Atheist ads offensive?

This news article was hidden deep in yesterday morning’s paper. It talks about the upbeat Atheist advertisements that are being posted on over 800 London busses. They read “There’s probably no god, so stop worrying and enjoy your life”.

I think it’s wonderful. The woman who started it, Ariane Sherine, said she decided to after seeing a religious ad on a bus warning people that they were going to burn in hell.

What I think is really funny is how some people don’t like the ads, saying “they’re in your face”, as one LA tourist put it. In your face? So it’s ok for religious groups to advertise how you’re a horrible wreck that’s going to burn for eternity, but the moment some Atheists say “relax and enjoy life” it’s in your face?

I just think it’s so hypocritical that people who espouse a belief in free speech are fine with religious ads, especially if they are ads of their own religion, but the moment somebody else puts up an ad that’s contrary to their views it becomes offensive.

I’d like to put in a little quote here that I think is fitting.

‘If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.’ ~Noam Chomsky.

Atheist anger and the strategy for taking over the world

I had an epiphany of sorts while lying in bed this morning: I’m never going to win by being angry all the time, and trying to reason with fundamentalists is pointless… This is something that is going to take a while for me to grasp since I’ve been so angry for so long. I feel my anger has alienated friends, and worst of all caused some tensions with my significant other…

But what can I say? I have good reasons to be angry. I’m viewed as immoral by a good chunk of the religious populous, I’m barred from holding office in five states, some view Atheists as not citizens, the religious have a powerful lobby with which they influence our government, an evangelical christian has been president for the past 8 years, religious terrorism and genocide happens all the time around the world, the list goes on and on….

So what is my goal as an Atheist? What would my dream world be? Well for one, there wouldn’t be any religion to drive people mad. Thinking about this, I came to a second epiphany of sorts: the deconversion of the world will take a long time. It’s a slow process, we’re winning, but it’s slow. In the mean time, my abrasive attitude is not helping win people to my side.

I think my anger has a lot to do with how I deconverted. After slowly ebbing away from being a born again evangelical I watched “Root of all evil?” by Richard Dawkins. He was angry too, and his reasons for being angry became my reasons, on top of all the baggage that comes with being an ex-evangelical. (I’ve noticed that my friends who weren’t raised in a strict faith are on the whole a LOT less angry than those who were) I suddenly found myself alone on campus in one of the most religious towns in the southern bible belt. I felt isolated and cornered. (I feel much better now with the help of online communities like Atheist Nexus and the Rational Response Squad)

With all this in mind, what should I do? Well, for one, I think I need to chill out. Most of my energy is spent in shouting matches with fundamentalist loonies. I need to stop this as it is a waste of time. No amount of evidence or reason will ever persuade these people. Instead I should focus on religious moderates.

In focusing on religious moderates, I should emphasise the positives of Atheism and be friendly. I have to work on the public image of Atheists and try to de-stigmatize the word. I also have to readjust my goals.  The world will never be completely free from religion. I need to accept this. I think changing my goals to “Minimal religious interference in government” is much more attainable.

People are going to be religious. My trying to eradicate that is just as bad as fundamentalists trying to shove their views down my throat. I can still think their beliefs are ridiculous, but what they think in their own homes or places of worship is their business, not mine. I don’t need to get stressed out and angry over that. Just as long as they stay out of the public government.

It’s going to take some time for me to get over the constant anger, the immediate feelings of loathing when I even hear the word religion. It’s going to take a while for me to get good at focusing on the positive and ignoring the fundies. Perhaps, in time, I might even go to my girlfriend’s Unitarian Universalist church.

No, anime swordsmanship stuff is bull….

After watching some anime stuff with my friends, I just couldn’t stand listening to all the Japanese swordsmanship bull that gets spewed….Allow me to let of some medieval European steam…All this “well I use (insert obscure important sounding fighting style here)!” and “This sword has special powers!” crap is driving me nuts. People are absolutely crazy for samurai stuff. This brings up the age old geek debate “Which is better? A knight or a Samurai?” Let me preface this by saying that this debate is fundamentally absurd; a knight of the 15th century would never run into a Samurai of the 14th. And then there is the fact that in hand to hand combat, it’s not the weapons or the armor, it’s the skill of the fighter.

That noted, assume in some nonexistent plane a knight at the peak of medieval weapon and armor development (right before gunpowder made them obsolete) meet at samurai at their peak, and that they were both equally good fighters. Contrary to what many of my Japanese obsessed friends think, the knight would totally kick the Samurai’s ass.

Look at the equipment. The knight, in full plate armor, would be covered head to toe in steel, with chainmaile covering any gaps, and then an arming doublet of some kind under it. The samurai would have on his bamboo and cloth armor with little bits of metal here and there. Bamboo and cloth…. Many people who have no experience with plate armor try to make the claim “well, the knight is slower and can’t move as well as the samurai.” Bullshit. You can move very well in full plate. I KNOW. And yes, if you get pushed over you can hop right back up. (Well, maybe not some of my older living history friends ~_^)

As for the swords, the longsword is far superior to the katana. The knight has a better striking range than the samurai, and the big advantage of TWO edges to the sword. The katana only has one edge. With the two edges, the knight has a whole range of cuts he can preform that the samurai cannot. After a swing in one direction, to cut back the same way, the samurai must rotate his sword around and swing again, the knight can just cut straight back, no rotating required.

The katana also doesn’t have a substantial guard (the cross piece where the blade meets the hilt). There is almost nothing to keep the knight’s sword from sliding down the blade onto the samurai’s hands. The knight however has a nice big guard which he can use to catch and block the samurai’s cuts. The samurai also doesn’t have a pommel with witch to utilize the back of the sword, the knight does, which means he can whip the sword around and bash the samurai in the face if they closed.

The katana also has no chance of cutting through the knight’s armor. I don’t care how sharp it is, in real life it can’t cut through steel. The thrusting point is also inferior to that of a longsword’s, which could easily pierce through bamboo and cloth. Again, this whole debate is absurd however since the two developed in different cultures and the samurai’s weapons were not designed to come up against something like a knight in full plate.

Furthermore, it drives me nuts how they practically worship the sword. It’s a piece of steel. Hunks of atoms assembled (assembled masterfully albeit) , and there is nothing “magical” about it. There is also no magical ancient spirit that protects the fighters or enhances their attacks. (WWII proved that)  It just drives me nuts how my friends just gobbled down this BS. Maybe they are just better at suspending disbelief….

Are atheists fringe people?

I think a common misconception people have about Atheists is that they are fringe people, or extremists. Not necessarily extremists in the sense of living in caves and preforming ancient rituals, but in the sense that they are really far off from what’s “normal” or the “center”.  To try and illustrate this spacial concept, here’s a chart of how I think most people perceive Atheists:

While it’s true 81.4% of Americans say they belong to a religion, at the same time 18.6% say they don’t. CIA Factbook To put that in visual perspective for you, there are more people in this country who officially say they don’t belong to a religion than there are Blacks, Asians, and Native Americans combined. The number is probably much higher considering many Atheists are in the closet for fear of the social stigma that comes with the title.

In reality, is Atheism that far from the center? Well, no, it’s just the other answer to the question “Does god exist?” It’s simple really. Yes or No. Something exists or it doesn’t.  Neither side of an answer is extreme. Yes, you can have extremists on either end of an answer, and from their perspective their polar opposite might look extreme, but not everybody who is in that camp is. Here is another little chart to show how it really is:

(Yes, there are more religions one could believe in than there are bars, but I think you get the idea)

Where do I stand? Well I’m a strong Atheist, but that’s another post all together. ~_^

tRUTH BROKE ITS CAPS LOCK KEY, and the religiosity of Spell Check

First, let my point out that yes, I know you capitalize proper names.

That being said, why do christians constantly write “TRUTH!!!1”, “WORD!!!1”, and “LORD!!1” in all caps? Do they honestly think it makes their argument stronger? That I going to be like “Whoa! It’s in all caps! He must be right!” ? Putting something in caps is equivalent to shouting, and shouting “it’s the TRUTH!!!!1” at me isn’t going to make me suddenly give up logic, reason, science, and evidence and adopt your views.

I’ve also noticed that spell check is biased against atheists. (Yes, this is paranoia, but I mean it in a lighthearted fun way)

For example, it tries to correct me if I spell “christians” in the lower case. Proper noun, fair enough. (I don’t just because it’s my little way getting back at religion in this extremely religious society, and it’s a release valve of sorts. I know it’s stupid, but it makes me feel better, and in this society every bit helps.) But on the same token it doesn’t correct me if I spell “Atheists” with a lowercase “a.” Hmmmm, jesuit conspiracy? (jk)

Also, I know “god” is always capitalized when christians talk about their imaginary friend, but I get the feeling that there is a subtle secondary meaning to capitalizing “god”, and the respective pronouns. I feel that they don’t do it just because it’s a proper name, rather they do it out of deference. And further, their anger at you not capitalizing it is not because they’re grammar Nazis, but rather they want you to show deference to their invisible sky daddy too.  I feel this is the same reason they don’t feel a pang when writing “the god Zeus” or “the goddess Athena.” They couldn’t care less if they lower cased other religions. They’re so positive theirs is the right one, not showing deference to those deities is not a problem.

On second thought, they could be capitalizing “TRUTH” as a tribute to Jack Nicholson….

The idea of the soulmate is ridiculous

This is not about atheism as much as my other posts, but it does have a connection.  There is no evidence for the existence of the soul. Yes, we have consciousness, but that is explainable via neurons firing in the brain, and everyday science comes closer to better understanding that organ.

So since we don’t have “souls”, i.e. magical separate entities created at the time of our birth, we don’t have “soul mates” either. I’m not saying there isn’t a person out there that you can feel an extremely close connection to, it’s obvious that there is, but what there isn’t is one person that a magical higher power has designated as your “other half”.

It’s extremely romantic, but upon closer inspection is absurd. I’d imagine when most westerners think of their soulmate, they abstractly think of them somewhere in the western world, yet all one has to do to see that this concept is absurd is to look outside the western world.

China is a perfect example of why not everyone has a soulmate. China is facing a demographic crisis. Their “one child policy” implemented in the 1980s has led to the abortion and mistreatment of millions of women.

By 2012 China will have about 40 to 60 MILLION more men than women. source This proves that there is not a single “soulmate” for every person on the planet. That is, unless you want to make the unwarranted claim that happy endings only exist for western couples….

Fear of atheism

One of the things I think stands in the way of atheism is people’s fear of it, fear of the implications. I know from personal experience that this was one of the things that kept me in the christian faith for as long as I was.

I was having atheistic thoughts a few years before I eventually shed my faith, yet I was scared of these thoughts. I remember lying in bed at night thinking there might not be a god, but I wouldn’t want to live in a world like that. It would be so……boring……. No spirits? No dark forces of the devil to combat as  a holy soldier for christ? No magic? It just didn’t seem like any fun without that stuff. Later I realized that I was just holding on to wishful thinking instead of facts, but the idea where this is all there is, nothing but math & science (and I hate math) to explain everything just didn’t appeal to me.I was afraid of the implications of atheism, boredom.

There was another implication, however, that scared me more than the fear of boredom. It was: if there is no god then all the religious wars in history, all the martyrs for every religion, all the sacrifices in time, money, effort, and lives, everything was for nothing. I think fear of this realization is something very powerful that keeps people away from atheism. It’s just so horrible you don’t want it to be true.

The historical implications alone are mind blowing. The crusades, for nothing, the inquisition, for nothing, the European religious wars, for nothing, the destruction of Incan and African cultures, for nothing, religious and ethnic “cleansing”, for nothing, terrorist attacks, for nothing, just to name a few things in Western history alone in the past few centuries.

The present day implications are also not too pleasant. How many hours each year do people spend in church? How much money is spent funding a church, or new construction when the money is badly needed elsewhere? I have an uncle who has gone through several stints of unemployment, and yet he still tithes 10% of whatever he makes to the church. It’s all for nothing and he’s throwing away 10% of desperately needed money that could go to help feed and house his family.

I had to cope with problems like these before and shortly after I deconverted. When I finally accepted reality, my fear that everything might be being wasted for nothing soon gave way to rage. I wanted to stop the waste. I wanted people to start using their resources to better their lives here and now. So much time and effort is squandered on what might be when we’re dead that nothing is done to help alleviate the suffering of here and now.

As for the boredom, well when I started to look into scientific explanations for things more closely, this gave way to excitement and awe. They always say truth is stranger than fiction, and the real ways things come about is so interesting. Before I was limited to only thinking about this planet as all there was, but in reality, through science, we have the entire universe to explore! There is so much cool science out there that you can’t possibly be bored. As for fighting demons and what not, well, Diablo III should release sometime this year…hopefully. ~_^

What some christians and atheists have in common

I wanted to take a short time out as my first post of 2009 to say that there is something some of us have in common, despite extreme religious differences. Although I might sound like I believe religion is pure evil, I know not all of it is.

One of the often preached topics in religion is that of charity, and trying to help your fellow human beings. Many ignore this, but for the few who actually do try to lend a hand, be it at a soup kitchen, building a school in South America, or giving to poor I salute you.

As a humanist my goal is to help see humanity uplifted, suffering decreased, and the standard of living improved.  That’s something that isn’t going to happen over night, and we need all the help we can get.

While we both might think each other is wrong, we can put that on hold to achieve a common goal. Just as long as nobody tries to restrict access to information and all types of health care to the needy. ~_^

Happy New year and best wishes

–GP