Attempts@Rational Behavior Is Good For Your Health

attempts-at-rational-behaviorI often have a sore neck. The Doc says I need to do more neck exercises so I’m visiting Attempts at Rational Behavior more than I used to. What does AARB do? They provide highlights of the weird shit religious people say on Twitter (and elsewhere, but mostly on Twitter).

The incredulous “no, no no” side-to-side shaking of my head is going to do wonders for my neck – I just know it.

November 30, 2009 · Filed Under Atheism, links

3 Comments 

Does Religious Faith Instill Hatred & Distrust of Science?

I have a friend who I’m finding myself disagreeing with more and more lately. This person is intelligent and generally makes a lot of sense – even when we have ideological disagreements (such as on political matters).

sciencevtruth

But lately, the disagreements have baffled and troubled me as I’ve put pieces of the puzzle together to realize how amazingly anti-science he is. Examples:

  1. Climate Warming: He continually quotes out of date research and the ramblings of “scientists” with iffy (at best) credentials who claim that climate warming is a hoax.
  2. Evolution: I am not exaggerating much when I say he sounds like a Ray Comfort clone. “Evolution is not a science because it’s not repeatable or observable” and “Evolution takes faith” have escaped his lips on more than one occasion.

And, in addition to those two specific examples, I’ve also heard him call science “scientism” and say that  “science is a religion”.

However, because the conversations have been widely spread apart (months at times), and because he is elusive about his beliefs, I was never able to make sense of him …until recently.

I was listening to an episode of The Skeptics Guide to the Universe when one of the hosts made the statement that, when science conflicts with a person’s ideologies, that person will often reject the science. Then, he went on to say that the most prevalent cases of these rejections flow from conflicts between science and religion.

Suddenly, two years of discussions with my friend came into clear focus…

  1. He has conservative leanings.
  2. He’s a climate warming denier.
  3. He’s anti-evolution.
  4. He’s made statements about people and even countries being punished by God for their wrongdoings.

All of these things paint a picture that we tend to ascribe to conservative Christians. Here are two of the consistencies expanded a bit to help illustrate the point I’m making:

  1. Global Warming: It’s very common for conservative Christians to deny that we humans are having any appreciable effect on the planet’s temperature. This comes partly from the biblically inspired belief that it would be arrogant to think humans could have that much of an impact on God’s creation. It also comes from the connection to the end-times prophecy that – even if we were impacting the earth’s temperature, it is just part of God’s plan to bring on the rapture. In other words, bring on the destruction of the earth – because the worthy won’t be here to live on it anyway. This sort of thinking is exactly why non-believers feared George Bush being at the helm of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal.
  2. Evolution: Most of the world’s Christians have no issue with the theory of evolution via Natural Selection (e.g. Catholics & Anglicans are a-ok with it). Indeed, there are other religions (e.g. Hinduism) that also accept it as the explanation for the diversity of life on earth. Not so with the conservative Christian crowd. For them, evolution – especially human evolution – is an attack on the belief that God created man in his image. Humans did not come into exist by a “chance” sequence of events over billions of years – we are here according to divine plan. Humans are not simply the most intelligent of millions of species – we were created to preside over the earth and everything within it. To conservatives, evolution undermines faith – plain and simple.

The bottom line is that science opposes the conservative Christian world view – and that of my friend’s – in multiple and significant ways.

When this happens, a serious case of cognitive dissonance tends to set in. The two opposing ideas of science and religion simply cannot occupy the same space so the brain attempts to solve the problem. Unfortunately, science often loses to faith because the latter is such a hugely emotional thing (it’s tough for a scientific explanation to compete with the promise of eternal life).

One of the tricks the mind plays on itself to support its emotional choice is confirmation bias – it finds support for its viewpoint, while ignoring or downplaying contrary information. Remember my colleague’s reliance on outdated information and unqualified climate science “experts”? Yup, a perfect example.

Like millions of other conservative Christians, my friend has solved his dissonance by rejecting science.

The irony for the conservative faithful, is that they live in a society that is utterly dependent on science for virtually every aspect of the the lifestyle we’re accustomed to in 21st century North America. I imagine this irony is not entirely lost on them, and it must be difficult to keep the cognitive dissonance at bay. After all, they would find their views in opposition not only with secularists, but also with most other Christians.

I’m not interested in destroying anyone’s faith but, as a humanist, I also do not want anyone to suffer. Therefore, if you are a person who’s troubled by the collision between your faith and science, my advice to you is this…

You don’t necessarily have to abandon your belief in God to accept what science has to offer. All you have to do is adjust your faith. Not every Christian believes every word of their faith so why should you? It’s worth mentioning that there are many varieties of Christian faith that do not clash violently with science. It’s also worth mentioning that the Christian faith has been evolving for over 2000 years, so any adjustment you might make to your faith would be done in good company.

November 30, 2009 · Filed Under Atheism, finding meaning, understanding

14 Comments 

Oprah Woo-Woo Is About To Grow Exponentially

homepage_header_oprah_166x145Well, the Queen of Talk has announced that she’ll be retiring her long-standing talk show. Seems reasonable. After all, she’s worked tirelessly on building her empire for almost 25 years and probably could use some down time. But …hang on just a second. Did I read the article right?

“After her broadcast talk show winds down, Ms. Winfrey will concentrate on her coming cable channel, OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network.”

…whoa, whoa WHOA! It sure doesn’t look like down time is what’s on her mind. What she really wants to do is build her own cable channel and put more shows on the air. The Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) will be developing it’s own brand of TV and, based on her track record so far, I think it’s safe to assume she’ll be giving skeptics a great deal to talk about for some time to come.

Oprah’s featured lots of woo in the past (e.g. The Secret) and has already committed to helping anti-vax nutbar Jenny McCarthy start her own show.

An Oprah cable channel is not going to be good news for rationalism in America. Now, instead of one talking head, you’ll have an Oprah army of them.

Get your note pads… and shovels ready.

November 19, 2009 · Filed Under skepticism

1 Comment 

Hiding in Plain Sight

profileI’ve had a few friends find this place, expressing surprise that I’m an atheist and that I’m “secretly” blogging about it. It got me thinking there may be others who’ve been lurking here and wondering about the same things.

For the answer to the first question, I’d ask you to read the “about” stuff in the top menu of this blog. With respect to the second question, the blog is really not secret at all. From the beginning, I’ve linked to it from all my other internet haunts. Hell, I even link to it from my Facebook profile.

On the other hand, I’ve never promoted or discussed this place with any non-atheist/agnostic friends either. I’m no missionary and am not one to drag people in here to read my ramblings – especially if I know they are the believing type. I guess I’ve seen enough evangelism to know it’s something I’d rather not take part in.

Then why write about atheism? Well, first, because even though Canadians are pretty low-key about religion, it’s still pretty pervasive in our society. Ask any atheist and they’ll probably tell you there’s a lot of god talk out there – god talk that often spills into our public institutions and law (e.g. google ‘Bill 44 Alberta’). That sort of thing creates a need for a place where I can analyze the atheistic/religious world around me and maybe blow off a little steam. It also helps me to meet like-minded people and talk about things. In other words, I blog to help me keep my sanity and deal with the isolation I often feel from being part of a minority.

Oh, there’s one more reason I blog here – to help people. Specifically, to help people who are struggling with their faith – those looking for a safe place to ask the questions they may be afraid to ask elsewhere. Doubting Christians who arrive on this doorstep are treated gently because I know how hard it is for them to even begin questioning their faith.

If you choose to hang around this place, be warned that I speak my mind here. There will be days when you might like what I have to say, days when you will not like what I have to say, and days when you would rather not have stopped by.

So, while I understand you may be surprised or even shocked to read what I have to say here, I will make no apologies. You can accept that …or not – it’s your choice.

Oh, before I forget, WELCOME.

Peace, out!

—

(Edit: I’ve decided to just get it all over with and posted a link to this post on Facebook)

November 18, 2009 · Filed Under Atheism, about me

6 Comments 

Stupid Google Search

I am not kidding – someone came to this blog by searching for does Richard Dawkins believe in God?

Someone’s obviously just returned from being cast away on a remote island.

This would make him laugh

This would make him laugh

November 17, 2009 · Filed Under funnier than hell

3 Comments 

Does Majesty & Wonder Have To Come From A Creator?

in-the-shadow-of-the-moonI was in the mood last night for space stuff so I popped In the Shadow of the Moon into the DVD player. The film is a wonderful documentary (directed by Ron Howard) of the US moon landings. It begins, appropriately enough, at the beginning with John F. Kennedy’s bold challenge, and ends with the landings made by Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and a few lesser known successors.

You can view the entire film in 10 minute segments on youtube but, before you do, I’d like to call your attention to the final segment where some of the astronauts share how their journeys changed them. The segment starts with Eugene Cernan and Charlie Duke describing their feelings of wonder, and how those feelings convinced them of God’s existence (Duke actually became a born-again Christian not long after).

Being a fairly recent (2 year) de-conversion to atheism, I can relate to these men. I’ve shared similar experiences of wonder and majesty – most notably while hiking in the mountains, or going for 10+ mile runs (runner’s high’ll get ya every time). And, yes, two years ago, I too would have given credit to god for those wonderful feelings.

However, since the de-conversion, the source of those feelings has changed, and I’ve become more and more fascinated with the seemingly universal tendency for us to attribute these emotions to a god or creator.

Why is this so?

Some think it’s connected to our affinity toward anthropomorphizing – attributing human qualities to things that are not. In this case, humans create things, so we assume that the universe must also have been created by something human-like, only much more powerful.

Scientists who study the brain may tell you that our willingness to invoke god is connected to our ability to identify patterns. In this case, the pattern is that most everything we observe has a cause, and we extend that pattern to the assumption that the universe must also have a cause.

But is this correct thinking? Just because we see cause and effect around us, does that mean the same rule applied to the formation of the universe? If a god can simply exist, then why can’t a universe? Also, could the Big Bang have been preceded by a Big Crunch, and that crunch have been preceded by a different Big Bang? Might this process be cycling on eon after eon after eon?

And, even if the universe did have an external cause, why would that cause need to be an intelligence or a god? Might it just as easily be another universe, as multi-universe theory proposes?

And then there’s the fact that most of us were raised by parents who told us that God created everything, and many of us grew up in churches where everyone agreed the universe was created by God. How many of those people really examine these claims from authority? After all, all those smart people couldn’t be wrong – could they?

I wonder, if parents stopped teaching this idea to their children, how would it take long before our sense of wonder aimed itself at the natural world instead of some unknown, undetectable entity?

There is a world of science awaiting those who would ask these questions. There is a world of wonder awaiting those willing to entertain the idea that maybe, God didn’t do it. And, in my opinion, the fact that our universe came to be without a deity makes it even more wondrous and majestic.

crabmosaic

November 16, 2009 · Filed Under Atheism, science, understanding, video

8 Comments 

Excellent Documentary of Charles Darwin

Head on over to CBC. The Nature of Things by David Suzuki has an excellent documentary of Charles Documentary. You can currently view parts I and II on the site. Part III will be available next week.

November 13, 2009 · Filed Under video

1 Comment