I found this NPR story posted on a friend’s wall in Facebook today, and though I’d pass it on. In light of recent blog posts and discussions on the state of religious rights in the United States, I think this is quite relevant. As typical, NPR takes a middle ground and is quite respectful to the religious and secular views expressed.
Staver says as rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people make gains, religious conservatives are having to set aside their convictions. A Christian counselor was penalized for refusing to advise gay couples. A court clerk in New York was told to issue same-sex marriage licenses, despite religious reservations. A wedding photographer was sued for refusing to shoot a same-sex wedding. Staver says these people aren’t trying to impose their religious views on others.
“What people of faith don’t want to do, however, is be forced to participate in something that literally cuts to the very core of their belief.”
Boston says of course religious believers want to impose their views on the world — witness the fight against same-sex marriage. But he says under the law, people can’t discriminate based on their religious beliefs, any more than a restaurant owner can cite the Bible in refusing to serve black customers. He says the solution is simple.
“If you don’t want to serve the public, don’t open a business saying you will serve the public.”
I think Boston has it right. Religious people have every right to make their own choices regarding who they will marry, whether or not they would have an abortion in any given circumstance, whether they will take birth control, and so on. What they don’t get to do is make these choices for other people who may or may not share their convictions. Especially At least not with the blessing and funding of our secular government (what you do in your personal life is your business).
http://www.npr.org/2012/01/08/144835720/has-obama-waged-a-war-on-religion
Tags: activism, christianity, Freethinkers, religion, religious rights, Separation of Church-State, United States
“Why are you an atheist?”
“Why don’t you believe in God?”
I have gotten these questions before. I actually have quite a lot of reasons that I am an atheist, but I’ve found that when someone just asks me point blank I freeze up because I can’t think of where to start. Because I’m not always sure of which reason would be the most effective for the asker to understand, because I don’t usually know their background or what their concept of “god” looks like. While considering this situation, I thought maybe instead of trying to jam my reasons for being an atheist into a single post why not have a series of posts where I can address each reason one by one? So, over the course of the next few months I will be writing and posting a series of essays on the various reasons why I am an atheist.
As a preview, here are some of the reasons I am looking forward to explaining:
- The conspicuous absence of God, and my repeated observations of God being “given the glory” for human actions and chance events.
- The historically dubious origins of Christian doctrines, including early church disputes about the nature of Jesus himself.
- Moral philosophy and the “Divine Command” theory.
- The soul: how I became convinced that mind=brain and that the idea of the soul is superfluous.
- Sexism and injustice in the Bible (probably other holy books too, but I don’t know the other books well enough to comment on them.)
- The constant replacement of supernatural and religious explanations with understandable scientific ones.
- Evolution, the origins of life, and creationist lies I was told when I was young.
And this list may change during the series, as I think of other things. If any of these intrigues you, make a note in the comment section and I will try to get to that reason sooner rather than later.
Tags: Atheism, Bible, christianity, Freethinkers, Freethought, God, Jesus, rationality, religion, Religion and Spirituality, Sexism
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!
Tags: Atheism, atheist, compassion, Freethinkers, Freethought, science, Skepticism
Last Saturday I had the great opportunity to go to the Darwin Day 2010 conference in Indianapolis. It’s not the first time I’d made the two-hour trek from Louisville to Indianapolis for a Center for Inquiry event, but it is the largest event that I’ve seen there.
The itinerary for the event is here: Darwin Day 2010. Rather than merely give an overview of what each speaker presented, I am going to give highlights of what I thought were some of the most interesting and notable points. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: CFI, Charles Darwin, Darwin Day 2010, enlightenment, evolution, focus on the family, Freethinkers, Freethought, NOMA, religion, science
This is a post I wrote in my blog on the Think Atheist website. It is my answer to the question “Why do atheists meet together?” and a bit of my own personal experience.
In the interest of full disclosure, I decided to post this on Think Atheist in reach of a bigger audience 
Why Do Atheists Meet Together?
Tags: Atheism, atheist, christianity, faith, Freethinkers, Freethought, peace, rationality, religion, Think Atheist
I’ve been reading a book called “The Atheist’s Way: Living Well without Gods” by Eric Maisel. I recommend this book to anyone who has considered him or herself to be a ‘spiritual atheist,’ because I have found a concept in this book that has changed my mind about how atheists should address ideas of ‘spirituality. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Atheism, atheist, compassion, enlightenment, Eric Maisel, Freethinkers, Freethought, God, meditation, mind, mythology, naturalism, rationality, religion, unorthodox, yoga
Normally I’ve been writing a new post every weekend. However, last week I was on my honeymoon so I skipped the blog. Yep, I’m a married woman now, to a wonderful atheist man
I remember a previous huge step in my life was in University, where I learned things I’d never dreamt of before, and found my view on life to be entirely different than when I went in. The most striking thing I found to be changed in this period of time were my views on religion. I had a discussion not long ago with a Christian family member about the influence of professors on my views. I think it is just par for the course for professors to challange their students to see the world from a perspective they have never considered before. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Atheism, atheist, christianity, cosmology, education, evolution, expectations, faith, femininity, feminism, Freethinkers, Freethought, God, Infidel, liberal, mythology, myths, naturalism, rationality, religion, science, unorthodox, womanhood, women, words
There is a Barns and Noble bookstore within a couple minutes drive of my office, so from time to time I hang out there during my lunch break. Last Wednesday I went in and sat by the section in Philosophy with the books of atheism and reflected on some of the things I have learned about atheism in my 7 years of considering myself an atheist. Things I didn’t realize when I started out of this path. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Atheism, atheist, evangelicalism, Freethinkers, Freethought, God, Infidel, liberal, mythology, myths, naturalism, peace, rationality, religion, unorthodox
Faith and religion are different things to different people. I’ve come to the conclusion that dictionary definitions are pretty useless to define faith, god, religion. The dictionary definition is only, at best, a snapshot of different ways people use a word at a particular point in time. And at worst, it shows the biases of the editing committee, or whoever writes those definitions. Therefore the dictionary is a useful guide, but not an authority.
And words like faith and religion, which are highly emotionally charged, have many different (possibly even contradictory) meanings to different people. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Atheism, atheist, definitions, dictionary, faith, Freethinkers, Freethought, God, Infidel, knowledge, liberal, mythology, myths, naturalism, peace, rationality, religion, science, Thomas Aquinas, unorthodox, words
