I like this headline: “Jesus: Fast food for the masses”

People line up during mass to receive the Communion wafers intended to be the body of Jesus. They get served pretty quick and the “food” doesn’t sit very long on the tongue, so how very true.

Not quite what the writer of the piece (going by the pseudonym of Titus Aurelius) meant to imply, probably, but it works for a good example of what the piece is actually about: cognitive dissonance:

Cognitive dissonance is a discomfort caused by holding conflicting cognitions (e.g., ideas, beliefs, values, emotional reactions) simultaneously. In a state of dissonance, people may feel surprise, dread, guilt, anger, or embarrassment. In our day to day existence we are constantly bombarded by stimuli and through various processes filtered by our frame of reference, we reach closure.

The process we use to reach the closure is what defines you as a person. It is your morals and values residing in your frame of reference that is instrumental in the resolution. The question that begs answering then is, “How much information do you feed your frame of reference?”

One of the effects of cognitive dissonance is that people tend to get mired in the teachings they received as children, simply because the introduction of new information into the frame of reference will lead to dissonance.

Any logical adult should scoff at the notion of transubstantiation but Catholic kids are told that the wafer miraculously becomes the actual body of Christ once ingested and many will continue to believe that well into adulthood no matter how scientifically improbable the whole notion is. It’s spiritual alchemy. There are a lot of other impossible ideas religious folk are expected to swallow and mentally change into facts and reality: the six thousand year old earth, Noah’s Ark, Jonah surviving in a whale, etc. The bible is jam packed with stories that any skeptical person could easily discount after a few minutes of research. The work’s been done, and yet so many can still turn a blind eye and believe the “words of God” instead of the words of the educated. Other believers can put a lot of pressure on a person to remain true to what’s written in there, especially if it’s parents or spouses.

So the fear of dissonance, coupled with a possible rejection of parental approval and even societal rejection is a great deterrent in broadening one’s horizons. This leads the religious mind to conceive of belief as a mechanism to resolve cognitive dissonance, but each injection of belief regress the dissonance one level deeper (postponing it) and each regression effectively gets pushed back into the recesses of the memory where it enjoys a blissful state of non-participation.

The rest of the article delves into examples where Christianity requires creating a partition in the brain to keep the logical, rational, scientific factual area to one side and not let it leak over into the spiritual, faithful, part required to believe every fanciful, mystical thing.

One example is the sheer number of contradictions in there involving the “facts” of Jesus’ life. He also brings up something called Preterism, an early Christian belief that the end had already come as Christ supposedly fortold, and a belief later Catholics and Protestants debated. I’ll quote from Wikipedia:

Christian preterists believe that the Tribulation was a divine judgment visited upon the Jews for their sins, including rejection of Jesus as the promised Messiah. It occurred entirely in the past, around 70 AD when the armed forces of the Roman Empire destroyed Jerusalem and its temple.

A preterist discussion of the Tribulation has its focus on the Gospels, in particular the prophetic passages in Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21, the Olivet discourse, rather than on the Apocalypse or Book of Revelation. (Preterists apply much of the symbolism in the Revelation to Rome, the Cæsars, and their persecution of Christians, rather than to the Tribulation upon the Jews.)

Remember Harold Camping? He was the opposite of a preterist. He was fully convinced, and convinced thousands of radio listeners around the world, that the end of the world would come last year, with the great Rapture occurring in May and the destruction of the world in October. You’ll notice we’re all still here.

The article goes on with more examples from the series of miracles credited to Christ like Lazarus, walking on water, feeding a crowd with two fish, etc.; and the stories that led to people truly believing that Jesus wasn’t just a son of God like every other Jew but on par with God in a divine holy trinity.

It is therefore my contention that the truth is too much effort to even comprehend, and that the “whole” is accepted and used as a vehicle for religious equilibrium where the “whole” usually consists of an à la carte menu as listed and supported by various Bible verses.

This contention is supported by the millions of Christians that are blissfully ignorant of the individual levels and happily live their lives in “unshakable truth” with the “whole”.

I think the trouble is that truth isn’t easy to come by. We are a gullible species. We’re easily tricked by our own brains and eyes on a daily basis. That’s what makes pareidolia and other optical illusions so awesome. We can be fooled so easily. And we learn to trust from a very early age; we have to in order to survive. We have to trust our parents implicitly when they tell us what’s good to eat and what will hurt us. We have an innate trust of authority and once we decide someone is an authority, we tend to extend the trust and forget how easily we can be fooled, foolishly believing we’re not at risk of getting tricked somehow. It’s why we fall for scams and con artists. We don’t always think critically about what we’re told and weigh it against what we’ve already experienced and know to be true. We can’t jam two of every kind of animal into a boat, but Noah supposedly did. “It was a miracle.” How’s that a solution to the physical and geological flaws in that story? How can anyone be content with that. And yet so many are.

As far as I can tell, I’ve always been atheist. Even as a kid I saw the flaw in the whole Christianity/Catholic thing during Easter. What weekend did he really die on? Was it in March or April? How come his death weekend bounced around every year? I never asked anyone about that but I know I wondered. And what did rabbits and chocolate eggs have to do with it? It didn’t make any sense and as a biblical story it still doesn’t. Using it as a roundabout way of acknowledging the pagan roots of an Equinox celebration does. Do the parents of Christian kids tell them that history of Easter? I have no idea.

Following a religion sometimes means ignoring facts and realities and taking everything one’s told on faith, no matter how ridiculous it’ll seem to outsiders. Religion isn’t alone in that, though. Look to anyone who believes UFOs land regularly or Big Foot will be found or homeopathy works or Obama isn’t a true American. We are a gullible species willing to believe anything should we really put our minds to it.

It’s a good thing there’s a skeptical movement gaining some ground, at least. It’s good to know there are people doing everything they can to try and burst those gullibubbles before it’s too late. On that note, I have a Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast to catch up on…

Quotable black atheist

Religion is so very deeply engrained in the black culture that it can be very difficult for young people to take the path of rationality and independence. With internet communities such as Facebook and YouTube there is no reason for any black atheist to feel isolated. Come on out, be proud and be heard. Logic has no color. You’ll find that the same insanities and bigotries you find in religion are common realizations with other free thinkers of all backgrounds. Most people are good by nature, not through any misguided devotion to ignorant bigots who claimed to speak for god thousands of years ago. Nothing should be worshiped whether it be man or imaginary.

(source)

James Kirk Wall includes a list of quotes by other black atheists, plus some videos worth a watch.

Indonesia atheist update

I wrote about it in May, although it happened back in January. Alexander Aan wrote “God does not exist” on his Facebook page and New Humanist is reporting that Aan is heading for prison for 2.5 years under a guilty charge of “deliberately spreading information inciting religious hatred and animosity”.

He was also accused of posting cartoon strips deemed insulting to the Prophet Muhammad.

In passing the sentence, the presiding judge Eka Prasetya Budi Dharma told the the Muaro Sijunjung district court in western Sumatra that Aan had “caused anxiety to the community and tarnished Islam”.

Prosecutors had sought a lengthier jail sentence for Aan, but in finding him guilty of inciting religious hatred, the court dropped two additional, less serious charges of blasphemy and persuading others to embrace atheism.

While Indonesian law guarantees citizens freedom of religion, it only protects those who follow Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Confucianism or Hinduism, leaving those who publicly express their atheism vulnerable to the kinds of charges brought against Aan.

They include a link to Atheist Alliance International which has taken up the cause and is urging anyone interested to donate towards an appeal.

Nate Phelps gave an interesting talk last night

He gave the audience a run down of his upbringing under the demanding and watchful eyes of Fred Phelps, creator of the Westboro Baptist Church. He described some of the abuse he and his mother and siblings went through when he was growing up and how the ludicrous theology they lived under could continue to be maintained, and is still maintained now – clever reinterpretation of the King James bible to create “the world” and “the saved” as only the people of Phelps’ flock. God’s love is extended only to those chosen few, as is salvation. They have no desire to convert or change anyone (beyond the ones who might dare marry into the family); they just want to advertise the fact that everyone who isn’t them will be automatically destined for hell upon death. And, for some reason known only to the senior Phelps, it became important to focus the bulk of that attention on the gays and their supporters rather than picket adulterers or murderers or others who’d break the rest of the commandments without much thought.

I didn’t attend the pub chat afterwards and won’t be at the lunch today, either, but it was worth going to see. He’s an example of someone who grew up in an incredibly strict and fundamentalist regime and found himself unable to continue in it. Fred Phelps teaches that reason and rationality are the Devil’s tricks, messing with a faithful mind by making it want to question instead of believe blindly. Much of the family is still living under that perception but Nate couldn’t quell the doubts, and that’s part of why he left. He told us a story about how his kids were asking about heaven once and where people who don’t get to go to heaven go. He had to explain what hell was and what eternity was and all the kids started crying. “I want to believe in god! I don’t want to go to hell!” He recalled his own reactions to these “facts” as a child and then and there vowed to be a different kind of dad. Now he considers himself an atheist and refuses to indoctrinate his own children. If they want to buy into a religion later in life, they can choose for themselves, he said. He’d rather teach them the skills to think critically and question what they hear and read. The more they question and seek factual answers, the better off they’ll be down the road.

Younger members of the church have started to drift away, too, and Nate offers himself up as a mentor if any of them should want to seek him out, but he knows they’ll be in weird places mentally for a while, just like he was. It won’t help to tell them how badly screwed up they are after years under the church’s influence. They’ll hopefully figure that out for themselves and start making headway on fixing it.

Here’s hoping.

Sounds of Sunday – by request: Antioquia

So, I got this email:

As Ernest Hemmingway once said, all thinking men are atheists.

Not only does Antioquia have an atheist lead singer, but its feisty rebel music reflects the band’s political and spiritual philosophies. Not for the musically meek, this Oakland-born band’s eclectic world music appeals to the adventurous spirit and curious mind.

The religious beliefs of the band’s lead singer can even be seen in Antioquia’s lyrics.

Antioquia definitely has a lot to say, and atheism is their favorite topic of discussion.

Atheism is a topic of personal importance to the band, for the band’s lead singer, Rachel Antony-Levine, is an atheist who experienced bigotry throughout her entire life due to her beliefs.

However with the support of her parents, both atheist philosophy professors, atheism remains a key part of her personality which she loves to discuss with others. Today she uses Antioquia’s music to demystify atheism to those with open minds.

A working link wasn’t included in the email but Youtube had a few videos available of live shows. It was hard to hear the lyrics for those but this one’s a bit easier:

Yeah, the boogieman’s in your head… so too is the notion of gods or demons or whatever other inventions take the place of rationalism in one’s mind.

I have to say I like the style of the music, too. Quite fun and upbeat and zippy. I bet their live shows are a hoot.

I would love to discuss with you the possibility of Rachel Antony-Levine sharing her personal beliefs and experiences in dealing with bigotry with your readers at Opinion Minion through a blog feature. I’d be happy to hop on a call with you if you’d like to discuss how we can best work together!

I’m not sure I’d know what kind of questions to ask her, to be honest. I notice atheism gets no mention on their band website but I don’t really have to ask why that would be. I listen to Skeptics Guide to the Universe on a regular basis and once in a while the gang bemoans the fact that there aren’t more musicians and artists comfortable with being openly atheist/skeptical and creating good work with that in mind. (Wikipedia lists a bunch of atheist musicians, the bulk of which I’ve never heard of.) I suspect artists know they can reach a bigger audience if they sneak it in sideways. Advertise it and they risk alienating any potential fans who might believe atheists/skeptics are servants of the devil and hell-bent on destroying their God-fearing nation.

Perhaps Rachel can provide a comment…

Linkskrieg! (First pass)

It’s occurred to me that I’ve collected far more links than I have time to write about, so here’s a batch of things I did want to bring up at some point but never did. I may flesh out some of these at some point, though. Time will tell.

1. The Codex Gigas:

Lore behind the codex suggests the book was the effort of one monk’s labor in a single night. After breaking the rules of the monastery, he’d been sentenced to a slow death – he’d be walled up in a room of bricks. The night before his sentence would be executed, the monk decided to write his last work, an evil book written on animal skins. He realized that finishing the book before imprisonment would be impossible, so he made a Faustian deal at midnight with Lucifer to finish the book, with the devil signing the document by painting a portrait of himself on the 290th leaf.

2. A pastor’s controversial book on sex:

The book was written by Driscoll and his wife, Grace, to, in Mark’s words, “compel married couples to have important conversations about important things.”

In the first half of the book, the Driscolls discuss their own sexual issues using the lessons they learned to discuss how to reignite a marriage whose flame may have gone out. The book’s second half, which is getting most of the negative attention, discusses sex in detail.

In response, religious scholars and writers have blasted the Driscolls’ work on a number of grounds ranging from the logistical to the biblical.

3. Apocalypse tourism:

The Mexican government is expecting 52 million tourists to visit the five regions — Chiapas, Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Tabasco and Campeche, over the next 12 months, says the Latin American Herald Tribune.

According to goverment reports, the boom is part of Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s tourism campaign: “Mundo Maya 2012,” to promote Mexico as a unique destination.

4. Ancient document claims dozens visited Jesus, not just three:

The translation of the mysterious ‘Revelation of the Magi’ describes how the three wise men actually numbered over a dozen and came from a faraway land, possibly China.

(Since the bible never specifies how many wise men visited, I don’t see this as news, personally. Straight Dope dealt with this years ago.)

5. “Miracle” survival of a kid with flesh eating disease:

The pope on Monday signed a decree authenticating the miracle, clearing the way for Tekakwitha to be canonized as America’s first Roman Catholic indigenous saint.

“There is no doubt in me or my husband’s mind that a miracle definitely took place,” Jake’s mother, Elsa Finkbonner, told msnbc.com on Tuesday. “There were far too many things that could have and should have gone wrong with his illness. The doctors went through every avenue they could to save his life and he survived. It’s a miracle that all of the other things that could have gone wrong, didn’t.”

6. Utah’s festive season vs atheist billboards:

“We’re glad to share the Christmas season with Christians, but they have stolen Christmas, and it is not the birthday of Jesus,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Wisconsin-based organization. “It’s a natural event, the winter solstice. … The shortest day of the year has been celebrated for millennia in the Northern Hemisphere with decorations and lights and celebrations. We just think it’s important to celebrate reason and celebrate reality.”

She added that the foundation has heard there’s a feeling of claustrophobia among non-Mormons and nonbelievers in Salt Lake City. “There’s a great dominance there, so we want to be there, too.”

7. Evidence from Dead Sea dirt may verify some bible tales:

Ben-Avraham, head of the Minerva Dead Sea Research Center at Tel Aviv University in Israel, noted that this is important because, when it comes to earthquakes, the last century in the Middle East was unusually quiet.

“People don’t take this into consideration,” Ben-Avraham said, “but we have mighty earthquakes.”

Looking farther back, one of the seismically active eras revealed by the core samples appears to have been about 4,000 years ago, he said.

“If you believe the biblical chronology, this is roughly [the time of] Sodom and Gomorrah,” he said. During this period, according to the Book of Genesis, God “rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed all.”

8. British PM and Dawkins disagree on need for faith schools:

David Cameron has said atheist campaigner Richard Dawkins “just doesn’t really get it” on the issue of faith schools.

The Prime Minister made the comments as he answered questions from well-known figures for a Guardian newspaper article. Mr Cameron said he thinks faith schools are “very often good schools” and he noted that the church had provided “good schools long before the state got involved”.

Dawkins would rather see more schools promoting secularism and critical thinking instead of traditions and indoctrination.

Old news: it’s hard to be atheist in Indonesia

Via the Jakarta Globe, January 19, 2012:

An Indonesian civil servant who posted “God does not exist” on his Facebook page has been taken into police custody for his own protection after he was badly beaten.

The man, identified as Alexander, 31, now faces the prospect of losing his job, or even being jailed, if he fails to repent and accept one of six official state religions.

Blasphemy carries a maximum sentence of five years in jail.

Atheist Ireland felt like taking a stand over this. Their own country passed a blasphemy law in July of 2009. While briefing local politicians about the Indonesia case, they implied that Ireland is partially to blame for it. Two Senators agreed and in February of this year, they asked their government leaders to support Alexander Aan. Said Jillian van Turnhout:

While I fully support the repeal of this law, I do not believe the intention of the blasphemy legislation introduced by Mr. Dermot Ahern in 2009 was to infringe upon the rights to freedom of expression, religion, belief and conscience in Ireland. Nor do I think it is a desirable consequence that our law is being used to support such infringements, including against Christian religions in Islamic countries anywhere else in the world.

The Guardian picked the story up again in May. The article states that the country runs with a state philosophy of pancasila, which requires all citizens to pick one god (or set of gods) and believe in that completely. Aan’s initial refusal to choose to be Muslim, Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Confucian or Hindi might encourage more people to reject every religion and thus become uncontrollable individualists without ethics or morals, so he has to be beaten by mobs and imprisoned as a warning for everyone.

While his lawyers estimate there may be up to 2,000 atheists in Indonesia, “there’s no real way of knowing”, Fajrin says. The repercussions are too dangerous.

According to Andreas Harsono, a local human rights activist, Aan’s case is just one of a growing number of examples of religious intolerance across Indonesia, ranging from harassment to mob and arson attacks against groups such as the Baha’i, Shia and Ahmadiyah Muslims – sometimes ending in death.

Last year, the local Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace recorded 244 acts of violence against religious minorities – nearly double the 2007 figure.

Official state religions there might be, but some are preferred over others. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has closed 80 Christian churches a year since he took power in 2004. Aan has “converted” to Islam – he’d been going to mosques as a kid with his family even though he didn’t believe – and issued a public apology for his Facebook post, too. Unfortunately, the Islamic Society Forum still calls for the death penalty in this case; too little, too late.

He looks out the window to where a group of inmates are celebrating their Sunday by performing karoake to drum’n'bass in the dusty prison yard, most of them smoking, all of them barefoot. “I only want to see a better world and help create a better world,” he says. “If I cannot … then I would prefer to die.”

While he has Atheist Alliance International and Britain’s Council of ex-Muslims in his corner, it probably won’t affect the predicted grim outcome. His country will make an example out of him, and then atheists the world over will have to double efforts to try to stop this from happening again. But it will probably happen again. None of those guys will wake up the next morning and think they made a mistake. No, they’ll think they did Allah’s will and will pat themselves on the back for it, then go after some other person who dares to think or dress a bit differently.

I feel for him.

The One Minion Search Party – “atheist defines christanity”

Or, spelled correctly, “atheist defines Christianity,” although I don’t know if I’d have to. The basic notion of a Christian is one who’s accepted Christ as his or her personal saviour. The base and bottom line, that’s all you have to do to qualify. Christ died to absolve everyone of sin, so long as they promised to give him the credit for that magnanimous gesture.

At least, that’s what Christians say. I don’t know what order the books were written, if Paul’s collection of letters predates the gospels or the other way around. There are verses in the gospels that suggest it and Paul (or one writing under the name later) came up with other “proof” this was so.

Beyond that, every Christian sect will add in its own definitions of what makes it the right version to follow, be it Protestant, Catholic, or fundamentalist in some other way.

An atheist might choose to define Christians by what they do instead. Atheists can read the bible, too, and see what Jesus said his followers should do and point to all the ways Christians might fail to comply. Love your enemies, turn the other cheek, etc.

I’m out of time for now. Perhaps readers can add to this?

Dad says Hell NO! to Jesus T-shirt

An update to the Nova Scotia story I hit on earlier this week:

A Nova Scotia student suspended from classes for five days for wearing a T-shirt with the slogan “Life Is Wasted Without Jesus” returned to school today wearing the same garment, but he was quickly taken home by his father.

William Swinimer, who’s in Grade 12, was scheduled to attend a session for all students on how to express their beliefs in a way that is respectful to all.

But John Swinimer said he wants Forest Heights Community School in Chester Basin, Lunenburg County, to only teach the basic courses, leaving religion out of it.

John Swinimer said his son will not return to school until it gets back to teaching the basics. (CBC)”He will not attend this school unless they are having reading, writing and arithmetic — good old-fashioned academics,” he said, waving a New Testament bible. “When they’re having forums, when they’re having other extra-curricular activity, he will not attend that school.”

Hilarious. I assumed a kid like that had active church parents. Wouldn’t you?

Students said William Swinimer has been preaching and making them feel uncomfortable, and the shirt was the last straw so they complained.

“He’s told kids they’ll burn in hell if they don’t confess themselves to Jesus,” student Riley Gibb-Smith said.

Katelyn Hiltz, student council vice-president, agreed the controversy didn’t begin with the T-shirt.

“It started with him preaching his religion to kids and then telling them to go to hell. A lot of kids don’t want to deal with this anymore,” she said.

That’s not what school is for. Dad’s got it right. Stick to the stuff that really matters from an educational perspective and leave the religious nuttery for the hours outside school.

Texas theatre won’t run atheist ad

I don’t go to movies much anymore. When I do, I can’t say I pay much attention to the advertising ahead of the film. Others do, though, and might be lured into buying whatever is offered because humankind is often more sheeple than people. If rationalism, atheism and reason are what’s being offered, heaven forbid! The people who run Angelika Film Center in Plano decided to cancel an ad prepared by Dallas-Fort Worth Coalition of Reason the day before it was set to air. Zachary Moore, who runs DFWCR, ran into the same issue with a different theatre in Arlington around Easter.

“The Movie Tavern has claimed that they have a policy against religious advertising, but such a policy has not been provided to us,” said Moore.

“Following the cancellation of our contract with the Movie Tavern, we sought out a similar contract with the Angelika and was successful.”

Angelika Film Center of Plano, Texas did not return a request for comments by press time.

Angelika Theater representatives reportedly told the atheist group that it won’t run the ad due to the theater’s position that no religious ads be allowed at the business. Moore, however, disputes Angelika’s reasoning.

“Angelika has not made any such policy available to us, nor was this mentioned during our contract negotiation,” said Moore.

“The Angelika has even refused to provide us with a written notice of our contract cancellation. As with the Movie Tavern, we have received reports of regular religious advertising at the Angelika.”

I think it is suspicious that these theatres claim to have a “no religion” policy yet refuse to produce written proof of it, especially if they’re ignoring its existence in every other situation. What kind of pro-religion ads are they running, I wonder?

Some groups, including the American Humanist Association, are apparently considering a lawsuit over this but I don’t know if they’d have success with it. Theatres are allowed to reject advertising. A church in Orange county ran into a similar issue last year when they wanted to advertise their Easter program at the local film house but were turned down. In that case, the Jesus message as presented was deemed too religious for a mainstream movie theatre. The theatre offered to run a watered down version if they produced one but they didn’t bother.