Archive
A Major Chord of Critical Discord
Hello there MU SASHA blog readers! This is my first blog post and it will be a direct quote of my recent persuasive speech given in speakers circle in support of dissident Bangladeshi bloggers.
“What is dissent?
Dissent is the disagreement through the criticisms of prevailing ideas, politics, government, or social movements. Dissent is the counter analysis of existent systems, laws and Ideas. But….
Is the freedom of dissent important?
If we are not allowed the freedom to voice our objections we are forced to, as a society, accept the belief systems in place. We are forced to abide to complacency of inequality and the illegalization of our very thoughts.
When the freedom of dissent is illegal; when thoughts are no longer considered within the free market of ideas; when criticisms of any social, cultural, or political rhetoric are deemed untouchable; when we are punished for simply questioning, not challenging, but questioning authority; we have lost our ability to attempt to foster a better society.
Dissent can foster a better society by allowing the development, and implementation of complex ideas. When Martin Luther King Jr. set foot behind a podium, he did so with the intent to change the world as he and countless others saw fit to do. Dr. King criticized the social systems and laws in place that accepted and facilitated racial inequalities. What would the United States look like if iconic figures like Dr. King were not allowed to voice their concerns without knowledge of imminent, government-facilitated retribution?
Opponents of concepts of free speech in Bangladesh have been beheading, beating, maiming, and jailing those who are dissident. Some of the dissidents bloggers have criticized leaders for crimes committed during the 1971 liberation of Bangladesh from Pakistan. During that liberation leaders have been found guilty of, and not limited to, 344 counts of murder, rape, and torture. Surely these leaders deserve to be tried for their crimes and surely no citizen of any country deserves to be killed or imprisoned for calling for the justice of murderers, torturers, and rapists.
We, MU SASHA and Columbia Atheists, are the defenders of dissidence. Our weapons are our minds. Our ammunition is our words. Today we stand in solidarity and fight on behalf of the Bangladeshi bloggers. Today we stand against human rights violations of the government of Bangladesh.”
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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Congratulations to our writers! And, a religion quiz from Christian Science Monitor
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Two things today!
Firstly, we recently celebrated posting our 200th blog article with a post by our president, Tony Lakey. When our blog passed 100 articles last year, we had a party with cake. We will likely be doing that again once we reach 250 articles in the fall!
Our 100th Blog Article Celebration cake. We asked the decorator to put a baby on it, and he obliged.
Early this morning, we also passed another benchmark: 150,000 views on our blog! We’re currently sitting around 150,250 views, for a straight average of about 730 views per article, and a total of about 750 comments since we started the blog in April of 2011. Wow! Not bad for a student group 
I think blogging is one of the best ways to 1) stay informed about current events, 2) get practice writing and 3) get your name out there, especially if you are interested in taking a leadership role in a student group, or doing your own talks. I highly recommend getting into blogging if you are passionate about secularism and have an interest in writing or speaking, whether you’re in-the-closet about your atheism or not. If you would like to submit a guest post to this blog, we are always willing to consider new writers, whether it’s a one-time thing or more than that! We have several recurring guest writers currently, some of them Christians, also.
I’m very proud of all of our writers, and I hope that all of our readers have enjoyed the ride! Let’s keep it up for another 200! We will probably celebrate our 250th article with a party in the fall semester as well.
I have something else for you today: The Christian Science Monitor has put up a 32-question quiz about religion from the Pew Forum. They say that atheists score an average of 20.9 correct answers, with Jews averaging 20.5, and Mormons 20.3. Protestants got 16 correct answers on average, while Catholics got 14.7 questions right.
I got 31 out of 32 (missed the one about the First Great Awakening) – how did you do? Let us know in the comments below, and share this/tweet this! We are curious about the engagement and knowledge of you guys!
Until next time!
- Dave
Dave Muscato is the 2012 Writing Intern for the Secular Student Alliance in Columbus, Ohio. He is also Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou studying economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday and twice monthly for the Humanist Community at Harvard. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
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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!
Columbia, Missouri-area named 22nd “Brainiest City” by The Atlantic
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Hello all, Dave here!
Universities tend to draw in brains, and the University of Missouri is no exception.
Jesse Hall, University of Missouri-Columbia
What makes Columbia different is that, for a Midwestern town, we’re very liberal: We’re a city of about 110,000 with a Planned Parenthood clinic, a strong LGBTQ advocacy presence, and lots of other great stuff. Around 50% of adults in Columbia have bachelor’s degrees, and about 25% of adults have master’s degrees. Go 20 miles in any direction and things are very, very different. According to our Wikipedia page, we’re known as “The Athens of Missouri,” which is weird, because there actually IS a small town called Athens, MO. I’ve never heard anyone call us that in person, but it fits, I think. We’re a blue island in a sea of red.
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2012/06/americas-brainiest-cities/2132/#
I was born and raised in Columbia, and although I also lived in Philadelphia and travel a lot, I think it’s a great town and I keep finding myself ending up back there. What makes Columbia so different? It has a strong secular mindset, even if all its citizens aren’t nonreligious. It has a lot of scientists and a lot of doctors, people who value and are good at critical thinking. And this are very positively linked with brains.
I’m glad Columbia made the list!
- Dave
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou studying economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday and twice monthly for the Humanist Community at Harvard. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
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!
This is not an April Fool’s post: I guess I’m not an accomodationist anymore.
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I guess I’m not an accomodationist anymore.
From my Facebook wall today:
Christianity is offensive. It is offensive to reason, offensive to human welfare, and offensive to social progress. It is a willfully ignorant and deliberate abuse of logic, and a shortcoming of rational thought. All religions, Christianity included, prey on human gullibility and fear of the unknown. Christianity is dangerous. It is cruel. To quote Christopher Hitchens, “It is not moral to lie to children. It is not moral to lie to ignorant, uneducated people, and tell them that if they believe nonsense, they can be saved. It’s immoral.”
Christianity claims that 6,000 years ago, a talking snake, apparently fluent in ancient Hebrew, persuaded a woman, made from a rib, to eat a piece of fruit. Because of that, all of us are going to burn for trillions and trillions of years in a lake made out of fire and sulfur, unless we telepathically pledge our allegiance to an invisible Jewish zombie, who – by magical thinking powers – can take our consciousness (which somehow by magic survives our deaths) to an invisible place where he lives with his daddy, who is (somehow by magic) also he himself?
Do you mean to tell me that you, in all seriousness, believe this insanity? All the touchy-feely gooeyness of how being around your friends at church makes you FEEL aside, or how listening to worship music makes you FEEL, is the above paragraph really, truly what you believe is historically true and factually accurate? If so, what on Earth is wrong with you? If you believe this literal non-sense, you SHOULD be ashamed of yourself, and the satire has served its purpose. And for this, I do not apologize.
I do not believe that you are really a Christian. I believe that you identify as a Christian because your parents told you that what to believe, and your culture has reinforced it. I think you are smarter than that. I think you know that there is no difference between talking snakes and the Tooth Fairy. It’s a myth. Yahweh is just another “god” from just another ancient myth. There are thousands of gods that you don’t believe in. To quote Stephen F. Roberts, “When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”
If you want to read the full thread, here it is. It started with an April Fool’s status:
Dave Muscato:
Jesus is LORD! Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” What more do you need?? Hallelujah, Amen, Praise Be, He is Risen! (17 likes)
Trevor B:
He is risen, indeed.
Dave Muscato:
Goodness me, I forgot to capitalize Way, Truth, and Life. Capitalization makes it more factual, you know. And that’s True with a capital-T. (8 likes)
Franklin K:
Wait, does it say that in the Bible? Cause otherwise I don’t know why you’d ever believe that. (2 likes)
Dave Muscato:
It’s a little early to interrupt dinnertime, but around 6, I’m gonna go door-to-door with some tracts sharing the Good News. Who’s with me?? (3 likes)
Dave Muscato:
Franklin, it’s John 14:6. Do you have a Bible? I will give you one. Everybody should read a Bible everyday. What’s your address? IM me. (3 likes)
K.C.:
Glad you’re coming around finally, Dave. I was worried for your eternal soul there for a while…
Dave Muscato:
No need to worry about me, Keenan! I’ve got the Holy Spirit in me. I know this because I believe it. (2 likes)
Becky K:
Lol, yesterday they came by twice, completely confused when I said I wasn’t interested bc I’m Jewish… (1 like)
Dave Muscato:
That’s great, Becky; so was JC! You’re halfway there
Sarah K:
Ohhhhh you fool! You April Fool! (1 like)
Becky K:
Oh, you’re so silly (1 like)
Dave Muscato:
Cynthia S:
Haha! Happy 1st of April!
Megan K:
oh yeah, april 1st! i was like wtf?? haha (1 like)
Tyler C:
Nice. Best fucking April Fools’ Day joke ever. (2 likes)
Catherine P:
I must share. (1 like)
Zach C:
It surprises me that you would try to be intentionally offensive… from talking to you in the past I would’ve expected more.
Dave Muscato:
Hey Zach! It’s April Fool’s Day, and this is satire. Like all satire, it’s designed to hold abuses, follies, or shortcomings up for ridicule – because such abuses, follies, and shortcomings are, well, ridiculous. Satire is designed to be funny, but it has a greater purpose of constructive social criticism, in order to shame individuals or societies into improving themselves.
Christianity is offensive. It is offensive to reason, offensive to human welfare, and offensive to social progress. It is a willfully ignorant and deliberate abuse of logic, and a shortcoming of rational thought. All religions, Christianity included, prey on human gullibility and fear of the unknown. Christianity is dangerous. It is cruel. To quote Christopher Hitchens, “It is not moral to lie to children. It is not moral to lie to ignorant, uneducated people, and tell them that if they believe nonsense, they can be saved. It’s immoral.”
Zach, Christianity claims that 6,000 years ago, a talking snake, apparently fluent in ancient Hebrew, persuaded a woman, made from a rib, to eat a piece of fruit. Because of that, all of us are going to burn for trillions and trillions of years in a lake made out of fire and sulfur, unless we telepathically pledge our allegiance to an invisible Jewish zombie, who – by magical thinking powers – can take our consciousness (which somehow by magic survives our deaths) to an invisible place where he lives with his daddy, who is (somehow by magic) also he himself?
Do you mean to tell me that you, in all seriousness, believe this insanity? All the touchy-feely gooeyness of how being around your friends at church makes you FEEL, or listening to worship music makes you FEEL, is the above paragraph really, truly what you believe is historically true and factually accurate? If so, what on Earth is wrong with you? If you believe this literal non-sense, you SHOULD be ashamed of yourself, and the satire has served its purpose. And for this, I do not apologize.
I do not believe that you are really a Christian. I believe that you identify as a Christian because your parents told you that what to believe, and your culture has reinforced it. I think you are smarter than that. I think you know that there is no difference between talking snakes and the Tooth Fairy. It’s a myth. Yahweh is just another “god” from just another ancient myth. There are thousands of gods that you don’t believe in. To quote Stephen F. Roberts, “When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”
Hope this helps, and I hope you’re having a great weekend! And I mean that sincerely. – Dave (6 likes)
Christian H:
Interesting perspective. i believe in Christ, as well as the garden account. And it’s not because my parents taught me to. I was both an atheist and a skeptic. And I am still quite rational. As I’ve stated before, it was the evidence (historical, prophetic, archaeology, etc.) that convinced me. Some of whlich I’ve shared with you before to no avail, and you chose to ignore, change the subject by raising another objection, or by explaining it away. And that’s fine I understand. But it’s incorrect and untrue to make such a blanket statement about all Christians.
You claim Christianity is bad for the world, but for every example of someone doing something wicked in the name of Christianity (which can be demonstrated to be someone simply using a religion as they would any other power they could get over people) and I can name ten examples of how Christianity has made the world better. (1 like)
Christian H:
If we are being satirical, then happy atheists day (Psalm 14:1). (3 likes)
Zach C:
If you truly stand by your above statements and want to help people by removing this nonsense belief from them then I would suggest you alter your approach. As a person in a position of leadership you act as an ambassador for your belief set. I have many friends that don’t prescribe to the same belief set as me and completely respect that they have received the same inputs as me over their lives and come to a different conclusion. The fact that they believe something different than me doesn’t bother me. It’s your lack of respect for your fellow man that bothers me. Your post oozes arrogance which in no way would be proactive to making me give your new truth the time of day. You’re being counteractive and it’s frustrating. Your beliefs are what they are… beliefs. If you want to have a missional attitude about promoting what you believe in order to help others by opening their minds then you should consider some serious adjustments in your means of communicating in a public forum like facebook. I cast no judgment on my friends who are atheists because they will state that it is what they “believe”, just like I “believe” in the Christian faith. That’s what it is, a belief — nothing more, nothing less. Regardless of whether God exists being arrogant is silly. You just come off looking like a dick.
Devin W:
Dave that was awesome, I’m going to have to repost most of that if it’s okay. (1 like)
Devin W:
I wish I could be a dick like you.
Rebecca V:
I have to agree, Dave. You made an extremely blanket statement about all Christians. I know many Christians who grew up with atheist parents or parents who were lapsed Catholics and so on who are ridiculed by their family for their new found faith. My sister, whom you met yesterday just started going to church and changing her life around after years of going her own way. Most of her friends don’t understand the radical change in her just in the last four months. We grew up not going to church and just barely understanding Christianity because my mom was a believer but not my dad. My dad finally realized his need for Jesus about 5 years ago, just before he turned 50 after my mom prayed for him for nearly 30 years. So, as I have learned to not stereotype atheists, I hope you learn not to do the same about Christians. (2 likes)
C.S.:
Dave,
I still haven’t got a reasonable explain (Euthyphro [sp?] doesn’t count, if you read the wiki you provide for that argument it also provided the solution to the false dicotomy. Saved my grey cells alot of trouble hehe) of why I should feel ashamed…If there is no God right & wrong do not exist. Therefore you can’t shame me because I’ve done nothing wrong
Devin W:
i dont want hijack dave’s post. but can you explain how the existence of right and wrong are dependent upon there being a god? (2 likes)
Renee S:
LOL. ♥ (1 like)
Christian H:
Devin, can you explain where right and wrong comes from without a creator?
Stephen A:
Devin, I’m with you. There is no valid argument for that viewpoint; however, there’s tons of observable evidence to support the argument that “right and wrong” are social constructs, witnessed in other species. Unless someone is going to go batsh*t crazy and argue that animals know right and wrong because they made the conscious decision to accept Christ into their lives, then I think the discussion is settled.
Christian H:
So it is ONLY social? And you derived this because you observed other species having a standard of right and wrong? Please enlighten me.
Christian H:
Let’s say that you are right though. Right and wrong are merely social constructs. Then right and wrong does not really exist. It is arbitrary. It is not a standard, but an agreement. It can be changed if the majority changes. If all of society agrees that it is okay to eliminate a group of people say… simply for their ethnic background, then that would be okay. Because nothing exists outside of society to dictate otherwise. Or like, in the past, when different cultures and societies deemed women inferior and treated them like servant dogs for sex, etc. then that was totally acceptable because that society said so.
Dave Muscato:
Christian, if I may, I can. Economic anthropology is what I’m in school to study (esp. the evolution of morality in cooperative species). In under 50 words, here is where right & wrong come from (it is an ongoing process), without hypothesizing a magical intelligent agent:
Natural selection favors cooperative animals over their non-cooperative competitors for resources because of economies of scale and gains-from-trade. Animals that work together are able to accomplish more, have a higher standard of living, and therefore provide for and ensure the survival of more offspring.
It’s really not that complicated. If you want to know more of the details, I recommend “The Evolution of Cooperation” by Robert Axelrod (NB it’s a little math-heavy) or one of my favorite books of all time, “The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation” by Matt Ridley:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Origins-Virtue-Instincts-Cooperation/dp/0140264450
Dave Muscato:
Stephen, right and wrong are not social constructs, unless you’re not drawing a distinction between non-human animal sociality and human sociality. There are solid biological foundations that cause them to arise in certain patterns, and we can predict those patterns by theoretical frameworks in game theory. Specific variations are culturally relative, but there are good, evolutionary-biology reasons for the universal traits we see in terms of right & wrong across all cultures.
Stephen A:
That’s what I meant by social construct. Thanks for explaining it better, Dave. (1 like)
C.S. (deleted post).
Dave Muscato:
Chantelle, it seems to me that you are trying to say that the lack of an *immutable* standard means that all standards are therefore arbitrary. This is a straw man and a non-sequitur. No one ever said that moral codes are arbitrary, just because they change over time. Quite the opposite, actually: They have a demonstrable, predictable biological basis. E.O. Wilson brought the term “sociobiology” to international attention in 1975 when he more-or-less founded the field of studying that basis, and there are thousands of scientists who have since made careers out of furthering our understanding of it. It’s not arbitrary.
C.S.:
Sorry i deleted that b/c my phone was behind the times. So why do we honor those who defend the weak or genetically inferior? Biologically speaking shouldn’t we admire those who snuff them out as that would improve the genetic code? Or rape is commonly disliked, but isn’t that just increasing the chances of the physically strong passing on genetic materials? & why do charitable deeds or try to cure chronic illnesses? Anyway you get the idea that there are many widely accepted morals that do not make sense biologically.
Dave Muscato:
Chantelle, read the book I linked to above. It will answer all of these kinds of questions and is a solid introduction for the layperson in beautifully readable language. You’re dipping your toe in an evolutionary subfield with a very academically-rich, 70-year history of solid research and excellent publications.
Stephen A:
Odd that you’d bring up rape as being deplorable, though, considering that the Christian moral tradition makes it clear where a woman’s place is.
Dave Muscato:
Indeed, until the 1970s, most states did not even consider spousal rape a crime. It wasn’t until 1993 that North Carolina became the last state to remove the spousal exemption. This was mostly based on the idea that married women are to be subservient to men in Abrahamic cultures, thanks to Bible verses like 1 Tim 2:13, 1 Corinthians 11:7-9, etc.
I will be expanding on some of the points raised in this thread in my next article, as well!
Regards,
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!
Dave Muscato on Dr. Andrew Bernstein, Religion, and Morality
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Hello all,
I gave a talk, “Why Blasphemy Matters,” at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg on Monday (90 miles from Columbia). I look forward to giving the talk to more campus groups in the future. This was only the second time I’ve given that particular talk, and although I think it went well, I also think I can improve it. More about that another time: I found out that a philosopher named Andrew Bernstein would be in town the following evening giving a talk called “Religion vs. Morality.” I decided to stay in town an extra day so I could attend.
As it turns out, the Objectivist Club at UCM had scheduled a dinner with Dr. Bernstein before his 8 PM lecture, and I had the fortune of sitting next to him while we all ate. Dr. Bernstein, or Andy, teaches philosophy at SUNY Purchase. He is an objectivist and proponent of Ayn Rand’s work, as well as a philosopher (and novelist) in his own right. He’s written several books about capitalism, philosophy, and objectivism, lectures internationally, and he also wrote the Cliff’s Notes for Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.
Me with Andrew Bernstein (on left)
At dinner, topics ranged from the current crop of Republican candidates (he plans to vote for “whichever sorry candidate the Republicans nominate”) to how to get into grad schools (his advice: Where you studied isn’t as important as what you have to say). I told him that although one of my majors is economics, I really know relatively little about market forces, capitalism, international trade, finance, etc, compared to most econ majors. I’ve taken a few required courses in those sorts of things, but my interest is game theory. I study altruism and the evolution of morality, especially its interplay with the history of religion, using the tools from behavioral economics & economic modeling. I admitted that this was my first real exposure to what objectivism is all about. He told me that his talk is not about religion AND morality, but more specifically religion VERSUS morality: in his estimation, an either/or proposal. I thought, this should be interesting!
At 8 PM, I joined an auditorium of people on the UCM campus as Angel Munoz Gomez Andrade, the president of the Objectivist Club, introduced Bernstein. Watching Bernstein speak is a real treat: He has a thick New York accent and a raw, passionate tone. Throughout his speech, he spoke with his hands as much as with his voice. The way he rapped his fingertips on the podium, shifted his weight when weighing what to say next, and stood on his toes to emphasize his points immediately brought to mind Al Pacino’s passion and mannerisms. An audience member, during the Q&A, said that he, lacking a philosophy background himself, had trouble following Bernstein on some of the more complex philosophy, but I found myself having the opposite experience: I think Bernstein has a remarkable ability to take complex philosophical ideas and illustrate them with digestible examples in such a way that they are readily understandable [disclosure: I'm minoring in philosophy].
The purpose of Bernstein’s talk, as stated above, is to argue that religion and morality are fundamentally at odds. Religion, because it is necessarily founded upon faith, requires irrational thinking, which Bernstein argues necessarily leads humans away from our values, and results in nothing short of death. There are certainly historical examples of this — he mentioned faith healing a few times, and the abysmal life expectancy of the third-world versus the first-world today. He argued that morality is, in so many words, whatever helps living things achieve their values, which (objectivism argues) are necessarily dictated by nature. These values are neither subjective in the social-consensus sense, nor the individual “whim” sense, nor the religious sense (via sacred text or divine revelation). According to objectivism, we need only look to the facts of what nature has presented to us in order to determine our values: There is, in fact, no need for subjective disagreement on what we “should” value or strive toward, because nature has already spelled out for us what is good and what is bad, whether we consent to it or not. We are living creatures, and what is “good” is whatever promotes life, and what is “bad” is whatever does not.
Dr. Andrew Bernstein presenting on "Religion vs. Morality" at the University of Central Missouri
I’m reminded of Craig Palmer (Mizzou anthropologist) and Lyle Steadman’s (ASU professor emeritus) definitions concerning moral behavior for humans living in groups: Morality is roughly synonymous with pro-social behavior, and immoral behavior is roughly synonymous with antisocial behavior (see their 2010 book The Supernatural and Natural Selection: The Evolution of Religion). A human being in complete isolation is incapable of moral or immoral action, following this line of thinking: Anything s/he does is morally justifiable if it’s a means toward the end of his survival, by virtue of the very fact that lacking are any other living things to harm in the process.
Objectivism, as I understand it, has this to say about the matter: Natural selection has provided every living thing with some sort of tool (insofar as it is necessary, given its biological niche) to aid in its survival. For an elephant, that might be its massive size, thick hide, tusks, etc. For an elk, this might be its antlers and speed. For a tiger or wolf, claws & teeth. Nature has also “provided” (selected for) fur coats to protect some animals from cold climates. In the case of elephants, huge floppy ears are very important for temperature regulation: They have lots of surface area and LOTS of blood volume, such that the elephant can flap its ears to cool down the temperature of its blood, as another example.
What is “good” or “bad” when we’re talking about these animals behavior? Well, what’s “good” for a tiger or an elephant or mushroom or mosquito or bacterium is whatever aids it in its “mission” to survive and reproduce. Moral reflection or indeed consciousness at all is actually unnecessary for this. Any living thing will, quite naturally, do whatever it needs to do in order to survive and reproduce (else go extinct). What’s “good” is what leads toward this, and what’s “bad” is what leads away from this.
In the case of humans, natural selection actually took away our survival mechanisms (claws, sizable canine teeth, fur coats, etc) some time ago. Ancient primates gave up claws for nails a very long time ago (65-85 million years), and we still have a hint of canines and body hair, though nothing even close to that of our ancestors. What we do have, what nature has provided to us via selection, is something far more interesting, and far more useful, in exchange: rational, thinking brains. These are our survival tools. They allow us to innovate, to invent technologies, and to increase our efficiency. We don’t need claws; we have hand-axes (for an EXCELLENT discussion of the importance of hand-axes to human evolution, see Matt Ridley’s beautifully-written The Rational Optimist). As time went on, ancient humans further innovated to produce hafted axes (axes with handles), spears, arrowheads, and much later, metal bladed weapons, etc.
We don’t need costly (in terms of energy input/output and time invested) guts & digestive systems; we have fire. In fact, we are the only animals that cook our food: By doing so, we are basically outsourcing a large fraction of our ancestors’ digestive process. By investing fewer calories (less energy) in growing and maintaining a complex gut, natural selection was able to divert that energy into growing more complex brains, instead, and the process went ’round and ’round in a magnificent evolutionary upward spiral of exponential innovation. From controlled fire (and therefore bigger brains) came an increased ability to ward off predators and stay warm, especially at night (meaning even less need for caloric investment in muscle mass and large, powerful jaws, and less need for temperature regulation via thick body hair), which led to even more freed-up calories for investment in bigger brains, and so on and so on, until we get to anatomically modern humans some 200,000 years ago.
What’s “good” when it comes to humans specifically? According to my understanding of objectivism, it’s not determined by a god (divine command theory), nor by societal consensus (moral relativism), nor by the individual: Values are dictated to us by nature, intrinsic in the fact that we are living things. What’s “good” is whatever helps us get closer to living up to those values. Except for rare suicidal cases, humans (like all living things) naturally value survival, and except in (relatively) rare cases, humans (like all living things) naturally value reproduction. This is more-or-less a restatement of the biological imperative. According to objectivism, as I understand it, this is sufficient to resolve Hume’s is-ought problem. There are other proposed resolutions to this problem, for example, Sam Harris also claims that science [the application of reason to evidence] can answer moral questions in The Moral Landscape.
The argument for reason as the best tool for achieving human values (or any living thing’s values, for that matter), therefore, neatly falls into place. By rejecting all forms of irrationality — religion included — we are necessarily left with the path of least resistance toward the end of attaining that which [nature has determined] is of value to us. The application of reason, Bernstein argues, is the most efficient, healthiest, and most direct way to reach our goals. Since these goals are dictated by nature and emphatically not subjective, it is an open-and-shut case.
Religion, because it embraces faith (and is, by definition, irrational), is therefore directly at odds with life itself. According to Bernstein, “Religion is a philosophical system based in faith, not reason,” and it necessarily includes an unquestioning obedience to God. Religion views humans as sinful, and a failure to obey God is at the very core of what it means to be immoral, from the perspective of religion. This is so fundamental to the Abrahamic religions that it’s in fact the very basis of sin itself, illustrated by the Fall of Man.
As a student of anthropology, I strongly disagree with this definition of religion, although admittedly “religion” is notoriously difficult to define, and Bernstein was upfront about this being a purely working definition. Some religions (e.g. theistic Satanism) place zero emphasis on obedience to God or indeed encourage disobedience as permissible behavior. Note: I’m not talking about LaVey Satanism here; LaVey explicitly denounced “devil worship” or the idea of praying to Satan, and LaVey Satanists are generally atheists. In fact, atheistic Satanism can, I think, rightly be called “ethical egoism with ritual.” Other examples of religions lacking a necessity of obedience to “God” are Buddhism, Taoism, and many American Indian religions. In the case of Buddhism, the Eightfold Path is a rough stand-in for a revealed text from a god, and in the case of Taoism, the idea is to live in harmony with reality through compassion, moderation, and humility. Although supernatural elements are present in each system, a rule-giving god is conspicuously absent, and disobedience is not immoral per se.
Bernstein’s working definition of religion is sufficient for the Abrahamic religions in this context, but I don’t think he adequately makes the case against all religion, just religions that require obedience to a god (which, admittedly, is most of the ones we’re worried about in practice).
During the Q&A, an audience member asked if there was room for faith in any of this. He said that he is a farmer and gave the example of having faith that it will rain within a certain window of time when choosing exactly when to plant his crops. He cited weather patterns over the last few decades as informing his choice of when to plant. Bernstein rightly pointed out that the farmer, then, is not depending on faith — there is no supernatural element present there. I wanted to add to this that perhaps a better way to word it might be that the farmer doesn’t have faith that it will rain: He has confidence that it will, in the scientific sense (evidence informing probability). This is very, very different from trust (an emotion) and faith (non-evidence-based belief), and we should take care to correct people who use the word “faith” when they mean “confidence.” If evidence is leading to your belief, you are, by definition, confident. There’s a big difference, and I applaud Bernstein on pointing this out.
My other main objection is that Bernstein, while simultaneously praising Scandinavia’s rational, secular approach to the rejection of irrationality, doesn’t seem to give credit where credit is due with regard to the success they have had in the application of liberal-leaning public policy. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, etc has some of the healthiest people on the planet in terms of nutrition, lifespan, and other factors for which he earlier criticized the Dark Ages for lacking . Phil Zuckerman, in Society Without God: What The Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment, makes strong arguments for why life in Scandinavia is downright heavenly (har har) for rational people, and atheists especially: Aside from long lifespans, they have some of the lowest abortion rates, divorce rates, murder rates, illiteracy rates, corruption rates, etc. Yes, they have very high tax rates, but health care and college is accessible to anyone who wants it (as I understand it). Looking at GDP per capita, a favored metric by Bernstein (who quoted these figures several times throughout his talk), is not necessarily an optimal way to compare the living conditions in one country versus another. While after-tax income of course measures “lower” in countries with high tax rates (and I of course admit the obvious role Pigovian taxes play on disincentivizing innovation), if tax-funded services are provided in lieu of direct income, if this is not accounted for in one’s metric, an individual’s actual standard of living may be more-or-less unaffected, even as the GDP per capita falls. This is why other metrics have come into favor over GDP per capita, which is easier to calculate but provides less information about the overall picture. More informative metrics are, for example, the Gini coefficient (based on the Lorenz curve), the Human Poverty Index (a composite index which accounts for literacy, unemployment, probability of falling below the poverty line, and the probability, at birth, of surviving to age 60), among others. GDP per capita as a metric, perhaps most importantly, only very weakly accounts for life satisfaction and experienced utility (see my previous article on welfare economics here).
I strongly agree with Bernstein’s overall message that religion and morality cannot peaceably coexist. In the words of Sam Harris, “The problem of faith is that it is a conversation-stopper. As long as you don’t have to give reasons for what you believe, you have effectively immunized yourself against the power of human conversation. You hear religious people say things like, ‘There’s nothing that can be said that will change my mind.’ Just imagine that said in medicine. If there’s nothing that can be said that will change your mind, if there’s no evidence or argument that can be educed, that proves that you are not any state of the world into account in your beliefs. The problem with this is that when the stakes are high, we have a choice between conversation and violence.” Bernstein made essentially the same point in his talk, that giving credibility to faith necessarily results in an irreconciliable struggle for (theoretically!) rational animals like us.
Bernstein is a strong public speaker, a good conversationalist, and extremely knowledgable in his field. I recommend him to any campus group interested in guest lectures about objectivism, reason/rationality, or why religion is harmful to societies.
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!
ReasonFest 2012 Panel Discussion: “Is religion a force for good?”
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Several people now have asked me to post a transcript of what I said at the ReasonFest panel, so here you go:
Is religion a force for good?
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this question. What’s “religion”? It’s one of those things that’s easy to define until you try. What’s the difference between a religion and a cult? A culture and a religion? A philosophy and a religion? A delusion and a religion? To paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, although he was talking about the definition of pornography, religion may be one of those things were we just know it when we see it.
What’s “force”? I don’t think we mean the energy field created by all living things that surrounds us and penetrates us and binds the galaxy together. Do we just mean something that inspires or motivates people? Do we mean it causes good things in itself? Do we mean that the good it motivates outweighs the bad?
And what’s “good,” anyway? Entire philosophy careers have been made out of nailing that one down and we still haven’t gotten it. Is “good” the minimizing of suffering of conscious creatures, as Sam Harris suggests, and is there more than one way to get there? Is “good” culturally dependent and relative? Is it even attainable?
I was originally going to say something very different about this. I had a whole thing worked up about why religion is not a force for good. But the more I thought about it, the more my answer changed.
I think it’s important that we feel free to be critical of ourselves in here. The framing of this question sets it up as a dichotomy – religion IS or IS NOT a force for good – and it’s a premise with which I disagree overall. Here’s why.
Religion has inspired people to do all sorts of things they probably would not otherwise do. I’m not just talking about the Crusades and 9/11 and impeding stem-cell research and all the things we wish religion did not motivate people to do, but building the Parthenon and volunteering at soup kitchens and making a cappella music (a cappella is Italian for “in the style of the church”). Religion is responsible for inspiring and motivating art, music, architecture, literature, and charity. While I agree with Christopher Hitchens in that there’s nothing a religious person can do that a secular person can’t, I don’t think it’s fair to say that religion is not a force for good.
But we clearly can’t call religion “a force for good,” either. It has redeeming qualities, and these seem to be persuasive enough to the majority of people around the world, though to be fair many of them have little say in the matter. While not all religions are structurally violent, especially to LGBTQ people and women – some pagan religions are downright feminist & sex-positive – the three Abrahamic religions, taken as written, certainly are. I’m not going to list all the atrocities religion has brought to human history, but I will summarize by saying that most religions, as practiced, can be terribly destructive to the welfare of conscious creatures on this Earth.
I think that the best answer to this question of whether religion is a force for good or not is that religion just IS. Religion is a human invention, a tool, a meme, an adaptation, or as Dan Dennett simply calls it, a natural phenomenon. Its function is twofold. On the one hand, religion helps social animals establish loyalty to their group and to certain moral principles, so their genes can better benefit from the protections and gains-from-trade never before possible in pre-religious societies. On the other, religion provides explanations (albeit piss-poor ones) about The Big Questions: where did our universe come from? What’s the meaning of life? How ought we to act? What happens after we die?
While philosophy and science have, especially in the last few hundred years, given us much better answers to those questions than any religion previously, I don’t think it’s ideal to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Before I became an atheist, I was a worship musician, and my favorite gig was always conferences, because I felt so connected to other people. I was so thrilled to learn about the existence of atheist conferences when I deconverted, because of the energy that comes from connecting with people this way. We are social animals and we thrive in these settings. Our health demonstrably suffers when we’re lonely. Our brains are adapted to flourish in these circumstances, and yes, religion can provide that.
Is religion a force for good? It CAN be. Take science as an example. We have used the tool of science to double human lifespans, decrease infant mortality 90%, and decrease maternal mortality by 99% – and that’s just since 1900. We can also use science for evil. There was a time, not so long ago, when it was simply technologically impossible to kill more than a few dozen people at a time, a few thousand with an army. In the first week of August, 1945, the United States killed 100,000 people in Japan, and tens of thousands more died from radiation over the next few months. But it was not science in itself that did this; it was people. And just like with religion, it is people who use it for good or bad. Religion, like science, just is.
We need to understand, and help others understand, that morality does not come from religion. In fact, morality predates religion and continues to shape and inform religion, whether religious people admit it or not
The panel included four participants: Aside from me, there was also KU computer-science PhD candidate Chris Redford (a.k.a. Evid3nc3 on YouTube), who happens to be one of my personal activism heros and whose YouTube videos have been an inspiration and motivation for me since long before I knew who he was. It was a huge honor for me to meet him for the first time, when I was invited last semester to give my “Is the New Testament Historically Reliable?” hour-long talk for SOMA at KU, and I cannot tell you how thrilled I was to be asked to appear on this panel with him.
The other two participants were KU law student Doug Coe, who identifies as a follower of Jesus, and who intends to be an activist against modern slavery after law school, and KU undergraduate religious-studies major & sociology minor Colton Tatham, who also identifies as a follower of Jesus. I think it’s an interesting trend, and I’ve heard this more and more lately, that people are no longer identifying as strongly as “Christians” but rather “followers of Jesus,” in the same vein as Jefferson Bethke:
It’s as though Christians are beginning to recognize, even if not admittedly, that the word “religious” has become pejorative. It seems that, more and more, there is a shift in thinking in our society, that the word “religion” brings to mind images of 9/11 and pedophile priests and megachurch pastors with $8.4 million private jets or megachurch pastors who have adulterous 3-year meth-fueled relationships with gay sex workers. I think this shift in thinking is a wonderful step in the right direction. My next article will explain why I think this is so. 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!
Remember this one for debates!
Welcome to the official MU SASHA daily 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!
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Been really sick the past few days, and I apologize for the lack of updates. Here is one to hold you over, and frankly, it says it all:
Pro tip: This goes for any text, not just the Bible or other “holy” texts.
As a reminder, Rick Santorum and Focus on the Family founder James Dobson will be speaking in Columbia today (Friday) at 4 PM. Here is the SASHA Facebook event if you have questions for them!
Also don’t forget that on Sunday at 10 AM, we’re having our monthly “Alternative Church” with coffee, bagels, and the Columbia Atheists group. Check out our Facebook group for more details.
New articles coming soon!
- 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!
Oh, HELL no! I smell a lawsuit!
Welcome to the official MU SASHA daily 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!
_________________________________________________________________________
This is outrageous. A new Oklahama bill seeks to squash atheists’ First-Amendment right to practice our religion in the traditional manner!
NPR link: State Bill Outlaws Use of [Human] Fetuses in Food Industry
Freedom From Religion Foundation, ACLU, anybody, can we move on this?
(Thanks to Terry Munger for the joke!)
See you guys tomorrow at 5:30 PM for the weekly SASHA meeting (click here for the Facebook event), at Reasonfest in Lawrence, Kansas on February 11/12, and at the Reason Rally on March 24!
- 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!
