A Voice of Reason and Skepticism in Europe

There’s an in-crowd in the skeptic community.  I’m not in it.  That’s one of my main feelings on my return home from TAM London.

The speakers were all interesting and had great messages.

But, the flavor of the event was more seminar than meeting.  Meaning, there wasn’t a lot of interaction with the big guns in the field.  Sure, there was plenty of book signing and hand shaking.  No one I saw refused a photo request.  But, there were also no small group sessions where we that are closer to the grass roots of the skeptic movement could pick the minds and experience of the speakers or even the other delegates about any particular topics.

That would be my suggestion for next year.  The seminars are always interesting, but without some more direct interaction, they are no more informative than watching the event on the DVD.  Plan for this.  Perhaps publish a schedule of events that delegates could sign up to attend on a first come basis when they pay for their entry to the event.  I’d reserve a portion of the seats at these small group sessions for people that pay at the door, so they have a crack at some of them.

More from my notes on TAM London in the coming days.

We just got back home from a couple weeks in the Highlands of Scotland.  No internet.  Well, there is internet if I look for it, but I didn’t look for it.  Since there was no wifi signal I could see from my cottage, I packed up the powerbook for two weeks.

Woo report:  No Loch Ness Monster in sight.  But of course, there is no such beast.  My five year old boy is pretty sure of that.  No matter though, it does draw visitors in their thousands.  Without that, there would be little or no businesses in the small towns of the Great Glen.

Probably the most beautiful place on earth, though.  We would love to live there.  I’d even go off grid if I could make it work.  There are just too many practical problems with a non-EU citizen emigrating to Scotland, though.  Even if I should get permission to stay, I couldn’t afford enough land for my boys to farm, if they chose to do that when they grew up.

We stayed in Moffatt, southeast of Glasgow, on the way back to Hull.  Another absolutely beautiful town.  But we found a higher than usual concentration of woo there.  Right on the town square is the Centre of Wellness.  There, you can get your reflexology, chiropody, and plenty of other nonsense.  Around the corner, more reflexology and fortune telling.  I was quite surprised to see two of these shops in one small town high street.

To quote Ulysses Everett McGill, “Hard times have flushed the chumps, everyone’s looking for answers.”.  And there sure as hell are plenty of places that will relieve said chumps of their hard earned cash.

I have been involved in a couple of very good threads on Richard Dawkins’ forum.  Not yet as a subject matter expert, but in whatever contributions I may make in keeping the antagonist on track, logically.  I’ve learned very much.

First, they don’t tolerate ad hominem attacks.  At all.  Five warnings in a year and your banned.  Forever.  And woe to anyone who registers a different username and operates as a “sock puppet”.

The purpose is to promote the discussion of ideas, not attack the people.  Very effective.

Now, I fast forward to my hometown newspaper opinions page.  This was one of the first forums I started posting in regularly.  I have to report I have NEVER got an actual response that passed logical muster there to one of my comments.  Time and again, in the face of airtight logical constructs, the other common users there would usually simply ignore them and babble on, or they’d end up calling me names.

The last straw for me there was today.  One of the weekly contributors to the opinions section is apparently an old woman who writes the inspirational page for her church program.  That article gets published every Monday in the opinions section of the online paper.  Usually, I have nothing to say about them, it’s just an old woman preaching to the converted.

This week, there was a user that expressed his weariness for her articles.  Of course, another user chimed in with his defense of the little old christian lady, and called the other guy a few names.

I thought it time to comment how the little old lady wasn’t immune from comment in a public forum.  I also added that others’ criticism was just as valid as the tripe she regularly contributes.

The paper censored that post and didn’t publish it.

Clearly, I commented on her articles, and said nothing about her personally.  But apparently, in small town Wisconsin, the editors don’t bother themselves with a fair forum.  Faced with this, and the fact that I seem to be utterly wasting my time and effort there, I think I’ll just leave them to their own devices.

I am not sure at all that it is even possible to deconvert a true believer.  I think it is very unlikely and rare.

So, I will retire from reading and commenting on my hometown news.  I haven’t lived there in 27 years, I never will again.  I have no stake in what happens there.  It’s simply not worth the effort to comment in their online newspaper.

Instead, I’ll be found here and on other forums where the free exchange of ideas is the rule rather than the exception.  See you around.

There have been a few comments on the thread back home.  Here they are:

hawk wrote on Jul 13, 2009 5:30 PM:

Jesse Ohlsson wrote on Jul 25, 2009 2:11 AM:

Summary:

No one EVER actually responds to the points I make.  Oh, as we can see, they don’t like to see me pick on Sally, or their favorite sky pixie.  This doesn’t surprise me much.  More on why that is in the next post…

Sally Bair, the weekly hometown evangelist in my hometown newspaper, the Ashland Daily Press, has an article that has earned my wroth.  Normally, I am happy to let her speak, so that all may know she is mad.  But this post warranted a response:

“Are we trying to hide from God?

‘Eternal Perspectives’ by Sally Bair

As I pulled weeds in a neglected area behind my garden, a huge toad startled me when he jumped on my foot. Camouflaged by his color, he had been hiding in the tall weeds. During my weed-pulling session, I came across an array of other small critters, too — beetles, mosquitoes, slugs, and more. All hiding in the weeds.

I probably didn’t make any of them happy, exposing them as I did to the glaring sunlight and stealing their cover. Critters hide for many reasons: because their bodies dry out from the sunlight, because they find the best food in the cracks and crevices they inhabit, or because they want to remain safe from enemies.

We humans like to hide in the weeds, too. We hide behind our lies to protect our image of being a good person or to prevent punishment from someone in authority.

At age three, my older sister broke a dish. Mom asked her, “Did you do that?”

She answered, “Did you see me do it?”

“No,” my mom told her.

“Then I didn’t do it.”

We are also guilty of hiding behind our family name to gain prestige. Or behind our busyness so others won’t see our broken hearts or our sins. We’re all guilty of hiding behind someone or something to get what we believe we need. Hiding can take the form of control.  It’s easy to manipulate the thoughts or feelings of someone, to point our finger at the innocent so we’re not blamed for something we said or did, or to offer a fake smile behind our anger or unforgiveness.

One reason people don’t read their Bibles, don’t attend church, or worse, don’t believe in God, is because they would rather hide behind some excuse. They’re afraid that if exposed to God’s revealing word, they’ll have to face their sins and that may be too painful.

But unlike the critters that hide in the weeds, we won’t dry out from the sun, lose out on the best food, or face our enemies alone if we expose ourselves to God’s word and presence. In fact, we’ll have access to his living water and the nourishment of his word. We’ll also find safety from our three worst enemies: sin, self, and Satan.

Lord, keep us from hiding from Your salvation and truth. Give us strength to expose our sins to you so we may be nourished with Your perfect love, joy, and peace. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

Her third from last paragraph is what I responded to.  Here’s my reply:

“Sally, you normally preach to the converted.  But when you start writing about what motivates atheists, I suspect you have no idea what you’re writing about.  I’ll break it down.”

Firstly, you speak about a lack of belief in a god as if that’s some sort of action that requires an excuse, as if we’re “supposed” to believe in a god.  Fine, let’s explore that.  Which god, yours?  Then, why that god?  Or, why not any of the other 20 thousand or so gods that men have written about?

Next, you seem to believe atheists fear exposure to your god’s word.  Tell me, do you fear exposure to the word of Vishnu?  Or say, Thor?  Honestly, why not?  I’ll answer for you, tell me if I’m wrong.  You are absolutely certain that Vishnu and Thor do not exist.  There is therefore, nothing to fear, is there?  Sorry, we’re bouncing back to my first rebuttal now, but why exactly do you believe your god exists, but all others do not?  There is an equal amount of evidence supporting the existence of all of them.

Finally, you surmise that atheists couldn’t stand the pain of facing their “sins”.  What makes a sin, exactly?  Doing something that is against your god’s moral code would qualify.  Ahh, but even you know very well you cherry pick which of the 600 or so directives you choose to obey.  Never mind those actions that are sins against gods you don’t happen to believe in.  There are a couple major types of sins.  Those that are only against god, and those that are against both god and man.  For example, having no other gods, no idols, taking god’s name in vain, keeping the sabbath holy, those are actions that purely annoy god.  Other men couldn’t care less if you do these things.  Murder, theft, and false witness are in another class entirely.  Breaking those moral codes actually have an effect on your fellow man.

But, there’s a concept you don’t understand about atheism.  Disregarding the sins against god, which have no meaning to an atheist anyway (in exactly the same way that eating beef has no meaning to you, but is unthinkable to a Hindu), atheists are absolutely forced to face their own crimes.  There is no get out of jail free card that absolves an atheist from his actions.  No, methinks it is the theists who are afraid of facing the consequences of their actions by themselves.

Of course, I can’t speak for all atheists.  We have no grand unified code of ethics.  Any other atheists out there willing to comment?”

Waddya think?  There’s no chance of de-converting this person or likely anyone who reads and agrees with her proselytizing.  But, I’m not about to go away quietly into the night, either.  We’ll see what rattles loose from the tree back home.

I ran into some instructions on the web on how to get excommunicated from the Catholic church. I was surprised how difficult it was. They sure seem to want to do everything they can to keep you on their rolls.

So I was curious, what would it take to get excommunicated from the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod? Would it be so difficult? Apparently not. Here’s the email exchange about my request to be excommunicated:

“Hello, I was baptised in Ashland, Wisconsin at
Zion Lutheran Church in 1963. I am an atheist and wish to be
excommunicated. This is not a joke. What must I do?”

“Dear Jesse, thank you for contacting the LCMS Church Information Center.
There is nothing to do. By not attending services, you have chosen to
voluntarily sever your connection with the church.

Blessings on your day! Joy and peace in Christ,

Diane
LCMS Church Information Center”

What do you know about that? Nothing to it! I’m out! Or, am I? I’d bet any amount I could waltz straight in to any LCMS church in the world and they’d be happy to have my “offerings”. I found nothing on the LCMS web site discussing excommunication.

I don’t think they have any system of internal checks at all.

Wait a minute. That means they could be infiltrated, doesn’t it? Who’s to say it hasn’t already happened? We could walk among them, undetected. For whatever good it would do.

I usually don’t hold much stock in psychometrics.  As an exercise in that management course I took in London a couple weeks ago, we touched on various tools.  One that I remembered taking nearly twenty years ago at the USAF NCO Academy at Keesler AFB, MS, was the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

While the instructor was talking, I took an online MBTI test.  I am still an INTJ.  My strengths of preferences were 11%, 25%, 50%, and 78%, respectively.  There are books written on interpreting those results.

It turns out I am in a group making up between 1 and 2 percent of people.  [un-referenced claim follows] Of the INTJ’s, 37% of them are measured to be in the top 2% of the population in IQ (as am I).  Now you may bow down before me.  Ow.  Hurt myself patting my own back for my cleverness.

What I ran into yesterday was the INTJ Central website.  Their Compleat Idiot’s Guide to the INTJ is absolutely brilliant!

I was reading it late at night and nearly woke up my wife so she could read it, too.  The accuracy is stunning and specific.  Anyone who knows me will agree, I don’t doubt.

When I find the same thing measured twice, and confirmed by other similar measures, it makes me take more notice of it.  There is a lot to read about on this subject, so I’ve got something new to entertain me for a while.

I had been, for a few years, hosting my blogs on my Mac G5 desktop from my home. I was using the updatedd dynamic DNS client to keep the world able to find me by host name, which was hit and miss sometimes with my DNS provider.

After waiting a month for my ISP to deliver a fixed IP address, I decided to host my blogs off-site with a professional hosting service.

Enter DreamHost.

They were second on the list of recommended hosting services at wordpress.org.  No content censorship.  Their sales staff answered my questions about multiple domains and blogs in minutes.  They got my business, no problem.

Setting up a new blog is really about as simple as a few clicks.  Moving a blog from one server to another isn’t quite so easy, but I did it.  Not without a few minor glitches, but those were caused by customizations on my Mac, not with my new hosting service.

The Skepdick is now professionally hosted, availability and speed should be far superior than what I could deliver over a residential DSL line.

Got to give a thumbs up to DreamHost.

I’m away for the week, attending a management course in London.  After the first day, I am disappointed to report I have learned nothing new.

The hotel, at GBP 150 a night, can’t even give wifi internet access.  Money grubbing bastards.

So, I’m next door at the British Library, using their free wifi.  What a great library.  I think.  I didn’t bring anything with my address on it so I can’t actually get a library card to get into the fucking library.  Crap!

A woo report:  The hotel I’m staying in, Novotel St. Pancras, has no floor 13.  Actually, they do, they just call it floor 14.  What the hell?  Does this superstition still carry such weight?

I ought to accidentally break one of their mirrors to give them some real bad luck.

I was reading another article in my hometown newspaper today, this one about a Christian youth organization in northern Wisconsin calling itself BAYNET (Bay Area Youth Network).  The bay they claim is called Chequamegon Bay on Lake Superior.

On it’s face, this group sounds like they actually do something of value in the community.  So, what’s the harm, eh?  Probably not much.  There were a couple of quotes that raised my ire.

The first quote is the one that speaks to my title for this post.  The BAYNET founder and leader, Joe Mousseau, “a native of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada, had originally come to the bay area in 1997 as an intern with Washburn Assembly of God while a student at North Central University in Minneapolis, working on a theology degree.”  In the previous paragraph, Joe says:  ”I came here with the goal of working with students. I’ve always wanted to work with them; it’s always been a dream of mine.” 

Motive and means.  Get ‘em while they’re young, vulnerable, and a teen.  That’s a hell of a confusing time in life.  There could hardly be a better time to indoctrinate kids.  That’s the cynic in me.  I don’t doubt Joe really means well for the kids who participate in his program.  I also don’t doubt that Joe wouldn’t lose a lot of sleep if a few happened to join his church on the way.

The first hit on google for the definition of cynical is:   …”believing the worst of human nature and motives; having a sneering disbelief in e.g. selflessness of others”  My wife says “That’s you.”.

The second quote that drew my ire is this:  Joe says:  ”We want to give students options, to stay away from at-risk activities like promiscuity, alcohol and drugs.”  Then, a couple paragraphs later:  ”…it is a fact that kids who have some kind of a faith system in their life are less likely to engage in those at-risk activities.”  What?  Of course he means “…less likely than kids without some kind of faith system in their lives”.  He makes this statement of fact without citing any references.  As I write this, I have no sources to dispute his “fact”.  I’ll dig that up soon and post a follow up.

The article also goes on to say that “in recent graduating classes at Ashland and Washburn high schools, …five out of six valedictorians were members of BAYNET.” as was a local Teenager of the Year.  Confusing correlation with causation?

But again, the cynical side of me tells me Joe is making up this fact to justify a wee bit of proselytizing.  Say it isn’t so, Joe.