“I belong to a gospel choir. They know I am an atheist but they are very tolerant. Ultimately, the message of gospel music is that everything’s going to be all right. If you listen to millions of gospel records – and I have – and try to distil what they all have in common it’s a sense that somehow we can triumph. There could be many thousands of things. But the message… well , there are two messages… one is a kind of optimism for the future rather than a pessimism. Gospel music is never pessimistic, it’s never ‘oh my god, its all going down the tubes’, like the blues often is. Gospel music is always about the possibility of transcendence, of things getting better. It’s also about the loss of ego, that you will win through or get over things by losing yourself, becoming part of something better. Both those messages are completely universal and are nothing to do with religion or a particular religion. They’re to do with basic human attitudes and you can have that attitude and therefore sing gospel even if you are not religious.” Brian Eno in an interview with The Guardian
Obviously Robertson failed to fact-check his sources before making his most recent ignorant claim.
Dear Pat Robertson, I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I’m all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I’m no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth — glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven’t you seen “Crossroads”? Or “Damn Yankees”? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there’d be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox — that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it — I’m just saying: Not how I roll. You’re doing great work, Pat, and I don’t want to clip your wings — just, come on, you’re making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That’s working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract. Best, Satan
Atheists are often challenged on their lack of belief. Christians in the U.S. seem to think that atheists are only opposed to their god, ignoring the fact that disbelieving in gods includes all the gods invented by mankind throughout history. Atheists are accused of being mad at god or resentful of god’s laws. Some say we simply want to live a life full of sin and disobedience without having to submit to the authority of a divine rule-giver.
What our challengers fail to appreciate is that atheism is the disbelief in a broader range of fantastic thinking than just their particular faith. Atheists reject for lack of evidence belief in any concept that can be reasonably categorized as supernatural or superstitious. To atheists the belief in a personal god is as nonsensical and unfounded as the belief that a black cat crossing your path brings bad luck. Many theists dismiss the idea that walking under a ladder creates bad luck but fail to notice the obvious correlation between that belief and their own belief in gods.
Many atheists consider supernatural and superstitious beliefs to be fairly benign; believe what you will as long as it doesn’t interfere with another person’s privilege to believe what they wish. Yet this degree of tolerance allows the more harmful consequences of supernatural and superstitious belief to be practiced without criticism. Tolerance of the differences between individuals is commendable; tolerance of belief systems that are used to subjugate, enslave and kill those who don’t share those beliefs is not commendable at all. By not opposing fantastic thinking, especially when it is used as an excuse to cause harm to our fellow humans, we atheists become complicit in that harm. We need to champion realistic and clear thinking and not shy away from criticizing belief systems that cause wars and death to innocent humans.
Here is a prime example of how superstitious thinking can cause real harm to the innocent.
Human sacrifice is on the increase in Uganda according to a government spokesman. This barbaric crime is directly linked to rising levels of development and prosperity, and an increasing belief that witchcraft can help people get rich quickly. Witch doctors claim they have clients who regularly capture children and bring their blood and body parts to be consumed by spirits. One witch doctor confessed for the first time to having murdered about 70 people, including his own son.
According to media reports, the witch doctors revealed that some of their clients capture other people’s children and bring the heart and the blood directly to them to take to the spirits. They are brought in small tins and are placed under a tree from which the voices of the spirits are coming. Clients come on average three times a week, with all that the spirits asks them to bring. The witch-doctors deny any direct involvement in murder or incitement to murder. They claim that spirits speak directly to their clients.
Witch doctors are paid about 500,000 Ugandan shillings, equivalent of about $260 for a consultation. The head of the Anti-Human Sacrifice and Trafficking Task Force in Uganda, assistant commissioner Moses Binoga of the Ugandan police, said that witch doctors operate in a network and have bosses who give instructions and receive the bulk of payment made by clients. The bosses involve in one of five or six witch-doctor protection rackets operating in the country.
The Assistant commissioner went on to say that the senior ones extort money from lower people because they deal in illegal things. He said that police had opened 26 murder cases in 2009, in which the victim appeared to have been ritually sacrificed, compared with just three cases in 2007. He also said that they have about 120 children and adults reported missing whose fate they have been unable to trace. They cannot rule out that they may be victims of human sacrifice, he said. (Source-Newstime Africa) (Hat-tip to @SkeptInquiry on Twitter for the link)
We can see a pattern here that is common to many religions. A persuasive and charismatic charlatan realizes they can get rich by getting the gullible to believe their conveniently unprovable premise that misfortune and eternal punishment will be visited on anyone who doesn’t join their cult and surrender their money, possessions and their good sense to the leader. It’s nothing more than a scam, sadly protected from criticism and exposure by claiming to be a religion. Even the most progressive societies are reluctant to challenge any belief system that hides behind the label of “religious belief”.
If you are a passive atheist who doesn’t think it’s worthwhile to openly criticize supernatural and superstitious thinking, I would ask that you consider the possibility that your reticence is what allows witch doctors to sacrifice children to ward off evil spirits free of condemnation. By thinking that it’s their right to believe in witchcraft if they want, the tolerant fail to protest the effect of their superstitious thinking on innocent children.
We have thousands of examples of the harm done to humanity in the name of a god or spirit. Atheists owe it to their fellow humans to oppose and speak out against such nonsense, especially when it subjugates and kills.
I’m not a militant atheist, I’m certainly not a dogmatic atheist. But I am an atheist, or as I prefer, a disbeliever. I have no interest in offending the religious, it isn’t my intention to insult. But I am quite opinionated, well-read, a former believer, a spiritual non-believer. I will not back away from or disavow my opinions. If that causes someone offense, if they perceive insult, that’s their problem. They’re always free to ignore me.
I am a humanist (not an official Humanist). I share with all other humans certain traits, behaviors and aspirations. I understand the need and origin of religious belief. But I have no respect for any belief system that divides humans, any dogma that egotistically states that some humans (always humans like themselves) are better than everyone else, more deserving of an enjoyable life, more favored by some divine authority. All of us reading this are humans.
I’ve never been embarrassed to admit that I am a product of evolution, that I share the same origins as every other human on the planet. We should feel no pride or shame for what we are due to nature; we had no choice in our race, our sex, our hair natural hair color or lack of hair. What fairly brings us pride or shame is what we’ve made of ourselves with what nature gave us. We are judged by our attitudes, our beliefs, our statements, our behaviors. Those are what divide and unite us. It’s not our fault I’m white and you’re Black. We can’t help that you’re a woman and I’m a man. But once I’ve formed an opinion about Blacks and women I am fully responsible for those opinions. I don’t accept the excuse that “God made me this way”. You’re perception of god is not to blame for your racism, your smug superiority, your callous disregard for your fellow human. We choose our beliefs, they are our responsibility for better or worse. To own your attitudes and beliefs is to be fully human. To realize that natural handicaps come in all shapes and sizes, aren’t always obvious and say nothing of the human inside is to be fully human.
As an experiment, inspired by a comment to this blog today, I have disabled the IntenseDebate commenting system here and am going back to comments within the framework of RadicalAtheist.
This is a change I’ve wanted to try for some time. I’m not totally comfortable with having comments hosted by another service, away from the blog itself.
I don’t have any issues with the IntenseDebate service itself. It does what it claims and it does present a pleasant interface. I’ll be doing this same thing with DISQUS over at heathenqueer.com Both are worthy of consideration by blogs encumbered with hundreds of replies to deal with. They offer statistics and controls that many built-in commenting systems don’t.
I don’t suffer that burden. To me, sending the comments off-site is an impersonal way for me to treat those who do bother to leave a comment. I enjoy reading the comments left here. I know I need to reply more often, to encourage the conversation. For me the comments are personal. When I write I’m expressing honest opinions and beliefs (or lack of same). When people respond to my writing, they are responding to me, to my thoughts, to what makes me me to a large extent.
So let’s see how well this works. I’m eager to hear your opinions.
I just added a video to the audio/video page. If you haven’t visited that page in a while you may want to click over and view a few of the more recent additions.
I prefer to keep videos on their own page as I know some RSS readers have a hard time displaying them properly. When I write a post that requires a video to help make a point I’ll include it on the home page. But that isn’t a frequent occurrence. Generally an image serves the same purpose and can be displayed in your favorite reader more easily than a video can be.
I’m also aware that videos are occasionally pulled from YouTube for one reason or another, and if one disappears from the feed I’d rather that happened on a separate page than in my main feed.
The video I added today is a casual conversation between Adam Carolla and Seth MacFarlane, the creator of Family Guy among other accomplishments. They wander into a discussion of their common disbelief in gods and the implications of that on their thinking. They bring up some of the more common objections to atheism and how they deal with them. It reminds me of several conversations I’ve had with fellow non-believers over beer (usually, for them) and coffee (always, for me).
So if you have the time, click over and enjoy a few of the videos. And if you encounter any you think I should include there, please drop me a line and let me know. We can all use a little entertainment these days.
In an effort to rebuild our relationship with the United Nations, an effort that is being questioned by many Americans, the Obama administration has chosen to support an agenda that contradicts our own Constitution.
The United States has backed a new UN resolution on free expression which would be considered unconstitutional under its First Amendment — which protects freedom of expression and bans sanctioning of religions.
The UN Human Rights Council on 2 October adopted the resolution, which the US had co-sponsored with Egypt. The US had finally joined the Human Rights Council in June, and its support for the measure reflected the Obama administration’s stated aim to “re-engage” with the UN.
While the new resolution focuses on freedom of expression, it also condemns “negative stereotyping of religion”. Billed as a historic compromise between Western and Muslim nations, in the wake of controversies such the Danish Muhammed cartoons, the resolution caused concern among European members.
“The language of stereotyping only applies to stereotyping of individuals, I stress individuals, and must not protect ideologies, religions or abstract values,” said France’s representative, Jean-Baptiste Mattéi, speaking for the EU. “The EU rejects the concept of defamation of religion.”
France emphasised that international human rights law protects individual believers, not systems of belief. But European members, eager not be seen as compromise wreckers, reluctantly supported the measure.
On the other side of the fault line stood the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which lobbied for a measure against “religious defamation”.
“We firmly believe that the exercise of freedom of expression carries with it special responsibilities,” said Pakistan’s delegate, speaking for the OIC. The “defamation” of religion, he said, “results in negative stereotyping of the followers of this religion and belief and leads to incitement, discrimination, hatred and violence against them, therefore directly affecting their human rights.”
Following the OIC’s logic, one could equally apply the language of the resolution to Islamism, a political form which is arguably a “contemporary manifestation of religious hatred, discrimination and xenophobia. It results in negative stereotyping of the followers of other religions and beliefs and leads to incitement, discrimination, hatred and violence against them, therefore directly affecting their human rights.”
The EU also had other worries. European members felt that the provision in the resolution on “the moral and social responsibility of the press” was objectionable in that it went beyond the limited restrictions set out in article 19, the provision on free expression in the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights. (Source-Index on Censorship)
Thinly disguised blasphemy laws are often defended as necessary to protect the ideals of tolerance and pluralism. They ignore the fact that the laws achieve tolerance through the ultimate act of intolerance: criminalizing the ability of some individuals to denounce sacred or sensitive values. We do not need free speech to protect popular thoughts or popular people. It is designed to protect those who challenge the majority and its institutions. Criticism of religion is the very measure of the guarantee of free speech — the literal sacred institution of society.
While I respect the right of any person to believe as they wish, I also believe that the right to speak our minds freely and without fear of reprisal, intimidation or sanction is a hallmark of Western democracy. We should not surrender our rights in order to provide uncertain security in the face of violent opposition to contrary opinions. Ben Franklin wrote, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety”.
There is no reason to provide special protection to religious beliefs. The fear that religious believers will suffer “incitement, discrimination, hatred and violence against them” is nonsensical. The majority of people on the planet are religious. Religious believers hold most of the positions of power in both the East and West. They have no reason to fear the opinions of the minority. The most immediate danger to any believer in a particular god are those who believe in another god.
Criticism is not necessarily an act of hatred. Quite often criticism is an act of love. If a family member has become enslaved to drug addiction, is it an act of discrimination or hatred to criticize their addiction? If I firmly believe my country, a country I willingly served to defend, is headed in a dangerous and unconstitutional direction, should I remain mute?
Religious belief in a generic sense is predominant among humans around the globe. But there is little agreement as to the nature of the god the religious believe in. What anti-blasphemy resolutions seek to achieve will result in the inability of Baptists to speak out against the Catholic Church or reasonable people to object to the foolishness of Scientology. We will have to remain silent when Iran decides to execute those who oppose their theocracy or happen to be homosexual. Any theocratic government will be exempt from criticism by anyone for any reason.
The philosophical and legal quagmire with such legislation centers around the definition of “blasphemy.” Practically every religion, sect and cult possesses concepts that are blasphemous to another. As an important example, while Christians believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, Muslims consider him a mere prophet, albeit an important one. Calling Christ the “Son of God,” however, is viewed as “blasphemous” within Islam, as is not believing in Mohammed as Allah’s final and most important prophet. Under such anti-blasphemy legislation, therefore, all Christian literature could be confiscated and Christians arrested, because at its very core, Christianity would represent “blasphemous material” that could cause—and has caused—outrage many times in the Muslim world, explaining in part why the Bible is banned in such fundamentalist Islamic countries as Saudi Arabia.
This subject both fascinates me and fills me with dread. It’s fairly obvious that Christians in the West are growing just as intolerant of criticism and challenge as the Muslims in the East. When our government bows to pressure from the theists and supports blasphemy laws that directly contradict our Constitution the groundwork is being laid for the further erosion of our freedom of speech. I worry for the future of our secular and pluralistic republic.
“When I became convinced that the universe is natural—that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom.
The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts and bars and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf or a slave. There was for me no master in all the world—not even infinite space.
I was free. Free to think, to express my thoughts. Free to live my own ideal. Free to live for myself and those I loved. Free to use all my faculties, all my senses. Free to spread imagination’s wings. Free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope. Free to judge and determine for myself. Free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the “inspired” books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past. Free from popes and priests. Free from all the “called” and “set apart.” Free from sanctified mistakes and “holy” lies. Free from the winged monsters of the night. Free from devils, ghosts and gods.
For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all the realms of thought, no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings, no claims for my limbs, no lashes for my back, no fires for my flesh, no following another’s steps, no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds.
And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers, who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain, for the freedom of labor and thought, to those who fell on the fierce fields of war, to those who died in dungeons bound with chains, to those who proudly mounted scaffold’s stairs, to those by fire consumed, to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons and daughters of men and women. And then I vowed to grasp the torch that they have held, and hold it high, that light may conquer darkness still.”
Jack (Jeber) Carlson
I think I use the term radical rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “Atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘Agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean Atheist. I really do not believe that there is a god - in fact I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one. It’s easier to say that I am a radical Atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously. (Douglas Adams)
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