Jesus F*cking Christ Contest

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a camp group in San Francisco had a contest this last Easter for the best Jesus Fucking Christ. Let you imagination roam a bit. Who would you choose? What image does that phrase bring to mind?

The winner and runner up are in the photo. The runner up was the built guy, presumably good for fucking. The winner is funnier, in my opinion. That Jesus is the guy on the right in the red robe. Christ, of course, is the one bent over.

I think I'll always smile from now on when I hear that phrase with that visual locked into my mind.

The Oakland Rapture RAM report - part 3

I've already covered the entire event, but I skipped over my favorite part because it deserved a post of its own: the people.

From the moment I walked in the door on Saturday, I was met by friendly faces who were happy to be there and happy that I was able to show up. Over the next 30 hours or so, I met a bunch of new friends, posed for lots of pictures, signed a few books and, most importantly, heard numerous stories from people who wanted to express just how much The Atheist Experience has meant to them.

"I was a Christian...until..."
"I was a pagan...until..."
"I was afraid of hell...until..."
"I was apathetic...until..."
"I love what you guys are doing..."
"You've helped make my arguments better..."
"I'm just glad that you guys are doing this - it's important!"

I can't begin to express how much comments like that mean to me and every time I hear them I wish everyone involved with the show was right there to hear them with me.

There's a major event coming in 2012 (the Reason Rally) and while there's nothing official, I'm hoping to get as many of The Atheist Experience folks (including those who work behind the scenes) out to that event - so start making plans now!

I've always said that I'd be happy if the show made people think and happier if it helped someone. There's no doubt that both are true and there are few feelings as satisfying as the combination of accomplishment and appreciation.

To all the fans of the show...thank you. We'll keep doing what we're doing.

Notes on episode 710

Yes, we know the video link isn't working. We're working on it. Specifically, Don says we're shifting to a new server. So I'll add an addendum to this post when there's a workable video to view.

A couple of notes on some things that a few viewers have emailed us about, regarding how a couple of the calls went.

Mark "from Stone Church": Some folks have admonished us for being a bit curt and dismissive of Mark this time, considering how he seems to have made such progress in shifting from mindless follower to free thinker. Yes, about that. While I'm not as inclined to think there are as many Poes calling us as a lot of our viewers like to think, there is something about Mark that sets my skeptical Spidey-sense a-tingling with every call we get. I'm not the first person to make this observation. That his IP address originates from Canada has raised some eyebrows as to whether he really attends Austin Stone Church at all (though that's not proof of anything, as a person could use any ISP they chose, I suppose). But there was just something about Sunday's call that made a little blinking red light labeled Bogus! go off in my head, though I really could not put my finger on any one definite thing. Is he someone who's been jerking our chain all this time? I cannot point to any smoking-gun evidence. Call it a hunch, which I know is about as unscientific as it gets.

There are little things — notice how Mark always claims to be present in a room full of people when he calls ("I'm with my congregation..." "I've got all my friends watching..."), yet you never hear any background chatter? You'd think a room full of Christians calling an atheist show would be full of "Hey, ask them this!" and "Let me, let me!" And then there's the abrupt shift from "You're going to hell!" to "Let's get together on this investigation that shows every time you question religion it's proven false!" Most of us who came from a religious background will tell you, you don't go from a devout believer to hardline, investigation-minded skeptic in the span of a couple of weeks. Deconversion happens all the time, but it's a long and gradual process and it often takes years to shake off the more insidious and psychologically oppressive aspects of religious indoctrination, such as the fear of even the remotest, 1% possibility that disbelief will lead to eternity in hell. (Pascal's Wager is intellectually risible, but to a non-critical mind, it's an emotional sledgehammer.)

But the strange thing is, if Mark is a Poe, he hasn't been asking us anything overtly obnoxious or trollish. (His hellfire admonitions in his "believer" phase were standard Christian stuff.) So while I'm not sure I believe he is who or what he says he is, he hasn't given us much reason to be rude or contemptuous of him, and that wasn't the intent on Sunday. But by the time his call was over we were 25 minutes into a one-hour show and it was time to move on.

Charlie the "atheist homophobe": Unfortunately, we had to move on to this assclown.

Again, some folks have opined that Tracie and I handled this one all wrong, and in fact I'd agree. What I should have done — with 20/20 hindsight — was point out that as an African-American, Charlie ought to know a thing or two about how hurtful and damaging ignorance, hate and bigotry are, and that for him to hold such views was simply disgraceful. Click, you're done.

What I do not think we had any obligation to do was grant Charlie his point that the term homophobia ought to refer to "disgust" towards gays rather than hate and fear. First off, even if this were true, what difference would it make? Sure, homophobia can (and does) include "disgust," but it's the most asinine hair-splitting to try to claim that this emotion is somehow independent or entirely unrelated to fear or hate, when in fact "disgust" in this case is simply an emotional by-product of said fear and hate.

And even if it weren't a by-product of those things, what exactly was Charlie thinking? That our attitude towards homophobia might change — that we'd revise our opinion that it's sheer contemptible idiocy — if hate and fear were removed from the definition? And try as we might, we simply couldn't stop Charlie from spinning in circles on the definition and pin him down on one salient question: if he thinks the definition of homophobia is an inaccurate description of his attitude, then why add to the confusion by using the term to classify himself?

Homophobia's definition, I agree, is more complex than the strict dictionary definition ("irrational fear and antipathy towards homosexuals") may reveal. Regular commenter GeorgeFromNY pointed out on Facebook last night that the term has its origins in clinical psych, and originally referred to men whose aversion to the gay was so intense as to be pathological. Furthermore, it's often noted that what these homophobes fear is not gay men per se, but the possibility that they themselves might respond positively to a potential gay sexual advance, due to some latent unexplored homoerotic attraction they haven't (and cannot) come to terms with. In short, it was projection gone wild. Now, I'll admit that many homophobes may in fact not be closet cases, though the sheer number of anti-gay conservative politicians and clergymen who have eventually been caught in flagrante delicto with their young swains does tend to lend some legitimacy to the stereotype.

But really, I think what Charlie was trying to do was perform a semantic Mexican Hat Dance around the real matter at hand, which is, if you call us up and the first words out of your mouth are "I'm a homophobe," we are not going to respect you. It's no different than calling up and saying "I'm a misogynist!" or "I'm a racist!" It all translates to "I'm a bigoted douche!" And whether your bigotry is based on fear or disgust, it's all the same in the end, and equally beneath contempt. Trying to play some game with definitions in order to defend something indefensible is about as absurd as it gets.

"Oh, I see, you don't fear gays, you're simply disgusted by them. Well, that's okay then." Really, Charlie? Really?

So yeah, we handled Charlie poorly and could have shut him down sooner. But you learn a little something with every episode you do, and we always appreciate the feedback, pro and con, from viewers, because it helps us think about how to do better every time.

The Oakland Rapture RAM report...part the second

The billboard, like the people who paid for it, were still there on Sunday...

Continuing on with Saturday's speakers...

Ashley Paramore from the Secular Student Alliance did a great job educating us on how to better connect with campus groups. As it turns out, not only do they enjoy pizza (preferably free) they might also be a bit tired of lectures (who knew?) and there are other events that might be more to their liking. In all seriousness, the ACA has worked with campus groups at UT, Austin and many of the things that Ashley said (which should almost be common sense but, sadly, are not) will be helpful to our group and to many others that want to help support campus secular groups. I won't be advocating the exact model that Campus Crusade for Christ uses, but there are good lessons to be learned there.

Lewis Marshall, President of the Atheists, Humanists and Agnostics at Stanford University spoke about freethought activism and working with interfaith groups. (There were some unfortunate audio problems during his talk and I missed part of it.)

Keith Lowell Jensen offered highlights from his stand-up comedy routine. Legitimately entertaining and funny, he's been doing atheist-themed comedy for a while. He was kind enough to give me one of his CD's and I planned to listen to it on the flight home, but I couldn't find the CD-drawer on my iPod, so I'm going to rip the audio off later and listen to it tomorrow...or at least before the next scheduled rapture.

David Eller, Assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado, Denver gave the first of two talks (I want his agent...or maybe any agent) for the weekend. He's the author of several books and the latest is Cruel Creeds, Virtuous Violence: Religious Violence Across Culture and History.

The first talk covered some of the content of the book, focusing on religious violence and cultural perceptions of violence. It's not a talk I can fairly summarize, but I definitely enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to spending more time talking to David in the future. He said a number of things that made me reconsider the way I look at things and that's something that I really appreciate.

There was a dinner break at this point and I did a few interviews with local news stations. As it turns out, I was on one station for about 3 seconds and...they pretty much gave me the last word. That's great and fairly unheard of! It's almost enough to make me move to California. I had spent a few moments during my talk mentioning how religious figures always seem to get the last word on every atheist news story and no one had ever given me the last word on a religious story. I'll have to change my talk, but I'm glad to do so!

As dinner was wrapping up, Brian Dalton (Mr. Deity) appeared, as if by magic and almost precisely timed with the countdown to the rapture (SPOILER: nothing happened). Some of the speakers got together to pose for various rapture photos:

Brian and I had traded a couple of e-mails about possibly getting him on one or both of the shows, but we'd never actually met. After a quick introduction and a renewed commitment to keep the conversations going, he set up his laptop and proceeded to entertain us so that we wouldn't have time to be depressed about the fact that people weren't actually being raptured.

The previous night, I'd mentioned to Donna that I'd been to California many times, but I'd never experienced an earthquake and that I'd love, just once, to get a taste of a tiny earthquake. Nothing terribly damaging, just a little shake.

Well Mr. Deity sure knows how to deliver. A little over halfway through his talk, the earth moved. The Bay area experienced a minor earthquake (3.6) and after I turned and gave Donna a thumbs-up, I just couldn't resist shouting "Is that all you've got!?"

After watching several clips from Mr. Deity and hearing him talk about the absurdity of claiming a Christian basis for the United States while the values we hold sacred are usually the antithesis of the values proclaimed in the Bible, it was time to party like it was the end of the world.

I donned a thick, polyester robe, which covered my stylish, yet polyester, bowling shirt...and managed to sweat my way through an improvised de-baptism ceremony with Greta Christina faithlessly using a blow-dryer to counter the effects of any previous baptisms that the guests wish to be relieved from. (Fun Fact: This silly, fun-filled exercise is exactly as effective as the actual baptisms!)

And Saturday came to an end...

Well, actually, it didn't. I managed to sneak out for drinks with some folks until Saturday came to an end.

Sunday

My Sunday coverage is going to be pretty short (and there will be a third part to this entry)...

I got up at an absolutely ridiculous hour and Rebecca and Amy and I headed over to a fund-raising breakfast for CampQuest West. Breakfast was great and it was a good opportunity to raise money by visiting with some of the great people who were willing to shell out extra cash to see whether or not the speakers had good table manners - and to identify which of us clearly went out drinking the night before.

I got to hear David Eller's second talk, just before I had to leave. This one covered building an atheist culture and it prompted a lot of thought and discussion. I really wish I'd have been able to stay around longer and discuss the talk with him, but alas, my plane simply refused to wait.

That means that I missed Rebecca's talk, though I've heard it was great. I really hope someone recorded all of this and decides to post it. I was going to see how far I could impose on Rebecca by seeing if she'd be willing to do the entire talk again, over Skype, just for Beth and I...but instead I'm going to see about having the ACA bring her down to Austin so she can do the talk at our monthly lecture series. (To the ACA board: I swear I'm not just angling to bring my new friends to town...it'll be worth it.)

Mark Boyd was up after Rebecca and I can't comment on his talk. I can, though, say that I'm sorry to have missed it and sorry that I didn't get to spend more time talking to him. We had a very brief chat on the first day and I was pulled every which way for the rest of my time there (though I'm not complaining).

Finally, Greta Christina closed down this event with her talk, "Why are atheists so angry?" While it's true that I wasn't there, I can virtually guarantee that it was the highlight of the meeting. I've heard her give this talk and it nearly brings me to tears. Do whatever you can do to hear it. If she hadn't already been one of my favorite people, she certainly would have been after hearing this.

I'm going to wait a while on posting the third part of this...because I don't want these posts to get lost in a flood of post.

The Oakland Rapture RAM report...

Let me start by saying that I was thrilled to be a part of this event and that I had a great time and look forward to more events like this one. Unfortunately, my plane left Oakland at around noon on Sunday, so I had to leave early and missed the last few talks on Sunday - but here's my rundown of the entire weekend...

Friday
I arrived in Oakland around 4:20, which of course put me in mind of several jokes ("I'm in Oaksterdam at just the right time!" and "Where's that glaucoma prescription?"), but I was on a mission and there was very little time to squander. I was met at the airport by Donna Warnock, a long-time activist and new friend. We'd had a few conversations on Facebook and I was fortunate to get to spend a lot of time with her in DesMoines at the American Atheists National Convention. She lives in Oakland and graciously agreed to pick me up, treat me to a great dinner and ferry me around most of the weekend.

My first mission was to deliver a present to Greta Christina. Beth had knitted a Flying Spaghetti Monster for her and I didn't want it to get mauled (like the one on the show) before she saw it, so I fired off a text message, figuring I'd get a quick "Thanks! I'll see you in the morning", but instead I got a "Hey, come on over tonight!"...and that pretty much set the tone for the rest of the weekend: a bunch of friendly, fun-loving, godless heathens enjoying each other's company while shrugging off yet another failed rapture.

Donna and I were going to get a quick drink before dinner and as we were walking toward Heinold's First and Last Chance Saloon in Jack London Square, I looked over at one of the tables and immediately thought, "That looks like Rebecca Watson" (and, as it turns out, she was thinking "That looks like Matt Dillahunty"). A quick glance to her right confirmed my suspicions as I immediately recognized and smiled at Surly Amy and my long-overdue introduction to Rebecca was quickly made (technically we met briefly at the TAM7 Skepchick party...but if you were there, you'd understand why this kinda counts as the first proper introduction) and we were soon drinking and chatting on a crooked floor in a tiny bar while being lovingly mauled by a tiny little puppy.

"Wait a minute...", you're thinking, "We want to hear about the actual Rapture RAM. Why are we being dragged through this 'look at the fun stuff you didn't get to do and probably would have missed even if you had come' diatribe?"

Well, skip ahead if you like, but it's my story and I want to hit all of the highlights....but you'll miss out on the part where, oh nevermind..

So Donna and I ate a great dinner on the waterfront and then headed into San Francisco to visit Greta. I was finally able to meet her wife, Ingrid (who is similarly awesome) and several of their friends who I rudely, unintentionally and regrettably ignored... because it was also the first time I'd had a chance to meet and talk to Jen McCreight. (We've since added each other to our lists of awesome people. The weekend was full of a lot of mutual admiration introductions along wit many discussions clarifying fine points on which some of us had previously disagreed - and perhaps still do, though with greater clarity and appreciation of the subtleties and the confidence that we're definitely in this together.)

I really don't have the words to express how much I enjoyed getting to interact, in person, with people who quickly went from online allies to 'how many times do you have to interact before you're really "friends"...oh who cares...these are 'my' peeps'...but let's move on to the actual gathering.

Saturday
David Bryars and I got to chat in the Speakers' room for a few minutes before the event started and he was thrilled that they'd left us copies of Harold Camping's previous books to mock study while we waited.

David spoke about previous failed rapture/apocalyptic predictions and really got the event started off correctly: a little bit of fun, mixed with some education.

Jen McCreight was up next and talked about being both edgy and friendly. I'd seen a recording of this talk online, but it was great to finally hear it in person as she is perfectly suited to this topic. She offered some great examples of good and bad ideas for activism and explained how good ideas can quickly lead to bad ones in a group environment. She also gave one of the most diplomatic dismissal of accommodationist nonsense that I've seen; noting that you're always going to offend people and that there's a place for diplomats and firebrands. Funny, insightful, and just a joy to be around...I hope we're at the same event many, many times.

She was asked where she was on the good cop/bad cop scale and while she acknowledged her bad cop leanings, she made a point that I expanded on in my talk when I noted that whether I'm a good cop or a bad cop seems to depend on who you ask, which clip of the show they've seen and what their preconceptions were before hearing me for the first time.

Jesus made an appearance after Jen's talk, as Troy Conrad continued the levity with the in-costume revelation that we're actually on a reality show called 'Last Planet Standing" followed by a bit of improv where the crowd got to ask Jesus all the questions they'd been hoping to have answered. In addition to rapture clarifications, there were questions about his love life and skin color. As it turns out, Jesus has to appear as a white guy in the U.S. in order to get anyone to listen. Who knew?

I was up next and offered my limerick (there was a contest, though I have no idea what the results were) while I waited for my laptop to power up so that I could kill off all the fun with a very serious talk. My rapture-themed limerick was:

These predictions of eminent doom
Tend to come from religious buffoons
"Any day now!", they say
"We'll be raptured away!"
And it can't come a moment too soon.

I then gave the talk that I probably should have given at the National Convention. Fortunately I've learned a bit from that missed opportunity. I'll post some of the text from the talk later, but it was basically a huge call to action. We have to change minds, we have to get active, we have to change the world and these are all achievable goals. We not only need more blogs, podcasts, YouTube videos, etc. but I think it's also time we actually work toward a network. Yes, an actual cable network dedicated to honest education on issues relevant to and fairly representing secular positions. Programming to educate and to represent the real views, lives, difficulties and achievements of atheists now and throughout history. Programming to educate on civil rights issues, first amendment issues and everything related to a world built on reason and empathy.

It's a big dream, but if we can have 6 shows about pawn shops, anything is possible on cable.

I'll pause here, as there was a lunch break at this point.

Up Next: Ashley Paramore...

You can't reason a person out of a position...

...that they weren't reasoned into.

Bull.

I'm so sick of this little nugget of nonsense. (This nugget of nonsense is, by the way, on par with the sort of arrogance and surrender we see from atheists who claim that, while they no longer need religion, the "little people" are simply incapable of behaving without it. But that's a different post...)

I saw it on a Facebook post this morning and it was mentioned by David Eller at the Rapture RAM in Oakland less than 24 hours after my talk which focused on, among other things, changing the minds of atheists who think that reasoned arguments simply aren't going to convince people. Evidently, I failed to achieve my goal...sort of.

David is an anthropologist and he said a number of things that really challenged the way I'll think about these issues in the future (I'm hoping to write a trip report soon). The talk was enlightening and educational in many areas but he also said a number of things that were, as far as I can tell, flatly wrong or dependent upon very different usages of words like "belief" than I'm used to.

To be fair, when Greta Christina challenged him on the fact that he seemed to be strongly advocating an end to reasoned debate, David immediately noted that this wasn't his intended message and that those who are skilled at doing so should absolutely continue. That was encouraging, but there were so many points in his talk that directly implied the opposite that it left us a little divided at the end. (There were other issues, but for today, I'm focusing on this one.)
[Edit: There's been an apology on that issue and I'm encouraged, because David had a lot of great things to say and I hate to only focus on sloppy sexist comments or fine-points where we disagree. He's someone I'd love to spend more time talking to.]

So, what's wrong with this particular saying?

Well, if we're being very literal, every position someone holds is the product of reasoning. Believing a proposition is the result of being convinced. You can be convinced for good reasons or bad reasons, but as long as the brain is involved (and how could it not be?), reason is involved. In that scope, the statement is wrong because the premise is false. They were, in fact, reasoned into their belief.

Also, in a more colloquial sense, it refers to people whose beliefs were spawned by indoctrination, emotional appeals, socialization/inculturation and other things that aren't normally in the realm of 'pure reason' - and in this scope, the statement becomes a claim that you're just not going to be able to convince them of their error by using strict logical reasoning.

This saying is, at best, a deepity, though I'm convinced it's just false.

As noted during my talk, I'm walking, talking proof that it's false. My religious beliefs were not the result of critical thinking and skepticism, but my freedom from those beliefs most definitely is. (If my data set of 1 is unimpressive, I've got about 6 years worth of e-mails from people with nearly identical stories...and I'm betting there will be several "me too"s in the comments to this post.)

The problem, though, isn't just that this statement is wrong, it's that it's a white flag. It implies that efforts to free people from religious thinking, via reason, are futile.

There may be some people who are forever beyond the reach of reason, but this isn't true of everyone and I haven't seen any data to support the idea that it's even true for most people.

In fact, I think we have evidence to the contrary. People, even if they don't realize it, value reason and evidence. We're thinking creatures and critical thinking represents the "best practices" of human thought.

The trick, if that's a fair word, is to get them to realize how much they value the principles of sound thought and get them to apply that to beliefs that have previously been protected from such scrutiny.

I'm not implying that it's always (or ever) easy to accomplish this, but the statement in question implies that it's simply impossible - and nothing could be farther from the truth.

Skepticism, critical thinking, logical reasoning, science - however you prefer to label the most consistently reliable tools we have for discerning reality - are ubiquitously recognized as valuable though not universally applied. We must continue to try to convince people of the value of applying these principles to every claim.

People often become convinced of things for bad reasons and are remarkably good at protecting those beliefs from critical examination - especially if those beliefs have been long-held, publicly professed and are shared by many others in that person's social network. But that doesn't mean that they are forever incapable of recognizing that they've accepted something for bad reasons. People can, and do, understand the value of having good reasons for their beliefs - it's the reason why there are so many attempts to provide apologetic arguments for those beliefs.

Finally, this statement is often accompanied by claims that the failure of reason implies that we need to use other methods. I'm open to many different approaches, but too often the suggested alternatives really equate to saying, "If we can't convince them with good reasons, let's use bad ones!" (Ironically, this call to religious mimicry is often immediately preceded by a call to stop using religious language when addressing religious claims...)

This is, I think, an absolutely stupid idea.

The very reason we're able to change minds is because religious beliefs have such flawed foundations. Why would you want to build someone's atheistic house on that same unstable sand? This is the very reason I've railed against the bad arguments (Pi=3, astro-theology/zeitgeist) I've seen from atheists: it creates non-believers who, when they encounter a believer who can expose these bad reasons, are left confused, defenseless and prone to falling back into religious thinking.

Garbage in, garbage out.

You can, in fact, reason a person out of almost any belief - it just won't work if the person doesn't see the value of holding reasonable beliefs. The good news is that many, if not most, of the people who don't currently see that value can learn to see it and most already think they do, which is why the Socratic method is so darn useful.

It may sound insightful and it may accurately represent the frustrations of dealing with the most skeptically-challenged, fundamentalists - but it's simply not true in any useful sense and it's time for this sentiment to drift off into Bad Idea land...

Now is the end, perish the world

To cheer you up for the end of times, have some Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.



Ciao! (Thanks, dad, for bringing it to my attention.)

"They're the crazy ones, not us!"

Harold Camping's May-21-Rapture nonsense is so ubiquitous that there's no point in doing anything other than rolling with it at this stage. American Atheists will be holding Rapture parties in several cities. Matt is attending one in Oakland, in fact. Meanwhile, Tracie and I will be on the show Sunday, holding down the post-apocalyptic fort and taking calls from our far-flung global correspondents (i.e. you) reporting on the Rapture's impact on your own towns and countries. How many Christians have vanished in your area? None? But since the 21st is absolutely and without question the day of the Rapture, won't that mean that Christians have been worshiping a false god all this time...?

"Boy, won't my face be red!"

Someone else isn't pleased about this little media circus, however, and that would be the folks at the Christian Worldview Network. The CWN is Brannon Howse's House of Paranoia, basically, and they're a funny bunch, because they disdain other "loons" on the right-wing fringe — they absolutely cannot stand the "deceptive" teachings of Glenn Beck and Rick Warren — while at the same time embracing no end of fringe lunacy themselves. I think at various points in time they have accused Obama of being a communist, a socialist (actually, Howse prefers the term "Fabian Socialist" because it makes his flock think he's really read up on the subject), a Marxist, a terrorist, and possibly even a reptilian space invader. They're birthers too, which, compared to all the rest of it, is fairly tame.

In an article in their most recent newsletter with the weary title "Will This Ship of Fools Sink May 22?", Jan Markell minces no words. Camping is totally cuckoo-for-cocoa-puffs, and she's upset that he's given us annoying atheists such fuel for mirth.

There's going to be a party given by "heathens and skeptics" and I hope you have no desire to attend it. They intend to get together to mock the rapture. After months of enduring the unnerving dogmatism of Harold Camping's billboards, signs, cars, radio commercials and bumper stickers heralding the end of the world as we know it on May 21, American Atheists have announced that they are planning "rapture parties" in Oakland, Houston, and Fort Lauderdale on May 21-22.

The atheists boast of their own billboards which state, "The Rapture: You KNOW it's Nonsense. Learn the Truth at our Party." The billboard is designed to knock two millennia of false predictions that the world was about to end. So, they are having a party to celebrate another rapture that wasn't. And the atheists will be more accurate than the Christians because they are going after the date-setters.

Catch that last bit? See, what's wrong with Camping is that he was incautious enough to set a date. And that's what makes Christians look stupid. Because you can only control people effectively through nonsensical, superstitious prophecies of future events if you leave them vague and nebulous. Even Vito Corleone knew the psychology involved in keeping people wondering: "Someday — and that day may never come — I may come to you for a favor."

Markell wants Christians to be clear on one point: there totally is going to be a Rapture. We are in the "end times," and the clock is ticking. Naturally, she's just making this up no less than Camping is, but she's leaving herself endless wiggle room. "We cannot know!" But Jesus is coming. For realz. Just...whenever.

Markell sees a lot of negative fallout when May 22 rolls around, and the world (yay!) and all its Christians (sigh) are still here.

What can we know for sure will result from Camping's prediction?

• He will be proven wrong.
• He will put all who long for the Lord's return in a bad light.
• This will push many more away from considering end-time issues as they will not want to be lumped into such a questionable category.
• Church pulpits will grow even more silent on this topic right at a time when a countdown has truly begun and it is nearing midnight.
• The mockers and scoffers will grow stronger and more vocal.

As to that last, of course we will, because all of this is pants-on-head, paste-eating stupidity, and when grown adults exhibit this sort of thing, mockery and scoffing is the absolute least it deserves. What Markell can't see is that she is sailing, if not on Camping's same "ship of fools," in the same fleet. What exactly gives her eschatology any more basis in reality than Camping's, apart from the fact that Camping's will be decisively proven to not have happened when there's no global earthquake this Saturday? The Bible is the Big Book of Multiple Choice, and while Camping can play with interpretations to work out that the end will come May 21, and Markell clings to Matthew 24:36, there is also Matthew 24:34, in which Jesus makes it clear he expected the end times to begin in the lifetimes of his disciples. (And I guess he was wrong, which would make the Son of God Himself one of the "false prophets" the rest of Matthew 24 warns against, eh?)

Markell worries that "Jesus is coming again! But thanks to Harold Camping and friends, on May 22, more may be laughing and scoffing than anticipating." The lesson Markell ought to take from this, but won't, is that as long as she devotes her hopes and wishes and goals towards a vague promise of future divine salvation, instead of breaking away from the shackles of such irrational nonsense and embracing reality, and real solutions to real-world problems, then her ship of fools will itself keep sailing on...right over the edge.

Non-Prophets episode 10.11

Two weeks ago there was a great disturbance in the atheist community, like a million voices crying out in unison, then suddenly silenced. They were reacting to the news that it would be an estimated four weeks before the next official Non-Prophets episode would air.

Luckily, the guerrilla gorillas have been hard at work to bring you a brand new tin-cans-and-string episode. If you're subscribed to the podcast, you may have already known this. If not, check it out at the Non-Prophets audio archive!

On public arguments

Today's email comes from Mark in Colorado.

I work in a Defense firm where everybody is either a fundamentalist Christian or Mormon. I got into a discussion with a mormon guy who is always spouting some stupid shit. Anyway, I confronted him about his ideas and after a few minutes of discussion he realized I wasn't a pushover, so he switched tactics and started bringing up quantum physics (he feels that proves everything), psuedo science, non sequiturs, real science mixed with nonsense -- usually in the same sentence. Just for an example, he said he believed in evolution but described a cartoonish if not naive version. I tried to correct him and tell him he had it wrong, but he switched scripts and said loudly, "You don't believe in evolution"! It went on with a lot of stuff like that to muddy the waters and it seemed to have impressed people in my group.

My question is, have you ever run across anyone like that and how did you handle it?

In a situation like that, my first rule is that it's important to keep your cool. I understand that it's difficult in this situation, but you should calmly step back and assess what you are getting out of the argument. There are, in my mind, three reasons that you would want to argue with somebody:

1. You think you can change that person's mind in some way.
2. You think you can influence the opinion of people who are observing the discussion.
3. You are genuinely interested in the other person's arguments, or would like practice responding to them for your own education. Or it's fun.

These three points boil down to a question of "Who's your audience?" The answers are, respectively, 1. the Mormon; 2. somebody else; 3. Yourself. How you answer the audience question will have a lot of influence on how you should approach the discussion.

If the Mormon is your audience, you've already decided that he is kind of an idiot, so obviously you're not going to make major gains with him. Your best bet is to find the areas where he's most badly misunderstanding mainstream science, point out what is wrong in a straightforward way, and steer him toward credible literature on how it actually works. In order to do this, you'll have to understand the real science well enough to break it down that way, so maybe some extra reading is in order.

If a third party is your audience, you can start out winning big just by keeping your cool. If the other guy is visibly upset, and you are not, then it's hard to side with him. You said that his rant seemed to impress people in your group, so it's possible that they were swayed by it. Maybe you're having your discussion with the wrong person. If you think there is somebody a bit more reasonable who is on the fence and simply doesn't understand the issues involved, I'd look for an opportunity to talk privately with that person (or people). By expanding your influence to other people and getting them on your side, you're less likely to find yourself alone in future discussions.

If you are your own audience, then go ahead and argue to a frustrating standstill, then evaluate the specifics of the conversation later. Toss out the points which sounded like a stupid waste of time to you, but remember the points that left you struggling. Maybe the claims about quantum physics sounded like bunk to you, but you couldn't express why they're bunk. In that case, it's time to educate yourself. Go find some real information about science, preferably from a good, well-spoken popular science writer. It won't help in the current discussion, but it will improve your broad base of knowledge the next time the discussion comes up.

If none of the above are a good audience in this situation, maybe you should check your motives again and see if it's really worth your time to be talking to this lunkhead. I wouldn't pick an argument with a homeless guy in the street shouting at people, and you shouldn't waste time in a situation where nobody has anything to learn.

Whatever the case, remember that a casual debate is a skirmish, not the war. You can lose a battle and it doesn't ruin you as a human being. Just try to bear in mind your long term goals: becoming a knowledgeable and well-rounded individual; and helping good and correct memes to spread through the general population.

Open thread on episode #708: The sublime and the ridiculous

On yesterday's show, Don and I spoke for 40 minutes with Gregory S. Paul, an author who recently published an excellent op-ed in the Washington Post about our place in society as atheists.

We followed that up with a wacky call from a Canadian young earther.

Have at it!

I'm joining team beat PZ...unofficially.

I'm not even sure what the rules are, or how folks get invited to team "Beat PZ"...

I was tempted to side with PZ on this, but my other friends need some support - and PZ needs to keep the beard... so donate to support Camp Quest, help PZ keep his beard and let's see if I add any weight to this competition. I've posted this on both FB pages and here at the blog. Give, if you're able!

About Last Weekend

The rumor is true.

I got married on May 1st. Wedded, actually. Texas doesn't yet allow same-sex couples to be married, but it won't be too long before that changes, I think.

I married my partner of almost 12 years, Elton. We are lucky to be together as we complement each-other well. I'm the practical techie guy. He has more of a people person with a big heart. He's a believer, so we've had to work through some tension with my being such an atheist advocate. We are doing well, though, otherwise we wouldn't be making a lifetime commitment.

We had a grand (mostly secular) wedding ceremony with vows, exchanging of rings, and an old African tradition of jumping the broom. We have so many friends that we had to make very painful cuts to the invitee list, so only a few AE and ACA folks were invited. I apologize to anyone that feels slighted. If I could, I would have invited the whole gang. Tracie Harris was one of my grooms maids and she looked stunning. More than a dozen people have told me it was the most beautiful wedding they've seen. Elton organized most of it, so it has been a real labor of love.

We did not have a show last weekend because I had a critical number of people at my wedding. Thank you for sharing them with me.

Some pictures have been posted on Facebook and we have received an amazing number of well-wishes. It's humbling and very flattering to have so many people cheer us on as a couple. The gang of us that put on The Atheist Experience are very fortunate to have such loyal and devoted fans. Thank YOU!

I haven't been particularly open about being gay or opening up my personal life on the show. It's not that I'm closeted or anything. I used to run a gay and lesbian student group back in the '80s. I'm so "out", I don't even think about it anymore. I don't bring it up on the show because so much of it isn't relevant to the content of the show. It can too easily be a distraction. With the wedding, it's out in the open for all our fans. Let's keep the show focused on atheism, though.

When things quiet down a little bit and the red lights stop going off every time I make a credit card purchase, we'll take a vacation/honeymoon to Massachusetts and get legally married there. The marriage won't be recognized in Texas until the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) falls. It's just a matter of time, though, as challenges have already been made at the federal level.

Again, thanks for the warm wishes. Please don't send gifts. Donations to the ACA would be very welcome, however, but don't feel obliged.

I'm just happy to have so much support and love in my life.

Open thread on episode #706...Zombie Jesus Apocalypse

Here's the thread for today's show, gang. As you might have guessed, there will be a bit of an undead theme in play today, as this is the day Christians everywhere celebrate the awakening of an ambulatory corpse, though surprisingly few of them recognize that he was simply the vanguard of a full-on zombie invasion of Jerusalem (Matthew 27:52-53). Why Christians don't make more of this in their evangelism efforts I'll never know. Seems so much better a selling point than such useless things as creationism or raging homophobia.

Matt is in Des Moines this weekend at the American Atheists convention, so it's myself and Jen on today. As for other AXP traveling plans, I am planning on making it (with a little help from my friends) to The Amaz!ng Meeting 9 this summer, and who knows, but maybe some of us will be at this year's Skepticon and next year's Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne. Time will tell.

---

Note From Kazim, 4/27/2011:
At the request of the ACA board, I have removed the fundraising link from the paragraph above. Please be advised that Martin is not attending TAM as an "official" representative of the Atheist Community of Austin, and any contributions to him are a personal donation to an individual, and do not benefit the ACA in any way.

Following the script

We got an excellent question from a fan in Perth, Australia, enough that I wanted to share my answer online.

A friend of mine regaled me with a tale a while back, about a theist spouting a well worn apologetic to a prominent atheist. Rather than shoot it down with a just as well worn counter, he simply replied with "did you really think that would work?" Now, I don't know the whole story, but apparently said atheist went on to berate said theist about stupid they were for thinking that of all the things that this atheist had heard and read, it was this one guy spouting this one thing that he probably got of some website that would change his mind. While I'm not a fan of berating people, It does strike me as a valid idea, the whole "do you really think that'll stump me" response.

However, following a lively debate with some fellow atheist friends a while back, I was on the receiving end of a sudden rush of perspective. You see, they were just saying the same old stuff as well. The usual cookies about the christian god being immoral, how many different religions there are all over the world, the nonsense of disregarding science just because it can't explain EVERYTHING... same old crap you hear from people with an education. It got me thinking, what if the shoe was on the other foot? My girlfriend's mother is an Anglican priest and I know for a fact that if I just spouted one of the usual chestnuts to her, she'd have an answer pretty quickly, probably one that'd get me off the script, if there is such a thing as an atheist script.

I suppose my question is, shouldn't a skeptic be trying to come up with new responses all the time, forever? I hate to go us vs them, but the idea of stock responses to stock questions and insular self congratulation seems very, very, well... dumb. In Perth, we don't have many fundies at all, but a lot of people are so vaguely middle class white spiritual, anti-science. The usual crap, "can't prove everything" what the bleep do we know pseudo-spiritual nonsense, and when I try to have honest discourse with them, it just descends into stock responses and I give up. It's very disheartening.

To condense it, my question is: As people who reject claims on the basis of logic and reason, is it enough just to have stock responses? Shouldn't we be trying to come up with new, better and always unexpected ways to exercise our skepticism? Hope you can shed some light on my ramblings.

And my answer is: Yes and no.

It is a mistake to completely dismiss the value of having an arsenal of sound bites. The thing is, you use your stock responses exactly as long as they work well. At the point where they stop working, you either enhance them or abandon them for something that works better.

For example. My stock response to "God must have created the universe because it couldn't have created itself" is probably always going to be some variant of asking, or leading into, the question "What created God?"

Theists don't like this. They ridicule it. They say it's like a question that a little child would ask. They come up with variants like the Kalam argument, in which instead of saying "Everything that exists has a cause" they say instead, "Everything that begins to exist has a cause" -- thereby creating a special pleading loophole. If you're attentive enough, then you can see where the sleight of hand occurs, much as you can look at a "proof" that your high school buddy used to produce showing that 1=2, and identify the fallacious step where he divided by zero or something.

The thing is, the fact that someone will ridicule and dismiss an argument is not, in itself, a demonstration that the argument is not working. I could enter a history class and loudly scoff: "What's that?! You expect me to believe that Henry VIII became the King of England in 1509??? You're so ignorant!" I don't doubt that if I tried this against a bunch of teachers, at least a few of them would be so insecure that they wouldn't argue with you, lapsing into embarrassed silence or changing the subject. This seems to be the disposition of many biology teachers today who would otherwise be teaching evolution.

Your atheist friend who says "Did you really think THAT would work?" is using a tactic. It is neither inherently good nor bad; it's just potentially effective or not effective in a particular situation. The tactic is a combination of poisoning the well and psychological intimidation. He wants to give the opponent and/or the audience the emotional feeling that the opponent is ignorant and the atheist knows more. That feeling may or may not be justified, and the intimidation may or may not work.

Like any tactic, this one has its strengths and weaknesses. If you pull this trick, and your opponent stammers out some apologies and tries to talk about something else, you've just gained a point of data saying that it is a good tactic for you. You pulled it off. On the other hand, do this in an inappropriate way, and you look like an arrogant prick. For an example where this approach bombed, check out the historical Bush/Gore debate, where voters came away with a lasting impression of Gore loudly sighing, rolling his eyes, and getting in Bush's personal space -- which was perceived as needlessly condescending, irrespective of whether Gore's impatience was warranted or not.

Scorning your opponent this way is like throwing a lot of money into the pot in poker. It may be that you are putting all that money in because you genuinely have a good hand -- i.e., you are armed with better facts, your opponent really is ignorant, and you can prove it handily when it's time to show your cards. On the other hand, it may be a bluff, and you're secretly hoping that your opponent will fold under your withering gaze so that you can collect the money without a prolonged fight that you stand to lose.

And yes, religious people apply this tactic all the time. Let me throw a few book titles at you:

• You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think (Ray Comfort)
• I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist (Norman Geisler)
• Evolution, A Fairy Tale for Grownups! (Ray again -- sorry, but that guy is a walking textbook on this technique)

So as you noticed, it happens on both sides. What, then, do you do when somebody attacks you with that "I've already heard that argument" line while showing obvious contempt?

I think the most important rule here is to keep your cool, don't flinch, and find a way to do a quick end-run around the brush off. The best way to do this, I think, is to highlight the person's arrogance as their weakness rather than their strength.

This is a place where the "reductio ad absurdum" technique often comes in handy. Ask yourself: "Okay, so this guy is acting as if my argument isn't even worthy of consideration. What implications also follow from his dismissal?" Highlighting obvious contradictions is useful, and so is the question "How do you know...?"

Here's a sample dialogue.

Theist: "Everything has a cause. Since the chain can't go back infinitely, there must be a God." (Note: oversimplified, in some cases.)
Atheist: "What created God?"
Theist: "That's a ridiculous question. It's something a child would ask."
Atheist: "Oh, so you don't think everything had a cause."

(Reversal. Instead of demanding that the theist acknowledge your point, you accept his dismissal and calmly look for a contradiction.)

Theist: "Well I don't mean that everything has a cause. Everything which begins to exist has a cause. But God is eternal."
Atheist: "How do you know that?"

(The theist just tried to inject an assertion, again counting on the assumption that it's so obvious that only a fool would challenge it. Don't be intimidated by this.)

The conversation may go in any number of directions at this point -- my money's on "science vs. faith as a means for knowing things." The important thing, though, is that you find a way around the theist baldly asserting a certainty that he has not earned.

As with any argument, it's a game. If you fold, then it doesn't matter how unsupported your opponent was in reality; you still lose. On the flip side, if your opponent calls you on your claim and you can't back it up, you may well lose worse, because then your opponent has condescended to you and then proven that the condescension was justified. That's the gamble you take when you are arrogant.

As you probably noticed, you very much should have an arsenal of "opening moves" that, by and large, don't have to vary much. If you trot out a move and you see your opponent driven before you (and, of course, hear the lamentation of the women!) then you keep doing that. To someone who doesn't argue on a regular basis, this can look easy, even lazy, and perhaps very risky.

The critical point here is that the opening is not the whole game. Good for you if you can occasionally checkmate your opponent in three moves and that's all it takes. (Fear Edward Current!) But if your opponent doesn't cave right away, then what is going to determine your success is your ability to defend the sound bite, to think on the fly and justify your reasoning, not just to quote it.

Developing opening moves does not necessarily have to be a solo, creative process. You don't have to reinvent the wheel every time you talk to a new person. You should by all means watch other people's debates, see what works and what doesn't, and shamelessly steal the stuff you like. That doesn't make you a mindless parrot, it makes you a smart shopper. But if you use these arguments and then you lose, you should always be willing to take a step back. Ask yourself: Did his response win because it really is actually logically superior? Has he actually made a point? Has he uncovered a genuine flaw in my thought process?

If that turns out to be true, it may well be that you have to dump that argument from your arsenal. The unfit do not survive, it's evolution in action. (And please note that this is intellectual Darwinism, not social Darwinism. I'm advocating the death and abandonment of ideas, not people.)

But that's not the only outcome. You can look for other cases where people have had to deal with that same argument, and find a response that will get you a step further in your next conversation. And in that case, you will become more confident and your response will be stronger each time you face that argument.

Open thread on show #705

Have at it, heathen hordes.

Everybody chill — the archive is secure!

Since we've been getting a flurry of panicked emails about Google Video shutting down from people who fear the entire Atheist Experience video archive is about to vanish into the ether, I thought a general "calm the ravening hordes" post was in order. We are, in fact, cognizant of the concept of backups, and in addition to having everything stored ourselves, we've got our current episodes on blip.tv now. Anything you can't see there should be obtainable on DVD-R. So business will continue uninterrupted. Fear not.

Ustream chat room moderation

This is just a heads up. I think I've mentioned in the past that I kind of hate the chat room environment on Ustream. Ever since we've started there, we've gotten hundreds of people watching each show live. It's often kind of a free-for-all of random stream of consciousness babbling, profanity, trash talking, and the kind of explicit sexual comments that are unlikely to leave a good impression on casual viewers.

Up until recently we've fielded email complaints about this by stating that the chat room is a free speech forum and we don't have any responsibility for what people say. The upside of this approach is that nobody has to do any work. The downside is that, well, it remains an incredibly hostile place for new viewers.

So we've been experimentally moderating the chat room. I've done this a couple of times myself, on weeks when I'm not on the show just log in, and kick out people who are being disruptive. Several other regulars have also been in on the act.

Moderation is necessarily a subjective judgment call, especially in the situation where lines of text are being fired off so fast that they scroll off the screen within about ten seconds. As a result, it's inevitable that people who get kicked off for (for example) using "gay" as a swear word, or using language that would probably be used freely (but sparingly) on The Non-Prophets, or being one voice in a dozen people who are participating in a hilarious conversation about rape, will think they have been treated unfairly. If you get kicked for deliberately insulting a moderator, probably even more so.

My message to those people is: tough luck. The chat room is a privilege, not your graffiti wall. If you're a regular it's very unlikely you will be kicked, but Phil Plait's often maligned advice, "Don't be a dick," very much does apply here. If you've been kicked, you are welcome to keep watching the show without chat. If you decide that you refuse to watch the show anymore as a result of having been kicked, well you know... don't let the door hit ya, etc.

I'm confident that the chat room can become a friendlier place over time, but for now the phase one solution is that people will be watching and wielding the big stick to keep the annoyances out.


[Edit: Changed the post to say "Ustream" instead of "blip.tv", as I had the archive site and the live streaming site mixed up.]

Austin Stone pastor writes in, dismisses Mark as "crazy"

Today an email popped up from Ronnie Smith, a teaching pastor at Austin Stone Community Church. Most of it was addressed to Matt and is in the nature of a personal correspondence, but I thought I'd excerpt the opening paragraph as it pertains to the show in general. (Note: Ronnie's statements here are themselves not meant to be taken as an official communique from Stone Church, but simply voicing his own concerns as to the impression Mark may have been giving viewers of the show.)

My name is Ronnie Smith and I serve as one of the teaching pastors at the Austin Stone Community Church. You may have heard of us from “Mark” whoever that guy is. Anyway, first, please don’t let guys like “Mark” color your perception of our congregation. You were raised in a Southern Baptist church for a while and I’m sure you encountered your share of crazies, that you wished hadn’t identified with you. We have about 8,000 people attending church each Sunday so we can’t really deal with every person that walks through the door. I’m sure it bothers you as well when fellow atheists either spew things you don’t really believe or act in a way that doesn’t represent your character.

Fair enough. Though I'm sure Mark will be unhappy to hear, next time he calls, that the church he's so eagerly defending is rushing to distance themselves from him, claiming him to be nothing more than an anonymous face in the crowd. In truth, many of us had already suspected as much, as Mark seems utterly unequipped in any of the conversations we've had with him on the show to respond to literally anything thrown at him. He isn't a fellow who understands what he believes or why he believes it, whereas someone who actually represents a large church such as this ought to, at the very least, be able to hold his own in a discussion. (Even if he's only doing so with PRATT arguments.)

Hopefully, this will open up some more dialogue with the Stone Church folks, and we'll get some really enjoyable phone calls coming in from people who actually represent the church and can engage us in spirited conversation.

Building your mental immune system

When Mark from Stone Church called again yesterday, he provided a perfect example of something that I've been meaning to blog about for a few months. Namely, it is a tempting but extremely bad habit to only associate with people who agree with you all your life.

One issue that most Atheist Experience hosts feel passionately about, apart from religion, is the spate of anti-scientific attacks which have been leveled against vaccinations. When you vaccinate yourself, you deliberately expose your body to small quantities of a disease or virus, in order to train your immune system to recognize and attack that disease. If you don't get vaccinated, when the disease attacks you in its natural form it will likely be much stronger, and your body still won't know how to deal with it.

The fact that they may be adorable is only slight consolation.

Worse, by putting yourself at risk for this disease, you also become a carrier, which could increase its presence in the population at large. The more people there are in a given population who haven't been vaccinated against a disease, the more risk everyone takes of catching it, and the more common the disease comes.

Critical thinking, of course, is your immune system against bad ideas. Even if you have a general background in skepticism and logic, it can be hard to spot the flaws in a claim that you've never heard before. The first time anyone encounters a concerted efforts to discredit vaccination, or prove that alien abductions occur based on anecdotes, or claim that evolution is a scientific conspiracy with no more proof than Biblical literalism -- it's not as easy as you might think to see through those arguments.

It's really not good enough to say "That's stupid" and ignore them, because if you have a policy of treating ideas you disagree with that way, then you risk becoming so dogmatic that you wind up rejecting things that are actually true. Instead, skepticism is a habit that requires practice. It's good mental exercise to take such claims seriously, to ask yourself "What are the implications if this claim is true? Can I investigate it? Are there arguments against it already out there in the memesphere? If so, are they convincing, or do the debunking efforts rely on fallacies themselves? If there are none, why not? Is it not high enough profile, or is there something else going on?"

A lot of religious traditions -- like those practiced in Austin Stone Church -- reject this approach. Followers of such religions not only don't try to understand competing points of view themselves, they regard any efforts to do so with suspicion and fear. They may actually believe that it's a sin against God, or a trick by Satan, if you are even humoring a bad idea. Apologists will often seriously question the value of sending kids to college, because they might be exposed to "worldly" ideas. Cults sometimes advise their members not to read newspapers or watch TV, lest their minds be poisoned by outsiders rejecting their beliefs.

This is the intellectual equivalent of avoiding diseases by locking yourself in a hermetically sealed bubble for life. It can work, of course. As long as no germs can get inside the bubble, you can't catch anything. On the other hand, once you're committed to this plan, you can never leave the bubble for any reason. If you do, your immune system is likely to be so weak that you are especially vulnerable to any and all diseases you might encounter. Something very much like this is speculated to have happened to the relatively isolated Native American population when they first encountered European settlers who, by virtue of living on a much larger, more diverse, and densely populated continent, were relatively swimming in diseases regularly, and hence had much broader immunities.

Here, take this blanket. No really, I insist. We're not using it anymore.

So when you've been sheltered by fundamentalism your whole life, my feeling is that you have to keep sheltering yourself or become similarly vulnerable to invasion from foreign ideas. Which is essentially what Mark told us he does in our call yesterday.


Many emailers have homed in on the fact that Mark kept telling us what his church believes, as synonymous with what he believes. Tracie and I mentioned that the kind of evidence that we would need for God is not really all that strict, and that you don't need to pray or "have faith" in order to be convinced that your mom exists. When something is real and testable, it can be perceived independently by many different people in the same way.

Mark responded that everyone at his church believes the same thing about God, and he proved it by reading a "statement of faith" that all church members are required agree to. I said, "It sounds like you have to devote a lot of work to making people believe the same thing." And of course, there are 30,000 other Christian denominations in the US, many of which have very different perspectives on who this God person is.


I have long loved this interview that American Atheists spokesman David Silverman once did with Douglas Adams.

Above: A face that David Silverman probably did not have to make while talking to Douglas Adams.

In the interview, Adams elaborated on a great many of his atheist beliefs in a way that he has rarely done explicitly in his other work. One of the most striking and memorable arguments presented by Adams was in comparing religious beliefs to other types of scholarship.

Adams points out that if you wish to be taken seriously in the realms of science, history, or math, you should expect to be challenged constantly. Any claim you make, no matter how trivial the matter may look to those outside the discipline, will be subjected to withering criticism and debate, and the ideas that remain standing after this process, round after round, are the ones that can eventually be regarded as credible.

But religions don't accept that burden of proof. Quite the opposite, in fact; when someone promotes a silly belief as a statement of faith, we're asked to lend that faith some sort of automatic respect. Atheists who argue with the faith-beliefs of others are regularly regarded as being dicks.

Anyway, Douglas Adams concluded:

So, I was already familiar with and (I’m afraid) accepting of, the view that you couldn't apply the logic of physics to religion, that they were dealing with different types of 'truth'. ... What astonished me, however, was the realization that the arguments in favor of religious ideas were so feeble and silly next to the robust arguments of something as interpretative and opinionated as history. In fact they were embarrassingly childish. They were never subject to the kind of outright challenge which was the normal stock in trade of any other area of intellectual endeavor whatsoever. Why not? Because they wouldn’t stand up to it.

And that, in a nutshell, is why it's not a good idea to show politeness and "respect" for people's beliefs. I try as much as I can to show respect for the people themselves, and appreciate the diversity of backgrounds that causes them to think the way they do. Greta Christina wrote a great article a few months back called "No, Atheists Don't Have to Show 'Respect' for Religion," which observes the same behavior. Greta says:

And, of course, it's ridiculously hypocritical to engage in fervent political and cultural discourse -- as so many progressive ecumenical believers do -- and then expect religion to get a free pass. It's absurd to accept and even welcome vigorous public debate over politics, science, medicine, economics, gender, sexuality, education, the role of government, etc... and then get appalled and insulted when religion is treated as just another hypothesis about the world, one that can be debated and criticized like any other.

It's not about making fun of religion just for sport. When you tiptoe around someone's beliefs, you're not doing them any favors. All you are doing is allowing them to stay in their little bubble for a bit longer, while enabling them to spread the idea that it's okay to be closed off to competing ideas.