Crossroads

I have cut all ties with the various freethought/atheist groups I have previously participated in. Sharing a similar answer to one particular question just isn't enough anymore. I got the distinct feeling that my presence didn't matter to anyone in these groups and that nobody was really interested in me as a person. Longtime readers of this blog may recall I have suspected this for some time, but it finally got cemented for me recently.

One major problem with the main group I'd been attending was that the others never let me finish a stream of thought. I understand that some interruption is part of the necessary give-and-take of conversation, but with me it happened every single time.

The other major problem was that I was tired of being treated like my interests didn't matter. While it was OK for some to talk about their musical preferences, mine were treated scornfully. The sad part is that the scorn wasn't even accurate--the "critic" had his facts all wrong about the artist in question. There's more than a bit of irony in someone constantly talking about how he makes decisions based on facts getting it so wrong here.

My views on the supernatural haven't changed. But I'm not going to spend my time with people who clearly don't respect or value me. I don't care how many issues we agree on.

I'm not sure where I go from here. Despite my lack of belief in the supernatural, it seems pretty clear to me that I haven't had good luck with what attempts there have been at freethought-based communities. While I don't want to be one of those atheists who doesn't contribute anything to the larger community, it feels like said community isn't interested in my contribution. It's safe to say I'm debating how much I wish to continue to identify as atheist.

By contrast, I feel like the people in the Vedanta Society have my back. For instance, I told someone in the Vedanta Society that I'd been obsessively listening to the artist I mentioned earlier, and while he didn't seem familiar with them, we still had a nice conversation about music's power to affect people and just how hard it is to succeed in that field.

When I got laid off from my job last year, one of the other devotees offered to pay for my ticket to a fundraising luncheon the Society was having. I told him if it came to that, I'd pay him back as soon as I started working again. He told me not to worry about it and that if I really felt the need to do something, I could just make a donation to the Society.

Some of the big atheist blogs have mentioned this before, but I want to reiterate: people often aren't in houses of worship entirely because they intellectually support what is taught there. It's a sense of community and obligation to fellow human beings that keeps them there. People want to be treated like they matter. If you don't do that, your group will not be successful in the long term, no matter how many theological/political/whatever questions you answer correctly.

Agnostic bashing

Sorry for the absence. Now that the semester's over and my schedule has stabilized, I should be back to posting more frequently.

I've mentioned Friendly Atheist several times in this blog, and he often has a lot of good things to say, but I was disappointed with his recent post, Why Are You Agnostic? The post is full of the usual forms of agnostic bashing. They've been so done to death that I'm not even going to recount them here.

First off, why does it matter if some people call themselves agnostic instead of atheist? I'm not going to get into the idea that they actually refer to different things and can be compatible, etc. That's a valid point, but outside the scope of what I'm talking about.

Actually, I think that leads to our first problem: like it or not, atheist and agnostic mean different things to different people. So while I generally identify as atheist, some would probably argue that I'm not one because I don't affirmatively claim there are no gods, or I'm not a total nihilist, or whatever. So before we get all pissy about labels, let's be absolutely clear about what those labels mean.

Second, you can't force people to adopt a particular label. Greta Christina talks about this in her post, Atheist Or Agnostic? She uses an analogy of a person who identifies as bisexual. This person constantly has to deal with statements like, "Oh, you're just a gay/straight person in denial." People have the right to label themselves as they see fit. As she also points out, "it's patronizing to tell other adults that you know who they are better than they do."

It's stupid to bicker so much over labels. It sets up an us-vs.-them mentality that unnecessarily places people into "them." It sounds way too much like some sort of purity test, which sounds way too much like, well, some nasty forms of religion. I'd even go far to say that it's a form of emotional blackmail: "If you were really one of us, you'd..." See how that sounds? More importantly, do you see that it's no different from the way many religious groups operate?

Finally, part of being an adult among other adults is respecting a person's right to make choices different from your own. Sure, you also have the right to express your disagreement, but past a certain point, it's probably only going to damage your relationship with that person.

If you really want more people to adopt the atheist label, work for a common definition. That alone will probably go a long way. Once people realize, "Oh, you don't have to assert there are no gods to be an atheist," etc., more people will adopt the label on their own. But criticizing people who do not choose your label is misguided and divisive.

Book review: The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality

As mentioned in the previous post, I've been reading The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality by André Comte-Sponville, translated from the original French by Nancy Huston. Here's the review I promised.

It seems like a harmless enough book. At slightly over 200 pages, you'd think you would be able to breeze through reading it. Well, you'd be wrong. It's somewhat of a dense read. I don't necessarily mean that as a criticism, but I wanted to call attention to this. Don't let the size fool you.

The book has 3 chapters, plus the usual introduction and conclusion. The titles of the chapters are "Can We Do Without Religion?," "Does God Exist?," and "Can There Be an Atheist Spirituality?," respectively. Guess what they're about.

In the first chapter, Comte-Sponville discusses what is appealing about religion. Not surprisingly, he touts the communal benefits, especially support in times of adversity. He also talks a lot about fidelity, which he defines as a set of core values. He seems to think this fidelity can be achieved through a sort of cultural Christianity. You could certainly argue that this has actually become the de facto religion of much of Europe--showing up in church for weddings, funerals, and the occasional baptism, Easter, or Christmas service.

However, I think this is harder to pull off in the US for two reasons. First, there are way too many American Christians who not only take Biblical ideas very seriously, but they also insist that everyone else do the same in order to be a good Christian, or even to feel welcome in that church. Second, my experience with people who have left Christianity is that they have typically had some sort of significant negative experience that would prompt them to avoid anything remotely Christian (of course, the first reason partially plays into this one!). So, while I like the idea of shared values, I think even cultural Christianity might have too much baggage for a lot of people. I'm not opposed to the idea; I just don't know if it would catch on here. I'll probably elaborate on this in a future post.

I'm not going to get into the second chapter very deeply, because it mostly contains material that can easily found elsewhere. I'll briefly mention one of the arguments against God's existence that I hadn't seen before in detail: basically a "too good to be true" argument:

I would definitely prefer for such a thing to exist, but this is no reason to believe it does. [. . .] I would also prefer for war, poverty, injustice, and hatred to disappear completely. But if someone came up to me tomorrow and told me they had, I would say he was a dreamer, a victim of wishful thinking. . .

This ties in with Freud's stance on religion, but I'd never really heard it fleshed out like this before.

The third chapter is, to me, the heart of the book. I've already discussed whether there can be an atheist spirituality, so here I'd like to focus on what that might entail. Comte-Sponville proposes a variety of options. Throughout the book, he frequently refers to Spinoza and seems to consider pantheism a reasonable choice. Various Eastern thinkers come up as well, and Comte-Sponville's idea of the All or the Absolute could be a way of looking at the Tao or Brahman.

This is probably where hardline materialists and empiricists start to freak out. We have now entered the realm of the unprovable. It's very difficult to talk about something that is universal and intensely personal at the same time. Comte-Sponville talks about what Romain Rolland called the "oceanic feeling." It's worth noting that Rolland was strongly influenced by the writings of Swami Vivekananda.

Obviously, I can't speak for everyone, but it seems most people have experienced a feeling of unity at some point in their lives. I can definitely think of instances where I've felt like I disappeared into whatever I was doing. But everyone who's had such an experience probably reached it in slightly different ways than I did. They might describe their experiences a bit differently, too.

Getting back to the book, there is one major difference between Comte-Sponville and most Eastern religious beliefs, aside from possible supernatural beliefs. Many strains of Hinduism and Buddhism teach that the world is something to be renounced for spiritual gain. Comte-Sponville disagrees, saying that the highest good is actually to engage with the world as it is and do the best you can.

Whew! See how much we went through in my little review of this little book? If you're hungry for more, check it out. If I lost you three paragraphs ago, this may not be the book for you!

Can there be an atheist spirituality?

When an English translation of The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality by French philosopher André Comte-Sponville was published, the title naturally made some waves among atheists. Atheist spirituality sounds like an oxymoron. In fact, anytime I've heard or seen discussions on this topic, somebody always says that such a thing is impossible because spirituality refers to the supernatural by definition. For the record, this is not a review of the book per se, just a general discussion of the idea of atheist spirituality. When I finish the book, I'll post a review.

So, is Comte-Sponville radically redefining his terms, or is there another explanation? While it's admittedly not a definitive source, I checked the dictionary that comes with my computer. Naturally, spiritual was defined as relating to the spirit (duh). So what does this dictionary mean by spirit?

The nonphysical part of a person that is the seat of emotions and character.

Further definitions do refer to supernatural entities, but as you can see, this one does not. This definition doesn't imply anything about the nature of this entity. It's entirely possible that these are all brain functions or their byproducts. Actually, the word in that definition that has the most quibbling potential is nonphysical. If that word really bothers you, just replace it with intangible.

In this sense, spirit is something people deal with all the time, regardless of religion or irreligion. Yes, it refers to ethical standards, but it also refers to a general perspective on the world and how to interact with it. As you can probably guess, spirituality in this sense is of great interest to me. So the answer to the question, "Can there be an atheist spirituality?" is "Yes, definitely." You could argue that spirituality is a poor word choice, but that's an entirely different discussion.

Why is this atheist blog different from all other atheist blogs?

Since officially putting up the Scarlet A, I've wondered what I could do to distinguish this blog from the other atheist blogs out there. Unfortunately, I don't belong to any special group that could lend me particular insight into this sort of thing. I don't have any special expertise in philosophy or the natural sciences. But even a cursory reading of my previous posts hints at what I think is sparsely-populated territory in the freethinking blogosphere.

Many who have left religion compare their experience to abusive relationships, and sadly, this is often based on actual abusive experiences. But at some point, it becomes counterproductive to wallow in victimhood, and if nothing else, it gets tiring after a while! If you are in such a situation, eventually you have to ask yourself, "OK, so all this happened. What comes next?"

That's what interests me. Once you've made mincemeat of the ontological argument and can refute creationist talking points blindfolded with one hand tied behind your back, how do you go about living your life? After you throw out the Ten Commandments, what do you put in their place? What process do you use in such choices?

As you may have guessed, I don't think there's necessarily a single set of answers that applies to all people in all situations. But I think it might be possible to find general principles that at least apply to most people in most situations, and equally importantly, to understand the occasions when such principles don't apply. I also think it might be possible to help people devise a framework for constructing meaning in their lives.

Most importantly, I'm interested in the discussion on these topics. If I had to sum it up in one question, it would be, "What constitutes a life well-lived?" For starters, it's perfectly reasonable to wonder what I mean by "a life well-lived," and I'll probably elaborate on that in future posts. I fully expect to discuss ideas from across the theological spectrum. If someone I vehemently disagree with on other issues says something insightful on the topics relevant here, I'll gladly mention the idea and credit that person.

Naturally, I hope you will join me and participate. If you've got a thinker whose ideas you'd like to discuss, suggest away!

Non-religious disaster relief

I don't need to tell you about the suffering that continues in Haiti because of the earthquake. If you specifically want to help in the name of a non-religious organization, the Richard Dawkins Foundation has combined their efforts with several other freethought organizations to raise some money for disaster relief. Details are available at a website they've set up, Non-Believers Giving Aid. The donations will benefit Doctors Without Borders and the International Red Cross (despite its name, the Red Cross is actually a secular organization).

Over at Beliefnet, Rod Dreher takes issue with the tone on the website, but he does at least appreciate the efforts. I cannot tell you how glad I am to see these efforts out there. I hope they're able to raise a lot of money this way. For my part, I had already donated via the text message thing before hearing of this, but if this becomes a standing thing, I'll try to remember and promote it for future efforts. For anyone who has yet to donate, what are you waiting for?

Status report: Yet another atheist blog is officially born

Note the new decoration in the right column.

On a friend's recommendation, I read Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth, which is a graphic novel about the life and work of British mathematician/philosopher/logician (yes, he was that damn good) Bertrand Russell. Logicomix also shows the influence Russell had on other prominent figures such as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Kurt Gödel. If you're remotely interested in this sort of thing, I highly recommend checking out Logicomix. If you're really interested, you'll naturally want to read the writings of the main characters themselves.

Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem states that no logical system can be both consistent and complete. This implies that any complete system will require axioms that cannot be proven within the system itself. The Incompleteness Theorem was a huge blow to Russell and many of his colleagues, who had spent the last few decades trying to formulate a mathematical system based on absolute certainty. Gödel had now shown that such a system was impossible.

For a long time, I had suspected as much on some level, and of course, many of history's great thinkers have hinted at it. Sources as diverse as Socrates and the Kena Upanishad (like most of the Upanishads, the author or authors are unknown) advise skepticism of anyone who claims certain knowledge of absolute truth.

I think one of the things that leads people to say, "Atheism is just another religion," is the certainty that some atheists seem to insist on in their tone--for instance, when someone says directly or indirectly that religion has never produced anything of value and has nothing to offer people today. That's a pretty dogmatic-sounding statement, dripping with certainty and more than a little smugness. I don't think that atheism is just another religion, but I would say that there are those who treat it the same way some devout believers treat their beliefs.

Another implication of all this is that I probably won't be able to find a single group that has what I'm looking for. Previously, I've been known to agonize that there's something wrong with either me or the group when I'm not getting along with them like I'd hoped. For instance, if I didn't like the tone of one of our atheist meetups, I'd ponder the "trouble with atheism," or worse, fear that I was some poseur intellectual lightweight. Now I'm starting to think this distrust of certainty might be all right.

In fact, for the time being, I'm going to continue visiting the Vedanta Society, too. I think they have a lot of interesting stuff to say, philosophically, and I get a sense of humility and community that I haven't gotten too many other places (I wish I could say I got this from freethought-related groups, but this is not the case). Also, what I've seen of their writings so far tends to display a keen understanding of how people work. Many belief systems, religious and otherwise, have bred disaster out of their failure to account for this.

Actually, if I had to describe my belief system, naturalistic pantheism (I'll probably elaborate on this in the near future) would come closest, but since there's no community for that in my area, I have to make do with what I have. It might happen that I can practice Vedanta in a pantheistic way.

But there are things I have in common with the most militant atheist, too, like the lack of belief in anything supernatural and the desire to keep religion out of government (and science classes!). And by the definition espoused by Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion, I'm at least a de facto atheist. So, up goes the scarlet A.

Scientific Education

A fun graph...




My status update is forthcoming, but as soon as I saw this, I wanted to share it.

Source: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal via Friendly Atheist

Expanding on "drop by and lie"

In a previous post, I mentioned Jennifer Michael Hecht's phrase "drop by and lie" to refer to nonbelievers who participate in religious practices for whatever reason. I also raised the issue of whether I was doing this with the Vedanta Society. Here's my follow-up.

It boils down to how you define your terms. That probably sounds like I'm trying to weasel my way into or out of something, so let me illustrate my point with some examples.

If I were interested in converting to Catholicism and wanted to know what they believed, the Nicene Creed would be a pretty good summary. More importantly, not believing those statements is a deal breaker (this is also true of Orthodox and many Protestant denominations). If I wanted to become a Muslim, I would be expected to pray five times a day in the prescribed manner and regularly recite the Shahada. So if I didn't believe that Muhammad was a divine messenger, that would be a deal breaker between me and Islam.

So what does the Vedanta Society expect of me? Well, there isn't a creed or list of commandments. There are some ethical guidelines, but they are just that--guidelines, not rigid absolutes. Besides, the ideas in those guidelines are hardly extreme. I think most people would agree that honesty and refraining from stealing are good things! Regarding the philosophy, this page provides a starting point. A lot of the terms they use may be familiar, but in many cases those terms are defined differently than in the Abrahamic religions.

For instance, a lot of the Vedantic literature, especially Advaita (nondualistic) Vedanta, talks about unity with Brahman. Some try to equate Brahman with God, but that's not necessarily accurate. As you may have guessed, there are varying schools of thought on just what Brahman is. One way to look at it is as a sort of Uncaused First Cause, but without the personal attributes that Abrahamic religions typically give to such an idea. Another perspective would be in terms of Albert Einstein's description of "the orderly harmony of what exists" or Stephen Hawking's "embodiment of the laws of the universe." (Sources: the Einstein quote is mentioned in The God Delusion, and the Hawking quote is mentioned here.) I won't say that Advaita Vedanta is inherently pantheistic, but it certainly seems to allow for that interpretation.

A related question is how to define theism in the first place. In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins defines theism as belief in a supernatural being who created the universe and intervenes in its events. If you define theism in that way, you could end up calling a lot of religiously observant people atheists. In fact, my favorite Pew Forum survey indicates that at least in the US, majorities of Hindus, Buddhists, and even Jews do not believe in a personal God. Some people use the term nontheists to include atheists and people who reject the idea of a personal God but are still religious in some form.

Applying nontheistic ideas to the Abrahamic religions is often considered blasphemy, although some have tried. But in Eastern religions, these ideas are at least considered valid interpretations, if not necessarily universal ones. The Resident Minister at my local Vedanta Society told me, "When you pray, you're having a dialogue with your Higher Self." Of course, even nondualistic Hindus perform rituals involving various deities, but the deities are generally considered to be useful metaphors. So while it may seem slippery to Westerners to conceive of God as Einstein and Hawking described, these ideas are well within the mainstream of Hindu thought. There are certainly Hindus who disagree with nondualism, but in the arguments I've seen, nobody has claimed their opponent is not Hindu for disagreeing with them (for an entertaining study in contrast, type "you're no Buddhist" with the quotes into your search engine of choice).

In summary, at no point in my interactions with the Vedanta Society have I been asked to profess anything I don't believe. In fact, I have discussed specific doubts with the Resident Minister as they've come up, and she always tells me I don't have to believe those things (because I'm slow on the uptake, I keep asking). And there's precedence for her answer in the tradition.

So, if I don't believe in anything supernatural or that there's an immortal soul within us that survives death, why do I bother? So far, I've found that the philosophy and practices I've learned about in the Vedanta Society help me detach from the ego. I'm fully aware that many do not consider detachment from the ego to be desirable, or that religious language is useful in any case. But those are personal preferences, not empirical truths.

I know this arrangement may be untenable in the long term. It's entirely possible that as I learn more, I'll find something that I can't support or cast aside. If that happens, I'll walk. Either way, I'll keep telling you all about it.

What hasn't changed

I figured I should clarify some things since my search seems to be taking on a new direction. It might seem that I've done some sort of theological 180, but I haven't. I'm no more likely to believe supernatural explanations for events in India than I would believe someone claiming that Jesus appeared in a grilled cheese sandwich.

Here are some of my beliefs that haven't changed:

• Separation of church and state FTW!!!! (Duh.)
  
• Science is the best tool for determining the facts of the world around us.
• I have a serious problem with people who do harm in the name of religion.
• I highly doubt that there's some sort of omnipotent being in the cosmos that worries about the minutae of our sex lives.
  

Here's a really interesting talk given by author Jennifer Michael Hecht on what she calls Poetic Atheism. She talks about the need for ritual and having some outlet for feelings of transcendence. She also mentions the need to remember death and that life is not fair. I'm glad that there are groups out there trying to meet those needs, but I just don't see them in the freethought groups in my area, unfortunately.

Hecht uses the phrase "drop by and lie" to refer to people who use religion for various social benefits. That phrase may sound like she has contempt for such people, but that's not the case. She's fully aware of the needs that this behavior serves. Naturally, I wonder on a regular basis if that's what I'm doing with Vedanta. But those thoughts are voluminous and complicated enough to require their own post, so I'll save them for later.

That community thing again

I've touched on the idea of community several times before in this blog, and I've basically said that religious groups tend to do a better job of providing supportive communities than secular groups do. I don't even think that's a terribly controversial statement. Typically when non-religious people discuss this issue, they might offer reasons why it's the case, but I don't think I've heard anyone dispute that it's the case. In fact, that's probably a big part of why I started attending those Vedanta Society services.

This was driven home to me in the last few days. One of my great-aunts passed away, and the outpouring of support from her church community and those of the surviving relatives was amazing. In fact, there were so many people who came to the memorial that it had to be moved to a bigger church, and nobody complained. The night before the funeral, some people cooked copious amounts of food and brought it to another relative's house.

The whole experience has helped me better articulate the issue I've hinted at repeatedly: what does freethought offer to those who are down and out? Former criminals and addicts often embrace fundamentalist forms of religion because it gives them a less destructive way to live their lives. If there is to be any such thing as a freethought movement that goes beyond the fringes, it needs to become competitive in this market, so to speak. There needs to be some way to reach people who've hit rock bottom.

Freethought groups love to cite surveys that show declining attendance at religious services, and even declining affiliation with organized religion in general. And those things are certainly true. But I don't think it can be assumed that such people are all ready to embrace purely secular ideals. What doesn't get mentioned is that while "Unaffiliated" may be the fastest-growing group, it also has one of the worst retention rates. Specifically, of those who were raised without a particular religion, slightly less than half remain that way. Of these people who went on to embrace a religion, 51% gave "spiritual needs not being met" as their top reason.

Let's assume you don't believe in anything spiritual, and therefore not in any such thing as "spiritual needs." Then what needs are not being met? Human needs, of course. If secular groups want to be taken seriously, then they need to hit religion on its own turf: offering meaningful support to society's most vulnerable.

What I'm kind of hoping will happen is that someone will read this and tell me where and how these things are already happening. I think groups like Foundation Beyond Belief have some great ideas, and I wish them success in their goals. But I'm mainly concerned with action at the local and regional levels. Could we see atheist-run soup kitchens and disaster relief organizations in the future? What other ideas do you have to improve this situation?

Buddhism redux

(h/t to Deip for the title!)

So why has the possibility of "cutting a deal" with a religious or spiritual group even arisen? I've talked before about how much I loved the sense of community I felt when I was going to synagogue regularly. And it didn't come from debating the finer points of Jewish law. It came mostly from ordinary conversations about jobs and families. I felt valued as a human being.

And I don't feel that way in the freethought groups I've hung out with (if any of you are reading this, sorry). In those groups I feel like a stack of ideas, if that makes any sense. When someone new comes in, they're asked the typical getting-to-know-you questions, but usually the only real interest is in the person's deconversion story. I don't feel like there's much interest in me (or anyone else) as a person. In fact, one day when I was venting about a personal problem that had nothing to do with religion, it was clear they had no interest. If anything, I got shamed a little because I wasn't handling it like a hyper-rational being. (Edit: I don't think it was anyone's intent to shame me. It was probably just an unintended consequence of less-than-stellar people skills. But that was cold comfort at the time. 10/27/09)

So would it be possible to make nice with the Buddhists? Unfortunately, the closest group to my home is affiliated with the zendo I had the bad experience with. While it's possible that a lot has changed in the last ten years, I wanted to check my alternatives first. Fortunately, there are many groups within a reasonable distance. I also wanted to check out some Buddhist websites so I could see what actual practitioners had to say about their practice. In too many cases, it amounts to, "My practice can beat up your practice!"

There's a term that describes the whole thing beautifully: spiritual materialism. Ironically, this term was coined by a Buddhist author (Chogyam Trungpa, if you care). It refers to the tendency of people to pursue spiritual practices in order to build their egos--the Dharmic version of "holier than thou." And unfortunately, when so many people are convinced that they are on the one true path that the Buddha intended all those years ago (stop snickering! Of course there's such a thing! </sarcasm>), it tends to stifle real dialogue.

Most people at some point in their lives go through a stretch where they keep breaking up with and getting back together with the same person. But they almost always end up breaking up again over the same issues (yes, I've learned this the hard way). Generally, people don't change much over time. This is neither good nor bad in itself.

Regardless, it would be really arrogant of me to expect a person or group to change its habits for me. If I thought for a second that I could find a Buddhist community that resembled the ideals in Rahula's book, I'd probably join up in a heartbeat. But I just see way too much of the "look at how enlightened I am" vibe (and have even been guilty of it myself at times) to go down that road again.

Fortunately, Buddhism does not have a monopoly on meditation. In fact, I've previously discussed forms of meditation that aren't specific to any religion. Living close to a major city, I have a lot of options. In fact, I think I might have found one that I could live with. But since I try to stick to one topic per post, I'll save that for another post.

Dipping my big toe oh-so-tentatively into the pool

When I got back into freethought a little over six months ago, I have to admit that I was excited about one thing. I knew from previous experience that freethought is male-dominated. My plan was to waltz in and snap up some handsome freethinking fellow, and we would be blissfully rational together.

Do I even have to tell you how that's turned out (hint: it's at the top of the page)?

At first I was slightly miffed that I wasn't just swamped with men wanting to do my bidding (hey, I can dream). But I realized that while I liked the idea of being a dude magnet in theory, I had to admit that in practice I wasn't actually into any of these guys as more than friends.

So I've taken my search online. Those of you who keep up with the atheist blogosphere are no doubt aware of the publicity that OkCupid has gotten recently. For everyone else, the gist of it is that mentioning "atheist" in your message to another user greatly increases your chances of getting a response over mentioning "god" or any particular religion (details here and here if you're interested).

But for the time being, I am not closing the door to theists. As long as the guy doesn't try to convert me or drag me to his house of worship on a regular basis, I don't see it being a problem. I've heard some atheists say things like, "I could never be with someone who didn't believe rationally." But everyone has some irrational beliefs. It's part of human nature. Also, there are other qualities to consider in a potential partner, like kindness and fashion sense.

Obviously, you have to strike a balance and draw the line at certain behaviors, beliefs, etc. But this is true for everyone, religious or not. Maybe in the future I'll have a bad experience with a theist that will lead me to change my mind. But for now, I'm not limiting myself to atheists/agnostics/Pastafarians/etc.

So what are your experiences with religious/non-religious relationships? Please feel free to share them in the comments!

So now what?

When I began my "spiritual search" in earnest about a year ago, I had this idea that I would find something, settle on it, and that would be it. I would just live out my life according to that system's principles. But that certainly hasn't been the case! Freethought has definitely been more of a beginning than an ending for me.

So if there are no (or at least very few) hard and fast rules, what constitutes a life well-lived? Among the so-called New Atheists, Sam Harris attracts a lot of criticism for his interest in Eastern religions. However, as he explains in this 2007 speech, he's interested in finding a philosophy where personal happiness doesn't depend completely on personal circumstances. Harris also expresses interest in the potential transformative quality of the experiences some people have in meditative or contemplative states.

Your friendly neighborhood library probably has access to scientific journal articles through sites like PubMed or EBSCOhost. If you can get that access, you'll find that a lot of studies have shown that meditation in general has some benefits. No one method stands out as being superior, but almost all of them have been shown to reduce stress and improve mood.

Instead of aligning your chi or your chakras or whatever, there's probably a perfectly natural explanation for these experiences and the benefits people find in them. So how is it that meditation helps so many people? I don't claim to know the answer, but I think it's a question worth asking. It's certainly not a settled question, as there are many people who freak out at the mention of meditation. I'll discuss my own experiences with meditation in a future post.

Is everything permitted?

Those on all sides of the religion debate are familiar with Dostoyevsky's line, "If God does not exist, then everything is permitted." This is another expression of the argument from morality; i.e., the existence of morality implies the existence of God. "Morality implies God" and "No God implies no morality" are logically equivalent statements. If you don't understand why this is so, type the word "contrapositive" into your search engine of choice.

Many people have attacked the argument from morality with various logical devices, but that's not what I want to get into here. I'm more interested in approaching an accurate understanding of reality than in scoring imaginary debate points. Let's look at the parts of this argument. Is there such a thing as absolute, unchanging morality? I'm not sure there is. I think what people are really saying with statements like Dostoyevsky's is, "Without religion and its underlying fear of punishment in a life beyond this one, society would descend into chaos."

I think most of what we call morality entails rules of the road that have been deemed useful to society at some point. Since humans are social animals, we prefer to live in groups. This means that something like random killing is a survival threat to the group, and other members of the group are therefore motivated to stop it. So there are perfectly natural explanations for why we have rules of order in society.

Even those who claim morality is fixed and can be found in, say, the Bible are on shaky ground. If this were true, then people's understanding of the Bible wouldn't change over time. But it obviously has. In the past, the Bible has been used to justify slavery and poor treatment of women and gays, just to name a few. Now you don't hear pro-slavery preachers, and things have at least gotten better regarding treatment of women and gays in many religious groups. Is this because there's been a new revelation from the heavens where God says, "Maybe you shouldn't use me as an excuse to be such a dick to people?" To my knowledge, they're not selling Bibles with new bonus books added or anything, so I'm going to say no. What's changed over time, then? Human understanding, that's what.

This doesn't mean I can say, "No morality implies no God." The rules of formal logic don't work that way. But I can say that morality can't be used as an argument for God's existence because it hasn't really been established. You can't use an unproven idea to prove something else. Perhaps it would be nice to live in a world of absolute certainty, but there's no evidence that that's how the world operates.

Some Hindu traditions emphasize the phrase "Neti, neti" regarding the Divine. This can be translated as "neither this nor that" or simply "not this, not this." In other words, if you think you understand what the Divine is, you're probably wrong. This concept can also be useful in observing earthly matters. Anytime you see certainty, it probably wouldn't hurt to step back and say, "Well, maybe not."

My 15 Minutes of Freethought Fame

The Denny's caper story also got picked up by the Friendly Atheist. To anyone who comes by from there, thanks! Let me know what you think.

I'm glad to be able to contribute a small piece to this curious story. I feel like I should thank him by proving why the square root of 2 is irrational or something. Not that he doesn't know that (being a math teacher and all), or even that it's an amazingly difficult proof (it isn't), but I can vouch for the fact that math teachers love that stuff.

We're on a Mission From...Ourselves

Previously, I'd discussed this promotion that a Denny's in Euless, TX was doing. The promotion said that if you came in with your church bulletin, you would get 10% off your meal, and the restaurant would donate the same amount to the church named in the bulletin.

When I told Jenny about this promotion, she was completely behind the idea of taking a bulletin from the North Texas Church of Freethought, and seeing if we could get the discount and the donation. So we decided we would go to the next available monthly service, which was held this morning.

Jenny had never been to one of their services. I'd been once before, and it was all right. I came in expecting not to be offended, but not to be wowed, either. Fortunately, I had a much better time at this one than at the previous one. The theme for this service was "Good and Evil," and one of the musical selections was the theme from Underdog! How cool is that? Definitely beats "The Old Rugged Cross" in my book!

Perhaps next time we'll join them at the usual after-services location for lunch, but today we had a mission to accomplish. I looked at the bulletin, and it had the required information for the promotion, which was the full name of the organization and its mailing address. Off we went!

We walked into the restaurant and didn't see any signs advertising the promotion, so they might be trying to phase it out. We did see a woman sitting at a booth with her hair in curlers, though. That was pretty funny.

When we got to our table, we asked our server about the promotion, and after asking the manager, she told us that the deal was still good. Sure enough, when it came time to pay, they did honor the deal. Although the manager who rang us up did do a bit of a double take when she saw the bulletin, which featured, among other things, the subtitle, "A Rational Approach to Religion," and a large boldfaced headline about how God is not necessary to have morality. So if NTCOF gets a check from Denny's for somewhere in the neighborhood of $3.50, um, you're welcome.

Who wants to bet the promotion ends not too long after the owners realize they're donating to a secular organization?

I Smell an Opportunity

I found this at Friendly Atheist. The gist of it is that a Denny's in Euless, TX (near Fort Worth) is offering a 10% discount and a donation of the same amount to the church of the customer's choice for bringing in a church bulletin.

How can a godless heathen take advantage of this offer?

1. They could swing by a church and swipe a bulletin. But I'm willing to bet most don't want to go that route.
2. They could bring in a bulletin from the North Texas Church of Freethought and see what happens.

I posted this idea in the comments on the Friendly Atheist post and over at Atheist Nexus. Thoughts?

Good Things About "Organized Freethought"

After my previous post, you may wonder why I don't just "cut a deal" with one of the more liberal religions, as many in my situation do. For example, I have a good friend who told me he's not convinced Jesus was divine, but he finds beauty in the Anglican rituals, so there he stays, keeping his opinions to himself. I'm sure he's not the only one. Technically, if I were to go the Unitarian route, it wouldn't even be cutting a deal, since I wouldn't be required to profess any creed or adhere to any particular doctrine. And many freethinkers have found happy homes in Unitarian churches.

Well, as you may have guessed, I've kind of already tried that. The thing about liberal religion in general is that it's a crapshoot at the group level. I attended a Unitarian church in Austin a few years ago that was actually pretty cool, and probably the only reason I didn't come back is I was really trying to do something else at the time (more on that in another post). But I don't live in Austin any more, and my Unitarian experience where I currently live has left me cold for a couple of reasons.

You can probably guess that I have little patience for fundamentalism of any stripe. But there are other things that I hold in almost equal contempt. The first one is New Age bullshit. I thought about finding a more polite phrasing, but I think it's necessary here. If you value science at all, the belief that you can't sign a contract because Mercury is in retrograde is no more tenable than some Middle Eastern guy who lived a few thousand years ago managed to get every species on the planet onto a vessel about one-third the size of a modern aircraft carrier. Obviously, not every liberal believer has these views, but often such views are spared the skepticism they deserve in the name of tolerance and respect.

The second issue I often run into with liberal congregations is actually the flip side of the same issue I've run into with conservative congregations: I don't like politics being preached to me. At first it was a little easier to stomach when it referred to politics I generally agree with, but I've come to find even that distasteful. That whole "separation of church and state" thing? I'm a huge fan of it--in both directions. So this, combined with the previous paragraph, does not exactly make me a lot of friends in any kind of religion.

And that leads to the things I like best about "organized freethought," to the extent that there is such a thing: freethought groups are always at the forefront of promoting church-state separation issues and the teaching of proper science. You have the right to believe all the craziness there is on this planet if you want to, but the second you try and tell me I need to believe something, well, you'd better have some evidence for it, especially if you want to write these beliefs into law.

I highly recommend this post at Pharyngula that reminds us:

This is atheism: we have no dogma, we have no infallible leaders, everyone is naturally flawed, and we recognize that within our ranks there is a huge diversity of opinion. [. . .] There is no Atheist Supreme Leader. There is no Atheist Pope. There is no Godless Ruling Council, no Atheist Inquisition, no Freethought Dogma.

You could be forgiven for thinking otherwise at times. Remember that anytime you feel tempted to appoint yourself the Ideology Police.

When "Not Collecting Stamps" Becomes a Hobby

A favorite Internet chestnut is that atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby (alternate version: like bald is a hair color). I'm sure whoever came up with that is proud of himself (since vocal atheists are almost exclusively male, I feel pretty safe saying "himself" here).

Fair enough. It's a catchy statement. So let's check in on the latest meeting of the local Non-Stamp-Collector's group, shall we?

Reg (the group leader): Let's all welcome Judith to the Non-Stamp-Collector's group.
Group: Hi, Judith!
Reg: So, Judith, did you ever collect stamps?
Judith: Yeah, when I was a kid. My parents are still avid stamp collectors.
Stan: Hey, Reg, have you had a chance to read Why Stamp Collectors Have It All Wrong yet?
Reg: Not yet. Did you crash that Internet poll: "Is stamp collecting totally stupid?"
Stan: Oh, yeah! We totally turned that around. I don't know why stamp collectors can't see the fallacies in their arguments.
Judith: (wonders if they're ever going to talk about something else)

OK, that's enough of that (yes, the names are shamelessly pilfered from Life of Brian). Do you see where I'm going with this? Judith knows she's not into collecting stamps, despite it being the predominant hobby. But she was kind of hoping for suggestions on alternative hobbies, and she isn't getting any. And if you spend most of your time complaining about stamp collectors, well, then that is a hobby.

At this point I think the metaphor is obvious enough, so I'll dispense with the references to stamp collecting. I actually don't want to condemn these types of groups outright, because they certainly have value. It just depends on what kind of group you want to have. For some people it's important to have a safe space to air their grievances. But if you're going to be that kind of group, your membership will almost certainly remain small.

For people who want to expand their freethought groups, it might be necessary to lay off the bashing of those who aren't hardline atheists and incorporate activities other than talking about what they don't believe and playing "spot the fallacy." I brought a friend with me to one of the groups I hang out with, and she's been afraid to come back because she felt like people were looking down on her for identifying as agnostic instead of atheist.

It might sound like I'm saying the second kind of group is better than the first, and I'm actually not. Like I said, safe havens are important to have. Just realize it's going to narrow your group's focus considerably. If you're ok with that, keep on doing what you do. Just don't wonder why more people don't come.

For even better phrasings of this argument, check out this post on The Meming of Life by Dale McGowan. He's a professional. Trust him.