The Two Faces of Atheism

Our society is generally egalitarian in nature, but it gets there in fits and starts. If it's true that Blacks are the new Jews (generally respected publicly but commonly discriminated against in private when the bigot can get away with it) and Gays are the new Blacks (supposedly respected but often publicly held to be invalid persons without shame on the part of the speaker), then Atheists are the new Gays (publicly viewed anywhere between invalid persons or just mentally ill, depending on the charity of the speaker). In fact, a new USA/Gallop Poll found that not only would the vast majority of the U.S. public not elect an otherwise well-qualified atheist that their own party nominated, but that among the most die-hard Homophobic Evangelical Bigots (my terminology), they'd rather see the very same homosexuals they hate so much (irony, anyone?) in office before they let an atheist in.

This general low-esteem has led to the expected "hey, there's nothing wrong with us" reaction, and now there's a lot of pro/anti-atheism rhetoric sloshing around. Some of the more vigorous proponents of atheism (Richard Dawkins especially) are doing a good job of simultaneously rallying the like-minded and infuriating the religious, but, speaking as an ex-seminarian, ex-Christian Buddhist atheist, I feel they're doing the wider body of atheists, myself included, a rather large disservice. The reason for the problem is simply that there is no one such thing as atheism -- there are in fact two such things.

Type-1 atheism, peopled by folks like Dawkins, are folks that look at religion, especially the three semitic religions, and see a bunch of bronze-age myths that have served the powerful well through the centuries, but are otherwise total nonsense. Atheists of this sort feel active incredulity at the idea of a God; to them, you might as well believe in Santa Claus or the Headless Horseman. These people's atheism is stridently (pardon my psuedo-greek) anti-theos. They argue that God doesn't exist, not on evidence that there is no God, which they know can't be found, but on the basis that there is no solid evidence for God's existence that doesn't also have other "credible" explanations, and that since the prime characteristic of religion seems mostly to be to protect belief regardless of the facts surrounding said belief, including finding any and all wiggle-room possible to reinterpret facts so as to preserve the belief (e.g. the "Process Theology" escape-hatch for the fact that evolution just isn't going to go away), that religion is really just a general cutural artifact we'll surely outgrow.

One day while discussing religion on my blog (which I do often, it being sometimes a bit of a "sore tooth" for me) someone remarked that my perspective was understandible for someone who is "the kind of person who assumes there's no metaphysical reality". This statement is key to the second kind of Atheism. The second kind of atheism doesn't claim that there is no God! The second kind of atheism honestly could care less if there's a God or if there isn't one. This atheism's face, to the extend that it could be said that it's aimed at anything, is aimed at anti-theism. Really, though, it isn't aimed at anything at all, and is based on a negative assumption. The type-2 atheist assumes that there is no God, or, if not that, assumes that there's no God whose existence could possibly be relevent to himself or herself. To a person conditioned to religion, this's vastly weird; but it's really not that different mentally than the assumption that there isn't a condor upon one's rooftop. One doesn't say "today I shall go about all my duties and pleasures as if there were no condor on my rooftop". Not seeing a condor upon one's roof when returning at night, this "belief" is repeated the next morning and every day thereafter without much batting an eye. Likewise for God. If, given the absolutely incontrovertible evidence for the existence of condors and, at least here in California, the fact that we're within their territorial ranges, one just blindly assumes there's no condor upon one's roof, then what should one say about a God whose existence is unproven and about whom people throughout the world have contradictory and seemingly impossible claims? A sceptic might say "well, sure, that's easy, because there are no consequences to having a condor upon one's roof, but there are should God exist". Unlike the type-1 atheist who just shakes his head and calls the religious person an idiot, the type-2 atheist says "yeah, the consequence is that I should be obliged to swear sovereignty to a dead man, never to eat meat, to refrain from eating meat sometimes, to cut the tip off my dick, to smack my head on the ground five times per day, to spin around in circles some afternoons, or to stay up all night reciting sutras, but without any solid evidence as to which one of these won't get me tortured for all eternity by an all-loving God?" The type-2 atheist just isn't going to bother until the religious people themselves agree on an answer. If that comes to pass, he or she will probably chose to go along with it under Mr. Izzard's "not getting killed with sticks" plan, but, short of any evidence that it really matters, will believe in God no more than he or she believes in the local speed limit.

Both faces of atheism are in their own ways religions. Type-1 atheist are positivists; there is no prevailing evidence their positivist outlook is actually true, but type-1 atheists put their faith in their positivism (irony, anyone?) and dismiss everything outside of the Court of Evidence as equally unpriviledged conjectures, dismising any unprovables as paradoxical or false. The type-2 atheist is also religious, but the type-2 atheist follows the religion of realism, the belief that there is an objective and at least partially knowable physical reality ("proved" by the fact that we stub our toes) and that, while one may have to adjust or abandon facts from time to time, sees no point in attempting to go beyond the realm of plausible facts into a realm of priviledged truths.

I think we'd all be better served if, when we call ourselves or others "atheists", we were to distinguish between Positivist Atheists and Realist Atheists. Maybe Janus-headed atheism will remain personae non-grata by most of the USA, but at least among the open-minded, distinguishing between Positivists and Realists might prevent much misunderstanding and invective.

Don't Mess With George Takei

A lemurly formula for square roots

I did some math! And it works!

I've been researching continued fractions, aka fractions whose denominators are fractions whose denominators are fractions whose denominators are.... You get the picture. I'm slowly making progress with my programming language, and I want it to have a good math library, so, like I said, I've been researching these funny things called continued fractions, reading up on some freakin' genius by the name of Gosper who's probably long dead by now. Based on his method of converting continued fractions into matrix multiplications (using something he calls "homographic functions" but which Mr. Google calls "Mobius Transforms"), I've managed to actually come up with something useful. I highly doubt it's original (it's simple enough to be a math student's homework problem), but I did arrive at it on my own, so I'm kinda proud of it.

Below is my lunchtime derivation of a square-root formula, done on a napkin no less! This will give you the square-root of a (positive) number to any degree of precision you like: just stop multiplying matrices when you get tired or when your answer's good enough.

Solar Furnace Barbecue Challenge

Public Challenge:

Russ has a solar-furnace design with lots of little mirrors. I have a cooker design involving a sheet of copper. This summer, may the best Mitchell win!

Please Opine on Saudi Arabia and Iran

Ok, this might be a stupid question, but....

So I was thinking the other day about all the assinine rumors that're flying out here that Bush's going to invade Iran, and the argument that he'll do it to "guarantee stability" in the middle-east because otherwise Iran will have nukes. This got me to thinking, I don't know what the Iranians would do with nuclear weapons if they had them, but I doubt they'd use them offensively (no-one wants to be seen as the first "nuclear aggressor" since the diplomatic position would be so weak). Without the nuke issue, people still seem rather nervous about Iran thanks to their funding of nasty groups, but what I was wondering was, if stability is really the goal, why not let Iran get stronger? From what I've read, apparently the Saudi's and the Iranians see each other as mortal enemies; do we have anything to lose by letting them have at each-other?

My first thought was "yeah, Israel". But since neither side could ever admit to propping up Israel, that means that there's no way for a proxy war there, so....

My second thought was "yeah, oil", but the last thing either regime can afford to do is to destabize the oil market, because their cash-cows are then toast....

My last thought was, "yeah, but what about all the work in Iraq". My assumption has been that once a sufficiently strong party in Iraq emerges, the other Iraqis will say "oh well, what're ya gonna do". Maybe Iraq could end up being a proxy-war location, or maybe such support would simply lead to a faster federalization there.

I've had this largely half-formed thought in my head for a week, but my only conclusion is that I really don't know jack about how to weigh these kinds of situations out.

Opinions anyone?

How "Good Christians" Look to Atheists

(I was going to entitle the article "How Fundamentalists...", but, honestly, this seems to hold true of pretty much all the folks I've met who label themselves "Christian" without further qualification. This post doesn't apply to Christians with a more specific designation unless they agree with the likes of Le Haye, the 700 Club, &c.)

EDIT: My wording of this post last night was not good, and I've offended at least one person already (which wasn't my intention). I've asked a "language" question in the comments, but wanted to put right up front that I'm sorry to have offended folks.

Sara Teasdale

For those who idolize Dorothy Parker, I give you the muse of my youth, Sara Teasdale. Following tradition she swallowed a bullet, but before she did she created treasures for those of like mind. A decent archive is available at wikisource (donations welcome). Much of her work is filled with languid, pining, sopping love-poems of exactly the sort that I can't identify with at all, but there are gems nestled here and there.

The Inn of Earth

I CAME to the crowded Inn of Earth,
And called for a cup of wine,
But the Host went by with averted eye
From a thirst as keen as mine.

Then I sat down with weariness
And asked a bit of bread,
But the Host went by with averted eye
And never a word he said.

While always from the outer night
The waiting souls came in
With stifled cries of sharp surprise
At all the light and din.

"Then give me a bed to sleep," I said,
"For midnight comes apace"--
But the Host went by with averted eye
And I never saw his face.

"Since there is neither food nor rest,
I go where I fared before"--
But the Host went by with averted eye
And barred the outer door.

Doctors

EVERY night I lie awake
And every day I lie abed
And hear the doctors, Pain and Death,
Conferring at my head.

They speak in scientific tones,
Professional and low--
One argues for a speedy cure,
The other, sure and slow.

To one so humble as myself
It should be matter for some pride
To have such noted fellows here,
Conferring at my side.

Wisdom

When I have ceased to break my wings
Against the faultiness of things,
And learned that compromises wait
Behind each hardly opened gate,
When I can look Life in the eyes,
Grown calm and very coldly wise,
Life will have given me the Truth,
And taken in exchange -- my youth.

Mastery

I would not have a god come in
To shield me suddenly from sin,
And set my house of life to rights;
Nor angels with bright burning wings
Ordering my earthly thoughts and things;
Rather my own frail guttering lights
Wind blown and nearly beaten out;
Rather the terror of the nights
And long, sick groping after doubt;
Rather be lost than let my soul
Slip vaguely from my own control --
Of my own spirit let me be
In sole though feeble mastery.

And finally, for the writers out there, Thoughts

WHEN I can make my thoughts come forth
To walk like ladies up and down,
Each one puts on before the glass
Her most becoming hat and gown.

But oh, the shy and eager thoughts
That hide and will not get them dressed,
Why is it that they always seem
So much more lovely than the rest?