My personal experience with relationships as I came out of religion.

When I left behind my religious beliefs about ten years ago I was at a loss at how to live in a number of ways. I had organized much of my life around bible studies, church, religious conferences, etc. I was even in the process of looking for a job as a youth leader after college graduation while I was in the middle of my doubting process.

Dating was particularly frightening to me. To be fair, I can't blame religion entirely on this situation. Brace yourselves for this revelation, but I was something of a socially awkward nerd in high school and thus didn't get a lot of dates. In fact this lack of popularity was one of the things that made me susceptible to religious conversion in the first place; I was lonely in high school and a ready made social group was a pretty attractive selling point for me.

Unfortunately, being socially awkward tends to create a feedback loop, especially in high school. You need experience in social situations to get over your awkwardness but high school students are not notorious for their willingness to forgive perceived social faux pas. I was actually the brunt of several jokes in high school where people wrote notes pretending to be from a female student who liked me.

I wanted to believe things would change when I got to college, but what I didn't realize was that my social situation was only part of the problem. I had been through enough negative experiences with the opposite sex effectively kill my courage to act on any attraction I felt towards most women I knew in college.

Of course my freshman year of college was when I got involved with a campus ministry and my "I kissed dating goodbye" came out. The author, Joshua Harris, goes a step further than the traditional positions on purity and dating within Christianity and suggests that people not kiss until they are married, and give god complete control of your dating life. He also advocates for more traditional dating rituals like asking a father's permission for dating and marriage, which I now recognize for the sexist nonsense that it is.

To be fair, a lot of Christians have criticized parts of Harris' approach, and for his naivety. After all he wrote the book in his early 20's while still single. However, excepting the whole no kissing rule most of the ministry leaders I looked up to in college echoed many of the same sentiments. Of course like Harris most of these leaders were in their 20's and either single or had only been married for a few years. Perhaps not the best people to take relationships advice from but like a lot of people early 20's we were full of fire and convinced that we could fix the worlds ills if only people would do things our way.

Looking back on this I realize that part of the reason I was so willing to buy into this argument was that even then I was terrified of dating, or perhaps more specifically I was terrified of asking women out on dates because of the rejection I had faced in high school. Perhaps without the specter of religion I would have gathered up my courage and asked more people out than I did in college or perhaps not. What I do know is that this approach to dating allowed me to justify my unwillingness to pursue relationships as being submitted to God's authority. If I was too scared to ask someone out I could rationalize it not being His will instead of just admitting that I had low self esteem.

I remember one situation clearly, one of the few times in college I decided that god had told me to ask someone out. I took action this time, abet nervously, only to be rejected. I spoke with a friend after this and expressed confusion because I knew god had told me to ask her out. (which I naively thought guaranteed  I would not be rejected) "If god told me to ask her out then why didn't he tell her to say yes," I wondered in this conversation. I look back on the response I got and realize it was one of the first times I harbored doubts about religion. My friend told me that perhaps god only gave me permission to ask her out, not to actually date her. Even at the time I remember thinking that seemed more like a rationalization than a sound conclusion.

Of course, I didn't pull a 180 on all of my sexual mores when I stopped believing, but suddenly I was left with the uncomfortable situation of choosing for myself. I had to decide if things like premarital sex were actually allowable, and if so in what contexts. I felt as if I was stuck between two worlds for quite a while, many religious people I knew would have thought I was pretty horrible for even entertaining that question, but I knew that most secular people out there had settled the answers to these questions when they were years younger. I felt out of place with fundamentalist Christians and woefully inexperienced with everyone else.

Even after I had settled most of these questions on a philosophical level to my satisfaction I was still left with several problems. First as I have previously shown I was still incredibly inexperienced with dating in general. Second I was doubly clueless when it came to the rules of dating outside of Christianity. I had spent years being told things about who non-religious people were, and what their motivations were. I knew enough to know that a lot of that stuff was wrong, but I had no idea what parts, or what the right answers were. I had no idea what an atheist woman wanted from a relationship or from sex, nor was a sure what I wanted from those things.

I was particularly afraid that any of the women I might date would be more experienced than me, both in handling relationships in general and sexuality.  What kind of person did i want to date or marry? My main requirement from a woman had been that she be a strong Christian. I had no idea what I was supposed to look for now. What kind of things did I want sexually? Would I be bad at it because I was inexperienced? Would I be dumped me because I was bad in bed? I had no answers to those questions. Luckily without the excuse that god would just provide a relationship for me I eventually pushed myself out there. Dating a few people gave me a better idea of what I wanted, and the realization that there were women who found me attractive and sexually competent built up my self esteem enough to get my out of that spiral of self doubt that started for in high school.

To be sure, when I first started dating I did have some bad experiences that I might have avoided if I had been more experienced, but that would simply mean I would have had those bad experiences a few years earlier than I did. It's rare that a person doesn't have some bad experiences, and in fact sometimes it is those very experiences that allow you to succeed in future relationships. Christian apologists often warn of the dangers of secular dating and premarital sex, but honestly from my perspective there are at least as many dangers and pitfalls in their solution. A little more than six months ago I met great woman through online dating, we are now engaged and have moved in together. If I followed the advice of my campus ministers I'd wager I'd still be waiting on "the one," or I would have rushed into marriage with first person who showed the slightest interest out of a desire for sex. Relationships aren't about some deity or mystical force fating you to be together, they are about people choosing to share a life together, and in my book the latter is far more meaningful than the former.

Fundamentalists suddenly offended by "under God" when pledge was recited in Arabic.

It seems I can still be amazed at the lack of self awareness fundamentalist groups can display.

Outrage as high school recites Pledge in Arabic saying 'One Nation Under Allah'

So to sum up, the principal of a school in Colorado encouraged some sort of multicultural program at his school. As part of this people were allowed to recite the pledge over the loud speaker at school other languages besides English. Spanish and French had already been used with no complaints. 

However, on the day in question they recited it in Arabic, which of course means that "God" was translated as "Allah," because that is the Arabic word for god and would be used by Arabs no matter what religion they belonged to. Unfortunately, our country is filled with those who are, shall we say, linguistically ignorant. Because of this, people in his school district have become angry, claiming that this is un-American and and promotes Islam.

What strikes me as funny is that I cannot count the number of times that I have had Christians tell me I was overreacting to things like the "under God" in the pledge or the "In God we trust" on our coins. When I suggest that I feel as though those of us who do not believe are not being treated equally as citizens with such things on our coins and in our pledges I'm told that I am "being too sensitive" or I'm making too big a deal out of it.  

I've often wondered how those same believers would react if they felt that someone was asking them to pledge allegiance to some god they didn't believe in. Of course I've asked, but I've never been able to get a real answer from them.  I suppose I have my answer now. 

If I thought it would do any good I would point out to them that if "under God" wasn't in the pledge in the first place this wouldn't have happened. This sort of thing is exactly why we should be keeping religion out of government in the first place.

A typical rant on Fox News about plan B.

Dr. Manny Alvarez goes on a rant about how the government is intruding into medicine by allowing 15 year old women to purchase plan B pills with no prescription:

He says that at 15 these women are still children, which, while true by cultural standards is, totally untrue by biological standards, which is they key and warns that 15 year olds will be unable to understand the medical warnings on the packaging. I guess he never stopped to ask if someone unable to understand medical warnings has any business being a parent, or to consider that pregnancy carries more health risks than plan B.

At one point he even suggests that next the government is going to suggest selling plan B to infants which makes me question his medical qualifications. He does know that infants can't get pregnant right?

It always strikes me as funny that the opposing side always manages to miss the most important point in these debates. The only teenagers who are buying plan B are ones who have had sex and are worried they might get pregnant from said sex. Teenagers have been having sex since always, and the average age of first sexual experience in the U.S. is about 16 years old. Abstinence only programs have never increased that age by more than 3-6 months. Making plan B easier to get will lower both abortions and teen pregnancy rates so it should be an easy sell to social conservatives who say they want those numbers to go down.

Unfortunately for us, social conservatives take an "our way or the highway" approach to moral issues. In their mind the there is only one valid way for these numbers to go down and that is by only having sex in a manner they find acceptable, which usually means within a marriage.  Any other way of making those numbers go down is cheating the system, and they would rather have pregnant 15 year olds than let us cheat the system.

Found an interesting note sent to me when I was a Christian.

I've been cleaning up for moving and I found a note that was sent to me back during my senior year of high-school by some fellow campers at a religious summer camp I went to.  I attended Methodist church in high-school and they would have us break into small groups, the last day of camp everyone in the small group got a note in which everyone else in the group and written things about you on it.

I was surprised this even still exists since it's from about 17 or 18 years ago. Clearly I am a very different person than these people knew me as.

Edit: Realized, after looking at the note more closely that this was actually from just after my freshman year of college at a camp called Kaleo. I would have been 20 at the time, so it's only 15 years old.

Anyway, thought you guys might enjoy this:

Ken Ham waxing about how atheists are persecuting Christians.

A story has been floating around the blogosphere about a man who was upset to find his child was being taught nonsense science claims at a private school he was sending his child to.

Children are being taught in the classroom that brontosaurs were refereed to as a behemoth in the the book of Job and are encouraged to answer the question "The next time someone says the earth is billions (or millions) of years old, what can you say?" with the answer "Were you there?"

Creationism Quiz Claims Dinosaurs Lived With People

Picture of the offending quiz.

Of course Ken Ham could not put up with the affront to justice that this father, who expected this school to teach science in the science classroom, represented and Ham fired back with a response.  

Intolerant Atheists Viciously Attack Christian School

Now mind you, nothing in the published story even states the religious beliefs of the father in this story so there is no reason to assume he is an atheist, but this doesn't stop Ham from going off into conspiratorial ramblings about how atheists are out to get Christians. He really seems to believe that Christians are all some poor belabored minority.  

He even presents some "examples" in a box to the side of the article of persecution they face:

Billboards promoting atheism and attacking Christianity have popped up across the country.

Because apparently free speech is now persecution.

The American Humanist Association has launched a special website for children to indoctrinate them in atheism.

The site he is referring to is this one kidswithoutgod.com. It isn't aimed at converting children but giving resources to children who already don't believe.  However, even if it were aimed at conversion so what? Christians spend millions if not billions of dollars a year on hundreds of thousands of programs aimed at converting children to their religion. This website is totally passive, you have to go to it to see the content, yet many of the aforementioned Christian programs actively seek out children even when doing so violates church state separation. Why is it totally fine for them to put their ideas out there for others to consider but when we do it it's "indoctrination?"

An atheist rally in Washington DC last year had a special promotion to encourage kids to attend their atheist camps.

The program his talking about is Camp Quest. It is not an "atheist" camp, it's a secular came for children that focuses on teaching kids about science and critical thinking. It's a good program and I plan on sending my kids to it once they get old enough. I have good memories of some of the camps I went to when I was younger (minus the religious teachings of course) and I want my kids to have such memories too.

In any case, this is typical damned if you do damned if you don't criticism. Christians criticize atheists for doing nothing but attacking Christianity but offering no replacements for the "helpful social programs" that churches offer such as summer camps for kids.  Now that our movement has had a chance to establish itself we start putting together such programs and now we are accused of "indoctrinating" kids.

Atheists have been increasingly using terms like “child abuse” to describe the efforts of Christians who seek to teach their children about creation, heaven, and hell.

Several prominent skeptics including Lawrence Krauss have claimed that teaching creationism or teaching them that god sends unbelievers to hell are mild forms of child abuse, in much the same way that teaching your child that the earth is flat would be a mild form of child abuse. I happen to agree with the sentiment, however no one is suggesting that this is the same as physical abuse or that the state should necessarily take a child away from a parent for this sort of thing, though clearly we hope the children will manage to learn better than their parents and try to provide the facts to make that happen.

Many atheists claim that children belong to the community, not to their parents.

I don't know any atheists who think this. However, I do think that, though a parent has quite a bit of leeway to parent as they wish, children are still individuals separate from their parents who have rights and deserve a modicum of protection by the state from certain kinds of parental actions. I don't believe, for instance, that Christan Scientists have a right to allow their children to die from lack of medical treatment because of their belief that modern medicine is immoral.

Atheists have actively opposed any effort in public schools to even question a belief of evolution or suggest there are any problems with it.

And now we get to the dead horse Ham likes to beat, evolution. It should be noted that it is not only atheists that oppose the teaching of creationism or intelligent design in classrooms. There are theistic scientists who promote evolution like Catholic Ken Miller, so Ham's claim is not even accurate, but there are good reasons to promote good science in science classrooms, and evolution is good science.  It's nothing but Ham's biases and lack of understanding of science that leads him to believe that evolution is untenable.

Christians are not being persecuted when they aren't allowed to promote odd pseudo-science in the classroom anymore than a crypto-zoologist is being persecuted when the biology class won't let him share his evidence for Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster.

If Ken Ham spent as much time actually learning something about science as he did complaining about how atheists are persecuting him he would realize how silly all this actually sounds.

Arizona campus preacher tells anti-rape protesters: ‘You deserve rape'

Christian preacher Dean Saxton wants women to know that they deserve to be raped. 

'You Deserve Rape' sign causes controversy on UA campus.

Arizona campus preacher to anti-rape protesters: ‘You deserve rape’

Saxon was quoting as saying:

if you dress like a whore, act like a whore, you’re probably going to get raped. I think that girls that dress and act like it, they should realize that they do have partial responsibility, because I believe that they’re pretty much asking for it.

Feeling that Christian love yet?

A short message for Saxton: No one deserves to be raped. Even if a woman is doing naked cartwheels in front of you don't have a right to force yourself on her. If you really look at a woman in a mini-skirt and think that her skimpy dress gives you (or anyone else) the right to sexually assault her there is something wrong with you not her.  The only time it is reasonable to have sex with someone is when they also want to have sex with you, this shouldn't even be that complicated.

According to Turkish scientist atheism is a form of autism.

Ran across this yesterday.

All autistic kids are atheists 

Turkish scientist Fehmi Kaya, a Muslim from what I have read, is arguing that atheism is a form of autism.  From the article:

"That is why they don’t know how to pray, how to believe in God. It is needed to create awareness in these children through methods of therapy.” Kaya added that autistic children should undergo treatment to “create areas of faith in their brain."

Yes, you heard it right, Kaya  is advocating for treating atheism as a mental illness which he wants to cure. He literally wants to force people to be religious against their will. Any guess as to which religion he wants to force on them?

At least he isn't blaming vaccinations, but then I can see some conspiracy nuts using this a way to claim vaccinations are the governments way of turning people into atheists.

Debate on Homosexuality/Gay Marriage: Argument from "Just Saying"

Vocab offered as part of this debate something I have heard from Christians and other theists before, the notion that if we know that certain life style choices (like homosexuality) are unhealthy they feel required to let those people know, because they care about people's well being.  This is an attempt to answer the charge that fundamentalists are either homophobic or bigoted towards homosexuals. To a certain extent I actually accept this argument. Of course to be clear I think there are quite a few people out there both Christian and not who are in fact bigoted towards gay people but I accept that many Christians like Vocab are in fact well meaning in their assessment even if their conclusions are not well supported by the science.

I do have several problems with this statement though. First, as I have shown, much of the information that fundamentalist Christians are providing are either outright wrong, subject to conformation bias, or presented in a such an obviously biased manner that no one really takes it seriously. Vocab, who is certainly one of the more knowledgeable believers I have debated this topic with, still falls prey to these same problems. The point is just to ask a simple question, would you rather get medical advice from a doctor or a theologian? Christians like Vocab want to give homosexuals medical advice but the advice is typically very bad and given by the single group that homosexuals are least likely to listen to anyway. It is like being told that eating red meat is dangerous to your health by a member of PETA. Even if they turn out to be right you know there are other motivations there at work besides your physical health.

The reality is that everything involves risk, it's not like heterosexual sex can't put you at a higher risk for some things as well. For this reason doctors and psychologists don't generally set out to control people's behavior, they simply offer people advice to avoid as much risk as possible and then let people make up their own minds. Yet, when I tried to Google search homosexual health risks while writing this I noticed that the entire first page of results were filled with sites from Christian groups most of whom included many factually incorrect claims and at best failed to correctly reference the studies they based their claims on, I had to go to the second search result page to get a legitimate medical website. Since people can easily find out what they are at risk for by consulting with a doctor, and that information is likely to be more reliable than the advice coming from religious groups, I might humbly suggest that fundamentalist Christian apologists might want to stay out of medicine. If their efforts have any effect at all it is probably to stymie access to real medical information.

I said at the beginning of the show that every time I dig into a new statistic that some religious groups has come up with on this topic I find out that the study was flawed in some serious way. Nothing in this discussion suggests I'm wrong about that estimation.

To wrap up this series of posts, during the debate vocab asked us what the government should encourage.  A good question, my answer is that we should encourage social justice and equality. We should create a society where people are allowed to marry the person they love. I can also tell you what I don't want to encourage. I don't want to encourage a society where people's rights are limited because of things like the shoddy ad-hoc pseudo-science that often seems to fly in fundamentalist circles.