Category: critical thinking

0 Some Hallowe’en crapitalism

October 28, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · crapitalism · forces of stupid · religion · science

So I realize it’s not actually Hallowe’en, but I don’t care.

I’ve explained before why it’s important to fight against belief in superstition – in order to co-operate with each other we need to use transparent and reality-based mechanisms. If we instead rely on dewy-eyed “respect” for each other’s ridiculous beliefs, we can end up doing damage to each other and ourselves. When the stakes are low, it’s entirely practical to ignore the more weird things that those around us think are true. Case in point: a close friend of mine believes in ghosts – while I think it’s weird to think that dead people have “spirits” that stick around and appear to random people, but cannot be detected except by the flawed human eye/brain, it’s really not worth it to try and change his mind. After all our friendship is not based on ghosts, and it’s only come up once in the hundreds of conversations we’ve had.

However, sometimes people believe in ridiculous shit and it absolutely does matter:

Eighty mainly elderly people recently jailed in Malawi for up to six years for practising witchcraft should be freed, campaigners say. George Thindwa from the Association of Secular Humanism told the BBC the convictions were illegal as there was no law against witchcraft. He said the problem was that many officials were “witchcraft believers”. The justice minister disputed the allegations, saying the justice system was “reputable”.

Regular long-time readers will remember Malawi from previous posts about religious vs. secular values, the stupidity of sodomy laws, and of course their ass-backwards stance on women’s rights and polygamy. Basically, I’m not a fan. Well now they’ve been caught putting people in jail for being witches.

And then of course, there’s the absolutely ridiculous claim from the justice minister that the system is “reputable”. Yes, it has a consistent reputation for being full of shit. That’s not the same as being reputable.

Justice Minister George Chaponda told the BBC that a person could only be found guilty of practising witchcraft if they confessed to being a witch. But our reporter says the records showed all the suspects had pleaded not guilty. “We are intervening in this matter because we are concerned we still have prisons in Malawi [with] people being accused of being witches,” Mr Thindwa told the BBC’s Network Africa programme. “The courts were wrong 100%, [and] the police, to actually accommodate cases.” Most of those recently sentenced were women usually accused by children of teaching them witchcraft.

I don’t think the people of Malawi are inherently evil, or inherently stupid. They are however held captive to inherently stupid and evil ideologies, by which measles vaccinations are tools of the devil, polygamy is the right of every woman to be protected by a man, and the accusation of a child carries the same weight (in fact more weight) as any sort of evidence. This is why I am completely unashamed to call out bullshit in as loud a voice as possible – to do otherwise would be to grant assent and respectability to all kinds of crazy half-cocked hypotheses, like the existence of witchcraft.

But luckily we live in the enlightened West, where we’ve outgrown such idiocy, right?

A self-described witch in Moose Jaw, Sask., says she’s outraged that religious groups have pressured a local museum to cancel a Halloween seance. The Western Development Museum had been planning to hold a fundraiser on Oct. 29 called Ghosts of the Past, at which, for a $30 entry fee, adult participants could learn about ouija boards and “attempt to make contact with the spirits.” The event was cancelled, however, following complaints from religious leaders and residents, some of whom expressed fears the seance would conjure up evil spirits.

Good grief. If you want to see some medieval stupidity writ large in public, look no further than your religious communities. Of course, these are the good, moderate Christians who are all about tolerance and acceptance. Not those crazy fundamentalists who believe in weirdo nonsense. It’s a good thing there aren’t any of those types of crazies around.

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8 New Zealand doesn’t have a race problem

October 26, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · crapitalism · racism

Those of you who are newcomers to this blog (I honestly have no idea how many new people there are from day to day, but the numbers are gradually getting larger so I can only assume…) won’t understand the context of the title of this post, or the 4 or 5 others in this series that precede it. A common trope in Canada (and yes, I actually do hear it) is that racism isn’t really a problem anymore. People seem to believe that racism is all stuff of history, but now we’ve progressed beyond that as a society. At least, in developed countries, members of visible minority groups don’t experience any racism. This is a transparent attempt to divest one’s self from any responsibility, since anyone who thinks they’ve experienced racism is clearly just overly sensitive and needs to “get over it.”

And so I’ve started throwing these stories up from time to time to keep poking my audience, reminding them (and myself) that racism is still alive and well, and won’t go away until we take concrete steps towards addressing it.

So today it’s New Zealand’s turn:

A television presenter in New Zealand has been suspended for suggesting on air that the country’s governor-general was not a proper New Zealander. Sir Anand Satyanand was born in New Zealand to Indo-Fijian parents. Presenter Paul Henry provoked a storm of criticism by asking the Prime Minister, John Key, whether the next governor-general would look and sound more like a New Zealander. “Is he even a New Zealander?” Henry asked. ”Are you going to choose a New Zealander who looks and sounds like a New Zealander this time?”

In case you missed the oh-so-subtle insinuation, a “real New Zealander” is a white person. Never mind, of course, the fact that white people are a recent addition to the human species in New Zealand, whereas someone who is Indo-Fijian has a much more legitimate claim to being “really” from there. Let’s ignore all of that. This is part of the centuries-old branding by white Europeans to define the “default” human being as white, whereas everyone else is some departure from that. The evils of “Darwinism” have shown us that, in fact, racial differences are less than 100,000 years old; and in some cases even more recent than that. Certainly since we have records of when the first white people landed on New Zealand and encountered people already present there, it should be ridiculous to even suggest that any white person is more a “real New Zealander” than anyone else. But then again, these are logic-based arguments, whereas racism is based on prejudice and intentional ignorance of fact.

Oh yeah, please believe it doesn’t end there:

India has condemned “racist and bigoted” remarks by a New Zealand TV presenter who made fun of Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit’s surname. TVNZ breakfast show host Paul Henry broke into laughter a number of times as he mispronounced the surname – which sounds closer to “Dixit” in English. Mr Henry’s comments were broadcast last week on the state-owned channel TVNZ, but took a few days to be noticed in India. In the footage, Mr Henry mispronounces Ms Dikshit’s surname several times – apparently deliberately. He added: “It’s so appropriate because she’s Indian… I’ve known about her for a while and I’ve been laughing ever since.”

If you were ever looking for an example of white privilege, here it is. This is a guy who is on state-sponsored radio making outrageous and hurtful comments about someone’s last name for a cheap laugh. And why does he get the cheap laugh? It’s not because the jokes are particularly well-constructed or insightful, it’s because he has an audience that buys into the background cultural racism that says that someone from another culture is wrong or weird; not by virtue of any harm they do, but because their language is different than English.

I’m completely comfortable calling out Iran’s terribly destructive cultural practices because they’re destructive. I’ll bag on China for shutting down free speech because it hurts people. And if Mr. Henry were making a coherent critique of India’s performance hosting the Commonwealth Games, I’d have no problem with him shitting on the Indian government. However, that’s not what this is. This is an asshole with a microphone playing to the never-spoken racist feelings of his fan base (who I’m sure would swear up and down that they don’t have a racist bone in their bodies).

But of course New Zealand doesn’t really have a race problem, right?

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0 The joy of the godless (parte the firste)

October 25, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · Catholic church · crommunism · religion

I was recently accused by a commenter of being the wrong kind of atheist:

There is a difference between the honest atheism of the nihilist, who believes there really is no God and acknowledges the implications of such, and the self-delusionary humanism of the New Atheist, who does not really mean what he says when he says ‘there is no God’ but instead believes ‘there is a God and I am he.’ And by that I mean that he thinks he is the highest form of life there is — the noblest and most dignified Being there is (which gives him the ability — no, it’s more than that — the right, to determine that ‘all humans have equal value.’)

Apparently I am deluding myself because I’m just not sad enough. In order to be an ‘honest atheist’, I have to be a nihilist, recognizing nothing but abject sorrow and emptiness within the meaningless void of a random, uncaring universe. Otherwise I am exalting myself to heights of self-aggrandizing hauteur, imagining myself to be the single highest life form in existence.

Calling this a straw man or a caricature would be lowballing the audacity of this ridiculous lie almost to the point of being completely inaccurate in my labeling. Nothing in that paragraph, however well it may be written, describes anything that comes anywhere close to my personal beliefs. It is an argument that is the intellectual equivalent of drawing a moustache and goofy glasses on the portrait of a political opponent (I already wear glasses and have facial hair, so perhaps a better comparison is needed).

However, mulling this over in my mind did yield some fertile personal exploration about how I arrived by my atheism, and why I am not an abject nihilist. I am, save for occasional bouts of depression when reading news articles or following politics, an incredibly happy person. Ludicrously happy, in fact. At this particular moment in my life I am employed at a job I love and find challenging, am living in the city of my choosing surrounded by interesting, supportive, and (let’s face it) attractive friends. I have personal, musical, and political projects that occupy my free hours, and there are many more things out there for me to learn and explore.

It was not always so for me, this type of fulfilled contentment. There was once a time when I was in the throes of deep existential conflict – when I struggled day and night with questions that underlay the whole of my self-identity. I read voraciously, trying to find how other thinkers had addressed these problems in the past. These sojourns into the philosophical literature occasionally yielded a few weeks or months of respite, but inevitably I would find myself foundering once again on a sea of doubt and confusion.

I was raised Roman Catholic, and beginning in my late childhood I began taking my religion very seriously. Coming from a far more liberal family than average, my religious beliefs were not scripture-based, but rather ran along lines of a code of decency, generosity, humility, and above all, forgiveness. When good things happened, I would immediately thank and praise God. When bad things happened, I comforted myself in the understanding that there was ultimate justice awaiting all people. I was happy to reconcile my scientific understanding of the universe with the bits of the Bible I had read, glossing over the parts that didn’t make sense. I was actually voted valedictorian of my confirmation class (like a Bar Mitzvah for Catholics), and asked to give a speech on our religious journey. I planned to become a priest and share my insights into the loving God with congregations of faithful believers.

But, as it says in First Corinthians:

When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.

I began to see that the religion I belonged to in no way reflected my own beliefs. Our youth group received newsletters from anti-choice organizations filled with lies and distortions of facts. When I wrote to them demanding that they show some accountability, my letters were dismissed and ignored. I began to struggle with the hypocrisy and vulgar pomposity of the Church; idolatry on full display, hate passed off as divinely justified, a seeming abdication of the custodianship of humanity that was preached from the pulpit. It seemed as though the idea of a loving, forgiving and just God was put to the lie by the hate, insolence and moral emptiness of those who claimed His favour.

So I began to read: Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Daniel Quinn, Ayn Rand, Dostoyevsky, Hugo, Dickens, Terry Goodkind… anything I could get my hands on. At one particularly desperate point I attempted to read though the Bible, hoping to wrest some insight from its pages – sadly, the Bible is just the oral history of a bronze age tribe set in florid language; not particularly helpful. Thinking that my constant crisis of faith was due to laziness on my part, I redoubled my commitment to the church – reading from the lectern at mass, teaching Sunday school, playing viola with the choir. My father was of little help during this period, giving me pat answers to complex questions and becoming upset that I would even ask (even though it was he who taught me to question authority, a lesson I’m sure he regrets imparting now). I would pray every day that God would grant me some kind of solution to my constant queries, or that He would at least help me by silencing the voice in my head that kept pointing out the gaping flaws in my patchwork theology.

No help from above was forthcoming. I entered a long and bitter period in which I clung to the ribbons of my faith like a vagrant clings to the rags on his back, snarling angrily at anyone who would question me from either side. Believers were simple-minded fools who hadn’t asked the important questions, whereas atheists were simply denying the manifest truth of the majesty of the universe and the wonders of faith.

I can say without hyperbole that those intervening years were some of the most miserable of my life. Most assuredly, being an eccentric, chubby, racially outlying teenager probably contributed more than its fair share to my unhappiness. However, even in my private moments of introspective reflection, I could not escape the constant nagging doubt – a doubt that was a gaping hole in my entire outlook on life.

So when people rhapsodize to me about the joys of religious life, and the great comfort they find in their loving relationship with YahwAlladdha, it’s hard for me not to hearken back to those years when I reached with all my mind, body and soul for some measure of that comfort and fell repeatedly on my face. The only time when I was free from the torment was during the brief windows of time in which I was able to slap a band-aid explanation or trite bit of theology over a serious question and ignore it for a while.

Of course now I am much happier, and am no longer plagued with such angst, but I am well over my post-length limit, so I will have to save that part for next Monday.

TL/DR: I have not always been an atheist, but my religious faith (when I had it) was a constant source of trouble and pain for me. Far from making me a nihilist, my atheism has made me far happier than I have ever been as a believer.

3 Special Feature: I speak at New Bright Lights

October 23, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · Media · presentation · race · racism · skepticism · Video

Welcome Pharyngulites and redditors! Please make sure to check out the preamble to this post before watching the videos.

Many of you are probably aware that I was invited to speak about race, racism and its relevance to the skeptical movement at the beginning of the month. The event was part of a lecture series under the name New Bright Lights (I’d provide a link, but there’s no homepage), in which speakers on a variety of topics are invited to discuss their subject of expertise.

I was a bit nervous to participate in this event, for a few reasons. I am not now, nor have I ever been, afraid to speak in public. However, I am not an expert with a strong academic background in issues of race. I am a relative newcomer, despite the fact that the issues have been of particular relevance to me my whole life. In addition, there is a lot of information that an audience needs to be equipped with before most of this content can be understood. Part of my reason for starting this blog was in response to repeated requests from friends for more clarification on issues they hadn’t discussed before for fear of being labeled as bigots.

I am glad that I decided to participate, however. It forced me to re-tool my blog content for a different method of delivery, and helped me clarify a few issues in my own mind about how my life as a skeptic is not divorced from my life as an anti-racist. Jason Harmer at New Bright Lights was gracious enough to fast-track the video production for me so that I could put it up for you. A few caevats before you watch though:

I am reading from a script in order to avoid the usual “um” and “err” problem, and to keep the presentation timely, so that’s why I spend so much time looking down.
I do have Powerpoint slides, which I am making available here. It’s probably easier to play the video in the background and watch the slide show, since I don’t do anything particularly entertaining besides stand there and talk. The audio should suffice.
You’ll notice that the audio cuts out at various places during parts 1 and 2. This is not an issue of video quality – I have removed the names of people whose stories I told. None of the stories are offensive or make people look bad, but they are my friends and I respect their right to privacy – especially since I didn’t ask permission first.
As I said in my post a couple weeks ago, I think I concentrated too much on issues of black and white people, largely missing the rich context of non-black/white conflict. Please do not interpret this as a trivialization of these issues, merely the fact that I am not nearly as familiar with them.

So without any further delay, here are the videos:

Feedback is, as always, appreciated.

0 Movie Friday: 8 out of 10 Cats

October 22, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · crapitalism · funny · movie · skepticism

Sometimes I wish we had more access to British guiz/game shows. It seems like they have way more fun on theirs than we do on ours.

Part 2/3
Part 3/3

Yes, that really is Uri Geller, amazing spoon-bender who has been debunked publicly several times, not the least of which was on the Johnny Carson show. And yet, people are willing to believe he can do crazy shit like make spoons jump across the room.

The host and guests get in some amazing zingers at Uri’s expense:

“If you believe in ghosts, go ‘oooooooh'”
“This is one of the biggest benders in the world here”
Pretty much the entire first half of the 3rd clip

Uri does a pretty decent job of mocking himself though:

Host: What do you think people find scary? Uri: Waking up in the morning and seeing your spouse
“It’s awful to be attacked by spoons”
“Did you know that the first spoon ever found was in the pyramids?

I also still love Tim Minchin. Also, the line “the worst part about being bitten by a poisonous spider is that you’re probably Australian.” Burn.

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0 Iran and the Catholic Church – not at all strange bedfellows

October 21, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · Catholic church · crapitalism · religion

It never fails to amaze me how regularly religious groups fail to see that they are exactly the same. I saw a clip on The Colbert Report a few nights ago, where an evangelical Christian minister was warning people about how Islam was planning to take over America, and that we should all be worried. I had to do a double-take, as I realized that nobody called the guy out for being an evangelical Christian. By its very nature, evangelical anything means your stated mandate is to convert as many people as possible – this guy is just as guilty as those he’s accusing. Of course Islam has an interest in converting everyone, so does Christianity. Any religion that claims to be the “one true religion” is basically out-and-out stating its intention to bring the whole world under its thumb. To deflate the predictable protest from moderate Muslims and Christians who claim that their faith doesn’t mean they have to convert anyone, I’ll say that your particular version of belief is at odds with direct commandment from your scripture:

Matthew 28:19-20

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

Matthew 24:12

And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

Luke 9:1-6

When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. He told them: “Take nothing for the journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra tunic. Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town. If people do not welcome you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave their town, as a testimony against them.” So they set out and went from village to village, preaching the gospel and healing people everywhere.

That’s just a handful of passages, please trust that there’s a loooot more. And for the Muslims… well I suppose you can just read this list – YahwAlladdha’s not exactly cool with non-believers.

With both religions claiming to be “the right one”, and having very clear commandments to destroy, convert, or otherwise gain supremacy over those who believe anything differently, it’s hard to imagine that there could be any kind of dialogue between them at all. But of course there is, as long as it’s politically convenient:

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has written to the Pope, thanking him for condemning an American pastor’s threat to burn the Koran last month. In his letter, Mr Ahmadinejad also called for closer co-operation between Iran and the Vatican.

I hope nobody is thinking “but the president of Iran isn’t a religious leader.” Iran is an Islamic theocracy, whose real power is wielded by the Ayatollahs. You can’t separate state power from church power – they’re the same thing.

At any rate, the hypocrisy of cozying up to an enemy when it’s convenient doesn’t surprise me, and shouldn’t surprise you. The thing that I found hilarious was this:

Mr Ahmadinejad also called for “a close co-operation of divine religions to restrict destructive moves such as ignoring of religious teachings, influencing people to be materialistic, which were eroding human societies”.

As though not enough religion was the thing eroding human societies. By my count, somewhere around 74 of the posts on this blog alone have been about religion, representing about 1/3 of my total output (including the 6 weeks I intentionally took off because I thought I was talking about religion too much). Iran is a country that is trying to bludgeon people to death with fucking rocks because of religion.

Anyone who thinks that the religions of the world will sit down at the table and play nice once they have unchallenged power over the countries of the world is delusionally ignorant of history and the mandates of religion. This is a match quite literally made in heaven – two oppressive religious theocratic forces attempting to enforce their small-minded agenda on everyone else have finally learned to team up, either out of expediency or necessity.

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0 The real Doctor Evil

October 19, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · ethics · health · medicine · science

Stuff like this chills me to the bone:

A doctor struck off by the General Medical Council for exploiting people with multiple sclerosis could be facing legal action by patients. A firm of solicitors said hundreds of “vulnerable people” who travelled to the Netherlands for treatment may seek compensation. Dr Robert Trossel treated them at his clinic in Rotterdam, following initial assessments in the UK. He charged thousands of pounds for unproven stem cell treatments.

I take heat from friends, from colleagues, and especially from my nemesis for my stance that sometimes the patient is the person who is the least equipped to make the decision about his/her health care. The reply inevitably comes that “people have a right to make their own health care decisions,” or that “scientific orthodoxy” is dangerous so we shouldn’t trust the evidence. I even field regular criticism from friends that think that we should be allowed to pursue unproven medical techniques (or even those that have been shown not to work) because it might benefit some people (either through placebo or through some kind of individualized magic powers that therapies supposedly have that isn’t detectable through clinical trials).

I offer this case study as an example of why I hold the position that I do, and am happy to defend it without shame. This doctor abused and perverted the trust that his patients placed in him as a caregiver, and used it to perform illegal experiments on them. The reason he was able to do it is because he led them to believe that his ‘treatment’ was going to help them recover from multiple sclerosis – a disease that can paralyze you and take away your autonomy. It is no small wonder to me that people would be willing to do just about anything to obtain relief from a disease like this, even if it’s something that is simultaneously expensive and risky.

As before, I am dismayed that I didn’t pay more attention in English class, or that I’ve largely ignored the vast bodies of literature in the English language, because I find myself at a loss to adequately put my disgust for this kind of predatory and exploitative fraud into words. The kind of callous disregard for the obligation that a health care provider has toward their patients, and for human decency in general, that this doctor has exhibited shocks me to my very core. He drew thousands of dollars from people based on a combination of their trust and desperation for a cure. These are dollars that these people could have used to get home care, or travel, or invest in real research, that have instead been wasted because Mr. Trossel (a doctor no longer) thought that he was above petty concerns like clinical equipoise or biomedical ethics.

It’s for this same reason that I am opposed to expediting the research process for this so-called “liberation therapy” proposed earlier this year. While I am hopeful that the procedure works, my optimism is tempered with a healthy amount of skepticism, precisely because the support for it is emotional rather than rational. This is why we have channels through which research must go – to avoid tragedies of the type perpetrated by this vulture.

After a fleeting improvement, Mr Pear’s [a patient who received the experimental procedure] condition has now deteriorated significantly. Mrs Pear said: “When you are sitting in front of a neurologist who is saying ‘look, there is nothing you can do’, you clutch at straws. I am not saying we are the most intelligent people on God’s Earth, but we certainly are not completely stupid.”

It’s almost a shame that there is no god or supernatural force to hold accountable those who would prey on the vulnerable like this. Luckily, we live in a world that has systems in place to provide a measure of justice, and I hope that someday Mr. Trossel comes to realize how evil and heartless his actions were.

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8 Jason Thibeault, reblogged for truth

October 18, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · critical thinking

If you’re not on my side about this morning’s post (and that’s totally fine – Brent didn’t particularly appreciate it either), and think that my handful of naughty words inhibited your ability to see my argument, I offer you a much cleaner (and therefore more correct, by Brent’s standards) version of my position, courtesy of Mr. Jason Thibeault:

This is pretty much exactly what I was upset about — the fact that people will always disagree with our positions, and we will be called strident firebrands no matter how sugar-coated we make our writings. The very fact that we’re mostly certain there’s no deity is enough of an affront to people who are not only certain of a deity, but a specific one, that we will be viewed as strident whether we’re actually being so or not.

Dawkins, Hitchens, Myers, et al, consider their words very carefully. I do too, in fact. Even when I’m extraordinarily frustrated with being told I’m incapable of morality or as bad as Hitler, I take great pains to consider every retort before posting. And when it comes down to it, there are people that are ACTUALLY strident and ACTUALLY offensive on the other side of the argument, who hardly consider their words before spewing them, and nobody’s ever pointing at them and saying they’re dragging down the discourse.

The tone debate is problematic specifically because you’re asking someone to do what they’re doing differently. Instead, you should be doing what you’re doing the way you feel is proper and correct, and let the other units on the field do their thing. By sniping at people on the same side as you, you’re actually stirring back up the whole debate about whose tone is worth being presented as the public face of atheism and whose is not — you’re the one with the gun, shooting the foot of the guy next to you.

One thing you’ll never hear from Myers is that Chris Mooney should stop presenting his arguments the way he does, except as where they concern him directly. What you argue, concerns me directly. I do not feel I have ever been unreasonable in any of my argumentation, despite being branded by theists as strident, sarcastic and unreasonable in previous debates. I have been accused of such, for the mere sin of not being uncertain and not submitting to wishy-washy illogic. I am painted with the broad brush of the attack by theists on atheists in general, and by attempting to “call for civility”, you are throwing the rest of us under the bus and saying to the opponents in this debate, “look guys, I’m much more reasonable than them!”

I have absolutely no intention of asking someone else of changing their own tone. The only thing I ask of you, is to please target elsewhere. You’re hitting your own side, by feeding the argument that all atheists are abrasive. I don’t particularly like that fact, especially where I suspect you may not be aware that this is mostly trumped up.

Your personal experiences with certain atheists notwithstanding, of course. They balance out the fire-and-brimstone-breathers, in my estimation. And anecdotal evidence is not evidence at all.

Personal highlights for me:

“you’re the one with the gun, shooting the foot of the guy next to you”
“I do not feel I have ever been unreasonable in any of my argumentation, despite being branded by theists as strident, sarcastic and unreasonable in previous debates. I have been accused of such, for the mere sin of not being uncertain and not submitting to wishy-washy illogic.”
“You’re hitting your own side, by feeding the argument that all atheists are abrasive. I don’t particularly like that fact, especially where I suspect you may not be aware that this is mostly trumped up.”

If you buy into a fraudulent argument created by your opponents, you’ll spend all your time fighting a lie rather than actually dealing with your issues. Thanks Mr. Thibeault.

6 Why are atheists so ANGRY?

October 18, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · crapitalism · critical thinking · forces of stupid · secularism

Despite the fact that it is against the rules, I have cross-posted this piece on Canadian Atheist.

Most of you are probably unaware that I occasionally contribute to the group blog Canadian Atheist. This is a site with contributors from all around the country, discussing various activities and issues within the atheist community, with particular relevance to Canada. The authors, myself among them, are all young people from various walks of life (although predominantly students). The discussions are usually interesting, but most of the time I end up bashing my head against my keyboard and screaming. As I’ve often said I have no problem with people disagreeing with my positions – I am happy to admit that I don’t know everything and am overjoyed when someone approaches me with a cogent, well-reasoned refutation of a position I hold. I am married to exactly none of my ideas, except insofar as nobody likes to be told that they’re wrong.

The thing that frustrates me is when the opposing position is completely brainless:

I know this is going to sound like a bit of a rant, but an idea just occurred to me. I’ve noticed that atheists, quite frequently, have sour dispositions. They’re often stand-offish, critical, and unfriendly. I notice they are also quite frequently socially awkward, but that’s a different issue to tackle.

Crap. Crap crap crappity crap crap.

We need to work on our image. I’m not sure where to start, but perhaps approaching the problem from the ground up is a nice way to start tackling the issue. What I would suggest is for atheists everywhere to be a little more friendly to not only one another, but also to others outside their atheist circle of friends.

Depressingly crappy craptacular crap.

The point is that the great atheist leaders that many atheists regard so highly are often viewed by outsiders as extreme, unreasonable, and ridiculous. Even those who agree with our cause often feel this way. Which means that if we’re trying to get the public on-board with our ideas and opinions, we’re failing.

Unadulterated, pure, unprocessed, certified organic CRAP.

All of this crap, brought to you in this particular case by fellow CA author Brent Kelly, is in reference to an argument that I’ve talked about a few times, the virtue of confrontational atheism. My position, boiled down, is that there absolutely must be people who are not afraid to stand up and make their opinions clear, regardless of if those in the majority get their feelings hurt in the process. Some things are more important than feelings, and I would offer human rights and the future of our society among those things.

But the issue at stake here (in this steaming pile of crap) is not simply whether or not “firebrands” are right or wrong, it’s the complete lie that is painted about atheists. There’s this ridiculous caricature that has been cultivated by believers that atheists are these angry, bitter, misfits who rail against religion and foam at the mouth whenever anyone has the temerity to say “bless you” when someone sneezes. Before I knew anything about Richard Dawkins, for example, I knew that he was a smug, arrogant prick with a bug up his ass about God. Of course, once I actually bothered to read any of his stuff and watch him in debate, I found out that he was a nebbish British biology professor with a soft spot for literature.

It’s a lie. It’s all of it a lie. Atheists absolutely do not have sour dispositions, any more than the rest of the population. We are not stand-offish or unfriendly in the least. Saying that we are critical is a fair charge, since criticism is part and parcel with skepticism, and the two camps share close ties. As far as being socially awkward goes… Brent, I say this with great affection, but go fuck yourself sideways with a rusty spike. At this point, you’ve completely abandoned any kind of critical thinking and have just wholeheartedly embraced the same kind of ridiculous stereotyping that is enjoyed by anti-gay bigots and racists.

I know this is going to sound like a bit of a rant, but an idea just occurred to me. I’ve noticed that blacks, quite frequently, have lazy dispositions. They’re often stupid, apathetic, and superstitious. I notice they are also quite frequently criminals, but that’s a different issue to tackle.

I know this is going to sound like a bit of a rant, but an idea just occurred to me. I’ve noticed that gay men, quite frequently, have effeminate dispositions. They’re often hyper-sexualized, promiscuous, and over-the-top. I notice they are also quite frequently HIV positive, but that’s a different issue to tackle.

This is the level of criticism we’re dealing with here. The kind of criticism that is happy to abandon any reasoned investigation into why black people are imprisoned at higher rates than whites, or why gay men have higher rates of HIV, and instead chalk it up to some kind of dispositional issue. It then becomes the job of the stereotyped group to fix the problem:

And be open to their ideas too, you might even learn something. Do whatever, just don’t get into a shouting match and reinforce the stereotype that atheists are argumentative, unfriendly, and annoying.

Cee Are Eh Pee – CRAP.

The completely false picture of atheists, or blacks, or gay people, or communists, or secularists, liberals, immigrants, etc. etc. etc. is one that is always based on an intentional mischaracterization of that group, from a position of privilege enjoyed by the majority group. Whenever someone disagrees with the majority position, if the argument can’t be defeated on its own merits, the next step is to demonize the minority group based on stereotypes – “It seems to me that many of group X is like this…” Since the majority have never come in contact with a member of the minority, they’re happy to buy into the idea that these people fit the stereotype. The lie then makes its way into the public conscience, becoming more and more popular, until members of the minority can’t even speak up on their issues without someone tagging them with completely false attributions. The member of the minority group then has to spend her/his time fighting against a lie rather than dealing with the real issues.

The most frustrating part of all of this is when it comes from within the minority group itself. When we’re not fighting against bigotry coming from those who oppose us, but from those who are supposed to be our allies – happy to throw us under the bus in the name of appeasing the completely fraudulent stereotype of members of the majority who just want to be left alone.

Utter, elemental, pure mountain springs of crap.

TL/DR: Atheists are angry because people keep spreading lies about us. It is a stereotype with no basis in fact. I have no patience for other atheists who tell us that it’s our fault that we’re stereotyped by liars.

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Brent posted a response to this rebuttal later that day. As I predicted, it’s nothing more than a butthurt whine that being upset about being slandered is “proof” that the stereotype is true, coupled with goalpost shifting – “I was just saying we should explore whether it’s true or not.” Of course, 1100+ word post was largely ignored because there were some bad words in it. Also, stereotypes must have some truth, otherwise why would people believe them? In between sarcastic comments, Brent tells me that he’s just super busy right now, and therefore can’t respond to any of the multitude of criticisms, or takes a faux-principled stand and says he won’t address any issues that feel like a personal attack. Words cannot express how unimpressed I am.

0 Move Friday: Joel Burns says it gets better

October 15, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · crapitalism · forces of stupid · hate · movie · sex

Last week’s edition of Movie Friday was a sort of tongue-in-cheek joke about the ridiculousness anti-gay propaganda. In my zeal to mock those who would promote such a ludicrously false message, I glossed over the fact that those kinds of things are serious. There are actually people who honestly believe that gay people are abominations in the eyes of YahwAlladdha, or even divorced from religion that they deserve to be mocked, bullied, tormented, tortured, and even killed. The milder form of this idiocy comes in the form of invoking “natural law” as some kind of justification for labeling homosexuality as a “sin” – or saying that gays and lesbians are “going against nature”.

If you’re reading this on a computer, you’re going against nature. If you’re clothed while doing it, you’re going against nature twice. If you’re indoors, you’re going against nature. Basically every activity you’ve done today aside from eating and pooping is a violation of “natural law”. The three examples listed above are things that no species in nature does, save homo sapiens. Interestingly, homosexual sexual activity is not unique to our species, but again the use of facts is of limited use when confronting ideologically-based bigotry.

There has been a great deal of recent attention paid to the rash of suicides committed by gay kids as the result of bullying. Of course, this phenomenon is not new, it’s just a statistical cluster that is grabbing people’s interest. Religious groups of various affiliations have been falling all over themselves to try and claim that they had nothing to do with it. Because, you see, Jesus is about loving the sinner, but hating the sin. Here’s the problem with that assertion: defining someone’s existence as a sin is hate. Plain and simple – you call being gay a sin, that’s a statement of hate. The predictable response to that argument is that being gay isn’t a sin, only engaging in gay actions. Basically, the solution is to just stop being so damn gay. An absolutely ridiculous position that forces people to deny who they are, and suppress what actually does come naturally to them.

I could go on like this for a long time, but this is Movie Friday, and you came here to see a video, so here it is:

Dan Savage, a popular queer columnist created this video and the associated campaign to tell gay kids that while life might be unbelievably tough, things get better. As you get older, you will be able to leave behind the small minds and idiocy of your family, or your school, or your church, or your community and find some solace and acceptance.

Predictably, this campaign has caught on like wildfire and people have recorded their own videos in solidarity. I found this one particularly moving, from city councilman Joel Burns from Fort Worth, TX:

What’s interesting about both of these stories is that although complaints were made to the appropriate places, nothing was done to stop the bullying. Basically, if you act gay, then you’re the legitimate target of violence. That’s how hate works. People may not actively seek out and beat up gay kids, but they contribute to a culture that tolerates those who do. These religious groups who said that it wasn’t their fault are missing the whole point – you grant implicit license to those who commit atrocities by preaching the nonsense that fuels the hate.

Anyway, this will have to be the subject of a subsequent post (or many), as it is already toooooo loooooong. Enjoy the videos.

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