THE stolen picture! OOOOoOoOOOOOOOoooooOo…

(I came across this via Jack Rivall’s facebook - if you have a login and can access his notes do so - they are well worth the time they take to read.) A Jewish Philosopher declared that atheism was indeed not a religion - but more like a disease.

So I started to read this Jewish Philosopher’s blog. Jack has the guy pin pointed so well as a bigot. If we were to say half the stuff about other religions, a racial group or whatever… that this guy says about atheists we’d be screamed at so loudly our ears would bleed.

I just really want to address the second bit that Austin quoted:

Secondly, atheists seem to be invariably highly selfish people.

I’ve been told over, and over, and over again that I need to think about myself. I am always concerned with other people over myself. When my grandfather died a few years ago I remember my boss comforting me and saying “you don’t have to be so strong, you don’t have to take care of everyone” … I’d say I’m quite often selfless, I’m also quite often selfish - but I would attribute that to my being 20, not my being an atheist.

It is apparently impossible to find a well-documented case of an atheist who was kind, honest, sober and sexually responsible.

I have many friends of all faiths who find me to be very kind. I have met Jack Rivall and he is extremely kind. The last 3 boyfriends I had were very honest, I trusted them with ever ounce of my mind - they were all atheists. I even didn’t have sex with 2 of them for an extended period of time and when we did - we were very responsible about it. Saying that “atheists” aren’t “kind, honest, sober and sexually responsible” is out and out just silly. It’s lumping together such a large group of people! I know some atheists that are drunks, are mean and who I wouldn’t trust. I also know a lot of atheists who are the exact opposite. And this isn’t me looking at “kind, honest, sober and sexually responsible” as some sort of subjective point of view - some of the greatest people I know are atheists.

I would point this man toward a woman I know named Cassandra. She is the most loving, caring and passionate person I have ever met in my entire life. She commits her life to taking care of other people, and would never say a foul thing about another human being. She has had sex with one person, the one person who she married. If I found out she had even told a small white lie - I wouldn’t believe it. And she is an atheist. That statement is just absolutely ludicrous.

Atheism is not a philosophy; it is a symptom of narcissism and hedonism. Calling atheism a religion is like calling alcoholism a religion. It’s a bad choice, a moral failing, perhaps a disease. Until the 18th century “atheist” was usually simply an insult meaning “debauched libertine”. This may be close to the truth.

I am an atheist. I am so far from a narcissist that it’s hilarious that anyone would try to lump me into that category. And if I believe in a hedonistic life I wouldn’t care about other people, I wouldn’t have plans to spend the rest of my life in pure discomfort in order to bring other people a better life. You know what, here… I’ll say it. Judaism is a probably a disease. … … … … ……….. And now what am I? … A bigot.

I surly don’t believe that judaism is a disease. Never would I claim that the beliefs and religion of another person is a pure disease in their mind.

What I don’t think is fair is that I have to read this sort of out dated drivel that puts down any sort of contemporary form of thought. I am in no way against people expressing their opinion on faith, religion and morality. I think it is good to have HEALTHY debates and to discuss our differences as to understand one another.

What I think is horrible is that people become bigots, jerks, and down right insulting instead of trying to  actually understand or learn. You’d think someone who is as old as he looks would be mature enough not to deliberately degrade people and be so incredibly intolerant of the lifestyles, opinions and identities that are popping up around him. This is just as bad as being a racism, anti-semitic, homophobic or any other sort of discrimination.  Gross. Just gross.

I hate that living modestly is starting to be equated with disregarding the comforts that we’ve been given… instead of a noble and earth saving way of life.

I have a group of friends who all live together. In a maximum 6 person house (4 “real” bedrooms) there are 13 people. They have no television, only a couple of them have a computer, when I go over there are rarely lights on and they in no way went out of their way to buy new furniture or anything for the house. On top of these smaller things they also bike around – no one owns a car – cook together with vegan, organic, dumpster dived food and they run the house on grey water.

Just a quick summary for those who don’t know – dumpster diving is when you take food out of a dumpster to eat it. A lot of people get a little grossed out by this thought however having worked in a grocery store I assure you there is more than plenty of completely fresh and fine food being thrown out. Before knowing people who dumpstered I often thought “why would those dumpsters be locked???” but now I know that for whatever reason some grocery stores don’t want people stealing their garbage.

Grey water is essentially just reusing water. Most houses that are being built in Guelph are already implementing grey water systems directly into the house by connecting washing machine water to toilets. Said friends put the plug in during a shower and use shower water to flush toilets. And to be honest – the toilets don’t get flushed that often anyway.

For me, this would be an almost impossible way of living. I hate being cold, they never have the heater one. I live on my computer, they don’t have internet. I drink a liter of milk a day, they never drink milk. I will never will with a roommate ever again in my entire life unless I’m getting married, they live with 12 other people. It takes a lot of dedication and passion for the environmental movement to live this kind of lifestyle.

When I told my brother and a friend of mine about this they had the same reaction “that’s disgusting”. … I said that you would just have to get used it, but then they corrected me. Neither meant that it was physically disgusting, but that it was disgusting to see people choosing to live like “the poor”. They felt as though this was a mockery to people who couldn’t afford food, who couldn’t afford to live with just one family in a house and who couldn’t afford to keep their hydro on. Instead you have a household of by no means rich, but by no mean poor… group of kids who are choosing to not work and live like that. They choose to eat “garbage”, to be cold and to stay in the dark.

I brushed it off at the time, but it is now one thing that has been running through my head day in and day out. The only reason grocery stores throw out “almost” expired food is because if they lower the price people won’t buy the higher priced food - so they just keep it until it doesn’t make sense to sell it at the same price point and then toss out the perfectly good food.

Granted, dumpstering started out as a way to beat economic struggling but soon became a haven for “freeganism” (those who want to escape the consumerist life and culture) so it is backpacking off something poor people WERE doing. But with grey water… 50 - 80% of all residential water waste is from grey water.

Is what they are doing inherently wrong because they’re not taking advantage of all that is available to them? Or is it noble because they are not adhering to an overly comfortable lifestyle knowing what damage it does to the world.

I personally take the latter – I think that if you’re going to live in guilt or if you know that what you’re doing is wrong for the world and wrong socially then you just flat out shouldn’t do it. Sure, my friends aren’t taking advantage of a lot of “comforts” that are available to them, but they can also say that they are contributing less to huge problems. Continuing to simply “enjoy” and frivolously go about life without considering the impact that this “comfortable” life is doing is far more of a disgusting way to live than to try and do something about it.

If everyone here in Canada (or anywhere, really…) lived like that we’d have way less water waste, more food to distribute to the actual poor, we would create less of a carbon footprint in general and we’d be more in touch with the “real world” as opposed to being consumed in television and internet.

I can understand that people who have grown up in Canada or “western” life styles wouldn’t be comfortable living like my friends. However, unless you’re able to say that you are helping or lowering your over all impact on the world as much as they are – you should just shut your mouth. Living like that is a choice, it is not a mockery of people who can’t afford more “comfort” it is a choice to do the right thing for the world.

 Larry Moran and David Colquhoun at Center For Inquiry - Ontario reception

David Colquhoun is by far the most modest and underrated man I have ever met. His talk on Saturday night at the University of Toronto (put on by the University of Toronto Secular Alliance) was really quite interesting. Also the reception before hand at the Center for Inquiry was great too. It was nice to see and talk to everyone again after having been engrossed by other far less important things back here in Guelph. (It was especially great to talk to Amanda Peet who always has a new toy to show off - this time it was an unlocked iPhone… I was a little jealous.)

Although homeopathy isn’t my particular area of interest when it comes to debunking, questioning and researching I am still captivated when other people speak about it. Colquhoun not only showed us all a break down of just how much “200C” really is (basically – nothing) he also showed us an enormous list of Universities offering courses and degrees in homeopathy as a science.

This is particularly frightening. I don’t mind homeopathy being available to people – if you’re prepared to spend a ton of money on a placebo that’s fine, you’re an idiot and that’s not my fault. But when it enters academia it is all kinds of scary. Colquhoun spoke about the complete lack of research and case studies that have been done surrounding homeopathy. The problem, it seems, is that those who support it don’t want to do the research because they know what the outcome will be – that it’s all bunk. But those who know that it’s all bunk and is poisoning our scientific community don’t want to put the millions of dollars into researching it because that money can be used for a much better cause.

The only part of the talk that I was discomforted with was when a member of the audience was “boo”ed for trying to start discussion – for disagreeing. … Grrr. I’d assume that the people who did this were not members of CFI or the UTSA since both groups highly encourage discussion and participation from all angles -  not just the speakers, or our own point of views. Luckily Colquhoun encouraged the debate and all was at ease.

For more on the talk check out The Sandwalk and The Unexamined Life. Also take a glance at the National Post article, it’s really good.

“People now seem to think universities will be better if they’re organized like Wal-Mart. The result is a removal of power over the management of science from the people who are involved in science. I think as soon as science is managed by non-scientists it becomes corrupt. They impose a kind of ubercompetitive regime on people, which actually encourages dishonesty.

“Scientists are not perfect, but they know something about science and consequently the best way to get good results is to leave it to scientists, not MBAs.”

Huh. That’s a lot of posts for one little lady.

My blogging is going to start happening in lumps, and those lumps will probably be on the weekends. Why? I got a new job! *everyone cheers!* I know, we’re all excited about it. Basically I’ll be mapping Ontario for a call center that needs continuously updated maps. … I like maps, so thus far it seems like a promising opportunity. I have a lot that I want to write about tonight, and it seems like very little time to do it. .. But that’s probably because I’ve spent most of my day playing The Sims… I made what I am sure is my favorite house ever.

This weekend was a good time. I was visiting Allen which is always a good time. I went to a University of Toronto Secular Alliance event that I will write about a little later. After the event I went for a long over due drink (or 10) with my CFI friends whom I’ve missed very much. My friend Torrie is in the hospital (get well soon lovely!) so I went to visit her - luckily she is alright, and is just staying for some tests for a few days.  I also went and saw a bunch of family! I finally met my 3 month old cousin Ella and she is totally a doll. Cutest little thing ever. A.J and Will were there too! Which made me super happy… Will is scared of me, but A.J is the most dynamic kid I’ve ever met. He’s too adorable.

Besides that the only things that have been getting me down are migraines, sitting in cars for long periods of time, winter weather and hearing way too much about blogs. That’s all some people talk about - and they really should STFU. But, such is life.

Tonight the plan is to get some feedback on the UTSA talk up, write a little bit about the “freegan” movement, outline my conversations with Allen from the weekend and then steal a post from Jack Rivall to comment on, because it’s ridiculous … (the original post, not Jack Rivall’s…)

setting: having dinner with my parents.

Katie: Paul (my stepdad) do you think your being a minister is what caused me to be an atheist?

Paul: You’re not an atheist.

And so started the discussion.

My mom chimed in first, knowing good and well that her points would take less than 10 minutes where as I would be sitting listening to my step father for over an hour. My mom thinks I am an atheist (but I’ll grow out of it..) because I was expecting more. Which is more than correct. I couldn’t stay in a church that answered with “because the bible says so”, it just wasn’t in me. She also claimed that I was looking for a new social group that I could associate myself with. So my finding CFI and meeting the people there has reaffirmed and made my so-called atheism stronger. She also chimed in that she highly supports what my friends and I are do (which she defined as “blithering back and forth on Facebook”) because we are being open minded, talking and trying to make sense of it all.

Woo! Go mom! Very supportive, understanding and was really on the same ground as me. She thinks that churches are hypocritical, and that they’re not really a place to go to to look for answers or a way of life that is worth following. But - I should point out that she’s been a christian her whole life, and still is. Clearly, an open minded one.

My step dad…  First he said that CFI is just another social group and said it was just another church for us to be a part of. I tried to explain that it is not a religion without god, and he said “yes, but you don’t go around raping people.” Those damn morals… if only Einstein had written a book about them before Christians did they wouldn’t be so closely associated with religion.

I grabbed a pen; Paul started his rant (the following is not word for word, but it’s the general gist):

“Atheism is a cop out. By the very definition of God, atheists do not exist. It is easy to dump on religion, and to call God nothing. It is not so easy to define what it is you actually support.

What is religion? Do you define it as organize? If so, then you are leaving out a plethora of religions. Do you define it as a human quest for goodness? If so, then your secular humanists are not so far off from me. They just don’t want to look for what that goodness is. Looking at many religions, they all have some form of the golden rule, really, any religion. God is that which is the greatest good conceivable for all. God is immanent, he is the here and he is the now. He is the goodness. There is no man on a cloud, no heaven - only the goodness of here and now.

Atheism is a ‘contrarian’ position. They may not be able to form a coherent thought about what God is, but they are moral and they are good. Lets go back to the very dawn of time, before there were people, at some point there were people. When it was just one person, it was easy to get along. You introduce another person, and it gets a little more complicated. Soon there are islands of people, and tribes of people. Are people killing one another for food? Are women getting raped?

Fast forward, now there are a lot of us. But each tribe has made some similar way of getting along. They might be different ways, but each tribe has decided that it is in their best interest to get along, and not to fight. As long as the tribes are separate from one another they are fine. But then we build boats, and we float over to see one another. We’ve all got our own ways of getting along, we’ve all got our own ways creating a common goodness. These are the same foundational values, only they are executed in different ways.

At some point some bright bunny decides to make these ways a religion. Now the religion is the tribe, and everyone’s tribe is wroth dying over. The fact that these religions are still based on the same foundational values is apparently irrelevant - because they are not executed the same way. That foundational value is god, it is the common goodness. Just now we are fighting over who has the right way to go about executing this common goodness.

Therefore, by the definition of god, you and your friends are not atheists. They are no atheists. We all have grown up knowing not to hurt one another, we just know it. That is god. If you had no sense of something “bigger” then your life would be unmanageable. What is the difference between your mystery of improbability and just loving one another, and my mystery of god, our origins and loving one another? Nothing. Foundationally, no one can be an atheist unless they are immoral. Otherwise, what do you support?

You’re all so quick to tell us what you don’t believe in, but not one of you can sit and tell me what you DO stand for that is any different than a religion.”

D’oh.

Do lets hear it atheists. If you want to claim to be atheist, what do you support?
Personally I support reason and love. I think the “god” that my step dad is talking about is not the “god” that most other people follow, and definitely not how they would define god. if you define god as goodness, just call it what it is - goodness, i believe in goodness and that people are inherently good (most of the time.) I support religions and questioning those religions. I highly support digging deeply into what we just “assume” to be true, or what we have “faith” in and seeing why we assume things, or why we have that faith.

I support people who don’t want to look further than just accepting that they have faith in God. I support people who want to look past that, far past that to the point of claiming they are an atheist, because they can’t find the support, or reasoning to say they have faith.