i heart sam & richard
I am a skimmer — notoriously so in our household. Life is too short to read carefully. When my wife asks what was in our email inbox, I report that somebody had a baby and somebody died.
Same with books. My first time through the bible, at age 13, was an admitted skim. I essentially got World is made, humans screw up, are drowned, then enslaved, then escape. Something about breasts like clusters of grapes, rounded thighs, and hands thrust into openings. [I was 13. Of course the Song of Solomon got more of my attention than Psalms.] Prophets foresee the coming of a guy. Guy arrives, dies, then returns with bronze feet and smites. And there is much rejoicing.
I got more the second time through the bible because I was careful and more interested. Took notes. The closer reading didn’t improve my opinion of it. (Even Song of Solomon suffered from a second look. Your hair is like a flock of goats??)
Some books are best skimmed and cherry-picked, as any minister will tell you.
And so, skimmer that I am, it serves me right that I was the recent victim of a skim-and-run. Poetic justice. A turn of the karmic wheel, as it were. A comrade in the fellowship of bloggers over at Bore Me To Tears skimmed a recent post of mine and thought sure I had dissed Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris:
In recounting his interview of Hemant Mehta, nice atheist Dale McGowan (blogger and author, Parenting Beyond Belief) attacks Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris for being mean. He says that new atheist authors are malicious when they call religious people names like “stupid” and “ignorant” (even though they don’t)…He also claims that Dawkins and/or Harris have/has said that religious people are “too stupid to live” or that they “better damn well be gone before I count to ten.”
Oof! Did I actually say that about Dawkins and Harris? If I did, she’d be absolutely correct in calling me on the carpet. They do NOT say those things, and I am desperately tired of people mischaracterizing Harris and Dawkins as mean-spirited, one-sided fundamentalists. I work hard to correct that false perception so they can be heard. Anyone who makes such claims about Dawkins and Harris (1) has not read Dawkins and/or Harris, AND/OR (2) read them through through a theistic fog, AND/OR (3) is not clear on the meanings of words like “mean-spirited,” “one-sided, ” “fundamentalist,” or “is.”
Imagine my relief when I reread my post and discovered I didn’t say those things.
But so many people do indeed make such claims about Dawkins and Harris that BMTT can be entirely forgiven for thinking I was doing it as well. I’d much rather be accused wrongly in that case than have those two go undefended. So KUDOS to Bore Me to Tears for stepping up to the plate.
I won’t bother to list the many, many ways in which Dawkins and Harris engage in thoughtful hemantic discernment. Read their books. They don’t call religionists stupid, but others do. Recall David Mills’ infamous dog-poop video. (Here’s a very sharp blogpost that lays out the difference between good satire and mindless nail-spitting quite well.)
Then there are the countless non-discerners on the other end — those who declare all religious expressions “beautiful,” all religious ideas “different paths to Truth.” This, too, is dangerous nonsense.
Harris and Dawkins strike a thinking balance between these nonthinking poles.
Life is short, and we’re all reduced to skimming. Various media facilitate our mental toedipping by painting in broad strokes. Among other things, they find it convenient to mislabel the confidence of Harris, Dennett and Dawkins (new meme: “Harnekins”) as “atheist fundamentalism.” Harnekins are confident because they’ve done their homework extraordinarily well. They don’t say I’m damned or stupid or evil if I disagree with them. They say I’m wrong. I am then free to counter with evidence or argument to the contrary. And yes, at times, the difference of opinion matters so much that they will not “agree to disagree,” preferring to hash it out. I admire their courage in doing so.
I’ve begun to pick up the label of “nice guy” atheist. This too is a broad stroke. In fact, I am as nice as I can reasonably be, and no nicer. Like Hemant and Harnekins, I know that there is a point of no return. I know that beliefs have consequences, and I am morally obligated to drop the nice-guy routine when damage is being done. And so I do. But reporters are so fond of quick and easy labels that in nearly every interview an attempt is made to distinguish Mister-Rogers me from the “nasty” Harnekins. I have learned that I must bat down the attempt forcefully or it will end up in print the original source.
To wit: Here’s a portion of a recent interview I gave (to the best of my selective memory):
REPORTER: So, have you read Dawkins’ latest?
DM: The God Delusion? Yes, I have.
REPORTER: I was pretty mixed about it. What did you think?
DM: I do represent the choir, but I must say I thought it was brilliant. I found it compelling and well-balanced.
REPORTER: What about his assertion that religious parenting equates to child abuse?
DM: Funny you should mention that one point. That’s the only assertion in the entire book that goes further than I would go.
[Reporter scribbles in notes, “Doesn’t go as far as Dawkins.”]
REPORTER: I sometimes feel that he and Harris don’t distinguish sufficiently between moderates and fundamentalists. They lump them all together.
DM: Actually I don’t think they do. They offer a separate, distinct critique of moderates, one that I support. Moderates do too little to challenge fundamentalism, and in fact arm them by promoting faith as an unquestionable virtue.
[Reporter scribbles “Pick up cheese and milk on way home.”]
The final piece included the following:
Q
Atheist curmudgeons Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens lump religious zealots and moderates together. Do you?A
I agree with them that we shouldn’t have to say please and thank you to religious people simply because they’re religious, but I don’t go as far as they do.
That’s right, it’s more poetic justice. She skimmed her notes.
In order to set the record straight, now and forever, let me say that I DO GO AS FAR AS THEY DO. I differ from Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris only in being less articulate, less famous, less wealthy, less brilliant, and better looking. In virtually all matters of substance, we are in agreement. I hereby carve on the trunk of the World Tree that is the Internet:
I
SAM & RICHARD
MoL at midlife
NOTICE FROM THE MANAGEMENT OF THE MEMING OF LIFE
100 Meming of Life Plaza
Box 8675309
Atlanta GA
Dear employees and visitors,
According to randomly-Googled information, there are 2.8 jillion active blogs today, give or take a plethora. The lifespan of the average blog is three months. So we here at The Meming of Life are feeling pretty darn significant as we approach six months and fifty postings, mostly about being secular, parenting, secular parenting, and the book Parenting Beyond Belief.
The Management would like to take a moment to announce some workplace changes, effective immediately:
1. The following registered users are fired: ViagraBarn223, MeetSexyLocals, and MissTeenSC.
2. All vacation days are hereby cancelled for the blog staff in order to accommodate our new publication policy of shorter, more frequent, and more slipshod posts.
3. Please show a little consideration for your fellow website visitors. If any of the half-eaten sandwiches in the back of the fridge belong to you, remove them before the end of the day on Friday.
4. You may have noticed a new menu bar feature called “about the author and the blog,” added at the insistence of a regular reader. (Happy Mom?)
5. You may also have noticed a button to add this blog to your Technorati favorites. Would it kill you?
6. Beginning next week, lurkers who never comment will be charged for parking.
7. Attempts are underway to make MoL a better citizen of the blogosphere by maintaining a blogroll and quoting from, pointing to, and communicating with other blogs. No blog is an iLand.
8. Posts currently in production include
> i heart sam and richard — a skimmer’s lament
> bigger than myself
> guest post by pbb contributor pete wernick
> it’s so humiliating — in a good way
> spare the rod — and spare me the rest
> a peek at pbb2
> the quéstion of québec
> our man in washington — a report from aaicon 2007
> whatever happened to capital letters?
> seeing is conceiving — the power of the visual
> emancipating kids from talent bondage
Several of these are in direct fulfillment of reader requests. Others are in direct defiance of reader requests. Don’t hesitate to drop us a message so we can fulfill or defy you: dale [AT ] parentingbeyondbelief DOT com
Sincerely,
The Management
mythed it by that much
I’m working on a pretty complicated entry for later this week — you’ll see what I mean — so here’s a quickie to fill the gap.
My daughters (5 and 9) are currently eating up Greek myths as bedtime stories. Friday was Dedalus and Icarus, yesterday Pegasus and Bellerophon. Tonight I told the story of Danaë and Perseus, completely forgetting that I’d used it as an example in PBB. “Buy a good volume of classical myths for kids,” I suggested on p. 37, “and buy a volume of bible stories for kids.”
I’ll sheepishly admit here that I don’t quite follow my own advice. I find that published bible stories do an incredible disservice to the tales they tell. They are either crushingly dull or sickly sweet or both, so my kids’ exposure to Judeo-Christian stories has come from (1) their Lutheran preschooling, (2) Jesus Christ Superstar, which I highly recommend as a naturalistic intro to the Jesus story (see PBB p. 70 for reasons), (3) conversations with their Episcopo-Baptistic granny, with their undeclared mom, and with atheo-secular-humanistic me.
I went on in PBB to say:
Begin interweaving Christian and Jewish mythologies, matched if you can with their classical parallels. Read the story of Danaë and Perseus, in which a god impregnates a woman, who gives birth to a great hero, then read the divine insemination of Mary and birth of Christ story. Read the story of the infant boy who is abandoned in the wilderness to spare him from death, only to be found by a servant of the king who brings him to the palace to be raised as the king’s child. It’s the story of Moses – and the story of Oedipus. No denigration of the Jewish or Christian stories is necessary; kids will simply see that myth is myth.
Turns out in the case of my nine-year-old that I didn’t have to be anywhere near that intentional.
So again, tonight was Danaë and Perseus. Danaë is the daughter of King Acrisius. The king hears from an oracle that Danaë will bear a son who will grow up to kill him. Unable to bring himself to kill his daughter outright (isn’t that sweet?), Acrisius instead imprisons her in an underground house of bronze with only a small opening to the sky. One night, a golden rain comes swirling in through this opening and around the chamber. A short time later, it is revealed to Danaë in a vision that she is carrying the child of the god Zeus.
“WAIT A MINUTE!” said Erin, leaning forward in bed, eyes wide. “Oh my gosh! There’s another story like this!!”
I smiled and waited patiently as she thumped her forehead, trying to remember. At last, she blurted out:
“Life of Brian?”
onward and upward
I’m going to show an uncharacteristic degree of self-control by commenting no further on my posting, deletion, revision, reposting, and redeletion of a brief satire about recent events in the book’s release. Even my apology was deemed problematic by certain people wiser than myself in such matters, so I just can’t go into it any further. Sorry, I know curiosity is probably killing both of my loyal readers, but life is too short and potentially fun to get mired in nonsense. Onward and upward.
Coming up instead: a fascinating entry on empathy and mirror neurons in which no corporate self-esteem is damaged! Stay tuned!
PBB Top Ten for June
10. PBB translated into Arabic!
Well, not yet. But I have been contacted by an Egyptian atheist who is enthusiastic about Parenting Beyond Belief, sees a strong need for an Arabic translation, and offered to do it himself. I declined for the moment, partly because the publisher controls all translations, but mostly because PBB is quite culturally specific, with references to church-state separation, Christmas, baptism… I know that sounds a bit like the question Bertrand Russell once received from an Irish woman when she heard he was an atheist: But is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in which you disbelieve? But it’s true – PBB is about being a nonbeliever in a largely Christian context. What’s needed, I told my Egyptian friend, is an Arabic book by Arab atheists and humanists dealing with the issues of being a nonbeliever in a primarily Islamic context. Plus that way I won’t have to deal with my fatwaphobia.
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9. The Amazon rank
PBB has been rolling along with very good numbers on Amazon – typically between 2000 and 4000 out of four million (the top one-tenth of one percent). But a recent story about PBB in the Minneapolis Star Tribune caused a phenomenal spike to #721 – the top two-hundredths of a percent.
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8. The UU side of things
As PBB readers know, I love Unitarian Universalists for many reasons. They also drive me crazy, which is OK, since they drive themselves crazy, too. Having redefined religion as…well, as pretty much anything you want it to mean, from the Flying Spaghetti Monster to a swift kick in the pants, some UU fellowships around the country are hesitant about being connected to this book. “I’m not sure that we as a religious community should be involved in promoting a book about raising children without religion!” said one (utterly nontheistic) UU correspondent. Thus am I failing to reach large swaths of the one community most likely to want and need this book, all because of the goofy way we define and redefine and undefine words.
On the other hand, UU World – the outstanding quarterly magazine of the UUs – is publishing a large excerpt of the book in the upcoming Fall issue.
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7. I’m sorry…can you repeat the question?
I did an interview recently with a wonderful, friendly reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald in Australia. She had read the book, found it fascinating, quoted back large passages to me – and then, ten minutes into the interview, said, “But…you do believe in God, right?”
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6. “Tis 15,000 visitors, I muttered”
The PBB website (including the forums and blog) is getting pretty darn lively:
March 2007: 3783 visitors
April 2007: 7991 visitors
May 2007: 9743 visitors
June 2007 (proj.): 15,000 visitors [NB: actual visitor count for June: 16,500]
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5. Secular Nation
Secular Nation, the quarterly magazine of Atheist Alliance International, is devoting its entire Summer issue to secular parenting, including a feature by yours truly. Once it’s live, you’ll find it here.
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4. The Secular Web
The Secular Web — the largest secularist website in the solar system — will also have an article of mine as Featured Article for July. Once it’s live, you’ll find it here.
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3. Ask Miss Dale
I’m beginning to get a stream of requests for advice. One young mother is feeling the need to set ground rules for her evangelistic father now that her daughter is getting to the questioning stage. Another in my own city has four kids in an evangelical private school (for the academic rigor (in most areas (not science))) but is being driven insane by the overwhelming religious indoctrination and wants nonsectarian options. Others are seeking books on this or that topic, strategies for approaching a public school that’s violating church-state principles, or resources for counseling upon the death of child. I’m deeply moved and increasingly aware of the crying need that PBB has begun to address. There’s so much more to do.
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2. Removing the scales from mine eyes
Friendly and well-meaning Christians continue to invite me to “dialogue” or to “have a cup of coffee” because they find me “intriguing” and want to “understand better” where I’m “coming from.” This is a lovely idea in principle, and something I enjoyed for many years. But even if it doesn’t begin as a conversion attempt (and it usually does), these people each enter the conversation convinced that I just haven’t sat my silly self down with the right Christian. They are also convinced, without exception, that they, at last, will be that right Christian. They’ve heard this heroic narrative so many times – the blinded atheist from whose eyes the scales can be made to drop by the right turn of phrase – and just can’t wait to be the one standing all in white, hearing those scales tinkling on the tile between us.
If I consent, they give me the same, tired seven or eight or nine or twelve unconvincing things that convinced them. Once I heard the same seven or eight or nine or twelve things for the twentieth time, I gave myself permission to start declining these invitations. At which point I am inevitably accused of an unwillingness to listen to God’s Truth.
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1. PBB is going to Harvard!
After years of hard work and countless all-nighters, PBB has finally made it to Harvard! Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein has just informed me that Parenting Beyond Belief will be included in his course on Humanism and Atheism next year at the Harvard Divinity School.
god’s burning love for me
The Minneapolis Star Tribune contacted me a few weeks back to see if I’d mind being featured in their “Believer” profile, a weekly sidebar in the Faith & Values section. Why not. They sent a few questions and gave me a 200-word limit. Here’s the result:
BELIEVER
Dale McGowan, 44, RobbinsdaleOccupation: Writer.
Identifies as: Secular humanist.
Favorite work of music
Piano Concerto in G Major, Maurice Ravel. The whole bittersweet human comedy is in that one amazing piece.What do you believe in?
This natural universe is all there is. We are all made of the same material as the stars, but unlike most of the stuff in the universe, we have the astonishing good fortune to be conscious for a short while. We should never stop dancing and singing in the face of that magnificent luck. We are cosmically insignificant, inconceivably unimportant — except to each other, to whom we should therefore be unspeakably precious.Describe something your values have helped you navigate.
I’ve spent 30 years reflecting on my father’s death. Now that I’ve reached his final age, a naturalistic understanding of death has led me to fear it less. I’ll never experience death, since my death, by definition, will be the absence of me. I won’t be there — so what’s to fear? Our identities spring entirely from a constantly recomposed electrochemical symphony playing in our heads. Asking where my “self” goes when that electrochemical symphony ends is like asking where the music goes when an orchestra stops playing. We are living music. How wonderful is that?
Only two Baptists called to save me, followed by weeks of silence. I thought I was out of the woods — until today, when I received this letter:
Dear Dale,
I’m sending these booklets to you so that you know God loves you. When you die, you don’t die like a dog. You will go on forever!
I’m 74, & received Christ into my life at age 11. I’ve never regretted it for a minute.
Love, & Rejoicing in the Lord Jesus,
Virginia H—
Enclosed were two signs of God’s burning love for me: a Jack Chick tract, including this panel:
…and a second pamphlet:
She sent them, she said, so I could know God loves me.
If that’s God’s idea of love, Virginia…well, he can frankly go love himself.
PBB on the air
Two radio podcast interviews coming up!
MOTHERHOOD UNCENSORED
Wednesday May 16, 9:30-10 pm Eastern
Kristen Chase, blogger of the eye-wateringly funny and appropriately titled Motherhood Uncensored interviews me, along with PBB contributor and AgnosticMom blogger Noell Hyman. Click to listen in:
Call in number during the show: (646) 915-8634
FREETHOUGHT RADIO
Thursday May 17, 1:45-2:00 pm CENTRAL time
Freedom From Religion Foundation co-presidents and PBB contributors Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor will interview me about PBB for their Freethought Radio program. Dan and Annie Laurie are two of the most courageous and influential freethinkers of our generation. Click here to set up your “podcatching” capabilities and to hear the program!
I’m not worthy
It seems someone has nominated my humble blog for a Blogger’s Choice Award:
Though moved and flattered by the gesture, I don’t deserve it. I am, after all, just a roomful of monkeys trying to type out the complete works of Shakespeare. If you find some occasional pleasure in reading these words or in clicking on the occasional interesting link, that’s more than enough for me.
By the numbers
At the moment (28 April, 2:16 pm US Central Time), Parenting Beyond Belief (aka “The Book Without An Audience”)…
…is selling faster than 99.9% of the titles on Amazon — and we haven’t even started our major marketing. Sales have been so brisk that Amazon has thrown it back to preorder status until they can restock.
…is the #3 parenting reference on Amazon Canada and #4 parenting reference on Amazon.com.
…is continuing to Google over 24,000.
One would think Barnes & Noble would like a piece of that action…
Oh, and speaking of the big booksellers:
Blog reader Augustus Gloo… I mean, STEELMAN has found one of the 78 PBBs planted in Borders bookstores around the US! Only 77 left! Sprint to your local Borders and snap ’em up, then report back here!
I want a PBB, Daddy, and I want it now!
UPDATE: make that 76 — another has turned up in Florida!
A quick ten
- April 20, 2007
- By Dale McGowan
- In PBB, Uncategorized
24
Ten interesting bits about the book:
10. Say hello to Tom Flynn.
I just found out one of the pieces (one of my favorites) was left out of the Table of Contents: the point/counterpoint on Santa Claus between Tom Flynn and me. Tom (editor of Free Inquiry and marvelous guy) was incredibly gracious about the unfortunate and unintentional snub. If you have the book, turn right now to p.85 and dig in.
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9. Borders has purchased only 78 copies of the book and planted them around the country to see how they sell before ordering more. Fetch, Gentle Readers! Fetch!
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8. I asked Kurt Vonnegut — a literary and personal hero of mine — to write a piece for the book. He never answered my letter and is now with Jesus.
7. Michael Shermer’s excellent Foreword to the book refers to a priceless scene in the movie Parenthood: Keanu Reeves’ character (“that Tod”) bemoans the fact that you need a license to drive or catch a fish, but anyone can be a father. In his initial draft, Michael quoted the character verbatim:
“You know, Mrs. Buckman, you need a license to buy a dog, to drive a car – hell, you even need a license to catch a fish. But they’ll let any butt-reaming asshole be a father.”
It works beautifully coming out of Tod Higgins, but I had my doubts about a parenting book. As it turns out, all direct quotes from films must be cleared, and we had no time to get permission. So alas, ours did not become the first parenting book of all time to include the phrase “butt-reaming asshole” on the first page. The world will just have to wait for James Dobson’s next book for that.
6. When I picked Delaney up from her Lutheran preschool yesterday (the day after Laney shared my book for show and tell), her teacher pulled me aside to say (genuinely) how wonderful it all was — that I was so open about my beliefs, that I brought my kids to a church school instead of avoiding religious ideas, and that Laney was so unbearably proud of me. A great lady to whom this photo does no justice.
5. I just got the news that Barnes & Noble will not be stocking the book in their stores. This is NOT about the content — they just have to make decisions based on projected sales, so the book needs to prove itself. If we show them there’s a market, I’m sure they’ll jump on board. It’s all about the bucks.
4. I did my first press interview this week for a small local paper and was so distracted by the incredible speed of the reporter’s laptop typing that I completely lost my train of thought. I type with the middle finger of my left hand and the first three fingers of my right. She uses at least six others. I continued yammering while my mind searched for the right simile — which turned out to be “like rain on a rubber roof” — then had to beg her pardon and start a sentence over. I’m mostly but not entirely sure I didn’t say, “My Dark Lord Satan shall guide my parenting with his cloven hoof” during the simile search. I guess we’ll see when the piece comes out on April 26.
3. The Minneapolis Star Tribune did a profile on me in the Faith and Values section of today’s paper. It’s a regular feature called “Believer,” and they apparently went back and forth a bit over whether to call mine “(Non)Believer.” In the end, it posed too many problems for the template, so they said, “Well, you do believe in things, just not God.” Okie doke.
2. We’re starting to work on small local tours before I permanently leave the Upper Midwest for the Lower Mid-Southeast. Madison WI and Mankato MN are in my sights at the moment.
1. PBB has received a FABULOUS review from Library Journal. This is one of the most important possible review venues, since a good review can ultimately lead to the acquisition of scads of books for libraries across the U.S. What? Oh, the review? If you insist:
Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion.
AMACOM: American Management Assn. Apr. 2007. c.288p. ed. by Dale McGowan.
McGowan, a professor, freelance writer, and novelist, has collected essays from some of contemporary secularism’s big names, e.g., Richard Dawkins, Margaret Downey, in support of those nonreligious American parents who seek to “articulate values, celebrate rites of passage, find consolation, and make meaning” sans religion. Contributor Ed Buckner writes that secular means “not based on religion” rather than “hostile to religion.” Though a few entries do evidence anger or resentment, it is clear that all of these astute essayists have thought carefully about God’s nonexistence. Most of the 30-odd contributors recommend imbuing children with the ability to think well independently; when pressured or rejected by real and figurative institutions that tend to favor the religious (e.g., schools, scouting, holidays), parents are advised to stick to their nontheistic guns. The book considers parents as pedagogues, recalling Deborah Stipek and Kathy Seal’s Motivated Minds: Raising Children To Love Learning. Engaging and down-to-earth, this collection balances the scores of religious parenting titles shelved in the average library and is highly recommended for large public libraries and parenting collections.
— Douglas C. Lord, Connecticut State Lib., Hartford
