Opening Night

"Checkers, 1928" 

                         In honor of the opening night of my sons' circus-themed spring musical.

 Break a leg, boys!

Mother Nature, Not God, "Chose" To Slam the Midwest

Henryville, IN  March 3, 2012

The latest natural disaster has brought to the fore something that I've always noticed but have rarely written about.  It is always difficult to talk about the insidious poison of god-belief and the harm it does to humanity, but it is doubly hard when there has been a disaster.  People don't want to hear about it and they often react very negatively to any attempt to talk about it. They feel that the atheist who decries the talk of gods during a crisis is capitalizing on the emergency to "proselytize" for atheism.

Yet, capitalizing on the crisis to proselytize god-belief is exactly what is already happening, and what happens every single time there is a natural disaster or human crisis of any sort. Theists use disasters to underline the privileged position of theism in society by inserting prayers and petitions to "God" into public activities around the crisis but, even more perniciously, they use disasters to further entrench irrational belief in the minds of a traumatized and psychologically vulnerable populace.

"It's a blessing. We praise God (that no one was hurt)"

"Thank God (few students were at school when the tornado hit), or they all would have been gone."

What is more, this pushing of god-belief is nearly always coupled with phrasing which disrespects real heroism and human effort, thus displacing the gratitude which rightly belongs to human beings who have actually taken action - who have actually provided real help - and allowing it to dissipate pointlessly into the "thank god" ether.  Worst of all, theists rarely miss the opportunity to reinforce religious misogyny and bigotry in the vulnerable psyches of people who are grappling with a terrible situation.

I found remarks by Mitch Daniels - Governor of Indiana and fervently conservative Christian - both offensive and revealing,  especially juxtaposed so closely with those of theists thanking "God" for the good luck of not being the ones killed in the disaster.   Referring to the devastating storms of March 2, 2012,  the governor repeatedly blamed them on "Mother Nature" throughout the day.  Here and here are some news articles where the governor is quoted doing this on several different occasions.  The remark most packed with WTF?,  in my view,  was this:

Ferocious Mother Nature

 
"I am constantly amazed by both the unpredictability and the ferocity that Mother Nature can unleash, when she chooses to,"  Governor Mitch Daniels, Indiana. 

Those damned females!  Even female gods can't be trusted not to make "choices" which cause death and destruction!  And don't get him started on how unpredictable and ferocious that female anger can be. 

There is so much to talk about here that I hardly know where to begin.  This quote is a tiny illustration of a topic that is so huge that there is no way it can be covered in one post.  I expect that quotes like this, which crop up with depressing frequency in our god-soaked culture,  will be an ongoing source of grim inspiration for countless posts on religious misogyny,  privileging of theism,  irrational thinking, displacement of natural human feelings and ideas, anti-choice ideology, bigotry, homophobia, racism... well, you get the idea.

For starters, let me try to zero in on the problems with the quote above, as briefly as possible.

(One of?) The Loving Creator (s)

Christians claim to believe in only one god.  Well, actually three gods.  But they claim that those three do not count as three gods, by virtue of a clever fourth century patch called the doctrine of the Trinity established at the Council of Nicea in 325 CE.  Somewhere along the line, religionists decided that monotheism was a superior form of religion to polytheism.  All those saints and extra special Biblical figures (Ba'al, Moses, Mary, etc) who perform magical god-like miracles, though suspiciously like demi-gods in a polytheistic pantheon, are not formally recognized as gods by believers. 

So, the general claim of Christianity is that it is a monotheistic religion.  Except of course, there is Satan who is alleged to have nearly as much god-like power to do evil as God himself has to do "good". There is a lot of overlap there, too, because Satan is often credited with doing things that seem good to trick believers, while God is often cited as the power behind many terrible events (but always for loving reasons, of course).  It is pretty confusing in the theist world.

Mother Nature the un-goddess

But if there are no other gods but the Triune God why, then, do theists like Governor Daniels say foolish things like "once again Mother Nature has dealt harshly with Indiana" ?  Apparently,  when random natural phenomena occur -  as long as the theist majority decides not to ascribe the events to judgement by an angry god - there is unspoken agreement that those events can comfortably be attributed to other supernatural forces.  Forces that are not gods, you understand, but other anthropomorphous, supernatural beings.

With god-like powers.

Hmm.

There is clearly a problem of unacknowledged polytheism here,  not to mention the privileging of the majority religion's god over less favored gods.  "God" is praised and credited with saving lives in the midst of destruction, while "Mother Nature" is roundly blamed for causing the destruction.

The other problems are more difficult to untangle from the mess of misogyny,  anti-choice ideology and polytheism that is all bundled up in these remarks by the Indiana governor.  Some people will say that it is too much of a stretch to hear misogyny and anti-choice ideology in a remark about a devastating natural disaster, but I don't think it is.  I think that reinforcing negative feelings and othering actually is the point of making remarks like that at a time like this. 

I do not think it is mere coincidence that the supernatural force to which disasters like this are most commonly attributed is female.  I do not think it is an accident that Mother Nature is characterized as both "unpredictable" and "ferocious".  I do not think it was merely an odd choice of words to say that Mother Nature can unleash death and destruction "when she chooses to".

I think that quote contains more misogynist baggage than I have seen packed into so few words in a very long time.  Much of it is probably unconscious.  The fear of female anger,  the casual attribution of unpredictable rages to a female source and the words which are so commonly used to derogatorily describe women are often so deeply and unconsciously infused in our society's language and cultural narratives that to point them out is often dismissed as oversensitivity.

But the suggestion that Friday's disaster was not a random occurrence in nature but the choice of a ferocious and unpredictable female supernatural power is a signal that the unconscious beliefs behind a remark like this are something deeper and more dangerous.

This is something that needs to be discussed. 

I want to send my sympathy and best wishes out to the people in Indiana, Kentucky,  Ohio,  Tennessee and Alabama who are dealing with the aftermath of yesterday's tornado outbreak in the USA.  Yesterday was a terrible day for anyone unlucky enough to have been in the path of the destructive storm system which swept across the continent.   Like so many other Americans,  I kept an eye on the news and worried about family and friends in the path of the storms.  I understand that rescue operations began immediately and clean up crews are already on the ground in the hardest hit areas.  I am thankful for all of the people in those communities - rescue workers,  emergency medical personnel and many other professionals and volunteers - who have rushed to help their fellow humans during this emergency. The Red Cross has launched a huge tornado disaster relief effort.  Here is a link to their site where people can make donations toward providing real help for people affected by the disaster.

Isn't That Just Ducky!

I have a new ball!  I'm so excited!

I'm going on a trip tomorrow!  I'm going to the beach!  I'm so excited!

I'm going to play with my new beach ball.  Wait a minute ... this ball is big!  It is bigger than me!

Rawwwrrrrr.  Yip!  Rwr - runrunrunrunrunrunrun - belly roll! - run run run run run run   run

I have a new ball!  I'm going to the beach!  I'm so excited!

Isn't that just Ducky!

Barmy Bible Study - Literalism 101

Many Christians - especially fundamentalist Christians - make time every day to read the Bible. They earnestly desire to gain insight and a depth of understanding through their study. But there is a notable problem: all of that reading does not seem to produce the results that dedicated study usually produces. What I mean is that believers' constant reading and studying of their religious text never seems to result in actual understanding of what the Bible is communicating to them.

Most people, upon setting themselves the task of reading a text with the sincere intention of understanding it, seem capable of grasping the meaning of the words they are reading. It can be more challenging to understand allegorical accounts or mythology or dense writing full of metaphors and hidden meanings of course, but still. A sincere reader, devoting daily effort to the task, surely would seem to be in a position to succeed? One would think.

More to the point, reading a text with no mythology, allegory or metaphors involved, but simply the literal truth as revealed by a supremely omniscient, omnipotent god ought to be much easier and straightforward. The god has revealed the truth, and in its omnipotent way has surely revealed it in a form its worshipers will be able to understand. It ought to be the easiest thing imaginable, this exchange of holy writ between a believer and the all-loving god whose only wish is to welcome that believer into its presence. The believer must surely only need to read the words to understand their unambiguous meaning. 

And yet, no! That does not seem to be the case at all for Bible-believers when they read the Bible. I don't think it is because Bible-believers are any less intelligent than other people. Quite the opposite,  in fact. I am convinced that it probably is their intelligence which prevents them from grasping the literal Truth™ contained inside the Good Book™. Well that, and what remains of their human empathy after a really thorough religious upbringing. Understanding the Good Book™ requires nothing but Faith™ - demands it,  really - but even the most fervently Faithful are usually unable to completely overcome their innate rationality and humanity in order to make sense of it.

For Faith™commands that round is flat, evil is good, mythology is science and hate is love. The taxonomy of Faith means Opposite Day, every day, and that fundamental lie is very difficult to fix fast in an intelligent believer's brain. Bible belief demands that the Faithful call cruelty kindness, the profane holy and falsehood truth. The remnants of empathy and rationality inside a believer's brain recoil in horror from this affront to human decency and dignity. As a defensive response, I suspect the believer is rendered incapable of understanding the starkly simple words of Holy Scripture.

Or, it could simply be a case of failure of imagination. Either way, I have decided to step in to help.

Like all atheists, I am uninfected by Faith™ (not to be confused with faith, of which I have as ample a supply as the next person). I do not experience the type of cognitive dissonance that is experienced by a true believer. I know the Bible is all mythology and propaganda - an old-fashioned handbook for crowd control - and so I have no expectation at all that anything in there is literally true;  no internal struggle between what I know to be false, immoral and horrific but which a religion insists I call true,  moral and beautiful. When one is thus unencumbered, the verses in the Bible can be plainly understood.

In the coming weeks, I am planning to do my part for society by holding weekly Bible Study classes for adults* right here on my blog.   Morally conflicted Bible-believers' troubles are over! I intend to illuminate for them, in simple prose, what it is that their Holy Bible is actually saying. 

Time slot will be Wednesday evening  (the usual Bible study time at the local megachurches,  if I remember correctly)  for as long as I can stand it necessary. Be sure to bring a copy of your Bible!  Suggested text for the class is below,  but really - any old Bible will do.

Link to Class Text

*Classes restricted to age 12 and older.  The subject matter in the Bible is not appropriate for children.

I Don't Think So, Your Holiness

I came across this cartoon the other day while looking for something else,  and although it was created in response to remarks the Pope made in 2010,  it highlights an ongoing source of frustration to atheists,  both timid and bold.

Bearing in mind that ninth commandment from the Biblical old testament,  I am sure Pope Benedict was absolutely truthful when he declared that "atheism has led to the greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice" in history.  As this cartoon illustrates,  if it had not been for atheism, there would have been no crusades, no Inquisition,  no 9/11,  no.....