Athée Canadien
Posts tagged atheism
The Black Hole of Calcutta
Sep 20th
This past weekend I attended CFI Vancouver’s Cafe Inquiry. This month, as part of the monthly discussion series, we participated in an event hosted by our own Ian Cromwell.
The event has participants divide into groups and evaluate both individually and collectively, who they would save from drowning given a set of random traits and information about the victims.
The scenario is a metaphor for decision-making process required in the health industry, but is broadly applicable to any realm where finite resources limit options.
It was interesting seeing the rationale in a group of skeptics and atheists. Most tried to develop a rational criteria to decide who should be saved, whether it was to triage the people who were hurt or to look at who had the most dependants.
There were however, a few people who gave surprising rationale for the group. One person chose the first four names after struggling with indecision for the majority of the time. Another actually used the “women and children first” sexist/ageist cliché. At the very least, it’s worth keeping in mind that not all atheists are rational all the time (we are only human).
Nevertheless, it was a very interesting activity and helps illuminate how difficult it can be to make these sort of funding decisions that are the bread and butter of the civil service (before any partisan interference occurs).
Canadians are an anti-religious bunch
Sep 5th
A new poll is out in the National Post from a group at Carleton University and the Association of Canadian Studies on religious belief in Canada.
They only surveyed 420 people, but it was completed as an 80-question mail-in survey, so their margin of error is nearly 5%, the results are pretty striking.
First, the good news:
…respondents also registered concern about some negative aspects of religion. About three out of four Canadians agreed with the statements “religion breeds conflict” and “religious people are too intolerant.”
Also, belief in the afterlife and miracles is down to 54% and only about 30% “know God really exists and have no doubts.”
The atheist position was represented by 7% and agnostics made up another 12%. These numbers seem consistent with most recent data, but this does leave a lot of soft “spiritual but not religious” people out there to be recruited. Roughly 40% of Canadians are either deists or Sunday theists.
Do be a dick (or don’t)
Aug 25th
I think Phil Plait’s been reading too many internet forums and blogs. How else can you describe the strawman that he created for his recent talk at TAM?
His basic premise is that the tone of the discussion between skeptics and between skeptics and believers is denigrating. He then goes on to call for a more polite discussion to foster good feelings and (in theory) more conversion stories.
Unfortunately, he makes a few mistakes.
First, he offers us absolutely no evidence for the claim that the real discussions are getting vitriolic. Internet forums and blogs are notorious for their uncensored opinions, and it’s easy to imagine that skeptics everywhere are frothing at the mouth. Some local meetups may seem hostile too, but do the firebrands (or warriors as Phil likes to call them) represent the majority? We need data to know for sure.
Next, he seems to be suggesting through some of his anecdotes that the way some skeptics might approach a question from a 9-year-old girl about creationism would be to call her retarded and laugh at her.
I’m not convinced.
This seems like such a mischaracterization that it hardly warrants addressing, but his talk has its fans so it’s worth debunking.
First, how many internet trolls who lol at teh creationists are going to be in a similar situation to Phil, standing in front of an audience of bright young children, answering questions about astronomy and science? Next, out of those, does he really think some skeptics to be so socially inept as to verbally harass someone in this situation?
On that point, say we do have someone who is willing to use ridicule, he seems to suggest that the only response these hypothetical dicks would utter would be profanities. He suggests there’s no chance that they might use hyperbole in conjunction with an explanation to demonstrate why a certain belief is false. Apparently Phil Plait doesn’t believe PZ Myers exists.
But that’s okay, because Phil also denies that anyone exists who has quit their irrational beliefs because of PZ Myers’ mocking. After he asks his hypothetical question about who changed their beliefs after getting yelled at, he says anyone who raised their hand is joking.
My point isn’t that we all need to be dicks.
The simple message is what Greta Christina talked about in her SSA talk. That message is that this debate is an utter waste of time and energy and it needlessly splits us into competing factions.
We need firebrands, they get attention in the media, they rally troops, and they move the limits of the debate (so what used to be offensive like gay civil unions becomes the moderate position). We also need diplomats who, after people are initially shocked, offer people a modest semi-critical centre.
This has been thoroughly demonstrated time, and time, and time again. Aren’t we supposed to be the critical ones who learn from history?
Two great videos from the SSA
Aug 21st
I apparently missed a great conference earlier this summer at the Secular Student Alliance (read Katie’s description here). If you have a spare hour and a half, watch both of these videos (if not, make the time).
The first is Debbie Goddard’s talk which focuses on diversity in the freethought movement. It’s a bit abbreviated, so I think her full-length talk might have been a bit more valuable, but it does do a very good job at introducing the challenges as they stand in the movement.
The next video is of Greta Christina who talked about what the atheist movement can learn from the LGBT movement. She has many great points which include the need for more community building (especially offline and off campuses), that our debates about tone are stupid and we need both firebrands and diplomats (something I strongly agree with), that our debates over language are equally stupid (atheist vs. agnostics vs. skeptic vs. humanist etc.), and that we need to be prepared for mainstream (i.e. when atheism is no longer cool). She also talked for a while about how the LGBT movement failed horribly at building a diverse movement and is now paying for being predominantly white men. She emphasized that we have the opportunity to fix this in the atheist movement (because it is a problem), and that we have to keep talking about it.
This talk is exceptional, and I can’t wait for her to come to Vancouver in the fall (details are still being negotiated between the SFU Skeptics and her).
Be sure to subscribe to Greta’s blog too as her writing is consistently awesome.
Don’t Be A Dick
Aug 18th
I know, this video is being posted everywhere – but that doesn’t make it less awesome. Have a look:
Phil Plait – Don’t Be A Dick from JREF on Vimeo.
“The tone is decaying…venom is on the rise.”
It’s a good point – people don’t make rational decisions by being screamed at and called a retard.
People PREFER fantasy over reality – it is more comforting. I am a very good example of this. People being very confrontational aren’t the ones that make me question my position. Having a good long meaningful conversation with someone who makes the ideas or atheism/skepticism more palatable and understanding to me are far more effective than someone telling me I’m irrational. I know I’m irrational! Faith isn’t meant to be rational!
I think this talk by Phil Plait is really useful for people involved in the skepticism movement… Everyone should have to listen to it.
Time for secular political parties?
Aug 17th
Tonight, I’m hosting a meeting to discuss the formation of a secular political party in Vancouver. To build some momentum for this and to get my ideas flowing, I have written a few pieces about the intersection of atheism and politics that I will be posting over the next week. The first article discussed categories of political atheism, the second called for atheists to get political, and this article will outline my thoughts on starting an atheist political party.
In Canada at the provincial and federal levels, representatives are chosen in a local plurality system, where the person with the most votes wins. This system tends to entrench local two-party races, and very rarely a three-way race.
Therefore, any new party that hopes to be successful (at those levels) needs a very strong regional presence (like the Reform Party or Bloc Quebecois). Support of 10% of the electors for the country has failed to net the Green Party one single election win thus far.
With winning out of the question at the federal and provincial levels, there is still the opportunity to use a doomed party to bring issues to the stage that have not previously been heard. Most local election forums are willing to invite any and all candidates running, and will give them an equal stage with the front-runners.
This strategy could be very successful at bringing secular causes to the stage for one or two elections, but in the long run would be very costly and provide less exposure as we drifted into the obscurity like the Communist and Marxist-Leninist parties (no offence meant to them, I do have a soft spot for their passionate rhetoric).
The greatest chance for electoral success for a secular, rationalist party would most likely be at the local level. Several Canadian cities, including Vancouver, allow for local political parties to compete, while in other cities, parties often support their favoured candidates without the same recognition (i.e. an acronym on the ballot). Vancouver has the added advantage of electing its councillors at large, meaning that support can be drawn from the entire city, and doesn’t have to be focussed in any one region.
There are many initiatives at the local level for a secular party to pursue: specifically, the tax exemption for churches and promoting science and critical thinking in our schools. Even on the Vancouver Parks Board, a rationalist can stand for freedom of speech and assembly at local parks and community centres, where controversy is often banned.
Obscure parties run at the local level in Vancouver too. The Nude Garden and Work Less Party have for years run unsuccessful mayoral and council candidates.
However, I don’t think we need to aim so low in a city that is over 40% non-religious.
The difficulty here, I believe, is ensuring that a party, and its candidates, are not perceived as single-issue candidates. And with our movement’s diversity of political beliefs, it may be especially difficult to have a party that stands for reason and secularism and candidates who may have entirely different views outside of the party platform.
I think it is possible to run a party on secularism, and the Aussie’s have already beat us to it. I’ll be sure to let you know how the meeting goes though and what comes of it.
Why atheists need to be political
Aug 16th
Tomorrow, I’m hosting a meeting to discuss the formation of a secular political party in Vancouver. To build some momentum for this and to get my ideas flowing, I have written a few pieces about the intersection of atheism and politics that I will be posting over the next week. The first article discussed categories of political atheism, this article will seek to find their common ground and hopefully provide reasons to be active.
Even across the seemingly diverse groups that I mentioned last time, I believe that can find some ground.
Almost all active atheists are true democrats in that they reject totalitarian regimes. Democracy, despite its flaws, is regarded as the best system that we have come up with thus far, and as supporters of human reason, atheists are strong defenders of it.
Similarly, we generally support freedoms that do not infringe upon other beings. You can feel free to talk to yourself five times a day as long as you don’t kill someone who doesn’t.
Finally, we all generally oppose government endorsement of religion. Tax exemptions for churches whose sole mission is to proselytise is seen as an unfair advantage and special treatment for one belief.
Most atheists are also rationalists. They use reason and science to inform their worldview. To that end, atheist politics ought to be informed by rational arguments, and not special appeals to emotion or the supernatural.
When there is enough common ground between a large enough group of people, it is beneficial to form a political group to lobby for those shared goals. In some cases, this takes the form of non-partisan think-tanks that advocate certain systems, and in other cases it can take the shape of a political party that endorses candidates for election, and may try to form government. The direction to take is highly dependent on the arena, and sometimes multiple approaches are the most effective.
Hopefully the challenges to secularism aren’t that obscure that I need to point them out, but at the very least, skim a bit of Marci McDonald’s latest book The Armageddon Factor for some insight.
In the past few weeks we’ve observed that we have a government that distrusts statistics to the point where they want to cripple the census and build prisons for the vast numbers of unreported crimes, since actual crime rates are declining.
If that doesn’t really worry you, perhaps you should recall that our Minister of State for Science is a chiropractor who can’t tell you how old the Earth is or how all the animals got here (or maybe he can).
If we want these discussions to take place, we need to get political. No one is going to stand up and defend secular values for us.
What shape that action takes, lobbying, partisan involvement, or a new party, is still up for debate, but it is definitely time to get vocal.
Categories of atheist politics
Aug 14th
On Tuesday, I’m hosting a meeting to discuss the formation of a secular political party in Vancouver. To build some momentum for this and to get my ideas flowing, I have written a few pieces about the intersection of atheism and politics that I will be posting over the next week. This first article is on the most frequent views that atheists tend to hold.
I usually define atheism as a very minimalist philosophy. It is simply the disbelief in any supernatural deities. As such, ideas like political atheism should seem somewhat paradoxical. Believing or not believing in god has very little to do with general social, economic and foreign policy. Of course in the latter case, some use their belief to justify expansionist tactics.
However, if we use the New Atheist definition for atheism – a more skeptical and positive disbeliever, one who is good without god – we can start to identify common political trends.
Anecdotally, I have observed that there are about three rough categories that atheists fall into if you divide them by their political beliefs. Of course there’s some overlap and people who will never fit into a strict box, but nevertheless, there are the social democrats, the libertarians, and the apathetic. Naturally, there will be some contrarians who won’t fit into any of these labels, but we’ll ignore them for now (since it’s usually unwise to provoke a contrarian troll).
Now the apathetic are the easiest to define, but also the least homogenous. They generally do not care a lot about politics and leave those debates for other activists. The apathetic atheists range from complete disinterest to those who care but do not have the motivation.
The social democrats are your standard bleeding-heart liberal secular humanist. They are what the Christian Right are always blathering on about. They generally support an expansive and democratic government, with a strong welfare state. While generally supportive of personal liberties, some will be more hesitant in regards to hate crimes, while others reject any censorship of free speech. I consider myself a social democrat.
The smallest group, by my anecdotal estimation, is the libertarian crowd. By libertarian, I don’t just refer to supporters of personal liberty (freedom of speech, conscience, religion, etc.) but of the Randian objectivists who view government as an oppressive enemy which must be reigned in at all times. A subset of this group believes that personal liberty ought to trump all other considerations and that the only role for the state is to protect one’s rights to life, liberty and property. Others are less fundamental and just want to see smaller government.
Of course, these are just my observations. There is also a lot of overlap between the groups in regards to support of freedoms and democracy.
What do you call your brand of politics?
Conservapedia Appears to Dislike Atheists
Aug 10th
So it turns out that the folks over at Conservapedia don’t like atheists. They really don’t like atheists. They almost dislike atheists as much as they dislike the theory of relativity.
This gem of an article probably contains every fact (made up or otherwise) that you’ve ever wanted to know about atheists and atheism. For example, did you know that atheism leads to moral relativism, and therefore the conclusion that Hitler was right? I certainly didn’t. Thanks Conservapedia!
At least they’re self-aware enough to label this as satire.
Even Chuck Norris hates atheists!
I honestly can’t ridicule this article well enough to do it justice. You’re just going to have to go to Conservapedia and read it for yourself. I recommend starting with their list of Reasonable Explanations for Atheism.
Welcome to Canadian Atheist!
Aug 3rd
Canadian Atheist is a group blog by some of the key volunteer and leading youth in the Canadian atheist/freethought/humanist movement across Canada. We range from the East coast to the West coast representing organizations such as the Center for Inquiry, the Freethought Association of Canada and various student groups.
The range of topics posted here will be wide, but that’s because there is a lot of stuff going on in the freethought movement in Canada. That is the great thing about this movement and this country; there is so much going on and there are so many people doing it. What are some of the things you’ll see?
- Event reviews
- Live blogging from conferences
- Discussions on ethics and morality
- News from around the skeptical sphere
- Rants and essays on economics, politics, culture, etc.
If you think you’re someone who should be writing for this site please e-mail me and we’ll make it happen: kkish [at] freethoughtassociation [dot] ca
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