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The big bad atheist will blow your religion down?

The big bad atheist will blow your religion down? published on No Comments on The big bad atheist will blow your religion down?

Ronald Lindsay, president and CEO of the Center for Inquiry (CFI), wrote a piece for the Huffington Post comparing coming out as an atheist to coming out as LGBT. In it he urges atheists to reveal their existence to the world for much the same reason that it’s good for “queers” of all sorts to come out– for their own happiness and for the world to recognize their ubiquity and similarity to themselves. Just normal folks, as worthy and intelligent and moral and loving as anyone else. Recognition of this is the single biggest factor in social acceptance, and it’s good to encourage. But while making this comparison, Lindsay also draws what he sees as an important contrast:

I don’t think coming out will have the same level of success for atheists as it’s had for LGBT individuals. Why? Because even after we come out, some fear will persist. For some, the level of fear, the sense of being threatened, may actually increase. There’s a big difference between being gay and being an atheist. Someone can persuade you to be an atheist; no one is going to persuade you to be gay (no matter what the extremist anti-gay propaganda says). I don’t foresee a best-selling book entitled “The Straight Delusion” or “Heterosexuality Poisons Everything.” The LGBT community wants acceptance; they don’t want to persuade others to join their “team,” and even if they had that objective, they would strive for it in vain. By contrast, the amount of literature that has been produced in the last decade criticizing religious belief is extensive and continues to grow. Moreover, these critiques of religion seem to have had some effect. Of course, many atheists have little or no interest in persuading the religious to abandon their beliefs. They merely want to be treated as equals and to end the influence that religion has on public policy. That doesn’t matter. The realization that many atheists once were religious and then “lost” their faith has an unnerving effect on some of the religious. How far will atheism spread? Will I be next? Or my children?

Okay, so prejudice against atheists– in America, at least– has been demonstrated to exist. It takes the form of a distrust, a belief that atheists are different and mysterious, fundamentally “other,” and that they cannot be relied upon to support the same ideals, to “share the same vision of American society.” However, there are some interesting aspects to that. The first is that this impression of atheists as a threat to societal values can be significantly diminished by reminders of social controls– if people receive messages indicating a strong justice system is in place, their anxiety of wanting a supernatural form of police as backup seems to drop substantially. In addition to this, there’s a factor that runs counter to Lindsay’s suggestions:

In the third experiment, Gervais gave the subjects one of three passages to read and react to – one on food, an excerpt from The God Delusion in which Dawkins argues that belief is nonsensical, and a passage detailing the increasing numbers of atheists in the USA in recent decades. This last passage included the crucial fact that at least 20% of Americans aged 18-25 are atheists. For the religious, reading that atheism was rather more common than they previously believed had a remarkable effect. It effectively abolished their distrust of atheists. To me, this result strongly suggests that distrust of atheists is mostly due to fear of ‘others’. It suggests that the main reason for the distrust is that the subjects had not realised that many of their fellow students were, in fact, atheists. Once they learned that atheists were not a weird, alien group, but rather people just like them, they felt able to trust them. And I think this conclusion is supported by the experience of atheists in places like the UK, where overt atheism is much more prevalent and distrust of atheists is correspondingly lower.

How to say this? I think Lindsay is treating the issue a little too…rationally. And by that I mean, he seems to believe that the greatest threat that atheists present to theists is the fact of their having a different opinion about what would seem to be a foundational matter, the existence of a creator. And yes, clearly efforts to argue that matter such as The God Delusion are a turn-off for people of faith, and should be viewed much more as sources of reassurance for atheists, especially the new kind, than as tools of conversion for the religious. Given how many times I’ve seen the same refutations of the same arguments done more and less artfully in various forms in books and internet forums and chat rooms over the past couple of decades to no apparent avail, I don’t find that idea hard to swallow at all. Religion is far from a purely intellectual matter, and– let’s be honest– so is atheism. Acceptance seems far more likely to be dependent on tripping the right empathy triggers than anything else.

How to deal with science you don’t like: call it religion

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Artist: Person who didn’t exist yet, according to nearly
half of Americans

The revelation that in 2012, 46% of Americans believe that humans were created in their present form by God in the last 10,000 years is a little staggering. Staggering but not shocking, considering that Gallup has been conducting a poll on evolution belief for the past 30 years with pretty much the same result. This answer was one of three possible, the other two being 1) humans evolved over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but the process was guided by God, and 2) humans evolved in the same way, but God had no part in the process.

I don’t like these possible answers. For one thing, it doesn’t look like it was possible for respondents to simply say “I don’t know,” so the poll forces them to assert a belief that they may not actually hold. For another thing, “God had no part in the process” is a nebulous statement. It could mean that God didn’t specially guide the evolution of humans though he did put things in motion originally, which is a common belief of theists who accept evolution. But it sounds more like the respondent is asserting that God doesn’t exist. A person shouldn’t have to affirm God’s non-existence or complete irrelevance to evolution in order to express a belief in evolution as it actually occurs– that is, without any necessary guidance.

But let’s go back to that “present form in the last 10,000 years” thing. Humans have been around in their present form for the last 10,000 years, yes. For that matter, they’ve been around in their anatomically modern form for about the last 200,000 years, and have been behaviorally modern (capable of symbolic thought, language, culture) for about the last 50,000. The city of Jericho is 11,000 years old. 46% of Americans don’t even have their human history right.

What does this tell me? It tells me that evolution isn’t the problem. By that I mean, I don’t think the content of the story that conflicts with “We were specially made by God” is really an issue so much as the fact that it does conflict, and obviously so. It’s not as offensive a creation story as those produced by a lot of religions, because religious creation stories generally entail that humans were created by some god or another, more or less deliberately. Evolution doesn’t include that, so its creation story is abhorrent and false. Presumably it would be just as abhorrent and false if it asserted that we humans came into existence in some other very non-deliberate way, such as emerging from the earth like plants. Genesis says that God made Adam from dust, but he made him– formed him, in God’s own image. Special creation is the key…our existence must be on purpose, in order to have purpose.

That is, I expect, the kind of thinking behind Kansas school board member Ken Willard’s recent objections to the science standards the state is developing along with 25 other states and the National Research Council. Willard, a Republican (surprise) has in the past “supported standards for Kansas with material that questions evolution,” and now:

Willard said the draft embraces naturalism and secular humanism, which precludes God or another supreme being in considering how the universe works. He said he intends to raise the issue Tuesday. “That’s going to be very problematic,” Willard told The Associated Press in an interview. “They are preferring one religious position over another.”

Unfortunately the public review period for the science standards is now closed, however in a section on the site titled The Nature of Science in the NGSS, I see this:

What is central to the intersection of the practices, core ideas, and crosscutting concepts?  Or, what is the relationship among the three basic elements of The Framework for K–12 Science Education? Humans have a need to explain the world around them. In some cases, the need originates in potential dangers, sometimes it is a curiosity, and in other cases the promise of a better life. Science is the pursuit of explanations of the natural world. As a foundation for K–12 science education, the issue is explaining the natural world and especially the formation of adequate, evidence-based scientific explanations. To be clear, this sort of explanation should not be confused with how students engage in the practice of constructing explanations. Obviously, students in K–12 are not likely to construct new explanations of the natural world; they can understand and engage in the process scientists use to acquire scientific knowledge. 

Might this be the root of Willard’s objections– the assertion that science is for explaining the natural world? That explanations must be based on evidence in order to be scientific? That is “naturalistic,” in the sense that naturalism entails a belief that the universe obeys rules, and science is a means of discovering and explaining those rules. Naturalism also entails that nothing exists beyond the universe, or if it does it doesn’t affect the workings of the universe, but the science standards don’t appear to assert that this is true. I don’t see anything that “precludes God,” unless by that Willard simply means that the standards do not invoke God. His god, presumably– one gets the feeling that acknowledgement of a deistic god would not suffice at all.

The refusal to take a position on religion is not itself a religious position, but I am guessing Willard does not believe this. Either that, or he is trying to obscure that fact by clumsily slapping on philosophical labels in order to turn it into one, which is far from a new tactic:

One of the most robust and effective conspiracy theories on the right, the notion that “secularism” – or, just as often, “Secular Humanism” – is a religion is meant to be taken entirely literally: right wingers genuinely believe it refers to an actually existing religious practice. How do conservatives know? Because, they say, the Supreme Court said so. It was, as religious historian and Lutheran minister Martin E. Marty has written, “an instance where one can date precisely the birth of a religion: June 19, 1961.” That was the day the Court ruled in the case of Torcaso v. Watkins striking down the Maryland Constitution’s requirement of “a declaration of belief in the existence of God” to hold “any office of profit or trust in this state” — specifically, in atheist Roy Torcaso’s case, the office of notary public. In his decision, Justice Hugo Black, writing for a unanimous court, further asserted that states and the federal government could not favor religions “based on a belief in the existence of God as against those religions founded on different beliefs” – and, in a fateful, ill-considered, and entirely offhand footnote explained: “Among religions in this country which do not teach what would be generally be considered a belief in the existence of God are Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism and others.”  From here, things get wacky. As unearthed by the outstanding scholar Carol Mason in her masterpiece Reading Appalachia from Left to Right, in 1974 a Jesuit priest and Fordham University law professor named Edward Berbasse argued that “since humanism is now considered by the court to be a religion , it must be prevented from being established by the government.” An activist asked him if that meant they could win their fight to ban the satanic textbooks being forced down their children’s throats in Kanawha County, West Virginia by taking the matter to the Supreme Court. “I think you may have the material if you can get a crackerjack lawyer,” Father Berbasse responded. A Supreme Court case was never actually attempted – not least because, as Chip Berlet and Matthew Lyons have pointed out, “While historically there has been an organized humanist movement in the United States since at least the 1800s, the idea of a large-scale quasireligion called secular humanism is a conspiracist myth.” In Kanawha County, the textbook fight was fought out with dynamite instead. Nationwide, however, the conspiracist myth took on a life of its own – even unto the halls of Congress. For Secular Humanism was not just an imaginary religion. It was, as the subtitle to a 1984 book still revered by religious conservatives, put it, The Most Dangerous Religion in America. How so? Because it held that man, not God, determines human affairs. From that, as Martin Marty explained, the ascendant religious right developed the claim that “when a textbook does not mention the God of the Bible … it necessarily leads to a void which it must fill with the religion of Secular Humanism.” (It’s a religion. Thus the Capital Letters.) And that any textbook which does not mention the guiding hand of God is rock-solid proof that the “secular humanist” conspiracists had written it; the absence was the presence.

Nobody honestly thinks that science in general is a religion. They just try to treat it as one when it comes to theories that they object to on religious grounds in order to make it constitutionally problematic to teach it. If it isn’t a violation of anyone’s religious freedom to teach that plants photosynthesize, it isn’t a violation to teach evolution.

Last Easter, Pope Benedict took the opportunity to misrepresent evolution with regard to humans specifically, claiming that the Catholic Church accepts evolution, so long as it entails that humanity was specially created. That is, not evolved. I wrote then:

I’m sure it’s possible to understand evolution and still find it depressing and threatening, but it’s remarkable how many people who find it depressing and threatening do not understand it.  A hard-liner could quibble about the idea that we evolved “to” do anything at all, but in the context of simple order of events it is quite true that we evolved rationality into the world, in the same way that Daniel Dennett wrote that we evolved free will into the world. At least our version of it, in our world. Richard Dawkins, probably the greatest proponent of evolutionary theory alive today, likes to dwell on the unlikelihood of each of our personal existences, however significant they are to us. In Unweaving the Rainbow he wrote:

We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.

The reaction I have to such thoughts is awe and wonder. The reaction that people like the Pope have is apparently revulsion and fear– we, you and I, could not have come into this world without an act of special creation. Life has no meaning otherwise.  Yet here all of us evolution-believers are, comfortably denying ourselves to be the product of a design independent of the process of natural selection, and yet somehow managing to not commit mass suicide in a fit of despair. Some of us believe that there is a god behind the whole process and others don’t, but the simple idea of being evolved individuals doesn’t shake any existential pillars and cause our sense of teleology to come crashing down. How is that? 

I want to call it humility. But that wouldn’t be at all humble, now would it?

Pareidolia of the day: Ew

Pareidolia of the day: Ew published on 1 Comment on Pareidolia of the day: Ew

Jesus found in Texas bathroom mold

 

A Texas family says they are getting strength from an image of Jesus they found in the mold growing inside the shower of their home.
Chyanna Richards, who lives in the home, told KTRK-TV, Houston, she doesn’t know if it’s mold or mildew in the bathroom but said the appearance of Jesus’ image has meaning.
“Maybe it means something. Maybe look into yourself and see if you need to change something in your life,” she said.

Maybe you need to clean your freakin’ shower.

To summon sexism, one need only speak its name

To summon sexism, one need only speak its name published on No Comments on To summon sexism, one need only speak its name

Sexism really is like the devil. If you have any doubts about its existence, you need only mention it and it will come skipping around the corner cheerily asking “You rang?” Well, except that the devil doesn’t exist and sexism does. But apart from that, they are just the same.

Anita Sarkeesian does the Feminist Frequency videos on Youtube, commenting on popular culture from a feminist perspective. I’ve only watched a couple of them, but have been impressed with what I’ve seen so far. Now she’s doing a Kickstarter project to fund a series of video commentaries on sexism in video games, which you should help fund if you’re interested in the topic. And who wouldn’t be interested in the topic?

Now, Youtube comment threads are notoriously cesspools of bigots and trolls, and bigoted trolls, of every stripe. So it’s not surprise that they came out in force when this video was posted, but the amount of bile spewed toward Sarkeesian, and women in general, is pretty shocking still. You can see a screenshot of some of it here, but I’ll warn you that reading it is pretty damn depressing. I am not going to say that they justify the claim that there’s sexism in video games, because they don’t. They just show clearly that there is sexism in people who comment on Youtube about videos discussing sexism in video games. However, I think it’s a safe bet that they’re watching this video in the first place because they are gamers, and sexism in gamers is known issue. As is sexism in video games, but judging by Sarkeesian’s previous discussions on sexist tropes in movies, and of course her outline of the topics she intends to discuss in this series, I’m betting she will have plenty of new and interesting things to say about it.

Her statement on the backlash received this far:

The intimidation and harassment effort has included a torrent of misogyny and hate speech on my YouTube video, repeated vandalizing of the Wikipedia page about me, organized efforts to flag my YouTube videos as “terrorism”, as well as many threatening messages sent through Twitter, Facebook, Kickstarter, email and my own website.  These messages and comments have included everything from the typical sandwich and kitchen “jokes” to threats of violence, death, sexual assault and rape.  All that plus an organized attempt to report this project to Kickstarter and get it banned or defunded.  Thankfully, Kickstarter has been incredibly supportive in helping me deal with the harassment on their service. The sad thing is this kind of backlash happens all the time whenever women dare to speak up about gender and video games. . .  What’s most ironic about the harassment is that it’s in reaction to a project I haven’t even created yet. I haven’t had the chance to articulate any of my arguments about video game characters yet. It’s very telling that there is this much backlash against the mere idea of this series being made.

Now, you might say “But look, this is only manufactured drama. Of course people are going to react badly to claims of sexism, because it’s just one woman complaining about nothing.” I hope you wouldn’t say that, but someone did in the comments on PZ Myers’ post on the subject:

Here’s an attractive girl, vastly more privileged than these “losers” who have no future and can’t just marry to be set up for life with a stable income, complaining about how downtrodden she is and expecting to be paid to play video games. There’s any number of worthy causes that go unfunded (remember “Dear Muslima”?), but here is this girl expecting to be paid so she can give us her opinion on video games.

Anita Sarkeesian has a Master’s degree in social and political thought and did her thesis on the role of women in science fiction and fantasy television. If the only things to be known about her were found in the Kickstarter video, it would be clear that she’s not a “girl” who wants to “complain about how downtrodden she is,” but they are not. It’s also about as obvious as an ice pick through the skull that she isn’t simply “expecting to be paid so she can give us her opinion on video games,” but even if that were the case it sure seems like a worthy thing to pay her for. Gosh, how dare a person with credentials and a track record of delivering informed and interesting views on things expect to be paid for it! And it’s not like Kickstarter is entirely about people offering to produce creative goods and services to interested parties who are willing to invest in advance, or anything. You’d think it was actually about marching up to their front doors, knocking them down, and demanding it.

Ultimately however, what’s lurking under that statement (and is made more clear further in the comment thread) is a fundamental misunderstanding of privilege and bigotry. This particular girl woman seems to be doing pretty well. After all, she’s attractive so she could marry someone for money and not have to work! Err…except that she probably wouldn’t, because being a gold-digger is supposedly a bad thing, and marrying for money tends to attract husbands who will treat you like you…married them for the money. Which is something that far more men can do than women, and that’s because of what, class? Correct– male privilege! The fact that some men can afford to buy wives is their privilege; not the privilege of women to be bought. But what about the fact that this woman remains attractive, which is a benefit, and educated, which is a benefit? How is she in a position to complain to anyone about how “downtrodden” she is?!

Well, she isn’t. Complaining about being downtrodden, that is. She might be downtrodden, but it’s impossible to tell from the video, and more importantly it doesn’t matter if she is or not. This complaint assumes that if you’re going to say that a privilege exists, it must benefit all members of Group Y to the detriment of all members of Group X. If there is a single member of the latter group who is obviously better off than any members of the former, then this “privilege” thing is bogus! Well, no. Privilege is a general and often unacknowledged advantage that members of a group have by virtue of being in that group, usually one that they had nothing to do with being a member of in the first place. The fact that there are individual members of minority groups who enjoy respect from others and a high standard of living does not mean that a majority privilege does not exist, and the fact that the majority privilege exists does not mean that every last member of that majority will enjoy such in a tangible way. It’s entirely possible to be a member of the privileged majority and still be…well, a loser.

Which is why the comment above misses the point so badly– yes, it’s probably true that a good number of the people now threatening violence against Sarkeesian over her audacity to propose making a series of videos about sexism in video games are males who are not doing so well, generally. Who thought life would bring them opportunities and benefits that they didn’t receive, and therefore are unable to see that many if not most of them are playing on life’s lowest difficulty setting, to use John Scalzi’s almost frighteningly prescient metaphor. If you want a more elaborate explanation of how being a straight white male is a privilege, as told by a straight white male using gaming terminology, accompanied by further evidence of exactly how unacknowledged it can be, check out that essay and some of the replies it has received.

It’s funny to think that a person would need to be “downtrodden” in order to justifiably speak about sexism in video games, anyway. How would mis- or under-representation of women in a game oppress women to the point of making them poor, unhealthy, hated, or otherwise leading a miserable existence? I can see an MRA (how unfortunate that “men’s rights advocate” has come to refer mostly to misogynists who deny the existence of misogyny) replying to this by saying “That’s the point. If it doesn’t oppress you, what are you complaining about?” (Actually, they would probably say “That’s the point, bitch.” But you get the idea.)

Well, fortunately that objection amounts to a false dichotomy. We don’t have to stop caring about things like the wage gap, rape victims being blamed for their own attacks, sex trafficking and so on in order to also care about how women are depicted in things like movies and video games. Isn’t that grand? It’s also important because media, including video games, both shapes and reflects how women are viewed in the culture where it appears. So women– so everybody— has an interest in presentation in media not being bigoted, whether it’s sexism we’re talking about, or homophobia, or racism, or any other form of slanted and unfair depiction of real people who exist in the world. And there’s also the fact that, as Sarkeesian notes, video games can help develop certain skills and are fun to play, and as a player it can really suck to play one that depicts people like you absurdly and insultingly. 47% of video game players are female so their impressions and comfort obviously matter, but not feeding male players distorted messages about women also matters. I can testify from my own experience that interaction between players often contains enough sexism, racism, and homophobia on its own without the game itself encouraging such.

I asked at the beginning of this post who wouldn’t be interested in the topic of sexism in video games. If your answer was “Me!” then I hope something between there and here might have sparked some. If not, well, I’m impressed you made it to the end regardless.

You know…

You know… published on 1 Comment on You know…

…teaching about the various ways people believe in gods in public school is going to be a little difficult if they’re not even allowed to mention the word for someone who doesn’t.

Text at top: “Will not allow this because it could disrupt the
educational process at LPHS”

From Friendly Atheist:

the Secular Student Alliance group at La Porte High School in Texas wanted to put up flyers advertising their group. To make that happen, the school administration had to approve the design (a standard procedure at high schools).
When they submitted a design for approval, this is the message they got back from the principal

Could the principal have crossed out the definition of “atheist” more vehemently? On the post for this on LPHS’s Facebook page, someone commented “if [sic] his pen were a knife, the poster would be a victim of a crime of passion.”

Instruction on religion in public schools

Instruction on religion in public schools published on 1 Comment on Instruction on religion in public schools

Today my “faitheist” friend Chris Stedman wrote

In high school, I washed dishes and mopped floors at “Taste of Scandinavia Bakery & Café.” (I’m from Minnesota.) It was not a job that played to my strengths, but my manager—a supremely kind and intelligent young man—made it tolerable with his dry sense of humor and incisive commentary.  One day, after a discussion about LGBT activism and how he took his children to a gay pride event, he told me he was a Mormon. “Really? I’ve never met a Mormon before,” I said. “My old church told me that Mormonism is a cult.” A coworker, overhearing us, added: “A cult? Like in ‘Children of the Corn’?” He patiently explained more about his beliefs, but my coworker and I mostly pretended to listen because we both had a crush on him. (He was very handsome. He should probably do one of those “I’m a Mormon” ads.)  A few days later, my coworker pulled me aside and said she talked to her mom and, upon further reflection, didn’t really feel comfortable working for a Mormon. I didn’t know what to say, so I just took a bite of my cream cheese kolache. Public schools should offer religious literacy classes.

In a word, yes. Yes, they absolutely should. In the 1963 case Abington School District v. Schempp, when the Supreme Court declared that school-sponsored bible-reading was unconstitutional, they took great care to note why instruction on religion itself is not:

It is insisted that unless these religious exercises are permitted a “religion of secularism” is established in the schools. We agree of course that the State may not establish a “religion of secularism” in the sense of affirmatively opposing or showing hostility to religion, thus “preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do believe.” Zorach v. Clauson, supra, at 314. We do not agree, however, that this decision in any sense has that effect. In addition, it might well be said that one’s education is not complete without a study of comparative religion or the history of religion and its relationship to the advancement of civilization. It certainly may be said that the Bible is worthy of study for its literary and historic qualities. Nothing we have said here indicates that such study of the Bible or of religion, when presented objectively as part of a secular program of education, may not be effected consistently with the First Amendment. But the exercises here do not fall into those categories. They are religious exercises, required by the States in violation of the command of the First Amendment that the Government maintain strict neutrality, neither aiding nor opposing religion. Finally, we cannot accept that the concept of neutrality, which does not permit a State to require a religious exercise even with the consent of the majority of those affected, collides with the majority’s right to free exercise of religion.[10] While the Free Exercise Clause clearly prohibits the use of state action to deny the rights of free exercise to anyone, it has never meant that a majority could use the machinery of the State to practice its beliefs. 

(emphasis mine)

Victims, skeptics, and politics, oh my

Victims, skeptics, and politics, oh my published on No Comments on Victims, skeptics, and politics, oh my

Jason Thibeault at Lousy Canuck has an interesting post up today on what he calls “hyper-skepticism” with regard to sexual harassment. What he’s referring to is the practice, when such harassment is described, of demanding unusual and unreasonable amounts of evidence for it or else denying that it happened. I say “unusual and unreasonable” because, as Thibeault points out, extraordinary claims may require extraordinary evidence but sexual harassment is not extraordinary. It is, actually and unfortunately, quite ordinary indeed. Not normal or acceptable, but common. It is also something rather hard to prove unless it happens in front of witnesses. I excoriated vagueness in accusations in my last post, but being vague when alleging harassment can be a good idea for the safety of both accuser and accused. For the accuser, because as we’ve seen all too clearly the backlash from people who sympathize with the accused can be immediate and severe. For the accused, because when someone is making a hard-to-prove statement of wrongdoing on your part it’s better if they’re not naming you directly!

Rebecca Watson has been raked over the coals again and again for not naming the person who propositioned her in an elevator at 4am, but I’m glad that she didn’t– for his sake. What he did was creepy but not a crime, and I’m sure that he would have received an inordinate amount of grief, if his identity had been revealed, by well-meaning vigilantes who would consider it their business to shame him on Watson’s behalf. Yes, being non-specific about the person she was accusing made it easier for Watson to have lied, if she so desired. She could have, conceivably, made the whole thing up. But let’s remember that this was originally an anecdote tacked on the end of a video about various topics, accompanied by a simple request: “Guys, don’t do that.” It was not part of some manifesto declaring that freethought conferences are places women should avoid, nor was it a police report. Generally speaking, the more serious an allegation is, the more specific it should be. Right? Watson’s description of the behavior she found objectionable was quite specific because her goal was to identify creepy behavior and encourage other people not to engage in it. It didn’t need to be more specific than that, however, because the behavior she was describing stopped at “creepy.” Creepy is bad, but it’s not the end of the world, either for the creeper or for the person who has to endure him/her. But let there be no mistake, every time someone mentions what she (almost always “she”) believes to be creepy behavior at a conference, a number of someones can be counted upon to rise up in defense of the creeper. I’m pretty sure at this point that someone could describe a stranger walking up and grabbing both of her breasts and squeezing, and somebody would reply “I can’t believe you were bothered by that! You should be flattered! Feminist cunt.”

Let’s go back to that word, actually– not “cunt” (I don’t have the patience to discuss that right now) but “feminist.” One of the things I didn’t particularly like about Thibault’s post, and that I am seeing all over the place, is that DJ Grothe has a problem with feminists. Thibault’s post reads

When the conversation was not going his way, DJ made some very pointed remarks about specific women who’ve worked on the problem of harassment before; including some women who had taken him personally to task for attacking feminists as contra the skeptical movement, and defending some rather indefensible folks (including the Epstein/Krauss flap) in the past.

Did he, in fact, “attack feminists as contra the skeptical movement”? That link goes to an entry on Stephanie Zvan’s blog Almost Diamonds, which quotes Grothe saying

This will be my last post on this topic. I’ll go back to believing what I have believed for a while now about some of these atheist blogs, now yours included: that fomenting movement controversy often seems to be prized over honest and sincere argument, that some folks are too quick to vilify and engage in destructive in-group/out-group thinking, that these online communities are exclusive rather than inclusive, and that unfortunately as a whole, the feminist and atheist blogospheres often operate quite separately from and counter the growing skeptical movement working to combat unreason and harmful pseudoscience in society.  

Answer: Nope. Just like he didn’t say that feminists, or women skeptics, are the reason that fewer women are planning to attend TAM this year. These distinctions are important. If it’s wrong to blame “feminists” for such things, it is also wrong to take umbrage on behalf of feminists in general when feminists in general have not been blamed. It assumes that everyone who is a feminist agrees with your particular brand, which is never a good thing to assume. Now, Grothe might have a problem with feminists in general, or more accurately what he perceives feminists to be. But that quote doesn’t justify saying so. I certainly don’t think that Grothe has a problem with atheists in general, considering that he is one. I’m a feminist– a feminist blogger, even– and could be the author of the above quote without accusing myself of countering the skeptical movement. I might be, if I were as exasperated at Grothe clearly was. He was certainly correct that atheism is not skepticism is not feminism, and it’s easily possible for a blogger writing in service of one to  counter the interests of another. Whether this happens “often” is difficult to evaluate.

Another worrisome message that I have seen repeated, over and over, is that any judgment of how a victim of sexual harassment reacts to such harassment is wrong and constitutes victim-blaming. This is generally made in response to “hyper-skeptics” (still not sure I’m a fan of that word– it implies that the problem is an over-abundance of skepticism, when really it’s highly selective skepticism) who declare that women who don’t report sexual harassment must not have actually felt harassed. This is a silly thing to say on the face of it, but even moreso given that most skepticism conferences haven’t had policies on sexual harassment until this whole dust-up happened, and TAM’s was established last year because of Watson’s experience. So reporting these incidents hasn’t really been an option, and Jen McCreight has an extensive post about risks to the victim that encourage her to be silent, vague, or anonymous. However, that does not mean that any reaction by the victim should be considered beyond reproach, and it doesn’t mean that Grothe should have known about harassment cases weren’t reported and weren’t mentioned in the survey conducted to find out how welcome people felt at TAM last year. After the topic of sexual harassment at skeptic conferences was tossed around post-Women in Secularism conference and some very stupid people decided that Zvan, McCreight, and Greta Christina are the new feminist Taliban determined to erase the very mention of sexuality from any freethought conference henceforth (no, I’m not kidding), Zvan told conference organizers that those who don’t have one should make a sexual harassment policy already, which seems eminently sensible and not at all Taliban-ish to me. However, as noted TAM did have such a policy already, unlike the apparently half dozen conferences who have created their own in response to this discussion.

If sexual harassment occurs at atheist and skeptic events– and clearly it does– it’s a problem that deserves attention. But it’s not an enormous problem, and it sure isn’t somehow a particular concern for such events as opposed to any other gathering of men and women. The problem is not that sexual harassment is rampant at skeptical conferences and DJ Grothe doesn’t care and refuses to do anything about it. The problem is that some people for whom feminism and skepticism are both big concerns (which should describe all skeptics, but sadly it doesn’t), have probably unintentionally made it sound as if it’s an enormous problem and also characteristic of skeptic conferences, which provoked the organizer of one such event to, without real evidence, accused these people of contributing to the very problem they fight on a daily basis– under/misrepresentation of women in skepticism.

So you can see why everybody’s pissed off.

I’ll just end by linking back to this very important reminder about causes and egos.

Oh, and to this comment, just posted, from Grothe to Watson. I am not quite sure why Grothe so often posts extensive and important messages to people in comment sections on blogs and Facebook, where you’d think they stand a much higher chance of vanishing into the ether, but he clearly put a lot of thought into this one.

Sexual harassment and TAM

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No weekend web readin’ post this weekend, I think, because the majority of my web reading lately has been all about sexual harassment at skeptical/atheist conferences. I’ve been to a total of one such conference, but would be up for attending more, especially The Amazing Meeting (TAM), which is produced by the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) and takes place in Las Vegas every July. That remains the case in light of the current shit storm going on. What shit storm, you ask? Well, I’ll do my best to provide an executive summary.

See, sexism in the skepticism/atheism movement (I’m going to just pretend they’re the same for now, even though I know all of the problems with that) has been a hot topic for quite a while now, especially since elevatorgate. Then in mid-May of this year there was the Women in Secularism conference, which sparked a discussion on women being under-represented, harassed, and generally treated poorly at other conferences devoted to secularism, and that has been an ongoing topic in a lot of places, including the blogs of several people at Freethought Blogs (FtB). I’ve been reading these posts and the conversations in the comments that result from them, which is how I learned that Rebecca Watson (of The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, and founder of Skepchick) will not be going to TAM this year. Why is that? After all, Skepchick has established a fund to provide grants for women to attend TAM, officiated currently by Amy “Surly Amy” Davis Roth.

Well, Watson explains, it’s because she thinks JREF’s president, DJ Grothe, has said that she is the reason why women are being dissuaded from attending TAM. Or at least, a reason. Here’s what Grothe said:

Last year we had 40% women attendees, something I’m really happy about. But this year only about 18% of TAM registrants so far are women, a significant and alarming decrease, and judging from dozens of emails we have received from women on our lists, this may be due to the messaging that some women receive from various quarters that going to TAM or other similar conferences means they will be accosted or harassed. (This is misinformation. Again, there’ve been on [sic] reports of such harassment the last two TAMs while I’ve been at the JREF, nor any reports filed with authorities at any other TAMs of which I’m aware.) We have gotten emails over the last few months from women vowing never to attend TAM because they heard that JREF is purported to condone child-sex-trafficking, and emails in response to various blog posts about JREF or me that seem to suggest I or others at the JREF promote the objectification of women, or that we condone violence or threats of violence against women, or that they believe that women would be unsafe because we feature this or that man on the program. I think this misinformation results from irresponsible messaging coming from a small number of prominent and well-meaning women skeptics who, in trying to help correct real problems of sexism in skepticism, actually and rather clumsily themselves help create a climate where women — who otherwise wouldn’t — end up feeling unwelcome and unsafe, and I find that unfortunate.

Here’s some relevant context:

1. Watson has endured a hard-to-imagine-if-you-haven’t-watched-it deluge of attacks since she described an unwelcome and slightly frightening come-on she received during a conference in a video she posted in June of last year. This stream of attacks was, I’m sure, aided by a sneering dismissal from Richard Dawkins that I thought was fake at first, and felt like a bizarre betrayal of the humanistic stance that people who decry religion in the name of morality should be obliged to take.

2. Grothe has been active in discussions on FtB regarding this whole matter. When asked to be more specific about examples of “prominent and well-meaning skeptics” contributing to an unsafe climate by using misinformation, Grothe threw out several examples. He began with a comment Watson made to USA Today last year:

Off the top of my head, your quote in USA Today might suggest that the freethought or skeptics movements are unsafe for women. This is from the article:
“I thought it was a safe space,” Watson said of the freethought community. “The biggest lesson I have learned over the years is that it is not a safe space. . . ”
(http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2011-09-15/atheist-sexism-women/50416454/1)
If we tell people that our events or our movements are not safe for women, some women are bound to believe that. If I as a gay man had never attended a freethought or skeptic event and read in a national newspaper that that community wasn’t a safe space for gay people, I would certainly be reluctant to get involved.

3. Grothe is apparently mistaken about there having been no reports of harassment at TAM while he was president of JREF. Some say lying; I’m going to go with mistaken until it’s demonstrated otherwise. He says that JREF conducted a survey of TAM attendees last year to see how welcome they felt at the conference:

Of 800+ responses to this comprehensive survey, only two people reported feeling “unwelcome” at the event. Both of these respondents were men. One was a conservative who felt several speakers insulted his political beliefs. The other was a retiree who “hates” magic. 11 respondents to the survey did report a problem with an interaction with someone else that made them feel uncomfortable or unsafe (this was a difference [sic] question on the survey). 3 of them were men who did not elaborate on the interaction and 3 were from women who did not elaborate on the interaction. Another was a woman who reported a speaker was rude to her when she asked for a photo. Another was a woman who was made fun of for not being an atheist. Another was a woman was ridiculed for being a vegetarian. Another was a woman who reported no specific incident but claimed her enjoyment of the event was negatively affected by the “drama surrounding elevator gate” and “having to hear everyone talk about it.” Finally, one person did report feeling uncomfortable around an attendee, fearing future possible sexual harassment, and while we are concerned about such concerns, there was no complaint of any actual activity that had happened that the hotel or security or law enforcement or others could take action on. Importantly, every one of these 11 respondents nonetheless reported feeling welcome at TAM. It is inaccurate to say that “women do not feel welcome” at these sorts of events, judging by the 40% women attendance last year at TAM and these survey results. Similarly, I think it is an irresponsible message to tell people that women are “unsafe” at these events.

4. There is a greater context of accusations against Grothe, including demands that he resign as president of JREF.

5. Amy of Skepchick continues to promote grants for women who couldn’t otherwise afford it to attend TAM this year. She’s raising money by selling some of her ceramic jewelry, specially designed pendants for the cause.

6. There has been a lot of misinformation spread in the comments surrounding this issue. I have seen people claim that TAM never had a sexual harassment policy, when in fact it has had one for more than a year. I’ve seen people claiming that there is an organized effort by bloggers at FtB to remove women from skepticism conferences entirely. I’ve seen claims that they are forming a covert blacklist of speakers to pressure conference organizers into never inviting again, based on vague accusations of being “skeevy.” I’ve seen claim after claim after claim saying that Grothe was blaming people talking about harassment at conferences in general for the significant drop in women who have registered to attend TAM this year. That he’s blaming victims and trying to get them to shut up rather than authentically addressing a real problem.

Considering the fallout Rebecca Watson experienced from a really very benign and casual comment regarding a situation at a conference that made her uncomfortable, as well as several other unpleasant experiences she claims to have had at conferences, it’s entirely understandable why she would not choose to attend future such gatherings in the future. It is also understandable that other women who have experienced harassment at conferences would feel reluctant to report such, after witnessing the backlash against Watson that extended even to such a respected figurehead as Dawkins.

You know what’s also understandable? The fact that someone in DJ Grothe’s position would look at this outcry, and the fact that the female registration for TAM has dropped so significantly in the past year in spite of no official record that sexual harassment has occurred at the conference, let alone at a staggering rate, and conclude that a campaign of misinformation is responsible for at least some of that. In alleging such, he clarifies that he is talking about a “small number” of female skeptics who are “trying to correct real problems of sexism.”

Yes, declaring that the freethought movement in general is “not a safe space” for women is irresponsible. Vagueness might as well be misinformation, because a true statement that can just as easily be misinterpreted as a false one is of no help. This statement also suggests that the freethought movement is somehow less of a safe space, on the whole, than other movements or organizations, which is not true and definitely not a message anyone involved in it should want to send. I can entirely understand Watson concluding that the freethought movement is not a safe space for her, and it goes without saying that her grievance, and the attacks she has endured for her grievance, would not have happened were she not female. But that does not mean that any particular freethought conference isn’t a safe space for women.

I often disagree with PZ Myers, but in this case I found what he has to say very level-headed. From DJ, please fix this genuine problem:

It’s all well and good to have a piece of paper that you can wave around, saying that harassment will not be tolerated…but the next step is effective implementation, and that hasn’t occurred. Document everything: there should be a formal procedure for submitting a report in writing that gets filed away. There should also be an action taken — dismissing the offender from the conference, escorting someone out of the hall, giving a verbal warning, whatever — and that should be written down, too. Without all that, we get into these ugly situations where the victims experience these events, and then watch them get flushed down the memory hole — their concerns are simply dismissed. DJ needs to own up to the existence of a real problem, rather than closing his eyes to it and pretending it’s only a PR issue. He’s got to take TAM’s anti-harassment policy seriously, and give it some teeth and engage in some record-keeping. I do think he means well, but good intentions are not enough. There has to be some solid effort beyond drafting a list of dos and don’ts.

Pastors come up with creative ways to express how unequal gays are

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Now, I’m sure that pastors denouncing homosexuality from the pulpit isn’t a new thing. It’s impossible to know how often this happens. But it’s hard to escape the notion that the recent three occasions of pastors doing so, so vehemently, are related to Obama’s recent profession of personal support for gay marriage. And for that reason, I have to admit that his endorsement means more than I’d previously thought it would. It’s easy as a long-time supporter of gay rights to observe the president saying something in an interview for a magazine that expresses the most tepid of support, while clarifying that gay marriage is something that is and should be decided by the states, to be…well, underwhelmed by that revelation. But clearly this milquetoast-in-my-eyes statement has put a fire in the belly of some preachers lately. And the result isn’t pretty.

First, Pastor Sean Harris of Barean Baptist Church in Fayetteville, North Carolina:

 “So your little son starts to act a little girlish when he is four years old and instead of squashing that like a cockroach and saying, “Man up, son, get that dress off you and get outside and dig a ditch, because that is what boys do,” you get out the camera and you start taking pictures of Johnny acting like a female and then you upload it to YouTube and everybody laughs about it and the next thing you know, this dude, this kid is acting out childhood fantasies that should have been squashed. Can I make it any clearer? Dads, the second you see your son dropping the limp wrist, you walk over there and crack that wrist. Man up. Give him a good punch. Ok? You are not going to act like that. You were made by God to be a male and you are going to be a male. And when your daughter starts acting to Butch you reign her in. And you say, “Oh, no, sweetheart. You can play sports. Play them to the glory of God. But sometimes you are going to act like a girl and walk like a girl and talk like a girl and smell like a girl and that means you are going to be beautiful. You are going to be attractive. You are going to dress yourself up.” You say, “Can I take charge like that as a parent?” Yeah, you can. You are authorized. I just gave you a special dispensation this morning to do that.”

Second, Pastor Charles Worley of Providence Road Baptist Church, also in NC:

I’ve never been as sick in my life of our President getting’ up and saying it was alright for two women to marry, or two men to marry. I can tell you right now, I was disappointed bad, I’ll tell you right there, it’s as sorry as you can get. The Bible is against, God’s against, I’m against and if you’ve got any sense you’re against!I had a way, I’ve figured a way out. A way to get rid of all the lesbians and queers, but I couldn’t get it past the Congress. Build a great big large fence, 150 or 100 miles long, put all the lesbians in there, fly over and drop some food. Do the same thing with the queers and the homosexuals. And have that fence electrified till they can’t get out. Feed them. And you know what? In a few years they’ll die out. You know why? They can’t reproduce.If a man ever has a young’en, praise god it will be the first em. All of these… You can say amen, I’m going to preach the hell out of all of them.Hey I’ll tell you right now, somebody say who you going to vote for? I ain’t gonna vote for a baby killer and a homosexual lover.You said did you mean to say that? You better believe I did.God have mercy it makes me puking sick to think about… I don’t even know whether you ought to say this in the pulpit or not. Can you imagine kissing some man?

Third, Pastor Curtis Knapp, of New Hope Baptist Church in Seneca, Kansas:

If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. They should be put to death. ‘Oh, so you’re saying we should go out and start killing them.’ No. I’m saying the government should. They won’t, but they should. You say, ‘Oh, I can’t believe you, you’re horrible. You’re a backwards neanderthal of a person.’ Is that what you’re calling scripture? Is God a neanderthal, backwards in his morality? Is it His word or not? If it’s His word, he commanded it. It’s His idea, not mine. And I’m not ashamed of it. He said put them to death. Shall the church drag them in? No, I’m not saying that. The church has not been given the power of the sort; the government has. But the government ought to [kill them]. You got a better idea? A better idea than God?

Soldiers who died by their own hands

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On this day we remember and honor soldiers who have been killed. Does that include those who killed themselves? I certainly hope so, given that the stress and horror of warfare is almost certainly responsible for creating the mental conditions that produce the desire to end one’s own life as much as they are responsible for physical injuries. At Big Think, Rin Mitchell writes:

In a recent blog post, Major General Dana Pittard described suicide as “an absolute selfish act.” The post came after Pittard attended the funeral of a soldier who had committed suicide. He later recanted his statement, but others believe that he is not the only one that probably views veteran suicide in this light. However, what draws concern for some is that no higher ranking army officials stepped in to publicly respond to Pittard’s comments. Pittard’s views in no way represent army policy and views, but now that it is out there—it raises the question as to whether senior military leaders and The Department of Defense will ever speak out about what suicide among veterans means—and determine some kind of perspective on it as a country. It was unacceptable and unfortunate for Pittard to take it upon himself to shed light on the subject, especially around the holiday when soldiers of the war are remembered the most—Memorial Day. It isn’t something people want to think about and probably should remain as it has remained—an “unseen tragedy.”

I don’t think the number of suicides in the Army has increased by 80% since the invasion of Iraq because at that point, Army soldiers became 80% more selfish. I also don’t think that the solution is to not think about it. Rather, I think we should acknowledge that depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are common in veterans, and it’s not at all unusual for a person experiencing such to contemplate ending his/her own life, and even to eventually follow through with it. To pretend otherwise is to deny the reality of psychological damage caused to soldiers, to count the harm of forcing them into combat in terms of how it breaks their bodies but not how it breaks their minds. A soldier who commits suicide is also a casualty, and should be remembered and grieved alongside his/her compatriots whose deaths were more directly caused and less easily dismissed.

ETA: Big Think has edited their article to note that it was authored by Mitchell and not Orion Jones, so I’ve edited my post accordingly.