15. Content is overrated
(Post 15 of 33 in my 16-hour shift for the Secular Student Alliance Blogathon.)
3:00 pm EDT
Okay, my head is getting hurty. Time for a few low-calorie posts.
Five things about me:
1. My first job out of college was delivering singing telegrams dressed as Superman.
2. My first clarinet teacher is now the guy who plays Lisa Simpson’s saxophone.
3. I studied film scoring at UCLA and fully intended to write music for films until I met the other 4,000 people vying for those six spots.
4. I tried hard to move to New Zealand when I was 25.
5. I am missing one sinus.
14. Quakermaker
(Post 14 of 33 in my 16-hour shift for the Secular Student Alliance Blogathon.)
2:30 pm EDT
I’ve written at length before about my burning love for the Belief-o-Matic Quiz. I may even do so again before midnight if I run out of words to coin. The quiz asks twenty multiple choice worldview questions, then spits out a list of belief systems and your percentage of overlap with each system. In other words, it doesn’t tell you what church you go to, but it might suggest what church you ought to be going to. If any.
I read a passing comment in an article about the quiz several years ago that I’ve never forgotten. It seems that many of the people taking the quiz were finding a high correlation with one particular denomination: Satanism.
Wait no, my finger slipped. I meant Liberal Quakers.
So many people were finding themselves in high alignment with Liberal Quakerism that the headquarters of the Society of Friends (their fancy name) reported a tripling of inquiries in the first year of the quiz.
A lot of these inquiries were surely from people who call themselves Lutherans, or Baptists, or Presbyterians, or Catholics, or Mormons, because every Sunday they put on their blinker, check the mirror, and turn into the parking lot of a church with that denomination on the sign. But they are actually black-hat-wearing, oats-munching Quakers. Liberal Quakers, to be precise.
It seems to me that a person who calls himself a Baptist but believes that Joseph Smith received golden tablets describing the ministry of Christ in the New World from the Angel Moroni in Upstate New York, along with a pair of special glasses for translating them, etc., it seems to me that that person is in point of fact a Mormon, no matter what pew receives his weekly backside.
Yet statistics on the total size of the various denominations count backsides in pews. The pollsters don’t often ask what the people attached to those backsides actually believe about golden tablets, or transubstantiation, or immaculate conception, or purgatory, or whether salvation is by works or by faith alone, or how many gods there are and whether any of them have the head of an elephant. They should ask these things if they really wanted to know how many people are in a given belief system, but they generally don’t ask or probably care.
But the Belief-o-Matic cares enough to ask. And I care about the answer for this Quakery result for one special reason: Liberal Quakers are really cool.
For starters, many mainstream churches are based on revelation— the belief that one person or group can know what God wants. Revelation-based churches in the U.S. are the primary opponents of countless progressive social policies and the primary supporters of militarism, authoritarian politics, corporal punishment, and more. They tend to use God as a bludgeon against others.
Liberal Quakers, on the other hand, reject revelation and consider the experience of God to be personal and individual. As such, they are utterly opposed to forcing moral or dogmatic opinions on others. No person can tell any other person what the experience of God is like, at which point all sorts of nonsense goes away. And lo and behold, this denomination that has walked away from dogma and revelation has a long, rich history of being on the right side of important social issues. They were among the first abolitionists. They marched and got themselves arrested for women’s suffrage. They promote peace and nonviolence and devote themselves to alleviating human suffering rather than adding to it.
If it’s true that a significant proportion of the American population has values and beliefs in line with a church that rejects revelation and is a force for social progress, yet their membership and dollars go to churches that embrace revelation and are a force for social regress, I think a conversation is in order, and the Belief-o-Matic can do that. We’d be better off if they recognized the mismatch and Quakered up.
(Hey! Donate to SSA in the sidebar!)
13. Differdawkin’®
(Post 13 of 33 in my 16-hour shift for the Secular Student Alliance Blogathon.)
2:00 pm EDT
Richard Dawkins has said a ridiculously large number of things in his life that I’ve agreed with. Once in a while, I find myself disagreeing with him. That’s not only fine but to be encouraged — If I hear one more defense of an idea because Famous Freethinker X Says So, I’m gonna blow bangers out me bewdle.
Voicing our differences with our own upper echelon is such a good idea, I’ve coined a term: it’s called differdawkin’®. It captures not only the difference in opinion but my own chutzpah for differing with royalty in the first place.
Example: I think it was Dawkins who once suggested that “The Passion of St. Matthew” might someday be replaced by “The Passion of the Milky Way.” I’m gonna have to differdawk on that one. I think we’ll always express our deepest emotions and connections in human terms, not by singing the praises of abstract or inert things, no matter how inspiring.
See? Variations include notsoshermerin’ and taking a different twain.
Meditate on how you ever got along without my important new word, then haste to yon sidebar and donate a dollar to SSA for every time you intend to use it.
12. Government as God
(Post 12 of 33 in my 16-hour shift for the Secular Student Alliance Blogathon.)
1:30 pm EDT
Q: I classify myself as an atheist libertarian. From the few atheist/humanist gatherings I have been to, I see some with political views very different from my own. My husband summed up this observation when he noted that it seems like many humanists try to replace “god” with “government”. We shouldn’t pray for things, we shouldn’t rely on commandments, but instead we should legislate people to behave according to the morals what the “enlightened” humanists “agree” are good.
A: I’d phrase the equation a little differently, but I think it’s an explanation on the right track. The God hypothesis is an attempt to order and control a chaotic world. The deeply-felt need for that order and control doesn’t go away when god-belief does. For many, that belief is replaced by collective human judgment and a utilitarian ethic that seeks the greatest good for the greatest number. (And yes, that leads to all sorts of Gordian knots itself, but there it is.)
11. The man in the middle
(Post 11 of 33 in my 16-hour shift for the Secular Student Alliance Blogathon.)
1:00 pm EDT
I’ve always been ambivalent about clergy. The automatic grant of deference, not to mention their complicity in reinforcing belief in things I consider false (and knowing that sometimes they do, too), bothered me even as a kid. But for the last 20 years or so, I’ve spent a lot of time paying attention to what they do so I can understand what human needs are being met. There’s the need for an authority and for easy answers and all the rest, of course, but something else has begun to gel.
I saw this thing at work as I sat last December with my mom, aunt, and uncle, surrounded by boxes, as my entirely secular Mom prepared to leave her St. Louis home of 22 years to move to Atlanta. As we sat and talked about nothing, we noticed a man crossing the drive from the UCC church next door. It was the minister.
Though Mom was not a parishioner of his, they’d been very friendly neighbors, and he knew she was leaving that day. He knocked and entered, filling the room with a warm, magnetic personality. He was in the right profession.
He greeted my mom, and the introductions began. “Pastor Greg, this is my sister Madeline Denning and her husband Ben.”
The minister then did something I’ve seen countless times: “Denning, Denning — are you by any chance related to Herb Denning over in St. Charles? He attended my dad’s church for many years, wonderful man.” They thought a minute, said no, they didn’t think so.
“And this is my son Dale from Atlanta.”
“Hello Dale! Good to meet you. I love Atlanta — been there many times, especially up in the north end around Marietta. My brother and his wife are there.” When I replied that, sure enough, Marietta is not too far from me, he grinned broadly. “Wonderful place, so many trees. Just a forest everywhere you go.”
And we sat down, connected.
He told my mom how much she would be missed, remembered this or that conversation they had had, anecdote anecdote, told her he was certain she’d make many friends in Atlanta. “You’re just one of those people who draws other people to them,” he said, knowing the type well.
We chatted for a while longer, then he asked if he could offer a prayer. It was short and simple: Please protect Carol as she moves into this new phase of her life, watch over her, etc. He hugged her, shook hands with the rest of us, and was on his way.
It was nice, and Mom appreciated it very much.
I’ve quoted a line from Jennifer Hecht several times in this blog — that we live in a meaning-rupture because we are human and the universe is not. It remains one of the most insightful and eye-opening quotes I’ve ever seen. The minister was putting a human face on the universe at a challenging time for my mom, a time when it’s not emotionally convenient to live in a faceless universe.
As humanism continues to work toward building completely satisfying human community without gods, this is yet another lesson from the other side of the aisle that’s worth paying attention to.
10. The common word in blog names that’s likely to keep me from reading the blog
(Post 10 of 33 in my 16-hour shift for the Secular Student Alliance Blogathon.)
12:30 pm EDT
Musings. The word is musings. (Sorry.)
9. The best first date
(Post 9 of 33 in my 16-hour shift for the Secular Student Alliance Blogathon.)
Noon EDT
I’ve had a lot of people ask me for the best intro to freethought. It depends on the person, of course. Lamont’s The Philosophy of Humanism was a big part of my welcome basket, but that isn’t for everyone. Same with many others.
I know something that IS for everyone: Julia Sweeney’s incredible one-woman show Letting Go of God. There is simply nothing like it that I’ve seen — a funny, personal, accessible walk through a complicated, touchy topic from the perspective of a hilarious but otherwise normal person.
Here are the first 15 minutes:
[Link]
No matter who or what you are, if you haven’t seen it yet, see it. Available on Amazon and Netflix.
8. The announcement
(Post 8 of 33 in my 16-hour shift for the Secular Student Alliance Blogathon.)
11:30 am EDT
When I first proposed writing Parenting Beyond Belief, I couldn’t believe it didn’t already exist. Now I’ve been invited to write another book that I can’t believe has not been written yet: Atheism for Dummies.
There were already Dummies books for each of the major and several minor religions, as well as some weirdly specific titles like Lost Books of the Bible for Dummies. Now publisher Wiley & Sons has decided it’s time to get a playful-but-instructive popular intro to atheism on the market. I’m grateful to Hemant Mehta for pointing them my way and to Wiley for agreeing with him.
The format is fun, the process fascinating, and the timeline extremely tight — should be on the shelf in March. In the meantime, I look forward to the knee-slapping comments about the title from friends on all sides. Let the games begin!
6. Dying
(Post 6 of 33 in my 16-hour shift for the Secular Student Alliance Blogathon.)
10:30 am EDT
Several friends have asked that I address talking to kids about death. This is an enormous topic, but I’ll touch on some key points.
I’ve received several emails over the years that are variations on this theme: A secular parent tells me his or her child, often age 4-5, sometimes older, is about to lose an especially beloved grandparent, and “I’m not sure how to handle it — we’ve never really talked about death.”
Step 1. Build a time machine.
Okay, that’s not helpful, unless you have Steve Hawking and John Frink as Facebook friends. But ideally you will have prepared your kids for years by talking about death in natural, unforced ways, from the dead bird in the backyard to walks in cemeteries to books (like Charlotte’s Web) and movies (like Tuck Everlasting). Call it mortality literacy.
Despite popular wisdom, kids are often better able than adults to handle the discussion, in part because their grasp of death is not yet fully concrete. The facts that death is universal (i.e. applies to every living thing) and final are realizations that only gradually take hold. The window before they do is an opportunity to ease your child forward in coming to grips with our most difficult reality.
When talking about comforting a grieving child, mainstream grief experts generally discuss religious consolations in a slightly cursory and sometimes even embarrassed way. After offering solid, research-based suggestions, they typically tack on a coda, like, “Depending on your family’s religious tradition, you may wish to explain a person’s death to your children in terms of God’s will or an afterlife. But be aware that such statements as ‘she went to be with Jesus’ can lead to feelings of confusion and abandonment, while ‘God took her to be with him’ can cause feelings of anger followed by guilt and fear.’” Worst of all is any suggestion that the child should NOT be sad (“You should be happy! She’s with Jesus now”) which invalidates the child’s natural grief. Bad thing.
I remember well-meaning people saying that to me when my dad died. I was 13, and I wanted to kill them. (I didn’t do it.)
Some general guidelines for helping kids deal with the loss of a loved one:
Be honest. Don’t pretend that it isn’t one of the most difficult events of their lives. Validate their pain and grief. Tell the child it is not just “okay” to be sad, it’s good. The sadness honors the person who died, showing that she loved her very much, and expresses real feelings.
Share your own emotions. Keeping a stiff upper lip in front of the kids is no help whatsoever for a grieving child. Let her know that you are grieving too—or better yet, show it.
Be patient. There’s no healthy or effective way to rush a grief process.
Listen. Invite the child to share what she is feeling if she wants to. If not, respect her silence.
Reassure. You can’t bring back the deceased person or pretend he or she is somewhere else. But you can and should do everything possible to make the child feel personally safe, loved, and cared for.
Keep the loved one alive in memory. The sudden absence of someone who died is the most painful part of it. Avoiding the person’s name or not talking about him/her can make that sense of absence much worse. Share memories of the person and use her name. If tears come, remember that the goal is not to avoid sadness, but to help the child work through the intense grief. Let her be the one to tell you if a conversation is too painful.
Great resource: Maria Trozzi’s Talking With Children About Loss.
There’s more, but I’m out of time! Donate to SSA in the sidebar!
5. Killing
(Post 5 of 33 in my 16-hour shift for the Secular Student Alliance Blogathon.)
10:00 am EDT
When I saw the photo above, it made me deliriously happy. It probably makes you happy too. For the full effect, click to enlarge it. Go on, I’ll wait.
…
Mirror neurons are partly responsible for our reaction — monkey see happy, monkey be happy. But I have an added reason to like it: these fine people are responding to something I said. Something I said made them all feel like that.
It was at the Freethought Festival in Madison a few weeks back, and the line that slew them so nicely is also found in this blog post from 2008. What makes me happiest of all is that I was making an actual point at the time — not just killing, but educating them as they die. It’s my favorite mix. So I’m only mildly ashamed to admit that this photo is now my computer desktop. The big-ass version.
One of the most perfect moments in Julia Sweeney’s stage show Letting Go of God captures the (literally) intoxicating thrill of getting a spontaneous laugh in real time:
All of our brains are on drugs all of the time. We give ourselves hits: dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and vasopressin. The next time all of you laugh, I’ll get a hit of adrenaline through my veins, and if you don’t when I expect you to, I’ll get cortisol instead and I’ll feel anxious.
I always thought I was a person in my family who escaped addictions, but now I realize that I am up here on this stage right now partly because… I am an addict. [Audience chuckles.] Ooh, thanks. [Big laugh.] Oooooo!!!! [Insanely big laugh]
I started my writing career 11 years ago with a satirical novel and followed it up with another. When I started my blog in 2007, I tried to keep weaving comedy and education together, and I did pretty well a lot of the time.
Then in 2009, I started Foundation Beyond Belief. Running a charitable organization that’s trying to make the world a better place and give humanists a positive way to express their worldview is incredibly satisfying. I can’t begin to describe how much. But it’s also pretty earnest work.
When you’re writing to entertain, you run each word and sentence through a quick filter — How can I make that funnier? But for most of the projects I’ve done in the last three years, including the Foundation and Voices of Unbelief, my filter has been set to a nearly opposite setting: How can I make that clearer?
Humor introduces ambiguity and plays with it. As often as not, it looks for a less clear way to say something, and the ambiguity opens the laugh. Clarity is the kryptonite of humor. So it’s not surprising that I’ve recently started to feel the funny part of my brain atrophying. And not just on the page — I’m not even as silly in real life as I was a few years ago. That’s begun to feel like a real loss.
Then something terrific happened. A project has come along, out of the relative blue, that doesn’t just allow the combination of humor and education I love but demands it. And sure enough, since I’ve been working on it, I can feel this part of my brain coming out to play again. It’s the best thing that’s happened to my head in long time.
I’ll announce the project when I start getting a hint that somebody is out there and awake with me this morning! Time to break the silence, you lurkers. Note that I’ve added FB comments as an option.
