Reason clouded by hate.

There are days I really dislike some of my fellow atheists.  This is one of those days.

During Skepticon (a convention I really wish I could go to one year), a Gelato store owner a block away posted this obviously offensive, mockworthy sign.

Skepticon is not welcomed to my Christian Business

This emphasizes my previous complaint about atheists being treated as vile, untrustworthy, generally-not-nice people, and when I first saw the blog post displaying the photo my immediate reaction was to laugh, discount the guy as a bigot, and move on with my day.  I gave it no more thought until I saw this (apparently) genuinely honest apology from said store owner.

To the World:

Hello, my name is Andy and I’m the owner of Gelato Mio, a gelato shop located in Springfield, Missouri. There has been quite a lot of buzz and discussion concerning a picture of the sign I briefly posted in my front window Saturday evening. I’d like to take this opportunity to tell my story and offer a heartfelt apology to your community. I messed up, plain and simple. This is NOT an excuse, but how it happened from my perspective.

I decided to welcome the convention downtown by offering the attendees 10% off their purchases at my store. A lot of the group from the convention were stopping by, being very polite and enjoying my Gelato. Saturday night started out as a great night. Once the store slowed down, I decided to walk down the street to learn more about the convention, fully thinking it was something involving UFOs (“skeptics”). What I saw instead was a man conducting a mock sermon, reading the bible and cursing it. Instead of saying “Amen”, the phrase was “god damn”. Being a Christian, and expecting flying saucers, I was not only totally surprised but totally offended. I took it very personally and quickly decided in the heat of the moment that I had to take matters into my own hands and let people know how I felt at that moment in time.

So, I went quickly back to my business, grabbed the first piece of paper I could find, wrote the note and taped it in my front window. This was an impulsive response, which I fully acknowledge was completely wrong and unacceptable. The sign was posted for about 10 minutes or so before I calmed down, came to my senses, and took it down. For what it’s worth, nobody was turned away. I strongly believe that everybody is entitled to their beliefs. I’m not apologizing for my beliefs, but rather for my inexcusable actions. I was wrong.

Guys, I really don’t know what else I can do to express my apologies. I’ve received dozens of calls and hundreds of emails since the incident, and have done my best to reply to each and every one and express my regret for what happened. For the thousands of you whom I’ve offended, I sincerely apologize. I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive me. This is me as a human being sincerely apologizing for my actions.

To those of you who accept my apology, Thank You; it means a lot. To those of you who haven’t, I hope you will. I’m just a 28 year old small business owner who made a big mistake. I hope you see that I have not made any excuses, I’ve owned up to what I did, and I apologize.

For what it’s worth, an Atheist reached out to me to help me work through all of this and contact your community directly. I graciously accepted his offer.

I will give everyone who comes to my store this week 10% off as a token of my apology. Really, what’s more universal than ice cream?

Sincerely, Andy

Good for him.  Maybe it's clever PR trying to get past the stigma he placed on his shop, but it seems to me like the guy had a gut reaction, overreacted, and wanted to express his apologies for being a douchenozzle.  I think most reasonable people would take it at that, understanding that when we get offended, we tend not to think rationally.  This isn't a christian condition, so much as it's a human condition.  If someone attacks something you value, the first reaction is almost always to go on the defensive.  I know I have on more than one occasion, and I've seen it in my believer and nonbeliever friends.  This is part of my issue with the notion of the sacredness of anything.  If we allow ourselves to be offended by ill-treatment of objects, it clouds our judgement and keeps us from being logical about the issue.  He was affected by this ill logic due to the mistreatment of his sacred book, and overreacted.  The logical response was to understand, shrug it off, and move on with our lives.

PZ Myers doesn't agree:

There is an asymmetry here. GelatoGuy lives in one of the most religious countries on earth, in a particularly intensely religious part of that country, and in a moment of smug self-righteousness, felt he could openly discriminate against people who do not respect his beliefs. And now he thinks he can walk away, forgiven, and return to his blithe happy Christian pocket universe, just by saying a few words. And we, of course, will turn around and think he’s a nice , sincere, classy guy.

Meanwhile, we will still be regarded as the least trustworthy minority in the country; we still have to deal with the fact that we are excluded from the political discourse; we still have to walk into courtrooms with the ten commandments on display; we have to watch these nice, sincere, classy people elect gay hating bigots, anti-science know-nothings, and flaming misogynists to high office…but hey, they’ll apologize to our faces when they risk losing our business. And then go back to church to listen to their priests fulminate against the godless, go into the voting booth and vote against civil rights, go to their school board and piously try to ram their faith into our children’s faces.

I understand his rage.  Christianity as a whole has a very cushy position in America, and the kind of discrimination he displayed is fairly common in certain parts of the US.  Atheism as a movement is regarded poorly, and people think poorly about us.  Yet it seems that PZ and others have lumped all Christians into the same category: people in Jesus-bubbles who can't see atheists in any kind of positive light.  I understand that sentiment, too.  My own mother had the emotional reaction that she was a failure as a parent because I turned to atheism.  Eventually she came to understand and respect my decision, and we're past that point, but that gut reaction is a common problem that many believers share.  Becoming an atheist is like becoming a convicted criminal to many.  You've gone down a notch in the quality of your character by becoming one.

So yes, PZ is very much in the right to be offended, but the offense of the many does not justify disrespecting a single man who, while somewhat prejudiced against us, openly admitted that what he had done was wrong.  Whether he feels we're immorally bankrupt, he acknowledges that treating us like second-class citizens is inappropriate.  No one should discredit this man for being offended.  He has the right to be offended.  Hell, he should have been.  From what I understand, it was intended to be an offensive piece.  He made a really dumb, bigoted mistake, and owned up to it.  What's more awesome than that?

I really like "friendly atheist" Hermant Mehta's take on it:

No one’s letting Andy off the hook for being a bigot. He still disapproves of atheism. Who cares. The point is that he (now) knows that his act of discrimination was wrong. We ought to show some appreciation when someone admits they made a mistake, even if the person isn’t completely on our side of the big picture. The next step is to get him to realize why there’s nothing wrong with what was said at Skepticon in the first place, but that’s a separate battle.

What I don't like is what one of his commentors said:

I completely disagree that this makes everything okay. Say he heard that Pride Day was going on and thought it was some patriotic gathering; he instead saw gay couples kissing, and subsequently banned them from his establishment as a kneejerk panicked response? That would not be quickly forgiven, likely by many; why should this be treated any differently when the bigotry was just as real?

I see a couple of key differences here.  The first is that gay couples kissing is not designed nor intended to offend, just as skeptical people sitting down and talking about the flaws of religion or generally making logical arguments are not designed to offend.  The second is that yes, I think the example she gave here should be treated with the same level of forgiveness.  People can be dumb and bigoted, and cutting them off doesn't give them the exposure to get past those prejudices and move past a place of ignorance and into a place of knowledge.  PZ may think people should be confronted with full-frontal atheism from the get-go...

Perhaps, on the schedule, we could print little chili peppers next to the titles of the talks? No peppers means it will praise Jesus, five peppers means the content will send any Christian listeners straight to hell?

I find this whole idea far more offensive than what GelatoGuy did — it is atheists and skeptics rushing to self-censor themselves, to mark some of their ideas as publicly shameful, and to acquiesce to ignorant public opinion. I’m not going to support that kind of behavior at all: sure, welcome the public, including delicate Christians like GelatoGuy, to the event, but don’t coddle them. This is who we are. Be proud.

 

...and I can appreciate that sentiment.  Yet it's not offensive to suggest that he first listen to a milder voice of atheism.  People view atheists as belligerent, condescending assholes, and the best way to break a prejudice like that is to show someone an example of an atheist who isn't a belligerent, condescending asshole.  We can be proud of who we are yet also be reasonable people, starting with little baby-steps and moving onto the great leaps of grokking our ideas.  I became an atheist because of reasonable people who didn't push me, followed by belligerent assholes who challenged me.  I think there's plenty of room for the dicks of the atheist community just as there's room for the "accomodationists," and for PZ to think that being accomodating and friendly is worthy of rage is deeply offensive and, dare I say it, foolish.

There's got to be a middle ground somewhere.  There's room enough in this movement for the obnoxious and the soft-spoken, for the belligerent and the peaceful, for the offensive and the accomodating.  Yet even the most obnoxious shouldn't look at a man's apology as a reason to condemn him.  Give him a bloody chance to grow from this experience and realize that being an atheist doesn't make us immoral, indecent, or evil.

Whatsoever you do to the least...

I'd like to think, as far as atheists go, that I'm pretty reasonable.  In that light, I'd like to think my displeasure at reading this is also fairly reasonable.

Well, yesterday's sermon was a big hit! We had a mass execution of 200 feeder fish that I pulled out of a fish tank and then threw all over the floor. The kids were in shock and then started to pic them up and put them back into the fish tank. Obviously, most of them died in the effort…the point however was made that they cared ore about .15 cent feeder fish then they do about their friends dying w/o Christ.

Pardon my language as I say "What the fuck?"

As far as I'm able to discern, this is a real event that happened with the Main Street Christian Church in Russiaville, Indiana.  I don't have a lot of details since they've turned their profile to private and I can't see the original thread (though it's been linked to on numerous different sites, just do a google search for any or all of the above text), though, so I can't confirm.  I'd like this to be a joke of some kind designed to make religious zealots look foolish, but I suspect it's all too true.

The really bad thing I see about this is how it related to the children.  The animals themselves suffered needlessly, which is bad, but the children were directly confronted with this pain, which was worse.  I remember my time in catholic elementary school, and I clearly remember that my pastor was a man who could do no wrong.  I was taught he was a holy man with a connection to God, and it wasn't until I grew older that I came to accept him as a man and not some divine figure.  The fact that it was this pastor who was deliberately cruel to these animals tells the children that it's okay to be deliberately cruel, especially if it's to make a point related to God.  How will that message be received by these children?

The torture of the animals directly is a more tricky subject.  We utilize animals for a number of purposes in our lives, from food to clothing to scientific experimentation, and it's not always pleasant for them.  I've looked at live goldfish under microscopy before, and I doubt the experience was a pleasant one for them, but it aided my learning and I feel no guilt for causing them temporary discomfort for the sake of furthering my education.  Animal experimentation in major laboratories is a very real thing, and people fish with live worms as bait.  Still, I think what really gets me about this case is the vast number of animals brought to suffer for a purpose that could just as easily be demonstrated by words or even in a way that utilized animals but brought no lasting harm to any of them.  To talk about a "mass execution" and tie it in as a "big hit" seems a break in thinking to me, not because animals were harmed but because the animals were harmed without any regard to their well-being.

It's ok that we use animals for a variety of things in our daily lives, but I worry about the philosophy that leads to the willful disregard for the suffering of any creatures.  Our willingness to cause harm to any animal without respect for life numbs us to suffering, and we should be aware of that.  Animals suffer due to our advances and our well-being, but those who work with them should always treat them with respect and minimize suffering as much as is realistic.

As a final point, the argument the pastor made was a very weak one at that.  The goldfish were not capable of telling these children to leave them alone, and probably would not have done so if they could.  The analogy to "friends dying without Christ" is flawed here because we are perfectly capable of telling people to leave us alone.  I respect a person who believes that I'm going to suffer forever trying to reach out to me, but when I say I'm not interested, I expect you to respect me in return by not pressing the issue.

In happier news, here's some pictures of animals with stuffed animals.

The unchanged mind.

Author Chris Mooney wrote an article a while back titled The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science. In it, he talks about various problems with getting the population to accept science in general. This is a clear-cut problem. The anti-vaccine movement is growing, belief in evolution is ridiculously low, and alternative medicine trends proven not to work like homeopathy continue to have millions of practitioners. Chris Mooney tries to explain why, in the fact of such evidence, people continue to believe:

The theory of motivated reasoning builds on a key insight of modern neuroscience (PDF): Reasoning is actually suffused with emotion (or what researchers often call "affect"). Not only are the two inseparable, but our positive or negative feelings about people, things, and ideas arise much more rapidly than our conscious thoughts, in a matter of milliseconds—fast enough to detect with an EEG device, but long before we're aware of it. That shouldn't be surprising: Evolution required us to react very quickly to stimuli in our environment. It's a "basic human survival skill," explains political scientist Arthur Lupia of the University of Michigan. We push threatening information away; we pull friendly information close. We apply fight-or-flight reflexes not only to predators, but to data itself.

In other words, that which is viewed as contrary to our beliefs or the patterns we feel we've witnessed are fought outright or run from more than that which coincides. If a study is posted that flies in the face of what we accept, we find ourselves more critical than studies that coincide or we ignore it outright. I know I've fallen victim to this kind of reasoning before; what I believe highly influences what I'm inclined to accept at face value. Some of this stems from my religious upbringing, some of it from my nature. Now that I strive the follow the road of the skeptic, I fall victim to it, too. I know this and try to work on it.

What this really means, though, is that the more certain we are that we are right, the more difficult it is to change our minds. Anyone who's tried to get into a legitimate debate with someone idealistically opposed will find that it's nigh impossible to truly change minds. The act of altering one's opinion is a lengthy process and a single discussion will not sway minds. It's why as a general rule I avoid debating with the most passionate; they are good arguers, and have at the forefront of their mind arguments that I would need to sit down and contemplate before rebutting. It's easy to see what we want to believe and ignore that which we don't, whether we be scientists or lay people.

Looking at all of this, I've come to a broad conclusion: I cannot legitimately discuss a point with someone who claims to have never changed their mind. It doesn't have to be about faith.  They could even eventually swing back to original ideas. The more firm and unyielding we become, the less often we are to admit our own foolishness.  I feel uncomfortable around anyone who speaks so brazenly that they cannot admit that they're wrong, and when that feeling is directed at me, the unease explodes to new levels.

This isn't to say that we don't know anything, or that we are more often wrong than we are right.  What it does say is that we need to be aware of our tendency to cherry-pick data and information, and we need to constantly seek out criticism of our ideas to see how well they withstand open critique.  I suspect many look at this as further evidence that science is flawed, that we don't know what we're talking about, and that we shouldn't knock homeopathy or blatantly accept evolution because science "requires as much faith" or "means we're probably just looking for studies that confirm what we believe".  The difference is in the scientific method, in our efforts to continually refine ideas and eliminate bias as much as is possible.  Forged results like the Andrew Wakefield study eventually get rooted out, because there will eventually be enough data that the more fallacious results will not withstand the test of time.  Certainly immediate studies and opinions may turn out to be wrong, but in the broad history of science, the truth tends to win in the end.

And maybe it doesn't.  Maybe tomorrow I'll find something that tells me I'm absolutely, completely wrong in my assumptions about science.  I don't think so, and as I grow older and wiser things seem to more elegantly coincide in support of science and away from my meager, small-minded instincts.  As Tim Minchin says in his song Storm

If you show me/ That, say, homeopathy works,/ Then I will change my mind/ I’ll spin on a fucking dime/ I’ll be embarrassed as hell,/ But I will run through the streets yelling/ It’s a miracle! Take physics and bin it!