I didn’t think it was possible, but the zero tolerance drug/tobacco hysteria in the schools just hit a new low. Next up: surgical masks for all students, less they pretend the air coming from their mouths on chilly autumn mornings is tobacco smoke.
London police delete digital photos from Austrian tourist couple’s camera. You know, because of the terrorism.
Speaking as an investigative journalist, I find the idea of a “national endowment for investigative journalism” fairly preposterous. And doling out the money according to circulation figures relies on the badly mistaken assumption that the best reporting is done by the publications with the most readers. Something also tells me that when the government starts funding investigative journalism, investigative journalists will be reluctant to go after the government. And government watchdog is the primary responsibility of a free press
The “de-baptism” movement is sort of amusing, but it strikes me as another example of smug atheists trying way too hard to assert their nonbelief. If you’re an atheist, baptism ought to strike you as an empty ritual performed before a nonexistent God on an infant incapable of consent. It you don’t believe as an adult, the fact that you were baptized means nothing. So if it really is meaningless, why make such a fuss about “undoing” it? (Disclosure: I waver between deism, agnosticism, and atheism.)
A palindromic video.
Maia Szalavitz looks at yet another problematic boarding school for troubled teens.
Some legal scholars are raising ethical questions about the new reality show that will follow Dallas DA Craig Watkins’ efforts to uncover and overturn wrongful convictions. I have a screener of the first episode, but haven’t yet watched it.
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TheAgitator.com
Jody Puryear, whose son Grant attends the school, says smoking Smarties could be a gateway leading “to smoking cigarettes or pot or anything else like that.”
i once drank a yoohoo … now i huff paint. i don’t know how my parents missed it, the link was right in front of them. if only someone had cared enough about the children to stop me. i blame society.
(or gay marriage)
Oren Friedman, a Mayo Clinic nose specialist, cautioned that frequent use could lead to infections or even worse, albeit rare, conditions, such as maggots that feed on sugary dust wedged inside the nose.
Learn this lesson now, and learn it well, kids…if you do something that could hurt you, we will hurt you more.
False k9 alert related video (AZ Pastor):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw76IKop6rg
Radley, since you once debate Sir DickPounder of Montreal re doping, I thought you might be interested to know Tyler Hamilton is now out of cycling due to another “doping” finding – actually it was an over-the-counter antidepressant. I haven’t heard of people so concerned with “purity of blood” since, oh, Germany in the 1930s.
As for the Szalavitz story, it’s disappointing to read her say that the problem is that these torture schools are “privately run”. The problem is that they exist. I imagine they’d be much worse if say, DEA agents got to run them, beginning each interaction with a youngster by sending in black-garbed masked men with stun grenades and automatic weapons.
I agree with Radley on the atheism comment. The way some carry on reminds me divorced people who cannot stop talking about the ex they’re “so glad to be rid of.” It makes me wonder if some of these people, strangely enough, wouldn’t be lost without religion. They’ve never bothered to define themselves as anything but against religion. Do they know what they’re for?
News flash: You doth protest too much.
Re: Craig Watkins, it’s perfectly possible for him to be doing the right thing (exonerating the wrongly convicted), while simultaneously pushing ethical boundaries as a publicity-seeking media whore.
After all, he is both a lawyer and a politician.
Regarding the deletion of the photos, there is one thing that is clear beyond doubt. The overwhelming majority of destruction that occurs to a country as a result of terrorism happens at the hands of the government, not the terrorists. The utter abandonment of any commitment to liberty by the very people whose primary mission it is to guaranty it, happens so quickly it’s simply astounding.
It’s almost as if the government was just waiting for an incident that would give them the excuse that would allow them to completely eliminate, once and for all, all those annoying restrictions on their powers and, when it finally happened, they rushed in so quickly they found themselves tripping all over each other like a bunch of friggin’ keystone cops all trying to get through the door at once.
‘gateway’ smarties cracks me up! the brilliance of the prank is that middle school kids are seeing how ridiculous this is and laughing at the adults- the more these nannies are ridiculed, the less power they have…
hopefully, with youtube tutorials, etc the kids come up with more ideas to ridicule these knuckleheads.
As a divorced man, I’m not interested in talking about my ex all that much. However, if I were in an environment where a lot people kept harping on about how great a person my ex was and how sad it is that we weren’t together, I’m pretty sure that I’d want to make affirmative statements from time to time about how bad she was for me and how glad I am to be rid of her.
I’m sure that a lot of atheists would be less interested in talking about their atheism if theists weren’t always on about how great the magic sky man was and how much of a difference he makes in their lives.
I think the nadir in zero-tolerance re: tobacco was hit right near me recently. A friend’s daughter was going to enter her school talent show. Here’s a video of her rehearsing. I think she just kicks ass.
You’ll note that the tune is Roger Miller’s “King of the Road” (a tune I do almost daily when busking). They wouldn’t let her do it because of the line “I ain’t got no cigarettes.”
One of the first things children learn is how to provoke a reaction. The amazing thing about these parents and “officials” is that they never, ever fail to provide the intended response. If these school officials gave the equivalent of the “ho-hum that’s adorable honey, let me know when you stop showboating and finish eating your cheerios” parental response, this craze-of-the-week would likely fizzle out within a few weeks. Now that “smoking smarties” is “controversial” and “dangerous,” what authority-tweaking kid is going to be able to resist the allure?
“While he’s working on a perfect exhale, he won’t try blowing the powder out his nose. “That’s pretty hard core,” he says. “That’s like going to a whole other level.”"
That kid needs to step it up to freebasing the Smarties.
http://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/candy/recipe-rockcandy.html
I see no reason that wouldn’t work with Smarties.
No reason to thank me, kids! Just doing my part.
As an atheist I can pretty much agree with both Chuchundra and Radley. I thought the whole debaptism thing was a little silly, but then I live in a pretty non-religious place (relatively). I can maybe see the desire for such a thing if you were surrounded by people who just think you are going through a phase, or that you’ll come around, or if you are maybe trying to make a point of the absurdity of inducting someone into a religion before they can even think for themselves (I was baptized when I was 2).
But really, it probably is most appealing to people who like feeling smug and better than other people. And unfortunately atheism doesn’t cure that desire from people any more than any other religious belief.
Shrug
God, that takes me back to my school days when my friends and I would all huddle in a corner and shoot up peanut brittle or p-brite as we called it.
A good brittle high would last days.
Speaking as an atheist who was baptized but has not been debaptized, it’s possible they’re doing it just to raise awareness as to how many atheists are out there and to show others its OK to come out. There are places, such as the Bible Belt in the US, where religion is assumed and the idea of an atheist in public office is one of the worst things people can think of. Think of it as a pride parade, just less glitter and sequins.
I’m reminded of the “Go God Go XII” episode from South Park:
It’s goofy, it’s fun, it costs very little for an individual to do, so they download a de-baptism certificate.
And this gets called a “movement” by “smug” atheists?
How is this any more smug than being bombarded by a world-wide massive ad campaign that insists that we are all sinners bound for Hell if we don’t get into the right religion right now?
How can this be any more smug than the two fresh faces in a white shirt knocking on my door every Saturday morning because THEY have “good news” for me?
When I think “smug”, I think of a religiously powerful 80 year old virgin dispensing advice about sex and condoms based on a poor grasp of science.
Maybe Ted Haggard was right, maybe we atheists have a problem with religion due to “intellectual arrogance”. We’re so smug because we’re full of ourselves.
I’ll sit down and shut up now, didn’t mean to rock the boat.
Regarding ethical questions on the Dallas reality show:
From the article: “Some legal analysts say the series could exploit the suffering of victims — including the wrongly convicted — in the name of entertainment.”
How is this going to be different from “COPS”, or “The First 48″? I like 48, but the suffering of victims and family is half of what the show is about. I wouldn’t even call it “entertainment” exactly.
It isn’t any more smug. It’s also not any LESS smug. Just because some religious believers are being douches to atheists doesn’t make it okay for some atheists to be douches too.
Of the dozens of addicts that I’ve known, the only real gateways I found were morons for parents and moronic environments (like schools).
I do think baptism is an empty, meaningless ritual. But I also think there is value to people being more open and public with their criticism of it and similar practices. Religious beliefs have long been given an intellectual free pass in the public sphere (especially in the United States) which they do not come anywhere close to deserving. I think it’s valuable to open a more public dialogue. If part of that involves somewhat tongue-in-cheek “counter-rituals” like debaptism certificates or the Blasphemy Challenge or whatever, more power to them.
Of course, there are bad ways to do that. I do not condone barging into a church service and yelling about how stupid religion is. But this should be no more offensive to theists than every public expression of religious beliefs are to atheists (and there are a lot of those). There seems a be a very deep societal double-standard where expression of religious ideas is perfectly normal and acceptable, but any expression of atheism or anti-organized religion sentiment is somehow “smug.”
I haven’t seen any proof that de-baptism certs are examples of doucheness. No one wearing an Affliction t-shirt. No scissor-gang mafia photos. No frosted hair or armband ink.
I was surprised by Radley commenting it was smug. I guess the cilantro guy gets a pass on being smug and calling out all of Italy for not thinking of a Thai-pork-cilantro pizza!
Most irony and sarcasm and satire comes across as a bit smug. Just check out the smug bastard flying spaghetti monster.
I am reminded of another post Radley had here about foreign curese. One was “I rape your God.” I thought it was a good one.
“Mr. Ostrow quit smoking in 1994, and Ce De Candy banned smoking at its factory in the early 1980s, long before ostracizing smokers became mainstream, he points out.”
I lit one up in Mr. Ostrow’s honor.
Do you think these de-baptism certificates are going to convince anyone who is currently religious to abandon their belief? No, it’s not. And the atheists no this and don’t care.
In my opinion, that’s the line that makes this douchery: when you’ve stopped trying to convince people and are deliberately annoying people just for the sake of being annoying, you’ve become a douche. And that’s the case whatever particular cause you’re being a douche on behalf of.
Radley: “(Disclosure: I waver between deism, agnosticism, and atheism.) ”
Right on, brother. Ditto.
Stormy Drgon: “In my opinion, that’s the line that makes this douchery: when you’ve stopped trying to convince people and are deliberately annoying people just for the sake of being annoying, you’ve become a douche.”
Well said, and precisely why I couldn’t enjoy “Religulous” as much as I wanted to. It wasn’t “documenting stupid, pointless, or potentially harmful things that faitful people do,” it was “Bill Maher badgers faithful people and makes smug asides in his SUV.”
Stormy Dragon: “…the line that makes this douchery: when you’ve stopped trying to convince people and are deliberately annoying people just for the sake of being annoying, you’ve become a douche.”
No…when it comes to religion and you’re talking about it, or you’re wearing it on your sleeve, or your denouncing it, or you’re singing it praise, or your trying to convince people,… you’re a douche. I’m a douche, you’re a douche, the pope is a douche…we’re all douches.
My take on the whole atheism situation: they won’t change their beliefs just because a Christian (or other religious person) says so, and Christians (or other religious people) won’t change their beliefs just because an atheist says so. If an atheist suddenly wants to know more about a certain religion, I’m sure they know where to look. If a Christian suddenly wants to know more about the atheist lifestyle, I’m sure they know where to look too.
No need to sit here constantly poking each other like little kids in the back of the van; believe in God or don’t. (my own disclosure: I’m a committed Christian, but I’m not going to flip out when somebody professes atheism. Differing views are a part of life, right?)
As far as “smoking” the candy…there are some seriously hard-assed administrators at that school. Banning candy? No wonder kids are so bored at schools these days…
Organised atheism has always weirded me out. I don’t know why.
Having realised that I don’t believe in a creator I can think of better things to do with my time than hang with other people who don’t believe in a creator and discuss what a great thing our collective non-belief is.
It’s like starting a fan club for people who don’t believe the Spice Girls are very good. Imagine the wacky fun that group would have not listening to the Spice Girls, making sure that random people know that they’re not listening to the Spice Girls and talking about what their least favourite song is.
There’s a guy on Slashdot who has a sig that says “atheism is a religion in the same way that not collecting stamps is a hobby.”
I want to believe him, except I’ve never met anyone who could talk for hours about not collecting stamps.
On the atheism thing, I’m going to have to go with Chuchundra’s analysis. I grew up in small-town Texas, where everyone’s religion is everyone else’s business and it’s nearly impossible to get away from. In a place like that it’s easy to think that there aren’t any other nonbelievers and to feel very alone as a result. I don’t think it’s “smug” to want to express that frustration when you do find other people with a similar worldview.
Organized religion isn’t some innocuous thing that’s pointless to protest against. It does real harm to real people on a daily basis, and many people who deconvert understandably carry some hostility about being indoctrinated when they were too young to understand what they were being told. If something simple and obviously purely symbolic like this de-baptism stuff can help relieve some of that frustration, I’m not seeing a problem with it.
I see a commonality between religious nonbelievers and libertarians. If we lived in a world where governments conducted themselves by libertarian principles, I’m sure we’d all be much less interested in discussing political issues, and I think the same idea applies to religious nonbelief.
Hi everyone. I just returned from viewing “American Violet.” (I had first heard about its upcoming release on Radley’s site). It is a superb film! I recommend it to all!
I was looking for a picture of the actual district attorney. His site does not have one. I read somewhere that he has not released a public photo of himself… has anyone heard about this??
Unless Oregon is completely unlike the 12 states in which I’ve had experience, private schools for troubled children are solidly regulated by the state and held to higher standards than for public schools for the same children . Those are some pretty low standards but what goes on in private schools should be no mystery to the upteen bureaucrats who regularly inspect and receive reports from the schools. Everything from bed clothing to food service conditions to class size is regulated by everyone from Human Services to local fire departments. Perhaps the government inspectors, regulators, social workers and so on, do crappy jobs and ignore problems but the idea that schools get away with stuff bercause the schools in question are private is asinine, the same people are doubtless doing just as crappy a job supervising public schools.
@ #10, Howlin’ Hobbit –
Perhaps she could just change the line in the song to “I ain’t got no common sense” as a tribute to the ridiculous nannies who think lyrics are a gateway drug
Wesley wrote:
‘ There seems a be a very deep societal double-standard where expression of religious ideas is perfectly normal and acceptable, but any expression of atheism or anti-organized religion sentiment is somehow “smug.” ‘
Precisely. Amen, brother. Actually, I mean, ‘Right on.’
Rogier, damn you for stealing my “Amen” line!
There is great value in people explicitly expressing their dissent, in no small part to help demonstrate their presence in numbers. I see this as a type of civil disobedience. Sure, doing so in the UK today isn’t the same as defying Jim Crow laws or British rule of India. But in parts of the world today, apostates are still being murdered. Even in enlightened Western countries, reactions among nominally civilized people towards atheists can be quite hostile.
To me, any criticism of the irrational or childish nature of these “de-baptism certificates” is overridden by their value as a symbol of being unafraid to express one’s ideas openly, in furtherance of enlightenment. The bigot who complains about “uppity” minorities today is rejected by most civilized people as a racist boor, who is generally frustrated that his neighbors no longer have the desire to keep those minorities in their place. In the future, hopefully the same fate will await the man who complains about “smug” atheists, when he is likewise frustrated that his neighbors are no longer so keen on ostracizing those who don’t believe.
Voices of moderation throughout history saw radial reformers and steadfast dissenters as “smug” or worse. In addition to being a rather dubious characterization, due to the bias of those unwilling to commit, it is also a stupid criticism. What is wrong with being smug for being rational, in the face of overwhelmingly popular irrationality?
Show me a smug, uppity, flamingly homosexual black atheist and I’ll say, “Hallelujah, sister! You pursue your self interest with pride and without shame. To hell with them if they don’t like it!”
I had the same squeamish reaction about offending Christians, et al. when I still considered myself agnostic (leaning towards Deism), I was bothered by overt statements of atheism, usually in proportion to how much ridicule of the faithful I perceived in them. For me, I think it was a combination of guilt and fear, lingering from all of the Christian scripture which warned of eternal damnation for apostasy or leading others astray–just in case I was wrong.
What snapped me out of that silly mindset was reading someone comment about the harm of religion. How innocuous is a belief system which teaches a small child that their uncle, who is a wonderful person by any reasonable measure, is going to actually burn forever because he doesn’t believe in something for which there is no evidence? Why should I give any respect to that, or to the multitude of other belief systems which have similarly awful tenets? Why should I fear that people who want to poison the minds of children with such hateful intolerance might have their feelings hurt, or that I might cause some of them to doubt their faith?
I’m not advocating unprovoked harangues, or a lack of good manners. Rather, non theists should simply do their utmost to stop giving any special consideration to ideas and actions because they derive from faith. Treat the all with the same logical judgment.
Regarding de-baptism, I grew up a member of a church (still am a member, technically, and have donated some money to their charitable causes but never attend) and got baptized. I became an atheist when I was 18 but I never really shared that with anyone from my family until the last year or so (I’m in my late 30s). Figured it wasn’t really a big deal and that my beliefs were my own business just as their beliefs were their business. The whole de-baptism thing strikes me as not just unnecessary but actually kind of rude and hostile…sort of like “Not only do I reject a belief in God, but I reject your stupid church rituals and spit on you.”
Churches are more than just places where people pray, they’re a community, in addition to being a private charitable organization that often helps the outside world (the kind that libertarians often push as better replacements for government welfare). Most of the people I knew from the church when I was a kid are still family and friends, even if they have different beliefs, and I’d never do something that would essentially be rejecting them personally or making them feel as if I was spitting on their beliefs. Even if I came to the conclusion that God was an archaic (and often destructive) myth, the church I was a member of and the people I knew there had as much influence in my life as just about anything else, they’re still a part of my life (if a much less important one) and it seems kind of silly and needlessly confrontational to make a show out of insulting them and their beliefs just because I don’t buy into them any more.
Not to say that I don’t sometimes get hostile when people try to push their religious beliefs on me, but this sort of protest strikes me as an attempt to kill a fly with a hammer…overreactive and largely unproductive.
Elliot at said #35 said, “I’m not advocating … a lack of good manners…”, which raises a point in addition to the excellent ones that he has already made: our society considers expression of one’s religious beliefs to be normal, indeed, commendable. It also frequently considers expression of an atheistic viewpoint to be bad manners in and of itself, regardless of the mode of expression. I found myself shushing my daughter the other day; she’s 11 and finds the notion of a magic sky god silly, and says so. But I didn’t want to insult my mechanic, who is a devout churchgoer. He doesn’t consider talking about god or his faith or church rude, but somebody talking about their atheism is taken as provocative.
It’s this double standard which, I personally believe, drives some of the more provocative atheists, the same way that the Code Pink provocateurs to kiss-ins and the like. Alison Bechdel put it neatly in the mouth of two characters in Dykes To Watch Out
For: it is necessary to do this sort of thing publicly until people stop noticing or caring, to mainstream it until it’s as normal as its het counterpart. Atheism is at the same stage.
It’s why Dawkins is so cheeky and so effective. Discussing religion in public discourse has, until very recently, mandated atheism pulling its punches, deferring to the sensibilities of people of faith, bending over backwards not to offend, and all in the context of many public statements from believers that it is impossible to even be a moral or decent person, period, if you don’t believe in [insert approved Deity and sub-incarnation here]. A lot of the backlash against atheism from the faithful is just the shock of a “champ” who has had to fight nothing but palookas and bought divers with cooperative refs and finally finds himself in the ring with a much smaller and weaker opponent who has the temerity to actually effectively fight back. It’s two of the key reasons why they hate Dawkins so much: he doesn’t kowtow (which is pretty much de rigeur) and he fights back effectively. If they can’t get him — or others like him — on his right to speak and can’t get him on the substance of what he has to say (and they rarely can) then all that’s left is to complain about how rude and provocative he is.
seeker,
I guess the difference between us is that I don’t really see it as a battle between atheists and theists (except where separation of church and state is concerned, of course). I think that the belief in God is largely outdated and ridiculous, but I’m not really interested in converting religious people to atheism…my only requirement is that they don’t preach their philosophies to me when I tell them “no thanks” or try to force it on people who don’t want it. I’ve got no interest in fighting with them over the rightness or wrongness of their beliefs or trying to convince them. If they want to believe that some guy in the sky in a bathrobe tells them what to do, I don’t really care.
De-baptism seems to me to be some group’s version of picking a fight with religious people and frankly I don’t see the point to it. It’s a tactic that’s unlikely to have any positive effect, it’s certainly not going to build any bridges when it comes to debate, and it’s more likely to just polarize religious opinion against atheists because they’ll see it as us profaning their rituals…which it kind of is. After all, it’s not like “de-baptizing” has any real benefit to the atheist, since baptism itself doesn’t really have a benefit (since there’s no Heaven or Hell)…it’s just a bunch of atheists thumbing their nose at church ceremonies, which is kind of childish really.
If you “waver between deism and agnosticism” then you are an atheist.
If you don’t have faith in gods, then you are an atheist.
So wavering between certain beliefs means that you are an atheist.
What is wrong with rejecting an irrational belief? What is wrong with rejecting irrational rituals?
But who, besides you, said anything about spitting on people? How do you make that leap? It’s like saying that an “uppity” minority is spitting on white people, when a white person acting the same way is not judged likewise. Or saying that an openly homosexual person is spitting on heterosexuals, when a straight couple acting the same way are not judged likewise.
Why is the fear of upsetting bigots so strong that daring to be free in front of them is judged hostile? It isn’t. It’s being free. To hell with them if they don’t like it.
I have a very similar background to yours, UCrawford. I used to view overt expressions of atheism to be too provocative. I got over it, and I now realize that I was not wanting to upset people who teach children contemptible lessons in hate: treat your slaves a certain way, kill people who work on a certain day of the week, kill those who follow the sexual instincts allegedly instilled in them at birth by their creator (Leviticus). Yeah, I know, modern Christians don’t actually follow those rules, even though many claim those rules are the literal word of god and the actual basis of morality.
Your trepidation can be traced historically back to a time when heretics and infidels were tortured and murdered. Sure, we live in an enlightened culture, but you still better watch your step!
Hogwash. Quit kowtowing to the lowest common denominator.
What morons voted me down twice?
People think that atheism means you absolutely deny the existence of gods.
That’s not true. It’s just a lack of faith in them. If you say “Well, there may be gods and there may not be,” then you are an atheist.
All agnostics are atheists.
If you think you are a deist, but you have doubts, you are an atheist.
If you have faith that gods exist, then you are a theist. All others are not theists and are atheists.
This isn’t complicated, people.
A positive effect for whom? Honest expressions of conscience, including parodies of the absurd, do have a positive effect for me. I am amused, and my heart is warmed knowing that there are other like minded individuals, and that I need not slink around in shadows for fear of being ostracized by hateful bigots.
I don’t feel obligated to “build bridges” either. Giving special consideration to actions and ideas which derive from utter faith is one of the sources of the problem. That’s a tool to protect intolerant, hateful ideas from proper skepticism.
Like I said above, quit kowtowing to the lowest common denominator. If the more irrational, hateful bigots feel more irrational hatred towards people for honest expressions of conscience, the fault is in the bigots, not their victims.
But look at the ritual of baptism. Why do it? Because you fear that if you don’t engage in this strange rite, you will actually burn forever, even after you die!! And, you teach children that this is so, cruelly instilling fear in them. (Your friend who died in the car accident was only five years old, but since he wasn’t baptized, he is now being cooked and will be forever! Not only will little Jimmy not be able to play with you, he is right now screaming in agony! But God loves you.) Do you really, really think that such a ritual needs to be ridiculed to be any more profane?
“Oren Friedman, a Mayo Clinic nose specialist, cautioned that frequent use could lead to infections or even worse, albeit rare, conditions, such as maggots that feed on sugary dust wedged inside the nose.”
In the mid-1960′s, when beehive hairdos were in fashion, they told the girls that spiders would nest in their hair. I remember an urban legend of a girl dying from a black-widow bite
UCrawford, I don’t see the de-baptism thing as anything serious as you do. As noted in the linked article, many people choose this route as a rather straightforward way of fighting the “once in never out” assumptions of formalized christianity. Baptism (over which one had no say) remains on-the-record, but an adult decision to not attorn to that faith remains anonymous.
It also serves a valuable measuring tool, if one thinks about it. Every person who deregisters themself probably serves as a useful measuring stick for ten or twenty others who are every bit as atheistic but can’t be arsed enough to make it formal.
Coming soon:
The first student to be arrested for “dealing” smarties..
As to London…
I have already written to him … and made the point that if it was not for people taking photos, we would not know about the death of Ian Tomlinson or the woman who was hit by a police officer.
Dear, I do believe they are well aware of this point. Their reply is surely a quizzical look accompanied by a simple, “right!”
Eliot,
Nothing really, except that taking the effort to reject a meaningless ritual (baptism) indicates an obsession with that ritual. If you weren’t obsessed, you’d just ignore it. Personally, my baptism means nothing to me. Someone sprinkled water on my head as a kid, my family took a bunch of pictures, and aside from this conversation I can’t say as I’ve ever thought or cared about it since then, and probably won’t in the future. It’s a meaningless ritual and having a “de-baptism” ceremony only adds credibility to baptisms.
But hey, it’s a free country, so if you want to go pick a fight with religious folks by targeting their personal ceremonies go ahead. But don’t pretend you’re doing anything more than picking a fight for the sake of picking a fight.
seeker,
I don’t see it as serious, I see it as childish and pointless. But whatever floats peoples’ boats, I guess.
Christopher Hitchens is a powerful debater when it comes to the topic of the existence of god. I (as I move into my late 30′s) have become more interested in ideas having to do with the right of individuals to embrace whatever spiritual system they choose. I have friends who are extremely religious (in a fundamentalist Christian way) who are more progressive in their views concerning the key issues I really care about (such as my opposition to the war on drugs – and other issues that have to do with civil liberties) than other friends who are describe themselves as being atheists.
BTW, HAPPY BIRTHDAY RADLEY!
peace..
Brian
The de-Baptism movement, like all the new atheism, is designed to raise consciousness about how ridiculous the practice is. Further, it highlights a particularly evil part of the brainwashing process, to wit, labeling children as being part of a particular religion well before they are able to decide the issues for themselves.
The idea that atheists should just ignore religion is like saying libertarians should just ignore the government. Except, libertarians can’t ignore the government, and atheists can’t ignore religion. After all, it’s religious people who work to outlaw evolution in science class, make gay marriage illegal, outlaw abortion, and, of course, fly planes into buildings.
Atheists focus on religion for the same reason libertarians focus on government: so our kids won’t have to.
UCrawford:
“I became an atheist when I was 18 but I never really shared that with anyone from my family until the last year or so (I’m in my late 30s).”
Let me get this straight. You were an atheist for 20 years before you told your family? This is huge! It’s not like preferring 1% milk over 2% milk.
And you don’t think that’s a big deal? That you felt that you should hide this from your own family for 20 years? No only hide it… but subterfuge it by continuing to attend church as if you were still a believer?
You strike me as “The good cop”… the one that’s rendered impotent by the thin blue line, the one that can’t say anything bad about other cops because “Cops don’t squeal on Cops”
That you felt compelled to hide this for 20 years tells the tale.
Let’s compare this with something from my life:
I’m an engineer. I discovered I wanted to be an engineer when I was 18, in a classroom at the Navy’s Nuclear Training facility in Orlando, Florida. My math instructor, Chief Sorenson, carefully explained to me how a micro processor based board he was building worked. And it clicked… I finally understood… that moment changed my life.
Now.. WHAT IF I FELT SO ASHAMED THAT I COULDN’T TELL MY FAMILY THAT I WAS NOW AN ENGINEER?
What if I had to keep that from them for 20 years? Acting at family get togethers as if the STONE AGE was still here? Carefully hiding my schematics and mechanical sketches so I wouldn’t be caught in a lie.
But no… MY family was highly receptive! They told me I was a genius and that I should try hard. They supported me. Not once did I think I should hide this for… 20 years or so.
As such? Yeah, I support the ‘debaptism movement’, not because it actually affects the status of your life in any cosmic way, but because it points out the irrationality of religion.
I can demolish a 14oz bag of Smarties in two days, and I often do. But not once have I ever “smoked” them. I’ve done a lot of drugs, but it certainly wasn’t because of the Smarties.
Bah! I was innocently surfing the web for other reasons when I hit on this little related tidbit:
“…He will need to be put in front of the class and his good ear in direction of teacher. He will also have to pay extra attention. Your child will be fine, as I told my son this is just a small hurdle God gave us to overcome.”
What they’re talking about is unilateral deafness (Which I have, I’m profoundly deaf in my right ear)
Here’s the problem with this scenario… Who is the ‘Us’ that this alleged ‘God’ gave the hurdle to overcome? Oh. The parent. NOT THE CHILD. The parent who has no comprehension of unilateral deafness and has no incentive to learn anything about it. After all, it was GOD who did this… who are we to question HIS will?
I have a lot of personal experience with unilateral deafness that this kid really needs to hear about. But that’s not going to happen because this was just “A small hurdle God gave us”. Woman, it’s NOT a small hurdle. It’s huge. But you won’t know that because you aren’t willing to accept responsibility for the situation.
I understand your argument. I made similar arguments myself in the past, quite likely for similar reasons.
But I don’t think it is correct for a few reasons: (1) it’s not universal, because various atheists and anti-Christians have various motivations for doing things; (2) when, even in enlightened cultures, theists still bully open expressions of non-belief, being timid and ineffectual only enables the continuance of such bigotry; and (3) under Christian dogma, the flip side of baptism is eternal damnation for little babies who die, or for millions of Chinese peasants or undiscovered tribesmen beyond the reach of missionaries, which should strike any rational, civilized person as exceedingly unfair.
Another thing I overlooked in my previous comments was the fact that the NSS certificates specifically address people baptized at birth, primarily with the goal of reducing the church’s census count, which affects their proportionate political power. That doesn’t strike me as smug, but defensive.
You should look into Hyde School here in New England and DC. This is a boarding school for troubled teens. My mom works in the kitchen of the one in Woodstock.
This school is not required to hire certified teachers. Many of the teachers are Hyde alum who have gone to 4 years of college (or less in some cases because they can’t hack it in the real world) and then come back to Hyde as a teacher. They have a teacher living on the campus who divorced then remarried a man who was sued (and lost) for fondling a female student. He still lives on campus.
One kid went on a long “wilderness weekend” up north and came back with frostbite. There’s a video on youtube about it somewhere.
Here’s another fun one. There’s a girl on “2-4″ (what they call punishment, being taken out of the general population). When asked why she was on 2-4, she said because she’d had sex with her boyfriend (she’s a junior so she’s ~17). When asked who turned her in, she replied, “Oh we turned ourselves in.” Kids who have sex are required to go into graphic detail with the admin on their case, who is often only 4-5 years older than the students themselves. It’s wierd, to say the least.
It makes me so angry I have to restrain myself from murder sometimes. It’s a school that teaches following the orders of authoritarians no matter what. I’d love to open a school across the street that teaches nothing but how to successfully question authority and put them in their place.
If you want to read more, check this forum out: http://fornits.com/wwf/viewforum.php?f=43&sid=ef79d4ceee38a30d8df13d07a6b16ca5
#41 Oatwhore
The problem here is the difference between Denotation and Connotation.
You are completely correct, from an etymological standpoint; theos (Greek for god) + ist = theist, or one who believes in a god or gods, and thus atheist would be one who does not believe in a god or gods. But there’s also the fact that atheist came over from the Greek atheos, which meant to deny the gods; the Greek form on that has an implication of against, rather than just not believing in.
There’s also the fact that in general connotation, Atheist, Theist, Deist, and Agnostic all have vastly different meanings that are significant to those who hold those beliefs. Reductionism only serves to make people believe that you hold no respect for the person who holds intermediate views. (Maybe you just don’t respect their beliefs, but if feels no different to the recipient.)
Besides which, your false dichotomy completely misses out on people who do not believe in an external Theos, but do believe that there is a spiritual life force within humanity and/or nature. Examples of views like this include certain forms of Animism and Wicca, some strains of Buddhism, pretty much anyone who understands and believes in Chi (Ki, Qi, or however you translate it), and Shirley Maclain.
Re the Smarties thing: If telling kids “smoking” candy may lead to smoking pot doesn’t work, maybe the “maggots growing in your nose” will do it.
I knew a kid who had a rabbit. He used to leave raisinets around on the floor, then when people would come over he would say, “Uh oh, Bunny got out again and shit on the floor.” Then he would eat the raisinets. As far as I know, it never actually led to him actually eating rabbit shit.
Your concern about an endowment for investigative journalism meaning reporters will be afraid to go after government wrongdoing couldn’t be more misplaced. You should be delighted that we’re trying to keep investigative journalism alive as newspapers are struggling, because VERY little legitimate investigative journalism happens anywhere else.
As for government funding meaning that they won’t go after the government, we need only look at public broadcasting, among the most outstanding journalism in America for decades to see this is very very wrong. NPR basically signed on the air in order to give coverage to the Watergate hearings and keep Americans informed about the crimes of our government. They’ve not done enough about American war crimes today, but who has? All you really need to know is this…one can still hear Dan Schorr on NPR every Saturday morning. If employing the top reporter on Nixon’s enemies list isn’t proof they’re not afraid to take on the government, I don’t know what is.
Also much of the leadership in journalism is happening at universities, also receiving public funding. You seem to have this warped Libertarian view that anything involving the government MUST be bad, you couldn’t be more wrong. When we make sure government’s being used for the right reasons it can be. When we just give up on it, ONLY the wrong things are done with it. It’s still our government, too.