A tribute to a very special friend - Joel Price

Anyone observant of my posts on Facebook will recognize the name of someone whose shared thoughts here were so very much in sync with my own: Joel Price. I "met" Joel Price, thanks to my friend RJ Evans. RJ invited Joel to participate on his internet radio show, Shocknet Radio's "American Heathen," and later invited my participation. Joel's persona on the show was as "Yahweh" and he dispensed considerable wisdom and insight in his show segments. And the theme song for his show segment was Chris Rae's "The Road to Hell" - a favorite tune for me.  The lyrics to Part I: 

Stood still on a highway
I saw a woman
By the side of the road
With a face that I knew like my own
Reflected in my window
Well she walked up to my quarterlight
And she bent down real slow
A fearful pressure paralysed me in my shadow
She said 'Son, what are you doing here?
My fear for you has turned me in my grave.'
I said 'Mama, I come to the valley of the rich, 
myself to sell.'
She said 'Son, this is the road to hell!'

I think most all the listeners looked forward to Joel's part in the show.  His radio voice was dignified and powerful, making his words seem all the wiser. After RJ shut down Shocknet Radio, I stayed in contact with Joel and always found his FB posts to be of the same caliber as his radio show segments. I've reposted many of his contributions.  He was a relentless fan of the Constitution and our nation, with its mandated separation of church and government.  And, of course, he was an atheist.  There are, no doubt, more accomplishments and wisdom he dispensed about which I know nothing.

Joel was a practicing attorney in Fort Smith, AR, and I can imagine he was a successful lawyer. His arguments certainly reflected his commitment to truth and justice.  His tag line for his American Heathen show segments was:

"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
 
- a quote from Thomas Jefferson.  Recently, he informed selected friends with whom he was in touch in June that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer that had metastasized to his lungs.  This morning (30 July 2019) I got word that Joel has died.  Cancer can be really cruel. For someone I never met face-to-face, I find myself seriously grieving over the loss of my friend. His insights and his profoundly rational views (especially concerning religion) will be missed by many, and I will miss him terribly. My condolences to his family and his close friends.

A mythical narrative - rejected

When I was a boy living with my loving, caring parents, I was introduced to a mythical narrative.  A religious narrative.  This story never made any sense to me and I never accepted it as anything other than a myth.  My parents no doubt were moved by good intentions for me, but I now see what they did was to indoctrinate me in this mythical narrative.  Brainwashing was inflicted on me so that I would live by and perpetuate the narrative as they had.

The Narrative

It begins with the claim that there is an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent deity who knew everything about everything, could do whatever it wanted (including either violating the laws of physics or even re-writing the laws of physics), was everywhere all the time, and even knew what we were thinking.  For reasons of its own, it created the universe (in 7 days) and everything in it, including people and the laws of physics.

This deity created us and our world, and promised eternal life to those who worshipped it.  Unbelievers would be sent into an eternity of torment simply for not believing.  The story started with two people who were to become the progenitors of all humans, living in a lush garden.  The man was created from dust, and the woman was created from one of the man's rib.  The woman fell under the spell of a talking snake, who convinced her to eat fruit of the tree of knowledge and she then convinced her man to do likewise.  This was the first sin (acquiring knowledge) and blame for this sin has been imposed on everyone ever born since then.  The man and women were ejected from their garden paradise and went on to beget the entire population of humans.  At some point, this deity became exceedingly unhappy with the human race (the creations of this perfect deity, recall) and murdered all but a select handful of humans with a world-encompassing flood.  After that, at various other times, groups of people angered this deity by straying from what the deity defined as the right behavior and were murdered in diverse ways.  It was perfectly fine to take and own slaves if they didn't belong to the chosen tribe.  Women were the property of their men and could be abused as their men saw fit.  Other tribes were subject to being murdered (including women and children) with the deity's blessing (and assistance, should the need arise).  Rape was not considered important enough to be a Commandment.  Homosexuals were to be killed.

Eventually, the deity who created everything decided it needed to provide an escape from original sin, so it took human form, somehow separate from itself and a mysterious spiritual form of itself, and allowed itself to be murdered by the Romans.  At the end of 3 days, it arose from the dead and rejoined itself to itself.  Now the original deal had been altered:  the key for a human to escape damnation, and a happy life after death, was to believe in the divinity of its human form self as his/her lord and savior.  As usual, unbelievers were still consigned to eternal agony.

Since this deity is omniscient, it clearly knows whatever you're going to do and even what you think, even before you're created.  Your fate is known to the deity even before you're born - you and your fate are created at the same time.  Thus, this deity knows if you're going to accept its terms for you to escape everlasting torture, or not.  But somehow, in such a situation, you have "free will" to choose to believe or not (unless you're born in a nation with a different religion, which is a clear signal that all believers are obligated to spread the "joyful" news that you can be forgiven your ignorance and sins if you just believe in this deity's divine self in human form).  In effect, your human life is meaningless and your fate is fixed in an everlasting pain if the deity created you to be a disbeliever. 

For a certain period of time after creation, the deity was visibly manifest many times, and eventually, in human form, walked among humans for about 30 years before being killed - only to rise from death and ascend to heaven, back to himself.  Since then, the deity ceased to be visible in any way.  If you're going to choose to believe in it, that belief has to be based on faith because there's no longer any credible evidence for the existence of this deity.  In fact, the world as we know it is entirely consistent with the nonexistence of this deity.  It's quite a leap of faith to accept the narrative, so the indoctrination (brainwashing) of children into acceptance of this narrative is a necessary mechanism for its continuance.  For a time, it was considered quite acceptable to force people to worship (or at least pretend to worship) this deity.  It's no longer fashionable but some believers still find it quite acceptable and would do so if they could.  And many force their children to at least pretend to believe in the narrative
___________________

Having become a scientist, I've learned this narrative embodies the absolute antithesis of science - belief without evidence.  I never accepted it, but knowing how science works has shown me that the narrative is virtually certain to be mythical nonsense.  I don't "believe" (in an absolute sense) that such a deity doesn't exist, but I find the absence of evidence for its existence to be a compelling argument that it's quite probable that the deity is nonexistent.  The sacred documents are no more credible evidence for the existence of this deity than a comic book is credible evidence for the existence of a real Superman.  So probable, in fact, that my working conclusion is that the deity is a myth.  I leave open the small logical possibility that I'm wrong in that conclusion, but I'm awaiting a convincing demonstration of that.

The narrative (above) is how I was taught about this deity.  I'm not a biblical scholar and I'm not familiar with "academic" aspects of religion, but I'm quite capable of seeing that this narrative is simply preposterous.  It was written thousands of years ago by recently barbaric tribes in the Middle East who obviously had no inkling of how the world would change or how the universe really works.  The idea that the existing sacred documents are literally the words of this deity certainly underscores that the deity in this myth is far from omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent.  There are contradictions, logical fallacies, and even historical errors in the bible.  Despite biblical reassurances, bad, even horrible, things happen to "good people" (believers) all the time.  The deity seemingly does nothing to prevent those things.  People thank this deity for all sorts of things they deem good, and ignore the bad things, and they say nothing of all that humans and science do for other humans.  Many evil deeds are perpetrated in the name of this deity.  This deity manages somehow to be on both sides of warring groups all the time - people who believe that what they do is what the deity wants them to do typically use that to justify awful deeds.  Religious faith isn't necessarily a virtue - it's often used as justification for evil.

Today, apparently, you have to die to get any concrete evidence for the existence of this deity and the reality this narrative - if there is no such thing, of course, death brings nothing but eternal oblivion.  Anyone in the USA who chooses to do so is free to accept this myth as reality, but they're not free to impose their beliefs on me.  And their freedom to accept this narrative is limited to those practices that do no harm to nonbelievers or those who have different religious beliefs.  This narrative is nonsense and not worthy of consideration by a rational person. 

The Noah's Ark story - Is it history?

Let me be perfectly clear:  I consider the biblical story of Noah's Ark (like many biblical narratives) to be, at most, a human creation with essentially no connection to history, science, evidence, and logic.  The idea that some people choose to accept it as literal fact is both astonishing to me and an apparent tribute to their gullibility.

Let's ignore the fact that the putative supreme being, creator of the inconceivably vast universe, who is supposed to be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, has decided that his creations (we humans, made in his image) have turned out to be a mistake because we don't behave the way he wants, so he's going to impose nearly total genocide on those of us extant at the time, using a world-wide flood to wipe the slate clean.  If this divine being pretty much screwed up the job of creating humans on his first try (Adam and Eve, remember?), then he's not omnipotent and omniscient - such a being should never make a mistake!  And killing all but a tiny remnant of the entire human species seems pretty much the opposite of benevolent!

Putting those issues aside, then, let's consider the impossibilities and issues within this yarn.  Quick summary:  the only way the biblical account can be considered historical is through continuous magical intervention by a divine being, who must have the capability to break the laws of nature and logic at will in order to overcome the host of impossibilities through a massive set of supernatural miracles.

1.  There's just no known way to produce a rainfall that would cover the entire surface of the Earth.  That requirement is the only way to be sure of drowning all humans save for the chosen few and it must be global, not regional.  That would be roughly 29,000+ feet (about 5.5 miles - to cover the top of Mt. Everest) of rainfall in 40 days - about 30 feet of rain per hour for 40 days - at every point on the surface of the Earth.  It's physically impossible.

2.  What would be the effect on a boat that was continuously experiencing rainfall of 30 feet per hour (6 inches per minute)?  It probably would be pretty top-heavy from that continuous rain, and it might easily be swamped, especially if there were wind that produced heavy seas.  Further, the massive load of animals and food would have to be kept continuously in balance, requiring a lot of effort by a large crew (see #8).  It would be difficult, if not impossible, keep the Ark afloat during this impossible deluge.

3.  Fitting mated pairs of all living land creatures on the Ark is a physical impossibility.  To this day, we have only incomplete knowledge of all the diverse species, but back in biblical times, their knowledge of that was nearly negligible.  Hence, it would be essentially impossible today, to say nothing of the late Bronze Age.

4.  Predators would have to eat the prey animals to live, so winding up with all of them saved is impossible unless lots of extra prey animals beyond one mated pair for each species are brought on board.  That adds to the food and water needs of all those animals ...

5.  The amount of food and water necessary to keep all the animals alive for 40 days would fill the Ark completely.  It would be impossible to bring along enough food and water for all the animals on a 40-day boat ride.  Of course, the 30 feet per hour rainfall rate could alleviate any water shortage!

6.  Going to the far corners of the Earth in order to obtain mated pairs of all Earthly creatures (plus extra prey animals) would require pretty fast transportation and transport capacity for Noah.  This job would be quite a challenge even today, but such a task for a semi-civilized man in biblical times would be physically impossible.

7.  Even if Noah somehow accomplished the miracle of gathering up mated pairs (plus extra prey animals) of all the world's animals with the help of his supernatural pal, how would all those animals get back to their own parts of the world after the flood waters receded?  [Where did they come from and where did they go?]  Even if they survived and bred along their way back to their homes on all the continents, why is there no evidence of this literally incredible migration from where the Ark landed on Mount Ararat?  Would there be food to eat along the way?  How do they know which way to go?  And how hospitable would their native lands be after a mega-flood?  Such a journey is impossible since it involves different continents and would require more supernatural intervention.
 
8.  Sanitary conditions on the Ark would not be very good unless there were even more crew members swabbing the interior decks constantly to get rid of the urine and feces from all those animals.  The external deck might be kept clear of urine and feces by the 30 feet of rain per hour, but not the interior.  Such a large crew would add to the requirements for food and water (and living space) on the Ark.  This is another impossible task.

9.  It's not clear what the atmospheric conditions were like during this voyage.  If it was typical of conditions in the Middle East (disregarding any impact from the mega-torrential rainfall), it might not be very healthy for animals from other regions.  Some creatures might not be able to survive the voyage despite being rescued from drowning.

10.  What about microorganisms?  How would they be gathered and maintained?  This would have to include the host of pathogenic microorganisms who survive by being parasites on their hosts.  Wouldn't this have represented a challenge for late Bronze Age barbarians to even know of the existence of such living creatures?  Some might already be on board living in the mated pairs (and extra prey), but it would be impossible to select two infected individuals from each species so as to include all microorganism in the aggregate.  And those infections would be hazardous to the survival of all the large animal species during the voyage.  In fact, they could become an epidemic easily in the crowded conditions.  Another need for divine supernatural intervention.

11.  How did the land plants of the world fare during a time of being submerged for days?  How did they recover from that?  Would there be enough food available for returning herbivore mated pairs?  After 40 days of being underwater, if the sun comes out, things just don't instantly spring up again.

12.  How does a planet-wide flood kill creatures of the sea?  Or were they just left to their own devices?  What would be the effect of a gigantic deposition of fresh water (29, 000 feet of rain - a lot of distilled water) on the world's oceans?  Might be kinda tough conditions for sea animals adapted to salt water.  The story mentions no aquaria on the Ark!

13.  Depending on a single mated pair of each animal to repopulate the planet is now recognized to being a threat to the existence of each species, owing to a lack of genetic diversity.  Of course, a late Bronze Age man would have known nothing of such obstacles to the Ark story's successful outcome.

I could go on, but it's only piling more impossibilities and issues on top of these.  [I might add more later.]  The clear conclusion I draw from all of this is that the Ark legend obviously is not history.  Finding evidence for a regional flood in biblical times isn't even close to providing support for the Ark myth.  To believe so indicates tremendous gullibility and/or confirmation bias seeking to save the appearances.  This yarn is precisely the sort of mythical story that a late Bronze Age, semi-civilized man would make up as religious parable seeking to impose obedience on the faithful, in complete ignorance of the vast amount of science we've accumulated since this myth was created.  The more we learn about how the natural world operates, the less credible the Ark parable becomes.  Hoping to find evidence for the Ark narrative in the bible is similar to cherry-picking data to find evidence denying climate change, or being paranoid about "chemtrails", or believing in a flat Earth.

You can interpret the biblical Ark myth in many diverse ways, but it just can't be literal history unless you're willing to accept the requirement for supernatural intervention throughout the whole process, making the impossible possible.  It's always a logical possibility that compelling evidence to support the preposterous Ark story might be found somewhere, but in the absence of that compelling evidence, I'm of a mind to see the Noah's Ark hypothesis as a totally human fictional creation, not historical fact.  And the story's plot line was stolen from other, earlier religions, to boot.

Thoughts on prejudice, tribalism, and racism

Looking back at the experiences of my 70+ years, one theme seems to come up again and again:  the people I have known stubbornly resist conforming to my stereotypes.  A stereotype can be defined as a preconceived notion, especially about a group of people.  Like everyone else, I'm associated with many different groupings of people and my life has shown me repeatedly that if I see a person who can be grouped within a particular association, membership in that association actually says very little about what sort of person any individual member of that group is.  One group to which I belong is the "tribe" of white male heterosexuals.  These are essentially accidents of birth - not choices I made.  I am also a meteorologist, a military veteran, a person who has used marijuana, an atheist, a citizen of the USA, a fan of drag racing, an artist, overweight, tall, bald, and so on and on. These other associations include both more accidents of birth and many specific choices I've made over the course of my life.

If you only know me as a member of the "white people" association, for example, what stereotypes of that particular grouping do you think apply to me?  All of them?  If not, which ones?  What does it say about you if you automatically believe those stereotypes of my "white people" tribe apply to me?  When I was a boy in the Chicago suburbs of Dupage County, most of the people I knew were WASPs - White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, and I learned about a widely-held but rarely vocally expressed view of racial and cultural superiority associated with my "tribe" of WASPs.  Other tribes were looked down upon by many members of my WASP tribal association.  I knew a few Catholics, even fewer Jews, and essentially no African- or Mexican-Americans.  Interestingly, my best friend in high school was a Catholic and yet somehow that friendship apparently was tolerated by the members of my WASP tribe.  I was not vilified for being friends with a white male Catholic, and if anyone felt I was betraying my Protestant tribe, they never said it to my face.  Later, of course, I became an atheist - a group that many Americans despise and which is subject to discrimination.

As time went by, I became aware of the discrimination that existed in my town against non-white Americans.  At some point, I heard that an African-American had tried to buy a house in my neighborhood and the neighbors (not including my parents) had banded together to threaten to buy the home rather than let a black family move into our tribe's territory!  I was not raised to be a racist, even though racism was rampant around me, so this discovery came as something shocking.  I was ashamed of my tribe's racism.  It seemed that my tribe was prejudiced against other tribes and would go to extreme lengths to avoid having to associate with those belonging to a different racial tribe.  If I chose to be close friends with an African-American (remember, there were none about!), how would my WASP tribe have reacted?  What if I chose to date a black woman?  I'll never know, but I think I know a likely response to such behavior.  I've learned that some members of my own family were/are notably prejudiced against other racial tribes, so I think I know what their response would have been had I been dating a black or Latino woman.

Having been drafted into the Army - an organization that one typically does not consider to be socially advanced - I was thrown into the company of a widely diverse group of people, including blacks, Latinos, farm boys, southern "rednecks", etc.  One of my lasting memories is meeting an 18 year-old African-American man serving with me in Vietnam who seemed very innocent and naive to me.  But it turned out he had some amazing strength of character.  He resisted what I felt was good-natured badgering from me and some of my friends about his innocence.  For instance, he would pray before eating in the mess hall.  He didn't curse, or drink, or smoke pot.  Some of the blacks in our company called him an "Uncle Tom" because he declined to be called "brother" by people to whom he was not related.  This was not the stereotype of an angry, "militant" young black male - he was comfortable with whom he felt himself to be and literally didn't care what anyone else thought.  I often wonder what has happened to him - I regret not taking more time to get to know him.  I was still learning back then, I suppose.

After my time in the Army, I returned to the mostly white world of my professional life, but in the course of that career, I became acquainted with a group of Mexican-American meteorologists who included some of the smartest people I've ever had the good fortune to meet.  Bam!  There went another stereotype.  I also met some amazing women who had become scientists, and some of them were at the very top of my profession.  Thud!  Another stereotype falls.  I have met and known outstanding African-American meteorologists.  Crash!  So much for that stereotype.  Despite all the barriers put in their way, these professionals have achieved much and have earned their professional standing, so don't tell me it can't be done!!  I was discovering that stereotypes and default assumptions based on tribal associations were phantoms that had no basis in reality.  I was going to have to abandon my notions of who people are based in the heuristic approach I had been using:  belong to group X, you're a good person, whereas if you belong to group Y, you're not a good person.  That simply didn't give reliable results and as a science professional, that meant it had to be rejected.

If you take some time to get to know someone, rather than assuming that their membership in some tribe tells you who they are and what to expect from them, you'll find inevitably they're simply human beings whose attitudes and behavior may or may not fit your expectations.   Perhaps some of them will be a good match for a specific stereotype you have, but not some others.  You just can't know that until you know them personally!

The evidence is around you if you take the time to abandon your default assumptions about other humans and learn about them as individuals, not members of some association.  Make the effort rather than pre-judging someone without any real evidence.  Learning how things look to other people is an excellent path to a deeper understanding of your own beliefs and behaviors.  Savor the rich diversity of humanity instead of seeing other tribes as lesser human beings.

Thoughts after Orlando

I'm going to weigh in on this one, although the facts are not yet all in.  I'm willing to do this because I'm not actually drawing any conclusions (unlike some) about that tragic event, at least not yet.  What is factual is that this murderous act was evidently set off when the shooter witnessed men kissing.  So he targeted a gay bar in Orlando (which he apparently frequented!), and gay bars are where many gay people go to be able to be openly gay without fear.  Except the shooter was about to change that forever.  After this despicable crime, is there anywhere for gay people to go to feel safe about simply being themselves?  Certainly there's little sanctuary in churches, most of which continue to preach that homosexuality is a sin (and some even go so far as to say it's a sin worthy of death), and in society at large.  Overt homosexuality is still considered disturbing or repulsive.

Growing up in the ultra-conservative suburbs of Chicago, everyone I knew considered it to be a serious insult when you called someone a "queer/faggot".  I was brought up in that culture, and simply went along with it because everyone was in agreement:  fags were detestable and homosexuality was a vile act.  I was taught to hate. This has been the American perspective for generations, nurtured by fundamentalist christians who quote various biblical passages condemning the sin.  With this sort of sanctioned contempt, violence against gays has been a constant drumbeat in our "christian" culture.  Never mind that many of the most strident of those condemning homosexuality have been shown repeatedly to harbor homosexual tendencies themselves - a sort of self-hatred manufactured by the revulsion of the heterosexually-dominated culture.

We even have "conversion centers" aimed at "curing" the "sickness" that many see homosexuality to be.  Bashing gays is a full-time occupation for such intellectual giants as populate the Westboro Baptist Church.  Our culture is rife with those who demonize others for "choosing" the "homosexual life style".  Why would anyone choose to be a homosexual?  It makes absolutely no sense at all to do so, given our cultural history where homosexuality is condemned so vigorously.  Homosexuals who 'come out of the closet' to their friends and family often find themselves repudiated and reviled by the very people who should love them the most.  Does it make sense that someone would choose to do that to themselves?  C'mon, get real! Homosexuality is NOT a choice!

Having grown up with all of that cultural conditioning, I was OK with all of that revulsion for a long time.  I wasn't gay and didn't understand how someone could actually prefer to be so.  I didn't want some gay guy coming on to me to participate in his perversions, after all.  "Fag" as an insult?  Sure, I could see that.  Stay the hell away from me!

However, I began to find people I respected in my profession who clearly were homosexuals.  These were good people, great friends, and never once did they ever make even the slightest attempt at having sex with me.  [Am I that unattractive?  (joke)]  In my youth, I was raped by an older "friend" as a boy but this was clearly not a sexual act.  It was one of violence.  He was not a gay man, he was a pedophile.  To equate gays with pedophilia is simply an absurd myth, believed mostly by ignorant gay-bashers.  None of the gay people of my professional acquaintance ever made any sexual advances to me.  Ever.  None of them have ever even been accused, let alone convicted, of being pedophiles.

In my life, there came a time when I was presented with an unexpected "situation".  A gay friend was 'outed' accidentally and the circumstances literally forced me to decide just how I was going to deal with it in public.  Certain of my homophobic acquaintances urged me to repudiate my long-time friend, who was now publicly known to be gay.  Was I going to have to turn my back on my friend because he was now revealed openly to be a homosexual?  That was an easy choice - not just "NO!" but "HELL, NO!!"  My respect for those people upset by my choice has been declining ever since.  I will not turn my back to my friends because of their sexual orientation.  Period.  It's none of my business and never has been.  They are who they are, irrespective of their sexual preferences, and I have no reason to distance myself from them on that basis.

So where does this personal history leave me with respect to the Orlando tragedy?  Whatever might have been the complex motivation for the shooter, the deed almost certainly was driven by homophobic hate encouraged by many cultures, including ours in the USA.  Otherwise, why target a gay nightclub?  Like many of us in the last few years, I've learned to overcome the hatreds I was taught and we've seen a dramatic change in favor of equal rights for the LGBTs, who can now begin to imagine a day when sexual preferences go back to being purely personal and not something to be used to insult and condemn.  Religion has a long history of using guilt about sexual behavior as a means of control, and until all the major religions abandon their tradition of condemnation regarding sexual preferences, we'll continue to see suffering as a consequence of that self-imposed guilt. Religion (muslim and christian) long has been an enabler when it comes to violence against non-heterosexual people. Let us turn our backs on that!

I'm pleased to see the widespread agreement over renouncing the homophobia that underpins the Orlando shootings.  I'm encouraged by the growth of tolerance for LGBTs.  Perhaps we can eventually emerge from the darkness and into the light of real tolerance.

The very real faces behind the supporters of opposing views

Looking at FB posts for the past several years, I'm struck by the overwhelming contempt for others that I see, for the most part.  Anyone who holds a different view from a person posting a comment often is subjected to insults and invective.  Wildly unsubstantiated statements are made about what is supposed to be "typical" for those supporting a view contrary to the one making the comment.   Distressingly, at least a portion of the time, such nasty comments are not directed at the viewpoints, per se, but directly at the person expressing the viewpoint - they're ad hominem insults, not elements of a rational discussion.  If a generalization is made without intending to do so, at least be sensitive to the fact that what you might think to be typical is not necessarily applicable to everyone.  I try to remind myself of that - sometimes others do it for me, even though they may also be guilty of the very same thing.

These harsh and angry statements often generate a salvo of personal insults in reprise and the thread of the discussion then is totally lost in a hostile back-and-forth.  Whatever happened to a civil discussion of issues?  I wrote a blog about the topic of what constitutes a civil discourse, but of course my blog has no power to change the course of our society or the posts offered on social media.  I've seen examples where people make their strongly-held opinions known and then proceed to deny virtually anyone with a different viewpoint the capability to make a meaningful comment in response through the tactic of defining who is "qualified" to comment in such a way that only the person posting the statement (or those who completely agree with it) is qualified to respond.  This is not a basis for a discussion.  It's simply a "club" where like-minded folks can pat one another on the back and agree that theirs is the only legitimate opinion.  You might as well have a discussion with slogans printed on a political banner nailed to a wall for all the good it will accomplish!  If we unilaterally exclude opposing viewpoints, or drive those who differ with us away from the discussion, then the entire exercise becomes utterly pointless.  It's simply "preaching to the choir" rather than testing your ideas in the intellectual marketplace.  Of course, some may feel they are so certainly correct, they need no discussion at all - that is, their minds are closed with regard to that topic!

Now, shift gears to politics and we see that our government mirrors this tendency in our society to demonize and discredit those with whom we disagree.  The gridlock we have experienced so often for the past several years of the Obama administration in our Federal government has come about by a stubborn unwillingness to compromise in order that the legitimate needs of the people can be served.  In fact, of course, there are vastly different viewpoints in the political parties about what the people need, so the ugly, disrespectful clash of ideologies is directly related to the inability to serve the people.   You might think there should be many points where surely everyone would agree that a particular need is present that should be served, but if you think so, you're going to be frustrated in today's world where even the most basic human needs have become a point of departure, not a source of agreement.  Many on both sides see the "other" side as wrong-minded fools being duped by the opposing politicians to do harm to our society rather than to do good things for everyone.  And the politicians have observed that this works in their favor, although it's far from what this nation needs.

In fact, our political "leaders" have been complicit in this process, using the divisions in our society as a means by which to serve their personal political ends, rather that serving the interests of the people.  And many people have become blindly loyal to one side or the other of these divisions, despite the best interests of the very people who vote these politicians into office.  The demonization of the "other side" has become a pandemic.  I feel the frustration and perhaps sometimes am led by my emotions to participate in it to some extent, even though I prefer not to wallow in the political quagmire of insult and counter-insult.  I try to remember that the people who are saying things with which I disagree strongly have a right to think what they wish and may indeed have an opinion that contains elements of substance.  If we allow ourselves the luxury of insulting and de-valuing the opinions of anyone with whom we disagree, we forfeit the opportunity for a potentially useful discourse.  It is via the reconciliation of conflicting viewpoints through compromise that our nation was built, and the current situation is heading in a very different direction than intended by our national founders.

I've tried to have discussions with some of my acquaintances from the "other side" that have failed utterly to get past the "talking points".  They refuse to see the value of my views and getting any sort of a compromise has proven to be futile.  At this stage, I'm reluctantly declining further "discourse" with those whose viewpoints include a complete contempt for my viewpoint.  I'm pretty certain I've done nothing to merit that disrespect, but of course, opinions on that might vary.  I make no claim to be a saint, but I'm pretty sure I've not resorted to ad hominem insults.  If I have and I'm deluding myself in that regard, then I apologize.  To those with whom I can engage in civil discourse despite our disagreements, I thank you for your spirit of cooperation in trying to work out our differences and at least understand why we disagree so strongly.

How do we defeat the terrorists?

I could probably expend a fair amount of effort discussing why the tactics we've been using to "defeat" terrorism won't work.  In essence, killing terrorists only serves to recruit more terrorists.  Vengeance is a bad strategy, as violence only calls forth more violence in return, in an endless cycle of futility and death.  It's the tool the terrorists employ, and if we employ it, we cede the advantage to them.  They're better at it than we, and that's something I'm pleased about.  I see no particular reason for pride in being better at violence than anyone else.

Today, I saw a FaceBook post about someone here in the US who did a random act of kindness to a muslim at a Starbucks, by paying the tab as a gesture of support for muslims.  It was an act of personal defiance to the Trump-ish fear-mongering against muslim Americans and muslims seeking refuge here.  It dawns on me that kindness and love for our fellow human beings is the only way we defeat terrorism.  The whole machismo thing about "kill 'em all!" and hostility toward muslims isn't working and never will, so the way to defeat them is to make it so clear that the west is not at war against islam, that the terrorists become utterly repugnant to most practicing muslims.  Without a support base, terrorist groups whither and die.  After all, islamic terrorism is aimed at both creating fear (and many of us have allowed that to be a successful tactic) and convincing muslims that the christian west is their enemy.  Our vengeance tactics will never eliminate the threat.

Is it not the christian way to love your "enemies"?  Is the parable of the "good Samaritan" not a cornerstone of christianity?  Has our jingoistic machismo simply forgotten the admonition to "turn the other cheek"?  Is hatred and xenophobia the christian path?  What I know about christianity is that hatred is not the important message of christianity.  In earlier times, christians sought to proselytize at swordpoint, as we now seek to export democracy at gunpoint.  It simply doesn't work that way.  Moderate christians long ago gave up the mentality that drove the Crusades.  Unfortunately, some muslims have yet to learn that lesson.  Certainly not all muslims, though.

It's no secret that I'm not a christian, but an atheist - an atheist born and raised in a predominantly christian world.  As an atheist, it appears to me that many Americans, in their politically-encouraged virulent hatred of muslims (or other ethnic groups, including jews and minority races), have completely forsaken the peaceful christian message of love for our fellow human beings.  They prefer violent suppression of the legitimate desires of minorities and vengeance visited on our 'enemies' as the answer to differences.  Yes, I suppose the terrorists laugh in derision at any sort of proposed peaceful response to their evil deeds.  But did not Ghandi preach of the sacrifices along the path of nonviolent opposition to oppression and evil?  Was his approach not ultimately successful?  Did not Martin Luther King preach the same message of nonviolent opposition to injustice?  Were his efforts a dismal failure?  Surely history vindicates optimism concerning the path of nonviolence.

Tribalism is an 'instinctive' evolutionary characteristic of humans that has become a major impediment to human progress.  Imagine the colossal waste of our world resources in wars! How much of value has been destroyed, including human lives?  Although loyalty to one's tribe can lead to many good things that benefit one's tribe, the concomitant distrust and hatred for those in other tribes has become a liability in an increasingly connected world where we're more and more dependent on each other.  We humans have to overcome our evolutionary tendency for distrust of those who differ from us in some superficial way or another.  Race and religion are foci for tribalism and yet both are increasingly irrelevant in the modern world.

I think the path to a world where terrorism is no longer a viable threat starts with the very christian ideals that so many christians seem to have discarded in favor of vengeance and violence.  If we show, not by our words, but by our deeds, that we're willing to accommodate other races, other religions, other 'tribes', then the terrorist message can be repudiated in the most powerful way possible.  If we respond to hatred with love, we can demonstrate to the muslim world that the terrorist message is a false one.  We can show by our actions that the principles we claim to live by are not mere empty words but a powerful plan for mutual accommodation.  Live and let live.  We can, in fact, revel in the diversity of our different cultures without the need for one culture to claim superiority over all others.  We have no message we need to export at gunpoint.  The only thing that truly matters is that we're all human beings, trying to cope with what life offers to us as best we can, while enjoying the simple pleasures we all share:  good food, good friends, family support, and a joy in being alive.

Give peace a chance.  Repudiate violence.  Resist the temptation of the terrorists to respond in kind.  Love one another.  In the end, love can conquer hatred.

Religion doesn't get a free pass here

With all the anger and sadness that's been generated by the terrorist attacks in Paris and Beirut, many seem to want to describe the terrorists as demonic, inhuman animals and downplay any role that religion might play in islamic terror.  We always de-humanize our "enemies" to justify inflicting violence on them.  Well, religion doesn't get a free pass, here.  The Koran is full of calls for murder to be visited upon unbelievers (including, by the way, muslims guilty of "apostasy").  Islam is pretty far from a religion of peace if you simply read the primary source of their religious dogma.  The jihadists are giving their koran a fundamentalist reading, and accept the koran's words literally, rather than cherry-picking only the parts that seem peaceful and loving.

ISIS is openly seeking to return to a 7th-century version of islam, with its harsh shariah laws and aggressive conquering of territory in order to impose islam on everyone in full force.  They seek to hasten the islamic apocalypse, not unlike their christian counterparts. [They're quite willing to use modern weapons and the Internet to further their goals, however, in a classic case of fundamentalist hypocrisy.]  These people are not simply lunatics or wild demons - they're intelligent people who have adopted a particularly virulent perspective on islam and believe in it with what is clearly religious fervor.  That doesn't make them lunatics or demons - only people guided by a misguided flavor of their religious faith.  That version isn't shared by most muslims around the world.

They're too weak to impose their will in "set piece" military actions and are too small a minority to impose their will politically, but rather use the classic tactics of the weak:   guerrilla warfare and terrorism.  They seek to enlist more muslims to their cause by inducing the non-muslim world to wage war on islam, thereby recruiting new followers from among muslims angered by collateral damage from the absurd, unwinnable "war on terror".  The fear and anger they create by their terrorism is working.  The "solution" many in the West favor is that of military action, rather than seeking some other way to solve the problem of terrorism.  It should be evident that violence in return for violence is almost never a real solution to the problem (despite the prevalence of vengeance as an excuse for violence in so many movies), but we return to it again and again because vengeance is easily justified, despite the historical evidence that violence only creates more violence in return.  An eye for an eye leaves both sides blind.

I'm not saying we should simply surrender to violent attack.  We can and should defend ourselves, and we should seek out and bring justice to those who commit terrorist acts.  But as I've mentioned in the past, we should not limit our our responses only to military ones.  We must address the causes of terrorism, and one of the causes is religious fundamentalist extremism.  Religion cannot be divorced from many extremists acts (bombing abortion clinics, for instance).

Very few christians today would be willing to enlist in or otherwise provide support for a crusade against muslims - historically, of course, the Crusades were precisely a war by christians on muslims to "rescue" the Middle Eastern "holy land" from the "barbaric" muslims.  To the best of my knowledge, muslims have not forgotten about the Crusades, and it's understandable if they see the Western war on terror in different terms than we do.  The fact is that christians and muslims not only share the same deity (under a different name) but both consider the biblical Jesus to be an important part of their faith.  Further, beyond their religious dogma, the fundamentalist, extreme believers in both christianity and islam are really brothers under the skin.  For the most part, christians today dismiss those willing to commit violence in the name of jesus and christian dogma as "not true christians" or simply "nut cases".  Most modern christians want to wash the christian faith clean of any violence (despite its prominence in the bible - as well as the koran), and don't want to accept any responsibility for violence done in the name of christianity.  I see both religions, christianity and islam, as cut from the same cloth.  Most modern muslims also repudiate the violence and hate contained in the koran, not unlike the majority of modern christians who repudiate all the ugliness contained in the bible.  It's within those groups of folks that we might be able to find a solution to terrorism done in the name of religion.

Many of those same christians, however, of late are seeing islam as being responsible for the terrorism its extremists inflict on the world (which, by the way, also is being visited on other muslims as well as christians).  This is spawning the very hatred of muslims that the terrorists want to create by their deeds.  I've said many times, we're losing the war on terror, because (among other things) we've allowed ourselves to get worked up into favoring solutions of violent vengeance rather than a rational consideration of the causes of terrorism and what we ought to do to try to find real solutions rather than inflicting hate and vengeance on all muslims.  I'm not saying it's going to be easy.  I'm fresh out of magic bullets and I'm definitely not in favor of singing kumbaya around the campfire with terrorists.  We have to work out a non-violent solution between moderate muslims and the moderates in the non-muslim world.

Debates on the definition of an atheist

Today I saw a post about a Pew survey of atheists that said "Although the literal definition of 'atheist' is 'a person who believes that God does not exist' ... 8% of those who call themselves atheists also say they believe in God or a universal spirit." There are issues with this!  Many atheists will dispute that definition, saying that an atheist is a person who does not believe a god-deity exists.  Superficially similar, these are quite different definitions.  The key notion is that belief means an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.  Belief in a deity, therefore, implies a state of mind with 100% confidence in the existence of that deity.  Similarly, if atheists believed with 100% confidence that God does not exist, then their belief would be the mirror image of a believer's faith in God.  Atheism could be seen as just another sort of religion, then.

What's wrong with belief, in either case, is that there's no absolute proof of the Abrahamic God's existence - or non-existence.  If such proof existed, there'd be no need to discuss this topic at all.  Everyone would already know for certain that God's existence or non-existence was an obvious fact.  If someone believes either claim with unshakable confidence, they must do so in the face of inadequate evidence to support absolute confidence in their claim - either belief would, therefore, be an act of "faith" where by faith I mean "belief in the absence of evidence".  Belief of either sort is, therefore, not rational.  

On the other hand, if your definition of an atheist means someone who does not believe in a deity (the Abrahamic God, Odin, Amun, or whatever), then it would be an outright contradiction in terms to have 8% of atheists say they believe in God or a universal spirit (whatever that might mean).  If someone claims to be an atheist and then turns around and says they're a theist clearly doesn't understand the definition of an atheist.  The funny thing about people who call themselves atheists is that we wind up disagreeing with each other a lot!  A continuing point of disagreement among atheists is the definition of atheist, as evidenced by the Pew survey result and the comments it has engendered among atheists.  Evidently, 8% of people claiming to be atheists don't understand the term! 

Many people who actually don't believe in a deity don't want to accept the atheist label, for reasons of their own, so they choose not to call themselves atheists.  Agnostic seems to some to be a less negative label than atheist.  An agnostic is someone who claims not to know for sure, but at the same time typically does not believe in God.  Agnosticism is a claim about a lack of knowledge, not a claim about belief.  A few atheists are absolutely certain there's no deity, a faith I don't share with them.  They would be "gnostic" atheists, and there are large numbers of comparable "gnostics" among theists.  I consider myself an "agnostic" atheist, as do most of the atheists I know.

It's quite possible to claim not to be affiliated with any organized religion and still be a theist (or deist, if you prefer).  [This was the case for several of the framers of the US Constitution, most of whom favored a "wall of separation" between church and state, to prevent the tyranny of one religion over all others.]  There are some who regularly attend organized religious services but in their own minds actually do not believe in a deity - closet atheists, if you will.  The issue of whether or not you participate in organized religion isn't relevant to this discussion, but not having a religious affiliation is in no way equivalent to atheism.

Most of the atheists I know prefer the definition I mentioned above - atheism is the negation of belief, not a belief.  There are many analogies:  baldness is not a hair color, off is not a television channel, not collecting stamps is not a hobby.  These analogies are intended to illustrate the simple point that unbelief simply is not a belief.  Unbelief leaves open the logical possibility that at some point in the future, absolute proof of a deity's existence could be found.  As things stand now, any logical discussion of God's existence (or non-existence) is limited to the degree of confidence (i.e., excluding absolute certainty) one might have in concluding that God exists (or does not), based on whatever "evidence" we can muster.  Absolute positions are irrational in such a situation, because that degree of confidence just can't be justified.

It's common in science that two scientists can look at the same data and come to very different conclusions.  Both may have what they consider to be good reasons for their opinions, but unless the data are unambiguous and of an extremely compelling nature, they may continue to disagree.  Science, contrary to a common misconception, doesn't deal in truth.  Absolute truth doesn't exist in science (although it does in mathematics).  All scientific ideas are subject to question and revision, typically when new evidence comes to light.  Scientists never claim to know all the answers, in part because to know all the answers would be the end of science!  No one has to "believe" in science.  There are vast amounts of compelling evidence that science works in a practical, factual way that doesn't involve faith at all.  The thing about facts is that they're facts whether or not you believe in them.
 
I've described elsewhere the sort of evidence I'd find to be compelling regarding the question of God's existence.  In the absence of that sort of compelling evidence, the way the world works seems to me to be entirely consistent with what you would expect if there was no such deity.  The Abrahamic God is full of contradictions and is irrational, immoral, and even has human failings (e.g., jealousy!), despite the claims of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence.  That deity makes no sense to me.  I have an expanded version of my position regarding religion elsewhere, if you're interested.  Thus, it seems highly unlikely to me that the Abrahamic God exists, and the burden of proof lies with the theists, who are making the dubious positive claim that the Abrahamic God does exist.  I'm only making the statement that I'm not buying in to that claim.

Abortion, murder, morality, and reality

I expect that this one will elicit strong reactions from certain circles, but here goes ...

Recent discourse on social media has brought to light what seems to be a telling argument against any abortion:  that it's a form of murder and, therefore, is considered both illegal and immoral.  I have no reason to dispute that abortion kills an unborn person.  I prefer not to go down the path of debating the details of when "life" begins or what differences exist between a fertilized egg and a person.  I'm happy to leave those arguments to others.

To me, the fact that abortion kills an unborn person is the critical issue, and most opponents of all abortion adhere to the notion that all life is sacred and we should never allow murder to be legal.  I'll get back to that shortly, but I want to consider just what it might mean to assume that all life is sacred.  For those of us that eat animal flesh, we kill animals (or, have them killed for us and prepared in neat packages at the grocery or served to us in restaurants) all the time in order to feed on their flesh.  That bothers some people so much that they become vegans, eating only non-animal foods.  But of course, that usually involves consumption of vegetables (and fruits, of course), typically "killing" the vegetation (or at least interrupting its growth) in the process.  There literally is no way to avoid ending life in order to survive.  In many cases, humans have interfered in the natural genetics of animals and plants to maximize our food production.  Many so-called "primitive" peoples went out of their way to "thank" the food from which they derived sustenance in order to survive, through rituals comparable to saying "grace" before a meal.  It's the way of nature that life feeds on life, killing the food in the process in order that we can steal its energy to keep us alive.  So just how sacred is all life to us?  Ever eaten lobster or shrimp or crayfish?  How do we eat them?  Often by plunging them alive into pots of boiling water!  Guess we don't consider their lives to be all that sacred!  Other examples abound, including such things as "trophy" hunting.  All life is, quite evidently, not all that "sacred" to us if "sacred" is taken to mean that we should never take that life to serve our own purposes.

Can we somehow survive by some means other than killing other life?  Unless we learn how to accomplish photosynthesis in our own bodies, this seems to be an unobtainable ideal.  At best, we can try to be grateful for the contribution to our lives by our food products and seek to minimize any suffering associated with their domestication and sacrifice of their lives.  That's another whole debate of its own and I'm not wanting to go there in this blog.  OK, so whatever idealism might be behind the notion that all life is sacred, we must nevertheless kill to survive and the lives we destroy to sustain ourselves are testimony to the fact that such idealism is hopelessly ... well, idealized, and impossible to achieve on a comprehensive basis.

So, if all life isn't sacred, is all human life sacred to us?  The fact of the matter is that if we examine our actual behavior and how we respond to our circumstances, all of us can find circumstances in which the taking of human life (murder) is considered acceptable.  For example, most of us feel that if someone threatens us with bodily harm, then it's morally defensible to respond to that threat by killing the threatening person.  Sometimes we refer to that as "self-defense" or sometimes as "justifiable homicide".  I'm pretty confident that by far the majority of the proponents of ending all legal abortions (which won't end illegal abortions, naturally) would accept that murder in self-defense (or in defense of others) is quite acceptable.  There might be some debate over what circumstances murder is justifiable, but it doesn't change the fact that murder is "legal" and morally acceptable to almost all human beings, under certain circumstances.

And of course, there's the vast apparatus we have developed to kill humans in large numbers - war.  Although there are "rules of war" that can be applied to define circumstances in which killing is not permissible in war, there's the usual debate over just what those circumstances might be.  Many people believe that murdering POWs or non-combatants is not acceptable - and yet it happens in all wars on all sides.  For war fatalities (that is, the person(s) killed in the process), there's no essential difference.  They were murdered, plain and simple.  Losing your husband (or father or son, or their female counterparts) to an enemy's bullet has exactly the same impact as if it were done by some deranged criminal on a murder spree.  So long as we fight wars for reasons (always of arguable merit), it's pretty obvious that this is yet another situation in which we don't let our notions of the sanctity of human life interfere with killing people "justifiably".

Another exception to the rule is when the death penalty is imposed for certain crimes.  Just what crimes deserve the death penalty is always at issue, naturally.  People vary considerably in their positions about the death penalty.  There's always a sort of inconsistency about the state killing people for killing other people and that bothers many opponents to the death penalty.  Some governments feel quite expansive about what constitutes a capital crime, a concept that hardly has remained constant over time.  Most of us no longer feel that a pickpocket deserves to die, for instance.  Being opposed to Communism or Islam might still get some people killed, however.  Not all countries or states have the death penalty, of course, but whether your government(s) allow it or not, many people (some of whom would be numbered among the extreme opponents of all abortion) would find it morally acceptable to murder a child molester (or a cop-killer or a serial murderer or a serial rapist or an abortion doctor), for example, even though the laws of the state have no legalized death penalty.

So, finally we arrive at the issue of abortion.  Are there no possible circumstances under which abortion might be acceptable?  Not according to some people, virtually all of whom do feel that murdering humans can in fact be quite justifiable - under certain circumstances.  Of all the arguments against abortion, I find the "slippery slope" argument among the weakest of them.  It seems to me that abortion should not be considered the primary means for birth control, but many (not all, of course) opponents of abortion on religious grounds also are opposed to birth control measures.  Nevertheless, if someone can find it possible to accept murder under certain circumstances, they shouldn't be uncomfortable with abortion under certain circumstances.  The only thing to debate is just exactly which circumstances justify abortion.  Virtually all the opponents of abortion under all circumstances on the "sanctity of human life" argument are being inconsistent and hypocritical.

OK - let the debate begin.

Is religious indoctrination of children abusive?

This blog is the result of seeing the headline question posted on an atheist FaceBook forum.  The statement is made by some atheists to the effect that when parents indoctrinate their children with religion, it's a type of child abuse.  I wanted to offer my thoughts on the topic here.

For the most part, in the USA, we're talking about christianity, although some of this might apply to other Abrahamic religions.  I'm not so knowledgeable about them.  I also acknowledge that your experiences and understanding may vary from mine.  That is, there are around 40, 000 different versions of christianity, and they distinguish themselves in various ways based on their particular doctrines.  My comments are keyed to the version of christianity that I was taught in an evangelical lutheran church because that's what I know best.  Of course, my understanding of that is biased since I never really bought into the program, and left it as soon as I felt I could.  Hence, I admit my comprehension could be flawed in detail, but probably not in basic doctrine.

So, disclaimers done, let's proceed:  in the version of christianity I was taught, there's an all-powerful, all-knowing god who rules the universe he created from nothing.  This god is acknowledged to be a jealous god (a curiously human sentiment for an all-powerful being), so he has no tolerance for belief in other gods.  He demands humans worship him, and only him (sounds like deep insecurity to me).  Somewhere in the universe, this god created two places where people would go after they lived out their days on the Earth:  joyful heaven for the believers and horrifying hell for the heathen unbelievers.  Evidently, this god also created an evil opponent (for no obvious reason), the devil (satan, or whatever) to seduce people away from the path leading to heaven, in order for them to land in hell where he tortures them forever.  This is pretty much the prototypical "carrot and stick" for humans.  If you swallow the story, you get the carrot;  if you don't, you get the stick - hard and forever!  Because a woman was convinced to eat some fruit by the devil (in the form of a talking snake), all of humanity is scarred by her free choice to disobey god (See the messages, here?) for all time.  Now that's god's justice and love, right?

I think it's pretty safe to say that the vast majority of christians in the US were born into and raised within christian families.  It's virtually certain that this, and this alone, is the primary explanation for the predominance of christianity in the US.  Religions are perpetuated in this way - Richard Dawkins has referred to religions as "God Memes", where a meme is defined as "an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture".  The meme is, therefore, self-replicating.  Not everyone exposed to a meme is brought under its influence, of course, so not unlike the way DNA operates, the replication is not always completely perfect.  I'm an example of someone who didn't accept the this "god meme" - what I was taught never made any sense to me.  But for many (most) believers, being raised in a family with a particular religious bent is sufficient to indoctrinate them with the meme and by this means, the meme is perpetuated.

From my viewpoint, I have no problem with someone accepting the tenets of christianity, although it's always puzzling to me when otherwise intelligent, rational people choose to accept what I see as a preposterous story with virtually no supporting evidence.  There are many positive aspects of christianity (although they vary from one to another of the 40, 000 flavors), so inculcating the traits of kindness to others and love for all god's creations, for example, can't be a bad thing.  Many christians find the notion of love for all god's creations (e.g., homosexuals or socialists) pretty challenging!  The message may (or may not) be inherently abusive, but what I find to be obvious child abuse is the creation of fear and self-loathing.

In the version of christianity I was taught, all humans are scarred indelibly with the sin committed by the first two humans who were tricked into going against god's rules.  Presumably, a (temporary) human sacrifice (by the "son" of god, via a "virgin birth") is the only way to redemption chosen by god for the original sin, provided one accepts the temporarily murdered son of god as their lord and savior.  Frankly, I find this notion totally absurd, but everyone is free to believe whatever they choose.  Just don't ask me to buy it!

In any case, many children born in christian families are told that fire and brimstone forever awaits them because even if they act only with kindness and love for their entire lives (which I think even children realize is pretty much an impossible standard of behavior), their damnation is assured by a sin committed by someone else long ago.  They're made to feel shame and guilt for their "transgressions", notably including sins they themselves didn't actually commit.  The only solution is to embrace the jesus meme even more, which breeds even more guilt for the inevitable human "failings" (like sexual lust, for instance).  Fear, guilt and shame are powerful tools by which the meme controls its believers.  And, by a bizarre twist, regardless of the massively heinous crimes someone may have committed, if at the end of their miserable lives they accept almighty jesus as their lord and savior, they go to heaven!!  The only way to avoid hell and damnation is to believe.  [Reminds me of the cowardly lion in The Wizard of Oz.]

The content of religion isn't necessarily abusive on its own.  But the use of fear, guilt, and shame to force children down your parental "path of righteousness" is child abuse.  If you're a christian, you almost certainly want your children to accept your version of the one "true" religious faith.  Using abusive tactics to accomplish that goal clearly is an immoral thing to do, at least in my book.

If you're an atheist, the proper thing to do is to encourage your children to make up their own minds about religion.  This necessarily involves letting them learn about religion, and to give them the self-confidence to resist the peer pressure they'll surely get from their indoctrinated peers in order to make an informed choice as they mature into adults.  Most atheists don't seek to force atheism on believers - they want believers to (a) support separation of church and state, and (b) accept atheists without hate and contempt, thereby living up to the positive ideals of christianity.

Beliefs are an excuse to disobey the law?

My social media these days are brimming with numerous examples where public officials are openly defying the law.  Since when have religious beliefs become trump cards over the laws of this secular nation?  Have we become a theocracy overnight while I was naively thinking this nation was founded on the principle of separation of church and state?

Public officials are supposed to be held to the highest possible standards of respect for the laws of the land.  Police officers, holders of elective office, judges, appointed public officials, and so on are entrusted by all the American people with the responsibility for upholding the law.  In return for accepting that responsibility, they're granted important discretionary powers.  But such powers are not infinite!  They have limits, and open disregard for the law is beyond those limits.  If public officials disagree with the law, they either should resign their position of authority or obey the law while participating in a campaign to change the laws with which they disagree.  This necessitates an open discussion and the participation of all the people, not just those who oppose those laws. 

Martin Luther King (following the principles used by Ghandi) showed the world how to change unjust laws by nonviolent means.  When he and his followers disobeyed the law, they expected to be arrested, and they were.  They actually wanted to be arrested, as a direct indication of their grievances with bad laws that sanctioned racial discrimination.  Nonviolent opposition gave a voice to the downtrodden victims of racism.  Given their objectives, this exposed the injustices being perpetuated in bad laws and eventually led to the rejection of those laws.  No matter that racists still stain the American landscape - they're no longer able to use the law to implement their hatred.

If people are allowed to use their religious beliefs to disobey the law without punishment, is this not an open invitation for defiance of the law for virtually any reason?  Why obey the laws when you personally disagree with them for your own personal reasons?  This seems to represent an acceptance for lawless behavior of all sorts.  How can the "law and order" conservatives of this nation support open flouting of the national, state, and local laws?  How many times have I heard from conservatives that we must respect our laws without regard to whether or not we agree with them?  Are conservatives somehow able to pick and choose which laws to obey?  Not unless this nation has become a theocracy and the Constitution replaced with something else as the law of our nation.  Their hypocrisy reveals their lies (as my friend R.J. Evans says).

It seems clear to me that public officials who disobey the law should be arrested and tried, with the prospect of serving time in prison for their actions.  Public officials are not somehow above the law, and in fact should be expected to set the highest possible standard for lawful behavior.  Our justice system is structured so that our representatives create the laws, our law enforcement officers arrest lawbreakers, and our judicial system establishes their guilt or innocence, imposing sentences on those convicted.  At no point in that process is there any room for those charged with law and order to pick and choose which laws they enforce.

Yes, I know that our system is laced with flaws along that path.  It's far from perfect.  Corporate executives have broken laws left and right and virtually nothing happens to them other than a wrist slap of a fine.  And I recognize that there are bad laws and bad judicial rulings.  And public officials time and time again reveal their hypocrisy and contempt for our laws, rather than living up to the highest moral and legal standards.  But just as ordinary people are expected to obey the law regardless of their personal opinions, and ignorance of the law is no excuse, neither are religious beliefs (or any other belief) justification for anyone to disobey the law and escape arrest, trial, and punishment.  Yet, even the embarrassing governor of the state of Oklahoma is publicly defying rulings by both the Supreme Court of the United States and the Supreme Court of the State of Oklahoma - and she walks freely and openly in defiance even as I type this. 

The religious reich and the rich elite have shown their contempt for our laws in the most open and brazen ways possible.   If our laws are to have any meaning or significance in the future, they must be enforced vigorously, without regard for personal justifications.  If religious beliefs can supercede public law, then where does it end?  What other excuses might be offered to disobey the law?  That sort of thinking ends in utter chaos.

The Supreme Court and the war on equal rights

There certainly is a lot of "celebration" going on in liberal ranks, and deep consternation (if not outright howling in agony) from many conservatives regarding the recent Supreme Court (SCOTUS) decisions.

From where I sit, I'm certainly happy about the same-sex marriage decision.  Despite the narrowness of the margin, it was the right decision.  Although the Affordable Healthcare Act is not what I prefer to see (i.e., the single-payer option), it confirms what the program was intended to do: make affordable healthcare possible for millions of Americans who otherwise had no healthcare support.

But what this blog is about is not the rulings, per se, but rather concerns my puzzlement over why it was necessary for the SCOTUS to rule on same-sex marriage.  In my view, this is already covered by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution:

Four principles were asserted in the text of the 14th amendment. They were:

1. State and federal citizenship for all persons regardless of race both born or naturalized in the United States was reaffirmed.
2. No state would be allowed to abridge the "privileges and immunities" of citizens.
3. No person was allowed to be deprived of life, liberty, or property without "due process of law."
4. No person could be denied "equal protection of the laws."

Source:  here

It seems to me that it would take some pretty severe distortion of these principles to suggest that it would be legal in the US for anyone to deny anyone else equal treatment under the law, regardless of who they are (i.e., race, gender, religion, sexual identity, or anything else).  In fact, a lot of things are going on right now where some Constitutional rights have been wrongly taken away in the name of a bunch of conservative talking points.  The Constitution is being invalidated routinely these days by the same SCOTUS that has enjoyed the approval of the very people currently upset with the SCOTUS' recent rulings.  Constitutional rights are being abridged with impunity, everywhere.  Evidence of that abounds on social media.  Absurd cyrpto-fascist notions are being bandied about by some of the religious reich, such as abolishing the Supreme Court or intentionally violating the SCOTUS rulings.  These are clearly unconstitutional ideas and border on being sedition.  Interesting that such notions emanate from that very segment of our population which claims to represent law and order, and family values.  They're hypocritical frauds.

The divisions are deep and ugly these days in American society, and the rather odd, mixed collection of rulings by the SCOTUS over the past few years has not healed those divisions but, rather, has deepened them.  It seems we must make up a complete list of every possible human trait and state specifically that we shouldn't discriminate against that group, and then ram that through the SCOTUS before they can be afforded equal protection of the law.  Does a reasonable interpretation of the words above not automatically include everyone?  What part of "no person" do you not understand?  Evidently, I have to be realistic enough to know that many people have unreasonable interpretations of the Constitution, and they won't give those up, regardless of battle defeats.

Regardless of the battles won (on both sides) by particular SCOTUS rulings, when they go against the religious reich, the victories are always local.  The war will never be won against the religious reich, until they die out completely.  The problem is clearly that logic and evidence mean nothing to an irrational belief system.  They'll never give up so long as they assume their version of religious belief trumps our secular government's mandate (see the 1st Amendment) to run the nation with church and state clearly and totally separated.  When religion is allowed to push its beliefs and principles into everyone's public life, democracy is transformed to theocracy - a fascist form of dictatorship - for examples, review the Middle Eastern muslim theocracies.  Like the muslim zealots, the christian fanatics are under the belief they're doing their deity's will, and that's impossible for logic and evidence to overcome.

Nice to win battles from time to time, but the war goes on unabated.  Social progressives must be prepared for the war to go on for a long time.

 

Discrimination disguised as religious freedom

These days, there's an ongoing brouhaha over Indiana's new legislation signed into law by the governor - it's a "religious freedom restoration act" (RFRA) that effectively grants businesses the right to discriminate against persons on the basis of the business owner's religious beliefs.  An outpouring of disgust regarding this has resulted, including calls to boycott the state.  RFRAs are a total load of rubbish, of course.  The true origins of this legislation are rooted in the fear and revulsion (bigotry) that some people (mainly christian right-wing conservatives) feel about the LGBT members of their communities.  I'm not qualified to offer any sort of psychoanalysis of that fear's origins, so I'll not engage in "pop psychology".

In the USA, there's no need to restore religious freedom!  It's been guaranteed since this nation was founded within the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution.  Some christians are especially fond of seeing themselves as being persecuted on the basis of their religion - in a nation where the majority of its people are christians, christian churches are open and operating throughout the land, christian holidays are national holidays, and most of the people's elected representatives are christian.  Persecution?  What a load of self-centered nonsense!  If religious freedom is under attack by anyone, it's by the christian "religious reich", not the non-christians!  And one of the rights protected by our religious freedom is to be entirely free from religion, despite what christian religious reich apologists assert!  In some cases (e.g., within the military), Americans are literally being forced to participate in religion!

The absurd, convoluted rationalizations on behalf of these RFRAs are a communion wafer-thin veneer over the bigotry many of their supporters show regarding LGBTs.  Consider this:  a civil war was fought, and a massive civil rights protest leading to anti-discriminatory legislation was conducted, just to allow people of color in this nation to be granted their freedoms, rather than being enslaved and marginalized.  Open discrimination on racial grounds is no longer acceptable.  Similar rationalizations to those being heard today, also with their origins in religion were used, especially prior to the Civil War, to justify the evil institution of slavery (which is sanctioned in the Old Testament).  Not all christians see the bible as racist, but racists always have been (and still are) cherry-picking the bible in order to institutionalize their bigotry.  The battles to support civil rights for people of color in the USA have been fought - and, unfortunately, are still being fought to this very day - albeit not with armed conflict, but instead with political activism on both sides.  I'm sorry to say that racism is alive and well in the USA.

So we now have RFRAs designed to restore something that has never been interrupted in the history of the US:  "religious freedom".  What can be the real point of RFRAs?  No rational person today can argue that businesses are empowered to discriminate openly on the basis of skin color (race is now recognized to have virtually no meaningful scientific basis), of course.  Here and now, the fear and loathing are not openly directed at people of color, but rather at a person's sexual orientation.  And virtually identical arguments are being advanced that religion can justify that discrimination.  Of this, there can be absolutely no doubt!  The handwaving and rationalizations are only a transparent disguise on behalf of discrimination.  Please, let the christian conservatives supporting this legislation enlighten me:  just how does baking a cake for a gay couple to celebrate their marriage restrict your freedom to practice your religion?  Such a marriage may offend you, of course, based on your opinion of what the bible says.  Too bad for you, there's no Constitutional protection against being offended!  Are Christ's teachings such that he would discriminate against anyone for any reason?  In the entire New Testament, nothing is said by Christ about homosexuals whatsoever!  The Christ in the bible I read would send no one away, especially those he considered to be sinners.  The notion of homosexuality as a sin might have been extant at the time of Christ, but there's no scientific basis for seeing it as anything other than inborn sexual orientation - you can't catch it from someone else, and it can't be "cured" of it, any more than you can "cure" the color of your skin.  You don't choose to be gay, anymore than heteros choose to be "straight".  Homosexuality is a natural condition, as science has shown, and we share it with many other creatures.

Thus, it seems to me that the real intent of RFRAs is two-fold:  (1) To allow discriminatory business practices, and (2) to push a particular religion-based concept into the law of the land.  Both of these are direct violations of the Constitution, and are lynchpins of the religious reich.  All the other arguments, meant to deflect attention from the blatant bigotry of RFRA proponents, are just so much obfuscation.  They realize they can't simply discriminate against LGBTs, so they create this smokescreen to disguise their true intentions.

A Hierarchy of "Miracles"

In a recent Facebook discussion, I was asked why I differentiate between biblical miracles and those claimed in post-biblical times (right up to and including the present).  I'm not entirely happy with my responses, so I've been mulling it over for a while. The following is the result:  my attempt at a hierarchy of miracles and my comments about them, roughly in an arguable descending order.

1.  The set of those events that are beyond a doubt, unambiguously attributable to the intervention of a very powerful (or ominipotent) deity without any other plausible explanation.  As I see things, this is an empty set.  The bible offers several candidates, but they all fail to meet reasonable criteria.  Sorry, folks, but a document written in the Bronze Age by people who were pretty unsophisticated in their understanding of natural processes provides absolutely zero credible evidence that these events could only be explained by divine intervention in human affairs.  And it seems pretty convenient that virtually all the candidate events (Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt, jesus walking on water, people raised from the dead, feeding of the multitudes, etc.) have ceased in the post-biblical era.

2.  The set of those events that have a plausible explanation in terms of processes for which we have a substantial scientific understanding.  If one accepts that such events have a natural (as opposed to a supernatural) explanation, then these events don't qualify as miracles at all. What might be deemed "miraculous" is that a natural event occurs - an earthquake that topples the walls of Jericho for Joshua, the Red Sea is fortuitously parted by a tsunami or a seiche that allows the escape of the Jews led by the mythical Moses, and so on and on - at just the right time for our biblical "heroes".  However, if such stories have any factual basis in both historical evidence and naturally-occurring physical processes, they only speak to extraordinary good fortune for those involved.  You can attribute that to a deity if you choose, but none of these constitute a very compelling example of what I would consider a miracle.  Attributing such to divine intervention is pretty comparable for thanking god for helping someone score touchdowns, or providing rain after a prolonged drought, or being cured of cancer in a hospital, or finding lost car keys.

3.  The set of those events that have their origins in mythology plagiarized by biblical authors from the mythology of other, earlier religions.  Considerable similarity exists between many of the biblical stories and those of even more primitive religions.  Some see this as evidence that actually supports the reality of these narratives.  It is at least a logical possibility.  Unfortunately, it's at least equally plausible, based on the facts as we have them, that they're just recycled mythology, stolen by biblical authors to spice up their writings.

4.  The set of those events that are original myths made up by biblical authors.  Unfortunately, I'm not enough of a religious scholar to know all of the myths of other religions, so I'm uncertain what biblical stories are original.  I'm betting there are some, however.  The opportunity for magical thinking to reinforce the messages that biblical authors wanted to communicate would likely have been irresistible.

4.  The set of those events that are simple "magic" as practiced by magicians since time immemorial.  Magicians and shysters of all sorts use a wide array of tricks to deceive people into believing that the practitioners have supernatural powers.  I have little doubt that some fraction of the miracles described in the bible might well have been simple deceptions of a gullible audience by skilled magicians - parlor tricks and sleight of hand.  This includes faith healers and that ilk, as well.

5.  The set of natural events that are perceived by the gullible as "miraculous".  There seem to be many such "miracles" used by catholics for saintly candidates to be canonized as saints by the church:  there have to be two "miracles" documented (How? Eyewitness testimony?) to be the result of intercession by the candidate, so miracles are inferred from natural events.  Other miracles in this category include images of jesus on burned toast, "bleeding" statues, the Shroud of Turin, the development of life on Earth, and so on.  These are simply natural events or magical interpretations of faked relics, that provide believers with a "confirmation" of divine intervention.

In short, it seems to me that true "miracles" (i.e., divine interventions) are a myth, created to confirm the existence of a mythological deity.  No other rational explanation based on evidence can be offered, unless an actual deity chooses to break what believers take to be a self-imposed ban on miracles that would meet the criteria of #1. 

My take on the Chapel Hill murders

We still, as of this writing, have no definitive explanation for the murders of three muslims by atheist Craig Hicks, who voluntarily surrendered himself to police and is charged with these murders. The media have noted he is an atheist and the suggestion has been offered that this crime may have been motivated by his atheistic "hatred" of muslims and is not just a dispute about parking.  This despite his saying (on June 18, 2012), "While I am an outspoken atheist (obviously), I would never take away a persons [sic] right to religion. I would even fight for their rights to have religion if it ever came to that."  I don't know what the investigation will find as an explanation.  And the results of such an investigation may not reflect reality.

Whatever his motivations, the murder of three people is a heinous crime and it's quite appropriate for atheists to confirm that violence is not an acceptable way to resolve religious disputes.  I think such a  message should be directed primarily toward religious believers, as they seem to be the ones most inclined toward seeking violent "solutions" to disputes.  Need I enumerate all the myriad examples of violence committed as a result of religious extremism?  I think not.  [Please don't bring up atrocities perpetrated by atheist Communist dictators.]  Examples of atheists resorting to violence in the name of atheism are pretty uncommon.  This incident is conspicuous precisely because of its rarity.

Being an atheist carries with it no guarantee of anything, good or bad.  No doubt atheists have committed a full spectrum of crimes, but it's perhaps of some interest to note that our American prisons hold only a tiny percentage of atheists (around 0.2 percent).  It seems clear that being religious doesn't prevent believers from being incarcerated for criminal acts.  Since atheists have no sacred scriptures calling for them to commit violence on unbelievers, there are no universally-accepted atheist clergy who might sanction criminal acts of violence against believers, and there are no doctrines of any sort uniting atheists in a violent "crusade" against believers, then we are left with an inescapable conclusion:  Craig Hicks acted on his own volition to commit murder, for a reason or reasons yet to be determined.

Naturally, when religious apologists are called upon to explain why people professing to be of their faith have committed violent crimes, they like to say that these are not "true believers", with the obvious implication that true believers would never do such a thing.  It seems there are a lot of phony believers in prison.  Now I'm not going to say that Craig Hicks could not have been a "true atheist".  That would be quite comparable to the christian apologists' explanation for christians who commit vile crimes.  If it were valid to say that no atheist could commit a violent crime, then that might be an explanation.  Unfortunately, that's not a true statement.  However, there's considerable evidence that atheists are less likely to commit a violent act in the name of atheism than religious believers in the name of their religion.  Know any atheists who've flown planes into buildings lately?

Muslims have become very frightening to many people around the world.  You can equate islamophobia with racism if you wish, even though being a muslim is not a racial thing at all. But islamophobia is not paranoia;  it's based on the reality that muslim terrorists commit murderous criminal acts on innocent victims in the name of islam (that there are explanations for their terrorism is irrelevant). It's become evident that seemingly peaceful muslims living in our communities can be vicious terrorists.  A concern for islamic terrorism isn't just bigoted islamophobia!  Some of the more well-known atheist spokesmen, like Bill Maher, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins agree.  Muslims have yet to outgrow the propensity to violence codified in their "sacred" scriptures, and so they represent a much more worrisome threat than christianity at this time.  To think otherwise is to be oblivious to reality.  What worries me is that christian fear of islam will lead to a more militant form of christianity - not a more militant form of atheism.  Will the terrorists succeed in creating a real religious war by spreading fear in christians?  They're close to that in their clash with the jews of Israel.

I have no reason to apologize to anyone, as an atheist, for what Craig Hicks has done.  If it turns out to be a parking dispute, of course, that settles the issue.  If he did it from some spasm of anti-islamic fervor, I surely can say I had nothing to do with that - if he'd asked me, I'd have told him to back off and not give in to such passions - that it would be harmful to the cause of atheism to make martyrs of these innocent people. Some atheists seem willing to accept responsibility for the actions of this man.  I don't believe there's any reason for atheism to do so.  My friend RJ Evans has articulated this pretty well here.