The Kicking Post - The Treatment of an Atheist by Theists During Grieving - Overly Sensitive or Not?

This is something that I have not spoken about; however it has bothered me for the past 8 months now.  I feel guilty for feeling this way; however I am upset at the way I perceived theists treated me in this situation.

A quick background: I grew up in a very open minded home that was, for the most part, we were culturally Catholic.  I went to Catholic school for 12 years, but always looked at all religions as absurd.  My earliest recollection of this was me daring “God” to come before me and strike me down at around the age of 4.  “God” never showed, I lived on and left that belief behind me.

Fast forward:  I moved into a South Suburb of Chicago in Aug. of 2006, with my wife and 4 children.  We moved into a new subdivision and met a host of new families, which a majority of them, I can still call close friends.  We all hang out at the end of each other’s driveways, while our children played and genuinely get along.  Birthday parties, graduations, football games, baseball games, holiday crawls, you name it, we all participate and are all pretty close.  Even with the neighbors that are not as social, there is still the sense of watching out for each other and be available to help, if needed.

Being a very out spoken Atheist and my wife being a quite Agnostic, we were concerned with how our new neighbors and friends would handle it; however I quickly found out that no one was really bothered by it.  Do not get me wrong, when the alcohol was flowing, while hanging out on each others patio, debates occurred, but we never got heated over it.  It always ended without hurt feelings and another round of drinks.

A few houses down from us, lives one of my daughter’s best friend, which is the older sibling to her brother.  The parents of my daughter’s friend are great people and great friends.  Their house always seemed to be the central point of the neighborhood for socializing, help and inclusion.  They always hosted parties (for the kids and parents), organized activities (Bunco night, holiday crawls, summer fun for the kids during the days, cooked enormous amounts of food for everyone, etc.) and were always looking for an opportunity to bring people together.  The father, which works in telecommunications, always had a beer to give and an ear to lend for talking, as well as handing you a plate full of something that he just cooked up.  The mother worked for a dental office and always wanted to organize the fun for the kids in the neighborhood, so none of the kids ever felt left out, as well as being a Brownie Leader (Not sure what the official name of that is) for her daughter’s troop and all around social organizer.

With my wife going back to school, my daughter’s friend's parents offered to put our daughter on the school bus for us, because my wife’s school schedule had her leaving prior to the bus arrival.  For 4-5 months, we sent our daughter over to their house prior to us leaving for work or school.  This family was a dream come true for my wife and I.  The generosity of this family was incredible and we were/are so thankful.

For Christmas (2011), we sent them huge prepare fruit arrangement to show our appreciation.  After receiving it, they said that we shouldn’t have done that and it was their pleasure to help us obtain the goal of my wife finishing school.

End of January (2012), the mother of my daughter’s friend took her, her daughter and another really close friend to the mall and picked out the dresses for the February 19^th Daddy Daughter Dance.

On the morning of February 12, 2012, I was at an IKWF wrestling tournament coaching a kids wrestling program that 2 of my kids wrestle for, when I got a text from my wife saying, “Ambulance at (My neighbor’s) house and (another neighbor) said (my daughter’s friend’s mother) did not wake up”.

For the next few hours there was a lot of confusion and looking for information.  Around 1:00PM, we finally got the definite news.  She passed away.  Her 8 year old son went to wake her up in the morning and found her unresponsive.  He ran into the basement, where the father fell asleep from the night prior and said, “Daddy, I can’t wake mommy up and her lips are blue.”

We left the tournament and came home to mourn with our neighbors, friends and their family.  There was a lot of crying, laughter and silence, but we all were there for this wonderful family that has given so much.  No questions asked, we all we there to support our friend and his family in their time of need.

Later that week, the wake and funeral were scheduled for our friend.  It was incredible to see how many people that this family had touched and the large number of people that came to the wake and funeral was an attribute to how wonderful this woman was.

The following weekend, a number of fathers and daughters accompanied our friend and his daughter to the Daddy Daughter Dance.  All with heavy hearts, we wanted to be there for them.

Now we are 8+ months after her passing and she is still incredibly missed.  We are still there for our friend and his 2 wonderful children.  They are doing well and slowing moving on.

Now that I have given you all the background and foundation of the story, I would like to get to the point of this post.  

I have always been very open about my religious views; however I would have never have thought that it was the time or place to open any discussions about this topic during their time of mourning. I wasn’t there to debate or discuss religion, I was there to mourn and give support to my friends.  

I remember trying to put myself in the father’s shoes, breaking down and just crying.  My wife is my best friend and with my children, they are my “everything”.  

My neighbor had a very similar relationship with his wife and the children were the center of their universe.  His wife lived to make their life’s experience great and she was great at it.    

For the next week, after the passing of our friend, we hung out and just tried to support our friends in any way we could.  I began to notice individuals proselytizing to me and making some off handed comments about my non belief.  This began to bother and upset me.  I began to feel like a kicking post to a number of the mourners.  Not wanting to engage in any of the discussions or debates in regard to religion, god or an afterlife, I found myself just taking it or acting like I did not hear things.  If I responded in any way, it would have looked like I was being insensitive and unsupportive.  It was like some of this people were trying to antagonize me into a discussion.  How could these individuals not understand that engaging in this type of conversation was in poor taste and considered rude?  What were they trying to accomplish?  How could these theists that espouse kindness and love, use their religion as a tool to be so hurtful?  I did not understand and was emotionally tired.  

During the wake, I tried to stay out of the way and not get into too many discussions.  In the previous week, it seemed like a number of the discussion that I took part in, started off pleasant and gravitate to my non belief, so I wanted to keep a low profile.  I was doing pretty well with my plan until an individual wanted to have an impromptu debate in the parking lot about how I could not believe in the afterlife.  I cautiously discussed the topic and, of course, with every word that came out of my mouth, it felt like I was being an jerk.  I felt like a Westboro Baptist Church protestors at a funeral.  I just wanted to go home.

The following day was the funeral, which was the pinnacle of the week long emotional buildup for all.  We were all tired, sad and emotionally unsettled with the sudden passing of our friend, as well as wondering what the future would bring to this family.

At the church, my wife, my daughter and I sat with everyone else and respectfully observed the service.  Every few moments, there were individuals turning and look at us for a few seconds.  Not in a scornful way, just a short look at us.  I almost felt like an exhibit at the zoo and every time the priest mentioned something religious (At a funeral, in a church, it happens a lot) someone else turned to stare at us.  I felt selfish to want to get out of there and go home.  It wasn’t about me; it was about the celebration of this person’s life and supporting the ones felt behind.

A month later, there was a party to celebration of the son’s 1^st Communion, which we were invited to.  We were out the majority of the day; however I stopped by later in the evening to have a beer, drop off a card, and wish his son a Happy 1^st Communion.  It was neither the place nor the time to say anything about my religious thoughts.  This was their celebration of something that was important to them, which was good enough for me.  I was honored to be invited to their celebration.  

The night was getting late, the family looked emotionally spent and it was just about time to wrap things up.  The point when I decided to leave, I gave the father the card and told him that I wanted to wish his son a Happy 1^st Communion and he responded to me in an off handed way.  I do not recall exactly what he said, but it ended with “… it’s not like you really care about our beliefs.” or something like that.  They had an incredibly emotional number of weeks; however it is not an excuse to be hurtful.  I thanked him for inviting us and went home.  I did not even tell me wife about this one.     
  
I understand the every time a person looks back on a memory; the mind sensationalizes the memory a little towards our own bias.  Also, when a person records a memory into text, we naturally fill in any gaps to ensure that there is fluidity of the message; however I still feel as if some individuals used the situation and their religion to make me their kicking post during this grieving period.  I felt like some of them were daring me to argue with them and tried to push me to see how far I would take it.  Though everyone was in a highly emotional state during this time, I do not think that there is an excuse for treating another like this.  I am not sure if I was being overly sensitive to the situation, because my own heightened emotional state or not.  

Today, I still consider this family very close friends and I would still do anything for them.  Since the night of the Communion party, I have not heard one comment about me being an Atheist.  

I have chalked this up to the long period of sadness and grieving that created the perfect storm, which ended up running right over me.  These people are wonderful people and I do not think that they meant to harm me with what they said.  They were just hurting and I was a convenient target, right?

Since, I have often wondered if others have been in this situation and/or experienced these types of feelings.  If you have, if you agree or you think I was being overly sensitive, I would like to hear from you.

-Joe Heathen

January 20th Forum Announced! : The Meaning(s) of Life?

On January 20th we will be hosting a forum at the Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Park Forest! Currently the working title is The Meaning(s) of Life !? Our first forum was earlier this year and the topic was Positive Atheism. There was 26 people in attendance and we were told by several UU members that it was one of the largest forms they have had in years! 

The inspiration for the upcoming January forum was an experience with my internship with Gamaliel. Gamaliel is a interfaith community organizing network. Most of what I do is talk to people about their life and experiences in their church. Several of the people who after finding out that I hold the atheist stance have challenged me. Why are you organizing in churches if you are an atheist? The question, as simple it seems, is not simple. The question assumes too much. The question shifts the burden of doubt unfairly.  But, then again the question might be coming from a perspective of inexperience with different perspectives about the world. Say for example if you were brought up in a certain church and never saw the inside of church the block over. A non-religious perspective is simply outside the experience of a majority of religious community. Mutual experiences is vital to building bonds in order to change the world for the better. 

The power to do anything about the world we live in is found in organized people. People will not go into associations with one another if they cannot understand or relate to the life experiences of other groups. Secularists, Freethinkers, atheists, and so on must be able to tell their story. Stories require a system or systems of thought that develop and find meaning in the world. From my experiences in the secular community(s) there is a vast diversity in those meaning structures. In a sense the secular community looks like a occupy wall street and their diversity of demands. I don't believe that either community needs a unifying meaning structure. From experiences most of the people I have met over the years have built their life's meaning(s) with a minimal amount of defiance of one or another dominate ideology (i.e. Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and so on). One the one had this is a negative gesture that seeks to deconstruct. But on the other hand it's a kind of reconstruction based upon reclaiming ones life's meanings for one's self. Nietzsche called this positive nihilism, creating in order to overcome. What exactly are people trying to overcome? Religious authority. 

Personally, my struggle has been complex uprooting of complex interwoven thoughts that were damaging to how I wanted to experiences my life and find meaning in it.  When I was growing up Hell was a very real concept, and since I was constantly butting heads with authority figures a near constant reality. I remember several instances where I put in a chair in Sunday school with my nose to the wall. In any other setting with any other child this may have been a near harmless lesson, but with a child like me with a vivid and curious imagination combining replenishment with thoughts of hell is literally torture. Think about an Episode of 24 when Jack Bauer is about to torture someone and pulls out a blow torch but his the victims skin with an ice cube. Part of what torture is the threat of pain. Escaping from the thoughts of guilt and self punishment associated with challenging various status quo's was a personal struggle that took some time to overcome. The process of overcoming is where I discarded harmful schema's surrounding guilt, and sought my own way  of thinking of the actions I take in the world. 

One of the other struggles I have sought desperately over come is how my upbringing taught me to view gender, specifically the relationships that men and women develop. I have dug in to subject scouring used books stores. Reading feminism. Leading Marxist critiques of marriage. Reading gender studies about same sex relationships. Reading anarchist anti-gender hierarchy theory. I've learned a lot about the history of courtship and myself thought this philosophical journey. Some information has been more helpful then other, but the personal conflict over developing my own sense of self and place in the world has been one of the driving forces behind my search for a romantic identity.

The conclusion I have been coming to is that the struggle for meaning isn't a specifically secularist phenomena, but the struggle that godless undertake is undertaken in the world is without communities and independent of a tradition of meaning making. While our numbers are growing and there are more and more secular groups everyday being created our journey is by an large an individual journey. Sometimes there might be supportive friends, and sometimes it's a secret we are keeping from friends and family in order to avoid unknown repercussions. Or we are betraying our sense of integrity to be polite...

We plan on covering these topics and more in on January 20th 2012 at the Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Park Forest! 

We hope to see you there!

RSVP on Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/events/347645838655831/

William
Organizer
South Suburban Freethought Community

Is Sam Harris Really Being Vilified or Are People Finally Reading His Books?

Just because a book has "bestseller" scribbled at the top does not mean anyone has actually read the book, if that was the case it would say "most read" or something to that effect. The truth is Sam Harris's End of Faith seems to have been simply purchased by a lot of people with out being read. That is apparently until recently.

I was reading the Friendly Atheist blog today, about a statement that Richard Dawkin's made defending Harris as some kind hard boiled moral philosopher who is simply asking tough questions, and he doesn't deserve all the negative feed back from the internet. A little while ago Friendly Atheist also commented on Harris's response to the "trolls" on the internet who were giving him a hard time about his stance on torture. 

What both Hemant and Dawkins seem to forget is: first, the historical context in which Sam Harris was making his statements about torture, and secondly what Nietzsche had to say about a philosopher and his philosophy.

First, lets talk about the Harris was making his statements on torture. The End of Faith was published in 2004. Also, in 2004 the photos from Abu Ghraib surfaced in the news. America at that time had been and was using all if its might in its Shock and Awe campaign against "terrorism" globally. Lots of men and women were being taken from their homes with black hoods over their heads to be shipped to "Free To Torture Zones." Most with out trial or having it explained to them what they were being accused of. Men and Women were raped, humiliated, water boarded and so on. It reminds one of the inquisition, but on a larger scale.

What did Sam Harris say about torture?

"... if we are willing to act in a way that guarantees the misery and death of some considerable number of innocent children (Harris is referring to children who are killed in US bombings of other countries) , why spare the rod with suspected terrorists? What is the difference between pursuing a course of action where we run the risk of inadvertently subjecting some innocent men to torture, and pursuing one in which we will inadvertently kill a far greater numbers of innocent men women and children? Rather, it seems obvious that the misapplication of torture should be far less troubling to us than collateral damage; There are after all, no infants interned at Guatanamo bay, just rather scrofulous young men (Harris fails account for the women), many of whom where caught in the very act of trying to kill our soldiers (no source cited about the accuracy of this claim)." (p. 194)

"We could easily devise methods of torture that would render a torturer as blind to the plight of the victim as a bomber pilot is at thirty thousand feet. consequently our natural aversion to the sight and sounds of the dungeon provide no foothold for those who would argue against the use of torture. To demonstrate how abstract the torments of the tortured can be made to see, we need only imaging an idea "torture pill" - A drugh that would deliver both the instruments of torture and the instruments of their utter concealment. The action of the pill would be to product transitory paralysis and transitory misery of a kind that no human being would willing submit to a second time. Imaging how we tortures would fee if, after giving this pill to captive terrorists, each lay down for what appeared to be an hour's nap only to arise and immediately confess everything he knows about the workings of his organization. Might we not be tempted to call it a "truth pill" in the end?" (P.197)

"...I believe we must accept the fact that violence (or its threat) is often an ethical necessity." (p.199)

What seems to be forgotten to the historical memory is absurd patriotic and pro-imperialist statements of Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens during the post-911 "new atheist" wave. Looking back it seems so bizarre that the Harris and Hitchens weren't met with backlash. Though at the time the sales of american flags were sky rocketing, and the news of the atrocity of US military actions, privatization and corporate greed were not getting any where near the coverage they would get today.

Harris's statements then and now are one's of nationalist utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is not the science of morals that Harris would have us to believe. The moral/ethical theory of utilitarianism is kind of ethical math were we assign values to outcomes of actions and measure those actions against each other, the one with more positive results becomes the more ethical result, and justifies the means taken to get the ends. Where is Harris's discussion of values? Harris assumes with out debate the patriotic stance in the primacy of the US citizen over the 3rd world citizen, that our children futures and lives are more important than a terrorist or (and lets keep in mind this second part) the supposed individual with unproven terrorist organization associations. This is where Harris sides with George Bush II and the patriot act.

Slavjo Zizek Argues against Harris in reference to the torture pill:
"The very first lines - "a drug that would deliver both the instruments of torture and the instrument of their utter concealment" - introduces the typically postmodern logic of chocolate laxative: the torture imagined here is like a decaf coffee - we get the result without having to suffer unpleasant side-effects. The first reaction: at the Serbsky Institute, they have already invented a similar drug to torture dissidents, an injection into the prisoner's heart zone which slowed down his heart beating and caused terrifying anxiety - viewed from outside, the prisoner seemed just dozing, while he was going through a nightmare... The further problem is that Harris violates here his own rule when he focuses on September 11, and in his critique of Chomsky: the point of Chomsky is precisely the hypocrisy of tolerating the abstract-anonymous killing of thousands while condemning individual cases of the violation of human rights - why is Kissinger, when he ordered the carpet bombing of Cambodia that led to the death of tens of thousands, less a criminal than those responsible for the Twin Towers collapse? Is it not that because we are precisely victims of the "ethical illusion": the horror of September 11 was presented in detail in the media, while - to take another case - when the al-Jazeera TV shows shots of the results of the US bombing of Faludja it was condemned for its complicity with the terrorists...

There is, however, a much more disquieting prospect at work here: the proximity (of the tortured subject) which causes sympathy and makes torture unacceptable is not a mere physical proximity, but, at its most fundamental, the proximity of the Neighbor (with all the Judeo-Christian-Freudian weight on this term), of the Thing which, no matter how far away it is physically, is always by definition "too close." Consequently, what Harris aims at with his imagined "truth pill" is nothing less than the abolition of the dimension of the Neighbor: the tortured subject is no longer a Neighbor, but an object whose pain is neutralized, reduced to a property that has to be dealt with in a rational utilitarian calculus (so much pain is tolerable if it prevents a much greater amount of pain) - what disappears here is the abyss of the infinity that pertains to a subject. It is thus significant that the book which argues for torture is also the book entitled The End of Belief - not, however, in the obvious sense of "You see, it is only our belief in God, the divine injunction to love your neighbor, that ultimately prevents us from torturing people!", but in a much more radical sense. Another subject (and, ultimately, subject as such) is for Lacan not something directly given, but a "presupposition," something presumed, an object of belief - how can I ever be sure that what I see in front of me is another subject, not a depthless flat biological machine?"

And on to my second point:

Nietzsche argued that you cannot separate a philosopher from his philosophy (that is if he is authentically a philosopher). Philosophy is not like art in the sense that you can dissociation the painting of a women being water-boarded from painter who paints a painting of a women being water-boarded. Philosophy is an expression of a personal ideology. So when Harris states "I believe we must accept the fact that violence (or it's threat) is often an ethical necessity," we should take him on his word. Sam Harris is in fact a violent philosopher of violence who is not just playing word games as Richard Dawkins would have you think. Harris is telling us directly what he thinks about the world, and what moral principal he thinks we should live by. Moral philosophy is worth nothing if its solely designed for personal edification, and was never intended to be adapted to the world for its improvement. I don't think Dawkins has any idea what philosophy is.

Dawkins States:
"...if moral conclusions were intuitively obvious we wouldn't need moral philosophers. Moral philosophers devise difficult and uncomforable thought experiments, which sometimes lead to counter-intuitve and unpopular conclusions, and they are often scorned and vilified for doing what they do. Peter Singer is violently threatened because he dares to ask questions like "Do all humans, no matter whether embryonically young or vegetatively old, deserve more moral consideration than a cow in its prime in a slaughterhouse?" Other moral philosophers ask uncomfortable questions like "When miners are trapped underground, should resources needed to rescue them be diverted to feeding starving children?" As it happens, I would rescue the miners, but I can see that there is a serious argument to be had. Like it or not, that is what moral philosophers do. If all moral questions had intuitively obviously, self-evident answers, we wouldn't need moral philosophers."

While there is an aspect of philosophy that is about asking questions. A question is not philosophical independent of its answer. One must attempt to answer those questions. Harris answered the question of torture with an unabashed YES. Why won't Richard Dawkins and The Friendly Atheist let Sam Harris own his pro-torture stance? Hell, why won't Harris own it? Maybe the Friendly Atheist, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins should sit down and conduct a reading group to actually read the book.

References:
The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein
The End of Faith by Sam Harris
American Methods: Torture and the Logic of Domination by Kristian Williams

Meeting Minutes 11Aug2012

Atheist Community of the South Chicago Suburbs

Meeting Minutes

Topics discussed: Dating, Dr Who, Computer stuff, News, Politics, The caterpillar strike in Joliet, atheist stuff, freewill/determinism, finding meaning in life, Social theory, The world as it is and the world as it should be, potential future societies, video games, and atheist stuff

Christian Nation?

This is a reposing of a Facebook comment I made that became more elaborate as I continued writing it, I thought the internet might find it interesting. The post I was responding to was a secular person making a statement about christian calling america a christian nation and how that wasn't correct.

Here is my two cents:

There is a twist to this story that neither side seems to want to admit. Secularism is a Christian concept. So, if America was designed in the beginning as "secular nation" then calling America a "Christian Nation" makes sense based upon the history of where secularism came from. Secularism is an idea that was more or less inspired by Martin Luther and the reformation. The political purpose of secularism is to create and enforce laws in a nation/country where there isn't a single dominate religious basing. Secularism in theory is an idea which creates laws, rules and regulations that favor no specific religious perspective. Secularism wasn't created with the idea that atheist/freethinkers/and so on were included in secularism. It was a social contract among competing Christian groups that compromised in order to mutually benefit economically from a collaboration free from in fighting. It wasn't until the last hundred years or so that secularist (atheist/agnostic/free thinkers) started trying to reclaim history in order to write their own cultural narrative in order to include themselves into the origins of this country. While some (not all or even most) of the founding fathers/mothers were deists or freethinkers Non-were atheists, and their intended purpose was not to put atheists/agnostics/and so on in equal footing with religious land owners. Personally, I think the "Christian nation" dispute is a huge historical misunderstanding gone horribly wrong. 

Main Reference:
After God by Mark C. Taylor

My Experience at the Gamaliel Interfaith community organizer training

First I would Like to start with an overview of Gamaliel. Gamaliel is an interfaith national community organizing organization. The word Gamaliel is the name of the rabbi in the bible who taught Paul. Gamaliel is heavily based in Saul Alinksky. 

The Organizer training was located at University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein Illinois and lasted seven days. The mass of people was broken into three groups of roughly 40 people. We spent most of our time in the classrooms. The teaching method was Socratic, meaning it mostly consisted of dialog. The first several days the trainers focused on personal question the attendees motivation. (i.e. why are you here? what what do you want?) The key word for the two day was Self Interest, which Gamaliel defined as "self with others." Something we Socialist call solidarity. Anyway, self interest is to be opposed to selfishness and selflessness. The point being that acting our of selfishness or selflessness are ineffective perspectives for an organizer because both look at the situation from only one angle. Self interest being a perspective where you see yourself in the same problem or on the same level as those who are working with. 

To give a little perspective, as a social work student we are trained to make a very sharp distinction between the client and the social work. One of the problems of this client/professional relationship has when it enters the public arena of community organizer is that it instantly sets up a power dynamic where the social worker is one with the power to speak for the client (i.e. advocacy means "speaking for"). Instead of speaking with the client towards mutual goals. The inability for the social work profession to see themselves in the same situation as the client for the sake of "Professionalism" is a failure to reach mutual self interest and/or solidarity with fellow humans a social worker is working with. 

The next concept we focused on was Power. Gamaliel defined it as "the ability to" do something. Power was a pretty rough concept for most of the people there. I didn't have any issues with it. 

The last few days focused on what is Gamaliel (which for some reason they waited till near the end to get to), what projects Gamaliel is working on, and tactics and strategies of campaigns and actions. 

Also, on the second day we started doing one on ones. We were allotted an hour for each meal and a 3 hour break in the afternoon to schedule appointments with the other people who attended. The goal of the one on ones was to learn to agitate people and build relationships. Agitation was also a Huge over arching them for the whole training. Trainers were very aggressive on challenging people on the things they said. There was at least one person per room that broke down crying. 

One even that stood out to me was an exercise we did where we did a role play where we acted as concerned citizens of a crime infested low income apartment building, who was going to have a power- one on one with the landlord. The first attempt was a mess, lots of egos in the room fighting for authority, the planning discussion was chaotic and unclear. There was a point where I snapped for about 15 minutes and demanded that we clarify what ever the hell we were planning to do and take a vote on it. The end result was that about 6 or so people asked to play key members in the community screamed and yelled at the guy who was acting as the landlord, and in the end we hand sign and were screaming chants. In the other room, they must have came to the same conclusion because we could hear screaming from the first floor (my group was on the second). Anyway, epic failure. But then we got a second attempt, where we decided that those who lead the first time had to sit out for the second round, and this one minister dude organized us like magic. It was something else to watch. And we had a more or less calm conversation where we built a relationship, and made some grounds on the demands that we were asking for. 

Personally for me the training opened up the fact that I have not built very good relationships with people in my life and more specifically within the ACSCS. So, I have a couple ideas and something that looks like a plan for our next meeting. 

So...

What was it like to be some atheist dude in the middle of a seminary surrounded by religious folk? Well, I found the symbolism pretty oppressive the first couple days. There were crosses on the door knobs and crosses in all the rooms. The dorm area where we were staying was built forever ago, and reminded me of The Shining. Door Squeals, and heavy footsteps. In the building where the training was held were HUGE paintings of people being tortured (i.e. violent scenes of suffering from the bible.) When I stated that I was an atheist during one of the moments I was being verbally agitated. Several people found it a pretty curious thing, and set up appointments with me to talk about it via one-on-one's. Nor was I the only atheist in attendance in my group alone there was about 5, if that's an average that reflects the other two groups. Then atheist's might have been the highest single group in attendance. 

On the last day I gave a video testimonial. It should be put on the internet at some point, and I'll post it. I pretty much said that I said that I was awestruck by the power of the church. Not that that this insure about my lack of belief. But about the powers of people in churches to change the world they are in. Which was pretty much  contrary to my experience with Church and religious folk. 

I had a lot of fun at the training. Although on the first day, when answer the question, "why are you here." With the witty response, "It sounded like fun." I was ripped at. Little did he know how serious I take my fun!

Atheist Language(s)

I attended an meeting hosted by the Atheist Community of Northwest Indiana (ACNI) several months ago, in order to conduct research for a paper I was writing at the time on the Atheist Community as a diverse population.

-Lets digress for a moment

The class I was taking at the time was titled Diversity, and it was a Social Work class. The first assignment was to find a marginalized population and write the name of that group on a slip of paper to be approved by the teacher. The next week I was handed back my slip of paper and it stated the topic could not be approved. I was overcome with an emotion that I don't remember feeling before. Something heavy in the gut, enraged. I less then calmly told the Professor that I disagreed with her, and she suggested that I speak to the department head. Our department head rocks, she was of the option that based upon the assigned that my topic probably should not have been revoked in the first place. And I my topic was approved.

-Digression ends.

Anyway, I had attended ACNI several times before before I struck out on the project of creating a local atheist group so I didn't have to drive the 45 minutes into Indiana to hang out with cool people, so there were some familiar faces, and others that were new to me.

One of the members I didn't remember meeting asked me, "are you an atheist?" I responded, "Sometimes, but the rest of the time I am a philosopher." I consider atheism to be a temporary and situational stance localized in those specific moments where I have to describe to others my stances towards deities and communities centered around transcendence. Between one moment where I'm stating that I am an atheist, and the next moment I repeat the claim, I am with a religious import. The trick of the words atheist/atheism/non-theist (and so on) is that they are not self-referential, but are codependent to the reference that comes after the negation ("a" or "non"). Negation is a tricky subject in and of itself, and trying to education others on the difference is tricky because the language in which to discuss the subject is near completely framed in religiously embedded language. How do we escape from this? Nietzsche argued that you can't get rid god till you get rid of grammar (or what we know as grammar). In other words, language needs a revolution to create a new system in order to more acurately describe the world the world and the people who live in it. Nietzsche pushed for smashing everything with his philosophical hammer. But deconstruction isn't the only way out. We could, and this is a bit of a stretch because the atheist community self defines itself in such a way where it could be compared to psychotic kittens (arguably psychosis is a kitten's natural state) could establish new ways in which to describe themselves.

Testing... Testing...