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Carrie Prejean is Wet

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

Carrie Prejean really is Miss USA. She is a roving social microcosm of America – right down from her narrow mentality to her capped teeth and breast implants. She exemplifies what makes the USA so great.

Better yet, Carrie Prejean is a hypocrite, which makes her excessively American. She mindlessly espouses being a Christian without having any real clue about what it means to be a Christian. The Christian brand has become so muddled that the marketing of it is a bit tricky. You have to stick a wet finger in the air to see which way Jesus blows today. Speaking of wet fingers, Carrie, who was afraid she didn’t have the assets to become Miss USA and subsequently sought external funding to increase her asset base, wasn’t too ashamed of her pre-adulterated temple such that she had somebody take photos of her unadorned self. Still, there were improvements that could be made.

Maybe Carrie was following the adage of “God helps those who help themselves”. Her tributes to God were not of silver and gold resting at the steps of a local place of worship, but instead Carrie used silver and gold to adorn herself since every man’s (or woman’s) body is a temple. Why not carry around the tribute for the rest of her life instead of dumping it some place where no one can see it? That’s our Carrie!

Of course, hypocrisy knows no bounds. Even having many examples walk across the stage before her, Carrie threw caution to the wind and casually forgot that she had already exposed herself to the cameras before her appearance as Miss California USA. She decided to ask for help in building her tribute. Californians (or in this case at least a few), so ready and willing to help Carrie become the model California woman, cheerily gave up their gold and silver in order to help her build the tribute necessary to appease her god. After the revelations of nude photos, those few Californians who chipped in to increase Carrie’s assets have now decided that she didn’t properly represent the Miss California USA pageant and they may strip her of her title. Really now, can American hypocrisy get any better than this?

California has its panties in a twist right now. A majority of them voted to make it illegal for same-sex couples to marry, so Carrie’s wet-finger-in-the-air told her to state the popular conservative Christian response that gays can’t marry, but she didn’t realize that Jesus was blowing from different directions the day the nude photos were revealed. Ah, Carrie, when you wet your finger your mind is in another place, I know. It happens.

Carrie’s actions represent the best of hypocritical America, and her mind represents the worst of a marginalized America. So, I hereby proudly announce that Carrie Prejean is Miss USA 2009!

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Posted in Morality, Religion, Sexuality | 8 Comments »

Andrew Sullivan Still Doesn’t Get It

Thursday, April 9th, 2009

I politely jeered at Andrew Sullivan in my last article for not going “straight” on religion. However, I revel in his attacks on his conservative brethren, because Andrew has the ability to be unforgiving. In this case, the target of his indignation hits close to home: gays. Andrew correctly states that conservatives of the NRO are saying that “homosexuals can go to hell”. Too bad Andrew fell short again.

But, here we are in front of the same issue as before. Is this really a cultural issue? Maybe. Everything that goes on in our society is in some way, culture. Culture comes from cultivate or to grow. Anything cultural stems from whatever growth we experience as a society. For to grow as a society, we must grow as a culture.

In his article, Andrew correctly identifies the stereotypical, culturally conservative position that is magnified in the NRO’s editorial as not giving a damn about homosexuals. They definitely don’t. However, again, Andrew misses the point. No wonder Andrew doesn’t accept comments on his blog.

The NRO editorial exemplifies the impact of religious culture in our society, even though the NRO never mentions the word religion. There is no reason to deny homosexuals any number of rights, privileges or recognitions in our society, and there never has been except for religion. Oh, the NRO mentions “social institution” and “public policy” as the reasons to deny homosexuals the right of marriage, but the NRO is intellectually bankrupt because the same arguments were used to keep blacks in slavery. You see, the only basis for denying homosexual marriage is religion. If the abrahamic faiths didn’t exist, very likely neither would mores against homosexuals and homosexual acts. Anti-homosexual positions may exist in non-abrahamic faiths, but Judaism, Christianity and Islam have done, by far, the most damage to homosexuals, among others, by sheer size and clout.

I must shout to Andrew over and above the din of mad clicking activity that happens at his blog to make him aware that while I agree with his view of the NRO editorial, he is yet again falling short on the real subject: religion has caused the anti-homosexual social practices, attitudes and laws that he is fighting against. Andrew can’t see the forest for the trees.

When will Andrew Sullivan give up on his religion and recognize it for the shortfall it has created in his life and others?

Update: Andrew, Andrew, Andrew … Deal With It, Maggie? Here it is, “But I can note that as one of the first and longest campaigners for marriage equality, my own commitment to religious freedom in America is as ferocious and as impassioned as any Christianist’s”. Andrew, you want religious freedom but you fail to understand that your desire to have religious freedom means that nobody gets any freedom from any of it. Christianity, above all faiths (just barely), requires proselytization, which means you must submit to my will. Do you get it yet?

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Posted in Religion | 2 Comments »

Religious Head Gear Earns Apology from Credit Union

Thursday, March 12th, 2009

Navy Federal Credit Union (“NFCU”) issued an apology Tuesday to a Muslim woman, who had violated NFCU’s policy against hats, hoods, or sunglasses, because she was wearing “religious head gear.” The policy is apparently a new one for NFCU, and a spokesperson indicated that the policy does not prohibit religious head gear. The Muslim woman, Kenza Shelly, was asked to leave her place in line to be served in a back room.1

The new policy was supposedly created to allow clear identification, but the spokesperson for NFCU admitted that Shelly’s scarf left her clearly identifiable. Although not admitting the incident was a mistake, the spokesperson indicated that the policy should have allowed Shelly to be served at the front counter.

Navy Federal Credit Union is chartered and regulated under the authority of the National Credit Union Administration of the US federal government.2 The question warranted by NFCU’s policy, and its apparent exception or reinterpretation of the policy, is whether NFCU employees allowing special exceptions based solely on religious belief would violate the rights of those not granted the exception. For example, what if a man wearing a tin-foil hat that does not impede clear identification attempts to transact with NFCU’s tellers? What is the proper course of action for the tellers? I’m sure we’d all agree that fingers would be nervously hovering above alarm buttons, calls would be made, and the man would be kindly asked to transact elsewhere. It’s “obvious” that the tin-foil hat is not of religious significance, right? Well, at least not mainstream. At least we won’t have suicide bombers trying to exact revenge against our mistreatment of the apparently mentally ill man.

Why establish an exception and a standard (based on fear?) for one sort of psychosis, but not all the rest? I’ve dealt with this issue before, in Intolerable Tolerance — how some governments are on the verge of caving in to pressure from the religious, and how the government should be neutral and blind to religion, not favorable to it. This is yet another example of an organization too afraid to stand up to the religious, and, in doing so, it creates a special religious exception to an otherwise neutral (and often beneficial) rule. In Intolerable Tolerance, I refer to a case in the UK where a Muslim woman was not allowed to be legal counsel in a court because she could not be clearly heard — a necessity for the operation of the court. If a necessary law or policy is upheld against everyone equally without regard to religious preference, it’s probably a good law or policy. If, however, an exception is given to someone, anyone, based on whatever the person claims is the real world view, it’s a bad practice, and subject to discrimination based on interpretation by the arbiter regarding which world views are acceptable. Mr. Tin-Foil hat, regardless of his assurances that the Tin-Foil Hat Society requires as much conviction and faith as being Muslim or Christian, will undoubtedly never receive an apology or a special exception. Regardless of the likeliness of such a situation, establishing a religiously biased policy is immediately and fundamentally discriminatory toward both the non-religious and the non-mainstream religious, and no affiliate of the government should be making such policy.

The counter-argument is that a policy could be established whereby the employees determine on an individual basis whether any head gear potentially interferes with identification. It could very well be the case that the NFCU employee who accosted Kenza Shelly was biased against Muslims, and made a decision to discriminate against the Muslim woman based on personal belief. This is where good policy should intervene and trump opportunities for bias. A universal policy of “no head gear” can be adhered to without bias if there are no special exceptions, and any cries of discrimination will be drowned out by the argument that all are being treated equally.

On the other hand, aren’t these people customers? Despite their beliefs in the supernatural, do they deserve some respect and deference as long as their behavior doesn’t actually interfere with basic security protocol? The Muslim scarf is one example, and my Tin-Foil hat extreme example is unlikely, but potentially intellectually challenging. To argue that there is a very hazy gray area, my final example is a situation where a chemotherapy patient visits a Credit Union. She has lost all of her hair due to the radiation treatment, and, in her mind, to preserve her dignity and pride, she wears a head scarf, something commonly done by others in the same situation. How should the teller react? The teller could make assumptions (it’s not as if the cancer sufferer is wearing that fact on a badge), could ask questions, could default to strict adherence to policy, could ignore policy or make an exception on the fly (with or without the facts), and could even ask a manager for assistance in the decision. What if it were a regular customer, and the teller was well-aware of the circumstances and reason for the head scarf? Exception?

Would asking a cancer patient to remove her head scarf (or be seen in a private room) because it violates policy be as bad, worse, or not as bad as asking a Muslim woman to remove hers? I’m not asking these questions because I know the answers. I’m asking them because I think that when companies and government create policy, and then try to enforce it, they don’t think about these difficult questions. When they do encounter a potentially delicate situation, they react in ways that are often inconsistent with pragmatism and constitutional ideology. In response to cries of religious discrimination, one bank, PNC, gives tellers “special training on what is and isn’t religious headgear” and tells them not to ask those wearing religious headgear to take it off.3 I’d like to know how PNC and others would react to the cancer patient. And why.

  1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/09/AR2009030902387.html [<]
  2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navy_Federal_Credit_Union , http://www.navyfcu.org/about/index.html , http://www.ncua.gov/ [<]
  3. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/09/AR2009030902387.html [<]

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Posted in Government, Religion | 2 Comments »

Carnival of the Godless #112 – Daylight Saving Time Edition

Sunday, March 8th, 2009

cotgbadgeState of Protest is honored to host the Carnival of the Godless #112. We first hosted COTG in May of 2008, Carnival of the Godless #91. That was rather successful, as I received comments like this, from Sean the Blogonaut:
“I really like the way that you have formatted the post with short excerpts from each of the articles.”

And from Christine, “This is one of the easiest-to-navigate, most-inviting Carnivals I’ve seen. Very nicely done!”

I hope to be able to create such a satisfactory COTG again. (Fortunately, this time I didn’t get repeated submissions about how “The Secret” is real, but I did get some pro-God submissions, yay.)

Not only is today a day that we are, once again, robbed of a precious hour, but it is also International Women’s Day. Please, in some way, celebrate the fact that none of us would be here were it not for women, and mourn the fact that women are still treated like second-class citizens (or much worse) all over the world today.

And now, without further French, Carnival of the Godless #112!

Oz Atheist suggests that you should Never put your cashews to the side. I know that whenever I buy cashews, I can’t stop eating them! However, Oz Atheist tells the sad story of someone who did put her cashews to the side, and how that’s an analogy for how religious people live their lives.

One evening she was having Chinese chicken and cashews for dinner at a relatives. As she found a cashew she would put it aside on her plate so she could enjoy all the cashews at the end of her meal.

Oz Atheist follows up his Cashew article with The Helicopter, or “somewhere someone is having a worse day than you.”

Recently whilst on a short jog (and thinking how my life had turned to shit) the rescue chopper flew overhead. I looked up and thought, “if you need the rescue chopper then you must be in serious trouble.”

Guest poster Mathurine at Tree Dreamer answers a collection of Questions for Ex-Muslims:

I don’t have an agenda against Islam, I’m not doing this because I suffered some trauma at the hands of Islam. Rather, I would like people to know some of the other aspects of the religion – the questions and answers you’re not going to get from your local mosque or Muslim Students Association.

A few articles dealt with the questions for atheists that Lee Strobel submitted to Friendly Atheist:
Hank at Dangerous Intersection follows up on those questions with some questions of his own for theologists and apologists in I ask; will the apologists answer?

How do you discount other religions, many with an equal or greater number of followers, which make similar claims to divine inspiration? How do their various claims of divine inspiration, miraculous occurrences and absolute moral authority fail to meet your standards of evidence?

and Friar Zero at Apple of Doubt joins the gang of atheist responders with his own answers to Strobel’s questions in An Atheist Snipe Hunt.

[Strobel's] questions are not the silver bullets that some seem to believe. They are not the best arguments against atheism or the questions most likely to plant the seeds of conversion in the godless.

finally, Conversational Atheist challenges Strobel in Response to: Who Would Die for a Lie?

Then Ask: Is a supernatural explanation allowed in order to explain the claims of Jesus’ disciples that they witnessed him resurrected and the 500 people that Paul talked to?

If no: then the person you are talking to isn’t a Christian. Simply explain that one cannot embrace the supernatural in his/her version and forbid others from using it in their explanations.

If yes: Propose the following situation:

The disciples were possessed by spirits who claimed that Jesus was resurrected.

Anthroslug thinks about morality in Thinking About Morality.
(Morality is a theme I’ve been assaulted with a lot in the past few weeks)

That religion is not the bulwark of morality against a rising tide of social ills is further illustrated by the fact that the non-religious make up a smaller portion of the prison population than of the general population. Independent of the question of whether or not religion causes social ills (a very complex question outside the scope of what I am writing here), it should be obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together that if religious belief was in fact the source of morality, then belief in gods would correlate with higher rates of moral behavior, but this proposition is demonstrably false.

Cereal at Separate Spectrum (Your daily dose of bible thumping fun-time) addresses Systems of Right and Wrong.

I think it’s time for a new outlook on how we treat the guilty of our “people’s democratic justice system.”

From the Best Blog Names file, Wenchypoo at Wisdom From Wenchypoo’s Mental Wastebasket compares the relationship between followers and the church to the relationship between citizens and the government, with regard to belief and expectations, in A Faith-Based Nation.

For decades, certain segments of our society have put blind faith in government in the same way that some put blind faith in a god. Like the so-called “miracles” of loaves and fishes, parting the Red Sea, walking on water, and so forth, our own government is expected to do similar things…

Ila, trying to find a place in the world, asks What is atheism? Rather than settling with a mere (stereotypical) definition, Ila, instead, encourages atheists to reach beyond disbelief, but in a positive way.

I cross referenced these two terms in the dictionary and came with “The doctrine or belief that there is no God. A lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.” and “Someone who denies the existence of god.” But i would like to see atheism in a different perspective.

Mark Koester at The Mystic Atheist (Understanding what it means to be “the still point of the turning world”) compares the Word of God (a story already told) to The Word of Science: A Story Still to Tell

Atheists often find blatant error in religious people’s claim at truth and meaning in such sources. But such a judgment ignores that people generally don’t look at these stories and communities through the lenses of scientific reasoning but through the lenses of a broader, more primordial human phenomenon: narrative truth and storytelling.

Cubik’s Rube disassembles Pascal’s Wager, explaining why the gambit isn’t convincing to non-believers.

His most famous argument for believing in God, based on his analysis of the odds and outcomes of belief versus disbelief, is repeated more often than any twelve episodes of Friends on late-night satellite TV channels, and judging by the way it’s often used, has shown as little progress or development in the three centuries or so since it was first proposed, as Ross did over ten seasons.

Greta Christina addresses the origin of the “Shut up, that’s why” arguments against atheists and atheism in Curiosity and the “Shut Up, That’s Why” Argument. Greta’s summary:

Why are conversations between atheists and believers often so frustrating for both sides? And is there anything we can do to make those conversations go better? The thesis of this piece: In atheist/ theist debates, atheists assume that believers are insatiably curious and looking for a consistent and plausible worldview… and believers assume that atheists are looking for an appealing worldview and a peaceful resolution to the conflict. We need to recognize these differing, cross-purpose goals if we want these conversations to be productive.

Sound byte:

I think that, when we argue with theists, atheists tend to assume that of course theists want to know the truth. Of course they want to follow the God question to its logical conclusion. Don’t they?

and then Greta Christina, in Atheism and the Argument from Comfort, counters the argument that religion offers comfort while asserting that atheists should stop arguing against it. Greta points out flaws in the argument and offers strategic suggestions on how to deal with the believers who make it.

It’s an argument that tends to drive atheists batty… since it’s not, in fact, an argument. It’s an emotional defense for hanging onto an argument that’s already been lost.

Romeo Vitelli at Providentia tells the tale of an almost forgotten tragedy from history, in Fallen Women.

Long before Dan Brown and his DaVinci Code, the legend of Mary Magdalene was a strong part of early Church doctrine. Despite the lack of any scriptural basis, the tradition of Mary Magdalene as a reformed prostitute who found salvation through repentance made her the natural patron saint for convents in which “problem” women could be redeemed.

Luke Muehlhauser at Common Sense Atheism analyzes The Explosion of Early Christianity, (Explained), asserting that it’s simple math, not a miracle, and it’s much less impressive than the growth of Mormonism or atheism in the 20th century.

Exponential growth explains the explosion of Christianity perfectly. In fact, it also explains why Christianity seemed insignificant until about 300, when it suddenly became a huge force in the Roman Empire.

SocraticGadfly shares some poetic reflections on religious outcasts, starting with the literal ones in India, in Outcasts in the name of gOd.

In the American South, in the land of cotton,
Old bible passages were not forgotten
But were twisted, to look away from the evil
Of black slavery in Dixie land.

Eric Michael Johnson at The Primate Diaries (Notes on science, politics and culture from a primate in the human zoo) discusses a new study about the origins of moral disgust in The Bad Taste of Moral Turpitude.

The greed and avarice responsible for the current economic meltdown has resulted in a growing distaste for business as usual. As it turns out, evolution may explain just why this is.

Angus Stocking at Belief Systems and Other BS asks a profoundly simple but ignored question about the nature of the Christian god in relation to that deity’s alleged son, in Oh Jesus.

In fact, Jesus appears to be stating in the plainest language possible the core message of all mysticism: that even though humans live in separation, union is possible – that we poor, pitiful, separate and alienated humans can, by grace, directly experience unity with the divine.

As Crowley said of Jesus, “I don’t blame the man for the religion foisted upon him after his death.”

Seth at Whiskey Before Breakfast tells us the story of the skinny gay kid.

Kids, if your parents are a hypocritical, child beating, cable stealing, environmentally moronic creationist fuckwad Methodist Deacon and his cowering sycophant of a wife, do not bring your crazed, hard drinking, drug taking, sexually liberal debate veteran friend home to stay for Easter Weekend.

(Nominating that for the quote of the year)

Matt Pritchard at Christian 2.0 (not an atheist blog, but the article does relate to atheism, and I felt it was fair to post it here) posts a compilation of conversations between himself and atheists from the atheist blog site Uniform Velocity, and asks (apparently Christians) whether their aim is to mend or to destroy when conversing with atheists, in Atheism: Mend or Destroy? Of course, the author could have been asking atheists. Perhaps both.

To the Christian reader: I want to show that it is possible to have a real conversation with someone who holds different beliefs, about their beliefs (or non-belief), without being hostile.

Danny Boy at Verbal Razors writes about The god of the gaps.

We have much to be thankful to our current state of knowledge. But just as we are marching forth into the future, people still stuck in the past are planting their feet in the ground and demarcating areas where our inquisitive spirits must not go.

Ron Britton at Bay of Fundie (Keeping the Radical Right at Bay) hammers Creationist Kevin Wirth’s article promoting the teaching of intelligent design in schools, in This Dork Couldn’t ID Farce if it Were Designed by God.

The ridicule and the insults are for our amusement! Watching you creationists is like going to the old circus freakshow and laughing and pointing at the freaks, but without the guilt!

PhillyChief at You Made Me Say It… explores the need to indulge the inner child and imagination, and what happens when you don’t, in Inside-Out Jammies.

The past two days were fun escapes from reality, indulgences in the unrestrained fun, excitement and imagination of childhood. I don’t see any serious harm in such escapes, and certainly I don’t see why one’s imagination must be shelved along with other toys and trinkets of childhood.

Chris Hallquist at The Uncredible Hallq examines The Plantinga-Dennett debate.

On the “low” half of the argument, Plantinga has some ideas about how maybe false beliefs could work out to be adaptive, somehow, but none of it amounts to a real argument that the odds actually are against us.

Samson Blinded (a Machiavellian Perspective on the Middle East Conflict) suggests that Christian friends might not be ours.

A Christian state of America rather than Muslim Egypt forced Israel to give away the Sinai. Christian powers finance the Arab wars with Israel by oil purchases, and enable those wars by selling Arabs advanced weapons.

Z at It’s the Thought that Counts shares a thought experiment to illustrate how it’s possible to have moral principles regardless of your belief in God, or in the absence of a god’s commandments, in Choosing between God and Satan.

So let’s imagine that two beings manifest themselves to you, both claiming to be God, and both demonstrating extreme power, far beyond your comprehension. How do you tell them apart?

Last, but not least, Andrew at Evaluating Christianity explains Why The “Minimal Facts” Model is Unpersuasive.

The underlying problem is one of selection bias: if an intelligent and informed person thinks the Bible is probably true and therefore significant, he or she is more likely to pursue a career in biblical study and then publish his or her findings (confirming that the Bible is true). If, however, an identically-qualified person thinks the Bible is probably false and therefore not significant, he or she is dramatically less likely to trundle off to seminary regardless, and is exponentially less likely to publish his or her findings confirming that the Bible is false.

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Thank you for your submissions and your support!

Please keep submitting on the rolling Carnival of the Godless submission site. The next COTG host will be at Daylight Atheism.

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Posted in COTG | 8 Comments »

Sharing the Epiphany of Disbelief

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

Steve-Doug is a guest writer at State of Protest.

As atheists, we feel compelled to share the epiphany of disbelief. Unfortunately, finding a mode to convey our rationality often undermines the powerful sensations which accompany the reduction of myth-based doctrine. Certain stereotypes of activism need to be addressed; there are, in fact, more opportunities for activism than the average heathen may be aware of. While operating prestigious science blogs, writing numerous best-selling diatribes on faith, and donating hefty sums to atheist networks and coalitions certainly advance the cause of godlessness significantly, these are not the standards of activism we as laypeople must set for ourselves; it is just not feasible for us all to utilize these vehicles of activism. Rather, we can observe openings in our daily interactions which can facilitate the dissemination of rationality and scientific literacy.

My own conversion to atheism occurred almost a year after I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a type of cancer which infects the body’s lymph nodes. Despite being only fifteen and very religious, I was still very unwilling to preserve this belief system when prayers went unanswered and skeptic inquiry into Christianity yielded no intelligent answers. Chemotherapy being just as debilitating as it is known to be, my social interactions were greatly limited and I depended on the internet to express and develop my deviations. The online game Star Wars: Jedi Outcast grew to be a virtual outlet for my social needs. The game catered to tight-knit virtual communities, and it wasn’t long before I had established very strong friendships with a group of players of varying religious stances. Of these players, I found myself steadily growing to regard the fundamentalists with much reproach, while the pantheist, agnostic, and atheist members encouraged my skepticism. Before long, my beliefs had no common ground with the fundamentalists.

While I was exploring the concepts of atheism, I became transfixed by the mechanics of evolution, a subject almost invariably linked to disbelief. The poetic antithesis of complexity and simplicity characteristic of natural selection occupied my mind at great intervals. Naturally I was very distraught when, after discussing evolution in general terms, my fundamentalist friends professed rejection of the theory. In their dismissals classifying the theory as luck-based, entropy-violating, and largely speculative, it also became clear that they had no understanding of the actual theory; rather, they had crafted an insincere amalgamation of absurd statements which could only be said to resemble extreme misinterpretations of evolution. Noting their inability to be swayed by well-structured argumentation, I decided that I must take it upon myself to illustrate the true mechanics of this process in terms that would register with them. I set out to design a modification for Jedi Outcast which showed how the theory worked in accurate terms.

The modification consisted primarily of a custom built level designed in an urban setting. Throughout the level, pop-up text informed players of key concepts they were observing. Pictured below is the “starting point” of the level.

Once inside, players witnessed robots with design codes. The robots were analogous to organisms, while the design codes represented the genotype. The codes, or genotypes, explained the physical attributes of the robots; i.e. shape, resistance to fire, ability to travel across water, etc. In the following rooms, robots with different codes attempted to traverse difficult landscapes. If the robot made it across, it was stated that its traits were suited to survival and would get to be continued in the next generation of robots. Consecutive rooms provided different challenges, establishing the theme that what is effective in one generation and environment is not always effective in another; thus variability is needed. Pictured, different robots traverse a harsh environment.

Pic 2

The final area of the level was constructed to resemble Richard Dawkins’ image of Mount Improbable: a large gap separated two ledges, at one a large and rather complex machine and at another a small and not-so-complex machine. Players were encouraged to attempt to jump from ledge to ledge, but this was impossible. Instead, a gradual slope ran along the mountain with “transition” machines spaced at intervals along the slope until the player had gradually arrived at the complex machine. This illustrated how organisms do not “jump” from species to species, but rather move in slow alterations. Players were greeted with two pop-up footnotes: the first denounced the phrase “transition organism” as purely for use of explanation, as all organisms (or in this case, machines) are transitory; the second stated that evolution is in no way a goal-oriented force. Evolution does not seek to craft complex machines, heat-resistant robots, or human brains. Evolution simply sees to it that designs which suit their environments succeed in replication. In this case, the environment has rewarded generator-like designs. Pictured is Mount Improbable, with the machines highlighted in the attempt of allowing them to be seen more clearly.

Pic 3

At the close of the level, players were told that the representations in the level were very much generalized and reduced for the sake of illustration, which is perhaps an understatement. Although my graphic representation was not as detailed or analytical as a published treatise on evolution, it provided an effective illustration as an introduction to evolution, especially for people who dismissed evolution based solely on handy catch-phrases developed and promoted by religious-based opposition.

In the end, this endeavor proved to be bittersweet. On the one hand, my fundamentalist friends were greatly informed by the representation. Several openly professed that they had a complete non-understanding of the theory beforehand, and now had some understanding, simplified as this understanding may be. However, none were able to accept the theory. Holding an understanding of how evolution works, they could no longer assault the theory under false pretenses. They were thus resigned to utilize only unclear pseudo-philosophic arguments stating that faith was absolute and what we observe could be satanic trickery. It is my belief, though, that their confinement to such ridiculous arguments devoid of empirical backing emphasizes the denialism of creationism to such an extent that rejecting its pseudoscience becomes substantially easier to the layman who might believe that there might be some legitimacy in creationism. I have come to believe that even if our non-scientific opponents fail to find themselves swayed by the scientific method, removing any doubt of rationality from their arguments is the only effective way to control their propagation. Even though we may not always hold the burden of proof and evolution has certainly secured itself beyond significant scrutiny, I should gladly take the opportunity to explain the rationality of science to the ignorant in the effort to reduce any perceived eloquence of pseudoscience.

As I hope my example has showed, there are extraordinarily varied options for spreading the cause of rationality. It is up to the individual to identify and take advantage of opportunities for such activism. It must be remembered that rational inquiry seldom sways those utilizing the reality-limiting perspective of faith, and we must try not to be discouraged. The frustration accompanying an opponent’s refusal to acknowledge scientific principles can make debates almost unbearable. The practice of “keeping quiet” instead is on par with aiding the spread of pseudoscience, and as such, I will gladly explain the principles of reality to the staunchest of fundamentalists in lieu of silence; I know I’m not the only one.

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Posted in Activism, Atheism | 2 Comments »

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