Human, gamer, philosopher, godlike being, atheist, nonmonogamous, pariah, contrarian by nature, probably occasionally right human who writes nonsense to very few people.
Some people come here only to downvote my posts. That seems sort of ridiculous, right?
I was just about to watch a new episode of Parks and Recreation, which is a show I enjoy watching (in part because I have appreciated Amy Poehler since the days of Upright Citizens Brigade), and of course I ran into an ad. It’s pretty unavoidable on Hulu.com. Now, usually I ignore the ad and wait for the show to start, but in this case it caught my eye.
No, not because it looked particularly good, not because it looked like it would be one of those movies that is so bad it’s good, but because it just makes me feel shame for our culture and I was left with my jaw hanging in disappointment.
Here’s the trailer. Watch it if you like, but I’ll summarize what’ important below.
OK, so two male spies who work together are dating the same girl. They find out, and decide to go about dating her and let her pick which one to choose (because she has to choose, of course). And of course they will simply go about their business as they would have otherwise and if she does end up picking one or the other they’ll simply go on with their lives, right? Not so much. This is Hollywood, remember? The world of sensationalized conservative sex values.
So, naturally the men will try to compete with each other, try to trip each other up, and hilarity will ensue. But they are super Hollywood-style spies, so they have like access to guns, bombs, and planes, so of course it will turn into a militaristic competition for who will get the girl, all with explosions, car chases, and of course spying.
Because, you know, they could not share. No, good looking, intelligent, and talented men are way too immature, insecure, and territorial for that. And besides, to prove their manhood they will have to demonstrate that one is better than the other, making the unaware woman for whom they fight a prize, rather than a person.
She should, of course, lose them both, because obviously neither is prepared for an adult relationship. As to how they actually resolve it, and whatever stupid moral lessons are implied, I will have to find out second-hand. I will not be seeing this movie.
Perhaps if someone else does they can inform me of what happens.
Wednesday was busy for me, with the debate and all, but before all that started I had gone over to city hall and talked with people from the Occupy Philly movement, who are affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street people unofficially. I say unofficially mostly as a sort of joke because there is no central control, group, or message which is acting as the guide for these movements. At least not yet (this notwithstanding).
Honest Discussioner and I talked with all sorts of people at the event. He had his camera with him, and so there is video of some of our discussions from people lending logistical, technical, and media support. Also, it became clear, as I had noticed even before Wednesday (I had been to the location a couple of times in the last week or so) that people have different opinions and expectations from the movement, even if they did share some common concerns and goals.
Some were antagonistic to the police, and others pointed out that they were friendly, part of the 99%, and even helpful. This, among other issues (such as that of whether regulated Capitalism, Socialism, or Communism is ultimately the goal) are things which will have to be worked out internally and over time.
The first thing to understand about this movement is that they have a legal right to be there. They have a permit from the city, have received police assistance in terms of protection and even the ushering of some homeless people to the area (where there are resources to feed them and address their health issues). There are tents for media, tech support, first aid, food/water, and many for people who are residing around city hall.
You know, like occupying Philadelphia. In other words, this is not merely a place where people will get up and make there way over to for a day of activism, but rather it is that people are living around city hall right now. It is a small sea of tents, information tables, a library, and advocacy groups of various stripes. I hope that paints some of the picture somewhat.
Message
A shot of a newsletter which was available in the library
Essentially, there is no central message coming from the Occupy Philly groups yet. The reason for this is that the movement is still taking shape. There are logistical concerns, and no one group is taking charge of anything except their own messages.
And, of course, there are various groups involved. There are union groups (the AFL-CIO had an event on Wednesday, for example), as did Action United, Philly Jobs with Justice, and many other groups friendly to the goals of Occupy Philly can be found around and willing to talk to interested visitors of residents.
So, Shaun (says the impatient reader) what precisely are the goals? What is the message? Well, since you insist, I will summarize what I think the central message seems to be so far. Money. More specifically, money in politics. The concern is that large business interests control how elections, legislation, and therefore policy are all implemented. There is a feeling that the people (the 99%) are left powerless, unimportant, and sold out.
One sign I have seen several times says “Banks got bailed out, we got sold out.” The message seems to be that as it stands, our political system is geared to protect corporate interests and not people’s interests. Where certain banks are too big to fail, the majority of people who are struggling, with or without jobs, are not. I’ll let economists tackle that question.
But what is clear to me is that in an economy like ours right now, jobs are needed (this blogger sure could use one). The people who have the ability to affect change in that direction are not doing much to help (Jobs bill, anyone?). The “job-creators,” in other words, are not fulfilling their name-sakes. Banks are holding onto money, many people are left with little to no money ( I think I do have 2 or 3 dollars around somewhere…quite literally), and there seems to be systemic reasons for this.
This has been true for a long time, of course. In fact, this issue is not far off from the early Tea Party’s message (before it was bought out by business interests itself, of course). So the question this presents to me is whether the Occupy movements will become something like the Tea Party movement. The irony of it being bought by corporate interests would be high, but this does not make the possibility unlikely. I mean, look what happened to the liberal movements of the 1960’s; totally corporatized both in image and ideology. Not to say there are not still hippies out there who avoided corporate branding, just that they don’t have political power.
But I will not allow myself to become too cynical yet. I will allow people who are working day and night for this movement to create something, and I will allow some small hope that they may achieve something beneficial for all of us.
So, I will continue to follow this movement and hope that it leads to at least some consciousness raising for more Americans. The super rich (those 1%, or even there cronies the top 5% or so) are not likely to simply roll over and change how they operate within politics. Their values seem to be at odds with those of us who are interested in seeing less disparity and inequality in the United States and the world.
If we educate ourselves, become involved in some sort of effort to change the world for the better, and demand more from people who have it we might be able to affect change in the world, even if only a little. Oh, how I hope that’s true.
It seems the title of the debate may have changed a bit since it was announced
So, last night I attended the debate between Dave Silverman, the president of American Atheists, and Dinesh D’Souza who is an author and professional defender of Christianity. Dave Silverman I have known for many years, and I was glad to get a chance to talk with him before the debate about how he was feeling about it. It is always a question concerning what kind of reception an atheist debater will encounter, even in a liberal city such as Philadelphia.
Dinesh D’Souza was in the room as well, but I refrained from talking to him despite having lots of things I could have asked him. I had not previously met Dinesh, and my “Hi, I’m your friendly neighborhood atheist” shirt might have put him off, a bit. It was not the right time or place, and there would be a time for questions after the debate (I did get a chance to ask one, too).
The debate took place at the Irvine Auditorium at the University of Pennsylvania in University City (West Philly), so it was in my neck of the woods. The hall was not packed, but it was full enough. It was clear, from the level of clapping and cheering at certain times, that Dinesh brought a larger contingent, but I did see a fair showing of the Philly atheist community including Margaret Downey, Carl Silverman, and Staks Rosch. I wonder if the rain might have kept some people away as well, even though it had not rained much around the event.
Also joining me was my friend Honest Discussioner who had come into town for the day. We had spent much of the afternoon at the OccupyPhilly events around city hall, as we are both interested in the Occupy movement and wish to better understand its developing message as well as where it will go as a movement. He took some video and there will be both vlogs and blogs upcoming concerning that issue. For now, I will skip any commentary concerning that and dive right into the debate.
We all have the same facts
Dave Silverman started things off with a 12-minute argument about why Christianity is not good for America. “We all have the same facts” he said, and the facts, he thinks, point to Christianity not being good for America.
Dave laid out three metrics to address this question; society, science, and sex. His basic argument was that with issues like marriage rights, women’s rights, science education, and sex education, the effect of Christian belief on social policies is detrimental to our culture.
Pointing to the many other western democracies and their relative secularization and societal health (of which the US is an outlier), it seems clear that the less religious a nation is, it is likely to be healthier. These statistics have existed for some time and have been a core part of the argument for whether religion actually makes societies better. And while it is not proof, the data seems to indicate that you can have a healthy society without a prevalence of religion. Dave goes the next step and argues that it is evidence that religion, specifically Christianity in this case, has a detrimental effect of society. I think the case for this is strong, even if it is not absolute. But is anything absolute when it comes to science?
(no)
Athens and Jerusalem
Depiction of Paul in Athens (cf. Acts 17:16-34)
Dinesh D’Souza’s opening argument was not surprising, coming from a person who has heard him debate before. His argument boils down to the claim that the philosophical foundation of American political structures, culture, and values are dependent upon the philosophical and political influence of the ancient Greeks (Athens) as well as the cultural and theological influence of Christianity (Jerusalem). Whether it is Ivy League schools, inalienable rights, or the civil rights movement, Dinesh sees the roots for all of these things within the Christian tradition. I will not dispute the role of Athens, and certainly Christianity has had a great role in American history, but Dinesh’s claim here is stretched too far.
Perhaps his most outlandish claim was that the institution of slavery, in America at least, was questioned exclusively by Christianity. He seems unaware of the influence of socialist activists and other abolitionist movements from early on which were not affiliated with Christianity. It is true that many churches did take part in these movements, and in the 1960’s their role was critical, but to claim that this was exclusively a Christian struggle is simply not true.
As is common for Christians who take a more “nuanced” perspective on theology, D’Souza claimed that it was only a small percentage of the Christian community that is opposed to science (specifically evolution). Within the liberal Christian circles in which Dinesh and other religious academics swim, I have no doubt that this is true. But in the United states belief in evolution is not dominant (except among those with higher education, like Dinesh and his colleagues). Among most people, Evolution falls behind creationism.
December 2010 Gallup Poll (click for full article)
Again, this is correlation and not proof. But as Dave Silverman points out, the fact that religious conservatives push so hard against evolution, stem cell research, etc is indicative of there being a disjoint between science and Christian theology. It is the evangelicals, after all, that take the scripture more literally than educated academics. And as I (and again) as well as manyothershaveargued, there is a profound methodological and epistemological difference between theology and skepticism (the scientific method and reason). Despite the fact that moderate and educated Christians tend to accept evolution, they still don’t seem to grasp the implications of the scientific method upon revelation and dogma.
In fact, this very fact came to light in conversations with some audience members after the debate; scientific empirical methodology is quite alien to both theologians and many philosophically minded people (especially the postmodernists). In a discussion about the possibility of a soul or life after death with what appeared to be UPenn students, reference to established scientific research by neuroscientists only brought questions of the assumptions about naturalism, and not understanding that these experiments and their results actually happened. There was, quite clearly, a disconnect between the difference between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism. It is a common misunderstanding that I believe Dinesh may also be guilty of.
Christianity’s influence today
D’Souza claimed that the foundations of the wonderful society in which we live is due to Christianity. Silverman, in response to this, asks “what about today?” In other words, even if Christianity was good for the foundations of our society (a point Dave does not concede), is it still good today given the detrimental efforts of people who act based upon their adherence to Christian theology. It’s a fair question. Dinesh’s answer is that the values we have, even as secular people, is standing on the mountain built by Christianity. Our moral intuition is given to us by god (and not just any god, but Jesus). His assertion is that without this scaffolding, which cannot be replaced with theories based in evolution or any other purely naturalistic worldview, we could not have the values we have. Further, our blessed science was even given to us by people committed to Christianity, such as Kepler, Newton, etc.
We are a secular world standing on the shoulders of Christian giants, Dinesh D’Souza seems to be saying.
Dave concedes, as he should, that Christians (which he distinguishes from Christianity, which Dinesh seems to miss every time he talks about this) have indeed done many great things in the world. They help others, achieve great things, and are often wonderful people. Dave sees this, and I agree, as giving the credit to the theology rather than the humanity of these people who do the good things. This is stealing credit from humanity and giving it to Christianity, the sources of which are often opposed (scripturally) to many of the achievements of post-Enlightenment society. This, in my opinion, is what makes Christianity so bad not only for America, but as Dave Silverman closed his comments, merely bad.
It is the usurping of what is good about us and claiming that we cannot possibly achieve these things without Jesus. It is the claim that we are fallen, fundamentally broken (or as John Calvin put it, total depravity), and in need of a fix. It is the creation of a problem that is then turned around, like a good salesman, into a sales pitch. Not only does Christian mythology create the problem of our fall from grace, it presumes to provide the cure of redemption. It is god’s cure for a problem he was responsible for. It is absurd, anti-humanistic, and ultimately anti-life (thank you Nietzsche).
Good?
Dave responded to Dinesh a few times during the debate by saying that Dinesh presented no actual arguments for why Christianity is good. I think what he means by this is that Dinesh’s claims about Christianity being the foundation for American culture, politics, and society are spurious, there is a difference between Christianity and the people who claim the title (especially since most Christians are not consistent or coherent in their theology), and that the negative effects of Christianity, even if there are positives, far outweigh the good. I think Dave Silverman is right here (anyone surprised?).
The only point that Dinesh has room to argue is that Christianity does deserve its place at the table in America. However, while it deserves this right, this place cannot be a privileged one. People have a right to vote for candidates who reflect their views, to believe as they wish as private citizens, and religious ideas will exist in the larger public conversation about policy, legislation, etc. However, the position of Christianity to influence those who do not believe is imbalanced and often oppressive. And even if there are secular arguments, as Dinesh proposes there are, against things like abortion, gay marriage, etc it is clear that the overwhelming majority of political pressure in these areas are derived from Christian theology and not secular arguments.
The bottom line for me is that even if Christianity was the primary foundation of our western culture, and without it we would not have the concepts we think of as secular now, that does not necessarily make those foundations nor their effects good. I could point out the fundamental problems of our western world, as focused on by the OccupyEverywhere movement and other social commentary, and show that Dinesh’s argument seems problematic even if valid. That is, even if he is right in his claims about Christianity’s role in our American society and culture, it seems that the influence was either incomplete (in other words, the imperfections are evidence of our fallen nature), or that God’s plan for American was not to be a good Christian example. Oh wait, or there is no God intervening in history.
The fact is that our culture is in need of growth in terms of economics, emotional maturity, and education. Christianity is not the source of skeptical inquiry, the scientific method (which grew around Christianity like a tree grows despite the obstacle of a fence), or of our Constitution. So, despite the language of the Declaration of Independence, which Dinesh D’Souza made reference to (and which has no legal standing in America today), this nation is not philosophically, theologically, or historically indebted to a “Creator” even if there is one.
The idea of freedom of and from religion, the separation of church and state, and the general establishment clause of the first amendment to the Constitution is a powerful protection from Christianity to those who wish to steer clear of it’s discriminatory and archaic ideals. Yes, Christians have grown and changed with the times, in reaction to the enlightenment and other historical breaking from the bondage of religious power, but Christianity still has a scriptural source which is tied to a barbaric ideology.
No matter how intellectual, nuanced, and sophisticated theology becomes, Christianity cannot outrun its essence or its bronze-age past. Whether in terms of the horrors it has caused, the poor worldview it presents, nor the ignorance it perpetuates, Christianity is no friend to any person and so is therefore no friend to America.
Dinesh D’Souza may claim that things such as forgiveness, universal brotherhood, or the idea that we are all equal in the eyes of god are what is central about Christianity, but that forgets so much more of what the scriptures tell us. There is also a redemption for crimes we are not responsible for (the Fall), support for slavery, and multitudes of atrocities beyond anything we would consider acceptable today. If this scriptural tradition is the work of the creator and value-giver of America, we are indeed doomed. Yes, one can visit the cafeteria of the Bible and choose what one likes (as Dinesh claims not to do), but to take it all in context is to see a tradition that is not good for America or anywhere else.
Win?
Is this a win for Dave Silverman? Is this a win for secularism and/or atheism? I don’t think debates are about that. Surely, most of the people there left with the same opinion they had. But ideas get planted, discussion continues, and we move forward. Little by little atheist messages are heard, absorbed, and we slowly become part of the conversation.
Christianity is in a privileged cultural position, and its tentacles reach deep into our American psyche for sure. But around these tentacles lie aspects of our humanity which are evolutionarily and historically prior to Christian thought. On top of all that are secular ideas derived from philosophy, science, and in some cases rejection of religion. Nietzsche is a good example of this latter.
The fact that religion usurps these ideas and cloaks them in theological language is why it seems to so many that it is Christianity which is the foundation for all of these ideas. This is an illusion. This is what religion does; it often will attach itself to ideas and claim them as their own. And the longer we don’t point this usurpation out, the more the original idea and theology intertwine until we cannot tell them apart. After enough time of this process the sophisticated, nuanced, and evolving liberal Christians don’t even realize they have done so, and they genuinely believe that the Christianity they carry is a coherent descendant of the teaching of the Old Testament, Paul, and the Gospels.
We need people like Dave Silverman to keep indicating this delusion. Keep it up, Dave.
OK, some people are stupid. But even many who are not stupid; those who have the cognitive ability to understand complex ideas, who can make logical decisions, and who can think effectively through problems in their lives, still believe stupid things.
It’s a lack of skepticism, I think, which is at root here. It’s the inability (laziness, perhaps?) to apply methodologies that could show someone that their rationalized conclusions are not true, or at least not supported by evidence. And we all do it. We all believe things which are probably unjustified by evidence or reason.
The question is, I suppose, what amount of justified versus unjustified beliefs we hold. Or perhaps it is how often we apply the skeptical sieve to ideas we run across. Or perhaps it’s something else. It’s all tiresome, really. Being a skeptic is hard.
That’s why most people don’t do it.
And I get it. I get how those human biases get caught up in our brain. I get how the ideas, unsupportable as they are, seem to meld so harmoniously with that feeling of sense that pervades our worldview, even if that worldview is itself unsupported. I get how when we think of an idea which does not fit there, it feels like its musical theme that is inharmonious with the background music; it’s like the sound of a honking car when you are listening to some Beethoven piece. Or, perhaps, it’s like some annoying Beethoven when you are stuck in traffic. Analogies are stupid.
I get how easily we reject things that are supported by evidence, because the other thing we believe feels better to us. I get how people are confused by other worldviews and shake our heads disbelievingly when we hear someone state a set of facts to support something that sounds so obviously wrong. I get what it means to be human in this sense. But that does not excuse it.
When someone claims that 9/11 was an inside job, that President Obama is a Muslim, a Socialist, and anti-American, or that evolution is a lie and that the world is less than 10,000 years old, part of me wants to just curl and give up on the world. Part of me wants to allow the vast majority of people wallow in ignorance and lack of skepticism and for me to go seek out enlightened and educated people to enjoy life with.
Part of me does not want to write this blog, knowing that in most cases I’m singing to the choir (and nobody wants to hear me sing, I guarantee). Part of me wants to give up on trying to present any argument for people who are not going to listen, to challenge themselves, or to learn.
But there are the exceptions. Like Nietzsche said, all that is rare for the rare, but you have to give the rare the opportunity to discover they are rare. And our environment is part of this. In many cases the environment makes a huge influence on even a more normally gifted person. I want to be a small part of that environment, just in case receptive voices pass my way.
I was not an exceptionally intelligent child. I am not a genius. I am, likely, above average intelligence and I certainly have some intellectual strengths, but I am not exceptional cognitively. However, had I not been given the rarer opportunity to attend a very good prep school, college, and grad school I would likely be more like my extended family; generally conservative, historically ignorant, and relatively prone to my biases and stuck there. The community I was raised in, without my educational opportunities, would likely have produced someone with less perspective, who is less self-challenging, and less interested in the truth.
Some issues are not mere matters of opinion; things merely to “agree to disagree” about. Some things are actually matters of fact. And even where there is room for subjectivity, there is still room for evidence and reason to make certain conclusions better than others. Some ideas are just stupid, but many people still believe them. Remember the whole Obama nationality argument that led to a birth certificate coming to light? Yes, many people still think he is lying about that.
President Obama has claimed to be a Christian (and this claim itself would make him worthy of death as a Muslim, according to the Koran. If he’s a Muslim he’s a pretty bad one), his policies are more in line with centrism than any form of Socialism (he actually back away from policies which were hardly Socialist, and moved towards the conservative end, pragmatically), and Al-Qaeda has taken responsibility for 9/11 (they are annoyed that so many think that Bush &co could have pulled off such a thing, I suppose).
Yet the ideas that these facts compete with are prevalent. And not mere ideological brain-washing is at fault, either (although there is that). Hannity, Beck, etc are not the creators of stupidity, they are mere ushers of it, in other words. And yes, Michael Moore is guilty of much of the same. Jon Stewart, however, is the freakin’ man (even if I do sometimes disagree with him).
But, being a little biased myself, I will likely call out the conservative voices first. It is somewhat ironic to watch the relativism, postmodernism, etc that seeps into conservative worldviews when it comes to them believing what they want. And what’s worse is they are the ones decrying relativism, most-likely. But, of course, this has nothing to do with conservatism.
That is pure, undiluted, human stupidity. It is our humanity which often misleads us, not mere ideology. Our cognitive and behavioral imperfections (evidence against a loving all-powerful god, for sure) are the source of all bad ideas, whether religious or secular. It is the source of stupidity of all stripes. So whether you want to call out the dumb stoner hippies/new agers, Tea Baggers/truthers/fundamentalists, or the masses of uninformed American people watching reality TV and basically being the suck, I don’t blame any particular stupid ideology because I know that the same unskeptical methods lead to each.
This has been your cynical message of the day. Please go on with your lives as if nothing has happened.
That’s right, folks, not only do we have the right to be blasphemous, but there is a day set aside to have our fellow heathens (and those freedom loving believers who feel like blaspheming others’ ideas) express their inner blasphemer.
For those of you who don’t remember, or who were not paying attention way back in the early days of the atheist movement, it was September 30th 2005 when those now-famous cartoons were published in Denmark. You know, the ones that made all the Muslim leaders laugh and go on with their lives…or to protest their publication which led to violence and ultimately to more than a hundred dead. Same difference.
The fact is that many of the cartoons were not offensive at all. Most were not funny. But because some Muslims believed that the very attempt to try and depict Muhammad (the prophet guy, not just any Muhammad of which there are many tens of thousands).
The event brought lots of attention, world-wide, to this issue. The atheist community responded by many people stepping up and advocating for people to express their right to blaspheme whatever they want. There was PZ’s issue with a cracker, many campus organizations responded with chalk drawings of Muhammad or blasphemous messages of all kinds, and many individuals have, of course, stepped up in their own ways.
That's me!
And I, of course, will take part. I have one of my favorite shirts ready to wear tomorrow, and I inevitably will have people ask me if I’m Muslim…because people are stupid and ignorant. And while it may be too late for you to get your own shirt, I urge you to find a way to express yourself in some blasphemous way tomorrow. For example, one Halloween several years ago I dressed up as the crucified Christ, with wrist wounds and all, carrying a cross I had made around with me even to a Halloween party. I wish I had pictures of that. Perhaps I will have to re-create that wonderfulness in a Halloween to come.
That’s like in a month, right? Where do I have some wood….
Remember, blasphemy is a victimless crime. So if you feel bad about hurting someone’s feelings, just remember think “What would Shaun do” and then do it anyway…because people have no right to expect non-believers to follow any rules set by religious traditions. And if you are still caught up in this respect thing, remember that if you don’t actually believe a thing is true, right, wrong (or whatever) you don’t actually respect it. You may respect someone’s right to something, but that is not the same thing. So, celebrate the fact that you actually can blaspheme (assuming you are not in one of the many countries where you cannot) and express yourself.
Oh, I almost forgot about this song which persistently gets stuck in my head. Your welcome.
This is an old chestnut which I have cracked before, but I wanted to say a few words about the idea that a person’s personal relationship with some particular god is somehow not religious.
Most people in our culture believe in a god. Not only that, but the tradition from which most people get their idea of god tends to identify this supernatural being as having some relationship to Jesus; Jesus is the Son of God, is God, etc. So, when people in our culture start talking about god, you have a pretty safe bet they are talking about Jesus.
Which means they are talking about the Bible. Or, more specifically, some limited exposure to the collection of books which was put together by a group of people in the 4th century who had specific theological and political motives. And those motives allowed them to choose certain books and dismiss others for the theological content within. Those theological ideas became a religious tradition, or a set of traditions, we now call Christianity.
In other words, the idea of God that they have is not divorced from religion, it is wholly dependent upon it.
And yet, more than a few times (Hell, more than a few dozen times) I have heard people who “believe in Jesus” claim that their relationship with Jesus is not religion. The idea is ridiculous to me. But before I say precisely why, I want to clarify something related.
It is possible to have ideas about god and other supernatural things without being religious. That is, you can come up with an idea for god (some call this “revelation”) and believe it, and until you start collecting other followers and perhaps throwing in some rituals and so forth, you are nowhere near having a religion yet. You simply have an unwarranted belief, truly personal and possibly unique.
But is that how people find out about Jesus? Is there really anyone who has simply came up with the story of Jesus, or at least the essential highlights of it, without some connection to the long theological, historical, and religious tradition of that idea? No, there isn’t.
Have these people not gotten their idea of Jesus from a religious tradition? Of course they get it from that tradition. They may claim that they had some personal experience with some god or other supernatural force, but it is their relationship to that tradition which causes them to identify it as Jesus, the Holy Spirit etc rather than Allah or Vishnu.
That is why any person who has a personal relationship with Jesus is religious; they need the religious tradition to give context and focus to the experience they had, and the religious framework of some specific Christian theology formed their interpretation and understanding. If they merely had an experience and said to themselves something like the following:
“that was pretty wierd, I wonder what that was. It felt like something divine, but it never gave a name or anything”
then at that point they can at least have some basis for saying they have a relationship with something divine that is not religious.
However, very few people make this type of claim. In most cases, people pull out Jesus and all of the religious implications of that name when they have personal experiences and forget that they must justify doing so. Why have they identified their personal experiences, their personal relationship, as having anything to do with Jesus or any other specific god?
By not realizing this oversight, they make their personal experiences into religion without realizing it. If they just dealt with their personal experience on their own terms, and hopefully with a little skepticism, then the gap between it and the religious traditions of the world would be more apparent.
Since the discussion about the word “shallow” and such with my last post, I have had a couple of discussions with people about the pragmatism of bowing to popular connotations of words. Essentially, I’m being too literal and not understanding that some words simply have connotations that color them, I’m being told. Therefore, if I choose to ignore those popular connotations I will invite mis-communication.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
While I can point back to what a word really means, according to a dictionary or a philosophical tradition (for example), having a reasonable explanation for ignoring commonly used connotations of a word is not going to help when I inadvertently offend or confuse someone such that they ignore any more that I have to say out of annoyance. After all, as Wittgenstein said, it is the use of a term that really provides the context for meaning.
This problem of word connotation, use, and definition is actually a problem that atheists have in general, as the term “atheist” is (mis)understood by many to mean something other than how I and the vast majority of the atheist community uses it.
And because of the misunderstanding of this term in our culture (and the world), atheists have had to re-educate people to a different usage. That is, the common usage by many people was simply wrong. It didn’t matter that it came to mean Satan-worshiper, immoral heathen, or person who says there absolutely is no god. What mattered was that when actual atheists came out of the closet, they didn’t fit into these definitions. When the term is analyzed in context to the relevant philosophical questions, the use that makes sense is “lacks belief in any gods.” Connotations be damned!
Shaming and depth-evaluation
So, when Greta Christina started defending fashion (I know, I’m writing about it again!) as not being shallow (also not vain or trivial), she was defending it against the negative connotations of the word. She was shallow-shaming. She was not only saying that fashion is not shallow, but if it were, then it would probably be a bad thing. So when someone called her out on this, saying that fashion does seem to fit the criteria as being shallow, she reacted as if they had claimed that a thing she cared about was stupid, not deserving of attention, etc. But what was really happening was a re-evaluation of the term shallow, and our orientation towards how we think about having shallow interests.
Much of our culture and the daily lives we live are shallow. Further, much of it is primarily and overwhelmingly shallow. Many of us like our home sports team to win, the physical appearance of our lovers, and that our political candidates appear to be saying something important. The surface-level part of the majority of our existence is, well, superficial and quite distracting from what lies (clever pun intended) underneath .
But there is depth under those things, and many people appreciate that too. The relative level of how much we care about one or the other is the criteria, I believe, by which we should judge a person, and not whether they actually like anything that does not dig very deep at any point. Like fashion. I will not hold anyone to the standard of never being irrational, never liking anything primarily shallow, or generally not living up to whatever standards we impose upon them. So, appreciate fashion and baseball if you like, but stop pretending that these things are not shallow and trivial.
Standing up to Connotations
Connotations certainly shift word-usage over time. The question is to what extent it is legitimate to stop, once in a while, and say “wait, I think that the connotation which has built up around this word is philosophically problematic and has implications which you may not be aware of.” Or you might say something less complicated, if you are not me.
But at bottom it is sometimes useful to recognize that we may be demonizing a term (like “shallow” or “slut”), artificially heightening it (like “faith”), or even unnecessarily moderating it (like “accommodationist”). Sometimes the connotations of words are not valid, if considered carefully. Sometimes we need to step up and declare that the way our culture, or a segment of it, uses a word is simply problematic or wrong.
There is nothing inherently wrong with liking shallow pursuits, being a slut, or being an atheist. There is nothing inherently good about having faith, and we should not give that term the free pass it usually gets in our culture. And we should not consider accommodationists (those nice atheists who defend religion and apologize for us mean atheists) as being the wise, moderate, and fair critics they think of themselves as; sometimes a thing is just wrong, and there is nothing wrong with pointing that out.
So, yes, fashion is shallow and I’m pointing that out. Like fashion, do you? I don’t care, nor will I judge you as a bad person based solely on that fact. Only like things like fashion, weight lifting, pop music, sports, and interior design? Well….
I have avoided jumping in on the fray (parts one, two, and three) over at Greta Christina’s blog. The reason is that I generally do not care about fashion, and so I didn’t feel motivated enough to add my thoughts. The other reason is that another person I know, with whom I tend to agree on many things, already had jumped in.
I am one of those people who thinks that judging a person by what they wear, even if it is inevitable, is problematic and shallow. I think that there are things you can tell about a person by what they generally wear, and there is a very loose sort of language (I agree that body language is a better analogy than language per se) that comes along with clothing. I would like to see the role of fashion in our culture mitigated somewhat, but I don’t think it’s a problem that is damaging enough to spend significant time thinking about. As far as I remember, this is the first time I’ve ever written about this topic. It very well may be the last time as well.
So, when I first saw Greta Christina writing about it, I read the piece because she generally has good insight about things. I figured I would have something to learn. It was not one of her better pieces, in my opinion, but it didn’t bother me too much and simply put it out of mind. And then the second one came around, and I realized I had missed some interesting conversation in the comments, which I initially ignored out of lack of interest. After having gone back and read the comments and the subsequent posts with their comments, I found myself a little disappointed, honestly, that Greta became so offended and affected by what some people said. Considering her directness and highly critical comments on religion (which I tend to agree with and like), I would have expected her to have a thicker skin. I think that her taking offense at someone demonstrating why fashion is shallow, vain, and trivial is, frankly, irrational and misses the point he was trying to make.
(full disclosure, “Wes” is someone I know personally, and is, in fact, my fiance’s boyfriend).
So, using these posts and subsequent comments as a springboard, I wanted to make a point or two about words like “shallow,” a point that I believe resonates with what Wes was trying to say over at Greta’s and which was misunderstood by Greta Christina and generally missed by people in our culture. And it is simply this; being shallow is not a bad thing in itself. We all have shallow interests, and “owning” this is a part of being adults. The truth is important, even if that truth points to shallow aspects of ourselves.
We are shallow about all sorts of things. My like of hockey is shallow. My care about if my hair looks nice today is shallow. When I do actually make an effort to wear nicer clothes, I am being shallow in doing so. And there is nothing wrong with any of that, so long as I am aware that it is less important than other aspects of my personality and that I don’t pretend that it isn’t true. Now, if I were to spend inordinate amounts of time worrying about these things, especially to the detriment of more profound things (such as improving my emotional maturity, being a virtuous person, etc), then there would be a problem. I cannot spend all of my time in self-improvement and dealing with weighty philosophical, political, and cultural issues. Sometimes I have to play a video game, get a hair cut, or buy a new pair of shoes. These are things that should not matter as much as dealing with poverty, maintaining relationships, or trying to educate people about the inherent dangers of faith and anti-intellectualism (which may be somewhat trivial, in relation to some other things), but they do matter a little. The fact that they matter less, that they have less depth of meaning in our lives, does not strip them of meaning completely.
They are just relatively shallow.
Now, many may respond saying that the word “shallow” has a different connotation than this use. That referring to something as “shallow” is not merely saying the trivial thing that it is not particularly important or deep in comparison to other things. It is really a dig, an insult, and should not be tolerated in a civil conversation. But I think that this is too simplistic. I, for example, do not think that Greta Christina is a shallow person. Her thoughts and efforts in the skeptical and atheist community have demonstrated that she is a person of great breadth and depth, and I have held her in very high esteem for her writing and observations on culture, religion, etc. She was, in fact, the very first blogger I remember recommending to my fiance, and I have read her blog consistently for about 2 years now.
Her interest in fashion, however, is an exception to this rule. It is a shallow and human thing that fills her out as a rounded person, and if she claimed to have no such interests I’d assume she was lying. Because she’s human. I don’t fault her for having this interest, nor do I think I should. It is obviously something she cares about, and it is one of many interests that she has which fills her out as a person, most of which is deep, considered, and important. Hell, even her discussion of fashion is deeper than other conversations of fashion I have heard before.
I think that Greta, as well as many other people in our culture, need to take a second look at the word “shallow” and see if it really is an insult. The same goes for “trivial” and “vain.” These terms are not all bad, and in fact may not be bad at all.
Take, for example, the word “slut.” In most of our culture, the word “slut” has a negative connotation. It is an insult for most people, especially women. But I, as well as many women I know, use the word as a positive one. I proudly identify as a slut, and prefer to date sluts. Why? Because the insult of the term is predicated upon being sexually promiscuous and not ashamed of it as a bad thing. If what the word “slut” refers to are not actually bad, then the term is not bad. Similarly, “shallow” is considered an insult because it is assumed that to be interested in things without intellectual or cultural depth is a flaw. But what is overlooked here is that what is bad (if anything is bad here) is a person who is predominantly or solely interested in shallow pursuits, not merely having any shallow pursuits. Pointing out that an interest, like fashion, that someone has as being shallow is not an insult per se. It is not an indictment of the whole person.
Now, whether a person is interested in predominantly shallow things is bad or not is a question that I will not tackle here. I think it is a character flaw, but whether it’s bad…that’s a conversation I’m willing to have.
But for now, I am satisfied having addressed these points..
Now, I’m no lawyer, but I have some thoughts, Any lawyers who come upon this are free to slice and dice the argument as they like. This will, of course, be a brief sketch of the idea, not a comprehensive argument.
Marriage and family
Now, those who think about marriage rights in the United States, as well as many other Western nations, have had to deal with the question of gay marriage in recent years. And while I know some atheists who oppose gay marriage, it is my opinion that their opposition to such things are ultimately based upon cultural values and traditions which are carried to us on the back of religious doctrines and tradition. That is, while homophobia, discrimination, etc are natural human phenomena which are merely magnified and perpetuated by the many kinds of religious institutions, it is primarily religion that is the social basis for opposition to equal marriage rights. There simply is no coherent argument against gay marriage. Religious arguments, while still not coherent when seen from the outside, are at least more internally consistent.
The so-called definition of marriage is deeply problematic, and not challenged often enough. The idea that it is only marriage when institutions, both civil and religious, wed one man and one woman, is not particularly traditional or universal. The history of marriage, which is too complicated to summarize effectively here, is one based upon property relationships. Contained within but also found outside of the traditional religious scriptures of many faiths is the idea that a wife is property, and the idea that marriage is a union of two people whom love one-another and both enter into willingly is a relatively modern idea. The idea of the nuclear family, with (stay-at-home) mother, (bread-winning) father, and children (and possibly grandma or an uncle or aunt being around) is an idealized picture that is not more than a hundred years old. Sure, families may have looked that way previous to that, but it was not the definition of family until more recently.
The bottom line is the traditionally conservative definition of marriage, and therefore of family, is not actually traditional. It is a conservative notion, for sure, but it seeks to conserve an idea which is younger than the airplane or the automobile. In a world that moves and thinks faster, where innovation is the bedrock of many economies, it is absurd that we should expect cultural and personal ideas not to change. Marriage has already changed from a hierarchical property relationship to one between consenting equals, and it will continue to change as we learn more about ourselves and what we are capable of.
But change into what? Into whatever consenting, mature, and responsible adults want it to change into. We are, after all, the arbiters of our own culture. We bow to no universal definitions or standards. Or, at least, we shouldn’t.
Religious discrimination
Descrimination is not allowed under the law in Western “Democracies” (I’m not getting into that today…). In the United States, Title VII protects people from “discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin,” and many other nations have similar types of laws. Now, this may not seem like a way to argue about marriage (and perhaps it is not, ultimately) but allow me to present an argument. Similar or very different arguments might have to be levied in the legal whirlwind of other nations, but I’m an American, so I’ll pretend no other places exist for a little while, as is our way.
Let’s say, hypothetically, that a religious institution would start marrying homosexuals in the United States. And, let’s say, this church wanted to do so throughout the united states, even in states that don’t recognize or allow gay marriage. And, let’s say, the church proclaims that this act is part of their religious doctrine. Now, despite the fact that Christian, Jewish, Mormon, and Islamic texts say otherwise, there are other religious institutions that could, hypothetically, do so without this contradiction. Hindus, for example (As far as I can remember) don’t have the same problem with homosexuality. And what about the Shinto? Ah, how we always forget about them, don’t we? But it does not matter what religious group steps forward to do this, because the first amendment protects all religious views.
Wouldn’t these acts and doctrines, by whatever religious group that decides to act in such a way, be a challenge to the state not recognizing gay marriage? In the face of such an act, the state and/or federal government not allowing these marriages to be recognized equally with a Catholic, Jewish, or Hindu marriage seems to be religious discrimination issue. Would a religious institution who had, as part of their beliefs, the idea that anyone should be free to marry anyone, be discriminated against if they tried to do so?
Now, I know how I would respond to this. I would say that there is a distinction between what a church does within it’s doors and what the state is compelled to recognize. That is, the Temple of Holy Perversity can marry Adam and Steve, Lilith and Eve, or (perhaps) Adam, Steve and Eve, but that does not compel the state to recognize this union legally, with all the rights and privileges that come with it. That is, the marriage could be a religious one, but not a civil one. A person who took this road might argue, as some do, that marriage is a religious institution and whatever legal rights “married” people get now is really a civil union we call ‘marriage’ for the sake of simplicity and tradition. They might argue that the state should only recognize civil unions, and not any marriage that a religion can conceive of. Many people seem to be moving in this direction, although it contains seeds of further problems associated with discrimination.
Why, for example, should the government recognize the civil union of Billy and Barbara while rejecting Bobby and Mike? On what basis does it accept one type of civil union and not another? Tradition? Is this traditional distinction not based upon a biased practiced which has been perpetuated by religious bigotry and centuries of discrimination against homosexuality? Would accepting this traditional idea, carried to us by religion, not a way to respect one set of religious traditions over ones that might not accept those traditions? In short, isn’t the civil union compromise merely a way to shovel off the question of discrimination and religious preferential treatment one step further down the line?
It also seems to me (and my legal understanding of the issue gets fuzzy here) that the term “marriage” not only is not a mere religious term (because religion has usurped the idea, much like it has done to morality), but that to allow one type of union between people to have automatic civil rights and benefits while denying it to others seems to be an inequality that is not only unfair, but possibly illegal. For the states or the federal government to recognize one type of union while not another, especially if where that line lays just [sarcasm]happens [/sarcasm] to overwhelmingly coincide with the lines between religious opinions in our culture, seems a little like discrimination based upon religion to me.
I’m going to start my own religion
Now, since it is unlikely that any established church or religious institution is going to take this step, even though many specific congregations are in favor of gay marriage, we might have to start our own. And of course, since I’m an atheist, it might not be me. Or maybe not. Humanism, for example, is recognized as a religion, legally, according to some precedent. And while many atheists, including myself, are not particularly comfortable with having atheism recognized as a religion (because it’s not a religion), I will admit that in the legal sense there is meaning to talking about it as if it were. This is not a double-standard, because the point of the law against discrimination, as I understand it, is to protect people from discrimination based on whatever religious position they take, not what religion they adhere to. So while atheism is not a religion, it is protected in the same way as any religion would be.
So, could Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism, or any sect thereof be the group that takes this step? Sure. And if this group starts performing ceremonies which marry two men, two women, or groups of people and these people who have all decided, as adults of their own free will, to enter into this arrangement, then does the state have to recognize it? Perhaps not, but what happens when these people start losing their jobs as a result of it. Can’t they point to their religious group, who not only blessed the union but performed it as part of their religious beliefs, and say that there are being discriminated based upon their religion?
And couldn’t they also point to the traditional religious groups, point to the fact that those who attend and marry in those mainstream places of worship don’t face this discrimination, and say that’s not fair! That’s discrimination! and be right?
Not only morally, but legally?
That’s my question.
It is a question that has implications for not only gay marriage, but polyamorous marriage. And while much of the LGBTQ community does not want to address the larger polyamory issue when it comes to marriage (a political decision, of course), I believe that it is a question that my generation will see come to more public exposure in my lifetime. Will we solve it? Well, these things change slowly, but if the polyamory community can get itself into the public sphere the way atheists did over the last 10 years, we might be able to make some headway.
Some years ago, when I decided I wanted to live a polyamorous lifestyle, I discovered a local meetup groupand started to attend meetings, met some people (including a lover or two), and learned a lot. That group still exists. I don’t go to meetings anymore for a few reasons, but I will not dwell on that right now.
Instead, I want to talk about how I have become part of a small group of people who are predominantly polyamorous (and therefore there are many interlinking connections both sexual and non-sexual) who are young, intelligent, fun, and includes many atheists.
That is to say, not exactly like my experience elsewhere. Yes, they were fun, and I met people with insightful and useful things to teach me, but the general age gap was noticeable (younger people tended to come, but not to be repeat attenders), and the predominance of non-atheists was somewhat annoying.
So, how did I land among such people? Well, some luck and some causation related to he fact hat my fiance is not only a sexy, sexy lady but also quite intelligent, personable, and therefore a means towards making friend with people who like that sort of thing. And of course they know people.
So, whether it is Thursday night karaoke, the Philly Fringe festival, or Sunday night football (not my thing, but it draws people together for non-football conversations, food, and so forth), I have found myself hanging out with pretty awesome people who are poly or poly-friendly. It is a wonderful way to live, and I feel a slight twinge of pity for those normal monotonous monogamous people out there who are missing out on all the fun.
Oh well, I’m sure they are having fun too. So long as everyone is happy, right? I guess.
Well, here’s to living a full life with awesome people! Philadelphia and the surrounding area certainly has polyamorous people enjoying their lives of all ages, with different interests, and with different goals. And while there are certainly some poly people who are really bad at it, who perhaps are not mature enough to do it right, or who are using it as an excuse to act poorly in relationships which are not very transparent, honest, or healthy, I hope these are the exceptions.
So thank you, everyone, for being so awesome. You know who you are.
Skepticism, Properly Applied 