by Johanna.
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“Me against my brothers. Me and my brothers against my cousins. Me and my brother and my cousins against our tribe; our tribe against all other tribes, all our tribes against the world.”

— Sherri Tepper, The Companions

It’s a familiar sentiment. I’m sure each and every one of you considers yourself to be a part of several different groups. We define ourselves by our families, our nationalities, our political and religious beliefs. Furthermore, we self-segregate along these lines. We’re more comfortable in the company of those who share similar histories, opinions, and beliefs. We like being around people like ourselves, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Unfortunately, our tendency to group together usually goes way beyond recognizing and appreciating similarities. The problem arises when people start to elevate their own groups and devalue others. Rather than saying “I belong to this group and you belong to that group and that’s fine”, people say “I belong to this group and you don’t, and therefore you are less than me”. It’s a natural instinct, this type of thinking, but it’s completely irrational and, worse, it’s dangerous.

Humans have an innate desire to rationalize our behavior. It probably developed in relation to language. Somewhere along the lines, we started caring why we do things. We progressed from “I did this” to “I did this because.” The problem is that all too frequently, we do it backwards. We attempt to rationalize our motivations rather than attempt to base our motivations on rationality. In fact, it often seems that this backwards way of going about life is our default state.

Most of the thought process is subconscious: “They are unfamiliar, so they must not be of my group. If they are not of my group, then they are a threat to my group. If they are a threat to my group, they must be stopped.” We’re left to rationalize this feeling of fear and anger toward the other group. We come up with reasons that sound acceptable to us — they want to steal our jobs, destroy the moral fabric of society, kill everyone in our group.  Every group has its own specific set of perceived threats that it feels vulnerable to, and unfortunately, very little thought is given to the veracity of these threats.

There are leaders that know about these tendencies and deliberately use them against you. This kind of thinking — this instinctual need to defend your territory against encroaching groups — is a weakness and a distraction. I’m not denying that there are actual dangers out there; threats to the freedom and well-being of yourself and others. There are, however, a great many things that pose no actual danger to the groups concerned about them. The majority of ways in which groups are different from one another are completely irrelevant in terms of anything other than categorization.

Politicians and religious leaders are well-versed in polarizing topics. They know how to create enemies that will unite their constituency, and they know what language to use to make these irrelevant differences seem like dangers. They know how to misdirect your attention away from real threats that they don’t know how to defend against. While you’re concerned about whether or not your neighbor speaks the same language as you, there are people spewing brainwashing hate speech in your own native tongue. While you’re wondering which immigrant is stealing your job, there are CEOs receiving huge bonuses for taking away people’s pensions. While you’re worrying about which consenting adults are allowed to start families together, there are children being kidnapped and forced into slavery and prostitution. While you’re pondering who’s going to hell because they follow the wrong interpretation of a collection of fairy tales passed down from the Bronze Age, there are people whose actual lives aren’t so different from that hell you’re imagining.

These  groups we assign ourselves to are entirely arbitrary. We’re like Dr Seuss’s star-bellied Sneetches, assigning significance to superficial details. Some methods of categorization are guiltier of this than others, of course. Defining oneself by one’s political or religious beliefs, for example, at least says something about a person’s opinions, but categorizations like race and sexuality only speak to a specific, relatively inconsequential aspect of a person.

We’re only human. We can’t worry about everyone, and we certainly can’t get along with everyone. Categorizing ourselves may well be the only way we can deal with one another. Using these categories as an excuse to antagonize one another, however, is unacceptable. All too often we allow our group identification, however arbitrary it might be, to dictate our motivations and rationalize after the fact. Yes, it’s easier, but laziness is a terrible reason to hate people. Asking people not to hate at all is a tall order, I know, but at the very least set your baser instincts aside and think about whether or not there’s any factual basis for your feelings. Our brains are what elevate us from being instinct-driven pack animals; let’s use them.

Johanna is a member of CVA. The views expressed in this post are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of Connecticut Valley Atheists or its individual members.

by mr dan
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Park51: formerly known as the Cordoba House, but known among idiots as the Ground Zero Mosque.  The proposed Islamic Cultural Center in Manhattan that doesn’t sound much different than a YMCA is really just local zoning non-issue that has started a national uproar over free speech, minority rights, and bigotry at large.  I had wanted to stay out of the debate over the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” largely because I didn’t want to step on the toes of Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow, who I think have done an exemplary job of demonstrating the absurdity of this made-up election year conflict.  But the controversy just won’t go away.

A few quick facts for those of you who only crawl out from under your rock to read this blog:

• It’s not a mosque.
• It’s not at Ground Zero.
• It used to be a Burlington Coat Factory.
• There are already mosques in Manhattan.
• There is no link between the project and any known terrorist organization.
• It’s not a terrorist training center.
• Even if it were, terrorists have never needed proximity to their target in order to plan an attack.

Many voices have come out against the project, including some that I greatly respect, such as Sam Harris and Pat Condell.  But I think the argument that if we let Muslims build a building then somehow extremists and terrorists win is simply ludicrous.

Atheists are somewhat used to being told that we are insensitive to mention our views in certain companies or vicinities.  Billboards and holiday displays promoting free thought have been criticized, and in most cases promptly vandalized, all across the country. And when we in Connecticut Valley Atheists legally erected a display on the town green in Vernon, CT, between the nativity scene and Christmas tree, we were told that our outrageous and inappropriate views had no place in the public square.

By the time it was well-established that there was no logistical reason whatsoever to deny the building permits for the Cultural Center, it became very trendy to say, “Of course they have the right to build it, but that doesn’t mean it’s appropriate.”  Where have I heard that before?

Polls show that a majority of Americans oppose the project,  but those polls in particular are even more useless than most due to of the staggering ignorance of the general population on this issue.  To hear your average American tell it, Osama bin Laden is founding a terrorist training facility in the shadows of 9/11, and the president has given it his thumbs-up because he is a half-breed Muslim with terrorist sympathies.  Have you forgotten that his middle name is Hussein?

Interestingly, polls show that New Yorkers are against the project, but that Manhattan residents tend to support it.  I wonder if that’s because they live there and know the facts, or because they know that Islam is already a part of that community.  None of the polls really matter, though, because rights are not democratic, and the center is going to stand there whether the closed-minded fools like it or not.

Republicans have tried to turn this into a partisan political issue, but were thwarted by the fact that half of the Democrats in this country are either non-thinkerrs themselves, or have given in to the xenophobia of their constituents.  Oddly, this is exactly the sort of local zoning issue that conservatives would normally want the big bad federal government to stay out of, yet it seems appropriate to them to make this into a national debate.  Bigotry has a funny way of turning a person’s worldview upside-down.

Five years ago a Danish newspaper published some cartoons of the Islamic prophet Muhammed, an act which Muslims say is blasphemy.  Many Muslims were outraged and some responded with threats and violence.  People on all points of the religio-political spectrum shook their heads, and said, “why are you being so sensitive?”

Now some different Muslims plan to build a cultural center which is vaguely near the site of a terrorist attack perpetrated by a relatively tiny number of extremist Muslim terrorists, and people on all points of the religio-political spectrum are shaking their heads and saying, “why are you being so insensitive?”

Opponents of Park51 vehemently deny that Islamophobia is the root of their objection. but considering that Mosques and other Muslim buildings are facing opposition all across the country, and that the Pew Research Center recently reported that the percentage of incompetent Americans who believe that President Obama is a follower of Muhammed has risen to 18%, and that the Dove World Outreach Center, a non-denominational Christian church in Gainesville, FL, is sponsoring International Burn a Koran Day, and that there is really no logical reason to oppose the center, I think anti-Islamic sentiment has to account for at least a good chunk of this wave of yahoos.

I did not arrive at this conclusion because it’s politically correct or because I fear the reaction I’ll receive from Muslims if I object – in fact, I’m much more likely to earn a harsh and frightening backlash for supporting the project.  But as an atheist I am committed to religious freedom, because only if ideas are free and open can they be examined, scrutinized, criticized and rejected.  I’ll criticize any religion, including Islam, if and when I feel it is necessary.  Islam is a religion which, like Judaism and Christianity, is based on myths, superstitions and lies, and has barbaric, deadly and dehumanizing rules which most of its modern followers ignore.  That the religions themselves are sick and dangerous doesn’t mean the peaceful followers who ignore those passages shouldn’t be able to obtain a simple building permit.

Suppressing any and all views is the easiest way to slide into tyranny, a system in which the best-armed philosophies, not the most peaceful or rational, will rule over all others, and opposing the non-Ground Zero non-Mosque is the easiest way to make yourself look like a prize bigot.

mr dan is vice president of CVA. The views expressed in this post are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Connecticut Valley Atheists or its individual members.

by Johanna
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Sticks and stones may break my bones, but calling me names? That’s just annoying. I’ve been called a lot of things for a lot of different reasons, but one of the most common ones is “angry atheist”. It’s pretty tame compared to some of the other hateful words that get slung around in reference to different groups, but what really gets to me is the dismissive quality it has. It’s a subtle insult, sure, but it has the effect of thoroughly discounting anything I might have to say. I’ve started taking it as a sign that the person using the term has no interest whatsoever in any argument I’m prepared to make. My opinions are invalidated, apparently, by the fact that I’m just another angry atheist.

This is wrong for a number of reasons. For one thing, it implies a causation where there’s merely correlation. I’m not an atheist because I’m angry. I didn’t wake up mad at God and decide to stop believing in him; that doesn’t even make sense. I’m also not angry because I’m an atheist. When I am angry, it’s because of things like injustice and ignorance and insult.

Atheism isn’t a type of belief, it’s a lack of belief. Yes, the lack is notable and significant enough in our society that it requires a designation in order to differentiate it from all the various types of actual belief, but the word serves to indicate that there is nothing where one might expect to find something. It’s a word like “bald”; baldness isn’t a type of hair. You can’t have long bald hair or brown bald hair or curly bald hair. Baldness is nothing where hair is expected to be. To be an atheist means to have no belief where belief in gods is expected to be.

So when I get angry over a law with a clear religious bias, it’s not because of my atheism that I’m mad. It’s because of something tangible, something that exists, like my sense of fairness or rationality. Being an atheist gives me a clarity that someone who believes in a higher power who’s given conflicting commands on what constitutes proper thoughts and behaviors wouldn’t necessarily have, but it doesn’t inform my opinion. I don’t support same sex marriage or animal rights because I don’t believe in a god, I do it because of many of the things I do believe in, like equality and liberty.  The fact that I don’t believe equality or liberty are superseded by the whims of some higher power is only worth mentioning because so many other people do believe that.

Also, for the record, even if my atheism was the source of my anger, there’s no reason for that to invalidate my opinions. My lack of belief doesn’t suddenly become unreasonable just because I’m pissed off. A black person can be upset about racism and be correct that racism is wrong at the same time. So can a white person, for that matter. If a Jewish person is angry about the events of the Holocaust or neo-Nazism, that anger is justified and in no way negates their opinion on the subject. I’ve never heard anyone suggest otherwise, but somehow when it comes to atheism, any hint of anger is used as evidence that we’re being utterly irrational.

The problem with this kind of dismissive language is the way it’s used to completely circumvent any valid arguments or concerns. It doesn’t just happen to atheists, either. Feminists just hate men, so there’s clearly no need to listen to our concerns about the relative lack of women in power.  Those bleeding-heart liberals just feel sorry for people, so they clearly have nothing to bring to the table. The poor are just lazy and stupid, so there’s no reason to treat them like human beings. Dismissive language is the absolute laziest way of perpetuating the status quo. If you’re so comfortable with your life that you can afford to be so dismissive of other people’s efforts to better the world, you’re either very lucky or have very low standards. Either way, the next time you find yourself referring to someone as “just another” anything, stop and ask yourself if that really invalidates their philosophy, or if you just wish it did.

Johanna is a member of CVA. The views expressed in this post are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of Connecticut Valley Atheists or its individual members.

by mr dan
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So I went to a church wedding this weekend.  Now, before you jump to conclusions, this isn’t going to be a stupid “why do you have to flaunt your religion in front of everyone” rant.  When two Christians get married, there’s no reason at all why they shouldn’t do it in a church with a pastor or a priest who talks about Jesus as much as the newlyweds request.

But I have to add my touch of skepticism to the notion, repeated some egregious amount of times during the ceremony, that love is God’s plan for us, and that any couple’s love for one another is merely an embodiment of their love for God.  Because whether anyone out there wants to admit it, faith is something that can change.  And if you build your love around your faith, what happens when one of you has an intellectual awakening and realizes you’ve been following the wrong faith, or that they’re all wrong?

When I entered the building, I saw a very modest meeting house of some non-denominational store-brand Christianity. Much larger than it needed to be, but with just one plain wooden cross in the front and a hell of a pipe organ in the back.  I didn’t think it was going to be so bad.

The reverend began by addressing the fact that although those gathered may represent all different faiths, creeds, philosophies and political views, we are all one because we worship the same God.

So, okay, I feel a little excluded, but whatever: he’s a reverend. It’s his job to try to make us all think we think the same things.  And it’s my job to sit there, smile, and not point out to anyone that a) it’s not true, and b) there’s no difference between a faith and a creed.  Less bible, more thesaurus. So I just kept my mouth shut, and avoided eye contact with the one bridesmaid who I knew agreed with me, for fear of causing her to erupt in laughter at what was obviously an inappropriate time for hysterics.

Then the groom’s aunt read the entire 13th Chapter of the first letter to the Corinthians.  This is the part of the Bible that has all those run-on sentences about how awesome love is.  Perhaps you’ve seen it on a tramp stamp near you.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

1 Cor 13:4-6

Basically, Mel Gibson has never been in love.  The chapter concludes,

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

1 Cor 13:13

Well, it’s certainly refreshing to hear the man who practically invented Christianity say that love is better than religion and optimism.  And it is, truly.

But the reverend obviously felt the need to counter this by incessantly reminding the wedding party and their guests that love is a godly thing, and that the bride and groom’s love for one another is merely a characteristic of their love for god, and that the goal of their union, is to continue to love god and Jesus.

I kept thinking to myself as he spoke that the very same book, 1 Corinthians, also says that marriage is only something to fall back on if you can’t manage celibacy (7:1-2), that slavery is totally cool because we’re all free in God’s heart (7:21-22) and that women shouldn’t speak in church (14:34-35) or even cut their hair short (11:5-6).

How can anyone think that the advice of Paul of Tarsus, who had such twisted views about the world and who himself never married, is something to base your love on?  I certainly can’t claim to be an expert on love, but I know it has to do with the way two people feel about each other. It has nothing to do with their gender or their race or their adoration for a supposed higher power.  Love can and does exist between atheists, between agnostics, between Jews and Muslims and Buddhists, and in any and all combinations.  A godless love is no less real or true.

And to the happy couple, I wish you countless years of merriment, whether Christ is in your heart or not.  If your faith changes, your love for one another doesn’t have to.  It can even be strengthened by the realization that it wasn’t destiny or Jesus or Cupid who brought you together, but a mutual respect, admiration and desire for one another.  Knowing that the undefinable, impalpable, mystifying and utterly remarkable feeling of romance comes from within and not from without is one of the most liberating things about living your life free of superstition and myth.

mr dan is vice president of CVA. The views expressed in this post are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Connecticut Valley Atheists or its individual members.

by Johanna
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I don’t understand lying to children. I understand wanting to protect children, and I get that it’s hard to find a way to explain the more negative aspects of the world, but lying to kids isn’t going to change the way the world is. It’s frightening and disgusting and chock full of all kinds of temptation, but that’s reality.

Children are told countless lies as they grow up, a great many of them by omission. Adults, meanwhile, are conditioned to believe that interfering with other people’s parenting is wrong in all but the most dire of situations. This makes interacting with children very confusing for a lot of us, because there’s no way to know exactly which lies a given child has been told.  Do they know Santa’s not real?  Do they know that gays exist? Are they aware of the existence of religions other than the one their parents follow?

My cousin’s daughter once informed me, quite matter-of-factly, that children don’t get really sick. Hospitals are for grownups. Her mother was right there and said nothing to correct her. I was at a loss for how to react; I didn’t want to call her mother out right in front of her, but I wasn’t comfortable being complicit in that kind of blatant dishonesty. Yes, it’s tragic that children get hurt and sick, but that’s not going to stop it from happening to a classmate or a friend or even her. Isn’t that kind of event bad enough on its own without adding an element of betrayal to it when she finally discovers that her parents lied to her?

And what about the outrage over the curriculum being proposed in Helena County Schools in Montana? Conservatives around the country are outraged that a school would even consider teaching first graders that homosexuality exists, or teach second graders not to make fun of classmates using hateful words like “queer” or “homo”.  They’re upset that people are going to teach children that gays exist. They’re not teaching kids how to be gay, they’re not recruiting or telling kids to vote for same-sex marriage, they’re just sharing with these children the simple fact that gays exist.  And it is a fact. There’s no getting around it. That there are parents who don’t even want their children to know about the possibility boggles my mind.

It also presents me with a conundrum. If confronted with a child who asks me, for example, why I’m holding hands with another girl, am I risking the wrath of this child’s parents by telling them the truth?  Why should I have to fear anger or even retribution for sharing a simple aspect of who I am?  It would be unreasonable for a parent to fail to teach their children about the existence of black people and completely ridiculous for them to expect black people not to expose their children to the reality of their own existence. Why on earth would it be any different for gays and lesbians?

Atheists face the same problem. The last time I attended a church service was for my grandfather’s funeral. When it came time for communion, many of us chose not to participate for varying reasons. My cousin’s daughter thought this was unfair — after all, at her church, everyone is allowed to have communion. I explained as delicately as I could that it was our choice not to partake. She didn’t understand, so I told her outright that not everyone shares the same beliefs about God and Jesus. This was a novel idea to her — she was five at the time, and had apparently never been taught about the existence of other religions. I was torn, again, between telling the truth and appeasing her parents.  In retrospect, I wish she’d pushed the issue further, but she was content enough with my superficial explanation.

Because here’s the thing: you can’t homogenize the human race through ignorance and denial. Closing your eyes and plugging your ears won’t make everyone who isn’t like you go away. Hiding the existence of diversity isn’t going to make your child safer, it’s just going to make them stupid. Ignorance breeds hatred and fear. More than that, it stunts their ability to form defense mechanisms against new ideas that really are harmful. The ability to think rationally and consider new ideas based on logic and prior experience is something everyone should have, but few people actually do. Those that don’t have to resort to lashing out against new ideas with hatred and denial — neither of which are terribly effective.

Johanna is a member of CVA. The views expressed in this post are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of Connecticut Valley Atheists or its individual members.

by mr dan
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When confronted, as we all are so frequently, with the ridiculous accusation that Adolf Hitler was an atheist, there are two broad ways to respond.  The first is to take the high road and point out the logical fallacy of the argument: that the statement “Hitler was X, and Hitler was bad, therefore X is bad” isn’t a rational one.  This is true.  But it’s ineffective.

The second view is to assert the truth that Hitler was not an atheist.  Many belittle this tactic as too defensive.  It’s true that Hitler’s supposed atheism is an article of faith for many people, and, like Jesus’ divinity or Stephanie Meyer’s literary genius, no amount of evidence or argument will ever talk them out of it.  To attempt such a feat is to waste time and breath.

But neglecting to refute a lie is a tacit endorsement of that lie.  The number of times I have seen people ineffectively take the high road is staggering.  Just say no. “Hitler was an atheist, you say? No! No he wasn’t.”  While it may be true that you’re not likely to change the mind of the person with whom you are arguing, casual observers to he discussion may be more open-minded.

Hitler was quite undeniably a Catholic, not an atheist.  The internet is full of excellent sources articulating on this point, but none are stronger than a quick thumbing through the pages of Mein Kampf, Hitler’s autobiography.   In fact, the very first sentence says, “Today it seems to me providential that Fate should have chosen Braunau on the Inn as my birthplace.”  Fate? Providence?  Those are theistic concepts, which no atheist would ever invoke.

Only a few pages later Hitler writes of the “solemn splendor of the brilliant church festivals” and that at a young age, “the abbot seemed to me…the highest and most desirable ideal.”

After rambling some more anti-Semitic nonsense, he summarizes, “Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.”

Part of the Nazi uniform was a belt buckle declaring “Gott Min Uns” — ”God is With Us.”  Christian imagery was often part of Nazi paraphernalia and propaganda, and Hitler often referred to God, Jesus Christ and Christian virtues in his writings and speeches.

Some point to the fact that Hitler edited himself into the Bible as proof that he was not a believing Christian.  This doesn’t make any sense at all.  Hitler considered himself to be doing great Christian works, and when he added “Honor your Fuhrer and master” to the commandments, he was really just reinforcing Romans 13:1-3: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, he who resists authorities resists what God has appointed.” It wouldn’t make sense for an atheist to declare himself divine and chosen.  The more you read the Bible and Mein Kampf, the more you see how much the two have in common.

I could go on with this forever, but I’d only be making the internet redundant.  There are many excellent sources on this topic.

I’ll leave you with one other hilarious note.  Listen to this.  “If, with the help of his Marxist creed, the Jew is victorious over the other peoples of the world, his crown will be the funeral wreath of humanity and this planet will, as it did thousands of years ago, move through the ether devoid of men.”

Thousands of years ago the earth was devoid of men?  Well, if you ask a Young-Earth creationist, it was.  But if you ask, I don’t know, any reputable scientist, biologist, anthropologist, archaeologist, or historian, they’ll tell you that homo sapiens have been on this planet for about 200,000 years.  Thousands is, of course, a vague term, and may refer to 200 of them, but I’d say that’s a bit of a stretch.   It may not exactly be Young Earth Creationism, but it certainly doesn’t square well with any atheistic science.

There have been some very bad Catholics over the years, but I don’t remember any of them killing 11 million people.  Hitler was the worst of the worst, and it is true that there were many factors that lead to his insanity.  But chief among them were his own personal interpretation of Christian teachings, including an anti-semitism reinforced by the Church and the idea that Christians were chosen for superiority.

The fact that Hitler was a Catholic doesn’t make Catholics Nazis.  But the fact that Hitler may have been a bad Catholic doesn’t mean he wasn’t a believer.  You can’t call him an atheist just because his version of the Jesus myth isn’t the same as yours.  That’s like a Protestant calling the Pope an atheist, or saying Fred Phelps doesn’t believe in God.

From now on, the high road is the second place you should go.  First and foremost, when they try to drag you through the mud by throwing you in with the Fuhrer, remember: just say no.

mr dan is vice president of CVA. he views expressed in this post are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Connecticut Valley Atheists or its individual members.