John Kasich Takes His Wrath Out On Atheists - After Campaign Pummeling By Trump

Ohio Guv John Kasich - above left - shoots his mouth off in a NH bookstore about Daniel Radcliffe being an atheist. Kasich obviously needs to pull his head out of his ass.

It looks to me like Ohio Gubernator John Kasich is suffering from a bit of Stockholm syndrome. Seems that all those punches along with the Reepo debate hostage taking by Trump have  taken their toll on him mentally.  In a recent bookstore appearance in downtown Exeter, NH - according to a report in The Washington Post-  he appears to have finally lost all his marbles.

Kasich was evidently on a tour of beautiful downtown Exeter with Chris Sununu in tow (the son of former Sen. John Sununu)  and he spotted a copy of one of the Harry Potter books. Immediately, Kasich's febrile and senile brain experienced a rare neuronal association and connected it to the "Harry Potter" movie actor Daniel Radcliffe.  In the next instant a minor brain quake erupted and Kasich,  after wiping some dribble from his chin, sputtered:

“You know that Daniel has declared himself an atheist? I’m serious. What a weird thing. Why would a guy who has had all that success just, I mean, what the hell is wrong with him?”


Well, it appears not only is he a grade A asshole for that vapid blurtation, but also is unaware that atheists and "nones" (no religious affiliation) are the fastest growing group in the U.S.  on the religious-non-religious spectrum.  He also appears to have emanated a major brain fart with his failure to process that being an atheist has nada to do with success. Nothing. And on a per capita basis there are actually more successful atheists than Christians, like Kasich. This may well be because atheists operate according to reason and adhere to the rules of logic instead of shooting balderdash from the hip.

To reinforce the point further, the Post noted the growing list of "A-list" atheists including: Keira Knightley, Julianne Moore, Javier Bardem and Billy Joel, to name a few. Then there are the 7 out of 10 (estimated) physical scientists who have successfully published their research in peer-reviewed journals and even won Nobel Prizes (like  physicist Steven Weinberg).  As the Post author put it:

"Kasich might be doing a lot more head scratching or fist shaking at the TV"

In other words, this idiot is in denial at just how successful atheists are in multiple spheres, so there's certainly no reason for Daniel Radcliffe to hang his head. Rather, buttbrains like Kasich - who I once actually thought of as the only serious Reep candidate, fit the loser bill. I mean look how he got beaten by Trump, to a bloody pulp!

The Post also pointed out that Radcliffe has made no secret of his atheism, telling Esquire in a 2009 interview "I'm an atheist but I'm very relaxed about it. I don't preach my atheism:

In other words, it's very likely he's an implicit as opposed to explicit atheist. To refresh memories, the implicit atheist simply withholds belief in any kind of deity already on offer by the theist. (The explicit atheist, by contrast, rejects it outright.)  The explicit atheist is also more likely to be aggressive based on his or her attitude.

As a result of Kasich's juvenile outburst American Atheists President David Silverman is calling on Kasich to apologize and meet with atheists in his home state so he doesn’t say something offensive like that again.  The problem with that appeal is that it only works with reasonable, rational people. For a knuckle dragging ignoramus like Kasich it would be like getting an ape in a zoo to apologize for shooting his wad on passersby.  Frankly, he wouldn't know what the hell you were talking about.

In a letter sent to Kasich’s office and posted online, Silverman declared:

To state what should be obvious: There is nothing “wrong” with Mr. Radcliffe nor with the tens of millions of atheists in this country.

Atheists are members of your community. We are your firefighters, your police officers, your teachers, your doctors, and your coworkers. I have no doubt that atheists serve on your staff and volunteered for your presidential campaign. If you think you’ve never met an atheist, you’re wrong. 

I challenge you to sit down with a group of your atheist constituents. Talk to us about what we want from our government. Ask us why we’re atheists and what it means to us. You name the time and place and I’ll make it happen.

Again, very eloquent and it would be compelling if one was dealing with a rational or even semi-rational person, but Kasich is neither. (See the analogy given earlier). If anything, Kasich is such a class A asshole he'd just double down on his antagonism if the American Atheist prez pleads too much.

The bottom line is that dingbats like John Kasich don't give a rat's patootey whether atheists are part of their community, are successful or not.  In their tiny, misshapen world the exercise of our rights can never receive an imprimatur because atheists are not considered as equals.  Silverman could as well ask a pig or drunken ape to whistle "Dixie" and have more success.

El Rushbo Blows It On Atheism, Pantheism & the Pope's Science Advisor

"El Rushbo" fulminates in the midst of a brain fart.

A transcript of a recent Rush Limbaugh show obtained by one salon.com writer was entitled “The Pope’s ‘Science Advisor’ Is an Atheist Who Worships the Earth,” which began:

 

“My friends, not one to let things go, I have dug deep, and I have found out practically everything there is to know about the science advisor to Pope Francis on this encyclical. And the main thing you need to know, the guy’s an atheist.”

Of course we know, especially from one University of Minnesota (2006) survey by Penny Edgell that atheists are living slime, the next thing to Islamic terrorists and hence evil, and therefore their judgment can’t be trusted. One could as well trust a radical Muslim.  Given Limbaugh's limited intellect, exposed when he tried to go against Sandra Fluke, this is what we know about this overstuffed hog.

Limbaugh then attempts to deliver a mini-lecture on different religious beliefs and blows it with one brain fart. He blabs:

 “the word for it in the story that I found, one of the most credible stories, is a pantheist, which is a variation of atheist.”

Actually, no, you dope. Pantheism holds that nature and deity are bound up as one entity – most often either as a single oneness, or in terms of the regularities of natural laws. Thus, when one worships nature one worships God, or when one appreciates natural regularities – evinced in natural laws- one is indirectly worshipping God.

In terms of crude or unrefined pantheism, the totality of the universe, its energy and all relevant fields are equated to a “divinity”. This is, when one thinks about it, merely a mammoth expansion and extrapolation of Sun worship. Instead of worshipping one immediate celestial body, one is worshipping all of them as a collective.

A much more subtle form is natural law Pantheism which received much attention after Einstein referred to it as “Spinoza’s God”. When pressed to explain himself, Einstein went on to aver he didn’t believe in a personal God, but rather “Spinoza’s God, the order and harmony of all that exists.” In other words, the principle of regularity of natural law at work in the cosmos elevated to a kind of impersonal deity. However, it’s wise not to read too much into this, and it clearly doesn’t come across as anything to be worshipped!

By contrast, the implicit atheist withholds belief in a deity pending adequate evidence being forthcoming. He isn't trying to "dodge" anything, and certainly wouldn't be asking for evidence if he regarded a divine entity as linked to "impossibility of knowledge". The explicit atheist by contrast, rejects outright all deity claims.

Limbaugh also errs by asserting that a “pantheist is somebody that believes the earth is a living organism that has the equivalent of a brain and reacts to horrible things done to it by humans,” and that in this view “the earth becomes the deity and there is no God.”

But this is in conflict with the previous definition and also confuses pantheists with those who believe in Gaia. (The concept of a self-regulating Earth)  Gaia theory is a hypothesis formulated by the chemist James Lovelock and co-developed by the microbiologist Lynn Margulis in the 1970s, that proposed that organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a self-regulating, complex system that contributes to maintaining the conditions for life on the planet. The philosopher Michael Ruse notes in 2013 that “as science, Gaia never really made it, but it has provoked important scientific work nonetheless. The world as a whole, its homeostasis or lack of it, is interesting, important, and worthy of investigation,” More to the point, even if Gaia theory hasn’t been accepted by most scientists, say like Continental Drift theory, the generic discipline of Earth Systems Science flourishes.


Limbaugh’s minor mental excavations actually raise more questions than answers. Does the Pope’s science advisor, Hans Schellnhuber, really believe that the Earth is a living organism like you or me — or God? And if he does, does it matter? Do only atheists believe in anthropogenic global warming? If so, how does El Rushbo explain someone like Katharine Hayhoe, an Evangelical Christian who “believes her religious faith obligates her to spread the word about climate change”?  Limbaugh should really worry more about her because she has the power to change Christian minds. Christians certainly aren’t going to be swayed by an evil atheist pantheist.

However, given Limbaugh can't even distinguish between atheists and pantheists it more than makes sense that he'd  make no effort to understand how an Evangelical Christian could believe that “among climate scientists, people who spend their lives researching our world, there’s no debate regarding the reality of climate change and the fact that humans are the primary cause.”  Given the magnitude of cognitive dissonance it would sow in El Rushbo's sclerotic brain,  it's little wonder the porker doesn’t even mention the fact that she’s a Christian. It turns out that just mentioning her on his show was enough to discredit her, though; Gingrich subsequently cut her chapter out of his (climate change) book completely.

For a sane and rational person - which clearly El Rushbo is not - a  charitable reading of Schellnhuber would lead him to conclude that the papal advisor is not shilling for a new religion. He’s using Gaia as a metaphor to help him understand the issue. Schellnhuber also says that this “hotly debated ‘geophysiological’ approach to Earth-system analysis argues that the biosphere contributes in an almost cognizant way to self-regulating feedback mechanisms that have kept the Earth’s surface environment stable and habitable for life.” Perhaps Rushbo didn't notice that Schellnhuber uses scare quotes to describe Lovelock’s idea of studying the Earth’s “body.” He also utilizes metaphorical language again when he says that the Earth acts in an almost cognizant manner. That is, almost but not really.

Can El Rushbo make the distinction? Why would he if he can't even tell a pantheist from an atheist? The man's drug-addled brain is so bereft of its moorings and rational bearings it would be like trying to train an ape to grasp differential calculus applied to Moon rockets.

Never mind El Rushbo's mental deficiencies, it’s clear that the Earth system science that people like Schellnhuber and others invoke makes generous use of metaphors both to understand the issue of global climate change and to communicate this understanding to the rest of us. Whether it’s called “Gaia” or “God’s creation,” it’s a poetic metaphor that has the power to motivate us to make the necessary changes because it shows how much we’re actually invested in it.

Alas, right wing trolls like Limbaugh will never make such investment because it's not in their interest to do so. Apart from the fact they lack the mental wherewithal to be able to do so to any substantive level.

Can We Hope to Educate Fundies on the Different Types of Atheist?

In approaching the fundamentalist brain, one thing one must perpetually keep in mind is its inherent simplicity and the incessant demand for simplicity. Thus, rather than acknowledging the Big Bang as the source for inception of the cosmos the fundie will invent 'young Earth' and 'young Sun' nonsense because it's simpler. After all, you needn't learn about the physics of the Big Bang including the significance of the 2.7 K isotropic microwave radiation  -- you need only invoke the fairy tale of 'Adam & Eve'.

In a similar vein, in approaching evolution the dumb, semi-educated fundie will usually cherry pick one aspect to try to make hay out of (like the 98% chimp-human sharing of DNA) but entirely ignore the more difficult aspects such as that: 1) chimps and humans share the exact same cytochrome-c protein sequence despite 10^93 different possibilities for variation, and 2) the fact that the ape 2p and 2q chromosomes underwent telomeric fusion to become the '2' chromosome in humans. 

But this is what we've come to expect from  a lot that still believes ancient fables such as that a man could survive 3 days in a whale's belly (or 'great fish') despite it being full of hydrochloric acid, or that an 'Ark' could have been constructed to carry pairs of all the critters then on Earth including dinosaurs.

So it's not a surprise to learn that most also lack the intellectual capital or ability to appreciate the distinctions between atheists.  After all, it's simpler just to assume ALL atheists are of one type, e.g. "militant" if they even write something negatively about Xtianity.  Their pea brains fail to understand that writing something negative, say in a blog, is NOT the same thing as demanding the extirpation of religion - even fundy-ism.

Nor do these clowns grasp the distinction between agnostics and atheists. So we are obliged to help them out, and try to express some sympathy too.

Author George Smith[1] notes that the most vernacular usage confuses the meaning of agnostic, usually asserting it is “somewhere between belief and outright unbelief.” The way it is usually framed is that the agnostic “isn’t sure whether or not God exists.”  In fact this is an erroneous interpretation of the term.


What it actually, technically means is someone who asserts there is not yet adequate evidence to make a decision if one were possible. In other words, the issue must remain open-ended and unresolved until such time evidence appears. Thus, true agnosticism is not some dithering or fence-sitting between belief and unbelief, but rather acknowledgement of the impossibility of knowledge as it pertains to any ability to address the question in the first place.

But mayhap this is far too complex for the simplistic gray matter of fundies.

Smith himself (op. cit., p. 9) splits and parses the agnostic position even further, according to whether one is an agnostic atheist or an agnostic theist. The first avers that all supernaturalist propositions or claims are inherently unknowable (because they are untestable) by the human mind, and so not worth discussing any more than pink elves, unicorns or fairies. In this sense, unbelief isn’t really even necessary, since who would actually believe in a pink elf or unicorn? Well, then there’d be even less merit to arguing over an invisible Being! Thus, without any capacity for knowledge about it, it’s redundant.


The theist agnostic meanwhile, maintains a firm belief in the existence of God, but asserts the precise nature of this God is unknowable. On this basis, no attributes are assigned to try to define God’s nature.  We cannot say that any divine nature is “eternal”, or “omnipotent” or “omnipresent” because one simply doesn’t know. Thus, it makes no sense to use words to try to describe a deity. Belief is as far as one can go.

Related to definitions of atheists is the ability to distinguish between implicit and explicit atheists. In many ways, the implicit atheist is similar to the agnostic atheist except for the fact the kmowability or otherwise of supernaturalist propositions is not gone into. Thus, the implicit atheist simply avers to be withholding belief in any kind of deity already on offer by the theist. (The explicit atheist, by contrast, rejects it outright.)

As I noted in an article published in the Mensa Bulletin, March 1994:

"Let's be clear about what constitutes Atheism and what doesn't. The Atheist - to put it succinctly, absolutely withholds investing intellectual/emotional resources in any supernatural claim. Indeed the word Atheism itself embodies this definition: a-theos, or without god.”

What is happening here is not active disbelief, i.e. in making a statement “There is no god,” but rather simply passively withholding belief in a statement already made. Hence, the deity believer has made the positive claim. The ontological   (implicit) atheist’s  response is simply an absence of belief in it. No more and no less. It does not and never has implied  active disbelief, aggressive rancor or a vehement and militant opposition to the beliefs.


Let me quickly add here that this withholding of belief is the more natural position, as opposed to advocating belief, which is unnatural. Consider a different context: a neighbor runs over and informs me that aliens have landed in his yard in a spacecraft. Until I actually go over and try to verify his claim I am under no obligation to accept it as a statement of fact. Thus, the default intellectual position is always skepticism, irrespective of the claim made. This again is because the onus is always on the claimant to make good, not the skeptic to “disprove” it.

It isn’t difficult to see from the above context that the more conservative (and reasonable!) position is withholding belief until a claim is validated. One does not, after all, accept a claim then do further research. One ab initio doubts the claim and then sets out to devise tests to ascertain the validity!  And in the case of extraordinary claims (which certainly include “God” and visiting aliens in spaceships), “extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence” as the late Carl Sagan used to emphasize.

 

It also isn’t difficult to see that this is exactly analogous to the atheist withholding belief in a deity. After all, If God genuinely exists, why is he/she/it not uniformly perceptible,  at least in basic features, to all peoples? As we saw in previous blog posts (from 2011, mainly), there are nearly as many different versions of deity as there are people. (Or at least, religions!)

Another error made by the wayward fundie is assuming that a negative belief, i.e. that there is no God, is the same as being a positive belief, 'there is a God'.  An example of this would be what Lisa Kennedy spouted on a Bill Maher Real Time show in January, 2012, i.e.  if an atheist simply doesn’t believe in the supernatural or God he is expressing a belief, albeit a negative one. If expressing a negative belief, then it's the same as a positive belief such as invoked in religions, ergo he is professing a religion. This is utter nonsense.


It would be akin to asserting that if I decline belief in ghosts I still have “negative ghost belief” and therefore am a Ghostologist ! The error inheres in asserting that an absence of belief is the same as a belief. This error repeats the canard that the onus is on the non-believer to disprove the believer’s claim, instead of acknowledging it is impossible to prove a negative. Some sophists attempt to get around this by claiming it  "isn’t impossible to prove a negative". They argue that they can prove “there are no black balls” in a box by simply emptying the box out and finding all white balls. But this misrepresents the example, since the possibility of “all white” balls was never in question! The analogy is specious because the existence of God IS in question, and isn’t objectively verifiable, unlike counting real balls. The analogy trivializes the deity existence question while not validating the sophist.

In the end, it may be that because the brains of fundies are unable to perform ACH thinking - or what James Cheyne  has called abstract, categorical and hypothetical thinking (such as integrated into standard I. Q. tests, e.g.  the Raven's and Wechsler Similarities tests) then they cannot also be expected to discriminate between subtle differences in definitions, say for 'atheist'.

Why are believers, fundies especially,  missing this crucial component of thought which also, by the way, is essential for critical thinking? There are a number of reasons. For example, one may be that the honing of such skills was never possible, for example if they came from a home schooling environment. Another, more controversial, is that the very neural pathways that predispose them to belief or faith, are also the ones that inhibit predictive ACH conceptualizing. Lastly, it's feasible they may have suffered head injuries, maybe from a DI - using a pugil stick-- in the Marine Corps at Parris Island, and they never got their senses back together.

Sadly, if any of these is true we can be sure they will always take the simpleton path in their thinking as regards atheists and atheism.

---

[1]  George Smith, Atheism - The Case Against God, 1989, Prometheus Books, p. 9.

Congrats to Pastor Ryan Bell - For Trying Out Atheism!

Pastor Ryan Bell is now learning what it's like to be an atheist in America. He's learning that, contrary to the bollocks of a "free country", there may be penalties to be paid for expressing one's first amendment rights, for example. As people may or may not know, Bell announced on the Huffington Post on New Year's Eve his experiment to see what it was like to live as an atheist - at least for a year.

I am not sure one can "try" atheism, because one either is or isn't. He or she either has the mindset for it or not. It's not something you can "try on" anymore than one can "try on" Catholicism. (Although, true, many of us born into that religion are forced by accident of birth to 'try it' - though when we reach maturity we can make up our minds that it's not for us. As I related to my Mom - a firm Catholic- 25 years ago when she asked why I left Catholicism: "I felt I was wearing a suit that had shrunk and could no longer fit into it. I needed to get a suit that fit!" She liked the analogy and accepted it.)

Once having become an atheist, I experienced further change - in this case from being a "anti-religion" atheist in the mold of Madalyn Murray O'Hair and her American Atheists, to  becoming a more moderate agnostic atheist.  The moderate atheist in this sense is one who adheres to the original meaning of the term a-theist, absence of belief, as opposed to denouncing belief. This change was documented in the last chapter of my new book, Beyond Atheism, Beyond God.   Basically, it meant no longer screaming for the elimination of all religions, but rather adopting a more nuanced stance: that in an era in which knuckle draggers on the Right are attempting to halt every social justice advance - or attempted advance - we need all the allies we can get. It serves no purpose to alienate millions.

In any case, I do admire Bell's pluck and courage in at least trying to alter perspectives for a year, to understand how the unbelief part of the populace lives- and what we face. His intent, related on cnn.com, means:

He will not pray, go to church, read the Bible for inspiration, trust in divine providence or hope in things unseen. He’s taking the opposite of a leap of faith: a free fall into the depths of religious doubt.


Now, this is a heady mix even for a temporary atheist. Especially ditching the bible addiction, which I've always maintained is the first criterion for any person to move beyond reflex belief. If you are as truly confident in the existence of the "divine" as you claim,  you ought not require a special book as a spiritual crutch - especially the Bible - which as my sister-in -law has noted, "was written at about the level of eighth graders."

Not trusting in divine providence is, of course, implicit for the atheist - moderate or extreme. Thus, we operate according to the more evidentiary perspective that fortuitous events - say, such as surviving an airline crash, or a mass shooting, is a matter of dumb luck and chance. You happened to be in a safe seat, or were out of the line of sight of the shooter. It wasn't that "God" specially protected you - while allowing the others around you to be demolished or mowed down. That sort of magical thinking is the sure sign of an infant .

As for "religious doubt" that ought to be expected of any person pursuing a spiritual path. Not to doubt, not to accept the world as gray - instead of black and white-  is again to remain spiritually childish. Not doubting, as philosopher Alan Watts once put it, is to forclose your perspective and inhibit your own self-growth. It leads to a mental, spiritual dead end and stunts your vision. The world then becomes filled with enemies and caricatures of demons who must be fought to the death. Hence, the emergence of the religious extremist who would blow up an airliner or an abortion clinic.

Some Christian critics of Bell, however, believe he's doing the wrong thing.  According to one author on Christianity Today:

The issues Bell has with the church, and even his interest in atheist thought, doesn't require a turn to atheism.

This is true, and one can indeed just read atheist books, say like my own Atheist's Handbook to Modern Materialism, to get a handle on the basis for atheist thought.  One needn't "try atheism" as a mental position and live that way to grasp atheist thought. (Though it does help!) One can also work out any problems with his church, if there is mutual willingness to do so. The problem, however, is that one cannot experience what it's like to BE an atheist unless one lives as an atheist. Reading about atheist thought only gets you into a passive, armchair understanding - not a deep experience of being one.

Thus, had Pastor Bell not chosen to actually live as an atheist he'd not have known how easily he could have been released from his pastor position or fired from his adjunct professorship.  He might have suspected that the widespread meme: 'atheists are the most distrusted group in America' - was only hyperbole or nonsense. He may never have actually experienced it.

Of course, his former Christian cohort has rabidly denied all this and insisted none of those events bore any relation to Bell's choice to live as an atheist. Yeah, right, and Chris Christie was just totally surprised that thousands of commuters could have been inconvenienced by one of his staff who - somehow - believed that payback had to be delivered (by closing 3 of 4 lanes over a primary bridge)  for a Dem Mayor not supporting Mr. "Pillsbury Doughboy"  Guv's NJ re-election. Well, gullibility takes all kinds of forms.

This is displayed by one Xtian named Os, who writes:

"This is not true as many who are very close to this story know. I also think it is unfortunate that Ryan is being used here, with or without his encouragement I do not know, as a poster child for America's culture wars in a way that many would immediately recognize as deeply inauthentic if roles were reversed,"

Whatever. The fact is Os and his Xtian compatriots left Bell hanging out there in the wind with no financial  support. It was left to atheist Hemant Mehta (aka 'Friendly Atheist') to summon help from fellow atheists for Bell's support. So far well over $7,000 has been collected with more coming in all the time.

Bell, in his blog on Tuesday, wrote:

I am shocked and overwhelmed a the outpouring of support that I have received after Hemant Mehta (aka Friendly Atheist) asked people to support me financially. I am grateful. But just as I am leaving behind the fear and sometimes hate-inspired religion of my past, I am deeply uncomfortable about raising support by casting my friends in the Christian community in a negative light–especially one which is not true."

Again, I congratulate Bell for his courage, whether or not his experiment succeeds or whether indeed, he leaves Christianity fully behind and becomes a full -fledged atheist.

For Christians, the treatment of Bell ought to incite their own soul-searching concerning whether they can really believe they have finally found "the light" or, more likely, are still being kept in the dark about the true nature of their professed religion. To quote the words of my sister-in-law  Krimhilde again (from her May interview):

"If it were true that the God they worship is one of love THEY themselves would show such love in their lives, not with words but actions! They would feed the homeless and clothe them, they would donate their time selflessly to those with less than they have, instead of wallowing in their own self pity and hate.  You can always tell what type of thing a person worships by how he behaves, how he acts. He can say all he wants his God is real, real love or whatnot, but if he himself doesn't show that love then it is a fraud. "


I couldn't have put it better!

My Book Signing Experience at Barnes & Noble: Terrific - If You Don't Count Sales!

At Barnes & Noble for my book signing event.

One of the venerable traditions of authorship and book publishing is the event known as the "book signing". This usually takes place at a book store, with the author (or often several authors) seated at table(s) with books on display - and then customers enter, maybe chat a bit about the book content, and hopefully buy one - which is then inscribed on the title page with the message of their choice.

At least one author website has defined a book signing success as "showing up, and selling at least one book".  While this may sound preposterous, it really isn't when you think about it in an age where Nooks, Kindles and e-books dominate. Thus, what is the point of a real, 3D book -signing, when the author writes some message on a the real page of a hard copy book, when e-books dominate in the marketplace? People prefer the lower cost and also the convenience of the e-book (which btw, are regularly made available at the same time as hard copies by publishers.)

So again, in this milieu and context, selling one book - say for $26.95 (when the e-book is only $3.50) is a big deal and could be counted as "success". At least for the ordinary mid-list (or low-list) author, who isn't J.K. Rowling or Stephen King.

In my case, at my book signing at the local Barnes and Noble yesterday, Janice and I had a great time. It was in fact more a social occasion than a selling occasion (I did make the 1 book threshold!) as 9 customers arrived at my table and wanted to discuss the basis for the book (' Beyond Atheism, Beyond God') at length. This happily consumed nearly 50 minutes of the 2 hrs. there, but was well worthwhile - since any other customers entering the store (the table was near the entrance) beheld an author in active, engaged mode - as opposed to sitting alone (ok, wifey was at my side- other than when she left to get us coffee).

Oh, that's another warning brought up in a number of websites detailing 'how to' points of book signing: NEVER do a lone signing! (Unless you are  Stephen King, John Grisham or J.K. Rowling!) Well, easier said than done - especially if the B&N (one of the few left) only has room for 1 author signing and time slots are limited.

Anyway, the discussions were where it was at, especially with one Catholic seminarian who took one copy off to skim through (probably avoiding the sections on quantum mechanics, and the Aspect experiment, Bell Inequality) and returned 25 minutes later to ask lots of questions and discuss the answers in depth.

One of his worries concerned the holistic concept of the book, and that any serious readers who used its prescriptions or intellectual formulations might actually believe they had become 'creators' in the cosmos as opposed to remaining 'creatures'.  But as I pointed out, noting the sections he likely skipped, the quantum mechanics of nonlocality disclosed in the book - on the basis of that Aspect experiment at the University of Paris-  certainly allowed the emergence of co-creators or (as physicist Henry Stapp put it in his book, 'The Mindful Universe') , "participating observers")

It helped that I had the foresight to have brought an 8 1/2 x 11' notepad with me to be able to more completely provide a response via sketches. In this case, showing the relation of explicated individual forms to the universal aggregate  (called the Dirac Ether or Holomovement) - which might be depicted:

INDIVIDUAL FORMS (EXPLICATE ORDER)

___Ç___Ç___Ç___Ç___Ç___

DIRAC ENERGY SEA (IMPLICATE ORDER)

 The relation is holographic in the sense that each of the individual forms contains the information of the whole holographic field. The Dirac Ether is equivalent to Bohm's Implicate Order, or what he calls the holomovement, and is a pure frequency domain. If one imparts to it a universal consciousness (as Bohm does) it would also be the "Universal Mind" (another term for God, albeit, impersonal - not personal- and embracing the whole).  The ripples on this sea are the distinct material forms perceived as separate entities in the universe because we are generally unaware of the implicate order.  But - to the extent we become aware, whether by learning the applicable quantum mechanics, or using meditation - yes, we emerge as conscious forms manifesting the Whole (Universal Mind) and hence, "co-creators" of reality, not merely passive creatures.

As I also pointed out, the concept of being passive creatures is an offshoot of the ancient thinking that we are all separate from each other. This is a direct result of extreme reductionist thinking - accepting the human as a kind of automaton that simply reacts as opposed to having the potential to surmount that condition.

I think the point that probably struck the seminarian most, was invoking the analogy of the ocean - or oceanic reality. I asked him if one could simply remove a wave from the ocean, place it separately on the beach and say 'Look, there's a wave!'. He shook his head, "Of course not!" And this offered the perfect opening to reply:

"That's my point! The point of the book! In the same way one can't take any individualized form and remove it as separate, the perception of separability is purely an illusion. In the same way, it makes no sense to extract "God" from the oceanic and say, "Here is 'God'!" - because in the end, reality is all ONE thing - not multiple things. Multiple things, the explicate order, is purely an illusion driven by our biological evolution and the limits of our sensory organs, apparatus.

This nearly blew his mind, and he could only answer: "Wow! I get it!"

We then also agreed that if "God" can't be extracted as a separate entity from the oceanic reality, it makes no sense to call the word out or use it. You can't separate it out any more than a wave from the ocean. By extension, it makes zero sense for atheists to joust at it, because they are inveighing against a redundancy. They effectively become like Don Quixote tilting at windmills of their mind.  Once all and sundry agree the word "God" is only a regulative ideal of the mind, a verbal symbol to represent a concept that can't be really processed or extracted (differentiated) as a separate reality, then we move away from false onto-theology and useless polarizations - say between "believers" and "unbelievers". What one then has and can debate, perhaps, is the (subjective, and relative)  "God-concept" while admitting the actual, real REAL entity is beyond description via a language whose function is to fragment reality..

The seminarian then expressed some concern about a human "co-creator" (say who reads my book to the fullest and applies it)  trying to gain power over other humans who may not share his esoteric insights. He asked me whether I had any worries of people misusing my book like that, and I replied "Absolutely not".

I explained that any person who achieved the level of insight needed to become a co-creator would not seek to exert power over others, because this implied  not being free of the illusion of separation. Only one steeped in separation would aspire to power over others, precisely because "the other" is seen as apart and inferior or worthy of only being exploited to one's own ends. Hence, this is the modus operandi of a "separatist".  By contrast, the Holist sees all people as part of the same unitary whole - and even if (at the explicate level of individuality) he often inveighs against them (say me vs. Neoliberals and militarists, "repukes") he doesn't seek to subjugate them to his will. He merely seeks to induce them to cooperate in the master plan of a better life for all humans, as opposed to undermining it - say by military waste, or spreading inequality.

At this point, the seminarian was so astonished as to be left nearly speechless, whereupon Janice interjected that yes, I had spent three years at Loyola University taking assorted Theology, Ethics and other related fare. He blinked several times and asked if I was still an atheist, to which I replied, "Yes, but an implicit atheist - I withhold belief from the claim made by the theist to have absolute knowledge of a God. I don't "deny" his or her claim, or attack it."

Impressed, he nodded his head, thanked me for the exchange and left.....but didn't purchase a copy of the book.

Janice surmised he probably extracted all he needed or wanted to in his 25 minute skimming, and besides, the Priests running the seminary might regard it as "heretical" material.

Was the book signing a success? Yes, I believe it was. The social occasion of the event allowed the frank and open intellectual exchange of views with strangers who otherwise might never have considered the elements discussed. Sales? Maybe they will come later!
 

Six Types of Atheist? I Don't Think So!

 S.E. Cupp claims to be an atheist, but in reality is what I call a pseudo-atheist. She uses the atheist label only as an 'in' for media gigs most real atheists can't get.

The meaning of the word 'atheist' has often been parsed and explained so badly that most people simply give up and run to a dictionary - which is about the worst thing they can do. All most dictionaries offer is that 'atheism' is a form of belief, but now manifested as "un-belief". This isn't helpful and doesn't get us very far. It also leads to consistent misrepresentations of atheists in the mainstream media. As I noted in an article published in the Mensa Bulletin, March 1994:

"Let's be clear about what constitutes Atheism and what doesn't. The Atheist - to put it succinctly, absolutely withholds investing intellectual/emotional resources in any supernatural claim. Indeed the word Atheism itself embodies this definition: a-theos, or without god.”

What is happening here is not active disbelief, i.e. in making a statement “There is no god,” but rather simply passively withholding belief in a statement already made. Hence, the deity believer has made the positive claim. The ontological atheist’s is the simple absence of belief in it. No more and no less. It does not and never has implied aggressive rancor or a vehement and militant opposition to the beliefs. (Though yes, some militant atheists – or what we call “strong atheists” – do have such attitudes!)

This is referenced as a new study has come to light trying to show there are "six types of atheist." According to the study's authors from the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, the main observation was that "nonbelief is an ontologically diverse community,”.  They arrived at this from "59 interviews" (not a whole lot for a study purporting to offer serious academic insights).

They were led to conclude six basic groups including:

1- Intellectual atheist/agnostic

This permutation of the basic atheist fancies internet arguments and "seeks information and intellectual stimulation about from atheism"

2- Activist

This lot aren't content to be generic unbelievers they want to tell others why they don't accept a god, and also are more likely to put up billboards espousing their positions, and write letters to the press.

3- Seeker-agnostic

Made up of those unsure of the existence of a God, but keep an open mind as regards human limitations and experience.

4- Anti-theist

This sub-group regularly speaks out against religion by positioning themselves as diametrically opposed to it. Examples include: Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins. Christopher Hitchens (when he was alive) and Victor Stenger.

5- Non-theist

This sub-group simply divests itself of engaging in any back and forth at all, concerning religion. Religion plays no role or consciousness in their world view so in one sense might be called "absolute atheists" to the extent religion or "God" has no meaning.

6- Ritual atheist

This sub-group "doesn't believe in God or an afterlife or associate with religion, but still finds useful the teachings of some religions." In most cases, their adherence to rituals stems from the habit of family tradition, say going to Christmas Mass - but now going there simply as a mechanical reaction not inspired by any emotional connections of investment into any religious meaning.


But is this level of discrimination valid (the authors ultimately see 32 classes by 2020) ? The long time atheist will easily see that in most cases a pronounced overlapping ensures the categories can probably collapsed to at most three sub-groups and others can even be left out. For example, in my book, Atheism: A Beginner's Handbook, I note that non-theists are separate from atheists, and more or less on the same  definitional basis as Deists. I also took pains to separate anti-theists from atheists. (Although I made some allowance that they can sometimes be included in the already established category of strong atheists - which embodies those much more vehement that weak atheists.) The other terms used consistently for these two are: explicit and implicit atheists. The implicit atheist here conforms more to the original definition I provided in the Mensa Bulletin.

"Activist" atheists are also subsumed under the explicit or strong atheist umbrella. They are most likely to be members of American Atheists, and be more involved in expressing the strong atheist meme, often in public protests.

The "seeker-agnostic' can also be subsumed (with some modifications of explanation) under the weak or implicit atheist banner. The agnostic atheist - as George Smith has defined it - arises not out of "not knowing" whether a God exists, but rather out of the belief in the impossibility of adequate knowledge accessible to the human brain. This leads to the belief in the impossibility of knowing anything about a supernatural realm, and hence anything of possible entities existing within it. It may not seem like there's much of a difference but there is, because accepting the premise of the impossibility of knowledge puts the person on an entirely different footing as the media representation of an agnostic who sits atop the fence between firm belief and unbelief.

Lastly, there is the pseudo-atheist, which is perhaps a category of one, as embodied by media star S.E. Cupp. She has adopted the atheist label out of convenience but often expresses sympathy for religion, especially of the Republican-fundie brands. In this way she's been able to get gig after media gig that hard core real atheists can only imagine.   A review not long ago, of one of her books,  gushes:

"She’s an atheist. A non-believer. Which makes her the perfect impartial reporter from the trenches of a culture war dividing America and eroding the Judeo-Christian values on which this country was founded"

Note the highlighted words: what the corporo-press-media empire has wet dreams over: "the perfect impartial reporter". They don't want to hear from REAL Atheists  because they may not receive the acceptable versions of thought for publication or media circulation. Hence, a fake like S.E. Cupp serves their interests to a tee.

Let's be thankful that Ms. Cupp likely "broke the mold" for this pseudo-version. Meanwhile, the authors of the 'six types of atheist' study need to go back and re-examine their work in a more objective manner.  This should include the issue or aspect of whether those in their brackets embrace any forms of the philosophy of Materialism. To my way of thinking, no actual atheist can renounce or reject Materialism - though yes, there are different forms. (See e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/02/materialism-still-mostly-misunderstood.html )

Myths about Atheists (3)

In this blog we conclude the myths about atheism:

6. Atheism is a Religion

This claim is absurd on its face. The misplaced strategy, however, is always to attempt to place atheism within the same logical context as religion and then attack it on the basis of occupying an analogous “belief” spectrum. In the end, this is a fool’s errand.

For one thing it turns the very meaning and basis of religion on its head. We know all religions embody centralized beliefs or dogmas that issue from some sacred scripture or a body of theology based on scriptural interpretations.. Atheism has none of these, since there are no central propositions or beliefs with which all atheists agree.

First, atheists withhold belief, they do not invest it. This alone separates atheists from religionists or people of faith. Second, atheists make no positive claims for any transcendent existent that requires their worship or obeisance. They simply acknowledge no god or entity with which to build a religion in other words. Third, atheists maintain no sacred works, scriptures, or ancient artifacts, from which their “truths” are extracted.

They have no analog to a Bible, Qu’ran, Talmud or anything remotely similar. Instead, atheists pursue objective truth via open inquiry predicated on current science, which may provide fewer certainties or answers than if they merely placed their faith in a book.

Fourth, atheists convene no regular rituals, services or ceremonies to honor, or propitiate any entity. By contrast, the centerpiece of 99 percent of religions is precisely some social ritual, for the purpose of assembling together like-minded believers toward a common goal. Moreover, their churches, synagogues, temples etc. dot the landscape, taking up room that could be used to house the homeless in each respective area or locale.

Perhaps most importantly, there is no uniform "acceptance" of atheist principles from any “congregation” since there’s no homogeneous congregation to bestow it. Atheists often disagree on as many things as they agree on, precisely because no formal coda exists to fix beliefs within a uniform dogma. This means one is just as likely to encounter a wholly Materialist-Naturalist atheist as a non-material one.

Despite this, there remain some who insist that if an atheist simply “doesn’t believe in the supernatural or God” he is expressing a belief. If expressing a belief, then he is professing a religion. This is nonsense. It would be akin to asserting that if I decline belief in UFOs as extraterrestrial spacecraft I still have “UFO belief” and therefore am a practicing Ufologist! The error inheres in asserting that an absence of belief is the same as a belief. This error repeats the canard that the onus is on the atheist to disprove the believer’s claim, instead of acknowledging it is impossible to prove a negative.

Some sophists attempt to get around this by claming it "isn’t impossible to prove a negative". They argue that they can prove there are no black balls in a box by simply emptying the box out and finding all white balls. But this misrepresents the example, since the possibility of “all white” balls was never in question! The analogy is specious because the existence of God IS in question, and isn’t objectively verifiable, in contrast to counting real balls. The analogy trivializes the deity existence question while not validating the sophist. Indeed, his conflation of measurable and non-measurable classes makes him look like an ass.

Our goal, based on reason and the most current scientific findings, is to secure a niche in society for ourselves, mostly for the ideas that society itself dismisses, and for our own mutual self-acceptance.


7. All Atheists are Materialists

As well as being an atheist, I’m a Materialist and proud of it.

Materialism as a working philosophy embraces both large-scale cosmic interactions and atomic scale or quantum phenomena. The latter are not necessarily "material," i.e., quantum interference patterns, but they are physical. Hence Materialism as it is understood today embraces all physical fields and interactions, of both matter and energy. The laws governing these interactions apply without exception to humans as well as inanimate particles/objects. The prediction of the future behavior of all physical interactions is not dependent on the existence of any supernatural agency. Thus, physical laws are complete in the sense of being able to account for all physical phenomena.

As a philosophy of life, Materialism places a premium on objective truth arrived at from the available evidence, accessible to all rather than dispensed on high from Councils, dogmas, “sacred” texts or papal encyclicals. If the ecclesiastic supernaturalist can be deprived of a raison d'etre then dignity and intellectual integrity can be authentically restored to Man. Value and worth is transferred from some hereafter to the here and now; and the power currently vested in Church hierarchies is conveyed to Man himself.

Not surprisingly, the Materialist is more likely than the supernaturalist to place a premium on revering the Earth and demanding the rational disposition of its resources. As a Materialist, after all, I can examine the existing evidence and determine that our planet is probably the only inhabited one in the Milky Way. I can also ascertain that this life is most likely the only one and that I must strive to enhance it in any way possible. I should emphatically not squander what I have now, while awaiting a mythical afterlife.

As a Materialist I therefore refrain from looking to any hypothesized deity for deliverance, or lay blame for human ills on some mythical demonic entity. On the contrary, Man alone is responsible for his actions and is the ultimate master of his fate. As a Materialist I maintain that Man need not suffer extinction as a species, if he has the courage and vision to assume control of his destiny through the use of reason.

It’s not necessary to wave a Bible or the ten commandments at a Materialist, or even quote the "golden rule." The true Materialist, by definition, respects his fellow men and reveres all life, since he recognizes (through his philosophy) that they share one planet which may well be unique in the cosmos. Thus, the true Materialist treasures and conserves the Earth's finite store of resources, since he comprehends that Earth also has one life to live - and there is no more after the existing resources are consumed.

Embodied within the above is a practical ethics, forged out of the Materialist's reason and his priorities. The Materialist is compelled to co-operate with his fellows and promote a common good, not out of fear for the wrath of a deity, but to insure a thriving, harmonious community with high survival value.

Having said all that, it’s not true that all atheists are necessarily Materialists. For example, while a member (briefly!) of Mensa’s ATHSig, I found atheists who also professed belief in non-physical or non-material phenomena. At least one espoused that supernatural phenomena might exist and science ought to be open to such investigation.

While these are surely non-standard positions, they do mean that one cannot generalize about atheists. Even Sir A.J. Ayer, among the foremost atheists of his time, once professed his allowance that life after death might exist (after his own near death experience reported in an article in The London Sunday Times in 1988) though he did add that “just as there can be a godless life, there can be a godless after life.”

However, any such afterlife is difficult to portray and describe (far less explain) in terms of a Materialist point of view. One would almost surely have to invoke esoteric quantum or sub-quantum concepts such as de Broglie waves, or the Bohmian quantum potential . Most scientists, who share a Materialist outlook, are highly averse to even speculating in this way.

Many take what is called a “logical positivist” stance, that it’s perfectly fine to ignore any and all interpretations of nature until hard evidence is forthcoming. We just pay attention to observables and measurements, nothing more.

Myths About Atheists (1)

It isn’t surprising that when you have an unpopular minority in a country, many myths will be created and propagated. For the Jews in Nazi Germany, a popular one was that they carried terrible diseases. The same is true of atheists in the U.S. today. It seems that once one admits to not believing in a God or gods, he or she becomes fair fodder on which to blame everything from the latest plague to the country’s moral backslide, to just about anything else that pops into mind.

9-11? If there were no atheists knocking about, surely God wouldn’t have visited this on us! AIDS? Another biblical plague sent because humans were encouraged to disbelieve, by atheists!

What makes it easier to exploit, is that there are no political stakes involved. Just about anyone can say anything he wants against an atheist, for example against Michael Newdow when he went before the Supreme Court (because of the :”under God” wording in The Pledge of Allegiance), and suffer no consequences..

Political fallout? Forget it! Since the atheist mindset finds no friends or sympathizers in the Beltway, and no one really knows how many atheists vote, it isn’t likely. Besides, there’s little or no chance an atheist will ever achieve elected office anyway. Not in the United States of God-land! According to recent public polls, 52% of Americans would not vote for a well-qualified atheist.

This is totally pathetic, and more than anything else discloses the successful incursion of anti-atheist myths into the national consciousness. What are some of these myths? IN several instalments (not ncessarily sequential) I examine the most egregious one by one.

1. Atheists Deny God

This is perhaps the most popular myth, because on the surface it appears to make eminent sense. Careful thought, however, might disclose how absurd this is. For example, one generally refrains from denying anything for which belief is withheld. Let’s take the example of alien colonies on the Chesapeake. Someone or group makes the claim, they exist, and are planning to siphon water to take to their planet.

Fair enough. I hear the claim, but in the next breath ignore it. It is of no concern to me because it is simply too preposterous to waste investing intellectual resources. The reason is that evidence-free claims can be regarded as false or spurious until such time a modicum of evidentiary basis is provided. If this is so, it follows there is even less reason to invest precious intellectual resources to deny the claim! Why the need?

Indeed, if one “denies” a specious claim, he’s already given it a plausible (if unconscious) underpinning. Any expenditure of mental energy in denial presumes there is at least “smoke” (if not “fire”) to deny! On the other hand, if the claim is totally nonsensical, simple withholding of belief quite fits the bill and is more than adequate. As I noted in an article published in the Mensa Bulletin, March 1994:

"Let's be clear about what constitutes Atheism and what doesn't. The Atheist - to put it succinctly, absolutely withholds investing intellectual/emotional resources in any supernatural claim. Indeed the word Atheism itself embodies this definition: a-theos, or without god.”

What is happening here is not active disbelief, i.e. in making a statement “There is no god,” but rather simply passively withholding belief in a statement already made. Hence, the deity believer has made the positive claim. The ontological atheist’s is the simple absence of belief in it. No more and no less. It does not and never has implied aggressive rancor or a vehement and militant opposition to the beliefs. (Though yes, some militant atheists – or what we call “strong atheists” – do have such attitudes!)

Let me quickly add here that this withholding of belief is the more natural position, as opposed to advocating belief, which is unnatural. Consider a different context: a neighbor runs over and informs me that aliens have landed in his yard in a spacecraft. Until I actually go over and try to verify his claim I am under no obligation to accept it as a statement of fact. Thus, the default intellectual position is always skepticism, irrespective of the claim made. This again is because the onus is always on the claimant to make good, not the skeptic to “disprove” it.
It isn’t difficult to see from the above context that the more conservative (and reasonable!) position is withholding belief until a claim is validated. One does not, after all, accept a claim then do further research. One ab initio doubts the claim and then sets out to devise tests to ascertain the validity! And in the case of extraordinary claims (which certainly include “God” and visiting aliens in spaceships), “extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence” as the late Carl Sagan used to emphasize.

It also isn’t difficult to see that this is exactly analogous to the atheist withholding belief in a deity. After all, If God genuinely exists, why is he/she/it not uniformly perceptible, at least in basic features, to all peoples? As we saw in the previous chapter, there are nearly as many different versions of deity as there are people. (Or at least, religions!)

This isn’t surprising after all, since each person filters deity through his or her own background, knowledge, experience and perhaps even genes (cf. Psychology Today (Aug., 1997), “Nature’s Clones,” by J. Neimark, p. 36.) Thus, it is far more reasonable to make reference to “God-concepts” rather than God, just as it makes more sense to refer to an “unidentified aerial phenomenon” than a craft from another planet when one observes one or more strange lights in the sky. Caution is the byword, and withholding of belief is warranted, until proof or adequate evidence is produced.

While we’re on this topic, let’s consider a collateral, erroneous assumption related to this myth of denial. That is, if anyone withholds belief in deity (presumed to be the Creator of the cosmos) one is obliged to come up with his or her own version of how the cosmos came to be. In fact, this is a non-sequitur. It doesn’t follow from what’s being considered.

First, it hasn’t been established to the satisfaction of the skeptic that any “God” has been proven, far less that the cosmos could have been created by this unproven entity. Indeed, in epistemological (knowledge-basis) terms the believers haven’t even gotten off first base. They have not, after all, even offered a definition of “God” in fifty words or less that can be used as a basis for practical debate. Without at least a definition, we are back to square one and Jean Luc Marion’s “unthinkable xxG-O-Dxx argument.” In other words, the debate is ended before it’s begun.

Second, and in a more general sense, the withholding of any conviction for some presumed claim (or even hypothesis) doesn’t imply the skeptic must offer an entire counter-hypothesis of his own. For example, an astronomer friend may theorize that massive, invisible, dark energy particle fields are really responsible for solar flares. That doesn’t mean a casual listener is obliged to take him seriously or accept his hypothesis under the proviso that if he rejects it he must arrive at his own.

Why? The mere outlandish nature of the claim is in itself enough to warrant suspicion. The listener can therefore reject it on its face, even if he knows less than nothing about dark energy or solar flares. In any case, it isn’t incumbent upon him to develop a whole, entire theory of solar flares as a counter! (It is incumbent on him, perhaps, to do some follow up reading or maybe “googling” of the key issues!)

In a more prosaic case, let’s say I get into an argument with a lawyer at a cocktail party. He asserts that chapter and section blah of a state contract law deems that corporations are “persons” under the 14th amendment, and hence can seize personal property if they’re maligned. At most, I can give him a wink and a nod, but I’m not obliged to accept his claim even though I’m no lawyer. Moreover, I’m not obliged to arrive at my own contract case law to reject his interpretation! (I can point out that state laws of eminent domain, to my recollection, have never been invoked to the extent he claims!)

In all these cases, an unreasonable burden is placed on the skeptic merely for being skeptical. That is, that s/he is somehow not entitled to reject a claim unless a full, meticulous counterclaim can be worked up – into theory, case law or origin of the cosmos as the case may be.

2. Atheists Reject Morals

This is one of my favorites because it’s preposterous on its face. It’s also important because many otherwise sober people believe that atheists live by the rule “anything goes,” since we don't acknowledge any god. On many occasions, I've been telephoned by religious types who ask: "If you don't believe in God what's stopping you from going out and raping, robbing, murdering or doing anything else? If you don't believe in God, then you don't believe in God's laws."

Invariably, I respond that decent, civilized behavior doesn’t depend on god belief or adhering to 'laws' of a god. Rather, it depends on rational and objective analysis of a situation, and sound decisions maximally promoting the welfare of all concerned.

As William Provine notes ('Evolution and the Foundation of Ethics’ in MLB Science, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1988, p. 25), people should be encouraged to think rationally and critically concerning ethics, not out of fear of some divine force, but to protect their own long-term self-interest .

In line with this, any persistent observer of human social interaction will note that the vast majority of people are law-abiding and decent folk who naturally practice a common-sense, utilitarian ethics similar to what has been described. No supernatural law or commandment ordains this behavior. Instead it is the conscious and deliberate recognition that the promotion of the welfare of others is directly linked to the one's own welfare. Compromise others' security, and you in effect compromise your own. Undermine their welfare and you also undermine your own. No god is necessary.

By contrast, religious morality is predicated on some formal codification of expected human behavior in terms of absolutist propositions, not subject to debate. The typical moral code of a religionist, whether Muslim, Pentecostal, Catholic or Jewish, isn’t subject to evolution or variation based on contingencies, or externalities. This blindness probably results from a “control” meme that proclaims the morality as ‘god-ordained’ or revealed in some scripture or other. If ordained by a god, whether Allah, Jehovah, Yahweh or whoever, it cannot be compromised or altered no matter what.

As an illustration of this point, despite the fact the planet is grossly overpopulated and we are approaching ecological catastrophe, the Roman Catholic Church continues it campaign against artificial birth control. Even more importantly, it prohibits its practice, under pain of grave sin, even in impoverished nations suffering in destitution from the overload.

Kai Neilsson poses it this way (Ethics Without God, Prometheus Books, 1990.):

Is an act good because God did it, or is it good independent of such action?

For a genuine ethical basis, any human action must be totally independent of whether a god did it (in scriptures) or ordains it. It must be good on its own merits. A first test, as Neilsson observes, is ethical choice predicated on a humane standard. Consider: if a human parent knows his child is trapped in a burning house, s/he will try to save it however s/he can. There is no way the human parent will simply walk out and allow “fate” or "free will" of the child to make the decision. If the human parent has an ounce of common decency s/he must intervene.

However, god-ists seem quite happy to let their deity off the hook, when and where it suits their fancy. Start then with the standard deity template, say espoused by most Christians. This entity is posited as both omniscient and omnipotent (all knowing and all powerful).

Let us say, as occurred back in the spring of 1994, It knew from before all time a twister was headed for its house of worship in Alabama. Being omnipotent, it also had the power to deflect said twister and let it tear up some nearby forest or woodsheds- as opposed to its church with people inside.. Did it? No it did not! It permitted the tornado to demolish the church and many of those children within. All innocents. All dead.

Those who would defend such a deity but hold a human parent accountable for negligence or manslaughter by allowing their child to perish in a house fire (when the child could be saved), disclose inchoate ethics. To wit, demanding a vastly lower ethical standard of behavior for their deity than for fellow humans.

Those who beg the question with theo-babble ("we cannot fathom the ways or mind of God") are no better, and do no better. In many ways, they're worse, because they lack even the courage to face their own logic and the consequences of their definitions! They either invoke the escape clause of "faith" or the impotence of human logic beside the alleged Divine Mind. (And surely, if humans sprung from such a mind, comprehensibility of its ways and modes must follow. Else he, she or it could as well be a Demonic clown who allows humans - innocent children- to be slain for sport)

Thus it follows, even from the most generic examples (presupposing a supernatural, omnipotent force) that human ethics trumps divine ethics on its face. If this is so, then it must also trump any and all human extensions of divine ethics, whether the ten commandments, canon law or wherever. Hence, it follows that human ethics and ethical standards can exist independently of invoking any divine or religious fluff, affiliations or baggage.

In terms of said "baggage" what the religionists have done is to take the natural code of (humane) ethics most people follow and embellish it with a blizzard of superstitious precepts and injunctions. These are superstitious since, inevitably, they are linked to the supposed dictates of a supernatural "being" that will not hesitate to "punish" those who disobey "him."

Ethics (or morality) without god is human behavior elevated to its highest consistent standards without the need for baffling with bullshit or, in this case, interjecting an external, non-physical but supreme moral arbiter where none is required.


(TO be continued)