There’s been a really great ongoing debate happening over at The Daily Dish surrounding atheism. It started when one of Andrew’s temporary replacements likened atheists such as Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins to fundamentalists and religious extremists.

As it’s developed, I’ve read many intelligent arguments on both sides. But the truth is most of the religious side of the debate presumes a level of deference to religion. Atheists, it seems, are not allowed to compare religion to belief in Santa Claus or similar fanciful beliefs. At first it was attacked for being glib, but that does little to alter the fundamental similarities in the belief in Santa Claus and the belief in God.

Subsequently, the argument was made that people spend a great deal of time developing their religious stance, whether it’s through thorough readings of the philosophies of theologians across the ages or merely an internal conflict, and so the comparison is unfair. Admittedly, there are people who examine their beliefs thoroughly, break down all the preconditions of life that their parents instilled in them to arrive at a self-determined philosophy, one which includes God, but those people are a far and away minority. For many people, religion is a part of their life because they’ve never thought about it¹.

Similarly, following an atheist argument that religion can undermine the “development of logical thinking” in children, a religious reader responded with:

I have an 18 year-old and a 15 year-old which my wife and I have raised in the church. They are both at the stage where they are questioning and challenging everything. The idea that I could possibly “brainwash” them into believing anything is specious.

Which isn’t wrong so much as it is unsophistcated. The fact is that the reader almost certainly could “brainwash” their children if they wanted to. We always read of the children who escape from a cult they were born into, but we ignore the fact that many children remain in the cult, contented and certain that their way of life is the true path to salvation.

I use cults as an example, but parents with enough religious zeal can just as easily cause many problems for their children. Home schooling children that the Earth is the centre of the universe and that it’s only 6000 years old and evolution is a lie — all things that Christian parents do² — absolutely affect the child for years to come. No one is claiming that the damage is irreparable — after all, there are atheists out there — but to ignore it because it lacks 100% efficacy is exceedingly naive³.

The problem with having a religious debate is that when atheists argue with fundamentalists nothing is accomplished, but when they argue with reasonable, temperate theists like those reading Andrew Sullivan’s blog, we get nice nuanced arguments which describe God in a manner very different than the norm. The theists seems to forget that atheists are mostly arguing against the edge cases.

I’m staunchly atheist, and confident that there is no God. But when I attack religion, I don’t attack the muted and temperate version that intellectuals believe in, the kind where God is a passive observer, or where he sets the pieces up and has spent the past 12 billion or so years watching them all fall around him like a massive set of dominoes. I attack the religion that forces genital mutilation, stonings, oppression of women, ignorance of science, and all the stuff that the brainy version of religion has eschewed in its development.

Often, atheists (and theists) are accused of ignoring the moderates of the debate, instead focusing on the fringes of their debate, but one thing I’ve noticed as time goes on is that even the extreme atheists, so far as I know, do not argue for the abolition of religion. What they argue is that religion is irrational and that the world would be a better place without religion. The first half of that argument is absolutely true. Religion is the belief in something for which there is absolutely no evidence, an inherently irrational stance. The second half is much more contentious and an argument that I personally don’t accept. That said, the “atheist fringe” is much less extreme than the religious fundamentalists, so to act as though they are equal criticisms seems disingenuous to me.

The edge cases matter⁴. So don’t call upon the “civility” of atheists to sit down and shut up when it comes to the pernicious ills of religion.

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Footnotes

1. I speak from experience; many members of my family have no actual philosophy with respect to their religion, they merely accept it as what they’ve always “believed.” [↩]
2. Obviously not all Christian parents, but these extremes do exist [↩]
3. I’m not advocating the abolition of religion here, nor would anyone suggest state-enforced atheism, but ignoring the problems of religion accomplishes nothing. [↩]
4. On both sides of the discussion [↩]

As you all know, I Love TV. Which is why I was neither surprised nor quite expecting a new study that says that unhappy people watch more TV. It wasn’t particularly surprising to me because when you have a series of posts dedicated to how depressed you are, it’s kind of implied you’re at least slightly unhappy. But I didn’t really expect it because TV is actually one of the things in my life that gives me happiness.

This study talks about how TV is escapism — which is true of any entertainment media, even though the same study says that happier people read more books — but in many ways, good television holds a mirror up to you and examines the various aspects of humanity. A few years ago, I was at a (cliche alert) crossroads in my life. I was around half way through a university degree which was promising but didn’t hold the appeal it did when I first applied. Beyond that, my faith was dwindling. For years, I had a constantly evolving understanding of God and religion. When I first had my religious re-awakening in high school, a lot of people thought it was because I had a crush on one of the girls that went to my church, but the fact is that I simply wanted to understand God better. I was experiencing teenage angst and wanted to figure what “all this” is about.

My faith grew over those years but ultimately I found myself having an understanding of God that differed and contradicted the one that both the Bible taught and that my church taught. Because of my growing skepticism of psychics, ESP, and other paranormal phenomenon and my growing understanding of how science explained the universe, I no longer thought that Jesus was actually the son of God. I still believed that he was a wise man likely sent by God to teach people a newer better way to live and worship, but I could no longer consider myself a Christian.

So, I was confused about life, the meaning of it all, and a few other things. Around that time, I started rewatching Babylon 5, a show that I hadn’t watched in quite some time, and I think it’s safe to say that it changed my life. I went from a mass of self-doubt and uncertainty about pretty much everything to having a very solid understanding of myself and the way I wanted to live in this world. I still consider Babylon 5 one of the best shows ever made, and almost certainly the best sci-fi show ever made.

There are a lot of times throughout my life that TV has helped me. Not because it let me forget about my sadness for a few minutes, but because I discovered new things. The long, drawn out character development that happens in television allows you to connect more intimately with their lives and in turn make discoveries about yourself.

Of course, one telling aspect of this study (what you didn’t think I’d turned this post into an opportunity to whine about personal problems did you?) is that it covers 30 years of television and television has only recently become something more than mere escapism. What was once a rare occurrence on television — serialized storytelling and complex relationships — is now a mainstay. Television, in the intervening years, has grown up. It is more than a time filler now. It can and does explore life with equal or greater depth and insight as other more respected media. And in another 30 years, after a generation of people who have grown up with intelligent and thought-provoking television, the data will tell a different tale.

Christian Rock sucks. It does. You shouldn’t try to defend it, you should be more worried about why you listen to such shitty music¹.

It’s shitty half of the time because it’s cloying and cliche and the other half of the time because it’s deceitful. The first half is the stuff you see in one minute mini-infomercials late at night. The second half is the stuff that makes it out of the core Christian Rock culture and into mainstream rock.

Switchfoot. POD. Seventh Day Slumber. This Beautiful Republic. Christian Rock bands generally have really lame names. And if you run across the music of any of the bands that “pass” as regular rock, you’d probably like it enough to listen but not enough to love it. It becomes a part of the din of songs that get played on your local rock radio station. But, for me at least, when you find out they are a Christian Rock band, suddenly every time their songs come on you can hear nothing beyond their hidden evangelizing.

It’s not that I dislike that they infuse their music with their religious beliefs; the best music comes from your most strongly felt emotions. But those bands go about it in a deceitful way. When interviewed they claim they’re not “Christian Rock” even when they began their career in the highly accessible Christian Rock tours that can really raise the profile of up and coming bands. I understand that the label of “Christian Rock” has a dirty connotation to it, but it has that because of bands like those that deny the meanings behind their songs. Rather than admit that they’re praising God, they pretend the song is about a girl.

The less notable segment of Christian Rock isn’t much better. With their over-the-top references to Jesus and God, they go beyond simply expressing their feelings and thoughts and head into the world of evangelizing. And when your songs are little more than evangelical chants wrapped in rhythm, you not only lock yourself into the Christian base, a base which doesn’t need evangelizing in the first place, but you reduce your credibility as an artist.

I’m an atheist but that doesn’t mean I detest religion; I simply have no need or desire for it in my personal life. But many of my favourite shows and movies have religious and mystical concepts at their very heart. So don’t think I hate Christian Rock simply because it involves God. I hate it because it involves God poorly.

An example of a band which is not Christian Rock but has lyrics which discuss God and Jesus very openly (and earnestly) is Page France. I’ve listened to most of Page France’s “Hello, Dear Wind” and overall the album’s a little weak, but the tracks that I find myself returning to since the initial listen — the opening two tracks (Chariot, and Jesus) and the closing track (Feather) — all contain various levels of religious and Christian symbols. But the key is that those songs talk about Jesus and God in novel ways, and they appear to be not an active part of their music. Their songs don’t include God because they think their songs should include God, but merely because the songs they end up writing include him.

I said Christian Rock sucks, but the truth is that Christian Rock shouldn’t even exist. Like the “Pro-American” parts of America Sarah Palin talks about, Rock music isn’t something to be chopped up and spread among ideologies. Music which contains religious references isn’t Religious Music. Categorizing music is fine, in fact I Love it, but there’s a difference between an adjective and a noun. A noun is what you are, but an adjective is simply a modifier. Much like the difference between calling a gay person “a gay” and “a gay person” it seem nominal at best, but the difference is staggering in its connotations. And far too many people don’t treat “Christian Rock” as an adjective followed by a noun.

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Footnotes

1. With apologies to Daniel Tosh [↩]

I recently came across an… interesting blog that is written by a supposed proponent of incest, bestiality, and the killing of so-called “useless” members of society (which he mislabeled euthanasia). For the most part, the posts I read seem to be a devil’s advocate look at the extremes of human rights and freedoms that our society will likely tackle in the next few decades, though sometimes — like, say, when he’s writing that children from first cousins are not particularly at risk for defects, therefore direct sibling incest is equally acceptable, genetically speaking — I’m not so sure.

Here’s a post, with some editing and spelling liberties taken on my part, asking for some arguments on moral relativism, which are especially targeted at an atheist reader.

Today I will play the role of an atheist who subscribes to humanism and the relative nature of morality. Shall we begin?

THESE ARE MY TWO CORE BELIEFS:

1. I believe that certain nonproductive members of society – i.e. the terminally and painfully sick, unemployed and alcohol-addicted street vagrants, serial criminals, and those too old to contribute anything meaningful - should be euthanized for the greater of good of society and mankind.

Resources that they consume can find much better use in advancing civilization and the happiness of other (and more) people. The good and survival of the human species takes precedence over selfish and petty individual needs.

2. I believe that bestiality as a sexual choice should be given the same legal rights and social respect as heterosexual and homosexual human-human relationships.

I am a practicing zoophile who regularly engages in group sex with my fully-mature rottweilers (both male and female) who willingly and often actively reciprocate the intimate eroticity.

We all enjoy it immensely, so what’s wrong with it? For some reason, most people – even the supposedly enlightened individuals at PFLAG – think my sexual choice is disgusting, morally repugnant and unnatural. To me it’s incomprehensible and inexplicable why.

Now please tell me why my stance is MORALLY WRONG from a atheistic, humanist point of view.

Quotes from the Bible or other holy scriptures will not be accepted. Arguments that some god or another forbids it will similarly be ignored. As a atheist, I WILL NOT ACCEPT ANY RELIGION OR PHILOSOPHY BASED ARGUMENTS.

I welcome and eagerly await comments which attempt to persuade me that somehow, my beliefs and practices are fundamentally wrong from a relativistic, humanist, liberal and pluralistic point of view.

Convince me.

Usually, when I read stuff like this on the Internet I just sigh and move along, but this time I couldn’t resist responding. What follows is a comment I posted on that blog in its entirety. Normally, I also don’t repost comments I write on other blogs on this site, but this one is fairly well written and much longer than I originally anticipated. Plus I haven’t posted in a while so I needed to put something up.

First of all, you say that you reject any philosophy based reasoning which is possibly the stupidest thing anyone has ever said. Philosophy strives to create logically valid reasoning. If the premises of that logic are true, then the reasoning is also true so to say you reject philosophy (but accept “atheistic” arguments which wouldn’t exist without philosophy) is really dumb.

As for your first point, there’s a difference between euthanasia and what you propose. Euthanasia is about ending the suffering of people who wish death. You’re talking about killing people against their will because they are no longer useful to society. That’s an egregious attack on the freedoms of people. Not only that but you then need to define usefulness to society. What if someone is intelligent, went through university and even went through medical school and graduated at the top of their class. But once that was all done they decided to make crappy clay sculptures that everyone agrees are not only a terrible waste of their talents but also just in general terrible. He is no longer useful to society and was even a burden on society by going through an unused education process so your proposal would be to kill him, but hopefully you can see that that is no more than cold blooded murder.

Secondly, regarding bestiality. I have a very specific opinion about sex: you don’t do it without consent. Until animals can be proven to be sentient and are capable of communicating with humans their thoughts and opinions, you cannot have sex with one without it being rape. If you want to stick your ass up in the air and wait for a dog to figure out that you want it to fuck you, well that’s fine by me, but you can’t do anything to the dog or any animal because you can’t reliably convince me that it’s consensual.

One final note. Your basic argument seems to be that without God all morality is completely relative. That may be true, but it’s a problem philosophers have discussed for millennia without making any real headway, so you shouldn’t assume your stance to be true. For one thing, morality may be a genetic trait, or a part of the structure of our brain. If those, or something similar, are true then there very well may be an absolute moral code built into us, or at least some moral absolutes from which we can extrapolate the rest. Regardless, a godless world is not necessarily a morally relative world. Furthermore, a morally relative world is not necessarily a world where you can do anything. Morality is a societal construct because morality defines the behaviour between members of a society. Which means the members of society need to agree on the basic terms. Agreeing on the basic terms of a morality, relative or not, will lead to certain limitations. Always.

(Before anyone starts accusing me of teaching Parrots to say “fuck me good” and then going wild, I should say that I personally would never fuck an animal other than a human; I’m just that kind of guy. But I also don’t think that I have the right to tell people who have those bizarre desires, along with animals intelligent enough to have and communicate those desires, that they shouldn’t do that funky business.)

So there’s my thoughts on those particularly grimy and unpalatable. I hope that I’ve both made some sense and also not completely grossed the fuck out everybody reading this.

P.S.: After having looked at a few other posts on the blog, it seems pretty clear that this guy is either bipolar and has two distinctly opposite personalities or he’s a racist neocon who likes to argue that atheism leads to rampant dog fucking and murdering by playing the part of a crazy atheist who thrives on dog fucking and murdering. C’est la vie, but maybe my arguments manage to convince him that supporting someone’s right to do fucked up shit is not the same as wanting to do fucked up shit.

The problem with free will is that it means humans can do shitty stuff. The bigger problem with free will is that when there’s an after-life or there’s reincarnation or something beyond what little time we have here, there isn’t a pressing need to improve the world around you or be a positive member of the community around you; this isn’t universal, many religions teach you to cherish the earth, but with any promise of some form of afterlife there will be people who will just not give a damn.

Enter Religion. Now we’ve got a bunch of guys claiming to know how God wants you to act and most of the time it’s decent but some of the time it’s horrific. Of course, the problem with religion is that most of the big ones are pretty loose about their moral restrictions; Christianity, in particular, allows complete forgiveness and acceptance to heaven for simply asking forgiveness on your death bed. It’s supposed to be sincere, but the priest providing the last rites has no special ability to discern sincerity. So you can do whatever the fuck you want to as long as you feign sincerity long enough to ask forgiveness.

The reason you can do whatever you want is this ephemeral promise of eternity. So what’s a benevolent God to do? Convince people he doesn’t exist! Without the supernatural crutch of God, people would have to get their act together, do unto others and all that good stuff; you’ve only got one life, so you better not fuck it up. So you wanna know my theory? I think that if God existed, he would be working towards an atheist world where they follow his principles because they think it’s best, not because He thinks it’s best.

You want to know the really insidious thing about this? This means, that religion is a creation of the devil. Yeah. I know. It’s fucked. By creating religion, the devil co-opted God’s kick-ass plan. And the best thing about it (that devil is really tricky) is that God can’t interfere. He can’t come down and say “No! There is no God! Do not follow these religions which the devil has created!” because he would then be co-opting his own plan. Some people say that “the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled, was convincing the world he didn’t exist” but that’s wrong; the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that God does.