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Atheists Only Attack the Extremes
by Noah Lugeons
I call it the “Straw Messiah” defense; theists will often fault the atheists (and more often the gnu-atheists) for attacking only the “extremes” of religion. Of course, this charge is likely true of some atheists, but it can largely be dismissed simply by asking for a definition of “extremes” within religion. After all, anybody who believes a cracker turns to a dead man-god or that a talking snake is responsible for our expulsion from paradise or even that an intelligent designer was behind the whole scrotum idea is pretty extreme in my book. So where does one draw the line of “extreme”?
Usually the antagonist will draw this line as far from themselves as possible. Often they’ll defend themselves by watering down their beliefs to such a degree that there’s nothing left to argue with. They’ll present such a vacuous definition that there will be no meat to parse. “I believe that god is the sum total of all of us” or “I believe that the spirit of the bible is true even if the words aren’t” are too vague to meaningfully refute.
Many prominent atheists dismiss this charge simply by pointing out how “extreme” the average religious person is. They’ll simply cite some statistics about denial of evolution, literal belief in Noah’s ark or the expectations of Jesus returning within one’s own lifetime as proof that the theist they’re attacking is not a caricature at all, but rather a more representative sample of the religious than the wishy-washy inquisitor. The liberal pantheist is far more to the extreme end of the true spectrum than the ignorant creationist that a gnu-atheist might eviscerate.
This is a valid defense and is usually enough to shut them up for three seconds (nothing I’ve found shuts them up for much longer than that), but it is hardly the whole story. Because there’s plenty to fault in even the most nebulous definition of religion.
So for a moment let us set aside the doctrines of allspecific faiths. Let’s set aside the snake and the wafer and the 72 raisins and let us look only at the most basic claim that all religions share. That is not “god” or “gods” as there are a few non-theistic outliers in the east (which are fast gaining popularity in the west). But even if gods were religious universals, it would be a subordinate factor to the chief issue that I take with religion. The core of my argument against faith is a simple one that not even the most indistinct theist can hide from. It is the notion of revealed wisdom.
Before gods or afterlives or codes of moral conduct can be created, the faith must begin with a prophet. There is no other way for religion to begin. Even the neo-pagan faiths start with writers who veil their prophecy in pseudo-history and unverified appeals to antiquity. Every religion is rooted in a prophet, but what’s more is that a steady string of prophets is needed to divine the intent or mood of the god (or the universe or the chi or whatever). Prophets don’t shout across the ages; they rely on modern day representatives of the faith to continue to speak for them in proclamations that can’t be questioned or invalidated.
And thus the very notion of religion is antithetical to the betterment of humanity. If a feeling or an opinion or a prophecy or a sacred cow is somehow beyond reproach, then it is an obstacle to understanding. If it hasn’t become one yet, it will in the future. The very nature of revealed wisdom demands it.
True wisdom is universal and can be found simply by rejecting all things that prove themselves false under testing. Anything else that claims the title of “wisdom” is harmful. No matter how seemingly good the advice is, by enshrining it on stone tablets you take away society’s ability to re-evaluate it in the future. Revealed wisdom leads to absolutes, which will always lead to problems. After all, at one time all the homophobic verses in the bible were considered “wise” by the majority.
So when I attack some specific thing within this faith or that, don’t defend yourself by pointing out that this particular gripe doesn’t apply to your preferred load of shit. Your random assemblage of antiquated superstitions is no less revealed than the last one. If it started with faith and is immutable to reason, it’s all equally worthless and equally deserving of atheist scorn.
Christians are Like Raisins
by Noah Lugeons
I had occasion to visit Dollywood this summer. I was there about four days before the now infamous T-shirt scandal in which a lesbian couple was barred entrance for wearing a shirt with a pro-gay marriage message. To be fair, they were allowed in when the woman agreed to turn the T-shirt inside out. They have a stated policy against clothing with what they consider “offensive” messages and I frankly agree with such a policy in a theme park that largely caters to children. The Disney parks would hardly let me in wearing my “Fuck Jesus” shirt and well they shouldn’t.
The problem, of course, stems from their failure to define “offensive”. The hill billy working the ticket counter was offended by their lesbian-ness and the T-shirt was a reflection of that. God does, undeniably, say that gay people should die (though you can read it as though this only applies to gay men) in the bible so it probably seemed to this bible-thumping centurion that this shirt was against company policy. She was just executing the duties of a Dollywood Ticket Taker and sometimes that includes making the tough calls.
I would submit that the job of deciding which shirts to let in and which to keep out is probably pretty challenging. I often found myself amidst a sea of Christian propaganda shirts and they offended the hell out of me. One offered a Staples-style “Jesus Button”. One helpfully inquired if I “Got Jesus?”. My personal favorite was one that was cleverly disguised as a Mountain Dew logo that actually said “Meant to Die”.
I had to include this or you'd have thought I was making this shit up.
While that one may have earned top honors in my mind, the most popular one in the park seemed to be a plain black T-shirt that proudly proclaimed that “This Shirt is Illegal in 51 Countries” with a little red cross above in case you thought the bible passages on the back were too subtle.
Lest you think I’m exaggerating the ubiquity of these Jesus shirts, I attest that I saw all of the following common corporate logos bastardized to include some ham-handed reference to Jesosity:
- Staples (as mentioned above)
- Mountain Dew (as pictured above)
- Starbucks
- Reese’s Candies
- Dr. Pepper
- Fender Guitars
- Intel
- Arm & Hammer (It was “Armed and Ready” and the hand was holding a cross)
- Coca Cola
Keep in mind that I went before the whole T-shirt fiasco. I wasn’t cataloging the shirts as I saw them. Those are just the ones I remember.
If this surprises you then you’ve clearly never been to Dollywood. It’s a Christian theme park and it must do a healthy percentage of its business in church groups and bible camps. It’s Christian enough to have church slap in the middle of the park… with services. You can actually stop in after lunch and pray that you don’t barf on the next roller coaster.
To be sure, there are plenty of far more religious theme parks out there. The evangelicals already have the “Holy Land Experience” in Orlando (as featured in Bill Maher’s Religioulis) and all of us in the atheist blogosphere eagerly await new reason’s to make fun of Kentucky’s Ark Encounter, but at least these parks are upfront about their religious slant. Dollywood is a “subversive” Christian theme park. It’s not called “Jesuswood”. It’s advertised as simple, wholesome Dolly Parton-themed family fun.
But in the mountains of Tennessee, the word Christian is more or less assumed when the words “wholesome” and “family” are invoked. Along the drive into the park you’ll be greeted by a number of Christian themed dinner theaters, one of which (I shit you not) will allow you to watch a reenactment of Christ’s brutal death while you eat.
I should explain that when I say that Dollywood is “subversive” about its Christianity, I don’t mean that they hide it. If you check the “Core Values” they list on their website, you’ll see the words “All in a Manner Consistent with Christian Values and Ethics” in red, bold letters along the bottom. There’s nothing about Jesus on the homepage, but if you go digging for him, you’ll find him.
And that’s often my largest complaint about Christian intrusion into the secular world. I have no issues with fundamental-cases building their own life-sized ark (though the tax money they’re building it with kind of pisses me off). But if you’re going to build a Christian theme park, make damn sure everyone who walks in knows what they’re in for. Don’t try to disguise a creationist museum as a real one.
Christians are subversive in the way that raisins are subversive. You’ll be eating a pastry and enjoying it when along comes this unexpected was of dead-fly (or whatever they make raisins out of). You spit it out and stare angrily at the pastry, wondering who stuck dead-fly fruit in your breakfast. You check the package and sure enough it says “raisins” on the front in tiny little letters under “Cinnamon Bun”. The information was there if you looked for it, but you had to be looking for it.
I’m reminded of a gift I bought my nephew several years ago at Christmas (yes, even we atheists celebrate buy-shit-day). They were these little plastic things that you slid over your shoes so that you could slide along on the carpet. Of course he could have gotten the same effect by wearing wool socks on tile but the fact that it was a crap product isn’t why I bring it up. As I’m wrapping these little suckers up, I notice that tucked away on a little margin of the packaging was a bible verse. It’s just snuck into the side of an otherwise secular purchase. Only a careful scrutiny of the package would have revealed this discreet attempt at evangelism.
The goal here was to sneak the passage in. The goal was to get it before the eyes of children without their parent’s knowledge or consent. If they were trying to attract more Christian customers, they would have prominently displayed the verse, but instead it was tucked into a corner where only the eyes of a child examining a new toy would be likely to see it.
It is always in the best interest of the atheist activist to remember the mind-set of the Christian. In their eyes something like this is perfectly acceptable. If they can’t sneak biblical passages into your home, your child is in danger of spending eternity in Hell. When the stakes are that high things like respect for your beliefs are inconsequential.
So I implore you to treat Christians just like you treat raisins: Always be on the look out. Always check the package carefully before you commit. Those dry, disgusting, tasteless, shriveled, out-dated bastards are always looking for a way in.
My Conversation With God
by Noah Lugeons
Late last night, God spoke to me.
“Noah…” he said in a rumbling whisper. I rolled a bit in my sleep, unsure if I was dreaming or awake.
“Noah…” he said again.
“Ben Affleck?” I asked, hoping against all odds that he was finally abiding by the restraining order.
“No, it’s God,” he explained.
I sighed warily and sat up, glancing quickly to my wife to see if I’d awakened her. “God?” I asked.
“God,” he clarified.
“Look, I don’t mean to be a dick, but is this something that can wait until morning? I’ve been drinking…”
“I had nothing to do with Bieber winning that VMA.”
“What?”
“I actually prefer Bruno Mars.”
“Who?”
“But I’ve got plenty of problems dealing with the drought in Africa. I didn’t even get to watch the VMAs this year.”
“God, I’m really tired,” I complained, but I knew this wouldn’t shut him up.
“Yeah, I guess that’s kind of off topic anyway. Sorry. Just wanted to make that clear. I’m so sick of Justin Bieber that I’m about ready to smite him. Could you imagine? One piece of brimstone… BAM. One more lonely girl if you know what I mean.”
“You know I’m an atheist, right?”
“Yeah, that’s actually why I’m here.”
Convinced that this conversation wasn’t going to end any time soon I reached to the bedside table and grabbed a cigarette.
“I notice that your not blogging lately,” God said, followed by a forced and unconvincing cough as I lit my smoke.
I rolled my eyes. “Give me a break, God, you’re not even corporeal.”
“I know, but smoke still bothers me. It’s a disgusting habit.”
“I know, I know,” I uttered. “Can we just get to the point?”
“I want you to start blogging again.”
“Really? You know I write an atheist blog, right?”
“And podcasting. You need to get back on that.”
“But… I blog and podcast about the fact that you’re just a figment of the cultural imagination. I blog about the logical incoherence of your existence. I talk about the denialism of science and atrocious lapses in morality that are justified under your name. I write about the sheer stupidity of holding bronze age beliefs in the modern-day.”
“Yeah, but the world needs more of that.”
“I agree, but I’m kind of surprised to hear you say it.”
“I want humans to be the best they can be, Noah. I’m not going to get that if people are busy stifling discovery and retarding social progress. I created disease and strife so that humans could come together against a common banner of necessity. I put the obstacles there so that you could climb over them. The idiots that believe in me are, forgive my language, fucking things all up.”
“You’re forgiven,” I said with a hint of irony. “Do you realize how many atheist blogs are on the internet? Do you really think that one more is going to make a difference? Hell, nobody’s really reading it anyway.”
“I’m reading it,” God said reassuringly.
“Yeah, but you don’t show up on Google Analytics.”
“If you tweet it, they will come.”
“Are you stealing lines from Kevin Costner now?”
“I loved that movie. I was awesome in it. Not like Bruce Almighty…”
“So if I promise to start blogging again, will you let me go back to sleep?”
“And podcasting.”
“Fine. I’ll get to it first thing in the morning… or afternoon probably. I’ve got some errands to run in the morning.”
“Okay. So what, Tuesday on the next episode?”
“Sure. Tuesday’ll work.”
“Alright. Night, Noah.”
“Night God,” I said, snubbing out my cigarette and curling back into my pillow. Rudy made a brief nocturnal purr as I threw my arm around her and in an instant I was unconcious once more.
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.
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.
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.
God’s brother Mikey
by Noah Lugeons
Not many people know the story of Mikey. The less ambitious of the two brothers, Mikey was gifted with the same omnipotence as Jehovah but found himself less inclined to direct it in any meaningful way.
On the first day, Mikey was playing a video game. His omniscience had already seen all the video game consoles that the future had to offer and despite the vastly superior graphics of later systems, he still preferred the old school gameplay of the Nintendo Entertainment System. At the time that God interrupted, he was playing Ghosts and Goblins, a game that required omnipotence to beat.
“What the fuck is that?!” Mikey asked, shielding his eyes as the door swung open.
“I call it light,” Jehovah said excitedly, “I’ve got a whole plan… heavens, seas, animals… it’s gonna be crazy.”
Mikey reluctantly paused his game and followed his brother outside. A pair of sunglasses (the first pair, to be exact) phenomenized in his hands and he donned them as he glanced up at God’s creation. “Whatever,” he said dismissively, “I’m going to bed.”
On the following morning, Mikey awoke violently as water splashed onto his face. “Now what?!” he grumbled as he stormed outside through knee-deep liquid. “What the fuck are you doing?” he called out as he swung open the door.
“I call it water. Don’t worry,” God said with a passive wave, “I’m going to create solid ground next.”
“Well can you hurry the hell up? It’s kinda hard to sleep with all this churning and rolling.”
“Yeah, I should be done with the ground tomorrow sometime.”
“Tomorrow! Why tomorrow?”
God waved his arms in a sweeping gesture, as though to convey the enormity of the project at hand. “I promise… I’ll get to it as soon as I can. I’m still separating all these seas.”
Mikey rolled his eyes and a canoe (the first canoe, to be exact) phenomenized before him as he made his way back to his bed. He tried creating a stable platform on which to sleep, but it churned with the waters and he was ripped back to consciousness each time a splash of the cold liquid splattered onto his skin. He tried a few more constructs before eventually settling on a large enclosed space that would roll comfortably amongst the new waves.
He slept through the day and awoke on the following morning with his enclosed structure blissfully beached on steady ground. He stretched and a cup of coffee appeared in his throat. He considered seeing how Jehovah was doing, but he almost feared whatever monstrosity might await him outside so he remained inside his boat and played a few games of Mario Kart. Later he phenomenized a pizza and a bong and before he knew it, he was asleep again.
On the fourth day he finally came forth from his protective encapsulation. He stepped on to the upper deck of his refuge and glanced down. “Yo, Joey!” he said, calling to his brother.
“My name’s Jehovah,” he muttered.
“Digging that big orange ball of flame… it’s nice. I’d have put it a little higher up, but hey, that’s just me.”
“It actually rises and falls back over on that side. It moves kind of slow. I’m trying to get it to exactly 24 hours but it’s a pain in the ass.”
“How close are you?”
“I’m within a minute.”
Mikey shrugged. “Close enough.”
That was often Mikey’s solution to a conundrum, but God decided that in this instance he was probably right. “I like your ark,” he remarked as he took in his brother’s improvised shelter. “I’ll have to keep that in mind.”
“Loving what you did with the sky, little bro,” he said as he climbed down from his perch. By the time he reached the sandy shores a beer had appeared in his hand. “Little white patches floating by… nice touch.”
“Clouds, I call ’em. You should see it at night. I did stars and everything.”
“Nice,” he said as he cracked open the beer. “So what are you planning with this whole thing?”
God smiled and Mikey could tell by his expression that his brother had been dying to lay the plan out since this whole thing started. It had taken a few days for Mikey to take the bait and he could tell immediately he was in for a long story. He phenomenized a chair and sat back as he drank.
“Well… I still gotta finish the moon, but then the next couple days I’m working on animals.”
“What the fuck are animals?”
“Little living, sentient things that’ll eat each other and compete for limited resources. It’ll be fun to watch.”
Mikey wrinkled his nose. “Sounds like a pain in the ass. Are you gonna take care of all those things? You know… take ’em for walks and stuff?”
“Nope. They’re on their own in a cruel world, bro. But hold on, I haven’t told you the…”
“Wait… a cruel world? Why would you create a cruel world?”
“Cruelty will act as a lesson about the vastness of my power. I’ll creating suffering so that they can enjoy bounty in its absence.”
“That doesn’t make a lick of sense.”
“No… it does. See, you can’t have good without evil.”
“Yes you can,” Mikey said, finishing the last swallow from his beer, “You’re omnipotent, remember? You can have anything you want.”
“Anyway, don’t worry about it. That’s not even the best part. I haven’t told you about ‘man’ yet.”
Mikey caused his sunglasses to reappear just so that he could slide them down his nose and glance skeptically from behind them. “What are mans?”
“Men.”
“Okay, what are mens?”
“No, man, but when you pluralize it, you say ‘men’.”
“See, that doesn’t make any sense either.”
“I work in mysterious ways, Mikey.”
“Whatever… fine. So what are ‘men’?” he asked, forcing an overly sarcastic emphasis onto the word.
“Okay… this is so cool… They’ll be like little versions of us. My own image and everything. And I’ll give them free will and I’ll stick them in a garden paradise…”
“Well that’s nice of you…” Mikey started, but Jehovah wasn’t finished and simply spoke over him.
“… but I’ll put a tree in there with really delicious fruit on it and I’ll tell them not to eat it and when they do… and you know they will… anyway, when they do, I’ll curse them for all of eternity.”
Mikey offered only a glacial blink.
“And then I’ll fuck with ’em for a few centuries and totally remove myself from their world. And if they don’t believe I exist after that, I’ll condemn them to spend eternity burning in a fiery pit.”
“What’s a fiery pit?”
“It’s something I’m going to create just to be a miserable ass place to spend eternity in.”
A long moment passed as Mikey tried to absorb all this information. Several times he started to speak and then realized he lacked sufficient words to express his disbelief. He looked into his brother’s eyes and saw the hint of madness he’d always suspected was there.
Finally, he responded with a single syllable, the only syllable that seemed remotely appropriate under the circumstances: “Why?”
“Because I want them to see how awesome I am,” he answered with a straight face. “They’ll love me or they’ll burn in hell in an unending orgy of tragic pain for all of time. It’ll be great!”
“Dude… you’ve lost your fucking mind. I’m sorry to just lay it out there like that, but you’re fucking crazy. That’s the weirdest shit I’ve ever heard. Seriously… I should create mental asylums just so I could lock you in one.”
“Go ahead. See if you ever figure out how the tides work, dick.”
God turned his back on his brother and Mikey retreated to his ark to play some more video games. It would be centuries before he came out again and by then, his brother had so irrevocably fucked up his experiment that he’d simply given up on it and moved on to a new project.
Mikey shrugged and went back inside to play some Gears of War.
Thus ends the gospel of Mikey.
The Scathing Atheist 