Political Activism: Votes

I am starting off this year - a political campaign year - looking at the subject of political activism.

I am using Sean Faircloth's presentation of a new atheist strategy as my foil.

I have argued that if you are serious about political success you must aim to come to the political table with cash or votes or both. Your voice is as loud as the amount of money or the number of votes you carry with you.

On the subject of money, it is best to design a political product that you can sell to "the top 10%". they have almost all of the disposable income.

This post concerns the subject of votes.

The richest 10% of population may have over 90% of the available cash, but they still only have 10% of the votes. You collect money by designing a product you can sell to the top 10%. You collect votes by designing a product you can sell to everybody else.

The Irrelevance of Non-Voters

Nonvoters do not count. Many people think that they can make a statement by not voting. Yet, as soon as they declare their not-voting status, they give up their power. It gets distributed among everybody else (whose vote, in a smaller pool of voters, becomes a little more powerful). A portion of it is handed directly to the people that the non-voter most strongly disagrees with. The non-voter is a worthless waste of time and resources and can be - should be - regarded as irrelevant.

Recruitment

When it comes to collecting votes, one of the best models ever invented was the church.

Church leaders such as Pat Robertson, Billy Graham, James Dobson, Rick Warren, and others always have a seat at the political table substantially because they bring to the table a pocket full of votes. The more votes they pocket, the louder their political voice.

One of the major implications of this is the value of recruitment. More people means more votes, which means a stronger voice at the political table.

A very good way to deal with both of the issues of recruitment and voting is a voter registration drive - particularly in communities that are highly secular such as college campuses. (Are you listening Secular Student Alliance? This is an election year.)

I have heard a lot of atheists express disapproval (very strong disapproval in the area of contempt and condemnation) of recruitment. They identify recruitment with prosthelytizing - a religious practice that disgusts them.

Get over it.

A political organization that does not recruit is like a species that has no offspring. It is not viable. Recruitment - selling the political product - is of utmost importance. It is vital to the organization.

Atheist Out Campaigns

I am certain that groups championing religious privilege love the fact that atheists and secularists oppose recruitment - they do not want the competition. In fact, if I were the head of a religious organization, I can think of few viral memes mire useful to plant in the atheist or secular community than an aversion to recruitment. More generally, the one of the best weapons that those who seek religious privilege have wielded has been to make sure that if a person does become an atheist, he is a shy, socially awkward, politically impotent, closeted atheist.

They have a lot of tools in place for bringing this about - and they work. I have argued in the past that two of the most effective tools are "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance which students are pressured to internalize, and the motto "In God We Trust" on the money and on schoolhouse walls. If it is not their aim - it is at least their function - to create an emotional aversion to atheism in young children such that, as adults, they are politically impotent.

At a very young age, these practices and others teach young children that atheism is something to be ashamed of. It is an unsightly blemish to be covered up and kept out of public view. Of course, it also gives a sense of superiority and an inflated sense of self to those who do believe in God. This not only has an impact on what people believe, but on how they behave when they discover that their beliefs fall on one side of the fence or the other.

Embarrassment and shame are difficult emotions to come to terms with. Both of them stand in conflict with the qualities of self-respect and self-worth. This makes it psychologically tempting to disguise these emotions behind something that is easier on the ego. What the agent claims to be disgust over the religious practice of "prosthelytizing" is actually an expression of the agent's shame and embarrassment over being an atheist.

Do you want some evidence of this?

Well, those who object to atheist "prosthelytizing" will quite often and eagerly engage in recruitment for other organizations.

Given that we are surrounded with anti-atheist messages while growing up, it would be shocking if the atheist community did not have to deal with some of the same effects that the homosexual community has had to deal with. Fortunately, the experience of the homosexual community provides a lot of information that atheist groups can draw on.

I would like to suggest a call for papers and a panel discussion at some future atheist or secular gathering where academic experts are invited to bring their best research on the psychology of "being in the closet" and of "coming out" and apply it to the atheist community.

Atheist and Secular Communities

Religious organizations also know that "membership" most powerful when it is more than a name on a mailing list.

To a church, membership means belonging to a community. Call up 100 names on a mailing list to get volunteers for a project, and compare that to spreading the word among 100 members of a community, and see which group will get the most work done.

Churches create communities. When their leaders step up to the political table, the votes that they carry with them are the votes of community members, and those are far more powerful than an list of equal size that are merely names on a mailing list.

If you have access to a mailing list, I invite you to simply take a look at the names that appear and ask this question: Who are these people? Those are human beings. Some are unemployed. Some are caring for parents whose memories are failing. Some have cancer. Some have dreams of becoming an astronaut and living in space. Some are worried that they will get a visit from the police telling them that their child has been arrested or killed.

These are people.

Here, again, the The Secular Student Alliance has an opportunity to provide a community for young people who are away from their family.

How about a "secular community alliance" for those who have left the university?

I wrote a post about over a year and a half ago on Secular Resource Centers who take it upon themselves to provide the community with sound evidence-based resources for dealing with community problems such as health issues, drug and alcohol abuse, parenting, suicide prevention, community development, grief counseling, and the like. It creates a community - and the leaders of that community goes to the political table with a voice that carries weight.

Big Tents vs. Little Tents

The final issue I want to discuss today is the issue of the big tent versus the little tent.

I have spoken of going to the political table with money and votes. The more votes the better.

One of the ways of getting more votes is by creating a product that has a larger customer base.

In this respect, secularism is a better product than atheism. A person can believe in God and still be secular - still buy a secular product. Religious groups that have a history or a fear of religious persecution probably know full well the evils of giving the state a role to play over religious matters.

I have written in the past of the difference between taking up a political role versus an academic role. I consider my role to be on the academic side. This means that report what I hold to be true without regard to how popular it might be. I have no interest in forming alliances or associations with others on these matters. If anybody disagrees they are invited to provide their reasons for disagreement.

However, I am aware of and respect the need for another group of people that have different concerns. A political organization needs to create a political package that others will buy into. The more buyers they get - the larger the coalition that they can put together - the more powerful their position at the table will be.

The debate between those who seek compromise and those who seek to report facts regardless of its appeal is nonsense. It is like a dispute between nurses and engineers. A society needs both. Both have a function to fill. Neither should be so egotistical to think that theirs is the only legitimate profession.

In Summary

In summary - the politically effective secular organization has a strong voice at the political table for two reasons. First, the organization has created a political product that it can sell to the top 10% and has collected contributions from them. Second, the organization has created a product that voters can get behind. On the issue of collecting votes, nonvoters are irrelevant and recruitment is essential. Secular and atheist organizations need to come to terms with the social stigma of atheism to fight the political impotence that comes from shame and embarrassment. They would be well served to form communities rather than to simply collect names on a mailing list. And, finally, they should recognize the need for two types of groups - academic groups that look at the facts without respect for their popularity, and political organizations that have to sell a political package.

Funding a Political Cause II: The Ineffectiveness of Campaign Reform

I am starting this year - a campaign year - by looking at the issue of making effective political change.

What came before:

Post 1: I argued that to make political change it isn’t enough to come to the table with conclusions backed by solid evidence and sound reason. The leaders of the organization need to come to the table with resources – with cash and votes – that it is willing to and able to mobilize in defense of the position it advocates. Without these resources, the strength of the arguments is irrelevant.

Post 2: Regarding the "money" component, a successful secular organization needs to create a political package it can sell to "the top 10%". The top 10% have almost all of the disposable money that can be spent on a campaign. The money the organization brings to the table almost has to come from them.

Today’s post:

Those who have money to bring to the table cannot be stopped from using it to obtain their objectives.

A whole family of political tactics that people often try to promote is to try to block those with money from bringing it to and using it at the political table. They seek all sorts of restrictions on who can spend what in a political campaign to achieve this goal.

I find these maneuvers to be foolish. At best, they create a room full of smoke to hide political connections, where people then pretend that the relationships they can no longer see do not exist.

Allow me pretend for a moment that I am somebody with a lot of money, and I have a few political causes that I am interested in.

In all but a few very rare circumstances, my money will get me into the door for a personal meeting with any candidate for office. I already have something that the rest of you do not have. I have one of the two commodities that one must bring to the table. The candidate knows this. The candidate also knows that nothing can prevent me from putting those resources to use in the campaign.

Assume that I want a candidate in office that will support policies A, B, and C. It does not matter what they are. They could be selfish. They could be noble. Whether they are an interest in fighting AIDS in Africa or removing regulations that prevent my factory from poisoning the air downwind, these are my interests.

I meet with the candidate and I make it clear that these issues are important to me. There's nothing wrong with that, right? I'm a private citizen. I meet with my representative. I tell her what my concerns are. She knows I have money to put into addressing those concerns. She knows that the money can enter the political arena on her side, or on her opponent's side, depending on how she answers my questions.

I am not talking about some vicious, corrupt politician. She has her own agenda - issues C, D, and E. We may even share some common interests. By giving me what I want on those concerns we do not share, she can bring my money into the political arena on her side - helping her to promote her interests. Again, these need not be selfish or vicious interests. They are hers.

Let's assume that the law prevents me contributing more than $2000 to her campaign. Let us further assume that I am also prevented from contributing more than $2000 to any organization (political action committee) that directly supports or campaign or directly challenges her opponents.

I answer that with the shrug.

The candidate I favor might be a vocal proponent of campaign reform. She knows it will have no effect. She knows that she will still accept my request for a meeting because she knows that no campaign reform law will prevent my money from either helping or hurting her campaign. However, being in favor of campaign reform might win the votes of those deluded enough to think it has power, so why not be in favor?

I know that the candidate's personal agenda includes issues C, D, and E. My options include making contributions to the National Association of D, and the American E Society. I don't have to announce into the hidden microphone, "If you support my issues, I will contribute to yours." It is understood.

Is this going to be prohibited? If my candidate has parents with cancer, am I to be banned from giving money to the American Cancer Society? You would have to ban these types of contributions if you want to prevent me from using my money to influence my preferred candidate.

It is also the case that I pay attention to the news. The news tells me that some issue F is becoming a campaign issue. Let us assume it is the construction of a pipeline. My candidate comes out against the pipeline for environmental reasons. Her opponent comes out in favor because "creates jobs".

It's time for me to make a sizable cash contribution to whatever local chapter of whatever organization exists that is opposing the pipeline. They will put that money to work in an "education" campaign that will unavoidably challenge the arguments that my candidate's opponent is using to defend the pipeline: "It will not create that many jobs" and "Pipeline jobs will come at the expense of jobs in the tourist industry, or at the expense of a company that constructs windmills or builds solar cells."

Of course, I am not going to call the candidate and arrange a deal. When I meet her at a fundraising dinner a few weeks from now I might mention my contributions. It will be only natural that she will want to do a favor for me, given that I have done a favor for her. And, again, she knows that my money goes to aid of whatever candidate listens and responds appropriately to my concerns.

As a wealthy person, we may assume that I am a member of several local organizations. Many other members are my friends - we work together. I can solicit an opportunity for my preferred candidate to come to speak before the orgganization. After the speeches, when we meet for drinks afterward, she will have the opportunity to shake hands, pocket checks, and make appointments to address other groups at other times.

I discussed something similar to this regarding the presidential candidacy of Rick Perry. He organized an evangelical gathering in April of last year to ask for God's help for a nation in crisis in front of 20,000 religious conventioneers.

We know that Perry did not do all of the work organizing this meeting himself. We also know that he used it as a campaign tactic - to gather evangelicals and to try to get their support for a Presidential election bid.

While we are assuming that I am a wealthy person interested in influencing a (potential) candidate, we may assume that I have connections. I know people who are good at organizing events and executing them. Everything from catering to booking locations to arranging travel - I have experts in all of these fields. I direct them to help with the arrangements, and I give the assistant an unlimited expense account. There is going to be a ton of things he can do to promote the gathering that will not count as a direct political contribution to the candidate.

This series of posts is about how a secular organization can make a positive political contribution - make the world a better place. A part of doing this requires understanding and respecting how the real world works. In my last post I argued that the effective organization needs to create and package a political product it can sell to the top 10%. A lot of people think that it is a viable strategy not to seek to bring more money to the table, but to prevent (by law) "them" from bringing money to the table. They call it "leveling the playing field".

It's not going to happen - at least not that way. That money is coming to the table by one route or another. The politically effective secular organization must live and work in the real world. It may not like reality, but it would be to its advantage to respect reality.

Funding a Political Cause

It is an election year, and I am looking at the issue of creating political change.

In my first post I argued that to make political change you need to bring votes or money to the table. At this stage, evidence and sound reasoning are largely irrelevant. They are relevant elsewhere. I will get to that in a future post.

This is not a cynical complaint about a world gone corrupt. This is a fact, as morally neutral as gravity.

If I were a legislator and you came to me asking for support, I am going to want to know what you have and are willing to put into play to defend that position - and what the opposition might be able to put into the field. It is stupid - utterly stupid – to come to me with an issue where you have nothing to put into the battle for its political defense when I know that there is a ton of resources willing to fight against it.

That is like demanding the evolutionary success of a species with a trait that is instantly fatal to those who have it.

So, if you want to make effective political change, you need to come with money or votes (or both). You need to come with the resources and the will to fight for your position, not only in my office, but on the political street.

Now, lets look at the issue of getting money.

Fact: 1% of the population has 42% of the wealth.

Furthermore, the other 99% of the people who have 58% of the wealth need to spend a substantial portion of that on food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and energy consumption.

Consequently, when it comes to wealth that those who have it can afford to contribute to a political campaign, the top 1% of the population has substantially more than half of the available wealth. The top 10% has over 90% of the available wealth.

This is a fact. Like it. Hate it. Shake your fist to the heavens in protest. It will not change this fact. You can ignore it - like you can ignore the car coming down the street as you step off of the curb. However, you ignore reality at your own peril. Reality does not change merely by wishing it were not true.

A political campaign is a product - a commodity. You are putting a product on the market and asking people to buy (into) it.

People will part with money. They will do so when you can give them something that is more valuable to them than the money that you are asking them to part with, and more valuable than anything else that they can do with that money.

We see this at work in a key difference between the Tea Party movement compared to "Occupy Wall Street".

The Tea Party has a product that they can sell to the top 10% - freedom from taxation and regulation. The Tea Party did not start off this way. It started as a protest against government bailouts for billionaires – rich people getting huge amount of government aid while the rest of us suffer. However, like every movement, it had factions. The factions of the Tea Party movement that succeeded were those factions that had a product they could sell to the top 10%, “No government bailouts for billionaires” couldn’t be sold to the top 10%. ”No tax increases or regulation” had a market. That message got funding and media support. That is where the Tea Party is now.

The "Occupy Wall Street" movement, on the other hand, does not have a product that the top 10% has an interest in buying - most of it anyway. Instead of being funded, the top 10% is more inclined to buy a different product – for example, one that is being sold by public relations firms whose objective is to discredit the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Now, let’s not get into hate-mongering stereotypes here. Remember, our focus is on the real world.

The top 10% is not some monolithic "them" in a state of perpetual war against "us". They are a diverse group, ranging the spectrum from utterly horrendous moral monsters (e.g., the executives of Phillip Morris and Exxon Mobile) to the admirable (e.g., Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Bono).

And, of course, many are admirable in some areas and contemptible in others.

Like normal human beings, they will tend to be persuaded by arguments with conclusions that they like. Thus, many will find Ayn Rand's arguments for selfishness attractive and blind themselves to its flaws. However, these are tendencies, not laws of nature.

Here is where evidence and sound reasoning can be used - at least on some of them. These people – the top 10% - can be persuaded by moral argument. They are prone – at least to some extent - to the effects of praise for their virtues and condemnation for their vices. Many want to be known as good people who did good things.

Rich people get cancer, Parkinson's disease, and suffer from mental illnesses. They want clean air and water. They do not want to be the victims of violent crime. They do not want to be killed by somebody flying an airplane into a sky scraper. Some adore their pets and children and hate to see them come to harm. Some are gay. All of these facts define a set of political products that can be sold to the top 10%. Organizations that create and package these products can collect cash that they can bring to the political table.

The Democratic and Republican parties know this rule and design their political products to sell to the top 10%. Some people lament this and demand change. However, the fact is that the political organization that does not do this simply is not viable. We do not have a party that refuses to create a political product it can sell to the top 10% for the same reason that nature does not give us mammals without a circulatory system. Those creatures do not live long.

Create 10 secular organizations. In 20 years, those with the best track record for change will be those with a political product they can and do sell to the top 10%. It will be those that developed such a product, created an organization that it could market as the organization best capable of delivering that product, sold that product, collected the money (in terms of donations and in-kind contributions), and put those resources to work. The other organizations will become small collections of impotent malcontents whining to each other over the Internet about how messed up the world is.

This, then, is the political question. What political products can the secular community offer that they can sell to the top 10%? Answer this question. Create the product. Make sure to create an organization that can deliver that product better than any competing organization. Sell it. That organization will have cash that it can bring to the political table. That organization can make the world a better place.

2012 - A Campaign Year

It is a new year, with a new project.

Given that this is a Presidential election year, I want to turn my focus to political and social change.

In doing this, I wish to start with this video discussing a new strategy for the secular community.

There is a lot of good in this. I intend to spend a few posts highlighting some of its more important points.

Key Point Number 1: You cannot accomplish anything politically useful unless you bring money or votes to the table.

I see a lot of blog and forum posts where the author says, "Write to your legislators and oppose/support this legislation."

As if that is going to do any good.

It is particularly amusing when the people writing those letters decide to use well-reasoned evidence-based arguments in support of their conclusion - as if legislators judge legislation according to well-reasoned evidence-based arguments.

If you want to convince a legislator to take your side on a piece of legislation, then what you need to argue is that supporting your side translates into more campaign contributions or more votes come election time, while opposition means less money or fewer votes.

This probably sounds cynical - as if I have given up on finding any decency in the human race and now think that the world is governed by callous self-interest.

However, that is not the case. If I were a legislator, I would work according to these same standards. The only place where I would pay attention to well-reasoned evidence-based arguments are those where the law in question is sailing under the radar, as it were. In most cases - in almost all cases that you would be interested in writing to me - those arguments would only serve a tie-breaking role.

Reality demands it.

Let's say you came to me wanting me to support gay marriage. Let's say that I agree with you on all of the points of evidence and reason - that the laws are discriminatory and unjust - perhaps even that these restrictions on gay marriage violate the principles on which the Constitution was founded. However, knowing my district, I know that voting for gay marriage would mean a sizable shift in campaign contributions and votes to my opponent - a bible thumping young-earth prayer-in-school creationist.

My answer to you will be, "No."

What you are asking me to do is, in practical terms, no different than asking me to resign my position and appoint the bible thumping young-earth prayer-in-school creationist in my place. Is that really what you want me to do?

Do you really want me to support your side on this legislation?

Then you need to bring money and votes to the table. Come to me as the representative of an organization. Let me know how many volunteers you have and how much work you are willing to do in support of a candidate that sides with you on this issue. Let me know that you are willing to put those resources to work in my district. Do this - and make be believe it - and you will have my vote.

Do not write some letter to me saying how wonderful the law is. Write to your mother. Put a link to an article on your Facebook page. Twitter or "Stumble Upon" articles defending your position so that your friends and family can see them.

Join an organization that can pool your resources. As a part of the organization, volunteer to hand out fliers, stuff envelopes, and man a booth at the local county fair. Organize some publicity such as a march or a demonstration that will bring the television cameras and newspaper reporters who will take down your message and put it in front of their audience - and make sure you put out the message you want to put out. Create and collect money to put out a radio or television commercial. Create a web site, then write to a few hundred blog posters asking them to share its message with their audience.

Even in doing this, remember that your goal is to build the political and economic support for the issue you are defending. You can't do this by giving your message only to those who already support your issue. You need to reach the fence-sitters - the people who might change their behavior if they hear the arguments.

So, this is the second question you should ask yourself if you want to be bring about social or political change. "Do my actions increase the political or economic power behind my view. When the representatives of my view go to the legislator, will these actions give them more campaign contributions and more votes to bargain with?"

The second question . . . ?

Well, the first question always has to be, "Am I right?" There are a lot of people arrogantly certain that they are using these practices to support ideas that they think are right - but are just plain wrong. Let's always leave room for the question, "Is this the right thing to do?"

And . . . Happy New Year. Let’s see if we can make it a better year than it might have otherwise been.

Moral Diversionary Tactics

Anybody who has been at this for a while know that theists have a sack full of defensive responses whenever you begin to criticize their religion. You point to a group of religious people who use religious premises to promote superstition in science classes, or to justify harms inflicted on the interests of homosexuals, or that treat women as the property of men, and you can predict the responses.

"Yes, but, not all religions are like that. If you are going to criticize religion, you need to be extra clear about that."

"Yes, but, these religiously motivated injustices do not just happen in this religion. They happen in other religions. In fact, some religions are even more unjust."

"Yes, but, people who belong to this religion often do great things. They perform great acts of charity and kindness. You have to acknowledge their positive contributions in your criticism."

"Yes, but the religion's victims could do things to avoid being the victim of this discrimination. If the atheists are less critical, or homosexuals hide in the closet, or the Muslims keep their temples away from downtown New York, then we won't have such a problem."

"Yes, but atheists are not morally perfect either. Look at Stalin and Mao."

"Yes, but the specific critic has made some moral mistakes as well. Sam Harris, for example, defended torture. Why are you focusing on the abuses that come from religious beliefs?"

"Yes, but, religious injustices are not nearly as bad as some other harms - from disease or starvation, for example. We should be focusing on them instead."

"Yes, but, that religious group is also the victim of religious discrimination elsewhere, where they are not in the majority. Why aren't we defending them from those injustices?"

"Yes, but, we are entitled to freedom of speech and freedom of religion. How dare you criticize our religious practices?"

"Yes, but, calling attention to religious discrimination and other forms of religious criticism only makes them defensive, and makes the situation worse. It is best to ignore it."

"Yes, but, why do you atheists have to be so angry and emotional and over-sensitive about it? That doesn’t help your argument or your cause."

"Yes, but, what about the Holocaust/Crusades/30 Years War?"

There is a wide range of areas where people will attempt to avoid a discussion of wrongs and injustices, effectively trying to bury them - ultimately with the objective of throwing off the discussion and liberating the perpetrators from actual condemnation. If they can change the subject, then they can continue with business as usual.

A lot of atheists have experienced a great many of these defensive tactics and are quick to criticize them.

Perhaps they should be just as quick to criticize them when other subjects are brought up as well.

We have a lot of many and strong reasons to condemn these type of tactics whenever or wherever we may find them.

Theism, Atheism, and Blame

Gad, how does one kill this senseless piece of atheist bigotry? The idea has dug itself into the atheist community as tight as a tick, even though it represents the worst forms of unreasoned bigotry.

It’s the idea that when a religious person does something wrong religion is to blame, but when an atheist does something atheism is blameless.

This is a very attractive conclusion – for the hate-mongering atheist bigot. The lover of reason has no use for it, but the hate-monger has sure found it attractive.

If you take “atheism” and its counter-part “theism” NEITHER of these are a source of violence or evil. You cannot draw any moral implications from the statement, “It is not the case that at least one God exists” just as you cannot draw any moral implication from the statement, “It is the case that at least one God exists.” They are both behaviorally, morally, and practically impotent.

In order to get to any moral conclusion – any type at all – you have to add something to your fundamental premise, regardless of whether it is atheist or theist.

In order to get violence against homosexuals, you have to combine, “At least one God exists” with “That god commands that homosexuals be put to death” and “We all have to duty to do that which God commands.” Then, you can get behavior worthy of condemnation.

However, on this level, the same reasoning applies to atheism. In order to get any form of behavior – any type at all – out of atheism you have to add something to your fundamental premise. We might add, “Man is a rational animal, and it is irrational to provide help to others unless one expects a sufficient profit in return that more than compensates the cost of the help. Therefore, man ought not to help others. Selfishness is a virtue.”

If we are going to say that religion is responsible for the violence against homosexuals in the first instance, then consistency commands that we hold that atheism is responsible for the selfish disregard for others in the second case.

If, on the other hand, we are going to deny that atheism has anything to do with the selfish disregard for others in the second case, then logical consistency requires that we also deny that theism has anything to do with the violence against homosexuals in the first place.

There is no grounding – none at all – for the claim that religion is responsible in the first instance but that atheism is blameless in the second.

But, hate-mongering bigotry is so sweet, so warm and comfortable. It is so much fun. This sweet, warm, comforting fun is why this bigotry continues to be such huge part of atheist culture.

Oh, and we need to add hypocrisy to this list of evil pleasures. Because when theists engage in these types of unprincipled leaps of logic in order to defend hateful and bigoted conclusions against atheists, they are to be condemned.

The bigot’s trick is to compare general atheism (to which no harms can be attributed) with specific theism (which can be charged with doing harm). Yet, they scream in protest when theists go the other way, comparing general theism (your condemnation is senseless because I can identify at least one person who believes in God who is not guilty of your charges) to specific atheism (Stalin).

Here’s the fact. Religion is exactly as harmful or as harmless as atheism – no more and no less. There are certain religious philosophies that can be condemned for the evil that they contain. However, there are certain atheist philosophies that can be condemned for the evil that they contain. Yes, it is true, atheism itself does not entail any of these philosophies. However, theism itself does not entail any specific religion either.

In other words, when it comes to being a cause of harm, “atheism” (broadly defined) is just as innocent as “theism” (broadly defined). And specific atheist philosophies (narrowly defined) in many cases are just as guilty as specific theist philosophies (narrowly defined). And no decent person is going to sanction scoring political points by comparing broadly defined atheism to narrowly defined theism, or comparing broadly defined theism to narrowly defined atheism. The lover of reason finds this move indefensible. Though the lover of hate-mongering bigotry tends to find this move very, very delicious.

Defending Trial by Jury

Americans are not lovers of freedom and individual rights. It is politically naive to think that they are.

Cenk Uygur has an article calling for a political rebellion against President Obama because he is not the defender of civil liberties that Uygur and others wanted. To call his article politically naïve puts the case mildly.

(See, Huffingtonpost, Vote Against Obama in Iowa)

You have a choice in thus country. You can be an advocate for and defender of civil rights, or you can be President of the United States. You can't be both. The American people will not tolerate it. People like Uygur who insist that we have both are wholly irrational.

Do you want Obama to be a passionate defender of civil rights? You might as well tell him to appoint Dick Chaney as vice President, then shoot himself in the head. The effect will be the same. The effect on our civil rights will be the same.

Reached this conclusion even before the 2008 elections - that no matter who the Democrats nominated for President, he or she had better not defend human rights. If they did, the Republicans will play the fear card, remove that Democrat from office, and use the fear to generate an even more rapid destruction of civil rights.

The political reality of this was shown when the Obama administration made the attempt to bring the Guantanamo prisoners to the United States to face trial in federal courts. It would be hard to find a better defense of the principle of trial by jury.

However, the effect was a political outrage that resulted in the legislature blocking all funding for this move.

And the people cheered. It was one of the most politically damaging moves the President made in his first years of office - to make a spirited defense of the right of trial by jury. What the legislature did was an outrage against the Constitution and the principles on which it was built - and the people cheered and granted their political support to the perpetrators of this outrage.

For an account of the politics of this attempt to give Guantanamo detainees a fair trial in federal courts, you can read David Laufman, Guantanamo Detainees in US Federal Court

Now, Uygur wants the President to do the same again? Given the fact that he got no support and suffered a significant political hit the last time he tried this, what incentive is there for him to try again?

Obama learned from that attempt to defend the principle of trial by jury that it is a political suicide. The people will not tolerate it. It doesn't matter what the Constitution says on the matter - the Constitution only has force where the people are willing to see it enforced. Any principle that the people themselves refuse to defend is as empty as it would have been if repealed directly.

That is political reality. Like it or not, this is the real world. And when it comes to determining what to do we should at least pretend we are agents who have no choice but to act in the real world.

Given these political realities - given the fact that the lovers of liberty utterly failed to support Obama in his attempt to give the Guantanamo detainees a fair trial, the best that rational voters can hope for at this point is somebody who is willing to perform a delaying action. That is to say - he should make no attempt to retake lost ground (that option has already been tried and failed), and be willing to fall back if pressed to hard, in order to hold on to as many civil liberties as possible.

Ideally, this time would be spent rebuilding the stock of resources necessary to take back our civil rights.

Unfortunately, this time is being spent by people like Uygur ignoring history - ignoring the fact that a serious attempt was already made to retake lost ground and failed as a result of public hostility - and attacking the defenders from the rear. Effectively, Uygur's strategy amounts to, "We are going to withhold ammunition from you until you do more to defend our civil liberties."

Yeah, that's going to help.

What we are seeing now is the logical consequence of an utter failure to supoprt Obama when he was willing to stick his neck out in defense of a trial by jury. We watched his head get cut off and we did nothing. Now, Uygur thinks it is a good idea to condemn him for the learning the lessons we have taught. A defense of trial by jury will not be supported.

We are not going to get any defense of civil liberties in government until a love of liberty by the American people itself has been restored. The public reaction should have been an utter condemnation of the House leaders of this move - to the point of threatening their political careers. Uygur wants to send a message to the politicians in Washington - THAT would have sent a message. But, that is not the message that was sent.

Uygur lives in a fantasy world where he thinks he lives in a country that is opposed to indefinite detention and the assassination of American citizens abroad without a trial. If he were to live in a real world, he would realize that the propaganda of the economic elite has eliminated this love of civil rights and, instead, generated a love for the very type of police state that the economic elite finds most useful. We cannot have any effect by pretending that we have this imaginary army of freedom lovers ready to charge into battle. That army does not exist.

So, the first thing we must do is face this reality and start to rebuild that army from scratch.

In the mean time, we need politicians in office who can perform a delaying action that will give us time to rebuild a love of liberty in the American people.

Religious Liberty

Al Qaeda has filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming that current airline regulations regarding what passengers can bring onto an airplane violates its constitutional right to religious liberty.

According to lawyers for Al Qaeda, the first amendment prohibition on Congress impeding the free exercise of religion implies that it has no authority to prevent Al Qaeda operatives from hijacking American airplanes for destructive purposes. These acts constitute the religious practices of this sect and, as such, Congress has a Constitutional requirement not to interfere with those practices.

Lawyers for Al Qaeda argue, "This is our religion, and Congress is impeding our free exercise of that religion."

Okay, there is no such lawsuit.

However, there are religious organizations in this country and around the world that are trying to defend a concept of religious liberty that, if we take them seriously, would make this type of argument appear sound. These organizations say that anything that their religion tells them to do constitutes a "religious practice" that is immune from government restriction - even when that practice brings harm to the interests of others who are not members of that religion.

If we accept this implication as valid, and since attacking infidels fits this definition of a religious practice, the logical conclusion is that Congress shall not pass any law that restricts this religious practice.

The current form of the argument is one in which Catholic bishops in Illinois claim that "religious freedom" means that the government must turn a blind eye to the organization's practice of actions harmful to the interests of other citizens when acting as agents of the government executing a government policy with government funds.

The policy that they are protesting prohibits money allocated for organizations that facilitate adoptions and foster care going to organizations that discriminate against homosexual couples. Because these Catholic organizations are all about hateful bigotry against homosexuals, they have been forced to make a choice. They can continue to act as government agents and give up the practice of conducting their affairs in ways harmful to the interests of homosexual citizens, or they can give up the practice of acting as government agents (and the government money that comes with it).

Forcing them to make this choice is, they say, a violation of their religious liberty.

( See New York Times Bishops Say Rules on Gay Parents Limit Freedom of Religion)

The fact is that their religious liberty is not being interfered with.

Nobody is going to arrest members of this sect simply because they are members of a hateful and bigoted religious sect. No attempts are being made to outlaw the sect or make membership a crime. The right to freedom of religion protects sect members from this type of action.

Nobody is going to arrest members of this sect for preaching their brand of hateful bigotry to the public. While the potential victims of their primitive superstitious hatreds have a vested interest in shutting them up, the rights of those who belong to this sect to freedom of speech and religious liberty prevent others from silencing them.

Nobody is going to prohibit members of this sect from engaging in private actions that express their primitive, irrational bigotry. In their private actions, they remain free to refuse to shop at businesses that are owned by gay couples and to refuse to watch shows with gay actors or that have pro-homosexual themes. They may freely use their hateful bigotry as a criteria in determining who gets their vote and who gets the benefits of their acts of private charity.

As citizens, they have a right to vote and to have a say in determining what government policies are. They have an opportunity to support candidates of their choosing and to lobby the legislative and executive branches for laws that they favor. They have the right to get these prohibitions on the use of taxpayer money to promoted bigoted policies repealed.

However, there is no prohibition on the government that gives people a right to engage in religious practices that are harmful to the interests of others - particularly when one is acting as a government agent charged with carrying out government policy. Those other citizens have a right to demand that the government - and agents acting on behalf of the government - treat them with the dignity due to peaceful citizens, even if certain primitive superstitious refuse to do so.

If these types of religious practices are given constitutional protection, then why not the Al Qaeda operative who wants to fly an airplane into a building filled with infidels? Or the anti-abortion opponent who thinks it is permissible to kill a doctor that performs abortions? It seems sensible that they, too, can argue that they are engaged in religious practices that the government must not interfere with.

Interfering with a gay couple's opportunity to adopt a child may not be in the same category as shooting them or blowing them up, but it carries a common element. They are harmful to the interests of others - such as the interests that homosexuals have in adopting a child. As such, it is not something that deserves special protection as a religious practice - not at the expense of those citizens who would be its victims. Particularly when these sect members are being paid to act in the capacity of government agents.

Desirism and Neurobiology

CNN has an article, Can a Molecule Make Us Moral?" that invites me to consider the relationship between desirism and neurobiology.

Simply put, the article reports that levels of oxytocin affects such things as whether an individual is trustworthy or generous.

Does desirism have a problem with that?

No.

The systems for morality are to be found in the brain. If desirism is correct, neuroscientists will discover that behavior is grounded on beliefs and desires, that desires are propositional attitudes, and that agents will act to fulfill the most and strongest of their current desires given their beliefs. It will discover that some desires are malleable, and that the mechanisms for change include reward and punishment. They will also learn the mechanisms for praise and condemnation and that they have the same effect as reward and punishment. All of these will have to do with electrochemical operations in the brain.

My greatest value from working with Luke Muehlhauser is that, unlike me, he had the time and the skill to look at current neuroscience in detail. We found a lot of correspondence between desirism and what neuroscientists were discovering about the brain.

For example, neurobiologists were able to look at the ways experience change an agent's long-term desires. Experience provides rewards and punishments - which have the affect of strengthening or weakening agents' desires.

We did not find a perfect fit.

I had been saying that rewards and punishments modify desires directly. The research seems to be suggesting that the learning effect springs from a difference between expected outcome and actual outcome. Expected rewards or punishments do not modify behavior. Though some of the later research we looked at suggested that current reward independent of expectation still has some role to play.

In developing desirism, I had claimed that the agent does not have to be the one rewarded or punishment for reward or punishment to have an effect on his moral character. The effect is generated by witnessing the reward or punishment - the praise or condemnation - of another person. This provides a role for public criticism and for public praise such as award ceremonies and other honors.

Neurobiologists tell us that we have mirror neurons. These cause us to experience the rewards and punishments of others as if they are our own - which is one of the mechanisms through which social forces mold our moral character.

Even works of fiction from religious parables to children's stories to Star Wars and Lord of the Rings to World of Warcraft and Grand Theft Auto shape our moral characters by making us a witness to the praise and condemnation - the reward and punishment - of others.

If oxytocin promotes generosity and tolerance, the next question to ask is how social forces such as praise and condemnation affect oxytocin.

I do have one long-standing objection to the way biologists approach the relationship between biology and morality. Biologists identify behavior as moral and look for the biological causes of that behavior. However, they gloss over the question, "What is it that makes this behavior moral?"

Higher oxytocin levels may end up being associated with opposition to capital punishment, for example. Does this answer the question of whether capital punishment is wrong? If so, how? How do you get from premises relating biological facts to attitudes about moral issues such as abortion, gay marriage, capital punishment, whether it is okay for 1% of the people to own 50% of the planet - to conclusions about whether these are, in fact, morally right or wrong?

One of the common links biologists draw is that if we are morally opposed to X, then it is wrong. It then looks for the biological underpinnings to our opposition to X and claims to be studying morality. However, this would imply that if we had a disposition to approve of killing all the Jews, then the Jews deserve to die. If we are disposed to enjoy having sex with our stepchildren, then it is morally permissible to do so. Nothing is right or wrong except insofar as a genetic accident makes it so. Alter our biology so that we can enslave others without moral regret, and slavery becomes morally permissible.

And what is the relationship between morality and social tools such as praise and condemnation about? If morality is grounded on some hard-coded biological fact, why praise or condemn others?

Desirism has an answer to the question of relating biology to morality that answers these questions. For moral virtue, we are looking for malleable desires that people have the most and strongest reasons to promote using social forces such as praise and condemnation. An agent may be biologically constituted such that he can kill the Jews without guilt, but this does not change the fact that people generally have many and strong reasons to promote an aversion to that kind of killing.

What makes aversion to such killings a virtue?

Well, people generally have many and strong reasons to promote an aversion to these types of killings using social tools such as praise and condemnation. And moral claims contain elements of praise and condemnation.

What more do you want?

A Basic Review of Desirism

I base my posts in this blog on a moral theory called desirism.

Desirism holds that malleable desires are the ultimate object of moral evaluation.

A malleable desire is good to the degree it tends to fulfill other desires and bad to the degree that it thwarts other desires.

The degree that a malleable desire tends to fulfill other desires is the degree to which people generally have a reason to use social forces such as praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment to promote that desire.

The degree that a malleable desire tends to thwart other desires is the degree to which others have reason to use these same social forces to inhibit that desire.

A right act is the act that a person with good desires would perform. A wrong act is the act that a person with good desires would not perform. A permissible act is one that a person with good desires may or may not perform depending on other considerations.

Perhaps the most useful account of how desirism works can be found in the post The Hateful Craig Problem, which looks at the problem of trying to make sure that Hateful Craig will not do harm even when there is a chance he can get away with it. That post demonstrates how the principles of desirism would be put to use.

A commenter, Drake Shelton, is providing me as an opportunity to use his comments about desire utilitarianism as a foil for explaining some of the details of the theory. I tend to find these useful because it allows me to answer the claims of a real person rather than an imagined critic.

I want to start with this:

This falls prey to the problems with Utilitarianism. On your own admission then, the execution and torture of the inferior race gives pleasure to the superior race therefore it is the right thing to do. This theory also caters to totalitarians systems. In utilitarianism, the individual must sacrifice his own interests for the interests of the whole or the state.

No.

This criticism applies to a related theory that can be properly called "desire fulfillment act utilitarianism". That theory says that the right act is the act that would fulfill the most and strongest desires. That theory requires the conclusion that if the torture of a young child fulfills more and stronger desires than it thwarts (by fulfilling the desires of 1000 sadists while thwarting the desires of 1 child) it would be the right thing to do.

However, desirism evaluates desires - and evaluates actions only in a derivative sense. A desire is good to the degree that it tends to fulfill other desires.

The sadist's desire is a desire that tends to thwart other desires. In fact, it inevitably does so. Therefore, the sadist's desire gets counted as a bad desire. It is a desire that people generally have many and strong reasons to inhibit through social forces such as condemnation and punishment. We have many and strong reasons not to want this desire around - and reasons to use our social forces to fight it, and to raise kindness and consideration in its place. Even sadists have many and strong reason to bring these social forces to bear to prevent sadism in others and to promote kindness in its place.

It doesn't matter how many sadists there are, it is still the fact that sadistic desires are desires that tend to thwart other desires. In fact, the more sadists there are, the more desire-twarting we can expect.

I go into this objection in greater detail in The 1000 Sadists Problem

Here's another objection:

Sounds much like psychological hedonism.

Well, it's not much of an objection, but I would like to use it to explain the difference between desirism and psycholoogical hedonism - a theory that was largely discredited 150 years ago but which is still popoular among many atheists.

Psychological hedonism holds that each of us only seeks two things - our own pleasure, and our own freedom from pain. Nothing else matters. Pretty sunsets, the health and well-being of our children, are all valued for no reason other than those are the means by which we can activate the pleasure centers in our own brain - or save ourselves from pain. We give to charity, we risk our lives to save others, we cry at funerals, because these are the tools we have for triggering the pleasure centers of our own brain.

Before I consider objections to this theory I would like to broaden the scope a bit for the sake of efficiency.

Psychological hedonism is an internal state theory. It holds that the only thing in the world that matters to an individual is having its brain in a particular brain state. Other internal state theories hold that happiness is the only thing that matters - or desire satisfaction.

Note: Desire satisfaction is not the same as desire fulfillment. Desire satisfaction is a feeling - much like pleasure or contentment - that one gets when one (thinks that) the world is going the way one wants it to go. Desire fulfillment, on the other hand, takes into consideration that a desire is a propositional attitude - it takes as its object a proposition P. (Thus, desires can be expressed in the form "agent desires that P") A "desire that P" is fulfilled in any state of affairs in which P is true. A desire that I am saving children from disease is fulfilled in any state of affairs in which the proposition "I am saving children from disease" is true.

I discuss internal state theories in detail in the post Internal State Theories.

Briefly, one of the major objections is that no internal state theory can handle the issue of the experience machine.

An experience machine is a machine that feeds electrical impulses into your brain that puts your brain in the state that the internal state theorist claims to be only thing that matters. Your brain is put in a jar, electrodes are hooked up into it, the electrodes produce the brain state of value and keeps it in that state.

Faced with this possibility, many people - most people - will claim that this is not what they want.

Desire fulfillment avoids the problem with the experience machine by holding that what matters to a person who desires that P is that P is made true. The desire to help protect children from disease can't be fulfilled by an experience machine. It can only be fulfilled by creating a state of affairs in which one is actually protecting children from disease.

Desirism is an external state theory. It holds that what a person with a desire that P seeks is (often) an external state - a state of affairs in which P is true - that will make the experience machine entirely unattractive.

There are other considerations to raise as well. For example, it is easier to tell a story of evolution whereby biological entities acquired at least some dispositions to change the world than it is to square evolution with the theory that they only acquire an interest in creating a particular brain state. Evolutionary success - procreation, for example - is an external state. External state changes are necessary for evolution.

Another post in which I draw distinctions between desirism and psychological hedonism (and other internal state theories) can be found in the post Egoism.

Oh, and I was accused in a comment against using a term in its own definition. That, in fact, is not the case. I illustrated a use of the term. Dictionaries, when defining a term, will often give an example of how the term would be used when it meets that definition. It helps to clarify the definition. The way that one might define the word "cow" by pointing to a cow.

The Year Ahead - Atheist Activism

This is a time traditionally assigned to assessing one's place in the world and plotting a course for the year ahead. What should be the goal of atheist activism in the year ahead?

There seem to be a lot of people who think that every atheist should line themselves behind a single cause - marching lock-step behind a single message, without deviation or dissent.

I object to this way of thinking. It requires individuals to give up the practice of reaching their own conclusions based on an application of reason to the evidence available. Instead, it requires that each person obligate himself or herself to be a puppet obeying and serving the puppet master. Whether or not this form of power does good or evil depends a lot on the moral character of the puppet master.

The Republican party operates this way - and as a result it exercises political power out of proportion to its numbers. However, it has also seems to attract immoral people seeking to use this mass of unthinking puppets for their own personal use. Either that, or it elevates as leaders those members who are experts at the type of unthinking, irrational idiocy that this system requires.

I would not want the atheist movement to acquire this type of lock-step mentality.

Besides, I think it is useful to have different groups pursuing different objectives.

For example, I strongly disapprove of a pledge of allegiance that groups atheists with traitors, tyrants, and the unjust. I strongly disapprove of a national motto that segregates the community into groups of “we” versus “they” on the criteria of trust in God. However, I fully realize that no politician could get away with defending this position, even if he agreed with it. It is useful to have a community advocating the removal of these offensives. While, at the same time, others seek public office that will not advocate policies that will guarantee the position they seek goes to their political opponent.

It is good to have a PZ Myers harshly condemning all of creationism (on the grounds that it deserves criticism), while at the same time having others with their mind in the political realm taking a softer approach and seeking compromises that can actually have an effect on policy. It is not the case that one is a villain and the other is a hero. It is the case of two people pursuing means appropriate to their ends. The loss of either will be a great loss indeed.

In general, this means that we will have to accept as a working assumption that there will be a diverse set of groups that call themselves atheists, they will be run by people who have different ideas on how best to proceed, and some of them will be embarrassingly wrong.

There's another fact that atheist activism will have to accommodate in 2012 (or any other year) is that we do not get to pick and choose which of our leaders will become popular. This is true in the same way that we cannot pick and choose which YouTube videos will go viral. The culture itself will determine this - and will do so according to its values.

This means that, in 2012, the leading news stories will continue to be those that are embarrassing to atheists. This is simply because the critics of atheism have good numbers and an eagerness to embarrass atheists. Those people simply have no incentive to take an example of an atheist doing great deeds and sending it off to their friends - given that the bulk of those friends will likely to be hostile to anything that depicts atheists in a favorable light. Only things that cast atheists in an unfavorable light have much of a chance of making news.

This is how bigotry works. There is widespread bigotry against atheists in this country. That bigotry will grasp onto anything that serves its interest. Those are the things that it will introduce into and spread throughout the community - while ignoring and burying anything that does not serve this interests.

When we criticize those who "embarrass" atheists - but who do not actually do anything wrong - we are actually giving voice to and embracing the very same bigotry and prejudice that we complain against.

In the absence of bigotry, an atheist can do something foolish or embarrassing without this reflecting poorly on all atheists. It is only in an envirnment filled with anti-atheist bigots, eager to make invalid inferences from the specific to the general, one atheist's foolishness does harm to the image of all atheists. When we join in the criticism of the atheist activist by saying, "Don't embarrass us," we are simply giving bigotry and prejudice a seat at the head of the table.

Consider the fact that a religious person can do something foolish and embarrassing - it happens all the time - yet the community does not take this as proof that all of religion is defective.

Granted, some atheists make this leap. However, this only shows that some atheists are anti-religious bigots. I am not shy at calling them that. In fact, I am deeply embarrassed by the atheist community that, while they profess to be the champions of reason, their writings are filled with the bigot’s fallacy – repeated arguments that begin with premises identifying the immoral or irrational acts of a single person or small group that leap inexplicably to conclusions about "religion" in general.

I wish these would disappear from the atheist community – not because I think they represent poor tactics, but because they fly in the face of a commitment to reason that permits supporting only the conclusions that one’s premises will allow. The principles of reason do not permit the bigot's leap from the specific to the general.

They are just as immoral as anti-atheist bigots who make the similar move, begining with premises about the immoral or foolish actions of some atheist (usually Stalin), and drawing conclusions about all atheists. This is as clear of an example of the bigot's fallacy as one can imagine.

In light of this fact, I would suggest a different response in the face of atheists doing something foolish or embarrassing - or that you just don't like. You should use this as an opportunity to turn on those who commit the bigot’s fallacy and condemn them for their immoral conduct.

"Look, here's proof of how pervasive anti-atheist bigotry is in this country. Atheists are human, and in any group of humans you will always find some of them doing something foolish or embarrassing. Non-bigots recognize that all groups have a immoral and foolish members and refuse to condemn the whole group and dismiss them as not being characteristic of the group. Bigots, on the other hand, love to exploit this fact to belittle and denigrate whole groups of people in those communities that their bigoted mind wants to target. Where we see people using the foolish acts of some atheists to denigrate all, we see this bigotry at work."

This does not deny the legitimacy of criticizing certain things that atheist activists do. Some of them are simply wrong.

In the recent past, there was the sign that said of religion, "You know it is a scam". Setting aside the question of whether this is good or bad tactics, it is false. A scam requires an intent to deceive. Much of religion simply does not have the required intent (though some of it - a lot of it - certainly does) to be a scam.

I have noticed that, in light of the criticism this campaign generated, the message has changed to, "You know it is a myth," which is perfectly acceptable.

Nor do these arguments prohibit reasoned criticism of the methods used by others when those methods seem ineffective. There has to be a debate on the effectiveness of different means – both in terms of their effectiveness in realizing ends and the legitimacy of those ends.

However, it should be a debate grounded on evidence and reason – and much of it is not.

When I read about one group of atheists criticizing another group of atheists for actions considered tactically or strategically unwise (as opposed to being factually wrong), I immediately come up with two questions. These are questions that the critic almost never answers.

Question 1: What is your measure of whether something works?

A system works when it generates a state of affairs that fulfills the desires that the system was generated to fulfill. A change in desires implies a change in the lists of states of affairs that will fulfill those desires. This means that what works relative to one set of desires might not work relative to a different set. What works for you given your interests may not work for me given mine.

In determining whether something works one needs to first determine which ends it is meant to serve (and the merit of those ends). Then one must determine the effectiveness of the means available in achieving those ends - straight forward statements of cause and effect.

Question 2: How do you know?

In these debates about which strategies to use, I have noticed a shortage (in some places, a complete absence) of evidence in favor of one's position. People who participate in these debates seldom offer anything more than a gut feeling backed by anecdotal evidence - personal stories - unsurprisingly selecting only those stories that confirm the gut feelings of the person who picked and interpreted them.

We are supposed to be a community of rational, scientifically minded individuals. How about introducing some rational scientific evidence to claims about which tactics "work" and which do not?

In short, my recommendation to atheist activists is not to worry so much about what other atheist activists are doing. Instead, turn your attention on the anti-atheist bigots who so eagerly embrace the bigot’s fallacy of derogatory overgeneralizations.

Every group in existence has members who will be doing things that other group members find foolish or wrong. Usually, we do not feel our own reputation to be at risk by their behavior. Many people my age can do something foolish or wrong without me having the slightest sense that my own reputation has been harmed. The difference between groups where one persons foolishness harms the reputation of others and groups where it does not is the difference between groups where bigotry is at work in the community and where it is not.

We will never be able to end foolish behavior on the part of some members of the group. But we can tackle the bigotry that gives this foolishness unwarranted implications on the reputation of others.

Stripping Judiciary Powers

An article in Bloomberg discusses the attitude of several Republican presidential candidates towards the judicial branch of government.

Among these, Newt Gingrich "says as president he would ignore U.S. Supreme Court rulings he dislikes" and Ron Paul "would bar federal judges from hearing many cases involving abortion, same-sex marriage and religion."

(See Bloomberg: Gingrich Leads Revolt Against Judges by Vowing to Ignore Court)

I want to start by looking at what is in fact a major motivator behind many of these claims. There are a great many Christian theocrats - particularly church leaders - who would like to set up an American theocracy. This is a state where religious leaders get to dictate the direction that the country goes. However, the Constitution prohibits this. A lot of judges are doing their job - that is to say, they are upholding the constitution. That blocks these Christian theocrats from setting up a Christian theocracy. So, these Christian theocrats want to get rid of the judges or, at least, strip them from their power to decide issues relevant to the establishment of a Christian theocracy.

Of course they claim that they are seeking to protect the Constitution. It is politically necessary for them to do so. If they were to say, "We want to repeal the religious freedom elements of the First Amendment" - If they stated their true intentions - the American people would soundly reject their program. Consequently, they argue that the establishment of a Christian theocracy is somehow identical to protecting freedom of religion.

It is actually a simple argument to make - and it can be seductive to those who want to believe it. "If we are not permitted to establish a Christian theocracy, then we are not free. The government grants us liberty in practicing our religion. We practice our religion by establishing a Christian theocracy. Therefore, the government grants us the right to establish a Christian theocracy. Any attempt to block this Christian theocracy is a violation of our God-given rights as defined in the Constitution."

However, this argument is as invalid as that of a skinhead caught spray-painting a swastika and "Kill the Jews" on the door of a synagogue saying, "Hey, it's a free country. Don't I have a right to freedom of speech? I'm just expressing my opinion here. If you stop me from doing this then you are violating my right to freedom of speech."

More intelligent, thinking individuals would not be seduced by this type of argument. They recognize that the right to freedom to practice their religion, like the freedom of speech, has its limits. They roughly follow the model that, "Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins."

The right to freedom of speech does not grant one the right to express an opinion in spray paint on somebody else's property. The right to freedom of religion does not grant one the right to set up a religious theocracy.

One of the ways that our government is set up to avoid tyranny is by this method that establishes three branches of government, with a system of checks and balances between them. Let any one of them try for tyrannical power, and the others are set up to stand in their way.

Executive tyranny is blocked by the fact that the executive branch must depend on the legislature to pass laws and approve a budget. It is also blocked by a judicial system with the power to declare their tyranny unconstitutional.

A tyrannical legislature depends on an executive branch with the power to veto legislation - which the legislature can override only if it provides a super-majority. Legislative tyranny is also checked and balanced by a judicial that can declare its laws unconstitutional.

A tyrannical judiciary is checked by the fact that judges only have the power to judge cases that are brought before them and are appointed by the executive and legislative branches. Furthermore, the legislative and executive branches can work together to change the Constitution.

There are some who argue that these proposals from Gingrich and other Republican presidential candidates are a part of the system of checks and balances. As such, they do not work against that system.

However, a system of checks and balances requires that no entity be given a trump card that renders another branch totally impotent. An impotent branch of government can offer no checks and can create no balance.

If the executive branch can ignore any judicial decision it does not like invalid, then executive power is unchecked. It is worthless to even take a case to court. No matter what the judge decides, the executive will continue to do what it pleases. Consequently, judicial checks on executive power are eliminated.

Similarly, a law that says that judges may not render an opinion on certain issues is a law that gives unchecked and unbalanced power to the legislative and executive branches on those issues. Where there is no power to review or question, there is no check or balance.

Of course, this is exactly what the Christian theocrats hunger for - the ability to cast aside the first amendment protections against a theocratic government controlled by religious leaders for their own benefit.

It seems only natural for religious leaders to seek more power for themselves. They claim to speak for a God, but they are only human. Let's not forget that the God that they want us to obey is a God that they invented. They invented this God by projecting their own image onto a divine form. The message that they claim comes from God with a command to obey actually comes from them.

They are certainly going to be tempted to invent a God that says that they have the God-given right to rule humanity (in God's service, of course.)

It is an old-fashioned way of thinking. However, this does not mean that it has lost any of its seductive power.

The Cosmic Policeman's Influence on Moral Behavior

I would like to comment to the following proposition:

Religion might bring comfort to some or allow them to behave morally because they think a cosmic policeman is looking over their shoulder...

This statement was made in a comment to a post a couple of days ago. I am taking this quote entirely out of context. As such, I am not responding to the comment specifically. Instead, I want to use it to point to an often-heard statement about the relationship between morality and religion.

The claim is that we need religion – or, at the very least, religion is a great benefit to us - because the threat of an omniscient all-powerful inflictor of harm on those who would act immorally motivates us to do good and avoid evil. Without this motivation, people will do less good and more evil.

Some will question whether an action is genuinely good if it is motivated by a desire to avoid personal suffering. However, that is not relevant to my current subject.

My interest is in an unspoken assumption often built into this claim - an assumption that has to be questioned. It is the assumption that the cosmic policeman is actually motivating people to behave morally.

In fact, it is often false.

God does not exist.

Most of my readers, I suspect, already believe this. However, sometimes an obvious premise needs to be stated.

God does not exist.

The cosmic policeman is not handing out some type of perfect moral virtue. He is handing out the moral beliefs of the people who invented him - rather ordinary human beings with ordinary human virtues and vices. Only a human with perfect moral knowledge can invent a perfectly moral god. Less perfect human beings invent less perfect gods. This is why when we take a serious look at the gods people invent we find beings that fall far short of claim of having perfect moral virtue.

If I were a less than respectable human being trying to control others, then I would need to worry about people disobeying my commands whenever they think they can get away with it. One way to remedy this problem is to say that I have an all-knowing, all-powerful invisible friend who they cannot hide from. He will know of their treason and he will ensure that they are punished severely. Those who believe me will then be motivated by this cosmic policeman to obey my commands.

However, this does not imply that those who believe me will be motivated to do that which is moral. This is something entirely different.

Of course, in my attempt to manipulate people, I would certainly insist that what I command is moral - that they have a duty to obey and that their life only has meaning if it is a life lived in service to my interests. These would be powerful motivators.

However, my claim that - let's say, attacking the next village and taking its people as slaves - is moral does not make the claim true. When I add that I have an invisible cosmic policeman who will punish anybody who fails to take part of this invasion or who undermines it, these beliefs will not generate moral behavior. They will motivate people into doing that which is immoral.

Finally, it takes just a very small shift to go from, "Do as I say, or my all-knowing, all-powerful friend will make you suffer," to "Do as my all-knowing, all-powerful friend says or he will make you suffer; now, let me tell you what he says." For all practical purposes, these are the same. Only, in the last case, I can add the claim that my all-powerful friend is a perfectly moral being so that, now, obeying him (actually, obeying me) becomes synonymous with doing what is right.

This gives us a situation where people believe that they have a cosmic policeman looking over their shoulder and believes that its commands are the model of morality, but the cosmic policeman is still nothing but an agent in service to the interests of the people who invented it. You cannot get from this to the conclusion that the behavior it motivates is actually moral.

Consequently, I am not at all comforted by the claim some people make that they believe this cosmic policeman is looking over their shoulder motivating them to be moral. People under the watchful eye of this cosmic policeman can be described as serving the interests of the god's inventors far more often than they can be described as doing what is moral. Let me provide an example of how easy it is to believe that there is a cosmic policeman who nonetheless helps a person behave in ways that are immoral. Our hypothetical case involves the pedophile priest who tells himself, "God must have made me this way for a reason. God works in mysterious ways that I, a mere mortal, cannot hope to understand. Obviously, He wants me in these sexual relationships with children. And though I run the risk of social condemnation, I know in my heart that I am doing what the cosmic policeman wants me to do."

We have a cosmic policeman looking over one's shoulder. However, the cosmic policeman this person invents is precisely one that gives him permission to do that which he wants to do anyway. It provides no motivation to do good or avoid evil.

The world is filled with people today who believe that they have a cosmic policeman looking over their shoulder who are motivated to do great amounts of evil - because this is the type of policeman they invented. In America, many these people are motivated to consider nothing in the world more important than acts harmful to the interests of homosexual couples in forming a marriage. They promote ignorance and stupidity in science and history classes, thwart the faculties of reason, ignore scientific evidence of potential future harms, and block all attempts to avoid those harms. They do all of this under the watchful eye of their cosmic policeman. They simply invented a policeman that considers these acts to be virtuous.

They struggle to create a nation that is "under" God. However, since there is no God to be under, for all practical purpose they are seeking a nation that is "under" those people who invent God - and they inevitably invent gods that serve their own interests. They pretend that they are asking us to pledge allegiance to God, when in practice they only seek to have us pledge our allegiance to them.

It is ironic that the type of person who would invent a truly good god is precisely the type of person who does not need one looking over his shoulder. While, at the same time, the people who would benefit by a god looking over their shoulder motivating them to do good are the people who will not invent such a god. They will, instead, invent a god that gives them permission to do the evils they are already inclined to do.

There is no comfort at all to be found in the fact that some people think that there is a divine policeman looking over their shoulder. That divine policeman is simply going to tell them what they want to hear anyway.

The Zombie Army

If I were to categorize the most odious elements of the Republican party, I have to put at the top of the list their blatant disregard for facts and reason.

Evolution, climate change, the alleged historical accuracy of scripture - the Republican culture is one that completely abdicates rational thought and evidence. Their modes of thinking even extend to questions such as whether there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or whether Saddam Hussein had anything to do with the attacks on 9/11.

They live in fantasy world where they start with what they WANT to be true, and judge evidence and arguments on whether they support the desired conclusion.

They do not think.

Just to be clear, I am not applying this criticism to all Republicans, conservatives, or theists - but to a substantial subset that has abdicated the responsible use of their brain and a respect for truth and reason.

I do not doubt that there is a huge religious influence in creating this phenomenon. These are the dispositions that come from most types of religious training. "Have faith. Ignore evidence. Shut your mind off to reasoned arguments. Simply believe. It does not matter what you believe as long as you believe. Truth is irrelevant. Evidence can't be trusted."

Former president George "The Decider" Bush confessed that his decisions did not come from his brain. They came from his gut. We see how well that turned out. His decisions - his beliefs - proved to have no foundation in reality. But they did get 150,000 people killed.

They are not living in the real world.

Here is a case in point - historian David Barton's fictitious history of the United States.

Chris Rodda refutes Barton's claim that Jefferson signed his documents, "The year of the lord Christ." Barton attributed to Jefferson religious wording that actually was not Jefferson's at all. It was dictated by international treaty as the wording required for documents seeking safe travel at sea. Barton is even mistaken about Jefferson being the only President to use that language - since the treaty came into effect long before Jefferson took office and remained in effect long after he left.

Listen to the attached video.

No, Mr. Beck, Jefferson Did Not Date His Documents "In the Year of Our Lord Christ" from Chris Rodda on Vimeo.

Or read the transcript..

Either Barton is a fraud in the sense that he is presenting claims he knows to be false, or he is a fraud in the sense that he presents himself as a historian who has done his research when, in fact, he has not.

However, to his followers, fraud isn't a concern. It counts as bearing false witness, but it is not judged as worthy of any type of moral condemnation.

But, then again, consistency is reserved for beings who have the capacity to think and reason. Those with the brains of zombies have no trouble holding contradictions even this close together.

The function of this fraud is to provide social, economic, and political power to religious leaders.

Plese note that I said "function" and not "purpose". "Purpose" requires a particular level of thought and planning - it requires intent. Thought, planning, and intent are not commonly attributable to people whose mental faculties resemble that of your average zombie.

Its function is to create a herd of unthinking, easily manipulated intellectual zombies under the direction of a leader that then can direct this zombie army to serve the leader's purposes.

The larger the zombie army one controls, the more social influence one has. So, there is a strong driving force to recruit new zombies.

Of course, the effect of zombification is most effective when it is used on children. The largest and most successful zombie armies are those that can infect children at a young age. When a young child is turned into such a zombie, the effects are often deep and permanent.

Barton and Beck have little reason to be concerned that their fraud becomes known. Remember, the zombie army shuns evidence and reason. Evidence and reason require the exercise of mental faculties that have completely atrophied among those who make up the zombie army. The zombie army will continue to buy tickets to their shows. Corporations will continue to pay huge sums to show their products to the zombie army, particularly when it comes with at least an implicit endorsement by the zombie master.

In fact, much of the zombie army has lost the capacity even to recognize fraud - let alone generate a morally appropriate response to it.

Besides, the professor in this video - to be honest - does not have the stage presence of a Barton or a Beck. One of the facts about being a zombie master is that the zombie army is attracted to leaders based - not on their command of the facts, but by their stage presence. Can the zombie master put on a good show? If he can, the zombie army will follow.

Evidence like that presented in this video against Barton's history, evidence for evolution and human influence on the climate, evidence for the age of the earth, evidence of the errors in scripture - none of this has any power against the members of the zombie army.

You simply cannot ignore that much evidence and be anything other than an intellectual zombie.

Well, there might be a few for whom the process of zombification was not totally effective, but they do tend to be rare.

Responsibility, Religion, and Science

Here are some thoughts on the war on Christmas and the conflict between science and religion.

The first question is: Can you get along with somebody with whom you disagree?

I sure hope so, because 100 percent of the population fits that description. If you cannot get along with those with whom you disagree, this will be a very lonely life.

But, a lot depends on the specifics of those disagreements. If a person comes at me with a sword and the firm belief that his God gives him an obligation to take my head, then he has a belief that will make our getting along problematic.

Can an atheist get along with somebody who believes in a god?

I think it is likely that all of us can and do.

Can we get along with somebody who uses religion as reason to take up a sword and do real harm?

That is problematic.

The person who picks up religion and denies others the happiness of marriage or harmless relationships suitable to their biological makeup? No. Here, religion is a source if harm. Its practitioners are due the same contempt as the man with the sword above. Just like the man with the sword, they need to be told, "No. You have crossed a boundary and deserve our contempt for doing so."

I will stress, in a nation that allows for free elections, the only legitimate response to a political campaign is a counter-campaign. Violence is not permissible. But it us a campaign where the harsh rhetoric of condemnation and contempt is warranted.

If a person comes with the religious belief that releasing a cloud of chlorine gas into a crowded city would be cleansing and no harm will come of it, that would put a strain on our relationship.

Where religion plants absurd beliefs that are a threat, not only to those who believe it, but makes them a threat to others, there is reason to object. The quality of evidence for evolution is far stronger than anything one would require in a court of law for convicting somebody of a crime. Evidence in science is never perfect, but it is the best actionable evidence available.

Furthermore, evolution is essential to fully understanding medicine, the environment, and the future of life on Earth. These are not idle beliefs that sit in the background and do nothing. Denial of evolution is like the denial of the effects if a cloud of chlorine gas released into a crowded city. It will cost lives.

And where attitudes towards this dangerous illness are under the influence if social forces, we have many and strong reason to direct those forces against coddling these dangerous delusions. It's practitioners - it's coddlers - put the lives and health of innocent people at risk.

This applies not only to evolution, but to every area where people adopt beliefs that influence their behavior towards others in ways that affect the lives, health, and property of others. The responsible person says, "There are important potential consequences here, I have an obligation to do my best to understand those consequences." the person who fails to do this is irresponsible, and deserved our contempt.

This is one area in which science wins over religion. In fact, this is an area where religion at its very best contributes nothing. It is as worthless as astrology and palm reading.

I will repeat that for any who might have trouble understanding. Religion, independent of science, gives us zero capacity to predict future events. This includes its inability to predict a "second coming" or what happens after death. But it also applies to predicting the occurrence and severity of natural disasters and providing ways of avoiding those disasters. Sacrificing virgins to a volcano god - or the contemporary American version of sacrificing homosexual relationships to the god of Abraham in any of its forms - will not prevent the formation of hurricanes or determine the location and severity of the next earthquake.

There are many people with religious beliefs that it is easy to get along with. They hold that they think there might be some higher purpose or divine spirit in existence. However, they acknowledge that they find it difficult to know anything about this deity and they do not use it as a basis for actions and policies that affect other people.

They may use it in their own lives, but never to direct the lives of others. And, where their actions may do harm, they allow science to be the ultimate authority in judging the consequences of their actions and policies.

Stepping outside of these bounds warrants our contempt, because those who do so risk the well-being of other people for no good reason.

Morally responsible people do not do such things.

Morality in Nature

I have a sense that some people have taken my earlier posts to imply that we cannot find morality among animals. This has the added implication that we cannot look at the animal kingdom to find examples of morality that does not involve moral behavior - genuine moral behavior - that does not depend on a belief in God.

That implication is mistaken.

We can find examples of genuine moral behavior in animals, and we can use it as an example of moral behavior that does not require a belief in God.

We do not find it in an example of a rat freeing a confined rat.

We will find examples of genuine morality among animals in a group setting. What we are looking for is a system where members of the group use praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment to alter the dispositions of other members of the group.

Examples of condemnation would include such things as bearing one's teeth, yelling (or making aggressive sounds), taking a threatening posture, or even a facial expression or ignoring the perpetrator in a particular context.

Punishment goes further. It actually inflicts harm on the perpetrator. It involves driving the perpetrator away or taking a non-lethal swat at the offender. It can involve driving the perpetrator away from available food. It may involve killing or banishing the perpetrator. In these cases, the moral lesson is not taught to the perpetrator as much as it is taught to all of the other members of the community. They see what comes from that type of behavior and form a corresponding aversion to it.

Rewards can take the form of grooming, sharing food, and allowing sex to those who exhibit behavior that the animal in question has an interest in promoting.

In a milder form, a facial expression or a friendly gesture can take the form of praise. It communicates to the other member of the group and to all witnesses that the behavior is welcomed and appreciated, forming in others a desire for that type of behavior.

Let us take a community of rats and observe them. Let us discover if there are behaviors in that community that are greeted with condemnation or punishment, or behaviors that are greeted with praise and reward. Let us observe what effects these social conditioning behavior have on the frequency of the types of behavior being praised or condemned.

Now, we have observations of animals in a state of nature - lacking a belief in God - setting up a true moral system.

Furthermore, I hold that these types of communities are very common in nature, particularly among primates.

More importantly, they provide a model for creating human communities in which moral behavior can be promoted and immoral behavior inhibited without a belief in God. Specifically, one uses social tools such as praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment to create in community members desires that produce behavior helpful to others, and aversions that reduce behaviors harmful to others.

We do not get our rights from God. We get our rights from the purely natural fact that there are some desires that people generally have many and strong reasons to promote or to inhibit. Our right to freedom of speech simply expresses the natural world fact that people generally have many and strong reasons to use social forces to promote an aversion to responding to words with violence.

In short, my objection to pointing to altruistic mice as an example of morality independent of God is that it simply doesn't make any sense. It requires a sense of 'morality' that is so alien and foreign to common usage that the person who uses it tends to sound rather foolish.

There are behaviors in nature that actually do fit the bill here. Those are the ones that people should be using. They actually make sense and they do not cause the atheist to appear foolish.