Atheism+, where the plural of anecdote is data

My understanding of the Atheism+ movement is that it was born out of incidents of sexual harassment at atheist conventions and in online forums.

I have heard about the elevator incident, the atheist girl on reddit getting rape jokes, the muslima, and many other such anecdotes.

And that is what they are, anecdotes.

I have heard time and time again that the plural of anecdote is NOT data, so why are charges of male privilege and rape culture supported by anecdotes?

It appears that even asking for statistics on sexual harassment is tantamount to "blaming the victim"

How can we as a skeptical community accept that?

If someone told me they were raped by a gray space alien, would it be wrong to ask for evidence?

Should we just accept that 100% of rape claims and sexual harassment are 100% true and accurate 100% of the time and not to be questioned?

It may be cold to say "show me the evidence" when we are confronted with a report of sexual harassment, but I didn't become an atheist to make friends.

Atheism is a response to those who deny reality and insist some kind of "God" created everything according to his plan.

I also notice that the request for evidence about "God" is treated like an insult and not something done in "polite" conversation, something very similar to sexual harassment claims

So which is it my fellow atheist and skeptics, do we demand evidence for all claims, or does rape and sexual harassment get a pass with only anecdotes and hurt feelings as the evidence?

It may be cold and indifferent, but objective reality matters whether you want to admit it or not.

Also, on the flip side, actual evidence of rape and sexual harassment cannot be ignored, or we are no better then the creationists that won't accept evidence for evolution.

As a skeptic, you must be prepared that everything you know could be wrong.

That goes for MRAs, feminists, A+ and any other group that hopes to have there "Tenets" based in reality.


- Sent From My Blackberry

Atheism+, revised

I have been looking into Atheism+ for a few weeks now, and I think I found my major stumbling block.

The 'tenets' of Atheism+ go as follows:

Atheists plus we care about social justice,
Atheists plus we support women's rights,
Atheists plus we protest racism,
Atheists plus we fight homophobia and transphobia,
Atheists plus we use critical thinking and skepticism

If I were to remake Atheism+, I would change these 'tenets' into rules and it would go as follows:

1) Use critical thinking and skepticism

2) Support equality of treatment for all human beings, unless this conflicts with rule 1

3) Support freedom of expression for all human beings, unless this conflicts with rule 1

4) Support freedom from religion for all human beings, unless this conflicts with rule 1

5) Don't be a (dick, cunt, asshole, your insult of choice), unless this conflicts with rule 1

I think you might see where I'm going with this.

Atheism+ seems to put critical thinking and skepticism at the bottom of the list. I would put it at the top of all the list and make all other rules or tenets subject to skepticism and critical thinking

Because without critical thinking and skepticism, how can you be sure your beliefs reflect reality?

And if objective reality is unimportant to your beliefs, how much of an atheist are you really?

- Sent From My Blackberry

RationalWiki disappoints me

I was doing some reading on the RationalWiki, when I came across the entry for Free Thought Blogs, and I found something that is not very rational at all.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Freethought_blogs

Under the section "Taking a feminist-skeptic stand", they mention the issues that arose with Thunderf00t, but I had to check I wasn't on Conservapedia by accident when I read the quality of the article.

Here is a direct quote:

"The vlogger Thunderf00t briefly joined Freethought Blogs in summer 2012, but was quickly fired after repeatedly and somewhat incoherently blogging that those pushing for protection for women at atheist/skeptic events were wrong, or overreacting, or whatever. As a result, a large sector of the angrier, less self-aware parts of the atheist community have decided that FtB isn't about free thought at all because something-something-something-evo-psych-something girls are stinky."

If this is what passes for "Constructive dialogue" at RationalWiki,
I'm afraid they don't know the meaning of the word Rational very well.

My journey into skepticism - how I almost became a 9/11 truther

11 years ago today, the world felt like a much different place. America was under terrorist attack and even up here in Canada there was chaos.

No one had any answers, we didn't even know if the attacks stopped or was every plane overhead a new attack?

In time, people calmed down, but the search for answers intensified.

The government was under pressure to get answers, and answers take time.

The first real serious movie I saw on about the attacks was Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore

At the time, the movie raised some questions I found compelling.

Why were Saudi nationals flown out of the country on Sept 13th? What was the deal with James Bath? Why did we attack Iraq if the terrorist were mostly Saudi and Bin Laden was in Afghanistan?

The second movie I recall seeing on the subject was Loose Change

That movie presented a vision of events that would lead anyone to question the official story, and perhaps suspect the government itself of causing the attacks.

But my flirting with Trutherism was short lived.

After Loose Change I looked for more documentaries on 9/11 and that was how I found the movie Screw Loose Change.

Never before did I see one movie so thoroughly debunk another movie.

I watched all 4 hours of Screw Loose Change, and by the end I was a changed man.

I saw how easily facts and anomalies can be presented to build a narrative of events, I saw how I fell for the half truths and outright lies.

This was my first official step into skepticism.

It was not long after my viewing of Screw Loose Change when I found James Randi.

And through the videos of James Randi I found skepticism and I decided to call it home.

I never did find out who made the movie Screw Loose Change, but whoever it was did me a great service.

I look back with a slight tinge of embarrassment when I remember the videos I watched over and over, hoping to find a glimpse of the truth.

I watched Alex Jones inside Bohemian Groove, I watched videos on the New World Order by enigmaTV, I even watched videos about the prophecies of Nostradomas and the Mayan 2012 predictions.

I can understand now why those videos left me wanting more, there was no glimpse of truth to find.

I only ever found 1 thing in a conspiracy video that made me pause

At the end of a DVD by enigmaTV video there was a half second image that was shown at the end of the video

I had to pause the video to even see what it was

It was an american flag with the stars replaced with stars of david and a caption that said "Who are you fighting for?"

That shocked me, nothing in the video previously mentions jews or jewish religion, so why the blatant anti-semitism?

That put a sour taste in my mouth and made me step back a little from conspiracy videos at the time

Perhaps I owe that anti-semitism thanks, it helped keep me from sinking too deep in the culture, which allowed Screw Loose Change to open my eyes and helped to make me the man I am today.


- Sent From My Blackberry

My journey into skepticism, The radio in my nose

When I was about 5 or 6, I can remember lying in bed at night and just listening to the sounds of the house.

Like you would hear creaks and bumps and other such sounds, and that was all very normal.

But some nights, I heard something different.

Sometimes while breathing through my nose, I would hear what to me sounded like faint whispers.

No words could be understood, but in my child mind, I had this image of a female news reporter and the idea came to me that I was hearing a radio.

The catch was that the sound was coming from my nose.

One night while this happened, I went downstairs to see my dad and I asked him if he could check my nose and see if he saw a radio.

Like a good father, he checked and he did not make me feel dumb or stupid for asking. He looked up my nose and told me that he didn't see anything and that satisfied me and I went back to bed.

In time I stopped hearing this "Radio" and I have not thought it for years.

In this, I can see a blue print for my life as an adult.

I experienced something strange, I did some investigating to find the cause, and when I find evidence that indicates its just my imagination, I accept that and move on.

If only we were all so lucky.



- Sent From My Blackberry

My Journey Into Skepticism - The Night I Saw A UFO

It was a warm August night. I was about 9 or 10 at the time, and I was sitting at a camp fire with my dad and my dad's friend Michelle.

It must have been past 10 at night, the sky was quite dark and it was a clear night.

Michelle looks to her left and she mentions that she sees 2 lights that are very close to the horizon. Much closer then any of us had seen before.

My memory gets a little fuzzy at the point, but we somehow convinced ourselves that it was not a star, or a planet, or a plane, or anything else. By definition, the lights were UFOs, and we were afraid.

I remember that my other aunts, uncles, cousins and neighbours or were around were all called over and had a look at these lights.

I myself remember looking at the lights for many hours. I remember how after looking at the lights for a while, I would notice them flicker red and white.

At first I thought it indicated that these were spacecraft and not stars, because stars don't flicker red and white.

However, I looked at the stars in the big dipper, and I started to notice that same red and white flicker

I started to look at every bright star and they all did the red and white flicker.

I then realized that the flicker must be just my imagination causing my eyes to see something that was not there.

At some point during the night, the excitement died down and everyone went to bed.

The next night, I looked for the lights we saw the night before, and they did return.

The lights were still in the eastern sky, but this time they were not so close to the horizon. They were higher up in the sky, but the relative distance between the lights never changed. It was as if the entire night sky was slightly shifted.

That was when I realized that the lights we saw were not UFOs. They had not moved relative to each other, they had only moved higher in the night sky.

It could not be a planet, as it would have moved. It could not have been a ship, unless it was a ship that never moved in 24 hours expect slightly higher in the sky.

So I decided that it was a star and not much was ever said about it again by my family.

But I can still remember back to that first night, and the feeling of my legs shaking in fear of these lights. I could feel the fear in everyone that night, and this fear was caused by nothing more then 2 stars a little low on the horizon.

My Journey Into Skepticism - The Easter Bunny

Back in 1987, I was in the first grade. I remember one morning my father had driven me to school.

We were sitting in the car before the morning bell rung and, I’m not sure how the conversation started, but we talked about the Easter Bunny. I can’t remember now if this was near Easter or not, but the timing doesn’t matter so much now.  (I was wearing a coat, so the weather fits as being close to Easter.)

That morning before school, I was talking to my dad about doubts I had about the Easter Bunny. He explained to me that the Easter Bunny was more of the spirit of Easter and not a real person.

So I asked about the candy that was left out during the night, and my dad explained how it was him and mom who put the candy out, but the spirit of the Easter Bunny helped.

In my mind I had this image of my parents putting eggs on the couch and then some candy would magically float and be put in places. This was my idea of how the spirit of the Easter bunny worked.

In one 10 minute conversation, my idea of a magic bunny hiding candy in my house was replaced with the idea that my parents hid the candy, but an invisible spirit helped them in some way.

Eventually the bell rang and I ran off to school. I remember my father warning me not to tell the other kids what I had learned and spoil Easter for them, but I was a 6 year old, so of course I told my friends.

I remember the first person I told. His name was James and we were hanging up our coats in the coat room and I asked him “Did you hear that the Easter Bunny isn’t real?” and he replied “Yeah I know and the Tooth Fairy is fake too.”

I believe this was the moment I started my path towards skepticism.

Even though I did tell some of my friends, my father’s warning about not spoiling Easter stuck with me too.

It made me think I had some secret knowledge and that not everyone was able to handle this knowledge.  I was somehow smart enough to know this, while many of my friends where in the dark and kept believing in something I knew was fake.

I don’t think my father ever thought this at the time, but it was this reasoning that lead me to question God and the Bible many years later.