Elagabalus is the reason for the Season

Christmas means a lot of things for a lot of people. A time of giving and sharing. A time to spend with your love ones and to remember love ones who have passed. A time to experience the pure joy of children, and maybe recapture that joy for ourselves. However, many Christians will remind you that we should take our minds of our selfish celebrations, and remember the reason for the season. I personally am all for that! So, let me tell you a little story, about the reason for the season.

The Second Century CE is widely regarded to be the Zenith of Imperial Rome, in terms of wealth, power, stability and cultural importance. It was a time of the Five Good Emperors. If you were a wealthy Roman citizen, there were few times and places in history better to be alive ( though not so much if you were a subjected people, like the Jewish people of Judea, but that's another topic) , All good things come to an end, and after the last of the “good “ Emperors died, Rome (at least the Western Roman Empire) started it's long, slow and steady decline. There was a time of chaos following the Death of Commodus ( the son of the last “good” emperor, Marcus Aurelius, and decidedly NOT a good emperor. Unlike what Gladiator would have you believe, his death lead to chaos and the “year of five Emperors”). Rising out of that Chaos was Septimius Severus, founder of the Severan dynasty. Severus was a strong and capable leader, unfortunately his line would not share those traits. His son, Caracalla, was assassinated in 217 CE by the Praetorian guard, and they lifted one of their own, Marcianus, to the Purple. His reign did not last long. The living Severan women plotted to put up a living 15 year old male nephew of Severus as his heir, Marcus Aurelius Antonius, known to history as Elagabalus. In May of 218 CE, the Third Legion hailed him as Emperor and fully backed his claim. They marched against Marcianus, defeated him, and Elagabalus was the undisputed Emperor of the Roman Empire.

Backing up a moment, let me explain why he was known as Elagabalus. El Gabal was an ancient Syrian sun god, who's worship was wide spread in the Eastern Empire (though not so much in Rome itself). Elagabalus was raised in the religion and had been a priest of that god at an early age. In this, and many other ways, he is set apart from all previous Emperors. Though Maternally part of the Dynasty, he had been raised in Syria, and had never been to Rome, That made him the first emperor not culturally “Roman.” The Roman Senate got first wind of that when, before his arrival to Rome, Elagabalus sent paintings ahead of him, to put in the Senate building. The idea was to let the Roman people know who their new emperor, but it did not have the effect he desired. Elagabalus was not dressed “Roman” at all. He was dressed in silks. He wore rings and what appeared in the painting to be makeup. This concerned the Romans, as Ancient Rome was an extremely patriarchal society. Their ethics were not based on religion, but based on a fetishization of “Masculine virtues”. They viewed the Eastern Empire as having a corrupting influence, of “softening” Romans, of being more decadent and “feminine” than than Rome. However, Roman elite's concerns were just beginning.

You see, Elagabalus's fashion in those paintings wasn't just “decadent” eastern style. Elagabalus had, by a modern way of looking at it, a transgendered sexual identity. Elagabalus dressed as a female, and would often refer to himself as a female.When he took on a lover who was a famous charioteer , Hierocles, who called himself the Charioteer's wife, he was the Queen and Hierocles was his king.. This was doubly scandalous to the Roman elite. First of all, charioteers, while popular with the masses, had a social status akin to prostitutes, gladiators and actors in ancient Rome. An Emperor openly consorting with one was a scandal. More than that though , the whole idea of Roman virtue was offended. Ancient Rome did not have a modern view of homosexuality. It wasn't a “sin” in any kind of way, and it wasn't taboo, exactly. If you were the “male” partner, IE the top, homosexual relationships were fine. However, if you were the bottom in a relationship, that did have sigma ( particularly if it occurred in adulthood). Even more stigma was attached to what the Roman's called the “third gender”, what we would call m2f trans females. People who were born male that identified as female had no place in Roman high culture, in politics, in the military, in commerce. They were outcasts of sorts, pushed off into prostitution and acting and having little status elsewhere (it's sad that we've made such little ground in that respect after 2 millennia). So a Roman Emperor who identified as female was almost too much for the Roman elite to bare.

The final straw, however, was not Elagabalus's scandalous sexual and gender behavior. It was his religion. Elagabalus insisted on changing all of Roman worship when he ascended to the throne. He came to Rome and took Jupiter off the top of the Pantheon and put Elgabul in his place. He forced Senators to join him in worship of the diety. He even married Elgabul off to many Goddesses in the Roman Pantheon. He himself married a Vestal Virgin, to have “godlike” children. This was utter blasphemy in Rome, as anyone who sleeps with a Vestal Virgin was to be put to death. Roman Religion is not like modern western Christianity. They did not have a 'close, personal” relationship with the gods typically. They viewed the Gods more akin to the Mafia, as celestial extortionists, whom they had to sacrifice to so the gods would leave them alone. They feared the God's wraith, and Elagabalus was absolutely courting the wrath with all his blasphemy. So, in 222, at only the age of 18, Elagabalus was slain by the Praetorian Guard and Rome went back to it's old Pantheon and it's pure, unsullied Patriarchy.

Though he died, Elagabalus's legacy lived on,. The worship of El Gabul caught on in Rome, where the god became known as Sol Invictus ( the Unconquerable Sun). Over the course of the 3^rd century, worship of the God spread rapidly, and was likely the dominant religion in Rome at the time of Constantine's conversion to Christianity in 312. Of particular popularity was the cult's major festivals for summer and winter solstace. The winter celebration spread to not just devotee's of Sol Invictus, but to Rome as a whole, where the people would have a great feast on Dec. 25, would give gifts, and would wander the streets singing about the Sun's birth/rebirth and it's victory over darkness. The popularity of this festival was of particular issue for early Christianity in their attempts to convert the masses of Rome. So, since the date of the birth of Jesus was not known, the early church declared it was December 25 , so they could co-opt the traditions and festivals of Sol Invictus as their own. And so began a great tradition in what would become the Catholic Church, of converting Pagans by co-opting their beliefs, gods and traditions into Christianity.

So this year, when your obnoxious religious uncle or humorously devout co-worker tells you to remember the reason for the season, say “Oh, of course I remember it! The reason for the season is a teenage sun-worshiping transgendered pagan Roman Emperor named Elagabalus!”

Is it Ethically Right to Eat Meat.

So I have a friend on twitter, Vanessa (aka @fieryskulldiary) who asked a question on twitter yesterday, that got her a lot of heat from a lot of different directions.  That question was, is it ethically right to eat meat.  A lot of meat-eaters rose to this question, defending the consumption of meat on an ethical basis, with limited success.


My issue with the question is a little different, however. I don't really like the question. as a concept.  I reject the idea that there is something that is objectively right or wrong, ethically. I think ethics are a subjective social construct, a social contract. How people "should" act, varies radically from culture to culture, and from individual to individual.  If you phrase the question is it ethically right to eat animals, you're projecting your own ethical construct onto others.   Others who won't accept the same premises as you, such as animal pain is equivalent to human pain.

To me, I'm not really concerned so much about if eating animals is "right" in some grand moral sense.  I don't view the world that way. I view it more in a risk/reward ratio. Cost/benefit analysis. I don't think it's "wrong" to steal, for example. I just think there are risks  to theft and there are rewards, and the risks out weight them most of the time. I also think, as a society, it is good that we have laws against theft. Making theft a crime creates a more stable society, protects peoples property and safety, and prevents vigilante actions that can spiral out of control in violence and lead to chaos.  I don't think theft is wrong, I just think it's optimal for a society to make theft a crime ( and social taboo).  I don't think it would be wrong for me to steal, I just don't think stealing is worth it, in terms of the cost of breaking social contracts and legal risks associated with it.

That's how I would view animal consumption.  I don't really think of it as right or wrong, the question for me is, is it optimal. The industrial farming of meat I do not believe is optimal for our society and world.  Industrial livestock facilities are environmental hazards. They pollute the air, ground and water. The massive amount of resources used in farming animal feed is inefficient.  I do not have the level of empathy for animal suffering that many do, but it's impossible to ignore how miserable animals raised in these industrial farms are. Some of whom, like pigs, have a very high level of cognitive function and experience pain essentially the same way that humans do.  There is little doubt that the glutinous amounts of meat that the West consumes (particularly the processed fatty industrial meat) is not optimal for a healthy, long life. Animals are pumped with hormones to grow as big as they can, as fast as they can, and there's a great deal of evidence these hormones are not healthy to humans when consuming the meat.

On the flip side, there is much evidence that humans are meant to consume some amount of meat.  That our physiology is consistent with omnivores, not herbivores. The shape of our intestines, the enzymes in our colons, our stomachs produce hydrochloric acid. You can take supplements for nutritional benefits meat provides, but not everyone absorbs those supplements efficiently and the fact that we need to take them at all suggest we evolved with meat eating being part of our make up.  While Western Diets have far too much meat in them, a reduced meat diet is probably optimal for all humans. Not all meat produced is from industrial farms.  There are many organic and free range meat producers that treat their animals well before harvest, and make the harvest as pain-free as possible.  You may object to the harvest itself as immoral, but I would not agree.


As a society, I would support massive changes to agri-business. I would support making massive industrial chicken, beef and pig farms illegal.  I would support inspecting farmers to make certain farm animals are raised  with same abuse free expectation that pets are raised with.  To make sure their farms aren't environmental hazards. I would support us, culturally, cutting down our meat consumption by probably 80-90%. I think it would be a better world, a more well fed world, a healthier world.   

On a personal level, I do eat meat. I try, to the extent that I can, to buy meat locally from farms and farmers I trust, either directly or from local grocers/butchers. That meat raised organically or free range taste better to me than  industrial farms, where the meat is not engineered for taste and quality, but for speed and quantity, makes this choice much easier.  I prefer to support local farms and businesses than corporations and big agribusiness, because they have a higher quality product and it improves my community as a whole by spending my money locally.   I have cut my consumption of meat down considerably over the years, for health reasons.  But I do, ultimately, eat meat.  I do think that it is "okay" to consume the flesh of other animals. I think that's part of our nature as omnivores. I do this knowing that, even the most well treated animals, have to suffer some pain when they are harvested, that their lives are taken for my nourishment. Perhaps that makes me a bad person, but I think an omnivorous diet is our nature.

 What does not have to be part of our nature, is to be sadists. I do not think that it is optimal for a society to make animals suffer maximally so we can have cheap meat, when growing fruits, vegetables and nuts is much cheaper per pound.   The benefit to cheap meat is to the corporations that produce it, not the people that consume it to an unhealthy degree.  I do not think it's optimal for the west to tie up so much of the world's agricultural land in inefficient meat production, while Billions starve. 

So, I think this question is a complex one, and not one easily put in a right or wrong dichotomy. Perhaps it's just a hypocritical dance that I make, in order to justify my bacon consumption. But it's a dance I am unlikely to stop dancing.  

 

That's me in the corner...

Born Again Christians have the "Witnessing" story, about how they came to Christ. That emotional moment when they feel that whisper of the holy spirit call them, and how that transformed them from what ever dark place they were in, into the child of Christ they are today. It's a big, dramatic thing.  There aren't Atheist Preachers at Revival tents, using emotional pleas to try and convert you (though a Hitchens Rant comes close). Rational inquiry isn't big and dramatic. There isn't some big EUREKA epiphany moment (typically).  It's a long, slow process of examining evidence, coming up with the best hypothesis, testing it, accepting it, rejecting it, improving on it.  It requires a lot of thinking, and a lot of work, and a lot of courage.  Never forget that  Christianity's greatest tool in converting non-believers, and keeping them converted is fear. Because Fear of death isn't enough quite scary enough, the fear of the meaninglessness of life, of the great nothing that comes with death (something i'm still terrified of, fwiw), isn't traumatic enough. No, instead Christianity fills you with an even greater fear, fear of eternal suffering. Of eternal punishment, never ending, if you aren't saved and don't stay saved.  These twin fears, Death Fear and Hell Fear, are incredibly traumatic for the believer, and difficult to get rid of, even after you've reasoned your way through it all. It's the fear of Death/Hell that keeps so many Christain's clinging to Pascal's Wager like a life preserver.

I think it was both easier for me, and harder for me to become an atheist than it was for most former Christians. I didn't really have strong  external indoctrination. My Dad was a Mason, and basically a Deist (Mason Deism which is a very interesting Theism, and was a nice giant step away from irrational religion towards the rational back in the 1700's. A subject for another Blog post, however). My mom is Baptist, but she didn't go to church much, didn't bring me to church much. She did Listen to Focus on the Family all the time, watched Billy Graham whenever he was on TV, and read books/pamphlets mailed out by both organization. I would say she has an intensely superstitious belief, but it's not one founded in church going. She deeply believes in hell however, and the need to be born again.


So because Mom didn't go to church much, I didn't go to church much.  One place I did go to, starting at a very young age, was church camp.  Church Camp is an incredibly insidious thing.  They take you away from all your friends at home, drive you out into the woods in the middle of no where, bunk you up with a bunch of strangers, most of whom to a greater or lesser degree are Christians. There was always at least one Head Pastor for the camp, and usually 1 or 2 assistant Pastors. Each cabin's has a Youth Councilor. When you were really young, the Councilors were typically High School Students who had gone to the camp when they were young. As you got older, the Councilors were almost all Students at local Baptist Colleges. They were there to recruit, I think paid by the Colleges. So,  what they would do is, exercise you all day, having you sing songs, and do sports until you're exhausted. Then, after a day of physical activity, when it's dark, they light a big bon fire, and have you sing, and sing, and sing, until you've hyperventilated. Then, in the darkness, after a day of exhausting workouts, and an hour (ish) of singing, people start getting up by the camp fire, and start witnessing to you. Telling you stories about how they came to christ, how someone they knew came to christ, or some other story, meant to move and or scare you.  Sometimes it would be a Pastor, sometimes one of the Councilors, and some times it would be one of you. People would start getting really emotional. Start crying. Tell emotional things about their past, stuff that had happened to them. How god helped them (or they wanted God to help them).  It was like when you get together with your friends, and tell ghost stories. You'd all start to get freaked out, "spooked" out, and start to feel the evil creatures.  Same thing, only you feel the spirit of god.  the whole Church Camp Experience was an incredibly efficient at eliciting a "religious experience"

So I was young, I hadn't really thought about Christianity Critically yet. I just assumed what adults told you, and your parents told you was true, but I didn't "Feel" it.  I didn't know any atheists, wasn't exposed to it. I'm surrounded by believers, at the apex of a situation crafted to elicit a religious experience, and predictably, it did elicit one in me. I felt "The presence of god" . I felt awash with love. I felt the need to confess my sins, and accept Christ as my Personal Lord and Savior. The whole 9 yards. Totally bought it, totally believed it, totally FELT it. It was very real to me,  hyper real. What it really was, was a flood of endorphin's washing into my brain, and I have had more "profound" drug experiences since then . However, at the time, it seemed very, very real.  So, the rest of camp, you're filled with Christ love, fellowshipping with other campers, and it was like a paradise. Then, you go back home, and I"m filled with the spirit of the Lord. I start buying up Xian music, and reading my student bible, and some theology books, and going gun ho. I prayed all the time, had a "personal" relationship with Christ. I still didn't go to church much, but  I formed my own theology, very much like the one Helen describes in the comments of my previous blog post. I wasn't concerned what churches did, because I didn't think churches were particularly good at understanding the type of love and Fellowship I thought Christ represented.  I had a very Hippy idea of what being a christian was, for lack of a better word. I had some punk christian friends, that I would go to bible study with sometimes, which seemed more authentic to me than Church did. I would go to camp every year, and it was wonderful. I always felt the spirit, Christ's love, when I was at camp. Very, very seldom if at all away from it, but i'd get recharged every year at camp. I never felt, for a moment, that these feelings and experiences I had weren't real.

It wasn't till college, when I really started thinking critically for the first time, that I started doubting. I didn't go to church, and I was too old for camp, so the religious experiences ceased. I read a lot of existential literature, read philosophy of many kinds, talked and debated with people of many faiths and of no faith.   Did drugs. I don't mean that glibly. I did mushrooms, acid and even ayahuasca with the specific goal of finding God. I had stopped feeling the spirit completely by that time, and my faith was crumbling, and I was desperate to kick start it. But All I found in those drug experiences, was that I had a lot of fun. There was nothing deeper and more meaningful about it them.  But still, the fear was there. Still the implication of not believing was there. The emptiness. I had fetishized how good believing felt, how good of a person I was when I was "walking with christ"  and I dreaded how bad losing my faith felt, and how awful the oblivion of death would be ( and worse still, Hell, if I was wrong).

But eventually, I had to stop deluding myself. Eventually I had to come to grips with the hard, cold fact that I didn't believe. I remember, I sought out one of my good friends from college, who was an Atheist ( he had been raised by a really crazy fundamentalist Pastor, like more conservative/weird than Southern Baptist. Like his dad had to hide from his congregation that he went to the movie theater, sort of thing.). He was the first one that I told that I was an Atheist. He said that he knew that I would eventually, because I wasn't stupid.  It was a relief, but it also felt shitty.  I had other things going on in my life, at the time, so I don't know how much of my Depression was linked with my Existential crisis, but I certainly link them in my mind today.

My life since then, has largely been my own personal quest to get my mind around the moral/psychological/societal/philosophical implications of there not being a God, of there not being an Objective source of Morality.  To find personal meaning in what I think is fundamentally a meaningless existence.  Someone linked me to a Woody Allen Interview yesterday, and I think he pretty much articulates exactly how I see the world. http://commonwealmagazine.org/woody.  It's really bleak outlook. Not a really good selling point, compared to say, eternal paradise or re-incarceration or a mystical transformation into a loving person.  It couldn't compete with religions in an open market, that's for sure. Really, the only thing that it has going for it, is I think it's true.  I'm not quite as bleak as him,I don't think life is essentially horrible, I find a great deal more pleasure in life than Allen does ( I'm a Born Again Hedonist, these days).  But I do think life is without objective meaning, and I just can no longer fool myself into thinking otherwise.  That's why I'm an Atheist, because I refuse to delude myself with subjective experience, and with fear.

To Continue a conversation..

 Most of Atheist Vs Theist arguments on twitter I think are rather boring, people shouting slogans back and forth at each other. I tend to only wade in when I see a Theist who is being particularly hateful and odious, or one who's argument is particularly hilarious and absurd.  Truth be told, I'm on twitter mostly for the lulz. For example, when asked for proof to substantiate his claims on the existence of god,  @iDoIt_4DaGLORY told the Atheist that questioned him, that she should, and I quote, "Put your hand in front of your face..now blow...God put breath into your body!! #HeExist Glory To God  ". The ole "blow on your hand" defense was a new one for me, one I found that to be particularly hilarious, and I couldn't help but clown on the guy.  It's impossible for me to take someone like that seriously, or get upset by anything he said.

However, Yesterday I was on twitter, I saw a much more interesting dialog take place between some Christians and Atheists. I saw one of the theists (@jaybakker) post this picture

And I thought it was fascinating. As someone who was raised in Evangelical Christianity, I find the arguments and the rhetoric of their theology Christianity to be rather interesting, particularly in more "progressive" sects. The ways Cognitive Dissonance manifests itself in their arguments, I am endlessly fascinated with. That particular quote though, I didn't really understand, and was completely new for me. I had never seen doubt try to be reconciled into faith before. I wanted to hear the argument for it, so I asked Pastor Bakker on twitter what that meant.

We had a pleasant and polite exchange. I thought he was using the words belief and particularly faith in interesting, non traditional ways, and I wanted him to define faith as it meant to him. If I'm getting it right, he is saying that Faith is essentially Hope in that which cannot be proven. That, contrary to what many Evangelicals believe (ie that you can have no doubt in God), Pastor Bakker argues that doubt is natural, in having hope in which cannot be proven. That God knows that, and that you can still have faith, even with doubt, is a manifestation of the miracle of God's love. Or something, that's how I understood it, Pastor Bakker, if I'm getting it wrong, he can feel free to correct me.

Apparently our dialog was going along so nicely and politely that he assumed that I was an Evangelical Christian, instead of an Atheist. He's probably not used to Atheists asking him polite questions, which I think is a shame frankly. There's no reason Atheists can't treat polite, thoughtful Theists with civility. It must have come as quite a shock to him to see the back ground of my twitter page being a near naked picture of the lovely @morellaaddams, and reading my timeline would be further scandal, as I talk more about sex work, gender politics and crass joking around nonsense than I do about religion. But he hasn't unfollowed me yet, so he must have a strong stomach for kinky heathens.

Our conversation got cut off at a crucial point though, when I asked him what I think is the core problem with theism for me: "okay, I can go with 'Faith is hope for that we have not seen'. but then I'd ask, how does one know which thing to hope for? / if it hasn't been seen, why do we hope for one thing, and not the other, if we have no evidence, and aren't making our decision / to have faith, based on evidence? " Pastor Bakker's response was that was a big question for twitter, which is totally fair. It is, 140 characters is a difficult format for answering that. So I'm making this blog post, and if the Pastor would like to take a shot at it in my comments section, I would welcome it.

Before he does though, I'd like to expand on what I mean by that question. For me, I have seen no evidence, at all, that there is a creator. The only argument I can even come close to being okay with is " the universe's existence itself is. The complexity, the magnificence of it, how could there not be a design". I don't really agree, I think the universe's existence is only evidence of the existence itself, and saying there's a creator is a large logical leap. I think it's a product of humans anthropomorphizing the universe, as we tend to anthropomorphize almost anything, from our cars to our cats to our iphones. However, for the sake of argument, lets say that I agree, that yes, there has to be a creator. That there is some Force, some energy, some intelligence, some being, that is planning and mapping out the course of creation. The bigger problem for Christianity is: why should I believe theirs specific explanation of that Creative Force over any other religion, philosophy, myth or fiction? Because to me, all explanations of god seem equally implausible.

Here is what I mean by implausible. I will try to explain how I view Judeo-Christianity, from a dispassionate nutshell. What I am being required to believe by Christians is the following ( the details of it may differ from sect to sect, but the overall jist is the same): God created the universe. To populate earth, he made man in his image. But he also created man imperfect, created him so he would sin, so he would automatically displease god. As punishment for this sin, god's creation in his image would suffer in hell, for all of eternity. The only way to cleanse that sin, and not suffer eternally, was a powerful magical spell. What Sinners would do, is take an animal, ritually kill it, and then ritually burn it. By that magical sacrifice, man's sins were forgiven, and God was pleased. All other humans were sinners, and were going to hell, but his chosen few could enter heaven with him.

But, for some unknown reason, the unchanging, unchangeable God changed his mind. He decided to let all humans have a chance to avoid eternal misery, not just his chosen few. However, a much more powerful spell was required. Killing animals would not do. So, in order to let humanity know, that there was a new magic in the world, God had a son. But that son was also God, because there is only One God in Christianity, it is monotheistic. So this Son of God, which was also God himself, came into the world, and preached a new deal was here. In order to seal this deal, this God that is Man was killed in a Human/Deity Sacrifice, and then 3 days later rose from the dead. Through this act, Animal Sacrifice was no longer needed, all you needed to do, in order to avoid hell, was believe that God had become man, and had given this sacrifice. Christians commemorate this sacrifice by ritual symbolic cannibalism, in which they symbolically eat and drink the blood and body of the sacrificed god ( and some sects believe that the symbolic wafers and wine transform in your mouth into the literal flesh and blood of the sacrificed God, and the holy cannibalism is not symbolic, but quite literal).

That it how Christianity looks to me when I view it with any kind of objectivity. It it seems like any other mythical world view, with no demonstrable evidence that any of their claims are real or true. So my question is, why Christianity, and not Islam, or Zoroastrianism, Baha’i, Jainism or anything else? Why is it the above that you believe, and not something else? If you don't base your faith on evidence, but hope alone, how do you know what you are hoping for is real, and is right?

I will say, I think that the incorporation of doubt into faith is an extremely clever adaptation. Most Sects of Christianity maintain that you can have no doubt what so ever. That doubtlessness was easy to maintain in medieval times, when most people were illiterate and were surrounded 100% by fellow believers. However, as humanity becomes increasingly more educated and exposed to alternative view points, that kind of doubtless facade becomes harder and harder to keep intact. Either you have to resort to near cult like brain washing, turn up the heat on “hell fear” to scare people into staying in line, or rely on the power of denial ( which is powerful). Reconciling Doubt with faith is completely ingenious and not something I've see before. By acknowledging the doubt, rather than calling on believers to suppress it, doubt becomes easier to control. I'm not sure how much basis there is for it in the Bible, however. The Bible seems to incentivize utter and total faith, and punishes those with doubts and skepticism. I'd be curious what the biblical basis for the Faith with Doubts doctrine. I think having doubts about the supernatural is a completely rational thing, and I agree that most Christians will inevitably have them. I do disagree, fundamentally, with the conclusion you make. Doubt isn't an aspect of faith, it is the very essence of reason. Skepticism is at the heart of the Scientific Method, of having a rational view of the world. You should have doubts about God. You would do well, rather than trying to incorporate those doubts into your theology, to instead explore those doubts to their logical conclusions.

Some Thoughts on Twitter Athiesm

So I've had a twitter for a couple years now, and I've been a big fan of it from the first time I used it. For the first few years, I almost never posted any tweets, just followed feeds. I used it primarily as an information source, and as a source of entertainment as some comedians/tweeters are hilarious.   I would occasionally tweet something at a sport journalist, complement a sex worker, or have a joke with The Ed ( @TheEdfromVegas ), but mostly I was a passive twitter user.  Then, a few weeks ago I made a tweet at @MrOzAtheist. I said "Remember the reason for the season! That is, a sun worshiping transgendered pagan emperor named Elagabalus!"  (That's one of my favorite stories, and will be a subject of another blog post, if I continue this blog).  Well, Donovan apparently liked it and retweeted it, and it's the first time something I'd tweeted had ever really been retweeted. It opened me up to a community on twitter that I didn't really know existed ( though I suppose I should have), the Atheist tweeters.

So, over the past few weeks, I've become utterly addicted to tweeting. It's been fun, interacting and joking around with like minded people, laughing at the sheer insanity of some theist tweeters. I've met a lot of great, funny folks, like @realreverendmom, @imtoridee , @HellHathNoFuryy, @Mel_in_Canada, @sec_advisor and many many others. It's been a blast tweeting about Atheism ( and also about another of my favorite topics, Sex Work ( and specifically about how men/customers/society should treat sex workers of all kinds with respect)).  I have, however, seen a few things that distrub me within the Atheism community, some manifestations of Group Think, and that's really what this blog is about.

What spurred my thoughts was an interaction I had with a Tweeter named @AtheistOverdose. She  seems to be a bright, friendly, kind blogger. I'm not sure what her age is, but I'd guess 18-35 would be a safe range to put her into.   She seems very sincere, and very enthusiastic about atheism. However, I took issue with a tweet she made yesterday, that is this "Theists are so lucky that atheists are kind and loving people who have REAL morals. Imagine the chaos if we weren't? Mass genocide for sure."

This is a common theme I've seen with athiest tweeters, to treat Atheism as a moral code. To view Christianity, Islam, Judasm and the like as immoral, and Atheism as the only true moral outlook. That only theists are capable of intolerance, murder and genocide, and if they would just let go of their belief in god, they will become moral creatures. I think this is both an error in logic, and historically false.

Atheism, to my way of thinking, is not a moral code. It isn't a system right and wrong, it isn't a way to form an Ethical outlook. I think some people use Athiesm as a synonym with Secular Humanism, and it is not. All Atheism is, is a rejection of the formation of a moralty/belief system based on fiction.  It is a requirement of those making supernatural claims, to prove those claims. It is not a replacement of those claims. We, as Atheists have to work much harder at figuring out what is right and wrong than Christians do. We don't have it handed to us in a manual, we have to use our minds, to figure it out on our own. It's a great responsiblity, and it's one I see to many Atheists online shirking.

When I essageed Atheist Overdose, I told her that her tweet was factually inaccurate, and it was. I said that there have been a number of Atheist states, that have committed some of the most heinus attrocities in human history, and it doesn't serve the Atheist cause to ignore them and pretend they don't exist. Her response was this. "@JimJimsonJr atheists in genocides? Or the media saying atheists in genocides? I've never heard such a thing, obviously it's not a huge prob " I found that to be so shockingly ignorant, that it really made me sad.  Three of the top Four mass murdering Governmets of the 20th Century have been Outright Atheist States. That is, Stalinist USSR, Maoist China, and the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot.  Nazi Germany, while not overtly Atheistic, their "morality" was based on secular pseudo science, and they were a Secular if not Athiest state ( You could make the argument that the Upper Echelon Nazis were Neo Pagans, I suppose).   You can blaim Christainity for the Crusades, but you can not blame it for the Cultural Revolution, Stalin's Purges, Pol Pot's Terror, or the Holocaust. 


I say this, not to troll Atheists, as I was accused of by Atheist Overdrive. I say this, because knowing history is important. I say this, because Theists WILL use those things as examples of why Atheism is "evil", as a tactic to discredit atheists and prove how rigeuous their supersition is. You must know about these events, you must not ignore facts, if you intend to refute Christians who bring them up. The problem with blaming Atheism for The Cultural Revolution, is the same Problem that Atheist Overdose made whe she said "atheists are kind and loving people who have REAL morals." This isn't so. Atheism is not a moral code. Humans don't magically become transformed into tolerant, rational, loving creatures when they reject the existence of God. Atheism is only the rejection itself. It is not, by itself, a moral guideline.


What I would argue IS A moral guideline, is the same thing that the drove me to become an athiest in the first place. Reason. I think rational thought is what is progressing humanity forward, from primative state of barbarism, to the level of technological advancement we have to day. I think there are rational reasons to be kind to people, to treat others with respect, to not commit murders and genocide. I think it is reason that advances us as a species, not just technologically, but morally.  The problem with Atheist states like Stalin's and Mao's ( and like North Korea's today), is  they replace a belief in god, with a cult of personality. Absolute Dicatorships don't rely on reason, on science to be their moral compass. They rely on fear and terror to maintain their grip on power. When the acquisition of  Power becomes the sole moral guiding principal of society, it is an irrational, injust one.

I think that it is this sort of desire for absolute power over other humans, that is one of the dark sides to human nature. It can be seen as long as humans have built cultures. Empire building, slavery in Ancient China, mesopotamia, Egypt, the Norte Chico in Peru. All had absolute rulers, all had slavery, all slaughtered other civilizations and people to acquire more. This isn't a function of believing or not believing in god. It's just a dark part of our natures, and how we dress it up, in the Divine Right of Kings, The Mandate of Heaven or Revolutionary propoganda for our Dear Leader, it is still the same illness.  One that, through reason and the enlightenment, we have finally started to put behind us, as the human race. But it is something we must be ever vigilant against, and never for a moment think, that just because a human rejects god, that the thrist for power will be gone from that human. There is a phrase that I read on twitter the other day, that I completely agreed with, I'll paraphrase it the best I can " Ignorant men trust religion, Wise men reject religion, Powerful men use religion".  


Many Atheists see religion as the enemy. I don't. I see it merelly as a symptom of the real problem, irrationality. When people turn off their brains, turn off rational thought, and put their faith into something else, be it a man, a god, a government, a philosophy, all kinds of things can be done to manipulate those people by those who seek power.   Every one of use should veiw everything critically, be skeptical about everything, everyone, including ourselves, including our own beliefs. We need to fight against group think. It doesn't help the atheist cause to uncritically parrot atheist slogans to theists. However, engaging them in discussions where you make reason-based arguments CAN help the Atheist cause. Showing them, by our actions, how to think for yourself, how to form a rational agrument, that CAN get through to theists. It's what got through to me, and lead me to turning my back on superstition.  If we can't convince Theists that they are wrong, that their beliefs are baseless superstition with reason, if we resort to anything but reason, then we are acting just like a theist. When we uncritically accept ideas like "If you're an atheist, you're a kind, good, reasonable person", then we are just as guilty of rejecting rational thought as a theist.


Anyway, I want to apologize to Atheist Overdose if she's reading this, if I came across as trolling. I try to always engage people in discussion on twitter in a respectful manner ( unless I see someone being abusive/disrespectful, then I can be a pretty merciless troll).  I wasn't at all trying to belittle you, or upset you. But you made a comment to another Tweeter "is he trolling? I've never seen an 'atheist' oppose another atheist this much. Lol ", and I just wanted to explain myself. I was not trolling. But I will never uncritically support any Athiest, simply because they are an Athiest. If they make statements that are false, I will say that they are false. If they have an error in their logic, I will point out that error. I should hope others would do the same for me. I love that. Challenging me, challenging my thoughts, can only make me a better, more thoughtful person.