Rich and Strange Aeons

Someone else's post today got me thinking...

I've identified as an atheist from I dunno, age 7? I have this early memory of screwing up my courage to ask my parents, because I thought they were wishy-washy "believe in something" liberals and it's scary to disagree with your parents when you're that young. I also have memories of simultaneously not believing in God, acting like an animist (apologizing to doors if I ran into them, mercy-killing my breakfast sausage by biting off both ends quickly before slowly flaying it), and praying to not-Zeus when home alone during thunderstorms ("if you're going to strike my house, please wait until my parents get home".) [Edit: I may have prayed to "to whom it may concern", with Zeus as the prototype in my mind. Mostly a "I don't really believe but I'm f-ing scared and will try anything" prayer.]

But I've almost never felt a need to deny myself. Only one memory: 7th or 8th grade (so ages 12-14) on the school bus. I got asked what my religion was, and I chickened out (I do not recall what I was afraid of) and said "agnostic".

"What's an agnostic?" said Kid 1.

"Someone who lacks the courage to say they're an atheist", said Kid 2. (I think he did say "lacks the courage" though this is a very old memory.)

Now that's not true for many agnostics[1]. But it was 100% true of me, right then, and I felt the total shame of being called out. I didn't speak up further then, but did vow "never again".

Of course, it's been easy to keep that vow. Chicago, Caltech, San Francisco, IU Bloomington, Cambridge MA... Hanging around Techers and academics... In a lot of my social life you could assume Christians were the actual minority. I haven't had to live in the South or travel to Saudi Arabia, or decide whether I wanted to pretend to be Unitarian or Jewish as a cover.

[1] And there is a genuine "wrestling with belief" agnosticism that isn't atheist. But I suspect there are a lot of agnostics whose beliefs are indistinguishable from atheists but who just don't want the 'atheist' label, whether because it feels too 'strident'[2] or they associate it with Dawkins or whatnot.

[2] "I don't know" feels less confrontational than the implicit "I think you're wrong" of "I do not believe".

Bombay House has $5.99 lunch buffet now, a big drop from the $11 during the school year. Despite the tandoori chicken last time having no actual tandoori flavor, I went back. My first impression was that the chicken was still pretty bland. This impression is pretty vague, because it was quickly swamped by the smell of chicken I would throw away rather than cooking. Mild, but present. I told the waiter, he said the chef said it was fine, I was offered another piece, which still smelled bad. I pigged out on vegetarian dishes and left. I swallowed a piece before the taste and smell really hit me; if I get sick in the next couple of days, I know where I'm placing the blame.

Bloomington Transit (the buses) had resisted taking an atheist ad, but has capitulated before a court case.
http://inatheistbus.org/2009/07/27/campaign-prevails-against-bt-in-free-speech-lawsuit/

I currently have no plans for Thanksgiving.

( Mess o' links on AIDS, terror, physics,and atheism )

Analysis of the famous UFO trip of Betty and Barney Hill. Conclusion: an aircraft warning light combined with deprivation of sleep and sensation, and an already-stopped watch.

Kowloon Walled City, an organically developed micro-arcology. Wow. Probably a good setting for a pulp game, too.

Parody of reviews of The God Delusion.

Anthony Flew: converted ex-atheist or confused old man?

Non-theist billboards

L. Ron Hubbard wikiquotes.

* "There is no more ethical group on this planet than ourselves."

o L. Ron Hubbard, KEEPING SCIENTOLOGY WORKING. 7 February 1965, reissued 27 August 1980

* "If attacked on some vulnerable point by anyone or anything or any organization, always find or manufacture enough threat against them to cause them to sue for peace."

o L. Ron Hubbard, Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter, 15 August 1960, Dept. of Govt. Affairs

Greta Christina takes on Lewis's Lord, Liar, or Lunatic? trilemma. A commenter rejoins with the Riddle of Epicurus: "God:weak, wicked, or non-existent?"

Greta Christina


1. Why atheists are angry;
2. Why our anger is valid, valuable, and necessary;
And 3. Why it's completely fucked-up to try to take our anger away from us.

So let's start with why we're angry. Or rather -- because this is my blog and I don't presume to speak for all atheists -- why I'm angry.



And I'm angry that Christians still say smug, sanctimonious things like, "there are no atheists in foxholes." You know why you're not seeing atheists in foxholes? Because believers are threatening to shoot them if they come out.

She links here, with the quote [Highlights]: Hearing Chapman also say that for a woman to be religious, it was like "a freed slave still living on the plantation." Which is maybe *too* strong, but I think it's got something to it, especially for Western Abrahamic religions.


Greta again on religion as fan-fiction

Given the rough outline of a narrative, human beings are unbelievably good at filling in the gaps, fleshing out the characters. And if the basic outline of a narrative has flaws and inconsistencies, we are unbelievably good at creating explanations and rationalizations and apologetics. We are unbelievably good at making the inconsistent consistent, making the indefensible defensible.

And that's exactly what religion looks like to an outside observer. It doesn't look like an internally consistent, evidence-based description of a consistent, reasonably predictable world. It looks like an unbelievably complex -- brilliant, even -- attempt to make sense of a story. And while the stories it's trying to make sense of are often fascinating and compelling, they're still stories: made up by people, with the inherent inconsistencies and gaps, cultural blind spots and flat-out mistakes, that any story made up by people is going to have.

I read Pharyngula, which leads to reading Skatje, which led to Ebon Musings, a big site of atheism essays, many of which I've now read, in a great gorging upon sympathetic ideas. Some particular finds:

Atrocities, and related articles on God as domestic abuser (perfect fit!), and the evil great sage.

What archaeology has to say about the Old Testament. No evidence for patriarchs, emphatic absence of evidence for Exodus and conquest -- and isn't it rather odd that Exodus doesn't *name* the Pharaoh? The Bible is hardly name-averse, after all.

Did Jesus really exist?

The Argument from Locality -- not a new idea, and one I've had, but he names it well.

Faith vs. reason in religion, with something at the end which made me think happy Technocratic thoughts again but that's me.

Relatedly, see the Catholic Encyclopedia defend censorship.