Last night I went to a social gathering for Humanists. There was a new member there, an iranian woman, who took a few minutes to introduce herself and suggest that we should reach out to exile iranians and other immigrants, whom are often intellectuals and non-religious. It’s an interesting topic that I won’t spend more time on now, instead I would like to recount a funny anecdote she shared.

She is a teacher in one of the Stockholm suburbs that has the most immigrants. Her pupils are mostly muslims, with some christians thrown into the mix. And no, their parents obviously have absolutely no qualms about imposing labels on them. And the children propagate the labels happily, asking each other “Are you muslim? Are you christian?”

At one point, one of the children asked her, their teacher, “What are you?”. Something like the following exchange ensued:

Child: What are you?

Teacher: I’m sorry?

Child: What are you, are you muslim?

Teacher: No, I’m not a muslim.

Child: Are you a christian?

Teacher: No, I’m not a christian.

Child: But then what are you?!

Another child: I know what she is! She’s Swedish!

Oh, this is gold. It encapsulates one of Sweden’s greatest strenghts and faults in one. Religion has become such a marginal part of Sweden that it’s barely visible at all anymore. This is nice. But, it’s also the case that if you have any opinion at all on religion, you’re automatically too hardcore. Sure, people think deeply religious believers are a bit strange, but the converse is also true: If you take a stance against religion and other nonsense, you are a fundamentalist. Even simply calling yourself an atheist is a bit too strong.

No, the acceptable stance for a true Swede is … nothing. Don’t be a christian, don’t be a muslim, don’t be an atheist - just be Swedish…

sweden, atheism, religion

Today is Blasphemy Day.

I have no original blasphemy to contribute with, because all the clever things have already been said. Here’s a few samples.

There’s plenty more, but I think more than three videos in one post would be overkill. By the way, isn’t it odd how all my favourite comedians seem to be atheists? Is it the case that I find people more funny if they agree with me, or is it the case that intelligent, clever people are more likely to be atheists? I mean, frankly, I can’t remember having heard a funny comedian admit they believe in god.

blasphemy, religion, god, atheism, comedy

Aw crap. I waited too long and now Greta Christina already did what I was planning on doing - answering the questions recently posted on Friendly Atheist, questions purportedly intended to instill doubt in us atheists. Now obviously she’s not the only person to have done so but I bet if I were to read her post I’d feel it’s pointless to write my own. So I better hurry and finish this one! Here we go:

Historian Gary Habermas: “Utilizing each of the historical facts conceded by virtually all contemporary scholars, please produce a comprehensive natural explanation of Jesus’ resurrection that makes better sense than the event itself.”

These historical facts are: (1) Jesus was killed by crucifixion; (2) Jesus’ disciples believed that he rose and appeared to them; (3) The conversion of the church persecutor Saul, who became the Apostle Paul; (4) the conversion of the skeptic James, Jesus’ half-brother; (5) The empty tomb of Jesus. These “minimal facts” are strongly evidenced and are regarded as historical by the vast majority of scholars, including skeptics, who have written about the resurrection in French, German, and English since 1975. While the fifth fact doesn’t have quite the same virtual universal consensus, it nevertheless is conceded by 75 percent of the scholars and is well supported by the historical data if assessed without preconceptions.

I was under the impression that there’s very little evidence beyond the bible that Jesus even existed. But ok, I’m not a bible scholar, or a historian. So, for the sake of argument, let’s grant these “minimal facts”. First of all, facts 2, 3 and 4 are entirely incidental. What people believe makes no difference to reality. As for a tomb mysteriously emptying… Is that really so hard to imagine? I honestly don’t see how this would be compelling evidence for anything at all. Especially not the christian god. All we’re saying here is that a guy was executed, and then his corpse disappeared. So … uh … so what?

Philosopher Paul Copan: “Given the commonly recognized and scientifically supported belief that the universe (all matter, energy, space, time) began to exist a finite time ago and that the universe is remarkably finely tuned for life, does this not (strongly) suggest that the universe is ontologically haunted and that this fact should require further exploration, given the metaphysically staggering implications?

“And, second, granted that the major objection to belief in God is the problem of evil, does the concept of evil itself not suggest a standard of goodness or a design plan from which things deviate, so that if things ought to be a certain way (rather than just happening to be the way they are in nature), don’t such ‘injustices’ or ‘evils’ seem to suggest a moral/design plan independent of nature?”

1. No. Why should it? The puddle is shaped to the ground it lies on, not the other way around. If the ground was shaped differently the puddle would look different or not exist at all. Let’s just appreciate the fact that if the universe didn’t happen to be “finely tuned”, we wouldn’t be here.

2. No. We’re social animals and thus have a system of morals. We’re not the only ones but ours are arguably the most “advanced”, whatever that means. We’re the ones who have decided what is good or bad. And the problem of evil only arises because the christian god is supposed to have made us in his own image, which presumably means that what we think is “good”, he thinks is “good”. Which makes us wonder why he didn’t make the world “good”. Now if the christian god was just a general being, not affiliated with any particular species, I might be more inclined to believe… or not.

Talk show host Frank Pastore: “Please explain how something can come from nothing, how life can come from non-life, how mind can come from brain, and how our moral senses developed from an amoral source.”

Uh… how about … no? Because even if I had no idea how to answer any of those questions, I still really wouldn’t feel the need to have an invisible friend take care of them. See, I’m not worried about not having answers to everything. As it happens, I do have some clues as to how answer how life can come from non-life and the origin of morals. That this talk show host doesn’t just means he hasn’t looked for the answers.

Historian Mike Licona: “Irrespective of one’s worldview, many experience periods of doubt. Do you ever doubt your atheism and, if so, what is it about theism or Christianity that is most troubling to your atheism?”

That’s cheating, you were the one supposed to induce doubt in me, not ask what you might say to induce doubt! But to answer the question: No. There is absolutely nothing troubling in christianity or any theistic belief. It’s all crazy. Sorry! But it is!

Author Greg Koukl: “Why is something here rather than nothing here? Clearly, the physical universe is not eternal (Second Law of Thermodynamics, Big Bang cosmology). Either everything came from something outside the material universe, or everything came from nothing (Law of Excluded Middle). Which of those two is the most reasonable alternative? As an atheist, you seem to have opted for the latter. Why?”

Because there is as yet no evidence for the former.

I didn’t email Alvin Plantinga, considered by many to be among the greatest philosophers of modern times. But based on his assertion that naturalism is self-defeating, we could formulate this question (thanks to William Lane Craig for some of the concise wording): If our cognitive faculties were selected for survival, not for truth, then how can we have any confidence, for example, that our beliefs about the reality of physical objects are true or that naturalism itself is true? (By contrast, theism says God has designed our cognitive faculties in such a way that, when functioning properly in an appropriate environment, they deliver true beliefs about the world.)

Finally something interesting. You’re right - we can’t prove anything. That’s why science doesn’t deal with Truth. Only religions deal with Truth. We’re just trying to make models that seem to fit how the world works. Of course, everything we experience is filtered through our own senses and cognitive faculties, and those senses are very limited indeed. But by the same argument - they were selected for survival - I think it’s safe to say that what we experience is at least somewhat correlated with the “real world”. Otherwise, those experiences would be useless to us.

Either way, Plantinga’s argument is stupid. He’s essentially saying that since we can’t prove naturalism, we should default to the other idea. Why? Because it feels better to believe there’s Truth out there? Sorry, but that really doesn’t cut it. As long as there’s no evidence for the existence of any god, I’m going to default to naturalism. That I can’t even prove my own existence is philosophical nitpickery and really doesn’t bother me in the least.

So to wrap up. The interesting thing about these questions is that they pretty much confirm something most atheists already know: That we’re not the ones who need all the answers. Atheists are fine with unanswered questions. In fact, we thrive on them, at least those of us who are scientists. That several of these religious people thought that asking questions about the universe to which they knew or thought there were no answers only goes to show that that’s what they think we should fear.

I pity them, and I’m also vaguely embarrassed that this is the best they could come up with. I mean, come on. I could’ve answered these questions equally well ten years ago! When I was 15 years old!

Now to compare notes with Greta Christina…

religion, god, atheism, doubt, theism

One of my most popular posts on this blog is Answers From an Atheist, where I answered a load of questions about atheism. In the same vein, I recently received an e-mail from a christian creationist who said he had encountered this blog, and asked if he could “show me some things”. Shrugging off the slight creepiness of that question I responded that I’ll be happy to spar with him so long as the “things” he wanted to show me didn’t come from Answers in Genesis. I also requested permission to post our exchange on my blog. He didn’t say no, so, here we are.

Before we start: If anyone wants to take me to task for being condescending and snarky, go right ahead. I am being a bit condescending and snarky. This guy engaged me via e-mail, rather than on my blog, which to me implies he has something really important to say. He wanted me to take the time to listen to his arguments and respond to him personally. I agreed, hoping he actually had something interesting to say, and then he sends me these confused rhetorical questions. Although I try to maintain an upbeat, friendly tone throughout my response, I can’t help if some snark poured through as well. I’m sure he means well and I hope he gets back to me (although I can imagine it’ll take him some time to get through my rambling), because I do enjoy a good verbal one-on-one.

Oh and if anyone finds fault in anything I say, please call me on it. My response was hastily written and not particularly well researched (although I’ve obviously come across the subject of the origin of sexes many times, I haven’t read anything in-depth about it recently). I don’t think there’s anything ass-backwards about it but one can never be too sure.

And, finally, if you’re a non-atheist or non-biologist with questions, please do ask! I’m no expert on either area but I love pretending to be one…

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Are you willing to seek God’s existence? I certainly hope you do, because there IS evidence pointing to God.

This question is unanswerable except in the form of counter-questions:

1. Which “God” are you talking about? One of the many christian versions? Or any of the abrahamitic ideas of “God”? Or shall we branch out and include the gods of all living religions? Maybe, for good measure, the dead ones as well? I always thought grecian mythology was a hoot.
2. What evidence?
3. Do you realise it’s rather weird to ask someone to “seek” something before you present them with the evidence? Seeking God’s existence presupposes that he exists. Since I have no such presupposition, I look at the universe without religious eye-glasses, and see no evidence.
4. What do you mean by “willing”? I’m not unwilling to believe in god, I simply can’t believe in something that goes against the evidence. Are you “willing” to investigate the possibility that god actually doesn’t exist at all? Because believe me, the evidence is much better!

Do you believe the big bang formed the universe?

Since that’s the informed consensus of contemporary physicists, yes. It’s not my area of expertise so I’m happy to leave this question in more capable hands. Just like physicists are (for the most part) happy to leave the question about the evolution of life into the hands of biologists. Unfortunately, theologians often seem to do neither…

If so, then how come big bangs tend to cause detruction rather than creation any more?

I’m sorry, but what exactly do you think a “big bang” is? You seem to be confusing it with “explosion” or “loud noise”. As far as I understand it, the Big Bang was named such because it’s an easy visual - everything springing into existance at once, in a boiling hot soup of matter eventually coagulating into stars and planets. It makes our puny human minds think of explosions. But that doesn’t mean it actually was an explosion in the regular sense of the term. Besides, since the Big Bang entails something coming from nothing, and “something” is already in existence, the Big Bang can’t happen again, by definition - not in this universe, at any rate.

If the universe was formed by a big bang, things should still form by a big bang.

Non sequitur. If you were formed by your mother and father mating, you should still be forming by your mother and father mating. No? No. Something happening once does not necessarily mean it can and will happen again.

If I went to a junkyard, and got some old metal, and springs, then put them into a box, and shook it for a day, week, month, then a year, and all of a sudden BANG! A watch is formed by random chance, would you say that is logical?

“Logic” has nothing to do with it. This is about probability. And no, the probability of a watch being formed in that fashion is extremely low. What does this have to do with anything? I suspect that you think you’re saying something really smart about either evolution or the big bang, but I’m afraid you’re way off target - although I can’t say much about the big bang (as I said, I’m not a physicist), I can tell you that evolution is not purely driven by chance. Please look up “natural selection”.

One last question for now, What about reproduction? Let me explain: Almost all living organisms have to reproduce with one male, and one female. One connot carry life without the other. Which came first according to evolution? If the male evolved first, he could not have reproduced without the female, and vise versa How is it that both the male, and the female both randomly came into existance, ad they both evolved individual, and complex reproductive systems?

Ah, now, this question I can actually answer (to the degree that anyone can, I suppose)! See, reproduction is a very interesting part of life and its evolution, and one biologists spend a lot of time on (insert obligatory sex joke here). However, my answer will by necessity have to be rather brief and unsatisfactory, seeing as I don’t have time to 1. plow the literature for all the extra interesting tidbits or 2. write the series of books the subject deserves. Especially seeing as it’s already been done.

First of all, I’m glad you say “almost”, because … well, even with that caveat, you’re still completely wrong. Most living organisms are bacteria, and they do not have sexes - although they do carry out a fair bit of DNA exchange which may be seen as a sort of sexual behaviour. And among the sexually reproducing organisms, it’s still the case that when environmental conditions are stable, males are pretty much superfluous, so the idea that “one cannot carry life without the other” is also faulty. We’ll get to this in a bit.

So, how did sex start and why? First let me just say that obviously, we don’t KNOW. I’m going to present a hypothesis to you that is perfectly plausible, but I’m not saying it’s the gospel truth. The puzzle of how sex began is a big one, a whole field of research in itself. That you expect me to answer your question just like this says something about your disregard for the complexity and intricacy of biology as a research discipline.

Anyway. At some point, organisms evolved an ability and propensity for exchanging DNA with one another. What’s the benefit? According to one hypothesis, the benefit is evolution itself. Because the environment an organism and its decendants exist in is not static but ever-changing, carrying around the same old combination of genes for generation upon generation can be detrimental. Mutations that actually confer some sort of benefit are rare (most are completely neutral), and so organisms “invented” a way to introduce some variety.

This is the beginning of sex, and eventually it led to sex as we know it - where two gametes, each carrying half a genome, fuse to form a new individual. Since you’re specifically asking about how the sexes appeared, I’m not going to go more indepth about the theories of why organisms started having sex in the first place.

In the beginning of sexual reproduction, there were (probably) no males or females. Many species still don’t have sexes as we know them - there may be some small differences (we might call one individual +, another -), or in some cases, none at all. When there are no differences, everyone can mate with everyone in a free-for-all sex bonanza. However, reproduction is tricky and expensive - it costs time and resources. The more you invest in your offspring, the better your genes will fare in the next generation - but, the more you invest in each of your offspring, the fewer offspring you can afford to produce. So it’s not surprising that while some individuals evolved a propensity for creating large, well-supplied gametes, others evolved to “cheat”, producing small gametes that could fuse with the larger ones. Essentially, maleness and femaleness evolved side by side. If there’s a lot of female-type individuals around, producing a lot of big fat well-supplied gametes, it’s very advantageous to be a “cheater”, producing many small gametes that might fertilise the big ones.

The point is, the evolution of maleness and femaleness - as defined by gamete size and motility - is really not weird at all. It’s no more odd than considering the co-evolution of parasites and hosts, or symbiotic relationships. Remember that it all happened very gradually and not overnight. And remember that the organisms that first evolved these traits were not the kind of animals that you’re thinking of, which have a whole arsenal of secondary sexual traits that are not intrinsically male or female but simply tacked on throughout the course of evolution. Thus your comment about “individual and complex reproductive systems” is also faulty, as the original males and females were simply individuals that produced slightly different gametes.

And, for the record, this is still very true for many, many organisms. In the ocean, the easiest way to reproduce is simply letting your gametes float away in the water and hopefully meet some other gametes on the way - this is how for instance corals do it. They do not have “individual and complex reproductive systems” - some of them produce big fat eggs, some of them produce small swimming sperm. That’s it. You, on the other hand, happen to be a mammal, and since mammals have the most weird and complex secondary reproductive traits of all, you think that’s what it means to be male or female. Sorry to let you down.

(I would go into why secondary reproductive traits - including breasts, uteruses and vaginas - might look the way they do, but this is already very long, so I’ll leave it for another time.)

And to come back to the superfluity of males, there are plenty of examples of organisms where males have more or less disappeared. Either the females reproduce by parthenogenesis (or as you religious folk like to refer to it, “virgin birth”), or the males exist as very rudimentary attachments living like parasites on the female. Imagine a scrotum attached to a woman providing her eggs with sperm. How does parthenogenesis work? If the environment is stable over time and you don’t need a partner to help raise your offspring, no sexual recombination of genes is required to keep your offspring fit, and this means that wasting time and energy on finding a mate is a bad idea. Females that evolve a way to produce offspring without male aid thus produce more offspring than those who do require males, and eventually the males disappear. This is really not at all weird - after all, females have everything they need to produce offspring - large, well-fed gametes. All they need to do is put ALL of their DNA in a gamete, instead of just half. Piece of cake. Males on the other hand couldn’t create offspring on their own even if their life depended on it, as the gametes they produce quickly starve and die.

I have attached an essay on reproduction I wrote a couple of years back, which explores the incredible variety of reproductive strategies among animals. I’d recommend you read through it before replying as I hope it’ll give you some apprecation of the complexity of the subject before you slag me off for being too cursory.

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I obviously haven’t attached that essay to this blog post, but I do think I’m going to post it sometime in the fairly near future. Stay tuned.

religion, creationism, atheism, big bang, evolution, reproduction

Recent additions to my blogroll:

At Tetrapod Zoology, Darren Naish writes fun and informative posts about what’s starting to emerge as one of my favourite areas of biology.

KafirGirl is reading the Quran, so I don’t have to. Also, there are LOLmuslims. Really can’t beat that.

a Nadder!, written by Michael Fridman, is a little difficult to describe. It’s got a certain something, but I can’t quite tell what it is that sets it apart from other atheist blogs. Just go there and find out for yourself.

blogs

To me, being an atheist is perfectly natural. I’d describe it as “the obvious choice”, but it’s not even a choice - it’s simply my default state of being. I don’t believe I’ll convert anyone with this blog (and that’s not why I write), but I still think it might be pertinent to explain why I lack a belief in any kind of god. When pondering this question I realised that there are two ways to answer it: The historical perspective and the philosophical perspective. I thought I’d start with the former, since that makes more chronological sense. At some point I will list my main philosophical objections to religion.

I had a secular upbringing. I wasn’t taught that there were no gods, nor was I taught that god existed. God was simply a non-issue during my childhood. My parents are atheists, but I did not know this until I proclaimed I was one myself. As a child, I didn’t spend much time thinking about god, but I was intensely curious about the world - especially the living world.

There were books, about everything from the life of frogs and sharks, to how the universe works. I’d read them, again and again. The ones that were too complicated to read I would still open, to look at the pictures. Even back then I always preferred photographs to drawings. Although I could (and can) see the utility of diagrams to illustrate for instance the structure of a volcano, I found the photos of the actual smoke and lava a lot more interesting and satisfying to look at. In short: Even as a child, I thought nothing could beat the real world.

I still loved stories, though. I was a bit of a myth freak. The surreal and yet oddly gritty and down to earth Norse myths always amused me, as did the rowdy behaviour of the ancient Grecian gods. When I learned of the christian creation myth during my first years in elementary school, that’s what I thought it was - a myth. After all, we also learned about the Norse gods, and they were obviously make-believe. It never quite dawned on me that some people actually thought some of these stories were for real. (For the record, my teacher didn’t. My mum told me once that when she complimented that teacher for teaching us about religion in such an objective manner, the response was, “Well, I’m an atheist.”)

We drew pictures of the creator-god hovering over the land and water he had just created. He had white hair and a beard. Just like Odin was missing an eye and Zeus threw lightning bolts. Fictional characters with fictional attributes. “Let there be light” was no more realistic than the cosmic cow Audhumla nursing the giant Ymir from whose carcass Odin and his brothers would later create the world. And it was a lot less interesting.

Then we studied space, and made a timeline of evolution and human development. A painted landscape circled the room and we made little drawings of animals, pasting them into the landscape in the correct order. This, we knew, was not fictional. Trilobites and dinosaurs had been real. I had a small plastic t-rex and a big plastic brachiosaurus and a book that taught me that my budgerigars were actually dinosaurs too.

As puberty crept up on me and did its thing, I remember I occasionally prayed. By now it had been made clear to me that some people believed there was a higher power, and that it could help you if you prayed to it. So I tried. Praying, as I understood it, was talking to yourself or thinking, as if someone could hear you talk or think, someone who would care and who’d respond in some way. If you really, really wanted it. If you had an open mind. I opened wide and thought I was supposed to have some sort of revelation, some feeling that told me there really was someone out there, listening, caring. There was nothing. So what was the point of praying? I stopped trying.

Around the age of 13, dad gave to me a book* introducing me to evolutionary theory. It wasn’t a heavy textbook, but an introduction of evolution to the layman. When previously I hadn’t particularly thought about the concept much, simply being content with a vague idea of progression from one form to another, the slowly branching tree of life reaching ever upward, this book not only expanded my knowledge but kindled an intense passion for the subject. Such elegance, such beauty! How wonderful it is to think that each and every living being around me is connected to one another, back in time, through aeons of reproduction! How simple, how amazing an idea!

Another thing that happened was that I realised the power of science. A part of me had vaguely entertained the notion that perhaps there was some mysterious force that had started it all, even if it didn’t seem to particularly care about the outcome. As I read about evolution and some thoughts on how life may have first begun on earth, I realised that a question that is unanswered today might not be so tomorrow. I also realised that even if we never find out the truth about something, we might still be able to produce qualified guesses, models that at least explain how it might have happened - without having to invoke any supernatural forces. I realised, in short, that even the deistic concept of god (although I didn’t know that was what it was called at the time) was completely unnecessary.

At this point I was effectively an atheist. I had never had any real need for god as a personal saviour: My younger years were marked by safety and happiness, and by the time the road got bumpy during my teens, I was already strong and very independent. (Sometimes I think I have grown much softer since. I don’t know if I’d be able to face today what I faced nearly every day during my last years of elementary school.) Now, I no longer had a need for god as the ultimate explanation.

And when I realised, some time later, that there were people out to discredit my favourite scientific theory because they preferred the silly myth about the bearded man in the sky … that’s when I became an activist atheist.

* As it happens, this book was the swedish translation of River out of Eden by Richard Dawkins. It might just as well have been any other easily read explanation of evolutionary theory, but it wasn’t. Because of the great impact this book had on my personal development, Richard Dawkins has come to mean a lot to me personally. Which doesn’t mean I agree with everything he says or does - he’s someone I look up to and in many respects aspire to be like, but he’s not a prophet.

atheism, religion, science, childhood, myths

Over at EvolutionBlog, Jason Rosenhouse asks What is it With Hitchens? “Why is he so sensible and sharp when discussing religion, but almost perfectly brain-dead on every other issue?” Several commenters point out that Hitchens appears sharp only when you agree with him on the issues. The reason he is brilliant in debates with creationists isn’t because of the substance of his arguments, but because of his style. It is simply fortuitous that he happens to be right as well.

Now, it seems a lot of people view this as a bad thing. (One of the commenters at EvolutionBlog calls him a “poseur”, another points out that “it’s mostly just cheap rhetoric tricks and catch phrases that don’t penetrate the surface of the issue, repeated ad nauseum”. Although they also call his rhetoric “admirable”, I think their choice of words illustrates their ever so slight disdain of this kind of debating.) Us rational-minded people have this idealistic notion that it’s what people say that should matter, not how they say it. We want to think that anyone who knows a lot about evolution should be able to disembowel any creationist/Incompetent Design proponent they come across with simple facts. But, this is obviously not the case. I have personally come across at least one ID person who was simply too slick, too rhetorically polished for me to get a good grip around his metaphorical throat.

In short, it doesn’t matter if you’re right or not. When you enter a debate, especially one in front of an audience, what matters is your rhetorical clout. You need to have an arsenal of slogans and catch phrases, you need to be able to think on your feet, and you need to be able to put your opponent on tilt while avoiding the same thing happening to yourself. Hitchens can do this. Many others, including sometimes Dawkins, can’t. I think this might be one of the reasons why Dawkins advises against giving creationists the time of day: He knows that many of them are far more skilled debaters than most scientists, and that regardless of the fact that we’re right, we’ll come out of it looking bad.

And when it comes to winning over the minds of the public, it’s all about the looks.

Speaking of looking good, here’s a photo of me with some guy they pulled off the street to do the key-note address on the final day of the World Humanist Congress in Washington:

(Here’s the speech on youtube. One of the heads in the foreground is mine… and you can see the picture above get taken at the end of Part 2. I am … very embarrassed. I’m really not some total fangirl, I’m just very opportunistic. As it turned out, I could have waited with the picture: After the next part was over and we were standing in line at the hotel Starbucks, Hitchens came with a long queue of disciples fans eager to shake his hand and have their books signed trailing him (giving him a rather amusing mother goose-like appearance), and ended up just behind us in the line.)

debating, christopher hitchens, hitchens, dawkins, creationism

For those of you who don’t follow Greta Christina’s Blog (although I don’t understand why you wouldn’t, considering its excellent and original mixture of atheism and sex), at least go read her latest post: In Defense of Atheist Blogging:

Among many theistic commenters, there seems to be an odd expectation that every single post I write about religion should address every single aspect of religion that exists, or has ever existed. When I write about X, it’s pointed out that I didn’t write about Y; when I write about Y, I’m scolded for not writing about Z. (Or about X, for that matter.)

While I personally haven’t experienced that particular form of bizarre argument, I do recognise the following:

When atheist bloggers write about extreme, hard-core, fundamentalist- type religions, we get scolded for picking easy targets, and we almost inevitably have it pointed out to us (as if we didn’t know) that “not all religion is like that.”

But when we criticize progressive religions, we get scolded for being mean and divisive and going after people who should be our allies.

What’s more: When we criticize the overall concept of religion in general, we’re accused of over- generalizing, of not understanding the rich variety of religious belief and thought.

But when we criticize one particular form or aspect of religion, we somehow, once again, get accused of over- generalizing — of not seeing that the one form or aspect we’re talking about today doesn’t apply to every form or aspect of religion that exists or has ever existed.

So what on Earth are we supposed to do?

One point that I would like to make in addition to Greta’s fine post is that even though many atheists will happily argue with believers, I suspect that this is not the reason why most of us writes. There may of course be as many reasons for blogging as there are bloggers, but one thing that I think most atheists know is that you can’t convert another person to your own beliefs. You can try to make them convert themselves by encouraging them to think in a different way, but there’s very few religious people that are actually open to considering your actual arguments (and yes, I’m aware that religious people would probably say the same of us, even though I’d contend that allegation).

So why write? I think a large part of it is to compose our own thoughts and arguments into more cogent forms. Another is to connect with other likeminded people and share ideas, experiences and arguments with them. And a third is to reach those who have yet to decide what they think, or who are wavering in whatever belief they previously held and are exploring the options.

At least that’s what I think. I may of course be wrong, but so far I don’t think I’ve encountered any atheists, bloggers or no, that were actually out to convince religious people they were wrong. The arguments are not made for the sake of our opponents, but for those who are watching.

religion, science, atheism, blogging

A long time ago I told PatrikP I’d get back to his very long comment to a blog post of mine in a new blog post. Since then I’ve barely been blogging at all but now that I’m making some sort of effort at getting back into it, I’m going to make true my promise.

The patronizing attitude that just about always accompany the “enlightened” atheists’ description of believing persons (after all “even nice, intelligent christians are still, well, christians”) is both sad and not very constructive.

As an “activist atheist”, you quickly get used to the claim that atheists are arrogant. This claim comes from people who purport to know that there exists a being for which no evidence can be produced, who is all-knowing, all-powerful and who loves everyone equally and yet - depending on who you ask - is fairly likely to let me suffer in hell for all eternity, simply for being true to myself following the evidence instead of trusting in Invisible Sky-Daddy. And I’m the arrogant one?

This is (or was) a blog primarily written for humanists and atheists, so if the occasional sentence sounds patronising (matronising?) to someone who doesn’t agree with me, that’s really the way it has to be. I experience the same thing whenever talking to or reading a blog written by those who don’t share my views (and even fairly often when talking to those who do, simply because I’m young and female). In short? Suck it up, Patrik, and don’t take it personally.

Isn’t your question to Sandlund reversible? Isn’t it just as reasonable to ask a dedicated, utterly and completely convinced atheist (as yourself) the same question? How do you know that you really happen to believe in the right version of description of reality, when there are so many of them? Isn’t it problematic that you – and others who share your rigid opinions about the god-question – beyond any doubt whatsoever believe that your version of the construction and description of reality is by “empirical” definition the only corrrect one?

You assume way too much about how convinced I am that god doesn’t exist. My non-belief in god is about as strong as your non-belief in the Invisible Pink Unicorn. There might be a god, but there’s no evidence for that hypothesis, and hence I will consider it false until otherwise proven. Otherwise I’d have to believe in the existence of everything my mind could possibly come up with, since it is impossible to prove the non-existence of something.

Besides, my question to her was more specific, it was about how she knows that her version of christianity is correct. That is, I wasn’t asking her to compare her worldview’s strengths and weaknesses to everyone else’s - just the people who supposedly share the core tenets of her own, since they all use the same label.

Isn’t it also a bit arrogant to claim – or actually demand – the falsification of someone else’s conviction about the constitution of reality and at the same time deny any posibility that your own specific conviction is in any way near even the possibility of falsification – as is usually the case when the topic God is touched upon by Dawkins/Hitchens/Sturmark disciples? (Is a mind that excludes any possibilty of the falsification of its own presuppositions even close to the ideal of a humans being’s open mind being the main and most important tool for reasons’s search of a deeper and more truthful understanding of reality?)

If atheism could be falsified that would be lovely. If you think it’s arrogant to demand evidence for a positive belief, that’s really your problem, you know? I can’t help the way reality is constructed.

ETA: I’m an idiot. Of course atheism can be falsified. If god provided some nice evidence of its existance, atheism would be as falsified as they come. So far, this hasn’t happened, except according to the bible - and the Koran, and numerous other books and oral story traditions. Oddly enough, no miracles seem to happen in this modern era of communication, when it would be so easy for god to show vast numbers of primates that it really does exist… Ok now I’m rambling. The point is that the way many christians have “constructed” god, it’s impossible to falsify. It’s always one step away, hiding behind the next corner, and can never be studied in any meaningful fashion. And no, personal revelation is not meaningful, because it would rip holes in reality if everyone’s ideas about the world actually affected it…

Can one really claim intellectual consistency and honesty when one subject others’ understandings of the construction and understanding of reality to scrutinizing questioning (mainly directed at a christian perspective that there is a God who relates to people and humanity) and at the same time rebuke that the same questions can and should be asked about one’s own understandings, convictions and presuppositions? This usually seems to be the case when Dawkins/Hitchens/Sturmark disciples argue that their “empirically” defined reality is untouchably correct and all other by the same definition is false.

I’m sorry but it’s just not possible to ask the same questions about the non-existence of something as there is about the existence of something. Please tell me how we are to disprove the existence of the IPU. I’ve never heard either of the three you mention argue that our view of the world is “untouchably” correct - in fact it’s constantly revised, because, y’know, that’s what science is for. Creating a better and better model of the universe. This might mean that I have to seriously revise my understanding of reality if I happen to live in the time of a paradigm shift. Now, the only difference, I assume, between us and you, is that we’re materialists. We don’t believe anything exists outside or apart from the empirical world. This is, again, simply because we’ve seen no evidence to the contrary. Are you seriously proposing that we believe in everything we haven’t seen any evidence for?

It is a problem for the discussion that on the atheist’s side of the Swedish debate-arena today there seems to be a limited interest for important questions that connect to the way humans write, speak and relate to their inviroment and to reality. (Besides the physiological/neurological functions that cause or are caused by the human’s interaction with the enviroment that is.)

Usually there is little, if any, attention payed to for instance the understanding of human language and its functions in speech and writing, or to philosophical definitions of the realms of thinking, or to the fact that a theological question like that of theodicy cannot even be discussed outside of a theologically defined realm of thought, or to the fact that theological claims rarely claim what the regular secular Swedish atheist claim them to claim, or to the fact that there are massive amounts of thoughts by people like Kant, Kierkegaard, Sjestov, Dostojevski, Nietzsche and others that actually go into the depths of the questions concerning the constitution of human thinking about the human existential situation.

These are only a few of the questions that the average Swedish atheist of today usually don’t want to relate to, which causes a mindset about the world’s constitution that is constituated by the delusion that it isn’t a mindset but truth itself and that the own mindset is in no need of distinction or correction. The consequence usually being a complete lack on humbleness in relationship to other human beings’ understandings of reality, if their understandings are other than the atheists’ own. This in turn causes the less constructive patronizing attitude. The patronizing school of thought is quite apparent in the writings and speeches of Dawkins, Hitchens, Sturmark and their followers. It is not constructive, sad and at the same time baffling since the apparent lack of understanding of differing descriptions of reality usually comes from the ones that claim to understand the most.

Maybe it’s because I just got up but I’m afraid I simply don’t follow. All I can say is that different people come from different backgrounds and have different areas of interest and expertise. I’m just a biologist. I really don’t have time for Kant, Kierkegaard etcetera, because right now I have to give my all to resilience, and toucans.

I would like to suggest a reading of for instance Nietzsche, that deconstructed not only religion’s claims on absolute truth but also science’s absurd claims to constituate absolute truth (a short synopsis of one of his texts that relates to this topic is available in Swedish here: http://teologiforum.blogspot.com/2008/03/nietzsches-vad-betyder-asketiska-ideal.html).

Ok, I keep hearing that science has claims to absolute truth. When did “science” claim this? Seriously, Patrik, please provide me with sourced quotes.

There is no absolute truth. There’s only models of reality. Scientists who think they’re dealing with absolute truth are either religious in some way, megalomaniacs or simply poorly educated.

A more humble and less patronizing attitude toward eachother would help us all to make the world both better and more intelligble.

I’m sorry but I think your reply was every bit as arrogant as my post. And you know what? I really don’t care. We can still debate. Sure, in social interactions with people whom I know or suspect do not share my views, I’ll be a little more careful with my words, simply because I’m a tribal ape who don’t want to piss off the people I depend on. But in debates where we both know that the other thinks they’re right about something we strongly disagree with … it’s impossible not to come across to the other as arrogant, without mincing your words to such an extent that your own side will start seeing you as an appeaser.

So to those of you who think I’m too arrogant on my own blog, please grow a thicker skin or simply sod off. You could be doing something much more productive with your time than reading this god-forsaken mess! Why are you still here? Go out and enjoy the world!

And to those of you who reminded me to respond to Patrik, I’m sorry I couldn’t come up with something more profound than this. I really shouldn’t blog in the morning.

religion, science, christianity, atheism, humanism, arrogance

Because I seem to be suffering from an over-all writer’s block, and to make up for the missing Friday Pics, here is a cavalcade of photos that illustrate what sort of things have been taking up my spare time this spring.

Tiny tiny chickens:

Stockholm and beautiful spring weather:

Mountains of beekeeping supplies needing attention:

Planting of interesting varieties of elderberry and discovering beautiful critters:

The first true democratic assembly of the Swedish Humanist Youth Organisation:

Flowers and bees:

Please don’t give up on me. Next week I’m going to the World Humanist Congress in Washington D.C. That should yield some interesting blog topics and release me from my writer’s block!

bees, beekeeping, chickens, humanism, stockholm