Robin Williams is Wanted for Questioning

A family in Saudi Arabia is tired of the harassment, tired of the violence, tired of the theft of property. They're not taking it lying down, and are going to bring the perp to justice. Who is this Menace 2 Saud-ciety?

Why, a genie of course.

Per the BBC:

A family in Saudi Arabia is taking a "genie" to court, accusing it of theft and harassment, reports say.

They accuse the spirit of threatening them, throwing stones and stealing mobile phones, Al Watan newspaper said.

Here's the best part:

A local court says it is trying to verify the truthfulness of the claims "despite the difficulty" of doing so.

I'm going to be really interested in what that final police report says. What happens if they have to take the genie to court? And what if it has to serve time? Do they make penitentiary lamps?

More Equal Than Others

I know this has almost nothing to do with atheism, but I thought you guys would be interested in my take on a recent news event having to do with civil injustice at my Examiner column. A taste:

The Rev. Eric P. Lee, president of the Los Angeles chapter of the seminal civil rights organization the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, is facing removal from his post because he supports civil rights. Lee came out vociferously against California's Proposition 8 banning gay marriage, which apparently did not please the folks at SCLC headquarters. They have commanded to him to appear in Atlanta to make a personal account of himself, and he has refused to do so.

Obviously, there is so much irony here that you could build a giant robot.

Go read the rest here.

Oh Crap. Obama Named the Jesus Guy to Head the NIH

I know that he knows his way around a beaker and a double helix like nobody's business, but I can't help but be disappointed by President Obama's choice of Francis Collins to head the NIH. I don't expect him to be prescribing exorcisms or ordering fully-funded research into post-crucifixion resurrections, but I simply can't be satisfied with the idea that a major science institution will be headed by someone who decided that Jesus was the son of God because he was totally bowled over by the sight of a waterfall. I mean, does that not say something about his rational judgment?

And from the political perspective, I don't like that Obama seems to be sending another signal of cultural compromise. Rick Warren at the inauguration, faith-based initiatives continued, gays denied the promise of full equality, and now this. To me, it's one more public embrace of irrationality.

I know, even PZ Myers said (with huge qualifiers) he'll do "a fine job." Maybe he will, but there's something to be said about who we choose to elevate in particular spheres. The appointment of Collins is just another reason for me to dejectedly shake my head.

What if My Baby's Not a Godless Heathen Socialist Pinko Like Me?

As those who subscribe to my Twitter feed undoubtedly know, I am overjoyed that my wife and I are going to be the parents of a baby boy, with a due date sometime in late November. Of course, we're brooding over names, wondering how we'll fare as role models and moral guides, and all the usual exciting pre-paternal anxieties.

Along with that wondering comes the ponderings of what might be. The "what-ifs" that might jar us if they come to be. The old cliché is "what if he's gay," which, in our case, would not only be a non-issue, but probably a plus given our artistic sensibilities and liberal guilt.

No, we found ourselves first wondering: "What if he's a Republican?" (I assume Republicans all hatch that way--there's no way that's something that can be learned. I mean, it's the opposite of learning, right?)

But after a mild shudder over that, I then wondered, "What if he's religious?"

"Well, it'd be far worse if he were a Republican," said my wife.

"No it wouldn't!" I exclaimed. She was aghast.

And of course, it's not so simple. We'll love our boy more than anything, no matter what (we already do). But it became a brief point of genuine contention for us (mainly me): Am I more frightened of my kid joining the GOP or a church? Or, so help me, both? Obviously, there are degrees of both; if he turned out to be a liberal, Northeastern style Republican, or if he were to be a mildly spiritual Unitarian. Many levels in between extremes.

He can be whatever he wants to be. My job is to help him be his best in whatever he chooses.

But. You know. If he needs a nudge in one direction or another...

Spooked into Atheism?

[Originally posted at my Examiner.com column.]

At the Christian Post's Food for the Soul blog, Randal Rauser makes what I think is a good faith attempt to bridge some divisions and salve some misunderstandings between theists and nontheists. He writes:

I think here of a well known academic who avowed disbelief in the Christian God because he was told -- with a notable absence of pastoral sensitivity -- that a childhood Jewish friend who died in a car accident was burning in hell. As a result this academic came to believe that the Christian God is arbitrary, capricious, and unjust. So when he says that he disbelieves in God, he is saying he disbelieves in a god who is arbitrary, capricious and unjust. But I don't believe in such a god either.

He cites another example of a "distortion" of Christian doctrine (regarding a fundamentalist's idea of who goes to Hell), and expresses understanding as to why someone might reject faith when faced with such representations. He concludes:

The discussion boils down to this. Perhaps before we judge the disbelief of the atheist, we should judge our own household. To put it bluntly, how often does our witness in the world offer moral justification for atheism?

I was, overall, glad to read this. As Sam Harris has so urgently pointed out in his writings, religious moderates bear some responsibility for the cover they (often unwittingly) give to radicals and fundamentalists simply by advocating for belief in things that are absurd and supported by no evidence. That Rauser can see that his "own household" might benefit from some tending, I think is a good sign. These uglier faces of Christianity and religion in general are not only hateful and hurtful, but make for easy targets for we angry, militant atheists. Everyone benefits if those views are marginalized.

But, coming from someone who presumably believes in the literal truth of Jesus's divinity, and that salvation is only possible through Jesus, he comes from the perspective that atheists are somehow fallen, missing the bigger point -- if understandably misguided by these unpleasant manifestations of religion. So where I disagree with Rauser is the idea that because someone may become a nonbeliever because of a bad encounter with a harsh or heartless representation of religion, they may be 'blameless' (my words, not his), and therefore what follows is that any atheist who comes by their nonbelief honestly ought not be let off the hook so easily. One is an accident, manslaughter of the soul, if you will, while the other is premeditated murder. Rauser offers an outstretched hand for the atheist-by-mean-God, but implies an upturned nose to the atheist-by-independent-thought.

Indeed, according to his last sentence, atheism requires a moral justification, not an intellectual one.

I don't know what the statistics are, but I would imagine that most atheists arrive at their atheism by means similar to my own: Exposed to the various inconsistencies and the logical impossibilities of religious claims, our reason simply said, "no, you'll have to do better than that." I was a doubter long before I was revolted by Jerry Falwell or Osama bin Laden, or knew anything about the burning of "witches" or the Spanish Inquisition. I would not fall under the understandably-atheistic category for which Rauser shows sympathy, nor do I imagine would most atheists. But I could be wrong (please correct me if I am).

I want to be clear: This is what is implied by Rauser's blog post to my mind, not what he has said explicitly. I'll be posting my points in the comments of his post so he can respond if he wants. I do want to reemphasize that he makes an effort at conciliation that is all too rare in the discourse between believers and nonbelievers. But the effect is somewhat lessened when the sentiment is thus qualified. I hope to hear from him on this.

UPDATE: Mr. Rauser has graciously responded in the comments of my Examiner column. Check it out there.

The Weak Faith of the Unfaithful Republicans

This post has been updated at my Examiner.com column. If you read it there I'll make a few cents.

Here is the part where a socially liberal, militant atheist, pajama'd blogger trumpets the blatant hypocrisy of politicians and leaders of the religious right who find their names in little black books, take wide stances in public bathrooms, use party funds to keep the kid quiet, or take long hikes through Appalachia. Ha! You see?? They all ride around on their high moral horses and then they blah, blah, blah, blah.

Joe Conason at Salon has already done the definitive smackdown of GOP moralism, and I certainly don't need to do a rehash. I'm less interested in the blatant double standard, and more interested in the role religion plays in these affairs, or rather, the role it never gets to play.

I don't see the recent GOP sex scandals as an indictment of their religion or the tenets thereof (plenty of time for that later). Christians all, and every one of them extremely noisy about it, surely. But I think their failures only go to show how little power these myths really have when competing with other irresistible supernatural forces such as the boobies of someone who isn't your wife (also known as "two magnificent parts of yourself"). You know the backdrop: Senator Ensign was a central backer of the entirely too weird Promise Keepers phenomenon, which was all about becoming a better Christian and, oh yes, keeping promises. "God's law," meanwhile, was one of Governor Sanford's many refrains at his own press-confessional. Etcetera.

All that may serve to make Sanford (etcetera) seem penitent, but I think that misses the point. "God's law" sounds pretty huge to me. If you are as devout a believer as Sanford declares himself to be, you'd think that the notion of "God's law" would be the end-all-be-all, not to be crossed any more than one would cross the particle beams of a positron collider. It's one thing to do 45 in a 25 mph zone, but this is God's law we're talking about here! But oh, those two magnificent parts! Screw God's law, right? When something so comparatively trivial can trigger the flouting of the revealed word of the creator of the universe (who is reading your thoughts and watching you touch both of that nice Argentinian lady's magnificent parts), I begin to doubt how seriously you really take this creed of yours.

And let's keep in mind: It was not the wrenching guts of a tortured soul that got Sanford, Vitter, Ensign, or Craig to fess up. They didn't fear for their timeshares in the afterlife, nor did they see a vision of a tut-tutting Jesus hovering over them while in passionate throes. They held their conferences, released their dour statements, and apologized to those unwise enough to have faith in them, because they got caught. Had there not been some intrepid journalists, law enforcement, or aggrieved parties ready to blow the whistle, those men would have gone on doing what they were doing, keeping a bag over Jesus's head, pretending he wasn't there. I know he's not there, but that's not what they're supposed to think.

This is about the saddest example of religious devotion I've ever heard.

It's not enough that these guys buy into a bronze age myth about an ultra-judgmental superdaddy in the sky, and it's not enough that they shove the made-up dictates of that fictional overlord down our throats, but they don't even have the strength to even try live up to those rules themselves -- they show no evidence of having any real intention of doing so. If they really thought they were going to suffer eternal damnation and disappoint God himself, they would have at least put the brakes on a little sooner, don't you think? If I were Yahweh, I'd be feeling pretty disregarded right about now.

So not only should you not "do as they say, not what they do," you shouldn't even believe what they say, because whether they're conscious of it or not, they don't really believe it either.

I betray you and you and you and you...

Doh!

If you are a subscriber to this blog's feed, you may have just gotten hit with a ton of material from my other blog. This was an accident of my experiments with merging my blogging projects into one, which, of course, was bound to get screwed up at some point. Those posts should be gone, and my apologies for the influx of irrelevant material.

A Social Network about Nothing

Speaking of 2[Y], Viktor Nagornyy's latest post reveals his unexplained expulsion from the atheist social network site ThinkAtheist. He writes:

I actually think the guy behind it created as a money-making venture, and supporting atheism is either not important or not part of the plan. [ . . . ] I highly encourage you leave ThinkAtheist. Stop filling that dude’s pockets with money, he doesn’t deserve it.

I don't know anything about the financial claims, I should say. Nagornyy goes on to praise Atheist Nexus, a similar service that predates ThinkAtheist. This got me thinking.

I have not delved seriously into either one, as time simply hasn't been available. But from my own very shallow, anecdotal experience, Atheist Nexus has provided me with more substantive interaction than ThinkAtheist, though that could be a mere accident of who I happened to interact with and when. I have made some meaningful connections on ThinkAtheist, and have found it a good place to tell my own story on a couple of occasions, but no more so than at Atheist Nexus.

Purely cosmetically, I have never liked the hipster fashion catalogue aesthetic of ThinkAtheist, but I usually chalk that up to my astounding lack of coolness.

What has your experience been? Have you had problems similar to Nagornyy's? Do you use both services, or do you prefer one over the other? I'd like to know. Tell me, and I'll report back.

Strike a Sym-pose

Humanist Symposium #38 is up, very professionally and smartly done by Viktor Kagornyy at 2[Y]. Yes, of course I'm featured. Perish any other thought.

Where's Paul-do?

Readers of this blog and my oft-plugged Examiner column will have noted (I hope) my absence. I apologize. I've started a new full-time job and have recently moved residences, and am still without Internet access in my new home.

Stay tuned, I hope to generate some new, compelling, rip-roaring content this weekend. Assuming I can find an on-ramp to the Information Superhighway.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor Thinks We're Awesome

What do you mean, Paul? Surely you jest! O'Connor is the douchetruck who said that atheists were "not fully human"!

Precisely.

I am smart enough to read between the lines. Or, at least, to read far away from the lines.

Look, silly skeptics. O'Connor can plainly see that any atheist walking down the street, being arrogant and militant as usual, is in most cases a fully-formed homo sapiens. But if O'Connor knows that that atheists are not in fact "fully human," then part of us must therefor be something else.

That something else, ladies and gentlemen, is robot.

Atheists are not fully human. We are part human, part immortal-android-cybernetic-mecha-robo-awesomeness.

Thank you, Cardinal O'Connor! You will be among the fully human spared when our supra-species of techno-doubters unleashes its fury upon the fleshy world!

LA Times, So Far, Missing the Point of Bigoted Op-ed

At Examiner, I shined the spotlight on a startlingly bigoted op-ed by Charlotte Allen, inexplicably found suitable for publication by the Los Angeles Times. Today, the LA Times' Opinion LA blog notes responses by the two most popular atheist bloggers, Hemant Mehta and PZ Myers.

I found the post irritating almost immediately, thanks to its opening sentence:

You couldn't say we didn't see this coming.

No, of course we couldn't say that. Your organization decides to elevate within its pages a juvenile, ham-fisted hissy fit against all nonbelievers, a group already demonized and marginalized within an inch of its life, and the best explanation you have yet to muster is, "Yeah, we knew those angry atheists would be pissed!"

I am still waiting for someone from the LA Times to admit publicly that Allen's post was shameful, and to give it amplification on the Times' editorial page was, at best, a lapse in judgment, or at worst, a profession of antipathy toward millions of good Americans.

Hemant draws an excellent analogy by asking if using "Jew" instead of "atheist" would have ever been acceptable, and I noted in my column that even treating a political or philosophical group in the same manner as Allen treats atheists would have been deemed irrational and absurd, if not outright uncivil and offensive.

What the Bloc Ought to Be

Here's the problem. Readers of this blog and my column at Examiner.com will have noticed that my posting frequency has dropped to something resembling ice age cycles. Why? It will not surprise you that the answer is simple: I have a real world job now.

When I began this Great Heathen Blogging Project of Doom (TM), I was finishing up graduate school, bouncing around temp jobs, and doing theatre education gigs and the rare performance. But reality beckoned, rents demanded payment, and tables gasped for food to be placed upon it, so I had to find myself some 9-to-5-er. Of course this kind of work, that which requires use of my brain, creativity, patience, and whatnot, saps the energy, particularly the writing energy, and I have been less able to blog on this, my most passionate subject.

So what to do? I will try and adapt. I am still getting into the groove of the new job, trying to understand how to allocate my energies. I hope that once I do have a better sense of equilibrium that I will find the time and wherewithal to bring my Bloc/Examiner frequency back up.

This may require a rethinking of style. Since beginning with Examiner, I have tended to use this blog for more off-the-cuff, less formal posts, while Examiner has been the home of my more thoughtful, researched essays and columns. Perhaps I will have to ease into Bloc-style informality for Examiner, and as for Bloc -- do what? Cross-post more often? I'm not sure. I'm even considering taking my catch-all blog, Near Earth Object, and merging it with this one, which would of course blast wide open the parameters of the subject matter. I'm not at all sure that this would be wise, or that it would please any of the literally tens of readers that have been so gracious as to spend some time here.

So what do you think? What would you like to see from Bloc Raisonneur? A rehash of DC Secularism Examiner? A more wide-ranging personal blog? Bad jokes and porn? Let me know. I would genuinely like to read what you think.

Humanist Symposium #36, in Rhyme

Time for weblogs of wisdom that shall not make you snooze
In a project begun by the good Ebon Muse.
(And when it comes to good writing, who else would know better
Than the nonbelieving blogger with the sun at his header?)
Hosted this time by a heathen for sure,
Mister Paul Fidalgo of Bloc Raisonneur.
So rest back in your seat (I hope it's a cozy one)
And enjoy this edition of the Humanist Symposium.

We begin our journey with a posting quite luminous
On the beauty of evolution written by the Jewmanist.
Rose Schwartz contends, hoping to school us,
"The beauty of nature and the universe flows through us."

Now you are thinking! Your head, it starts to nod
As "The Evolving Mind" ponders cruelty to arthropods!
Poor lobsters feel pain? But if morality we prize,
Can it be satisfied with a knife 'tween the eyes?

Blag Hag appears twice, and you'll want to read both, 'cause
One is on racism, the other's on in-laws.
Jen disses writers who equate atheists with Nazis,
And laments religion's creep into nice games of Yatzee.

These next posts might have you cursing like longshoremen,
For both of them feature discussion of Mormons.
"Living With..." deals with a life laid to rest -- O! --
While "Ten Year Trail" is moved by the Hum'nist Manifesto.

'Eagleton's a fool!' cries Russell Blackford,
Who trounces the Guardianist frontward and backward.
With his strong arguments, he's sure to whither all
Who wish to claim that atheism is somehow illiberal.

You Made Me Say It next knocks those into stupor
Who twist up the natural to back up the super-.
Perpetuators of woo, their arguments shrinking,
As science is separated from mere wishful thinking.

Next in our carnival, we're delighted to find
The blog filled with images all left-aligned.
Greta Christina, with myths to dislodge, she
Gives sage advice on how not to be stodgy.

Finally, Ebon Muse, in our great dialectic,
Takes the broad view of our landscape memetic.
Though reason oft seems atop Sisyphus' slope,
Muse sees the daylight, and chooses to hope.

Just a few lines more! Then I'll quit spammin' ya.
But I'd be remiss if I missed a plug for my blog at Examiner.
Day in and day out I give readers a solid mix
Of analysis and opinion on atheism in politics.

I thank you for reading, I'm glad for your clicks,
As I relish your rants and peruse your polemics.
While theists will roil at the values we're spouting,
Please never stop thinking and never stop doubting.

-- Paul

Why Are All These Scientists Fighting???

(Links fixed from a previous iteration of this post.)

If you're hoping to catch up on the debate over religious appeasement in science advocacy, you've come to the right place. Who can follow all the angst between PZ Myers, Jerry Coyne, Richard Hoppe, and the NCSE and make it all understandable? I can. Who can get a shoutout from Massimo Pigliucci? Me. Who can offer up a bulleted list of self-promotional links? Right here, my friend.

• Heavyweights of science worry over religious appeasement by pro-evolution group
• Dialogue over appeasement of religion in science advocacy heats up, and a grand debate begins
• Agreements reached in religious appeasement debate, but rifts still evident