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Knowledge and Doubt
Saturday, June 20th, 2009 | Author: Moody
The following material, in this and related posts upcoming, draws extensively upon the writing of philosopher Walter A. Kaufmann, whose 1958 book, Critique of Religion and Philosophy, I have lately been re-reading. I have attempted to provide my own take on the material, putting it into my own words, with the idea of saying what I think, of expressing what I understand, while also promoting his work to those who may not have read it. I also wrote this post as a way for me to test my own understanding of the material discussed and to put it out there for public scrutiny and comment.

Part 1: What do you know?

I.

When it comes to religion, I think it is fair to say that there are difficulties with regard to the definition of “truth” and “knowledge”. Many (if not most) religious people will tell you that they “know God exists”. The immediate question arising from this is, How do they know? Perhaps a better first question would be, What do they mean by “know”? And but so, of course, we need to have a firm idea about what “to know” means to us.

If I say to a friend that “I know my car is in the garage”, I am stating that it is true that the car is in the garage, and I am peremptorily and implicitly stating that my assertion is true (or correct). I am also making a falsifiable statement; someone can check to see if it is true or false that my car is in the garage. But what does it mean to the statement if the car is, in fact, in the garage? Is it certain then that I actually knew? Is “I know my car is in the garage” (S1) equivalent to a statement like, “I know my name is James” (S2)?

Let’s look at S1 and S2 in a bit more detail.

Assume that the friend I am talking to recognizes which car is mine. Does it affect any quality of my stating S1 if I make the statement over the phone to my friend, who is not there, while standing in the garage with my car, vs. making the statement while standing, say, in the living room of my friend’s house with my friend, both of us unable to see my car? In either case the statement remains falsifiable. If the car is right there with me when I state S1, then, barring delusion or insanity, one could grant that I certainly do know, even if no-one else is with me at that moment. The same goes for if my friend is there with me when I state S1, only one might add that this latter situation would grant an immediate empirical quality to my statement. But does any of this make a significant difference to our understanding of knowledge itself?

Can there be empirical knowledge of S2? Yes, of course. Is it then the same kind of knowledge as indicated by S1? Yes. Empirical knowledge of the stars gained through the use of telescopes does not differ from empirical knowledge of various mathematical proofs gained from studying mathematics. That is, S2 is just as falsifiable and evidence-based as S1. In the case of S2, I have a birth certificate, a drivers license with my picture on it, a Social Security card, and other forms of identifying material. I have the testimony of my parents who named me. In a room full of people, I honestly respond to the name “James” and not to others. Although “James” is not a physical thing that one can touch or sense directly like a car in a garage, there are nonetheless multiple ways of obtaining empirical (real world) evidence to support my assertion that “I know my name is James” is a true statement.

This is not to say that I may not, in fact, be mistaken in either case. Although it is unlikely that I am wrong about either one, there is the possibility, however remote, that I don’t actually know, even though my stating S1 or S2 was done in good faith. But I think that it should be fairly obvious to the reader that S1 stated out of sight of the car, would sooner fall into doubt than S2 stated at nearly any time.

II.

True knowledge may always be falsified. If a statement is made that asserts knowledge that cannot be falsified, there is no way to determine if it is in fact knowledge, and reason to doubt that it is in any way knowable. Statements that depend on (or are somehow meant to be justified by) unfalsifiable knowledge—rather than providing a way toward falsifying the asserted knowledge—are doubly suspect. Thus, if one states that “I know faeries are good because they keep trolls out of my garden”, then all one has done is begged the question. Were one to state that “I know faeries are good because they keep slugs off my tomatoes”, that could be tested a number of ways. But here it is very important to note that an absence of slugs on the tomatoes would not in itself constitute any proof that faeries were responsible. There would have to be tests that could actually address the statement. Nor would it do the statement any good if it turned out that your kindly next door neighbor had sprayed the tomatoes for you and you then said the faeries compelled her to do so.

On the other hand, even if something seems difficult to apprehend or test, if it is falsifiable and it passes tests of falsifiability, then it may be said to be known or knowable. Famously, this would apply to Einstein’s formula, E=mc2. It also applies to the theory of evolution, which requires a fairly robust level of education to really grok. One may doubt that something is true (as formulated or presented) or knowable, but it becomes less and less rational to do so as it passes test after test and is not proven false. At this point, for instance, no educated person in her or his right mind (no rational person) would doubt that the earth is a fairly oblate spheroid object orbiting the sun. Again, the same goes for E=mc2 and the theory of evolution.

III.

One thing that should be gleaned from the above paragraphs is that there is no room for “subjective” truth where knowledge is concerned. Although one can make a good faith assertion that something is known or true (S1 and S2) and be mistaken, this is a far cry from a statement like, “It’s true for me that stars are actually plugged in to a cosmic electrical grid”. The fact of the matter is that there is no “true for me” in that sense, regardless of whether you actually believe it or not. If you were to tell me that it was true for you that you could fly by strenuously flapping your arms, I would have every right to doubt your assertion and ask you to prove it. If you then began to strenuously flap your arms and said, “Look! I’m flying!”, I would have every reason to think that something was wrong with you or that you were trying to have one over on me. If you then said to me, in all sincerity, “You didn’t see me flying because you don’t believe, but I [know that I] did fly, and whatever you say it is still true to me”, I would have to say, if only to myself, “You poor, deluded bugger”.

Sincerity and feelings cannot establish the fact or truth of something beyond themselves. One may sincerely believe in faeries, and feel their presence all around, but this in no way proves that there are faeries; it is simply evidence of your sincerity and feelings. Appealing to the number of people who also believe in faeries (though some of them spell it f-a-i-r-i-e-s) does not lend itself as any kind of proof of faeries, either. You must provide something falsifiable. I shall remain a non-faerieist until such time as some real evidence comes my way. But really, I’ve never seen a single shred of falsifiable evidence for faeries that wasn’t in the end a failure for the faerieists. So, truth be told, I’m an afaerieist; I deny the existence of faeries due to lack of supporting evidence; I have no faith in faeries.

But, all kidding aside, is there no empirical evidence for “God”?

…

Stay tuned for Part 2: What do you believe? Suggestions, criticisms and comments are welcomed and encouraged.

Category: Atheism, Philosophy, Religion/Spirituality, Science  | Comments
The Hazards of Confronting Believers
Sunday, April 05th, 2009 | Author: Moody

One of the most difficult positions held by atheists—a de facto position following of course from the main proposition of atheism—is that there is no divine aid or comfort to be looked for in difficult times. Religious people are fond of saying that they are “carried through the hard times” by their beliefs, by their deity. They say, over and over, that they don’t know how they’d cope if it wasn’t for “God” being there for them. Some of their stories are quite moving, emotionally and psychologically. That there is not a shred of evidence in them, or despite the fact that they are talking about their own actions based on what they believe and not on any demonstrable intervention on the part of said deity, seems lost to them. Their belief is tantamount to proof for them because they sincerely feel that it is what led to their successfully navigating some difficulty or surviving some hardship. It is difficult to argue with this position.

When an atheist says to a believer that there is no “God”, she or he is saying to the believer that there is no help for life’s worst times, that the person is on his or her own. It is something like a psycho-social replay of the scene in Bambi when Bambi’s father looms over the young deer and says, “Your mother can’t be with you anymore”. Of course, in the movie the young Bambi has no choice but to accept this and then deal, without support, with all that follows. In real life, the believer is under no such obligation to accept what the atheist is saying. The atheist is simply and immediately cast in the role of “Bad Person” or “Mistaken Person”, and the believer distances him or herself in at least a psychological way.

I feel a certain amount of distress over this. more…

Category: Atheism, Ethics, Religion/Spirituality, Society and Culture  | Tags: , ,  | Comments
Where’s the line?
Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 | Author: Moody

There are bound to be casualties on both sides in the culture wars.  Try as we might to be considerate to those whose feelings and opinions matter to us, we are bound to run into some difficulty that either hurts them or us. If we speak our minds to persons close to us whose position radically differs from ours, we risk making them feel diminishing and alienating them. If we keep our mouths shut and keep our ideas private, we risk feeling passively diminished and alienated.

Ideally, we’d like to be able to be who we are and know that those close to us will accept us. This is especially the wish where family members are concerned. It’s also the type of relationship most likely to expose us to one of the most unfortunate sides of the culture wars. It is the place in our lives where we will probably have to draw strictly defined lines in order to save ourselves and those we care about from long-lasting wounds.

Of course it’s not the only place we will find ourselves drawing such lines. Other relationships (professional or casual) will require us to do so for the sake of civility. But I am mostly concerned here with close interpersonal relationships, especially familial ones, because these are really thorny and fraught with danger.

more…

Category: Atheism, Ethics, Personal, Religion/Spirituality, Society and Culture  | Tags: , ,  | Comments
What if… I believed?
Sunday, March 15th, 2009 | Author: Moody

Every now and again I get a wistful feeling when I hear someone talking about how satisfying her or his spiritual beliefs are. Such people are often very sincere, I know; when you have a belief, it feels like certain knowledge. So the heartfelt expression of their words is filled with that sense of “real” immanence that looks like bliss. I am not above being moved by the sincerity of others. But I am also aware that this sincerity is no measure of reality or factual truth.

Artist Anthropic Interpretation of God

Artist's Anthropic Interpretation of 'God'

A child can very sincerely pray to Santa Claus to give them some special, achingly desired gift. His or her belief in Santa Claus is utterly genuine, and the faith that Santa will hear his or her prayer is absolute. But we know that there is no fat, jolly, white-bearded old man with apple cheeks and a twinkle always in his eye. We know that it’s us, the adults, the parents, who will provide whatever gifts we can reasonably provide.

Yet there is something so moving about a child’s sincerity. Their mistaken belief (that there is a Santa) can lead us to long for the days when we (if ever we) believed in that benevolent, altruistic old man. It is of course akin to the belief in Providence, under whatever name we choose or grew up with. I hear people talk about how their “relationship” with their deity fulfills them, nurtures them, makes their lives better, makes them better as people and sees them through the hard times. And how could one not want that?

If I believed, though, my world would have to be totally different. You cannot un-see the things you’ve seen; cannot unlearn your life’s education by experience. If I believed, I would have to be someone else. And the thing is, I used to be someone else. I used to believe. I was brought up in a basically Catholic household and, like most children, I accepted things my parents told me were just simply true. I asked the kinds of questions kids ask, and I got the kinds of answers kids get, including the “Well, son, God works in ways we don’t always understand” type of answer. And this might have been enough to keep me keeping on with my family’s religion. To paraphrase what the Bard wrote: I could have been bounded in a nutshell, and counted myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I had bad dreams. Those bad dreams were not just dreams, of course; they were bad experiences that shook my whole little world to the core and broke its foundations.

For some people, this is exactly what brings them to a religion. If I believed, I’d cite those horrors as being high among my reasons for my belief. Really, though, those horrible experiences were simply what unmoored me and set me adrift. I can point to them now and say that they are, collectively, the straw that broke the camel’s back, but the things that led to my atheism were spread out over a much longer period and perhaps were rooted in the days before so many terrible experiences had come to pass.

If I believed now, it would have to be in an entirely unfathomable deity beyond any hope of interaction. If I believed now, I would no more accept Jesus than I would Vishnu or Mithras or Mohamed. If I believed now, I might actually hold all the New Age stuff in even more contempt.

Those wistful feelings I have… I understand them in myself. It is not that being an atheist is somehow inherently lonely. Atheists have the same world believers have. Atheists have families and friends and social lives just like anybody else. What atheists lack is a delusional, childlike buffer against the realities of the world. And sometimes it feels like that’s a real loss. When someone else can take up a rosary or join hands with their friends and pray that things get better, I can only look on and shake my head. Only action in this world gets results. As has been demonstrated time and again, prayer has no effect whatsoever on the odds, the statistics, the real world outcomes of events. There is no Santa Claus.

Augustine with his mother, Monica

Augustine with his mother, Monica

Tertullian

Tertullian

If I believed, my beliefs would have to take the real world into consideration. My deity would hear no prayers. My deity would be essentially amoral and unconcerned with what we do. My deity would be beyond good and evil. My deity would effectively act (if that word could be considered applicable) as if it didn’t exist at all. But I don’t believe. Nor am I a fool. There is no reason to believe in that which effectively doesn’t exist. Let the Tertullians of the world say, “Prorsus credibile est, quia ineptum est“. Let the Augustines practice their rhetoric. And let them leave me in peace. I have put away childish things, and I have turned away the “innocent” comfort and the tortured apologia.

Sometimes I suffer a wistful feeling, and that’s only natural. Life is unapologetically difficult sometimes, just as it is beautiful at others times without asking for credit.

Category: Atheism, Personal, Religion/Spirituality  | Tags: , ,  | Comments
Apx. 99.9% sure I’m right about this…
Sunday, March 02nd, 2008 | Author: Moody

Let’s try to put it as simply as possible and see if everyone can understand it, shall we?

Science has nothing to do with “God”. Science deals solely with the empirical universe as it may be observed, recorded, studied, tested, etc., utilizing whatever tools may be created to do so, as well as our innate human abilities (though educated, certainly, honed and refined). Science does not deal with anything that lies outside its purview, nor does it make statements—let alone judgments—about any such thing. Scientists, whatever their personal feelings or beliefs, whatever they might choose to express as a personal opinion, do not interject religion or philosophy into their actual work because doing so would taint the science.

The theory of evolution says nothing about whether or not “God” exists, and therefore makes no claims regarding the qualities, characteristics, or modi operandi of “God”. Should a scientist express her or his opinion regarding “God”, her or his opinion is still incapable of reflecting on her or his actual scientific research. That is because science does not deal with unfalsifiable matters (matters which cannot be tested for empirical validity), and as the existence of “God” can neither be proved nor disproved then “God” must be considered an unfalsifiable matter. This is not a shortcoming of science or the scientific method; it is a remarkable strength. Whereas endless speculation and typically unresolvable arguments over hypotheticals belong to philosophy and theology, to the realm of science belongs only that which may bear the strictly vetted tools and critically maintained rules of science.

Naturally, the tools and rules of science may be brought to bear on any subject presented as empirical, falsifiable, and subject to tests of its veracity. Even when it is resistant to change, science does not turn away from a valid avenue of discovery because it may realize a fault in some long-standing theory. If one is capable of providing some real-world credentials and a compelling outline, and if one’s presentation includes a thorough grounding in current scientific understanding, then scientists will very likely pay attention to a new idea or theory. With a few sad exceptions, only the ignorant, the crackpots, the cranks and the trolls get short shrift from the community of scientists. And where the scientific community has originally failed to recognize a valid offering, time has—thanks to members of that same community—often vindicated the one who brought that offering. But never has science found something to be a fact or valid theory that at its base was unscientific, unfalsifiable. This is not because of some conspiracy against those who don’t know the secret handshake and password, it is simply and only because science has nothing to do with that which cannot bear the application of science’s tools and rules.

Science simply means “to know”, and knowledge is subject to revision as new, empirical, falsifiable data dictates it. Certainty is measured in percentages reaching ever closer to 100%—with ever-mounting evidence, the successful passing of tests after tests, more and more data, etc.—without ever attaining it. Science ends at 100%, for there is nothing to do after that, nothing more to know. So when someone asks a scientist trained in physics specific questions about this or that facet of, say, the theory of special relativity, she or he may shrug and say, “We just don’t know yet. Isn’t it exciting!”, exhibiting in the response the main trait found in scientists everywhere: undying curiosity yoked to the perpetual drive to discover, hindered only by the frailties of the human organism.

So why is it of late that some scientists are seen to be attacking religion, and why is it that some religious people are calling the theory of evolution inherently atheistic? What’s going on? If science has nothing to say about matters outside its purview (and religion is demonstrably outside its purview), and the theories of science cannot in themselves address religion due to the unfalsifiable nature of x religion’s primary assertions (its metaphysical tropes), then how is it we are in the middle of a culture war with a sampling of scientists on one side and a bunch of very religious people on the other? Who threw the first stone?

I do not have enough time or energy to devote to writing such a history. However, A.D. White, the founder and first president of Cornell, a professor of history, did have the wherewithal to write about the subject in the last decade of the 1800s. His work, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, is relevant today. By simply recounting history, White explodes the idea that somehow it was Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution that initiated the charge for some sort of godless revolution hitherto unimaginable. After discussing the early concepts of evolution “among the Chaldeans, the Hebrews, the Greeks, the Romans”, White notes some of the theological issues that arose in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, and concludes the second part of Chapter 1 by saying that

By the middle of the nineteenth century the whole theological theory of creation – though still preached everywhere as a matter of form – was clearly seen by all thinking men to be hopelessly lost: such strong men as Cardinal Wiseman in the Roman Church, Dean Buckland in the Anglican, and Hugh Miller in the Scottish Church, made heroic efforts to save something from it, but all to no purpose. That sturdy Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon honesty, which is the best legacy of the Middle Ages to Christendom, asserted itself in the old strongholds of theological thought, the universities. Neither the powerful logic of Bishop Butler nor the nimble reasoning of Archdeacon Paley availed. Just as the line of astronomical thinkers from Copernicus to Newton had destroyed the old astronomy, in which the earth was the centre, and the Almighty sitting above the firmament the agent in moving the heavenly bodies about it with his own hands, so now a race of biological thinkers had destroyed the old idea of a Creator minutely contriving and fashioning all animals to suit the needs and purposes of man. They had developed a system of a very different sort….

But A.D. White also believed that

In welding together into noble form, whether in the book of Genesis, or in the Psalms, or in the book of Job, or elsewhere, the great conceptions of men acting under earlier inspiration, whether in Egypt, or Chaldea, or India, or Persia, the compilers of our sacred books have given to humanity a possession ever becoming more and more precious; and modern science, in substituting a new heaven and a new earth for the old – the reign of law for the reign of caprice, and the idea of evolution for that of creation – has added and is steadily adding a new revelation divinely inspired.

As an educated and science-minded person, White believed that theology and science could be, and should be, reconciled. But he knew, too, that there could be no turning back from what science was learning of the world, that to turn back would be to turn against the flow of our better nature. To interpret scripture literally could never be more than a failure, both of the mind and—should you be so inclined—the spirit.

Those who would turn back (think of those in Florida and Kansas and elsewhere) are always the ones to throw the first stone. Scientists would rather not have to muck about in the fantasy world of creationists, but creationists won’t leave science alone. Theologians and religious leaders, religious adherents who shudder when fundamentalists cry out in public, have not truly risen to the challenge, doubtless because they fear that to do so would make their own faith look bad or sully it by proximity. This is a shame. Science, having nothing to do with religion by nature, has been made a religious issue that apparently only scientists, atheists, and a very few religious people see fit to deal with. Naturally, the scientists are accused of having an ungodly agenda, the atheists are used as proof of science’s ungodliness, and the religious people who side with science are seen as damnable liberals who are, themselves, lacking in genuine faith.

But it is in fact the creationists (and the promoters of so-called “intelligent design”) who are the problem, who create the problem, who sustain and add fuel to the problem. They do not seem to grasp that to teach someone the facts is not to indoctrinate her or him into godlessness or evil, whereas to indoctrinate someone into a religion that denies the facts is certainly a bad thing. Fundamentalism and other nonsense is not righteously religious, it’s thoroughly foolish. It may seem unfortunate to some religious people, but the onus is in fact on them to adapt to the facts or perish. The world is not the fantasy land that our ancestors often believed it was, it is something much greater and more amazing. You do not have to be godless or satanic in order to accept the facts of the world. (Cherished psalms, for instance, are not made less poetically beautiful or meaningful.) But what you have to do is give up on absurd literal interpretations of so-called sacred texts, you have to give up on certain naïve conceptions of “God”. If there is a “God”, she/he/it (or they) is much further from our oversimplified understanding than we’ve realized, and those who came before us were misled by their (understandable) ignorance. Even a hundred years ago (and, actually, quite a great many more years than that) there were people who understood that much. Science continues, in its non-theistic fashion, to prove the point. So the question is, why are so many people afraid to embrace that fact today? What is really so terrifying about an even greater universe than religions have made?

Category: Evolution, Religion/Spirituality, Science, Society and Culture  | Comments
Evolving, A Mind
Friday, January 18th, 2008 | Author: Moody
“You can’t be a rational person six days a week … and on one day of the week, go to a building, and think you’re drinking the blood of a two thousand year old space god.”—Bill Maher

Let’s make one thing clear from the outset: Whatever I might prefer, I shall have no say in whether our boy chooses of his own free will to be an atheist, a monotheist, a polytheist, a pantheist, an animist or a panpsychist. He shall become what he will. What I care about is that he is well-educated and is able to understand the difference between a scientific theory and an unscientific or non-scientific belief. That said, it follows that I want for him, regardless of his chosen belief system or lack thereof, to understand that life evolved and continues to evolve on this little blue-green planet. I want for him to understand that the theory of evolution—as set forth by Charles Darwin and others, and thence, with the gleaning of ever more data, modified by countless scientists over the next hundred-plus years—represents the ongoing efforts of a great many scientists to explain, elucidate, explicate, clarify and interpret how evolution works, and that the theory is not “just an idea” or “belief” maintained by a few dogmatic scientists as they stew in a fancifully conjured but non-existent hotbed of righteous controversy. Put another way, I do not want our boy’s developing mind to be waylaid by the twaddle, bunkum, poppycock, bullshit and ultimate drivel espoused by some very vocal ignorant twits who believe literally, like half-witted naïfs, in what the Bible (or any other so-called sacred text) says. I want the boy to have uncommon sense, the kind that comes with much education taken to heart.

When a child, not yet 10 years old, attempts to tell an “anti-evolutionist” joke but is confused when you state that the theory of evolution does not say that we “came from monkeys”, one can be fairly positive that some irresponsible adult is behind the effort. When that same child then states that “evolution isn’t real” and claims to know this because he is “a Christian”, there can be no doubt whatsoever that some ignorant and twittish adult is behind it. In the case of our boy, it is his ham-fisted biological father who is attempting, with the guidance of a domineering white trash wife, to warp his mind. It’s the sort of thing that can make you throw up a little in your mouth. I mean, his bio-dad and step-mom are the kind who have a giant “Jesus Freak” sticker (in scratchy ‘agitpop’ lettering) on the rear window of their car.

I stand firmly with Dawkins and others who state simply that the religious indoctrination of a child is child abuse. A child, however precocious, is highly unlikely to understand that there is a significant difference between what is called a scientific theory and what is called “God’s revealed [or 'living'] truth”. When a parent says that something is true, a child is likely to believe it, especially when the parent attributes that truth to an even greater parental figure in the sky who the parent worships. Children are naturally gullible and credulous. They must rely on the experienced comprehension, the seasoned understanding, of their parents. This is not a bad thing, because trust in what a parent tells you may save your life or will at least make your life easier. But for a parent to selfishly mislead a child in the name of a highly questionable fantasy is… wrong, abusive, sick. I expect, of course, to be told that raising a child as a de facto member of this or that religion is normal, natural and good; that it introduces morality, otherwise presumed absent or somehow immanently inferior without it; that it may very well save the child from eternal damnation at the hands of an all-merciful, all-forgiving, all-loving “God”. Personally, I call that supreme, unadulterated, 100% bullshit. I say that that’s exactly the kind of drivel that makes a person puke even through the angry laughter of disbelief.

You may call the process of brainwashing indoctrination normal, but you should remember that it was once considered quite “normal” to beat children (–which, I know, you “spare the rod and spoil the child” types still think it should be so considered), and to keep slaves, and to treat women like chattel and indigenous peoples like plague (often while violently forcing their religious conversion, no less). “Natural and good” are, taken together or apart, suspect from the get-go. When you define nature in creationist terms, positing a supernatural agent as the author of all nature’s laws (which said agent may break on a whim), then I must look askance at anything you might call “natural”. The same goes for your idea of what’s “good” when, according to your beliefs, “good” is whatever “God” says it is. When you can read about “God” ordering the slaughter of men, women, children, babies (born and unborn), and say that it’s “good”, for whatever reason, then I must hold your concept of “good” in contempt.

As for morality, “God” is neither required nor suggested; the word’s Latin root, mor-, simply means ‘custom’. The morality of the Bible is preserved as an historic religious record of a relatively small number of people who lived over 2000 years ago. As a book it is biased toward promoting the view of certain sects of the time while denigrating others, and has a subtle pro-Roman stance. The historicity of many of its books is dubious (where the book in question is not already utterly beyond such consideration; e.g. Genesis), and the preposterous claims liberally sprinkled throughout the pages of the books it comprises are completely undermining of any respectable assertion of Biblical authority a reasonable person might make. I would dare go so far as to say that this is true of most so-called “Holy Books” the world over.

It is, frankly, horrifically despicable to inflict upon a child the notion of damnation, to fill his or her head with images of an all-powerful “God” condemning unbelievers and failed persons to eternal torment. When you consider that one of the people threatened with this endless wailing and gnashing of teeth is one of the child’s parents…. Well, it’s sickening. How could that not be damaging to a child’s developing mind? What a din of cognitive dissonance! How could that not create an unbearable helplessness and thus necessitate a split from the parent ostracized by “God”? How could that not succeed at being isolating in terms of the child’s sense of place in the greater world? A scarring shame should be visited upon any adult so selfishly motivated (by delusion or stratagem) as to poison the healthy development of a mind. And yet it is that a great many people around this country would consider me to be in the wrong.

Some would suggest that they would only teach “God’s love”, charity and kindness, honesty and good will. They would say that those other people are simply misled. But I say bollocks to that! It’s a cop out. Unless you’ve revised your own Bible (or Koran or whatever) or otherwise bowdlerized it–which, so far as I am aware, would make you a heretic or blasphemer–then you are copping out when it comes to a) the truth of what’s in your so-called “Holy Book” and b) dealing with what it is your fellow adherents believe that book to mean. If those other people are wrong, then isn’t it up to you to prove it to them, to enlighten them, to shun them if they will not see reason? If you allow fanatics to scream their misunderstanding as if it represented your religion, as if it were the “gospel truth”, then are you not tacitly allowing that they are merely more vociferous members of your congregation who say what you will not? Are you afraid of schism? Are you afraid of drawing attention? Are you afraid… or just indolent or cowardly? If your “Holy Book” says some rotten things, shouldn’t you deal with that? If the banner of your religion stretches over twisted trolls whose sickness you deplore, shouldn’t you expel them rather than accept the degradation of your fine beliefs? Shouldn’t you be most vocal about it?

As for me, I see no saving grace in religion. I don’t care what goodness it supposedly inspires, because goodness does not come from it; from what I’ve seen, real goodness comes despite it. Real goodness may sometimes ride on the back of religion, as one might ride a mule, but it is more honorable when it walks on its own two feet, under its own power. In the case of our boy’s bio-dad and step-mom, they’d let the mule of religion trample him while they waved to “God” and whispered surreptitiously to each other about how pleasing it would be to watch their enemies burn forever. Sick delusions often have real consequences.

In the boy’s name I will fight their influence, and I will do so with my love for him.

Listening to: Leonard Bernstein & London Symphony Orchestra – The Rite of Spring: V. Games of the Rival Tribes via FoxyTunes

Category: Atheism, Evolution, Personal, Religion/Spirituality, Science  | Comments
Thoughts on a Sunday
Sunday, March 25th, 2007 | Author: Moody

The weekend comes, the weekend goes; the work week looms on the horizon. I think a lot about my work week for a number of reasons. I recall the lines from the World of Skin song, “24 Hours”: “24 hours split three ways. Because you bought one third, you own everything.” My days at work are not so bad, really. My days at work are dealt with. I go, I make the effort, I do my best, and in the end they tell me that they appreciate me. And then there’s the fact that they pay me. There’s just enough money in my bank account — never mind the overdraft charges — to keep the world from rending my flesh, to keep the world from snapping and splintering my bones. I need my job, and I am grateful that they appreciate me. I am five nines certain (haha) my job is safe and secure… and that I am, by extension, safe and secure.

Still, I know that I’ll be the only one showing up in a shirt with the likeness of Hunter S. Thompson on it. Trust me on that; not a single person at my job even knew who H.S.T. was. So it should not be surprising that I am quite sure I’ll likely be the only one ever to talk about anything outside the — to my eyes oddly coffin-shaped — box of broad social mores, American culture (defined by the vox populi) and whatever pop music/TV/literature permeates the air where I work. I know that this is in part because they know, as well as I do, that work is “not the place” for philosophy, art, politics, religion, sexuality, or other discussions of intimately personal import. Risking a test comment in those areas now and again has only ever led to glazed-over eyes and the apprehension of an imbalanced discomfort that quickly corrected itself with an uncomfortable silence. Sadly, safer topics like, say, space exploration and the sciences have proven themselves to be of no interest to my coworkers. They are, for me, a front row ticket to the theater of wistfulness. So in the end it is simply my misfortune that those are just the things that make me feel alive in the world.

I don’t know what there is to do about it, but I think I ought to, for my own sake, do something. Kisha has suggested to me a few times now that I need to make friends outside of work (other than her, my best friend and true love, of course). I’ve not got the foggiest idea how to actually go about doing that, but…

Life seldom seems to give without a bit of taking, to build without a little destruction, to improve without some fraction of degradation. Life is an ongoing practice in sacrifice… of the bridge, baseball, chess or insane variety, I know not from day to day. What I do know is that one can sacrifice everything — and remember that ‘to sacrifice’ means ‘to make sacred’ — and wind up with nothing, which on some days truly makes me wonder if indeed nothing is sacred. Of course, if you have nothing to begin with then perhaps the sacrifice is worthwhile. And maybe it is that I am deluded in my thought, in my feeling, in my belief, that I once had something. Something, that is, that I wouldn’t ever sacrifice willingly, because it was truly sacred already anyway. I really don’t know. And, you know, the truth is that I don’t think there is a metaphysical holiness to life; life is not inherently “sacred” — it’s just life, and I have to be the one who decides for me what that does or doesn’t mean. That is, I don’t think there is some sort of Platonic argument to be made for an essential, archetypal, transcendent, universal form of “holiness” or “sacredness”. I find the belief in such to be, for far too many people, the first step to boorish codswallop and aggravating woo-woo, which all too often rush on to churlish zealotry and belligerent ideology if left unchecked.

Semantics and whatnot aside, it pisses me off to no end when certain people in the world imply that an atheist can’t understand what’s sacred, what’s holy, what’s worth or due great admiration, reverence or veneration. That’s just the ill-informed nonsense of people who can’t think outside the box, or who don’t properly know what’s actually in the box. At its root, sacred, related to consecration, basically means “dedicated as holy”, and at its root holy is related to the concept of wholeness. So these ideas lead most people back to “God”, because “God” is seen as the force/being that/who makes everything whole. Put another way, they see “God” as the “universal form” or quintessence of holiness, not to mention its conscious arbiter. It is easily argued — and I dare say rightly — that this is not at all necessarily so, and that there are plenty of reasons not to assume so. For an atheist, for me, the goal of apprehending the wholeness (or holiness) of life is an ongoing quest of comprehension (or consecration).

I want very much to bring that goal with me wherever I go. I don’t ever want to forget that that is the process I am dedicated to. Call it my religion, if you want.

In its etymology the word religion means (or so it is generally agreed upon) “to bind together”, so it would not be too gauche for an atheist to say that the apprehension of (i.e., the grasping and laying hold of) the wholeness of life is for her or him a religious process, in other words it is a process of taking that which has been laid hold of and binding it together so that it may be comprehended in the light of the whole. Such a religion shall ever be, I’m sure, very personal and particular to any given individual, but there will also be a great deal of universal material provided by the arts and sciences and by the fact that we are, as humans, as mammals, as animals, as living beings, greatly alike one another in myriad ways. This is already necessarily true, after a fashion, of religions with a “God” or “gods”, but the abrahamic religions that most of the world’s people follow — and that the rulers of the currently most powerful countries in the world believe in — are built on faulty premises, overrun with contradictory ideas, bogged down by questionable interpolations and doubtful interpretations, tangled in misinformation and ignorance, and are, as “timeless truths” go, sorely outdated.

Any human endeavor that might be called religious in the sense I’ve outlined above will be prone to error at some point. That is because it is a human endeavor. It seems to me that the safest way to navigate betwixt the Scylla of fanaticism and the Charybdis of nihilism is to never forget that what one believes must forever be in review, it must be falsifiable, and one must remain open to changing one’s mind in light of new data that calls for such change. We must deal scientifically with our personal religion.

If I am ever to make friends then I will have to find people with an understanding at least similar to mine. I see them often enough on the Web, but with only a couple notable exceptions such friendships have never lasted long or come to fruition. After all, I live in the United States during, as Eric Frank Russell or Terry Pratchett might call it, interesting times. My country is steeped in all manner of foolishness, and though there are many good people attempting to flush out the nonsense there is yet a great deal of happy, affirmative consensus, even among those “on my side”, on matters I find contrary to me and painfully stupid. Al Gore is a great man, for example, and I’d be happy to be his friend, but that doesn’t make his “God” real, and I cringe whenever he starts in with his beliefs. Still, I have broad hopes among my peers. It is possible that some day, some stranger will appear in my life with an extended hand and a knowing smile. It has happened before. And, really, I have to admit that I am not going to be satisfied with anyone who, when contrasted to the people I work with, is less than exceptional. But I know in my heart that it’s possible I’ll meet someone good for me. And, really, I’m willing to sacrifice something for it.

Category: Atheism, Out in the World, Personal, Religion/Spirituality  | Comments off
Tell Dr. Eric Keroack to Hit the Road
Saturday, November 18th, 2006 | Author: Moody

It gets me every time: some fool spouting off — in a more or less straighforward manner — about how sexuality and its myriad expressions must be controlled. As PZ Myers reports, Bush “is appointing a certifiable kook to run the federal program that oversees family planning and reproductive health”. This particular cert-k is one Dr. Eric Keroack, an anti-choice, anti-sex bug who has now been appointed by Bush “to oversee Title X funding—the only federal program devoted entirely to family planning and reproductive health”.

The apparent bee in the bonnet of this mad-as-a-hatter doctor is oxytocin, a chemical that is

released during positive social interaction, massage, hugs, “trust” encounters, and sexual intercourse. “It promotes bonding by reducing fear and anxiety in social settings, increasing trust and trustworthiness, reducing stress and pain, and decreasing social aggression,” he said.

The erstwhile doctor claims, in a nutshell, that pretty much only monogamous, married couples are safe from depleting oxytocin levels to the point where they “diminish the power of oxytocin to maintain a permanent bond with an individual”. Never mind that his science is flawed — insofar as it is laughably nonexistent — what is clear is that this idiot has an agenda that is plainly at odds with the position for which he has been appointed. Prof. Myers has already more than adequately laid into the unsoundness of Keroack’s vapid arguments, effectively razing them. What I want to say here has to do with the ethical issues.

Again and again, thanks to the BushCo Pro-Faith Initiative®, we have seen these unsavory religious types of people slipped into positions of governmental authority. Like breeds like. Whether it’s ID/creationism or anti-choice/anti-sex proponents we’re talking about, what remains constant is the religious — specifically, or especially, the evangelical and fundamentalist varieties — bent. Bush keeps trying to ensure that his legacy is a (rather narrowly defined) religious one. Does that not seem problematic in light of the ostensibly non-religious nature of the U.S. government? And isn’t it even more problematic, where the sex lives of human beings are concerned, when such a pinheaded “pro-abstinence” evangelizer who sides with the religious right, is placed in charge of family planning and reproductive health — when it has been shown that “abstinence-only” and similarly unrealistic programs don’t even work?

And Keroack is the medical director of an anti-choice “crisis pregnancy center”, A Woman’s Concern, for crying out loud.

It’s easy to understand: appointing Eric Keroack into any position of authority is a mistake, but appointing him to oversee Title X funding is downright unethical, tantamount to appointing a zealous and hinky furrier as “caretaker for America’s furry animals”. He is simply not fit for the position, in the same way that Bush is not fit to be the POTUS. But of course it’s obvious that Keroack is exactly right for the job so far as Bush is concerned. The doctor oozes that brand of underhanded moralism injected so well by Bush and his religious backers into the mainstream of American politics. He pretends to be an actual scientist when in reality he’s a prude in disguise, a mostly-undercover prig with some power and authority. (Cripes! — but Bush has promoted a lot of them!) And it’s all, in the end, in the name and to the glory of some crushingly dense form of repressive morality, the “necessity” of which is endlessly touted to high heaven (as it were) by a bunch of sexually repressed (undeveloped? malformed? immature?), power-hungry, god-deluded herd animals with a perverse “Father”/penis fixation and ugly self-esteem issues… to mention but a few of their common, uncouth traits.

Understand that it is not healthy, responsible sexual activity that Keroack and his ilk are promoting. Sex for sex’s sake is unwholesome in their book, a hedonistic and sinful flight from what they perceive as the “real purpose” of sex. What they are promoting is the idea that sex ought only to exist for “married couples” who share in “God’s plan”, which, so far as I can tell, involves procreating for the sole purpose of increasing the numbers of people just like them: anti-science, anti-evolution, anti-choice, pro-war, pro-death-penalty, pro-grammed, and “Christian”. And although I don’t doubt that some among them would disagree with my list to some degree or on some point, I assert that they are nonetheless subservient to the heirarchy of those powers who promote them all.

So, you see, the real bee in the bonnet of this mad-as-a-hatter doctor is not oxytocin, it’s the freedom to have sex with whomever you’d like to have sex with (assuming a mature, consensual experience) that vexes him and irritates his moral compass. So just who the hell is he to have authority over such an issue? He’s certainly not the person any sane, rational person would appoint to oversee Title X funding:

The Title X program is the only Federal program devoted solely to the provision of family planning and reproductive health care. The program is designed to provide access to contraceptive supplies and information to all who want and need them with priority given to low-income persons. A broad range of effective and acceptable family planning methods and related preventive health services are available on a voluntary and confidential basis. In addition to contraceptive services and related counseling, Title X supported clinics also provide a number of preventive health services such as: patient education and counseling; breast and pelvic examinations; cervical cancer, STD and HIV screenings; and pregnancy diagnosis and counseling. For many clients, Title X clinics provide the only continuing source of health care and health education.

Do you see? The man will, without a doubt, do his damnedest to subvert and undercut efforts to educate and inform, without a religio-moral bias, those who seek out the answers to their questions about sex-related matters from Title X clinics, and by doing so he will cause unconscionable harm to countless individuals who depend on the assistance of educated professionals — people working for the seekers’ benefit without some agenda that transcends any seeker’s needs as an individual human being.

I urge you to write to your elected representatives and tell them that Dr. Eric Keroack is not merely a bad choice, he is a completely and irrefutably unethical choice for overseeing Title X funding. Also:

The public can file a complaint against him with the American Board of Obsetrics/Gynecology, where he is certified, and the Massachusetts Board of Medicine, where he is licensed. You can reach each at: http://www.abog.org/about/contact.html http://www.massmedboard.org/consumer/complaint.shtm

Thanks to Talk To Action for the two above quoted links.

Category: Ethics, Politics, Religion/Spirituality, Reproductive Rights, Sexuality  | Comments
Dover, PA, Will Evolve
Monday, January 02nd, 2006 | Author: Moody

It seems a shame to me that so much of our time as a nation should be wasted on activities so patently contrary to those envisioned by its founders when they spoke of individuals’ liberties and the “pursuit of happiness”. We were never, as a nation of people as varied as autumn leaves, intended to beset one another with litigious conflicts over matters of personal persuasion. The yearly Butter Battles would, in light of their modern extents, confound the senses and pain the hearts of more than a few of our nation’s founders, I’m quite sure. Although there are certainly issues worthy of intense, extensive and ongoing conversation in the hallowed halls of our government’s branches – universal healthcare, say, or abortion, or dismantling institutionalized racism – we seem all too easily tied up in lesser issues that more than border on the absurd. Perhaps the situation is indicative of slippage in the quality of education in our schools and, causally related, in our homes.

Case in point: Evolution v. “Intelligent Design”. more…

Category: Politics, Religion/Spirituality, Science  | Comments off