Atheism, Skepticism and Me

Reading through some quotes, I was struck with one about skepticism that sums up, for me, why religion hates science. "Education has failed in a very serious way to convey the most important lesson science can teach: skepticism." - David Suzuki. Skepticism and rational, non-emotional thinking are the enemies of an institution that expects you to believe everything you are told about or read in 'divine works.' I don't think that 'atheism' as defined by the religious, is on the rise, I think that skepticism is increasing. People are getting fed up with hollow authority figures telling them what to believe and how to behave, and then becoming something else entirely themselves. Those that are able to think for themselves seem to be doing so more openly now.
Atheism (the lack of a belief in a god) and those groups lumped with them are the fastest growing ideological faction in America, and we are behind the curve compared to European countries. Atheism and agnosticism are very misunderstood terms and those who label themselves as such are often vilified by the religious, claiming they 'hate God' or 'have no morals,' among other ignorant and horrible accusations.
First, one cannot hate something they do not believe in. Second, morality and religion are mutually exclusive, as shown by the hateful and violent nature of many religious groups, those that bomb buildings, soldiers and abortion clinics, and those that claim that homosexuals, atheists and foreigners are destroying our 'Christian Nation.'
There cannot be such a title as 'Christian' for a country that truly believes in freedom of religion, for we are much more than that. We have Judaism, Islam, Mormonism, Wicca, atheism/agnosticism, and dozens of other ideologies. Yet the only one that has experienced growth is the one that disbelieves in a Creator.
In my own circles, I have seen this growth, and the reasons are as varied as the people that express them. Many are tired of religion and its hypocrisy. Others do not care for religious structuring in their lives. A large number have seen the lack of cohesion and rationality in religion and looked into what they once believed, only to find that the foundation was weak and full of holes, and the structure itself collapsed. I am one of these latter, having had doubts surface in my mind, and instead of trying to pray it away like I was instructed, decided to look into what my life was built around. And guess what I found? It didn't hold up.
I wanted so much to believe that what I had been told since I was a child was true, that I fought against myself for years. This led to anxiety and depression, medication and finally, a search for answers. The double-bind in my mind had reached a critical point, and I began to research, study and reflect upon everything I had been taught. Things didn't add up, I began to find rampant contradictions and buried facts. I learned things they did not want teach me in Sunday school or seminary, and all the negative history and lies about my religion I had never known about. I started to 'not-believe.'
I can remember the exact moment when everything finally clicked in my head and I realized I was a non-believer, a heathen, a non-religious person. I was exhilarated--and terrified. My family, many friends and others I associated with were religious to differing degrees, and I was suddenly very different from them. I had a secret, but many doors suddenly opened for me. Things in my life that had been blocked to me by my own conflicted mind were suddenly free, and I felt I could breathe easier--that is, if I hadn't been in one of the most suffocatingly religious areas of our country. I could consume alcohol, but I felt the weight society had placed on such a practice settling on my shoulders. I could enjoy my life without fearing heavenly wrath, but the condescending, scrutinizing eye of religion was now watching me, I had become a minority. This freeing of my mind from the shackles of religion had placed me under the servitude of social pressure.
But I found others. I gained some of my security back from reading others' stories, experiences and opinions, and the few friends I have that felt similarly about religion. Recovery From Mormonism was a wonderful find, helping me through the anguish, dismal rage and fear I felt at finding out I had been lied to my entire life. As far as I have come in nearly two years, I still feel anxiety about even thinking about discussing it with my family. It's hard enough with my religious friends. Often they just do not-or cannot-understand. But I know enough like minded people to keep me sane in this irrational world, and I know that I am far happier now than I have ever been, I am no longer lying to myself or trying to hold faith over knowledge. If religion is the opiate of the masses, I'm totally clean.

Is Logic a Fallacy?

One of my readers and friends, Illpallozzo, sent me this last night. I read it, and felt a little ill, but not really surprised.

This anecdote from an unknown person familiar with physics tells a lot about our education system and the common sense/logic/reasoning abilities of our general population. Basically, more than half of people asked (this was at a University, mind you) believed that heavy boots were the only thing holding down our astronauts on the moon, and if they let a pen go, it would float away. Some of the people were disconcerted at being asked things that they had never learned in class, basically the Laws of Physics that govern everything in our known universe. The most important and most readily observed of which, gravity, completely escapes many people. Thinking that the earth had gravity and not the moon is something that never crossed my mind, once hearing that all mass has an attraction to other mass. Logic seems like some sort of arcane magic to some people, a thing that shouldn't be engaged in without years of study. No wonder religion is so prevalent.
It seems that the simpler something is for people to understand (nature, computers, television shows), the more likely they are to appreciate it (rain is wet, Macintosh, Friends). My only true regret is that Darwinism doesn't work as well as it used to, with modern medicine, cell phones, technological advances and all that getting in the way of stupid people offing themselves in various, accidental ways. Now I can't hold just 'people' responsible for their shortcomings, their parents and their schooling are also to blame. How do you reach college age and enter a university without knowing that the moon has gravity? About 1/6th of earth's gravity, if I remember correctly. This seems strange to me, this lack of an ability to logically reach a conclusion without all the information (forced down your mental gullet or not). Maybe someone else can explain this to me without referencing Idiocracy.

Nerd Battle Update

This is not an update on this particular story, but on the use of swords in a violent way. I had hoped that this was just a freak occurrence and not a sign of things to come, but it may be just that. It seems that a Massachusetts man tried to rob a dry cleaners with a ninja sword and a ski mask (very unassuming, you jackass). My guess, guns and bullets are becoming too expensive in a recession combined with possible tightening of gun control laws so people are reverting to more primitive weaponry in order to commit their random crimes and acts of violence. Although it may seem cool to some people to walk around with a sword on your hip, arms akimbo like the swarthy, swaggering pirate you wish you were, suspicions are going to blossom the moment you step out the door, especially if everyone already thinks you're that 'weird guy with the minivan that hangs out at Denny's/IHOP/Waffle House too much.'
I really hope that more of these stories don't continue to surface on Digg lists or Drudge. It pains me to see such an emblem of skill and cultural significance used in acts of such amazing stupidity. If they start instituting waiting periods at your local knife retailer, you'll know something is happening, and it probably isn't skillful or culturally significant.

Daily Douchebaggery

During the recent 'tea-parties,' Texas' governor became America's newest petulant child, threatening to take his toys and run away, because he doesn't want to eat the broccoli on the dinner table. His tossing out of the secession card came off as nothing more than a publicity stunt, since he identifies with his people's problems just about as much as your average American identifies with a starving Congolese child. His whining has been falling of deaf ears, as a report shows that only 18% of Texans would vote to secede, and 75% would not.
I was curious how Hannity and O'Rielly are taking this, are those in favor of secession patriots or un-American? And my worst fears were proved true. Even Beck is on the "America Last" bandwagon, fervently supporting this cry for attention.
Texas seceded once back in 1861, throwing their hat in with the Southern states and flying the rebel flag, while contributing little to the war, and was the last one to fully surrender. Texas has always had a toe over the line of the 'Republic' idea, it carries the Lone Star name and proclaims even in it's tourism ads, "It's like a whole other country."
Why certain Texans fear the federal government so much is as strange as it is unnecessary, a state government can be just as corrupt, if not more so. Look at Illinois. What this douche did was nothing more than cater the fear-riddled, conspiratorial fringe of his constituency. Being this big of a douchebag is just as unnecessary.

Teabagged!

I was musing over the recent 'tea-party' movement going on, and I realized something felt wrong about it. So I did some digging, and a lot of intense, laborious research. I ended up meeting an informant in a parking garage, who requested I call him 'deep throat,' even though I already knew his name. It was a little weird, but I acquiesced just to smooth things out. He gave me a manila folder full of information, and a few names of insiders I could contact. Several hours and two death-threats later, this is what I was able to understand.

The entire tea-party movement was actually a well-orchestrated and secretly executed effort by the tea industry to counteract slumping sales in the current recession. As jobs are lost and disposable income decreases or disappears in hard times, high-end products, like Maserati's, caviar and tea, suffer. So the shrouded hands behind the latter pained industry began to move, knowing full well that April 15th loomed in America's collective future, and we have a notorious displeasure for paying taxes. With Obama's tax restructuring in our minds, the stage was set for a hot-beverage coup the likes of which have not been seen since the coffee revolt of 1918. All they needed to do was plant the idea. All it took was a mass e-mail to a group of conservative pundits, known as the 'Illogicatti,' bringing up the subject of a certain Boston Harbor incident, and the seeds were sown. The new 'tea-party' movement spread like wildfire among impressionable, gullible and half-witted conservative population, looking for an outlet to their repressed anger and anxiety over the loss of any political viability for years to come.
The movement was supported and covered by the easily duped and equally impressionable media; the repressed media, mind you, not that liberal media. People began purchasing tea in bulk, much to the amusement and suppressed glee of the tea industry. The string-pulling had worked. Tea bags began appearing with tax returns at the IRS, and with the purchase by one group in particular of one million teabags, tea would now be on the minds of Americans again, and the tea industry has won a secret battle. This beverage will again take the spot as the preferred beverage in the mind of America, and there's not a protest anywhere that can stop it.

We were fooled into buying mass amounts of product by an industry worried about its future, much like how the fashion industry renews 'trends' to save things like angora, uncomfortable shoes and novelty-sized glasses. It was a duping of massive scale; the country was, if you will, teabagged.