Respect? Don't hold your breath

Recent commenter the_world_in_my_eyes says, "Agnostics are individuals who say 'Since God has not shown himself, we have no idea about whether he exists or not'."

This is precisely what I mean by bullshit philosophical hair-splitting. Since they have not shown themselves, we have no idea whether or not invisible elves exist who are really running around pushing things towards the ground. Since they have not shown themselves, we have no idea whether or not unicorns, trolls, fairies, witches or wizards exist. Indeed, since we don't know anything with certainty, the_world_in_my_eyes would, to be consistent, have to argue that we have no idea about anything.

This kind of radical philosophical skepticism is fine for college sophomores and second-rate professors of comparative literature at third-rate state colleges, but serious people with work to do have no time or patience for such bullshit. We are not certain, but a lack of certainty is a very long way off from "no idea".

And what does this bullshit hair-splitting have to do with religion? There are millions of people who believe God does "show himself", that He hates faggots, commies, atheists, LIEberals, EVILutionists, scientists, abortionists, sluts, heretics, iconoclasts, niggers, kikes, spics... indeed anyone who doesn't look exactly the same and believe exactly the same set of ludicrous superstitions that one's fuhrer pastor teaches. And God will punish those horrible people with infinite suffering for eternity, and these millions are well and truly pleased that God will do so. And just in case it slips God's mind, they're happy to lend Him a hand.

What kind of ridiculous god doesn't do anything? What kind of scaredey-cat god hides behind my couch? Trying to associate such a bullshit idea to the kind of religion we see every day is as contemptible as trying to defend rape by pointing out that masturbation never hurt anyone.

We don't need a god that wants everyone to be happy; we already know that everyone wants to be happy. We don't need a god to be kind and helpful to other people; we've spent the last 100,000 years evolving our brain, and the last 10,000 years evolving our social ideas, to be kind and helpful to others: everyone wins when we're nice to each other, and everyone loses when we're mean to each other. We don't need God to show us what's right before our eyes. A god who gives nothing, tells nothing, shows nothing, does nothing that we can't do for ourselves is no god at all.

The question is simple: The idea is that a God exists, not some bullshit peekaboo god but a real God, a God with some fucking stones, a God who makes demands on human morality, demands that cannot be justified according to rational, scientific thought, mutual benefit and evolved and socialized human empathy. Do you believe that or not? Maybe it's true. And maybe we really should shoot abortion doctors. Maybe we really should crucify heretics. Maybe slavery really is justified. Maybe we really should keep women in reproductive slavery. Maybe we really should "invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."

Are you really in doubt? Seriously? Honestly? Fine. Call yourself an agnostic.

(By the way, do you think that if such a God exists, He would be satisfied with your agnostic "me dunno" fence-sitting? Dream on. You're either with Him 100% or you're against Him; there's no middle ground.)

When hundreds of millions of Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and no small few Jews, stop oppressing and murdering women, stop murdering gay people, stop denying gay people ordinary civil rights, stop reproductive slavery, stop supporting imperialist wars of aggression, stop electing monsters like George W. Bush... when hundreds of millions of religious people stop acting like complete fucking assholes, then I'll start to consider "respecting" the deists, the "moderate" Christians, the religious humanists.

But until then, the moderates who demand "respect" for religion — who demand "respect" for what is nothing but the irrational and moronically stupid justification for not all but an enormous part of the evil and suffering of the world — will receive nothing but my contempt. You can take your "respect" and shove it up your ass, sideways.

Quotation of the Day

I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good…. Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a Biblical duty, we are called by God, to conquer this country. We don’t want equal time. We don’t want pluralism.

-- Randall Terry

[h/t to Five Public Opinions]

Communism and totalitarianism

Is communism necessarily or strongly predisposed to totalitarianism? Were the two previous communist governments (and many communists hold that the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China reverted to state capitalism and the bourgeoisie of the party in the middle of the 20^th century) totalitarian?

First of all, we have to be a little more precise: totalitarianism is not very well-defined. You could make the case according to Wikipedia's definition that the West, including the United States, is "totalitarian" if you consider the ruling economic class as the government. Mass propaganda? We call them "commercials". Enforcing ideological purity? "Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?" Mass imprisonment? The United States has the largest prison population in the world, both in absolute terms and relative to population. Violation of ordinary civil liberties? The War on (some people using some) Drugs, endorsed and enforced by supposedly liberal Democrats as well as Republicans. Genocide, mass murder, imperialist aggression? The American Indians, the Philippines, Vietnam, Iraq.

It very much looks like "totalitarian" means "a government I don't like" in just the same sense that "judicial activism" means "a decision I don't like."

We might adopt a weaker standard, and say communist governments in the past have acted specifically in egregiously bad ways.

Are such allegations true? Perhaps, but if you're like me, you're getting all of your information about the history of communist governments from sources massively biased towards capitalism. I'm not saying that such sources are necessarily wrong, but ordinary standards of critical thought demand that you take obviously biased information with a very large grain of salt.

To what extent were egregiously bad actions explained not by communism per se, but by local historical circumstances? It's not like pre-revolutionary Russia or China were magic happy utopias; they were brutal, violent repressive dictatorships resting on de facto slavery. As an analogy, imagine if the South had won the Civil War, and a generation or two later the vastly numerically superior blacks had finally overthrown slavery in a violent revolution. Would you not imagine that — whatever their political or economic ideology — they would have extracted savage vengeance against those who had subjected them to centuries of misery and brutal exploitation? And, as much as we deplore violence, how much could you blame them?

Communists are not stupid, nor are they indifferent to human suffering. The whole point of communism is a reaction to horrors of capitalist exploitation and oppression of the working class; if capitalism worked the way capitalists themselves say it ought to work, communism would be pointless. It's easy for people in the United States to close their eyes to exploitation, because we export most of it, and we've "bought off" a fair portion of working American people. If you want to see the pointy end of American capitalist oppression you have to travel to Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua; indeed most of Latin America. Or just Detroit. Live in a lily-white suburb surrounded by other members of the top economic 10%, and it's very easy to convince yourself that everyone lives the same way, just with Target and Wal-Mart crap instead of Williams-Sonoma and Sharper Image crap. Communists are just former capitalists who have rejected the dogmas of the ruling class and opened their eyes to what's really going on in the world.

The next time that someone tells you that communism is totalitarian, ask them: compared to what?

Michael Bérubé

I love you, Dr. Bérubé, and I want to have your babies.

(bonus points if you know the reference)

A convert

Go figure: I seem to have made a convert.

Welcome to the club!

The scariest — and most exhilarating — thing about being an atheist is that your moral beliefs become your own, an expression of who you are at a deep level. You don't have to change any of your moral beliefs, you just have to take personal responsibility — and personal credit — for them.

Atheist or Agnostic

The difference between labeling yourself as an atheist or an agnostic is primarily political. If you want to take a position of advocacy against religion, call yourself an atheist. If you don't want to take a position — and I don't feel anyone is obligated to do so — call yourself an agnostic.

Leave the epistemological hair-splitting to the philosophers and theologians. If you're interested enough in philosophy to contribute to the hair-splitting, then your choice of label is irrelevant.

There are some bad reasons, though, to call yourself an agnostic, reasons that fundamentally insult those of us who call ourselves atheists. If you say, "I won't call myself an atheist because I don't believe X, then the clear implication is that those who do call themselves atheists do believe X. If atheists don't in fact typically believe X, then you're insulting atheists by attributing to them a belief they don't typically have.

I'm an agnostic because I'm not certain that God doesn't exist.

This is stupid. No skeptic is certain about anything. Everything is uncertain. Everything is subject to revision... even the notion that everything is subject to revision: for all I know, some genius philosopher (or theologian!) will prove tomorrow that we can indeed be absolutely certain, beyond even the possibility of error or omission, about something. Until then I'm not going to make any distinctions on the basis of certainty.

I don't believe that God exists, but I don't believe that God doesn't exist.

This is bullshit philosophical hair-splitting. The only reason to draw this distinction is to say that "God" is always completely meaningless. Now it's true that a lot of people use "God" in completely meaningless, incoherent and often ridiculous ways (e.g. "God is not a member of any set") but millions of people mean something very specific by "God", and they're wrong: There is no such God as, say, Yahweh or Allah, the characters depicted in the Judeo-Christian bible and the Koran.

Honestly, if you take a completely meaningless term, such as "gnort", does it really make all that much difference if you say, "I don't believe that any gnort exists," or if you say, "I believe that no gnort exists?" If you think it does make a difference, you're studying for a theology degree.

Atheists are dogmatic.

If you think having any definite belief whatsoever is dogmatic, then this line is for you. If you think it's OK to have a definite belief about what's actually true, then please judge atheists on whether their beliefs are actually true, not that they have definite beliefs.

Dogmatism is believing some statement with certainty (see above) or on the basis of pure authority. If you believe that unbaptized infants go* to limbo because the Pope says so — and on what other basis could you possibly believe such a ridiculous statement? — that's dogmatism. To believe that things fall when you drop them, that the earth is round, that people and apes (and roses) descended from a common ancestor is to have definite beliefs that are actually true.

*or don't go; I don't keep up with ever-changing eternal Catholic dogma.

It's very simple: If you think 100% of human God talk is lies and bullshit, and you object to lies and bullshit, then call yourself an atheist. If you're not sure, shut the fuck up and listen until you can bring yourself to make an actual decision.

L'etat, c'est moi

The latest financial crisis has laid bare, to any thinking person, that the question "Should the state control property?" is misguided. The state does own all the property; the question is, "What kind of state should own the property."

You do not own your house. The bank owns your house. Actually the large investment banks own your house. And when the large investment banks screw up big time, the government hands them a trillion dollars, the life's work of a million average people. And that's on top of the two or three trillion dollars (the life's work of two or three million people) we've spent to commit the mass murder of a million people in Iraq.

If you do not realize that state power is in the hands of the owners of capital, you are simply not paying attention. Our so called democracy is a sham; state power is not in any way, shape or form in the hands of the people. Our government is a government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich. If capitalism were pragmatically effective, if putting state power in the hands of the rich had the best effects, then we would not be in the mess we're in. Again. Yet again. Over and over again.

Capitalism has laid bare the false dichotomy between economic power and political power. There is no difference: economic power is political power.

The lesson of western democracy is that nominal political power should not be the inalienable property of individuals. No matter how good any individual king might be, making political power the inalienable right of the king — "l'etat, c'est moi" — is a Bad Idea. Since economic power is political power, making economic power the unalienable property of individuals — no matter how good any individual might be — must be an equally Bad Idea.

Pure laissez-faire capitalism doesn't work, not for very long. We found that out time and again in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. The booms are great, but the busts cause enormous suffering... and the wars are savage and terrible. The Great Depression of the 1930s put the final nail in the coffin of the pragmatic value of laissez-faire capitalism.

Trying to "patch" capitalism with some political regulations, as we tried to do in middle of the 20^th century doesn't work either. It works economically, but the capitalists view any attempt to limit their freedom — their freedom to enslave the rest of humanity — as intolerable. And they have the power and the will to regain their freedom. Europe has done more and held out longer, but the cracks in their regulated capitalism pseudo-socialism are widening; in another generation the neocons and Christian Dominionists will rule there too.

It seems scary for a lot of people to accept intentional responsibility for anything. If I just "go with the flow", I'm not responsible for any bad results. But this mindset just moves a sin of commission to a sin of omission, with little ultimate difference. Once we know the result of inaction, we are just as causally responsible for the effects of inaction as we are of action. And we leave the fruits of action only to those who feel no moral responsibility whatsoever, and can thus act without fear of adverse consequences... at least consequences adverse to anyone but themselves.

We have enough knowledge, enough technology, enough raw materials right now to give every person on the Earth a dignified life free of unnecessary physical suffering and enough autonomy and real liberty to struggle to find their own meaning and happiness unfettered by exploitation and sadistic oppression. We have the technology right now to give ten times as many people such dignity and liberty.

We are in this position today. Only our failure of will, our refusal to act, our addiction to the devil we know, stands in the way of a better society. It's not enough to gripe, complain or even protest.

We have to think scientifically about how we want our society to be organized, and we have to act on that thinking. And we have to be morally responsible enough to act with a good will, and if we make a mistake, to honestly admit that we failed and try something better.

We no longer have the luxury of simply letting the chips fall where they may. We know what happens when close our eyes and let things happen: war, torture, rape, poverty and finally oblivion.

A civic minded individual

I'm sorry to hear that Mr Erik Stearman is "on fire". As a civic minded, altruistic individual, I would be perfectly willing to cross the street to piss on him.

-- PZ Myers

Away With All Gods!

A Talk by Sunsara Taylor on Bob Avakian’s book, Away With All Gods! Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World

Where: University of California Berkeley
Room 2060 in the Valley Life Sciences Building
When: Wednesday, Oct 8 at 7pm

Sunsara Taylor will speak on Away With All Gods, drawing from the book, and her experiences around the country, challenging religion and the harm it does.

-- Is believing in gods actually harmful?
-- Is there such a thing as an unchanging, unchangeable human nature?
-- Can people be good without god?
-- Why is patriarchy and the oppression of women foundational to so many religions?
-- Why is there a rise of religious fundamentalism throughout the world?

****

Sunsara Taylor is a writer for Revolution newspaper, a dynamic speaker and an uncompromising atheist. Her coverage of the rise of Christian fascism has taken her to the gates of abortion clinics across the country, to Terri Schiavo’s hospice, to inside the stadiums of the BattleCry movement to train Christian youth shock troops and led to numerous impressive verbal battles with Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and countless thoughtful interviews with reality-based radio hosts. Sunsara co-hosts WBAI (Pacifica ) radio program “Equal Time for Free Thought” where she interviews cutting edge authors on the dangers of the Christian right, the oppression of women, and the importance of science, critical thinking and an unfettered search for the truth. Ms. Taylor is available for interviews.

Author, Bob Avakian, is the leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. He is the author of many works, including Marxism and the Call of the Future: Conversations on Ethics, History and Politics (co-authored with Bill Martin), From Ike to Mao and Beyond: My Journey From Mainstream America to Revolutionary Communist, a memoir; Revolution: Why It’s Necessary, Why It’s Possible, What It’s All About (DVD/VHS). (Mr. Avakian will not be present at these events.)

Event is sponsored by the UCB student group Radical Friends and by Revolution Books, Berkeley

For more info, contact 510-848-1196 or revolutionbooks@sbcglobal.net

Away With All Gods! is available from Insight Press.

Taibbi on the American electorate

Mad Dog Palin

The truly disgusting thing about Sarah Palin isn't that she's totally unqualified, or a religious zealot, or married to a secessionist, or unable to educate her own daughter about sex, or a fake conservative who raised taxes and horked up earmark millions every chance she got. No, the most disgusting thing about her is what she says about us: that you can ram us in the ass for eight solid years, and we'll not only thank you for your trouble, we'll sign you up for eight more years, if only you promise to stroke us in the right spot for a few hours around election time.

[h/t to Tim Kreider]