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  • Christians: Why Aren’t You Happier When We Anti-Theists Criticize Your Beliefs?

    Are you a Christian who is annoyed by the criticism of your religion from anti-theists?

    Lie

    Get over it.

    Honestly. Instead of complaining and telling us to shut up, you should be beside yourself with happiness.

    I’m not kidding. I mean, that’s what Jesus says in the Sermon On The Mount (Matthew 5:11-12):

    Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.  Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven.

    So keep your head up and smile, Christians.  You should be thankful for this if you follow Jesus.  I mean, I, personally, think that’s ridiculous nonsense, but you obviously value the advice very highly, most of you, seeing as how you’re so enthusiastic about Jesus and all, so…why don’t you, like, do it?

    Of course, if it’s not about following Jesus, but about your own ego and comfort, I could see how you could be offended.  And, frankly, that offense convinces me even more that I should criticize your belief strongly, because it indicates that the belief that people are sinners who need Jesus is not something that you believe because you believe in Jesus, but is really about an ego trip.  Your view of others as unsaved is not about God; it’s about you trying to protect a view that makes you comfortable and/or happy. Which seems a bit more selfish than most Christians claim to be.  Honestly.  If you really are passionate about saving non-Christians, why would you tell us to shut up when our criticisms are most honest, blunt, and frequent?  Wouldn’t you be overjoyed that we’re actually being up front and honest with you, and this is your chance to talk about God to save us?  So when you complain, that’s proof to us that it’s not about God; it’s about you and your ego.  And, more broadly, that ego translates to political power that indicates Christianity is little more than a tool for control, and our criticism makes you afraid of losing it.

    I mean, I’ve read your book.  I know what the Bible says about responding to people insulting you.  When you get all upset about my criticism of religion, I am likely to criticize you MORE, not less, because then I don’t really see you as hiding behind a genuine belief in God.  I see you as using that as an excuse for the way you look at people who you want to see as different than you for whatever reason — whether they are atheists, or lgbtq couples, or people from other religions, or people from any other group you may look at differently because of your religious affiliation. I see your choice to love a dead man over living flesh and blood as a sham you perpetuate so that you can lift yourself up while putting others down.

    When I see you get upset over criticism,  that’s proof for me that you don’t really believe in Jesus, frankly.  It makes me think your hiding behind him, using him as an excuse to make decisions that are more selfish than you care to admit.

    And I’m not lying to you.  For example — when I was a Christian, I loved it, for the most part, when people challenged my faith, precisely because of that verse.  Believe it or not, I actually thought that I was serving God by taking the abuse, so I really tried to welcome it.

    When I left Christianity, I thought other Christians had the same view of things — and to my surprise, I found that criticisms of their faith were often met with resentment, not the rejoicing and gladness Christ prescribed.  The only conclusion I could come to was that this was more about them — Christians — than it was about God.  And that makes me have a lot less respect for your religion, because, frankly, that’s indicating that you agree with me — that underneath it all, you don’t really believe in God.  You believe in people and in trying to be comfortable and happy regardless of who you offend or hurt with your doctrine along the way, and when you say, “I’m sorry; that’s just what God says about xyz,” you’re lying through your teeth.

    Let me say, finally, that my criticism of Christianity is not just selfish.  I mean, I have been hurt by Christian people who prefer to respect someone I think is dead over me, who is standing right in front of them, but that is dwarfed by the fact that most of Christendom thinks that we are sinners who need to be saved by God in order to deserve anything more than an eternity in hell; most believe we have to die to who we actually are and sign up to follow and be fundamentally transformed by a God-concept crafted thousands of years ago.

    I have seen that hurt the world in many ways and I want to stop it, so I’m speaking up.

    Here’s an idea:  Instead of throwing a hissy-fit when we criticize your religion this weekend, why not take some time out to actually listen and understand?  Maybe, just maybe, we have some legitimate concerns that explain our insults and our anger.

    Or you can make your life even more unpleasant by ignoring your Jesus in telling us atheists to tone it down, which will actually increase our cynicism and criticism (rightfully so, I think, because that shows that this is really about your ego), and the vicious cycle can continue.

    Your choice.

    But I don’t have to follow that “do not judge” nonsense in your book.  I’m totally going to judge your choice here, whatever it is.

    [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJrqLV4yeiw&feature=youtube_gdata_player[/youtube]

     

  • The Four Main Reasons I’m An Antitheist And Not A Faitheist

    Voltaire

    This is meant to be a general overview of meta-points.  For a slightly more complete catalogue of my grievances with various forms of Christianity in particular, see this post.

    I also do not address here, in detail, the effectiveness of an anti-theistic attack on religion — this is a more personal post.  For information on effectiveness, see this post.

    Without much ado, I’ll just dig right into it.

    1. The Puppet God

    Langston Hughes wrote this poem called “Gods” in 1924:

    The ivory gods,
    And the ebony gods,
    And the gods of diamond and jade,
    Sit silently on their temple shelves
    While the people
    Are afraid.
    Yet the ivory gods,
    And the ebony gods,
    And the gods of diamond-jade,
    Are only silly puppet gods
    That the people themselves
    Have made.

    That poem encapsulates much of the reason I am against the theistic concepts of deities — a being outside of us that yet has authority over us.  Promotion of belief in non-existent beings enables people to create a variable in society that they would not otherwise figure into the matrix of human decisionmaking.  Today, more than ever, if we are going to thrive as a species, our decision-making needs to be motivated by consideration of what exists, not motivated by the fear or even love of what doesn’t.

    Steven Weinberg once said that, “Religion is an insult to human dignity. Without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.” Although that’s a bit hyperbolic, the rhetoric resonates with me, in part, because I was there.  Fundamentalists get a bad rap, as if they are naturally bad people, but I know from experience that it is not that simple.  The reason many fundamentalists have the beliefs they do is that they have been frightened or otherwise manipulated into it by the puppet of a non-existent being.

    The largest variable in their decision-making does not even exist in reality, and that is why they so often seem to partake in actions that do not follow from a healthy sense of reality.

    So that’s part of why I’m an anti-theist.  I really would like humanity to be prioritized above any conceptualization of a non-existent being, for the sake of all of our futures.  I do not want to confuse the issue by being ambivalent, as if the fact that the single largest aspect of decision-making is a nonexistent concept is remotely inconsequential to our future decisions, when it clearly is very consequential to current and past decisionmaking.

    2. Respect Of Theism Encapsulates And Perpetuates The Outdated Views Of the Deity’s Creators

    If you’ll excuse me here, I’m going to focus on Christianity as an example.

    The deity in this religion has done things that just about everyone agrees are disturbing.  The Old Testament is disturbing.  Paul and his views of women, slaves, family life, homosexuality, etc. are disturbing.  Jesus and his seeming obsession with discussing hell is disturbing. Revelation is disturbing (especially insofar as it influences the way many seem to think about foreign policy).  And yet, in spite of all that (and a laundry list of other items), Christianity has a squeaky-clean reputation among many.

    Even as the fact is true that when Christianity, with its puppet deity full of 4000-year-old bigotry, hits up against we know today, there are frequently fireworks.

    Why do people have such outdated views?  Because we said, “This is true because this being said so” and that being encapsulated some of our most primitive values for four thousand years and beyond.

    Think about this as just ONE example:  The main reason why most people today are against gay marriage in the United States is because 4000 years ago a bunch of people who were homophobic said, “God doesn’t like it.”

    That’s it.  I swear, that’s the main, and in many cases the only, reason, for many people.  And even liberal progressives, although they hem and haw about the issue a lot, and although they are for equal rights for lgbtq individuals, will frequently not unequivocally say, front and center, that homosexuality is just as beautiful as heterosexuality AND is not remotely sinful (even as they try to diminish it, or say that the positives of relationships outweighs any sin of homosexuality, or say that it can be “sanctified” by love, or something similar).

    Some have found a way to reject homosexuality as sin, but it takes a lot of theological wrangling and, arguably, some dishonesty with or major adjustments of the text.  Why struggle so hard with something when you could use that energy to just admit it’s wrong and move on? Homosexuality is beautiful, and we can’t see it because we used a non-existent being to encapsulate 4000-year-old values.  That is why many of us (myself included) left our lgbtq prejudices the moment we left the non-existent being who once commanded stoning behind.

    That’s an unpleasant truth, but it’s the truth.  Do we really want to do the same thing again, even after many of us atheists have seen its damage inside religion?

    3. We Need A Well-Defined Space For Those Escaping From Religion

    A lot of my colleagues insist that I need to calm down and join with Christians a bit more.  I have no problem helping them do good deeds, but I really think that the worst thing we can do is be lackluster in our stance against nonexistent beings that people manipulate to control others’s lives.  Anti-theism is a stronghold for those escaping from religion, and this strong stance is necessary to shield those escaping from religion from attacks.

    If we join with the ideology of a nonexistent being or fight against those who refuse to tolerate it, we perpetuate its existence and we leave less space for those who have been lied to and been told that a being exists who does not.  We need to be a safe space for them as they escape and make a strong break from a non-existent being who is suddenly revealed to be a monster, in many ways.

    Why would we want to be remotely attached to a destructive non-existent being that is normally defined by such a horrendous book and tradition?  I confess that I don’t understand that — unless it’s about social pressure, honestly, and complaints from other people…

    People also say that we should work with theists in various pursuits, but I am disturbed by their framing of this.  Certainly I will work with people, as people.  But what does it mean to work with theists, specifically, as if I’m trying to validate their stance?  I am willing to tolerate their non-existent being in various ways, but when I see it doing harm or promoting dangerous patterns of thinking, it is important that we make sure there are spaces in which we can speak loudly and clearly against it without having to give religion undue respect.

    4. Respect Is Theism’s Last Sanctuary

    I do not think theism has a strong case — precisely because theists try so hard to shut us atheists up.  Theists frequently complain that we are too critical of their religion, when they are the ones saying that we are going to spend eternity in hell — a fact we don’t complain about near as often, although that is a very rude belief to have.  But religion has the power, so they can hypocritically point out our disrespect of their puppet-being that often disrespects us far more.

    Which means, for me, that this is not the time to shut up.  This is the time to speak up — now, when it’s unpopular, when movies like God’s Not Dead and Do You Believe? try to paint us as heartless — this is when we should speak up most, and honestly, and with our hearts as well as our minds so we come across like we have genuine, heartfelt concerns as we stick to logic in building our case (and, perhaps more importantly, so that we experience the freedom of our own honesty).  If we respect religion now, as many atheists these days are urging, we respect a nonexistent being who according to many conceptualizations says humanity deserves hell (and thus we need to be “saved” from it, in various ways, depending on your denomination); who was created by misogynistic, homophobic bigots; and who has tremendous influence over current foreign policy and the future of this whole planet, as well as several other items.

    I know I’ll get flack for not respecting that, but I’m willing to take all the abuse, all the arrows, all the insults, if it means that I can show that it is possible to unabashedly reject this falsehood; I am willing to sacrifice the entirety of my reputation for the truth and the good of humanity.  If my atheist or Christian or otherwise religious fellow human beings object, I may be distained, maybe, but I’d rather retain my honesty and integrity.  I’d rather be hated for trying to help than loved for an apathy disguised as consideration.

    I mean, isn’t that what you Christians say Jesus would do, anyway?

  • Can Negative, Rude Attacks On Religion From Atheists Work? Yes, But It’s Complicated

    Does rudeness work?

    Several people have told me that I’m a bit too rude when it comes to Christianity, expressing strongly the opinion that my “strident” response is ineffective.  What is commonly known as “Firebrand Atheism” does nothing to convince people, or so the claim goes.  So I wondered:  Is this true?  And the truth, it seems, is highly dependent on the situation you are in, your goals, and the content.  People may be vocal about rude, negative arguments, but the fact is that, like it or not, they can be quite effective in several situations.

    Let’s take a look, starting with the test case of those nasty negative campaign ads.  According to this article from the American Psychological Association, positive campaign ads and negative campaigns do work — but in different ways.  If you don’t want people to really research your argument but just take it for granted, and if you want to reinforce the views people already have, a positive campaign ad will often do the trick.  It’s reassuring.  However, if you want to change minds and unsettle the status quo a negative campaign ad will be more useful.

    As the APA article puts it:

    “Fear ads heighten attentiveness and weaken people’s reliance on partisan habits, while enthusiasm ads reassure you, and reaffirm the choice you’ve already made,” [Dr. Ted] Brader [who based this conclusion on a 2005 study he led] says.

    Given these effects, a smart campaign would use positive ads when they are ahead and reserve negative ads for when they are behind. That’s exactly what most campaigns do, according to a study of Senate campaign ads by Washington State University political science professor Travis Ridout, PhD, published in the March issue of Political Psychology. “If you’re behind, you need to shake things up, and that means making people anxious about the other candidate so they will reconsider their voting decision,” he says. “If you’re ahead and want to cement peoples’ support, appeal to the emotions of pride and enthusiasm.”

    However, the risk of using a negative campaign ad is that people WILL research it and scrutinize it more.  If it does not hold up to scrutiny, it will be less effective than a positive ad, which people want to be true and, thus, don’t scrutinize quite as much.  But if it does hold up to scrutiny, it will likely be much MORE effective than a positive ad in the long term, because people remember negative statements longer than positive ones.  It is also more likely to induce fear in someone’s mind and cause them to change their position.

    So if you’re behind, if you’re in the minority, it helps to be negative — but you better be right, because people are going to research your claims, and if you’re wrong they are less likely to forget.

    If we are going to win the current culture war, then, it seems that atheists are helped by a negative campaign that helps others think.  Positive discussion concerning atheism is going to invigorate our base, but it will do little to get the religious majority to reconsider their own religious beliefs and think about atheism.  At the same time, too much of a focus on negative discussion regarding religion among atheists might eventually, ironically, alienate a base that is looking to be reinforced and reassured, that desires more positive reinforcement…which might explain some of the weariness some of the more long-time atheists often seem to express regarding the negative attacks on religion that atheist groups bring up regularly among themselves.

    Furthermore, the mere facts that your attack ad is accurate and you’re in the minority don’t mean the campaign will be successful — you gotta be strategic in your presentation.  For example, the APA article states, a group of environmentalists trying to change minds might be able to get ahead with a negative image ad featuring a trashy beach — but that positive effect might be hampered by the fact that disgusting images are shown in many studies to cause people to retreat into their conservative views rather than open up to new ones.  So in the end, it might be a wash.  The article goes on to say that the use of children may have a similar effect — parents tend towards more conservative values in ads featuring children.  So although a liberal candidate might get a positive effect with a negative ad featuring children from those without kids, any progress that candidate may make might be hampered by the conservative values and distaste for negativity in kids’s lives that the parents watching the ad might have.

    I could see this as getting more complicated — if you focus on stating that a certain action is going to negatively impact otherwise oblivious children (like use of fossil fuels), you may be ineffective, because you’re discussing something that would disturb the child’s view of the world if they knew about it — and if the child doesn’t know about that negative view now, the parent is more likely to be biased to keep that way.  But if you, rather, show how the parents are ALREADY giving children a needlessly negative outlook on life (like, for example, teaching them the concept of hell), that might have a degree of effectiveness.  It may not prompt parents to leave religion — after all, religion is frequently seen as the home of conservative values that keep children safe — but it might be more likely to strongly encourage parents to give their children a more positive outlook on life (by, for example, focusing more on heaven and less on hell).  Indeed, this has been my experience, actually…

    In addition, other studies indicate that conformity to social norms (aka politeness) does not give you the greatest influence in culture — if you want to be perceived as dominant, it helps (with, as we will see, several caveats) to NOT conform to social norms. Several pieces of research indicate that this is the case.  As a 2014 examination states:

    A series of studies demonstrates that people confer higher status and competence to nonconforming rather than conforming individuals. These positive inferences derived from signals of nonconformity are mediated by perceived autonomy and moderated by individual differences in need for uniqueness in the observers. An investigation of boundary conditions demonstrates that the positive inferences disappear when the observer is unfamiliar with the environment, when the nonconforming behavior is depicted as unintentional, and in the absence of expected norms and shared standards of formal conduct.

    As with the negative campaign ads, there are caveats here.  If you seem like you don’t know about the norms you violate, you are likely to be seen as incompetent as opposed to influential and dominant.

    But if you know the norms and confidently violate them, you can be seen as a more dominant individual.  Now, people may not like that you’re a more dominant individual.  In some cases, it may get you fired on a job or banished from a group, etc.  However, if you can get away with social norms and you flaunt that you can get away with social norms, people may see you as more influential.

    I’m not saying that these are beautiful facts, but they do seem to be facts.  Now, respect of religion — specifically Christianity — in the United States is a social norm.  If you conform to the social norm of respecting Christianity, according to the study, you may lose respect and influence that you might otherwise gain.   But that doesn’t mean that you get an automatic free pass if you’re rude, because if your lack of conformity to the social norms of respecting Christianity indicates that you do not understand the social norms of respecting Christianity, you’ll look incompetent, not influential.  The fact that someone’s violation of social norms can be seen as a sign of ineptness (instead of power) if the person can be portrayed as ignorant of these social norms would explain part of the reason (though certainly not the whole reason) why Christians have a vested interest in telling ex-Christian atheists they were never “real” Christians or telling atheists in general that their rudeness is based on a misunderstanding of Christianity (again, not the only reason, but it does seem to be one of them).

    Where you may start to become dangerous, in looking at the results of the study, is when you show that you know the norms for respecting the religion, you show you  know the reasons for the norms, you show an understanding for why people follow the norms — and you flaunt your violation of the norms in spite of it all (and strategically enough to get away with it without being shut down by the powers that be).

    That is a very difficult spot to occupy.  It takes tremendous skill and knowledge to be rude that productively, which is why it may not be a preferable course for everyone.  And being seen as dominant will create you enemies even as it will emanate influence, and some people, of course, do not want enemies or to deal with the headache in general.  This is understandable.  Also, some individuals may get away with violating social norms — not just in religion, but in other places as well — more than others, and that may affect the number of people who seem able to get away with atheism; it is no surprise that atheists, for the most part, are predominantly white males in Western countries.

    One last thing — as I’ve indicated, being rude in the preceding way can make people perceive you as dominant, but it can also make you hated, which can diminish your influence.  How, then, do you translate this to creating friends, as opposed to enemies?  A 2012  study (full text is here) gives the key:

    Previous research suggested that norm violators are perceived as more powerful than individuals who live by the rules, but it was unclear whether norm violations also influence power affordance. The present findings indicate, perhaps reassuringly, that power is afforded only to those individuals who violate norms in a way that benefits others. Individuals who broke the rules at the expense of others were afforded less power than those who obeyed the rules. Together, the two sets of studies suggest that norm violations may lead to perceptions of power irrespective of their social consequences. However, norm violations only inspire power affordance when they benefit rather than harm other people.

    And therein lies another piece of the puzzle.  If you are rude regarding religion and at the same time seen as selfish, you will be seen as dominant, but you will also be hated for that perceived dominance and people will try to reduce it.  If you are rude regarding religion and at the same time seen as trying to make things better for people, as being unselfish, you are likely to make much more progress.  And you see this in the “new atheists” frequently, which is why they are often seen as being so effective (Hitchens seemed to sanctify his sense of morality more than his life, Dawkins seems dedicated to protecting science education, and Sam Harris — although he has come under fire — also seems fairly externally focused).

    Again, doubtlessly, other factors — race, gender, class — play into how much respect one is given and how much he or she is seen as representing a group.  And rude, strident stances have a ton of potholes in them, as we have seen, and quite a bit of attention to nuance and knowledge of your audience is needed for them to be successful.  In addition, some may be more predisposed to a more conservative stance than others — there has been some speculation that some die-hard conservatives may just naturally be that way.  Due to these factors, some may think that it is best to give up the rude stance altogether regarding if they have found ways that work better for them in accomplishing their particular goals. But the fact, it seems, remains that a violation of social norms (like the respect of the religion of Christianity) can be much more effective for a minority population (like atheists) than polite compromise that seeks to stay within the bounds of social norms.

    You may not like these indications that flaunting violations of social norms can be the most effective route in crafting change, and that’s OK.  But that doesn’t change the facts of the case.
    __________________________________

    For more on how Christian demands for respect seem to be a strategy to silence atheists, see the following:

    For my dispute with fellow blogger Steve Neumann’s article in Salon on  “Atheists’ Self-Defeating Superiority” that inspired this discussion, see here:

    For Steve Neumann’s response to my response to his article (and our wrangle in the comment section) see here:

    In case you need some help finding some arguments against Christianity, check these out, and feel free to add your own in the comments:

     

     

  • The Self-Defeating Argument In The Salon Article “Atheists’ Self-Defeating Superiority”

    My fellow blogger Steve Neumann wrote a recent article on Salon called, “Atheists’ self-defeating superiority: Why joining forces with religion is best for non-believers.” It’s the kind of article that a Christian would pass over to me and say, “Hey, look at this!  Even one of your fellow atheists says you’re getting a bit too militant.  Maybe you should shut the hell up!”

    But…its self-defeating logic made his actual position difficult to determine.  Seriously.  I mean… my disagreement with him would be a bit stronger here, I think, if I could better follow his logic.

    Take passages like this, for example:

    “New Atheists like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Bill Maher — with their legions of followers, numbering in the millions just on Twitter — continue to employ the Us vs. Them rhetoric of tribalism. But what these New Atheists fail to realize is that even if their criticisms of religion are correct, pointing them out does nothing to combat tribalism—in fact, it only strengthens it. Their faith in the power of rationality, which is effective but not perfect, blinds them to the larger problem.

    “This isn’t surprising, because science has convincingly shown that individuals don’t really reason well on their own—our rationality is unreliable because of the pervasiveness of motivated reasoning. This suggests that the only cure for our cognitive biases is other people. The problem is that we’re more receptive to alternatives only when challenged by members of our own tribe. Atheists as well as religious believers are relatively immune to attacks from those “other” people.”

    Uh-huh.  So tribalism is BAD, right?  We shouldn’t be so, um, tribal, because then what’ll happen is that we won’t see our own biases.  What we need to do is stop focusing on us vs. them rhetoric, and begin combatting tribalism.

    That logic is ridiculous.

    I mean, would we apply that to any other system in which one side was, y’know… importantly right?  Seriously.  Like, would you walk into a meeting on what we need to do about climate change and go, “Look guys.  What you’re failing to realize is that, even if you’re critical of climate change denialists, pointing that criticism out does nothing to combat tribalism — in fact, it only strengthens it.  Your faith in the power of science, which is effective but not perfect, blinds you to the larger problem.”

    Or to the people giving vaccines.  “Look guys.  What you’re failing to realize is that, even if you’re critical of anti-vaccinators, pointing that criticism out does nothing to combat tribalism — in fact, it only strengthens it.  Your faith in medical science, which is effective but not perfect, blinds you to the larger problem.”

    Or to the NAACP.  “Look guys.  What you’re failing to realize is that, even if you’re critical of the Klu Klux Klan, pointing that criticism out does nothing to combat tribalism — in fact, it only strengthens it.  Your faith in the importance of equality, which is effective but not perfect, blinds you to the larger problem.”

    Yes, people who work in NASA are biased against people who say that we didn’t really land on the moon.  Thank the FSM for that.  Could you imagine if they were like, “Guys, we’re not really reasoning well on our own. The only cure for our cognitive bias is people who don’t agree with us.  So go ahead, let’s sit down and talk about how we’re going to the moon, and allow these guys who think the moon landing was an elaborate hoax help us figure out whether or not we’re being realistic in our plans”?

    That’s how ridiculous this sounds to me.  You’re basically saying, “Hey, if you stand with people who don’t have imaginary friends, you’ll become biased against ways of thinking that put an imaginary friend into the mix.  That gives you a blind spot.  Do you want that blind spot?”  Yes.  Yes, I think I do, especially when considering the fact that many books describing this imaginary friend make it atrociously uncivilized.

    Then, later in the article, Steve Neumann gets to the crux of his point:
    “Adam Lee says that atheists’ natural allies are in the progressive movement, most prominently LGBT rights groups and feminists, because they have most often been the targets of religious harassment and oppression.

    “I’d like to encourage my fellow atheists to push the circle of our tribe out a little bit further than that. Combining the forces of secularism with the progressive religious movements of the various Abrahamic religions, for example, can achieve even more than we can by ourselves. Forget about disabusing believers of their core convictions with the “universal acid” of rationality—the best way to fight for social justice and pluralism is to ally ourselves with those who share the same values, regardless of their metaphysical beliefs.”

    So wait — Neumann is against tribalism earlier, remember (remember the social justice NAACP example) and here he is for it.  Look: “the best way to fight for social justice and pluralism is to ally ourselves with those who share the same values, regardless of their metaphysical beliefs.”

    But, um…isn’t that tribalism against the viewpoints that AREN’T interested in social justice and pluralism?  So is Neumann initially saying he’s against “tribalism,” or is the concern making sure that concerns  for social justice and pluralism be concerns that push concern about atheism and against religion out the window?

    If it’s tending towards the first, then the faux-concern against tribalism at the beginning seems…well, faux.  And if it’s tending towards the second…my response to his point is no.  No. No. No. No.  A thousand times, no.

    Let me be clear:  I’m not saying that I’m unwilling to work with “progressive Christians.”  Heck, I’d work with them — and, I’ll admit, DO work with them — every goddamn day, whether it’s the barista getting my latte, the road I drive on that is built (I’m sure) with a few progressive Christians, or the food pantry I may volunteer at where a few progressive Christians (and conservative ones, as well, for that matter) hang out.  I got nothing against religious people who want to help me accomplish my goals as an anti-theist (he says as he defends anti-theism on a blogging site managed by religious people).

    I will work with you as a PERSON.  If you want to help me live my awesome life and I happen to have a desire to help you live your life in some way, awesome. If I’m out marching for an unarmed black man that got shot and a black Christian is beside me, I’m not inclined to leave the march any more than I would be inclined  to throw back a latte at a barista who just happened to be a Christian.  OK?  Hopefully that’s clear.  And I’m fairly certain that most self-proclaimed anti-theists feel the same way (more on that in a moment).

    There’s a line here for me.

    I will not frame the discourse I associate with working within these environments as attempts to “join forces with religion” — sorry (not sorry) but I have no intention of aligning myself with a way of thinking that gets its dictates from imaginary friends.  I will not remotely assent to courting or coddling belief systems that proclaim, “This is the way things should be, because God.”  I cannot and will not worship, give credence, or provide even the appearance of tolerance for the atrocious nature of the Bible’s God in any way, shape, or form.  If there was a way to say that more strongly in this paragraph, I would.

    Lemme make this concrete.

    I’ll help a progressive Christian ladle soup at a soup kitchen. Why not? I work with progressive Christians, as aforementioned, all the goddamn time in, like, Starbucks and stuff.  Why the hell wouldn’t I do it in a soup kitchen, too?  No skin off my nose, as they say.

    But if you even begin to say, “I feel the presence of God in this place” or something similar while passing soup across the counter — if I’m not seen as having a right to respond with a “That’s bullshit” or something to that effect because of some misplaced sense of “respect,” or sense that we are “part of the same tribe,” then we have a problem.

    Also, I’d like to point out that us “militant” anti-theists are out there talking against religion. We’re knocking on its door.  As an anti-theist, I have very little interest in staying within my own club and never venturing out.  In the area of Bible-Belt Dallas-Fort Worth, I talk often with Christians and occasionally attend Christian events, precisely BECAUSE I am so anti-religious (and I choose Christianity because it’s the religion I know most about).  I write blogs about Christianity and against Christianity, engaging Christians in dialogue precisely because I can’t stand their views or the impact the concept of their rather oppressive imaginary friend has on culture.  It’s not remotely like I’m hiding in my own little corner in the world.  I am vigorously writing and working to try to make the concerns of anti-theists be understood by Christians.  As is Richard Dawkins.  As is David Silverman.  As is Bill Maher.  And a laundry list of other major individuals.  We’re working our asses off to be heard by religious people, and most of us work with you regularly.  You make our coffees, and we make your coffees.  We build your roads, and vice versa.  We pay taxes for all of our own social welfare.  And many of us have no qualms about working alongside you in a soup kitchen as long as we don’t have to keep our mouths shut about our disagreements with whatever religious views you voice, and if Neumann is even remotely saying that we should, or if you hear him remotely saying that we should, then I’d like to go on record saying that I disagree with his viewpoint in the strongest terms possible.

    In a way, I’m lost as to what Steve Neumann is trying to change when he says that the “militant” atheist should be open.  Here’s some news: If you’re staying in your little atheist camp and not touching religious people’s lives, you’re not being militant, you’re just enjoying your atheism.  And here’s another news-flash — there’s nothing wrong with that, in itself.  Sometimes you need to be around people that don’t follow imaginary friends instead of hearing about God’s opinion all the time.

    And you know what?  A lot of us atheists, especially those of us in strongly religious cultures, do need a home base.  You are under no obligation to beg and plead for Christians, progressive or otherwise, to accept your place in their organization.  You are more than free to join any group of atheists you happen to be around.  And if you want to reach out beyond that, that’s your prerogative.

    In case you thought you needed someone’s permission.

    I do think that if we proceed as a culture it may be necessary for us to be more generous, more kind, more compassionate, and a few other similar synonyms AS A CULTURE — regarding our viewpoints more than our rhetoric (I have heard silver-tongued preachers teach the cruelest concepts of hell I’ve ever heard). But I also think that there is danger in moving forward while just kinda accepting that there’s an imaginary friend, especially when the characteristics of that imaginary friend are too often controlled by charlatans and atrociously offensive books, full of misogyny, homophobia, encouragements of genocide, and the like.

    Then, Neumann says that atheism isn’t really on the rise, despite our efforts:

    “This is relevant now because we’ve never had an opportunity like this before. The great decline of religion in America doesn’t necessarily mean that people are becoming atheists; it more likely means that more and more people are adopting more liberal views of the traditional religions.”

    That is simply false — the number of atheists itself is slowly climbing in the United States although it is still small — the number went from 1% in 2005 to 5% in 2012 according to The Global Index of Religiosity and Atheism, and the perhaps more biased Pew Forum, even with its much more conservative numbers, states, “The number of people who identify themselves as atheists in the United States has been rising, modestly but steadily, in recent years.” Religion, by the way, is on the decline in the United States…according to many, largely due to the very Internet discourse that Neumann seems to deride.  So we atheists are slowly but surely making progress just the way we are.

    Finally, where is Neumann going with all this? Near the end of his article, he seems to paint his utopia:

    “We should see a softening of the positions of the “militants” on both sides, precisely because human beings are more receptive to messages from those with whom we share a tribal badge.”

    This is a terrible thing to say to or about atheists — because, for many Christians (and many atheists, as well, in fact) who read this article, a “militant” atheist is someone who has the nerve to say that Jesus is, um, still dead.  Think about that.  It’s not militant to say that he’s alive and you gotta believe that in order to go to heaven.  It’s militant to just utter the simple fact that he’s dead.  And you’re not supposed to say it.  And, again, it’s perfectly fine for people offended deeply by that comment to say that if you don’t believe in Jesus you’re in danger of perishing somehow.

    That’s the thing about applying a false equivalency to the word “militant.”  If you are in the larger, more powerful group, “militant” for you means different than “militant” for someone else.  To take a relevant contemporary issue, what heterosexual homophobic Christian culture calls the “militant lgbtq rights movement” might consist of something like a gay pride parade, or even a public kiss. And yet, heterosexual couples kiss in broad daylight, regularly make movies showcasing their love for each other, and have persecuted lgbtq couples for years without once being seen as “militant.”  Why the double standard?  Because the larger, more powerful group sets the terms.

    So, Neumann, you’ve really got it wrong. It’s not the atheists’ sense of superiority (!) that’s the problem.  We’re in the minority here.  It’s the sense of superiority that the overwhelming Christian majority has that really is the problem.

    So the danger of using that word is that Christians will say, “Oh, look!  Salon says that ‘militant’ atheists are bad news — in an article written by an atheist!” It makes the phrase dirtier and more damaging, when it’s already damaging enough.  Christians will love it.  Atheists will continue to be hated and seen as “militant” unless they capitulate and beg to be placed under the same banner as those who have imaginary friends that have said some…pretty disturbing things.

    If Neumann is saying that we’ve gotta, like, soften our stance or something – that only has relevance insofar as the atheist stance is irrelevant.  And, um, it’s not.  There are many reasons why theistic religion, in various forms, is bad, but they all boil down to this:  It inserts a powerful imaginary, nonexistent friend into the equation where it doesn’t belong. And to that I say again – no.  I am not interested in assenting to the reign of an imaginary friend, be it in the coffee shop, in the workplace, or the soup kitchen in the misplaced name of unity.

    At least, not since I left church.

  • Michael Reagan Doesn’t Realize His Dad Ronald Reagan’s Faith Is Irrelevant To Brother’s Atheism

    The sons of President Ronald Reagan — Ron Reagan and Michael Reagan — disagree on religion.

    Ron Reagan, famously, is an avowed atheist.  Last year, he made the following ad for the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF).

    [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7INIhD9P0Pw[/youtube]

    As you can see, he ends the video confidently with: “Ron Reagan, lifelong atheist, not afraid of burning in hell.”

    If you’ve voiced those sentiments to religious friends and family, you’ve probably got some strong reactions, and the Reagan family is not exception.  Michael Reagan, who is very religious, was asked by Newsmax (the audio of the relevant part of the interview begins at 7:55 in the story attached to the link) yesterday about his reaction to Ron Reagan’s stance.  He said:

    I saw that ad when he did it a little over a little over a year ago…. He has every right to be an atheist.  He always has been.  I remember having dinner with my father — with our family, we were having dinner — and he was talking about his atheism at dinner one night and my dad leaned over to me and grabbed my hand and said, ‘My only prayer is that my son becomes a Christian’ like him, like our father. And that was his prayer. 

    For Ron to do the ad is one thing. but the way he ends the ad — ‘I’m Ron Reagan, I’m not afraid to burn in hell’ — I think just slaps his father in the face — our father in the face — in a terrible, terrible way. And so all I can say is, do what I do every day…pray for my brother, Ron.

    The striking thing here is that Michael Reagan, now a 70 year old talk radio host, still sees following religion as a sign of respect to his father in a mentality that harkens back to childhood.  He doesn’t have a problem with Ron’s atheism, it seems, so much as how it would be disrespectful of his father — almost as if, for Michael Reagan, following God is more a sign of respect for his father and his family than something that is followed because it’s true.  To the point where he almost doesn’t understand why his brother wouldn’t show his same respect.

    [polldaddy poll=”8740312″]

    It’s truly sad.  Like many atheists, I too have had my struggle with breaking off my father’s legacy by becoming an anti-theist in a way much of my family may never understand.  However, ultimately I didn’t leave, and I doubt Ron left, just to spite my Dad.  I did it because I realized I could no longer live a lie, and I had to be honest and take ownership of my own life.  It is sad that some, like Michael Reagan, it seems, are, even into old age, trapped by the shadow of their family and fathers and never learn the freedom of their own voices long after their father’s death…and thus perpetuate the cycle.  But it does give me a solidarity with Ron Reagan to know that the struggles I have with my own family, he has been dealing with in his own for decades.

  • 3 Doubts Closet Atheists Should Have Before Coming Out (And 3 Reasons To Do It Anyway)

    Note: Although I think this may be applicable to several religious traditions, I primarily focus here on leaving Christianity in predominantly religious parts of the United States, as that is the experience I can best speak to.

    If you don’t believe in God anymore, should you tell people?

    It’s a good question.  A couple years ago, when I first “came out of the closet” as an atheist, I would have said that yes, you should absolutely make it public.  Since then, however, I’ve talked to many people in situations less amenable to that response.  I’ve also noticed consequences in myself and in people close to me after my deconversion that I didn’t fully anticipate and, together, these experiences have convinced me that the decision to come out as an atheist is much more complicated than I originally thought.

    Perhaps clouding my vision, at first, was the fact that Christianity looked so obviously unbelievable to me by the time I left that I thought I should be able to easily convince my more rationally-minded friends to leave it.  Had I taken the time to realize that there was so much more anchoring belief in most Christians than mere logical reasoning, I think I might have approached things a bit differently; I’m honestly not sure.

    Although I think I would have still “come out” in some way or another, it would have helped to have been a bit more aware, in advance, of what to expect.  So, in that spirit, I’ll pass on to you three major items to consider before going public as an atheist.  If you’re an atheist, this information is also meant to help your religious friends who may be looking for a way to leave the faith — ultimately it’s not just about logic, but also about the security of having a strong, knowledge-based exit strategy. If you want to add to this list, feel free to do so in the comments.

    1. Will you be able to handle the way people will emotionally, physically, and/or economically react?

    talking_teens_300x200

    I definitely do not recommend that a child living under a strongly religious parents’s roof come out as an atheist.  If they want to, they can, of course — but in those situations, it’s hard to predict how the parent will react.  Same deal if you’re a pastor of a church or a spouse with kids who is dependent on your very religious spouse’s income, or in a situation in which a very religious person has any significant amount of power in your life (if you’re a pastor of the church, there is some help for you in making the transition at The Clergy Project).  And that power need not merely be monetary or physical; if someone holds a strong emotional grip on your life (for example, if the religious person is someone you naturally respect who could make you feel dangerously guilty at will), you should probably be careful, as well, for the sake of your own mental health — because if you come out and stick to your guns, there is a chance that very religious people might use any means at their disposal — emotional, physical, economic — to get you to return to Christianity and make your life a living hell if you don’t.  It seems advisable to prepare for that possibility in advance.

    I also wish I had realized that being an atheist will, very likely, profoundly hurt the very religious people in your life who care about you.  The coercive measures they take may not be because they are trying to destroy you, but because they deeply care about you and think that you will spend eternity in hell if they can’t get you to come back.  There is no guarantee that you will be able to get them to change their minds and thus ease their pain.  So consider that, too.  If you come out as an atheist expecting that the hate people feel for you will make the separation easier, think again; many of the people people closest to you may be abusive to you not to intentionally hurt you, but because they deeply care about you and are afraid of losing you as a fellow Christian and/or afraid that you’ll burn in hell.

    2.  Will your post-coming-out support system be adequate?

    When I left Christianity, I hardly had any atheist or agnostic friends.  I quickly found that building up a support group that I could help and that could help me was extremely important.  Fortunately, I had the time and resources available to build up this needed support group fairly soon after my deconversion.  At the same time, before my initial break with Christianity I had tremendously underestimated the importance of the social aspect of Christianity — in many ways, Churches have an enormous social advantage over atheism, at least in most parts of the United States (especially in the Bible Belt I was in).  In church, you normally have a group of consistently meeting people who have several beliefs and ideologies in common — and, at least here in the Bible Belt, if you don’t like your church you can go to the one right across the street, so to speak.  Atheism is much more difficult — the communities are smaller (if they are there at all in your area), and atheists tend to be very independently minded.  So if you want to find clones of your ideological preferences near your location, you are likely to be disappointed, unless you live in a community with a higher than usual atheist population in the United States.

    One option you have is a new Secular Hotline Project.  They don’t try to deconvert you, and they won’t give you religious advice; they’ll try to help you where you’re at.  The people on the phone are volunteering their time; they really care.

    RfR-Hotline-Project-Banner

    Recovering From Religion, the non-profit organization that operates the hotline, also offers information on secular therapists you can turn to.  In addition, there are several local in-person groups — you can find them either through Meetup.com or by contacting Recovering From Religion here.

    Another place to find people is through virtual communities.  Strategically joining groups on Facebook can give you a support system — you can just type out your problem and vent, and they are often willing to give helpful (as well as not-so-helpful — hey, it’s the Internet) advice.  Occasionally, you’ll find trolls — block them or, if there’s a lot of them, leave the group.  Find what works for you — and it’s a good idea to set up this online support group before you decide to come out.  Another remedy is to find people in your area by typing in “freethinkers,” “atheists,” “secular,” or “agnostic” into Meetup.com or by doing a Google search for atheist groups.  If you’re one of the few atheists or agnostics who want a Sunday experience, you may still be able to find that at a Universalist church or, perhaps, even a Freethought congregation, depending on where you are — again, do a Google search to find out.  But in any case, it’s a good idea to have some kind of support group in place before you leave, and although it may take a bit more effort than finding a local church, it is bound to be worth it.

    3. Are you going to be able to handle any withdrawal symptoms?

    images

    If you were a very serious Christian, it’s likely that you went to church at least 2-3 times a week.  You may have had a hope of heaven and a fear of hell drummed deep into your psyche — and right after you leave Christianity decisively, that orientation may make make you apprehensive about death.  You may have had long prayer sessions and depended heavily on what you thought was God — and upon leaving Christianity, you may find you need a replacement, like meditation or something, to take up the space God once took up.  You may have been used to “Jesus” taking away the “guilt” of all your “sin” — and upon leaving, you may find yourself trapped in guilt and having trouble finding different strategies to deal with it.  Etc., etc., etc.  These withdrawal symptoms will likely diminish over time (sometimes months, or even years), and if you weren’t that serious or “devout,” they may not be an issue — but if you have been leaning on the content of Christianity for several years, be prepared for them.  And be prepared, as well, for Christians to take advantage of them to convince you that you really do believe, and for lifelong atheists or people who were formerly only lightly religious to not really understand what you’re going through.  Looking up a nearby (or even a far) Recovery From Religion meeting or calling up the Secular Hotline (linked in the previous point) can help you realize you’re not alone.  Even now, before you come out as an atheist, you may want to go to one to see, in person, the struggles these individuals are facing.

    The Other Side Of The Coin

    Those three items, I think, are very important to consider before you leave.  I’m not going to lie to you and say making the choice to come out as an atheist is all going to be sunshine and rainbows, because a lot of it is likely to be difficult. Unlike many pulpit preachers claim, identifying as an atheist in a religious area when you have a religious past does not constitute a “free for all” worry-free recess — you’re making a statement.  Although atheism is defined as merely a lack of belief in God or gods, the word itself has the “a” right before “theism” — it sounds like a rather assertive stance against theism.  Regardless of how you protest, by identifying with that word you will likely be seen in many religious arenas as making an anti-theistic statement that sets you directly against theism, which can cause some obvious difficulties — it is often much, much easier simply to become a more liberal theist in US culture, as doing so has less side effects, and you can often keep your friends, family, traditions, and so on.

    But “easier” doesn’t mean “more preferable.”  Because there are, for starters, three really solid reasons for coming out as an atheist:

    1.  It’s a ready excuse to avoid doing religious things you don’t want to do, and to do nonreligious things you do want to do.

    [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gFCW3PHBws[/youtube]

    Honesty is often see as a virtue, but it’s also very convenient.  If you don’t want to go to church anymore, most people understand if you say you’re an atheist or agnostic; if you say you’re a Christian, you might have to sit through church to keep up the charade.  You also might have to pray at family dinners, give advice using the Bible, say “thank you” when people pray for you, fake prayers for sick people you don’t really feel, fake attitudes towards atheists that seem hypocritical, have discussions about scripture that support principles you want to reject, and so on.  And you’ll always have to cover your tracks if you want to go to an atheist meetup, or you want to join an Atheist FB group, or hang out with your atheist friends, or if you want to do anything else that has you running the risk of being found out.  Coming out as an atheist can make it a lot easier for you to turn down religious activities, and for people to understand (regardless of how they feel about it) why.  It also frees you to openly live life as an atheist, which may become easier with time.  Pretending takes a lot of time and work in the one life you have, and it may also build up additional resentment in you from having to go through motions you feel are counterproductive.

    2. You don’t have to doubt your relationships.

    [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thd3c60gYV8[/youtube]

    If you’re in the closet as an atheist, you may always have to doubt what people are going to think of you if you are honest with them.  Shame is often constructed by fears of how people would think of you if they knew the “real you,” so you may struggle a lot with feeling debilitating amounts of shame — and think the culprit is your atheism, when it’s really insecurity over whether your friends would still be your friends if they knew the “real you.”  When I came out as an atheist, I found out there were still Christians who were determined to make things work, even if it meant, eventually, that they had to accept the fact that I am an outspoken atheist.  This doesn’t happen in everybody’s experience, and I’m not guaranteeing it will happen to you, but a surprising number of friends and family wanted to make things work, although many distanced themselves from me, and although all the relationships had to change profoundly over time (as I was pretty deeply entrenched in Christianity).  I also made new friends, and found it truly beautiful that I didn’t have to hide the fact that I agreed with their atheism.  Finally I knew that the relationships I had with both religious and non-religious people were relationships people shared with me because of who I was, as opposed to who I was pretending to be, and that gave me a surprising amount of security even in my most difficult early moments as an ex-Christian.

    3. You will usually be freer to discuss your atheism with people around you, perhaps helping them and being helped in the process.

    [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwTr_CRw3GY[/youtube]

    If you identify publicly as an atheist, you can help other atheists more easily and conveniently.  Also, although you don’t have to be angry at Christianity (or the religious tradition you’re leaving), if you are (and I think, as an atheist angry at Christianity’s lies myself, you have every reason to be), it helps to have a productive outlet for that anger, and having a productive outlet for that anger is easier when privacy is less of a concern.  You can use its motivation to helps not just yourself, but others — atheists and religious people — who are struggling with doubts, need someone else who understands, and/or are simply interested in another person’s perspective.  You’ll also be contributing to the effort to take away the negative stigma of atheism — the more atheists religious people know and see, the more less defensible caricatures of us can become.  Finally, as an atheist you may find yourself on a journey of exploring many questions — atheism is a step in gaining knowledge, not a final destination.  You still have to make political, moral, psychological, and social decisions.  Coming out as an atheist can further free you to explore and discuss secular theories that may help you make informed decisions on these aspects of life.

    In Closing

    Of course, ultimately it’s up to you and your particular situation.  But those are a few tips I wish someone had given me in the beginning.  I talk very strongly against religion, encouraging people to leave (as I think they should), but when the rubber meets the road and you’re considering action, it helps to have an honest, sober view of what may be coming — it certainly would have helped me, and so I’m passing it on to you.

    Hopefully that helps, and feel free to comment below if you have questions, additional advice, or need/can provide additional resources.

    P.S. I have a Patreon, if you want to help me do what I do.

     

  • The Recent Presbyterian Embrace Of Same-Sex Marriage Reminds Me Why I Left Christianity

    So…it finally happened.

    Late Tuesday night, the main Presbyterian Church of the United States said that same-sex marriage was OK.

    I’m glad that same-sex couples can marry in the church and that their relationship is given more respect.  Respect for same-sex couples is necessary in all areas of American life.  But, mostly, I’m pissed off.

    For years, we were to think that God disapproved of same-sex marriage.  Many LGBTQ individuals were left out in the cold by the church.  But this vote shows, in the largest Presbyterian group in the nation, that this is something that this church says can be voted on.  It wasn’t a command from God.  It was something people could disapprove of and then approve of in the changing times.

    But what about all those same-sex couples who were mistreated by the church or thought that their marriages weren’t legit?  What about all those lives?  If all that can simply be taken away by people’s opinion…then the only reason we didn’t have same-sex couples in the Presbyterian church in the United States before was because of opinion.  And people lied and said it was God.  That is fairly upsetting.

    That’s why changes like this confirm my decision to leave the church.  Because it doesn’t really have anything to do with following God — more with people’s prejudices that they reinforce with a supposed God’s morality so that individuals don’t question it.

    The flexibility of such beliefs, and the way this flexibility reveals the use of God as a cover for bigotry, makes me upset when churches discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.  For example, take yesterday evening.  An Adventist University cancelled a bake sale to benefit a homeless organization — because the homeless organization didn’t speak up against the LGBTQ “lifestyle,” as, you know, God (read: the bigots in the church hiding behind “God”) would prefer for them to.

    Fundraiser bake sales for the homeless are allowed at Andrews University – as long as the homeless aren’t LGBT kids.

    A planned bake sale had to be abruptly cancelled last week, after student members of the unofficial LGBT group, AULL4One, were told they couldn’t raise money on campus for a Chicago-based homeless organization, Project Fierce, because the western Michigan university felt the charity didn’t align with its mission.

    Their “mission” suggests they would help LGBT homeless organizations, as long as they don’t “advocate behaviors contrary to Adventist beliefs”. (Read: actual acceptance of the youth being LGBT.)

    There’s a mentality in Christendom that a rule is just God’s opinion, and that’s that.  But is that really morality, or is that just following someone’s directions without question?  Is that following God?  Or is it possible that God doesn’t exist, and is just the puppet of bigoted assholes who are interested in making sure same-sex couples feel like second-class citizens — an ability they can enforce or take back at will?

    It seems to be the latter.  A student at DePaul University, near Andrews University, encapsulated the helplessness of those who follow church leaders who exercise the tyranny of their opinions on groups of LGBTQ youth when she said:

    “Discrimination justified by Christian beliefs may be particularly harmful, as faith carries powerful weight … how do you argue with someone who believes they are doing God’s work when hurting the LGBT population?”

    You vote on it, apparently, among the leaders who seem to be in charge of God’s opinion.

    It’s upsetting.  I don’t want to take a poll from religious leaders who rely on a Bible that commanded stoning for same-sex couples to take a cue on how to live my life and form my opinion on how others should live theirs.  No thanks.

    So many people depend, in fear, on a god of humankind’s own creation for permission to love each other and to love the love they see between each other…

    As Langston Hughes put it:

    [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIIbuFCT2Nk[/youtube]

    The ivory gods,
    And the ebony gods,
    And the gods of diamond and jade,
    Sit silently on their temple shelves
    While the people 
    Are afraid.
    Yet the ivory gods,
    And the ebony gods,
    And the gods of diamond-jade,
    Are only silly puppet gods
    That the people themselves
    Have made.

    Kinda makes me relieved to be an atheist, to tell you the truth.  But it still makes me upset.  Wake up, guys.

    Don’t let worry over what a human-made “God” thinks steal the love in your heart or anyone else’s.  It’s a crime that some people are convinced they have to wait on church opinion to live the beautiful lives they so badly want to live.

     

  • Starbucks’s “Race Together” Hypocrisy: What They Should Do Instead

    I’m gonna make this one short. Starbucks has this campaign that they’re calling “Race Together.”  Basically, the idea is that the baristas will write “race together” on cups in order to spark a discussion on race that will contribute to healing the racial divide in this country.

    Terrible idea.

    Terrible, terrible, terrible idea.

    One major reason why is that many non-minority people are not conscious on issues of race.  Just the facts.  Your average barista is not going to engage in a discussion on race with the respect and sensitivity necessary to heal the divide. But the biggest reason is that, in general, white people don’t take minority experiences of racism seriously.  They will say racism is a problem, but not particular instances of it, by and large. And I’m not making this up.  Americans tend to think blacks are more racist than whites. They think racism against whites is worse than racism against blacks.  But this is clearly not the case.  Every study done in the history of the United States, that I’m aware of, shows that blacks bear the brunt of consequences from racism,  in medical careemploymentsocial environmentslaw enforcementthe education systemthe justice system, and literally every single part of US society. [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQdMgtncpoE[/youtube]

    Here’s the Washington Post:

    Two-thirds of blacks think that African Americans earn make less money than whites, a view in line with official statistics. But just 37 percent of whites believe that blacks make less money than whites, and a narrow majority think black and white’ incomes are about the same. Also, although many objective health measures suggest blacks are in worse overall health than whites, a majority of whites think blacks and whites are equally healthy.

    Here is CNN:

    Professors at the University of Chicago and MIT sent 5,000 fictitious resumes in response to 1,300 help wanted ads. Each resume listed identical qualifications except for one variation — some applicants had Anglo-sounding names such as “Brendan,” while others had black-sounding names such as “Jamal.” Applicants with Anglo-sounding names were 50% more likely to get calls for interviews than their black-sounding counterparts.

    Most of the people who didn’t call “Jamal” were probably unaware that their decision was motivated by racial bias, says Daniel L. Ames, a UCLA researcher who has studied and written about bias.

    So to say that white people in the United States are out of touch on this issue is an understatement.  Most Americans don’t know what they’re talking about when it comes to race, and this will result in a system in which black stories of racism are routinely rejected, in which white individuals can claim racism is worse against them than the facts bear out, in which the black person behind the counter who tells her heartfelt story will have her experience invalidated. The CNN article correctly points out that one-on-one talks about particular instances of racism won’t go anywhere — although many white people think they will:

    When some whites talk about racism, they think it’s only personal — what one person says or does to another. But many minorities and people who study race say racism can be impersonal, calculating, devoid of malice — such as Michael Corleone’s approach to power.

    “The first thing we must stop doing is making racism a personal thing and understand that it is a system of advantage based on race,” says Doreen E. Loury, director of the Pan African Studies program at Arcadia University, near Philadelphia.

    Exactly.  Race is systematic.  Individual instances can be explained away — and usually are by people who match anecdotes with anecdotes.  But the larger picture is clear — race bias is a major problem that disproportionately and systematically hurts blacks as opposed to whites in every segment of society we’ve measured.  And white people, according to surveys (and personal experience) usually want to deny this is the case.

    And the CNN article got it right — many white people (like Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz) think racism is only something personal, but not systemic.  But many black people who have been shut down by white people when telling their stories of racism know that individual stories don’t really go far and are a losing game.

    Especially, historically, at Starbucks.

    That’s right. What makes this more infuriating is that Starbucks itself doesn’t even take the stories of discrimination seriously.  For example:

    Starbucks agreed in April to pay a former lead network engineer in Seattle $120,000 plus a mediator’s fee to settle a lawsuit that alleges racial discrimination and retaliation “so severe that it required him to take a medical leave of absence.”

    Victor Washington of Shoreline, who is African-American and worked for Starbucks from September 2006 until May 2008, alleges in the July 2008 lawsuit that a white co-worker made racist comments to him such as repeatedly telling him to “fetch” the co-worker’s umbrella and tie his shoes for him. In the lawsuit, Washington says he complained to his supervisor and to Starbucks’ human resources department, and that they took no action, although the supervisor increased his workload and gave him undesirable assignments.

    Starbucks said in a written statement that it investigated Washington’s allegations while he worked there and found them without merit, and that it settled the case to avoid further legal costs.

    The company wrote Washington a check for $120,000, which it says in a court filing was “compensation for emotional distress and attorneys’ fees.” But Washington has not cashed it, and Starbucks last week asked the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington to enforce the settlement.

    So a black man said, “I’m being discriminated against — here’s my story.  It was so bad I had to take a medical leave of absence.”  And Starbucks said, “No, you’re weren’t.  Here’s $120,000 to get you to shut up.”  And he was like, “That’s bullshit.  I’m not cashing the check.”  And they said, “Oh yes you are.  We’re going to take you to court and enforce the settlement.”

    This is the company that wants to encourage minorities to tell their stories about racism.  Right.

    And, on top of that, the Vice President of Communications, Corey deBrowa, reiterated the hesitance to discuss racism whenhe shut down his Twitter account on Monday, after blocking several people, because he didn’t want to discuss concerns about the project with minorities. That’s right.  The Head of the Communications Department shut down a conversation on a project he was encouraging its entry-level employees to spearhead.

    Lest someone think this was some kind of technical difficulty, he came back on Twitter on Tuesday and said the following:

    Last night, around midnight, I deleted my Twitter account. I also blocked a handful of Twitter users — given the hostile nature of what I was seeing, it felt like the right thing to do. I’ve been a dedicated — some might say obsessive — Twitter user for nearly seven years and as a professional communicator, Twitter has proven to be a valuable tool for me to interact with my professional community, with media, on behalf of Starbucks, as well as “on behalf of me.”But last night I felt personally attacked in a cascade of negativity. I got overwhelmed by the volume and tenor of the discussion, and I reacted. Most of all, I was concerned about becoming a distraction from the respectful conversation around Race Together that we have been trying to create.

    However, instead of appreciating the dialogue and answering the concerns presented, he presented this as an arduous process and seems to set several controls on the discussion.  He goes on to say he wants “meaningful, civil, thoughtful, respectful open conversation ” — which is a bit of an oxymoron.  Because “open” conversation, given his and Starbucks’s track record, seems unlikely to be deemed by them as “meaningful, civil, and respectful” — those three words seem to be ways to control the conversation and preclude openness. 

    If HE is having trouble with a few Twitter followers, how the hell does he expect the baristas — who are of many different races and backgrounds — to field conversations with hundreds of customers while serving coffee?  And besides that, Starbucks certainly seems royally unqualified to train or prep its employees for, in the VP’s words, this “difficult” conversation, given their own embarrassing track record.  This is a rather extreme, disconcerting look at white male executive naiveté…I feel so sorry for the baristas.  This. Is. A. Terrible. Idea.  

    A much, much better statement would be to set stronger guidelines and fight race discrimination in aE much-publicized initiative regarding practices in the company, to make things fair and to set an example that discourages racism in other companies.  That would go much farther in combatting racism.  Because we already know, most of us minorities and sociology experts, that racism against minorities is a serious problem in this country.  Instead of pretending that this is open for conversation, let’s take steps to change the culture by getting serious about the discrimination we know exists.  Starbucks, here’s a chance to set an example of taking minority grievances seriously, instead of leaving it to us to somehow take things more seriously than you did.  We’re not just interested in talk; we want action.

  • How Pastor Creflo Dollar Manipulates A Lower-Class Community Into Giving Him Millions

    Creflo-Dollar

    The headlines were surprising.  Creflo Dollar (yes, that’s his real name), a pastor at World Changers Church International headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, actually had the nerve to ask his congregation and watchers, nationwide, of his program on the Internet, to replace his broken-down private jet with a state of the art model.  And the plane Dollar requested, the Gulfstream G650, is not just your run-of-the-mill private jet.  It’s, according to a quote on the Gulfstream website, “The biggest, fastest, most luxurious, longest range and most technologically advanced jet — by far — that Gulfstream has ever built.”  Indeed, its writeup is impressive — click here and see for yourself.

    Nor is this the only indicator of Creflo Dollar’s success in amassing wealth.  A Daily Beast article states:

    Testimonies from Dollar’s followers are hard to come by, but there’s no denying the World Changers Church International system, whereby Dollar takes and God is supposed to act like an ATM, has worked out well for Dollar.

    Besides the aging private jet, Dollar and his wife, Taffi Dollar, have two Rolls Royce’s and multiple multi-million-dollar homes (they sold one New York City apartment for $3.75 million in 2012.) Mr. Dollar wears gaudy pinstripe suits and crocodile shoes, and Mrs. Dollar has a side-career as a record label CEO and gospel singer.

    In addition, I found out that most of Creflo Dollar’s followers didn’t have much money — as the The Root stated, Dollar has an estimated net worth of $27 million—900 times more than the $29,640 average annual income in College Park, Ga., where he holds court.”  So I was thoroughly interested.  How could he get them to dig that deep into their pocketbooks?

    Now, I’m not always angry at Christianity.  Some days, I hardly think about it.  Most of the time, I’m not beet-red furious.  Frequently, although I’m fairly vocal online, in person I’m a live-and-let-live person, much of the time.  Religion isn’t my thing, and I’ll fight it on a larger level, but there is usually a part of me that says, on some level, that if religion is your thing…it may be wrong and somewhat harmful, but at least it makes you happy.  Some days I’ll go for days at time where religion hardly upsets me at all, honestly.

    My curiosity as to what kind of sermons could prompt a congregation to give that much money to their minister ended all that.  I boiled with rage halfway through.

    You don’t want to watch it.  It’s an hour long, and I’m gonna go through it to save you the trouble.  But in case you’re ever curious as to how manipulative a pastor can be, against my better judgment, here is a YouTube video of one of Creflo Dollar’s hour-long sermons:

    [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uqfug4Ue9VM[/youtube]

    The first twenty minutes are about renewing your mind, about presenting yourself as a living sacrifice, about not worrying about what the world thinks and the world’s concerns, and focusing on God, instead.  I remember being in church once and just accepting that, but as an atheist I can see that he is clearly cutting his congregation off from every world-based concern that they have.  At one point, he says that if you lose your job and are worried about money, you need to change the way you feel by changing the way you think, and you can change the way you think by talking about concentrating on God as opposed to feeling upset that you don’t have money.  And that will make you happy.  God will make you happy.

    I mean, it’s pretty darn easy to take money from somebody if you can convince them not to worry about their money.  It’s pretty easy to convince someone to dedicate their time to you if you can convince them that it’s noble to sacrifice their time.  It’s pretty easy to convince a congregation not to be suspicious of your motives if you can convince them that your focus, and all that you do, comes from the same Word of God they should be listening to, and they should not be concerned about “worldly” suspicions or concerns.

    Basically, Creflo Dollar, with subtle skill, manages to cut off the congregation from every single connection they would have to an awareness of life outside of the web of lies he is weaving with Bible verses like, Romans 12:1, which says to present your bodies to God (a God defined by Creflo Dollar) as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to said God.  Every concern about doing this, every worry, every practical suspicion, is cut off.  It’s truly disturbing, those first 15 minutes.

    Then, he talks about death.  And he focused on how he was able to make people happy about death — which isn’t surprising, because it became obvious that Dollar has the ability to use a definition of God that cuts people off from being concerned about day-to-day affairs.  So he could use it to cut people off from their grief, and give them a more beautiful picture.  One in which, he said, they would see their loved ones.  He describes the picture to his congregation in invigorating detail.  I mean, I don’t believe any of it, and thought it was beautiful.  And with the tunnel vision that took out the world’s concerns strategically in the first 20 minutes, the congregation is taking it in.  They’re laughing.  They’re excited, too.

    And honestly, man…I dunno.  If that was all it was — made these people happy — I wouldn’t have as much of a problem with it.  But by making those people happy, and doing it by cutting them off from “worldly” concerns that might make people doubt what he was saying and what he was telling them to do, he was able to control the picture that made these people happy, bending it at will.  And so, after discussing heaven, he introduced the concept that demons also existed.  People said, “Amen” in response, like this was an accepted truth.  Demons were the consequence — what happened in the innermost parts of your soul — that were looking for an opportunity to come into you and fill you with their grim influence.  They were trying to snatch you away from the world Creflo Dollar created, trying to take you to a dark, eternal hell.  And when he mentioned it, you could almost feel the grim fingers, if you gave in, begin to take hold of your soul.

    This is all the more infuriating knowing that Creflo Dollar doesn’t really believe this.  He doesn’t.  Or why would he ask them for a state-of-the-art jet?  He says he is trusting God, but that’s a lie.  He’s trusting his ability to manipulate people, and it’s working.

    And then, he talks about hell.  He describes it in a pastor’s voice, but it’s a chilling picture — of seeing angels and demons, and wanting to be with God, but the demons pulling you back, because you listened to other people, like doubters and “liberals.”  It’s truly frightening.

    And then he says, around 34:27, Dollar says that God will tell people who are going to hell, “It ain’t my fault.  Every time you saw Creflo Dollar you changed the channel cause they said he was a crook.”

    This is combined with a constant emphasis on the present moment.  It’s obvious that Creflo Dollar is using a skillful stranglehold on his congregation’s fears of hell to prompt action in the here and now.  “Then, you won’t be able to make a choice,” he emphasizes.  “In the here and now you can make a choice, but then you can’t make a choice.”

    Then he goes on:

    And so now, all of a sudden, you’re in this place called hell.  This place you didn’t think existed.  You’re seeing creatures you’ve never seen before. You’re suffering pain that you’ve never suffered before. Huh.  Now you realize that all your life, you were deceived….And all of a sudden it will be revealed.  Satan and his demons will laugh at you and say, “We fooled you, fool. You belong to us. And for not using your body correctly, and not making the right decisions, we will torment you…we’ll torment you for eternity.  You will never cease to feel the pain that will come.  It will be eternal pain forever.” [Sighs] And you have the chance to do it now.  Intoxicated thinking got you there.  Some intelligent guy who’s been to school, who’s got degrees, he’s too intelligent to believe this.  But [that] fool will burn in hell with all of his intelligence, as he finally comes to the place of understanding how dumb he was.  His thinking was intoxicated. He was drunk all his life, and thought he was sober.

    I don’t know whether to strangle him or cry about what he’s doing to all these people.

    But that’s what you say to get 200,000 people who can’t afford it to buy you a state of the art private jet. You rip their hearts out of their chests and their minds out of their skulls out and hold them in your hands and call it God, and if they don’t follow God, you make sure God makes it hurt.

    And then, as if that’s not enough to seal the deal, he starts complimenting people like himself who “save” people from hell, to the applause of the audience.  He begins to exalt them, bringing them closer to God’s status, and talking about the importance of ministry, before he comes back to a discussion of thinking that is extremely insistent (at about 45:00):

    “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind” [quote of Romans 12:2]. If you don’t change the way you think, you won’t change the way you live. If you keep and hold on to that same way of thinking, you will hold on to that same way of living.  THE ONLY WAY TO CHANGE IS TO CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK — HEAR ME, CHURCH! THAT’S IT! I DON’T CARE WHERE YOU’RE GOING, I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU DO, IF YOU DON’T CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK TO THE RIGHT WAY OF THINKING, YOU ARE GOING TO BE THE SAME FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!!! And then, as a result of it, die, and get the harvest of your wrong thinking [hushes to a whisper] for eternity.

    He then talks about the way that changing your thinking can change your life, and says that a man who does not expose his mind to the Word of God cannot change his life.

    Many people seem to argue that the people who would fund Creflo Dollar’s jet are stupid.  But it’s not that simple, guys.  These people are scared.  Who knows — Creflo Dollar might be afraid himself (though I think it’s more likely that he’s being manipulative). There is a very strategic pattern here used to control people that is extremely effective — it’s not as simple as them being gullible.  They have been insulated thoroughly by a very skilled manipulator into believing something that’s not true.  I think there’s some compassion for these people to be had, in addition to anger at the message they are taught.

    Although my stomach churns at the thought that there are millions of Creflo Dollars in the world today, and makes me want to fight harder to expose them

     

  • In Response To “Stop Breaking Up The Atheist Community With Social Justice Rants”: A Rant

    [polldaddy poll=”8727986″]

    I’m passionate about several “social justice” issues, and, to be dead honest, a lot of the reason why is that I’m black and know a bit about what it’s like to be marginalized, which has shown me some of the importance of fighting against marginalization of other groups.  (I know that there’s a good chance that, if you’re white and living in the United States, you totally think that marginalization of white people is a bigger deal. If so, you’re wrong — see video below.)

    [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQdMgtncpoE[/youtube]

    Racism is serious.  Some people seem to think that a concentration on social justice issues like racism seem to be a selfish distraction from atheism, proper.  In response — yeah, if that’s the case, I’m a selfish asshole who wants to make bloody sure that he and others who look like him are not treated unfairly in culture in medical care, employment, social environments, law enforcement, the education systemthe justice system, and literally every single goddamn part of US society.

    Or maybe I’m not a selfish asshole for wanting that.  Maybe those who deny these things are problems and play-act at reasonable atheists need to go take a page out of their own book and do some goddamn honest research.

    Did that sound bitter?  Sorry, not sorry.

    I’ve found a need to address this issue because, without naming specific names, I have had several run ins with people who are members of the atheist movement who, in some way or another, don’t really think racism is a serious problem or think that those fighting for civil rights are making a bunch of a fuss about nothing.  Off the top of my head (again, for various reasons, I don’t want to name names here) I can think of four atheists who are pretty influential in the “atheist community” that I’ve had strong disagreements with — individuals who are brilliant when it comes to discussing whether or not God exists, but seem to have a jaw-dropping, insistent ignorant arrogance when it comes to how racism works.

    Now, I understand (and you probably should, too) that when you’re in a privileged position, you want to keep it.  You don’t notice when it’s there, as much, just as you may not really think about the fact that you have a constant million dollars if your bank account is consistently stocked with that money.  But the moment things become just a tad more equal — just like the moment the bank account suddenly has $950,000 because $50,000 went to help the guy only making $20,000 a year — you notice.  And if you depend on that privilege to live your life the way you’re used to living it (or that $50,000 to make your mortgage while maintaining your current lifestyle) you can get pissed when the amount of it decreases, even when there are vast disparities. When you’re in a privileged position, you want to protect privilege.  When you’re not privileged, it’s much easier for you to see oppression in your own situation and in others’ situations as well.

    Which is why it is no surprise to me that the four prominent atheists I’ve tussled with on race issues have happened to be white males — and thus embody the definition of the most privileged group in America.

    Now, in spite of all the studies I hyperlinked, I know from experience that there are a ton of people (it’s truly unnerving how often they happen to be white American males — seriously)  who will say this is much ado about nothing and I should shut up and recognize that racism against white people is a bigger problem.

    Look, you are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.  You can hate the fact that I’m telling you this.  You can assume I’m just another ranting, raving SJW (although I don’t like the term, people are likely to ascribe it to me).  Fine.  Pile on the abuse, think of me what you like, rant and rave.  But you know what?

    I’m still right.

    And it’s an upsetting thing to be right about.  I mean, I’m pretty passionate about this — which makes sense, when in every single goddamn arena in which prejudice can exist systematically against me, it exists.  And not just against me, but against others I care about — like my mom and dad and sisters and friends.  This is not just a cute little argument that I have on the Internet.  I only got 75 years on this planet and I count every precious second as more valuable than words can express, and I’ll be damned if I spend it accepting the fact that myself and others I care about are second class citizens — no, fuck that shit.

    And I daresay that if you were in the same position, you’d probably say the same. exact. thing.  Not everyone; there are still about 12 percent of black people who will say racism isn’t really a thing, according to the latest pew poll.  And it’s tempting to say that, because when you do, a lot of white people LOVE you for it (when I hinted that I was upset with a well-known SJW in a prior blog post in a different location, that post quickly became one of my most popular due to people thinking they finally found a black person on “their” side — the fringe benefits are so enormous I’m surprised more black people don’t sell out and cater to the “no such thing as racism” line). But a full 88% percent will look at you and like at you in awe if you say it’s not a thing, because we live it every goddamn day.

    african-american-discrimination

    So I try to speak up for other marginalized groups, too.  Not because I’m trying to be a politically correct SJW, but because I know what it’s like, a little bit, to fail to be seen as the equal human being you are, because you’re marginalized, and to have so few recognize that marginalization.  I know it’s hard as hell.  So I try to help.  And it sure isn’t a mere attempt to be politically correct in order to be popular when it comes to race.  Hell, if I wanted to be popular I’d go insist that racism is totally not a thing.  But I’m interested in being right and making a better life for the most sidelined and marginalized in my culture, first and foremost.

    What that means is that I don’t give a goddamn shit about whether or not my speaking up in defense of marginalized groups “divides the atheist community.”  A lot of atheists insist that I shouldn’t talk about it, because it’s not part of atheism proper, and it divides atheism.  Almost every time I get into an argument about racism or other instances of marginalization, someone is bound to say, “Man, we’re all atheists.  Just roll with it; stop breaking it up.”

    I like that you’re an atheist; I do.  But I’m about a hell of a lot more than atheism, and if you can’t handle that, I have no interest in trying to maintain the role you have crafted for me in your atheist community.  None.

    Really.  Atheism is important to me.  But it doesn’t hold a candle to my concern over whether myself or those I care about will be discriminated against, and that’s the truth.

    So I’ll talk about it.  And I don’t see myself as part of a movement to “divide” atheism because I’m speaking my mind and defending people I care about.  If we have to go off and make a separate group of people atheists where we actually take these interests seriously, that’s a commentary on other atheists, not us.  Because when we talk about marginalization in the United States, we’re not just being emotional or just trying to protect our egos.  Whatever else we are, we’re usually actually right, and racist or sexist views that disagree with us are actually wrong.

    Then there’s the, “But I had a hard life because of XYZ, so why are you making a big deal about social justice when I’m not.”  Because I actually take my life seriously and the lives of other people seriously, that’s why.  I don’t care so much about the idea of atheism that I don’t have enough room to concentrate on other people who are being treated unjustly to be treated justly.  In fact, if I were forced to choose between concentrating on atheism and concentrating on social justice, I’d choose social justice in a heartbeat.

    And if you’re one of those who say, “Yeah, it’s important, but keep it separate from atheism” — I ask you — why the heck should we?  Because nobody I’ve heard voice that sentiment has said anything like that about biology, cosmology, or separation of church and state.  This is yet another issue that is based in logic and reasoning.  Why the others, and not this?  That was rhetorical.

    And on top of this — when I get in a tussle over race, 9/10 it is the OTHER PERSON who opens the conversation with a publicly expressed racist view.  They aren’t being divisive when they voice a view that perpetuates racism, but somehow I’m being divisive when I correct the inaccurate perception?

    And you look at religious people as having seriously messed up logic?  If you’re going to walk by sight, not by faith, put your thinking caps on, people.

    Goddamn.