Homo economicus’ Weblog

The Central Arkansas Transit Authority (CATA) declined to allow the above advert on their buses, if you look at the Dawkins website – The Atheist Billboard That Was Banned in Central Arkansas – . Howls about freedom of speech will duly follow with this report by the Friendly Atheist blog.

However, as I say quoting on my blog Einstein do not condemn without investigating unless you are ignorant. The Transit Authority says that they approved the art work in March; the sticking point is that though the adverts would cost $5,000 approximately the advertising subsidiary of the CATA asked for $30,000 insurance for vandalism. CATA is public but the advertising arm is a profit venture. [Source]

The issue seems to be the price of free speech and whether this deposit insurance amounted to discrimination compared to what would be required of other groups wanting to advertise. The courts will no doubt decide as the United Coalition for reason (UCR) has filled a lawsuit. Their press release is here.

The lawsuit will generate more publicity than $5,000 ever could. CATA may have a point there about publicity but should advertising charge or make financial demands based on supposed public reaction of criminality? The other issue is would not existing insurance for the buses cover vandalism – and the above advert cannot be considered a potential incitement to criminality not least because many believers would agree you can be good without god.

Perhaps not saved without, or even able to exist without god, but that is another argument.

Let us be clear that it was the financial obligations being imposed on the atheist coalition for advertising which is the contention, and not an outright ban by the Transit Authority. The advert was not banned and we need to be clear on this because the argument is essentially whether price discrimination (assuming this is the first time they have made this demand) was used to hinder free speech or whether it was a legitimate requirement for the public company to make.

Ruffled feathers and squawking now seem to be the name of the game when Karla McLaren wrote a guest blog about being less polemic. She was surprised by the vile response.

I think she missed what she was saying effectively was be nice children (see PZ Meyers response here)

Her first bit is about turning off the audience you try to convince by being polemical:

“It’s also not something you can use in a relationship or a conversation, and it’s not something you can build a movement upon, because the intensity of emotion in a polemic is too extreme for most of us to manage deftly. Your polemical rage, if you try to use it in a conversation, can make you look scary and mad-intolerant. Your polemical despair, if you try to use it to convert your religious friends, can make you seem constitutionally incapable of seeing the bright side of life (or the importance of religion for people who may have nothing else). And your polemical terror, if you try to blog about it, can make you look like a wild-eyed doomsday prophet (who is nearly always wrong).”

Missing the point – I’m not trying to convert you from theism to atheism. I’m trying to convince you that secularism protects your civil rights and mine best, allowing freedom of conscience and infidels to be citizens. That your god does not have a veto on the Rights of Humanity without causing injury to the public good. If you read her guest blog answering her critics it suggests secularism is a replacement to religion. A faux pas unforgivable of someone claiming to be in any atheist movement.

“For me as an agnostic atheist, the future of the movement is an eventual acceptance of secularism as a moral, ethical, and viable alternative (not necessarily a replacement; I’m a realist) to religion, to faith communities, and to faith-based community service and social justice initiatives.”

In the original blog she then accuses the polemical of coming from an extremist view:

“But even if you are at the top of your game, your polemic can easily backfire. Here’s why: the form requires that you come out swinging from an extremist position, and that you choose only those examples and philosophies that support your ideas, while dismissing or ridiculing the examples and philosophies that don’t.”

That is confusing the polemic form with the practises of bloggers angry looking to trade words. The polemic is a contrarian view (not extremist) that needs no straw men to set alight – it burns with the prose and rational appeal to reason which at it’s best convinces people to take account. Or even to change their mind. Atheism is controversial because the majority believe in the supernatural or will not discount it completely. That makes our arguments polemical – her issue is the style employed which is slightly different.

She suggests that accommodating the sensibilities of the religious will ultimately benefit the human rights issues which atheists care about. Polemics rather hurt that cause:

“Polemics exist because they are necessary weapons in specific instances, especially when they’re aimed at ideologies or institutions that are hidebound and seemingly untouchable. But healthy and lasting social change can’t be built on polemics alone – and you shouldn’t use polemics within a movement if you want it to survive. Polemics are shrapnel bombs lobbed over high castle walls, and they don’t merely break down doors; they also take out the castle walls, fill the moat with debris, and collaterally kill whatever unfortunate birds happened to be flying over the castle that day. Polemics may destroy old ideologies, but they can’t create a new and sustainable movement.

If atheism (old, new, and just-discovered) is to become a sustainable and welcoming minority rights movement (or even just a nice place to hang out), then it requires community-builders, dissent voices, ambassadors, comedians, argument that is intentionally non-polemical, and an eventual buy-in from the majority. That necessary evolution is made more difficult if secondary and tertiary New Atheists maintain their interest in continual polemical intolerance, in intractable polarization, and in imagining that any critique of their approach requires the donning of full combat armor.”

This misses what Sam Harris said at the AAI 2007 Conference – that we do not need to attack religion when talking about stem cell research, abortion or sex education. We can let the religious use god and get tangled up in something that does not use medicine, science, public health as the basis of the discussion.

The polemic has a place, and to reach out to people it usually helps not to lash out at the time you hold out your hand. Yet when writing a blog it is not usually about mending bridges but having your say, your take on the situation, expressing how you feel. Karla misses something about human nature: no one likes being told how to communicate what they feel. Hence some very hurtful comments that headed her way. Not my style but if you try to heard cats expect hissing and claws.

Karla’s suggestion of using dialectics seems to be confused with the concept of reflective equilibrium (which Rawls derived from Kant so from same family tree as dialectics). The former is a means by which we may try by debate to come to the truth. Reflective equilibrium is how we may in the course of a discussion agree on certain fundamentals.

We do not need the new atheist movement to change it’s ways. What would be more useful is that we find how to make the case for the secular society. Karla should try and blog about how to move on to winning that argument. Assuming that she realises that secularism and atheism are not the same thing.

There was cat fights over atheism for the superficial males. Indeed it may be considered that sexy female non believers attending Atheist Conferences could be enough for superficial male folk to become ungodly.

However this underestimated the superficial reasons for why women would enjoy the charms of atheism. Don’t miss out – below is a photo of what you are missing.

Whilst PZ Meyers has the above photo as a joke on the above subject I can only say that the bonhomie is very welcoming among the fellowship of freethinkers. And very liberated.

I would say more only a gentleman never does …

I went to see Patrick Stewert in “Johnson Over Jordan” at Leeds Play
House many years ago; with a friend that had never seen a play before but knew Next Generation better then I ever could. That night he fell in love with the theatre and I with J.B. Priestly who came from my friend’s hometown of Bradford.

So it was with great delight a few weeks ago that stopping in St Agnes I came across a 1941 edition of J.B. Priestly’s book “Out of the People” at an honesty box village stall. Overjoyed, because his books are out of print, more pennies then asking price if less then it’s real value to me. As you can imagine, the book is how real democracy contrasts with the Nazis, and traditional Toryism.

The play “Johnson Over Jordan” is about a person coming to terms with their life after death. While there is the setting of an after life, who orchestrates, let alone faith allowing admission, is put to one side. This is a personal journey not so much in terms of highs and lows of a life, but the realisation of Johnson’s character as revealed to them in how they behave in the after life. This catharsis leads to acceptance, realisation of self, enlightenment and finally peace.

Priestley was a Christian and believes that an obstacle to democracy is religious decay, which he argues in chapter 7 of the book I am reading. The argument is not against the free thinker but the person that “could neither use faith as a crutch nor reason as a weapon” (Priestly, p.53) whom he feels has a void in their atheism that because they do not care about their fellow creation lacks a social conscience due to not feeling dignity as a part of creation. He defends free thinkers as we know them, as befits the play writer of “Johnson over Jordan”, having avoiding whether the world would be better or worse off without devout religious fervour:

“Again, we must make a sharp distinction between this (i)decay(i) of religious belief and the militant crusading spirit of the freethinker. The later is no longer a familiar type, and hardly belongs to the present era. Whether right or wrong in his conclusions, there was nothing decadent or defeatist about him. He was nearly always both an optimist and a fighter, and often as ardent and selfless in his attempts to deny God as the saints have been to affirm Him. With men of this temper, who nearly always combined a passion for radical reform with their freethinking, a vital democracy was always possible and they would have been among its most public-spirited citizens.” (ibid, p.52-3)

This humanism is in contrast to the apathy of those that not only do not care not only about the question of the existence of god, but lack any empathy with their fellow human beings. I have to take issue that with God vanishing a leader like Hitler can pick up many honours that allow their palpable authority of force to rule without question. Their power empirically proved unlike a creator (ibid, p.54). One only has to think of Napoleon, who increased his power by claim of divine destiny and that all forms of government will tend to monarchism even if only in power but avoid the name but dress in it’s colour. A device the Caesars knew well, and that the religious imperative a way to Men’s hearts that laws could not touch and laid the provenance for others to copy in hopes of emulating the glory of the Empire (or at least as Caesar in their domain).

I think the freethinkers time has come; indeed the Second World War showed that religion and secularism were not enough to bring peace on earth and good will to all (I shall exclude the male pro noun now). It would rather be a dangerous idea that would challenge those that would use the masses as a means to their will. It was the very action of being a free thinker. That the state, nor church, could degree the thoughts of people. That freedom means honest debate and dissent from other’s opinions. That there really was one form of government that could do justifce to this liberty of conscience, and that under it’s imperfect apparatus the people could triumph over the machinations of fascist tyranny.

It is democracy – and long may we be prepared to defend it as a means of freedom to the people, and ever guard our freedoms, and those of others. It may not mean peace on earth, for ever will the unscrupulously ambitious try to usurp the people. But life is not the same value without it and at times it has it’s price.

Truth is a matter, not of what we believe or feel; of what can be proven without falsehood being allowed to stand on it’s slate. This applies to religion and, as will become apparent, Christmas Quizzes. For example some will claim the bible as truth for being god’s word. Without considering that there is no proof supporting that latter claim as a foundation for the former, for faith alone does not make a text divine. Nor devout assertion make a piece of text sacred. That is left to the imagination of scribblers and critics.

We may yet hope to agree on what the text says. Though there are arguments over the rendering of passages we may at least consult the text to what it says. Rather than rely on songs or common knowledge.

Which brings me to the Christmas Quiz at work, attended by Jews, Muslims, Christians and an infidel. The question was how did the animals go into Noah’s Ark?

For the song it is 2 by 2. Hurrah! Hurrah! I claimed that was half true. For Genesis 7 has god instructing Noah on entering the ark with his family:

2take with you seven pairs of each kind of ritually clean animal, but only one pair of each unclean animal.3Take also seven pairs of each kind of bird. Do this so that every kind of animal and bird will be kept alive to reproduce again on earth.

I was the only one to point this out. The non believer sticking to biblical text. As we had done on the question of how many ghosts visited Mr Scrooge – 4 when you count Jacob Marley warning him of the other three.

Religious friends tell me that atheists assume that they should be fundementalists with regards their faith. Perhaps one reason why people claim faith is that they do not grapple with fundementals. For if you think animals went in two by two, then examining the tennents of your faith is not the rock upon which you base it.

Rather common knowledge suggests that they so marched. Common knowledge should not be confused with a sense of things as they are. The latter allows us to find out about things by inquiry and empirical objectivity. The former allows what is held by tradition or acclaim, by appeal to populaism to be true.

Let us not limit ourselves to common knowledge when there are better fruits to pluck and feast upon. No matter who tells you not too.

If what I now write has atheists and devout belivers criticising this blog then I will have achieved what I set out to do. Which is to take both viewpoints outside the comfort zones of the holders.

That how right you believe your view to be is not a reason to hold others to your belief.

Even though atheism is not based on fantasy, or at least on super natural power, this does not mean that we can enforce those views on others.

What we can do is assess the actions that are a consequence of the thought. We need more than a correlation – we need causation, that the belief leads to the act.

As much as we may not wish to phrase it otherwise, atheism is a belief. We may argue that we have better data leading to the conclusion. However we cannot claim it as a fact – otherwise we do exactly what creationists do when they say evolution is only a theory. We cannot debase language by our emotion or force of conviction.

The belief that Jesus was born on 25 December does not hurt me. That it may be celebrated with a tree and tacky decorations is none of my business. The consequence of the belief does not cause harm.

Howver, when I ask you to look at the evidence that the early Christians focused on Jesus’ death not birth. Save for Matthew whose writings appealed to the Greek epic of omens fortelling deity. That the date chosen for commeration is more about pagan significance and convience than historical accuracy.

Faith is not a free ride. You may tell me that your partner is beautiful and your children smart. You are entitled to that view, however I shall choose the opinion that is independent of yours. Do not hold me to your view publicly – it may get ugly.

The above analogy is appropiate because people may feel comforted in their belief of their family as they do about their faith. I suspect though that we all know a family whose belief in their virtues is liable to loose it’s gloss with the disinfectant of scrutiny.

Maybe hands off would be polite. Certainly well mannered if we do not want an argument. Thing is that in the world of competiting faiths is like drunken husbands fighting over whose wife is most virtuous, while the wives prepare their children to dominate the future.

We cannot argue that if Dawkins and co would only shut up then an uneasy ceasefire may exist. Such is the power of thought and to silence is to deny who we are. Thinking animals moved to action based on thought. Not necessarily rationally based but the pack should be allowed to rip the bad ones to pieces for the survival of the best ideas.

So trump card – tolerance of thought. The limits are where the actions of those thoughts lead to consequences against the thoughts of others. Censorship being one, styfling debate another.

The more I see Hitchens debate Rabbis and others makes me think of Douglas Adams and the philosophers arguing about the computer giving answers to philosohical debates. Deep Thought responds that the wait for such answers can set them on the gravy train for life as long as they could vemenently disagree with each other.

The truth is the undiscovered country, but while some become rich on the journey we all benefit from the experience. The sparring, and the friction may lead to ugly moments.

Freedom of thought, the plurality of ideas is important if we want to discover answers. You have to accept that, as in Deep Thoughts words, you are not going to like it. Always.

Not that a bus has meta physical or no belief. If you thought buses and railway stations displayed a little too much in the way of religious advertising here is the free thought remedy:

Richard Dawkins, who is matching all contributions given towards the advertising commented:

“Religion is accustomed to getting a free ride – automatic tax breaks, unearned ‘respect’ and the right not to be ‘offended’, the right to brainwash children. Even on the buses, nobody thinks twice when they see a religious slogan plastered across the side.

“This campaign to put alternative slogans on London buses will make people think – and thinking is anathema to religion.” [Daily Telegraph]

The advertising will only go ahead from January if the money is there. The British Humanist Association is handling the fund raising – but in ten hours of launching they had reached the target.

Already making an impression not just on Radio 4 Thought for the Day and newspapers but also on the satirical news quiz Have I Got News For You (the line at the end a particularly good one):

Now if we could get some on the bill board at train stations, or perhaps just some quotes to raise human spirits rather than artificial ones …

Ariane Sherine is the brains behind the campaign and you can learn more at her site here.

The free thought tag police are coming!

Splendid Elles (right) tagged me to answer these series of questions.

Can You Remember The Day That You Officially Became An Atheist?

Officially is a redundant word in the question. I neither am a card carrying atheist, nor had a party where people celebrated my non belief. If you want an action that publicly made that, it would be in front of the White House when to a TV crew I spoke about atheists being treated as equal citizens with everyone else – that it was no reflection on your character or ability to be a moral person.

There is no one moment, where you rid yourself of the blood of the lamb. While at University it was a nagging feeling that there was no evidence for a supernatural being that communicated directly with us. Reading philosophy, and in particular Bertrand Russell, and reading politics just meant that god slipped away as I realised we humans have to take responsibility as the only conscious species in making the world a better place – rather than hoping with death we make it to a better one.

Do you remember the day you officially became an agnostic?

Fairly soon after leaving the study of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It occurred to me that their religion was the work of man and that prophecies claimed in the bible were allegories or concerned with actual events that had already happened. The human yearning though for a spiritual side to existence was one that completed the human experience, but religion was only an answer to that expression rather than the answer to the ultimate question of life the universe and everything.

Some people think the politically correct thing is to term yourself a skeptical agnostic. Yet becoming an atheist just means that you hold out there being no evidence that there is a god; and refuse to accept any argument by a person as being divinely inspired. They will need rationality, logic, empirical evidence, and the welfare of life to consider.

How about the last time you spoke or prayed to God with actual thought that someone was listening?

When I read Watchtower publications and realised that these were the works of men, with false prophecy and changed dogma. I prayed for realisation of what his will was, and that I may come to an understanding of the ultimate truth of things. The answer to those things is in the living.

Did anger towards God or religion help cause you to be an atheist or agnostic?

No. My anger was directed at the Watchtower organisation. That new editions of books did not highlight changes interpretations. It was almost doublespeak of Orwellian descriptions. My anger was directed at the real possibility of dying from refusing a blood transfusion – one that the Jehovah’s Witnesses have changed their mind about since 1956 when they first decided it was against god’s will.

Here is a good one: Were you agnostic towards ghosts, even after you became an atheist?

I never believed in ghosts. However nothing wrong with science trying to rationally explain the paranormal experience people have. Everyone has to make a living.

Do you want to be wrong?

If there is a god I think belief in him is the last yardstick by which he will measure your life on earth. The notion of freedom and autonomy for me goes against wishing for a celestial all powerful being to exist. There is no guarantee such a being would be benign – with 99% of all living things now extinct, and the way entities in nature try to survive pointing to life as a reflection of god’s attitude is one that would terrify me.

I do not fear death, just as I do not fear life. My ancestors went through it. People around me do it. You just have to figure out what you want to do in the time you have.

So to spread these ideas around, and keep the meme alive, I better tag some people:

Gary William Murning Online

Copland III

Lambda Delta: Tony Sidaway’s science blog

The newly formed Conservative Humanist Association means that now all three main political parties have a humanist society for members to be part of. Though that did not go down completely well with everyone; John Gummer MP, former Agriculture Minister, on seeing them at the party conference denounced them saying the Conservative Party was God’s party. Still, I did not like the man when he fed his infant child beef in front of the press when we had our first BSE scare, and this does nothing to mend his image. The irony is that on Gummer’s website he talks about representing people in his constituency irrespective of party. It seems when it comes to his own party, God is a dividing line.

Richard Dawkins spoke at the launch event (YouTube video) in Birmingham during the party conference. Secular values cross party lines, so while I may not trust that the Conservatives on social justice and free markets benefiting all and not the few, this is something that can only help in making the case for Britain to be more secular when it comes to faith schools, Sharia Law or Bishops in the House of Lords.

Mind you I am in good company – Richard Dawkins has not voted Tory in his life.

At the Council of Ex Muslims of Britain (CEMB) I met up with two people (far right of photo) involved with the Conservative Humanist Association, and we went to a nearby pub to talk about the association. They also referred to the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group – which hopefully will grow; a number of atheist MPs (especially Conservative) tend to keep a low profile. However, a number of prospective parliamentary candidates from the Conservatives are humanist – so if the polls are anything to go by their number on the benches of the Commons will increase.

Left to right: Adrian (thanks for the photo), John aka Homo economicus (pint in hand - lubrication of the mind), Pedram, Oliver

OTHER BLOGS:

International Conference Council of Ex Muslims of Britain (CEMB)

Humanist and Secular Liberal Democrats - UK

Click the photo for a Ken Ham talk I went to

Perhaps sometimes it really is not worth it. Because you may find that the mud slinging offers itself up as a dirty fight, one that you do not want to wage because you do not want to wallow in the filth. Facts, evidence and keeping to the point should be enough for a rational conversation. Otherwise avoid.

Using the good old tag surfer on WordPress I came across this blog which mentioned that a loved one’s ashes could now be turned into a diamond. The only thing was that the person claimed that the technological process that allows this was proof that the earth had been designed in a short period of time. That this was another part of the jigsaw to prove a global flood and the earth being created in 6 days. This also apparently proved evolution wrong though the discussion was about geology.

Yep a Young Earth Creationinst. Got to love these guys, and the way they make an argument.

So I commented:

Human technology in the creation of diamonds does not prove there was a designer for the natural processes that create them, let alone a global flood. Nor does it have any bearing on evolutionary biology.

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761557986/diamond.html

Synthetic diamonds have been around since the 1950s. However, rumours that all you need is peanut butter, a microwave and some coal are hugely exaggerated.

The blogger responded:

I know it doesn’t prove anything as a stand alone contribution. It simply adds to the pre-existing mountain of evidence confirming a young earth.

You can drag someone to the fountain of knowledge but you cannot make them drink.

However, the person came over to my blog and made some comments – which I thought I would share (free speech) but decided not to give the person a free reign to post without moderation:

On reading About Me:

You left one cult (J.W.) To join another (atheism)??

“Atheism is the religion of the deranged and evolution is their creation story”.

Well there is a difference between the Jehovah’s Witnesses which are a cult and atheism. For one the hours are better. I do not have to ask myself whether my inner thoughts confirm to the wishes of a supreme being that has the ability to mind read. Nor am I kept in line by images that the majority of people are going to be destroyed in a forth coming war, with only door bell ringers of the good news that you will die in Armageddon being saved. Though not as soon as The Society (governing body of J.Ws) assumed in the past.

I do not have to worry whether my clothing confirms to a designated style. No fellow atheist will demand that I get a hair cut or else I am letting down atheism. Nor does my status in the pecking order depend on towing certain tenants. Among the fellowship of atheists there is ammo shot at the four horsemen as with plenty reserved for those that would trounce on hard won freedoms from religious bigotry and refuse the evidence of science. I am encouraged to think things through and to look at the evidence, rather than relying on someones authority to tell me what is true.

I also accepted the theory of evolution before I was an atheist. It helped when I could actually find out about the theory when I read beyond the books published by The Society. My atheism is not based on evolution theory. It is more based on the reasons that Bertrand Russell articulated.

On reading Labelling yourself:

You are the personification of deranged. You are in favor of keeping the scum of the earth alive and yet also in favor of killing unborn children who have never done wrong to anyone.
“Atheism is the religion of the deranged and evolution is their creation story” – Michael D. Shoesmith

Funnily enough the blog was not about abortion or the death penalty. As a European it is not really a surprise that I do not favour the death penalty. That is because there can be no appeal from the grave, and there have been too many instances where miscarriages of justice would have led to people being put to death though the evidence was not conclusive, and those found guilty were on later review released.

The other argument is to try and understand what makes people criminals so we can better protect the law abiding. Whether that takes you on a voyage like Marilynn Rosenthal who used her experience in academia to find out about the 9/11 killer of her son who died in the south tower or Richard Dawkins calling for us to learn about genocidal murderers so we can stop people like Saddam Hussein getting to power rather then put them summarily to death and squander that opportunity. The death penalty is about revenge, as an ultimate punishment. It does not cancel out the evil done, nor bring loved ones back. What it does do is add to the body count in the fight against crime. The death penalty is opposed by religious groups too.

As to abortion – well I do not favour abortion. I see women being able to have legal, professional medical access preferable to backstreet abortions. McCain was of the same opinion before realising he needed the religious right that now controlled his party. I do not want the legal system to be used to enforce a personal view that a fertilized egg has equal rights with a fully grown woman. This stance does not mean that I take pleasure in how many women have abortions. Reproductive issues are a matter for the individual not the state. I would hope every conception brings a healthy, loved, and wanted child that can be provided for. Society needs to see how to address that. I want women empowered to make a real choice. Banning abortion will not solve the social ills that belay our countries. Some religious groups feel that too:

“The directorate of the [United Church of Christ]‘s social action office first addressed the abortion issue in 1970, affirming freedom of choice for women, calling for church action supporting the repeal of overly restrictive abortion legislation and encouraging the expansion of sex education programs.  Freedom of choice in reproductive matters was first affirmed by the General Synod in 1971 and has been reaffirmed in one way or another by several General Synods since.”

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that Unitarian Universalists in the United States be urged to promote passage of federal legislation to:

guarantee the fundamental right of individual choice in reproductive matters [source]

As for a delusion well the definition is:

A false belief that is resistant to confrontation with actual facts; The state of being deluded or misled; That which is falsely or delusively believed or propagated; false belief; error in belief. [source]

On that score, Young Earth Creationism fits perfectly. Below is Eugenie Scott on YEC:

Part One:

Part Two:

OTHER BLOGS:

Atheist at Ken Ham talk in Leicester