tales of an ordinary girl

Atheism
Why do I want to fight fundamentalism?
So, what do you think? Am I being a hypocrite when I rant about Christians proselytizing? I know from my own past experience and from my born-again friends and family that fundamentalists and evangelicals think they are actually helping people when they witness to them and tell them about the saving grace of Jesus. The classic explanation is that they know a bridge is out and people are driving forward full-speed to their deaths. Wouldn’t they be remiss not to shout out a warning? But I also know the unhealthy mental and emotional life which often results from the born-again experience.

Are good intentions enough? How can we know we are really helping people and not leading them into more garbage and confusion? Am I just the same as a missionary when I say that I want to do everything I can to help people recover from the damage that they’ve suffered from religion?

Cats*



Economics
Capitalism is unsustainable
Over the past few years I’ve spoken to several conservatives about economics and they can’t get it through their frakking heads that growth cannot be sustained infinitely. I don’t know if they can’t comprehend infinity or they can’t look beyond the ends of their noses to care about what their policies will do to future generations. But either way, whenever I mention that growth has limits and that eventually our economic system will collapse in on itself, they look at me like I have four heads. It might happen in 10 years or 100, but it will eventually happen if we continue with the same flawed system we have today.

International
Are the French turning into Prudes???
Well, he's right. But it surprised me. For years the French have had a laissez-faire attitude towards nudity. After all, the beaches are, for the most part, topless and even nudist, there is nothing unusual about a nude statue or paintings, or photos of nudes in public places on billboards, in fact, the French are almost as much at home with nudity as the Scandinavians, who have long held the opinion that your skin is ample covering for any occasion. My husband used to tease me about how prudish and Puritan the Americans are. There really is a completely different mind-set about nudity, accidental or otherwise. If Janet Jackson's whole shirt had fallen off here in France during that live Telecast, no one would have thought it a crime.

But is that changing? Carla Sarkozy's nude photo in the English newspapers went practically unmentioned here. The French press were strangley silent, and only a brief mention was ever made. Before, in the 70's or 80's, it would have been cause for national celebration. "Our first lady has a body to die for - and here's the proof!" Now it's an embarrassment.

Photography
Above the Clouds



Politics
Naomi Klein on social change
No Logo author Naomi Klein talks about the Montreal Massacre, crony capitalism, and writing for social change.

Mccain Vs. Mccain
McCain appears to think that he can magically unite the two main strands in the Republican foreign-policy establishment. But he can't. This is not about personalities but about two philosophically divergent views of international affairs. Put together, they will produce infighting and incoherence. We have seen this movie before. We have watched an American president unable to choose between his ideologically driven vice president and his pragmatic secretary of State—and the result was the catastrophe of George W. Bush's first term. Twenty-five years earlier, we watched another president who believed that he could encompass the entire spectrum of foreign policy. He, too, gave speeches that were drafted by advisers with divergent world views: in that case, Cyrus Vance and Zbigniew Brzezinski. It led to the paralyzing internal battles of the Carter years. Does John McCain want to try this experiment one more time?

Religion
Theocratic Quote of the Day
So let us be blunt about it: we must use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain independence for Christian schools until we train up a generation of people who know that there is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral civil government. Then they will get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God.

Torture - It's nothing new to Christians
This is why we have every right to criticize religion, even with the knowledge that our words are somewhat hurtful. People will cry out “but look at all the good Christianity does”. But if it can’t even rise to the occasion during blatant atrocity then what good is it as a moral institution? The Christians who, themselves, are against torture will claim this is an unfair attack. But it’s not! It’s a completely evenhanded assessment. There is nothing in the Christian code that makes it absolutely clear, for all Christians, at all times, that torture is grossly immoral. And that means the Christian religion is objectively useless when it comes to morality. If it can't instruct us unfailingly about such matters, then it is not needed for any moral issue. We can err on our own, without the supernatural trappings of religion!

Matt Taibbi Goes to a Christian Retreat
By the end of that weekend, Phil Fortenberry could have told us that John Kerry was a demon with clawed feet and not one person would have so much as blinked. Because none of that politics stuff matters anyway, once you’ve gotten this far. All that matters is being full of the Lord and empty of demons. And since everything that is not of God is demonic, asking these people to be objective about anything else is just absurd. There is no “anything else.” All alternative points of view are nonstarters. There is this “our thing,” a sort of Cosa Nostra of the soul, and then there are the fires of Hell. And that’s all.

The Theistic Me vs. the Atheistic Me
Some Christians - not all, by any means - believe that when your child is born with a horrible congenital defect, it’s God’s will. Accept it and cope with it. He’s teaching you perfect love, patience, dependence on Him…. When ministers are assigned to parishes for which they are ill-suited, they are assured that God always works through the ecclesiastical system to place them just where He needs them. He’s teaching them wisdom, patience, obedience…. Such tenets are shallow and stupid, at least, frequently manipulative and, at their worst, abusive.

Sexism
It's good for Hillary, and even better for me
As a male, I’ve been privy to many discussions in which females were not present. Naturally you can not put a big emphasis on this type of anecdotal evidence. But it’s worth remembering that I’m a pretty liberal guy and the types of people I associate with are hardly hard-core, conservative males. If I’ve repeatedly heard gender-based insults cast at Hillary, I can only imagine how much of it goes on in other, more macho circles.

Sexuality
Sex and a single (formerly Christian) woman
Understandably, these factors hindered me from truly enjoying my body and letting go. I never saw sex as dirty or sinful; it was my great desire for it that appeared to be the main problem. As a Christian and a young lady, I was taught to keep my legs locked until the right time, which usually meant the wedding night. "Making out" was akin to toeing a very dangerous and thin line. Plus, most men, I was taught, wanted a virgin to marry, not "used" goods. I heard awful messages such as, "If the milk is free, why bother to buy the cow?" "Who wants to buy a second-hand vehicle when you can get one that's brand-new?" "Once you lose it, you can never get it back." "Soul ties are created through sex, so save yourself for the right one (or you'll be sorry, I guess)." "There should only be one key for one lock." Ugh!

Skeptics



Writing
Optimamistic
What does my current swoon for Cambria say, other than I’m Microsoft’s font puppy? I really don’t know, other than I guess I’m enough of a geek to think about this stuff at all. I do know that I change favorite fonts on a regular basis. I don’t know what that means, either. I do know, however, that I can’t imagine a world in which I actually like Courier or any of its progeny. I’m aware it’s a standard and even use font in publishing, and I have even been known to format work into it, after I’m done writing, just like I double space everything after I’m done writing. Doesn’t mean I don’t hate it with something approaching a passion. It’s the opposite of esthetically pleasing. I wish it would die. But it won’t. At least I have Optima and Cambria to console me at the moment.

*A special category created for Philly

The Stermy Awards are up once again over at No More Hornets and I'm all choked up at being selected. Stop by his place to see everyone that was awarded.

Atheism
Looking for That A-Ha Moment
A Discovery Channel (or similar) program regarding Jesus or the History of the Bible made on off-hand comment that there was controversy over the historicity of Jesus. It wasn’t the main topic of the show, it was one comment, an aside, one sentence – but to me it stood out like neon. I could say that it was the sudden flash The Exterminator was talking about, but if it hadn’t been for the earlier nudges, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed it.

Another holiday effort from a group of atheists
I'm afraid that when people whine at me that we need to be more sensitive to those pious beliefs, when I'm told that atheists must be more tasteful, unaggressive, and quiet, I know what an exercise in futility that is — our very existence is offensive to some, and just the fact that we're living in freedom is an affront to the religious right. You can't win by accepting their rules and surrendering, so you might as well raise a ruckus and offend, offend, offend. And do it proudly.

Movies
The Golden Compass
This is a coming-of-age story set in a conflict with an evil religious empire bent on expanding their control, and willing to experiment on children to do it. It's barely detectable in this movie. I think if the producers had been a little braver and set this up as a clearer parable for the dangers of wedding political control and religious belief, it would have been a much more comprehensible and powerful movie.

Constant Viewer: I Am Legend
This third film version of a 1954 Richard Matheson novel is mildly entertaining but, as is so often the case, it hardly lives up to its pre-opening hype. Others will no doubt comment at length on how the film serves as none too subtle propaganda for a very strong version of the precautionary principle so popular these day among many medical ethicists.

Music
Because I heard it on the radio today.
Watch another video from sader-mama.

Philosophy
Are Mystical Experiences the Result of Natural Causes?
Now, simply think of common, non-mystical experience as one kind of map — say a road map — and mystical experience as another kind of map — say a strata map. Let’s even say both maps are created by the same cartographer (i.e. by natural causes). The point is, both could be equally accurate — and equally false — and equally useful fictions. There is no reason to suppose that if common, non-mystical experience is a useful fiction, then mystical experience cannot be an equally useful fiction.

Poetry
Of Grief in Dusty Corners, Take 2
This is a beautiful poem. The way the words fit in with the meter is very natural. When I read it out loud it flows together so well I could almost take it for prose. I love the second stanza. I love the tie in between mathematics and odds and evens, and especially the word cornucopia. That may sound silly, but I love to say that word.

Religion
The Reason/Belief Disconnect
This is known as confirmation bias. Religious thinking, where the existence of an all powerful, omni-benevolent god is presumed, expects that the good things we experience, especially the rare ones, are the result of supernatural intervention. It is the rarity of the event that allows people to expect that there is no rational, material explanation, and hence it must be an act of god. Good things that happen every day, like making a green light when you’re in a hurry, or finding the item you want to purchase is on sale, are not usually attributed to acts of god (though I’m sure some fervent believers are inclined to do so). Once indoctrinated, (or infected) with the religious presuppositions, one is biased to expect that good things only come from god, so when they do, their bias is confirmed.

You Shall Be My Witnesses
Whenever stories like these erupt, Christians everywhere are quick to ask non-Christians not to judge the whole body by the misdeeds of a few and to consider the substance of their doctrines rather than the content of their characters. This plea is not entirely misplaced, for any group contains subsets of those who deviate from group norms. But there is another group of believers that, with regard to the persuasive power of their witness, is far more problematic for the Body of Christ than the egregious examples cited above. These are the believers with whom people rub shoulders every day: the gossips, the hypocrites, the domineering, the selfish….

Unholy Union: Secret Sin and Spiritual Abuse
They returned a week later to find no improvement in their friend’s condition. Again, they prayed for her with fervor, but to no avail. Before leaving, they boldly announced to this young lady that she had not been healed because she harbored a shameful secret sin, a sin she would have to acknowledge, confess openly and seek forgiveness for before healing could occur.The so-called friends left, satisfied within themselves that they had done all they could. They were confident that their faith was pure, blameless and sufficient to accomplish mighty works. The reason their prayers had not yielded the results they sought was not due to any fault of theirs, nor to any lack of will or power on the part of their God; surely, the blame for their failed healing attempts lay within the young woman’s own sin-stained soul. Needless to say, the injured woman was devastated by their harsh verdict.

Deeply Disturbed...
This news today has awakened me once again. I can not sit by and watch while lives are destroyed and lost. If you have followed this blog, you'd know that leaving the Church for me has been an emotional roller coaster. Recently, the questions keep popping up in my head - who am I? What is my moral code? Where do I claim that this code comes from? How do I want to live? Who do I want to be? What do I want to do with my life? In working to leave the Church, I became something of a blank slate. No answers, but lots of questions.

Christmas sets a trap
In the fourth whereas (Christians identify themselves...), King apparently hopes to get a statement of faith into the congressional record. It actually makes no grammatic sense in the contest of the resolution. The whereas' are the reasons for the resolution. The first three make logical sense (whereas there are lots of Christians in the country, we support one of their holidays). The fourth does only makes sense as an effort to deny other religions the same support (whereas Christians believe in salvation through Christ, we support their holidays. If they didn't believe that, we wouldn't support them).

Jesus Loves Poly/Cotton Blends
Oh, those gays and their agenda. I cannot tell you how many times I get stopped on the street by some lesbian who starts humping my leg and then thrusts her "agenda" right in my face. Then I have to go around all day smelling like lesbian agenda, and it's just not very pleasant. God have mercy on our souls if we ever end up like the UK. Every single person over there? Gay. They even have gay babies.

Here's my impression of Barry Arrington
Now, if I was a giant screaming asshole like Barry A, I'd say something like, "People like Bill O'Reilly who make up the imaginary 'war on Christmas' or Ann Coulter and her remarks about Christians being 'perfected Jews' should consider themselves responsible for this event. If they didn't promote their pro-Christmas, pro-Christian agenda, no one would feel the need to attack Jewish people for wishing them a Happy Hanukkah."

theological child abuse
I know many people will discredit his words because of his actions. But I believe him. I lived through very similar experiences and I know for a fact that stories like this are true. I’ve seen parents and pastors act like this, and I know the rest of what goes along with it. Religious indoctrination, when it fails to create pliant and obedient sheep, causes extreme emotional distress and constant mental torment. That’s bad enough for adults, but for children and teenagers, the terrors are beyond anything that can be created by ghost stories or horror movies. I’m 46, quit going to church over 15 years ago, and I still have nightmares. And I am not alone. I am in an ex-fundamentalist support group where I hear stories of adults, and even senior citizens, being haunted by their childhood religious indoctrination over and over and over again.

Science
Voyager 2 probe reaches solar system boundary
On the way, the Voyagers could help determine the source of mysterious radio emissions from the edge of the solar system, which may be the result of CMEs from the Sun crashing into the interstellar medium.

Life in the Dead Zone
I also wanted to point readers to this list that I recently came upon over at bloggingheads.tv on their Science Saturday “diavlog” between science writers George Johnson and John Horgan (two regulars). John Horgan was one of those responsible for compiling this particular list, called The Stevens Seventy Greatest Science Books.

This deadly religious resistance to vaccinations
But why was she so certain the MMR campaign should be stopped? Phillips presented her argument as if she was simply siding with one scientist against another. But in reality, she disputes on religious grounds the very basis of vaccinations: evolution. She says that creationism should be taught in schools, and that evolution is “only a theory.” So it’s no wonder she is so hostile to (and ignorant of) vaccination science. Vaccines only work because we can observe evolution, live, as it happens. Take the flu virus. It is constantly changing – you can watch it under a microscope. That’s why you need a booster shot every year: because the virus has evolved. That’s why a vaccine against the 1918 flu virus would be radically different to a vaccine the 2007 flu virus: it has evolved. Yet when Professor Colin Blakemore, head of the Medical Research Council, pointed out this elementary scientific truth, she accused him of seizing any sneaky opportunity to “beat the drum for Darwin” and for claiming “there was no intelligent design in a virus, only the mindless force of natural selection.”

A letter to a high school student
A lot of people worry that without some moral absolutes, moral behaviour is impossible. I think this is wrong, because we evolved to be a social species, and that means that ordinarily, humans are cooperative and well behaved. But the question how moral behaviour evolved and how to justify a moral standard are two different things. Myself, I think that if a moral duty is a duty, that is justification enough. But I am a bit outside the mainstream on that.

Sci-fi
The Zombie Robert Heinlein Rises From the Grave Yet Again to Annoy the Politically Correct
Heinlein’s flat-out readability is why, two decades after his death and now more than half a century after the publication of some of his most famous works, the man is still in print when the vast majority of his contemporaries are not, why he’s still actively influencing the genre, why being favorably compared to him is still a significant coup, and why people are still tearing their hair out that he’s still out there, despite his antediluvian sexual and political stances. If they really want him gone, the solution is simple: Put something out there that’s as readable as what he offers, and which offers a different political and social viewpoint.

Skepticism
Applied Kinesiology and Self Deception
The video is supposed to be a demonstration of AK. What it is really a demonstration of is self-deception, and as such it is very interesting. The subject seems to really believe that his strength is decreasing when he says the name “Hitler.” The lesson should be clear - the human capacity for self-deception is almost limitless. Therefore, we cannot trust anyone’s subjective experience.

The Exterminator over at No More Hornets has honored me with a Stermy Award for Exemplary Writing in the Atheosphere. Not just *a* Stermy Award, but a share in the very first Stermy Award.

What I'm referring to is a quality that’s hard to pin down, an urgent shoulder-grab by someone who just has to say something important or hilarious or informative or so interesting it demands to be shared, a feat of linguistic magic that breathes into mere strings of words a life of their own, a mind-meld you're powerless to resist.

Stop by his place and see the other blogs awarded as well.

Nita at A wide angle view of India tagged me with a writing meme "What strengths should a writer have?" I've borrowed most of my points from the two sources listed below because they were important lessons I learned and am still learning (organization!).

Clarity¹
Write clearly to avoid confusing your audience. Provide specific detail. Answer the questions who, what, when, where, why, and how. Use easily understood words. Be specific instead of general in your use of words.

Conciseness¹
Nearly every writing problem you have can be solved by making things simpler.² Don't waste your reader's time by writing large amounts of text that can be written in smaller words and shorter sentences.

Accuracy¹
Avoid grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and incorrect punctuation. All of these things make you look stupid or lazy. Some tips for finding these errors in your own writing are to let someone else read your draft, let it sit for a while before re-reading to check for errors, and read the text out loud. Don't use words that you don't know.²

Organization¹
Organize your thoughts so that readers can better understand your writing. Before writing think through what you want to convey and how you're going to make your point. When editing, make sure that your central ideas are clear and won't be missed by the text.²

1 Technical Writing: Process and Product. Sharon J. Gerson, Steven M. Gerson, pp. 47-66.
2 Writing Tips for Non-Writers Who Don't Want to Work at Writing

And I definitely encourage you to visit Jon Scalzi's blog, Whatever.

Now for the tagging, which is always tricky for me. Most people I know read this blog don't like to be tagged.

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Evolutionary Middleman
No More Hornets
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