A Voice of Reason and Skepticism in Europe

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.

Last week, in conversation with a colleague, I found their young son was home with chicken pox.  I remember having it myself, though I didn’t think it was all that itchy.  I don’t remember significant discomfort.  I was glad that my boys don’t even have that concern, they’ve been immunized against it.

I am re-posting this article by Elyse Anders from Skepchick.org on the subject (with permission).  It’s very well written and I agree with all of it.

“An Open Letter to Frightened Parents

May 23rd, 2009 by Elyse

Dear Parents, 

If you have not made the decision to vaccinate your child, I urge you to make that decision now. Immunity from painful, disfiguring, and sometimes even deadly diseases is not a gift you should withhold from your child. Your child is, undoubtedly, the greatest love of your life… a love so great that it was unfathomable until you experienced it. And I know that you want to and need to do everything in your power to protect him or her. Which is precisely why you’re hesitant to vaccinate.

I understand. As parents, we all understand. Vaccines have received almost nothing but bad press over the last few years. Even the good press seems to come with all kinds of asterisks and disclaimers. But let me remind you of something: the press is not concerned with accuracy, they are concerned with readership. Sensationalistic and scary stories grab readers’ attention. It’s why your evening news begins with murders, shots fired, child abductions and fatal car accidents. That’s not to say scary always means untrue, but it should be treated with a healthy dose of skepticism… in fact, even the non-scary stuff needs to have an eyebrow raised to it.

I know you don’t think you can trust “Big Pharma”. I’m not going to pretend that medicine has never failed us as or that mistakes have never been made or even that risks are never taken in the interest of profit. Your lack of trust isn’t unjustified. But try to understand that Big Pharma is not a machine of evil men, single men, who were all bred from test tubes and never experienced love or family. “Big Pharma” is an industry, fueled by people who need medicine. And it’s run by people who need medicine. People with families – children, parents, husbands and wives. The investors and shareholders are parents, just like you and me. These are not people segregated from human interaction. They are not out to get you. They are not out to hurt you. It’s not a perfect system. It’s flawed in many ways, but it’s the system we have. And it does more good than harm every day.

When you hear people like Jenny McCarthy saying things like, “If you think about it, it’s all about greed”, ask yourself who she’s talking about. Thousands of people are involved in the approval and distribution of each and every drug. Every one of them stands to be hurt personally and professionally by the failures of those drugs. Yes, profits will be made, but unless/until we are willing to sacrifice the freedoms afforded to us by capitalism, businesses cannot run without profit… for better or worse.

It’s scary to trust a seemingly faceless billion-dollar industry with the health and well-being of your child. You’ve met children with autism. You’ve met their parents. Yet you’ve never met a single person who develops, researches or approves drugs.

It’s easy to sympathize with the anti-vaccine movement when you see these children and you don’t want to make the same mistakes that their parents made. You never want your child to experience that hell. You want your child to smile and say “Mama” and “Daddy”.

The thing is, as convincing as these parents are, and as sincere as they are, their blame is misplaced. It’s hard to look at a friend or relative -  someone you care about deeply, hurting and struggling and knowing how their child was injured – and tell them that perhaps they are making unfounded accusations, that maybe their pain is causing them to place blame where there might not be any. Perhaps they want answers so badly that they’re willing to accept the answers that are given, instead of being able to accept that there may not be any answers at all right now.

It’s all understandable. Having an answer, having a culprit, having someone to direct your rage at, someone to blame, someone to rally against, to point your finger at and say, “How dare you hurt my child!” It feels more right than sitting back, and having to wrap your mind around the fact that this might just be the way your child is. Accepting that there is no answer feels like accepting defeat. There is a hopelessness and helplessness about it. No doubt.

But the fact is that, as much as we all want a better more ethical health care industry for our families, they may not be to blame on this one. And it’s not that researchers haven’t tried to nail the pharmaceutical industry on the vaccine issue. Indeed, they have tried. But when they investigate the claims of the dangers of vaccines, the results are clear: vaccines do not cause autism and getting vaccinated is far safer than not.

I’m sure there’s nothing I can say to defend “Big Pharma” and the government that will convince you to change your mind. But let me make one personal plea to you.

You may think that your decision not to vaccinate is a personal one. That it’s not my business. That it’s between you and your family members because you are the ones affected by the decision and no one else is.

But that’s not the case.

I’ve heard parents argue that the risk of polio is only 1 in 1500, while autism risk is 1 in 150. That’s a scary statistic. But understand that the only reason the risk of polio is so low is because of vaccines. Each time a person with a healthy immune system chooses not to get vaccinated, it chips away at that number. Each unvaccinated person puts more people at risk.

When you make the decision not to vaccinate, or even just to hold off for a while, you’re not just making that decision for your children and your family. You are making that decision for all of us. Your child’s vaccines don’t just protect them from disease, they protect everyone around them by preventing the spread of disease.

By not vaccinating, you affect everyone you come into contact with. You affect the pregnant woman in line behind you at the grocery store. You affect your elderly relatives. You affect people with HIV and AIDS. You affect people with cancer. You affect newborn babies. You affect the people who cannot receive vaccines. You affect the children whose parents have chosen not to vaccinate them. You affect yourself. You affect your neighbors. You affect every single person you meet every time you meet them and all the people they meet after you. That’s not an exaggeration.

While something like measles may seem like nothing more than an unpleasant childhood illness to your otherwise healthy child, it can be a death sentence for a child with a compromised immune system. What may cost your child a few days off from school, could cost a little girl with leukemia her life. Maybe you don’t know anyone with leukemia, but once that disease is out there, spreading, there’s nothing you personally can do to stop it.

But you can stop it now. You can do your part to make sure these diseases don’t spread. All you have to do is vaccinate. It saves lives.

And you don’t know what fate holds for your children. One day, one of your own children could be one of those with a compromised immune system. If that were to happen, your child’s life could be at the mercy of herd immunity, a protection that is vanishing with this current vaccination hysteria.

I know you want to do the best thing for your child. As a parent, I understand your fear.

When it came time for my son to get his 18 month shots, I suddenly found myself doubting. I am 100% pro vaccination, but I wondered what would happen if I were wrong. And that question kept me up, sickened at the thought that I might hurt my son. But I would not let myself be overcome by fear. The rational part of me packed him up, put him in the car, and drove him to that appointment to get him his MMR. And I don’t regret that decision. And today, three and a half months later, he is still smiling, hugging me and calling me Mama. But even if he weren’t, I would be glad I vaccinated him.

If the statistic that 1 in 150 children scares you, and you still believe that vaccines can be linked to autism, please think of it this way – even if 1 in every 150 children who gets vaccinated becomes autistic, that risk is only 0.667%. That means that 99.333% of the time, autism does not happen. Research has repeatedly debunked the link between vaccines and autism, but even if that research is wrong, the risk is two thirds of a percent.

That’s a risk worth taking.

Please, call your pediatrician or family doctor today and get your child an appointment to be immunized. The world is counting on you.

Sincerely,

Elyse Anders”

I just don’t have the writing skill to put things that eloquently.  I can imagine one of my worst nightmares would be to bury one of my sons for something I could have prevented.  It’ll be a cold day in the hell I don’t believe in before that happens.

My hobby of pissing off the locals in my hometown newspaper has again yielded fruit.  The latest article that spun me up is this one:  Ghost-hunting Team hits Ashland Hotel.  Long story short:  Employees of a 20 year old hotel, the Hotel Chequamegon, on the shores of Lake Superior in Ashland, Wisconsin can’t explain some bumps in the night.  It must be ghosts.  Call the ghost “experts” from Minneapolis, Team PROPHET.  Get publicity for free.

Yeah. That’ll do the trick.

I was most amused by the scientific instruments they bring to the “investigation”.  Even more amusing are the explanations for their uses on their website.

Trash journalism popularizing woo.

Two classic arguments in support of the woo from the discussion thread:

1.  What’s the harm?

and

2.  There’s a wiki article quoted saying god is also a ghost, so therefore ghosts must be real, too.

I ran into a YouTube video of Penn Jillette discussing the website www.whatstheharm.net, so I went and had a look.  Like I needed more examples.

Fuck!  This penchant for woo and lack of critical thinking will be the end of us all if we’re not careful.

But, the two guys arguing that god is a ghost, therefore ghosts must exist was pure gold.  One of them actually asked me at one point if, since I didn’t believe in ghosts, I also didn’t believe in god.  He must not be a regular reader.