Some Common Ground

A common statement atheist use is that, since there have been millions of deities throughout human history, everyone is mostly atheist for disbelieving in all of those, and we just believe in one less god than you do.  It's one of the few arguments I had never really heard a Christian (or any religious person) give a response to.  Until I saw this.

"Atheists love to tell Christians we’re just about as atheistic as they are. We’re atheistic about millions of gods; they’re atheistic about millions plus one more.

Okay, it’s silly, but I’ll address it one more time.

If God exists, then God is an atheist toward all gods but himself. Therefore God, if he exists, is very nearly (within mere thousandths of a percent!) as atheistic as atheists are.

That’s where their logic goes. The mind reels."

I'm really not entirely sure what point this person is trying to make.  Atheists don't believe in God, so using him to make a point doesn't carry much more weight that saying Scooby-Doo is as atheistic as atheists are. Really, since God doesn't believe in any other gods and only himself, you could stretch it and say that atheists are closer to being godly than Christians, since Christians believe in a god, something God doesn't do.  That's a fairly stupid argument, but one that follows the same logic this person seems to be trying to use, and seems to insult Christians more than it does atheists.  So again, not sure what their point is.

What I can do is clarify why we (or at least I) use that argument they are trying to refute in the first place.   It is an answer to the question "How can you NOT believe in God?!" which I've gotten oh so many times in my life, as most atheists have.  It's meant to draw a parallel between believers and non-believers, and show how we are more similar in our thinking than we sometimes admit.  It's easy for you to dismiss the existence of Thor?  It's just as easy for us to dismiss the existence of your god.  This does not make it a correct stance.  This argument is not meant to try and prove there is or isn't a god.  It is simply a way to try and explain why it isn't as big of a deal to not believe in your god as you think it is, and a way to push back against discrimination.  That's it.  Nothing more.  There are a wealth of other reasons atheists have for why they think they are right.  This is more of a welcome sign really.  A way to show that we've already met halfway without trying.  You don't have to agree with us (thought we'd love it if you did).  Just don't treat us like we're some kind of crazy abomination, because you are closer to being us than you think.

Hiatus

So it has been quite a while since I've posted.  And for anyone out there who cares and was upset by this: my bad.  I got caught up helping a friend start a comedy site, and that took away most of my free time over the past couple months.  (SkobeTV.com for anyone who wants to check it out).  I'll also have a blog over on that site, The Interrobang Theory.  Neat.

Since I will doing that on a fairly regular basis, and that one will be all humorous and silly and what not, I have decided to give this one a bit more focus.  From here on out this blog will be dedicated to discussions about atheism and religion (a topic you may have noticed I care a great deal about). 

So if you don't care for when I rant about religion and politics and prefer pop culture talk, you'll probably want to jump over to my new blog.  Or you can keep reading this and yell insults I'll never hear at the computer.  Your choice really.

I will also hopefully be updating more frequently thanks to my new job and the preferable schedule it allows me.  Cheers, all.

Ron Paul Got Those Delegates, Actual Voters Be Damned

My Facebook and Twitter feeds have been a flutter lately, as Ron Paul supporters have been going out of their freaking minds saying "I told you so" news has emerged that Paul has come out the delegate winner in Iowa, as well as grabbing a slew in Minnesota and Colorado.  They are citing this as proof that he is a viable candidate as well as LIBERTY FREEDOM AMERICA BLARGLE.

But their celebrations of populism seem at least a little ironic, considering that these delegates he is getting don't reflect the popular vote at all.  He got a little over a quarter of the vote in Minnesota, yet has half of the delegates supporting him.  He came in last in Colorado, but has a third of the delegates for that state.  Iowa is the one that's really in the spotlight, since the results were already murky with Romney than Santorum barely winning.  But now because of newly elected state central committee members it has switched again, so the guy who got 20% of the vote has half the delegates.  Democracy?

Now, none of this is illegal.  And this is the strategy that Ron Paul has repeatedly told us he would be using.  I just think it's funny that for all the chest thumping that goes on with Paul supporters talking about freedom and taking the power back for the people, their candidate is getting ahead by, in a way, disregarding the votes cast by the people in those states.  This isn't a "revolution", Paulites, it's accounting tricks.

I'm sure many Paul supporters will take issue with this, but tell me: if the roles had been reversed and Paul won the popular vote but Romney was still getting a disproportionate amount of delegates anyway, wouldn't you be taking to Twitter about how the system is rigged?  Just curious.

Where I Write About Green Lantern A Year After The Fact

When the Green Lantern movie came out, I heard a whole list of things that were wrong with it.  An under-developed script.  A plot where surprisingly little actually happens.  Oversimplifying all motivations  into either the "will" or "fear" categories, as if no other emotions exist.  Appearing to have no real reason to have been made other than no one else had done Green Lantern yet.  When the movie showed up on HBO and I finally decided to watch it because it wasn't costing me anything and because I hate myself, I found that pretty much every terrible thing I had heard about it was true.  Plus everything else in the movie they didn't mention, which was just as horrid.

And this is a problem.  A big problem.  Because we brought this about.  We, the dorks, nerds, and geeks of the world, who for so long demanded that our sci-fi and comic books be treated not as niche entertainment for the kiddies and socially awkward adults, but as an accepted part of mainstream pop culture, caused this.  Because now it is.  Over the past decade we have seen once shunned genres become top grossing blockbuster fodder.  Even the fantasy genre has benefitted thanks to the Lord of the Rings movies and now Game of Thrones and the Song of Ice and Fire books.  Years ago you would have gotten the shit kicked out of you for talking about Westeros.  But no longer.  Finally, the kinds of stories we wanted to see are getting studio backing and becoming realities.  Huzzah!

But that comes with a terrible price.  Because now that we have proven to be a profitable market, we will be exploited.  This isn't new.  For every Dark Knight there will be many more Catwoman's or Daredevils's or Elektra's.  Hell, for every Spider-man 2 there will be a Spider-man 3.  We always knew that.  But watching Green Lantern made me realize just how bad it's going to get.  The crack about it only existing because it hadn't already been done was only half a joke; the whole movie seemed to have been put together with all the love and care of assembly line robots.  And even with such a basic plot that offered little, they still couldn't avoid fucking things up.  After all the hubub about the Guardians making a Yellow Ring (the yellow stands for fear, and fear is bad!) the whole thing is dropped never to be brought up again.  Except the guardians already made the fucking thing, and according to Ryan Reynolds, that is a terrible thing to have because it's power corrupts.  So yeah, let's just leave it laying around and not address it at all, because that's what good stories do.

Is that the level of quality we want marketed to us?  And it's not just already established franchises that are getting mucked up.  Movies like Skyline and Battle: Los Angeles drag the whole sci-fi genre down. More and more movies like that are coming out, where producers put together their best guess as to what we want to see and see what happens.   Sci-fi has become as fraught with turds as romantic comedies.

Much of this is inevitable.  The studios are going to do what they do, which is mostly churn out crap and hope we pay for it.  But we also have to stop enabling them.  There was no reason for Green Lantern to make over $200 million at the box office, but it did.  Mostly because I kept hearing the excuse "But it's Green Lantern!"  I hear that a lot whenever a beloved character or franchise gets a shitty adaptation (this goes double for anything Star Wars related).  Perhaps it's because we've been ignored for so long we feel we have to take whatever they give us, but that has long stopped being the case.  You might love the Green Lantern comics, but if you think the movie looks like garbage (which a lot of people did), you are not obligated to see it.  You are giving up whatever leverage you have as a consumer.

I know I'm just ranting, and quite possibly overreacting.  But goddamn, is Green Lantern a terrible movie.

4 Reasons The Contraceptive Debate Is Bullshit

I have been following the Great Contraception Battle of 2012 with great interest. This is at least partly because I’m a bit surprised at how overblown it has gotten, and how much coverage it has received. Of all the culture war issues (abortion, gay marriage, why Kirk Cameron hasn’t gotten an Oscar nod), contraceptives has always seemed to be rather tame. With 90% of all women (and an even higher percentage of Catholic women) using them, this is less a wedge issue than it is a “meh” issue. At least, it should be, with such obvious support.

Instead, it has become the prominent culture war issue, thanks to Obama’s initiative to make free contraceptive care available through all health insurance. That is, except those provided by churches, and after a compromise last Friday, institutions affiliated with churches, such as Catholic hospitals and universities. Even with those concessions, the Catholic Church and the religious right have balked, insisting that this is an infringement of religious freedom. But that’s a bullshit argument, because…

Freedom of Religion Doesn’t Mean What They Think It Means

The term "religious freedom" has gotten tossed around a lot in this debate, mostly by Catholic bishops or prominant members of the religious right.  They see this as government forcing them to do something, which does sound pretty ant-liberty at face value.  Rick Santorum put it bluntly on Friday, saying "This is simply someone trying to impose their values on someone else, with the arm of the government doing so."  Values are being imposed on others!  This is awful.  This would be like if someone wanted to keep gays and lesbians from geting married based on their personal beliefs, and infringe upon those people's rights.  It would be ridiculous, right?

That is the inherent problem with Santorum making remarks like that.  For all his bluster about liberty and freedom, he is all for denying that same liberty to people his faith deems immoral.  In the case of the contraception issue, he is willing to deny women the ability to have control over their body because it goes against his religion.  He is basically saying that it is wrong for the government to impose values on people, because that's his job.

And THAT is what Freedom of Religion is meant to protect us from.  People are allowed to practice whatever faitht they choose, but only so far as it does not inhibit the rights of others.  As rupungent as I find it, you are allowed to believe that gays are evil and going to hell.  That's your right.  But you cannot prevent them from enjoying the same rights you enjoy simply for that reason.  It opens up the door for any manner of restrictions based around a specific dogma.  Might as well restrict people's rights for eating meat on Friday, or working on the Sabbath.  But that doesn't happen, because...

They Have Already Compromised Their Principles

A major argument against the initiative is that it forces the Church to participate in something that goes against it's core values.  This is the one argument that, I think, is the most persuasive of them all.  It strikes a chord with many people of varying ideaologies.  Sure, you may not agree with their beliefs, but wouldn't you be upset if this happened to you?

It would be a strong argument, if the Church was anywhere near consistant on these issues.  From a dogmatic point of view, simply selling health insurance is really a violation of God's will, since who are we to know when God wants us to die?  Recieving that open heart surgery could just be one giant middle finger to His plan, for all we know.  And Church provided plans have been providing for Viagra for years, and it's hard (hehe) to think of a bigger "Fuck you" to His intentions than that.  Church run hospitals operate on the Sabbath, and working on that day used to be punishable by death (Exodus 31:15).

 He's working on a Sunday!  Get him!

Now some would argue that these "sins" are not equal (though, according to James 2:10, yes they are).  And I supposed there is some validity to that argument.  But the validity and even urgency is undercut by how far off the mark they are from modern sensibility.  Don't forget, the Catholic Church also urges it's patrons to avoid vaccinations.  This controversy doesn't get as much coverage (despite it being somewhat related to fetuses and abortions) because overall we as a society have realized that vaccinations are a good thing.  (It's also worth pointing out that we are not aborting babies for the sole purpose of creating vaccinations).  As we move forward with medicine and technology, the Church remains stubbornly behind, even though it's own members tend to embrace these changes.

That's another important thing to consider.  The outcry isn't coming from actual Catholics so much as it's coming from the Church hierarchy.  And that's because...

This Isn't A Religious Issue, It's A Woman's Rights Issue


Most Catholics have already reached a compromise between their Church's teachings and the way the world actually works.  Just like most are OK working on a Sunday and are even coming around on gay rights, the majority (58%) of Catholics are fine with contraceptive care being included in health care (as the article points out, this is actually a higher percentage than the general population, which is at 55%).  And after the concession made by Obama on Friday, even the Catholic universities and hospitals are on board.

So why is there still an issue?  Well, it's the bishops.  They are the ones leading the charge, with eager right wing culture warriors following their lead.  And, as a friend of mine pointed out, there are a lot more men talking about the issue on news programs then women.  How does it make sense for men to be the main force behind what should and shouldn't happen with a woman's body?

The problem is the Catholic Church is a very patriarchal institution.  They view women as secondary to men, as beings who should be submissive.  They are not permitted to lead services and are excluded from being ordained or any position of authority (they can become nuns, but will always be subservient to a priest).  Men are the masters of the household, and a woman is supposed to obey her husbands wishes, having no authority over him (this is especially true in the Complementarianism theological view).  Rick Santorum even went so far as to say women shouldn't serve in combat.

With this in mind, the obsession over women's reproductive rights appears more and more as simply a way to try and keep women in line.  Since a man can't control when a woman becomes pregnant, well then neither should she!  Remember, you don't here much opposition to things like Viagra or vasectomies coming from these bishops.  Men are allowed to make those choices regarding their reproductive organs.  Women, apparently, do not get that luxury.

Needless to say, numerous women's groups are fighting back against the ploy to deny them contraceptive care (which isn't surprising, considering how many of them use it).  But the bishops and culture crusaders have more to worry about then women, because...

They Really Overreached On This One


Before Obama's concession on Friday, the Church and those on its side had an argument that, while still flawed in many ways, made enough sense that you could potentially empathize with them.  That's probably why Obama made the concession.  But that concession has been made, and the gymnastics the bishops and others are performing in order to still be against the rule is astounding, if not a little frightening.  If you jump back to the Newsweek article I posted earlier, the spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said "If I quit this job and opened a Taco Bell, I'd be covered by this mandate."  Well yes.  Yes you would.  Because Taco Bell has no religious affiliation (unless "Thou Shalt Be Delicious and Kill You" was a commandment).  But this is apparently unacceptable to him.  Even if you work at a fast food restaurant, you should be expected to follow the rules of your bosses faith, regardless of what your own beliefs might be.  And here we come right back to what freedom of religion actually means.

Let's have a thought exercise ( I know you're excited!)  Let's pretend that, instead of Catholic, your employer is a Scientologist.  Can he prohibit you from taking aspirin?  And could he fire you if you do?

Could he force you to talk to this guy?

This is not the kind of country we want to live in.  You may think it is, but you will seriously reconsider  that as soon as you wind up with a Muslim boss, or a Jewish employer who wants to decide what foods you can eat (gotta keep kosher!).  Last year Sharia Law was a boogeyman word the Right liked to use a lot, but what people don't realize is in trying to oppose this health care initiative, they are trying to set up a Christian version of Sharia Law.  They are ignoring what freedom of religion is supposed to do; allow you the ability to practice a belief without requiring it.

(And as a side note, if we are now able to determine what we have to pay for based on our beliefs, why are no Christians complaining about their tax dollars being used to fund wars and kill people?  I know I'd like a refund for any of my tax dollars that went to the War in Iraq, since I didn't believe we had cause to invade)

If you don't believe contraceptives are morally right, by all means, don't use them.  No one is forcing you too (especially with all the exceptions now in place).  But the flip side is you can't prevent people who want to use them.  It's a give and take.  But please stop acting like this is destroying freedom, or unraveling the moral fiber of society, or forcing you to have an abortion every Wednesday.  If you don't like being told what you can and can't do, take a good look in the mirror and tell me you aren't doing that yourself.

Missing The Big Picture

This week’s Newsweek cover story is about the “War on Christians.”  Upon seeing the article title, I was expecting a story on one of the GOPs favorite narratives; the “persecution” of Christians in America.  The Religious Right’s ability to always find a way to make themselves the victim (like this recent example) is both entertaining and infuriating, so I was a bit surprised to see this article look outside the country at what is certainly actual persecution of Christians in the Middle East.  Deadly persecution, in many cases.  And while the story is eye opening, I take issue with it.  I have less a problem with the substance of the article as I do with the way it was written; specifically, what was left out and glossed over. 

The main thrust of the article is that for all the attention “Islamaphobia” gets here in the states, there is a much harsher form of “Christianphobia” taking place in the mostly Muslim Middle East (say that five times fast).  And it is a very valid observation to make.  There is an argument to be made that, because of the sensitive nature of the politics of Islam, Muslim culture is often handled with kid gloves so as not to appear offensive or intolerant here in the U.S.  It especially tragic when we see just how oppressive and hostile the religious majority can be half a world away.  

The problem, though, is that the article refuses to address the underlying issue that is at play: that religion acts as a terrible and violently divisive force in society.  All of the violence being carried out in these countries is being carried out in the name of a being whose existence cannot be shown or proven through any means.  This all boils down (albeit in a simplistic way) to a “my dad can beat up your dad” mentality, except your dads are invisible and by “beat up” you mean “work in mysterious way,” so there is no way to actually prove if your dad is there, let alone who’s is better.

Leaving this out, to me, is like leaving racism out of discussions about the Civil Rights movement; it is vital to understanding how we arrived at this point.  But instead of even giving this even a passing mention, the author merely posits the Middle Eastern Muslims as the bad guys against the courageous Christian underdogs.  Now don't get me wrong, what is happening to these Christians is absolutely and truly unacceptable and awful.  But the issue goes beyond Muslims treating Christians in such an abhorrent way.  It is about how religion in general views any group or thing that falls outside its worldview.

There are parallels in this country, thought they are admittedly less extreme when compared to what is presented in the article.  We do not have any blasphemy laws here in the United States, but that didn't stop Christians from sending death threats to a 16 year old girl who successfully filed a lawsuit against here public high school to have them remove a prayer banner (which violated the Separation of Church and State). Koran's have been burned in public.  The building of Mosques have been  protested across the country.  Religion is inherently exclusive, and they are all competing against each other, all claiming to have the same thing.  Islam is a threat to Christianity for the same reason Christianity is a threat to Islam: they are making the same claim, and only one can be right.  (I am focusing on these two religions since they are the ones discussed in the article)

Yet none of this was even briefly touched upon.  Even if you do believe in a god, you should be able to admit that it does create tension and division in the world.  And not just one specific religion, but religion in general.  To ignore this is naive and misrepresents the issue at hand.  If you want to have a discussion about how one religion treats another, you must also talk about how ALL religions treat other worldviews, no matter how uncomfortable it may make you.

Why We Fight - An Atheist's Explanation

********************************* UPDATE*************************************
It has been pointed out to me that my first instinct was correct, and the site I linked to was in fact a joke.  I made a mistake and I apologize.  I am leaving the post intact 1) To preserve my folly for all to see and mock me for and 2) The points made at the end I feel are still valid, even if you remove the site.

Again, my apologies.
********************************************************************************

You know how sometimes you see something so utterly ridiculous that your first instinct is to assume it's a joke?  That happened to me when I cam across this.  Please take a look at that before going any further, because you will have a brand new appreciation for your own intellect.

Now, it's one thing to be religious the way most people are.  You believe in (a) god, maybe go to church once a week, and use the teachings from said church as a moral guide for life.  Ok.  But this guy goes way beyond that.  He is a living cartoon; the broadest of all caricatures us atheists could ever come up with.  He isn't just trying to argue the existence of a supernatural being, he is arguing against the basic tenants of physics in the most laughable manner possible.  With his three "experiments" Rev. Osborne "proves" that the Earth is flat.  He does so mostly by ignoring gravity.

To briefly address each "experiment":

1. Jump!

Those crazy scientists claim the Earth rotates between 700-1000 mph.  But then why is it that when you jump up you come straight back down?!?  If you jump up while standing in a truck bed while it's moving, you wouldn't fall back into the truck, you'd fall out!

Except, like I stated above, this completely ignores gravity and what it does.  Gravity is really good at keeping things on the ground, and A LOT of force is required to get high enough where to negate inertia (if you don't know what inertia is, please go back to 5th grade).  I go back to his truck bed analogy, if you have a quarter and you toss it up an inch, it'll still fall back into your hand.  But if you toss it up as high as you can, it'll fly off the truck.

2. Blow!

To his credit, he acknowledges gravity here, but only because it's a sham created by scientists with their mumbo-jumbo sciency stuff.  I mean, if bigger things cause smaller things to stick to them (his definition of gravity, I guess), then if you blow up a balloon as big as you can and try to stick a small piece of paper underneath, it should stick.  But it doesn't!  Gravity debunked!

Density.  For all the science terms he tried to throw around, he completely forgot about density.  Mass per volume.  And it is density that determines whether something is able to pull another object towards it.  The balloon is indeed bigger than the paper, but the paper is actually more dense.  That's why the paper falls to the ground faster than the balloon does.

3. Get High!

I'm gonna be honest, his logic on this one is so mind boggling ridiculous I don't know how to respond to it.  I guess he seriously underestimates how tiny we are compared to the Earth to think we could see far enough to notice the curvature.

But this was all just the tip of the iceberg.

This refusal to accept basic 5th grade science would be troubling but mostly amusing on its own.  But in addition to the Reverend's anti-intellectualism, there are some frightening notions of how he and the commenters on his post live their lives.

All the users (including Rev Osborne) have little badges displaying awards or achievements, and by holding your mouse over them, it will tell you what they got it for.  Some of these are pretty run of the mill, like for the number of years of Bible college they attended, or for various missions they have been on.  And then there are ones like the shaking fist, which when you hold the mouse arrow over it, you see "Tell Her Once."  Yep, they are proudly displaying a badge for domestic abuse.  Apparently wife beating is a perfectly acceptable Christian ideal.  I think it was the 12th commandment or something.

Even worse is the face with a black eye and a lump on the head some of the women on the page have for "Most Obedient."  So not only are the men bragging about hitting their wives, but the women see absolutely nothing wrong with being struck and seem proud of the fact that the men in their lives will beat them for daring to have an opinion of their own.  There are plenty of other strange prizes they award themselves, such as "True Christian Caucasian" and "Porn Resistant" and of course "Flat Earth," but is the casual nature with which they promote violence against women that is truly horrific.  For all their moral masturbation, they see nothing wrong with violating a woman's basic right to have her own thoughts and disagree with her husband (or a man in general).

I bring this up to show theists why we care so much about getting religion out of public schools and the government as a whole, and our problem with it in general.  I understand that the vast majority of Christians are nothing like these people.  They don't think the Earth is flat, they know gravity is real, and they don't think wife beating is OK.  But there is a bit of a slippery slope involved.  Whether it's the non-existance of gravity or a virgin birth, you are choosing to ignore constructs of reality.  You are ignoring basic biology, physics, science in general, in favor of supernatural "miracles" and fantastical explanations.  It becomes difficult to explain why believing Jesus brought someone back from the dead is any less ridiculous than believing the Earth is flat and only 6,000 years old.  Both are in the Bible.  This becomes an even greater problem when the beliefs lead to oppressing the rights of others, such as the domestic abuse described above or preventing gays from getting married.  You are inflicting harm on others based on a belief system that runs contrary to everything we know about how the world an universe works.  Believing in those kind of things are fine when you are dealing with it yourself, as an intimate personal belief, but not if you want to impose them on others or society as a whole.

Again, I know most Christians are not as extreme as all this.  But it is not the individual people we are fighting with.  It is the IDEA.  For example, there has been a lot of talk about Jessica Ahlquist this week; the 16 year old girl who won a lawsuit against her public high school, forcing them to remove a prayer banner.  She won because, whether people like it or not, having that prayer up was unconstitutional.  That's the law.  But that didn't matter to the countless Christians who threatened her.  And they threatened her because of a belief in something that has no basis in reality, a belief that cannot be verified at all, yet a belief they are willing to act like this toward a 16 year old girl for.  There is a strange, dangerous disconnect at play here, and it is a perfect example of why it is so important to atheists to keep religion out of policy and public institutions, and as an individual's private matter.

People will say we are hypocrites, because we hate and are fighting against a god we don't believe in.  The problem is it isn't God we are fighting or mad at.  It is people like this, and the idea that allows them to do it, we have a problem with.