Another conversation I learned something from

Post 800

Eight hundred posts. How do I come up with so many things to write about?

Practice.

I practice by glowering angrily in the mirror, denouncing random objects while hanging laundry, a few push-ups, and then typing random characters to see if they spell anything interesting.

Here are some stats regarding my posting.

Anyway, feel free to say anything you'd like in comments. That's what we do around here for every hundredth post.

Sunday blasphemy: Loan sharking for Jesus

The Jehovah's Witnesses came by today. Sadly, they couldn't stay -- I was hoping they could explain why they don't seem to like higher education.

Instead, they were offering this advertisement for a meeting about Jesus.

It seems that Jesus gave his life for you, and you should be very grateful to him. It would also appear that if you're not, then there will be Eternal Consequences, including not existing.

Gavin de Becker, in his book The Gift of Fear, lists some behaviours of untrustworthy people. One of these behaviours is loan sharking. The loan shark tries to screw you over by doing something for you that you didn't ask for, and then making you feel indebted so you'll reciprocate. Ever known someone like that?

The 'loan shark' tactic is an integral part of Christianity. You've contracted some kind of debt, either because you were born, or because you did something wrong due to your sinful human nature. Now you're hosed. But Jesus paid your debt. Aren't you glad? Don't you think you owe him one, after all he did for you? You wouldn't want to retroactively increase his sufferings by continuing in sin, would you? So spend the rest of your life giving time and money to a church and meeting a series of ever-escalating commitments, because after all, Jesus did so much for you.

Loan sharking. Watch for it.

Not reading, citing.

Yikes. Simkin and Roychowdhury posit that only about 20% of authors actually read the articles they're citing. The estimate is based on citations that appear identically in different scientific papers, but which are actually wrong.

They assume this means that the author hasn't read the original source. I would dispute this. I have lots of articles that I've read, but which for one reason or another don't have the citation data printed on them. I chase the citations up on these (when I cite them) because I'm paranoid about getting the citation data wrong, but boy, is it ever tempting to pull up someone else's paper and find the citation already there for you. I think the authors are too quick to discount the possibility that this is what's happening.

I haven't read all of the article yet, but I probably will soon.

In Mormon apologetics, two wrongs do make a right.

Michael R. Ash of the Mormon Times has been constructing a case for non-Lehite inhabitants of ancient America. The story is advancing slowly, but it takes a long time to dismantle statements from past church leaders, and to redefine words like 'true', 'correct,' 'historicity' and 'verisimilitude'.

In case you missed it last time, here's the problem: If the 'Lehites' -- Hebrew immigrants to the Americas -- were the only ones there, why don't we see their DNA in current populations? How do we explain the incredible linguistic diversity of the Americas from just a few speakers of Semetic languages? Why don't Native American languages today appear to have any trace of Hebrew or Egyptian? And as we discussed before, why is Ash having to explain away statements from Church leaders who believed that the land was empty except for the Lehites?

Ash and other LDS apologists have concluded that the land really was inhabited before the Lehites came along. (Which is quite correct, except for the part about the Lehites coming along.) However, the Book of Mormon has some trouble fitting into this model, in part because of the puzzling failure of the Lehites to mention anyone not of Hebrew origin in the Book of Mormon narrative.

In his latest column, Ash gives two possible reasons why the Nephites didn't mention the 'other people' they were surrounded by:

1) the early material from Large Plates -- which may have mentioned "others" -- was not included in our English translation

This resembles the logic that George W. Bush used when WMDs weren't found in Iraq: Maybe they're over there! No? How about over there? Don't worry, we'll find 'em someday.

Okay, so the Lehites might have mentioned 'others' in the Large Plates. They also might have mentioned potatoes and pumpkins, which they almost certainly ate, but which don't get a mention in the Book of Mormon. Who knows? It might be true, but it seems a bit (again) prestidigitatious to push the possibility onto a book that no one has access to.

And this is part of the problem with some of Ash's arguments: they're terribly speculative. Is it wrong to speculate? Well, no, not always. But Ash is asking us to believe his speculations, having just trashed a lot of speculations by LDS leaders who are much more authoritative than he is. Should we believe Michael Ash, or Joseph Smith? Or I've got an idea. How about neither?

and 2) the Small Plates were focused on the ethnogenesis and religious ministry of the Nephite people and would have been unconcerned with any "others" in such a narrative.

Hmm. Tell me more.

From a close reading of the Book of Mormon text, we find that Nephites and Lamanites were sociopolitical names. The Book of Mormon writers were Nephites, and virtually everyone else is referred to with the exonym Lamanite (the term "Lamanite" will be discussed in greater detail in the near future).

Well, I am impressed with the word 'exonym'. Should be a corker if I can use it in Scrabble on a triple word score. And I can't wait for him to redefine 'Lamanite'. Perhaps it will mean 'person with no DNA whatsoever'.

But I'm getting away from the point. Ash (and now-frequent commenter Seth R.) are arguing that the Lehites didn't really care so much about the hoards of original inhabitants around them. They never wrote about them because they weren't in the habit of writing about people not of their group. You know how ethnocentric those ancient people were! (Oh, you don't? I'm betting Seth and Mr Ash don't either.)

Of course, this is flat wrong. Lehites in the Book of Mormon do in fact run into other people, and write about them. They run into the 'people of Zarahemla' (which Latter-day Saints now call Mulekites), who allegedly came from bible lands in a different group from the Lehites.

Mulekites, for their part, also encountered and wrote about someone not of their own tribe: Coriantumr. He was supposed to be a decendant of the Jaredites, also allegedly from the Middle East.

So people in the Book of Mormon do find and write about people not of their own immediate group. But they never encounter any of the real native inhabitants of the Americas, like we'd expect them to. They just keep bumping into people from the Middle East. (What are the odds?) And why? I think it's because the author of the Book of Mormon really was advancing a hypothesis that the Hebrews were the only ones there. The Book of Mormon is an origin myth, attempting to explain how people got to the New World. A hundred and fifty years ago, the idea that they came from the land of the Hebrews was a plausible hypothesis, but the idea has been thoroughly dismanted by a century of evidence from archaeology, anthropology, genetics, and linguistics.

Notice once again that Ash doesn't advance any testable notions of where Lehites were. He doesn't have to. All he has to do is blur things so that his preconceived conclusion could be true. Maybe it is true. Maybe not. As long as it preserves the faith, what does it matter?

Let's move on. The next part is genius.

Another of the weaknesses of the Book of Mormon is that it postulates an absurdly fecund population model once the Lehites arrive. There's no way you could have as many people as the Book of Mormon claims from just the Lehites. But watch the jiu jitsu: Ash uses this problem to cancel out the problem of the invisible 'others'!

Within 15 years, Joseph and Jacob were made priests and teachers "over the land of my (Nephi's) people" (2 Nephi 5:26). We read that within 25 years of their New World arrival, the Nephites were at "war" with the Lamanites. What kind of "war" could possibly exist with the few adults that may have been around without the infusion of pre-existing cultures?

Fifteen years later, some of the Nephite men began desiring "many wives and concubines" (Jacob 1:15). How many women could there have been if there were no others besides the original Lehite party?
...
By about 200 B.C. "corn" (American maize) is mentioned as the grain of preference among the Lamanites (Mosiah 7:22, 9:14). Corn, a uniquely American grain, could not have been brought from Lehi's world and could not have been discovered wild upon arrival because of its complex cultivating techniques that will only reproduce new corn with human care. This strongly implies that others already were cultivating corn and taught the technique to Book of Mormon peoples.

Beginning about 500 years after the Lehites arrived, we read about "thousands" or even tens of thousands of warring soldiers. Such a rapid population growth would not have been possible without the presence of "others."

This is amazing stuff. I wonder if I could try that.

You know how people criticise the Book of Mormon for containing the word 'adieu'? Of course, Joseph Smith could have used any French words he knew when translating, but I have a better answer. French speakers might have migrated to ancient America, swimming over on horses, which is why Book of Mormon people had them. After all, it must be trivial to migrate from Jerusalem to some undefined point in North/South/Central America. The Book of Mormon describes it happening on three separate occasions, so it could have happened again. There's nothing you can't do as long as you have the Lord, and enough barley for your swimming horse.

People say that the use of swords and cimeters in the Book of Mormon is anachronistic. But they haven't considered the real source of swords and cimeters: the post-mortal Paul, who might have minstered unto the Lehites through time travel. Here he distributed cutlery unto the Lehites, and also gave his famous (through eerily New Testamental) discourse about charity, which eventually filtered down to Moroni.

Damn, I hope Ash is getting paid for this. It's hard work. Doing apologetics with this kind of material, I mean. Well, that and getting paid for something that others would gladly do for free.

UPDATE: It occurred to me that Paul didn't have to be 'post-mortal' if he had a time machine. He could have been alive when he handed the scimeters to the Lehites (and subsequently collected them so as not to leave evidence). But whether he was alive or not at the time hasn't yet been revealed. It must not be important for our salvation. As always, prayer is the only way to really be certain of my conclusions, like I am. Really certain.

I've always been partial to Selket myself.

Many thanks to kcrady for providing the inspiration for this comic.

Scientology inquiry fails in Australia

Scientology is an evil little cult. I'm still not sure to what extent it might be more evil and more culty than other religions, but let's just start there. Like other religions, it collects loads of money from its followers in return for a lot of fables and not much else. And like other religions, it has tax-exempt status in Australia.

The dark side of Scientology was on display recently, with allegations of blackmail, physical abuse, imprisonment of defectors, and forced abortions. South Australian senator Nick Xenophon requested an investigation into revoking the tax-free status of Scientology.

I was disappointed that the inquiry didn't go anywhere, though I was just glad that someone was willing to raise the issue.

Labor and coalition senators this week joined forces to vote against Senator Xenophon's motion to launch an inquiry into the tax-free status of religious groups and whether they should be subjected to a British-style public benefit test.
...
Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan, who abstained from the vote on Thursday, said he was divided on the issue.

"We need to find a solution to the despair and desperate circumstances that some families find themselves in, without embarking on what turns into a witch-hunt, with unintended consequences, against all religious organisations," he told AAP on Friday.

He's got one thing right: removing tax-free status from Scientology would open the way to removing it from other religions. And I might add, hopefully all. Too bad that's not a policy that other Australian politicians have the 'ticker' for.

It's been argued that the so-called 'moderate religions' provide cover for the 'extreme religions', often by making faith seem respectable. But in this case, it happens because the mantle of 'religion' makes lawmakers unwilling to confront even the Scientologists, if it might create conflict with other churches. And so evil organisations can escape consequences, if they just call themselves a religion.

A Scientology spokeswoman said the voting down of Senator Xenophon's motion was a "victory for religious freedom".

Perhaps, if we mean 'freedom from having to pay their fair share in society'. But if 'religious freedom' means 'freedom to leave the religion', then it's a freedom that some ex-Scientologists do not have. And this lack of religious freedom is sanctioned, endorsed, and paid for by the state.

Global Atheist Con, Day 3: Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins blew onto the stage at the Melbourne Convention Centre, blinding us all with science and leaving us breathless with his speech about gratitude. Yes, gratitude. Here were the main points.

Life is highly unlikely, especially our own existence. We don't know how many times life has arisen in the universe. It may be that there's a bubbleverse -- a collection of universes that appear as bubbles in foam. In which case, our universe was one of the successful ones. In our universe, there are six different physics constants, and if any of them had been different, the universe would not have arisen. Twiddle the gravitation constant, and the universe might have collapsed onto itself in the first few femtoseconds. But why should we say that a god twiddled the knobs?

Dawkins: To postulate a divine knob-twiddler...
Audience: (Ribald laughter)
Dawkins: ... Why is that funny? To postulate a divine tuner...
Audience: (Raucous laughter)

We should feel gratitude to be alive. But gratitude to who?

We have inbuilt urges, even though cognitively we may no longer have the need for such urges. Feelings of gratitude (like the ones religious believers express to a god) may be hold-overs from earlier useful urges. For example, beavers locked in concrete rooms try to build phantom dams with imaginary logs. People feel the urge for sex (because of the drive for reproduction) even when they know it won't lead to reproduction. So our gratitude impulse could be part of our inbuilt calculator for fairness and reciprocity. This might have evolved so we wouldn't let others cheat us, and it may have even led to mathematics. These urges of gratitude are nothing to be ashamed about.

Best question during Q&A after the talk: "When do you think we will able to criticise Islam without fearing for our lives?"

Were I in his place, I might have set my jaw and said, "Islam sucks. I ain't askeert," while mentally calculating my life insurance.

Dawkins instead suggested that he was not overly eager to insult Muslims. But (speaking to a hypothetical Muslim): "I may refrain from insulting you. I may refrain from publishing a cartoon of your prophet. But it's because I fear you. Don't think for one minute that it's because I respect you."

Worst question: A woman said that she was a believer, and that she was going to give gratitude that night... to god. (Boos, and people shushing the boo-ers.) Her question was about DNA: what is it, and could he explain how it had arisen?

Now I'm a human, so I'm pretty good at detecting intentions when someone asks a question, and I detected high levels of self-righteous smarm. It's possible to ask that question in a way that says "Gee, I don't really understand DNA, and could you explain it to me?" This wasn't like that. She was saying "How do explain DNA without god, Mr Smarty-Dawkins?"

I don't care if someone gives Dawkins a bit of stick; he can hack it. But it was a real shame that she decided to waste everyone's limited question time with a question she hadn't bothered to look up by, say, reading the relevant chapter in Dawkins' book The Greatest Show on Earth.

That said, it was really great to hear Dawkins give us the run-through on DNA, which was basically out of the book. It was still a far better answer than she deserved.

Global Atheist Con, Day 3: Dan Barker

You could tell who the former true believers in the crowd were, just by looking at people who came out of Dan Barker's talk. Atheists who were once casual believers or never-believers thought it was a great talk, while former true believers came out looking stunned, and saying, "That was just like my story."

Dan Barker used to be a Christian preacher, but deconverted in 1984. He is now at the head of the Freedom from Religion Foundation.

He described his work in converting others to Christianity. "I never got any doors slammed in my face. I never got an informed response." He surveyed the audience of atheists. "Where were you guys? I could have used you. You probablty didn't say anything out of respect.

"Well, don't do that."

The striking thing for me was how he described having exactly the same kinds of feelings that Mormons describe as the feelings of the Spirit. I shouldn't have been surprised, but I still am. Mormons customarily claim that non-Mormons don't have regular access to the Holy Ghost. I have also heard some believers claim that the feelings of the Spirit is something that Satan cannot duplicate. But, as one should expect, there's nothing unique about Mormon testimony. The 'positive feelings' Mormons get are in sync with the feelings felt by other believers and -- dare I say? -- non-believers.

Having been a believer once, he raised the question of how to have "dialogue without disprespect, and the answer is to respect them and the reasons why they believe.... I think there can be a small place for ridicule, if that's not all we're doing."

From Barker: "Paul said, 'God is not the author of confusion.' But can you think of a book that's caused more confusion than the Bible?"

Global Atheist Con, Day 3: Peter Singer

People get breathless about Peter Singer. I had the chance to catch up with our good friend snowqueen in Melbourne, and she was all, "OMG you're going to see Peter Singer." And I had to make a terrible confession: I haven't really been aware of Peter Singer's work since I read 'Animal Liberation' in the late 70's. My mom showed it to me. She was convinced it was satire.

Since then, Singer become well-known with his work on ethics and the environment. His talk was called "Ethics Without Religion".

He raised three points that believers often make when asking atheists how they can be moral without religion:

1. Who is to say what's good or bad without a god?
This view provides a paradox: is something good simply because god likes it? Then goodness is arbitrary. But if you take the opposite view that god is good because he likes good things, then we could save time by ignoring god, and worshipping the set of values that he holds. Either god is an arbitrary tyrant, or there's a notion of good that is independent of what god wills, and we don't need a god to have it.

2. But if goodness is independent of god, maybe we still need god to reveal it to us.
Well, people with scriptures are very selective about the things they accept from scripture as 'goodness'. They're not using scripture -- they're using their own moral sense.

Singer mentioned that Jesus is not much help for Christians. According to him, divorce is adultery (though many Christians ignore this), he says nothing about abortion even though many Christians are certain it's wrong, and he requires someone to sell everything he has, contrary to papal opulence and prosperity gospels.

3. Religion gives us the motivation to do what's right by offering eternal rewards or punishments for our actions.

But does this help? We can compare the behaviour of religious v non-religious people. The notoriously religious USA doesn't seem to offer a model of social utopia compared to secular Europe, which offers health care, lower crime, and higher rates of charity.

Singer makes the argument that human morality is an evolved phenomenon. We seem to come to similar moral judgments regardless of background. Singer points that in some cases there's a 'yuck' factor to some of our moral judgments.

But this moral sense only works on situations that humans would have been familiar with, and in cases outside of human experience, our evolved response is not good enough. Xenophobia could be instinctive, but in our global post-tribal world, we need to get over it. Climate change is another issue that could be disastrous, but we don't have an evolved response for it. It's too gradual, too long-range.

Or consider this example posed by Singer: If a child was drowning, would you wade in, wrecking your pair of shoes? Of course. But for the cost of a pair of shoes, you could save the life of a child via Oxfam. It doesn't hit us the same way, though, because the child is more remote. Again, our evolved response is not good enough.

Singer describes his sense of morality as concern for those people who could be affected by our actions. Are atheists borrowing morality from religion? Quite the reverse. Religion is borrowing from our innate moral sense.

Global Atheist Con: Zingers!

John Perkins: If religions were true, they would not be religion.

Jane Caro: At one point the church fathers debated whether women have souls. And they came to the wrong decision -- they decided that we did. We don't, but they don't either.

Catherine Deveney: If there is anybody out there who is not an atheist, don't worry: it's an intelligence test and you will be eventually.

Robyn Williams: I can give you an argument against reigion in two words: 'Senator Fielding'.

Discuss.

Global Atheist Con, Day 2: A.C. Grayling

Philosopher A.C. Grayling spoke about the shift in the role of religion over the ages, and how humanism can replace it.

In earlier times, says Grayling, science and religion were viewed as competitors. They both made truth claims regarding the origin and destiny of the universe, and they were both covering the same turf.

Now, as science has been taking over the job of explaining the material world, religion has moved to attending to the emotional needs of adherents.

He discussed the claim that religion was a kind of proto-science -- a 'first try' at explaining the world. He rejects the claim thus: People often ask if humans came from monkeys, and the answer is, no, actually monkeys and humans came from a common ancestor. In like fashion, science and religion also had a common ancestor, which was ignorance. Science has had more success.

How could science have evolved from religion? Science uses trial and error, effort, observation, and reason. Religion uses prayer. Try lighting your house by prayer and see if it works. How different they are. It's like the difference between a ham sandwich and a bicycle.

Science doesn't solve our moral problems. It would be like asking a botanist how best to love your wife. But we do have arts, music, and literature. We also have a responsibility to help the less fortunate, and one thing we can do is reduce the opprsession of religious groups upon them.

Humanism is capable of speaking to the enjoyment or refreshment or transcendence of our deep emotions. There's no spirituality required. And it does this in a much more honest way than religons do.

Grayling: "People ask me 'Why do you speak against religion when it gives someone comfort when they're old and alone?' But how much better would it be if friends and neighbours were there to give that person love?"

Global Atheist Con, Day 2: Taslima Nasrin

It was amazing to hear Taslima Nasrin's story. She's a writer and a former Muslim. One article she wrote denounced the burqa as restrictive and unequal, and that women shouldn't wear it. Because of her writings about how religion oppresses women, she has attracted demonstrations and violence from her detractors. She has five fatwas against her from Muslim clerics. Says Nasrin, "Don't you think the believers commit blasphemy by trying to protect their god?"

I first became aware of Nasrin around 2005, when she was exiled from her native Bangladesh, but I had no idea her struggles were ongoing. The Indian government has forced her to leave her home in India, and she now lives in the West.

She told how as a child, her mother told her if she ever said anything bad about Allah, her tongue would fall out. A natural empiricist, she immediately ran to the bathroom, closed the door, and said "Allah is a son of a bitch. Allah is the son of a dog." Miraculously, her tongue stayed in place, and she knew that her mother was wrong.

In her talk, Nasrin was critical of attempts on the part of Muslims to influence international laws curtailing free speech so as not to upset religious feelings, saying "Without the right to offend, freedom does not exist."

She sees conflict between not Christianity and Islam, or between East and West. The conflict is between rationalism and irrational religious belief.

She told of how she longs to return to her home in Bangladesh, and how the West doesn't feel like home to her. Nevertheless, to her, the international community of rationalists, secularists, and atheists are her home.

None of us who has left a religion has any idea what it's like to have to worry about our safety like she does. And yet she continues to speak out against religion and governmental attempts to appease it. What an inspirational person.

Global Atheist Con, Day 2: Max Wallace

Max Wallace (director of ANZSA, the Australia New Zealand Secular Association) wants to make a movie. His topic is "The Delusion That We Pay For: How Taxpayers Subsidise Religions Worldwide and Why We Need a Film to Expose This".

Through tax exemptions and privileges, we pay for the religious to be religious. Every available dollar should instead be used for education and science. Religions are on-shore tax havens for the promotion of supernaturalism. They are not held accountable for the money they make. They don't pay for police and fire protections, property taxes, or capital gains tax. And let's not forget their attempts to meddle in government affairs (e.g. Prop 8, though Wallace didn't mention this explicitly).

Occasionally religions carry out terrorist activities, e.g. Aum Shinrikyo. It was tax-free. This means that the Japanese government was subsidising an organisation committed to its destruction.

He argues that the main consideration for religions is not God. It's also not political power -- it's money, which confers political power.

According to Wallace, there are some determinations that the tax department uses to decide if a group qualifies for tax exemption under religious provisions. One is that you have to have a congregation of indeterminate size. Another is that you have to pay a stipend to a minister. In his experience, the main criteria for determining a religion is that your belief is supernatural.

It's been said that nothing is certain except death and taxes. Religions think they can avoid death. They know they can avoid tax.

My take: I don't have much experience in this area. But I would like to see religions pay their fair share. I did enjoy the talk -- a good old rile-'em-up. Also, I'd go see that movie.

Global Atheist Con, Day 2: Phillip Adams

Philip Adams (author, columnist): "Atheist Fundamentalism: The Dangers of Missionary Zeal, Why We Mustn't Be Like Them"

This was a strange talk. Phillip Adams is arguing that atheists haven't had much influence on religion at all. He argues we're not killing religions; they're committing suicide. Further, the decrease in some religions is not leading to an increase in atheism, but rather an increase in pseudo-science and cults. Certainly atheism is the beneficiary of a lot of that religious mobility. But we can't take credit for the decrease in conventional religion. These wounds are self-inflicted. We're winning, but not because of what we're doing.

We should attack religion when it moves into our area of secularism. But we shouldn't be disagreeable on areas where we could be making allies. We must use the opportunities to make friends with people who are not our enemies. "Let us not cast them into the outer darkness into which they cast us. Let us be better than them."

My view: Adams seems to feel that the pace of change is glacial. And yet here we are. The number of atheism and 'nones' is growing fast. Are we supposed to just quiet down now? Hell, no.

It's not about being better. It's about telling the truth. I say shake the tree. They won't like it, but they wouldn't like any amount of push-back. Their idea of a 'good atheist' is one that shuts up. What has that gotten us in the last 50 years? Yes, I will pick battles, and in person I'm actually polite. But I didn't like having an atheist dampening the momentum.

Entertaining, but a bit of a downer. I wonder how I'll feel about the atheist movement when I've been in it for as long as he has (if that's possible).

I am not stalking PZ, but I bumped into him when no one else was around. I said, "Phillip's talk was certainly a different view. Not so much 'in your face'."

He said, "That's okay. We need that."

"You're more forward about it," I suggested.

"We need that too," he said.

An old argument, updated

A Facebook friend wrote:

Every kind of beautiful art causes me to marvel at the artist. Even more, at the Artist who made the artist.

So I responded:

Was there an Artist who made the Artist who made the artist who made the art?

The collective opinion of his other religious friends is a resounding 'no'.

That being the case, my next comment would be:

So if an Artist does not need a creator, why does an artist?

It's just the old 'Who created the Creator?' problem. If a god doesn't need a creator and things can just appear uncreated, then anything could just appear without needing a god to create it. But if a god does need a creator, it doesn't fix the problem; it just extends it back a generation. That way lies Infinite Regress, and it's turtles all the way down.

But then I suppose this friend would then say, "God doesn't need a creator. He's God. Duh." Can't argue with a definition like that.

UPDATE: I was right. Someone did end up saying exactly that.

Global Atheist Con, Day 2: Sue-Ann Post

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

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

Me and Sue-Ann Post

Global Atheist Con, Day 2: Goings-on

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

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

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

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

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

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

which I think lots of atheists would be down with.

Me with Sarah from the ASP.

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

Global Atheist Con, Day 1: Me and PZ

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Daniel font: Words in the clouds

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

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

Word cloud made with WordItOut

Gee, I blog about religion a lot, don't I?

Talk the Talk Twofer: Cave signs

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

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

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

Click to listen:


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

Click to listen:


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

Why I am not an Anti-Mormon

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

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

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

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

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

Dismissing Book of Mormon problems

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Back to the article.

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

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

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

Missionary chats: What finally did it?

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

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

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

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

"But was there one thing?" he asked.

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

"Go ahead," he said.

It was the Tower of Babel.

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

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

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

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

So that was it.

How about you?

Bibles for porn

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

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

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

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