Nov 29, 2011

My Take on the “Straw Vulcan”

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I was thinking of doing a bit of a writeup on the “Straw Vulcan” talk but it looks like Greta Christina beat me to the punch. I hate to merely regurgitate what I have read on someone else’s blog, but I do have a bit to add from personal experience. I have always been a bit puzzled and irritated by depictions of reason and logic as being cold, inhumane, and totally oblivious to all human desire and opposed to all emotion. Mr. Spock in the original Star Trek is a good example (though I think the character has improved with time), but I can think of another more recent example in the movies. I am thinking of a scene in I, Robot (2004, staring Will Smith).

The movie is not based exactly on Isaac Asimov’s book I, Robot but it does borrow from his famous “Three Laws of Robotics.” A robot in Asimov’s model must obey these laws because they are built into their positronic brains. If a robot were to somehow fail to obey one of these laws, for instance if a robot fails to prevent harm from coming to a human being, it causes a conflict in the brain that can totally destroy the robot. Most of Asimov’s stories center around robots being put into situations where they face a dilemma in obeying the Three Laws.

  1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
  2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
  3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

To make a long story short, the society in which Detective Spooner (Will Smith) lives is manufacturing and using a bunch of pretty humanoid robots to do errands, housework, etc, for their human owners. Spooner does not like the robots, and it turns out he is right to be a bit paranoid. The robots are all hooked up to a huge super-smart, super-logical supercomputer called V.I.K.I. (acronym for something, but I do not remember what), who, after much thought, comes to the conclusion that humans are a danger to themselves and that the only way for “her” to obey the First Law of Robotics is to make all humans captives in their homes so that they cannot harm themselves or others. She claims that her logic is perfect, and no one ever challenges her on that front. (Sonny, BTW, is a robot in the story who was programmed to “evolve” by his maker and has developed human-like feeling and self-identity. For more information, just watch the movie.)

V.I.K.I.: Do you not see the logic of my plan?
Sonny: Yes, but it just seems too heartless.

Movie quotes from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0343818/quotes

This bothered me. V.I.K.I.’s logic is NOT perfect here, as it is clearly based on a two-dimensional misunderstanding of humanity. Locking up humans against their will does do them harm, but no one seems to think of explaining that to V.I.K.I. Maybe if they had, she might have frozen up from inability to obey the First Law. Her conclusions were way off, and therefore her logic was clearly not perfect.

But is this how our society views logic and reason? I should hope not.

Anyway, here is a link to Greta Christina’s blog post, and below I have also posted the video of the original talk at Skepticon. Enjoy :)

Filed Under: Skepticism, Skepticon · Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,
Nov 27, 2011

Atheist Satire

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I have found that the funniest comedy is subversive comedy. What I mean is that the best comedy takes the taboo, the holy, and the unquestioned and drags it right out into the open, warts and all, for everyone to see. Makes it not quite so high and mighty. And you see this in politics, from political satirists like Stephen Colbert to court jesters in times past. If you have the skill to make people laugh, you might just get them to rexamine ideas and beliefs that they would otherwise protect with an unpenatrable wall of offense.

Douglas Adams did this for me in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I was still a Christian when I first read Hitchhiker’s Guide, and I was listening to a very well-done audio book which enhanced the effect of the humor. It’s not like this is a good argument (in fact, it is totally absurd), but it did get me to laugh even if a bit akwardly at the fact that he was basically turning the “Design Argument for God” (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleological_argument) on it’s head. How ridiculous to say that the unlikelihood that a creature could evolve by chance would prove that God doesn’t exist!

I didn’t become an atheist merely because of this sort of thing, but since it made me laugh by it’s absurdity it got me to lower my guard just a bit. It made the very thought (plausible or not) of God not existing just a bit less threatening to me.

BABEL FISH :

The Babel fish is small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy recieved not from its own carrier but from those around it, It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. the practical upshot of this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any language.

Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anhthing so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. The argument goes like this : “I refuse to prove that I exist”, says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.”

“But”, says Man, “the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn’t it? it could not have evolved by chance. it proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED.”

“Oh dear”, says God, “I hadn’t thought of that,” and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

“Oh that was easy” says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.

Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.

(Text borrowed from http://homepage.eircom.net/~odyssey/Quotes/Popular/SciFi/Douglas_Adams.html where you can find many more great Douglas Adams quotes.)

The subversive nature of comedy means, pretty much inevitably, that the best humor is going to offend someone who thinks that certain things ought to remain taboo, holy, and unquestioned. Naturally, not everyone is going to find the same things funny. In the worst of scenarios, where the freedom of speech is not recognised, it might even lead to terrorism, imprisionment, and/or a death sentence for the comedian. (I’m thinking of Dutch cartoons, though there are plenty of other examples.) After the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie came out, one of the critisisms I heard of it was that it is anti-religious. Faith does not like to be taken lightly. I have my own thoughts as to why that is, and you can probably guess what they are, but I will leave you to your own conclusions.

And with that said, I will conclude with a bit of atheistic satire that is targeted mainly at a particular audience: atheists, especially those who grew up in a charasmatic Christian religous environment. It is an atheist version of a “holly roller” revival service in which I was in the audience in Skepticon IV, which I mentioned this in my post on Skepticon from a few days ago.

WARNING: If you are of the type mentioned above who are offended when religion is mocked or satirized, please do yourself a favor and do not watch this video. Seriously.

Filed Under: Atheism, Meaningfulness, Skepticon · Tagged: , , , ,
Nov 23, 2011

On Hosting Thanksgiving in an Atheist Home

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This year will be a big first for me–we will be hosting Thanksgiving in our home this year. We have plenty of space, and we have some time since my husband and I both decided to take vacation on the week after Skepticon. So, for that and for a few other reasons we decided we would go ahead and host the meal here. This will be generally for my family, since my husband’s family lives in Texas.

After getting the OK from my parents, I started going though my head of the things we would need to prepare and come up with a general timeline in which things need to be done. And then I thought, what about the Thanksgiving grace?

Odd, you may think, that an atheist is worrying about the “blessing” but it is actually a big deal to me. Every Thanksgiving meal I have ever attended has involved a prayer of thanks over the food, and even if I have not completely participated in the praying for the last ten years or so I still think it is good to pause for a moment of reflection before digging into the turkey on Thanksgiving. And I want to be courteous to my more religious guest who are probably be wondering what to do as well when we sit at the table.

I hate sermonizing and grandstanding, and I sure did not invite my parents over so that I could push atheism on them. I am thinking of a few options for what could be done for a few moments of grateful reflection before digging in. I just want to have a statement that directs the thanks to people who deserve it, and not to a mythical figure.

  • Saying a few words myself before starting the meal, something along the lines of “I would like to take a few moments on this day devoted to giving thanks to remember that we have all been affected positively by events we could not control, and people we do not know and will never meet. Before we dig in today let’s remember that none of us can take sole credit for where we are in life, and remember that the actions that we take in life will affect others around us in ways we may never know.” Or something like that…I’m still thinking this though.
  • Allow everyone at the table a moment to say what they are thankful for.
  • Have a moment of reflective silence?

If anyone else has ideas of what we could do or say feel free to post in the comments. Especially if you will actually be coming over tomorrow :)

EDIT: As it turned out, I need not have worried. The only formality we followed in the meal was waiting for everyone to sit before digging in, and conversations already in progress blended right into the start of the meal. It would have been akward to inject any kind of a ritual. So it was all good :)

Filed Under: Atheism, Meaningfulness · Tagged: , ,
Nov 20, 2011

Skepticon Wrap-Up

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This was my first year coming to a Skepticon and it was a blast! I meet some cool people, and learned a lot of great stuff. From what I had heard prior, I knew Skepticon was an skeptics convention, though I didn’t know how much it would be about atheism (which I thought was great). Then again, most of the talks had nothing directly to do with atheism–which is great if you have been doing this long enough that the basic atheist arguments and discussions are old hat.

David Silverman set the tone for the entire weekend on Saturday morning with his speech “Skepticism, Atheism, and our Common Movement.” He pointed out, and I agree, that while “atheist” is not synonymous with “skeptic,” the two categories of people have an incredible overlap of people and that skeptics play a large and vital role in the secular movement. He also encouraged the crowd at Skepticon not to be afraid to use the word “atheist” in public whenever the question of religious affiliation comes up. When friends and family know that someone they love and know personally is an atheist, it’s less likely that they will hold negative stereotypes in their minds about atheists. This has worked for other movements, and it can work for us.

Most of the talks were not directly related to atheism, but had to do with science, rationality, and clear thinking in general. There were two talks addressing cognitive biases (Eliezer Yudkowsky) and how our own thinking can go wrong (Spencer Greenberg), a couple of basic and interesting talks on molecular genetics and addressed popular misunderstandings of genes (P.Z.Myers and Jen McCreight), a speech on undercover paranormal investigations (Joe Nickell), the need for critical thinking in math education (Hemant Mehta), and the crazy history and beliefs of Mormonism (David Fitzgerald). There was also a talk on the “Straw Vulcan”–ways in which logic and rationality and misrepresented in popular media  (Julia Galef), and I may write more on that later as I have thought about this a lot before and find the topic fascinating.

One of the more unusual speeches was from Darrel Ray on “Sex and Secularism” presenting the results of a study that queried how leaving religion had affected their sex lives. I think I had even participated in that survey some time ago, but I had forgotten about it. A major theme that Darrel Ray has proposed is that religion roots itself in people’s lives by generating a great deal of guilt about normal and healthy sexual (and other) behaviors, and then also promotes itself as the cure to ease that guilty feeling. That is a bit of a simplification of his thesis, and one day I need to read his book “The God Virus” and examine his idea more throughly.

Without a doubt, the most fun presentation was put on by the “Atheist Evangelist” Sam Singleton, which was in part a parody of a charismatic style  church service, and in part a (semi) serious sermon to secular people about giving thanks to the people who deserve our gratitude. At least, I took it somewhat seriously, because I think it was a great message. Thank you Brother Sam!

The final presentation was the most powerful and incredibly personal of them all. The title of JT Eberhard’s presentation was “Why the Skeptic Community Must Concern Itself with Mental Illness.” In which he came out as someone who has struggled silently for years with anorexia. The whole experience was so heart rending and emotional I find a difficult time describing it. There is such a stigma attached both with admitting that there is something wrong with your mind, and also with seeking help and taking medication to treat it because of a fear that that means  you are weak. He delivered a heartfelt plea to the skeptical community to address the incorrect and non-scientific views on mental illness just the same way as the community exposes the frauds of homeopathy. And for those who have mental illness to come out and help remove the stigma in the same way that we are calling atheists to come out and remove the stigma of nonbelief. Mental illness is not an issue I have had to deal with personally, and he presented a view of this problem that I have never been able to see before. The reception from the crowd was also amazing. We all love you JT!

Filed Under: Atheism, Skepticon · Tagged: , , , , , ,
Nov 19, 2011

“Give a Damn?” Documentary

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Skepticon IV just kicked off last night, and in what I thought was a fairly unusual and unexpected way. There was a film screening of a documentary called “Give A Damn?” about 3 American guys who traveled across the eastern half of the US, Europe, and Africa on a very limited budget in an attempt to see and experience the poverty that a very large portion of the world’s population lives in every day. I the film was very well done, even though I have a few criticisms, and that you should go out and see it when you get a chance.

What I liked:

  • Picture of an unapologetic atheist and a couple of evangelical Christians working together to try to do something about a real world problem.
  • The idea that some fairly ordinary people can try to make a difference in the world.
  • I liked how Rob displayed how a traumatic experience can be dealt with and overcome without religious supports. (I am not saying what happened here…you have to watch the film to find out.)

What I didn’t like:

  • Even though there was an out atheist in the group, this is still a pretty explicitly Christian film. They rely on missionary contacts to get into each of the places in Africa that they visit and join them in their church services. I don’t recall from seeing the film last night if Rob (the atheist) sat in the back in any of the churches or just sat out that part or what.
  • Like just about every film about raising consciousness about extreme poverty (or whatever) that I have ever seen, I am still left with a slight feeling of “what now?” I can do the same as what I have always done before, as in give some money to a reputable charity online or participate in the micro-loan program mentioned in the Q&A. But what actually changes now?
  • I didn’t really see or learn anything in the film about third-world poverty that I was totally unaware of before.

A few neutral observations:

There was someone interviewed in the film that pointed out that these fairly rich and privileged Americans would not be able to truly experience third-world poverty because of their backgrounds. This comes out in the scenes where they realize in Europe that they will not be able to hitchhike from where they are and decide to remove “transportation” from their constraint of living on $1.25 a day and take a train. Clearly, that would not be possible if they were really living in poverty on $1.25 a day.

Also, I saw a lot in the film about how wonderfully happy and joyful the poor people in Africa and Europe are compared to the wealthy but miserable people in the United States. When I was watching Christian missionary film and reading books growing up this was a common theme, but I think it is not a fair comparison. The types of difficult life situations being faced by these people are not the same as the ones being faced by the typical American. One probably does get not get too anxious about their purpose in life and personal fulfillment when they are barely getting what they need to survive. And we know clearly that it takes more than having money and possessions to be happy–in the case of many if not most Americans that money comes at the cost of a great deal of work stress and other sorts of difficulties. You also have to take into account that the poor people in these villages were having a really unusual day or couple of days when these foreign visitors came by their village–this visit after all could be a sign of hope that their situation could change. I have to wonder what are their cultural mores regarding the display of emotion, especially to outsiders? What goes on in the village when there is not a camera present?

My thought is that if these people really were so happy the way that they are, why would we want to “improve” their situation–so that they can become miserable like us rich Americans? Of course, that is clearly a gross distortion of what is actually happening here. What I see in the film is people who could surely work their way out of their impoverished situation if only they where only provided the tools and education to be able to do so. Those of us in American would not be able to do it on our own either, but we benefit from a vast system of infrastructure and a stable economy and free education which we take entirely for granted if we are not careful. What I want to know is, what would it take to provide the same all over the world?

Film Website here: http://www.giveadamndoc.com/

Filed Under: Atheism, Skepticon · Tagged: ,
Nov 12, 2011

My New Christian Friends

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Today I rode about 35 miles on my bike with the Louisville Bike Club, the farthest I have ever rode in a single trip. I almost missed going on the trip altogether because when I arrived at the meeting place to start the ride, I realized that in my hurry to get there on time I had forgotten to grab my helmet and my bike gloves (though the gloves were not a deal-breaker the way the missing helmet was.) I considered giving up and driving back home, but decided instead to hang out and wait for the others and see if anyone had a helmet that I could borrow. As it turned out, someone did. The first people to show up at the ride (and the only ones I saw at the time, since we were not aware that the time had been pushed back an hour to avoid running into the mini-marathon also scheduled for that day) were a very nice married couple who did indeed have a helmet and pair of gloves I could borrow at their house about 4 miles bike ride away. So I rode back to their house with them, feeling a bit naked with only my Buff on my head and no helmet, and got the helmet that I would be wearing for the next few hours. Fortunately, it was a perfect fit and worked well for the rest of the day.

I spent the ride mostly with this couple, since our ride was out of sync with the others in the group due to the change in start time (though this was really no problem at all since the route is the same every Saturday.) There was one little thing about the couple that took me aback just a bit right before we rode to their house to get the helmet. The guy informed me that it was their usual custom to say a prayer before starting the bike ride and asked if this was alright with me. This took me totally off guard, I have to say… at that point I was just so happy that they were helping me out and lending me a helmet for the ride that I was not even going to consider rocking the boat by voicing any kind of objection about prayer. And really, it didn’t matter that much to me at all, so I said that if they wanted to say a prayer that was fine with me.

We didn’t discuss religion at all other than that, though it did come out in discussion that they are members of Southeast Christian Church (for those who are not familiar with Louisville, this is the most famous massive Evangelical megachurch in the city.) I wondered for a while if they were going to try to discuss religion for me, or ask me where I went to church, or if I went to church but they never did. And I wondered what they would think if I told them that my husband and I organize the Louisville Atheists and Freethinkers Meetup, or that I have volunteered as an escort outside the local abortion clinic. I really liked these people and enjoyed riding around town with them, even with the knowledge that we were probably on complete opposite sides on some issues I hold very dear to my heart. Though today it did not matter, and I was perfectly prepared to be straight with them on what my views are if they were to come up in conversation.

After the ride I went to lunch with them, and it did start to get slightly annoyed (though I didn’t show it) when they informed me that they say grace over meals and would this be alright with me? Meh. I’m still fine if they want to say a prayer, but the conspicuous Christianity tactic does get on my nerves a bit. And I wonder if this behavior has anything to do with the Darwin Fish that they probably saw on my car. At any rate, I will still be happy to ride around town with them on future rides.

Filed Under: Atheism, Biking · Tagged: , , ,
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