The Problem I Have With Atheism

It’s a negative thought. That is, it merely takes a position against something.

And, while I proudly call myself an atheist - a person with no belief in gods - I am a whole lot more than that. Aren’t you?

I now fully realize this as the purpose for this blog - to explore all that I stand for and, hopefully, to get you thinking along the same lines. Previous posts are consistent with this purpose. Now, I’m stating it explicity.

A plan for this blog - and my life - is starting to come together.

July 10, 2008 · Filed Under Atheism, finding meaning

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U.S. Doesn’t Have a Monopoly on Fundie/Creationist Crap

Much of the ridicule aimed at fundamentalists and creationists is directed at the US Bible Belt. I’m not from there. I’m Canadian.

And while many people are correct to say that Canada has much less of this garbage going on, there is one province that is the exception. That province is where I make my home - the province of Alberta.

Alberta is known as the most conservative province in Canada. There are good reasons for it being included in a recent variation of the United States of Canada and Jesusland map.

After all, we have our very own Big Valley Creation Museum. Yay Alberta.

dinosaurs among humans

July 7, 2008 · Filed Under Atheism, religion

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My Atheism Advocacy Rating - What’s Yours?

Following up on yesterday’s post, here’s where I’m putting myself on what I’ve decided to call my Atheism Advocacy Scale (I should probably update the graphic):

  • Atheism: 6 out of 7 (using Dawkins 7 point scale, I am a “De facto Atheist”)
  • Antitheism: 7 out of 10
  • Evangelism: 8 out of 10
  • Militancy: 5 out of 10 (hopelessly non-committal - give me some time!)

I rate myself 30 out of 37 possible advocacy points. It’ll be interesting to see where I put myself on these scales one year from now.

(I’m really starting to think this would be a cool survey)

July 6, 2008 · Filed Under Atheism, finding meaning

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What Kind of Atheist Are You? Place Yourself on the Atheist Advocacy Scale

After my de-conversion to atheism, I was compelled to contribute - to share the great joy of being freed from religion. I decided to start blogging about atheism, naively thinking there didn’t seem to be many atheist bloggers. How wrong I was. There are hundreds - perhaps thousands of us!

Knowing there were many atheist bloggers with far more experience and knowledge made me wonder how I could possibly contribute. I finally realized I can contribute because I am new, am exploring the basics and can relate well to new atheists or those exploring atheism.

With that in mind, today I’m exploring my role in the spread of atheism. What got me thinking about this is the often heated debate that goes on among atheists. We have the “leave religion and religious people alone and live your life” camp versus the “religion must be eradicated because it is hurting people and could lead to the destruction of our world” camp. Each of those camps - and shades of grey atheists between them - have ideas about the activities that should/should not be engaged in to promote atheism.

First, Some Definitions

Atheism is non-belief in gods. Atheists can be divided into strong versus weak atheists (see Richard Dawkins 7 point theism-atheism scale for something more thoughtful)

Anti-theism is opposition to belief in the existence of a God, and belief that theism is destructive.

Militant atheism is anti-theism in action - not only being philosophically opposed to theism, but actively involved to end it.

Evangelical atheism is also anti-theism in action. However, its focus is to spread atheism, rather than to end theism (the militant focus).

Atheist Scales

With the definitions above in mind, I created a few scales to help me decide my level of atheistic advocacy. I’ve labelled the left ends with extreme anti-advocacy statements, and the right ends with extreme pro-advocacy statements. Of course, there are imagined points between the ends - the shades of grey many of us will identify with. I like thinking about these as 10 point scales.

I included a strong versus weak atheist scale because I think the others are all somewhat dependent on one’s placement on that scale. Feel free to challenge me on that one - the scale is based on assumption. At any rate, the scales help me sort things out. Let me know what they do for you (if anything!).

Ok, enough talk. Here are the scales (click on the image to enlarge).

Please let me know your thoughts on this. Also, please let me know if I should make this into a survey - it might be neat to measure the responses.

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Edit: I’ve decided to call this my Atheism Advocacy Scale. Click this link to see how I rate myself.

July 5, 2008 · Filed Under Atheism, finding meaning

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Continuation of the 7 Pillars Stuff

Seeing my 7 Pillars post get linked to by the Friendly Atheist made me as excited as my kids were when we finally got a Wii. I was even happier to see the discussion it generated (32 comments last time I checked)!

But some of those comments made me want to clarify a few things:

1. The graphic doesn’t represent all atheists.
2. The graphic doesn’t even represent atheism.
3. What it is, is a simplified and modified representation of the secular humanism worldview this atheist identifies with.

I feel obligated to say this for two reasons. First, because I don’t want atheists thinking I am that presumptuous. Second, because I don’t want everyone else to think I am some sort of spokesman for atheists. I’m not - the pillars post was my first crack at figuring out what I believe are important ideas to help guide my life.

Hesitations aside, writing that post was an important step in my growth as an atheist (and human being!). Why? Because I honestly had never - in my 40 years prior to becoming an atheist - really put a lot of thought into my belief system. And why is that? Because when I was a Christian, the Bible and teachers of the Bible told me what to believe.

And that right there - being able to truly think for myself - is the most unbelievable, joy-filled reward I could imagine for letting go of religion and the supernatural.

It’s a profoundly fantastic thing.
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Unrelated shout to postsimian: The answer to your question is that I’ve been an atheist for about six weeks - I became one right around the 15th of May, 2008. I’m just a baby atheist!

July 2, 2008 · Filed Under Atheism

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Dawkins Raps

via The Amanda Show comes a pretty funny little video satire of Richard Dawkins (and some like-minded folk) rappin’ Eminem style.

July 1, 2008 · Filed Under funnier than hell, video

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One Atheist’s Abbreviated World View - 7 Pillars I Try to Live By

An excellent post from the Atheist Revolution archive made its way onto the reddit atheism what’s hot list this past week.

The post is vjack’s endorsement of the secular humanism worldview (which I like to think of as a belief system), coupled with a suggestion that other atheists follow suit.

The goal in this is to communicate to the world that atheists have more - much more - of a world view than just denying the existence of god(s).

I agree. The crux of the matter is that theists, and many people still figuring out the question of God’s existence, have a hard time imagining what atheists might believe in - if anything. In fact, I think many people are afraid of atheists due to the flawed thinking that, without a religion to guide us, we are likely to be or become amoral/immoral people.

So, to vjack and anyone else who might care to know, I too declare myself a Secular Humanist. It is a beautiful, nuanced, almost intuitive world view that is extremely close to how I try to live my life. For an understanding of this world view, I recommend reading the wikipedia entry for secular humanism, as well as the affirmations and declaration on the Council for Secular Humanism website.

I’d also like to share my “abbreviated belief system” - a little graphic I drew up that captures some of the ideas found in secular humanism (with personal language interpretations/variations) that I most closely identify with. I found the process of distilling my world view down to something simple like this to be very rewarding, and I’d love to see your version.

June 29, 2008 · Filed Under Atheism

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Conservapedia Shifts Focus From Homosexuals To Atheists?

In November, Boing Boing posted a list of the ten most viewed articles on Conservapedia.

At first blush, it looked as though Conservapedia’s fundie, creationist right-wing community was obsessed with homosexuality. While that may be true, it was soon postulated at Infothought and Crooked Timber that there was something fishy about the stats (make sure you read the comments).

Out of curiousity, I checked and found that Atheism is currently Conservapedia’s number one hit (click at left for a larger image of the stats).

Like the homosexuality case, there could be a number of different reasons for this:

  • it might be another bot prank
  • it might be due to the success of Conservapedia’s atheism awareness campaign
  • it might be the atheist community’s obsession with itself

Thoughts?

June 26, 2008 · Filed Under Atheism

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George Carlin Dies

Via The Atheist Blog comes word that George Carlin has died. Mr. Carlin was unquestionably my favorite comedian, and was an atheist who chose to spread the word through brilliantly crafted comedy.

George will be missed and remembered.

June 23, 2008 · Filed Under Atheism, religion

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Newest Member of the Atheist Blogroll is…

Me!

I’m astounded at the vastness of the atheist blog community (it’s much larger than I could have imagined) and am excited to be added to Mojoey’s incredible Atheist Blogroll.

Thank you to Mojoey, and welcome to any visitors who find their way here from the blogroll. As you can see, I am just getting started so please check back!

June 22, 2008 · Filed Under Atheism, links

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