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It's okay to be wrong. It's not okay to stay wrong.

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Global Atheist Con, Day 2: Sue-Ann Post

13 March 2010 / / 1 Comment

Sue-Ann Post is well-known to Australian audiences. One look at her will tell you she’s not just your average 6-foot-tall ex-Mormon lesbian comedian. She got the crowd going last night with her tales of the strangeness of Mormon belief, and the shows she’s done since her deconversion. “If you want to know why I’m a lesbian, just look at Mormon men!” she roared, to the delight of the audience and the discomfort of at least one erstwhile Latter-day Saint.

But all was forgiven today at the book signing. She gave me a congratulatory (regular) handshake when I told her of my deconversion, and she was very funny and gracious. She didn’t even mind when I mentioned that, while she mentioned the Mormon belief that God lives on planet Kolob, in fact Kolob is the star around which God’s planet orbits. She thought that was great, and it reminded me that Joseph Smith really came up with some whoppers.

Me and Sue-Ann Post

Global Atheist Con, Day 2: Goings-on

13 March 2010 / / 4 Comments

In the time between sessions, people grab food, buy books (everyone’s promoting a book here), and talk to each other. Check out the photo — that’s a lot of atheists, that’s for sure.

I used to think that atheists were usually ex-believers (because who else would care?), but here I’ve met quite a few folks who have never been religious and still identify closely with the aims (loosely defined though they are) of the atheist movement.

There’s quite a connection between political liberalism and atheism. There are but few conservatives here. There was a funny moment where Philip Adams asked for a show of hands: Who’s politically left-of-center? Thousands of hands. Everyone I could see. Conservatives? I couldn’t see everything from my vantage point, but I could see maybe one or two hands out of thousands. I think there are also more vegetarians. I wish there were a survey going around. It would say some interesting things about the more committed atheists, anyway.

I also met Sarah from the Australian Sex Party. Slogan: “Where you come first!” Yes, that’s right. In Australia, there are many political parties, and your vote is not wasted if you vote for a smaller party, because votes from non-winning parties flow on to your next preference. If America used Instant Run-off Voting, they could have a sex party too!

At first, I thought “Australia Sex Party. Right. Catchy.” I actually wondered what they were doing there, since it seemed kind of orthagonal to atheism. But when I read their platform, I thought, “Hey, wait a minute, I support lots of these!” They’re for things like:

  • Equal marriage for gay people
  • Convening a Royal Commission into child sex abuse in the nation’s religious institutions
  • No government-sponsored Internet filter
  • Better sex education in schools

which I think lots of atheists would be down with.

Me with Sarah from the ASP.

Atheist conservatives: here’s your chance to make yourselves known in comments.

Global Atheist Con, Day 1: Me and PZ

12 March 2010 / / 8 Comments

The Melbourne morning was bright and clear. I got into town early, found my hotel, and got ready for a weekend of godlessness at the 2010 Global Atheist Convention.

The first get-together was at Chloe’s (link possibly NSFW: nude painting). Too many secularists to count, all shouting to each other to be heard above the din.

PZ Myers was there, of Pharyngula fame. He’s been a blogging inspiration for me. The man’s a machine. He must do at least four blog posts a day. I asked how he did it. His advice: “Don’t rewrite. Just get it out there.” If I could write like he does when he gets going, I wouldn’t edit either.

Unlike me with Good Reason, PZ gets nasty commenters and hate mail. I asked if it bugged him. He immediately said, “No. I relish my role as Internet meanie.”

He battles with creationists regularly, but doesn’t mind the fight. “It’s not as though we’re fighting intelligence,” he says. “It’s not as though we’re fighting knowledge. We’re fighting stupidity. That’s a great thing.”

Afterward, I trammed my way to the convention centre. The GAC officially opened, and it was time for registration and welcomes. A surprisingly high proportion of people I talked to were actually from Perth, and I’d never met them before.

The talks take place in an enormous hall. It was strange to see it crammed full of thousands of people, and to realise that probably just about all of them are atheists. I’ll bet everyone has a story about how they came to be an atheist. Probably a lot of deconversion stories there.

Tomorrow, the talks start in earnest, and I’ll try to blog as many of them as I can.

Daniel font: Words in the clouds

11 March 2010 / / 1 Comment

Word It Out offers a way to make frequency-based word clouds based on word lists or web pages. And they’re using the Daniel font, so you can see your text in my handwriting.

Here’s a word cloud based the words appearing on Good Reason as of yesterday.

"Good Reason"
Click on the link above to see this word cloud at WordItOut. You may also view it on this website if you enable javascript (see your web browser settings).

Word cloud made with WordItOut
Gee, I blog about religion a lot, don’t I?

Talk the Talk Twofer: Cave signs

10 March 2010 / / Comments Off on Talk the Talk Twofer: Cave signs

Two scintillating interviews for your enjoyment, all featuring me, and the charming and talented Jamie MacDonald.

First, from the 23 February show: Stroke patients, unable to speak, have re-learned to say words and phrases by singing them instead of speaking.

It’s already been shown that speech and music operate somewhat independently, and some linguists think language might have evolved via music.

Click to listen:

Next, from the 2 March show, a look at cave signs. Why should cave art get all the attention? Researchers from the Uni of Victoria have noticed that some non-representational markings turn up in caves all across Europe. Did they have an agreed-upon meaning? If so, it would mean that the beginnings of a writing system (and the cognition needed to power same) would have happened far earlier than heretofore supposed. When researching this topic, I expected to find a language myth ripe for debunking, but I think it’s pretty solid and the claims are presented fairly modestly.

Click to listen:

I’m on about 5/6ths of the way through the stream. Watch out; it starts playing as soon as the page loads.

Why I am not an Anti-Mormon

8 March 2010 / / 6 Comments

In recent weeks, the term ‘Anti-Mormon’ has been applied to me. I think this is a mislabeling. I’m not ‘an anti-Mormon’. Here’s why.

1. I’m not anti-Mormon in particular, I’m anti-Every-Religion. I take a contrary view on all religions because they’re non-empirical systems. They get their data not from real-world observation, but from revelations. Maybe something good can come from that once in a great while, but it ain’t knowledge. Science leads to knowledge.

2. The label ‘Anti-Mormon’ is used by Mormons to dismiss critical arguments instead of dealing with them. ‘Oh, you’re anti.’ There. Done. It’s usually assumed that the ‘anti’ is irrationally and implacably ‘anti’, and…

3. I’m not. I’m critical of religious views (Mormon and otherwise) up to the very second that they offer evidence for their claims. In most cases they can never do this because the claims aren’t falsifiable (like ‘god exists but he’s hiding from you’). But I’m still open to evidence on the claims that are falsifiable.

My duty as a critical thinker is to keep the door open. Which is why I do this blog. Anyone can come and provide the evidence that will change my mind. And I’ll do it. I’ve changed my mind before, you know. I will go wherever the evidence leads. But it’s not leading there.

Dismissing Book of Mormon problems

7 March 2010 / / 295 Comments

I’ve been reading the work of one Michael R. Ash, an apologist with the Mormon Times. He may have overcome ‘shaken faith syndrome’, but he’s made the mistake of embracing the more dangerous ‘True Believer syndrome’ — a troublesome but common condition that involves the epistemological gymnastics you perform when you’ve decided to defend a belief system no matter what, instead of trying to find out what’s actually true.

In his latest posting, he tries not to advance a theory of Book of Mormon geography — that would require the use of pesky facts — but instead to dismiss inaccuracies in Book of Mormon geography. The title: ‘Dismissing Book of Mormon geography inaccuracies‘.

One issue that relates in important ways to Book of Mormon geography is the human composition of the ancient Americas. The traditional LDS folk-belief asserts that the Lehites arrived to a nearly vacant New World, with the possible exception of some Jaredite survivors and the Mulekites. This tradition implies that virtually all Native Americans are descendants of exclusively Book of Mormon peoples.

Folk-belief. I remember LDS folk-belief, but it was always stuff like “If you’re fat, you’ll be resurrected as a fat person.” or “An elephant’s spirit looks like an elephant.” Can it still be folk-doctrine if it’s in the scriptures? Or taught by Joseph Smith, or someone else that you could be accused of apostasy if you ignore. Well, to Mr Ash, if a prophet said it, and then reality contradicts it, the prophet wasn’t wrong — it was ‘folk-belief’ all along.

I must say, I find his approach a bit prestidigitatious. Like cherry-picking in reverse.

Okay, so how did Mormons get the silly idea that place was vacant except for migrating Hebrews?

1. The Book of Mormon narrative never mentions anyone but the putative Hebrew inhabitants. If the place was crawling with people before any Hebrews arrived, the Mulekites and Nephites never ran across them.

2. The Book of Mormon explicitly states that the knowledge of the land was kept from other people.

And behold, it is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations; for behold, many nations would overrun the land, that there would be no place for an inheritance.

3. Church leaders taught it. Two examples of many:

“We beleive that the existing Indian tribes are all direct descendants of Lehi and his company, and that therefore they have sprung from men all of whom were of the house of Israel.”
– Apostle James E. Talmage, The Articles of Faith, p.293

“With pride I tell those who come to my office that a Lamanite is a descendant of one Lehi who left Jerusalem some 600 years before Christ and with his family crossed the mighty deep and landed in America. And Lehi and his family became the ancestors of all of the Indian and Mestizo tribes in North and South and Central America and in the islands of the sea, for in the middle of their history there were those who left America in ships of their making and went to the islands of the sea.” Spencer W. Kimball, “Of Royal Blood,” Ensign, July 1971

Were they wrong? Mormon apologists like Ash would like us to think so (and in fact I agree, but for different reasons). But if Mormon leaders are considered to be authoritative on many other matters pertaining to Mormon doctrine, doesn’t it seem a bit convenient to downplay only some of the things they say just because they’ve been refuted by evidence?

Back to the article.

Early American settlers were fascinated with the fact that the New World was already inhabited by indigenous people. From where did these people originate? A number of frontiersman theorized that the Indians were remnants of the ten lost tribes of Israel. At first blush, this theory seemed to fit fairly well with the overall story of the Book of Mormon, however, the Book of Mormon peoples did not purport to come from any of the “lost tribes.“

More sleight of hand. It’s true that the Book of Mormon doesn’t say they’re from the ‘lost tribes’, but it does say that they’re Hebrews. And if that’s the case, why don’t we see (for example) Hebrew or Egyptian writing on artifacts, any evidence of sacrifices pertaining to the Mosaic law, or any evidence from genetics, linguistics, anthropology, or archaeology?

If Mr Ash wants to do something useful and advance knowledge, he can come out and give his list of the most likely candidate sites for any aspect of Book of Mormon geography, according to the best evidence we have. If he can get his work published in a peer-reviewed journal, so much the better. But I doubt he will. Apologists don’t try to advance ideas. They just try to hide from the facts, take refuge in uncertainty, sing the faithful to sleep, and scrub the record of any statements from authorities that have turned out to be wrong.

Missionary chats: What finally did it?

5 March 2010 / / 49 Comments

I was talking to one of the Elders. Smart guy. He was aware of the difficulty of trying to believe something that doesn’t mesh. I think lots of missionaries feel that way.

Let’s say your faith is like a building, and you find a problem with the doctrine. You don’t want to trash the whole building, so you build around the problem. But after doing this for a long while, the structure begins to look rather byzantine and arcane. And haphazard. He called it ‘Spiritual Jenga’, which I quite liked.

He asked me, “So what was it that finally did it for you?”

I explained that it was a cumulative process. I became aware of cracks in the plaster, then more and more structural problems until the whole thing came down, despite my best efforts.

“But was there one thing?” he asked.

Well, there was, but it was going to sound stupid.

“Go ahead,” he said.

It was the Tower of Babel.

I’m a linguist, and the idea that all human language diversity came about in the last X-thousand years is not really plausible. The Babel story is clearly a legend to explain the diversity of languages. Lots of cultures have these myths.

But if you’re a Latter-day Saint, you can’t excuse it by saying it’s figurative. According to the Book of Mormon, the Brother of Jared was a real person who was there at the time, and got his family and friends out. The Book of Ether follows their exploits to the New World. You can’t dismiss it. You have to take it as literally as anything in the Book of Mormon.

Well, that pushed the by-now-rickety Spiritual Jenga tower over like a big clumsy housecat. It was a clear and irreconcilable case of Something Not Fitting. It was wrong, and I could see that it was wrong, and there was no way around it.

And even if you’re not a Mormon, you’re not off the hook. Is the Tower of Babel literal or figurative? If it’s literal, where’s the evidence? If it’s figurative, how do you know that? After all, it’s presented as factually as anything in the Bible. What else is figurative? Moses and the Red Sea? Walking on water? The resurrection? If you don’t believe in those things literally, then you have a lot in common with this atheist.

So that was it.

How about you?

Bibles for porn

5 March 2010 / / 2 Comments

A pretty edgy idea from Atheist Agenda at the University of Texas at San Antonio: Smut for Smut!

The concept: Trade in a holy book, and get some porn! I think it’s brilliant. Get those Bibles, Qur’ans, and Hubbard books off the streets where they’ll just harm somebody. Those things are full of the most vile misogyny, sex, and violence.

Pornography on the other hand, while not wonderful, is at least better than religion in a few important aspects:

  • Nobody pretends that a god is behind their porn, and that if you don’t accept it, you’ll be damned.
  • Nobody’s ever had a holy war over what kind of porn is better.
  • Nobody tries to legislate other people’s behaviour on the basis of their pornographic values.
  • Unlike religion, there are laws against exposing people to porn if they’re too young for it.

Theologians of the week

28 February 2010 / / 7 Comments

Here are some stories of faith from the news this week. I won’t say they’re heart-warming, but they will raise your temperature.

• Miss Beverly Hills 2010 Lauren Ashley reminded us that yes, the Bible really does say that gay men should be killed.

“The Bible says that marriage is between a man and a woman. In Leviticus it says, ‘If man lies with mankind as he would lie with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death and their blood shall be upon them.’ The Bible is pretty black and white.”

By Jove, she’s right. Of course, Deuteronomy says that you should kill anyone not of your religion. Wonder why she didn’t mention that?

Well, even though she didn’t take it all the way, you must admire her courage in not soft-pedaling her holy book.

• Evangelical Christians in Haiti attack a vodou ceremony, and the vodou leader is not pleased.

Some of the fresh converts have said they did so because they believed God caused the earthquake.

“It will be war – open war,” Max Beauvoir, supreme head of Haitian voodoo, said in an interview at his home and temple outside the capital.

“It’s unfortunate that at this moment where everybody’s suffering, that they have to go into war. But if that is what they need, I think that is what they’ll get.”

…
“I would like to see each one of them tied up in ropes and thrown in the sea, and I hope the best of them will be able to catch a plane and run away and leave in peace,” the voodoo priest said. “Because this is what we need right now — peace.”

Which is more notable: the Haitians Christians for their commitment to religious tolerance? or Mr Beauvoir for his dedication to the cause of peace?

• A Christian couple in California is up for murder for killing their daughter, who challenged their god-given authority by mispronouncing words from a book she was reading.

Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz, the Paradise couple accused of murdering their 7-year-old adopted daughter during a discipline session last Saturday morning were arraigned in court Tuesday. The couple is also charged with the torture of their 11-year-old adopted daughter, who remains in critical condition at a Sacramento hospital, and a misdemeanor count of cruelty to a child for signs of bruising discovered on their 10-year-old biological son.
…
Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey said both girls sustained extensive bruising and whip-like marks on their bodies that were consistent with a 15-inch length of rubber or flexible plastic tubing – commonly found in toilet tanks.

This method of discipline is favoured by Michael Pearl of the ‘No Greater Joy‘ ministry. From the Pearl link:

This is a practical look at spanking children. Parents must understand that spanking is just one element in God’s child training program. It is essential, but is not the whole—only a part. Nor is it the most important part. Important yes, but not all-important.
…
What instrument would I use?
As a rule, do not use your hand. Hands are for loving and helping. If an adult swings his or her hand fast enough to cause pain to the surface of the skin, there is a danger of damaging bones and joints. The most painful nerves are just under the surface of the skin. A swift swat with a light, flexible instrument will sting without bruising or causing internal damage. Many people are using a section of ¼ inch plumber’s supply line as a spanking instrument. It will fit in your purse or hang around you neck. You can buy them for under $1.00 at Home Depot or any hardware store. They come cheaper by the dozen and can be widely distributed in every room and vehicle. Just the high profile of their accessibility keeps the kids in line.

Pearl (and the Schatz’s) is only following the biblical doctrine that if you train a child up in the way they should go, they will not depart from it. Also, that children need to submit to ‘the rod’ — after all, they won’t die (unless they do), and you’ll save their soul from hell. If a parent needs to give their children regular thrashings so they’ll continue in the religion of their parents — well, this simply shows the difficulty of raising godly children in these secular times.

If you’re interested in NGJ Ministries, why not check out their Facebook group?

• Also in parenting news, a Baltimore mom is on the stand for starving her one-year-old for not saying ‘amen’ at a mealtime prayer. You wouldn’t think a child that age would be saying much at all, but it took a perceptive religious leader to notice that the child had an evil spirit.

Ramkissoon told the tale of her son’s excruciating death from the witness stand on Wednesday, at the trial of the woman she says told her not to feed the boy. Queen Antoinette was the leader of a small religious cult, according to police and prosecutors, and she faces murder charges alongside her daughter, Trevia Williams, and another follower, Marcus A. Cobbs.

Many parents have let their children die for lack of medical treatment due to their religion, but this story stands out for the mother’s unquestioning faith that her baby could be raised back to life, New Testament-style.

Javon died in either December 2006 or January 2007; Ramkissoon isn’t sure of the exact date. His body was hidden in a suitcase for more than a year and has since been buried. But even now, she maintains her faith in his resurrection.

“I still believe that my son is coming back,” Ramkissoon said. “I have no problem saying what really happened because I believe he’s coming back.

“Queen said God told her he would come back. I believe it. I choose to believe it,” she said. “Even now, despite everything, I choose to believe it for my reasons.”

Later, she acknowledged that her faith makes her sound crazy. “I don’t have a problem sounding crazy in court,” she said.

Even though the sunk-cost fallacy virtually ensures that the mother will never break free of her delusion, she makes the list for her devotion and unquestioning faith in her religious leader and the healing power of the resurrection.

We’ll be back with even more stories of faith in the near future.

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