So, which really is the biggest threat to America?

Republicans: “The biggest threat to America is the gays… and the atheists… The two biggest threats to civilization are the gays and the atheists… and public health care… The three biggest threats to civilization are the gays, the atheists and public health care… and the Employee Free Choice Act. The four biggest threats… Amongst the biggest threats to civilization are the gays, the atheists, public health care and the Employee Free Choice Act.”

(with sincerest apologies to Monty Python)

Not to mention evolution,  climate change (you gotta love this blog’s name, “Axis of Right”, not only identifying themselves as right-wing but also implying “correct” and more patriotic than the left because of the awesomeness of their stars and stripes banner, not to mention putting the word “scientists” in air quotes and accusing the media and the UN of being in on the conspiracy.), NOT torturing, the Fairness Doctrine, pornography, gun control, a black man in the White House and of course not just Islamic terrorism, but Islam itself.

BTW, according to WorldNetDaily, Obama’s economic stimulus package “makes a deliberate – and unconstitutional – attempt to censor religious speech and worship on school campuses across the nation”, purely by prohibiting stimulus money being used to repair religious facilities.

My submission to thereprobablyisnt.com

I don’t believe in gods because religion is just tradition, community and ancient mysterious rituals, using people’s natural sense of fear, wonder and curiosity, combined with someone’s view of “morality” and comforting answers to the “big questions” in a way that ensures the perpetual power and influence of the leaders and the obedience of the followers.

As an outsider, this is obvious with the “gods” of the Norse, Egyptians, Greeks or any of the native American civilizations. The challenge comes in accepting this for the religion you were indoctrinated with, which for me was Christianity.

To me, the Old Testament is nothing more than a bunch of campfire stories of a primitive, brutal tribe of Bronze Age desert nomads. The only reason it became the basis for so much of today’s religion is because they famously won all their battles. If any tribe had vanquished the Israelites in any of the battles, our view of religion would probably be completely different. But of course, no one did because the “God” of the Israelites encouraged them to be particularly ruthless and bloodthirsty. “Campfire stories” can be loosely based on truth, but after several generations, will be pretty much unrecognizable, and the whole God part is pure mythology anyway. People love stories of the supernatural, even today, but it doesn’t make any of it real.

Meanwhile, the New Testament is just the marketing materials of the followers of a charismatic leader (assuming he existed at all). They had to use all the standard symbolism of the day (being a god, born of a virgin, etc) to give his words the necessary credibility.

We now know that Earth is an insignificant speck in the universe and the only way human beings evolved to the point we did is essentially luck. This is the only life and the only planet we have, our highest aspiration should be to take care of of others and the planet, because there is no one else out there to do it for us.

( my story at thereprobablyisnt.com )

Why should McCain’s lies surprise anyone?

As far as I’m concerned, that’s what Republicans do, and they do it very well.

They lie about the environment. Look at this story, The Deniers are winning, but only with the GOP. Conservatives have a long, glorious tradition of not only denying the global warming problem, but virulently attacking it, here’s just one example, from newsbusters.org, where the writer repeatedly uses emotionally-charged words like ‘disgraceful’, ‘disgusting’, and ‘despicable’ (I hesitate to even link to it, but I hope rational people will see through the lies and distortions).

Or how ’bout this one, where Fred Singer, a prominent denier, is shot down for claims he never worked for Big Tobacco or Big Oil, with plenty of irrefutable evidence that he did. There’s one document on tobaccodocuments.org that I found particularly fascinating.

Of course, we can’t forget James Inhofe’s 400 deniers, thoroughly debunked.

Here’s a scientific study, “The Organization of Denial”, of 141 “environmentally sceptical” books published between 1972 and 2005, finding that over 92% were published in the US by conservative think tanks. And scientists have been offered cash to dissent.

Sometimes they make it too easy to see through, like when the Conservative Book Club features Lawrence Solomon’s The Deniers, or our friend Fred Singer’s Unstoppable Global Warming. I can’t resist quoting from the opening paragraph of each,

Al Gore and the mainstream media tell us constantly that it’s all settled: global warming is an established fact…

and,

To Al Gore and his disciples, global warming is man-made and dangerous…

This is actually one of the problems, part of the reason these people can’t accept the truth is because Al Gore is so visible in the issue. It remains to be seen if Republicans can change their minds, as one did in this story, Generational Test for Republicans.

(The Conservative Book Club doesn’t stop there, it has entire sections on Global Warming, Radical Islam and The Clintons, appealing directly to the haters.)

Here’s a cleverly-disguised one from globalwarming.org, discussing Lawrence Solomon’s above-mentioned book. By the way, it turns out globalwarming.org is sponsored by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), whose website actually reveals a lot,

The Competitive Enterprise Institute is a non-profit public policy organization dedicated to advancing the principles of free enterprise and limited government. We believe that individuals are best helped not by government intervention, but by making their own choices in a free marketplace.

Translation: they’re a conservative group working for old-fashioned, hands-off government. This week, we all know how well that has worked out!

Here’s a question, Climate change deniers – stupid or just dishonest? DeSmogBlog has a searchable database on global warming deniers, check it out (of course Fred Singer is there). Or see Exxon Secrets, for info on the individuals and organizations working to keep America ignorant, such as CEI and the Heartland Institute. At least the Rockefeller family tried to stand up to Exxon.

They lie about evolution, which is not up for debate. For example, Ben Stein’s “Expelled” (see “Flunked, not expelled, what Ben Stein isn’t telling you about ID”).  Scientists spend so much time and effort fighting back. At least my favourite Young Earth Creationist felon, Kent Hovind, who lied about his taxes is doing time for his crime (Not Safe For Work, but there’s a hilarious video on YouTube). Oh, speaking of YouTube, in 2007, his goons used fraud to remove critical YouTube videos.

We all know they lie about the economy, which McCain says is fundamentally strong. Maybe it is for these 3 Merrill Lynch officials who may get up to $200,000,000, but meanwhile the World Bank is shovelling up to $250,000,000,000 (!!!) into global money markets.

The US is clearly headed in the wrong way, consider these:

The Republican War on Science, Fascist America (where she forgot one, destroy the integrity of the electoral system), Idiot America, The Assault on Reason by Al Gore, a poll of Americans themselves, a poll outside the US, Making America Stupid,

Don’t forget the famous right-wing lying hypocrites Troy King, Mark Foley, Ed Schrock, Larry Craig, Ted Haggard or the haters Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin. Check out these blogs which largely feature Christians who get caught in their crimes and Republicons.

They even lie to their evangelical Christian base, as evidenced by this 2006 article, Christian Evangelicals: Enablers of the Wayward Republicans, even as the Religious Right is taking over the GOP.

They lie because it’s the only way they think they can beat Obama.

I can’t summarize it any better that the hard-hitting opening line from the “Exact Opposite” by Baron Dave Romm series,

A standard conservative Big Brother technique is to make wild random claims, sling mud and repeat lies until some of the mud sticks or one of the wild claims has a small germ of truth.

So I appeal to all reasonable Americans who are considering voting Republican – If you continue to elect these people, they’ll never learn. I can understand wanting fiscally-responsible spending, but I’m not convinced they’re the ones to do it.

Meetup – With or Without God

Here’s a Meetup that I’m gonna try to attend, With or Without God, featuring Gretta Vosper, founder of the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity.

Two time-travelling lesbians find a baby… and everything changes

It’s been quite a week in the atheosphere…

First, we have Pope Benedict XVI criticizing atheism (did you know that he was a member of the Hitler Youth? I didn’t. You may also remember when he expressed “sadness and repentance” for the Catholic Church’s insufficient resistance to Nazi ideology, meanwhile, wartime Pope Pius XII is on the path to sainthood.) I could go on and on and on about the Catholic Church, their pedophile priests and genocidal stance on condoms, but Greta Christina does a good job addressing this one.

Then irreligion.org found an old article about the Vatican astronomer who dismisses Creationism as “a form of superstitious paganism”.

The New York Times spoke out strongly against the Texas Education Agency , but who will ever forget how Barbara Forrest pwned them?

These are just 3 stories from the week, but I got particular pleasure in reading each of them, given that two of my biggest reasons for blogging are the absurd theist claim of morality, and the willful ignorance that is creationism/ID.

Deep Thought for the day: Woo hoo!

I’m on Mojoey’s Atheist Blogroll, see his blog at Deep Thoughts. I was actually #503, so it’s not like I’m an internet pioneer or anything…

What I haven’t been able to figure out is how to get the javascript to work to get the dynamic blogroll displayed on my blog. Oh well…

What Kind of Atheist Are You?

What kind of atheist are you?

You scored as a Scientific Atheist

These guys rule. I’m not one of them myself, although I play one online. They know the rules of debate, the Laws of Thermodynamics, and can explain evolution in fifty words or less. More concerned with how things ARE than how they should be, these are the people who will bring us into the future.

Scientific Atheist –> 92% Spiritual Atheist –> 58% Apathetic Atheist –> 50% Militant Atheist –> 33% Agnostic –> 33% Angry Atheist –> 33% Theist –> 0%

Take the quiz at http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=34703N

Reality Check

The universe functions according to the laws of nature. There’s no evidence for any supernatural phenomena, nor any need for supernatural phenomena to explain how the universe works.

Science can’t completely explain how the universe works, and maybe never will. But it’s only through science that we will get the real answers.

Earth is a small planet orbiting a typical star in an immensely large galaxy, which is part of an unimaginably huge universe. There are likely millions or billions of planets in the universe, the vast majority of which are completely incapable of supporting life. That still leaves an unknown, possibly huge number of planets capable of sustaining life. There is nothing special about Earth, besides having the perfect conditions for life to evolve (and of course, being where we live).

The only reason we exist at all is that we were extremely lucky to have evolved here.

Evolution is science, creationism is myth. There’s no real debate among scientists about the validity of evolution, only the details of how it works. The only ones who reject evolution are the creationists, and only because it conflicts with their religion. Just because you don’t understand science doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

Creationism is willful ignorance. When you argue for teaching creationism in school, you are actively perpetuating your ignorance and misunderstanding of science on the next generation. (Denying the Holocaust or global warming, and 9/11 conspiracy theories are also willful ignorance.)

There’s nothing special about humans compared to other animals.

Humans have a built-in capacity for faith and morality. The fact that our brains can have religious experiences does not make them real.

We tend to believe what we’re taught by our parents, teachers, religious leaders and community. It becomes part of our world-view, and it’s difficult to change these beliefs. But that doesn’t mean these beliefs are true.

Most people belong to the religion they were raised in.

If you were born in a different place or time, it’s quite likely that you would believe in a different religion and god(s).

Most, if not all, cultures have had their own religion and god(s). In general, they are mutually exclusive, as in, they can’t all be right.

You may be totally convinced that your religion is the true one, but everyone else is just as convinced that theirs is true.

The majority of people alive today believe completely that your religion is false, whichever religion that may be.

There’s no supernatural credibility in ancient religions, which we now call “mythology”.

You may also agree with me that there’s no supernatural credibility in other world religions, or in their holy texts.

The Old Testament is nothing but a 2,000-year-old book of campfire stories from a bronze-age tribe of nomads living in the desert.

The New Testament is marketing material promoting a new leader (who may or may not have existed), plagiarized from many earlier deities.

The Bible reflects the culture and superstitions of the people who wrote it. They had no understanding of how the universe works, hence any science that they actually got right is purely coincidental.

There is some positive morality in the Bible, the rest of it is an abomination.

Like all other holy texts, the Bible has no credibility in any of its supernatural claims, including God, Jesus, heaven, angels, hell and Satan.

You can’t use the Bible to prove anything about the existence of supernatural phenomena.

There is no more supernatural credibility in Christianity than any other religion.

Religion was created by man to help answer “the big questions”. It’s a human institution, and as such, is capable of both good and evil.

Religion is tribal. If the Israelites had lost just one of the many genocidal battles documented in the Old Testament, their particular god would have perished with them and we would be worshipping an entirely different god (or gods).

Being tribal, religion is divisive and perpetuates an “us-versus-them” mentality. It helps you believe that everyone who doesn’t believe exactly as you do is going to hell.

Hell is an entirely unacceptable concept. It’s an invention of cruel, primitive, vindictive minds to enforce “correct” behaviour by fear and guilt.

If hell is the only thing keeping you from sinning, that makes you a morally weak person.

It’s absurd and insulting (to you) to claim that the Bible is the only source of morality.

The “ethic of reciprocity” (known in Christianity as the Golden Rule) can be considered the modern basis for right and wrong, especially when slightly re-phrased, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, if you were in their situation“. It’s found in most world religions.

You don’t need to be a member of any religion to live your life according to the Golden Rule.

Your particular “morality” is a combination of nature and nurture, just like everyone else who has ever lived. The fact that you can quote scripture to back up your opinion means nothing as the Bible is so famously ambiguous that you can use it to validate any position.

On the other hand, your religious beliefs and rituals basically amount to “culture”. They’re a product of your environment, they’re self-perpetuating when you pass them on to the next generation and they don’t rely on the actual existence of God, since faith is a virtue in itself.

Looking at religion as “culture” actually helps make some sense of the insanity. All the rules, superstitions, rituals, taboos, bigotry, hatred, closed-mindedness, oppression, genocide and anything else that you want to attribute to religion is really just part of being a member of a tribe in a competitive, brutal world.Like it or not, I think this is a pretty good summary of reality. I’m sure you’ll be tempted to turn it around and give me “your version of reality”, but remember it’s based on superstition, ignorance and a 2,000-year-old book of campfire stories.

Must Read – Greta Christina on Atheists and Anger

GC with about 100 answers in response to the typical Christian question, “Why are atheists so angry?”, but still says she’s only touched on perhaps 1/100th of the things that anger her about religion, here. Powerful reading, some strong language.

A clever video… maybe too clever?

Here’s a video that’s pretty subtle in its criticism of Christians, but really made me laugh. Disappointing thing is, if you believe the sequel, a lot of people that should’ve gotten the joke, didn’t.

My answers to Friendly Atheist’s questions

In http://friendlyatheist.com/2007/07/20/keep-them-short-and-sweet/, he asks for our answers to some questions commonly asked of atheists. I decided to post my answers on my blog rather than as comments on his.

• Why do you not believe in God? I see a natural universe that functions exactly as I would expect it to function without any deities. I think all religions are primitive, tribal attempts to understand the universe, provide comfort in the face of the “big questions”, enforce morality and reinforce tribal beahviour.
• Where do your morals come from? They are just as built-in with me as they are with everybody else.
• What is the meaning of life? We’re here, we have a duty to ourselves, our families, our communities and to the world in general to do the best we can.
• Is atheism a religion? No. Religion is first and foremost about worshipping a deity.
• If you don’t pray, what do you do during troubling times? I try to find rational ways to deal with the situation.
• Should atheists be trying to convince others to stop believing in God? No. I don’t think the world would be any better off if all religion ceased to exist today. However, I do think we need to do what we can to stop fundamentalists of all stripes. I think Creationism is a bigger threat to America than Al Qaeda, because of the dumbing down of its people.
• Weren’t some of the worst atrocities in the 20th century committed by atheists? I suppose, but I don’t think atheism acted in any way as a motivator. Besides, most of the worst atrocities before the 20th century were committed by religious people.
• How could billions of people be wrong when it comes to belief in God? We have an instinct for faith (based on the glory of nature), it’s reinforced by the culture we’re raised in, and the human brain is so complicated that many people can’t distinguish what’s real from what’s not. Anyway, religious people think that everyone who believes in a different god, or gods, is wrong, what’s the difference?
• Why does the universe exist? There’s no answer to this, that’s just the way it is.
• How did life originate? In some natural way that science hasn’t been able to explain yet. Just because some guys sitting around a campfire made up a story doesn’t make it real. Every culture on Earth has probably had their own creation myth.
• Is all religion harmful? Of course not. Religion is a human institution, and is capable of both good and evil, but on balance it’s more good than evil, just as most people are.
• What’s so bad about religious moderates? Nothing, if moderation includes real tolerance of others’ differences. However, I’m with Sam Harris
• Is there anything redeeming about religion? Of course. Religion is a positive force in many people’s lives. It doesn’t have to be real.
• What if you’re wrong about God (and He does exist)? Which god are we talking about here? Poseidon, Zeus or Ra? Oh, you mean the Christian god? What if you’re wrong about Allah or Vishnu? To me it’s not even a question of probability. Gods are created by men. Period. Some use their gods to do good, others use them for money and power.
• Shouldn’t all religious beliefs be respected? Absolutely not. Your “religious beliefs” really boil down to “what you think is right”, and there are a lot of stupid, intolerant, corrupt, power-hungry, evil people out there.
• Are atheists smarter than theists? Not “smarter”. Just not deluded or deceived.
• How do you deal with the historical Jesus if you don’t believe in his divinity? I’m not even convinced that Jesus really did exist, but if he did, he was just a man with some good ideas. His followers created all the supernatural crap to deify him.
• Would the world be better off without any religion? No, because there would still be people who would crave and abuse power, hate or oppress others, profit off their ignorance and good intentions, and generally victimize the innocent.
• What happens when we die? Usually you’re buried or cremated. Either way, your life is over and life goes on without you.

A gem from the people at Creation Science Evangelism

Ok, so I don’t want to give these whack-jobs any more visibility than they already have, but I’m hoping they might just hang themselves with this one. It’s from an essay called “Where Did Cain Find His Wife?”. Words fail me. I’m embarrassed to be of the same species as these people.

“However, there were no moral laws against children intermarrying until after the time of Moses. This was approximately 4,000 years ago and at least 2,000 years after the creation of mankind. Before that time sibling marriage was probably quite common. The Bible states that Adam and Eve had MANY sons and daughters. Jewish tradition suggested that they had 33 sons and 23 daughters! Cain merely married his sister.”

See, God

Here’s a great video on YouTube, “I can’t disprove the existence of Poseidon”. It’s funny, and right on the mark, so I had to re-post it.

Creation Science Evangelism fraudulent claims on YouTube

If you haven’t heard about this one yet, Kent Hovind’s Creation Science Evangelism (CSE) is resorting to blatant fraud in order to have videos removed from YouTube. In short, for videos that they want removed, they claim they own the copyright, YouTube has no choice but to remove them, under US law. One of the videos removed was this one, (Not Safe For Work)

The place to start would be this posting at arstechnica.com.

“From reports that we are getting, starting yesterday a user account on YouTube, called cseministry, began fraudulently claiming that any video which criticized the felon, cheat, liar, fraud, huckster, etc. Kent Hovind violated the copyrights of the Creation Science Evangelism.

Under the draconian DMCA, CSE can use such false claims to silence their critics, with little legal risk to themselves. Once a claim has been filed, YouTube is required by US Law to remove the content immediately and without any review. The real copyright holders then have to jump through hoops to get their content back on YouTube, that is assuming that they haven’t already been falsely banned.”

(from “Hovind’s Goons use Fraud to Remove Critical YouTube Videos” posted Sept 12 2007 at http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2007/09/hovinds_goons_u.html)

Here’s a video about the issue…

and a “declaration of war”

or this one from eddygoombah, one of the guys who made the animated spoof

“Speechless”

 

(http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20070706)

Labels – Atheist, Agnostic or something else

How does one categorize oneself? I’ve thought a lot about what to call myself.

First off, when I look at Christianity, I see no reason to believe any of its supernatural claims more than any other religion, past or present. I see all religions and all gods as entirely the creation of man. More on that another day.

I admit right away that most Christians would probably look at my position and automatically call me an atheist, because I don’t believe in their God. Fine, it’s probably the label that will stick, and it’s even part of my blog name, but I’ll try to explain why I don’t think it the best one.

Quoting Greta Christina, another blogger, from Greta Christina’s blog, because I really can’t say it any better,

For most of my life, I’ve called myself an agnostic. I’d always understood “atheist” to mean “someone who’s 100% certain God doesn’t exist,” and “agnostic” to mean “someone who isn’t 100% sure one way or the other.” The latter was true for me, so I called myself an agnostic. And I tended to be somewhat critical of atheists: I felt that being 100% sure that there is no God was just as dogmatic and faith-based as being 100% sure that there was one.

Lately, however, it’s been becoming increasingly clear that “100% sure that there is no God” isn’t the only definition of “atheist.” Richard Dawkins himself — generally cited as “the world’s most famous atheist — isn’t a “100% sure” guy. In The God Delusion (which I just finished, and hope to blog about soon), Dawkins talks about a belief spectrum of 1 through 7 (I wish he’d made it 0 through 6, to correlate with the Kinsey scale!), in which 1 means you’re 100% sure that God exists, and 7 means you’re 100% sure that God doesn’t exist. Dawkins puts himself at 6 leaning towards 7 — a position he calls “de facto atheist.”

And Dawkins’s position on his belief/non-belief scale is pretty much the same as mine.

Which got me thinking.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that, while in the strictest technical sense of the word I’m an agnostic (I’m not 100% certain that there is no God), in any real practical sense I’m an atheist. I don’t think the existence of God is impossible, but I think it’s very, very improbable — improbable enough for me to rule it out as a hypothesis.

A comparison I’ve been making a lot lately is Zeus. I am about as sure that there is no personal interventionist creator god as I am that there is no Zeus. But I wouldn’t call myself an agnostic about Zeus. I would call myself an atheist about Zeus. I can’t absolutely prove that Zeus doesn’t exist– but I think Zeus’s existence is sufficiently improbable that I don’t have to consider it as a possibility, and I certainly don’t live my life on the assumption that he might exist.

And I feel exactly the same way about Yahweh/Jehovah/Allah, or whatever you want to call the all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good, personal interventionist creator god.

Greta Christina is a blogger I found recently, who expresses a lot of things better than I could ever hope to, but she’s also a very different person from me and I don’t buy into everything she says. For example, I’ve never considered myself an agnostic. I’ve never felt “wishy-washy” about whether God existed or not, at least not as an adult.

One of the problems with the term “atheist” is it’s too vague — which God do you not believe in? Or maybe it’s too Christian-centric — it’s assumed that the God you don’t believe in is the Christian one. Somebody named Stephen Henry Roberts said, “I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” (from Positive Atheism) You and I probably both are atheists with respect to Zeus, Ra and Thor and for exactly the same reason, I am an atheist about the Christian God.

But the bigger problem to me is that “atheist” doesn’t capture the complexity of my views on religion. I assume atheists never go to church, since they’d feel hypocritical doing so. I rarely go to church, but that’s not because I don’t believe in the “institution” of religion. As a human creation, religions are imperfect, but on balance, they’re more good than bad. As for religions other than Christianity, I’ve looked at Hinduism and Islam, and they’re just too foreign for me to begin to relate to them. My Christian heritage is part of who I am, but it’s more than just a historical thing. Religion’s also about belonging to a community. I recently had one of those defining moments, when I started looking at religion as culture.

The best label for me would identify my Christian heritage and culture, which is an important part of who I am, but would also say that I’m past all the mystery. So the ideal label is one I haven’t seen very often, but I remember coming across it years ago, “post-Christian”.

As an atheist, I used to feel I had to explain why I didn’t believe each particular part of Christian theology. Now, I’m beyond all that, I don’t believe any of it. I don’t believe in God, Jesus, heaven, hell, the soul or the afterlife, Satan, angels or the Bible.

So, what does being “post-Christian” mean to me? It means I can embrace Christianity because it’s my culture, I can enjoy Christmas and Easter, I can go to church, which makes me feel good, without feeling hypocritical, I can cope with religious rituals because that’s “how’s it’s always been done”. I can take oaths to God knowing that it’s the community I’m promising to, not the deity. I want my kids to have some understanding of their Christian culture but I will not indoctrinate them into it. I live by the morality that I know is right, not by what any religious leader tells me. I respect many people of religious faith (the exception is the extremists on any side of the equation — I have equally little respect for Christian and Islamic fundamentalists) and would never try to convince anyone to leave their religion. I have no respect for ignorant, intolerant people regardless what religion they belong to.

Hello world!

Welcome to Yet Another Atheist Blog! I spend a lot of time thinking about spirituality and decided that instead of just writing for myself, I’d post it here. However, I’m not really a writer, so I’ll often quote other people who express themselves better than I do. And I don’t really expect anyone to read this blog, but if you do and you agree with me, that’s great.