It's time to draw the line in the sand: No on Prop. 1!

When we talk about reaching further than our ancestors -- by learning about the universe, pushing ourselves, expanding that "comfortable proscenium of our ancestors" -- it isn't just a matter of realizing that the universe is bigger, and older, and weirder, than anything humans could've imagined. The notion encompasses other ideas as well -- pushing ourselves ethically, for instance. One of the most brilliant parts of Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion was the chapter on how we don't get our morals from the Bible. Ethics and morals, instead, have been a topic of constant discussion and exploration and progress. The Moral Zeitgeist, as he puts it, has grown over time. A progressive thinker of the 19th century, like Darwin, held many ideas that we find outrageous today -- on race, on gender, you name it.

As for the ancients, they were in most respects quite barbaric by our standards. The cosmopolitan Romans, for all their grandeur and advances, engaged in cruelties that shock us today. And the ancient Hebrews, whether in earlier times or in the time of Christ? Yeah. Barbarians is quite a good term for them. So I'm always a bit concerned with folks that try to claim their ethics are based in the Bible. Or try to make modern ethics more so. It seems like stepping backwards to me.

Case in point:  gay marriage. Modern ethics is actively engaged in an expansion here, right down to expanding the meaning of the word "marriage" beyond traditional usages. Because that is the great journey that we take in ethics when we dare. In Renaissance times, there were spirited debates on whether the natives of the New World were even people. We justifiably look at those views now as being absurd, and indeed evil. But the fight was fought, and slowly the ideas and definitions changed. We have advanced enough in our ethics that the very idea that people would even ask such questions amazes us. Likewise, I believe there will be a time when people will look at the debate over homosexuality, and rights for homosexuality, as equally absurd. Heck, many of us already do, and honestly have trouble even understanding why people get so worked up about it. But they do get worked up about it, with much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

In the U.S., we will see the latest round in the fight this fall, in Maine, when

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Proposition 1 goes before the voters. Prop. 1 will, if passed, override the Maine legislature's legalization of gay marriage. The Religious Right really, really wants to win this one, because it would be another brutal defeat for progressive forces.

The fight for gay rights has slowly been gaining steam of the last ten years. This fall, we have one of those points in history that could decide a lot of the future course of the fight. Greta Christina has an excellent post on why this one is so important. Go read, then get active. It's time to take the fight to the bastards. It's time to make the big push to expand our ethical proscenium just a little more. Let us fight this one so that the generations following us will be utterly and completely perplexed by how anyone could have questioned gay rights. Let's push humanity forward just a little bit more. Let's win Maine, and then the nation.

Robert Heinlein's Job: A Comedy of Justice

Funny thing about Gregory the SF fanatic:  it wasn't until a few years ago that I

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really started reading a lot of Robert Heinlein (other than some short stories, and Stranger in a Strange Land in high school, because it was one of those books that all the cool geeks read). And until now I haven't read any of his later stuff. So it was new territory when I sat down with Job: A Comedy of Justice. It was one of his last works, and I've got to say that it was pretty darn nifty. It's definitely something that all godless folk will want to take a gander at.

I have a love-hate relationship with Heinlein's work. On the one hand, he can be highly entertaining and thought-provoking as all get out -- he was never afraid to ask any question in his work, and you always come away with Cool Thoughts when you read him. The other hand is his sexism -- and it's a weird sexism, because he'll write about sexual liberation and women as equals even as he revels in those same women being submissive and dominated. The dude had some issues, let me tell you. Job has some of that -- there's moments where you want to scream or shake your head in disbelief. But the rest, oh the rest..

A quick plot summary:  fundamentalist minister Alec Hergensheimer, a member of a particularly fire and brimstone sect in an alternate America/Earth, is on a Polynesian cruise and goes fire-walking. After the walk, people are calling him Alec Graham, his ship -- and indeed, the whole world -- has changed, and everything he knows is gone. It also turns out Alec Graham has been shacking up with his stewardess, Margrethe, whom our Alec quickly falls for, despite being married.

Then things get weird. A iceberg hits the ship, he and Margrethe find themselves in still another world, and they are off on a journey to America and Kansas through a stream of Earths that keep changing faster and faster. Alec thinks the End Times are on, and worries that Margrethe -- a dedicated heathen -- is doomed to hellfire. By the end of the book, we have seen the Rapture, Heaven (it is pretty but boring, and angels are assholes), Hell, and met Saint Peter, Yahweh, Lucifer, Loki and Odin -- oh, and their boss, too.

It's not a book that will make the deeply religious very happy. This is Heinlein, after all, the man who once said, "One man's religion is another man's belly laugh." And this book is very definitely critiquing the Judeo-Christian world view. It's gentle -- Heinlein knew very well how silly all people are to be too bitchy towards one particular brand of human silliness -- but pointed nonetheless. There's some good one liners that will make the godless chuckle ("Anyone who can worship a trinity and insist that his religion is a monotheism can believe anything."). But it's the heart of the book that interests me most -- the use of the Job story.

Alec, needless to say, is our Job. Lucifer is, however, the good guy, greatly regretting his role in the earlier Job affair. Yahweh is a dick, really, and you really see that when we finally see Heaven, a place where Rank Hath its Privileges, as the angels constantly remind the "creatures."  It's through Lucifer that we get to the core idea of the book, namely that the whole basis of the Judeo-Christian system is based on injustice:

"Alec, Justice is not a divine concept: it is a human illusion. The very basis of the Judeo-Christian code is injustice, the scapegoat system. The scapegoat sacrifice runs all through the Old Testament, then it reaches its height in the New Testament with the notion of the Martyred Redeemer. How can justice possibly be served by loading your sins on another? Whether it be the lamb having its throat cut ritually, or a Messiah nailed to a cross and 'dying for your sins.'"

(I think Richard Dawkins would love that bit) And Lucifer notes how the Lord's Prayer gives up the game:

"Stop. Stop right there. 'Thy will be done--' no Muslim claiming to be a 'slave of God' ever gave a more sweeping consent than that. In that prayer you invite Him to do His worst. The perfect masochist. That's the test of Job, boy. Job was treated unjustly in every way day after day for years -- I know, I know, I was there, I did it -- and My dear Brother stood by and let Me do it. Let Me? He urged Me, He connived it, accessory ahead of the fact."

It's a very Heinlein moment, with Lucifer challenging Alec:  will he be a lickspittle and take Yahweh's abuse, or will he stand up for himself?

Alec does stand up against the ill-treatment, with the help of Lucifer. Lucifer's reasons for helping him are wonderful -- sure, there's the desire to stick it to Yahweh, his brother, but there's something more. Earlier in the book, in the midst of his endless tribulations, Alec had encountered Lucifer in disguise -- and worried that this nice man was hell-bound, tried to save him. It doesn't matter to Lucifer that Alec was deluded in his ideas -- he's only interested in the fact that, despite his own very real and huge troubles, Alec thought of him and his family and tried to save them from the danger he thought they were in.

It's a sweet and thoughtful moment, and serves to note that the basic keys to human happiness -- freedom, love, kindness -- can get obscured by the silliness and arbitrariness of religion. But Heinlein is an optimist -- even Alec, as perfect a follower of the biblical Yahweh as you can imagine, comes through in the end.

A good read, over all, funny and sweet and wise. With, you know, the occasional Heinleinism. But this is definitely a book where I can forgive him that.

A worldview that says "yes"

The theme of this here little blog covers a bit of territory. The proscenium in question can be that of humanity -- the way we as a species view ourselves and the Cosmos. It can also be a lot more personal. I've been thinking a lot about that aspect -- about the lens that I view the world through, and myself. If I had to summarize the downside of my life so far, it has been that my personal proscenium has been far too small. My stage is tiny and encompasses little. That is one of the results, I think, of the depression I suffered from for years. Depression makes your world small -- it collapses inwards until it seems like you are stuck in your head. In the last few years, as I've taken good, strong steps to conquer that old nemesis, I've had to learn whole new ways of looking at the world. Heck, I've had to learn to really look at the world!

The best way to make your worldview small, to collapse that proscenium into the tiniest size possible, is to say "no." On a personal level, it can be "no, I can't do this" and "no, I'm certainly not capable of that." Or "no, I should not be like that" or "no, what I am is wrong." There's countless ways to formulate it, countless ways to commit suicide by a thousand tiny cuts.

What's sad is that, if you want to live like that, society will give you a lot of help. Societies have always found it easier to control through prohibition than through inspiration. Don't do this, don't do that, certainly don't do THAT.  Religion is often the willing accomplice, making up prohibitions that have no possible logical reason for existing. Prohibitions against homosexuality? Any logic there? No. Against certain kinds of dress? Nope, not there either. But logic is never the point -- having an arbitrary rule is. A litany of no's. No to this, no to that, don't do that.

On the personal level, the no's a person comes up with for themselves can be every bit as arbitrary and stupid. And, of course, they often take forms created by the culture at large.

Which brings me to Humanism, and what makes it special to me. It is a worldview that is founded in the word "yes." It's about possibility. It's about growing and encouraging growth, about celebrating difference and individuality as strengths rather than as threats. Instead of "no," it says "yes" and "why not?" Being an atheist, being a humanist, has not created any sort of deep, existential crisis for me. I don't think, wow, how depressing. I find it liberating and full of hope. Because at the end of the day, it says, "yes." It's a nice way to beat down the sad litany that I drummed into my own head for so many years.

Miracles would be proof?

Over at Unreasonable Faith, Daniel Florien has a nice post on "Why We Should Trust Reason Over Emotion." Mostly, I just want to chime in and say, yeah, what he said -- but with one "but."

It's that last part of the post: Miracles would be proof. Daniel writes,

Jennifer says that it is “ignorant” to dismiss miracles. And if there were real miracles, I would agree — why would someone dismiss amazing things that really happened?

I've got to disagree. I've got Paine too much on the mind right now, I guess. What I'd like to argue is that the very notion of miracles is somewhat incoherent. As Paine noted, the idea of calling something a miracle involves a truly stupendous claim -- namely, that one knows, absolutely and totally, what is and is not possible. Something may be inexplicable by current human understanding, but that does not, in any way, mean it's a miracle. It is far more likely that it just means there's something we don't understand yet. To establish that something is a "miracle," you'd have to know a heck of a lot more than we do now. Or will ever likely know, quite possibly.

But there's another point, and I'll illustrate it with an example: let's say that tomorrow, every single person on the planet hears a big, booming voice, saying (in the language of every hearer) "I am the Lord God. Bow before me, humans, lest you be doomed to hellfire!" That would, I think you'll all admit, be pretty amazing. It would be a singular event in human history, and come as close as one can to the notion of "miracle." So, wow! God spoke to us! Right?

Says who?.How would you know that the voice is God? Just because the event is amazing? Just because the voice says so? That's a pretty big leap. Maybe it's some weird alien. Maybe it's a being from another universe having some fun. The leap -- from the event to the explanation -- is huge, however "miraculous" the event appears to be. What would this miracle truly be proof of? Not much. Just of itself, really. We could say, wow, something amazing happened. But going beyond that, well, you get into pure speculation. In science, you extrapolate from your data to make a claim -- but it's important not to extrapolate any further than the data allows (that, incidentally, is one of the biggest differences between science and pseudoscience).

And that's the problem with miracles. As Paine noted, even if they did happen, it wouldn't matter -- they explain nothing. They teach us nothing. They establish nothing. They wouldn't prove anything. At most, you could say, wow, something really interesting happened. Anything else would be nothing more than speculation and wild guessing.

Thomas Paine pwns organized religion, part 2: Prophecy

Before the Great Death Plague '09 hit me, you may recall that I had a post on Thomas Paine's discussion of the three tools that organized religion uses to bamboozle people: Mystery, Miracles and Prophecy. Mystery he dispensed with quick contempt; Miracles he spent a bit more time on. He finishes his discussion with the notion of Prophecy.

Paine basically has two points to make about Prophecy:

First, if God did choose to communicate future events to chosen "prophets," one would expect that those communications would be a lot clearer than the ones we see in the Bible. Instead of clarity, we have confusion; instead of easily comprehensible meaning, we have obscure statements that can be twisted to fit most anything. "It is conceiving very irreverently of the Almighty," Paine says, "to suppose he would deal in this jesting manner with mankind; yet all the things called prophecies in the book called the Bible come under this description."

But secondly, and more devastatingly, Paine simply notes this:  it ain't no never mind, kids. It's exactly the same situation as with Miracles -- say you get a Prophecy from God. Fine. How do the rest of us know you did? We don't. We can't. We can't tell if you are lying, or telling the truth. Imagine if Isiah, say, was in fact given important facts about the life of Jesus -- none of the people around him would have any ability to tell whether he was telling the truth or not, because those events lay far in the future. And even if he were to speak of things in the near future and get them right, how do we know he did so because God spoke to him? We can't. He could be a savvy observer of events; he could've guessed and gotten lucky. He could've read something from a savvy observer. Prophecy is personal experience, and thus can't be considered in any kind of rational thought process. It's like expecting other people to believe you saw a ghost just because you're sure you did.


What I find most interesting, though, is the attitude that Paine shows in all of this. It's contained in that quote I used above. "It is conceiving very irreverently of the Almighty..." Paine is a believer. He believed in God. He believed God to be powerful, an Beneficent Creator who had showered mankind with gifts. When push comes to shove, Paine's beef is simply this:  Christianity, and indeed all organized religion, spits in the face of God, hacks away at Him until he is a small and puny thing fit to sit in the confines of weak human imagination. A God who would use such tricks as Mystery, Miracle and Prophecy is worse than a clown, and simply not something worthy of worship.

As an atheist, I sympathize with Paine here. My biggest complaint with religion

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has always been just that -- it is so small, so limited, putting up images that don't challenge our small imaginations in any way. It's easy to laugh at people who, say, see Jesus in a tortilla or a dog's butt -- but really, that's pretty much what organized religion does. It creates small, tiny plays, with small, tiny actors, played out on small, tiny stages. The "religious imagination" is so easily pleased! The vaguest statement can be accepted as a stirring Prophecy. The silliest, flimsiest events can be declared a Miracle. And when in doubt, simply declare something to be a Mystery. Paine, as you may recall from the last post, titled this chapter "Of the Means Employed in All Time, and Almost Universally, to Deceive the Peoples." He forgot, perhaps, to note that they are as much the ways that "the Peoples" deceive themselves. This priestly tricks work because people are so willing to let them work.

Healthcare madness

I'm still recovering from Death Plague '09. It has royally sucked, let me tell you, folks. But I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Maybe it's having been this sick these past 2 weeks, and without insurance, that has focused my brain, insofar as it can focus on anything, on the whole health care reform debate. I can't say I have anything particularly brilliant to say about it. Mostly what I feel is a simmering anger -- an anger that I had to make choices these past 2 weeks that probably prolonged my agony, simply because of simple issues of money. Probably because I was, and am, well aware of just how sick I was, and how bad it was that I wasn't going to a doctor. I take this issue very personally. I work my ass off, and yet I can't get the most basic of health care in this country.

Mostly, though, I've been half-watching this whole town hall thing, and the utter madness engulfing the conservative elements in our culture, and despairing. This whole debate is showing so clearly how little rational thought is used in American politics. It's showing how divided and extreme things are getting. We're not talking minor divisions here -- we're talking the kind of divisions that back in the day ended up with people being tied to stakes and lit on fire. The rhetoric is mad. The lies are outrageous. The willingness to believe the lies, to not even question them, that is the real kicker, though. A whole segment of the population is proving how little they actively engage their brains.

Not that the other side gets off easily, though. One thing that has been striking me, listening to the fear-mongering from the right, is how much is sounds like the extreme liberal fear-mongering from during the Bush years. Internment camps! Nazis! Death panels!

I have no answers here. We're at a perilous point here -- a government in huge financial trouble, facing real issues of importance, including Health Care Reform (an important part of getting the financial problems under control). We have wars to be dealt with. We have infrastructure problems, international crises, and more. Perhaps more than at any point in U.S. history, we need to be stepping back and engaging our brains. Making decisions based on careful analysis and reason, instead of fear. Instead -- madness.

Maybe it's the last remnants of the sickness speaking, but right now I fear for my country. It feels like we are sliding into an abyss of hatred and fear and division.

Atheist Blogroll, and an update

Expanding the Proscenium is now, like it's predecessor, on the Atheist Blogroll. You can see the blogroll in my sidebar. To join, or for more information, visit Mojoey at Deep Thoughts.

In other news, there has been a lack of posting here because, well, I contracted the

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plague. I mean, not to be melodramatic or anything, but I swear it was the plague, the whole Black Death thing. My whole village got knocked out, and I was found in a ditch. I'm currently being chased by folks who think I only survived because I used witchcraft.

Okay, maybe it was just a bad cold or virus or infection. Whatever it was, this week has been a blur -- it started with fever, then moved on to various other Fun Things. I'm actually feeling quite a bit better, but still feel very weak, and, err, have no voice. I can whisper a bit, but can only get out anything really audible with a lot of concentration and a lot of pain and for about two seconds. It's good fun. That's pretty much my take on it -- I've decided to be amused by this. I mean, I've never really ever "lost" my voice before. I've had times that talking has been difficult, but I've never really had it just plain give out. So new experience and all.



So. Updating will resume...soon. Not going to push myself too hard. Have to get well. Because as amusing as the voice thing is, this mostly just bites royally.

Skepticism and Freethought as a Lifestyle

Here's the thing I always have to remind myself of: this freethinking thing, this rationalism and skepticism, it isn't a hat to put on and take off as I like. It doesn't work like that.

We see it all the time. Think of your Francis Collins types, who play the skeptical thought game as a matter of course in their jobs as scientists, but find ways to shove it aside in other matters. Atoms shall be questioned, the resurrection of Jesus shall not. I mention Collins because he has been a topic of conversation i

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n the atheist, skeptical and scientific blogospheres since his nomination for the NIH post. While his professional credentials are impeccable, his naive pronouncements on his religion are baffling when seen through the light of his day job and the mindset it demands. It's all a bit Jekyll and Hyde, really, only without the bloody murders. One moment he is Mr. Science, and the next he is Mr. Evangelical.
What's important though, I think, is that we are all Francis Collins to one extent or another. No matter how hard we try to be rational, to "freethink," to engage our skepticism in all things, we fail. And that's okay, really. We're human, it's going to happen. It's the larger process that's important. It's part of the permanent learning curve. If you ever think you have it figured it out, that you've "arrived," you really, really haven't.


I can't rag on Collins too hard, because really, I'm not much better. In my case it isn't a matter of setting aside skepticism to protect my religion -- it's setting aside skepticism to protect my bloody little illusions about myself. I've struggled, for years, with depression, anxiety. General screwed-upness. I've made bad choices, set up bad patterns of behavior. I hurt myself really, really badly in the process.

The last few years, I've been piecing it all back together, finding a way past the stupid thinking. That, let me tell you, is some hard work. Those stupid thoughts are habits, burned into your brain, and getting rid of them is a long, torturous process. It takes constant skepticism -- asking yourself questions all the time: is this right, is this true, is this real? Is this what I really want?  And sometimes, frankly, I slack off and go into a minor nosedive. I turn off the skepticism, don't question the assumptions I make about myself and my life, and usually end up the worse for wear.

I've been in one of those recently -- nothing major, nothing that will involve needless melodrama. But enough that over the weekend -- confronted with one small but frustrating problem created by it all -- I hit a minor funk, followed quickly by a flurry of thinking and planning and changing things to get back on track.

It's hard to make the skepticism a habit. Our brains just aren't designed that way, at least not completely. But it's nice to know that I've succeeded, in a small way. That I can apply it to all the areas of my life, not just to academic questions of science and social policy. Not all the time. Not completely. Not always with great success. But I'm working on it.

Thomas Paine pwns organized religion, part 1: Miracles

I've finished Part I of The Age of Reason. It's full of excellent, but it's the last chapter, Chapter XVII, that really shines. You know it's going to be good with a title like this: Of the Means Employed in All Times, And Almost Universally, To Deceive the Peoples.

Paine identifies three things that are used as means of deception: Mystery,

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Miracle, and Prophecy. Mystery he dispenses with in a prefunctory manner. Anyone who has heard George Carlin's old routines about growing up Catholic will be familiar with it -- it's a dodge, nothing else, something with which to shove uncomfortable questions away.


Miracles, though, that he spends some time on. I loved his discussion of miracles, not only because of the devastating fusillade that he levels against the notion, but because it exposes an aspect of belief in miracles I had never really considered before: the incredible arrogance it betrays.

His main attack on the idea of miracles is that the whole idea is presaged on knowing what is possible and what is not:

Mankind have conceived to themselves certain laws, by which what they call nature is supposed to act; and that a miracle is something contrary to the operation and effect of those laws. But unless we know the whole extent of those laws, and of what are commonly called the powers of nature, we are not able to judge whether any thing that may appear to us wonderful or miraculous, be within, or be beyond, or be contrary to, her natural power of acting.

Essentially, we don't know all the laws of nature, and unless we do, it is premature to declare an event as being beyond their power, not to mention a bit presumptuous. Paine goes on illustrate with example (how a man floating high in the air would've seemed "miraculous" to people, but then balloons were invented) and then moves on to the second objection, namely Art: it is possible to create the appearance of a thing. He notes a performance in Paris wherein "ghosts" were shown, not to bamboozle, but for entertainment. The effect, he says, was quite astonishing. So, you have to not only know the full extent of natural law, but you have to know how far Art can go in creating illusion, before you can make a claim that something is a miracle.

It really strikes me, mulling over his argument, the arrogance that belief in miracles entails. To claim such knowledge! To claim to know what exactly is possible and impossible, not only in nature, but in art! What amazes me, over two centuries later, is that people still make that kind of claim. Science has been sitting us on our asses again and again. At each stage we find new marvels, new things we didn't even know could exist, and we also learn about whole new realms of knowledge in which we are ignorant. And Art? Could the performers of Paine's day even dream of the kinds of illusion that are created in today's movies, or that magicians like Penn and Teller perform in Vegas?

And they call rationalists arrogant. Hah!

Coming up soon: Prophecy, and the other line of attack that Paine uses on Miracles. Or, why Paine, as a believer in God, is really a bit perturbed the very notion.

Reality's simple joys

Sometimes, working weekends really, really sucks. Friday and Saturday nights gone, or at least mostly so. Missed opportunities for socializing, having fun. Last night, for instance, I could've been at my sister's, hanging out with cool people. Instead, work, noon to 9:30pm. Gah.

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I can perhaps be forgiven if, while I was biking home, I was feeling a bit cranky and dissolute. The weather didn't help -- the whole day had been a big build up to a storm that didn't happen, the air always tingling with suppressed energy waiting to be released, and...nothing.

So, I'm biking home, and on the western horizon is a sight you can't claim to see too often -- a huge, and I mean huge, crescent Moon, burning through a wisp of cloud above the Tucson Mountains. I've always had this weird thing with the Moon -- seeing it relaxes me, awakens that sense of awe that can sometimes get pummelled down by the relentless march of the mundane in our everyday lives. The Moon is so amazing. Earth's companion, one that has shaped this world and the life on it. A big dose of beauty in our night sky. Something that 12 of us have voyaged to and stood upon.

The Moon is a constant presence in our lives, and so we are always imbuing it with meaning. From ancient mythologies to modern Moon races, it's a focus of a lot of human thought. Maybe that's why it's so comforting to me -- it's not only an amazing natural phenomena, but it makes me think of some of the important things in human life.

So I stopped, and gazed at the Moon for a while, and some of that ick feeling faded away, and I remembered my day and all the little interactions with people that were fun and sweet and nice, and it all didn't seem so bad.

Of course, I got home and into my apartment, and some of the icky angsty feeling came back. The moments of quiet sanity can be so short. But it's nice to have them. No supernatural, no Big Man in the Sky saying he loves me -- just a quiet moment with a bit of reality. It's a healing thing.