For those of you who don’t follow the skeptic movement (yes, there is such a thing) it’s basically a group of people who are fans of critical thinking, science-advocates, and debunkers of “woo.” Woo being magical thinking in general, and things like homeopathy, ghosts, bigfoot, astrology, psychics, vaccine denial, moon hoaxers, conspiracy theorists, some forms of religion and so on ad infinitum. And this group has a loose organizational structure, and meets and gathers in forums, and has conventions and leaders. So, that’s the background there.
Recently, within that group, there was a minor stir when Phil Plait, former President of the James Randi Educational Foundation, made a little speech about the tone of skeptical arguments. His message, as he often sums it up, was simply “don’t be a dick.” It’s a catchphrase he borrowed from internet maven, Wil Wheaton. He is “concerned” that skeptics are engaging in “childish, demeaning behavior” and “taking the low road.” He’s afraid that people are being aggressive, and calling people “retards” and “idiots.” He’s playing the role of the tone police, for lack of a better term.Continue reading »
Recently in one of my online “discussions” (read “arguments”), I was in a heated debate with another heathen unbeliever about what a Christian is. He was, I think, being rather generous in describing Christian beliefs, and stated that most Christians don’t actually believe the key tenets of their faith. He instead asserted that most had a more liberal deistic belief, and that they called themselves “Christian” mostly out of tradition. Needless to say, I’m intrigued to see if this is the case.
CLICK FOR SURVEY
To that end, I’ve developed a simple survey to measure Christian beliefs. If you consider yourself a Christian, please respond as honestly as possible about what religious statements in the survey you believe to be literally true. Note that when I say “literally,” I mean that a statement like “angels exist” really and truly means that there are ethereal entities called “angels” that work as agents of a supreme being and interact with humanity on his behalf, not that sometimes people do angelic things and they are metaphorical “angels” doing the work of a higher power. You dig?
So have at it, and please answer honestly with the literal interpretation in your mind. Feel free to pass the link on to any of your Christian friends. This is for any denomination that considers itself Christian. So, if you would ever self-identify as a Christian (were someone to ask you if you were one) then this survey is for you. I will share the survey results in a blog entry once I get the preset number of respondents (which may be a long while, at the rate my blog is viewed). Looking forward to your answers!
In a spectacular display of bigotry, Illinois Rep. Monique Davis attacked Atheist Activist Rob Sherman as he testified before the House State Government Administration Committee in Springfield last Wednesday. To paraphrase, she told him that he was a horrible person who had no right to be there and that he should “get out of that seat.” You can read the article about it in the Chicago Tribune here.
I’m glad to see this is getting some national news coverage, since it looked at first like it was going to be ignored. I emailed the American Atheists and Keith Olbermann about it on Monday, because they hadn’t covered it at all and it seemed they should be the front lines of the push for national coverage on something like this. The American Atheists were nice enough to respond that they had seen it, and sure enough, they covered it in their blog. Keith Olbermann and MSNBC didn’t respond, but they definitely did it justice by covering it appropriately. [EDIT as of 3/24/10] Looks like Olbermann’s segment has been removed from YouTube, probably for rights reasons. I’ve replaced it with a video featuring the audio clip of Davis’ bigoted tirade:
This whole exchange was so misguided, I’m glad that others are as incensed about it as I am. Here’s the text of the entire rant, which is fortunately on public record:
Davis: I don’t know what you have against God, but some of us don’t have much against him. We look forward to him and his blessings. And it’s really a tragedy -it’s tragic- when a person who is engaged in anything related to God, they want to fight. They want to fight prayer in school.
I don’t see you (Sherman) fighting guns in school. You know?
I’m trying to understand the philosophy that you want to spread in the state of Illinois. This is the Land of Lincoln. This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God, where people believe in protecting their children.… What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous, it’s dangerous–
Sherman: What’s dangerous, ma’am?
Davis: It’s dangerous to the progression of this state. And it’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! Now you will go to court to fight kids to have the opportunity to be quiet for a minute. But damn if you’ll go to [court] to fight for them to keep guns out of their hands. I am fed up! Get out of that seat!
Sherman: Thank you for sharing your perspective with me, and I’m sure that if this matter does go to court—
Davis:You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon.
Truly amazing. Fortunately for Davis, she didn’t say these words to a Muslim, Buddhist or Hindu. Attacking a religion with hate like this would no doubt have the whole world up in arms. But attack an Atheist and you’re lucky if it makes the papers! Oh, in case you were wondering, the hearing was concerning a controversial million dollar government grant for Pilgrim Baptist Church.
A long, long time ago, I was a God. Yes, it’s true. I was the God of the chipmunks. My college years, while educational, were mostly wasted, but that doesn’t mean nothing can be learned from them. I recently heard a scientific reason for the random credulity of my friends in school.
So, basically what happened was this: I began noticing that chipmunks were omnipresent around me in school. They often appeared randomly outside my window as I worked diligently on papers. They would run suddenly across my path as I walked around campus. Sometimes they would even stop directly in front of me, in a worshipful reverence. The conclusion, I was acting God to the chipmunk community on my college campus. As I revealed this hypothesis to my friends, they too began to notice this extraordinary phenomenon! What a revelation!
So the question becomes, what powerful effect could bring a group of educated people to believe something so whacked? The answer, I recently found, is something called “confirmation bias.” Ta daa! Okay, so confirmation bias is a very common psychological effect that basically results in people looking for data to support a pre-established conclusion. In this case, the conclusion was that I was God to the chipmunks, and people would find evidence for that and use it to support the hypothesis. So, with that hypothesis in mind, every chipmunk sighting was carefully catalogued into peoples’ memories, as long as I was around, and events involving chipmunks without my presence were forgotten. The result is that people began to notice those events, and mistakenly catalogue them as evidence of my deification.
Okay, so my friends might not have been as credulous as I’m leading you to believe here, but I’m making a point about the way people record memories and use them to support beliefs. This in turn can be linked to hundreds of real world phenomena, and can explain how people come to believe strange things. The point? I’m not a chipmunk God (go figure) and chipmunk experiences declined rapidly in conjunction with my subsequent move to heavily urbanized New York City. Perhaps the chipmunks were appearing for other reasons, and my own bias led me to my fallacious conclusions. Or, maybe the chipmunks still worship me from afar, thinking I will return someday (a second coming, if you will) to lead them to the great acorn in the sky.
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