Why a new campaign for black atheists does not offend me

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Michael

The above title may seem odd, but it is a reference to a post I wrote back in October. In that post I wrote about a short piece by a black atheist explaining why she is an atheist. Her basic point was that she didn’t see a distinction between modern day religion and older religions we now accept as fictional, so she concluded that all religion is false. It was faulty reasoning, but that isn’t what got me. What drew my ire was that she then randomly mentioned the color of her skin. I considered that bad writing because it was a non-sequitur which she didn’t even bother to explain. I’m sure being black has contributed greatly to her perspective in life, but failing to draw a distinction between religious premises is not race-dependent. And if it is, she didn’t bother to tell anyone why.

One result of my response post was some misunderstanding by FTSOS readers. Occasional commenter Paul Kussmann, for instance, claimed I was making racial assumptions. Neil Rickert thought I was offended by the specific content rather than the writing itself. Both were wrong, Paul less understandably so than Neil. The fact is, I cringe at bad writing. In that fact is not a claim on my part to be a great writer (though I think of my skills in the area as quite strong). I simply have a considerable concern for language.

This all brings me to African Americans for Humanism. The group is currently running an ad campaign to bring atheism to the black community and/or encourage black atheists to be more vocal. It’s a good campaign because of the high degree of religiosity amongst blacks. We need to discourage religious belief everywhere, but especially where it holds strong. I support the goals of the AAH and I hope it succeeds.

All that said, could it be rightly claimed that any of this offends me? Of course not. I’ve never denied that being a black atheist is often very different from being a white atheist. It’s important to acknowledge, discuss, and understand these distinctions in order to better advance the cause of humanists and Gnu atheists. I’m confident I have never once expressed a problem with any of this. The only way I would have a qualm with the AAH or its goals is if they were ever expressed in a poorly organized, haphazardly composed, or badly written fashion.

Language matters.

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Cranston ordered to pay ACLU $173,000

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Michael

The school district that knowingly attempted to defy the constitution is being asked to pay the ACLU $173,000 in legal fees. And this is after the ACLU decided to give deep discounts:

The Rhode Island Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which won a lawsuit against the Cranston School District for a religious display at Cranston High School West, filed a request for repayment of attorney’s fees in the amount of $173,000 in U.S. District Court today.

In a release, Steve Brown, executive director of the RIACLU, said the amount includes major discounts for hours of work by volunteer attorneys Lynette Labinger and Thomas Bender. He also said the amount is mindful of the school district’s budget woes in recent years.

“In terms of its complexity, the ACLU noted that the school district initially raised ten affirmative defenses when it filed its answer to the lawsuit. The amount sought by the ACLU attorneys pales in comparison to the attorneys’ fees that lawyers working with the Becket Fund, the national group that assisted the school district in defending the case, obtained in a church-state lawsuit two years ago. In that case from Colorado, dealing with a church zoning dispute, attorneys working with the Becket Fund were awarded over $1.25 million in attorneys’ fees for their work handling the case in the district court.”

This is what these people get. If they really didn’t think they were going to lose this lawsuit, they had to at least know there was a possibility they would have to pay attorney fees. And for what? An old prayer banner? They should have just taken it down when it was brought to their attention. Hell, they could have even taken it down months after they were made aware of its problems:

“In fact, in an attempt to avoid the costs of litigation and spare the taxpayers, we waited eight months before filing suit in the hope that this matter could be informally resolve,” [Brown said].

Part of me is glad the school district has this bill. It would be ideal if they could spend the money in more fruitful ways, but they brought this on themselves. It isn’t what the students should get, but it is what the administrators deserve.

Filed under: Atheism/Humanism, Religions | Tagged: , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Peter Palumbo is a tool

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Michael

Shortly after succeeding in getting her school to take down its unconstitutional endorsement of religion, student Jessica Ahlquist was inundated with insults and harassment. Some of it she got from fellow students, but most of it came by way of the Internet. I’ve seen coverage of this all of the place and here are my issues with it:

First, it’s terrible that she is being persecuted for standing up for the separation of church and state. People who don’t recognize the greatness of what she did are blinded purely by their belief that Christianity is somehow supposed to be given uber-respect at every turn.

Second, most of the coverage I have seen criticizes the abusive Christians by saying something like, “Oh, how Christian of you.” Yeah. Yeah, it is Christian of them. The whole point of virtually every religion is to not accept the beliefs of others. The fact that Christianity, like Islam, Judaism, and most other religions, does not distinguish between non-acceptance and intolerance compounds the problem. This is exactly what we should expect of the religious, so let’s do away with the sarcasm, as if we actually think they should be held to a higher standard. We should be prepared for this sort of reaction. Always.

Third, some of the comments directed towards Jessica have been to say she will burn in hell. These are held up as if they are just the worst thing in the world. I’ve got to say to them, so what? Yes, people believe in magical places where our consciousness – ya know, that thing that is a product of the physical forces within our brains – will magically reassemble in some other, magical land, only to be tortured eternally by way of an evil-creating yet somehow loving, magical god. It would be dismissed as kook talk if it wasn’t so mainstream.

All that said, I’m not surprised at the reaction. Aside from Christians tending to do this sort of thing, I expect assholery on the Internet. People aren’t particularly accountable, and even when they forgo anonymity, they probably won’t have to face up to their bullshit unless they happen to have celebrity status. Or if they happen to be a state representative, such as Peter Palumbo:

In what many find to be an open display of bigotry, Rhode Island State Representative Peter Palumbo recently referred to teen atheist Jessica Ahlquist as “an evil little thing.”

In addition to calling Ahlquist an “evil little thing,” Palumbo also made the claim that “she (Ahlquist) is being coerced by evil people;” the implication being that atheists and other secular Americans are “evil.”

Palumbo made his offensive and insulting remarks late last week on the John DePetro Radio Show, a Rhode Island talk radio program.

I don’t know all the details of the interview, but from what I’ve read, this is not bigotry. It’s a stupid and wildly inappropriate thing to say about a high school student, but it isn’t bigotry.

Palumbo, presumably a wishful pal of Lieutenant Columbo, is doing little more than displaying his ignorance. He is so accustomed to being in the dominate group that when someone challenges his assumed superiority he can’t help but pull out every stereotype he has ever been taught. The guy needs a good education. My guess is he failed to receive one, in part, because until now it has been allowed to distract and indoctrinate students with religious drivel in Rhode Island.

At any rate, I hope Peter Palumbo burns in hell.

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Shit Christians Say to Atheists

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Michael

I think I have heard some version of every single one of these. The most offensive was when someone told me my life must be pathetic because I don’t believe in God. It was the first time I had ever met that person.

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Rhode Island prayer mural ordered taken down

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Michael

A high school in Rhode Island had an obviously illegal prayer banner hanging on its walls. It opened with “Our Heavenly Father” and closed with “Amen”. Student Jessica Ahlquist pointed out that the school can’t go about promoting Christianity, so they ought to take it down. She made a few direct pleas, spoke with administrators, and made a Facebook page for starters. In other words, she had a perfectly reasonable and measured initial response. So you’ll never – never! – believe what happened next: the Christians and high school administrators were stubborn and said “no”. I know, I know. Who would have thought people who supported Christianity and chose to spend their lives controlling teenagers would be stubborn. I swear, I can’t think of more than three or four thousand instances of stubborn actions from the people who ran my high school.

Anyway. Once the mooks rebuffed the constitutional efforts of one of their better students, Ahlquist sued. And won:

U.S. District Judge Ronald Lagueux rejected the school’s claims that the message in the mural – which opens with “Our Heavenly Father” and closes with “Amen” – was purely secular.

“No amount of debate can make the School Prayer anything other than a prayer, and a Christian one at that,” Lagueux wrote in a 40-page opinion.

And now the school has a short period in which it must remove the mural. This is excellent. No one should be using public funds to promote any particular religion. This is especially true when those subjected to that promotion are impressionable teenagers.

Of course, the school had the audacity to claim the prayer was somehow secular in nature. I can’t help but feel everyone involved knew that was a lie. But even if they didn’t, it’s still a stupid argument. I’ll let the judge take this one:

[N]o amount of history and tradition can cure a constitutional infraction.

Not even for you Christians out there.

Filed under: Atheism/Humanism, News, Religions | Tagged: , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Eternal meaninglessness

Posted on January 8, 2012 by Michael

It is often the cry of theists that atheism makes everything meaningless. They equate and conflate it with nihilism, claiming it reduces all of human existence to nothingness because life will eventually end and no one will remember anything. To this I have two responses, one pragmatic and one philosophical. First, let me quote the late Christopher Hitchens in Hitch-22:

It could be that all existence is a pointless joke, but it is not in fact possible to live one’s everyday life as if this were so.

Go ahead. Try and live life as a nihilist. See if that is even possible. See if one’s interactions with others somehow cease to have any meaning.

On the philosophical end, what is this nonsense that assumes that for something to have meaning, it must also be remembered? Of course life still has meaning without some external entity remembering it forever. Saying otherwise is an additional, unnecessary attachment to what “meaning” itself means. Moreover, those who argue that for something to have meaning it must never be forgotten are gaming the issue. They are defining “meaning” itself to mean unending; it’s circular. That is, they are trying to argue that for something to have meaning it must be unending, but they seek to prove their point by effectively defining “meaning” to mean “unending and eternal” in the first place.

So let’s get our definitions and arguments straight and linear. “Meaning” simply refers to the level and sort of value and importance one places on something. I place value and importance on many things, including science and writing. They hold great meaning to me. No one can say otherwise. Furthermore, the fact that I will end does not magically disappear the history of that meaning. It will still have existed because, unless someone has evidence to the contrary, the Universe exists independently of me. That means that every event which has happened, whether consciously remembered or not, has happened no matter what I do, no matter what anyone remembers, and no matter whether there is a god or not.

Now let’s flip the coin. The theistic argument is that for meaning to be meaning, it must also be eternal. This is really no more than a value statement on their part; it is not a descriptive argument of reality and can thus be dismissed as actually being factual. But let’s pretend it is correct. What does that mean?

For something to be eternal means that it has no reference to time. It is not possible to look back on something that has happened because “has happened” holds no significance. This means that it is impossible to compare to events. Indeed, it is impossible, under this scenario, to compare two emotions or thoughts or feelings. Happiness will hold no meaning if it cannot be contrasted with sadness. Anger is incoherent if there is no pleasure or joy. Literally every single human concept is rendered meaningless by the claim that eternity is how something derives meaning. That is, “meaning must be eternal to mean anything” is inherently self-contradictory.

The theistic argument is wrong in its wrongness. First, atheism (which is not nihilism) allows for meaning because “meaning” itself refers to the importance and value placed on a thing or idea by humans (or any conscious being). Attempts to play semantics and redefine “meaning” aren’t going to fly. Second, even if we did allow theists to game the argument, what they are saying still fails because eternity takes all meaning from everything. It inherently disallows and denies reference, providing an incoherent path for arguing in favor of something (“meaning”) which is itself premised in reference.

Filed under: Atheism/Humanism, Philosophy | Tagged: , , | 14 Comments »

Mallorie Nasrallah

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Michael

Mallorie Nasrallah is an active atheist who recently had the gall – the god damned gall! – to say that other people do not speak for her. While anyone who has wasted their time reading the feminist shell games that have dominated the atheist community as of late knows, there have been a lot of accusations that there is some especially awful stuff that happens to women at atheist conventions and atheist websites. Sometimes this is true. Other times, such as when Rebecca Watson faced the horror of being asked a question, saying “no”, and having the guy take “no” for an answer, it is not true. The latter is the case most of the time. Mallorie recognizes this:

For as long as I can remember I have been welcomed in to communities which were generally considered “sausage fests”. If not for the constant noting of this fact I would have never noticed. You guys were always just
my friends.

As I’ve gotten older these subcultures have become more vocal about wanting to include more women, the discussion has become “how can we make the community more welcoming to women”.

As a woman who has been here all along this is distressing to me, I love you guys for who you are, from my table-top strategy gaming group though my political debate forum right in to the skeptical community. You have never been anything but awesome and welcoming. Who made you think you weren’t?

I am here, in my various communities because I like you guys, and I like the basis of the movement. The idea that you have to set time aside to cater to me, because my vagina imbues me with some special needs is becoming increasingly insulting. These communities are about our minds, not our genitals and as far as I can tell my mind is just like yours.

The point is obvious. Her experience has been horribly misrepresented by the feminists faction of the atheist community. They aren’t interested in presenting reality but rather an agenda-driven account of what is happening. Again, look at the Rebecca Watson case. A man asked her back to his hotel room. He did so in an elevator, indicating to me that he was likely too nervous to ask the question in front of a bunch of people and the elevator was his first chance. He should have re-thought that one, if only because it makes for an awkward situation, but regardless, when Watson said “no”, his response was effectively, “Okay”, and that was that. Not a bit of sexism or misogyny to be found anywhere. Any reasonable person – and that includes Mallorie – will recognize the facts as such.

I am writing about this for two reasons. First, I want to once again express my exacerbation at this conflation between atheism and feminism. Neither one has anything to do with the other. Moreover, “new atheism” is about the evils and harm of religion. That needs to be the primary focus. If other people wish to focus on feminism, do it elsewhere. Second, Friendly Atheist linked to Mallorie’s Facebook profile. (Mallorie responded in the thread and did so by logging in via her profile.) I sent her a message saying she did a good job on the article, and then I sent a friend request. She accepted. From what I’ve read (most of which is public anyway), she hasn’t gotten much professional publicity from this. That wasn’t her intent at all, plus her profession is photography so this sort of topic isn’t going to help much anyway, but I figured I would do what I could to promote her work. It actually is of a pretty good quality. Take a look here and here.

I’m glad we have voices like Mallorie’s. Strong women who don’t want special care taken for them is exactly what the rhetoric of the feminist movement is seeking. It just so happens that it is those outside the movement who recognize how to achieve this.

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Well, that was interesting

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Michael

I recently praised PZ for finally looking to shed his extra pounds. Aside from his lack of health being disrespectful to his own body, he runs the chance of leaving his loved ones behind too early – and for no good reason. I stand by that praise, and even though I am fully aware that it comes across as if I am just trying to insult a fat guy, I do genuinely mean it.

Unfortunately, PZ doesn’t see it that way. In the comment section of the post that inspired what I wrote, things took an ugly turn. I presented my argument that it is wrong to not try to be healthy. The first reaction – and it is always the first reaction – is to say I think it is wrong to be fat. I don’t. The issue is with putting forth an honest effort to be healthy. The results are not important, morally speaking. And just as I did in my post about obesity, I allowed for a huge swath of caveats. Some people have conditions which prevent them from putting forth the same effort as others. Other people work long hours and have to take care of children at the end of the day. Still other people have limited access to healthy food. It would be unreasonable to expect everyone to be able to put forth the same effort. That doesn’t mean, though, that it is magically impossible for people to attempt all they can – there is almost always a better choice available on the grocery store shelves – but I fully acknowledge that it can be difficult. I always have.

This, unfortunately, led to an extended discussion on poor people and food stamps. Apparently I hate them all because I don’t want to subsidize lobsters. The truth is, welfare funds are a limited resource. If we allow people to spend money on expensive items, they will have less for what they actually need. I saw this first hand while working at a grocery store in high school. People would use the last of their food stamps regularly on $30-70 worth of lobster. I can think of far better ways to use those funds.

The “counter” (if you can call it that) to this argument is that people get X amount of dollars and so it doesn’t matter how they spend them. (Oh, and I don’t think poor people deserve nice things, apparently.) This is a patently stupid argument. If I am given $200 a month for food and I need $300, $100 is coming from my pocket. However, if I buy luxury items, that eats into what I have been given. That means I will get one nice meal, but that might add another $30 to what comes out of my wallet. This does not help the poor; it allows some people to abuse their funds, forcing them to stay on welfare longer. That is, nobody is going to get back on their feet by spending money on things they don’t need at the expense of things they do need.

And, of course, this all means I must be a Ron Paul-loving, Reagan-blowing libertarian Republican. Right. No, my position is a utilitarian one. Welfare funds are not unlimited. It doesn’t make sense to allow them to be used to buy anything under the Sun. In fact, PZ and co are in the minority in what they think. Most states restrict the use of food stamps on some items (such as expensive energy drinks), and certainly no state allows the funds to be used for restaurants. And the states are right to do so. But what’s really interesting about this is that PZ and everyone else, once we get past the government intervention, is kicking into uber-libertarian mode. “Who are YOU to say what people should buy?!” Right. I’m the libertarian here.

The end result has been a ban. I suppose I’m okay with this. After all, throughout my Maloney troubles, PZ never responded to a single email or request for help. He, of course, is not required to do so, but let’s not be coy. I have disagreed with his rampant sexism in recent months, so he has no interest in helping me fight junk science. Emotion overrides logic here; if I never commented on his site, he would have been the first to help me. Besides that, the majority of his posts have nothing to do with atheism anymore. Sure, he has those spammy “Why I am an atheist” posts that have given my scrolling finger a good workout, but he mostly writes about feminism and stupid Internet polls. Overall I have still enjoyed him, but that is happening less and less each day. Without the writing he had as of a few years ago, I don’t care for much of what he has to say anymore. I’ll stick with Jerry Coyne, Friendly Atheist, and Starts With A Bang! for my big name bloggers.

At any rate, I hope PZ does manage to lose the excess fat he has. He’s older and has had health issues, so I don’t expect fantastic results, but I’m happy he is at least trying. After all, that’s all that matters.

Filed under: Atheism/Humanism, Politics and Social | Tagged: , , , , , , | 12 Comments »

To the Hitch

Posted on December 21, 2011 by Michael

In honor of the good man Christopher Hitchens, a friend and I spent more money than we anticipated ($9 each) on shots of Johnnie Walker Black. Neither of us is big into hard alcohol by any means, but a YouTube video revealed that this particular brand and type was Hitchens’ favorite. We just had to have a toast.


Of course, we couldn’t have a toast without a proper discussion of the man. We mostly meandered about his intellectual prowess and stunning vocabulary, stepping into his views on women and freedom and religion, but for due respect we brought with us each a quote. First, by my good friend:

That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.

A spin on Sagan, which was a spin on Laplace, which may have been a spin on Hume, for sure, but nonetheless potent. And mine:

It could be that all existence is a pointless joke, but it is not in fact possible to live one’s everyday life as if this were so.

This seems to be a rather pragmatic defeat of all theist attacks on atheism, but I’m still chewing on it.

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The Afterlife Survey

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Michael

A few months ago my father put me in contact with a co-worker of his, Maureen Milliken. She is a news editor for two of the major local papers and she was in the process of writing a book called The Afterlife Survey. Her methodology for the book was to send out thorough surveys to a variety of people from a variety of faiths and non-faiths and I guess I fit the bill. She asked a number of questions that were designed to get at what people really believe, not just gather statistics. It was very much a journalistic approach (which certainly makes sense given Maureen’s occupation), and it makes for an interesting read.

I have only just begun reading the book now that I have legal and scholastic issues put behind me, but I can already say I recommend it. It’s a bit late for Christmas, but one-day shipping would get it delivered in time to be put under the tree. Sans that option, it makes for a good gift any time anyway. Take a look.

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