Dust that Sings

PZ Myers mentioned this video on Pharyngula today, and in spite of it being 12 minutes or so I decided to watch…and he was right, it’s a good message about atheism. It manages to capture both skepticism toward religious claims, and an expression of non-religious awe.

You can’t leave, she won’t let you

This quote from the movie Event Horizon seems to typify my state of entrapment with the catholic church.

Ok, fair warning eh? This is going to be one of those anti-catholic rants of mine. If that’s liable to bother you, step away from the blog…now.

Still here?

Ok, just making sure.

Apparently, there once was a law concerning formal defection, complete with a form to fill out and turn in to the relevant diocese. And I found this form, but apparently too late. It seems the church chose to abolish this process in 2009. Their church documents cite minutiae about married couples, but this happens to match a point in time when a lot of catholics in Dublin were formally and publicly jumping ship. I don’t even have to wonder why.

Not that this formal act of defection meant all that much to the church, even then. Evidently, they feel that their baptism ritual has marked me forever. Figures, eh? Wouldn’t do for it to involve any measure of maturity, competence or choice on the part of the victim, er, recipient.

If the bishop or parish priest decided that the individual had indeed made a formal act of defection from the Catholic Church – making a decision on this matter would normally require a meeting with the person involved – the fact of this formal act was to be noted in the register of the person’s baptism. This annotation, like other annotations in the baptismal register, such as those of marriage or ordination, was unrelated to the fact of the baptism: it was not a “debaptism” (a term sometimes used journalistically): the fact of having been baptized remained a fact, and the Catholic Church holds that baptism marks a person with a seal or character that “is an ontological and permanent bond which is not lost by reason of any act or fact of defection”.

The news about proxy baptism of the dead in mormon churches reminds me of this, and why not? As bizarre as it sounds for some obsessed mormons to pretend-baptize dead family members (or Holocaust victims), the same kind of ritual was forced upon me in just the same fashion; the only difference being that I was an infant and not a corpse.

So while atheist groups may put pressure on the church, and on more liberal members of the church to leave it, the church continues to stubbornly hang onto its members, no matter how much of a heretic or apostate they may be. So when the RCC cites its billion or so adherents, know that they’re counting a few questionable entries. Just have a look at how ridiculous it’s become in the conversation between the church and the CountMeOut organization from Ireland.

The Act of Apostasy allows someone to declare themselves an apostate to the faith, i.e. one who rejects Christian teachings. Canon Law stipulates that an apostate to the faith automatically incurs a latae senteniae excommunication. In response to the 16 Acts of Apostasy which were sent to the Archdiocese of Dublin in June 2011, a spokesperson stated that they would not be accepted. Furthermore, it was stated that excommunication does not mean that somebody is no longer a member of the church.

I see on CountMeOut’s Twitter feed that last month, they sent a letter to a ‘pontifical council’ to clarify if there is any process of formal defection left, and if the church would record it. At this point, I have my doubts. I’m sure they will hem and haw, and obfuscate and stonewall, for as long as possible. Maybe I’ll live long enough to see the RCC own up to its behavior, and for skeptics to be able to rally against it.

But I’ll most likely die a (technical) catholic, even if I am a goddamned apostate, because of course I deny the doctrines of the church; its god is just a concept to me, and a nonsensical, nonexistent one at that. I think the only way I could possibly make more of a fuss about it would be to represent some state as a Representative or Senator in Congress, and support abortion rights.

Of course, to do that I’d have to overcome the religiously inspired, societal distrust of atheists in our country. Unlikely.

Religious psychopathology redux

In a blog post from a couple months ago, I mentioned going back to the Rational Skepticism forum to give it another try, after giving up on it for about a year. Since then I haven’t found the moderation to have improved one bit, but I continue to read while not taking it as seriously.

An example of the lack of moderation was the post I found there and blogged about on January 4th: the latest iteration of ‘atheists have no absolute morality, therefore they should become psychopaths’. I wonder why it took so long, but the poster left a comment on that two-month-old post, yesterday.

I’m not going to approve it, since that would let him comment freely on my blog, and I have no interest in advertising his xian-apologist website. But it is interesting to note that he seems to be from Brazil – I didn’t think he was a native English speaker – and I suppose I could hang onto the IP for future reference.

I will, however, post a little of it so that I can mock the believer some more. This isn’t RatSkep after all.

Since there is only one life , and after the death its over, even Dawkins recommends to live it to the fullest. In case of a atheist, that does not have to care about objective , prescribed moral standards, that would mean to live your own tendencies at its fullest. That can be to do whatever is considered good by our society, or in the contrary, it could mean to do what is considered to be bad.

Right off the bat he fails with ‘objective’ moral standards. For morality to be objective, it’s supposed to be universally valid, and organized religions like xianity prescribe one set of rules for its adherents, and a different set for its god-concept – well, really the god-concepts tend to be completely amoral, justifying whatever their alleged actions may be by their godhood. It’s the ultimate ‘might makes right’ argument, typified for example in the book of Job.

The ending of that book always cracks me up; it’s as if the writers, sensing the weakness of might-makes-right, have their god character play country music backwards and give Job a new and better everything for his trouble. Not that this helps the hapless, innocent, first family of Job, who gets all slaughtered and such in a divine game of checkers. Original sin to the rescue! But I digress.

As if the amoral, psychopathic source of xian morality wasn’t bad enough, even the supposedly objective moral standards of bible followers have changed over time, most notably in regard to the issue of slavery. So, unfortunately, xians are moral relativists pretending to something superior. We’ll never know if such a revelation turns any of them into criminals, because I expect every last one of them to deny that moral relativism of theirs.

Now, this believer claims that his argument is not meant to be an insult to the skeptic, although I made my case for that in January. But it’s not difficult to show the believer to be wrong, and consequentially an insincere, atheist-bashing fool.

The attack does not go against the atheist, but the atheistic world view. If you would consequently live your world view, in my view, the most intelligent behavior would be the one described.

So this fellow thinks the most intelligent course for the skeptic is to embrace one’s tendencies to the fullest, with complete disregard for society. I addressed the consequences of ignoring societal mores back in January, but it’s interesting to consider how this believer imagines having no trouble at all, breaking rules and laws as his impulses might demand.

Hopefully if he ever does, he won’t be very good at it, and will get caught by the authorities before he does much damage to society.

Of course, the simple fact remains that most skeptics don’t do this. The news isn’t bombarded with stories of the latest amoral atheistic meltdown, of believers abandoning their gods to go on killing sprees.

And in spite of their supposedly objective morality, believers seem to have no trouble breaking laws – should it be ‘because of’? Perhaps, in some cases yes. But for all that they claim to possess some superior moral standard, it just isn’t borne out by their behavior. If their claims were true, you’d think it would; they ought to be obvious, these paragons of virtue. It should be a selling point.

Data like this, that atheists by and large seem to get by just fine in society, thanks, without any recourse to ‘objective’ systems of ethics, goes to disprove the believer’s theory. But that won’t do. No, the facts must be revised to fit the predetermined conclusion. Backed into this rhetorical corner, this fellow simply trots out the same line he used before.

Most atheists however do not live their life according to the world view they defend, They live a intellectually compromising position.

So to sum things up, he thinks the smartest way for an atheist to go is to be an amoral psychopath, and that if atheists are not such, they’re hypocrites failing to live up to their values.

And this is not to be taken as an attack on atheists.

So go on writing to me here if you want, pal. I wouldn’t recommend it, because here you can be treated as you deserve, as a self-righteous, insulting little holy troller should be. I can go right on, happily picking apart your comments and mocking them without letting you get a word in edgewise or indulging your link-spam.

You’re better off harassing folks on RatSkep where they have to behave a bit better than you in response. And that is why I don’t take it seriously. It’s obvious from the moderation there that they like keeping a few rhetorical punching bags like yourself around.

On religious psychopathology

This is an argument that I’ve seen often enough to find it a cliché, the believer who thinks that they would go full-on psycho without whichever brand of theism keeps them from lashing out at everyone around them. It seems unfortunate that since I decided to check out the Rational Skepticism forum again, some things just never change. Like believers having meltdowns.

Your efforts to indoctrinate others, that theism is vanity, is not living atheism consequently. A militant atheist as you, should live his world view. According to you, you do have only this life to live. Ones it ends, and you die, the game , the show is over. Finish. End of story. Whatever happyness you had, you will not experiment anymore. Forever. So if i would follow consequently your world view, i would live a extremely ego-centric life. I would not care about others, since that is a total waste of time. What matters, is YOUR satisfaction. Is YOUR happyness. Is YOUR fun. is YOU, your self. If i would be you, i would live and experience my inclinations in their full extent. I would not care about contemporary moral standards. I would create mine. And adapt them perfectly to my needs. I would not care about what society regards as virtues, as love, honesty, justice, rightness, selflessness etc. If i would love to rape and kill and torture little children, i would do it without hesitation. It would serve to please my own wishes at best. Ones i die, its over. I couldnt do afterwards anything anymore, that pleases me. So it would have to be now, today, right now. That is behaving intelligently, according to your world view. And i would not have to fear any “magicman”, and neither think, i did something wrong. Since there would be no objective moral standard, and if i determine, that kill, rape , and torture little babies is actually a virtue, is good, there is no ” magicman ” to tell me its wrong, so it is actually good. I make the standard. I say what is good. There is nobody to tell me , something is not good, since nobody is above me. If i would be a lazy person, which hates to work, but love luxury, money,, and everything money can buy, i would never search a job in a company. I would probably find out the most refined way to steal money, in a way never to be catched, and spend it without think about tomorrow. Ones it ends, i would find out the easiest way to get money again. cheating, killing, stealing, hurting, whatever. I would not care. Actually, i would think, the more effective i were to reach my objectives, the better……..

I’m not going to comment on the spelling/grammar as it’s likely the poster is not a native English speaker. There’s enough to condemn without worrying about that.

So if i would follow consequently your world view, i would live a extremely ego-centric life.

It’s interesting to consider the god-believer, trapped in a humane, altruistic mindset, apparently by their fear of whichever god-concept has captured their fancy or was drummed into them as a child. As a skeptic, I never experienced such a radical change of POV, although I have known some who did – not hard to find amongst libertarians, and cats.

I do remember questioning why I behaved as I did, and devising a more reasonable set of ethics to replace the whole sin mindset.

I would not care about what society regards as virtues, as love, honesty, justice, rightness, selflessness etc.

This to me is someone who is fooling themselves. It’s not surprising to find a believer who talks easily about becoming a psychopath in the absence of their religion; it’s not about them abandoning their religion after all, it’s an attack on the character of the skeptic. But believers and skeptics alike do not live and work in a vacuum, and society does matter. Society is where I get most of my information and suggestions for ethical behavior, although not exclusively so. But any ex-believer who thinks they can drive their car down the street through traffic lights and over pedestrians will quickly come to care about society, as society will most assuredly care – and do something – about them.

And i would not have to fear any “magicman”, and neither think, i did something wrong.

If there was any doubt about the mindset of sin and fear of punishment that guides this poor sap, I think it can be safely dismissed here. It isn’t necessary that he live in constant terror; but it seems that the root of his ethical system is sin and fear of punishment.

cheating, killing, stealing, hurting, whatever. I would not care.

The typical response from the skeptic, and from this one, is that if your god-concept is all that keeps you from behaving like this, then keep it. Of course, statistics I’ve seen about the religious beliefs of inmates in prison suggests that, often as not, it’s not enough.

In the end, though, it is just one long insult to the skeptic, a love letter from the believer about ‘this is what I think of you’. Not that there’s any credible evidence that atheism results in a psychotic break; it’s just insulting rhetoric that makes the believer feel better.

I’ve seen it often enough that it doesn’t get a rise out of me any more. More like a roll of the eyes – typical. Leave it to someone younger, who hasn’t been putting up with such nonsense for decades, to get pissed off and unleash on them. I can take it apart, I can turn it on the believer and say, this is what you would do without your belief in a god to stop you? Either they would, and they’re a terrible person; or they wouldn’t, and the argument collapses.

Not much for wine, but…

To the handful of folks who bother to check here, have a good holiday. Hope you got your books, Dave. If not well…hell, I don’t know what to do about it. It was just something sentimental, which suits the theme of this holiday song.

Can you tell I have more spare time?

I think this is two diaries/posts this week on Daily Kos. Today’s entry follows a theme I have run with before: state sponsorship of religion. Now, the last one was inexplicably popular, not expecting another stroke of lightning as I think that was a slow news day. But we’ll see.

In this case, a school board in Tennessee settled a lawsuit with the ACLU that evidently was not going their way. I can imagine! The news on the subject mentions the school allowing unsupervised youth ministers to preach to students in the lunchroom, rather a captive audience eh? Along with teachers leading prayers and bible studies with students. Agents of the state, couldn’t be much clearer.

And hardly anyone in the Sumner County school district thinks anything is wrong with that. Natch.

Quick edit: less than an hour later, my post hit the Rec List on DKos. It could be another coincidence (or slow news day). But the evidence suggests maybe some people actually like this particular topic. I’m wrong again. Well, I did copy my earlier title, thought it would be amusing. Maybe this will become a theme for me.

Impressive though, that I got some additional info from a source that wishes to remain anonymous. Speaks to how bad it can get there. And that’s all I have to say about it!

Nasty and false!

That was the first comment on my latest DKos posting, about the pope. Not that the commenter had anything more to say…I think perhaps he just wanted to stifle discussion with the overt negativity.

Shouldn’t have bothered, really. Most of my diaries/posts don’t garner much attention, although one of them inexplicably did. I credit that one to a slow day.

Anyway, just another rant about a believer employing the ‘atheists caused Hitler!’ argument and thus, pulling a Godwin. After reading about the pope doing it and then some others doing it through an article on Pharyngula, I couldn’t resist the urge to counter.

CATCHETE!

Picked this up from Skepchick; I guess atheists like cats, the soulless, malicious little beasties that they are.

Cats, I mean. Anyway, fair warning, it’s excessively cute. And in French, but that doesn’t matter really.

I don’t always agree with the FFRF, but…

…sometimes, I do. Today I wrote about one such case on Daily Kos. It’s a clear-cut problem of a school superintendent that didn’t care about the niceties of separation of church and state, and instead chose to continue a years-old tradition of having a preacher say prayers before their school’s football games.

I expect that the kids will get pressured into doing their own school prayers, and perhaps more often too, just to tweak the handful of skeptics who live in that blinkered community in Kentucky. I feel bad for the skeptics. They did the right thing, speaking up, and anonymously so, for their own protection. I suspect things will get worse before they get better.

Although I thought about just writing here about it, I went with DKos because I think the ‘street prophets’ crowd needs a lesson in precisely who is the problem. Their little cadre of liberal believers allows them to think that religion is no big deal and skeptics shouldn’t be so bent out of shape about it. The issue is not them, really, although they share in the delusion (and normalization of same). The issue is the more crazed sorts who so dominate a community, that they violate the rights of others, and actually take offense when busted on it.

Afternoon edit: Surprisingly, this diary/post on DKos may be my most popular one yet. I don’t think any of my offerings have hit the rec list before. Kentucky must be a good focus for liberal ire. 

In which the Daily Show and I slightly disagree

Today I had time to explore the topic of discrimination against atheists, in the context of a recent Daily Show segment. The resultant exploration is up on DKos now. I expect people will tell me not to take it too seriously, which is why I made a point to mention that I already don’t…I doubt it will help, though. Jon Stewart is Gawd!

It was still a funny show, though. I just wish I could treat hatred against skeptics as only a joke. It is all too real. And I laugh anyway, because it’s either laugh or cry sometimes.