What do you say at an atheist's funeral?

First, don't be alarmed.  This isn't about me.  I've got plans to spend a few more decades on this planet.  Longer, if possible!

But I recently ran into a conversation where a very nice Christian pastor had been asked to speak at an atheist's memorial.  Much of this person's family was religious, but the deceased and a few family members were decidedly atheist.  The pastor was at a loss of what to say that wouldn't offend someone.

I sympathize with the pastor - if he is truly empathetic then he is in a difficult position.  The answer is much easier to someone who lacks sympathy and rests on the black & white worldview of a devout evangelical.  That person would just declare the atheist to be lost from God, and take the opportunity to evangelize to the rest of the people at the memorial.

This pastor is one of the good guys.  He wanted something meaningful to say about an atheist.

An atheist usually doesn't believe in an afterlife - but there is still the very human urge toward some sort of permanence. There is still the human hope that we matter.

I think it is appropriate to celebrate our good fortune of being alive.

Richard Dawkins, in his book, "Unweaving the Rainbow", speaks of this good fortune:

“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?”

I agree that this sentiment is true, but I also think it lacks feeling.  It lacks that spiritual poetry that Carl Sagan was so good at creating.  I also think that it lacks our own expression of how we will miss others.

Here is how I would say it.

We are here today to remember and celebrate the life of someone we love.  Think of (deceased's name) life as a rock thrown into a pond.  Think of the ripples and waves from that impact, and how they influence others.

Every life is like this.  Every splash we make in the pond we all share creates ripples that reach out and touch other people.  Each person touched by someone else's waves are influenced as their lives in turn create their own swells.  It is an ever-expanding series of concentric waves that touch us all.

Each of us is influenced by these echos of the waves of past living people. We are touched by the crests and furrows of the actions of people we have never known, and will never know.  We are also caught up in the breakers from those who have made a huge splash in their lives.

In this way, one life can impact many.

Our words and actions also have permanence.  What is done can never be undone. This is a great benefit of our lives!

If you speak the truth, give aid to a stranger, help a friend, hug a child, kiss your lover - these words and actions happen in a point in time.  And when they happen, they can not ever un-happen.

When the Earth comes to an end, when the Sun finally dies, when the entire Universe ends - that simple kiss will still have happened. It will never un-happen. That small moment in time is eternally fixed at that point.

Your friend, partner, child or parent may die. You may age, and age or disease may rob you of your memories. It doesn't matter. That moment you had with them won't un-happen.

How shall we celebrate the life of the one we loved?

We do this by remembering those permanent points in time that we shared with them.  Those cherished moments that happened, that can never be undone.

We celebrate their lives by telling the stories of the one we loved.  Tell the funny stories, the sad stories, the meaningful stories.  Tell them all!

In sharing these stories, we are emphasizing those points in time in their lives. We are amplifying the ripples of their lives into a swelling wave, into a fun splash that is echoed among us.  The influence of our loved one expands even further through our stories.

And for us who remain behind, what should we take from this? I'll tell you.

What we do matters, because it matters right now!

We should live with joyful exuberance, we should act out of compassion and sympathy and love.  We should seek happiness for ourselves, and for others, because it matters.  And yes, we can strive to make a huge impact in this little pond we all share, but it is better to be joyful - to joyfully throw our rocks into the pond!

Hold close those who are dear to you.  Do it for yourselves.  Do it in memory of the one we loved and lost.  Do it to make that perfect moment that will never be undone!

The swiftboating of same-sex marriage

I've been seeing quite a few "Yes on 8" campaign signs in the lawns around my neighborhood. The signs are pretty slick, and feature the protectmarriage.com logo.

It's a simple logo that represents a married family.

It also represents millions of dollars donated from people and groups outside of California. Homophobic religious groups from across the nation see California as a battleground for biblical values. They want to condemn same-sex marriage as being unholy, but if they do, they'll be seen as bigots and discounted. They'll lose if they state their position clearly.

The list of endorsers looks like a "who's who" of uptight puritanical "I know what's best for you" Christian organizations. (Interesting - many of them are Mormon.)

The logo also represents the lies and misleading half-truths that are being told in the "Yes on 8" commercials. The commercial says that if Proposition 8 fails:


1. Gay marriage will be taught in school.

What does that mean? It means that religious schools that are accredited by the state must teach to state mandated guidelines. So, if same-sex marriage is legal, then it will probably come up in a discussion of marriage law in a student's government classes.

What will also come up in those same classroom discussions is that the anti-miscegenation laws and segregation laws were overturned by the Supreme Court. If the people who support Protectmarriage.com were active in 1953, they'd be just as "concerned" that your child might be forced to be taught in the same classroom with some "colored folk".

I would suggest that if your child is going to a school that doesn't teach the reality of what is happening in the world, then perhaps your child will be unprepared to deal with reality.


2. People can be sued for their personal beliefs.

People can sue people for anything. But I question whether it is worth the trouble. A suit over "belief" will get thrown out. It is how you act on your belief that matters. A guy might believe that it is okay to somehow oppress his neighbor, but unless he acts upon that belief, he isn't guilty and any suit against him would be frivolous.

If you believe that homosexuals "deserve to die" (Rom 1:26-32), well - it's evil, but it is your opinion. But if you use your beliefs to incite murder then you should be sued. (You should be jailed!)

So what you believe is your privilege. How you act is society's concern.


3. Churches will could lose tax-exempt status.

I'll tell you now that if you are politicking from the pulpit, then you are breaking the law. Some preachers don't see the problem with threatening their congregation with damnation for not voting as directed. This is wrong, and it is illegal. If you don't like it you have two choices. Either stop with the politics, or work to change the law.

But here's some good news for you. If you want to preach that same sex marriage is wrong, that it is against the word of God in the Bible - you are welcome to do so! If you want to forbid your congregation from going to a same sex marriage, or withhold communion from people who attended a same sex marriage that is your right to do so.

And any church that refuses to marry a same-sex couple gets a free pass! If your church doesn't want to participate in a LGBT marriage, then no one can force you to do so.

And that's fine too. There are plenty of other churches that WILL marry same sex couples. Maybe your sister church is willing to perform a LGBT marriage. Maybe you're IN a church that is accepting. Maybe this is what is really bugging you. Maybe it is time for you to change to a different congregation. I hear that Stormfront is anti-LGBT and is looking for new members.

Here is the "Vote No on Prop 8" commercial that counters these lies.

A day with James Randi

A long time ago I watched Johnny Carson's guest "The Amazing" James Randi on the Tonight Show, as Randi exposed Peter Popoff and conducted "psychic surgery" on a willing Tonight Show audience member.

Mr. Randi was so entertaining that I immediately liked him. But that was just the impression I got of him from television. I wondered if he was different in real life.

Today, I had the chance to put that to the test, in a style that I hope Randi would approve. I got to meet him, share breakfast, talk with him and listen to his wisdom. And I have to say that I was right, Mr. Randi IS different in real life than on television. On television, Randi is merely an entertaining and interesting person who comes across as a nice guy too.

In real life, Randi is all of that, cubed and squared again!

First, I'm impressed with how quick he is mentally. It's hard to keep up with him. I was able to contribute a little from my specialty in Engineering (Remember Randi, don't cut the RED or the BLACK wires! You need them for your iPhone!)

And I think it might be difficult to keep up with Randi even physically. I didn't have much opportunity to test that theory, but the sense I got was that he was full of boundless energy, like the energizer bunny.

I did get a signature on my copy of Randi's book Flim-Flam! This book came out back in 1982. I purchased this book back in 1997 when I was starting my journey in deconverting to become an Ex-Christian.

When I was growing up, I was a believer in a lot of things. Besides being a Christian, I believed in things like psychic phenomena and dowsing. This book kicked a large hole in the side of my woo-woo beliefs. And it gave a thirst to learn more.

It was books such as this that gave me my start in real rational thinking.

I've been gratified to compare things on his speech today to the things I've been doing as a skeptic. My best comparison is that I tested Randi's claim that the Counterfeit Detection Pen was pretty much useless.

Even today, two years after my original post on the detection pen, I still get several hundred hits a month on that page, and I'm in the top Google results for "DriMark Counterfeit Detection Pens". Not too bad.

And while my pages on Homeopathy are still as relevant as I first wrote them, Randi told us about some twists that might help my readers better visualize the sheer scales involved in Homeopathy, and from his information, I realized I need to make my Homeopathy page more current.

I took some time to take a short QIK video of Randi during his speech this evening, but I realized almost immediately that it was the wrong tool for the job, so I stopped. Still, you can see the video that I do have here.

All in all, it was a good day today, a day that started with, and ended with James Randi. Any day like that is a Good Day!


Still, there is a sad note that I must end on.

Peter Popoff went out of business because Randi exposed his lies. He was a liar for Jesus, and what he was doing was immoral. James Randi gave him a good drubbing on the Tonight Show, and he almost immediately went out of business. You would have thought he would have stayed out of business. But that hasn't been the case.

Peter Popoff is back, and not only is he back, but he is doing the same thing that he was doing way back then, with one exception. Now he makes MORE money at it than he did before Randi exposed him. Take a look at this:

Preaching at the other choir - why we shouldn't try to "convert"

I was reading Dan Barker's words about "How to Talk to a Fundamentalist" in the Secular Student Alliance, and there were two points that he made that I've encountered before - something that I think on often.

The first point he made is about converting fundamentalists (to Atheism I presume). In Mr. Barker's words:

... actually, we can’t “convert” anyone. We all have to come to our own conclusions. If you were raised religious, like me, you know that your de-conversion came from inside, not from an atheist evangelist.

I really want to say, "Amen!" to that. I've come to the same conclusion when I mused on "Evangelical Atheism" before. To quote myself:

I’m convinced that outright Atheistic evangelism would be worse than useless when applied [aggressively], but it was Daniel Dennett who helped me put it into words. Dennett said in “Breaking the Spell” that the strength of an insular, cohesive group comes from the price that members must pay to join or to leave, and one of those prices is insularism – the “Us versus Them” and “Our religion is under attack!” beliefs shared by all Christians to some degree.

Any sort of evangelical Atheism specifically targeted toward a church would be seen as an attack. Christians who perceived it as such would only wrap themselves tighter in their illogical beliefs, vindicated in the price they were paying as a member of their chosen group.

Mr. Barker makes the same points that I've articulated before. Preaching rationality at a true believer won't change him or her. From Mr. Barker's words:

The bible predicts that we obedient messengers of Jesus would be misunderstood and persecuted. If you called me names, that proved the bible is true! It also raised my status in His eyes, which were more important than your eyes.

It was exciting to get doors slammed in my face. It was affirming to hear ignorant college students arguing with me, trying to use the flawed and misconstrued “facts” of mere science, which are always changing, to combat the transcendent truth of the bible, which never changes.
...

[Nonbelievers should] Just be yourself, say what you think, and don’t worry if [fundamentalists] change their minds. Be relaxed about it.
...

Most of us nontheists will complain only about the harmful behavior (not ideas) of believers, because people should be judged by their actions, not their beliefs. If a religiously motivated action is causing unnecessary harm, then moral people will challenge such behavior. Otherwise, belief is a private matter. Tell them a little of your opinions, then leave it at that.

When I was a Christian, my pastor called this sort of practice, "bringing people to God by living a Christian life". By being a good, confident and compassionate human, you would attract people to you - people who wanted to emulate you. We were encouraged to speak our mind when the time was right, and we were supposed to point out immoral or harmful actions. But in using this method, according to our pastor we were supposed to draw people in by answering their questions.

I think Mr. Barker is right in this. When I speak to Christians, I never do so with the intent to convert them. I don't mind saying things that will make them mull over my words, that will plant a seed of doubt. But I fully realize that if their belief is strong, my words will fall in the dust.

BUT

I do think it is right and proper for secular and rational people to speak up in opposition to the religious when appropriate. When, for example, religious people presume to speak for all of a community, including the secular members of that community. I think it is right to speak out when religious people propose actions that are immoral according to secular ethics. I think it is right for us to insist on equal and fair treatment under the law.

And I find it extremely amusing when, in doing these things, some religious people brand us as being aggressive or militant.


The second thing that Mr. Barker speaks about is the "black or white" mindset that is so often prevalent among religious fundamentalists. He quotes the verse from Revelation 3:14, where those who are not "hot or cold" are instead "lukewarm" and will be spit out. I've heard pastors use this verse to demand that their congregation be firm in the Lord, and I believe that this sort of statement is a "thought-terminating cliché" that actually stops critical thinking in a cult-like manner.

When people think in this simplistic manner they do not admit that life, the universe and everything is full of subtle shades of gray. There is an infinite amount of uncertainty, and uncertainty thrives even in the strictest of scientific observations.

When a rational person encounters such black and white thinking it is often better to not try to correct it, but instead point out that there is another way of viewing the world. Then walk away. As Mr. Barker points out, by refusing to fight, you've already won.


One last thing I would like to point out - Dan Barker and I share something else, something that I think a lot of ex-Christians share. We've felt the "Holy Spirit". From the article:

Most of you nonbelievers don’t know what it is like to “talk with God.” But I do know, which is why I can write about this. It’s quite a powerful experience, which I can reproduce today, with all the attendant feelings of being in the presence of a superior being—but as an atheist I now know that “talking with God” is purely psychological and points to nothing outside of the brain.

I've said much the same thing before in my "Mind hacking God" blog entry. Again, I'm quoting myself:

I find it very plausible that religious experience is created in the software of our minds as it runs on the wetware of our brains. I think this way because after I became Atheist, I was able to re-achieve transcending feelings of awe, of acceptance, of being comforted, and of reverence.

I don’t think that feelings of Nirvana come from outside of us because the feelings are not created by a common cause. Fasting in a sweat lodge, singing in mass, inspired group visualization (i.e. preaching) and meditation can all bring people to achieve these feelings.

Religion isn’t the answer because these feelings can be achieved in mutually exclusive religions.

I've managed to recreate these religious feelings as an Atheist by using music while meditating. Classical music will do it for me. Oddly enough, so will Van Halen's "Jump". It's the same feeling of love, peace and acceptance that I got when I was Christian, only now I know that I’m the one making it happen.

...

What this means to me is that it is possible to be a spiritual Atheist, not in some pseudoscientific paranormal sense, but in the sense that ‘mind’, the software that runs on the brain, has the capacity to achieve a different level of awareness of itself.

Please, excuse me for quoting my own words. I don't mean to do so out of hubris. But it is gratifying to me to read that so many of the same things I've been talking about in my blog, months ago, are being said by someone I very much respect.

The difference between Secular and Christian marketing

I got an email this morning from my close and personal friend, Pastor Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church in Columbus Ohio. Pastor Parsley, if you haven't heard, has founded not only World Harvest Church (with over 5000 members) but 9 other ministries, including the Center for Moral Clarity. He also hosts the television show "Breakthrough", on the Trinity Broadcasting Network.

And apparently I'm his good friend. Really, I had no idea! But today he sent me a "personal invitation" to become one of his few "Platinum Covenant Partners".

Okay, yes - I have no illusions about my relationship with Pastor Parsley. The email I received is a very slick marketing campaign designed to get me to part with $50 of my money (or MORE, because this isn't a payment, it's a voluntary donation with a $50 minimum!)

I've mentioned Christianity before as a modern "Den of Thieves", where radio preachers on the Bott network hawk their products as faithfully as any soap commercial. And there was the amusing case of Christian book stores selling all sorts of religious kitsch, some of which is created in Chinese sweatshops. (What Would Jesus Sell?)

This campaign from Rod Parsley is pretty slick. Not only is the email well made, It has email tracking technology built into it (Smartmailer), so his organization knows that I've opened and read this. (I'll probably get future offers now too. Whee!) And since the tracking goes to smartmailer.net, it is probably created and managed by PitneyBowes as a "business solution". There is probably some targeting involved too. It isn't their fault that they emailed an Atheist, after all - I sign up at many ministries and religious-political organizations. (I wonder how many people on the CVAAS mailing list are religious moles? I don't mind, I'm just curious.)


Really, I sympathize with Pastor Parsley. He's trying to grow his organization. I've been trying to do much the same thing. I've given away "secrets" in growing our membership, and I've written on how to communicate (or not) with the local community. And in all honesty, the marketing terms "Product, Price, Place and Promotion" are things that I keep firmly in mind when advertising Secular events, like the upcoming James Randi lecture. (You DO have your tickets, right?)

And I really can't be too hard on churches who sell religious-themed products. Everything from bibles to prepackaged sermons to Christmas cards. CVAAS has been seriously investigating selling items too. If it is done right, it might be a good way to boost our operating budget - of which we have darned little! Our first "product" is a yearly membership.


I'd like to take the opportunity here to say, "Hi" to Pastor Ken, "a pastor starting a new church", who seems to be going through much of what I'm going through. In his comment he gives me some pretty useful tips in building our organization.

Ken, I really do appreciate what you are doing here with the advice. But I think there is a basic difference in our members and how we operate.

As an ex-Christian, I have some familiarity with the way that a church might be run. I've discussed tactics and strategy with my ministers before. And I think that the very basic difference in Secular and Christian methods could be summed up as the difference between house cats and squirrels.

In this parable analogy, I think that pastors use methods based upon the squirrel. To make a living as a pastor, you've got to put everything you have into it. You live, eat, breath your new church, you invest your time and money as assiduously as the squirrel hides away his winter food. In a very real way, you are providing for your own future. And if you have a family, you are providing for their future too. The congregation you build will determine if your children go to state college or to a private university. The only time you have to indulge your areas of interest outside the church is after you have worked hard on "stocking up".

Every son or daughter of a pastor that I've been friends with has spoken of how little time they get to spend with their father.

As the President of a secular organization, I have to use the methods of the house cat. I have a full time employer who takes care of my needs. I have to sit in his window and rub against his knees to ensure that I'm being taken care of, but doing so gives me a large portion of each day (and weekends and vacations) where my boss allows me to do as I like. But even though a large fraction of my day is technically "free" from work, I'm only allowed to spend a portion of that time building a secular community. There are other demands on my time. I have to take care of me and mine during this time. Clothes need washing, the pantry needs stocking, the car needs servicing. And I invest time with friends and family because they are important too.


I am aware that the analogy isn't perfect. I realize that a lot of new pastors have a "day job". But still, things are different. I do use my own money to support my secular organization, but I do so because I can afford to do so. It comes out of my money for hobbies. (Which is why I haven't bought that new table saw or band saw for my woodworking hobby!) A pastor with a day job would invest a great deal more into his new church - even going so far as to turn his own home into a church.

There are purely secular organizations which are able to afford full time officeholders. But there are far fewer, in my opinion, than churches. I think the difference may be the deep obligation that religious congregants feel toward the church. There is a long cultural tradition that encourages tithing of time and money, and this tradition comes bundled with a large sense of guilt for those who shirk what they think is their responsibility. Congregants come with a built-in "carrot and stick" that ethical pastors use sparingly to encourage participation. (I have my doubts about Pastor Parsley.)

Secular members are cat-like in that they are fiercely independent. I try my best to teach people to think critically, so I can't act surprised when they question my goals and motives at every turn. You don't "herd cats".

But I can take a lesson from someone I admire, fellow blogger "Berlzebub" who was able to raise thousands of dollars for a fellow atheist in need. What Berlzebub discovered is that although critical thinkers don't herd, they do respond to events. Like a cat responding to a laser pointer, secular people will respond to a narrowly focused, interesting, and worthwhile event.

Ken, developing a "presence" and an "identity" is good. But long term campaigns don't seem to work for freethinkers. Although it is possible for a secular organization to set a long-term goal, most members of that organization won't be interested in the day to day effort required to get there. It's not like being a "footsoldier" in "God's Army". It's more like being a member of a fanclub. To get them to participate, I need to have an event that they can focus on.


I could be completely wrong on all of this. I'm an engineer, not a business or marketing major. I've had classes in leadership in the military, but military leadership has more in common with the Church than with a secular organization. This is just me trying to get a handle on the things that I've noticed, and the differences that seem apparent to me as an ex-Christian.

I think there is much that secular groups can learn from churches on the subject of building membership. But I also think that many things won't apply because of the difference in basic cultural expectations. In some cases we will have to use different methods. And we'll need to invent some methods of our own - like the laser pointer.

"See You At The Pole" - Atheist Approved!

The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) is a Christian for-profit organization that uses litigation to oppose those who support certain rights - including abortion, same sex marriage, and sex education. They also litigate to blur the line between Church and State.

I've received a couple of self-important emails from the ADF on the subject of the annual gathering called "See You at the Pole" (SYATP). This event happens on the fourth Wednesday of September, every year. During this event students will gather at their school flagpole before the start of class in order to hold hands, pray together, and maybe read some scripture and sing a hymn. It is supposed to be a student initiated and student led gathering.

So the ADF's alert points out a very formal ADF legal memo about this event, and also references an ACLJ memo about this. The alert, and the memos, seem to imply that this student right was a hard won victory by the Christian forces of good.

Of course, they don't mention that the ACLU also approves of SYATP.

And you know what? I also approve of "See You at the Pole". Students have the right to pray, or sing, or read the Bible (silently or aloud). They can pray before tests and before their cafeteria meals. They can let their friends borrow their Bibles, or they can give them as gifts.

What the students can not do is disrupt class, or create a hostile environment for other students.

And what a school can not do is to show preference to one type of student over another. By "establishing" a preferred religion, a public school would be acting against the American Constitution, and in doing so would give a clear message that those students of one faith are "better" than students of different faiths, or without faith. Regardless of Constitutionality, this is clearly immoral.


So, I've got an offer to all of you good Christians who are cheering about this religious "Victory" in public schools:

I will happily help you pass out Bibles to any student who wants one.

I'll add a couple of caveats.

• I won't help you pass out Bibles on a public school campus or property. That is a clear breech of the Establishment Clause, and it indicates school-sanctioned favoritism toward one religion over others.


• I won't force, coerce or bribe any student to take a Bible. I realize that the Bible isn't for everyone, and urging it upon some people would be insulting.
  

So - how about it? Wouldn't this be a public relations coup? "President of Local Atheist Organization helps pass out Bibles to Schoolchildren!" Pastors, you could make this sound like a win over Satan himself during your Sunday sermon!

And yes, I'm being a bit glib here - but I'm also very serious. And I'll remind any pastor in the Fresno and Clovis area - if you preach that Atheists are trying to keep religion out of school, I'll call you on it. I'll do more than that - I'll help you make sure that any public school student has the right to his religion in school.

7 years. We Remember.

I don't mourn well with others.

I had the opportunity to visit the observance of September 11 at the California Memorial in Clovis California.  I got there as they were setting up.  I took photos.  I even started a media stream on QIK, which you can find here.

And then I left.

I just couldn't stay.  My own grief is still too strong and too private.  The crowds were too close.  There were people there who were actually happy, and some laughed with their friends as they waited for the start of the ceremonies.

I think it is a testament to human strength that we can learn to laugh in spite of pain.  I remember how difficult it was after the terror for our nation to recover it's ability to laugh.

But I don't feel like laughing this morning.  I don't feel like being strong, or proud, or patriotic.  For some reason the old pain was fresh again, and I felt like I did that day as I watched the television in horror.

I want to weep, I want to be comforted, I want the world to make sense.

How many years until this old pain fades?  How long?  I'll let you know when it fades - if it fades.

Tomorrow is soon enough to be furious at man's inhumanity toward man.  Today I'll just lick my wounds again.

Gunkanjima - Hashima Island - The Greenless Island

I think that Hashima Island is absolutely fascinating.

Hashima is a ghost-city surrounded by a seawall on an island that is a mere 437 x 153 yards in size (400 x 140 meters). It is part of the Nagasaki Prefecture, and is located a little under 10 miles away from the city of Nagasaki, in the East China Sea. The island is nic-named "Gunkanjima" which means "Battleship Island" because it looks so much like a battleship as seen from the ocean.

At one time Hashima island had a population of over 5,200 people, all of who were there to work in or support the huge undersea coal mine.

Population densities are calculated based on the number of people per square kilometer. Given that Hashima is 0.059 square kilometers in size, the resulting calculation of population density would equal 93,911 people per square kilometer. In 1959 it was the largest population density in the world, now surpassed by places like the Kotwali precinct of the Dhaka District of Dhaka, Bangladesh - which has a population density of 101,693 people per square kilometer.

Hashima was first inhabited in 1887, when the first mine shaft was dug in order to mine the coal that was initually used to heat saltwater to extract salt. The island was soon purchased by Mitsubishi, who owned it until 1974, and as far as I can tell still owns it.

Near the turn of the century Japan enjoyed its own industrial revolution together with an increase in Japanese military power which both required more coal. This required more workers on the island, and better housing.

The first reinforced concrete building constructed in Japan was built on Hashima in 1916 to provide housing and protect against typhoon damage. Cabinet Magazine has a great article on the island. From Cabinet:

This was Japan's first concrete building of any significant size. America's first large-scale concrete structure—the Ingalls Office Building, in Cincinnati—had been built only 14 years earlier.

A square, six-story structure built around a dingy inner courtyard at the southern edge of the island, the building provided cramped but private lodgings for the miners and their families. Each apartment consisted simply of a single, six-tatami-mat room (9.9 square meters) with a window, door, and small vestibule—more like a monk's cell than an apartment, but still a major improvement over previous living quarters. Bathing, cooking, and toilet facilities were communal.

This building was followed two years later by an even larger apartment complex on the sloping rock at the center of the island. Then the tallest building in Japan, the E-shaped apartment block had nine stories on the ocean side and three on the rock side.

One multi-story apartment block followed another until the tiny island bristled with more than 30 concrete buildings. Even during the 11-year period before and during World War II, when not a single concrete building went up anywhere else in Japan, the construction of apartment blocks continued on Hashima as part of national efforts to meet the tremendous wartime demand for coal.

There is a definite dark side to this island. Before the defeat of the Japanese Empire, Japan regularly forced slaves to work the coal mine on Hashima, under very dangerous conditions while forced to subsist on a starvation diet. About 1,300 died in the mine or by attempting to flee by swimming back to the mainland. After the war the island inhabitants followed strict class rules:

... the allocation of apartments reflected a rigid hierarchy of social classes. Unmarried miners and employees of subcontracting companies were interned in the old one-room apartments; married Mitsubishi workers and their families had apartments with two, six-mat rooms but shared toilets, kitchens and baths; high-ranking office personnel and teachers enjoyed the luxury of two-bedroom apartments with kitchens and flush toilets. The manager of Mitsubishi Hashima Coal Mine, meanwhile, lived in the only private, wood-constructed residence on the island—a house located symbolically at the summit of Hashima's original rock.

Indeed, Mitsubishi owned the island and everything on it, running a kind of benevolent dictatorship that guaranteed job security and doled out free housing, electricity and water but demanded that residents take turns in the cleaning and maintenance of public facilities.

I understand that there is some bad history to this island, that it is a dark place for many who lived and died there. But as you can see from the embedded movie below, it was also a home to many people who do miss it.

What attracts me to this island is the closeness, the way that the architecture could pass for Japanese Steampunk, for the feeling of a "bomb shelter at the end of the world" existence. There is a false feeling of being disconnected from the world that I find fascinating.

And the loneliness of the ghost island is also very attractive to me. I spent a lot of years in the badlands of Texas and New Mexico, so the lonly spaces and forelorne wind attract me.

There are a lot of photos of Hashima online. Saiga Yuji has some beautiful photos of the architecture. I also found a public gallery on Picasa for Hashima. You can also see the island from Google sightseeing

You can’t be good without Superman

Who do you think would win in the “Ultimate Cage Fight”? Superman or The Incredible Hulk? I mean Superman has that whole “Man of Steel” thing going on – he’s incredibly strong. I’ve seen him in comic books as he carried an entire office building through the air. (We will suspend our disbelief about structural stresses and fragmentation of the building into rubble.)

But the Hulk, he just gets stronger as he gets madder. As long as Superman keeps pissing him off, there might not be an upper limit to his strength. At that power level, if he did connect with Superman – the “Man of Steel” might need a dent-puller.

Still, Superman has brains, he has super-abilities like controlled flight, X-ray vision, heat beams from his eyes. He shouldn’t have a problem out-thinking his opponent if he has the time.

While it might be fun to wonder if this DC Comic character could win against a Marvel Comic character, it is also easy to recognize that ultimately the question doesn’t matter. Unless you actually work for Marvel or DC, the question has no impact on your life.

A real comic book aficionado might disagree. He might argue that following Superman’s catch-phrase kept him out of trouble as a youth. “Truth, Justice and the American Way” might have been just what he needed to quit the local gang and study to become a police officer or lawyer. This hypothetical person might give all credit for being a good person to Superman.

This doesn’t mean that Superman is actually responsible for a person being “good”, it merely means that the person in question found and followed a role model, a fictional role model. All credit for being a good person goes to the person in question. Superman had nothing to do with it.

This is what I think of when a devout Christian tells me that “you can’t be good without God”. I would think this person is mistaken. To me, even wondering about the existence of God is much like comparing Superman and the Hulk – ultimately it is a meaningless question and has no bearing on my life.

It is possible to use Jesus (and to a lesser extent, God) as a role model, if you stay away from the hateful parts of the Bible and perform some mental gymnastics. But if you are picking a fictional role model, I’d suggest someone a little more contemporary.

Personally, I’d pick Captain America. Superman can be an ass sometimes.

Bookstore culture wars

I didn't realize there was actually a name for this sort of thing.

I don't think anyone hasn't heard about the box of rocks disguised as an Ipod scam that hit Target last October. And I've read stories about what I would call poor practical jokes where someone put a fake item on a store shelf in the hopes of seeing someone try to purchase it.

But "Shopdropping" as it's called has become sort of a trend, enough that it's reached the state of ridiculous. I guess I missed it as it was happening, but one of my friends sent me to an article in the NY Times, from which comes this tidbit:

At Powell’s Books in Portland, Ore., religious groups have been hitting the magazines in the science section with fliers featuring Christian cartoons, while their adversaries have been moving Bibles from the religion section to the fantasy/science-fiction section.

Yes, I know what "Culture jamming" is - and in some forms I'm very sympathetic to it. I just didn't realize it had grown to a point where it has it's own jargon for the different forms.

As for fliers in books, there was a time a few years back in Fresno where every time I opened a library book describing the scam of Scientology, "dead agent" fliers from the local Scientology cult would fall out.

It's been a while since I last checked one of these books out - for all I know, this is still the case.

Trusted Pseudonyms

(Revised from an earlier post)

Mark Twain, Lewis Carroll, Richard Bachman, Dr. Seuss, George Orwell, Voltaire…

Pen names, also known as a “nom de plume” have an honored tradition in writing. An alias or pseudonymous identity allows a writer to establish and build a level of trust with readers while allowing the writer to meet various privacy goals. Certainly a writer may be trying to protect him or herself from readers who might take exception to his or her words, but there are other good reasons for taking a pseudonym.

Last year when the “Blogger Code of Conduct” was being discussed, anonymity was brought up as something that should be banned from blog comments. As a disclaimer, I do ban recurring anonymity in my own blog. But I have no problem with, and actually encourage the use of, pseudonyms.

When the subject of anonymity has arisen I’ve warned my friends and family that the Internet does not usually allow for true anonymity. I’ve advised that with enough time and effort that any post, email or instant message could eventually be traced to its point of origin. This isn’t the whole truth – there are ways to create true anonymity on the Internet – but all the methods that I know of are time-consuming and difficult to implement even for someone who is technologically savvy. None of these methods are worth my bother for my current needs.

Anonymity is a tool, and like any good tool it can be used or misused. An anonymous person could spray-paint vile, bigoted, misogynistic hate speech on the side of the town hall; or an anonymous person could paint damning evidence against “Those In Charge”. A truly anonymous message cannot be judged by the identity of the poster; it must stand or fall on its own merits. It has no track record of reliability.

I’ve come to think that real anonymity is of limited usefulness to both the writer and the audience. Allowing all anonymous comments in a public forum is illogical due to the possibility of abuse – sooner or later you get something that looks like a popular and controversial Internet News Group, with hoards of anonymous posters increasing the ambient noise and drowning out the signal. And I do believe that a policy of refusing all anonymous comments in a posting area available to the general public seems just as silly to me. I think that neither dictatorships nor anarchies are nurturing of candid and open discussion.

This is where a nom de plume shows its true value. Over time an audience will learn to trust a pseudonym based upon its previous track record – the quality of content. And if it is used properly a pseudonym becomes a veil of privacy between an author and his or her audience.

This is what I mean by a “trusted pseudonym”. The author trusts the pseudonym for protection, which in turn allows for the growth of trust between the author and his or her audience. Unlike a merely anonymous message that must be judged solely upon content, the author becomes part of the message and brings with it his or her own credibility – or lack thereof.

The level of anonymity attached to a pseudonym can be adjusted to suit the writer. My own pseudonym is only somewhat anonymous. A simple subpoena would easily reveal my identity, as would a little detective work. I don't require a deeper level of anonymity. If I were a political fugitive and in fear of my life or freedom, I would use a more secure method of writing.

There is a possibility that inflammatory text could be accredited to my pseudonym in an effort to defame me, and my denial of authorship might not be enough to save my reputation. An email address, blog, and easily identifiable writing style might go a long way toward disarming this sort of defamation, but I think a more secure method of identity would be a better idea. Perhaps something like a PGP signature would be better if it were not so unwieldy to use in practice.

Although there are some who might charge “cowardice” against those who use a pen name, I think that with just a little reflection it becomes apparent that privacy is a valued commodity and the use of pseudonyms allow writers to protect their privacy while becoming a trusted voice.

Fresno Atheists interviewed on ABC 30 over the movie "The Golden Compass"

First of all, welcome to those who have made it here from ABC 30 News. Yes, I'm one of the Atheists you saw in the interview that is supposed to air today.

It was a busy morning for me today. I had taken the day off of work in order to see the first showing of “The Golden Compass” here in Fresno. Ordinarily I would never do something like that – I'm quite content to wait until it is convenient for me to see a movie.

But I received an email from Liz Harrison of ABC 30, asking if any local Atheists would like to see the Golden Compass and then be interviewed together along with a couple of representatives of the local Christian community. I agreed to be there, and I put out a group wide email to members of the Central Valley Alliance of Atheists and Skeptics asking if any other Atheists would like to attend. Happily, Will and Ben were both able to make some time this morning. No one else was able to take the day off of work on such short notice.


So, what did I think of the movie? Atheists everywhere have been hoping that the movie doesn't suck. It's odd, Atheists are so used to having people think of us as being immoral, or arrogant, or evil that it no longer really bothers us so much. However the general Atheist opinion seems to be that they would hate to be represented by a poorly made Hollywood movie.

So here's my take. The movie didn't suck, but it also wasn't nearly as good as I hoped it would be.

I'll try to keep the spoilers down to a minimum, but if you don't want any at all I suggest you stop reading now. Click on the interview after the show to skip the spoiler parts.

Don't get me wrong, Lyra's universe was portrayed exactly as it was in the book in all of it's Steampunk glory and more! And the portrayal of Daemons was exactly how I see it in my head. The casting was excellent – Dakota Blue Richards made a perfect Lyra, who fit very neatly the person I pictured in my head. Sam Elliott played a perfect Lee Scoresby, and using Kathy Bates as the voice of Hester was icing on Scoresby's cake.

And Nicole Kidman as Marissa Coulter was very close to perfect – even though she played a blond instead of having Marissa's “sleek black hair”.

Other casting wasn't so well done. Daniel Craig played Lord Asriel in a manner that seemed like he was just phoning it in instead of making Asriel leap off of the screen. In the books Asriel is an electrifying personality that dominates everyone and who almost effortlessly commands attention and respect. Daniel Craig didn't come close.

And oddly, Christopher Lee as the First High Councilor – well, Mr. Lee is good in whatever he does, but he seemed so overqualified for this role that it actually made the character seem a bit lopsided. I would have been much happier with Lee as Lord Asrial and with Craig as the High Councilor.


You would think that with all the attention paid to special effects and to casting that Director Chris Weitz would be able to make the complex intrigue from the book flow effortlessly onto the big screen – but it just didn't happen.

I kept thinking of how Director Peter Jackson was able to reproduce the complex saga of the Lord of the Rings in cinematic form. “The Fellowship of the Ring” was more than an hour longer than “The Golden Compass” and even at that length Jackson wasn't able to show all of the intrigue, he had to leave details out.

But that length did allow Jackson to make a movie that felt huge, unhurried, open. Even though “The Golden Compass” was just under two hours in length, it felt ... rushed. It was like Director Chris Weitz had an urgent appointment elsewhere so he hurried this movie so he wouldn't be late.

Major plot points were revised in order to save time and explanation. One of those points changed the basic character of Iorek Byrnison, and downplayed the role of the other Panserbjørn. In the books, Iorek was tricked by Iofur Raknison into killing an innocent Panserbjørn during a dominance contest over a female. The innocent bear was given drugs by Iofur in order to prevent him from backing down when it became clear he was the loser of the contest.

This shows that Iorek was fearless, capable, and without fault in his actions, even though he blamed himself for the other bear's death.

In the movie, Iorek was simply banished after losing a fight in single combat with Iofur over the throne. Iofur used drugs to kill the previous king, Iorek's father, and then won in combat with Iorek. Iorek's banishment from the Panserbjørn wasn't due to shame for breaking the code of the bears, but merely on Iorek's whim.

It changes much of Iorek's motives.

And things like this were done throughout the movie, motives were ruthlessly changed in favor of making them simpler, easier to present on film.

The result is a movie that contains major plot points around memorable events in the book, with a weak, hurrid progression between these events. Cinematic whiplash where the viewer is rushed from event to event with no real explanation of why or how they got there.

Because of this rush between events, it was very hard for me to become emotionally invested in the characters. I found it hard to care about them until the movie was nearly half-way done, at the point where Lyra is apologizing to Iorek for getting him involved in a duel to the death with Iofur.

The movie ends before the final chapters of the book. At this rate it will take 4 or 5 movies to present the whole trilogy. And by the end of this movie I felt disappointed. So much of it was so different from the books that I kept wondering if I would have enjoyed the movie if I had never read the books. I'll be interested to see the opinions of those who see the movie first.


The interview after the show

Afterwards our group retired to the nearest coffee shop (located in Borders bookstore) to spend some time discussing the film over a welcome cup of hot chocolate. As I said, myself, Will and Ben represented the Central Valley Alliance of Atheists and Skeptics, while the religious side was represented by a school teacher named Teresa Barber and by Steve Williams who told me he worked in insurance. No, seriously, that's all I know of them. I suspect that Steve might be active in the church, and Theresa is probably active in faith-based politics, but I wasn't told more. I guess I'll have to find out by watching the interview on television.

Theresa, Steve, if either of you read this, it was a pleasure to make your acquaintance, and I hope you'll let me know if I get the details wrong.

[Update: from the ABC 30 site, I've discovered that Steve Williams is an Evangelical Christian leader in Fresno, and that Teresa Barber is a children's pastor at Valley Christian Center. - M]

I have no idea how much of Liz Harrison's interest was genuine or professional, but she led us into discussion with each other in a way that indicated she was fascinated with our take on the movie, and that she was interested in the Atheist viewpoint. I'm afraid that the Atheists sort of dominated the interview, although I'm sure that may be adjusted slightly in the editing room.

We talked for nearly an hour. We were pleasant, and there were no major disagreements or drama of any sort. Anyone watching us would have thought we were a group of good friends, if they ignored the cameraman.

Honestly, it would be a pleasure to be friends with these people, and I hope they could say the same of us.

In general, I'm the only one who read the books, and Ben was the only one who seemed to think the movie was good. Ben was the youngest of us all, and he may have been the demographic that Weitz was aiming for.

Few of us agreed that this would be a movie for young children, although Will pointed out that violence on Saturday morning cartoons equals or exceeds that in “The Golden Compass”. The books were written for the same sort of audience as “Harry Potter”, or perhaps a bit older, with enough intrigue to keep adults interested, so I suggested that teenagers would be better prepared for this movie.

I tried very hard to point out that The Catholic League was urging a form of censorship by advocating a complete boycott of the movie so that it failed and therefore would be prevented from dragging children over to the Atheistic 'dark side'. Worse, they pressured Scholastic Children's books to prevent them from publishing any further books by Pullman.

Censorship of any book or movie in order to prevent others from ever seeing it is something that I consider an especially vicious form of evil. Instead, I advocated that parents should be the ones who decide if their children should see this movie or not. I really hope that came across.

Personally, I believe that if a parent does decide to allow a younger child see this show, that he or she do so together with the child. The movie, even in its simplified form, is complex and should be discussed afterwards.

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe a child would be happy enough to merely see Lyra riding Iorek through the snow.

Ms. Harrison promised that we would be able to see the interview online. When it becomes available, I'll link to it from here.

=========================
Updated at 7PM. As promised, here's the link to the story.

As a disclaimer, I never said I headed CVAAS, I did say I was a co-founder, along with my friend Richard.

On another note, out of all that talking I knew I would only have a brief speaking part. I just didn't realize it was THAT brief!

God for sale from a Chinese Sweatshop

I sometimes visit the local Christian stores when I'm looking for a new Bible or I want to investigate a particularly interesting bit of Christian mythology. One thing I've noticed in these stores are the sheer amount of Christian knick-knacks, dust catchers, and wall hangings, including glurgy poems shellacked onto wood, and those overpriced, repetitive, mediocre paintings by a certain "artist of light".

I've mentioned before that the embarrassing fervor of selling has turned some Christian groups into a 'Den of Thieves', but even I didn't think it would include sweatshops.

Ed Brayton of "Dispatches from the Culture Wars" just broke a story on the use of child labor in Chinese sweatshops to produce items sold in Christian stores. Conditions in the shop mentioned don't even come close to meeting minimum standards as required by Chinese law, never mind meeting basic human rights.

From the first part of what seems to be a multiple part story:

The crosses are marketed in the United States by the Association for Christian Retail (ACR, founded as the Christian Booksellers Association). ACR supplies nearly all of the nation's Christian specialty stores with a wide range of items, including Bibles, Christian books, apparel, music, videos, gifts and greeting cards.

Perhaps its largest client is Family Christian Stores, a Grand Rapids-based company that is the biggest Christian retailer in the nation with more than 300 stores. ACR did $4.63 billion in business in 2006, at least a portion of it from the crosses made by workers at the Junxingye Factory in Dongguan, China.

I may have a somewhat different attitude toward sweatshops than other Americans might have. My wife is from South Korea, and we have discussed this. The attitude of Koreans of my generation and a bit older is that Korean factories saved many people from sure poverty, and gave them a chance to earn a living. At one time the choice wasn't that of working in good conditions vs working in sweatshop conditions, instead the choice was that of working, or not working at all.

From my admittedly limited observation, I think that the South Korean goal to educate all of their children, their work ethic, and the willingness of their young people to protest against unfair conditions contributed a great deal toward turning South Korea from a third-world country to an economic powerhouse in just decades.


So although I'm somewhat forgiving of sweatshops, I find this story upsetting. Conditions in the Junxingye Factory in Dongguan, China don't even meet minimum standards by Chinese law!

From the article:

"Workers are paid just 26½ cents an hour, which is half of China’s legal minimum wage (already set at a below-subsistence level) of 55 cents an hour. After fees deducted for room and board, the workers take-home wage can drop to just nine cents an hour.

I'm realistic in that I know how difficult it is for a consumer to determine where and how products are made. I would attach little or no blame to the owners of these crosses. However, as an engineer, I am well aware of the amount of research I do to determine how a product is made, and I'm also aware of the research done by our Procurement department to insure that products we purchase don't violate human rights. We fly our people to other countries in order to see their factories first hand.

And we are just some electronics company, ya know? Dedicated to our customers, and not particularly holy.

I would expect a company in the business of selling Christian goods would be much more careful than the company that I work for.

Shouldn't the Association for Christian Retail be asking themselves, "What would Jesus buy"?

The Education of a Christian - John Shore

When I was a Christian I was instructed that part of being a Christian was witnessing to others, to bring them into Christ. But witnessing didn't mean going around and knocking on doors – although we sometimes did that it was seen as a little tacky in my church. Instead we were to honestly talk about our faith whenever it was brought up, and then gently pull the person into our church. I was told that the best way to bring people to Christ was to just live a good Christian life and then we just couldn't help but bring people to us.

That was a long time ago, and it happened in my own denomination. It seems to me now, as an Atheist, that many Christians have never heard this way of seeking new members. The radical evangelical Christians of today tend to use the caveman approach of witnessing. Basically they whack their their poor victims over the head with the Bible, and then drag them by the hair kicking and screaming through the church doors. And then they wonder why they get so much resistance!

Every now and then a Christian will get the swell idea that, “Hey, maybe we should listen to the people on the other side of the fence.” Well! Trying to be understanding? Reasonable discourse between people with opposing philosophies? Being kind to others? I guess I can't expect all Christians to believe in the power of acceptance and understanding – after all, the first Christian to do that got nailed to a piece of wood. I understand it messed up his whole weekend.

Still, some Christians do try, and I applaud them for that. It's a refreshing change to be talked with, instead of talked at.

I've been following one such Christian who blogs at Crosswalk.com. John Shore asked a simple question of Atheists the other day about how we deal with guilt. And boy, did the Atheists come out and answer! It was wonderful to see so many caring, compassionate Atheists in the replies, and as expected to also see in contrast the uncaring, unbending attitude of a couple of Christian comments.

I recommend reading the comments – and not just because I'm one of the people commenting. Look at the acknowledgment by John that Atheists are good people too. We don't get that enough from the religious, no matter how well deserved. You can almost see the education that John is getting, and he gets a little frustrated with his own side of the camp. I don't think this means that Mr. Shore will defect any time soon, but it does seem as if the “scales have fallen from his eyes.”

And to prove a point, he goes on to make a second post where he summarizes what he's learned, which is also good reading. From his second post:

Turns out atheists are quite the … cyber-communicators.

It also turns out that atheists — or the many from whom I heard, anyway — care just as much as we Christians do about loving and doing right by others.
Curse the atheists! Why couldn’t they be the craven sensory-hounds they’re supposed to be? Must they reject God, and be intelligent and sensitive?

How are we to tolerate these people for whom toleration is a tenant?

....
We Christians want the atheists to come over to our side of the fence — to join us, to become one of us. They would much prefer it if we would quit wanting that, and leave them be. They would naturally prefer it if we could actually respect them for, say, their intellectual (not to mention moral) integrity — but they aren’t exactly holding their breath waiting for that to happen. Because they know that Christians believe atheists to be at best lost, and at worst damned.

And let’s face it: If you know the best someone can think about you is that you’re lost, you’re hardly inclined to, say, invite that person to your birthday party. Ever.

...
We need to listen to the atheists because … well, because we never do. We try to listen to them, but we fail. And we fail because while we’re listening to them, we’re secretly thinking how they really, really need to become Christian.
And it’s just about impossible to really, really think something about someone and not, in one way or another, really, really communicate that something is.

...
So I say: Let’s every once in a while put aside our Christian Agenda (none of us are thinking that we don’t have one too, right?), and just listen to atheists. Let’s just hear what they’re saying, and what they’re thinking, and why they’re saying and thinking whatever they are.

Yay John! I wish I heard those words from more Christians! I would be more willing to talk to Christians if I knew that they were more willing to actually listen to me without their own hidden agenda!

To the Atheists who responded to John's blog, I say “Well Done!” I consider it to be an accomplishment to get Christians to respond to us as people, and not as potential converts. I've seen too often where Christians equate “Atheist” to mean “Empty” - as a vessel waiting to be filled with their message. I'm tired of telling believers that I don't need to be topped off with God like a thirsty car at the gas pump!

And to those Atheists who go from here to visit John's blog, please, play nice. I know, many of us have a knee-jerk reaction to the religious, so sometimes when a religious person is actually trying to be nice (and maybe fumbling at it) we Atheists tend to get a bit snarky. Hold that in a bit when commenting on John's blog – he's just come to the realization that Atheists are people! It will take him a while to realize that we are individuals too, and that some of us (me included) have a sense of humor that is a bit, ah, blasphemous.

And to John Shore, you might not get any converts from our side of the fence, but with your attitude you'll be welcome to talk with many (most?) of us. Which is better than the caveman evangelists that usually shout at us!

Goodbye Tammy Faye

I could never take you seriously when I was a Christian. The runny mascara as you wept for joy of your lord, and out of sadness for sinners was easy to mock, by me, by comedians, by my Christian friends. It didn't help that you and Jim were at the top of the bucket, high above a lot of Christian crabs who ached to pull you back down.

Jim was corrupted by power and the crabs joyfully pulled him in. Even now, he seems to have returned to his old ways.

But lady, you had class.

You not only accepted the Gay community, you welcomed and supported them. You listened to them without judging. You declared HIV and AIDs to be a disease, not a judgment from God, and reached out to those who were infected at a time when other Christian leaders ran the other way. There are people that love you deeply for this – and it never bothered you that these people were Gay, Transsexual, or Drag Queen.

You were willing to poke fun at yourself. Appearing as the mother of Mimi Bobek on the Drew Carey Show showed that you understood how the world saw you, and that it didn't bother you a bit.

I think you were deeply (if honestly) mistaken in many ways. I think you have increased suffering by endorsing the Biblical view of a woman's 'place' in society. To quote Blaise Pascal:

“(People) never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”

But you were real, and honestly forgiving. You seemed to care for others no matter what their social status was. King or crook, President or porn star – you gave everyone equal courtesy, concern, care and genuine warmth. Your example and legacy looks like it will continue in the loving acceptance displayed by your son and daughter.

I no longer agree or believe in the religion you stood for, and I think that Margaret Atwood pegged you rightly by basing her “Handmaiden's Tale” character on you. But I think you handled your life with more grace than Serena Joy – you made it through the crimes of your ex husband, weathered the IRS, fought bravely against cancer and graciously failed to notice those who made fun of you.

You owned the phrase, “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum”.

Pope says, “Only Catholic-flavored Christians are going to Heaven!”

I'm still on hiatus. But I must say, that with all the recent “gifts” in the news lately that it is really difficult to keep biting my tongue.

Like today for instance. Regular readers may remember that I wrote about one of the problems that I have with Christianity is that Christians are broken into many flavors (sects) that interpret the Bible differently and have somewhat different rules for salvation.

Well, Yahoo News is reporting on a new Catholic Doctrinal Document that came out of the Catholic Holy Office (now called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith or CDF). Yahoo News says that according to this latest Doctrinal Document:

... other Christian communities are either defective or not true churches and Catholicism provides the only true path to salvation.

Which is sort of what this document says. From my reading of the “Responses to some questions regarding certain aspects of the doctrine on the Church” it may still be possible for a non-Catholic to achieve salvation, but just not likely:

"It follows that these separated churches and Communities, though we believe they suffer from defects, are deprived neither of significance nor importance in the mystery of salvation. In fact the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as instruments of salvation, whose value derives from that fullness of grace and of truth which has been entrusted to the Catholic Church"

Still this is what I've said before, if you don't belong to the correct “flavor” of Christianity, your soul is in peril. One of the people commenting in my “Flavors” post called me on this, saying in effect that there is no real disagreement in Christianity. I guess I can consider this my “I told you so” response.

Yes, other Christian groups do argue for inclusiveness. As the Yahoo News article points out, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (a large Protestant fellowship) has criticized the Pope for his exclusiveness. According to the WARC document:

...

We especially find problematic the statement that, “These ecclesial Communities which, specifically because of the absence of the sacramental priesthood, have not preserved the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic Mystery cannot, according to Catholic doctrine, be called ‘Churches’ in the proper sense.”

...

An exclusive claim that identifies the Roman Catholic Church as the one church of Jesus Christ, as we read in the statement released today, goes against the spirit of our Christian calling towards oneness in Christ. It makes us question the seriousness with which the Roman Catholic Church takes its dialogues with the Reformed family and other families of the church. It makes us question whether we are indeed praying together for Christian unity.

For now, we are thankful to God that our calling to be part of the church of Jesus Christ is not dependent on the interpretation of the Vatican.

Of course, it is the Pope's fault – according to WARC – that Christianity is divisive instead of inclusive. But WARC has failed to ask the opinion of the Southern Baptist Convention, which takes the Catholics to task for their false teachings, (PDF link) and has specifically resolved to witness to Catholics because, according to SBC doctrine, Catholics have an incorrect view of salvation and require witnessing in order to achieve salvation.

Oh my, to me this seems like quite a dust-up. Southern Baptists advocating “sheep stealing” from the Catholics in order to bring them to salvation; Pope Benedict telling the world that if you're not Catholic then you're not part of the Christian Church and you'll probably go to Hell; and the WARC acting like the Rodney King of the Christian world with their “Can't we all just get along?” statement.

As I see it, the odds are against me – if I pick one Christian sect over another I have a poor chance of picking the “right” sect and winning salvation (if I actually believed in life after life.) And this doesn't even count the non-Christian religions that have, in my opinion, just as much claim to “The Truth” as does Christianity.

You guys let me know when you figure out which Christian bus is really going to Heaven.

Part Two - Comfort, Cameron, and "The Way of the Master"

Welcome to part two of my article on Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron. (Part 1 is here.)

My original intent for this part of my article was to show Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron applying their methods of evangelism and to suggest possible scenarios about how a non-believer might counter the methods taught in “The Way of the Master”.

However, thanks to my readers I've found a resource that is further along in this than am I. I would like to give a warm thank you to Matt D. and to Kazim, team members of “The Atheist Experience”, for showing me the wonderful counter-apologetics Wiki called “Iron Chariots”. Because of this site I'm going to modify what I had planned to write - which means that I'll actually be writing more than I originally planned! (If you notice me twitching due to stress, or have complaints about the length of today's article, it is entirely their fault! Thanks guys!)

More on Ray Comfort's background:
Before I lead into Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron's “Way of the Master” evangelistic methodology, I'd like to add a little more about Ray Comfort's background. As I said in yesterday's article, Calvary Chapel is a loose affiliation of churches whose pastors have a great deal of autonomy. The original Calvary Chapel was pastored by Chuck Smith, who was previously a charismatic Bible teacher. Smith didn't get along with the Elders at his previous church due to micromanagement and because of this he teaches that churches should have a pastor that is accountable only to God, and not to a board of Elders or other church bureaucracy.

The problem with an ultimate authority in any group is that of abuse. Many, maybe even most pastors of Calvary Chapel are honest and hardworking gentlemen, but a few have instead used the Calvary Chapel structure for their own gain, and perhaps even some minor cult-building. The only recourse that the Calvary Chapel fellowship has to control these wayward groups is to kick them out of the fellowship. Even Chuck Smith himself is having problems with this level of power, and at the age of 79 he seems to be having trouble letting go his reins of control.

Christianity Today has all of this in an article posted February 16, 2007, entitled “Day of Reckoning” that details many of the problems of Calvary Chapel. I would quote bits of it here, but it is all quotable, and fascinating. I urge you to read it for yourself.

What I want you to come away with about Calvary Chapel is that individual fellowship churches are accountable only to their individual pastors – who is accountable only to God. If such power were applied to a nation we would call it the “Divine Right of Kings”, but in this context we have a much easier name for this sort of position – Cult Leader.

Ray Comfort the Sales Person:
Ray Comfort first worked as a pastor at the Hosanna Chapel in Bellflower California. His previous ministry was as an open-air preacher, he also sold tracts and pamphlets for his Living Waters ministry.

Although Calvary Chapel creates conditions favorable for leaders with cultic qualities, I honestly don't think that Ray Comfort has ever been interested in being any sort of cult leader. However misguided I believe his ministry to be, I think he is honestly trying to help us all. As for Kirk Cameron, (Comfort's heir apparent to Living Waters, Way of the Master and any other holdings) I'm not as optimistic that he will be as wise.

Ray Comfort's time at Calvary Chapel, his experience as an open-air preacher, and his experience in selling tracts from his Living Waters ministry have made him quite good in the art of Selling.

Tactics used in High Pressure Sales:
Allow me to make a brief aside here. I promise I'll come back on target in a moment. Okay? Confession time. For a brief time in my life I attempted to sell Kirby Vacuum Cleaners.

Please wait! Before you start yelling at me, I was never actually very successful. I'm just unable to manipulate people at that level without feeling guilty. I was between jobs, I answered a nondescript “Help Wanted” ad, and the job interview was actually a high pressure sales pitch to get me to join up. (They promised fame, fortune, and fabulous holidays. They promised me a free laptop computer!) I stayed on for almost 3 weeks, long enough to learn the basics of high pressure sales tactics. I left with most of my dignity intact.

I don't regret that time. Now I immediately recognize those tactics when I see them applied. I haven't found a handbook or method that teaches these tactics, so I would sum them up as my own series of rules:

1. Allow the subject to assume that you have a common goal. This goal could be as simple as a mutual unspoken agreement to be polite, or it could be a goal of financial relief, spiritual or intellectual growth, or the gain of something more material.
2. As part of the “common goal” you should get the subject to participate in their own sale. This could be as simple as getting them to agree with reasonable statements, or it can be as elaborate as having them hold or assist you with any sales equipment props, or merchandise. (If they're holding a prop and you politely ignore attempts to give it back, you are holding them hostage for your pitch.)
3. Never, ever, ask a question that could close the conversation. A question like, “May I have a few minutes to speak to you about time share?” invites a “No!” response. Always control the types of question that you ask to lead the subject where you wish them to go.
4. Develop a sense of excitement and/or urgency about the product during the pitch.
5. Never ask for the sale, assume that the sale has already been made. Don't ask the subject if he or she wants the product, instead ask for their information and start filling out the blanks on the order form.
6. Ask for sales leads. You may do this as part of the closing or in order to increase incentives for the customer.
7. If the customer balks you may offer incentives. Simple incentives are freely offered, but more substantial incentives may include conditions – such as “Buy Now” or “Limited Offer”.
8. If you lose the sale keep in mind that you have only temporarily lost the sale. By this point you should have enough of a rapport with the subject to hold the door open for future sales calls.

From the study I've put into other cults, I notice that some of my rules here look like tactics used by cults. (A 12 minute Youtube video on Mind Control Cults shows those tactics too. It's a fun film to watch as long as you don't dwell too long on the different cults who have actually used the tactics shown.)

Although I don't think that Ray Comfort is a cult leader of any sort, I do think he is using high pressure sales tactics, and even some cult recruitment tactics in order to achieve his goals. I believe that Ray Comfort's experience in “selling” the gospel is mixed with Kirk Cameron's experience in showmanship to make this message more compelling. “The Way of the Master” is nothing more than an elaborate sales script.

An example of Ray Comfort's evangelistic / sales technique:
I'm linking here to a Ray Comfort / Kirk Cameron site called Hollywood Blasphemy. Comfort and Cameron have a problem with cursing and the taking of God's name in movies – they blame the Virgina Tech shootings on Hollywood. (Maybe they're right, maybe not. Who knows? I think they're tragedy whoring, but they don't seem to care.) There is a video on this site that shows Ray Comfort behind a microphone talking to innocent bystanders on the sidewalk in front of the Chinese Theater on Hollywood Blvd. The whole video is instructive, but I'd like you to pay particular attention to the woman who appears at 8:35 in the video.

You can see the aggressive salesmanship in this video. It isn't shown, but it is implied by previous interviews, that Comfort has established a quick rapport with the poor sinner, a woman named Jessica, and has immediately got her to start participating in her own “sale”. At no point does Ray Comfort give her an opening to end the conversation – but he does it in such a friendly, polite way that Jessica would feel like a heel if she interrupted him and said she had to leave.

This is the difference between a sale, and a meeting between friendly strangers. A friendly stranger would follow polite social conventions. “You don't have to be anywhere, do you?” or “You're not going to lose your place in line, are you?” Heh, Kirby taught me to never even glance at my wristwatch – it was an unspoken indication that the conversation was over. Ray Comfort is projecting that he has nowhere else to go, and that he is completely fascinated by the person he is speaking with.

He also has no problem with making Jessica feel uncomfortable, while Jessica is clearly reluctant to reciprocate. She's still playing by social rules and won't break off because she doesn't want to hurt his feelings – Ray Comfort uses this to his advantage.

This is where he starts to apply his “Way of the Master” ministry. In this ministry, you use the 10 commandments to 'prove' that the person in question is a sinner. Comfort is good at this. I can almost feel poor Jessica's psyche breaking as she succumbs to the pressure of these questions. By the time that Comfort asks Jessica if she would be judged innocent or guilty by God, he's got her cornered into only one answer – Jessica tries to get out of it but Comfort boxes her in again.

By the time Comfort introduces Jesus (who pays the fine in God's courtroom with his gift of blood – more on that in a bit) Jessica is visually looking for an escape. She didn't come to Hollywood prepared to handle complex questions on philosophy or theology. She's miserable, but her own guilt and politeness keep her from bolting. Because of this, she misses Comfort's fallacious reasoning, or perhaps it is because it is similar the Christian mythology that she's grown up with. The fallacy here is that it is moral for one person to pay for the crime of another.

Think about it, if a murderer is on trial, if it's obvious he is guilty, and he's heading for a quick trip to the electric chair, would it be right for an innocent person to trade his life for the murderer? But wait, before you answer, realize that this is a special courtroom, where everyone is judged guilty, and everyone receives the same sentence – torture for the rest of eternity. Murder someone? You get tortured for eternity. Steal a candy bar? You get tortured for eternity. Infinite punishment for finite crimes is against basic human rights. And killing the innocent to let the guilty go free is insanity.

Comfort wraps up his evangelism by confusing the difference between faith and trust with his elevator example. This is easily untangled by realizing that we trust in things in which we have past experience. I trust a particular elevator will work because the last elevator I was in worked. I trust the sun will come up today because I have 45 years of experience in sunrises. Faith, as Mark Twain said, is “...believing what you know ain't so.” Christians rightly have faith that God can be a trinity and still be One God – faith doesn't need to have an apparent contradiction explained. Christians have faith that there is an afterlife – the lack of evidence of a afterlife is not a hindrance to faith.

Christians have faith that there is a God. As frustrated Atheists have been pointing out (a lot, lately) they do not have evidence that there is a God. So claims of trust are premature.

But what is an Atheist to do?
How would an Atheist respond to Comfort's “Way of the Master” ministry?

The first, and easiest response is to keep in mind that this is a SALES PITCH. It is the job of the salesperson to keep the subject from leaving, to make the subject feel guilty for leaving, and to even find ways to hold the subject hostage to the salesperson's pitch. Jessica was not allowed to leave until Ray Comfort was through with her, and he wasn't through until he got her to say everything he wanted her to say.

This isn't a meeting between polite strangers following normal social conventions. This is a meeting between a salesman who is willing to warp normal social conventions to meet his needs. You are being manipulated. As soon as you realize this you have the choice to break the salesman's pitch. You are not being rude to do so – they are being rude for setting you up in this fashion. Stop. Stop talking. Stop associating. Leave, or if you are unable to leave then ask for help from the “rude person who won't leave me alone.”

Of course, you could instead argue with the religious salesperson. We Atheists (and other nonbelievers) are cantankerous in that way. But choosing to stay and argue still does NOT obligate you to stay to the end of the salesperson's pitch! You are not required to wait for him to get to the point where he's filling out your Baptismal card!

Here's the key – at any point where you feel like you're getting in over your head, don't attempt to BS your way through because you are up against someone who is trained with a system of pat answers. You will lose if you BS. Instead stop the evangelist / salesperson and say you want to take the time to think things over a day or two. If you're being polite about this it will be hard to do, VERY hard, because a salesperson does NOT want you to walk away without a commitment! They will use every means of polite (and not so polite) persuasion to get you to continue the conversation. They will immediately apply pressure, and you'll have to resist until either you, or they, leave the conversation.

Remember that some salespeople are really bad sports about a broken pitch. They are competitive, and won't like to lose. I don't know if Ray Comfort would do this, but I've had a sales person follow me around a store and harass me after I broke a pitch. Maybe it will be easier with an evangelist, and maybe worse – remember that an evangelist professes to believe that he or she is saving your eternal life – perhaps that will make them more aggressive.


If you really want to argue about it:
But what if you want to stick around and debate? No, let's call it plainly as it is. If you stick around you will at some point be arguing with the evangelist / salesman.

Richard, one of the founders of our (very small) Fresno Atheists group said something during the last meeting that has stuck with me all weekend. Richard said that he teaches his children that there is a big difference between “Glib” and “Intelligent”. A glib person can speak confidently, and exudes competence in his or her subject. An intelligent person may actually be a very poor speaker. (Sort of like the after and before version of Moses, Ex 4:10.)

This is a problem with debates and arguments – and it is a problem in which creationists and evangelists take gleeful advantage. These people are glib, they've practiced pat answers for hours and can rattle them off at the drop of a hat.

There are two street preachers that I know of here in Fresno who are spending hours and hours learning how to argue, one on the State University campus, and one at City Hall. Kent Hovind, before the start of his recent 10 year vacation, was famous for a massive Powerpoint presentation about Creationism – he could flip through hundreds of slides during a 30 minute debate. Dwain Gish is famous for his “Gish Gallop”. Fallwell, Robertson, Dobson and just about any televangelist you see are glib, and make their living by creating sound bytes that are quick, easy to understand, devastating to the opposition, and wrong on so many levels.

In the time it takes you to unpack a dense statement during a debate or sales pitch, find its flaws, and refute it, the evangelist / salesperson will have trotted out another 10 statements. Your only defense is to unpack these statements in your own time so that you can recognize them when they are applied. You still won't be able to refute them as quickly as they can spew them – but at least you will be inoculated against them.

Conclusion:
Ray Comfort's evangelistic tactic toward Atheists is to get them to admit the possibility of God, then use Pascal's Wager and the 10 commandments in order to bring them to salvation. Each step is glib, quick, easy to understand, and wrong. This is where the power of the Internet comes in. I will once again direct my readers to resources where they can be inoculated against these methods of evangelism. Feel free to expand this list by leaving links in the comments section.

And in closing – if you are all still reading at this point, my apologies. I'll break the next article of this size into 3 parts.

• Iron Chariots
• Skepticality (great Podcast!)
  
• Freedom from Religion Foundation (They have a Podcast too)
  
• Point of Inquiry Podcast
• Seth Shawstack's SETI Podcast (Skeptical Sunday & Are We Alone)
  
• TalkOrigins - index to creationist claims
• Pharyngula Blogroll
• Calladus list of recommended books (as of 2006)
• Calladus list of links to all 50 State legislatures and Federal legislation (Just in case you want to complain to someone!)