Why I Care About Anti-Atheist Bigotry

I have spent a fair amount of effort these last few days asserting, strongly, that atheists need to do a better job of defending themselves. I even postponed my weekend series on the Beyond Belief 2 conference to stay on topic.

I obviously think that this is important.

At the same time, I deny that there is anything particularly virtuous in being an atheist. I consider atheism itself to be morally neutral, since neither the proposition "God exists" nor the proposition, "God does not exist" gives us any hint as to how we should behave. We have to look elsewhere for that information. When it comes to looking elsewhere, atheists have shown just as much skill at embracing foolish ideas as theists.

So, if atheism is not a virtue, then why is anti-atheist bigotry a vice?

There is one easy answer to this question.

You don't have to argue that blacks are better than whites to argue that they deserve equal treatment. And you do not need proof that women are better than men to argue that people should see men and women as political and social equals. Similarly, I do not need to argue that atheists are better than theists to argue that government practices that denigrate atheists are unfair and unjust.

Insofar as an injustice is being committed against atheists, a love of justice alone is sufficient motivation to condemn it – just as it is sufficient motivation to protest the unjust treatment of blacks and women (among others).

In addition, the attitudes that the public hold, and that the government promotes, against atheists constitute doing malicious harm to good people.

Look again at the types of statements that I am referring to.

President Bush declaring that no atheist is fit to sit as a judge in the United States, because to be a qualified judge one has to believe that our rights come from God.

A Pledge of Allegiance repeated daily in schools and at the start of civic events that say, "A person who does not favor 'one nation under God' is like a person who does not favor 'liberty and justice for all'."

A national motto that people are driven to put up in more and more places that says, "Only those who trust in God are to think of themselves as one of us."

A sign on a freeway that says, "(Why do) atheists hate America."

The message, after every act of school violence and every time that the topic of prayer in school is brought up, that, "Atheists are going to come to school and kill your children and the only way to prevent this is to fight the atheist murderers with prayer in school."

A legislator who declares, "You believe in destroying. It is dangerous for children to even know that your philosophy exists."

A movie, opening across the country today, that will tell its audience that atheists are proto-Nazis who will bring about another holocaust if they are not held in check.

A message, that you can almost certainly find repeated somewhere every single day, that a person who does not believe in God has a problem with morality is a mortal threat to everybody's safety and happiness.

In many of these cases, the message that atheists are inherently evil comes to your children in the form of a paid 'patriotic' announcement brought to you by your very own government.

And the question is, "Why do I care?"

Other than the fact that I am one of these people who could never qualify to be a judge, is like a person who is opposed to liberty and justice for all, who is not to think of myself as being 'one of us', hates America, is responsible for every school shooting that occurs, believes in destroying, is somebody that children should not even know exists, am working to bring about the next holocaust, and has a serious problem with morality.

Why do I care?

I think about the college atheist pursuing a degree in pre-law, with an acute interest in Constitutional issues, not because he has already decided what view he wants to impose on others from the bench, but with an eye to looking at what makes one decision truly better than another, hearing that no atheist is qualified to be judge and certainly cannot expect to be appointed.

I think about the nine or ten year old student who does not really understand the world around him just yet but who knows that the government and his teacher is telling him to favor 'one nation under God,' and what this means about those other people who say that there is no God.

I think about this student's atheist classmate who hears the government telling him that the fact that this 'god' stuff doesn't make sense to him. It makes him a bad person – as bad as somebody who does not support liberty and justice for all.

I think about the atheist 100% disabled American veteran who gave so much to this country attending a ceremony to honor veterans, when somebody read a statement over the loud speaker that concluded with:

. . . once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about our flag, our pledge, our national motto, or our way of life, I highly encourage you to take advantage of one other great American freedoms, the right to leave.

[Note: That is what happened to my father, who described his service in the military as an atheist in this letter to me.]

I think about the high school student who wants to spend his life doing good deeds and is thinking about a lifetime of public service discovering that no atheist can be elected to the legislature.

However, even this ignores another serious problem. This form of bigotry is symptomatic of another, more general problem that victimizes not only those who do not believe in God.

The bigot's way of thinking is to take their hatred for a group and to use that to evaluate the 'evidence' he might come across. It teaches people to think in terms of, "I hate these people. If these people are guilty of X then this would be a good reason to hate them. Therefore, these people must be guilty of X."

This general way of thinking not only victimizes atheists today, but has been the general way of thinking that has been responsible for the greatest atrocities in history. Slavery, the Holocaust, the near-genocide of the Native Americans, religious wars, anti-homosexual legislation in the United States, and the like follow this same pattern.

"I want to hate these people. To hate these people I need an excuse. I can use X as an excuse. Therefore, I accept X."

This general tendency, this 'bigot's way of thinking' is what I actually care about.

It is a specific instance of what got us into a needless war in Iraq – a war that destroyed resources and lives that would have otherwise been available to do something constructive about the world's problems.

"I need to believe that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. If these are chemical weapons vehicles then Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. Therefore, these must be chemical weapons vehicles."

"I need to believe that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11. If an aide to Saddam Hussein met with one of the hijackers in Europe than Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11. Therefore, one of Saddam Hussein’s aids met with one of the hijackers in Europe."

Or, "It would be bad for business if carbon dioxide contributed to global warming. If the sun was responsible for global warming then we do not need to worry about carbon dioxide. Therefore, the sun is responsible for global warming."

Or, "I have to believe that God is responsible for human life. If these components of life were irreducibly complex then we would have to make room for God in the creation of human life. Therefore, these components of life are irreducibly complex."

We see this way of thinking all around us, and it is so incredibly destructive. It costs so many lives and brings about so much suffering that a person concerned with saving lives and preventing suffering cannot help but care whenever he sees evidence of this kind of thinking.

I do not think that there is anything particularly virtuous about being an atheist. However, it is quite clear that there is something particularly vicious about being somebody whose hatred drives him to accept malicious falsehoods about other people and who then lobbies the government into teaching these malicious falsehoods to the next generation. There is something particularly vicious about being a person who is so consumed by hatred that the one thing he finds most intolerable is the idea that the government might stop delivering this message of hate to young children, and that the next generation might not grow up with the hatred that the bigot wants that generation to have.

I can imagine a generation of children growing up without learning this particular bigotry. I think about a generation that gets a different lesson – that it is wrong to begin with an attitude of hate and then grab onto whatever beliefs one can find that gives one's hate the mere illusion of legitimacy.

I think about such a world and I can't help but think that it would be a better place.

I was quite angry last week at the tame (and lame) response to Davis' comments. It simply reinforced all of the other negative messages that people hear about atheists. It simply aggrivated all of the other situations that I described above. She should have lost her job over that. We should have sent a message to the people of this country - to the children of this country - how wrong it is to be a bigot like Ms. Davis. Instead, they learned that the view that atheists "believe in destroying" isn't a horrible message at all. Which, at least, is consistent with all of the other messages that children hear on this subject.

It really is time to demand that the country change the message. The next generation will have reason to thank us if we do.

Michael Medved: No Atheist President

Michael Medved wrote an article recently in townhall.com in which he declared that Americans are right to resist an atheist as President. It has brought a lot of attention to this blog, particularly from people who think that my post, “More Perspective on the Pledge” (and the book that came out of it, "A Perspective on the Pledge") provides an effective counter to Medved's claim.

Medved used as a part of his argument that America is right to reject an atheist President because the Pledge of Allegiance contains the word "under God".

Then there's the significant matter of the Pledge of Allegiance. Would President Atheist pronounce the controversial words "under God"? If he did, he’d stand accused (rightly) of rank hypocrisy. And if he didn't, he'd pointedly excuse himself from a daily ritual that overwhelming majorities of his fellow citizens consider meaningful.

In other words, he is arguing that the Pledge of Allegiance, as written, is a de facto religious test for public office in that only a person who can sincerely say the Pledge of Allegiance as written is fit to be President. Or, to put it another way, the purpose that 'under God' serves in the Pledge of Allegiance is to help keep atheists out of public office.

The story, More Perspective on the Pledge, aimed to show the bigotry in the Pledge of Allegiance by examining the effect of a similar pledge – a pledge to “one white nation” in a country called 'Ameryca' – on the life of a black high school student named Shawn Henry. Shawn argues in the book that the word 'white' was added to the Pledge of Allegiance primarily as a way of putting black candidates at a political disadvantage and, thus, to make sure that government power remains in the hands of white Amerycans - the same way that 'under God' was inserted to keep political power out of the hands of atheists and in the hands of religious Amerycans. This is one of several arguments that Shawn uses in the course of the book to reject the Pledge.

Using the arguments in that book, it would be a simple matter to create a parody of Medved's argument by introducing a character into the book that argues why Ameryca is right to resist a black President.

This Amerycan version of Medved would start off with arguments that Ameryca is right to resist a black President because of "Hollowness and Hypocrisy at State Occasions." I would only need to introduce a number of popular rituals, such as a Pledge of Allegiance to 'one white nation', designed by white Amerycans declaring the great value to be found in being a white Amerycan.

Then, my Amerycan Medved could sensibly write:

[B]ut truly overwhelming majorities cherish such traditions. The notion of dropping or altering all references to the superiority of the white race on public occasions to avoid discomfort for a single individual amounts to a formula for a disastrously unpopular presidency.

Well, yes, we may assume that a black Presidency in such a heavily racist society would be 'unpopular'. Yet, we must remember that Medved is attempting to argue that it is right for Ameryca to resist a black President. The fact that a black President would not be a popular leader is hardly an argument for saying that keeping blacks out of public office is the right thing to do. It may well be the case that the right thing to do would be to start fighting the prejudice (including the state rituals that maintain the prejudice) that keep blacks out of public office.

The Amerycan version of Medved would continue his argument by claiming that a black President would simply not be able to relate to Ameryca's white citizens. He would write about how it must be the case that, if the President were black, white Amerycans would only be able to take this as a put-down – as, itself, a denigrating statement – about white Amerycans.

To break the analogy for a moment, Medved argues that we could have a Jewish President, but not an atheist President. For some reason, "A leader who touts his non-belief will, even with the best of intentions, give the impression that he looks down on the people who elected him."

But, then, isn't the Jewish religion a form of non-belief? Isn't it an expression of a non-belief in the divinity of Jesus? If so, then why is it not the case that touting this non-belief (in the divinity of Jesus) will ‘give the impression that he looks down on the people who elected him'?

The difference is that Medved is using the existence of a prejudice to justify prejudice. "Because we are anti-atheist bigots, we have a moral right to resist an atheist President. The reason we do not have the same right to resist a Jewish President is because we are not anti-Jewish bigots." Medved blinds himself to the fact that, by his own argument, if Americans saw the denial of the divinity of Jesus as a sign that the Jew 'looks down on' the Christian, then Americans would also be right to resist a Jewish President.

Now, back to the analogy. The Amerycan version of Medved would then close his argument by noting that Ameryca is surrounded by countries that have an even stronger dislike for blacks than Ameryca. The reason Ameryca should not elect a black President, according to this argument, is that a black President would be unable to negotiate with those countries where – well, to be honest, they simply do not tolerate blacks in those countries.

Being surrounded by such a prejudice would in fact, be an important practical consideration. It has practical value in the same way that if our United States were surrounded by cultures that refused to deal with women as political equals, then we would have reason to resist having a female President.

However, there is a distinction here between a practical consideration and a moral consideration. Immoral people, when they put a gun to our head or threaten to harm the people we care about (or even strangers we don’t know but who do not deserve to be harmed) can sometimes force us to do things that are otherwise wrong.

Bigoted foreign powers might force us to reject an otherwise well qualified President. However, this would be an example of performing an immoral act while under an external threat that has power over us. It would not be an example of performing a moral act. It would be an argument for getting out from under that external threat – to weaken it, so that it no longer has the ability to threaten those whom we love in order to get us to do things that are wrong.

Conclusions

There are three main points that are relevant to this posting.

(1) Michael Medved is a hate-mongerng bigot, as are any readers who read through his trash and nod in agreement.

And the world is a worse place because of him. People are worse off than they would have otherwise been if Medved had decided to be a fair and just individual, rather than a hate-mongering bigot.

A fair and just person would begin with the assumption that there should be no discrimination against an atheist candidate. He would look with suspicion on any argument that claims otherwise as a sign that the person making it is embracing the argument to rationalize his own bigotry. He would be forced into the conclusion – recognize the need to yield to discriminatory practices – only when the weight of the arguments forced him into it.

Medved was so eager to embrace arguments of such stunning weakness, that we may conclude that he did not approach this issue the way a fair and just person would have done so. He approached it with the mind of a bigot, looking for any excuse that would give his bigotry even an illusion of legitimacy. He was not driven to his conclusions by the weight of the evidence. Rather, his fondness for the conclusion drove him to accept evidence that a fair and just person would have recognized as seriously flawed rationalizations.

(2) Medved has a very low opinion of what Christians are morally capable of doing.

Medved’s argument depends on a description of a Christian as somebody who cannot accept the idea of an atheist as a political equal. On Medved's account of what a 'Christian' is, it would be impossible for a Christian to have an atheist as a friend or a peer (a co-worker or a team member), or to love an atheist child or sibling or parent. Medved's 'Christian' must view the mere existence of an atheist as an insult to his religious beliefs. (But not, for some reason, the Jew.)

Contrary to Medved’s view of Christians, I suggest that there are a lot of Christians who are on friendly terms with atheists and able to give atheists the same respect they give Jews and Muslims. Every one of these instances belies Medved’s description of a Christian as somebody who must necessarily find atheism unacceptable.

In fact, Medved's account goes beyond claiming that Christians are incapable of seeing atheists as political ppers. He says that it is 'right' to resist an atheist President. This suggests that, if one has to choose between being a Christian who accepts atheists as fellow citizens and being a Christian who cannot do so, the 'right' option is to choose to be the intolerant Christian. By which we can infer that, according to Medved, it would be 'wrong' to choose to be the tolerant Christian.

(3) 'Under God' and 'In God We Trust' are de facto religious tests for public office. Their purpose is to put atheists at a political disadvantage – to make it harder for voters to support atheist candidates. And they are very effective in that regard. "If you can't say the Pledge of Allegiance at your own political rallies, then you cannot get my vote."

Now, it is widely known that while the Constitution prohibits a religious test for public office, it is not illegal for citizens to use a religious test. However, 'Under God' and 'In God We Trust' are both government-supported religious tests for public office. Their practical (and intended) effect is to put such a heavy disadvantage on any candidate who does not support ‘one nation under God’ or who does not 'trust in God' that their practical effect is to disqualify those candidates from public office.

Between now and the end of June, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will render a decision on 'under God' and 'In God We Trust'. When that happens, remaining silent on whether these practices should continue implies giving consent to a principal that no atheist is fit to hold public office – that to be a qualified public servant one must support 'one nation under God' and be a member of the group 'we' mentioned in 'In God We Trust'.

I wrote the story, "More Perspective on the Pledge", to highlight the bigotry inherent in these practices, and I wrote the book, "A Perspective on the Pledge", to gather the arguments surrounding this issue in one convenient location.

I think it would be a good idea to give the matter some attention, and to be ready with a course of action when the 9th Circuit Court of Opinion’s decision hits the news. I think it would be a good idea to prepare to be very loud in one's protest that practices aiming to keep atheists out of public office are both immoral and unconstitutional. So that, some day, we can have a country that does not resist an atheist President.

Respect for Religious (and Other) Beliefs

In a continuing discussion of atheists standing up for their beliefs, I would like to address another obstacle to discussion and debate - a false dichotomy.

“Either you are an ally in our fight to rid the world of faith, or you share responsibility for all of the religiously motivated terrorism and violence that we see in the world today.”

“Either you are for us, or you are for the terrorists.”

It is a simple-minded way of looking at the world suitable for people who cannot handle more complex realities.

Where do I stand on the issue of tolerance for religion?

Well, imagine that you are with a group of people who have crash-landed on an island. Let us assume a rather mild climate. What is your first order of business: (a) resolve the issue of whether or not a god exists, or (b) find a source of clean drinking water?

I would vote for (b).

The first option can wait. It’s not important.

Now, let’s look to the question of finding water. Let’s say we have two people in the group. One is a geologist. He looks at the rock formations and points to a place where he thinks there is a good chance of finding water. Another member of the group says that he has a magical method of finding water, or a method whereby if he prays hard enough then God will plant knowledge on where to find water in his head.

Now, I ask the geologist, “When you point to a place to find water, how often to people actually find water?” The answer (as determined by a history of empirical observation) is “Fifty percent.”

I ask the magician and the theist, “When you point to a place to find water, how often to people actually find water?” Based from a long history of empirical observation, let’s assume that the odds are no more than chance, about five percent.

On this matter, all I need to know is that 50% is better than 5%. We need water. We go with the option that gives us the best chance of finding water. That’s all that matters.

Now, let’s say that the magician and the theist say that I am not giving their beliefs sufficient respect. In order to show respect for their beliefs, I should give their methods equal consideration along side the methods of the geologists.

If I do not pretend that their method is as good as the geologist's, then I am being told that I am worthy of condemnation. After all, they say, there is nothing special about the scientific method. It is just another way of doing things.

In other words, respecting their belief means pretending that 5% = 50%.

Sorry, but that is not going to happen.

If the advocates of magic and prayer can find a method of success that exceeds or at least equals that of the geologiest in finding water, then they will be given a level of respect that exceeds or at least equals that of the scientist. Without a proven record of success, pretending that they are successful is foolish. It puts the lives, health, and well-being of those of us who are living on this island at risk.

Now, planet earth is an island in space. About 6.5 billion of us are crash-landed on this island. Today, we do not have enough clean water to go around. This is only one threat we have to the life, health, and well-being of the people who are living here. We need real-world solutions to real-world problems. As I see it, we can discuss the existence of God at another time. In the mean time, we need to pay attention to methods of dealing with real-world problems that have a demonstrable real-world effect.

It’s simply a matter of respecting the numbers, and respecting anything that shows a disposition to improving those numbers. Numbers do not lie, and they do not have any tolerance for human prejudice. Reality itself has no respect for our different beliefs. Reality does not care if you believe that a certain magical spell will cure a disease, or if you believe that a prayer can alter the course of a hurricane. If we want to protect ourselves from diseases and hurricanes we need to look at what has real-world effects on how they behave. If magic and prayer have a real-world effect, it will show up in the numbers. If it doesn't show up in the numbers, then they are of no use. Saving lives means paying attention to what does show up in the numbers.

I believe that the proposition that a god exists is almost certainly false. Even if a god exists, it is extremely unlikely that we know anything about what that god wants that would be useful. We have no good reason to assume that what we may think it wants is a reliable indication of what it wants as a matter of fact. The huge numbers of different stories that people have believed, and even the huge varieties of the stories that people believe today, means that for any particular story is almost certainly false.

What I do know is that when people started to actually compare different ways of doing things – comparing their chances of success – the methods that have actually shown constantly improving success rates have not needed to make any mention of a god. There is no god element in their formulas, and adding a god element does not do any good.

It would be quite nice if we could compare religions the way we compare drugs and new forms of crops. “When people pray to god X, we see a 35% chance of survival, but when they pray to god Y, we see a 50% chance of survival, so this suggests that we are better off praying to god X than god Y. This goes in support of the followers of god Y.”

But we see nothing like this. We have absolutely no empirical evidence showing us that, “Employing prayer type P1 to god G increases the chance that rain will fall by an inexplicable 5%” or “By passing law L outlawing sin S reduces hurricane frequencies by 20%.”

There have been plenty of opportunities to discover that prayer or some sort of religious observance prevents drought, helps needy people win at games of chance, cures disease, prevents accidents, alters the course of hurricanes, reduces the frequencies of hurricanes, and the like. So far . . . nothing.

Do you want me to respect your beliefs? Show me that you have a more reliable method of finding clean drinking water, curing disease, preventing the destruction of hurricanes, curing cancer, treating diabetes, determining the consequences of putting particular chemicals in our food, air, and water, and you have shown me that I have a reason to listen to what you have to say. Other than that . . . I go with what actually does provide benefits in these areas.

One area in which people make claims about the benefit of religion is that it reduces crime rates. Religion, it is said, has an effect on the possibility that you will be murdered, raped, robbed, or suffer some other form of violence that we have real-world reasons to want to avoid.

Really?

Show me the empirical evidence for this. And show me the different effects of different beliefs so that I can see which beliefs we really need to promote if we are going to see the greatest benefit in our crime rates.

One study that I know of compares the rates of various social ills with religiosity of the population suggests that people have lower chances of suffering these ill effects in a secular non-religious society. Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies.

This study looked at homicides, suicides (15 to 24 year olds), early childhood deaths (under five years old), life expectancy, gonorrhea infections (all ages and 15-19 year olds), syphilis infections (all ages and 15-19 year olds), abortions, and teen pregnancies (15 – 17 year olds), and found that the more highly religious America actually scored worse than more secular countries.

Of course, there are some important caveats that are necessary to prevent misinterpreting the data. The findings need to be replicated and one must rule out coincidence. However, at the very least, these data tell us that we have no good reason to suspect that religion is necessary to protect us from social ills. Those people who believe otherwise are not driven to that belief by the data. They have no data. They are driven to their conclusions by another force, by a desire to hate, that causes them to feel a special attraction to ideas that give their hate a confortable home. Throughout history, one of the most common comforts for the bigot is the unfounded idea that those they hate are simply incapable of acting morally for one make-belief reason or another. That is how many religious people treat secular philosophies - with maliciously false accusations of horrible consequences.

So, ultimately, I am interested in priorities. There are certain necessities that all of us should be able to agree that we need. We need to find clean water, enough food to eat, and shelter. We need security from diseases and natural disasters. Deciding that we need to resolve questions about whether a god exists before we put our efforts into solving common problems is absurd. However, in solving these problems, it is absurd not to put our efforts into projects that have a demonstrable record of success. And we need to get people out of the habit of inventing make-believe failures so that their hatred of some group or another can find a comfortable home.

That is how I would propose we make the real world a better place.

Appealing to “Moderate” Christians

I have seen a trend in the comments to my recent blog postings of interpreting my recent postings as suggesting that atheists should get together and organize protests against religion. Assuming that I am advocating something along the lines of Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, that religion is the great evil that must be eliminated, they have sought to argue against me by arguing against this position.

I have also picked up a substantial number of new readers in recent weeks who have not read prior posts in which I discussed these issues, so I should not be assuming that readers automatically know my position on these things.

So, let me briefly state some of these basic propositions.

(1) “At least one god certainly or almost certainly exists”, and “At least one god certainly or almost certainly does not exist,” are morally neutral statements. They tell us nothing about how we should behave. Even if a god exists, that god might be a malicious god who designed the earth and created human nature the way he did because he loves conflict. Every day he sits in his recliner with a can of beer and a bowl of chips watching a new episode of “Survivor Earth.” It’s not the existence or the non-existence of god that gives us moral guidance. We get that from the additional claims added to this claim about the existence or non-existence of God. When those additinal claims are junk, then we have problems.

(2) When it comes to tacking junk onto claims about the existence or non-existence of God, atheists are as good at making things up (that happen to be dead wrong) as theists. Branding all theists with the crimes of Stalin is bigotry, but Stalin does provide a counter-example to the idea that you can make somebody a better person just by getting them to believe that no God exists.

(3) There is nobody on the planet that agrees with you about everything. If you can’t get along with people who disagree with you, you are doomed to have a very lonely life

(4) Given that we have no choice but to accept and get along with people who disagree with us, our goal should be to distinguish between disagreements that are tolerable and those that are not (and how we are going to handle each). There is a clear difference between the person who says, “I believe that there is a loving god that commands me to feed the hungry and care for the sick,” and “I believe in a vengeful god that commands me to kill anybody who does not worship him as I do.” One is a false belief that we can comfortably ignore. The other is not.

(5) Rather than making both of these types of people our enemies, if we were rational, we would welcome the former as allies against the latter.

Anybody who has taken any of my last week’s postings as a protest against religion or faith have been reading things into my postings that are simply not there. In fact, you have read things into my postings that I have explicitly and repeatedly argued against.

I have only one posting in this entire blog that discusses the issue of whether God exists. This is precisely because I consider the issue to be unimportant. The important issues are those that put life, health, and well-being at risk. A belief in God does not necessarily do this. Many of the things that some people associate with belief in God do this, but there are a great many things advocated by people who do not believe in God that put life, health, and well-being at risk as well.

I have complained against atheists who have made bigoted statements when I have found them. For example, I objected when the Connecticut Valley Atheists put up a sign that said, “Imagine, no religion” that showed the World Trade Center, I protested that the group was making the unjust (and totally bigoted inference) that all religious people share blame for 9/11.

See, Connecticut Valley Atheists: Imagine and A Speech Proposal”

I have also protested against the claim that teaching religion to a child amounts to child abuse because child abuse requires malicious intent or reckless disregard for the child. This is simply not true in most cases. Some, true - such as this cult in Texas and parents who pray for the health of their child when she has an easily treatable disease - are guilty of reckless disregard for the child. But not all. (See Religion as Child Abuse).

My complaint is not against Christianity in specific, or belief in God in general.

My objection is that the statement, “No atheist is qualified to be judge,” is prejudicial and discriminatory – and that anybody, regardless of their religion, should be able to see that it is simply wrong for a President to hold this attitude.

My objection is that a pledge of allegiance that states that aims to teach children to view the person who does not favor ‘one nation under God’ the way he views one who does not favor ‘liberty and justice for all’ is an exercise in teaching bigotry is not a statement against Christianity. It is a statement against teaching bigotry - particularly to very young children. I trust that most Christians would see this type of bigotry as wrong if they ever got a chance to hear or read the argument.

My objection to Davis’ statement is that she uttered a derogatory falsehood that prejudices her and anybody who shares her views against the words and deeds of those who do not believe in God – a prejudice that makes her unfit to be a legislator. Any good Christian should be able to see this as well.

I am simply not talking about a protest in defense of atheism and against Christianity. I am talking about a protest by those in defense of equal respect in the eyes of the law and against government declarations of hatred and bigotry.

For atheists to sit and do nothing while waiting patiently for others to do the work would be like the blacks in the 1950s sitting in their homes waiting for white people to change the voting access laws and to eliminate “separate but equal”.

The blacks in the 1950s and 1960s needed to take the lead – to be at the head of the march for civil rights. And there was, indeed, an attempt at the time to cast their activities in terms of “black” versus “white”. However, what those who marched for civil rights - those who engaged in the 'sit ins' and the voter registration drives - were demanding were things that no just and fair white person could deny. There was nothing inconsistent in white people joining the marches and the rallies and fighting for the same cause – because the cause they were fighting for was not ‘blacks’. The cause they were fighting for was ‘justice’.

When it comes to responding to the bigotry and injustice that I have been talking about this week, I am talking about things for which atheists must take the lead. However, there is nothing in what I have written that should give a good Christian pause. It is not anti-Christian. It is anti-injustice. Just as no Christian would tolerate being on a witness stand and being told by a sitting legislator to ‘get out of that seat because you are a Christian and Christians have no right to be here, no fair and just Christian should tolerate a legislator telling an Atheist to ‘get out of that seat because Atheists have no right to be here.’

In asking the question, “Why don’t atheists defend themselves?” it seems that I must be asking a related question, “Where did we get the idea that atheists defending themselves is anti-Christian? Is it the case that blacks defending their rights is anti-White? Is it the case that women defending themselves is anti-Male?”

There will certainly be people who will want to distort the message and turn it into an “atheist’ versus “Christian” message. The will seek to promote the idea that Christians are being persecuted because Christians are being forced to treat atheists as political equals to be given equal respect under the law. However, the existence of people who will distort the message in order to promote hostility and manipulate the public does not imply that proponents of justice should give up. Of course the unjust are going to fight back. But this implies 'fight harder', not 'give up'.

Atheists, Protests, and Responses to Comments

Note: The contents of these recent posts are closely related to an earlier post I had written on The Culpability of the Moderates, which examines Martin Luther King's protest of the moderates of his age who also thought that inaction was better than action.

Do you want to know what is really wrong with The God Delusion and The End of Faith and those other new atheist works?

The problem is that they are books. You see, Christians use books. They fill their books with all sorts of myths and superstitions – and in some cases outright lies. We certainly do not want it to appear that we are like Christians. So, clearly, it is objectionable for atheists to present their ideas using this medium known as ‘books’. It would be unseemly. We want people to think of us as being above books.

Absurd, right?

Books are tools used in communication. Books themselves are not to be judged by whether or not there are people who have filled them with lies and propaganda, with sloppy thinking, or with hate-motivated bigotry. Each book is to be judged on its own merits – on what ideas the author was trying to communicate, and on how well they were communicated.

I bring this up because some people have written in protest of atheists protesting the abuses that they have been subject to in this country. By this I refer to abuses such as a Pledge that says that those who do not support ‘one nation under God’ are, in the eyes of this government, equivalent to those who do not support a nation ‘with liberty and justice for all’. I am speaking about a President stating that no atheist is qualified to be President, and a sitting legislator asserting that atheism is a philosophy of destruction and ‘it is dangerous for children to even know that your philosophy exists’. I am talking about signs on the money and going up in public buildings and classrooms across the country that say, “If you do not trust in God, then do not think of yourself as one of us.”

I have suggested that atheists have not only a right but a duty to protest these abuses, because failure to do so means giving consent to teaching the next generation that atheism is something to be ashamed of – that atheists are not and cannot be good people. To give our consent to the teaching of this bigotry (and silence does imply consent) is itself a contemptible act.

In response, some have protested that atheists should not engage in protests because this is what the Christians do.

The solution isn't to get whiny. That's the tool of our enemies.

We shouldn’t write books. Books are the tool of our enemies.

Well, there is a distinction between ‘get whiny’ and ‘write books’ in that ‘get whiny’ is a derogatory and demeaning term whereas ‘write books’ is morally neutral. Certainly, one cannot find a quote in my blog posting where I advocated ‘get whiny’. I would not advocate such a thing.

So, how about responding to what I did, in fact, advocate, which was to state – in a loud and confident voice – that a President has no moral right to exclude atheists from the post of judgeship because he does not believe that our rights come from God. What I advocated was to emphatically deny that schools have any right to teach children – children who are atheists, children who will become atheists, children who are the classmates of atheists, and children who will become co-workers, neighbors, bosses, and voters, that an atheist is no better than a person who opposes liberty and justice for all, and that a person who fails to trust in God is not good enough to be counted one of us.

If you fight fire with fire, you end up with a bigger fire. We shouldn't fight ignorant shouters with shouts, we should fight them with quiet words.

We should not fight lying or superstitious books with books. We should used whispered words instead. No?

A protest, like a book, is a tool for communication. The content of a protest, like the content of a book, is not to be judged simply by the fact that it is a protest (or a book). It is to be judged by its actual content – by the truth of what the speakers actually say. What distinguishes the type of shouting that I have in mind from ‘ignorant shouting’ is the fact that what I advocate shouting is not ignorant.

No President has the right to exclude atheists from the job of federal judge. If this is shouted, clearly, from the courthouse steps, it is not an ignorant shout. It is a true claim.

Words alone are not the only parts of communication that carry meaning. We also communicate meaning through tone, inflection, and body language. Smile, as your spouse walks through the door, and, handing her a flower, smile and say, “You are late.” Compare this to, for example, standing there with fists clenched and shouting, “You are late!” Identical words, in these cases, have entirely different meanings, because we do not use words alone to communicate meaning.

In fact, if you were furious at your spouse for being late, yet you greeted your spouse with a smile and a gift while playfully saying, 'You are late', you would be guilty of lying - because you are communicating something that is manifestly untrue

Similarly, the silence we hear when a President says that no atheist is fit to be a judge, or when a seated legislature says that atheism is a philosophy of destruction and "it is dangerous for children to even know that your philosophy exists" is a lie. Because the moral truth of the matter requires outrage.

Telling a person, “What you are doing is wrong,” while engaged in light-hearted banter carries a different meaning than shouting, “What you are doing is wrong!” from a megaphone on a court-house steps. And it is the latter meaning, in the types of cases that I have described, is closer to the truth. Telling people that they ought not to shout their objections to this behavior is the same as saying that there are certain truths that should not be spoken. The truth that should not be spoken is the truth that you find in, “What you are doing is wrong!” shouted forcefully from the courthouse steps.

We *can't* be the extremists. We have to be the normal, rational, calm, sensible ones.

We should not portray ourselves as extremists. We should portray ourselves as the moderates we are. The people looking out for *everyone*.

Any claim that I have anywhere advocated “portraying ourselves as extremists” is an outright lie. Nowhere have I advocated extremism, and to interpret my remarks as a defense of extremism is a form of lying – of ‘bearing false witness’ against what I said in fact. It is, unfortunately, a very common tactic – if you can’t refute what a person says, then accuse them of saying something that you can refute.

What is ‘extreme’ in saying that an atheist can be perfectly well qualified to be a judge and in condemning a President (or a party) that insists that no atheist is qualified to fill that role? Indeed, there are those who would like to see this as an extremist position – but those are the very people who want to limit the people who can be judges to those who believe that our rights come from God.

Because the point is this: the existence of *one* normal, nice, ethical atheist destroys the basis of *every* religion, makes *all* priests and witch doctors liars.

Sure. In the same way that the existence of *one* normal, nice, ethical Jew can prevent the Holocaust from happening, and the existence of *one* normal, nice, ethical African makes slavery impossible, and the existence of *one* intelligent, ethical woman guarantees that women everywhere and everywhen will always have the right to vote.

Try to get the Christian majority to grant us "equal rights" and we would accept their eternal power to give and take such rights.

Certainly, in the same way that women insisting on a right to vote helped men to maintain a monopoly on political power so that women were forever subject to their political rights on the whim of men, and the way that the civil rights movement actually made blacks more subservient to and dependent on the good grace of whites.

Rather than shout at Davis, atheists need to get better at cataloguing and blogging these sort of things. It's more than a full time job.

In a sense, this is what I advocate. My argument for removing Davis from her position was never an argument that it was necessary in order to teach her to change her mind. My argument that this is necessary to teach the country that the view that atheism is a ‘philosophy of destruction’ and ‘it is dangerous for children to even know that your philosophy even exists’ is a view held by contemptible people who deserve our condemnation, not our praise. It was because of a concern about what will happen when other politicians learn that Davis is actually more secure in her position, not less secure. It had to do with what children hear when they hear that Davis said this, and they heard that it came with no adverse consequences (as if it must be a perfectly legitimate thing for a person to say).

We can catalogue and blog about these things and talk about them amongst each other all we want – that will do no good. What we need to do is to present them to people who do not look at our catalogues or read our blogs – we must get these claims out where people can actually hear them. Otherwise, when a President says that no atheist is qualified to be judge, and nobody even hints that this might be a bad idea (except the group mumbling to itself in the corner – and they are the most hated group in America anyway) – then we should not be surprised to discover that more and more people have come to actually think that no atheist is qualified to be a judge.

And for those who think that reason will always triumph over truth and that people are not prone to accept false statements that saturate the community in which they live . . .

. . . look around you. Just look at the numbers of people who accept absurdities even when they do hear from those who disagree, and explain how it is sufficient to respond to absurdities by mumbling among ourselves about how absurd they are.

Why Won't Atheists Defend Themselves?

Why won’t atheists defend themselves?

And how do you get them to start?

Seriously, this is perhaps one of the most baffling situations that I encounter here on this blog – a complete indifference of atheists to their own victimization.

In the past six years alone, atheists have been subjected to a string of insults and slanders which, if they had been directed against any other group, would have caused riots. Literally. I mean, smoke rising above the city from the burning buildings and tear gas.

Look at the list.

(1) A sitting president said that atheists are not fit to be judges – and the statement can still be found on the White House’s own web site.”[W]e need common-sense judges who understand that our rights were derived from God. And those are the kind of judges I intend to put on the bench.”

(2) We have atheists who stand and feign support for a Pledge of Allegiance that says, “As far as this government is concerned, atheists (those not ‘under god’) are the moral equivalent of those who would commit themselves to rebellion, tyranny, and injustice for all.”

(3) We have a national motto on our money and going up in more and more places in this country that says, “If you do not trust in God, you are not one of us.”

(4) Atheists are routinely blamed for everything from terrorist attacks to school shootings to hurricanes to the Holocaust.

(5) On this latter point, there is a movie that will officially debut around the country on April 18th that is making a blatant attempt to link atheism to the Holocaust.

(6) A sitting legislator tells an atheist witness that atheism is a philosophy of destruction and that he has no right to be there – and apologizes only for raising her voice.

Any one of these things should have sparked massive protests – not only from atheists, but from anybody who accepts the principle that law-abiding citizens deserve the equal respect and consideration of their government. And until they make atheism illegal, atheists count as law-abiding citizens.

So, why don’t atheists defend themselves? Why don’t they get angry?

I really want to hear your ideas on this, reader.

I have my own hypothesis – but it’s only a hypothesis.

It’s because even if you do not believe intellectually that atheism is something to be ashamed of, you’re ashamed of it nonetheless. You’re ashamed on a gut level – an emotional level – that reason cannot reach.

And by 'you' I do not just mean 'you' atheists. I mean anybody who favors a fair and just society. You don't have to be a wiccan or a Jew or a Muslim to defend their rights. You don't have to be an atheist to know that the actions that I described above are wrong.

You are ashamed of it because you have been taught to be ashamed of it since you were too young to question what you were being taught. You are ashamed of it because you look at the money, and the national motto on the money tells you to feel ashamed. It tells you to feel like an outsider – like somebody who does not deserve to be counted as “one of us” if you do not trust in God.

You are ashamed of it because, every day when you were in school, you pledged allegiance to the idea that people not “under God” are no better than people who would support rebellion, tyranny, and injustice for all. You were taught to be ashamed to sit out the Pledge of Allegiance. You were taught that you had to at least stand and show respect for the idea that good Americans favor “one nation under God” and anybody who does not favor “one nation under God” cannot be a good American.

You are ashamed of it because, ever since you were old enough to understand the words coming through your television set and over the radio, you have heard the lesson repeated over and over again that atheists are responsible for every child that gets shot in a school, every natural disaster that befalls the country, and would lead the nation into ruin if they ever got any real power.

You do not stand up to people like Ms. Davis because, on a gut level, you think she is right.

I know that you do not believe she is right. You string the propositions together from beginning to end and calculate all of the disjunctive syllogisms and constructive dilemmas and you know the conclusion, “Atheists are bad people,” cannot be supported.

And perhaps you can handle your atheism on an unemotional, intellectual level. You can debate the Bible with the best of them and even wear your t-shirts with the big letter A on them. But these are harmless. These are things that allow a person to think that they are doing something without actually doing something.

If you could attach some real-world accomplishments to this symbol, that would be different. If this were the case, then the symbol would be the symbol for “those of us who accomplished this thing.” In the absence of accomplishment, it is just so much red pigment on cloth (or red photons emitting from a web page).

And if I am wrong, then you tell me why Ms. Davis’ next committee hearing is not packed with a standing-room only crowd with signs that say, “We have a right to be here!” and slogans like, “Get out of that chair, Ms. Davis. Bigots like you have no right to be here.”

If I am wrong, then you tell me why atheists parents are letting their schools teach their children that those who do not favor “one nation under God” are as bad as those who do not favor “liberty and justice for all?”

But if I am right . . . .

If I am right, than we are guilty of letting that same message of shame get passed on to the next generation, and they will act the same way we do. They, too, will learn to do nothing while they are declared unfit to be judges, as bad as those who do not favor ‘liberty and justice for all’, not fit to be counted as ‘one of us’ if they do not trust in God, guilty of every terrorist attack, hurricane, and school shooting that strikes the country, guilty of the worst atrocities of the 20th century, and advocates of a philosophy of destruction that ‘have no right’ to address legislatures in this country.

Some of those atheist children (or children who later become atheists) might actually want to be judges, or representatives, or President. Some might even be good at it. But we close down these options when we let the next generation to learn the same lessons that we learned – that being an atheist is something to be ashamed of.

Sooner or later, hopefully, a generation will come along that says, “No. It stops here. You will not teach my child that those who do not favor ‘one nation under God’ are as bad as those who do not favor ‘liberty and justice for all’. You will pay with your job if you should declare that atheists are not qualified to be judges or have no right to offer testimony before a state legislature. If you produce a movie that tries to blame atheists for the holocaust you will be met with a cry that will ensure that everybody in the country hears how bigoted your claims are. And if you ever again try to blame us for a school shooting, hurricane, terrorist attack, or anything similar you will be met with a storm of protest that will bury your career.

These are the morally appropriate responses to these types of insults. Failure to respond in this way is not a morally permissible option. Failure to respond in this way says that we are going to allow the next generation to suffer the same insults and degradations that we suffer.

Until, sooner or later, one generation decides that they will do something different.

I would like it to be this generation.

Dear Ms. Davis

Dear Representative Davis:

First, I want to congratulate you for that back-handed apology to Rob Sherman – the one where you linked Sherman’s atheism with a school shooting. You got Mr. Sherman to say “Thank you,” and “I forgive you,” and to announce this on his web site, while the rest of the atheist community wonders where those finger marks on their cheek came from. That was a political masterpiece. I wonder, did you think of that yourself, or did some PR firm recommend it to you?

What’s particularly impressive about it is that the bulk of the country doesn’t even know you apologized. MSNBC, like all news organizations, condemned you in ways that were transmitted all over the web, but the apology was scarcely mentioned and certainly not repeated outside of the group you most needed to silence.

To the rest of the world, you stood up to the atheists, you insisted that they had no right to even be represented in Congress, you called their beliefs ‘dangerous’ saying that children should not even know that their philosophy exists. And then . . . silence.

I have no doubt that your actions will serve as a valuable lesson to the rest of the country – that they can stand up to atheists, put them in their place, and nothing will come of it.

By now, their initial blog postings would have scrolled off of their front pages and into the archives. Their attention will move on to some other issue, and you will still be here.

We have often said that our rights are in poor hands if trust them to atheists. This, certainly, is proof. Atheists will not even defend their own rights – so we certainly cannot trust them to defend the rights of others. And, of course, nobody else will stand up for the atheists. Why? It’s like a soldier bravely defending an able-bodied adult who, nonetheless, lies cowering and sniveling in the corner. Why do for atheists what atheists are not willing to do for themselves?

They say that they do not believe in a God. Yet, they certainly act as if they are waiting for some kind of divine being to descend from heaven and smite their enemies. As atheists, you would expect them to think and act as if they believe that nothing gets done on this planet except through their hard efforts. You would think that they would shun the idea of doing nothing and waiting for things to happen for them. Yet, they do nothing, and wait for some mysterious actor to act on their behalf.

These people pride themselves on their rationality, and yet they write letters to you, Ms. Davis – a person who has already said that you consider theirs a ‘philosophy of destruction’ and something that children should not even know about. What type of person do they think you are that a letter from a person who only believes in destroying might persuade you to do what they want?

In fact, what are these letters but proof of their determination to destroy everything good in the state? Certainly, your representation – and in particular your willingness to stand up for God against the heathens and infidels – is one of the good things in this state. Of course they would want to destroy it. Of course they would want to see you resign.

I hope that writing these letters made them feel better, because that’s all the good they are ever going to get out of them.

As far as I am concerned, the best thing to come from this – the best thing to come from their pathetic and ineffective response to your outburst – is that this might help other legislators across the state and across the country find the nerve to put atheists in their place like you did. We know that there are a lot of them out there. Now, thanks to you, they know that standing up to atheists comes with no adverse political consequences.

Like I already said, the rest of the country knows that you stood up to Sherman. They know what you said, and, as far as they know that was the end of it. Except, you have become the darling of people who have wanted to tell atheists off for decades now. You are now their hero. One nice thing about heroes is that they breed more people like them.

That is one reason why you must stay in office, Ms. Davis. That is one reason why you must weather this storm. You must do so to give strength and to give voice to legislators across this country when it comes to standing up to those atheists. With your leadership, with your example, others will begin to realize that they, too, can take the position that you have taken with regard to these atheists, and that no harm will come of it. Indeed, their positions will become more secure – because the atheists will do nothing, and the theocrats will rally to your cause, and the atheists by their unwillingness to act will make sure that the theocrats will win.

And they will win, Ms. Davis.

We live in a country where a sitting President of the United States twice said that no atheist is qualified to be a judge. He said that “we need common-sense judges who realize that our rights come from God, and that is the type of judge I intend to appoint.” He said it once during a Presidential debate. What is that if not a statement that no atheist is qualified to be a judge? What is this if not a statement by the President of the United States to any atheist who comes in to be interviewed for a post as a Federal judge to, “Get out of that chair! You have no right to be here!”?

Bush not only survived making such statements. Nobody challenged him. Nobody said a word against him. Clearly, that sent a message across the political community that denying atheists any role at all in government is politically viable. We can see how Bush’s ability to explicitly deny atheists a role in government without any political consequences has affected even the Democratic candidates in this election.

I enjoy the way that atheists moan and cry about how if you had said the same thing about some other minority – if you had told some Jewish witness that this was a Christian nation, that theirs was a philosophy of destruction, and that it was dangerous for children to even know that Jews exist – that you would be out of a job.

Of course you would be out of a job. This is because every civil rights organization across the country would be making telephone calls and sending representatives out here demanding to see the governor and the House and Senate leadership, and the Democratic Party leadership, and every news reporter in the country demanding your head on a platter. They would have no choice but to deliver it.

Then there is the trick of turning public attention against the atheists by taking a quote from Sherman out of context to make it look as if he is the bigot. Thanks to that brilliant move, the atheists are now on the defensive. On the context of talking about Martin Luther King, Sherman used the word 'Negroes', and suddenly he is the bigot - irrespective of the fact that King used the word 'Negroes' 15 times in the 'I Have a Dream' speech alone.

Since people have such a deep-seated hostility towards atheists, they are naturally going to accept our interpretation of Sherman's words. They are not going to give it a favorable interpretation or see our actions as manipulative, because they want to see the atheists as the bad guys and us as the good guys. We must never forget that we have this advantage over them, or lose any opportunity to use the negative perception of atheists to our advantage.

You would think that these self-professed masters of reasoning who call themselves atheists would figure out that there is a direct relationship between a government’s tendency to stomp on a group of citizens and their tendency to let it happen. They’ll blame some non-descript ‘other’ for the way they are treated but take no responsibility for the contribution they make to this situation.

The Jews, for example, would know full well that a similar string of statements made against them are not a Jewish issue. This is not just a matter of Jews defending themselves from people who claim that “children ought not to even know that Jews exist.” They would make sure that the world knew that a threat against the Jews is a threat against any minority that might find itself the object of political hostility. They would have every organization that sees reason to fear a government that gets away with saying – “you have no right to be here” contacting representatives and friends of representatives demanding your resignation. And the noise will not end until they got it.

These things do not happen to other minorities because those minorities defend themselves, while atheists run and hide. The atheists might as well simply tattoo a sign on their bare back that says, “Kick me (again).”

Those atheists, if they really were as rational as they claim to be, would not be sending you emails or calling your office. They would be sending letters or calling the offices of American Atheists, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, The Secular Coalition, and they would be asking, “What are you going to do about this?” And if the answer is “Nothing”, they would shout – literally SHOUT - “Well you had better fracking get a plan and get it quick or my membership will go to the one who does! What the frack is wrong with you people!”

Those atheists, if they were rational, would be convening meetings within their own states asking, “What can we do to keep anything like that from happening here?” They would be organizing a campaign to talk to their own legislators and saying, “See what happened in Illinois? I demand (and ‘demand’ is the right word) a statement from you condemning her words and saying that if any colleague of yours in this state were to do the same thing you would demand their resignation.”

If they were rational, they would be contacting their county Democratic and Republican party headquarters and saying, “I demand a resolution from you stating that you recognize that the statement that ‘atheists are responsible for all of the school shootings’ to be morally equivalent to ‘Jews are responsible for all of the wars’ – an expression of blanket hate-mongering bigotry that has no legitimate place in this state.” And then when that party refuses, make sure that the public knows the bigotry that the party represents. They would make sure to inoculate their own state from the effects of your success here.

If they were rational, they would not be blind to the fact that a leading Democratic Presidential candidate is an Illinois legislator, and they would not shy from any opportunity to embarrass him until he disowns you and your remarks as he was forced to disown the remarks of his own preacher.

However, as I have already said, the scientific method itself confirms the fact that it is foolish to expect atheists to defend anybody’s rights to equal respect in the eyes of their own government, even their own. This is not an insult, this is just an empirical fact.

Mark my words, Ms. Davis. Nothing is going to happen to you. I’m going to check back here next Monday, and I bet the whole issue will have been forgotten, your position in this legislature will actually be stronger (because of the support of those who want to stick it to the atheists the way you did), and you will be an important role model for politicians across the whole country during this election.

Mark my words, Ms. Davis. Nothing will come of this.

It never does.

Representative Davis' Non-Apology

Actually, there was no apology. Ms. Davis apologized to Rob Sherman for yelling at him. However, she did not apologize for what she said, and she did not apologize to the people she slighted.

Let’s compare this to another bigoted rant. On July 26, 2006, Mel Gibson was arrested for drunk driving. Information was leaked that, at the time of his arrest, Gibson made some anti-Semitic remarks, such as, “Jews are responsible for all of the wars in the world.”

This is a classic element of bigotry – a desire to charge the objects of one’s hatred with any crime imaginable in order to give the bigot’s hatred a comfortable home.

“I hate these people. If they were guilty of this crime, then they deserve to be hated. Therefore, they must be guilty of this crime.”

This is bigotry. This is how the bigot thinks. And this is how Monique Davis thinks.

Davis said that she was reacting to news that there had been another fatal school shooting. She hears about a school shooting, and she immediate takes it out on the first atheist she comes into contact with. She says, “You believe in destroying” and “It is dangerous for children to even know that your philosophy exists.”

Obviously, she is a victim of the prejudice that says that atheists and evolutionists have been responsible for every act of school violence since Columbine.

This was no apology.

This was actually nothing more than Davis admitting her bigotry, and slapping Sherman and all atheists again with the accusation that atheism was responsible for this student’s death.

This bigotry . . . this common rant that atheists and evolutionists are responsible for all school violence . . . this is morally no different than Gibson’s claim that Jews are responsible for all the wars of the world.

There is no evidence behind it. People do not get this idea because they are driven to it by any sort of valid argument. Why do they believe it?

People believe that atheists are responsible for all school violence for the same reason that anti-Semites believe that Jews are responsible for all of the wars of the world. It is because their hatred has driven them to seek a reason to hate, and these types of beliefs fill the bigot’s need.

In Gibson’s case, the very next day – the day after his arrest, Gibson released a statement. It included:

I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested, and said things that I do not believe to be true and which are despicable. I am deeply ashamed of everything I said and I apologize to anyone who I have offended.

Three days later, Gibson released another statement to the Jewish community.

There is no excuse, nor should there be any tolerance, for anyone who thinks or expresses any kind of anti-Semitic remark. . . . I am a public person, and when I say something either articulated and thought out, or blurted out in a moment of insanity, my words carry weight in the public arena. As a result, I must assume personal responsibility for my words and apologize directly to those who have been hurt and offended by those words. . . . I am not just asking for forgiveness, I would like to . . . meet with the leaders in the Jewish community, with whom I can have a one-on-one discussion to discern the appropriate path for healing.

We can speculate whether or not Gibson actually meant these words. However, he recognized that it was important to say them. He recognized that his words and deeds required more than a phone call to the police officer that arrested him and saying, “I’m sorry.”

And even if he had done that, and even if the police officer had said, “I forgive you,” this still would not have gotten him off of the hook for all of the other people he had insulted. He had to do more, and he knew it.

And he did it.

Ms. Davis is more than a ‘public person’. She is a duly elected representative, sworn to uphold and defend rights that she public denied even existed. She did not speak as a drunk being arrested at 2:00 in the morning. Ms. Davis spoke while she was acting in the capacity of a legislator in a legislative session, when she was perfectly sober, when she was listening to the testimony of a witness in a case before the legislative body in which she is a member.

Davis acted under conditions where her behavior is the least worthy of any type of forgiveness.

As I said above, Davis’ behavior is not only as bad as Gibson’s. It is much, much worse.

Gibson tried to deny the charge of being anti-Semitic. He went to great lengths to prove that this is the case. Yet, in spite of this fact, he was still accused of saying what was in his heart at the night of the arrest. If he did not have anti-Semitic thoughts, the accusers said, then why is it that he immediately went into an anti-Semitic rant when he was arrested? Obviously, anti-Semitic thoughts were not the furthest thing from his mind.

So far, Davis hasn’t taken a single step to deny her hatred of atheists. She apologized to Sherman, but I have seen or heard nothing comparable to her saying, “There is no excuse, nor should there be any tolerance, for anyone who thinks or expresses this type of hatred – particularly for a legislator whose duty is to protect and defend the rights of the people.”

There has been nothing like that.

Why?

Because Davis almost certainly does believe that atheists are responsible for every act of school violence, in the same way that an anti-Semite really does believe that Jews are responsible for all of the wars of the world.

If she does not believe it, then let her deny it?

Let’s hear her say that it is unfair and unjust to blame atheists for school violence. Let her deny that she attacked Sherman the way she did because she saw him as a symbol for those who she thinks are the true culprits guilty of the killing of that student she had heard about earlier in the day. Let her tell us how she believes that there should be no tolerance for anybody whose attitudes towards their fellow humans is that which is expressed by this type of unfounded, unjustified, hate-motivated accusation.

Hers is exactly the same form of bigotry we see in Ben Stein’s movie, "Expelled.” In just the same way that Davis wants to ‘justify’ her love of hating atheists in a veneer of legitimacy by imaging atheists responsible for all school shootings, Stein wants to ‘justify’ his love of hating atheists by blaming atheists for the holocaust. With Ben Stein, it is not ‘Jews are responsible for all of the world’s wars,’ but ‘Atheists are responsible for all of the world’s wars’.”

Except, when Gibson made his unfounded accusation against the Jews, the world was aghast. If Gibson had made a movie in which the main theme was, “Jews are responsible for all of the wars of the world,” in just the same way that Stein has made a movie that says, “Atheists and evolutionists are responsible for all the wars of the world” . . . well, there would have been no saving him.

Just as their should be no way to save Stein from his accusation, or to save Davis' job.

The one final question that I want to ask is, are atheists going to do anything about it? Are they going to move on to other things, or are they finally going to take a stand and say, “A person who claims that atheists are responsible for these atrocities will get no better treatment than the anti-Semite who wants to blame the Jews for all of the wars in the world?”

It is time for another round of emails - and not just to Ms. Davis. It is time for a round of emails and calls to her peers and to the press - to anybody who will put pressure on her to answer the question, "Ms. Davis, several atheists are accusing you of claiming that we can blame all school shootings on atheists in the same way that Mel Gibson once claimed that we can blame all the wars on the world as Jews. Do you hold atheists responsible for all school violence? And, if so, how does this differ from Gibson's remark that the Jews were responsible for all the world's wars?"

Get her to answer that question. Then we will see the degree for which she is sorry for the hate that motivated her outburst.

Representative Davis' Apology

So, Ms. Davis has apologized and said that she had a bad day because she had just learned of another school shooting.

And she decided to take it out on the atheist.

Why?

Could it be, perhaps, that she shares the theocratic bigotry that all school violence is somehow associated with atheism, and that if we had no atheists then we would have no school shootings?

Is that what she meant when she said that "it is dangerous for children to even know that your philosophy exists" - that children who become atheists shoot other children?

Is that what she meant when she said that atheism is a philosophy of destruction - because it must have been this student's atheism that caused the student to destroy the life of another student?

This apology, in fact, is just another slap in the face of all atheists. It is just another expression of her bigotry. Because, certainly, if she had been talking to a Christian witness, she would not have reacted in the same way.

Why not?

You've got more questions to answer, Ms. Davis.

The Moral Argument for Davis' Resignation in Detail

I’m going to have to put off my posting on the meaning of life for another day. I want to say more about the moral issues relevant to calling for the resignation of Representative Davis of Illinois. I want to address some of the concerns that people have about this and explain some of the moral implications of the options available.

By way of background, I commented on Davis’ arguments twice, in “Name of First Posting” and “Name of Second Posting”. Basically, Davis said that atheists had a philosophy of destruction and demanded that the atheist offering testimony leave because atheists had no right to offer testimony in a nation dedicated to God.

Before going further, I want to repeat a distinction that I have made in the past between political strategy and ethics. If this were a post on political strategy we would be concerned with what is or is not expedience, with little regard for what is right. However, as an ethics blog, my concern with what is right, regardless with what is expedient.

There is good reason for a person who is concerned with the right and wrong of an action not to offer compromise and to accept less than morality demands.

In the case of Monique Davis, the right thing to do is for her to resign. When she made her comments she demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that she is not fit to be a legislator. A legislator is a representative of the people, yet there is a law-abiding segment of the population that she has substantially said she will not represent because they have no right to representation. She will not consider their interests in future legislation. Furthermore, she cannot be expected to protect and defend the rights of this segment of the population when she denies that they have any rights.

She has even denied that they have a right to exist (or, if they do exist, they may exist only in a way that others do not know about it).

All of this renders her unfit to be a legislator in a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

However, we live in a country where the denigration of atheists is perfectly acceptable in most quarters. Because it is acceptable, it is quite possible that Ms. Davis will get away with her expressions of bigotry. She may have the same odds of being called on it as a candidate in the 1850s who said that blacks are the moral and intellectual inferior to whites and had no right to serve on juries and no role to play in government.

Regardless of how safe her comments may be, they are still wrong, and the proportional response to the magnitude of her disregard for the principles of representative government is to see her resign or otherwise (peacefully) removed from office.

The fact that she may not be held as accountable for her wrongs as she should be is no argument against the severity of those wrongs or the appropriateness of calling for her resignation. In this blog, I routinely argue for moral marks that I can reasonably expect will not be met.

In December, I criticized the Connecticut Valley Atheists for a sign that linked all of religion to the destruction of the World Trade Center. I called this bigotry, because I held that it is a gross overgeneralization, blaming people for something that they were not the least bit responsible for and never would have condoned because they share a characteristic that the speaker/writer wants everybody else to hate.

I knew at the time that it was unlikely that my moral demands would be met. However, I still hold that I made the right call, and the failure of others to live up to that standard was their fault, not a fault of the standard.

There is no sense in weakening a moral standard simply because the accused will not meet it. Imagine telling a jurist that he has an obligation to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; however, if he is bent on lying, then we will weaken the standard so that he is permitted to lie to some extent. That is, if we really do not expect him to tell the truth, we tell him that it is okay to tell the truth, and that the obligation to tell the truth simply does not apply to somebody who is bent on lying.

Or imagine telling a doctor that she has an obligation to provide her patients with competent medical advice. However, insofar as we deem that she is unwilling to do so (because she does not care enough about the welfare of her patients to go through the effort), that we will weaken the standard in her case. Instead, we will only demand medical care that is as competent as that which she is willing to provide.

In general, this says that we should move the moral marker to the point that indicates what we can reasonably expect a person to do, without regard to what we have a right to demand of the accused. That is not a moral standard at all. It is a moral license to do as one pleases.

A second and related problem brings in the moral principle of universalization. A moral principle is supposed to be universal. As a result, if A says that B may do X to C, then A is also taken to be saying that C may do X to B under similar circumstances.

So, if we say that there is nothing about holding the attitude that a group of law-abiding citizens has no right to representation that is morally objectionable, then we are effectively saying that the following is also morally permissible:

Imagine a Christian representative saying of a Jewish witness:

“We are a Christian nation. Our nation serves Jesus Christ. Your people are agents of destruction. Your philosophy should not even be allowed to exist. Get out of that seat. You have no right to be here.”

We hear these types of objections raised against those who make claims against atheists all the time. But we usually see these as arguments that display hypocrisy. We tend not to look at their further meaning.

The further meaning is that if we, as atheists, say that the only appropriate response to this type of claim is to politely criticize the individual, then we are at the same time telling the Jews that they should also respond to these types of comments with a mild rebuke. We are telling the Muslims and Wiccans and Buddhists that, wherever they suffer the same sort of treatment at the hands of a Christian legislator, that they should be like us and passively request better treatment in the future. And we are telling our fellow Christian citizens that if anybody should make similar claims against them, that they are to restrain themselves from offering anything more than a mild rebuke.

This is the moral standard we establish – this is the moral principle we advocate – when we say that we should not do anything more than rebuke Ms. Davis for her remarks.

Or, conversely, if we hold that the Jew, the Muslim, the Wiccan, the Buddhist, and the Christian all have the right to demand the resignation of a legislator that insists that they have no right to offer testimony to a government off the people, then, it follows that we, too, have that right.

And the Christian who claims that if she were spoken to in a similar manner by an atheist legislator would see this as just cause to demand and expect the resignation of that legislator, must also demand and expect the resignation of a Christian legislator making those comments about atheists.

When we demand the resignation of somebody like Monique Davis, we offer the Jew, the Muslim, the Hindu, the Wiccan, and even the Christian the moral right to do the same thing, if they should ever find themselves in the same situation. We create a moral standard whereby the legislator that denies the critic’s right to speak will be removed and replaced with somebody with a better sense of her own duties as a representative of all the people.

Perhaps it is true that we cannot expect the Illinois legislature to do what it should in this case. Perhaps we can expect that the people of Illinois will fall short of their obligation to uphold and defend government of, for, and by the people. However, if we take this as a reason to move the moral goal post, then we are making it easy for them to fall short of that goal as well.

If we demand resignation, it may be the case that Davis is merely censured. But, if we demand censure, we should not be surprised to discover that she was only rebuked. If we demand that she be rebuked, we can expect those who fall short of this moral goal to simply ignore her remarks, And if we allow people to get away with ignoring her remarks then we can expect that they will fall short of that goal by actively praising and supporting her.

The right thing to do is to demand Davis’ resignation. Even if the odds of people doing the right thing are low, if we move the moral flag, then we reduce the odds of them doing the right thing from a probability to a certainty. If we move the moral flag, then we are in effect granting moral permission to legislatures across the whole country to say that some group of law-abiding citizens ought to be silenced and ought not to exist.

That is a permission that we have no right to grant.

Less Talking and More Doing

Less Talking and More Doing

I had this wonderful philosophical blog posting on the meaning of life written this morning, and I ended up getting overrun by current events. Both events played into a change that I have wanted to see for a while – a change from 'Talking' into 'Doing'.

Truth Tickets

I have mentioned before how searches for Ben Stein's "Expelled" movie has been generating a substantial number of hits to my blog – directed at my post, “Ben Stein Expelled”. Recently, the number of hits took a significant leap, presumably as the movie draws close to opening. I had been thinking about the amount of money that they would make on this movie, and the harm that they would do with it.

And I came up with my idea to ask readers to by "Truth Tickets" to offset this investment in stupidity.

Well, the "Truth Tickets" idea took off.

Today, I got more hits from searches for Ben Stein's "Expelled" than even yesterday’s record-setting number of hits. However, they were swamped by hits from those interested in the "Truth Tickets" idea.

This was a very welcome development because, what I would really love to see is for the movie "Expelled" itself swamped by the investment people are willing to make in offsetting this stupidity.

The idea got picked up first (as far as I can tell) by Jim Lippard

And, from there to Panda’s Thumb.

Then to Pharyngula

I also received comments from people who took the idea and bought their own sets of "Truth Tickets" – usually more than one (though even one would be a help).

I can't tell what the overall result has been so far, but I do know that it will take a great deal of effort to counter the professional marketing efforts of the backers of "Expelled". I would like more to be done.

I would like the idea to spread to organizations who have a serious stake in making sure that we maintain a firm commitment to sound science in the fields of medicine, agriculture, and environmental sciences.

So, I thank everybody for the contributions they have made so far, in whatever form they took. And, please, keep up the good work.

And if you want to report your efforts, please come here and let the other readers know what you have accomplished. I hope to be hearing from you.

Forcing the Resignation of Representative Davis

The other issue that came up today concerns the appropriate reaction to comments made against atheists.

Today, a Superdelegate for Barak Obama called about a bunch of kids playing in a tree “monkeys”, and then resigned. We have had an election full of incidents where a candidate has said something derogatory (or in some cases merely taken to be derogatory) of one group or another being forced to pay some sort of cost for their remarks. Davis' comments about atheists – explicitly stating that they do not have a right to testify before Congress and that children should not even be allowed to know that their philosophy exists is orders of magnitude more bigoted than comments that have ended the careers of other politicians.

Listen to what she said.. There is no way that a person with such views is fit to be a Representative of a free people.

Whereas she almost certainly wishes to keep her job, pressure can be put on her co-workers to put pressure on her and do the right thing – leave her seat available for somebody who knows a Representatives duties.

The right to petition the government – the right of a citizen to express his opinion to the government – is not only a Constitutional right but a moral right. It is the very essence of a democracy that the free and law-abiding people can come before the government and express their views on any issue. But, to Davis, that right does not extend to atheists. She would not only deny us the right to speak to the government, she would deny us the right to speak to our fellow citizens.

[I]t's dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists.

Seriously, no atheist should have to go to the government and look up at her on the other end of the room. You are here to express your opinion to the people who are supposed to be working for the people, and she is sitting there not only tuning out what you say, but asserting that it is wrong for you to be sitting there giving an opinion at all.

And this is not something for which an apology is at all sufficient. We have every reason to believe that this was a statement of her true views – released in an unguarded moment, perhaps, but her true views nonetheless. Any statement to the effect of, "I really didn’t mean it," would be a lie, and we would be foolish to accept it.

Why is all of this slander against atheists possible?

Because when a person slanders atheists the way Davis has done, the response has been to send a polite letter saying, "Please, sir, would you mind terribly if we asked you not to say such things?"

Come, now. The only morally legitimate option is for her to leave office. If something less than that happens, it is a moral failure on the part of those who accepted that option. One thing we do not need to be saying is that this lesser option is somehow the morally legitimate option. It is not. It is, instead, a moral failure, and we should be calling it what it is.

This has got to stop. If we live in a society where this type of slander is politically rewarded, rather than politically punished, we can only expect it to grow. When we make this a society where this type of slander is politically punished as it should be, that is the only way it will ever diminish.

A commenter to my earlier post on this wrote:

I'm not against the idea of her resigning, I just greatly doubt it's going to happen. . . . A more modest endeavor would have a greater likelihood of getting her to recognize her mistake and think more carefully in the future.

If she is not forced out of office, then the thing to do is to make THIS the story. Make THIS the claim that American society itself has failed. Make THIS the shame of the legislature and even the people of the state that they will not live by the principles they claim to value. Raise the cognitive dissidence up to such a level that people can taste it.

The Linkage

Both of these issues are very closely linked, as it turns out.

Ben Stein’s "Expelled", as I explained in previous posts, is a propaganda piece that aims to promote hatred of atheists by linking their mention with images of Hitler, Stalin, and everything else despised. It's purpose is to create legislators like Ms. Davis, and to give them strength.

In fact, one of the things that the backers of Ben Stein's move have talked about is their efforts to influence legislators by showing their movie to legislators. The influence that "Expelled" is seeking to have on the legislature is nothing less than to sell legislators on the type of hatred that Davis has expressed, by training legislators to view the atheists among them the same way that they would view Nazis and anybody else who would defend the death camps of Germany.

Responding to these attacks with polite letters of, "Please do not say such mean things about atheists. We really aren't all that bad, you know. We hope you will find it in your heart to give us some minimum measure of respect," it itself morally deficient.

The legitimate response is to say, "Your slanderous attempt to link atheists and evolutionists to the Nazi atrocities – your declarations that anybody who does not believe in God shall not testify before a legislature of, by and for the people – are far removed from the legitimate attitudes of a fair and just people."

These two projects are very much worth doing, and very much worth seeing to a successful end. Failure to respond to these attacks – failure to respond to attempts to like atheists to Nazi atrocities and failure to remove from office legislatures who insist that atheists not be allowed to (let alone agree to listen to) their testimony will simply give license to increase the attacks against them.

Against us.

Demand Monique Davis' Resignation

We interrupt this regular daily blogcast (almost) for this special announcement.

Daylight Atheism contains a posting that covers the remarks made by Illinois State Representative Monique Davis against Atheist Rob Sherman.

it's dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! Now you will go to court to fight kids to have the opportunity to be quiet for a minute. But damn if you'll go to [court] to fight for them to keep guns out of their hands. I am fed up! Get out of that seat!

The post concludes with the recommendation:

If you have the time, please call or mail her - politely, but firmly - and let her know that you do not appreciate an elected official showing such hate and bigotry toward one of her own constituents. It's not out of the question that we can enlighten her to the ugliness of her own actions and shame her into treating American atheists with more respect in the future.

No!

Stop!

This is the type of case where the right thing to do would be to contact her and the Democratic Party and any and all news organizations within the state and . . .

Demand her immediate resignation!

She has proved herself unfit to be a legislator in these United States.

She does not deserve our polite and respectful disagreement.

She deserves to be replaced by somebody who will do the job of Representative the way it is supposed to be done.

She deserves to be fired.

Nothing less.

What Is 'Self Interest'?

I still have a hard time listening to economists talk about anything because they always seem to start with an assumption that, to me, makes absolutely no sense.

They say that we are all ‘self-interested’ (or ‘selfish’, in a sense). And that all of economics is built on the behavior of individuals who are assumed to be self-interested. Somehow, these self-interested individuals, in the right economic and political candidate, can find incentive to act in self-interested ways that also benefit others. This is the economic ‘invisible hand’ of Adam Smith. The truth of this assumption is borne out by the success of economics – by the way that economists are able to explain and predict behavior.

My objection is not that the assumption that humans are ‘self-interested’ is false. It’s that the assumption is ambiguous and confused. Economists who use this assumption are saying a bunch of contradictory things, and they pick out the parts of the contradiction that serves their purpose at the moment. When their purpose changes, so does their concept of ‘self-interest’.

In an earlier post I distinguished between two types of self-interest; interest of the self, and interest in the self. All of my desires are mine. They are ‘interests of the self’ because my desires belong to me. They are encoded into my brain which is the only brain (given current technology) directly connected to my muscles. Of course I always act on my ‘interests of the self’ – because my ‘interests of the self’ are the only interests connected to my muscles in the right way.

When we talk about interests of the south, we have no difficulty explaining how a person might be altruistic or concerned with the welfare of others. An agent can simply have an interest in a state in which other people are better off, or an interest in avoiding a state in which other people are worse off. These are still ‘interests of the self’ in the sense that they are interests of the agent. However, they are not ‘interests in the self’. Instead, they are interests in the well-being of others.

When economists speak about self-interests, and claim that it creates some special problem for altruism, they need to be talking about ‘interests in the self’. These are a special subset of potential ‘interests of the self’ – they are ‘interests of the self’ that also take the self as an object. More specifically, they are ‘interests of the self’ in providing the self with a benefit of some sort.

If it were the case that all human interests are ‘interests in the self’, then this would be a problem for altruism, and we may need to do some fancy theorizing to explain how, if all human interests are ‘interests in the self’, we could possibly drive people to behave in ways that benefit others. However, we have no reason to accept this assumption that all human interests are ‘interests in the self’ is true. So, we have no particular reason to think that there is a problem here in need of solving, let alone reason to examine whether various theories have solved it.

Evolution has a number of reasons to favor ‘interests of the self’ over ‘interests in the self’. The latter simply require a lot more work to program into a living system. My favorite example concerns the relationship between antelope and lions. The antelope does not run from the lion because he is afraid of being killed and eaten. It runs from the lians because he is afraid of lions. It is just so much easier to program into an antelope brain, ‘if you see a lion, or anything that might be a lion, run’ than it is to program ‘if you see something that might eat you, run’.

Indeed, if we were going to program a robot to survive in a hostile climate, the vast majority of that programming will have nothing to do with ‘self-interest’. The robot will be programmed to avoid going off of a cliff without spending an iota of processing capability calculating the effects of falling off the cliff. The latter would require the use of resources that the agent can better allocate to other items.

The agent is going to eat the plants that taste good to it, without regard as to why some plants taste better than others. The agent is going to engage in sex, not because it has a desire to procreate and some complex set of beliefs that link sex to the fact of procreation. The agent is going to avoid the fire because the fire makes it feel uncomfortable, not because it has made some complex calculation saying that the source of pain might also produce some other harmful side effects that are best avoided.

This is not to say that we do not contain any interests in the self. There are certainly interests of the self that take the self as an object. The desire to avoid pain is most strongly realized as a desire to avoid my pain. Hunger, thirst, and the desire for sex are realized in the form of a desire ‘that I eat’ or ‘that I drink’ or ‘that I have sex’

Even ‘interests of the self’ that take the well-being of others as their object can be selfish in some important way. For example, the desire for the well-being of one’s children is often realized as a partially selfish desire for the well-being of one’s own children; or, more precisely, a desire that my children are healthy and happy.

Still, we are dealing with a set of ‘desires of the self’ that includes desires for the well-being of other people. Within the context of desires of the self there altruism is not a problem. Altruism consists of desires of the self in the well-being of others. Just as we have some desires of the self that are desires in the well-being of ourselves, we can have desires of the self that are desires in the well-being of others.

We have reason to promote these desires. We not only have desires-in-the-self reason to promote desires in others to do no harm to self and to provide benefit to self, we also have desires-of-the-self-in-the-well-being-of-others reason to promote desires in others do no harm to the people we care about and to provide benefits to them when they are in need.

That is to say, to the degree that desires are malleable, we have reason to promote desires-of-the-self in the well-being of others, since we (and those we care about) are the ‘others’ who benefit when we promote ‘desires-of-the-self’ in the well-being of others.

One special problem with the idea of desires-in-the-self has to do with what counts as a benefit. What does it really mean to be selfish?

This problem comes about because the only form of value that actually exists in the real world is that of relationships between states of affairs and desires. “The self” can be made better off only to the degree that “the self” can be put in a state that better fulfills the most and strongest desires of the agent.

This invites us to ask, “What are the most and strongest desires of the agent?”

Let’s assume that an agent wants to be somebody who takes care of sick children. He invests a great deal of time and effort into making himself somebody who is better able to take care of sick children. To the degree that he does so, he is making himself into a person that best fulfills the more and stronger of that agent’s desires. This desire ‘that I be the best pediatrician available’ is not only a desire of the self, it is a desire in the self. Yet, even this type of ‘interest in the self’ desire is fully compatible with altruism.

So, where do we get this idea that humans are confined to a set of interests that are incompatible with altruism . . . so much so that economists (and others) think that there is a huge problem with respect to altruism that we need to solve?

Just as it is not necessarily the case that all interests in the self are bad, it is also not the case that all interests of the self in others are good. A person who has a desire to kill others, or a desire to see them suffer, also has an interest of the self in other people. It just happens to be an interest in thwarting the desires of others, rather than an interest in fulfilling the desires of others.

So, the problem goes both ways. We try to distinguish between good and evil in terms of ‘desires of the self in the self’ and ‘desires of the self in others’. But there are a lot of desires of the self in the self that can be good, and desires of the self in others that can be bad. This is just not a good distinction to use when trying to distinguish between what is good (what we have reason to promote) and what is bad (what we have reason to inhibit).

It is true that humans do not have the strength of ‘desire that the desires of others are fulfilled’ or even ‘desires that tend to fulfill the desires of others’ that we have reason to cause them to have. It is true that we have reason to promote more and stronger desires that tend to fulfill the desires of others. However, the problem is not one that can be reduced to a type of ‘self interest’ that is incompatible with altruism. The problem, instead, is one that can be reduced to the fact that people have desires that tend to thwart other desires – self-regarding interests and other-regarding interests that we have reason that do harm.