Pendulum swinging in our direction: but faith equilibrium a major challenge

It's been quite an active last few months for me as an atheist and secularist. Haven't had the chance to put out all the various thoughts and reflections, but there has been no shortage of material coming in.

Starting back in August, I had the pleasure of attending the first atheist conference held in Puerto Rico. That filled me with optimism as I heard stories of secularism and activities to make sure that the separation of church and state that is clear in the US constitution, extends to this Caribbean island territory. However, at that conference there was also a measure of despair as I heard of the hold that faith thinking has in that country. A kind of addiction to dogma that I have seen at play in many other Caribbean islands. The news that they had a police road stop to force drivers to have a pray was certainly an eye opener. Definitely won't be forgetting that one soon. 

In the USA itself,  the excitement of marriage equality was tempered by the obstinance of Kim Davis and her continued refusal to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. A lot has been written and said about that issue, but it shows plainly that the defiance of those in the religious right who always think they are right, knows no bounds. Then news of Pew studies showing declining interest in faith and religion in the youth was counter balanced by the Popemania that surrounded the tour Francis took to the US. 

On a personal note, the feature of some of my work in Greta Christina's blog was a boost to me to continue to work to promote secularism in the Caribbean. I still feel humbled to be considered an 'atheist leader', but I received quite a few new contacts and messages of interest in our efforts in the Caribbean stemming from that article. I can only believe that this will augur well for our future growth. So thanks again to Greta for all of that.

Meanwhile, in Calgary a torn banner at our counter protest against Jesse Rau,  the driver claiming persecution for having to drive an LGBT bus, reinforced in my mind the vitriol coming from the small but very vocal and influential fundamentalist wing here in this city. A few weeks later, the first Alberta secular conference was cause for some optimism once again, even as we learnt of creationism and other anti science attitudes pervading the schools throughout the province. 

In Barbados, my island of birth, a tragic vehicular accident that left four dead, has been met with calls to pray and look towards God for assistance rather than exploring ways to fix the condition of a road that has seen many serious accidents at that spot over the years. My brave colleagues in the Agnostics, Atheists and Freethinkers group in Barbados still have their work cut out in convincing those around them that leaning on the Lord is not worth it all in the end.

The latest flicker of hope has come here in Canada where the new prime minister Justin Trudeau has brought what looks like a sweeping change to how critical thinking will be valued. Ministries dedicated to issues such as science advancement and climate change are definitely steps in the right direction. Meanwhile south of the border, Donald Trump and Ben Carson battle for first place as the Republican nominee for the 2016 US election. Enough said. 

As I write this, reports are coming in of a deadly terrorist attack in Paris at the hands of ISIS. Yet another grave reminder of what can happen when religion holds sway over reason.

I could speak of many more ups and downs to my secular morale over recent times. Over and over again, you think the pendulum is swinging in a progressive secular direction, but just as you are about to celebrate, there is a sharp and vicious swing back to faith positions and a trust in dogma and the divine.

  

In looking back at how the pendulum has been swinging recently,  I couldn't help but think that the same movements that happen towards and away from secularism in our societies, happen in the minds of individuals who are exposed to the paradigms of both religion and realism on a daily basis. Of course we in the atheist community would just like to grab hold of these ever swinging pendulums and hold them in the rational position. We as persons that consider reason to be the best road to reality, don't go back and forth on the faith issue like so many of our believer friends do. As atheists, we see no reason to return to faith positions even for a fleeting moment. 

However, if we don't understand the nature of the faith/ reason swing in the minds of different believers, we'll never figure out what we need to do to get people to get off this continuing, repeating cycle and dwell in the region of reason, that promises a future ripe with exciting possibilities for all.

Analysing the swing  

So, let's look at this pendulum in more detail. Where does this oscillation come from? It comes from that conflict that leads to the much discussed cognitive dissonance. The dissonance we experience from living in a world where we are regularly fed the message that faith and reason are both important. Every believer that I have engaged in discussion over the god question, has assigned some value to both faith based and evidence based beliefs.

Some believers see the two as equally important, for some faith should always trump reason and for others of them reason takes precedent over the dogma. But whatever they have faith in and however strongly they believe it, they argue that these unsubstantiated beliefs have some value to individual and/ or society and that is why they hold on to them.

That being said, believers cannot deny that they live essentially in a world where rationality rules. A world where we have proven over and over again that looking at the evidence, developing hypotheses, testing those hypotheses in light of observations, drawing inferences and then further testing these inferences through making predictions, is by far the best way to learn what is true about the universe we live in. 

Invariably these truths that reason tells them comes into conflict with what faith and religion tell them, but because ultimately survival in reality is first and foremost on the mind of most people, believers are just as quick as atheists to put all their  trust in science  when it comes to those critical decisions that could mean the difference between life and death.

They will go to doctors when sick, take out insurance, consume medicines that have been FDA approved and wear helmets or seatbelts that have been tested to the required safety standards. When believers engage in these actions, they are behaving like a pendulum swinging away from its faith centre. The swing away is not permanent however, because latent faith inherent in them remains strong even while  they do their reasoning. We know from observation that a swing back to faith is never far away for these believers. That pull of attraction from the extremes of reason back to the centre of faith, comes from the emotional factors in their lives and the widespread idea that is perpetuated in many societies that I have been exposed to. The idea that everybody needs to have faith and that we all 'have to believe in something'.

We are told that we need to have faith even to make sense of anything. In one of life's greatest oxymorons we are told that reason means nothing unless there is faith to ground it in. We are told we need it to have purpose, to be assured of a life after death, to experience love, to be moral beings, to be true supporters of our families traditions or the countries in which we live. The combination of all these forces is what continually ensures that the pendulum swings back towards the faith centre after each journey towards the extremities of reason.

To explain this more clearly, I hope you indulge me in a short physics lesson.

Faith is represented by the middle position (A) which is equilibrium. This is where the believer feels most comfortable. It's a natural, familiar position and any deviation from this point feels like a displacement.

Education, exposure to the scientific method, problem solving and critical thinking pushes the believer away from his midpoint of faith comfort, just like a physical push of a hand on a pendulum 'bob' causes it to move it away from equilibrium. 

Just as with the pendulum in the diagram above, the greater the force of reason the greater the push from the equilibrium and the greater the amplitude of the swing towards (B) or (C) which are the points of maximum 'reason'. These points of maximum reason are where the potential (energy)  of the believer is at its highest. As the distance the pendulums swings increases,  the height which it can reach also increases. It can be thrilling and exciting for even the most  devout believer to push towards those reason 'maximums'  where you can figure things out by thoroughly thinking through a problem. Exploring topics such as the evolution of our species or the expansion of our universe after the Big Bang can be truly exhilarating, like being thrust into the air on your favourite ride at a theme park.

But of course with that excitement comes a level of fear as well. The further the believer gets away from that initial ground level, the greater the worry of being separated from 'home territory'. They can see their faith slipping away in the distance, even as they revel in the height of discovery in science and reason. Eventually the forces that act as a constraint to reason become too strong, and the believer slows down as 'reason maximum' is approached. 

If you look back at the pendulum above, you will recognise that the greater the distance from the initial equilibrium point (A) the greater the force pulling the 'bob' back to that equilibrium point.  In my experience, this is how faith works with a lot of believers. The greater  the extent to which their faith is tested, the stronger the urge within them is to get back to their faith. The more they start to doubt, the more scared they become and the more desperately they try to cling back on to the faith centre that keeps their life in balance.

This not only comes when they are pushed into reason by intellectual pursuits, it happens when they have those emotional jolts in the pendulum of life  that make the god they believe in seem distant. The times like four families in Barbados are facing right at this moment, as they come to terms with the fact that four of their most beloved have had their lives snatched away in their prime. Those kind of tragedies that push the believer's pendulum into planes of uncertainty and doubt are followed up by extremely strong dependencies on faith present at their core to get through it. In essence, the more experiences in life push these people away from belief, the greater their desire to hold on to that same belief. That's how it tends to work for believers and that's why they keep swinging like a pendulum and most never get to the point of  grounding themselves in reason's territory.

Sadly, this swing back to faith centre happens also when we atheists engage believers in extended, discussions and debates. For many, the more you bring arguments against their belief the more they dig into hold their belief.  They'll acknowledge the points we make but still say that the belief in the god they believe in is locked at 100%. I can't tell you how many believers that I have had discussions with, claim that their faith in God has been STRENGTHENED as a result of our discussion. It's frustrating as hell, but now I am realising that it is nothing more than the simple harmonic motion of their pendulum of faith.

The strength of the centripetal force in the faith pendulum is immense, but remarkably still often underestimated. Faith congregations, faith communities and faith countries all play a large part in this force to bring back those swaying from the faith. They do this by telling the believer who deviates from faith that they just have to pray more, ask Jesus for help, or just go to the pastor for a counselling session. The more the believer questions the more measures the faithful around the believer will put in place to stop them from drifting completely away.

With these types of messages circling around, the believer will then actively try to erase the doubts. The desire to have faith will at that point come to the fore. The believer will while acknowledging doubt, continue to tell themselves that they 'just got to have faith'. It's the old 'fake it til you make it' rule. If you believe enough, suppress your reason enough, you will be able to force yourself back to the centre with the help of those 'pulling for faith' around you.

But what happens when the believers get back to centre? Let's look at the pendulum again. The believer starts moving away from faith once more. That is because as much as faith is a comfort, it's easy to be pushed away again to reality through reason. Indeed in a pendulum the velocity (speed) is maximum as it moves through that equilibrium point. The 'bob' of the believer just can't stop there in the middle as the challenges to faith and belief are always around. They feel the urge to keep moving, because in that position they have a large amount of kinetic energy. As much as a believer just tries to remain at that faith centre, it very seldom happens. Many Christians will claim that this failure to remain at the centre is the fault of sin or the devil. But I don't think so, it's just nature and reality. You just can't live in that fantasy world all the time. That's why so many faith activities, are done at certain times with a definite start and finish and then it's back to 'reality'.Church on Sunday morning, bible study on Wednesday night, or praying facing mecca at five specific times of the day. Faith is a little 'check in' with god to make sure you are OK. Then you can move back out in to your world of reality and reason, until you have the realization of too much drift and then come surging back to centre for one more go around.

This is the reason why believers, however questioning and skeptical they may be in everyday life, never quite get away from oscillating back and forth around their faith equilibrium. They may swing miles and miles away from their faith home, but there is always something in their centre that brings them back. The swing back may be after one week from Sunday to Sunday, a year between Easter and Easter, or even decades between when the children came along and when the sceptre of death begins to threaten.

I know many believers that are on the pendulum. They swing a lot, they swing widely and sometimes wildly, but they keep hanging on.  I was on it myself for more than 35 years. So I know more than most, that it can be extremely hard to remove yourself from it.  As it is with the pendulums we come across in physics, so it is with believers. Not all of them swing to the same extent or with the same frequency. Below are three types of pendulum believers I have come across. Maybe you know them too!

Wrecking ball believers

These are by far the hardest believers to deal with. The ball on their pendulum is heavy, really, really heavy. You try to push it and it just doesn't move an inch. Yon can try every instrument you have in your reason toolbox, but they just won't budge.  They are rigid in their beliefs,  the entire bible is inerrant, everything written there is absolutely and undeniably true. 

You bring your skeptic friends around, yell at everybody around to push simultaneously, and still no movement. Feels like this type of believer's  stubbornness weighs over a tonne and it probably does. They deny evolution, climate change and any other part of science that even appears to be a distant threat to their cherished dogma.

You may have to bring a crane to get movement, but you must be careful, because balls of that mass at the end of a pendulum can be really unstable. And because they are heavy if they move and hit something they can do a lot of damage to everything around them. People, buildings, towns, vehicles, nothing is safe. These are wrecking ball believers.

Their beliefs in absurdities can easily turn to atrocities. These are the raging fundamentalists. The Fred Phelps, the ISIS, the Westboro Baptists. No controlling these kind of believers, just best to try to contain them and make sure they are never close to anything that can be destroyed.

Metronomic believers

These type of believers are not usually dangerous but they can be infuriating as hell. I know quite a few of these and there were common in the Anglican church that I was once a part of.

For these believers its all about routine. Everything has to be done in an exact and completely predictable way when it comes to worship. They are like clockwork. Like a metronome keeping exact time to the music.

Prayers must start at a certain time. Incense must be swung when it has to be, not a moment too early or late and the swing must be consistent.  Hymns must be played as written, no slowing down or quickening up, no pretty improvisations. These guys will go crazy if anything changes in the church. Ask them what their faith means to them they can't tell you. Ask them what they believe is true and they give some vague wishy washy answer.

But change one thing in the liturgy and it's hell to pay.

Free swinging pendulum believers.

These are the type of believers I like to engage with and I daresay most atheists too, even as we wonder why they don't just jump off the swing and join us. These believers swing in reason's pendulum with childlike glee. Not that they have childlike faith, far from that, they have great maturity. However, they have a child like curiosity, that spurs them on higher and higher. They are like the kid playing in the park that just wants you to push the swing harder and harder, so that they can feel their body going up, up into orbit. They don't settle for the regular or ordinary, they seek to push the envelope of discovery.

At their best these free flowing pendulum believers can be among the greatest of scientists and skeptics. They can blow your mind with ideas, levels of creativity and understanding of complex concepts. 

These tend to be the liberal believers, the 'spiritual but not religious', those that insist there are agnostics or even ignostics. Yep they'll carry any label that sticks just to avoid 'atheist'. Let me clarify that  I respect people's right to self identify in their faith or non faith in any way that they see fit. But when I see people who essentially agree with my philosophical position, desperate to avoid the label that quite clearly fits, I tend to ask why.  I think it has a large part to do with there desire to keep that faith equilibrium, be seen to have it or at least not be seen to have lost it. Perhaps the strongest emotional force that keeps people wanting to have a faith centre of some kind is the idea that faith is a virtue. It may be irrational, it may sometimes be laughable and ridiculous, it  may even in some people lead violence, but it's still all in all seen as a trait to be desired.  And nobody wants to identify with a trait that is undesirable. People generally don't want to go around saying they have thrown away that faith equilibrium that is valued by so many.

We as atheists often don't see this when we are dealing with these free flowing pendulum believers. When they swing up in to reason's territory we get excited. They reason with a critical eye, see through biblical contradictions, smell the bullshit like it really is and we sit there waiting, thinking that it's just a matter of time. We'll just keep the challenges up, show them more and more about how faith isn't worth it and they'll come around to reality, happily throwing faith away completely, just like we did. But they don't, they keep holding on to that faith centre no matter how much their rational mind tells them it's not needed. And what do we do? We keep adding more reason pushing them harder, forcing them more but like the pendulum 'bob' they just keep swinging back.

We have to understand that giving then the push of reason is not effective on its own, the only way to truly make the difference is to break the chain of the pendulum and set the 'bob' free completely. We need to break the pendulum not just push it harder in the hope that magically sometime in the future the system will collapse under its own weight. Breaking the oscillatory cycle means chipping away at that centripetal forces that draw believers to the centre. That force is mainly about desire stemming from an assumed need, so essentially what we have to do from an individual and community perspective is to work at removing that desire to embrace faith. As long as people continue to hold the position that faith is a virtue, they will seek it out and we'll keep going through the same cycle over and over again.

We atheists often actively encourage believers to cling to their faith equilibrium.  We tell them if faith works for them they should cherish it and  keep it. Sometimes we even apologize for not having faith ourselves. I used to do that a lot. We tell believers that we wish we could believe but we just can't. It gives people in the faith the idea that atheists are people with an emotional handicap, a kind of 'god blindness'. So those liberal pendulum believers begin to feel they are better than we are. Having the best of both worlds, reasoning with the best and still able to hold on to a steadfast faith.

We have to stop speaking about losing faith as if it we have lost something of value.  We have to emphasise  that faith is NOT a virtue. This is where I agree a lot with Peter Boghossian's approach of showing faith as a flawed epistemology, a bad process for making decisions, doesn't matter if it's a decision about what to eat for dinner, which elementary school to send your children to or what god to believe in. It is more the method of faith belief rather than the content of faith belief that we should be attacking.

If people start to realize the dangers of making decisions without evidence, eventually they will abandon it. It will be a long eventually, because of all the other emotional forces that keep the believer swinging back to faith centres.  But in time as we build the secular institutions and show how much wonder there is in the world and the satisfaction associated with really figuring out an answer rather than guessing at an answer, faith will become less attractive. I look forward to the day that the masses look for centres for inquiry rather than centres for faith, to keep them moving froward. When faith is seen universally as an unattractive way to live,  believers will cut away from the pendulum themselves. I did it and more and more people are doing it. As I said, I was swinging on that pendulum for years before I got my scissors  and had the courage to cut the cord.

In the end, my decision to cut that faith out was done not because I no longer needed it. It was done, believe it or not, because I no longer wanted it.

Why do women hide their penises?: If only the believers could get hypothetical

'Why do you hate God?'

'Why are you so mad at him?'

'What did he ever do to hurt you?'

These are the kinds of questions that I have heard a lot from Christians, especially over the last few weeks as the Stephen Fry video about what he would do if he met God played out in mainstream media. If you haven't seen it you can watch it here, he is unapologetic about how evil, stupid and capricious that god would be. The facial responses from the interviewer are priceless. He clearly was completely taken aback. But we atheists weren't, we have seen it many times before from the likes of Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, Matt Dillahunty, Greta Christina and many, many more. The tirade that says that surely if a god exists he would be an evil, capricious tyrant rather than the benevolent, all caring, protective, merciful god that so many Christians have in their minds when they think about their lord and saviour.

Most of us non believers have at some point given our own version of this argument, commonly referred to as the 'problem of evil'. We use it to justify why we don't subscribe to the god that they seem to quite willingly put all their trust in. There are very few believers I have talked to who don't admit that the 'problem of evil' presents a challenge to their faith. They usually put it down to God and his 'mysterious ways'. Deep down, I think they see it as an unsatisfactory answer.  It certainly felt like a weak response to me when I was a Christian. However, the 'mystery' challenge didn't knock my faith down back then, as I reflected on how often great triumph can emerge from tragedy, and that there's plenty of opportunity to make delicious lemonade from the limes and lemons that life throws at us.

I imagine that this is the way that most of my religious brothers and sisters still think today. So, when they hear rants that the likes of Stephen Fry throw up, they hear a person who is just not willing to try to make the best of the world he has been given. Doing the easier thing of sitting back and blaming someone else for the shit, rather than getting up and trying to help ease the pain as it happens. When words like evil, bully and tyrant are used. The believers cringe, wondering what on earth could cause those that claim to not care or believe in a creator god,  hate him so much.

As one of the persons who commented on an extended conversation on my Facebook page told me,

"How can Stephen Fry say all those bad things about a person whom he has not ever met."

The power of the hypothetical:  IF changes everything

What Christians seem to miss every time they chide us for being upset with God, is the impact of that simple two letter word, 'IF'.

A small word that signifies a BIG hypothetical.

IF I won a million dollars
IF the moon were made of cheese
IF men could become pregnant
IF I were a squirrel in a tree.
IF there was a God.

In the 'non God' examples, nobody ever makes the mistake of thinking that the speaker actually believes that what is being hypothesized is true. However, when it comes to god, many Christians just don't hear the 'IF'.

They hear "God is evil".

 When what is actually being said by atheists is,

"If there was a God existing in the world, that god would be evil".

These are obviously two completely different statements.

I think that a big part that plays into this problem is many believers' inability to hypothesize in the way that atheists do. Atheists do not believe in god, but every atheist I have met has been capable of imagining what a world with a god in it might look like. We can conceive of different gods in the universe and imagine the implication of each of these god's actions or character. Much in the same way that we can imagine a super hero, give him or her fictional powers and imagine what the person may do in a particular scenario that we conjure up in our minds.

But for some reason, this power to hypothesize seems to be very difficult if not impossible for the majority of believers, even for believers that claim they were once atheists. They just seem incapable of imagining a world without a god. I have met some who feel that even putting that thought in their head for a split second would be a severe insult to the god they serve.  Since they can't make that theological leap into the hypothetical, they assume we also can't.

So, whenever we mention anything about a god,  they believe that we actually believe in that god. Any slander against his character is a slander against a real entity. Blasphemy for them is not a victimless crime.  But their god is safe, because even if he exists, we atheists have never seen him, so we certainly won't be able to find him to hurt, maim or kill him.

One of the things that is troubling about this widespread notion that atheists hate god, is that it demonstrates a barrier to many believers' ability to empathise with us. In all aspects of  life one of the most important things to be able to do is to show empathy. Through being able to imagine what it would be like to be the other person we are speaking to, we are more easily able to relate and provide the right response, or engage in the behaviour that is more likely to help that person.

It's not always easy to be able to fully empathize with a person or concept foreign to us, but I think we have an obligation to try, so that we can bridge the gap a bit. I can imagine what it might be like to be white, gay, a woman, an elderly person, a professional athlete, a starving infant or a middle aged man diagnosed with a terminal illness. Doesn't mean that I immediately can become an expert on those things by just thinking about it, but I can often come to an understanding or at least learn to ask the right questions when I think of something that I really can't get my head around.

By imagining what it is like to be gay doesn't mean I will suddenly start being attracted to  men, thinking of being a woman isn't going to make me start ovulating overnight and imagining what I might be like to be laden with a terminal illness isn't going to cut my life expectancy in half.

However, when I talk to theists and ask them to imagine what it might be like to be an atheist like me, there are often unable to do it. They say that the idea is just too far 'out there'. But why should that be a problem? I can imagine myself being a lot of things that are 'out there'. I can imagine I am an alien living on another planet coming down to investigate and probe humans. Why can I do that and my theists friends not make the relatively tiny intellectual leap to imagine what it would be like to not believe in god like me?  Why can't they walk in my shoes for a block or two? I am not telling them they have to keep the shoes on for life. Just a brief walk around to see whether or not the shoes are super comfortable or pinch around the toes.

The fact that most of them can't do that is telling. And I think that is a definite indication that the indoctrination and brain washing is deep. People's minds have been so closed off, that they can't become an atheist even for the sake of argument. It's unfortunate, because that creates a barrier to understanding our position. It explains why we so often get questions from them during our discussions that just don't make sense. Why they are often talking to straw men rather than talking to us.

It's the reason why they can't see the absurdity of using the bible to prove the bible.
It's the reason why they don't see that it's ridiculous to try to convince an atheist to have faith by telling her that without faith it is impossible to please god.
It's why they can only see our non belief in god as a denial of a god that we know in our heart is true.

The fact is that the best most believers can do when talking to us is put themselves in the position of a believer pretending to be an atheist. That's are far as their powers of hypothetical thinking can take them on this topic. So the questions we get are the questions they would pose to a person who believes like them but is trying to convince themselves that they actually believe the opposite.

It would be like if a man tried to understand a woman by assuming that the woman he was speaking with was actually a man like him, only trying to believe that she was of a different gender.

With this in mind I came up with an example of such a  HYPOTHETICAL  interview between Simon (a confused man) and Jenny, a self proclaimed woman in a HYPOTHETICAL world where the prevailing view is that gender differences are a myth and that all humans are either men or people who try to deny that they are men.  I call this fictional interview 'Why do 'women' hide their penises?'

Why do 'women' hide their penises?: The Hypothetical Interview

Confused Man (CM): I am confused. What made you decide that you are a woman? Could you please explain?  Why do you go around trying to deny that you have a penis ? Why do you self proclaimed women spend your whole lives trying to hide your penises? It just doesn't make sense to me.

Self Proclaimed Woman (SPW) : It's pretty simple really. From the time I was a kid I was told by my parents and everybody around me that I had a penis. I just accepted it to be true, even though I never saw evidence for the existence of such an organ on my body. For years and years I kept looking and looking, waiting for a penis to show up on my anatomy as promised, but it never did. One day I just  came to the conclusion that I really didn't have a penis. It was hard at first, but I thought it was important to embrace the reality that it wasn't there. Ever since that day I have identified as a woman.

CM: So, just because you looked and haven't found a penis yet, you came to the conclusion that there is no penis on your body? Did you really look hard enough? Can you honestly say that you have searched every millimetre of your body? When was the last time that you did a complete body search? How do you know it didn't become visible a minute ago? There are some parts of your body that your eyes can't see. There are some parts of your body that your hand can't reach. How do you know that your penis isn't located in one of these out-of-the-way crevices? The way I see it, you can't prove with absolute certainty that you don't have a penis.

SPW: That may be so, but I think it is very unlikely that my penis is located in one of those out-of-the-way places. I would need some strong evidence to believe that my penis is any of those locations. I have no reason to believe it would be and without any evidence pointing to that possibility, the most reasonable conclusion for me to come to, is that it's not there. Why is it so hard for you to accept that I am really not a man?

CM: This may come across as harsh, but I honestly don't believe in the existence of women. There are only people who claim to be women. Men who choose to deny their manhood or who have been deceived by 'the enemy' to believe that their manhood isn't there. The book of peneology makes it clear to all mankind. There is no such think as gender. Our Lord Testiculus has placed the mark of the penis on every human body.

SPW: Peneology is a myth. The reality of gender that we see all around us clearly shows that the words of Testiculus are false. I don't set my beliefs according to that ancient book, science has long since proven those old beliefs about a genderless universe false.

CM: (Gasp) Are you telling me you deny the words of Testiculus? You really have to have some balls to do that.

SPW: Yes, of course I don't believe in Testiculus. Read any book about chromosomes and reproductive organs and you would see the truth too.

CM: Oh my God! You're a genderologist! Do you really believe that propaganda that you came from a mutation? Those liberal universities really brainwash you young people. Sadly, you have been taken in by the religion of embryology.

SPW:  It's not propaganda it's scientific fact! Based on evidence!

CM: Ok, I can see you're very set in your views. Even if Testiculus came down from the heavens now and showed you his holy appendages you wouldn't change your mind. Let's move on.

Have you ever found anything on your body that you even once thought might have been a penis? You can't tell me that there isn't at least one time in your life that you felt something that might have been that hidden organ.

SPW: Well there was one time that I was exploring my body and I came across something that for a moment made me think I might have one.

CM: I knew it! You do believe! Deep down inside you know your penis is there!

SPW: No, I did some investigating and deep down inside me, what I was feeling was my clitoris. It wasn't a penis. It was too small to be that.

CM: A clitoris? Are you sure?

SPW: Yes.

CM: No. What you felt was a penis. I am sure. You said it was too small to be a penis. But that's a mistake that many of you self proclaimed women make. You see pictures of penises in magazines or porn sites that show all penises as large and long. So you start to look for penises that look like that. But that was your error, you were looking for the wrong type of penis.You didn't find a penis that looked like the ones you were exposed to in popular media, so you assumed that no penis existed on your body. Just because you didn't find THAT penis on your body doesn't mean that ALL penises are absent from your body.

SFW: That's ridiculous, the clitoris is inside my vagina. It's a totally different  from the penis.

CM: You and your genderology indoctrination again. Why are you so keen to hide your penis? I don't get it. Whatever the evidence you find,  you always  go out of your way to seek out the non peneological explanation.

SFW: But peneology has nothing to support it except for ancient writings. Surely the logical thing to do is to go with the explanation and descriptions found through science. It's not like I am making a predetermined decision to deny peneology or the fact that I have a penis. If I found a penis on my body tomorrow I won't deny its existence,

CM: Really? That's interesting because I still don't think you have done all you could have to find that penis. I mean, have you ever got down on your knees and begged the Lord Testiculus to reveal your penis to you? I urge you to try it.  Try Testiculus, you won't be disappointed.

SPW: No, I am not going to do that.

CM: Why not?

SPW: Because I don't believe in Testiculus. If my penis is there, there should be some good evidence for it. Why should I have to beg Testiculus to reveal to me a penis that he has already supposedly bestowed on me openly? It just doesn't make sense.

CM: Let me explain. Testiculus has given you free will,  but you have used that free will to turn away from him and reject belief in all possible penises, you have indeed become an a-prostate. This a-prostatecy has blinded you so much that you are now unfortunately unable to see your penis in all its glory.

Anyway, let's move on to my other questions.  Without a penis how does your life have worth? How do you find pleasure?

SPW: Believe me, I can find pleasure in more ways than you could ever dream of.

CM: Nonsense,  I know what my penis does for me!  I know from personal experience that having a penis is great! It's got me through so many hard times. Do you want me to tell you about all the occasions when my penis has given me ............

SPW: No, it's fine. I don't need all the details. I get the point. Your penis is important to your life, I would never try to take that away from you. I am not saying that you don't have one, I am just saying that I don't have one but I am absolutely fine.

CM: I still find that very difficult to believe. It's not just about pleasure. I mean, without a
penis where does your sense of urination come from?

SPW: Again I  can tell you, I don't need a penis for that. I know it's really difficult for you to understand, but we women can do all the things you men do and we don't need your organ to do it. You really don't need a penis to pee.

CM: I am telling you, it's just because you haven't found your penis yet. Once you find it your life will be transformed immediately, I guarantee it. Thousands of testimonies from people all over the world speak to the might of Testiculus and the transformational power of the penis.

But moving on. I must at least give you a compliment. I can see you have a considerable amount of courage about your conviction and you are more than capable of standing up for your beliefs.

SPW: Well thank you sir! * statement made dripping with obvious sarcasm which nonetheless is completely missed by confused man*

CM: In fact I am sure many would say you have testicular fortitude.

SPW: Of course.

CM: And tell me how can you have testicular fortitude if you have no penis or testicles! Ha! Checkmate genderologist!

SPW: That's just an idiomatic expression. Doesn't speak to anything in reality. It's like how I might say, " Oh my God!"

CW:  Oh my God? How dear you take our Lord' s name in vain.  I just hope Testiculus is merciful to you when it comes to the day of judgement.

SPW: That sounds like a veiled threat.

CW: No it's not. I just love you and don't want you to suffer due to your choice to deny that you have a penis.

SPW: For the final time. I am telling you. I do not have a penis! Don't have one, never had one, never will. And in spite of not having one I have a healthy, happy and contented life and there are billions in the world like me. We have purpose without a penis!

CM:  I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. There is just no getting around your non-peneological worldview. It's quite sad really. Maybe one day Testiculus will reveal to me why you are the way you are. Then I may be able to answer this big question that has baffled mankind for centuries. Why do  'women' hide their penises?

(End of Interview)

Now, if you found that hypothetical interview absurd, silly or ridiculous, you now understand how it sounds when people ask us atheists why we vehemently deny the existence of a god, that we know deep within our hearts is real.

When is the next bus coming?: Looking to reality to tell us about reality

It's been a long time. Indeed, recent circumstances have made it difficult for me to keep up blogging with the regularity I would like. I have to apologise to those who have over the years looked forward to reading my blogposts. I appreciate and will always be grateful for your support and I will be looking to make up for my inactivity over recent months in the weeks to come.

I am happy to report that since my last post at the end of March, I have successfully defended my doctoral thesis looking at the development of renewable energy in the Caribbean. That brought to an end the piece of work that I have dedicated myself to over the last five years and it was certainly exciting as well as a great relief to complete that journey.

At the same time I have had to go through a significant life challenge. One that I hope to write about someday, but that someday is not today.

A break from blogging has not in any way meant that I have had a break from thinking. I have kept up my activism through the weekly ' Freethinking Island' podcast where I continue to be inspired by the great guests that we have had coming through. I was part of a demonstration in support of the atheist Bangladeshi bloggers here in Calgary and I have taken part in a Pathway River Cleanup with fellow atheists that produced a very unlikely reunion with Shanon. When I last saw her four years ago she was a fundamentalist Christian that would not even walk to the other side of the room unless Jesus told her.  I once played music with her every week in a church group as we led worship. Since that time, unknown to each other we both took our separate journeys away from faith.  Now we are both playing on the side of the atheists and are quite sure we have finally chosen the correct team.

Yes, there was much to think about in the last few months, but it is a challenge when you've been away from writing a bit and need to just pick that one idea to blog about to get you back into the groove. I was thinking about all of this today while waiting for a bus in the rain. On days like today in Calgary, any wait for public transportation seems like an eternity and while it's not as bad as being in -30 in January, it's still definitely in the uncomfortable category.

Fortunately in today's world, at least in Canada, you don't have to be left guessing about bus arrivals too much as there is a 'Teleride' phone number you can call that gives you a relatively accurate idea of how long you have to wait.  Well, this morning as I took up my phone to call the automated number, I saw the trademark white with red and blue stripes of Calgary Transit in the distance and I knew my bus was on its way. Once I spotted it, I hung up the phone and put it safely in my pocket. No need for any info now, the bus was here. All I needed was to wait for it to stop and get on.

What happened this morning was nothing unusual. I have experienced this many times. You go to make the call and then you don't need to because you have your answer right there in front of you. Seems quite straightforward, but I realized today that for many in faith, looking for answers is far from being as simple as that.

For them, direct observation of the thing they are trying to find out about is not where they go to first to find out about that thing. No, their trust is more in the thing that talks about reality than reality itself. It sounds crazy, but that is exactly how it is with fundamentalist Christians. In their worldview the bible is more real than even the reality of which it is purported to speak to. When you give the thing that maps to reality greater credence than reality, you end up with absurdity. Imagine if I took a leaf out of the fundamentalists' book when I was at the bus-stop today.

I could easily reason that 'Teleride' was the true source of knowledge  for all bus behaviour. Honestly, it is generally accurate and if you put your trust in what it says, you will get where you want to on time at least 80% of the time. I can vouch for this from personal experience and others I am sure can testify. So at least in terms of ability to 'prophesy' arrivals of buses, 'Teleride' has a track record. The book that the fundamentalists carry around has pointed to an 'arrival' for centuries now but neither the 'holy train' nor the luxury coach on the highway to heaven has made a stop to pick up all the eager passengers. So, from my perspective, having faith in my 'Teleride' is at least just as rational as putting faith in their bible.

So today if I was in fundamentalist mode, I should have continued to listen to the machine and get the info on the arrival times even though the bus was right in front of my nose. I should have understood that the position of the bus depended solely on where 'Teleride' said it was and it could only arrive when 'Teleride' said it would arrive. So if the automated voice said ' #72 will arrive in five minutes' I would be forced to wave on the driver of the apparent # 72. I would have to call the bus 'apparent' because it just could not be real. It would have to be a fake, the driver the equivalent of a false prophet, sent to lure unsuspecting passengers on board, taking them on a road trip to hell. I should have stood waving my cellphone wildly, scaring all the passengers climbing on board, by explaining that only 'Teleride' could answer that question that all users of public transportation since the beginning of time have wanted to know. "When is the next bus coming?"

The Prophecy of 'Teleride' revealed 

If you think that trying to rationalise away the bus that doesn't conform to the 'Teleride' prophecy is ridiculous, think again. The 'fake bus' theory is not without precedence in history. One driver told me about an incident one night when an angry passenger actually drove off one of the buses when the driver had got off momentarily. It is not uncommon here in the city for drivers to leave buses idling as they slip out for a quick smoke, toilet break or coffee when they are a couple minutes ahead of schedule. Apparently on one occasion a passenger just drove off the vehicle and it took them a couple of hours to track down this 'rogue' bus. So it can happen and has happened. Why could it not be that this morning's bus was one of those? False buses, false drivers, false passengers, I am sure I could dig up or fabricate some 'Calgary Transit' pamphlets that could be interpreted in a way that speaks to their existence. I could scoff at the public for being so gullible to believe that every bus driver sincerely has a desire to lead them to the correct destination.

I can hear atheists laughing even as I am writing this, in considering life in a world where the gospel according to 'Teleride' held sway. At the same time, I can imagine my religious friends shaking their heads vigorously.  They would  admonish me for using a poor analogy, for making the same mistakes all atheists make, by thinking that Christians just rely on the bible. They will no doubt tell me that their belief is based on direct experience too. Direct experience with Jesus, who they have a personal relationship with. They will let me know that they are as sure of their Jesus as I was of the existence of the #72 this morning.

But there is one big problem with a claim like this. Many people that have been hanging around their bus- stop for years have never seen this driver nor his bus. Some report seeing a bus, but it is entirely different. Maybe driven by Mohammad, Shiva or Abraham. I have even heard of a young driver called Joseph who has a sleek vehicle with gold plated license plates. I would have to question Christians as to why only people with a particular cultural and religion conditioning see the 'Jesus bus' and want to get on.

One thing about the 'Calgary Transit' buses is that they are accessible to everyone. It doesn't matter the culture, gender, religion, age, sexual orientation or  level of ability or disability. Everyone can get on, but moreover everyone acknowledges when buses arrive at the bus stop. Sometimes people rush on, other times people enter circumspectly, waiting for the driver confirmation. Some get on and then get off smartly when they realise the bus is not the one they want and some just wave the bus away entirely. Everyone acknowledges or reacts to the bus in some way or the other. So even as there is no doubt about the existence of the buses, there is passenger free will as commuters can hop on and off the buses as they see fit or 'motion' them to go on if they are not interested.

Infallible until it fails

It's hilarious to think of how much religionists skew the nature of reality right before their eyes by trying to make it fit with a book that they consider to be an infallible guide. I personally have never understood this concept of infallibility. To me there are two categories of things. Those which have failed in the past and those that haven't been seen to fail as yet. To make the leap from something you have not seen fail yet to assume that it would never fail is mind boggling. But that is what happens in the mind of the fundamentalist.

' He never fail me yet, He never fail me yet, my Jesus never fail me yet!'

This is a favourite chorus in the Caribbean. Presumably that line is evidence that Jesus will never fail them in the future either. Well, my heart has never failed me yet, but does that justify me believing that it will never give out? A thing only needs to fail once and that is when infallibility becomes null and void.

So, no matter how accurate your book has been in the past, if it doesn't conform to the reality it purports to describe you have to go with what reality says and conclude that the book was wrong this time. Any authority can be wrong once. If you catch a bus every morning for ten years and it s never late, you can rely on it. But if one morning the bus doesn't show up you can't argue that it 'has to be there' because it has never been late before. If the bus is not there, it's not there. Doesn't matter what has happened before in history, what the statistics suggest or what is prescribed in a schedule. Reality is still reality and if you have the direct evidence available that's what should always win out.

I had the pleasure of chatting with world renowned physicist Lawrence Krauss last year when he came to Calgary and one thing he said is that if you want to find out what the universe is like you go out there and look at it. A simple message but one so often overlooked. No amount of philosophical musings and 'what ifs' can substitute for going out and making a direct measurement.

When creationists go out of their way to make the universe 6,000 years old to fit with their book rather than the 14 billion that we have been able to accurately measure through various scientific methods, they are doing just like the person who pretends that buses in Calgary are only able to behave in accordance with the word of 'Teleride.' They are like the person who maintains that only 'Teleride' can answer the ultimate question. 'When is the next bus coming?'

Creationists are like  conspiracy theorists that say that all the buses, drivers, passengers and even the bus stops are fake. A God who provides that much fake evidence would be a prankster not worthy of following, far less worshipping. That God would be as silly as a public transit company that put 'dummy' buses on the road just to fool passengers.

When is the next blog coming?

Well, I suppose the only remaining question for readers today for me is, ' When is the next blog coming?'

I won't do like the divine writer in the sky and just say I write in mysterious ways and bloggers' 'time' is different from readers' 'time'. I'll try to return to some kind of earrhly schedule. Those of you that take buses regularly know that sometimes when you have a long wait for a bus, two come in close succession. I am trusting that what is true for the bus will turn out to be true for this blog as well.

Meanwhile, I hope you enjoyed the return ride today! 

Put down the duckie!

  

Oh yes! Another one of those Sesame Street classics. " You got to put down the 'duckie' if you want to play the saxophone!"

The lyrics and melody are as fresh today as they were when I first heard this one back in the 80s. This song was a definite influence in encouraging me to take up the saxophone myself. But like so much of the old Sesame Street, I look back at it today and see meaning on a whole different level. I had a similar feeling when I wrote about how I rediscovered 'Ernie and the Invisible Ice Cream' a couple of years ago. Now Ernie is at the centre of attention again, as Hoots supported by a  myriad of celebrities, explains to him that he can't play the sax if he insists on keeping his favourite toy in his hand. It's a lesson that Ernie takes a while to get, even as Hoots tells him,


 "Don't be a stubborn Cluck!"

I died  laughing when I heard this line today. Sesame Street keeping it 'G' rated, even if just barely.

Anyway, once Ernie realises the wisdom of the advice he tosses the 'duck' away in liberation and goes on to break away into some attractive improvisations. Whether you are a jazz lover or not and even if you've never picked up a wind instrument in your life, you've just got to love it.

The only sad thing is that of course as simple as the lesson is here, millions of people of faith in the world have failed to embrace it. We've begged, pleaded and cajoled just like the artistes in this video, from every corner of the world. But no, believers still haven't got this one into their heads. For reasons which are baffling to us on the atheist side, they simply refuse to put their 'duckies' down.

For years they have been telling us that faith and reason can live together in perfect harmony. That there is no reason to believe that embracing scientific method, logic and critical thinking means we have to toss aside faith. In fact more than telling us that faith and reason can go together, they claim that we actually need to have both in order to have a balanced life. Truth is, that trying to put reason and faith together is just the same as attempting what Ernie is trying to do here. Sax in one hand, 'duckie' in the other and hoping the music will come out just right. Nine times out of ten, it won't. Stories of six day creations, global floods, ladders to heaven, talking snakes, virgin births, resurrections and the like just don't stand to reason. If you include these in any manuscript of science you will have problems.

Putting faith and reason on the same level is like trying to compare the skill needed to squeeze a bathtub toy with that needed to master fingering, breathing, reed control that comes with learning to play a wood wind instrument. It is not discrimination to say that the 'duckie' can't be a part of any self respecting band. 'Duckie' at playtime in the nursery and in the bathtub can be fun, and the squeaks it emits can make you laugh and giggle in delight. But there is no room for this if you are talking about playing serious music.

I suppose some Christians would say that strictly speaking Hoots is not correct. It's not impossible to play the sax while holding a 'duck'.Obviously it can be done, and the music might sound alright some of the time. In this video, the music Ernie plays with 'duckie' in hand is not terrible, some of it is actually quite nice. Especially when he is just holding the duck without squeezing it. But once he tries to interject the duck sound into the music, that's when you get the dissonance. This happens with many  liberal Christians. They keep the 'duckie' in their hand because they feel it is necessary that people see them with it. It's basically aesthetics, to show that they still have a connection to that special gift they were given in their childhood. They want it to be known that they haven't forgotten where they came from. Indeed, they don't really intend to squeeze the 'duckie' while they are playing, and with practice they come quite adept at keeping the 'duck' silent during the music or at least from interrupting the flow of the piece.

But even as they show off their skills you can see they have to try twice as hard to keep the 'duckie' out of the way while they play. Even as you stand to applaud them, you still have to wonder why they don't make life easier for themselves and everybody else and just leave the 'duck' alone. What is the most awe dropping thing is what happens after the music ends, when they declare that there is no way they could even play a single note without their duckie.  All the duckless people like me can say to that is, "What? The duck?"


It's not only the duckless that are a bit mystified though. Even as the 'duck and sax' people accept their praise they upset the true 'duckie' aficionados, those that believe in the true beauty of pure 'duck' music. How can he say he needs his 'duckie' when he never even uses it? They will say. Oh, how I wish these 'duck and sax' players would answer that 'ducking' question.

However, in reality very few 'duck and sax' players are actually skilled enough to always avoid their fingers slipping on to the 'duckie' during performance. When that happens, you hear that 'silly squeak' that Ernie talks about. This  'duckie' sound may be unintentional, but it doesn't matter. It still plays havoc with the music and usually you get a massive discord. It's embarrassing when this happens because the player then has to pretend that the 'duck' squeak is not a mistake but a vital part of the composition. He will say that if anything sounded off in the music, it was in fact the sax that was the problem, because it gives trouble sometimes. In contrast, the squeaky 'duck' always come in at the right time and in the right key.

Of course what happens every now and again is that the 'duckie' squeaks by chance and it actually sounds good. It fits the music perfectly, resulting in an enticing chord or exciting syncopation. Here is when the 'duck and sax' players do their most talking. They will make sure to show the video of that performance over and over again to prove that the 'duckie' makes the music better. If we tell them that it was just a fluke note, they will laugh at us and try to ignore us when we list the millions of times the 'duckie' has ruined performances. They will say we are taking those performances out of context and deliberately choosing only bad examples to make our case. They will add that in any case, we are not skilled enough to understand what is good 'duck and sax' music because we can't play it. We can't judge what we don't understand.

Unsinkable Rubber Ducks

James Randi- Speaks of Unsinkable Rubber Ducks

Yes, if only it was as easy as in this video to convince the Christians and other religious people to put down their 'duckies.' In fact 'rubber duckies' are so much tied to religious thinking that the faithful themselves are  often indistinguishable from the artifacts of make belief  they carry around in their hands. James Randi the famous skeptic and debunker of supernatural claims has often noted this in his talks. He refers to many of the frauds and scammers especially in the evangelical churches as 'unsinkable rubber ducks.'

He explains that these guys are able to float back up to the surface no matter how much force you use to push them down. You can have evidence to catch them red handed in some act, they always find a way to come back. Most notable among these 'ducks' is Peter Popov who Randi showed was using an earpiece that picked up his wife's voice reading out the names of the people he was 'healing' during services. Popov was clearly pretending that some divine voice was revealing names and addresses to people in his audience. It is hard to imagine how a person could be more 'caught in the act.' However, it was only a blip for Popov, he was soon back on the air and continues to this day raking in even more millions than he was at the time he was exposed. Yes, you just can't keep these guys down.

Ducking experts

The phenomenon doesn't end with people like Popov either. I know many Christians personally and online who are true duck experts. Yes, no one can duck the difficult questions like these believers. Here are some examples of questions I haven't got a straight answer to yet.

• Does everything happen according to God's will
• If God told you to murder your daughter would you do it?
• Why has God not exterminated the devil yet?
• Why does God need to have a blood sacrifice in order to forgive us? 
• Do you consider it moral for a God to send someone to hell just for not believing

You won't believe the amount of ducks I have heard in response to questions like these. When they can, Christians make use of their elasticity too. In their world, whatever the brain can conceive, faith can achieve. You have to try to catch them out with logical contradictions. But even that can't keep them down, because they will argue that God himself can transcend logic. It takes ages to try to convince them that if God and us operate by different rules of logic, we can't communicate with him or begin to understand anything about him. By the time you do that, you are sure to have forgotten what the logical contradiction you were trying to call them out on was in the first place.

In the cases where both their ducking and elasticity fails them and they end up in hot water, they will fish desperately for a response and eventually distract us by throwing out a red herring. Those Christian rubber ducks, you just can't ever win.

How can we overcome the ducks?   

Well, at least so it seems. We have to take heart from this video. We have to take this Sesame Street lesson. The first thing is repetition. We have to keep telling them to 'put down the duckie' even when it seems the message isn't getting through. We also need  a variety of people bringing the message. People of different ages, genders, races, cultural and ethnic backgrounds,  just like the celebrities in this video. We even need different languages, as Celia Cruz says " Suelta el Patito."

One person, however persuasive they may be, is seldom enough to turn the tide. We also need different ways of packaging the message, just like the different styles and genres of music we see in the video.It doesn't always have to be loud and strident. Sometimes soft dulcet tones whispered in a friendly way can be just as effective. We see that here. Arguably the best part of this video is 'Put Down the Duckie' rendered softly by the group 'Ladysmith Black Mambazo

The other key to learn from here is that as strongly as we bring our message, we must never coerce. We have to understand when they tell us like Ernie, that they can't bear to be parted from their 'duckie'. It is important to note that Hoots never tried to yank the 'rubber duckie' out of Ernie's hands. Ernie tossed the thing away himself in his own time, when he reached the point that HE was convinced. The only thing we have to remind people like Ernie is that it's OK to take the duck up after sax but only if its for playing PRETEND.Yes, we must not be afraid to tell people that their 'duckie' is an imaginary friend. Sure they can talk to him but they are not going to get an answer back. As tempted as they may be, they must  never take out their 'duckie' at school during classes especially if its a science subject like Biology, unless  they want to become  'quacks' when they grow up.

All jokes aside though, the last thing we can do to help our cause, is to take things beyond this Sesame Street clip. We have to let believers know that when we implore them to put down the 'duckie' we are not putting THEM down. We have to hold up high others among us who have successfully, 'put down the duckie' and produced great music.

Andre Woodvine- Barbadian jazz saxophonist.
Put down the 'duckie' and is one of the Caribbean's finest

One such person in Barbados is leading jazz saxophonist and composer Andre Woodvine, who has made a name for himself throughout the region. You can find out more about him and his music here. He my friends, has emphatically put down the 'duckie'!

Andre contacted me through this blog last year as he was becoming public about his atheism. I was touched by the positive things he said about my writings. I was extremely excited to make the link with him and we have interacted quite a bit since then. I have always admired Andre as both sax player and composer. I will never forget his composition 'Hold You in a Song' performed by John King and Alison Hinds, that went on to win the Caribbean Song Contest back in 1992. It  remains a favourite of mine to this day. Andre  himself  had a memorable sax solo in that one, you can listen to the entire performance below. It was great to find that music and saxophone playing was not all we had in common. Andre is now open about being an atheist, as he continues to fly the national flag high, representing Barbados as a jazz musician all over the world.

Thank you Andre, for giving the message so loud and clear to the rest of us.


"You've got to put down that 'duckie' if you want to play the saxophone."

The one behind the wheel is all that matters: Why the moral argument for God drives me crazy

It comes with the territory. Once you become an atheist, you have to be prepared to get the arguments for why there is a God from left and right, almost on a daily basis. The theist doesn't have to use an indicator, we know the arguments that are coming just around the corner. First cause, complexity, meaning of life, Pascal's Wager along with a string of anecdotal testimonies and near death experiences in tow. Their discussions always take you down the same road. The potholes of fallacies don't matter, they just hope that one day one argument, any argument will bring you back on the highway to Christ. By and large such arguments don't bother me, I shrug my shoulders, sigh and give the defence of my position if I have the inclination, knowing that if the discussion continues there will be more roundabouts ahead than there are on the ABC Highway in Barbados. However, there is one argument that really does drive me crazy .I am sure for many atheists it is the same. It is the moral argument for God.

Here is how it goes. The theist will say that the fact that we can all recognise 'good' from 'evil'  in the world suggest that 'good' and 'evil' can be defined objectively. There are concepts that are not simply matters of taste or culture. The fact that they are not dependent on an individual human, means they must be dependent on an an individual non human. Therefore God. That's it! QED!

This argument is an extension of the Cosmological argument or the argument from origins. What it comes down to is this. We have a 'something' in the universe. That 'something' needed to be created. Therefore God created the 'something.' That 'something' can range from physical things such as universes, trees, planets, puppies, sunsets, babies and chimpanzees to abstract things like logic, love, consciousness, intelligence and yes, morality. So from an intellectual perspective the moral argument should be able to be dismissed just like any of the other , 'Who created X?' arguments. But no, this one goes much deeper than that. It hits me harder becomes implied in it, is the notion that the morality of people who don't believe in God or some supernatural agent are morally compromised in some way. That is the part that offends me.

Throughout my life, if there is one thing that I have always tried to do, it is to live to the highest moral standard possible. Back from when I was a Christian growing up in Barbados, up until today, living in Canada  where I solidly identify as an atheist. When it comes to the desire to 'do the right thing' my religion or lack thereof  plays no part now and it didn't play a role before either. I always saw my faith as incidental to my sense of morality. Christians will say it's God, atheists will say its a consequence of my evolutionary history, but whatever the reason I have always felt torn up inside when I have recognised that I have done something that has hurt another individual. I have always told people that I don't mind being called stupid even as I try to make good decisions. But being labelled as evil or unethical is something that hurts to the core.

I can hear all my Christian friends saying in chorus," No, no, you have it all wrong ! We know you are a moral person, we know you are good.What we are saying is that you don't have a basis for determining your morality!"

Borrowing morality form them

This is the point when I feel like tearing my hair out. It irks me more because when Christians say this, they say it with a tone that suggests they are being magnanimous. That we should be praising them for being so compromising, for telling us that we CAN be moral. They seem genuinely surprised when we are  unimpressed by what they perceive is a fantastic compliment.

Why are we unmoved? Let's explore this statement a bit more. ' We can be moral, but we have no basis for morality.' The implication is that they are the ones with the basis. Some say that we atheists are simply borrowing their morality from them. Suppose a white person came up to me and let me know that he has a lot of black friends and from those interactions he knows that black people can be good people, even though many of his white friends argue otherwise. What if he went on to explain that his view was that although most blacks were moral they had no basis for determining what was moral? Suppose he added that what we good black people are doing is behaving 'white like', copying the moral code of HIS people, even though most of us don't realise it. What if he continued by saying that white people that are evil are either not true white people or white people who through a conscious rejection of their race based moral code have lost their way? Should I  look at a person who suggests something as ludicrous as this as anything but a flat out racist?

I know it will be said that race and religion are too totally different things and the analogy doesn't hold. I disagree. I fail to see how a difference in opinion about what is the essence of nature has any more to do with how good a person you are, than the melanin content in your skin.

There is something even more curious about this morality argument that I am not sure even all atheists realise.  Their argument for an objective morality is based on the universal interpretation by  human beings of concepts such as 'good' and 'evil.'  In 'universal', they are including atheists, agnostics, spiritualists, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, every conceivable religious and non religious group. All these people's perceptions on 'good' and 'evil' are used to support their view that an objective morality exists.

Then comes the big sleight of hand in their argument. The God that is responsible for this objective morality that everybody recognises, is their God that only followers of their God recognise. It's a strange notion. It's not like the old days when a God just concentrated of taking care of his people. Their God takes it upon himself to step into everybody's territory. Their tribal God is responsible for the universal experience.  But this tribal God is not just any God. This tribal God is one who has advocated every atrocity in the book at some time or another. Genocide, infanticide and  much much more. Yes, there are many  'cides'  to God. In fact the only 'cide' that God seems to have evaded so far is 'suicide', well unless you want to count that 'hanging on the cross' weekend a couple of millennia ago.

So, naturally confused atheists ask Christians how can they claim that their God is the establisher of objective moral good, when so many of  his actions are in direct opposition to the objective morality that we humans universally recognise? The answer we get then is the real 'slap in the face.'

"You can't judge any actions of our God because you have no basis for morality! You have no licence to criticize! How can you say that even killing babies is evil?"

Apart from the obvious ad-hominem in this response, there is a bigger problem. In determining the existence of universal, objective morality they took into consideration the views of ALL humanity. The fact that OUR atheist view of morality is similar to theirs was seen as evidence in favour of 'objective morality', which was a crucial part of their argument for the existence of THEIR God. Now that they have used our moral perspective to help 'establish' their God's existence,  they want to dismiss that same moral perspective when we use it to challenge their God's morality. Effectively what they are telling us is that we can vote their God in but we can't vote him out. It's a one way democracy.We need to call them out on this inconsistency.

Debating Mistake?

In the last post I made on Imagine No Religion 2, Matt Dillahunty took me up on a comment I made where I said that even if he made a mistake in a debate he had enough consistency in how he structured his argument to not falter or get tied up. He asked me in the comments thread of that post  to point out to him if he made any mistakes during the debate in Kamloops. He playfully added that he didn't consider that consistency in making mistakes is a good thing. I smiled at this, because the comment about him making mistakes was a passing statement within a paragraph that was very complimentary of him and the work he does. Still, I suppose it is human nature to pick out any note of criticism, I am sure I would do the same. It's great however to see someone of his stature in the movement seeking constructive criticism. That is the true strength of the atheist community. In that thread I outlined one area in which we had a difference of opinion and I won't go into that here, you can look back at the comments in that thread if you wish.

However, Matt's comment did make me reflect on 'mistakes' of atheists a bit more. Not just his, but those of all of us. That's what I am getting to here. When theists tell us we can only get an understanding of morality from God, we challenge them on it and try to show them how patently false it is. In so doing  we take ourselves further and further from the person that they see as the law giver and this opens up the chance for them to claim we have no grounds to criticize them since we have gotten away from the one who makes right right. Perhaps what we need to do is just leave them with their assumption and say that we don't know where our moral instincts come from, and yes maybe their God did give us them. The point is that it doesn't matter, we have moral instincts which clearly work well enough for the majority of us not to be  mass murderers. As such, we have all rights to challenge the morality of the God that they claim set the rules.

Even if our basis for morality is borrowed, it is still every bit as valid and we have every right to use it and have confidence in it. If I am driving a car on the highway, I may claim the car is mine, someone else may claim it isn't. They may claim I borrowed it, rented it, even stole it. My parents may have handed it to me or I might have won it in a raffle.The fact is that none of that matters once I am driving it. I have the same rights and responsibilities as every other road user. You are obliged to give way to me if I have the right away,  you can't expect to run a red light to overtake me. It doesn't matter who owns the vehicle, who made it or how it got to me, it matters only who's behind the wheel. Once I have successfully passed my driver's test and have fulfilled all the legal obligations of the jurisdiction I am in, I have license.

August Berkshire- 'Does God put the moral instinct into our brain? If so, do his fingers slip during the rewiring?'

Speaking of morality and license. I have to mention August Berkshire here. He gave a memorable presentation at Imagine No Religion 2 on the topic of morality in the bible. It was one of those presentations that had the impact of making me gasp time after time. It was basically God and his criminal record  put together in Power Point. Forty two she bears led us off on what would inevitably become a very bloody parade. I don't know what it is, but there is something about seeing God's old testament tyranny on the big screen that makes it seem one thousand times worse than reading it on a lap top. After his presentation, you could be left with no other conclusion than that God is a monster. It was  the one presentation that weekend that I genuinely wished my Christian friends were there to see. For in spite of the horror presented, their was no twisting of the context of the stories to suit an agenda. It was just a retelling of what was right there in the book. It would be hard to know what they would have said in defence. He scoffed at the idea that God could be the one putting the morals in our brain. "Maybe his fingers slipped during the rewiring!" he quipped.  He ended by saying that if God existed and had the record that we read about in the bible, he should be the one praying to us for moral guidance. It was hard to disagree.

One other focus in August's presentation was the image of the photo above. The car he drives in his hometown in Minnesota proudly displaying "ATHEIST" on his license plate. He spoke of a few awkward discussions and hostile reactions at gas stations but he also spoke of the smiles and 'thumbs up' he got from many people, especially young people. It is heart warming to recognise that those of the future realise that the atheist label is one that we can display without fear wherever our travels may take us.

It is worth remembering that whatever its origin, whatever the car maker's name is, whoever is the mechanic, morality becomes our vehicle once we buy into it. We are also free to customise our plates to suit us. Once we are not breaking state laws, we have right of way. We are the one's in the driver's seat and unless you have evidence that we are not in control of our mental faculties, we have every right to be on the road and call you 'idiot' if you do foolishness and endanger others' lives. With all due respect, you are the ones that are driving under influence. You need to look at yourself in the mirror.You can't dismiss our rare view because your rear view says that our rare view can't tell you that you're wrong.

Given all that many of you believers think about us, it is a miracle that we actually still have models of morality that are allowed on the road. Especially given the fact that we, unlike you, are not eligible for 'Accident Forgiveness Insurance.'