It is always better to stand for something than to stand for what you are not

Posted on August 22, 2012 by wellsdc

A serious issue with the concept of atheism as a social movement is that the word “atheism” doesn’t actually say anything other than one thing a person doesn’t believe. Not believing in gods (not just the Judeo-Christian God, mind you) doesn’t say much of anything else about a given person. It is certainly true that some atheists have embraced their viewpoint as a means of scoring points in arguments, but that is only one group out of many. Many people seek a broader approach, using reason, critical thinking, and compassion to improve conditions in the world.

Jen McCreight, with the help of some of her readers, has proposed some new branding that explicitly embraces a broader set of concerns. They are calling it Atheism+.

We are…

Atheists plus we care about social justice,

Atheists plus we support women’s rights,

Atheists plus we protest racism,

Atheists plus we fight homophobia and transphobia,

Atheists plus we use critical thinking and skepticism.

It speaks to those of us who see atheism as more than just a lack of belief in god.

For my part, my identity as an atheist hasn’t been defined in negative terms—by what I do not believe—for a long time. I tend to prefer the word “humanist” to describe myself, because at least that offers a positive set of principles. The idea of something like “Atheism+,” despite its slightly kitschy “2.0” feel and an uncomfortable parallel to “Catholicism Wow!,” seems like a big step in the right direction.

Photo credit: Atheism+ logo, via FreeThoughtBlogs.

This Week in WTF? August 17, 2012

Posted on August 17, 2012 by wellsdc

– A fan of right-wing faux-historian David Barton Godwins himself, and not even subtly (cf. Godwin’s Law.)

– A lost parakeet in Japan named Piko-chan is reunited with his owner after telling police its address.

– Authorities in Kazan, capital of Tatarstan, Russia, have found a Muslim sect (some might say “cult”) literally underground:

Seventy members of an Islamist sect have been discovered living in an eight-level underground bunker without heat for more than a decade, just outside the city of Kazan, Russia.

The BBC says four members of a breakaway Muslim sect have been charged with cruelty against children for keeping them underground in catacomb-like cells without heat. Many had never seen sunlight.

Police discovered the sub-terranean community in the Tatarstan region, a mainly Muslim area on the Volga River, during an investigation into recent attacks on Muslim clerics in the region.

Some of the children, aged between one and seventeen had never left the compound, gone to school or treated by a doctor.

A more nuanced view of the compound, suggesting (or hinting) that Russian authorities have exaggerated the conditions in order “to show they are cracking down on radical Islamic groups” comes from The Blaze, of all places.

– Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men in Israel have the latest cutting-edge technology to protect them from seeing hotties out on the street:

New prescription glasses that blur out temptress daughters of Eve are now available for ultra-Orthodox Jewish men in Israel whose religious beliefs require that they strictly avoid contact with women in public, especially “immodestly” dressed women.

The new glasses allow ultra-Orthodox men to maintain a strictly devout lifestyle that prescribes segregation of the sexes on buses, streets, restaurants, parks and other public spaces. According to the ultra-Orthodox interpretation of Jewish law, all contact between unmarried men and women is forbidden.

The Associated Press reports that the ultra-Orthodox community’s “modesty patrols” are selling the glasses equipped with special blur-inducing stickers on their lenses. The glasses allow for clear vision only up to a few meters but all objects beyond that range are blurry.

I have two thoughts on this: (1) This is a far preferable solution, as opposed to trying to dictate what Israeli women must wear or where they can sit. (2) It is very hard not to point out the symbolism of special glasses for ultra-religious individuals that only allow them to see a few feet in front of themselves.

– A newfangled 3D printer in Japan will create a replica of your unborn fetus. As Allegra Tepper at Mashable notes, “It’s kind of like a snow globe — of your unborn child.” So, uh, not creepy at all…

– A civilian contractor, with the oddly-appropriate surname Fury, faces two federal counts of arson for allegedly setting two fires on or near the nuclear submarine USS Miami. The fire on board the sub reportedly caused $400 million in damage and took twelve hours to extinguish. The prosecution is claiming that he set at least one of the fires so he could leave work early. The judge is keeping him in jail until trial.

– Medical marijuana activists sent fake letters, purporting to be from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, to pharmacies in San Diego warning them that they would be shut down within forty-five days. The point of the hoax, apparently, was to highlight U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy’s mission to shut down medical marijuana dispensaries around California (presumably because drugs are bad, mmmkay?), and the disparate treatment pharmacies receive from federal authorities compared to dispensaries. Hard to argue with the message, but the tactic seems very junior high.

Photo credit: Godwin Cat, via dollymix.tv.

When therapists don’t want to do their jobs

Posted on July 19, 2012 by wellsdc

Julea Ward and Jennifer Keeton want to be therapists, but they don’t want to help icky gay people because Jesus.

State legislators, purporting to know more about the ethics of these professions than the professionals themselves, want to make it legal to discriminate based on “sincerely-held religious beliefs.” One suspects that it has not occurred to most of them that this could apply to people who don’t think just like them.

If someone who wants to enter into a profession with a duty to help people, but just can’t seem to let go of certain Bronze Age superstitions, I hardly see how that is their patients’ problem, but that is exactly what they want to do. Some of them want to foist their ideology onto patients, but I rather doubt they’d entertain attempts by those patients to present their side of things.

Now, being a good American, I support the right of people to believe whatever crazy crap they want, so long as they don’t hurt other people. And that’s the problem here.

This hurts people.

This really, really hurts people.

So I have a compromise.

If a doctor, therapist, dentist, etc. just can’t get over the fact that the patient in front of them has a sexual orientation that is different from theirs (or some other perfectly-legal activity they just can’t keep from meddling in), they don’t have to treat them.

But the patient doesn’t have to pay them.

And because this rejection is highly likely to hurt the patient, the devout professional has to recommend an alternate professional that they know will treat the patient.

One more thing: in consideration of the fact that the devout professional has clearly wasted the patient’s time, the professional has to pay for the first session with the new professional. Because you have the right to believe what you want, but you cannot foist that upon a person in need who is relying on your professional skill–and if you just have to try anyway, it will cost you. Your professional license is a privilege, not a right.

(Preferably, devout professionals should disclose their prejudices in their marketing materials, but let’s see how you handle this responsibility first.)

If everyone can agree on that, then the Juleas and Jennifers of the world can let their freak flags fly, and the rest of us won’t be quite as bothered.

Welcome, Adam and Steve

Posted on July 15, 2012 by wellsdc

This brings back some memories

I’m a pretty terrible Episcopalian. It’s the church I was baptized and confirmed in, but that whole atheism thing kind of intervened since then. I tend to consider myself “culturally Episcopalian,” in that it’s the culture of my upbringing, and that stuff is pretty ingrained. In that sense, I’m always happy to hear of the goings-on in the church when they make its members look good.

Sixteen years after first allowing gays and lesbians to become priests and nine years after electing its first gay bishop, the Episcopal Church on Tuesday became the largest Christian denomination in the U.S. to offer religious blessings to same-sex couples.

The monumental decision, approved by a thick margin at the church’s triennial General Convention in Indianapolis, means that priests in the 1.9 million-member church can officiate blessings to same-sex couples who are in long-term relationships beginning in December.

The church’s House of Deputies voted 171 to 41, with nine people saying they were divided, to support a same-sex blessings liturgy that will be used during a three-year trial before the church meets again and decides if it should be permanent. The deputies’ vote was done in two parts, with lay members approving the blessings by 78 percent and clergy members approving by 76 percent.

The vote followed Monday’s decision by the church’s House of Bishops supporting the measure by a 111 to 41, with three abstentions. Both groups have to approve new legislation.

There’s a bunch of stuff about approving new liturgical rites for same-sex marriages performed in the church. To that specific issue I say meh, but overall this is thrilling.

Photo credit: ‘Hymnal 1982’ by Sarum blue [CC0 or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

A touching story, questionably used

Posted on May 15, 2012 by wellsdc

I came across this video via a Facebook friend. (The host site, Godvine, doesn’t allow embedding, sorry.) It’s a sweet story, but the way the site presents it troubles me. To summarize, a young mother tells her story with a series of statements on slips of notebook paper while inspirational-sounding Christian music plays. I’ve never understood this style of video, but I could see how it is more effective than just writing out the story, and also easier for people who might not want to talk on video (for my part, I have no problem speaking directly to a group of people, but I tend to seize up in front of a camera.)

I should note that this woman is a natural in front of the camera, beaming with joy as an ecstatic new mother, then shifting towards obvious pain when the story turns to her son’s difficulties. And this is all done without saying a word.

She tells the story of falling in love and getting married, and her pregnancy with her son, Christian. She learned during the pregnancy that something was wrong, although she does not say exactly how much they knew. He was born with a cleft palate and cleft eye sockets. I’m unclear on the latter problem, but it meant that he was born without eyes. She’s a mother and she loves her child, and you can tell that she will defend her child to the ends of the earth (that’s the benefit of this style of video, I now realize.) Unfortunately, people are assholes, so she endured stares, whispers, and “what’s wrong with your kid?” questions. She also says that:

One girl even told me I was a horrible person for not aborting Christian in utero.

That’s at around the 4:40 mark. I hope everyone can understand what a horrible, repulsive thing that is to say. I mean really, I actually hope this mother smacked that girl in the face, then stepped on her. No one is going to mess with Christian on this mother’s watch. Continue reading →

The Godless Hordes Descend Upon San Antonio. With a Billboard.

Posted on May 9, 2012 by wellsdc

My home town of San Antonio has a new billboard that’s sure to anger people who make it their business to always be angry. The billboard was placed by the San Antonio Coalition of Reason, part of the United Coalition of Reason:

“Don’t believe in God? Join the club.”

These words, superimposed over an image of a Texas sunrise, are now up on a 14 x 48 foot digital billboard located on the west side of I-10 at North Crossroads Blvd. The billboard is visible to traffic heading south, whether continuing on the Interstate just past I-410, taking the off ramp to the Wonderland of the Americas Mall or taking the on ramp south when leaving the mall.

The ad will remain up through the Memorial Day weekend, a span that includes Mother’s Day. It was placed by the San Antonio Coalition of Reason (San Antonio CoR) with $5,000 in funding from the United Coalition of Reason (UnitedCoR). The billboard campaign marks the public launch of San Antonio CoR, an alliance of six established non-theistic groups in Central Texas. The groups are Atheist Families of San Antonio, Freethinkers Association of Central Texas, Humanists of San Antonio, San Antonio Atheists Group, San Antonio Skeptics and Texas Hill Country Freethinkers.

The message seems to be simple, along the lines of “If you are not a person of faith in a supernatural being or beings, you are not doomed to ostracism and ridicule after all.” At least, that’s the message that someone who lives in as religious a city as San Antonio yet does not share that belief might get. Some billboards put up by atheist groups have been profoundly ill-advised and downright stupid, but this one seems rather muted. There is no exhortation to leave a particular faith, nor even encouragement to consider doing so per se. It just lets people know that they are not alone. Continue reading →

Secular High School Student Refuses to Attend Graduation in a Megachurch

Posted on April 11, 2012 by wellsdc

This is not the same megachurch, but it gives you the idea

Here’s a fun story from Decatur, Georgia: Nahkoura Mahnassi, a 16 year-old senior at Southwest DeKalb High School is refusing to attend her own graduation on May 25 because the school is holding it at a church. Now this is a public high school, and they did not pick just any church. They picked New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, a megachurch whose pastor, Eddie Long, is apparently no stranger to controversy. After a series of scandals, he had himself crowned “king” during a service one Sunday a few months ago.

Back to the case at hand: Mahnassi reportedly has a 3.8 GPA and is described as a “star student.” She also claims no religious affiliation and does not think it is appropriate for a public high school, where students have a diversity of backgrounds, to hold its graduation in a location that is so overtly sectarian:

In this case, it’s what she doesn’t believe in and that’s her school’s decision to have their graduation ceremony at Eddie Long’s New Birth Missionary Baptist Church.

When her peers ask why, she tells them, “It’s kind of a long story, but I don’t like churches or New Birth so I’m not going.”

The school district issued the following statement to the media:

The school district is holding commencements this year at a number of locations throughout the community, including school district stadiums and the Georgia Dome. Each year, the school district looks to find spaces big enough to host our largest graduating classes. This year, Southwest DeKalb High School is holding its graduation at a faith-based organization in the community. This is based on a previous agreement that expires this year. We will continue to work to find the best and most appropriate venues to accommodate our students as they celebrate such an important milestone.

The problem here is that it is exceedingly difficult to hold a public school event in a religious facility while keeping the two separate. This is doubly, triply, or even quadruply true when it comes to a controversial establishment like New Birth. The school district’s position seems reasonable. If the concern really is for finding a venue large enough to handle the size of the event, that speaks to a different problem. Communities ought to have a public venue that people can use regardless of faith or lack thereof. A building is not always just a building, as Mahnassi’s mother, Alisha Brown, noted:

[The school] said, ‘Well, it’s just a building,’ and of course I posed the question if it was a Satanist church I’m sure the Christians would be up in arms and say, ‘No, no, no. We’re not going to go there.’ So it’s not a matter of ‘It’s just a building.’ That’s totally not true.

It’s an overblown example, perhaps, but it is still spot-on.

It is important to get this story out there because, although it does not seem to have happened yet, the hate may start piling on. The only other news article I could find on this story was at the Christian Post, and the author and the commenters have been quite restrained (so far). If this turns into something like what Jessica Ahlquist had to deal with, then the internet needs to step up.

Photo credit: ‘Solid Rock megachurch’ by Joe Shlabotnik from Forest Hills, Queens, USA (King Of Kings) [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

This plan may have backfired

Posted on March 28, 2012 by wellsdc

From the “scaring kids for Jesus” department comes this tale out of Middletown, PA:

County prosecutors have begun an investigation into a church function where members of a youth group were tied up and blindfolded as part of a lesson in religious persecution.

Fran Chardo, First Deputy District Attorney of Dauphin County, said there could be consequences if teens didn’t know what was going to happen, and didn’t agree to be a part of the event at the Glad Tidings Assembly of God Church in Lower Swatara Township.

“It’s actually quite serious,” Chardo said. “False imprisonment of a child, someone under the age of 18, is a second-degree felony punishable up to 10 years on prison.”

ABC27 News has learned that an off-duty police officer acted as one of two kidnappers who raided the Wednesday night meeting. The gun used by the officer in the fake raid was unloaded, but real.

I was once involved in a church youth group skit involving a real, loaded gun, but I’ll get to that.

Lower Swatara Township police began their own investigation when the mother of a 14-year-old girl complained that her daughter, a guest of a youth group member, had her legs bruised during the event.

The teen told abc27 News she thought she was going to die when the men burst into the room, put pillow cases over some of the people’s heads and led them into a van.

“They pulled my chair out from underneath me and then they told me to get on the ground,” she said. “I was the first person to go into the van. I had my hands behind my back they said ‘just do as I say and you won’t be hurt’.”

The teens were taken to the pastor’s house, where it appeared he was being assaulted. Eventually, she said the adults in charge revealed it was a staged event.

“They heard me crying,” she said. “Why not right then and there tell us it was a joke, when you see me crying?”

Pastor John Lanza said the lesson was a surprise “to secure the shock value of it and make it much more real.”

“There are people in other countries that live under this environment on a regular daily basis,” Lanza said. “They’re not warned that their persecutors are coming in.”

Church officials said the exercise has been done before and they would not shy away from doing it again, but would tell parents first. They added that they never had any indication that the teen was in such distress.

“I’m pretty sure she was laughing at some point and having fun with the other students,” youth pastor Andrew Jordan said. “I can’t confirm that, but that’s what I’ve heard from friends of hers that were there.”

Because there is no better way to teach American teenagers how people elsewhere in the world are traumatized than to traumatize them. Not to quibble with Pastor Lanza, but it does not sound like these children were “warned that their persecutors are coming in,” either. They were just told it was all fake after the fact. I’m sure it was no different than a fraternity prank, right?

Whatever the rationale for this, I hope someone high up gets something more than a slap on the wrist. After all is said and done, these are the adults that these kids are supposed to trust–to rely on for guidance–and this is how the adults treat them? Plus, the whole point of the exercise, by the pastor’s own admission, is to scare the kids, so how does he also suggest they were having fun?

Here’s the deal, Pastor Lanza, either you succeeded in your goal of scaring them (“to secure the shock value”), or the kids were having fun with it. There really is no middle ground here. Either way, you are one sick puppy, pastor.

It puts my loaded (with blanks) gun experience in perspective. Rewind to my high school days, circa 1992. To act out the “full armor of God” bit from Ephesians 6:10-18, my youth director had me put on some baseball catcher’s equipment (to represent the armor) and gave me a .357 loaded with blanks (to represent prayer.) We acted out a skit where a bully was tormenting me, and an angel equipped me with the titular armor. The armor protected me from a bully (played by one of my friends) and the “prayer” took his ass out. I fired slightly to his right (my left), because a tiny bit of common sense and human decency must have crept into my brain in that moment.

But at least no one put a bag over my head and kidnapped me.

(h/t to sinidentidades for the story)

Photo credit: Taurus .357 Magnum by SoulRider.222 on Flickr.

"Old Time Religion" Challenge!!!

Posted on August 22, 2008 by wellsdc

Greta Christina is offering fun and prizes to whomever can come up with the best verse to “That Old Time Religion”‘s evil pagan cousin, the “pagany folk nerd” parody. Check out the link for some good ones.

Because I’m such a self-aggrandizing boor, I felt compelled to post my own verse here, as well as at her blog:

We give thanks to mighty Ceres,
with her shredded wheat and Cheeri-
o’s that make our bowels so clear. You
know that’s good enough for me.

This won’t win me any points with the choir marm, but she’s not really my target audience.

Mmmmm, that’s good Jeebus

Posted on July 9, 2008 by wellsdc

I was raised Episcopalian (Catholic Lite–all the salvation with half the guilt! (h/t Robin Williams)), so I have some experience with seemingly loony communion traditions, but this is just…remarkable (h/t BronzeDog and Pharyngula):

Webster Cook says he smuggled a Eucharist, a small bread wafer that to Catholics symbolic of the Body of Christ after a priest blesses it, out of mass, didn’t eat it as he was supposed to do, but instead walked with it.

***

Catholics worldwide became furious.

And wouldn’t you know it, Bill Donohue got in on the act (it’s been a while since Bill was last outraged, so it’s good to have him back!)

My first thought on reading the article was to picture mortal sinner “walking with, talking with” the wafer, but I’m just being silly.

Seriously, though, the Consecrated Host is a big deal. It must not be desecrated or sold on eBay because it literally is the body of Christ. It was recently explained to me by a devout Catholic friend that one of the reasons non-Catholics should not take Catholic communion is because of concern that Consecrated Hosts might be stolen for use in Satanic rituals. I did my best to be polite, but I find the idea kind of nutty.

I heard a similar story regarding the theft of some silver bowls and pitchers used in the Eucharist from the church I attended in my youth. There was apparently some speculation within the church that these items had been stolen for use in a Black Mass. This might overlook the more obvious explanation: that they were stolen because they are made out of silver.

Since I cannot speculate on the motivations of the host-walker (although he did return the Host), I’ll limit myself to saying this: this whole thing is silly. A cracker is a cracker.

Cryptic Philosopher

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Category Archives: Belief