The Blessing of a Tolerant Atheist

On my FaceBook profile, I currently list my religion as "Tolerant Atheist". This was not carefully crafted to annoy absolutely everybody, but rather to allow for conversation. I recently received this strip of paper with an eBay purchase. I try to accept the caring and sharing intent of the message, rather than be irritated by the inference that I am damned to hell for all eternity because I don't share their dependence on a particular brand of invisible friend. Just after I graduated from college, I was somewhat less tolerant. That summer, I visited St. Peter's in Rome with my Jewish girlfriend. We followed an American priest/guide around and got some wonderful architectural and artistic behind-the-scenes insight, beyond that of a regular tour. Saint Peters As he led us out, we handed him a tip in honest appreciation of his sharing. He returned the gesture in kind, by blessing us each with a thumbed cross to our foreheads. My companion handled it with aplomb. I was less graceful. I'm sure my face reflected an expression appropriate to being blessed by a primitive savage priest with some unpleasant goo. Many atheists vehemently reject religion much like recovering alcoholics reject alcohol. They had been eager partakers, and now pity anyone who hasn't yet seen the light. Recovering Cathoholics and other Christ-shuns. I was raised atheist, so I don't have that particular bent. It's not that I disagree with Dawkins and PZ and their ilk about the dangers and inherently infantilizing nature of these beliefs. I just think that atheism will become better accepted in America if it isn't so intimately associated with vocal anti-Christianity. Here is how a well known irreligious bloviator candidly expresses his experience of receiving an evangelical gift. His point of view seems to match my own. Accept a gift as it is intended.

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We human beings are the most important aspect of the entire universe, they say.

We human beings are the most important aspect of the entire universe. Or at least some people say. They say that a Supreme Being created the entire disposable universe to serve us, and that HE visited us here on earth, the moral and spiritual center of the entire universe. Others would differ. Unbelievable as it might seem to many Believers, perhaps we are big fish in a very very small pond. Listen to the words of Carl Sagan, as he discusses our "pale blue dot":

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Fearful bunnies

I was walking the dog last night when Holly (the collie) spotted a couple bunnies in the nearby grass. The bunnies stood perfectly still as we walked past, even though Holly was pulling at the leash trying to run over to take a closer look. This Good Friday anecdote illustrates a common phenomenon. When they sense that potential predators are nearby, many types of animals get as still as statues, thereby blending into the background to avoid confrontation. It’s not hard to see how such a behavior has been naturally selected. For some reason, it occurred to me that many of the conservative religious folks who visit this site do something analogous when they feel threatened by freethinkers. They intellectually freeze. Instead of engaging on the topic, they pull out a pre-packaged arsenal that includes a handful of platitudes that they repeat ad nauseam in order to avoid intellectual confrontation. These platitudes are not invitations for meaningful discussion, but rather inert utterances such as the following:

  • The Bible is inerrant.
  • Science doesn't know everything.
  • Humans are not “animals.”
  • Science can't disprove God or supernatural occurrences.
  • People who question religion are arrogant.
For some conservative believers (and for all fundamentalists), these platitudes (which range from ambiguous to disproved) constitute their entire "intellectual" arsenal. When the predator freethinkers have moved on, these believers spring back to intellectual activity, even going so far as to vigorously question everything else in their lives. They aren’t fools, you see. They only fear taking a close look at their own cherished beliefs. In other words, many religious conservatives are unwilling to make any meaningful intellectual moves when it comes to discussing their own religion. They're unwilling to consider new evidence, even evidence that is overwhelming. They are unwilling to consider new proven-reliable ways of analyzing evidence. Hence, evolutionary biology is an anathema. Why? [Repeat the platitudes over and over]. In short, many people who are religiously conservative use a strategy of intellectually freezing in place, hoping that all of the scientist-predators simply move along. In their own minds, this is a strategy that has been proven to “work.”

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What if every scientist (and every author) had a unique identification number?

The March 27, 2009 edition of Science explores the issue of personal identification numbers for scientists. Why? Because it's getting difficult to tell authors apart.

A universal numbering system could aid scientists trying to stay on top of the literature, help universities more readily track staff productivity, and enable funding agencies to better monitor the bang they're getting for their buck. An effective identification number might also make it easier to find information about an author's affiliations, collaborators, interests, or simply their current whereabouts.
This article indicates that published scientific papers are growing in quantity by 3% annually. Many authors are getting married or divorced and therefore changing their names. Some journals have varying style rules for noting first names and initials. Chinese authors often transliterate their names using opinion. "At least 20 different Chinese names, many of them common, are transliterated as "Wang Hong." And, of course, there are many scientists not of Chinese descent who have common names who don't want to be confused with others.

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New report: Children exposed to pornography might get the impression that sex is pleasurable.

Is sex pleasurable? As I young teenager I had no idea, because the "sex education" I received from my school (and my nervous father) omitted that critical topic. I was given information that amounted to "plumbing," devoid of any social context. That's how it was back in the 60's for many of us. For personal historical reasons, then, I especially enjoyed this new report by Onion Network News: Study: Children Exposed To Pornography May Expect Sex To Be Enjoyable

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