Belief in Belief.

Often times the right to believe crowd is heavily atheistic and some of the loudest voices against criticism are those of atheists. I've rarely encountered such examples but... seriously wow.

You have no place to tell me that my beliefs are wrong. I am not religious. I do not believe in god. However, I do believe that if someone wants to believe in god, then that's up to them. You can't tell people what to believe. Let me rephrase that since you obviously aren't understanding what I am trying to say. You shouldn't tell people what to believe. People will think what they want, they will believe what they want. Being arrogant won't change that.

To which I replied:

Your beliefs are wrong. You think that my right to criticize denies another persons right to religion. That's silly and wrong. I'm not telling people what to believe. I'm pointing out that their beliefs are wrong. Whether they want to continue believing in something that causes sexism, homophobia, slavery, murder, genocide, and xenophobia is up to them, but I have the right to point this out to them at every turn. People will believe what they want, but when they believe evil crap that makes the world a worse place, they will be forced to do so over my cackles and rebukes.

It's times like these I'm glad I bookmarked Kazim's Korner's post on mockery.
http://kazimskorner.blogspot.com/2005/12/mockery.html

Well worth a read.

A somewhat disturbing trend...

So Atheist Girls blog which got some acclaim for trying to Poe the Atheist Experience and then got a quick post on Pharyngula, abruptly got locked to outsiders. I realized this after checking the blog based on the RSS feed I have put into Google homepage. The last post was apparently:

I've been outed!!!!!

Hm. That's a bad turn of events.

If Atheists Ruled The World...

Hm, seems about right. The final bit is from a well known fundies say the darnest thing. Which I knew before being told.

Atheist sign stolen.

So the Freedom From Religion Foundation put up an atheistic sign in the Washington Capitol after the Washington Capital had the silly policy of letting people put up religious displays.

Well, somebody stole it and gave it to a local radio station. The policy of putting up atheist displays where religious displays are put up is kind of entertaining. If it's just a public space, first come first serve, then it's acceptable to put up whatever holiday display you want. If the government themselves are putting the displays up, then it's a constitutional issue. Whenever the government puts up a public space it needs to be first come first serve for everybody and, as such, why not toss up a good secular display?

Apparently it pisses off the right and they steal your signs. Last year there was a "tree of knowledge" display put up in Philadelphia that got its fair share of abuse. On the main point of the issue there's some entertainment factor but the underlying idea that atheists should be excluded and that they are simply interlopers as that "public space" thing is just Christians getting around that pesky constitution and atheists aren't really invited to participate.

I'm sure the atheists stole their own damn sign. No Christian would do it because it would violate the 8th commandment. Clearly. But atheists hate God and just want to go around drawing pictures of fish, stealing things, and doing things on the sabbath.

Oh you silly atheists.

Apparently Graydon Square beat the crap out of Brian Sapient (of the Rational Response Squad (deny the holy spirit challenge)) for rather arcane reasons. Brian had purchased some CDs for resale and Graydon felt he was being ripped off via some strange logic suggesting he didn't already get his money.

See I told you all atheists were immoral thugs.

Wait, no I didn't. Apparently when people are bipolar and off their meds they are prone to attacking you.

Bones Season 3 Finale.

Well there I was catching up on Bones having a nice several days worth of watching TV episodes. Hulu was useful in this respect have S1 of the show, and it's pretty good. Corny at times and the same general rote plot. I do enjoy the open atheism and any list of TV atheists includes Bones (one of the two eponymous atheist TV characters who come to mind). Some of the writing making her awkward in social situations are a bit heavy handed and suggests she is somewhere on the autism spectrum unable to understand some exceedingly basic social cues. In any event, the season finale was just so utterly shit that I have to write about what a steaming pile of nonsense it was.

Be forewarned of spoilers even though if you watch the show you saw this crap months ago. So one of the reoccuring cases is Gormogon serial killer who murders different people and assembles the pieces into a skeleton passing on the trade to an apprentice. Formed to rid the world of the influences of secret societies. Which ties into Dr. Jack Hodgins' character who is rather conspiracy theorist/lefty-pinko/out-there-guy. I honestly hate this aspect of his character because he's all evidence and reasoned most of the time then he's the go to guy to insert a bit of crazy and not-so-crazy into the episodes. The writers can't tell the difference between belief in extra-terrestrial visitors and belief that the Iraq War was sold to the American people under false pretenses.

Well one of his more absurd insertions is talk of secret societies as evil agents of mass importance. A cursory look at the evidence suggests they are little more than grown up frats with stupid stories. The Straight Dope has pretty good explanations of the Masons. The idea that Hodgins would accept whacked out conspiracy theories beyond what there is pretty reasonable evidence for is already bad enough. Then, in the plot of the Finale, it was reveled that the apprentice to the Gormagon was none other than than the lovable character Dr. Zack Addy who blew himself up to buy time for the Master Gormagon to steal the statue from the vault (where they stored the stuff they grabbed in a previous episode).

When asked why he would join a cannibalistic (I mentioned the guy ate their faces right?) serial killer anti-masonic murderer he claimed that the logic was impeccable. Because, secret societies exist. Secret societies are harmful to society (because Hidgins' talks about them). Killing members of secret societies eating their faces and making stupid statues of them out of the bones is therefore the moral course of action.

I'm sorry, but I am suppose to believe that first one scientists believes this and second another one takes his word for it when even cursory research would determine that secret societies are mostly stupid (save if there's some reciprocal business dealings I suppose) and that eating faces in a mass murder spree is a poor choice of action.

Some of the stuff in the show was previously stupid and oddly wrong. Booth (main character, partner of Bones) mentions that it takes hundreds of years to evolve and Bones corrects him and says "thousands and thousands" when modern research says that years and decades are enough for viruses and bacteria and human evolution has been progressing at a remarkable clip for several hundred years. Some of the ham-fisted attempts to make Bones seem socially naive have been almost mind-numbing, like not understanding why anybody would want children. Some things have been remarkably stupid... but they weren't plot. This is plot being pinned on the crappiest foundations of a really stupid character aspect of another character. Frankly it's utterly stupid and makes no sense.

I blame Fox. Fox airs Bones. Most shows don't go braindead retarded save for a few of those on Fox. There was a House episode where some junky told House that he had a near death experience and it was the shit, so House stuck a fork into a light socket because he simply must know. This bit of Bones plot was that dumb but that bit in House was just a bit and not plot... and not just plot but major plot.

Okay, off to change my TV.com avatar from Dr. Zach Addy to something else. I mean, it was okay when he was just the geeky semi-anti-social scientist ex-grad student of Bones... but when they made him a complete moron who murders people based on really really bad argument and really really bad evidence... I've gotta get something else. In part, I connected with the character and feel that this plot would be about as stupid as me entering the seminary and part-timing as a face-eating cannibal.

...

Okay, I changed my Avatar to Adama from BSG. If he's a cylon... I quit.

Atheists in the Military

Apparently they exist, and are treated like crap.*

Don't you hate it when you come across something like atheists in the military and think... Oh, I'll blog about that... but the actual article is so boring that you have nothing to say.

Atheism and Bad Statistics

You know, it's wrong when any group makes crap up... or at the very least smudges the numbers.



Okay, the numbers are actually there but there are strong objections on two points, prisons and marriage.

The prison statistic is a self-declared note. Atheists make up 8-16% of US population and only 0.209% of the prison population. Well, those stats aren't completely wrong. In fact, a 2006 Harris poll could be read to clock atheist at 27% of the population. If 73% of the population believes in God, then the remaining 27% don't and are thusly atheist (even if only 11% say they don't believe in God). Now, this is how the study screws up, and how many studies screw up. Taking a look at the recent Pew study. We see that those unaffiliated people claiming atheism was 1.6% with agnosticism at 2.4% and nothing in particular at 12.1%. Largely almost everybody in that unaffiliated grouping is an atheist, in the true meaning of the word... however, about 10% of atheists actually admit to atheism. There is a massive gap between declared atheists and atheists. One of the side effects of being simply a lack of belief is that a person can be an atheist even if they don't know what it is or want to be one.

Now look at the prison stats again and consider for a moment that parole boards like religion, your fellow inmates are largely religious, religions provide protections in prison, and atheists are the most hated minority in the US. Now, take into account that many atheists are better educated and your average criminal is more poorly educated. Further, consider that blacks make up a larger percent of the prison population than the general population (and crime rate) and that blacks are largely more religious. On top of this, realize the entire fucking thing is asking you to assume that correlation implies causality! Maybe atheists are just better criminals and don't get caught? There are too many problems with this stat to give it a second thought. I would be very interested in a real set of statistics on this point. In the mean time, this stat should be disregarded with prejudice.

Marriage is another stat I wish people would stop tossing around. That stat is fully explained by the age of atheists. It turns out that the 18-24 range of population is quite atheistic. Looking at the statistics over time they aren't getting any more religious.

As the atheist population ages they don't seem to be finding religion (in fact, no religion is one of the largest religious groups and has some of the best retention of any of the groups). The 18 year old atheists of today will be the 25 year old atheists of 7 years from now (while padding the numbers as previous believers who fall away). This provides a rather bottom heavy group of atheists. So, when you ask a bunch of people their religion and whether or not they are divorced you find that the atheists haven't been divorced nearly as much as the other religious groups... because they haven't been married as long or lived as much. They are a bunch of kids! Adjusting for such seems to make that stat go away. Further, consider the increased educational attainment and income. Not to say it isn't true, just that the statistics don't seem bear this out.

It turns out that people who care to learn what is and isn't true do better in life in a plethora of ways and end up finding out that religion is bunk. Pretty much all the stats flow from this. There's nothing about atheism that makes people more moral (or less moral).

If I had to venture a guess, I daresay that there something about good moral people and the truth.

281 Tricks to Irritate an Atheist.

http://onclepsycho.canalblog.com/archives/2004/06/05/35086.html?

2) Tell them that if there's no God, they might as well go out and kill people.

5) Insist that there is a God, and show them where in the Bible it says so.

8) Make up statistics.

12) Use multiple versions of Pascal's Wager as though you thought them up yourself.

14) Post inane arguments on the Internet, and never follow up on them.

15) Say that seperation of church and state isn't in the Constitution; insist that the Constitution is based on the Ten Commandments.

19) Point out that we all take things on faith.

21) After losing the argument say, "I pity you."

29) When given a Bible verse that looks bad, tell him that's what the verse says, but that's not what it means.

30) Argue that the Bible stories are not myths . . . they're parables. And they're all true!

37) Explain that the lack of proof doesn't mean it didn't happen.

44) Accuse him of being an agnostic, since he isn't 100% positive that God does not exist.

58) Insist that faith is the only logical answer.

59) No matter what he quotes from the Bible, say that it's out of context.

83) Quote Psalm 14:1 to him.
99) State that Christianity has done a lot of good along with all the mass murder.

124) Say that evolution is not proven -- therefore the Bible is correct.

125) Tell him it's his responsibility to prove that God doesn't exist.

143) Show that the Bible must be true because when you take the original Hebrew letters, spread them out and twist them around, you can spell words.

155) Use the word "presupposition" incorrectly, repeatedly.

173) Tell him that everyone has faith in SOMETHING.

219) PUT ALL ARGUMENTS IN CAPITAL LETTERS TO GIVE THE IMPRESSION THAT YOU'RE YELLING AND SCREAMING!

223) Avoid taxes and regulations because you're doing God's work.

244) Grossly misunderstand the word "theory."

256) Ask if he's ever heard of Jesus Christ.

280) When he shows up at your wedding, bearing an expensive gift for you, return the favor by sicing your minister on him after the ceremony.

281) If he has cancer, tell him with a sickeningly sweet smile that you will pray for his recovery, because someone needs to.

281) When ending your conversation with the atheist, promise to read whatever book the atheist may have mentioned, knowing darned well that you yourself never made it through Leviticus.

Atheists in foxholes...

Says more about foxholes than atheists.