Pushing Fear

This whole idea that fear is somehow a good thing has always bothered me. I can think of nothing I've ever read or heard from anyone reputable that fear is a state of mind from which to make good decisions. Anyone in a state of fear is in a degraded mental state, not an enhanced one. For the religious folks among us to push fear as a virtue is incorrect on its face.

No Regulations For Carriages

Pretend for a moment that when the automobile was invented we retained the word "carriage" for it. After all, it was just a non-horse-drawn carriage. Then pretend that the U.S. Constitution had within it a declaration that the right for anyone to own a "carriage" would "not be infringed."

Character and Hate

How we treat people who are easy to hate is a test of our character.

Dictating To Our Descendants

Why do we think it's a good idea for our lives to be dictated by people who died two centuries ago? What about 1,000 years ago, or 2,000 years ago? Do we think we should have the right to do the same to our descendants?

Filling the Gaps

In order to try and explain what we humans don't understand or don't have enough information to explain, we have invented the dual ideas of  free will and deities; free will to explain what we don't know or don't understand about ourselves, and deities to explain what we don't know or don't understand about everything else.

Complexity Gaps

The irreducible complexity claim by creationists is simply a fancier "god of the gaps" argument that uses a deity to fill the holes in someone's knowledge and/or understanding.

The Impotent Quote

Two common and mistaken tactics are used when it comes to quotes: quote mining (mis-quoting) and using opinions as fact.

Let's use this post as an example.

First, in quote mining, a fragment is pulled from within its larger context and the reader is either told a straight up fabrication about it or is allowed to infer one. For example, this quote from Darwin: "I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science." In the letter where this quote appears, Darwin is talking about one specific idea on which he is speculating because there is not enough information yet to form a scientific assessment--not the entire Theory of Evolution. However, even if Darwin were to dismiss his own evolutionary discoveries, they have been confirmed repeatedly since he made them public. A person does not own the truth of a discovery because they are the first to recognize it.

Second, using a quote from someone who agrees with your position is not proof of its validity. The example from this blog post: “nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin(ism) can be described as scientific” The claim is not backed up with any evidence; it's only offered as another opinion to match that of the apologist. Two people who are wrong do not cancel each other out.

Mixing Up Metaphors

I wanted to share this opinion piece as an example of a tactic often used to mislead by use of metaphor and/or analogy.

This person starts off by telling a story, probably true, about something (it doesn't really matter what it is). Then, by being seen as meaningful or touching or real or whatever, the listener/reader is told this story is just like something unrelated, in this case Christianity. The BIG mistake people make is taking the original story to be proof (or an example) of the falsely attached claim.

Metaphors and analogies are not a component of proof; they are only a way to try and help explain some point with added clarity. But we often mistake them for examples or outright proof of some claim being made, even if the connection is missing entirely. I think this error is usually done without knowing it, so we need to be careful.

Gerrymandering and Affirmative Action

Gerrymandering is the type of affirmative action approved by Republicans.

Theist Yardstick Misses The Mark

I've read a few of the responses some of the more notable people have written recently when it comes to a humanist/atheist response to tragedy and none of them have touched on it the way I see it (or I just didn't understand it as intended).

One of the problems that theists see with a nontheist point of view is that there is not a valid alternative to their idea of a source that will eventually even things out and reward all the right people while punishing the rest. They also claim that this is part of an unknown master morality that will eventually be understood by us after we die. The idea is that there is an all-perfect and ideal source of some kind that does exist out there somewhere and is the keeper of perfection. This thing, whatever it is, holds the key to a perfect morality and, therefore, an everlasting state of bliss if only we can discover this code that's currently being kept from us. Unless those with a godless outlook can offer a competing path to unlock this supernatural secret of perfection, we don't count--at all. Since we don't even make the attempt, given our view that assumptions of supernaturalism aren't worthy of consideration, we seem at best irrelevant.

What I wish people from "our side" would say is that our view of existence is not going to offer a direct alternative because it's not supposed to. Since we don't operate under the assumption there is an ultimate moral code-giver, it would be silly to insist we offer a way to discover this thing we think in all likelihood doesn't even exist. We base our search for meaning and happiness on something completely different.

It would be similar for someone who gets the most happiness and meaning in life from music to insist someone who gets the most meaning and happiness in their life from cancer research to show them how to appreciate music with it, otherwise it's invalid. It's a nonsensical idea.

The notion that nonreligious people need to provide an alternative within their narrow religious parameters is illogical at its core. We should be more open about saying so and hope they'll eventually understand.

Magic Makes Bad Answers

It is truly bizarre that those who continue to push the pro-religion-science compatibility idea don’t get that the point of science is to replace answers that involve magic with ones that don’t. To insist they remain viable is from a mindset that would insist children should never grow up.

Theocratic Branches Of Government

The Gun "Principle"

For the NRA, a group that pushes for the "principle" of gun ownership, this is the post card that needs to be sent whenever someone dies from a bullet. If gun ownership is more important that the people who die from gun use, then those who take that position must be willing to declare it to those who "sacrifice" for the principle. Otherwise, the "principle" is a diversion only meant to try and justify an unjustifiable position.

Giving Guns To The Paranoid

The argument is made that a gun will stop the government from becoming tyrannical, which is nonsense. In addition, who else other than the government would create the "well-regulated militia" that is supposed to be the justification for gun ownership?

We have long since outgrown the need for the Wild West frontier mentality when we were at constant war with Native Americans (which was wrong to begin with) and fed the militia idea. What seems to go along with gun ownership now is paranoia more than anything else, which is a valid reason to be against it, not a justification for it.

A Magical Virus

The purpose of science is to replace the magic that mistakenly served as a source of answers for so long. For religious believers to insist it still be an option is to make the nonsensical demand that the cure retain the original virus.

Evangelical Prosecutors

When prosecutors fight evidence of exoneration after a conviction has been obtained, it reminds me a lot of how fundamentalist religious believers act toward new scientific evidence. To both of them, it is apparently a virtue to see a past claim as valid even when new evidence clearly and convincingly contradicts it.

The Fetus And Self-Defense

Conservative case for abortion rights:

1) Self-defense is a right, many even liking the idea of "stand your ground"
2) Support for the "1 percent solution" advocated so famously by Dick Cheney for invading Iraq
3) Person-hood at conception

Result: A pregnant woman has the right to protect herself from the attack on her body by the "person" inside, just as she would from any other attacker.

Anti Is A-OK

Some people see a problem with atheism because it's being anti something rather pro something. In response, an analogy might work to help understand--if there is an attack by someone a wielding a baseball bat, it's perfectly okay to be anti people who have weaponized baseball bats without being pro anything else. Anyone can also take a position as anti ancient aliens, board games or car alarms without being pro anything else.

Detached Discoveries

A fact is not dependent on the person who discovered it. For example, if the person(s) who discovered radiation for some reason decided it wasn't real wouldn't have stopped x-rays from being taken or the atomic bomb from exploding. Galileo's recantation under threat of torture didn't put the earth at the center of the universe. 

I think we need to maintain distance between people and their discoveries. Otherwise, we make huge mistakes about what constitutes proof of something.

Dictating Documents

It seems to me that we mistakenly treat the dictionary and the constitution in the same manner. Both are records created by us that we then use to dictate to us!

Dictionaries record our use of words (it does not determine definitions for us) and the Constitution is a snap shot of what political leaders thought at one moment in time (it is not an infallible set of timeless instructions).

We keep trying to find a way to fool ourselves into thinking we aren't responsible for ourselves, but it's just an illusion. We are all we have.