A Near Universal Expression of Skepticism

I love the apocalypse. It seems to come around once a year or so, and every time it gets any mainstream attention I enjoy the comments and memes all over my facebook and twitter accounts. It's a fairly universal expression of skepticism (save for a few true believers), and I was thinking on why it is that this is the case.

I think the apocalypse is a pretty attractive area of skepticism, mainly because it's a very easy claim to test: just wait for the day to pass and then give yourself a pat on the back for not being so gullible. Pretty easy.

But until that day comes, we're all faced with a problem: what should our opinion be until that day comes? I find that whenever the apocalypse is mentioned, almost everyone finds it to be ridiculous, but we haven't run the test yet -- how could we predict what's actually going to happen, and how should we come to the opinion that no apocalypse will occur? It depends on the claim, but I submit that until any actual evidence is presented to demonstrate that the world is ending, I can safely dismiss the claim without having to prove that it's not. The burden of proof lies with whomever is making the positive claim in the first place.

Why is this important? It's important to me because it's one of the few times that my approach to skepticism is almost exactly in line with everyone elses. I think through the same process every time I'm approached with a claim. The very same logic and skepticism that you and I apply to the apocalypse is the process I apply to alternative medicine, conspiracy theories, religious claims, cryptozoology, political ideology... you name it. Not everything has such an easy and lazy test as does the apocalypse, but the initial approach is still consistent -- don't believe it unless there's compelling evidence.

Normally at this point I'd go into some examples of commonly held irrational beliefs and invite you to employ the same skeptical approach to analysing them, but for once I don't think that's necessary -- the apocalypse is clearly a perfect example that in many ways we're already skeptical. It's getting rid of our favourite pet belief that can often be the problem.

Even though we technically don't know if the world will end, we still don't believe it. Everyone seems comfortable with that, and if someone told you, "YOU CAN'T PROVE THE WORLD WON'T END!!" you'd probably reject their logic. So how come I often hear the same phrase when talking about god?

On the Inside Looking Out

I’ve personally never been a believer, so I really don’t understand what it’s like to have a crisis of faith or to attempt to reconcile my doubts without using sources outside of my worldview. I think it’s just one of those things that’ll always make me somewhat of an outsider.

I’ve known a few people who have lost their faith, and for the most part it was a fairly emotional experience. The subject of religion doesn’t come up as often with them as it does with people who still believe, mainly because it’s just a sour situation that many would rather not relive. For me, the process of thinking about faith was rarely emotional, and the conclusions I drew about faith came from the outsider’s perspective to begin with. It may put me at odds with society, but I do believe there’s some advantages.

Let’s imagine that you’re 14 years old and you’re just now realizing that people are taking religion seriously (having not had much experience with it). How would you react? I suspect that most would approach the topic with skepticism:“Really? 2 of every animal!? And what’s with the talking snake? And how could god create light AFTER creating the sun the moon and the stars?”  Without the context of indoctrination or even the cultural context of a society of believers, it would be very difficult to accept these claims. Looking at things from the outside in forces you to come in to acceptance of the faith rather than be born into them, and I don’t think it’s something a lot of believers understand when dealing with their heathen friends.

From the outside in is also an advantageous approach to learning in general, even when you take indoctrination out of the mix. Think of our political views; when I hear something like, “If you lower taxes, the government will be more efficient!” I am approaching the claim with skepticism: “Wait… if you take funds out of the government, wouldn’t that fuck up the funding and make it less efficient? Do you actually mean ‘less complex’?”  Or how about the environment? When someone says, ”Global warming may be a reality, but it’s not due to man’s interference, it’s simply a natural process based on the sun’s energy” I have to approach the situation without any prior knowledge. “How do you know that? Can I see where you’re getting your information and judge its credibility?”

With new information comes a vetting process that we’re all familiar with. Someone says something you think is crazy or outlandish, and the response is either curiosity or rejection. I personally prefer curiosity, especially when someone challenges my pre-held beliefs. This idea is not unfamiliar to people, and even the most gullible people in my circle of friends use and understand this process in skepticism. What boggles my mind is that it’s inconsistent; why wouldn’t you apply this process to everything?

Religion is always the elephant in the room when it comes to compartmentalizing rational beliefs from irrational ones, and I suspect it has a lot to do with indoctrination and the fear of what many would call “shunning.” It seems like every other week I read about an atheist who’s been disowned by his or her family for coming out as an atheist, or people being thrown in prison or killed for blasphemy. It’s not easy to lose one’s faith, and while I have no experience with the process, I can certainly empathize. Especially when the entire social structure can come crashing down in the blink of an eye, with no hope in sight.

In a nutshell, this is why I support being an “out” atheist and publicly challenging the popular notion that without god, there is no hope. The atheist community doesn’t just exist to rain on everyone’s parade and bitch about how things ain’t true. It exists to advance the notion that people can be good without god, and that there is a social group waiting for those who feel alone in their lack of faith. This community, like any community, is not perfect.

Dealing with an internal battle (on the inside looking in) is a great way to confirm your own biases and pull your own beliefs out of context. I think it’s much better to validate your beliefs by testing it against a larger reality, looking out at the world as it is.

Just about to finish this. If you’re looking to think about the universe from the cosmic perspective and lose your fear of large numbers, I’d recommend the read. The chapters are nice and short (it is an essay collection) and the points are concise and kind to the layperson, so it’s not at all a chore to read.
Astrophysics is awesome to think about.

Going to reddit's r/atheism page to learn about the atheist community is like reading the comments section on Jezebel to learn about the behaviour of men.

Let's leave the trolls under the bridge and have honest interactions with people who want to make a difference

Bigfoot, be little

I tried to come up with a more clever title for this post, but alas, my creativity is stifled.

So I’ve been thinking lately about “the old standby’s” of skepticism that often circulate through blogs and news articles when journalists are looking for filler. You know, Bigfoot, Nessie, UFO’s, the Chupacabra, Homeopathy, Psychics, Ghost hunting etc. There’s a whole host of people that buy into all this hokum, and there is real harm in those beliefs (the story of Shawn Hornbeck comes to mind), and they’re still very important to talk about, but I just don’t bother.

The main reason I don’t bother with these issues that much is that I really don’t care about them; for all intensive purposes, my position on bigfoot will not change (at least until some strong positive evidence is shown ie. bring me the body!) and homeopathy will always be at its worst, mathematically impossible. Most people I meet on a regular basis also readily admit that Bigfoot is ridiculous, psychics are just for fun and ghost hunting is irrelivant, unconvincing and at its best may be mildly entertaining.

Now, I’m not going to go about debunking these things because you can do that yourself, you might be more interested than I am, and that’s not the point of this post. My point is that a good deal of skeptics will take arguments against these things and equate them to other beliefs, and I just don’t think that strategy is ultimately effective.

I sense I might not be making complete sense, so I’m going to back up a little bit. I’m going to go ahead and assume that whoever’s reading this doesn’t believe in Bigfoot but believes in God (yeah I know, religion again….) I think it’s reasonable that this combination of beliefs & non beliefs is pretty common. Now, I come along, and in an effort to reach common ground in an argument about the existence of god, I start talking about bigfoot. I refer to the fact that you do not believe in the existence of bigfeet for the exact same reasons as you believe in god, and try to get you to realize that on two separate issues your logic is inconsistent. At this point, you’d probably get pissed off.

It took me a while to realize why people got pissed at such comparisons, and it’s because I was thinking about the logic in a vacuum. The real issue at stake to the person I’m arguing against is: “Wait…. you just equated my entire worldview and spiritual meaning to an imaginary bi pedaled ape!?! FUCK YOU!” And of course, that person would be right in many ways. Seriously, if we’re comparing things to god as a proper analogy, bigfoot belongs in the same category as the watchmaker. It’s just not a good argument, and neither are the comparisons to any other popular pseudosciences. Yes, we can both agree that bigfoot doesn’t exist, but I really don’t think it’s the best way to frame an argument that isn’t purely intellectual. When talking about things like religion, alternative medicine, conspiracy theories and how governments should be structured, there is a lot of emotions, personal histories and whole ways of life at stake — they can’t just be compared to something the believer thinks is ridiculous. It just doesn’t work.

Maybe it depends on the conversation, but when discussing important issues like the origin of life and the universe, I’ve found it more destructive than useful to bring up the old standbys. They can stand by on their own, and while the arguments against bigfoot may still be important for public education, bigfoot belittles people when we’re talking about the elephants in the room (see how I snuck my awful blog title in there… yeah…. I rule…. -_-)

I wish I loved science in high school as much as I do now. That's probably the most important lesson I'll ever learn as a future parent. For that alone, I'm grateful for that mistake.

Alberta Endorses Bullshit Medicine

Alberta creates college to oversee naturopathic doctors (National Post)

Ugh. Thanks Health Minister. Now we’re legitimizing quacks and putting the health of Albertans at risk by endorsing treatments that don’t work. Wasting taxpayer money on placebos and turning people away from medicine that really could help them is a failure of our government.

An Atheist's Worldview

This.

A Hollow Foundation

I get awfully confused when people say the word "Faith."

Not quite as confused as I get when people use vague phrases like "spiritual" or "rational" but I find that more often than not I don't know what people are talking about.

Here's my basic definition of faith: A belief without supporting evidence or proof. Am I wrong? Is the word not being used this way by the faithful? Maybe someone can help me out.

In any case, if my definition is correct... what's so virtuous about it? I mean seriously, if you're faithful in religion or whatever else, apply this principle to almost anything else and it wouldn't even make sense to you! I believe in x in spite of having no evidence to support my belief is not a responsible or enlightened way to think.

Despite often having no real evidence to back up certain beliefs, there are lots of reasons people give for holding those beliefs, and as of yet I've not heard one that passes the test for being a reasonable argument. Am I talking to the wrong people? Do the faithful just not take my criticism seriously because I'm not on their team? Maybe I'm not supposed to understand it.

Some of the reasons I've been given for believing in a god are as follows (and you can substitute god in for almost any supernatural claim and the same criticism will hold true)

• You can't prove he DOESN'T exist!! True, I can't. However, this is an argument from ignorance -- we can't use knowledge we don't have to make a positive claim, nor can we use a lack of refutation as reasonable justification for belief. Using this logic, I can claim that anything exists simply because we have no evidence to say otherwise. Don't believe in unicorns? Well you can't say there aren't any. Would I be justified in believing in unicorns? Probably not.
  
  Unfortunately, that's kind of the standard analogy atheists like to give to make belief in god seem ridiculous. It's not a very good analogy, as omnipotent supernatural beings that exist outside of time and space are in no way analogous to natural beings that may or may not exist in space in time. However, the fact that we have no evidence for either one of these things is the most important point to stress here.
  
•  If there's no god, how would we know right from wrong? This response always seems a little dishonest to me. Most human beings know full well that they have a knowledge of right and wrong, and it often doesn't mesh with the scriptures themselves. So, rather than modify their morality to fit the scriptures, the scriptures must be reinterpreted to fit the modern morality. It's a tale all too common. I was once told by a friend that without his faith in god, he would just go out and kill and rape whoever he'd like. I didn't believe him. Why? Because there are real world consequences for that kind of crap that no human being in his right mind would accept (incarceration, the loss of respect and love from friends and family, the empathy the attacker would have on the victim, the painful and not always successful process of rehabilitation, the shunning of the attacker by society even after time is served, etc.) Knowledge of right and wrong is something that's clearly a secular thing (separate from religion), and that's a good thing! In fact, it doesn't even have to have anything to do with religion! In any case, even if we had no way to tell right from wrong without a divine authority, it still would not prove that that authority exists.
  
• I have a personal relationship with [insert messiah here] and without him I would still be the horrible human being I used to be! This argument is often heard after someone goes through a difficult period in their life, and converts to the religion of their choice. "Being saved" basically. I have a lot of sympathy for this form of belief, though I still disagree with it. The main reason is that it's simply an anecdote, with all the biases in place. When someone is in a bad place in their life, there are many avenues of rehabilitation, and religion likes to set up camp in that territory. It works. Just look at the popularity of Alcoholics Anonymous, a religion disguised as drug rehab. The logic falls apart when you realize that this particular argument assumes its assertion right there in its premise: "I believe in god because I have a relationship with the god I believe in." Would that be good enough for any other belief?
  
• You just gotta have faith

When all is said and done, it seems to come down to this. I've left out all of the anti-evolution arguments that people use, because those are all buried as far as I'm concerned. If you don't believe in evolution, just bring to mind any of your favourite anti-evolution arguments and cross-check it with talkorigins.org.

Anyway, once you start telling me that you believe in god because of your faith, and that that's a good thing, there's one last step you have to take before you convince me your argument is valid: convince me that faith is a good thing, a good way to construct a philosophical reality. Good luck with that, based of the definition I've given (which I'd still my faithful friends to clarify). All the logical fallacies, bad evidence, philosophical filler and scripture you can lay on top of your belief simply does not change the fact that the reason you believe what you do is based on faith. That's a hollow foundation, and all the justification in the world cannot change that without fixing the foundation with scientific evidence. Judaism alone is a huge pill to swallow without evidence for the truth of its scriptures, and piling Christianity, Islam or Mormonism on top of that certainly doesn't help the case. (I exclude other religions from this criticism based on my unfamiliarity with them, not because they are unworthy of criticism. For all I know, they're just as wrong).

Preaching with a secular flag

As glad as I am that most Christians are not fundamentalists that want to kill me, I often wonder how they justify their more moderate opinions without forcing themselves to appeal to secular values, the very same values that stand against the dogma of their book.

Human rights are not very well represented in the bible itself, so it seems odd that someone could read it as the unalterable word of god and see human rights within the pages. More often than not, we learn our values from the society we live in, and impose those values onto whatever we'd like to believe. Jesus is the perfect character to exonerate in this case because Jesus' reputation is really quite good, even among people who don't generally care about him. From the grim crucifix all the way to the "Buddy Christ" and "Passion of the Christ 2: Crucify This" he's quite popular, and is generally held up as the ultimate good guy who not only was supernaturally awesome, but also a regular dude just like you me.

Too bad it misses the big picture. In the context of the bible, Jesus is god reincarnate, which means that he is a representation of god (an eternal god who can punish and reward you in the afterlife). If Jesus is god, then he can't die. This means he didn't make any sacrifices for anyone's sins, did he? He lived on and continued to judge others based on whether or not people followed his example. Seriously, this is not much different that the bullying god of the Old Testament.

How can anyone read human rights into this story? Regardless of some of the wonderful nuggets of wisdom that Jesus' character can sometimes offer (though they aren't very original, even for the time), he's still the same sort of prick that can't stand to see anyone doing good and disobeying authority. To read this story and interpret it as a universal morality is to miss the point of the story and not see the forest for the trees. The big picture of the story is quite clear, and quite unpleasant.

But perhaps I'm reading the bible wrong, right? Well, who's reading it right then? How would we decide which bits of wisdom in the bible are correct and which were not? How would we decide with which scope we should view these stories? Is there some way we can test these bits of wisdom to decide which parts are good and which are bad? YES! It's called science, but if you're going to do science, why bother using the bible as a source material for your hypotheses? It doesn't make sense, because most of the phenomena in the bible are not observable in the real world.

My overall point is that moderate Christianity (and other forms of moderate theism, though I'm not as familiar with many of those viewpoints) is great because it's closer to secularism than fundamentalism, but it misses the main reason why secular values are important: evidence and reason! If you're going to support secular and humanist values, you ought to be able to back up those values with good reasons. Using your own moral values that you've learned in modern society to modify the message of your bible is not good enough. At some point, we have to admit that our society has evolved beyond the morals of the society the bible was written, and come up with new moral values based on what's happening to real people today.

There's no harm in learning from our historical mistakes, so the bible has value in that sense, but here's the big problem: if people everywhere are still to believe that the bible is the word of god, and its interpretation causes this many schisms, the bible is fucked up! If you're a Christian, here's my advice: Pray to god for a new book. One that's clear, makes logical sense, and appeals to modern human values. A supreme being ought to be able to do that, shouldn't he? If not, then it's better to abandon it as moral philosophy. If you're not comfortable with throwing it out, you can at least acknowledge its genuine problems, and stand in the moral high ground waving the flag of the enemy.

Observe-->Hypothesize-->Test-->Analyse-->Conclude

That's how to find the truth. Far too often, we forget parts of this equation.

Some will observe an event, make a guess about its cause, and then make a conclusion about what it is without testing and analyzing the results of the test. A good example is when someone sees an unfamiliar object in the sky, postulates that it might be extraterrestrial is nature, and then makes that conclusion.

Others will forget the first 3 steps, and simply analyze a subject and make conclusions in a vacuum. A good example of this is when a religious person interprets the meaning of scripture, making moral conclusions and applying it to their life without ever observing or testing the existence of god

Many others will simply skip the analysis. They'll observe something, test it on themselves, take the results as they are and conclude based on that. A good example is the hiccup: Someone who has the hiccups hypothesizes that by holding their breath the hiccups will go away. Then when the hiccups go away, the conclusion is made that the holding of breath was the cause. Not necessarily. This is called 'confirmation bias'. It may well have been something else.

You can also skip every step that does the work by forgetting to observe, test or analyze. This is called making shit up because you like the sound of it. For example, "I feel in my heart that human beings are one with the universe, and nothing you can say can change my mind." Beware of anyone that says "nothing can change my mind" because that's a dangerous thought indeed.

These flaws in procedure are VERY easy to understand. The people making the mistakes (myself included, more often that I'd like to admit) have a lot of trouble letting go of these flaws, especially when they relate to the very core of their being. We are far more happy being wrong when the comfort of the lie is so much more appealing than the truth.... I'm pretty sure that sentence is grammatically incorrect. Hopefully my message is understood through the flaws.

My point in this post is that most of the time, we follow the procedure outlined in the title of this post. Observation: Two object dropped at equal distance from the ground fall at different speeds with respect to each other, but at the same speed with respect to themselves. Hypothesis: a universal force acts on both objects, and another force causes the difference in speed. Test: control for one variable and test for the other. Analyze: look at the data, cross reference with similar experiments, have your own experiment replicated by others. Conclusion: gravity is a separate force from wind resistance.

That's a pretty bad explanation, but if you remove any of those steps, you've got a problem. Forget to observe, and you'd have no information to draw from. Forget to hypothesize and you'd end up running toward the nearest conclusion that anyone could come up with. Forget to test, and there's no way to determine true events from false ones. Forget to analyze, and you may never see the flaws in the experiment. Forget to conclude, and no one would ever agree on a shared experience.

It's very, very easy to miss something here. Recently, I've read blogs that completely forget the first 2 or 3 steps in this process, and attempt to determine reality through only the lens of Christianity. I've read news stories that skip the middle steps and forget all the work involved in making good medical decisions. I've read awesome blogs from people I respect, yet forget to analyze their own biases, only to find myself represented as a villain when I should be an ally. FUCK your biases, and fuck your conclusions if you lean on them.

If you want to get to the bottom of something and make social change happen, do the work. If you'd rather skip the work and go straight to the conclusion by your own illogical means, don't expect anyone to take you seriously.

Just a thought

How much will I miss my parents when I'm 86? My grandparents never talk about their parents, but I know they  think about them. How much, I wonder?

Till the Summer Came

Till the Summer Came

Check out the new EP in its entirety here. =)

Non Believer (feat. Eric Heitmann on Keys)

New Song!

For those who don't know, I'm a musician. Above is a link to my new tune, hope you enjoy it.

Voting

Okay, so I like voting. I think it's a good thing to do. Researching the platforms and the candidates and following the political process is something I do regularly, and will continue to do so. My political opinions are fairly moderate, and I have a decent amount to say about any policy that might be implemented, and I'd like to see that reflected back in the candidates I'm voting for. I think that important, and I think it's important that if I do vote, it's because my vote represents my real voice in a democratic society.

This is why I don't do any strategic voting, but it's also why I don't always vote. I realize there's a lot of people who don't vote because they don't care or are lazy, but I'm not talking about them quite as much here. I've been in some fierce discussions following the recent Alberta election about the old cliche, "If you don't vote you have no right to complain." The reasons I have for not voting are the same reasons that I have for voting: to have my message represented in the democratic process. In this case, the message is: my opinion is not represented in the choice of candidates. Whether or not I go out to the polls and spoil the ballot is a problem for analysts, not democracy.

Voter turnout this time around was hovering just over %50, which isn't bad considering the same party has had a monopoly on the government for 43 years, but if you're one of the unfortunate people who didn't vote, you'll get plenty of bullshit for having not done so. You'll get things like, "Why don't you just shut the fuck up!" "If you didn't care enough to vote, you're not allowed to care about anything the government does" and "Your opinion isn't as valid as the ones of the voters." There are a great deal of misconceptions about why people don't vote, I don't think the prejudice is always accurate.

To this point, I've made it fairly clear that I believe not voting is as valid a message as voting if done so deliberately. So why is it that I have no right to complain? I sent my message to the system (and based on how low voter turnout is discussed on local news media, it seems that message has been delivered), and now the democratic process can continue. Is my input worth nothing if I have something to say? Is only %50 of the population allowed to express distaste with their government? Doesn't sound like the point of a free vote to me.

The freedom to vote is very important, but any time you have a freedom, you also have the freedom to abstain. Freedom of religion means the freedom from it; freedom of expression means the freedom not to express; freedom of association means you don't have to associate with anybody if you don't wish to; the freedom to wave a flag is also the freedom to burn it in protest.

Now, like I said, voting is a great idea, and more often than not I will vote, because I typically have some of my ideas represented fairly well. But I think it's okay to be on the fence. Why not? What if you really like two leading parties and just have trouble choosing? What if you really identify with a certain party but there's no candidate in your riding? There's plenty of variables that make voting a difficult thing to do. There's other ways to engage in the democratic process if you don't fit under the umbrella of a party platform. You can champion specific causes, you can run for office yourself, and yes, you can complain. Complain about the choices in candidates and how you don't like the shape of the system -- nothing wrong with that at all. Voting for a party you didn't identify with, for whatever reason, shouldn't be an automatic license to bitch, and not voting shouldn't be an automatic conviction to shut up and stay out of politics.

If I say any more I'll probably go around in circles. Suffice to say that I think %100 of all citizens deserve their right to voice their criticisms about government at any time, no matter how they voted, if at all. And to quote Christopher Hitchens, "anyone who doesn't agree can take a number, get on line, and kiss my ass." How I wish I had an English accent.

Baggage Claims

I recently submitted a reply to the National Post's "Do you believe in a god?" question (LINK)

My reply is somewhere near the bottom in the online extras. After reading everyone else's replies, and a few of the comments (I wouldn't want to read too many of those, as they are usually a waste of time), I noticed a common theme. When people of faith talk about atheism, it usually a straw man argument. People have an assumption of what an atheist believes (whether it's accurate or not) and then they attack their own assumption.

Now, it seems to me that if you disagree with someone's position, then it's a damn good idea to understand that position as accurately as possible. Here are a few examples from the link above:

 The photo of the bus ad “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” (ECREE) should include atheism on its list.
ECREE is a nice slogan and rhetorical device (as well as an intended conversation stopper).  It is also mere assertion.  On that level it is no better or worse than any religiously based assertion.  But the atheist  has his own problem with regard to extraordinary claims.  First, regarding
the universe, he must claim that the universe came into being from nothing and by
nothing, which would violate a basic metaphysical principle that something
cannot come from nothing.

First of all, atheism has nothing to do with the origin of the universe. Atheism is simply a statement of non belief. Many atheists do hold that the universe came into being from nothing, that's true.  However, assigning it as a required belief of atheists and attacking it as a positive claim is not a valid argument. The only thing that all atheists agree on is that we don't believe a god exists. That's all! And it can be for a good reason or a bad reason, but the reasons we employ are separate from that. I don't believe in a god largely because the assumption would not be scientific. That makes me a scientific skeptic and an atheist, but those are not interchangeable terms. ECREE also implies no assertion, as it's a claim in direct contradiction to assertion, but I digress.

Those who insist on intellectual proof that God exists have a comically high regard for themselves. They wouldn’t dream of trying to explain to their cat how the kitchen toaster works, but expect the human brain to understand how the cosmos was created.

 Atheists do not insist on intellectual proof that god exists. We simply don't believe the claim that one does. This post assumes that us arrogant atheists think we have the capacity to know everything, and that's simply untrue. Sure, many people are arrogant pricks, but the arrogant prick philosophy is not necessarily a part of atheism.

I’m with G.K. Chesterton: “If there were no God, there would be no atheists.”

 This one's always fun. In fact, we can just replace the words and the term "atheists" with its definition and see just how ridiculous this statement is:

• If there were no God, there would be no people that don't believe in God.
• If there were no unicorns, there would be no people that don't believe in unicorns
• If the Earth were not flat, there would be no people that don't believe the Earth is flat

That's enough of that. Next!

 If there was no belief in religion in our lives, we won’t have chance to think about sins and deeds. When we believe in God, it is a way to feel how we meet our goals. In Islam we believe that God is our Creator. The reason why I believe in higher power because there is a reason why we live. When wrong things happen, we weep about our failure. We should remember that happens is for a reason.

 This assumes that atheists, because we have no religion, never consider their moral acts and cannot feel satisfied with our accomplishments. In short, that there is no meaning in our lives. This is probably one of the most damaging misconceptions about atheists. It ought to go without saying that being an atheist has nothing to do with morality (it's simply a statement of non belief in a deity), but to say we hold no morals would be a gross misunderstanding. It's a heavy piece of baggage to carry around as an atheist, because it's often quite hard to explain to others that we can have morality without authority. I'd elaborate, but I'll save that for another post.

I believe in God for two reasons. First, no monkey pounding away at a typewriter would ever turn out a literate text. Thinking that the universe created itself is like thinking Shakespeare’s works could be created by that monkey. Second, the one factor common to all successful societies, and which all unsuccessful societies lack, is a brush with Christianity.

 Atheism has nothing to do with evolution or the creation of the universe. Got that? With regards to the claim itself of monkeys and typewriters, that's not how evolution works at all. This commenter is a perfect illustration of a straw man argument. Disagreeing with someone's position without knowing the position's details is bold faced ignorance. As for his second statement, he's factually wrong, but in the instances where he is right, the only reason why the societies were unsuccessful was because they were wiped off the face of the earth by Christian crusaders. I guess that's one way to have a successful society: conquest!

I believe in God. It is a conscious decision, an act of faith. Why would I choose to live my life ignoring God’s grace and love? Being an agnostic might seem the most rational choice, but why choose angst or indecision? I look at the beauty and complexity of all living creatures and think it would take enormous faith in one’s self to say: God does not exist.

 No self respecting atheist I've ever known has stated certainty when it comes to god's existence, nor did they pair their non belief with angst and indecision. The claim that you need faith to say god does not exist, is a true one. You do need faith for that. But it's not atheism. And what atheists have to say about the god claim is exactly the opposite of faith.

I feel like I'm beating a dead horse here. Everyone seems to agree that atheists are wrong because of the positions they don't hold. The best I can do is be open about this stuff. Perhaps once believers get over the fact that they just might have something in common with their heathen peers, some progress can be made in our understanding of one another, and maybe just maybe, the world could be a tiny bit better of a place.

Scientific Method : A Reply

I received an interesting reply to a comment I made on the next to the last blog post, and I thought I'd post my reply here.

{Originally posted by Anonymous}
The problem I have with this argument is that you place "science" on a pillar higher than a persons experience. The problem is that science as far as I understand is just people making observations. Maybe I'm wrong but it seems that if I were to call myself a scientist my documented opinion would be respected more.

I think your definition of what science is and does may be part of the problem.

Science is not just people making observations, although that is the first part of it. An observation is made about some phenomenon, and a hypothesis is generated. An example of such a hypothesis would be "acupuncture is effective in relieving pain."

Once generated, an experiment can be designed in order to test it. The testing is the largest part of what science does, and without it we could gather no relevant information. An example of such testing would be, using the earlier example, testing the effects of acupuncture in comparison with the effects of conventional medicine and the effects of no treatment at all. Using placebo controls (sham acupuncture) and a double blind procedure (both the subjects and the experimenters are made unaware of the details of a study in order to avoid bias), once could make a reasonable conclusion based on the results.

After this study is published, another step must be taken, and that's peer review & replication. Not every scientific study is a good one, and as many people have pointed out for different reasons, "Science" is not always right. Studies get published, and in order to validate the results of those studies, they must be done again by a third party using the same testing parameters. If the results are similar, we can be reasonably certain that the results are true. This step of science is happening all the time, and new technologies and theories are being developed all the time based on the results of such studies.

There's a lot more detail to the process of science than I've layed out here, and I may have missed some important things, but this is just to show that the image of the scientist in his white lab coat giving out his opinion from an ivory tower and expecting that opinion to be taken without question is not a valid image of what science is.

As far as personal experience goes, it's a very simple process. I experience something, then interpret what it is based on the available information that I'm familiar with. Now, I could be wrong, but since it's just a personal experience, there's really no system in place to test whether or not my experience was real. I misinterpret reality ALL the time, and I'll bet you do too. The other day I thought I saw something out the corner of my eye, and I turned my head and it was gone. A small hallucination, but a real one. When I was a kid I could have sworn I heard sleigh bells on Christmas Eve, but it was just wishful thinking.

When our brains lie to us, we often have to rely on other people's experience and expertise in order to guide ourselves though our misconceptions. And really, that's all it is to trust the consensus of science.

Homofemivegenvironazis

I've been reading a lot about feminism recently from multiple sources. For a long time, I did not like the feminist movement, or any other movement that represented one demographic over another (Gay rights, feminism, environmentalism, political activism of all sorts, Occupy, vegetarianism and its derivatives, etc.) In short, I suppose I didn't like activism in general.

The first step in understanding the most rational parts of these movements, for me, came from (of course) the atheist visibility movement. For a long time, I used to feel kind of rejected because of my position on religion, and I never explored why until later in life. I kind of felt selfish because I knew how lucky I was to be a relatively well off person in a good society, and how it could very easily have been much worse for me. I didn't realize that yes, atheists are indeed persecuted by the majority in most places, and that it is cause for alarm. Getting involved in the movement of helping atheists to be more accepted in society was a big step because it made me aware not only of how legitimate my own struggle was, but how much more legitimate other people's struggles were.

After going through my experience, and after having met several other people who were going through different struggles, it made me realize what privileges I had that I took for granted (I am a heterosexual white male from a middle class household with two living parents with the opportunity to pursue my dreams) and made me appreciate them. The struggles other people had made a lot more sense, and I can now understand why things are taken to extremes.

Here's an example: I eat meat. I love it. And I used to LOVE to tease vegetarians. I liked the idea of ordering veal in their presence just to piss them off. Why? The perception: Vegetarians/Vegans are a bunch of self righteous pricks that are all high on themselves and want to dictate the morality of other people in order to claim moral superiority. What have I realized?

THIS IS NOT TRUE!!!

Of course there are some vegetarians and vegans who are really in your face about how much they hate that you eat meat, but to focus on their intensity does not necessarily devalue their central moral question: Is it right to eat meat? Do you know the answer to this question? I really, really don't.

I suspect that there are a lot of people that disagree with feminism because of these same kinds of arguments. The perception: Feminists are a bunch of anti-male self righteous cunts that are all high on themselves and want to dictate the morality of men in order to claim moral superiority. Aaaaand...

THIS IS NOT TRUE!!!

Feminists, in my experience, have been the best people I can imagine. Generally and specifically speaking, the feminists I have known respect equal rights, honesty, compassion and reason. Without fail, anyone I know that has fought for the cause of feminism has been in it for all the good reasons. I've observed one comedian who asserts female superiority over men (Susie Essman) that I don't particularly like, but comedy gets a few passes when it comes to these sorts of things.

I realized fairly recently, given all the exposure that I've had to feminism, that my attitude towards vegetarians was not that different than my attitude towards feminists. I was arguing against a straw man the whole time. I realized that I dislike the idea of women hating on men, I dislike the idea of vegetarians hating meat-eaters, I dislike the idea of liberals hating conservatives, and I dislike the idea of atheists hating theists, and vice versa on all of that.

What I really want is for ideas to be discussed. Open minded ideas that embrace the love that all human beings that care have for each other. Perhaps that's too utopian for reality to deal with, but it's absolutely my utopia.

Problems with Analogies

Whenever I get into a discussion or argument about the existence of god, I don't usually like to bother with a whole lot of analogies. I think, more than anything else, it misses the big picture about what religion means to people.

One of the main problems theists have with atheists is that many theists believe that they have a personal relationship with their god, and use their holy texts to fulfill a philosophical and spiritual meaning in their lives. It takes a lot to help someone realize that there is another way we can assign meaning in our lives, and one thing that doesn't help is to make religious beliefs sound personally cheap.

For example, Richard Dawkins, whom I generally like, likes to make the analogy that belief in a god is fundamentally no different than believing in unicorns or fairies, as we have equal evidence for all of these things (which is to say no evidence at all). While Professor Dawkins' argument is fairly sound, what does this argument to someone who filters the meaning in their lives through their religion? Well, it pisses them off, that's what! A good analogy doesn't necessarily have to be effective in order to be true, but it does have to be true to be effective. At least Richard got half of it right. Atheists are not the only ones who use analogies to try and stump the competition and ridicule the opposition, but the ones I respect tend to at least be careful about the logic.

The thing I don't like about these analogies is not that they serve to ridicule the opposition, as I think ridicule is an effective weapon against ridiculous beliefs. No, the thing I don't like about them is that it places the believer in a position of ridicule next to the atheist position, which is placed in a position of sensibility. It's a "Ha ha I'm better than you" argument, which never works.

 I don't think ridicule works in analogy. It can certainly work as a direct approach: Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...(taken from reddit as the first google response to the search term "zombie jew") 

Humour and ridicule can sometimes address legitimate criticisms of a belief without having to compare it to what's being argued against. I know that when I came to the realization that I was an atheist, I had to convince myself more than anyone had to convince me. I think it takes a certain type of person to be able to respond positively to an analogy that ridicules them, a certain kind of open-mindedness. Being that many believers that will have the conversation are indeed closed minded, it may be better to approach that situation from a different angle.

Routine

I'm attempting to reevaluate how I construct my plans.

Before, I would use vague goals with essentially no consequences, so you can see how that might not work so well. It's an admittedly lazy and stupid way to approach life, and it wastes a lot of time. I would often fall back into simple routines, ones that guaranteed a consistently pleasurable, if a bit boring existence. While this routine has bogged me down in many negative ways, I think it's important for me to recognize my reliance on them, and turn routines into something good.

Rather than do something complicated like schedule every minute of my life, I'm going to try and build on what I've already established. Since routines are how I tend to construct my life whether I realize them or not, I'm going to categorize them into good routines (waking up on time, brushing teeth, having breakfast) and bad routines (wasting time on facebook, video games and tv before accomplishing anything important).

This approach, to many, probably looks like the kind of approach that will lead one to be a workaholic, but for me, having lapsed into a social and professional stagnation requires that I focus my attention away from my own greedy habits and be more conscious of what I'll regret in the future if I don't take action today.

How I determine a good routine and a bad routine is dependent on not just the results, but how worthy the journey through each task is. For example, playing video games provides a pleasurable journey, but offers no measurable real world achievements, and buying a house offers a great achievement, but comes at a price too great to consider. This kind of thinking ought to be pretty much obvious, but it amazes me how often it eludes people, including myself. Bad decisions are made every day by those that ought to know better, and sometimes it helps just to write down what makes sense, reminding us of just how illogical we can be.

Prioritizing my goals like this will hopefully give me better insight into the things I really would like to accomplish. Life has gotten too simple and too easy -- time to mix things up a bit, but keeping everything in the structure of routines will hopefully make the change seem less radical than it is.

A Question for my Theist Friends

A common thing I see in my daily news feed is something like this:

"[insert good things about one's day or life here]. God is good!"

What -- in as much detail as possible -- do you mean?

Viral Semantics

Recently, my daily social media feed has been cluttered with reposts of a viral video of Jefferson Bethke's entitled "Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus: (VIDEO HERE)

The sentiments expressed in this poem seem to be common among the modern day non denominational Christian, mainly that we should use Jesus' message as inspiration to do good and reject the nasty extremism of religious group-think. While this is generally a message I like to hear from the faithful (at least in contrast with the extremists), religion being replaced with Jesus doesn't change the fact that a religion is indeed still being practiced.


Before I'm accused of completely missing the point of the video, let's pull back and examine each part of this video.

What if I told you Jesus came to abolish religion.
What if I told you voting republican really wasn’t his mission.
What if I told you republican doesn’t automatically mean Christian.
And just because you call some people blind.
Doesn’t automatically give you vision.

Right off the bat, the first sentence doesn't seem accurate. Did he not come to build a church? Did he not instruct his disciples to follow him? Most of Jesus' instructions to his followers seem right in line with the very definition of religion. If defining the word "religion" is the problem, I'd like to hear some clarity on the matter. In spite of the semantics, it seems clear from the bible and the legacy of Christianity that if Jesus did come to abolish religion, he not only failed miserably, but did not demonstrate any desire to remove the faithful life from the people of his time. Of course, this is all assuming he existed at all. The rest of that stanza seems fine, if a bit obvious.

I mean if religion is so great, why has it started so many wars.
Why does it build huge churches, but fails to feed the poor.
Tells single moms God doesn’t love them if they’ve ever had a divorce.
But in the old testament God actually calls religious people whores.
Religion might preach grace, but another thing they practice.
Tend to ridicule God’s people, they did it to John The Baptist.

 He's right about one thing, the Old Testament sure didn't contain much love the for the flock. In any case, using parts of the bible to dispute other parts of the bible seems to be a bit of a self contradicting exercise, as is most of the sentiment in this video.

They can’t fix their problems, and so they just mask it.
Not realizing religions like spraying perfume on a casket.
See the problem with religion, is it never gets to the core.
It’s just behavior modification, like a long list of chores.
Like lets dress up the outside make look nice and neat.
But it’s funny that’s what they use to do to mummies.
While the corps rots underneath.

Not much to argue with here. Still waiting on exactly where the difference lies in Jesus the Religion vs. Jesus the Non-Religion.

Now I ain’t judgin.

I’m just saying quit putting on a fake look, Cause there’s a problem.
If people only know you’re a Christian by your Facebook.
I mean in every other aspect of life, you know that logic’s unworthy.
It’s like saying you play for the Lakers just because you bought a jersey.
You see this was me too, but no one seemed to be on to me.
Acting like a church kid, while addicted to pornography.
See on Sunday I’d go to church, but Saturday getting faded.
Acting if I was simply created just to have sex and get wasted.
See I spent my whole life building this facade of neatness.
But now that I know Jesus, I boast in my weakness.

 Here we come to our first problem. In this Stanza, Bethke seems to be painting "religion" with a brush of hypocrisy, and using Jesus as an influence for moral consistency. He seems to imply that religion itself is simply a routine, and that living life through Christ is a much better way. With this description, I would probably say that he's more religious than the ones just going through the motions, and the argument is once again going back to confusing semantics. Furthermore, boasting in weakness is probably not a very good thing to do, in my opinion. We should be acknowledging our weaknesses, and striving to improve them. Perhaps I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that's what he meant.

Because if grace is water, then the church should be an ocean.
It’s not a museum for good people, it’s a hospital for the broken.
Which means I don’t have to hide my failure, I don’t have to hide my sin.
Because it doesn’t depend on me it depends on him.
See because when I was God’s enemy and certainly not a fan.
He looked down and said I want, that, man.
Which is why Jesus hated religion, and for it he called them fools.
Don’t you see so much better than just following some rules.
Now let me clarify, I love the church, I love the bible, and yes I believe in sin.
But if Jesus came to your church would they actually let him in.
See remember he was called a glutton, and a drunkard by religious men.
But the son of God never supports self righteousness not now, not then.

This part of the poem is loaded with all the things I dislike about Christianity in the moderate sense, at least personally. Since when do your sins and your failures not depend on you? Vicarious redemption through human sacrifice is one of the most immoral lessons in the bible, as it poses that you can be stripped of your responsibility. He goes on to say that following Jesus is better than following some rules, and again, I wonder what the difference is.

From wikipedia: Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values.

Seems like it all fits so far.

Now back to the point, one thing is vital to mention.
How Jesus and religion are on opposite spectrum’s.
See one’s the work of God, but one’s a man made invention.
See one is the cure, but the other’s the infection.
See because religion says do, Jesus says done.
Religion says slave, Jesus says son.
Religion puts you in bondage, while Jesus sets you free.
Religion makes you blind, but Jesus makes you see.

Okay, now we're getting somewhere besides semantics... turns out he's just wrong. One's the work of god, and one's a man made invention, eh? Turns out they're both man made inventions. Most of the scholarly research suggests that Jesus, as he's most often described, was merely a legend. Bart Ehrman is one of the best New Testament scholars out there, and I'd suggest looking into some of his work if it peaks your curiosity, but even without corroborating sources, the gospels alone make it quite clear that his story is dubious. The amount of contradiction in the gospels about when and where Jesus was born, how he interacted with the people, when he died, and whether he was born of a virgin should be enough for anyone to question whether or not one or any of the accounts is true.

On top of that, considering oneself free by replacing one ideology with another seems faulty to me -- freedom is breaking away from ideology, and interpreting reality as it presents itself.

And that’s why religion and Jesus are two different clans.
Religion is man searching for God, Christianity is God searching for man.
Which is why salvation is freely mine, and forgiveness is my own.
Not based on my merits but Jesus’s obedience alone.
Because he took the crown of thorns, and the blood dripped down his face.
He took what we all deserved, I guess that’s why you call it grace.
And while being murdered he yelled. “Father forgive them they know not what they do.”
Because when he was dangling on that cross, he was thinking of you.
And he absorbed all of your sin, and buried it in the tomb.
Which is why I’m kneeling at the cross, saying come on there’s room.
So for religion, no I hate it, in fact I literally resent it.
Because when Jesus said it is finished, I believe he meant it.

Bethke neglects to mention Hell in all of this, and it seems pretty integral to the idea of "salvation." All in all, that doesn't sound so free to me, especially if you believe the stories.

The idea of a god that duplicates himself and sacrifices himself in order to solve a problem that he himself created is not only ridiculous, but immoral at the face of it. Even if you buy the premise that this is actually a sacrifice (since Jesus did not actually die, one could argue that no sacrifice was made at all), the fact that the torture and murder of a Palestinian Jew  could somehow save human beings from themselves is a fantastical claim without any evidence to support it -- religion in a nutshell.

Overall, the sentiments expressed in the video, in spite of my criticisms, seem to be mostly positive. When an immoral idea is expressed, it's clearly framed in the kind of language that makes it seem humble, honest and good, and that is the danger of religion. It's the very thing he criticizes in the first half of his poem.

Jefferson has a lot of good ideas and criticisms, and while I can't agree with most of what he says, I still kind of like that this is the video being spread around by the faithful. Just because I agree with his tone, however, does not mean I can agree with his religion. Or should I use a different word? I guess it doesn't matter, it would mean the same thing.

So I'm Reading the Bible

I've been posting Facebook statuses lately with brief comments on the bible, which I've now begun to read from front to back.

While I try not to judge any book by its first few chapters, I'd like to at least say that I'm not impressed so far. I've read from Genesis to Joshua, and it's quite astounding how much of it has already confirmed what I had learned indirectly: this book is quite fucked up, and its moral instructions are thus far much worse than I thought they would be.

Anyway, since I'm only a few books into the Old Testament, I will respectfully reserve judgment until the end. I'll see for myself how many of those Old Testament laws apply to the New Testament as well.

Why Skeptics in the Pub is not "Church for Atheists"

I know that there's at least a few of my friends that feel this way -- that my efforts in skepticism are basically my replacement for religion.

Here's what happens at Skeptics in the Pub: I go to the pub and hang out with like minded people, drink a few beers and talk about science, politics, social issues, and basically shoot the shit with people that I would like to become closer to. This is not much different than any social gathering, and admittedly it's not unlike what many believers do in their Sunday church gatherings. But there is one big difference.

That big difference is that there is no doctrine, and no truths are taken for granted. Churches usually reinforce preheld beliefs through scriptures and sermons, and in many modern churches, through music and pop culture elements. When we meet as skeptics, we get together and talk, offer our opinions and open our minds to new ideas because new ideas tend to always get exposed.

Today, I chatted with my peers about sexism and gender roles, dealing with death and loss, the heroes in our lives, the doomsday predictions of the year, and the difference between how we behave online versus in person, among other things. Each of these issues was approached with opinions going in, but we all seemed to gain some insight into contrary points of view by hashing things out, playing devil's advocate, and genuinely disagreeing about certain issues until mutual understanding could bring us to a form of consensus. Doesn't sound much like doctrine, closed-mindedness and faith to me.

The main criticisms and comments about my skeptical attitude are "It takes just as much faith to be an atheist" and "Skepticism is just like his religion" (as if to say, "my views as a spiritual person are just as valid as your views as a skeptic just because we have similar ways of thinking), but I think this is intellectually dishonest, and ignores the disagreements we have. For example: if someone believes that 9/11 was a conspiracy enacted by the US government, and I do not, we disagree completely. Our ways of thinking, even if they were similar (which they are not) do not excuse the fact that we are at odds on this issue. Agreeing to disagree may sound like the most diplomatic and respectful solution to our problems, but it gets us nowhere and advances nothing.

Skeptics in the pub is very casual, and represents the more communal aspect of what many churches may do, but there really is nothing about it that reinforces my preheld beliefs about the way things work, nor does it make me any stronger in my conviction that the nonsense advertised by pseudo-scientists and theologians is bullshit; the conversations we have always challenge my assumptions and remind me of how humble I really ought to be. I always find myself inspired that I should question things more.

When was the last time, in your church, that you were told not to just accept the preacher's content at face value? When was the last time anyone said to you, "you know that Jesus thing? You ought to question whether or not it's really true." Chances are, never. If so, I'm very impressed with your church, and I'd love to invite the priest out to the pub some day for a glass of Christ's blood to mull over the biggest issues of our day. Unfortunately, the clergy want nothing to do with that discussion, and would rather preach to the flock that which has already been proven bunk by the best of the skeptical community, ignoring we exist at all.

There's nothing I'd love more than to have a panel discussion with people that disagree with me right there at the pub. Think I'm closed minded? Arrogant? Unable to listen to the other side? Try me.

Families, holidays, etc.

Ah, a break. How wonderful it is that Christmas and the new year come one after the other so I get an extra long break from the hustle and bustle of life (hehehe, hustle and bustle... inside joke)

Along with the standard time off that comes with Christmas (unless you work retail, that is), I also have taken some time to count my blessings and reflect on how the year's gone. Having not posted in a while due to laziness, I thought I'd type out what's been on my mind and see where my stream of consciousness takes me.

Starting things off with something sort of depressing, the skeptical community lost Christopher Hitchens this year, who is arguably the greatest English speaking orator and journalist of our generation.  For those not familiar with Hitch, I'd suggest looking up the word "Hitchslap" on youtube for his more quotable moments in debates and speeches. He was a controversial figure, and there's much to be said about his approach to the issues he participated in, but as for me, I always admired how Hitchens was unique in that any time he wanted to make a point, he made clearly, effectively, and powerfully. His style of argument always used awesome examples, good humour in the proper places, and a command of the English language that was unrivaled by his opponents.

I can't really say much about Hitch that hasn't already been said, so I'll move on. What else is on my mind? Christmas. Fuck. Everyone everywhere this year has been bitching about people who don't say "Merry Christmas." I do say Merry Christmas, because I love the Christmas traditions that I grew up with -- Christmas Carols, the tree, Santa, candles, snow, nativity scenes, decorations, presents, consumerism -- it's all a part of me this time of year and I've always had good memories of it. Christmas is the name of the holiday in this culture, and as an atheist I have no reason to avoid the word. As long as it's a national holiday, it is in effect a secular holiday. But on to what bothers me -- people are pissed off that "Happy Holidays" is being used, and that's stupid as shit. As far as I've been able to tell, advertising seems to want to use Happy Holidays as often as possible in an effort to try and sell shit to as many different cultures as possible, which makes sense, because you want to sell as much stuff as you can to as many people as you can include. They DON'T use the phrase "Happy Holidays" to deliberately snuff out religion, yet Christian pundits all over the newswire have been going apeshit about a "WAR ON CHRISTMAS!!" for the last several years. For the record, I've never met an atheist who gets angry at the word Christmas. And now, all of it has been flipped around, and if you say anything OTHER than "Merry Christmas," the very same thing these Christians are afraid of will happen to you! I dare you---next year, try saying Happy Holidays to everyone you meet next year, and see how many of them reply to you with "MERRY CHRISTMAS!!" as if to punch you in the face with the words, as they express how pissed they are that you're rejecting their favourite holiday myth. I'd love to see some data on that.

Now, on to something else. Another recurring theme that comes about this time of year is family. I have a wonderful family, and while I take them for granted as much as any other person in a position of privilege, I do try my best to love them as much as they deserve and be the best person I can be for their sake. But I'm one of the lucky ones. The older I get and the more people I meet, the more I realize that almost every other person I've ever met has a less than ideal family, and that can be really hard this time of year. On top of all that hardship, this year has marked some significant family events for me and my fiance. As implied by that sentence, we recently got engaged; prior to that, we had to move her out of her evil stepmom's house, effectively straining any relationship she can have with her dad; we moved in together; her sister had twins and everything seems like it's really dramatic, and no one wants to make it easier. When it comes to families, we tend to take it for granted that blood is thicker than water, and we end up taking advantage of our kin, and we find it easier to ignore when we hurt each other because we know we'll be forgiven. It's a grim reality that I try to always avoid, but as I grow more familiar with the new family that's coming into my life, I need to be even more aware of it, and I'd implore anyone reading to try and do the same whilst also not becoming the victim.

As new years day comes to a close, and resolutions get sort of made and broken, I think it's valuable to at least have a personal assessment of how things are and how things could improve for yourself and others. Thinking skeptically about this kind of thing is difficult, because it's not so easy to apply the scientific method to the emotions associated with death, families, rituals and personal reflection. Yet, it is the best method we have; either our methods for dealing with these situations work or they don't, to varying degrees. The best we can do is make an educated guess, design an experiment, see whether or not our approach works, and modify our methodology to improve our results on the next trial. Thinking about things that way always seems to help me because when things go wrong the first time, they usually improve the next time. A lot of people never seem to learn their lesson.