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Oppressed Christians
by Noah Lugeons
I go to church once every two years. That’s a painful admission to make, so don’t go telling anyone.
We swap out years, visiting my wife’s family one Christmas and my family the next. On my wife’s family’s years I’m spared the ordeal, but when I visit my family it’s either spend the whole week arguing about invisible space zombies or just go to fucking church. My dad will be in the play, my cousin will play in the band, my nephews will be forced to embarrass themselves in little blue suits while they stumble through some idiotic praise to Santa Christ.
It’s one of those “95% pseudo-tainment, 5% sermon” kind of churches so it’s not as bad as it could be. The morning’s service lasts about 81 hours, but only about 4 hours of it pisses me off to the point where I feel I should be allowed a rebuttal. I sit there and suffer quietly, leafing through the bible and sketching little flip books where Jesus fights ninjas (it’s their bible, so I always let Jesus win).
I never close my eyes when they ask me to pray. This isn’t some little silent protest. It’s not like I’m crossing my fingers as I say amen or anything, but I can’t imagine closing my eyes for an extended period during a church service and trusting myself to wake back up later.
Afterwards, I rode back to my parent’s house with my dad and my wife and half-listened to my dad’s plea that I give up on the whole rational thinking thing and get involved with a church. I managed the obligatory shrugs and non-committal noises, but I spent the ride pondering the echoing voice of my dad’s pastor.
The parting message from the sermon was stuck in my craw. After three hours of the least spiritual inanity one could possibly schedule under the pretense of a church service, we’re treated to a 20 minute lecture about how Christians need to stand up to the secular world. It was a tirade about how religious people shouldn’t let the government encroach upon their rights. The pastor manages to get there after starting off with a waitress wearing a button that says “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” or “Fuck the Jews”.
As my dear old dad rambled on about how “not that bad” the service was, I found myself reflecting on that peculiar notion that Christians have in which oppression equals having the same rights as everyone else. I wonder sometimes if part of the initiation to be a Christian is being able to pretend you’re being oppressed with a straight face. The group that counts amongst its ranks every president ever elected, the vast majority of every elected body in this country and the heads of the majority of influential businesses in the country says it’s being oppressed and people cover it on the news without then laughing until they cry.
So what is this “Christian oppression” of which they speak? I’ll start where the preacher man started.
Christians are being oppressed when businesses ask their employees to say “happy holidays” instead of “merry Christmas”. This basic attempt to recognize that an enormous number of people in this country don’t celebrate the same religious holidays as them is seen as a slight against their basic rights. They have the right to impose their beliefs on you.
Christians are being oppressed when their religious beliefs aren’t plastered all over public property. The 10 Commandments should go on every courthouse wall (all 4 in each room) and they can say that without the slightest hint of irony. They can also explain why the tenets of Sharia Law should not be equally displayed. It’s not enough that they have their goddamned holy book profaning the court proceedings to begin with, they also reserve the right to impose their prehistoric top ten list of ethics on everyone else.
Christians are being oppressed when they aren’t permitted to lead classrooms in prayer. It’s not enough that no municipality in the country bans praying, they also have the right to force you or your children to sit through it as well. They have the right to impose their mythological praise on the world.
Christians are also being oppressed if any other group should be given any right like the ones they demand for themselves. If you want to put atheist messages in places that are actually reserved for private displays, you are violating their rights. They have the right to impose silence on every competing viewpoint.
Everything short of total Christian hegemony and immunity from all the laws that other groups have to follow is a violation of their Christian rights.
I have a solution to this, but I fear it might be extreme. Perhaps we should hold a lottery and randomly feed a few of these spittle spewing pastors to lions. We could stick the videos up on You-Tube and stick in a tagline like “Christians be warned”. I’ll admit that it might be overkill, but it seems like the easiest way to remind them what the word “oppression” means.
Sunday School #3
by Noah Lugeons
Better late than never on this. While I suppose it’s technically Monday School at this point, I thought I’d share a quickie with you. No real point except a laugh. I wonder, if I learn to type with a British accent, will everything I say be funnier?
Gay Christians Ask the Pope to be Christian
by Noah Lugeons
Before you ask, no, homosexual Christian is not an oxymoron. While the percentage of gays that are Christian are somewhat lower than the general population, it only correlates to about an 8% drop. That is a far smaller correlation than we find with age or political affiliation. It seems vexing to an atheist that one would voluntarily belong to a group that believes they themselves are evil, but there are enough liberal churches around and the promise of eternal paradise is too strong for the overwhelming bigotry to outweigh the decades of indoctrination.
In the wake of the Catholic Church’s increasingly central role in worldwide homophobia, the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM) is pressuring the Pope to publicly denounce this increasingly rampant bigotry. They’ve endorsed an open letter that simply asks the Pope to stop pressuring gays into “reparative” therapy and to respect the human rights and basic dignity of same-sex couples.
Before we move on to what a heartless jackass Benedict will eventually be when he decides to complete ignore this letter, let’s take a minute to reflect on the stakes here. In the US, this kind of thing manifests itself when, for example, the Catholic Churches in Illinois threaten to shut down their orphanages rather than abide by a law that would give equal rights to gay couples. But in places like Africa it manifests in laws that would make being gay a crime, punishable by death.
Could a few words from the Pope bring all of this to a screeching halt? Of course not. Would a strong Christian voice calling for gays to be treated equally and fairly be a powerful message? Would it reach the right ears? Would it make a difference? Of course it would.
One of the chief problems with empowering religious institutions is the fact that they’re slow to move. The Catholic Church is struggling to catch up with the 18th century at this point so it’s hard to imagine that they’ll adopt any of these new-fangled “modern views” about equal rights and eclectic human dignity. They’re quick to forgive their own priests for torturing and raping children of both genders, but a simple word condemning executing gays is probably too much to ask for.
The failure of the Christian community to rise up with a powerful voice that condemns the worst elements among it is the primary reason why I feel that the world needs atheist activists. We need to be there to say what they won’t. We need to be their to criticize those voices that the religious community holds above criticism. We need to embrace the handle of “anti-Christ” and wear it as a badge of courage. Given what Christ represents in the modern world (homophobia, intrusive policies, inhibition of scientific progress, historical revisionism, massive ignorance and misogyny), I’m happy to be as far on the other side of the spectrum as I can get.
Should Buddhism Get a Pass?
by Noah Lugeons
I’ve never been one for ranking the relative inanity of religions. Some will point to the beliefs of the Mormons or the Scientologists with a mocking finger, but neglect to point the same finger at the myriad of other equally untenable religious systems that surround them. But is magic underwear really any more ridiculous than transubstantiation? Are engrams any sillier than original sin?
I’ve always been of the mind that any belief that is presented without evidence is equally invalid. Whether it is a belief steeped in millenia old traditions or the improvised ramblings of a street-prophet, neither brand of nonsense is any more or less deserving of my scorn.
In many ways, this is the crux of the gnu atheist vs. accomodationist debate. Where the accomodationist is focused on the impact religion has on society, the gnu atheist is more often motivated by idealism; the simple notion that lies should be called lies. While I certainly count myself in the unapologetic ranks, I make no value judgement on either approach. In truth, the two groups need one another. The uncompromising position of the gnu atheist would be all but useless were it not tempered by the accomodationist and the position of the accomodationist would be all but impotent without the vitriol of the gnus.
So like it or not, the accomodationists are stuck with us and we with them. The only way to move forward is to work our varied approaches toward the same goal. Two groups hunting the same prey will hinder one another, but two groups herding the same prey can be a benefit to all. The latter tactic doesn’t even take much coordination. We need only agree on the prey and the goal and then we can work in as contradictory of manners as we choose and still get the job done.
By and large, we all agree on both subjects. The prey is gullibility and untruth and the goal is a more secular and less superstitious society. And thus we work in chaotic tandem, each arm of the atheist movement herding the gullible closer and closer to the promised land. Sure, we occasionally question each other’s methods. The accomodationists have their carrots and we our sticks but ultimately we both keep the flock moving the right way.
It’s an uneasy but productive marriage as is evidenced by the swelling popularity of atheist conferences, blogs, meet-ups and books. But that’s not to say things don’t go wrong. When you define a problem as broadly as “gullibility”, there will be some questions. There will be a few animals in the flock that may or may not be sheep. And there will invariably be some disagreement from the shepherds about what does and does not constitute prey.
The most common example in my mind is Buddhism. Most atheists direct their vigor toward Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Hinduism but very often Buddhism and many of the new age psuedo-eastern faiths of the west get a “get out of reason free” card from the community of nonbelievers.
In a sense, it’s easy for me to see why. Buddhism very rarely presents the type of threat to secular society that the Judaic faiths do. We are far less often confronted by militant Buddhism and don’t see many Buddhist terrorists on the news each night. We aren’t harassed by Buddhists in shopping center parking lots or in front of movie theaters and we rarely hear about Buddhists trying to dumb down public education.
What’s more, the dogma of Buddhism, at least as much as is known by the average Western atheist, does not conflict with our secular ideals in the way that Christianity or Islam does. The focus on deeds and nonviolence is hard to fault and that is as familiar as most people in this country get with the religion.
But is it true?
Buddhism still fails my litmus test of acceptability: It is bullshit. It doesn’t matter much to me that it is bullshit of a more benign smell, bullshit is still bullshit. It would be intellectually dishonest for me to say that I can overlook this one form of lying to the masses because it does less harm than this other set of lies. Reincarnation and karma are basic tenants of Buddhism that stretch back the Buddha himself. They are no more or less observable or evident than heaven, hell or god caring about your foreskin.
Neither are they harmless. The 2006 documentary “Blindsight” highlights some of the horrible abuses and mistreatment of blind children in Tibet. Because of the rural belief in karma, most people assume that children born blind are paying a karmic debt for some horrible deed in a previous life. This attitude that the disabled deserve their disability can attenuate one’s natural compassion to such a degree that many of these children spend their lives chained to beds.
The notion of reincarnation is no less harmful. Like the crippling effects of the notions of eternal bliss, believing that one will be given another (or even infinite other) chances to get it right could easily dampen the desire to get it right this time around. Is it fair to lie to somebody about something that important?
We also largely make the mistake of assuming that Buddhism is not prone to the types of abuse that other religions are. We forget that Buddhist monasteries have had abuse scandals just like the Vatican. We forget that Buddhism has been used to justify acts of violence just like Islam. We forget that Buddhism is every bit as sexist as all the other major world religions.
So in what way is Buddhism less harmful than the other faiths? We can no more judge Buddhism by the teachings of Buddha than we can judge Christianity by the teachings of Christ. Following the words of either man would lead one to an ethical and selfless life. But we’re not talking about philosophy, we’re talking about religion. As soon as a philosophy becomes applied, it turns into a dogmatic faith. It grows institutions of power, it empowers some human beings over others, it insulates a lie.
All that being said, I will still spend remarkably little of my time on this blog trashing Buddhism. But make no mistake, my enemy is religion and no religion is safe from my scathing ire. I will largely leave Buddhism alone because it largely leaves me alone, but that is not an endorsement. It’s a necessary byproduct of prioritizing.
Rebecca Kiessling: “Abortion is worse than rape!”
by Noah Lugeons
Alright, so she didn’t say it exactly like that.
I wrote about this abortio-fascist the other day and apparently I wasn’t the only one who was shocked and offended by her “conceived in rape” tour in Mississippi. It would seem that MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow also took her to task over her brazenly insensitive call for the propagation of genetic material from rapists.
Well, now Kiessling has responded with the same type of meaningless but heartfelt non sequiturs that she smears over the homepage of her website. In her recent rebuttal of Maddow’s “attack”, she excoriates the liberal pundit for referring to her as “the rapist’s child”. This statement, while factually correct, is painted as an intentional insult at Kiessling’s heritage (by Kiessling, mind you, not by Maddow).
It should strike no one as odd that Kiessling was able to traverse the logical gymnastics required to take that as an insult. Keep in mind that this is a person who says on her own website that people who favor woman having access to abortion are, for all intents and purposes, saying that they wish she was dead.
So this despicable abortion-that-should-have-been says in her response (without the slightest hint of irony or at least a winking emoticon):
[A]fter everything they’ve been through, Maddow has the audacity to refer to the rape victim’s child as being “the rapist’s child”?! The ones who abort are four times more likely to die within the next year*. If you truly have compassion for a rape victim, you’d want to protect her from the abortion and not the baby! A baby is not the worst thing that could ever happen to a rape victim — an abortion is.
*source: Rebecca Kiessling’s ass.
Okay, Rebecca, once for the record:
“You personally haven’t been through anything.”
That’s right. Take a second to let that one soak in. The fact that you’re able to make a career out of glorifying your mother’s tragedy doesn’t entitle you to any second-hand empathy. You have no pre-zygotic memories of your mother’s trauma. You did not suffer. Your mother did. Your mother was hamstrung by nosey fucktards like yourself that thought they knew better what your mother could do with her body than she did. She was raped once by your father (and yes, regardless of your interrobang, you are the “rapist’s child”) and then again by an uncaring, unsympathetic, male dominated legal system.
So, for the record, the worst thing that happens to a rape victim is not an abortion and it’s not a baby. It is being raped, you callous bitch.
Episode 2 Is Now Available!
by Noah Lugeons
We just finished polishing up the second episode of the Scathing Atheist weekly podcast. Just make sure that if you listen to it with the kids that you keep your hands close to their ears… or be ready to answer questions like “What’s a taint?”
(Note: Starting next week, every new episode will be available for download at iTunes and all the other reputable podcast portals)
Michele Bachmann for President: More Bad Ideas From God
by Noah Lugeons
In my anti-religious cynicism, I usually just assume that when people say that they feel “called by God” to do something they’re just trying to push their own crappy decision-making abilities off on someone else. Decision turns into a disaster? Doesn’t matter. It was god’s decision, not mine. I was just the vessel through which god enacted his crappy decision.
But perhaps I’m just too jaded about faith. Perhaps there really is a feeling that we atheists are unfamiliar with that could only be described as being “called by God”. Perhaps there is some unmistakable non-verbal message that only faithful people feel and generally only during relatively momentous moments and we atheists simply can’t detect it through our filter of wry, pessimistic skepticism.
So let me try to brush aside my preconceived notions and examine one of these stories with my best approximation of the eyes of the believer. Michele Bachmann says she and her husband prayed heavily on her decision to mount a losing campaign for the Republican nomination for president. In the end, she felt “called by God” to run. That was god, channeling his decision through a crazy person in Minnesota, which is apparently a pretty common occurrence.
Anyway, I’m going to fight the temptation to dismiss this claim outright and ask myself why god would want her to do such a thing.
I first have to remind myself of the two cardinal rules of examining god’s analytical process. First, of course, is that god works in mysterious ways and second and only slightly less well-known is that I am far too inferior to comprehend the vast totality of His grand plan. Unless, of course, he wanted me to win and I did, in which case I know exactly what he was getting at and I thank him for his help.
Before I continue into my exploration of the mind of an imaginary Jewish deity, I should take a second to note that this is not a political blog and thus I won’t be attacking any of the wackier conservative ideas of Bachmann’s. I’m sure there are plenty of blogs doing that and they are probably available from both liberal and conservative bloggers. She’s enough of a lunatic that the people in her own party generally hate her more than those in the opposing party.
But she also earns her way into the atheist blogosphere by taking some pretty extreme views on religion and its role in government. She vehemently supports the dumbing down of American education, she considers homosexuality to be a sexual dysfunction and she believes that the jury is still out on evolution. Oh yeah, she’s also one of those “Left Behind” wackos. What’s more, she’s a complete idiot that says stuff like:
”[Pelosi] is committed to her global warming fanaticism to the point where she has said she has even said she is trying to save the planet. We all know that someone did that 2,000 years ago.”
So if god is all-knowing, he already knows she’s too bat-shit crazy to win the nomination. Plus, it’s looking more and more like the Republicans might have overbooked the crazy-tea-party-lady portion of their field this year. So god must have been setting her up for failure. Perhaps he has some grand scheme that will require humbling her a bit. Who am I to judge his great work?
Of course, if I had to lay my money down on it (and believed for the merest fraction of a second that there was such a thing as this god-person), I would say that god is just punishing her for making his religion look stupid.
So the way I do the math, either god does exist and has a really shitty track record as far as decision-making goes (just look at slugs) or he doesn’t exist. I’d say either way he isn’t worth worshipping. And even if he’s worth that much to you, I wouldn’t listen when he starts “calling”…
Catholic Hospital Cracks Down on Contraception Advice
by Noah Lugeons
I wish I had more trouble digging up stories like this. I’d much rather live in a world where it took me hours rather than minutes to find topical examples of the despicable overreach of religious institutions. I’d be happy if some days I said to myself, “well, nothing to blog about today… looks like those people of faith are keeping to themselves and failing to grossly exaggerate their place in society.”
But alas, we live in this world. We live in a world where thousands of atheist bloggers can still find new shit to write about everyday. We live in a world where a Catholic hospital will forbid its doctors from giving advice on contraception, even if the alternative is potentially horrible birth defects.
This story comes to us from jolly old England where Newcastle’s Calvary Mater Hospital has barred doctors from advising participants in a drug trial to use contraception while taking the experimental pharmaceutical. The drug in question is a cancer treatment that is chemically similar to thalidomide, and thus carries with it an enormous risk of birth defects if a pregnancy should develop while taking it.
Because of the extraordinary risk, the makers of this drug require 2 negative pregnancy tests before accepting any women for the trial and recommend that no fewer than two types of contraceptives be used throughout the regiment. Given the horrible malformations associated with thalidomide, it seems a sensible and necessary precaution.
Unless you’re a devout Catholic of course. Why, those women should just not have sex and try to avoid immaculate conception. They don’t need contraceptives for that. Condoms are the devils work. Apparently increasing the potential for children with limb and heart deformities is the Catholic Church’s work.
To be fair, the hospitals dogmatic overlords aren’t forbidding doctors from explaining the risks involved. They are allowed to tell them that it would be horribly, horribly bad if they got pregnant while taking this drug. The doctors just can’t go on to recommend that they use contraceptives if they have intercourse. Afterall, if the heathen patients are the contraceptive taking type, they already know about them. No need to affirm their existence in a Catholic hospital.
Doctors are understandably outraged by this decision. While it might seem reasonable to some to omit the specific recommendation for contraceptives, using a single form of contraception may not be enough. There is a high enough failure rate with any type of birth control that a redundancy is required to reach a reasonable amount of insurance against pregnancy. This is not something that the average patient will know and thus it is vital that the doctors are allowed to fully disclose both the risk and the recommended action.
The doctors further point out that the patient can still chooses not to use contraceptives and opts, for religious reasons, for abstinence. They are not insisting that these people have protected sex, they are just seeking to give their patients all the information. But for the dark overseers of this hospital, it is not enough to simply be Catholic, you must impose your Catholicism on everyone else, as well.
Straight from the horses mouth, Ingrid Grenell, a spokesperson for the hospital says, “‘It is widely known that Calvary Mater Newcastle is a Catholic hospital and all of its activities are underpinned by Catholic ethos and principles.” In other words, you shouldn’t come here if you’re expecting your health to come before our mythology.
My solution, of course, would be to tell the child-rapist-apologists to fuck off, but barring that, I’d like to propose a law. I would require any religious hospital that would allow its dogma to come before the safety of its patients to have a giant sign out front that simply read, “Second, do no harm…”
What is an Agnostic?
by Noah Lugeons
First, let me get the easy part out of the way. The dictionary definition of the word “agnostic” goes like this:
A person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena; a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God.
But when you try to pin the meaning down by observing the actions of those who call themselves agnostics, you arrive at a less flattering and more cynical definition:
A person who recognizes the inherent vapidity in the concept of revealed religion but lacks the conviction to assert such a belief.
I was recently sent a graphic that sought to dispel the misconceptions about the meaning of “agnostic” and in so doing managed to further muddy the waters with a definition that lacks internal logic. The first image shows the common “misconception” about agnostics. It presents a line of belief with theist on one side and atheist on the other and a space in the middle that is marked “agnostic”. This chart seemed acceptable to me, but for the words “Not This” branded below it.
That intrigued me, as I see little way to deny the utility of such a chart, so I continued. The second image showed a Venn diagram with atheist and theist overlapping and “agnostic” in the common field. This also included a “Not This” disclaimer, which I was happy to see. My first reaction to the chart was that it represented more of a misunderstanding of Venn diagrams than agnosticism.
And finally, the third graphic, the one that earned the artist’s seal of approval, showed four boxes in a grid. The upper left read “gnostic atheist”. Below that was “gnostic theist”. To the right of these boxes “agnostic atheist” and “agnostic theist” were stacked one on top of the other. And this was supposed to be the graphic that made sense.
The whole point of the exercise was to assert that agnostics are not the “undecided middle”, but rather a method of examining thoughts on metaphysics. They attempt to create a dichotomy that has the gnostic believers as certain of their beliefs and agnostics leaning one way or the other while conceding that nothing can truly be known about the nature of the metaphysical.
This is not a new concept. Many self-professed agnostics would agree whole-heartedly with this description. But those of us in their “gnostic atheist” category would beg to differ.
Let me start with the easy part. Obviously, no statement but a tautology can assert something with absolute certainty. At best, we’re leaving off the “all the evidence I have at hand leads me to believe…” whenever you make a statement for the sake of brevity. When I say that my favorite show is about to come on, I’m simply saving myself the trouble of saying “assuming that it hasn’t been preempted by an unforeseen news story and that the TV works correctly and that the cable isn’t out and that no unpredictable variable intercedes and renders it otherwise, my favorite TV show is about to come on.”
If one wished, one could claim that they were agnostic about my favorite show coming on. They could point to chaos theory and point out that nothing can truly be known about my favorite show and that at best we can only whittle down the likelihood that it will fail to come on to an infinitesimal fraction and move on accordingly under the assumption that it will come on. You could do that, but you would only do so if you were a douche.
The same is obviously true of the division of “agnostic atheist” and “gnostic atheist”. There are no “gnostic” atheists if that term implies that no amount of new evidence could convince that person that they were mistaken in their beliefs. I’m atheistic enough that if god appeared before me and jumped my ass for not capitalizing his name, I would assume first that I was delusional, but given a long enough stream of corroborating evidence, I would eventually begrudgingly cede the argument and accept the existence of god.
But that is a damn long way from being “agnostic” about the deal. I agree with the definition that Webster provides. I agree that nothing definitive can ever be known about the nature or existence (or lack of nature or non-existence) of god. I would, of course, make the same concession if pressed on the question of invisible fairies that remind the flowers to open every morning. I can never know anything at all about their nature and I can never prove with absolute certainty that they do not exist. In a technical, english-majory kind of way, I’m agnostic about fairies and I’m agnostic about god.
So strike one against the “agnostic atheist” is that it’s ultimately a meaningless term unless you actually are 100% on the fence about the issue. When someone claims to be an “agnostic atheist”, they are creating a straw man of the rest of the atheist movement, painting us as though our beliefs are received on the same faith-based level as those of the theist.
Another strike against it is the simple lack of internal logic. If by agnostic one means that nothing can be known about the nature or existence of god, an afterlife or a universal spirit, it is quite meaningless to use it as a modifier for atheist or theist. If nothing can be known for certain then no evidence can exist on either side of the argument and thus no preference can be reached except by relying on information known to be insufficient to draw a conclusion. To then stake your agnostic flag on one side or the other of the issue is an admission that at least something can be known about the issue, as you have clearly been influenced by one data set or the other.
But the final nail in the coffin of this fictional division is the fact that many people refer to themselves as “passionate” or “strong” agnostics. How can one be passionate about not knowing? How can one have a strong lack of opinion?
Agnosticism is the middle ground. It is the “undecided” vote. It is the removal of oneself from the argument.
To be clear, I have no issue whatsoever with true agnostics. If nothing else, they are intellectually honest. My issue is with the atheists that mistakenly take the title to avoid being called atheists. But if you believe that there is no god and operate your life as though there is no god, you are an atheist. If there is no active doubt in your mind, you are no more agnostic about god than you are about Count Chocula.
Before I get accused of being a bitter jerk about this (though I’m sure I’ll still be called a bitter jerk and worse by a few agnostics), I should point out that there is an important and unintended consequence of atheists in agnostic’s clothing. If you call yourself an agnostic, you’re actively placing religion in a special category, as though nonsensical claims about this single field of study are more valid than the nonsensical claims about any other.
Not to belabor the point, but consider holocaust deniers. Before you flinch, I’m not comparing agnostics to holocaust deniers. In this analogy, the holocaust deniers will represent religious people. Okay… now you can flinch.
Let’s say we did a poll. We asked the country if they believe that the holocaust occurred. A small group of people would say “no”, they did not believe it and a large group would say “yes”. But suppose that we worded the question a bit different. Let’s say we asked “Are you certain that the holocaust occurred?” The small group of holocaust deniers would still say no and the vast majority of people would still say yes.
But could you really say yes to that question? What direct, tangible evidence do you have that could not possibly have been counterfeit? You weren’t there (I’m assuming) and even if you talked directly with someone who was there, there’s no way to say with absolute certainty that they’re not lying. Even if you managed to speak with every surviving witness of the atrocities you still couldn’t rule out large-scale deceit with unquestionable certitude.
So what if we approached this question with the same ineffectual, vacillating manner of the “agnostic atheist”? We know nothing for certain and thus we must answer this question “I don’t know”, regardless of our level of conviction. We still hold on to the possibility, however remote, that our assumptions can be overturned. We must answer all binary questions with an “IDK”, of course, short of questions like “Do you believe that cats are felines?”
But imagine the actual result if a significant number of people did choose to be “agnostic but damn near sure” about the holocaust. The numbers in these surveys would suddenly skew and leave the impression that people are far less certain about the holocaust than they actually are. The results, once published, would lead the fringe deniers to mistaken believe that their point of view was more widely expected. It would empower them.
So please, when they offer both “atheist” and “agnostic”, check the box that’s more intellectually honest. I can’t say which box that is for you, but know that the theists are seizing on that “agnostic” number the way that politicians hone in on the undecided voters. It’s not because they misunderstand the term, it’s because too many “agnostics” do.
Sunday School #2
by Noah Lugeons
Here’s the second installment of our “Best of Godless You Tube” video series. I would rank this one as my all time favorite YouTube video, though I have to admit that there are still plenty out there for me to sift through. Enjoy!
The Scathing Atheist 