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A Happy, Frustrated Atheist

Neece — Sat, 09 May 2009 03:06:44 +0000

Hey everyone! First, let’s catch up.

Comments: Thanks for the great comments recently! I promise to reply to each of them but I am falling behind. I realized some of them really require a post devoted to them instead of just a reply. So please don’t think I’m ignoring you. I will comment soon.
Computers: It’s true. Ask my poor long-suffering husband Butch, I am missing the Patience gene. My computer has been doing strange things since I reinstalled windows (which I do every 6 months to a year to keep things fresh and in working order, as every past geek friend of mine has recommended) and I found out through Lifehacker that Windows 7 beta is freely available for download. Well, of course I had to do it. I have waited as long as possible, but the ADD, Shiny-Loving Geek in me had to have it. I’m such a sucker for the shiny when it comes to geek stuff. (Luckily for Butch, I couldn’t care less about diamonds and that kind of nonsense. Unfortunately though, I need gadgets and computers and stuff like that.) It’s my kryptonite, I guess. So I just had to have windows 7, and now, of course, I’m having problems with the virtual memory. Sigh. So bear with me, it’s taking me quite some time to try to figure out the issue and see if I can find a fix. On a completely unrelated note, I’m interviewing geeks to be my new BFF. Please apply within.

Ok, now, I want to talk to you briefly about happiness. Are you an atheist? Are you happy? This lingering idea keeps wandering around that all atheists are curmudgeonly, grumpy, miserable, fatalistic and depressed.

I’ve been an atheist for 9 years, and for many years before that I was basically an agnostic. I have to say, I think discarding religion was a huge relief. I think I felt better. Once I finally learned to think critically, I think I started really seeing rationally and really appreciating the natural wonders of the universe. If anything, this process has left me more happy, more fascinated by the world of science and discovery. I think I’m happier and calmer, yet always eager to learn and grow.

But I think I probably come across under certain circumstances as a furious cynic. Why would that be? Which is the real me? The happy atheist is who I think I’d identify with best. But my bullshit meter has become increasingly sensitive. So when someone says something that screams of ignorance and a total lack of thinking for oneself, I just tend to get irritated, frustrated and grumpy.

It seems that wherever I go I’m surrounded by sheeple people who let others think for them. They spew forth the rubbish and lies that had been told to them by people in some strange version of authority (whether that be their minister, the pope, the government, or a slick marketing campaign) and that’s good enough for them. They wallow in their ignorance like it was some sort of universal remedy. Thinking is endangered and that pisses me off, and worries me.

Anyway, other than that, I’m quite a content person overall. Are you an atheist? Or a believer? Are you happy and content? Or are you angry and bitter and curmudgeonly? If you’re happy, do you still get really angry over certain things? I look forward to your comments! Oh,and have a great evening!

Hate Darwin? Then Give Up Your Luxuries

Neece — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 04:01:03 +0000

So you’re a creationist or a fundamentalist, whatever. You know what? That’s fine. I don’t really care what you believe for yourself. Personally I don’t think you should be allowed to raise your kids in such a way as I think it’s cruel, but whatever. That’s just me being silly, thinking kids should have a fighting chance by teaching them what is real and how best to get along in the world, not teaching them that there was a talking snake and 2 naked people in a garden that screwed everything up for everybody. Oh, and a man died and came back to life and then flew to heaven and that’s why the kid drinks a sip of wine and eats a cracker every sunday. But oh yeah, Santa Claus was just a story his parents told him to keep him in line. Yeah, makes perfect sense.

Anyhoo… back to my issue. If you’re a creationist and/or fundamentalist, basically you believe the bible is the true and literal word of god, right? You believe your god created the world in 6 days and rested on the 7th. And if you’re a muslim, you believe whatever the quran says. You think evolution is nonsense. Hey, as long as you keep this to yourself too, I don’t give a damn.

But, if you believe your bible is so perfect and science is so flawed, then you have no need of science. So. After you finish reading this article, turn off the computer and give it to your neighbor. No more electronics. No cell phone, no microwave, no electric light. All of that is here because people… normal everyday people… wanted to make things better. According to you, god made everything perfect and the bible is the be all, end all of knowledge. Stop being a hypocrite and get back to trying to be like christ-like.

So you won’t be needing any other books. No magazines, no television. Sorry, just a bible. Which you don’t even need. The idea that everyone was educated to read and have a bible is rather recent. Oh, and you can’t have paper anymore. So you only get to use clay tablets. You can find your local pastor and listen to him tell you what god wants from you. And it will be a man. Because women need to know their place. So all you uppity women who think for yourselves, who make decisions and have opinions, get back in the kitchen and make your man his dinner. Go birth some babies. Girls, you’d better hope your dad can sell you for a nice dowry, because you certainly can’t fend for yourself.

You don’t get hospitals or medical doctors, of course. Women of childbearing years, you’ll be lucky to survive childbirth, which is natural only. And your kids will be lucky to reach age 5, but hey, god is taking care of you, so that’s just his will. No more antibiotics (which are mostly bad for you anyway), no allergy medicine, no blood pressure or diabetic care. Nothing to dull the pain. No advil, no tylenol, no oxycontin if you break your arm, no plaster casts for that matter, no epidural if you have a kid. I think you get leeches… wait, maybe not even that. Maybe you get some herbs. I’m sure there will be a few commenters who will be so kind as to correct me and tell me exactly what kind of medical care you can have. Whatever was in the bible. That’s what you get.

Sex is only to make babies, and you are a baby making machine if you’re female. So get busy, and don’t you dare enjoy it.

And food? You have to give up 90% of what you eat because it’s all genetically modified and cultivated in one way or another. Tomatoes are cultivated through careful breeding. They used to be wild and poisonous, if I recall correctly. So no tomatoes, no potatoes. Nothing that has been cultivated to become better, hardier, more resistant to problems. You can have whatever was grown in the bible. Because if it was good enough for jesus and his buddies, it’s good enough for you. That’s what was around when Adam and Eve were talking to the snake, so that’s what god thought was perfect. That’s all you need. No refrigeration, no grocery stores open all night to accommodate your every whim, no fresh fruit in winter. No pre-packaged corn flakes, or twinkies, no mcdonald’s, no pizza, no taco bell. Just jesus food. That you make yourself. Because you don’t need anything else, do you?

No car, of course. You’ll need a donkey. And you’ll have to walk a lot. But that’s not so bad. Jesus didn’t seem to mind.

No polyester or rayon cloth, of course. You can have linen and cotton. I’m sure there are a few others, just don’t combine them because that’s against the law in leviticus, if I recall. So, this means only sandals and leather shoes. No synthetic glues to hold them together of course. No rubber soles, either. Sorry. If god wanted you to have rubber soles and good footwear and 24 pairs of black pumps, he’d have given them to the jews and jesus. So you’re out of luck. Get over it.

No air conditioning, no central heating, no running water, no flushing toilet. No insulation for your home, which should be in the middle east since that’s where jesus lived and you probably want to go be in the holy land like him. No bug spray or even mesh nets to cover your bed for the summer months. No glass for anything, including windows. Like I said before, if god wanted you to have windows, he would have given glass to Noah.

You’ll have to live in tents that you make yourself. Because the people in the bible were nomadic. No home. No meat unless you catch it. Only local species of food. No oven. Open fire cooking only.

On the bright side, you get to stone anybody you like, basically, for any small slight. How convenient. Men, women will know their place. and you can marry as many women as you like. Afraid of gay people? Well then you can stone them. See someone wearing 2 types of cloth together? Reach for some big stones. Crush in their head in the name of god. How wonderful. Oh and your god loves the smell of burning flesh, so I hope you can afford goats. They’re his favorite.

Well, I’m sure there are a million more big and small things you need to forsake, because you wouldn’t want to be a hypocrite, would you? jesus wouldn’t approve. So start getting rid of all the things that man in his humble search for knowledge and a better life has invented and made better. Your Iron Age god is all seeing, all knowing, so whatever was back then is what you get, because the rest of it was done by humankind, for humankind. You don’t need it if god didn’t make it himself.

Main Features of Pseudo-Science

Neece — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 12:52:43 +0000

Yesterday I confessed my addictions to woo and how I realized it was all a pack of lies and nonsense. It’s been hard to learn to think more critically and skeptically about pseudo-science (the fancy grownup term for woo). Unless someone teaches you how to think critically, there’s really no way to easily pick out the slick pack of lies and shiny bullshit for what it is.

For instance, I just found out last month that Airborne is not only pseudo-scientific and completely useless, but can also be harmful. And here I was, just the day before, trying to get my husband to take it for an oncoming cold. Sigh…. The battle never ends.

For me, my bullshit radar with religion is very sensitive. Then again, if it’s about an invisible man in the sky, it’s complete nonsense, so that’s pretty easy. But when it comes to products on the market, any kind of scientific sounding news or claim, I am less sure about what to accept or what to reject.

A couple of days ago, I was listening to The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe podcast and they took the time to talk about how to spot pseudo-science for what it is. Since the list is so important and helpful, I took the time to write it down for all of us. Hopefully this will make it much easier:

Some Main Features of Pseudo-Science by Dr. Steven Novella on the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe. Episode 164, September 10, 2008.

Hostility towards scientific criticism. So if you make a scientific claim and the scientific community calls you out on it, you complain that you’re being picked on, or that there’s a conspiracy against you. In fact, that’s just how good science is done, under scrutiny and criticism.
Making a virtue out of ignorance. Someone with no background in science says that’s a good thing. In fact, the best science is the most creative, and the way to get creative is to be well educated and knowledgeable about what you’re investigating.
Heavy reliance on testimony and anecdotal evidence rather than specifically referenced research. Very applicable in the medical realm.
Fundamental principles are often based on a single case. For example the founder of chiropractic thought he healed someone of deafness by manipulating a man’s neck, when in fact the hearing pathway never goes anywhere near the neck.
Claims often promise simplistic solutions to often complex problems or questions. The ”theory of everything” is a huge red flag here. There is no one simple scheme or answer to explain all that there is. So the more someone tries to explain with less, the more skeptical you should be of it.
Starting with the conclusion and working backwards. So if you have a fixed conclusion already, then you can just retrofit the information to suit your conclusion. So then you can cherry-pick all the information that supports your conclusion while ignoring all the information that refutes it. This is the heart and soul of pseudo-science. The key to science is that you have to move forward. You start with a hypothesis and you revise your predictions based on observations of your testing and experiments. If you start with the answer, you are not doing science.
Having a fixed belief. Never changing a hypothesis. So for example, straight chiropractic is saying the same thing they were saying a hundred years ago. Homeopathy has never changed what it says, never takes in new information and modifies how it works. Creationism is a fixed belief. Fixed beliefs are not science.
Techno-Babble. Using scientific language but ultimately meaningless jargon. Language is used properly when it increases the precision and makes things less ambiguous. If you listen to a pseudo-scientist, they use big words to add complexity without increasing precision is a red flag. Or using words that are made to confuse or impress.
Using bold or absolute statements rather than conservative qualifying statements that a careful scientist uses.
You can’t prove me wrong. Attempting to shift the burden of proof away from the claimant. This is backwards. If it’s your theory the burden of proof is on you to prove it correct.
Overturning established science left and right for your one theory. This is just incredibly implausible.
Making vague references to data. Scientists have shown, there is data etc, but nothing people can check up on or look at themselves.
Failure to consider all hypotheses. Cherry-picking the information again. Limiting the hypotheses to the one they want and a few token supporting ones, so that it looks like it’s well received. But when the list is prematurely or falsely limited, they’ve rigged the game.

Confessions Of A Recovering Woo Addict

Neece — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 20:42:40 +0000

Lately I’ve been talking to Jane. (not her real name) I am having trouble talking to her, and I think I figured out why. We knew each other about 10 years ago in a state far, far away. We were acquaintances, but we had a lot in common. (here’s where I tell you some dark secrets) We were into many different kinds of woo.

Woo: (n or adj) when you uncritically believe unsubstantiated or unfounded ideas. Short for woo woo, according to the Urban Dictionary, definition 4.

I was into reiki, divination, numerology, you name it. While I was an agnostic back then, I still clung to the idea of a kind of Universal Energy. Not really an intelligence, but kind of “magical” principles to energy that science just hadn’t quantified or qualified yet. I held to the beliefs that ancient societies knew secrets that had been lost. Like the Chinese were better at medicine than modern science, or the Mayans had some secret knowledge about the Universe that we were missing out on, as seen in their calendar stopping in 2012.

My main thing was reiki. If you don’t know anything about it, basically you channel energy from the universe through you into your subject. You get an “attunement” where “sacred symbols” open you as a channel. A reiki master has to administer this attunement which is basically a short ritual.

I’ve never been one for ritual. But I really wanted to cure myself of all that was wrong with me and help people, so even though I didn’t like that part of it, I accepted it. And reiki worked for me. My hands would get really hot when I “channeled” this “sacred healing energy” for people. People would feel better when I did my “healings” for them. They would get better. The anecdotal evidence was positive.

I became a reiki master, actually. I then “attuned” other people so that they could go on and be a practitioner, or better yet, go on and attune others. I really enjoyed it and thought it was doing good for people.

I did a lot of reiki for awhile. I held “reiki circles” where we’d all do reiki on each other to “clear our channels” and heal ourselves. I even had a reiki “healing” center with some friends of mine. We offered “healings” and “attunements” in a clinic. We did talks at different places. One talk was at the hospital for cancer patients who wanted alternative healing methods.

I totally believed in reiki. I developed a set of “reiki runes” which had Japanese writing on them. I then gave divination readings with them. I was pretty good at it too. People came back to me again and again for readings and advice.

I can’t believe I’m telling you this. Personally I’m very embarrassed by how much woo I believed back then. But I’m telling you for a reason. I was really wrapped up in this kind of belief in “magical energy”. It made sense to me. It worked for me. I was good at it. I was helping people.

After awhile, I started noticing several things. At first, since they went against what I was practicing, I tried to ignore them or write them off with different woo thinking. What happened was that one of the women I had the clinic with got really sick with pneumonia for quite some time. At first she still tried to do healings with us, before she knew it was pneumonia. But she would cough and hack and we finally all agreed that she needed to get herself better before she could heal others.

This disturbed me. If we’re healing people by channeling this amazing, loving energy from the universe, how could she get so sick? But this was explained that she wasn’t doing reiki correctly. She was supposedly taking on the illnesses of the clients, instead of simply channeling the energy into them. Basically she was doing it wrong and that is what made her sick. She did it to herself.

She ended up in the hospital. She almost died because she was trying to treat it herself with woo magic at home, instead of the medicine she really needed. Of course, we dutifully went to the hospital to give her more reiki healings.

The other thing that I noticed was that it really didn’t matter much what I did. If the person I was working on “believed” I was healing them, they got better and felt a difference. If they didn’t believe, or were resistant to change, they stayed the same.

It was all about psychology. I did some testing of this theory, more so in the readings I did for people and found it to be blatantly accurate once I was aware of it. If the person believed I was channeling awesome energy, the reading was successful. Even if I didn’t feel connected.

After noticing that it was all about psychology, I finally realized there’s no evidence that this stuff does anything at all beyond the power of the human mind and the placebo effect. And that’s when I started letting go of woo. It has taken some time and education, but now I think I’m actually getting somewhere with skeptical thinking.

Of course, now there’s a skeptical community that I can tap into and get new information from. Which is very nice.

Anyway, back to Jane. She’s still very much into all kinds of woo. Talking to her makes me ashamed of who I was. I think back on how I used to think 10 years ago and I feel embarrassed. I can’t believe I embraced all that nonsense.

Of course, the way that woo is packaged and delivered to people is very slick and shiny and palatable. It’s easy and simple and will cure all your ills if you believe the lies.

I’ve rambled enough for one day. But tomorrow I will have a list of some of The Main Features Of Pseudo-Science. This list is quite helpful for figuring out what is nonsense and what is based on real scientific fact and research.

Heaving Dead Cats » shiny

A Happy, Frustrated Atheist

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