Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
Is That A Bible In Your Pocket, Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?
Denverite Sara Miles was an atheist all her life. Then, something happened to her that changed her almost instantaneously into a devout Christian.
She, uh, had an, um, "intimate relationship" with, ah, God.
[Sara Miles] "It was pretty good bread, a nice whole-wheat bread. The other was that God was alive and in my mouth. It was bread, and it was God."
Whew! Didn't this movie air on Cinemax last Friday night after midnight? Steamy!
Seriously, though, I think it's wonderful that she has decided to live her life caring for and providing charity for the less fortunate in our society. However, attributing the good feelings and the sense of well-being and accomplishment she feels when she gives of herself in that way to an invisible, magical man in the sky is just plain self-deception.
Altruism is ultimately selfish, regardless of the good being done, because of the sense of self-worth you gain from the act among other things. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging that.
But turning the responsibility for your good work over to magical sky pixies is just silly, in my mind.
She may have been an atheist at some point in her life, but being an atheist does not make you automatically smart, or logical, or trained in critical thinking. Remember, "atheism" simply describes a person in whom god-belief is absent. Nothing more and nothing less. Some atheists are lacking in god belief due to a process of exploration, inquiry, and discovery. Other atheists, like Sara I suspect, just never thought about it very much until she walked into that church and was overwhelmed by the religious, emotional experience.
No mystery there. Spiritual feelings of being a part of something greater than oneself are extremely powerful. I've felt them myself from time to time throughout my life. It's a wonderful, euphoric feeling.
But it's still not a mystery, and it's definitely not an all-powerful superbeing who lives beyond time and space in a sparkly happy candyland and loves each and every one of us so much that he comes alive in our mouths after bread has a spell cast upon it.
Ew. I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
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Awakened versus inherited
It seems to me the crux of the difference between inherited and awakened atheists lies in the conscious consideration and rejection of religion (or simply the notion of 'god').
I was raised with no discussion of religion at all, which made me into an inherited atheist. However, I gave serious consideration to religious claims, and more generally to the philosophical issues typically associated with 'god', the afterlife, and whatnot. Even though my background made it easier to reject all of it, I think such a process still allows me to claim the mantle of "awakened atheist".
It seems to me "awakened" should thus be more about examining religion in general, and not just one's own religion.
Awakened Atheist... or Trying to Be.
Excellent categorization there--I think it really explains a lot.
I grew up Catholic, and I always thought that all atheists were of the Rebel, Revenge, or Inherited kinds... and I never wanted to be any of the three. In my defense, these were the only atheists I came into context with--in my sheltered early life in Maryland and then in a small town in Indiana, the few atheists around generally seemed to be pretty angry people. I decided then that if I ever were to consider atheism, I wouldn't be one of those pissed off people.
Unfortunately, I am. Thanks to some very not-cool experiences I had during the confirmation program at my church (lets teach about the evils of abortion by showing slide shows of dead babies! that will keep the kids good and brainwashed.) and some annoying teenage rebellion issues I have yet to work out with my still-religious parents, I got pretty pissed off at God and the church and that is why I left.
However, I'm really working on firmly grounding my beliefs in solid arguments for atheism instead of anger so that nothing will tempt me back into the craziness I ran away from.
Sidenote... this year was the first that I did not observe lent in any way. It was very weird but also very... freeing.
Types of Atheists
I started off as an Inherited Atheist, and while I may never have been indoctrinated in anything, I strongly doubt that I will ever convert. (Well, maybe to Taoism -- the philosophical kind, not the loony cult of immortality that is practiced by most of its adherents in China today.) I say that because I went through a phase, right at and after the end of high school, when I studied comparative religion, and found nothing personally appealing in any of them. I tried being spiritual, albeit not in any co-ordinated or socially encouraged sense, and found it all a bit silly.
Still, I have called myself an agnostic for most of my life. I finally decided to call myself an atheist a couple of years ago (give or take a few months), after some serious contemplation. I suppose that this could make me an Awakened Atheist; I feel significantly less welcome in the US as a result. Religion is everywhere, and to someone who has decided that it has no part in hir life, the atmosphere in the US is downright oppressive.
There is still a place for wonder and awe and a sense of connectedness in the world around us: it is part of being alive. I find tremendous inspiration in the works of profoundly religious people (JS Bach, anyone?) but I have just never seen the need to make something social out of that, or to attribute it to anything outside myself.
So, at the risk of starting another "No True Atheist" argument, I feel that others who claim to have been atheists all along until they found religion are not being honest with themselves. Their atheism was not based on the same things as mine, or something: there must be some such explanation for their lapse from reality.
Perhaps I read into this issue from dealing with Creationists who claim that they "used to believe in evolution" until they found religion (or got otherwise convinced by the Creationists to give up on science). There simply is no credible scientific alternative to evolution; if they turn their backs on the principle, it is not because the Creationist arguments are stronger, it is because their understanding of evolution was too weak. I feel the same way about atheism: if one is serious about it, one has thought about it and read about it and will not be easily turned away.
I am still profoundly ignorant about a lot of Christian rituals and stories, but I have read enough of the Bible to know that I can never take that book seriously, as history or as parable. I am not sure what sort of atheist that makes me in the "four kinds of atheists" classification, and I am honest enough to state that I will not say "never", but I do not think that I ought to be put in the same barrel as those Inherited Atheists that eventually find religion.
Kirk Cameron
I recently saw Kirk Cameron on an MSNBC Joe Scarborough special. He reminds me of the woman you describe here. He claims that he had always been an atheist and a sinner until he miraculously found Jesus. The catch is, his conversion came at age 17. Does this pass the smell test to any of you folks?
OK, it's not that difficult really...
I don't know Kirk, but I do remember a late childhood experience in Bible camp (I was 13 or so I guess) in which I was "born again," and a later youth retreat in which my faith was strengthened. (Disclaimer: I am now an atheist of the rooftop-shouting variety.)
Now, I was actually a firm believer in God from the cradle. But I was a Presbyterian, a ritualist, and a materialist... all fancy words for believing basically that Sunday church attendance and participation in Communion was really all God expected (kind of like a lecture and lab class) and that the rest of the week was left up to us (kind of like a homework assignment that we could finish early so we could go play outside).
This horrified my Southern Baptist camp counselors, who explained to me all about the Holy Spirit living in you and how you were supposed to live in him and how your will was supposed to be subordinated to God's will, etc. etc.... It horrified me, too. I figured I must be in trouble with God. The counselors asked me if I had ever actually asked God to come into my heart. Well, no... I always kind of assumed he was there already or could just barge in anytime, after all what was stopping him? But they said I had to actually "accept" God. Oh. Well. OK. So I prayed like they told me to, and really meant it, too. Everybody was happy. I was saved. I looked down on my former ignorant and wicked child self.
Then later in the youth retreat, I was persuaded to believe that I had not really done it right the first time because I didn't have a "personal experience of God." So we gathered around and sang songs and had a real love-bombing session, and I went off by myself and prayed and cried a lot. Having experienced a highly-charged emotional upheaval, I was totally drained afterward. Everyone said I had been touched by the Holy Spirit and was now experiencing the peace of God. Well, OK, they knew and I didn't, right? I had been "touched by the Spirit." My friends were happy. I really felt sorry for my former naive and deluded state.
My point here is that Christianity is just like that. You are never good enough. You can't even be "born again" and have it stick; someone will come along later and claim you did it wrong. You never lose the conviction that you are worthless and undeserving--hell, you say so every Sunday in church. Your face is rubbed in it. If you ever move from one set of beliefs to another within Christianity, you will be amazed and thankful that you were saved from your former state of ignorance, sin, and error.
I find it hard to believe that Kirk was ever really an "atheist" in the sense that he went around believing that God didn't and couldn't exist. Lots of Christians I knew, even non-fundies, would use the word as shorthand to refer to someone who had an "incomplete" or "incorrect" set of beliefs. A Christian would be even more apt to use the word to refer to himself to indicate how utterly he repudiated his sinful former self.
Cult dynamics
Your description of singing along in a group and being totally drained and very emotional really struck with me. In high school, I took a class in cult dynamics (I know, cool class for a HS) and it was taught by a local Rabbi - smart guy. He explained the nature of cult dynamics, and almost described word for word what you just said - the way they get you to believe it to completely drain you, physically and emotionally, and you accept them. He made a big deal about how this is not an intellectual thing, and these types of experiences can snare even the brightest and most intelligent of men - he used himself as an example, saying he could also be susceptible.
It scared the crap out of me to think that people are this easily swayed. But it's not a matter of being weak-willed or stupid, it's human nature. Hearing you describe this is very scary, inasmuch as its the same tactics cults use to get their members. There but for the grace of god go the Kirk Cameron's of the world that the way they were manipulated wasn't by a minority cult.
Back to Jesus ... Again
Here’s my “theory” about atheists (which I may have written about here, before):
I think there are four basic kinds.
One is the kind who decides he’s an atheist more or less just to piss off his mom and dad. Call him a Rebel Atheist.
Another is the kind who believes in a god, but happens for some reason to hate him. “You killed my kitten / gave me cancer, you bastard, and I’ll never say I believe in you, ever again.” Call this person a Revenge Atheist.
Third is the guy who picks it up from his atheist parents, and just never thinks seriously about religion, or whenever he does, thinks it’s just some nonsense like Elvis worship. Call him an Inherited Atheist. (Although I puckishly wanted to label this one a DNAtheist.)
The fourth kind is someone who realized one day that some part of her religion didn’t make sense, and worked her way through question after question over a span of years, and eventually came to the firm conclusion that it just wasn’t true, any of it. Call her an Awakened Atheist.
A Rebel Atheist can easily come back into the fold when his/her rebel years are over, or after some personal catastrophe. A Revenge Atheist can reconcile and accept the familiar faith back into his/her head. Even an Inherited Atheist could conceivably catch religion at some point later in life.
But an Awakened Atheist? I don’t think there’s any way such a person could ever let religion back into his/her life. After you get religion out of your head, after you start to think your own thoughts and begin to see what sort of damage has been done to you – after you see the LIES for what they are – I just can’t imagine going back to it.
Anyone who wants to call him- or herself an atheist, they have my full support. But ... those people who convert to religion later, it does give you some insight into what their mental state might have been in regard to atheism. I couldn’t guess what sort of atheist Sara was, but I don’t believe she was an Awakened Atheist.
...
Also, I had an interesting new thought on all this today. (And I hope the following doesn’t sound too self-important; I’m excited about it because it was a critical new concept for me.)
Say you’re talking about slavery, there are two ways you can look at it. You can see it as a social phenomenon, or you can see it as a personal condition.
In SOCIAL terms, the opposite of slavery is anti-slavery. But in PERSONAL terms, the opposite of slavery is freedom.
A man freed from slavery is not just a non-slave. He’s a FREE MAN. The one implies a restrictive, walled-in life determined by the will of someone else. The other implies not just a non-slave, but a person faced with infinite possibility, someone who can do anything he likes with his life. Slavery is a small box; freedom is a vast universe of self-determined choices outside it.
Likewise with religion, you can see it as a social phenomenon, or as a personal condition.
In social terms, the opposite of religion is atheism. But in personal terms, the opposite of religion is ... freedom. Freedom of thought, freedom of choice, freedom of ... everything.
Just like slavery, religion is a small box. Freeing yourself from that box presents you with infinite possibilities.
Because they’re the words most people know, I’ll probably still use the terms “atheism” and “atheist” to describe myself and my non-theistic beliefs. But I’m gonna try more often to also define myself in these grander terms: I’m a free man. A free thinker. A free self. With all the self-willed choices, thoughts and possibilities that implies.
re: Hank's 4 categories
Hank,
I think you're pretty spot-on. Interestingly, the "awakened atheist" you mentioned has a Bible-based precedent (I would know this since I am one): Hebrews 6:4. The basic idea is that people who "reject the faith" after believing it are not able to be brought back in to the fold.
Perhaps a fifth category is in order -- a more liberally-minded atheist who rejects all proposed religiously-affiliated gods (for obvious reasons) but understands and respects some (notably few) of the "god of the philosophers"-type arguments.
tantum religio potuit suadere malorum
Lucretius
Types of Atheists
Thank you very much for the analysis and for the slavery analogy.
I happen to see myself as an Awakened Atheist. I grew up going to church, Sunday school, and even bible camp every summer with Mennonites. Later when my family moved we began attending a Lutheran church. I even attended a catholic school for my seventh grade year. Long story, boring details, but the point is I got to see a variety of sects of the Christian religion first hand.
My "awakening" to atheism was actually caused in part by these churches. In the catholic school I attended, we went to mass every Wednesday. In the churches I had attended before, I was encouraged to take communion and did so regularly. So when I attended mass, I also took communion just like the other kids. A life changing moment occured when a few of the kids who knew I was not catholic told me I was going to hell for taking communion in the catholic church. Even at age 12, I immediatly knew they were wrong. I didn't even know what an atheist was, but these people sounded absolutely insane to me.
The next year we moved again and the family began attending the Lutheran church. The Lutherans sealed the deal for me. After two years of confirmation classes and confirmation graduation on the horizon I spoke with my father and told him I don't want to go anymore and I don't believe in God. My father made me sit down with himself and Pastor Walker to explain why I didn't believe. Basically, they brow beat me into submission and I was confirmed but still did not believe. I am still pissed at my father for this today. I am 36 now and I can't believe what they did to me. How many 15 year olds can stand up to the pressure I was under? In retrospect I wish I had been stronger. In my defense, my father has a PhD and is/was a school district superintendant.
Anyway, the slavery analogy really hits home with me. At age 20 (college) or so I started to realize that I was indeed an atheist and I finally felt free from the brainwashing. Becoming an atheist and actually putting my thoughts into words is one of the most liberating experiences I have ever had. Liberation, freedom, enlightenment.... whatever you want to call it- is a spiritual experience in and of itself. I have been an out loud and proud atheist ever since. I would continue to be an atheist even if I was the only one on earth.
However, it took me another 16 years to actually seek out other atheists like I am doing now. I am really glad I found you guys. I have always known I was right all along, but atheism can be very lonely without a knowledge and a peer group to understand my views.
I live near Albany NY. Anyone out their live in my neck of the woods? I would love to meet with other atheists face to face.
Atheists Near Albany
I belong to a relatively new Atheist Meetup group which meets near Albany.
Nice people, low key and loose lunch meetings. Come to the next meeting!
Thanks for posting that
Thanks for posting that group. Although I'm not from Albany I was able to find a similar one in Ithaca.
Thanks again
Hank-
Thanks again and coincidentally when I said near Albany, I was talking about Clifton Park. I think I can make it this Sunday and I look forward to meeting you.
Another Awakened Atheist
"But an Awakened Atheist? I don’t think there’s any way such a person could ever let religion back into his/her life."
I don't entirely agree. Sure, I think it's harder to go back. But for at least some AAs, such as myself, I think the main reason we took so long to reach the ultimate firm conclusion of atheism was a powerful, lingering emotional attachment to the basic concept of religion. We wanted to believe the pretty fantasies of faith more than the reality we increasingly suspected. My ultimate watershed moment came when I forced myself to confront how I defined reality, and admit my motives for clinging to the supernatural.
I think that such strong emotional motives could overwhelm most any reason. I have no intention of "going back," but I respect the power of my emotions to overwhelm my rational mind. So yes, I think it's possible I could relapse into theism if something made me want to badly enough (whether permanently or not, I don't know). In fact, this sort of theist could be a variation of the "Revenge Atheist."
Taxonomy of atheism
Thank you, that's a lot more sensible than the "If you convert then you never were a Real Atheist" trope that one sometimes gets on alt.atheism -- as obvious a No True Scotsman as you could ask for, and just as silly as the fundamentalist invocation of same.
For myself: Inherited Atheist (Agnostic, actually, but I'm not going to get into that quibble just now), and as you suggest, I did "catch religion" for a good long while. And I did "work my way through it" over several years, to emerge as an Awakened Atheist. So I find your analysis most relevant.
This seems to imply that an
This seems to imply that an inhereted atheist (DNAtheist) like myself can never become an awakened atheist. After all, I've never had a religion to examine, so how can I have found it not to make sense? FWIW, I think that viewing religion with the same amount of bafflement as Elvis believers is every bit as valid and wholesome an attitude as picking it apart in detail, and the difference only comes from one's personal history. Religion really *is* every bit as silly as belief that Elvis is still alive, but only those of us who never lived within it can see that.
Absolutely
The wording had some (unintentional I hope) bias toward the formerly religious atheist vs the native atheist. In my case I would say I became an "enlightened atheist" at the age of six (or so) when a neighbor's kid tried to tell me about god. Prior to that I simply didn't know that the concept of god existed. It was so obviously wrong that I would have laughed in his face if he hadn't told me that he believed it because his father told him it was true. I knew I shouldn't insult his father so I held my tongue. I asked my own father about it and he said something about how some people believe that sort of thing. I spent the next several years being freaked out that so many of my friends who otherwise seemed perfectly sane were suffering from this weird mental illness. There has never been, from that day forward, any danger whatsoever that I might ever convert to any religion. Jake is right that to somebody with my background Jesus worship is just as nonsensical as Elvis worship. It's just not considered socially acceptable for us to say so. (But to be fair, the psychology involved in believing something that is taught to you as a child and is considered the social norm is probably very different from the psychology involved in believing in a dead celebrity. Both beliefs may be equally nonsensical but the believers of one may be more rational than the believers of the other.)
Awakened Atheist
Dad burn it Hank! You've gone and elucidated a concept of mine better'n I ever did.
A corollary: One does not cease persisting in something close held only to face its opposite or its antagonist only. These shadows are lost in the detail of a vaster landscape, to which you have given the proper name - Freedom.
I feel as though I have known this for some time but I have never seen (or thought) the right words in the right order. Hat tip for the dose of lucidity.
This has got to be
one of the best blog posts I have ever read... and I read a lot (think somewhere around 1-2 hours a day, 350-360 days a year, over a span of 5-6 years).
This is good.
"You better start giving me some inner peace before I mop the floor with you." - Homer S.
or
"Pinky, you excel at random." - the Brain
Another Awakened Atheist
I wouldn't say one day. It was more an accumulation of observations and realizations that all one day after many years crystalized.
After that the feeling of freedom was unbelievable. I did not seek it, but I got it.
What bothers me the most about believers is their inability to admit what "beleiving" requires: accepting that there are a number of questions they will never ask themselves.
I really hate NPR's "This I Believe". Most of them are predictable sophomoric drivel.
I need a bumper sticker: "Stop Believing, Start Thinking".
In social terms, the
Hank, that's a wonderful way of looking at it. Thanks for sharing that thought.
Here's to freedom!
That Is Beautiful
That is a beautiful way of looking at it Hank!
No True Awakened Atheist Can Find Religion?
For me science made much more sense than religion growing up, so I gave up on religion as a teenager. I've never given up on science. I think that's as it should be comparing the success of empiricism as a way to knowledge to stories people claim to come from God.
Adversity in my life caused me to give religion another chance in my thirties. Maybe I was 180 degrees wrong. After all I'm only human, and my life was proving to me that I made less than perfect decisions. I didn't find an alternative to empiricism. Whatever about religion is contrary to reality has remained so. I was more open-minded at one point, but now I'm sure all religions are false in most respects, including atheism. There's no objective proof there is a God. There's no objective proof there isn't a God either.
I've never encountered a physical miracle. Every claim I've ever seen of a medical miracle has had some fatal flaw, such as a misdiagnosis or an underappreciation of the expected effect of standard therapy. Studies of intercessory prayer show little or no effect when pared down to the well-designed studies. Some quibble that there may be a small benefit, but why should that be if God supposedly has the power and the inclination to grow amputated limbs back for the faithful? I suspect there never has been a physical miracle, ever.
But why can't there be mental miracles? Why can't people have spiritual experiences such as sudden insights about bread that are something more than we understand about the brain? Neuroscience doesn't even understand the content of dreams for crying out loud.
I know where my bias comes from in this. It comes from my own experiences. I lot of that came from how the displine of prayer in 12 steps, which I learned from Al-Anon, changed me. For me God makes no sense as Creator. My definition of God is that God is the one who answers when I pray, "God help me!" Those of you who are sure there can be no answer to that are trusting your experience if you ever prayed such a prayer. I trust my experiences. Now I know science well enough to know my brain might be able to produce any spiritual experience I've ever had in response to my needs or some other imperative. If that's what answered my prayers, then my God is purely neurological, and while it's an interesting process that might still best be called spiritual evolution, it is something individual and not beyond the physical.
Why do people feel forced to decide about that, using Occam's razor or whatever else? I can live through prayer and still know all religion is false. Look at sites that attack the Bible or other sites about religion. That doesn't make atheism true. Plenty of atheists would say I'm writing about having an imaginary friend. They don't know anything. They don't even know the anatomy and physiology of imagination.
There are many with a liberal religion who were once atheists, but some experience changed them, biological, cultural or spiritual. It is possible to trivialize all those stories as meaningless anecdotes, even very plural anecdotes, whether one is a fundamentalist or an atheist. So people can believe what they choose. I can't convince anyone of anything. I can't even relate my own experience that well in words. Yet I know my experiences and I know I can't quantify how much of any religion is a lie. If it's 90% or 99% false, what can I glean from the rest? If atheism is 90% or 99% true, what is it missing? I learned part of that in 12 steps. I've learned other things with God. I'm quite sure one can awaken further beyond being an awakened atheist, maybe just to being agnostic, maybe to accepting God as part of one's way of life, even while knowing intellectually there's some chance atheists are right that God is a fantasy.
Like everything else, God is whoever and whatever God is, not what any person says He is. Even an awakened atheist might wake up to the possibilities of that.
Awakened Atheist
What I find disturbing - and embarrassing - is how long that "question after question" period went on for me. I did want so badly to fit in, that I kept trying and trying, denying my disbelief, even when I could no longer bring myself to recite the creed. It took the shock of 9/11 to drive me away entirely. I took one look at the twin towers, said "If that's what religion can do, I want no part of it," and severed all connection with the church. It was a little longer before I could come right out and call myself an atheist, but I got there.
As for "Just like slavery, religion is a small box. Freeing yourself from that box presents you with infinite possibilities", truer words were never spoken.
Bravo!
Bravo!
What the hell am I???
I seriously think I'm a combination of rebel, inherited, and awakened atheist!
During those rare times we actually attended church, my dad always fell asleep. My mom found herself to be regularly disgusted by the (Mormon) church's strict patriarchy. Plus, after we left the church I found out that she'd always been a sort of hippie-ish maternal spirit kind of deist. Neither of them cared to teach the religion to us kids outside church, they weren't friends with anyone in the Mormon community, we cordially "tolerated" the missionaries and we owned no Bibles or Book'o'Momos. I was in a sort of listless limbo when it came to theism. I probably didn't inherit a total atheistic outlook, but it was definitely an apathy that couldn't be surmounted.
I can't remember exactly where the rebellious atheism came in, but it definitely wasn't in response to my parents. Although I hadn't picked sides one way or another, I found quite a joyful experience in bashing the fundies. I'm from Idaho, IMO the reddest state in the union, so I suppose I was rebelling against my surroundings.
Eventually the awakening creeped in. In order to collect more ammo against the kookier religious nuts, I started reading more and more websites dedicated to atheism this being one of the first ones :) The more I read, the more I had thoughts like "Sh*t yeah, this guy's right!" and "OMG that's so true!"
Awakened atheist - that's me. I've just had the fortune of going through a couple of other stages first. I do still like bashing the fundies though...I mean, seriously, who doesn't?
What the hell are you talking about?
Hopefully someone has shot you down on this already since it shows a clear misunderstanding of atheism, logic and religion. Atheism is not a religion. It is not dogma. It is not any kind of positive affirmation whatsoever and, therefore, atheism has nothing to prove. Atheism is the null set. It is the starting point. It is that with which we are born. Religion, of any variety as an affirmation of the supernatural, is the yet-to-be-proved hypothesis. And, it will always be the unproved hypothesis because it is not something that can be tested which is why using science to prove god is such a farce. Given the inherently illogical standpoint of religion, i.e., since it is scientifically untestable, using science to prove god is, as I have pointed out here before, to argue from an already-lost position. In other words, if you have to use the physical in attempt to prove faith then faith is meaningless.
"You better start giving me some inner peace before I mop the floor with you." - Homer S.
or
"Pinky, you excel at random." - the Brain
Break me off some of the chocolate Jesus,,,,
I'm still in favor of using that chocolate, anatomically correct statue of Jesus up in New York to spice up communion a bit. Fill it up with cherry-flavored/colored booze and you got the bread & wine equivalents down.
I'd drop extra dough in the collection plate to watch the prettiest choir girl go down on the chocolate naughty bits ;D
"I'm a sick, evil fuck, I accept that!" -- George Carlin.
So, did she swallow?
I am so sorry, but I just had to ask.
Free thinkers
If Sara was an atheist "all" her life...odds are she never thought about any of it...(the story doesn't go into the detail of her atheist education as a child & young adult)
The question might be: Did Sara actively choose atheism as the result of thought processes & deduction or was it a non thinking default position?
I like the term free thinker best...with the emphasis on thinker.
Religions do not appeal to reason and thought, but to emotions, which is why religinists fear and spurn reason. In my humble opinion.
Lee
That whole christo-cannibalism thing
is what made me finally really wake up and ask what the hell is going on. I was raised fundie and am now a happy, moral, atheist who's raising two children blissfully free of religion.
The christo-religionists glorify torture (what is up with that poor guy nailed to a cross??) which makes it a little more understandable that they don't get all in a tizzy about the Current Occupant and his little torture-brigade, as do civilized people.
They're also mad for cannibalism. Once I thought about it, I was completely grossed out and could not go back to wearing the blinders they'd outfitted me with as a child.
This is so wrong
What a lie this is! This didn't come from someone who knows altruism. I helped people beyond what I had to do throughout my career as a physician. I continue to volunteer. It's not because my clients are God's children. Many of them are fresh out of prison, and I wouldn't turn my back on them in the parking lot. I don't need any boost in my self-worth. People help others mostly out of love. Try it some time and keep at it past the pride stage.
I had a high school teacher who argued one day that everything we do is selfish. The students thought that was wrong, but didn't understand black and white thinking well enough to say exactly what's wrong with that. Whatever selfishness there may be in altruism for some people, that doesn't mean there isn't selflessness as well. If the vicarious joy I experience in someone else's anxiety or shame decreasing is selfish, then I am selfish in that respect, but even then that's not the whole story. I am selfless at the same time. I give of myself not just for vicarious joy. That wouldn't be enough. I give of myself because I have the love in me to do that. Only someone who's too lost in words to experience this would make the mistake of not being able to see that.
It's saying ignorant simplicities like the above quote that deprives any system of beliefs credibility except for those determined to justify themselves through slogans. That's selfishness!
Imaginary Behavior
Bullshit.
Altruism is self-deception, an imaginary behavior painted across the honest emotion called selfishness.
There is nothing - nothing wrong with being selfish.
What is contemptible is when an ostensibly smart person like you has to lie to themselves about it.
Grow up. You're human. You're selfish. You also do good things for other people due to being selfish. And there is nothing wrong with that.
Calling it something else is the lie.
People will always choose that which gives them the most pleasure, or that which hurts the least, every time. The saintly, volunteering doctor, and the vile, shady criminal-type, make exactly the same choice.
Lying to yourself is the only real "sin" in this world. Lie to strangers, your friends, or even lie to your family if you must, but never lie to yourself. You have to live in your own head your whole life. It's not worth it.
It's not imaginary just because you've never seen it
Ah, so I'm a liar to claim that I know altruism and you obviously never have made its acquaintance. There are other possibilities. You don't seem inclined to explore them.
Each day I volunteer I feel some anger at those who expect my clients to fix themselves. Usually those are conservatives, especially those who get on TV and proclaim some stupid simplicity such as homelessness being all about mentally ill not taking their pills or that anyone can get a job. They're wrong in saying those things. So are you. Human nature favors such simplicity. I don't see it as sin. I see it as being part of the problem or part of the solution. You're part of the problem. The solution is whatever it is.
That Which We Call Selfishness
That which we call selfishness by any other name would smell as, um, well, "sweet" isn't really the correct word, but you get the idea.
I said that you were lying to yourself. So, yes, I suppose you are a liar in one sense of the word.
No, I haven't. Because when I do good things for other folks (which is quite often, thank you very much) I don't lie to myself and call it "altruism".
Feels good, doesn't it? Heh. Pound on the table a bit when you say that again. Let it all hang out!
Well, that's obviously simplistic bullshit. life is a lot more complex than that. now I just need to figure out if these Snidely Whiplash conservative stereotypes that you describe are real, or if it's just DavidD's own liberal bias against anything that is labeled "conservative."
Yup. Going to have to read your blog for a bit. Be right back.
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Hmnn. "Sociopath", huh? I notice that you were very, very careful about coming out and actually saying that I was indeed a sociopath. Instead you keep referring to the ubiquitous "they" and "their".
Let us look at what a sociopath is, for those readers who don't know. It sounds to me like you are focusing on this aspect of a sociopath's behavior:
Sociopaths "experience a limited range of human emotions." Well, sorry, DavidD, but that's not me. I experience a HUGE, wide, MASSIVE range of human emotions. I'm one giant bundle of emotions. anyone who knows me would agree.
I just don't believe that "altruism" is one of them.
I empathize deeply with others, and I do things to help them out, to ease their pain and suffering and to assist them as best I can.
However, I do not lie to myself and call it altruism. I fully understand and enjoy the ego boost and sense of accomplishment and satisfaction that I receive when I do those things. The fact that I am helping others increases my pleasure that much more.
What in the world is wrong with that? Must someone be miserable, or experience nothing but pain when they help out their fellow human? Or worse yet, dampen their pleasure and become emotionless?
Who is the sociopath now?
Altruist, my ass.
David,
Clearly the purpose behind what you describe as altrusim is the gratification you get from the feeling of Righteous Indignation when you get all huffy like this.
Helping people is a fine thing to do, but you do it because you *enjoy* doing it. Pretending otherwise is just silly.
You're not an altruist, you're a Steveist
And here we have reached the obvious end point of this discussion. Person A claims to act altruistically; Person B denies that altruism exists and every action is performed because you believe you will enjoy it or benefit from it one way or another. Person A says, no, trust me, I'm not doing this because I enjoy it; Person B replies, no, you're obviously doing it because you want to, even if you refuse to admit it or don't even know it.
Problem is, the exact same argument can be used to prove that you perform every action because you believe Steven Hawking enjoys it or benefits from it. Person A claims to act altruistically; Person B says, no, you're acting in order to benefit Steven Hawking. Person A says, no, trust me, Steven Hawking is the furthest thing from my mind, and I'm really acting altruistically; Person B replies, oh, that's why you're doing it, even if you don't know it or refuse to admit it.
The problem is, Person B's answer is irrefutable, but not in a good way. There is no possible piece of evidence that could be given by Person A that Person B would have to accept; he could always claim that Person A is just deceiving himself. Since there is no possible piece of evidence that Person B would accept as refutation of his claim, it is unfalsifiable, just as Russell's teapot is unfalsifiable.
Which is not to actually take a position on the existence of altruism. This merely shows that this line of argument will get neither side anywhere.