplained is going on: The activity stops, and the energy that made up our bodies goes on to do other things. Our bodies get cold when we die, because the heat dissipates into the surrounding air, for example.
The point here is that we can understand the supernatural, because all the supernatural has ever been is simply “stuff we haven’t been able to explain yet.” This is otherwise known as the god of the gaps argument. Lightning is scary! A god must be doing it! Therefore, Zeus. The sun moves across the sky! A god must be doing it! Therefore, Apollo. People get diseases! A god must be doing it! Therefore, demons. There are a bunch of different kinds of animals! A god must be doing it! Therefore, Yahweh.
The fact of the matter is, we have excellent scientific explanations for lightning, sunrise/sunset, and why we see diversity in the animal kingdom. These were once mysteries, but so far, it has never been the right answer to say that a god was doing it. Why start now?
Lacking a time machine, we may never be able to fully answer where our universe came from, but in the immortal words of Tim Minchin, “Throughout history, every mystery, ever solved, has turned out to be not magic.”
I think we’re on the right track.
Until next time!
- Dave
mail@davemuscato.com
(573) 424-0420 cell/text
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin. Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current,NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
Less than 24 hours ’til cake!
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Local to Columbia? Join the Facebook Group, too!
Hello everyone!
I want to remind everybody that our weekly meeting is tomorrow (Wednesday) at 5:30. There will be cake! Although we usually meet in the Agriculture Building room 2-16, this week, we’ll be in the lobby of the Student Center (Facebook event). This will be a “fun” meeting – no guided discussion topic or SASHAtalk this week, more of just a get-to-know-you meeting and a way for our new members and curiosity-seekers to ask questions and learn more about who we are and why we do what we do. There will be games, and yes, CAKE (the food, not the band). See you there!
Brother Jed was out preaching on campus again today, and will be the rest of this week as well. Sister Cindy (his wife) and his daughter were out as well, and his daughter played guitar & sang a song for us. She performed Chris Tomlin’s “How Great is Our God”:
The splendor of a king, clothed in majesty
Let all the earth rejoice
Let All the earth rejoiceHe wraps himself in light, and darkness tries to hide
And trembles at his voice
Trembles at his voiceHow great is our god, sing with me
How great is our god, and all will see
How great, how great is our god
While she was singing, I used a manila folder & a Sharpie to draw up a makeshift sign, and stood behind her with it:
We got into an interesting discussion with Bro Cope about cosmogony. The discussion got pretty heated, and a Mizzou physicist stepped in, along with SASHA blogger James Pflug, to point out the flaws in Cope’s arguments. I’m not trained in physics and the discussion was pretty far over my head, so I’m not going to attempt to recap it here, but from what I understood by James’ and the physicist’s statements, Cope seemed to be building quite a straw man argument. Cope also engaged in multiple ad hominem fallacies, calling James and some other students “stupid” or “idiots.”
Cope also told us about how he has heard (and apparently regularly hears) his god talking to him. I asked him how he knows it’s his god (he specified “god, the father”) and not his imagination. He said that the voice tells him it’s his god. I attempted to explain why this is begging the question, but I don’t think he was very receptive to what I was saying. At another point, he did attempt to provide real evidence that his claim is true, by saying that the voice has told him things he would not otherwise have any way of knowing. When I asked him for verifiable examples, reminding him that it would be necessary to verify the chronology here: In order to qualify as evidence of prophecy, he would have had to have written down or otherwise recorded these things in such a way that we could establish, with confidence, that he wrote them down before the events took place. He claimed to have written these things down, but said he didn’t have them with him. I asked him to bring the evidence with him tomorrow, but he made no promises.
Overall, it was a fun afternoon. Sister Cindy and Brother Jed were wearing matching shirts that said “You Deserve Hell” on the recto and “Hell Awaits You” on the verso. We responded by displaying signs of our own reading “You Deserve Hugs,” “Hugs Await You,” and “FREE HUGS,” in case people didn’t get it
We’re looking forward to tomorrow – join us at noon for something extra special! Lots of fun planned! Stay tuned and we’ll see you at 5:30 for the meeting, too 
Until next time!
- Dave
mail@davemuscato.com
(573) 424-0420 cell/text
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current,NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
Brother Jed Week; Bernd Heinrich; event & meeting on Wednesday!
Welcome to the official MU SASHA daily blog!
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Hello everyone!
Two things today:
Brother Jed is in town all this week, and will be at Speakers’ Circle every afternoon. We will be tabling all this week, and we also have a special event planned for noon on Wednesday. We’re not saying what it is, but I strongly encourage you to come by Speakers’ Circle and check it out! We are still looking for a few more volunteers as well; if you want to help out, please email me at mail@davemuscato.com or text/call me at 573-424-0420 cell.
Then, at 5:30 PM on Wednesday, we will have our weekly meeting. Although we usually meet in the Agriculture Building room 2-16, this week, we’ll be in the lobby of the Student Center (Facebook event). This will be a “fun” meeting – no guided discussion topic or SASHAtalk this week, more of just a get-to-know-you meeting and a way for our new members and curiosity-seekers to ask questions and learn more about who we are and why we do what we do. There will be games, and yes, there will be CAKE (the food, not the band). See you there!
The cover of the first Bernd Heinrich book I ever read, "Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival"
Secondly, some of you may have heard me talk before about one of my favorite scientists, Bernd Heinrich. He’s a zoologist who has studied bees and, more recently, birds, specifically ravens & crows. His research, among others’, has contributed to our understanding that birds in the Corvus genus are among the smartest animals in the world. His research focuses on the physiological and behavioral adaptations of animals to their environments. In his 70 years, he’s written 18 books, and if you’re interested in his writing style, think “the scientific passion of Richard Dawkins meets the English mastery of William Butler Yeats.” He is one of the few science writers who, like Carl Sagan or Helen Fisher, while remaining firmly in the non-fiction camp, borders on real poetry. He is a delight to read.
I recently found out there is a documentary about him, released earlier this year. I am most likely going to order it; I think we should set up a time to all watch it! You can watch the trailer here.
See you all at Speakers’ Circle, and at the meeting on Wednesday!
- Dave
P.S. I’ve said before that we get at least 1 hit every day from people searching the internet for “dogs having sex.” Since mentioning this fact on the blog, we’ve now hit a new record: 18 people so far today have clicked through to this blog via the search parameter “dogs having sex.” So, to our 18 visitors looking for (presumably) pictures of dogs having sex, my apologies; this is an atheism/skepticism blog that once happened to post a photo of dogs having sex within an article about sexual harassment. Nevertheless, we do hope that while you’re here, you enjoy your stay. Good luck in finding what you’re looking for, and as we are a daily blog, we hope to see you again soon!
mail@davemuscato.com
(573) 424-0420 cell/text
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current,NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
Brother Jed today; SASHAtalk & Meeting tomorrow; confirmation bias
Welcome to the official MU SASHA daily blog!
First time here? Read this.
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Local to Columbia? Join the Facebook Group, too!
Hello everyone,
A few quick updates:
The infamous Brother Jed will be preaching on Mizzou’s campus today. We’ll be out doing our Ask an Atheist table and handing out information about our meeting tomorrow. Please stop by Speakers’ Circle, say hello, and show your support!
Brother Jed from last spring, with our Ask an Atheist table in the background
Tomorrow (Wednesday 9/7) at 5:30 PM in the new Mizzou Student Center, room 2213-A, we will have our weekly meeting, including a SASHAtalk by Mizzou law student Maggie Ahrens about the World Trade Center “Cross” lawsuit. Here is the Facebook event. If you need help finding the room or need directions, please feel free to call or text me (Dave) at 573-424-0420 cell.
The other thing I wanted to mention today is confirmation bias. This is something I’m sure you’ve heard of, but just in case, confirmation bias is a tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses regardless of whether the information is true.
I had to stop myself today, because I noticed that I displayed quite extreme confirmation bias earlier this morning. I was browsing r/atheism over on Reddit and came across some information that indicated one of my favorite Christian counter-apologetics arguments had some factual errors (the alleged parallels between Egyptian hero-savior mythology and Christian hero-savior mythology). I started to surf on and had to say to myself, “Wait. Stop. Go back to the link. Read this.” My brain seemed to go on autopilot and try to get me to move on to the next link, rather than finding out the details about why my argument was incorrect (and therefore, why I would have to stop using it in debates). This is information that I ought to be happy to find out: I don’t like being incorrect, especially in debates when I’m very likely to be called out on it. I want to offer good information to people and persuade them to see the flaws in their religious arguments without making use of any dishonesty or misinformation. Finding out that I had misinformation in my repertoire seems like something I should be eager to read about, but that’s not what happened. I had to make myself go back and read it.
The argument I’m talking about is this one (clip from Bill Maher’s Religulous, relevant portion starts at 4:00). It turns out, upon closer examination, that a lot of the things he mentions are real reaches so far as Egyptian mythos scholarship would seem to indicate. I’m disappointed because I have long considered this a great argument against the truth claims of Christianity, but at the same time, I’m thrilled to no longer be spreading misinformation in this specific regard. I will have to study this some more.
Here’s an interesting link with more information about the hero pattern:
http://department.monm.edu/classics/courses/clas230/mythdocuments/heropattern/default.htm
Signing off for now; see you at Speakers’ Circle today, and at the meeting tomorrow!
- Dave
(573) 424-0420 cell/text
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, he posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current, NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
Making headway!
Welcome to the official MU SASHA blog!
First time here? Read this.
Click here to Like our Page on Facebook (or use the sidebar if you’re logged in).
Local to Columbia? Join the Facebook Group, too!
Hello everyone!
Today we set up the Ask an Atheist table again at Speakers’ Circle, and handed out approximately 150 of these flyers:
We got overwhelmingly positive responses at the table; we had a few very good discussions and helped several people understand what we mean by the word “atheist”/”agnostic,” why we do what we do, how atheists make ethical decisions, etc. We told a lot of people about events we have planned for this year, and I think we’re going to have even more people at our next meeting than we did at our last one, especially considering we haven’t put up the bulk of the posters yet!
Coincidentally, there were independently two (unrelated) street preachers at the circle today, as well. The first up was a 40ish man with a thick Alabama accent and a VERY loud voice who read from his bible incessantly for several hours. He was completely uninterested in opening a dialogue and simply yelled bible verses at students. A few people sat and listened, but he didn’t really have a crowd going. I went over and tried to start a conversation with him, but gave up after about 5 minutes – every time I asked him a question, e.g. “You quote the bible, but why do you believe in the bible?” or “What’s your name?” he simply said “Not now” and continued reading his bible to the open air. I don’t think he really reached anyone.
Sister Cindy preached next, but honestly I didn’t get a chance to listen to her, since I was back at the table by then. I did see that she was holding up a condom, so I imagine she was talking about “fornication!!!!!” I do think it’s interesting that, according to Brother Jed’s journal about today, he was worried about a young guy named Marcus who all set to get saved, but changed his mind at the last minute because he realized that he would have to obey the bible in its entirety (according to Jed), and believing and obeying the Christian bible meant turning against his sister, who’s gay. (Jed quoted Luke 14:26 in his journal, which reads: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”) I think it’s ironic that Sister Cindy was preaching today, considering that apparently she believes it’s alright to pick and choose from the bible (see 1 Timothy 2:11-12).
We’ve discussed this before at meetings, but I think it’s worth mentioning: Our table has a big sign that says “Ask an Atheist” (see yesterday’s post for a photo), and we’re wondering if we’re really approaching our tabling with the right goal in mind. Although we do want to chat with people who are curious about atheism and help them understand better what it means, we are also—primarily, even—seeking other atheists who are interested in joining our group. The sign we’re using now doesn’t really work well for that purpose. We get a lot of people giving us thumbs-up as they walk by, or taking pictures of our sign and waving at us, or telling us “Keep up the good work!” and so on, but we want those people to stop at the table and learn about our group! Those who did approach us, often, didn’t even realize we were part of a group that has regular meetings, as much as just taking it upon ourselves to answer people’s questions about atheism. I think we’ll need to make a new sign with something more direct, for example, “Atheist? Join the club!” or something along those lines to accompany the one we have now.
After we finished tabling, we went to the LGBTQ Resource Center‘s welcome pizza party. It was great! So many people having fun, getting to know each other, and knowing that have a safe place on campus to learn, read, and not have to worry about people not understanding them. This is the type of thing of which we need more, not Brother Jed telling people that they are “not worthy” because they’re not willing to “hate” their sisters simply for being gay. I am honestly tired of Christians, mostly who haven’t ever read the bible, trying to convince me that Jesus was all about love and peace. The character of Jesus as portrayed in the bible doesn’t exactly match the glowing beacon of acceptance your youth pastor told you about, guys… sorry to burst your bubble!
People who use reason, logic, and evidence to decide how to weigh what’s acceptable or not are the people I want to hang around, and an ethical (and legal) system based on critical examination and rationality is the kind of system under which I want to live. Richard Dawkins explains it well in this clip, I think (and gets a round of applause, as well):
Until next time!
- Dave
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, he posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
