Real Men
by Jason Shankel
There’s been a lot of talk lately about hate. About misogyny and racism. About bigotry and homophobia. About xenophobia. And religious intolerance.
And a lot of people are saying that these ideas are coming from men.
We are here to tell you they are wrong. Those are not men.
Oh, they may be male. But they are not men.
Real men respect women. We don’t call them whores or sluts. We don’t call them bitches or cunts.
Real men listen to women. We don’t try to silence them with shame and intimidation. We don't harass, bully or oppress. Real men aren’t afraid to hear what women have to say.
Real men know that women are their mothers and sisters. Their wives and girlfriends. Their coworkers, friends and daughters.
Real men know that women are not the enemy of life. They are the source of life itself. And real men always trust the pilot to fly the plane.
Real men do not tell our brothers and sisters that their love is not equal to others. Real men don’t reject others for being different. Real men put no dictionary nor any holy book in line ahead of love, family, community and commitment.
Because real men know what the real source of strength is.
Real men are not afraid of imaginary threats. We are not frightened by the hate and the stupidity of others. Real men understand that you cannot bomb your way to peace.
Because real men know the meaning of war. Real men know that war is not a game. It is not a toy. It is not a campaign strategy. Real men know that war may sometimes be necessary, but it is always wasteful, brutal, hurtful, destructive and tragic.
And real men know that we are not the only ones who fight when the time comes. To die when the time comes. Real men know that suffering and struggle are universal human experiences. And real men know that our place in this world is to create less, not more, of these things.
Real men do not fear others because of the color of their skin. Or the sound of their language. Or the name of their God. Because real men know that there is more that binds us together than there is that separates us.
Real men know that we all breathe the same air. That we all cherish our children’s future. And that we are all mortal.
And real men stand up to bullies. We do not sit idly by and watch our fellow humans, our brothers and sisters, our mothers and fathers, our comrades and lovers, submit to oppression. To fear. To intimidation. Or to hate.
Real men stand up for the downtrodden. Real men comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.
And real men...real men...real men will now show the world what real power looks like.
Real power is the power to build, not destroy. To nurture and create, not starve or dismantle.
Real men build teams. We work together. We are the backbone and the muscle of civilization. Real men share the bounty of our labor. Because we know that stand or fall, live or die, we are all in this together.
Real men do not take our ball and go home when we don’t get our way. We don’t cry and pretend to be victims of the people we victimize.
Real men fight for what they believe in. Real men stand up, turn into the wind, find the guiding star and bring their ship back home. Real men are not afraid to face the world. Rather they will stop at nothing, do whatever it takes, to nurture and protect it.
And now is the time to man up and vote. It’s what real men do.
Oh, and real men also understand how oral contraception works.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Lunar Fromagism
There has been a recent spate of books by so-called 'Neo Lunar Lithists,' who insist that the moon is made of rock.
In his work, 'The End of Cheese,' Sam Harris argues that Lunar Fromagists (people whose faith tells them that the moon is made of cheese) are responsible for every evil in society from the wearing of cheese hats at sporting events to the practice of cheeseboarding.
"Think about it," Harris writes. "There are people, lots of people, walking around out there absolutely convinced that that thing you see in the sky is made out of stuff that comes out of the tits of a cow. These people vote. Why do we allow this? Ask yourself: are we fucking retarded?"
In Richard Dawkins' 'The Cheddar Delusion,' the noted scientist points out that cheese is a highly refined product of living animals, requiring both life and technology to produce.
"It's simply not reasonable," Dawkins argues, "to believe that celestial bodies are composed of this substance. In the over three and half billion year history of life on earth, only the past few millenia have demonstrated the existence of any cheese at all. Cheese arises out of planets. Planets do not arise out of cheese. I'm really surprised that I need to write that down, but there it is."
And in his polemical 'Get Your Fucking Cheese Off My Plate You Ignorant Pinheaded Bastards,' Christopher Hitchens argues that not only is the moon not made of cheese but that it would be horrible to think it was.
"Cheese is a fungus," claims Hitchens, "it's a nasty, rotten mold grown in the dark from the spoiled emissions of common bovine teats. To suggest that the moon is made of such stuff is a calumny against her beautiful visage that no right thinking person should allow and I invite you to join me in that. By the way, the president of Iran believes in cheese. I'm just saying."
What none of these authors seems willing to acknowledge is that Lunar Fromagism is not fundamentally about believing that the literal moon is literally made of literal cheese. It's a way for us to feel closer to the eternal nature of cheese and gives us a reason to be good. No modern fromagarian takes those myths seriously. But they are true. Sort of. Maybe not literally. But maybe. For some people. It all depends on who I'm talking to right now.
It's interesting to note, however, that nowhere in their books do the authors present solid, irrefutable proof that the moon is not made out of cheese. It's true that NASA returned rocks from the moon in the late 60's, but what people always forget is that the solar system is filled with tiny rocks. Surely in the billions of years that the moon has existed, many of those rocks will have fallen on its surface, burying the original cheese and giving it the outward APPEARANCE of being made of rock. It just makes sense.
If the moon is not made out of cheese, that means that there are no rules and we all might as well get about the business of raping one another to death. But we don't do we? What more proof do you need of the moral necessity of Lunar Fromagism?
No, they are confusing Lunar Fromagism with RADICAL FUNDAMENTALIST Lunar Fromagism. It's true that this group with their "cheese here, cheese there, cheese everywhere" philosophy is responsible for great atrocities, including the stuffed crust pizza. But they're just a fringe, constituting only some 60%-70% of Lunar Fromagists.
It is true that we're fighting a war against them right now that's going cost a couple of trillion dollars by days' end and domestically no one can be elected president without claiming certain knowledge in their hearts that the moon is made of cheese, but other than that they're not very representative of true LF-ism.
That fringe has lost site of the central message of Lunar Fromagism which is this: don't be an asshole. Somehow they lost site of this message because of a few hundred places in the Fromagist Bible that loosely translate to: go be an asshole. It's understandable. It's all part of the mystery of cheese.
A great many Lunar Fromagists have done wonderful things in the name of Lunar Fromagism. Would the authors have us dismiss these good deeds and rape them all to death? I shudder to think of the answer.
What of the great Lunar Fromagist Mayor McCheese? His faith in Lunar Fromagism was an inspiration to the people of McDonaldland, even the Hamburglar.
And it has to be pointed out that Hitler believed that the moon was made of rock, so we can see that Lunar Lithism is no guarantee of virtue.
Finally, why do the authors seem so shrill and angry? It's almost as though they're being frustrated by some sort of maddeningly dense nonsense that won't dry up and blow away. They must have unhappy marriages.
Cheese be with you.
There has been a recent spate of books by so-called 'Neo Lunar Lithists,' who insist that the moon is made of rock.
In his work, 'The End of Cheese,' Sam Harris argues that Lunar Fromagists (people whose faith tells them that the moon is made of cheese) are responsible for every evil in society from the wearing of cheese hats at sporting events to the practice of cheeseboarding.
"Think about it," Harris writes. "There are people, lots of people, walking around out there absolutely convinced that that thing you see in the sky is made out of stuff that comes out of the tits of a cow. These people vote. Why do we allow this? Ask yourself: are we fucking retarded?"
In Richard Dawkins' 'The Cheddar Delusion,' the noted scientist points out that cheese is a highly refined product of living animals, requiring both life and technology to produce.
"It's simply not reasonable," Dawkins argues, "to believe that celestial bodies are composed of this substance. In the over three and half billion year history of life on earth, only the past few millenia have demonstrated the existence of any cheese at all. Cheese arises out of planets. Planets do not arise out of cheese. I'm really surprised that I need to write that down, but there it is."
And in his polemical 'Get Your Fucking Cheese Off My Plate You Ignorant Pinheaded Bastards,' Christopher Hitchens argues that not only is the moon not made of cheese but that it would be horrible to think it was.
"Cheese is a fungus," claims Hitchens, "it's a nasty, rotten mold grown in the dark from the spoiled emissions of common bovine teats. To suggest that the moon is made of such stuff is a calumny against her beautiful visage that no right thinking person should allow and I invite you to join me in that. By the way, the president of Iran believes in cheese. I'm just saying."
What none of these authors seems willing to acknowledge is that Lunar Fromagism is not fundamentally about believing that the literal moon is literally made of literal cheese. It's a way for us to feel closer to the eternal nature of cheese and gives us a reason to be good. No modern fromagarian takes those myths seriously. But they are true. Sort of. Maybe not literally. But maybe. For some people. It all depends on who I'm talking to right now.
It's interesting to note, however, that nowhere in their books do the authors present solid, irrefutable proof that the moon is not made out of cheese. It's true that NASA returned rocks from the moon in the late 60's, but what people always forget is that the solar system is filled with tiny rocks. Surely in the billions of years that the moon has existed, many of those rocks will have fallen on its surface, burying the original cheese and giving it the outward APPEARANCE of being made of rock. It just makes sense.
If the moon is not made out of cheese, that means that there are no rules and we all might as well get about the business of raping one another to death. But we don't do we? What more proof do you need of the moral necessity of Lunar Fromagism?
No, they are confusing Lunar Fromagism with RADICAL FUNDAMENTALIST Lunar Fromagism. It's true that this group with their "cheese here, cheese there, cheese everywhere" philosophy is responsible for great atrocities, including the stuffed crust pizza. But they're just a fringe, constituting only some 60%-70% of Lunar Fromagists.
It is true that we're fighting a war against them right now that's going cost a couple of trillion dollars by days' end and domestically no one can be elected president without claiming certain knowledge in their hearts that the moon is made of cheese, but other than that they're not very representative of true LF-ism.
That fringe has lost site of the central message of Lunar Fromagism which is this: don't be an asshole. Somehow they lost site of this message because of a few hundred places in the Fromagist Bible that loosely translate to: go be an asshole. It's understandable. It's all part of the mystery of cheese.
A great many Lunar Fromagists have done wonderful things in the name of Lunar Fromagism. Would the authors have us dismiss these good deeds and rape them all to death? I shudder to think of the answer.
What of the great Lunar Fromagist Mayor McCheese? His faith in Lunar Fromagism was an inspiration to the people of McDonaldland, even the Hamburglar.
And it has to be pointed out that Hitler believed that the moon was made of rock, so we can see that Lunar Lithism is no guarantee of virtue.
Finally, why do the authors seem so shrill and angry? It's almost as though they're being frustrated by some sort of maddeningly dense nonsense that won't dry up and blow away. They must have unhappy marriages.
Cheese be with you.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Fundamentalism
"Let's hear it for the vague blur!"
-A Scanner Darkly
One of the accusations often leveled at outspoken non-believers is that we're no different than the fundamentalists of other religions who sow seeds of hatred for homosexuals, who justify flying planes into buildings and who otherwise make life unpleasant down here on the pale blue dot.
Why do we have to be so strident? Can't we just content ourselves to not believe?
For some such questioners, religion basically breaks down to hymns, bingo and tea with the vicar. What they hear us saying is that they are idiots for participating in these simple pleasures
Why do we want to spoil everyone's fun by taking away gentle Jesus, meek and mild? Without religion, what would we talk to the vicar about?
Other questioners come at it from a more philosophical point of view. They point out, with tireless patience, that real theologians don't take religious myths seriously and that genuine theology is the study of people's relationship to the mysterious.
People need a source of ultimate answers, even if it is a myth-shrouded vague blur of generalized otherworldliness.
And while you can be a good person and do good things without pondering the vague blur, you can't ultimately know why you're not an unhinged serial murderer without acknowledging the vague blur.
So, let me just say out the outset, that I don't have any sort of real problem with these variants of religion. If it's all to be vague blurs and tea with the vicar, by all means, carry on.
But it's not all vague blurs and tea with the vicar, is it? Sometimes it's planes into buildings and superstitious gobbledygook in science class, isn't it?
Unfortunately, religious fundamentalists can not be reasoned with, because they reject reason in favor of faith in their whacked out world view. And, unfortunately, they're using your holy books and your religious stories to justify their anti-human lunacy.
Since religious fundamentalism cannot be argued with using reason or appeal to basic human decency there's simply no recourse but to attack it at the very core. Unfortunately, there's no way to do this without also attacking moderate religiosity.
For this reason, religious fundamentalism is a greater threat to religion than atheism could ever be on its own.
"Let's hear it for the vague blur!"
-A Scanner Darkly
One of the accusations often leveled at outspoken non-believers is that we're no different than the fundamentalists of other religions who sow seeds of hatred for homosexuals, who justify flying planes into buildings and who otherwise make life unpleasant down here on the pale blue dot.
Why do we have to be so strident? Can't we just content ourselves to not believe?
For some such questioners, religion basically breaks down to hymns, bingo and tea with the vicar. What they hear us saying is that they are idiots for participating in these simple pleasures
Why do we want to spoil everyone's fun by taking away gentle Jesus, meek and mild? Without religion, what would we talk to the vicar about?
Other questioners come at it from a more philosophical point of view. They point out, with tireless patience, that real theologians don't take religious myths seriously and that genuine theology is the study of people's relationship to the mysterious.
People need a source of ultimate answers, even if it is a myth-shrouded vague blur of generalized otherworldliness.
And while you can be a good person and do good things without pondering the vague blur, you can't ultimately know why you're not an unhinged serial murderer without acknowledging the vague blur.
So, let me just say out the outset, that I don't have any sort of real problem with these variants of religion. If it's all to be vague blurs and tea with the vicar, by all means, carry on.
But it's not all vague blurs and tea with the vicar, is it? Sometimes it's planes into buildings and superstitious gobbledygook in science class, isn't it?
Unfortunately, religious fundamentalists can not be reasoned with, because they reject reason in favor of faith in their whacked out world view. And, unfortunately, they're using your holy books and your religious stories to justify their anti-human lunacy.
Since religious fundamentalism cannot be argued with using reason or appeal to basic human decency there's simply no recourse but to attack it at the very core. Unfortunately, there's no way to do this without also attacking moderate religiosity.
For this reason, religious fundamentalism is a greater threat to religion than atheism could ever be on its own.
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Keeping an Open MindI get asked sometimes if I should have a more open mind.
Isn't the scientific world view rather closed-minded? Isn't it better to keep our minds open to the possibilities? Isn't that more imaginative?
The short answer to this is 'no.' The long answer follows.
The universe is filled with questions. Where did we come from? Where are we going? What are those lights in the sky? Etc.
The scientific method prescribes gathering evidence in a demonstrable, repeatable way, developing theories to explain the evidence and then testing those theories by using them to predict the outcome of experiments.
In addition to keeping your theories and observations aligned to reality, this method for examining the universe is also much, much more stimulating to the imagination than mystical explanations.
When you encounter a question you cannot answer with your scientific tools, it stays unanswered.
If you want to answer it, you have to use your imagination to expand your scientific toolset while staying within the lines of evidence and reason.
Doing so will often lead to deeper insights and to the discovery of still more questions, which may require still more creative answers.
For example, early conceptions of Darwinian evolution imagined that only the single-minded pursuit of self-interest should be selected for. But, thanks to economic theories of cooperation and biological theories like the selfish gene, we can now understand why it is that nature produces creatures capable of altruism, sacrifice and other seemingly counter-productive behaviors.
Mystical explanations, on the other hand, allow you to answer questions without straining your imagination or discovering any deeper mysteries to be solved, short of the mysterious contradictions any theory based on made up mumbo jumbo will inevitably produce. Attributing altruism and sacrifice to the divine, for example, tells us nothing about why the gods should grace us with attributes that seemingly defy our survival instincts.
Keeping an open mind means keeping your mind open to where the evidence may lead you and thinking creatively about the implications of your theories. Allowing yourself one-size fits all answers to complex questions is just an excuse to stop thinking.
Consider, for example, the germ theory of disease.
Before we developed the germ theory of disease, epidemics were attributed to the wrath of the gods.
Unfortunately, once you've attributed something to the wrath of the gods, there's precious little you can do about it because the gods don't seem to behave in any kind of predictable way. The best you can hope for is to appease them with prayer, which is tough considering that they, you know, don't exist.
If, on the other hand, you study the behavior of a disease, watch how it spreads over time, look for common factors between infected persons, and otherwise, you know, gather data, you can develop a pretty good basic epidemiology even if you still don't know what the underlying mechanism is.
You can then use this theory to help control or at least predict the spread of disease, and the discoveries you make in so doing will lead you to germs, drug regimens, vaccines, quarantine protocols, prevention measures and all manner of useful things the gods never seem to mention in their holy books.
This is why no truly innovative discoveries come out of theology, astrology, feng shui, crystalography, tarot cards, the i ching or any other non-evidence-based system of natural understanding. It's not because they have too few answers; it's because they have too many.
To paraphrase Tom Lehrer, the imagination is like a sewer: what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.
The New Atheists
It seems strange to count myself among the class of so-called "new atheists."
I've been an atheist all my adult life. And though it is a negatively-defined word, atheism is about so much more to me than just denying someone's religion; it's a way of looking at the world that is life-affirming, astonishing and ultimately fulfilling.
I've been content for most of my life to just console myself with the deep inner satisfaction that comes from a reason-based understanding of our world and ourselves, but I have been compelled to action by the recent madness in the global body politic.
Faith-based war, global jihad, intelligent design, "abstinence-only" sex education, stem cell research. These are not just trivial matters. They're not even as "trivial" as mounting the ten commandments on a courthouse which, at the end of the day, doesn't rob anyone of education or health or kill anyone.
I've come to realize over the past few years that tackling each of these issues in isolation is like playing whack-a-mole. You cover the same ground a lot.
Instead, it is time to attack the very foundational framework of these and other odious social toxins: unreason, mostly in the form of religious faith but also in the form of knee-jerk patriotism and leader worship of all kinds.
That's what this blog is about. It's a "me too" from one among many, meant to encourage many, many more.
-Jason Shankel
non-believer
It seems strange to count myself among the class of so-called "new atheists."
I've been an atheist all my adult life. And though it is a negatively-defined word, atheism is about so much more to me than just denying someone's religion; it's a way of looking at the world that is life-affirming, astonishing and ultimately fulfilling.
I've been content for most of my life to just console myself with the deep inner satisfaction that comes from a reason-based understanding of our world and ourselves, but I have been compelled to action by the recent madness in the global body politic.
Faith-based war, global jihad, intelligent design, "abstinence-only" sex education, stem cell research. These are not just trivial matters. They're not even as "trivial" as mounting the ten commandments on a courthouse which, at the end of the day, doesn't rob anyone of education or health or kill anyone.
I've come to realize over the past few years that tackling each of these issues in isolation is like playing whack-a-mole. You cover the same ground a lot.
Instead, it is time to attack the very foundational framework of these and other odious social toxins: unreason, mostly in the form of religious faith but also in the form of knee-jerk patriotism and leader worship of all kinds.
That's what this blog is about. It's a "me too" from one among many, meant to encourage many, many more.
-Jason Shankel
non-believer
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