Five Podcasts for Critical Thinkers

I listen to a lot of podcasts. They keep me company on work road trips, help pass the time when I'm in the midst of drudgery.

If you both (A) consider yourself a critical thinker, skeptic, or [fill in preferred label here] and (B) listen to podcasts, there is likely no need for me to mention shows like The Skeptics Guide to the Universe or Skepticality. Though if you don't listen to those, subscribe to those as well :)

Instead, I wanted to share a few show I listen to with a slightly less-general focus than SGU and Skepticality. Some of these might not even call themselves science or critical-thought podcasts, favoring comedy, politics, or human insight. But the hosts of all of these shows consistently apply skepticism and critical thought to their subject matter.

So, presented in no particular order...

RH Reality Cast
Website • iTunes

RH Reality Cast is produced by RH Reality Check, a web resource for reproductive health, and hosted by Pandagon's Amanda Marcotte, one of my Favorite People on all of the Internets. Each week, Amanda cuts through the nonsense and addresses the real issues surrounding reproductive health, healthcare, and abortion. It is unabashedly political and unabashedly liberal, which suits me just fine.

Curiosity Aroused
Website • iTunes

This fledgling podcast so far only has six episodes under its belt, but it has swiftly risen near to the top of my favorites. Rebecca Waston, cohost of SGU and another of my Favorite People on All of the Internets, hosts Curiosity Aroused. Each episode aims to bring a critical eye to a single topic, from mainstay skeptical issues, like why vaccination is a good idea, to less obvious ones, like addressing myths about dogs.

Curiosity Aroused "feels" very different to most skeptical podcasts, in that it doesn't assume it's preaching to the choir. Rather, each episode starts with Rebecca channeling Ira Glass with an introduction or anecdote about the topic at hand. Then, contributors (many of them, Skepchicks) present one or more stories on that topic.

I really can't say enough good about this one. I love it. I'd put it right along side Radiolab, which considering that it doesn't have the weight of NPR behind it, is impressive. Oh, and speaking of Radiolab...

Radiolab
Website • iTunes

It's a travesty that Radiolab, out of WNYC, does not air on my local NPR station. Luckily, it's available as a podcast. Think of it like This American Life, except that each week, the theme is a topic within science. It's really difficult for me to capture what listening to Radiolab is like in type, but can't recommend it highly enough. your best bet is to just listen to an episode, and you'll be hooked immediately. Might I recommend the Parasites or the Earworms (songs, not parasites in this case) episode? Fascinating stuff.

Reasonable Doubts
Website • iTunes

There are a lot of podcasts on atheism (I've even been a guest on one), but this one is the best in my opinion. I look forward, especially, to the "counter apologetics" segment, where the very knowledgeable hosts dissect an argument from well-known religious apologists (*cough* William Lane Craig *cough*) and, I think, ably show their arguments to be less than compelling.

Sundays Supplement
Website • iTunes

Iszi Lawrence and Simon Dunn are two British comedians who, well...

Each week, we get out fingers inky so you don't have to. We put two of Britain's newspapers head-to-head to see which has the best supplements. So... find out which paper you should've bought, last Sunday.

Yep. It's a show about people reading the newspaper. Riveting, right? But check it out. I guarantee that you will be entertained. I eagerly await the newest SunnySup every week. Hilarious! And what's more, it occasionally features interviews (or guest hosts) like the aforementioned Rebecca Watson or Richard Wiseman. Have you ever wondered what would happen to a kitten if you put it in the Large Hadron Collider and proceeded to accelerate it to near the speed of light? Well, Iszi asks LHC physicist Brian Cox and finds out once and for all.

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Now, get to listening!

I tried to highlight shows here that may not fit into the usual norm of "critical thinking" podcasts (though I suppose Reasonable Doubts does. But I already wrote the damn text, so it stays). Am I missing something amazing? Tell me in the comments below!

Thoughts on Dacey / Hausam debate

This past Saturday, I attended a lecture (organized by SHIFT) by Austin Dacey entitled "Blasphemy: Hate Speech or Human Right."

Despite me sending Dr. Dacey off on a fifteen minute wild goose chase in search of a bathroom minutes before the lecture, he was extraordinarily well-spoken, eloquent and persuasive.

The thrust of Dr. Dacey's argument is that all people are deserving of equal respect and dignity, but that not all ideas are, and that a truly open society depends on the ability to criticize ideas. I couldn't agree with this more. With blasphemy laws spreading, such as the new one in Ireland and the various proposals put before the UN (the talks for which Dr. Dacey has participated in), this is an important distinction.

Following his lecture, Dr. Dacey was joined by Dr. Mark Hausam for a debate (really, more of a conversation) called "Is Morality Possible Without God?"

Dr. Hausam's position, of course, is that no, morality is not possible without God.

Hausam began by listing off several things that would be true in a Godless universe. I objected to very little of what he said here, I just don't view it as a problem. (e.g., the universe is so vast and expansive that in the grand scheme of things, we puny humans on our pale blue dot add up to very little, except in our own eyes.)

Then things got dicey. Hausam's contention, and I'll try not to strawman here, is that all human morality is "subjective" and therefore illusory. Only an observer outside of the Universe and truly "objective" can therefore be the source of true morality. (For no apparent reason, he also said this fact demonstrated God's existence... which was neither the topic of discussion nor true.)

Nearly everything Hausam said hinged on one or both of these assumptions being true. Yet he failed to substantiate either assumption. Furthermore, I think both of these can be deomstrated to not be true: human's can be moral without a god, and God (and let's not beat around the bush here, Hausam was talking about the God of the Bible) is neither "objective" nor consistently moral.

Human-based morality is not real morality?
Hausam played a little linguistic trick throughout his arguments. He was supposedly saying that morality cannot exist without God. But what he actually contended is that objective morality cannot. I got so tired of him invoking the word "objective" as if it gave him a free pass to say whatever he wanted.

Here's the deal: in a way, he's right: there is no universally accepted "objective" morality in humans. Things deemed anathema to one society wouldn't garner so much as a batted eyelash in others. We can come up with some approximations of "objective" morality: equal opportunity no matter one's gender, race, religion, or nation; rejection of murder and rape, and so on. But even those qualities are based on some assumptions (assumptions that I subscribe to), such as the inherent equality of all people. Indeed, without holy words in the picture, I'd contend that it may be easier to fashion something approaching an "objective" morality, as wouldn't be based around the capricious desires of beings that only speak through chosen "prophets."

So what if human morality is "subjective?" They're the result of evolution and social cohesion, primarily, which doesn't make them less applicable to human life, but more applicable than those based on the unintelligible motivations of a sky god, operating under the the simple moral rule of "whatever I say goes."

Hausam repeatedly stated that although he wouldn't act any differently in a godless universe, other people would. He doesn't have numbers to back this up of course, as atheists are the least well-represented in American prisons of any religious group, and the least religious nations in the world report the highest levels of overall happiness and stability (yes, there are many other factors playing in to those two statistics, but it does throw into question the idea that lacking belief in God = guiltless crime spree party).

God is objectively moral?
Hausam came out as a Calvinist during the debate, meaning he believes that every jot and tittle of our lives is specifically preordained by God, making EVERY HUMAN ACT EVER a moral act by his standards, as it was preordained by the perfect holder of "objective" morality. Torture? Moral. Rape? Moral. Murder? Moral. I doubt very much that Hausam truly believes those acts are okay, yet he's constructed a world in which there is no reconciliation -- save cognitive dissonance -- of these factors. If anything God does is moral, and god specifically preordains all human acts, then the 9/11 attacks, the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, and [insert horrific human act of choice here] are all moral acts.

Indeed, this is a much more troubling scenario than the one he proffered about we amoral atheists.

So how objective is God's morality? If we are talking about some inchoate, distant Deist god who is not concerned with human affairs one way or another, then fine: call it objective. But also call it meaningless. Of what use is "objective" morality if this being is not concerned with us and does not communicate with us?

If, instead, we're talking about the God of the Bible (and let's be clear: we are), then we most certainly are not talking about an objective being. God says so himself, in describing himself as variously jealous, loving, vengeful, pleased at the smell of burning animal flesh, and myriad other decidedly subjective dispositions towards humans and human acts.

Based on my own set of "subjective" morals, rape and genoocide (to pick two examples) are always wrong. The same can't be said for the God of the Bible. If whatever he says is moral is moral, then that means raping war orphans is not only sometimes morally acceptable, but morally obligatory. Same goes for murder, genocide, and on and on. These things aren't always okay. Just whenever God says they are. How is this objective? It sounds rather capricious, petty, and -- dare I say it? Yes, I dare -- immoral to me.

Furthermore, if we assume that Yahweh is an "objectively moral" being, then from whence comes this objectivity? This is a classic turtles all the way down problem: Who bestowed moral authority on God?

I wished there was a Q&A session afterward, as Austin Dacey only had a limited amount of time (and therefore, a limited scope) to respond to Hausam. I've touched little on Dacey's criticisms here, precisely because he answered them so persuasively that all I have left is the stuff Dacey was unable to address and I thought warranted more exploration.
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If you read through all of that (and I don't blame you if you didn't), I'd be interested to your your thoughts in the comments below.

Why I don't understand religious moderates and progressive Christians

I don't understand religious moderates. At all.

Let me start with the caveat that I *love* religious moderates and progressive Christians. Yay for religious moderates! I am glad that you are moderate, progressive and liberal. Religious fundamentalism and extremism pose significant threats, both to individual people (e.g, George Tiller) and to societies as a whole (e.g., generations of people in Africa condemned to die of AIDS because the Catholic church continues to lie about condoms and forbid their use). These are among the reasons our governmental structures need to be built on secular, religiously-neutral pillars. This is where the fight should be, and nontheists and moderates alike can strive for this...

But this post is not about fundamentalists. It's about moderates. It's about people I view as allies on nearly every issue I care about, but I simply do not understand why they are religious. And the issues here are at the core of why I'm an atheist. (Note: I talk here about Christianity, becuase that's the tradition I'm most familiar with, but the same goes for just about of the big "world religions.")

I touched on a lot of these same things last year in my review of For the Bible Tells Me So, the documentary about Christian families coming to terms with their homosexual children. I'll try not to reiterate TOO many points from that post. (You may want to read that post, as well.)

Okay, enough preamble. Let's do this:

Religious fundamentalists get a lot of criticism (and rightfully so) from nontheists, liberals, progressives, and religious moderates. Some particularly egregious examples (viz, Westboro Baptist Church) even get a fair dose of criticism from the right.

Many of these criticism take the form of "you're just reading the Bible the way you want! You're cherrypicking only the parts that back up your hateful views!" arguments.

These points are right on the money: Fred Phelps and friends (bizarrely) protest in front of soldier funerals that "God Hates Fags" but you never see him in front of Red Lobster saying "God Hates Crustaceans." They are cherrypicking the Bible. They are the just choosing the parts that back up their hateful views, and ignoring the "love thy enemy as thy self" parts.

But here's the thing: religious moderates are doing the same thing, just with different passages. They are cherrypicking the Bible (or whichever holy books they happen to be using), identifying with the passages that back up their already-held views of love and acceptance and charity, and ignore the parts advocating for murder and rape and avarice.

Homosexuality is perhaps the most currently pertinent case of this cherrypicking. I'll try not to rehash my points from my earlier post, but here's the thing: The Bible is pretty unequivocal about homosexuality, or at least male homosexual sex: The punishment is death. Period. People like Phelps say that every time homosexuality is mentioned in the Bible, it's met with execution and/or revulsion. And you know what? They're right. And that goes for the supposedly-progressive New Testamant as well, which also includes the only explicit mention (and condemnation) of lesbianism.

In fact, the Bible makes the point again and again that RAPE, though nearly always viewed bad (except when "righteous" men order it as a punishment), is somehow far less bad if a man rapes a woman than if a man rapes another man. In fact, if a man rapes an unbetrothed virgin, the only "punishment" is that she has to marry him and a small fee is paid to her father. That's horrid.

Let's look at a case in point: Do you know the Bible story of "the Levite?" In this charming little tale (itself a partial plagiarism from another part of the the Bible, the story of Sodom and Gommorah), a man and his concubine are traveling to Jerusalem and get caught on the wrong side of the tracks, so to speak. A man invites them to spend the night in his house, but things don't go as planned:

²² While they were enjoying themselves, some of the wicked men of the city surrounded the house. Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who owned the house, "Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him."

²³ The owner of the house went outside and said to them, "No, my friends, don't be so vile. Since this man is my guest, don't do this disgraceful thing. ²⁴ Look, here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But to this man, don't do such a disgraceful thing."

²⁵ But the men would not listen to him. So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go. ²⁶ At daybreak the woman went back to the house where her master was staying, fell down at the door and lay there until daylight.

²⁷ When her master got up in the morning and opened the door of the house and stepped out to continue on his way, there lay his concubine, fallen in the doorway of the house, with her hands on the threshold. ²⁸ He said to her, "Get up; let's go." But there was no answer. Then the man put her on his donkey and set out for home.

Now, it's not the central lesson of this story (which, as it happens, was that you should never trust anyone who's not part of your own ethnic group), but one of the explicit lessons here is that it is far preferable for these men to rape the concubine and the virgin daughter than the man. Like I say, the rape is condemned regardless, but it is less bad to rape a woman. It's the same thing in the story of Sodom and Gommorah: Lott offers up his daughters to be raped, and when the Sodomites decline the offer, God destroys them and their city. What an asshole.

How is it that someone can look at this story, or countless other horrid "moral" lessons found in the Bible, and say that the book is a good document to use as one's moral code?

And it's not just an Old Testament/New Testament thing. It's often said that the Old Testament god is a being of jealousy and wrath and terror; while Jesus and the New Testament god is/are being(s) of love and peace and forgiveness... But that's not really true.

Now, on the whole, there's less to dislike in the NT than the OT, but it still doesn't come close to being a positive moral guide, if you ask me. Jesus DOES say to love your enemy, but he also says people (by which here, as most anywhere in the Bible, he means only men) should abandon their wife and chidren for a cool reward. The NT states explicitly numerous times that women are subordinate to men. Paul, who more-or-less founded Christianity, had many charming things to say about women and their place in the chruch.

Let's be clear: *I* am cherry picking here, too. I'm only picking out a few particularly ugly and abhorrent passages. There are many positive moral teachings and lessons in the Bible.

But for for every one of those, there are three or four truly abominable moral lessons. Those lessons are ignored by progressive Christians and religious moderates... And though I think that's a good thing, it's also my point:

If the Bible is such an unpredictable mixed-bag anyway, why use the it as a moral guide at all? Either the Bible is the word of God or it isn't, right? If you're a good person and you recognize the nastiness of the stories mentioned in this post, then clearly the Bible is not really your moral compass anyway. Why not embrace the qualities you cling to and live by, and reject the superstitious and hateful nonsense?

Again, I'd be interested in hearing the thoughts of anyone who reads this. Positive, negative, whatever. Please post in the comments! :)

Also, in the course of writing this: Reed at Homosecular Gatheist put up an excellent post touching on similar themes. Go check it out as well.

Surprise Debate @ the Farmer's Market

Last weekend, some friends and I went to the Salt Lake City Farmer's Market. After we'd browsed around for a bit, we grabbed some food and sat down in the shade to eat and relax.

The four of us were chatting about labels. You may have seen my post recently on the same topic. We were discussing the meaning and qualities people might assign to you if you labeled yourself, for instance, a secular humanist versus an atheist.

Out of nowhere, a guy laying on the grass about ten feet away decided to join our conversation, yelling over at our small group:

Atheism is a religion like any other! Atheists are destroying this country and militantly trying to push their views on everyone else and [details lost in a haze of illogic]."

Um. Okay. Who invited this guy to the conversation? We were having a rather abstract philosophical discussion on nature of words and categories, and I was using my religious identification as an example (which happens to be more or less shared by the three people I was with). This guy feels he has an obligation to set us straight on what, exactly, we believe.

This guy shot into a long monologue about why atheists are bad and evil and we're all conspiring to destroy the world or something. At this point, two women on a nearby park bench stand up and leave. I can't say I blame them. Then I spoke up.

Did I make a mistake in engaging the guy? Possibly, but the discussion (which, needless to say, was fruitless) was such a shining example of the sorts of slurs and nonsense I hear hurled about against the nonreligious all the time right along utter falsehoods presented as facts.

Allow me to share some tidbits and quotes, as best as I can remember them. (I'll note that my text intercut here is probably a more fleshed-out discussion of the issues than I originally said, but his text should be fairly accurate.)

Jerk: Atheists are trying to push their views on everyone! They're trying to prevent me from worshiping the way I want. Atheists are trying to infringe on my free speech!

Me: No they're not. Most atheists are for a secular government, but would be vehemently opposed to limiting anyone's religious freedoms. Are there atheists who want to ban all religion and prevent people from practicing as they choose? Probably. I've never met one, but there are extremists in every group.

Jerk: But they're infringing on how I choose to worship! A church in New York had to take down their cross. Some atheist sued them because the shadow of the cross hit public property.

Me: If that happened, which I doubt, then that is wrong. [As expected, that story appears to be bullshit.] Like I said there are extremists in every group. Everyone should be enabled to worship -- or not -- as they see fit. That's exactly why we need to keep our government secular: to protect your religious freedom!

Jerk: Well, this country was founded as a Christian nation.

Me: That couldn't be more false! Many of the founders weren't even Christian: Franklin, Jefferson, Madison--

Jerk: Madison was a strong Christian who believed in Christian principles in our government!!!

Of course, in the real world, Madison more vociferously opposed any religious intrusion into the government than maybe even Jefferson, and said so just about any time he opened his mouth. Lots of other awesome Madison quotes at that link.

Jerk: If they didn't want it to be a Christian nation, why did the founders make "In God We Trust" our national motto.

Me: Uhhh... They didn't! That became our national motto in the 1950s during the Red Scare. The founders were pretty strident secularists, even most of the religious ones.

Jerk: Show me where in the Constitution it says "separation of church and state."

Me: Yeah, those specific words don't appear, in the 1st amendment. But it's clear that was the intent, particualrly since that specific phrase, "separation of church and state," originate from Jefferson's explanation 1st ammendment. How about the first ever legal US government document that makes any mention of Christianity whatsoever, the Treaty of Tripoli, which was written by President Thomas Jefferson and ratified unanimously by the senate, which states that the "Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." That seems pretty unequivocal to me.

Jerk: Well, our laws are based on Christian laws.

Me: No they're not.

Jerk: Name one that isn't.

Me: Name one that is.

Jerk: Thou shalt not kill.

Me: Laws against murder long predate the Hebrew Bible and exist in every society. What about the Sumerians? The Code of Hammurabi?

Jerk: I don't know where you've been learning your history. Maybe you should go back to school.

Me: Um, my degree is in anthropology and I primarily studied Middle Eastern archaeology.

Jerk: Oh yeah! Well, I have a Ph.D!

Me: Um. Okay...

Jerk: How old are you?

Me: That's not important.

Jerk: No, really, how old are you?

Me: That's not important.

My friend: Actually, we were having a private conversation that didn't involve you. Why do you think you have the right to intrude into it.

Jerk: Because I live the United States and I have the right say whatever I want, a right atheists want to take away!

And it went on like this for a while. Eventually, the four of us stood up to walk away from this nonsense, and as we sauntered off, I murmered "Jesus Christ" to myself.

Jerk: PLEASE DON'T SAY THAT!

Me: Why? I thought we lived in the United States, where I'm free to say whatever I like! That's the difference I'm talking about: I think that everyone should be able to say what they like, and you think some people, like me, should be excluded.

Jerk: ... Well, at least I said please.

Personal History part 3: Age 10-14

See the entire "personal history" series of posts:

• Part 1 - Who I am now. why I'm an atheist, a skeptic, and a progressive liberal, and why I think that's a good thing.
  
• Part 2 - I grew up in a Mormon family and community, but my parents always encouraged critical thinking.
• Part 3 - As I became a teenager, I began having doubts about religion and the supernatural and began to reconcile that with a scientific viewpoint that increasingly edged out religion.
• Part 4 - "Agnostic, leaning toward atheism"

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My family moved to Midvale, another suburb of Salt Lake when I was 10 - my fifth grade year. The new area and new people corresponded to a growing dissatisfaction with the LDS church and religion in general. My fifth grade year saw my first "debate" about evolution vs. creation with a peer, my first sexual awakening, and my first real struggle with faith in my assigned religion.

During this four year period, I still self-identified as Mormon. I participated in Boy Scouts. I attended Church (nearly) weekly. I had a close relationship with my bishop (not that close, you sicko you) with whom I shared a lot of intellectual conversations.

I took much (though not all) of what my Sunday school teachers said at face value. Once, a teacher was telling us about the importance of tithing, how there was a time in his life when he didn't tithe and everything went to shit (my words, not his). Then when he started tithing again, he got himself a hot chick, a hot car and a cool job and everything started shaping up nicely. How great is that! At the time, I remember being impressed: Wow! Tithing will make god send a little luck your way! Think of what you could do in Vegas if you just gave God a cut of the winnings! (Isn't the tithe supposed be from the goodness of your heart, not from avarice?)

When I hit 12, I became a deacon in the church. During this time, I started to become less active in the church, missing it now and then with increasing frequency. My parents encouraged me to go. They seemed disappointed that I didn't go, but never forced me to (keep in mind that neither of them went to church at all).

Aside: I think the fact that Mormon church starts handing out formal ranks like this so much earlier than other churches has the function of instilling a sense of responsibility, which kills any notions of becoming less active: "I can't miss church this week! Who will pass out the chunks of Wonder Bread!?!!?"

Unblinded by Science
I continued to thirst for knowledge. I overheard an offhand comment once from one of our ward leaders saying that it was not possible to be a scientist and believe in god. I had already been thinking along these same lines, but it was a surreal experience for me to hear such a blatant admission from a church leader. He was saying it in an anti-scientist way, of course, but there it was: religion was inherently at odds with science. (I still feel this way, though I acknowledge that it is not true for everyone. There are many great scientists of faith.)

Around this same time, at age 12 or 13, I had a one-on-one chat with the bishop. He asked what my favorite subjects in school were, and I said I loved science. Unprompted, I then began to talk about how I thought the Universe and the world were created by scientific means. I then said that "I think God works through science." I said that because I knew it was the sort of thing I should say, though I didn't believe it. It was the first time I was forced to confront the fact that I was beginning to reject God and the church. It was also the first time I lied about what I believed to anyone.

It wasn't the last time, though. On a Scouting trip, all the boys had to come up with an activity. I set up a long and elaborate orienteering course where each boy would have to follow the compass coordinates found at each post to get to the end of the course... Except that at one of the posts i had accidentally written the wrong coordinates. This sent everyone off into a field full of thorny bushes. After everyone got lost from the course, I made some impromptu remark about how it was intentional, and that I was showing how easy it was to think you're on the right course when really you're letting Satan lead you astray. This was bullshit and I knew it, but these were my friends and I knew that it was EXPECTED of me to at least SOUND like I believed in the church.

Aside: In retrospect, this analogy casts me in the role of Satan. Oh well.

Once I was in junior high school, I rode the bus every morning to school and my friend Mark and I would often get into these huge debates where I'd try to explain evolution to him (with a relatively rudimentary but still pretty much accurate view of how it worked myself), while he insisted that the Bible was true and mocked me for my often flawed arguments. ("You believe we evolved from MOSS!!!" "No no, of course not, that's silly. Moss and humans both evolved from the same bacteria!"). At this point, I was a firm believer in science, doubted religion through and through. But I still attended church. Concurrent with my scientific qualms, I was also developing issues with how the church regarded sexuality.

Heavy Petting

Note: this section gets pretty personal at times, and frankly discusses my developing sexuality. I just don't want to make anyone uncomfortable. You have been warned.

In addition to scientific matters, I was also forced at this time to confront differences in what the church taught, what my parents taught, and what I believed and did. Every young person in the LDS church receives For the Strength of Youth, a little peach-colored (at least then) pamphlet around the time they hit puberty.

This guide is designed to fit in your wallet, so that if, for instance, you're out on a date and your boyfriend asks "Hey, would you like to engage in some necking and heavy petting?" you can say "hold on one moment, let me consult my teen sex pamphlet thingamajig... No it appears that if I do that, it would prove that I don't love myself and I don't love God."

Aside: "Necking?" Way to keep up with the hep cat lingo of the kids these days!)

I was not involved sexually with anyone at the time, but I was a boy between the ages of 12 and 14, so read between the lines (I can still remember how hilariously inaccurate early mental picture of how sex worked was). According to the pamphlet, what I was doing was a nearly unpardonable sin. But, as the saying goes, everyone is doing it.

During a scout camp (age 12, 6th grade), I was in a big tent full of all the boys my age in the ward and the subject turned to how some girl one of us had seen in Playboy had really big nipples, and whether that was attractive or not. A long and fairly in-depth discussion of the female form ensued, and everyone had their preferences: John liked large-breasted Pamela Anderson types with skinny hips, bleach-blond hair and thought that large nipples were repulsive. Steve was racist and thought anyone other than white women were utterly repulsive and "literally make [him] gag." I had comparatively exotic tastes with a bit of an Asian fetish and a serious crush on a dark-skinned (for Utah) classmate from Greece. Brian said he liked redheads, was also a horrible racist and "believe[d] in the separation of the races."

Aside: All the boys had seen varying degrees of pornography, but remember that this was 1992, before the ubiquity of pornography in the Internet era, though I did have access to some digital pornography I found on some big 5.25" floppy disks my brother had hidden away (though not well enough, apparently).

Second Aside: Anyone who thinks that racism is not still endemic in the LDS church has never been to Mormon Boy Scout camp.

Anyway, it turns out that this entire conversation was overheard by the scout leader. (Friendly tip: A tent wall leaves much to be desired when it comes to keeping your conversation private.) This led to a LONG talk in the morning about the dangers of pornography and how we were now all doomed to lives as serial rapists. He actually told us that sexual feelings, in general, were something to be ASHAMED of and repressed. All of this conflicted with what my parents taught me about sexuality. My mother was fairly anti-porn, but for completely different reasons: it was often exploitative and set unrealistic views of what relationships are like. But my parents NEVER condemned sexuality outright. Quite the contrary.

The big "sex talk" between my dad and I consisted of the following exchange:

"Hey, Patrick. I want you to watch this video. I'll be upstairs if you have any questions."

He proceed to put in a sex education video he'd bought after watching a PBS pledge drive or something (OH MY GOD! It was totally this one! Hahahahaha. Oh god, it looks so unhip, and the kids on the cover look so much like the kids on the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet!). Cheesiness aside, it was actually a pretty decent little video. If not truly sex-positive, it was at least sex-agnostic and knowledge-positive. It openly discussed sexuality, including masturbation and, if I recall correctly, homosexuality -- all without condemning it.

Again and again, I was confronted with what the church said was acceptable when it comes to sex and gender, and what my parents said about those same things:

• Church: Sex before marriage is an affront to god.
• Parents: You should be in love with someone before you have sex with them.

• Church: Dressing modestly shows that you respect his creation (i.e., YOU).
• Parents: The human body is beautiful! Let's go to Paris and see all the nudes in the museums.
  

• Church: "Pornography" in any form is addictive and will destroy all civilization.
• Parents: Nude photography in the living room!

• Church: Homosexuality is an abomination.
• Parents: There is absolutely nothing wrong with being gay (even if my dad did make the occasional limp-wristed-and-lisping-stereotype joke that to this day still make me cringe and sigh).

• Church: Women should be subservient to men in every way and stay at home all day with the kiddies.
• Parents: Women have been oppressed and if a woman (like my mom) wants to pursue a career, the only thing stopping her is the inherent sexism of the working world.

• Church: Women's gift from god is being able to give birth. Men's gift is magical powers and -- when they die -- their own planet full of people to worship them.
• Parents: Ugh!

That's a lot of conflicting messages! Add to that my own developing sexual morality and identity that was at times at odds with both of these sources (more a matter of degree with my parents), and this was fuel-to-the-fire for me leaving the church.

Leaving the fold
The straw that broke the camel's back when it comes to my affiliation with the LDS church is perhaps a bit unusual, and probably a bit overblown in my memory. Nonetheless, here's how I recall it:

I was already philosophically distant form the church, but I continued to go most weeks. These were the people I knew. I respected many of the adults in my ward, and I enjoyed going camping with the scouts.

But, You know the stereotype about the preacher's kids, how they kind of go off the deep end and become either sex- and drug-addicted hellions, or else become completely arrogant bastards with a sense of entitlement? Well the bishop's son in my ward fit the latter stereotype to a T. This jackass got away with everything, and there was always a "boys will be boys" response whenever he did something awful to someone.

One Sunday morning at church I arrived to Sunday school. Josh greeted everyone at the classroom door and shook our hands. This was unusual, but not remarkably so. We all sat down and our teacher began his lesson. At some point, my eyes started to become irritated with a mild burning sensation. I rubbed them as the irritation grew. I rubbed them some more. Soon, my eyes were on fire. I was in a great deal of pain and could barely keep my eyes open. Tears were streaming down my face as my eyes tried to flush out whatever was in them. This was then the most painful experience I could recall -- such intense, burning pain on my eyes. It's still one of the most painful experiences I can remember.

I was too wrapped up in my own agony to realize that I wasn't the only one: at least three other boys in the classroom were exhibiting similar symptoms as the teacher started to wonder what was up. Josh, on the other hand was having a grand old time and having trouble keeping composed and not bursting out into guffaws of laughter. He finally brought out the bottle of cinnamon oil he had applied to his hands before arriving in class to shake hands with everyone. The class took a break as we all went to the bathroom to try to flush out our eyes. I liked playing a good prank as much as any teenage kid, but I just didn't understand the compulsion to willfully apply uncontrollable pain to another person (or animal, for that matter) for pleasure. I was already thinking "This sucks. Why do I even still come to church to hang out with jerks like this?

But I was horrified when we got back to the classroom and the teacher was laughing about how funny it was, and how he couldn't figure out what was going on at first, but now it's just funny. Good think it was a funny, hilarious harmless prank rather than, say, Ebola. Hahahahahaha.

When the authority figure congratulated this asshole on his beautifully executed torture prank, that's when I decided that it was time to cut my losses and forget about this nonsense. I was done. When I walked out of the church that day, I never came back. I've since only been inside a Mormon church four times, for three weddings (one of which featured wine and Jaggermeister served surreptitiously in URCs) and a funeral.

Note: Never get cinnamon oil in your eyes. It's horrible. Seriously.

Next Installment: From non-Mormon to atheist.

Personal History part 1: Who I am now

See the entire "personal history" series of posts:

• Part 1 - Who I am now. why I'm an atheist, a skeptic, and a progressive liberal, and why I think that's a good thing.
  
• Part 2 - I grew up in a Mormon family and community, but my parents always encouraged critical thinking.
• Part 3 - As I became a teenager, I began having doubts about religion and the supernatural and began to reconcile that with a scientific viewpoint that increasingly edged out religion.
• Part 4 - "Agnostic, leaning toward atheism"

____________________________________________

So, to placate the hordes of devoted fans clamoring to know all there is to know about me (that means you!), I wanted to take some time to relate some of the stories in my life that have helped shape who I am today, as well as define just who that is. This will be the first in a series of blog posts about my views about science, love, personal fulfillment and other weighty topics, as well as a personal history of how I came to be the person I am.

So, just who am I?
Where does one even start on such a question. I could begin how most people do: by describing my occupation. I really enjoy my job and I think I'm good at it, but I don't really think its helpful in conveying who I am as an individual. I'm 5'10" with red hair, zero children and a dog. I live in Salt Lake City, Utah.

I'm an atheist. I am an atheist in the sense that I do not believe that supernatural explanations are necessary to explain my existence or the workings of the universe. Is it possible that there is some sort of higher being out in the ether responsible for the creation of the universe? Sure, but whatever that being is is beyond our grasp or understanding to the point of irrelevancy. Natural (i.e., scientific) explanations have proven to be far better explanations for natural phenomena than supernatural ones. There is no reason for me to operate under the assumption that there is some greater supernatural power out there.

I do not believe in a new agey "god is everything" sort of god, as there is no explanatory power in doing so. It might make us feel good to think that we are cosmically linked to the water that flows through our rivers and through our veins, that we share a piece of soul with the hummingbird outside our window. But most assertions like this are untestable or irrelevant. Those that are testable have failed to demonstrate what they claim. The new age "god" (lowercase) is of the same ephemera of Intelligent Design: it may make people feel good and validates their opinions, but doesn't add an explanatory power to the human book of knowledge, and indeed can lead people to reject those theories that are borne out by the facts.

Furthermore, I definitely do not believe in the Judeo-Christian God, Brahma, Yaldabaoth, the Spectre or any other more conventional god: a superpowered individual. Any testable claims made by scriptures claiming to establish the existence of these superpowered individuals or other testable claims fail to hold up to scientific scrutiny.

I live in the United States of America, so the superpowered individuals I am most familiar with are the Christian trinity (Yahweh, Jesus, the "Holy Spirit"), Satan, angels and demons, but the same logic holds for any faith.

Aside: This is quite an extensive pantheon for a supposedly "monotheistic" religion.

The supposedly-inerrant Bible makes numerous testable claims about how the universe functions. Many of these claims are demonstrably untrue (grasshoppers have four legs, hares chew cud, humans were sculpted out of dirt and or ribs, two specimens of every single earth-bound animal species can fit in a single ship about 1/3 the length of a modern aircraft carrier) .

Furthermore I live in Utah and grew up at least nominally as a Latter-Day Saint, so that adds a whole new layer of testable assertions that are demonstrably untrue (this piece of papyrus was written by the Abraham in an ultra-condensed script relaying his entire life story in great detail). More on how the LDS faith fits into my personal history in a later post.

I find religious moderates to be FAR more congenial to hang around with than fundamentalists, but I also find religious moderates difficult to understand. The Bible, according to itself, is the inerrant word of God and must be taken literally and its rules followed strictly. To me, saying "Well, I believe in Jesus and the Bible, but that part about how you should forcibly shave women's heads if they dare to have their hair exposed in church is, you know optional," should cause ridiculous amounts of cognitive dissonance. It seems to be that if one accepts the fallibility of the Bible, what is the point of claiming to still believe in it? Where does one draw the line on what parts of the bible to accept and what parts to reject? [See my post "For the Bible Tells me So" for more thoughts on this.]

But enough on that for now.

I'm also a skeptic. Just as with religious claims, I believe that all claims should be subject to testing by the scientific method. If a claim is untestable, then it really isn't of much use and is by definition not science. If a claim is testable, then it is open to rigorous and ongoing scientific testing. If the claim fails to hold up to the testing, then it should be rejected.

This goes for mundane claims ("rebooting your computer will solve this problem") to claims that may shake the foundations of our understanding ("humans evolved from earlier primates through the process of natural selection"). The bigger the claim, the more evidence is required to cause me to accept the claim. As Carl Sagan put it, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

This perspective allows me to look critically at paranormal or pseudoscientific topics such as psychics, UFOs, homeopathy, ghosts, and Intelligent Design. I personally do not do much to verify the power of, for instance, a dowser. But it's not my job to that. The dowser must demonstrate that their claim holds up to controlled testing. It is true that I rely on experts to do much of this testing for me, as I am not an active scientist. but I don't rely on the work of any single scientist. The important component is the general consensus of those that perform science.

I'm a progressive liberal. More on this later...

I'll delve into some of my other beliefs, my past, and what events have have led me to where I am in future posts... But this post is getting kind of out of hand, so I'm going to give everyone a break and stop for now.