Welp, that's it

I've decided to discontinue blogging. It didn't turn out to be as interesting as I thought it might be, and opinionated as I am, I'm having trouble thinking of things to blog about. Besides... I have video games to play :3

Anyway, thanks to everyone who read. See you later!

"Beyond Disbelief" Study Completed

"Beyond Disbelief" is a preliminary study meant to survey the attitudes of the nonreligious. You can get the full report here.

A lot of it is stuff that anyone in the skeptical community would already know, but there are a few quotes I have to pull out of it:

The nontheists [we studied] were remarkably liberal, with 91% rating themselves as left of centre.

[...]

There was no relation between atheism [...] and family religiosity. Rated hostility to religion was not correlated with family background or negative family or other influences.

[...]

Over 90% of atheists surveyed agree that religions are opposed to progress and social change, and over 80% believe that religions do more harm than good and that the world would be better off without religion. Across items, a clear plurality and often a majority of atheists selected the highest level of agreement for these anti-religious statements. Atheists not only believe in the separation of church and state, oppose tax exemptions for religious institutions but are also almost unanimous, at 99% agreement, that there is no place for religious symbols or rituals in the public sphere in a secular society. Similar percentages agree that religions are based on ignorance and uncritical thinking and lead to hypocrisy. Perhaps particularly revealing is that over 85% of our respondents agreed with the rather strong statement that the “It is a violation of the rights of children to indoctrinate them into religion without a choice among points of view;” a sentiment perhaps especially associated with the new atheism.

[...]

As noted in our introductory remarks we did not treat categories as mutually exclusive and many respondents checked more than one label to describe themselves. For example, 2054 respondents checked atheist, and 1103 checked agnostic; but both boxes were checked by 674 respondents. Had we not allowed this it is possible that many or most of the 674 might have checked agnosticism only. Forced-choice surveys may therefore underestimate the number of atheists. This applies a fortiori to questions that add adjectives that convey a sense of absolute or dogmatic certainty such as the description “convinced atheist”. Our hypothesis is that, even beyond our sample, the majority of agnostics are, in fact, atheists and that many would so self-identify if given the opportunity to qualify their commitment.

Weekly Link Dump

(I haven't forgotten! It's just that FFXIV just came out...)

Religion and skepticism:

Experts schedule conference to say: Galileo Was Wrong

"Draw Mohamed Day" organizer goes into hiding after Muslim threats

Guardian Online: Pedophile priests remain part of church

American Humanist Association Speaks out About "Burn a Koran Day" Controversy

Pew study: Religion plays key role in deciphering public opinion

Muslims call for federal probe in Quran burning

Where are the Christians With Real Courage?

Scholars hotly debate treatment of apostates


Politics:

Republicans Block Defense Funding Bill to Sabotage “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Repeal

Don't Be Mean to the Girl: Gender, Power and the Politics of Pretty

The Foxification of the Republican Party


Science:

How the Mind Counteracts Offensive Ideas

Breaking: Web Not Corrupting Our Youth After All

The "other" atheism

I've been thinking a little more about the Pope's recent comments during his visit to Britain, as well as some comments by other Christians I've seen. The Pope said that Nazism was the result of atheism - not the result of over a thousand years of Christian-fueled antisemitism, or political issues surrounding the end of the first World War, but "atheism". Other people I've seen blame the problems in American government not on the Christianity* that our politicians hold, but on their "atheism", of all things. Or, they'll look at skyrocketing teen pregnancy, and blame it not on the miseducation they receive, but on teens' supposed "atheism". Or, some good Christian will suddenly go on a gambling spree, or will be caught having an affair, or abusing their children, and the explanation for their behavior will be "atheism".

It's very difficult for an atheist to see the connection there - how is critical thinking or skepticism involved in any of these? Considering that the perpetrators in all these examples believe in one or another god, how can this possibly be pegged on atheism?

The answer I think is that there's another atheism out there, one that isn't a definition of what atheists believe, or even of what atheists do, but is instead controlled and defined by believers. It's the product that occurs when things don't go the way that believers planned, when their supposedly god-given ethical systems or lifestyles fail. It can't be granted - if their ethics really came from an infallible source - that there's an issue with their belief system or practices, so the only alternative explanation is that, therefore, it must be from a lack of godliness - the "other" atheism.

This is what allows Christians to blame Nazism (which was anti-atheism) on atheism, this is what allowed John Milton to label Satan - who obviously believed in the Christian god - an atheist, and it's one of the scapegoats that allows believers of all stripes to preserve their belief in their own infallibility even when it obviously fails.

Unfortunately for atheists, the blame doesn't dissolve. It gets redirected toward skepticism and secularism, and in turn promotes even deeper fundamentalism, since the obvious response to an apparent lack of religiosity is to promote even more of it, and more publicly, and more extreme versions of it - and perversely, the more often it fails, the more often it's promoted.

Pope says atheists are Nazis

I just had to post this since it's so funny. The Pope! thinks atheists! are the Nazis!

This is the same pope who was in the Hitler Youth as a child, who has refused to defrock (or even demote) actual Nazis and Holocaust-deniers in his own organization - this, from the head of the same church that courted Nazi Germany, attempting to become its official church - and when Hitler was himself a member of said church, and has never been removed - this same pope is accusing atheists of being Nazis! I just had to lol.

Link: BBC News - Pope speech compares atheist 'extremism' with Nazism

Weekly Link Dump

Just because it's interesting to me to see how different news sources write about the same issue...

CNN.com: French senate approves burqa ban

Deseret News: French Senate passes ban of full Muslim veils


Two from Belgium this time:

Global Post: Belgium: Amid sex scandals, de-baptism gains favor

USA Today: Belgian report: Church abuse led to at least 13 suicides


And finally, two local links.

Salt Lake City Political Buzz Examiner: Utah governor's race: Herbert gets defense, Does Utah need campaign reform?

The Ground-Zero Mosque is turning into a reality show

Now Fred Phelps of "God Hates Fags" fame has gotten into the act, claiming that if no one else is going to burn a Koran, he will.

LINK: Times of India - Now, another US church says will burn holy book

Ground-Zero Mosque Update

It seems as though Koran-Burning Day is going to be canceled, and the "Ground-Zero Mosque" may be moved.

Pastor Terry Jones said he will cancel the Koran-burning in response to the moving of the "Ground-Zero Mosque", which was promised to him by an intermediary of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. The Imam himself, however, says he has received no word of the agreement.

LINK: Sunshine State News - Terry Jones Pulls Plug on Quran-Burning, Claims Ground Zero Mosque Will Move

LINK: Sunshine State News - Burning Qurans-Ground Zero Mosque Move Deal? Terry Jones Says Yes, Abdul Rauf Says No

The Ground-Zero Mosque

I have to admit, I've had some conflicting feelings about this mosque. Obviously, from a legal perspective, they have every right to build one, and I'll fight for their right to do so (as an aside - you can sign a pledge here in support of their right to constitutional freedoms). On the other hand, it has felt to me to be in slightly bad taste - imagine if there were an atheist terrorist group that blew up St. Paul's Cathedral, or Big Ben or something, and a totally unrelated atheist group wanted to make a freethought center on the ashes. That'd be exceptionally crass, in my opinion.

However, there are some meaningful counterarguments - first of all, the "Ground Zero Mosque" isn't actually on Ground Zero, but a few blocks away. So, one might ask, how many blocks away is enough? At what point does it become permissible? Secondly, these are two unrelated sects of Islam at work. Would you blame a Protestant for the Inquisition? And third, the center already supported Muslim religious activities before.

But still... the center wasn't exclusively Muslim, either. And, while this is a very soft, aesthetic argument - sort of like when that judge stated that he couldn't define pornography, but he knew it when he saw it - while I couldn't put my finger on how far away to build this mosque... three blocks is too close. Give it twenty years, or fifty, or whatever, and maybe it wouldn't be too close - but today it is too close.

Of course, these are only aesthetic arguments. They have every legal right to build it, and I'll support that right. But... it still feels a bit in bad taste.

Weekly Link Dump

I'm still experimenting with how I'm going to run this blog, so instead of posting a link here and there, I'm going to try putting up all the notable links for the week in one post, and dedicating the normal posts to more original content. I think this is way too much news to post at once, but we'll see how it goes... the alternative would be to have 3/4 of my posts be just links to other sites.

Anyway, for the first link dump, we have:

The Guardian: I was wrong about veganism. Let them eat meat – but farm it properly

Veganism is still, all things being equal, better for the environment than omnivorism, but the case for green veganism has been overplayed. In fact, most of the pollution is from transportation, which affects plant foods roughly as much as animal foods.

They didn't write about this here - the other link about this I wanted to post I lost due to computer problems - but while plants are generally better than animal products, if you compared local, grass-fed beef to supermarket spinach, the beef would probably come out ahead, since spinach needs to be refrigerated the entire way. Highly-processed vegan foods, like Tofurky, for example, are also going to scale worse than local, grass-fed beef - although if you compared factory-farmed beef to spinach or Tofurkey, the vegan item would be better. So, the rule for greenies is first - buy local! and only then buy vegan - if we're strictly talking about the environment, that is.

And on that note:

Deseret News: Going against the grain: Grass-fed beef a niche for Utah farmers

Just to brag, a little.



A few on the economy:

Deseret News: State struggles with unpaid wage claims

Deseret News: Growing numbers of long-term unemployed face tough obstacles

Deseret News: Stimulus brought 18K Utah jobs, $1.9B for projects

And again Deseret News: Future hiring will mainly benefit the high-skilled



Immigration:

Deseret News: 'Birth tourism' a tiny portion of immigrant babies

Not exactly news, but I want to point this out...
Wikipedia: Illegal immigration to the United States

Under "Crimes committed by illegal immigrants", it states:

According to Edmonton and Smith in The New Americans: Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration, "it is difficult to draw any strong conclusions on the association between immigration and crime".

Skepticism:

LA Atheism Examiner: Crocodile sanctuary destroyed by mob inflamed by psychic

LA Atheism Examiner: An atheist finds ties between a Christian comic book & the Jefferson Memorial



Science:

Physorg.com: Why Americans believe Obama is a Muslim <-- Shamelessly stolen from Aranamuss!

Book Review of "Dangerous Children": Chapter 5

Chapter 5 is predominately about gender's role in developmental psychology. Charis notes that as soon as children start to go to school, or to socialize with their peers, they immediately begin to form gendered identities.

In boys' case, this typically takes the form of, first of all, repudiation of any behavior considered feminine. To give a personal example, I can remember that my favorite color as a small child was pink. I discovered pretty quickly that this was not an acceptable choice, and was pressured to change it. So, I picked blue, since even though it wasn't my favorite, it wouldn't cause me any trouble. I also learned not to socialize with girls too much, and most importantly to never express myself emotionally, especially by crying or other expressions of pain or weakness.

Not all of this development is so relatively harmless, however; as Charis says:

During these years they are, to a certain extent, protected from the worst extremes of masculine peer pressure by their ‘child’ status in that teachers or parents will step in if the going gets too tough. This situation changes radically when boys move on to secondary education.

Once boys are out of elementary school, their masculinity is observed even more hawkishly than before; they're expected more often to protect themselves against bullies; the insults become more abusive and graphic; boys are required to put down other boys, physically if necessary, in order to prove their own "hardness"; and must at all times attack femininity in other boys whenever they see it.

To add some personal commentary on this, I think it's important to stress just how prison-like the social system boys are raised in is. Routinely, the bullies in the neighborhood would bully the other children into miniature gang wars, where they'd find a social outcast and degrade and/or beat them up (I was lucky to be fairly strong as a child, so even when all the other kids in the neighborhood ganged up on me, I could give as good as I got). The older boys (and occasionally girls) would beat, insult, or otherwise harass the younger children, either to scare off potential bullies, or just to give themselves a power trip. I knew boys who had their older brothers pin them down during recess and kick them in the balls for the whole thirty minutes - I heard of a few that supposedly wouldn't be able to have children as adults because of the abuse. Recently, sack tapping has become more popular. If you were physically weak, you could expect such beatings to be fairly routine: I remember one of my best friends at the time sobbing to me that he couldn't stand to go back to school again, because he didn't want to be beaten up any more. My other best friend turned to drugs. (The main bully I knew, on the other hand, went on his mission for the LDS Church, got married to an attractive young woman when he came back, and is now a respected member of his community. As they say, life is unfair.)

And I grew up in a middle-class, suburban environment. From what I've read, the "bad schools" have the same thing, but with guns, hack-saws, and cocaine.

As the author says, the mutual predation, aggression, and gender-enforcement is not a good recipe for the creation of mature, pro-social, interdependent human beings. While, on the one hand, males still do have a social drive to connect, for intimacy, the only socially prescribed ways to foment such connections are through activities and sports - in short, through external, indirect connections. This effect is so pervasive that when boys are asked to describe themselves, most are unable to articulate a response except through describing things they like, or activities they perform, whereas girls the same age have no such difficulty.

As Charis says:

This is a desperately fragile way to construct a self-concept. By the time boys are in their mid-teens they have learnt that credible masculinity is a constantly constructed veneer with very little on the inside. They have come to exist in a situation where they are under acute pressure to accede to the defining of themselves by others whilst being simultaneously denied the inner resources they need to adequately define themselves.

The result is an acquired over-dependence on external affirmation to construct and maintain a satisfactory sense of self.This is hardly a good prognosis for either personal security or personal development. It is not difficult to see that the ongoing stereotype of the fragility of the male ego is not, perhaps, without foundation.

[...]

It is no exaggeration to say that, for young males, the self is the price paid for entry into the fraternity of men. Payment starts immediately and the cost, as we will see, will continue to be enacted at virtually every stage of the individual male’s life. Unfortunately it is not only he who will be paying.

Charis spends a decent amount of the chapter specifically on boys' anti-femininity. While that's understandable coming from a feminist, I think she's heading the wrong direction to equate anti-femininity in males with misogyny in general. Most boys, at least after they hit puberty, probably don't have much of a problem with women acting in feminine ways, just with men doing so. In fact, in the most conservative societies it's considered men's proper role to defend, protect, and provide for women (to be honest, it always annoyed me while growing up that women get to do men's stuff, but men can't do women's stuff, and men still had to be all chivalrous, but that's just me). Moreover, it comes off as contradictory with one of the most common feminist claims - that men somehow created or control gender roles - that so much effort has to be spent to keep men masculine.

All in all, though, I think that this is one of the stronger chapters in the book, probably because it tends to provide more actual reports, more data than most of the other chapters.

Book Review of "Dangerous Children": Chapter 4

In chapter 4 Charis states that she has spent long years interviewing people about their experiences of gender, and her research has uncovered (contrary to the findings of Men's Studies scholars) some consistent patterns beneath them all.

Of course, one may counter that no amount of anecdotes constitutes scientific research - but maybe she'll still have some good points to make, so why not listen?

Eight things, she says, consistently constitute the masculine:

1. Maleness (a masculine person must be male)
2. Biological reductionism (that is, that not only is the masculine male, but males are by definition masculine)
3. Not-feminine (a masculine person can't be also be feminine)
4. Better-than-feminine
5. "Hard" (socially and emotionally withdrawn or inexpressive)
6. Hierarchy (a masculine person places themselves in positions of better- or lesser-then others)
7. Other Males (masculinity is promoted and maintained by social groups of men)
8. Unchangeable (masculinity is considered to be fixed and not influenced by social factors)


First, a few nits to pick: #1 seems like a tautology to me, since masculinity is the stereotyped role that men are supposed to play; #2 and #8 seem to mean the same thing; #6 and #7 would, I think, be true of any social group; and #3 would seem to be a natural product of the binary nature of gender, not necessarily something exclusive to masculinity - I don't think women today are still derided as "tomboys" for wanting to engage in traditionally masculine behaviors - but not long ago, it was considered to be very unseemly for women, same as feminine behavior in men is usually still seen today. (I assume that the difference here is thanks to the feminist movement, which greatly expanded women's role in society.)

#4 and #5 seem to be the most helpful in the list, but unfortunately she never suggests that her research has been put to peer review, and never states where she got her interviews from; being from England, we might suppose that most of her interviewees are English, but we'll never know. So, we're left to ask - would an Italian feel the same way? A Chinese? Someone from an isolated culture? In short, the evidence she provides, while interesting, doesn't seem to promote her central claim that there's a consistent rule behind masculine roles - maybe there is, but we'll never know based off the information she provides.