Ian Murphy has written a fun little article called Five Atheists Who Ruin it For Everyone Else. In it, he notes that there is a growing population of people without faith, but that this movement is being hindered by a few high profile atheists, who, for lack of a better word, are assholes. I take issue with the first part of this claim: I don’t think there is a growing population of people without faith. I think they were always there and maybe now they feel more comfortable self-identifying as atheists and agnostics. True believers are pretty rare in my experience.

Murphy’s list of asshole atheists is a good one: Sam Harris, Bill Maher, Penn Jillette, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and S.E. Cupp. What do all of these people have in common? They all lean libertarian. And this isn’t just true of them; it is true for a large portion of the atheist community. And I have long wondered about this.

It is not, as would seem to be the case, because they are all followers of Ayn Rand. But it is related to this. I think that Ayn Rand was an atheist for the same reason the Assholes Five are. Libertarian thought is based upon the myth of individual accomplishment. Humans are social animals and must be—Mitt Romney at the peak of his brilliance would have quickly died if stranded alone on an atoll; no car elevator for him! Belief in this myth allows people to not think just that they are an important member of their society or even that they are marginally better than other people; it allows them to think that they are discreetly better than other people: one, two, or more sociological quantum leaps beyond the common herd.

This is how we end up with a book like Atlas Shrugged, with its demigod heroes. All of these great “producers” decide to go on strike because the world would be lost without them. And of course, in the novel, the government falls apart and John Galt is there to create a new society from scratch: a free market utopia of the type we’ve heard so much about in post-war Iraq. In reality, we would see something different.

Consider this example that I got from The Winner-Take-All Society: suppose we had an edict that said only people with IQs of less than 70 could practice law. This would not affect the world in any way. People with the most money would still hire the best lawyers and so on. Now this would not be true of, say, engineering. If all our engineering was done with very limited minds, our cars wouldn’t work. But if we did something less extreme, and just removed the top people in the field, their work would be taken over by the second string engineers, and you know what? Nothing would change.

I’ve written about this before. The huge distinctions we make between the best and almost the best are mythical: they don’t exist. I admire Einstein, but his thinking wasn’t that revolutionary. I admire Usain Bolt, but he isn’t that much faster than other runners. I admire Darwin, but his thinking wasn’t that revolutionary—wait: Alfred Russel Wallace!

The core of libertarian thought is based on the deification of people who, through a combination of genes, environment, and luck, succeed spectacularly in society. It is not surprising then, that people who lose faith in one mythology (e.g. Christianity) would grab onto another (e.g. libertarianism or communism)—especially when that new mythology has the trappings of rationality and science.

What tends to make both libertarians and atheists such assholes is their shared belief that they see the world so much more clearly than others. It is rare indeed to find a libertarian who doesn’t think that his ideology can be derived from first principles. And this is not only annoying, it is dangerous.

Afterword

I consider myself an atheist—or at least as much as one can reasonably be. There is still raison d’être, which very many atheists embarrassingly seem to mistake with cosmology. I also have a lot of anarchical leanings. I do think that people should just leave each other the hell alone. But for most people, atheism and libertarianism are religions. I have great concern about people who combine these things. It is much easier to assume that someone like Richard Carrier, who combines atheism with secular humanism, is not blinded by ideology, and hence, theology.

You may have seen the original of this picture where small business owner Ray Gaster proclaims, “I built this business without gov’t help. Obama can Kiss my ass.” Of course, the fact that Gaster owns a lumber yard, means he’s received lots over government help in the form of low cost lumber resources.

Someone, it seems to be Being Liberal on Facebook, has added some much needed context for the photo:

I do have one question: did the creator really mean “founded” and not “funded”? There ought to be a good deal more government funded spelling and grammar education.

I’m not the only person who is bothered by the conservative blond automatons. Last night, Stephen Colbert discussed the coverage of the lack of patriotism at the Olympics in a segment hosted by, “Fox News Blond Z-294, Alisyn Camerota”:

The Colbert Report was very funny last night. The second segment was even better than this first one. The same could not be said of The Daily Show.

Jon Stewart continues to burnish his reasonable centerness whenever he has the slightest opportunity. He continues to go after Harry Reid. And then last night, he went after the unfortunate, stupid, and rude Adam Smith, the CFO of Vante Inc. Smith took video of his harassing of a Chick-fil-A drive-thru clerk and posted it on YouTube. He was being a dick in a way I particularly hate. However, was it really necessary to publicly shame the man after he lost his job over the incident?

I guess the answer is yes. When it comes to Jon Stewart’s commitment to the not very reasonable center, all attacks are okay. And that makes him what? A dick.

Thank God for Stephen Colbert.

Just to give you an idea of the greatness of Slavoj Žižek, his approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict is remarkably innovative and compassionate. He suggests that both parties should renounce political control of Jerusalem and turn it into an extra-state locale of religious freedom. Doing this would have many advantages. It would turn Jerusalem into the truly sacred site that it cannot be in the middle of a war. It also allows the Israelis and the Palestinians to see that both sides would be gaining.

It wouldn’t be easy. Žižek write, “Each of the two sides would have to realize that this renunciation of the ethnically ‘pure’ nation state is a liberation for themselves, not simply a sacrifice to be made for the other.” And that is the crux of the problem: self-identification. Every religious group thinks it is special and cut off from the others (the great “unwashed,” for example). Thus, I think that solution is great, but it does beg the question: if they were tolerant of dissent and open-minded about other religions, there would be no problem.

Still, Žižek shows he understands the situation:

It is interesting how people are inclined to use their religious identities for political goals while ignoring what wisdom is to be found in their religions.

Jonathan Chait is at it again, getting laughs while demolishing right wing idiocy. Today, it is fucktard (accent on the tard) Jennifer Rubin and her willful (?) misunderstanding of the Tax Policy Center’s analysis of Mitt Romney’s tax plan. This is the analysis that showed that even if you accepted all of Romney’s unbelievable assumptions, you still couldn’t get it to work without it being—What a surprise!—a huge tax cut for the rich and a tax hike for the poor and middle class.

On Sunday morning, Jennifer Rubin of Fox on 15th decided to take on those nasty liberals—who were wonderful nonpartisan analysts only a couple of months ago—at the Tax Policy Center. Ha! She was going to show that they were making assumptions about Romney’s tax plan, and those assumptions were unfair!

Unfortunately, it seems just like CNN and Fox News after the Supreme Court’s ACA decision was handed down, Rubin didn’t read past the first page—or even understand the words she did read. As Chait notes, “The math is so incontestable here that the only rebuttal left is Rubin’s I-don’t-understand-what-words-mean interpretive method.” She claimed that the Tax Policy Center was making assumptions when they in fact are saying, “We grant all of Romney’s assumptions—even if we think them unrealistic—and his tax plan still doesn’t work as advertised.”

Chait explains it thusly:

Yet the Republican talking points just echo on.

As though he is not busy enough at the Olympics winning every race he is in (he got the gold in the 100 m—of course—and was first in the first round of the 200 m), I got spammed by him this morning. Well, I got spammed by someone with the same name. What are the odds? You would think Bolt would make enough money with his Puma sponsorship, but I guess not. He has to stoop to spamming. What a waste!

There is something serious here: Usain Bolt “didn’t build that” in a more fundamental way than any public figure in America will admit. The man is six foot five inches. He could not have been a world class marathon runner, regardless how hard he worked. Similarly, if he had been five foot five inches, he could not have been a world class sprinter.

I have great admiration for Bolt, but what he has was given to him: by genes, environment, and luck. It is right to hold up his accomplishments as a sign of what humans can do. But it is wrong to pretend that he is doing anything but what comes naturally. And note: he wouldn’t be as revered or well compensated if his talents tended toward, say, lacrosse.

Let me give some examples. People who are exceptional at math also enjoy it or they never would have gotten so good. People who read a lot of books don’t do it through force of will; they enjoy reading. And a man who runs 100 meters in 9.63 seconds (0.05 seconds off his record) does it because he loves it.

The bootstrap myth that Americans just love is total rubbish. Not everyone can grow up to be Usain Bolt. Not everyone can grow up to be President. Not everyone can even grow up to collect carts in the Walmart parking lot.

Perhaps if we had a more equitable society, all people could focus on adding value to the society. The spam culture is the truest manifestation of the “profits above all” mentality of capitalism gone wild. If Usain Bolt didn’t have great speed and generous sponsors, what would he do? He would only have to be two tenths of a second slower—much faster than anyone I know—to be poor. I’m sure there are many impressive people who are part of the army of spammers who attack me each night. And that is a waste—for me and them.

This morning, Pat Robertson was speculating about why people are always shooting up “houses of worship”—as though people shot in movie theaters don’t count. He wondered aloud, “What is it? Is it satanic? Is it some spiritual thing, people who are atheists, they hate God, they hate the expression of God?”

I think he is mistaking atheists with Christians and oh some many other people of faith. We atheists[1] don’t hate God, because we don’t believe in it. I don’t hate God any more than than I hate Frodo Baggins. Actually, I am rather fond of both. They are major characters in books that I like. (I’m speaking of the biblical God here, although I’m fond of the many other gods in other books, even if I don’t know them as well.)

By “the expression of God,” I think that Robertson is referring to the worship of God. Again, atheists don’t hate such expressions. We may find it silly. But most of us look at it with a kindly disregard, “Whatever floats your boat.” What we do hate can be seen in all its glory by Robertson in this clip:

Why are we being attacked for this? And who exactly are “we” anyway? Atheists aren’t exactly in agreement about much other than that God isn’t this thing that if pleased will take us to the land of fairies and elves where we can have all the cotton candy we want.

We now know that the shooter of the Sikh temple was a white supremacist. That doesn’t mean that he was a Christian. But the vast majority of white supremacists are Christians. Now I know what Christians will say, “He wasn’t a Christian because Christians don’t do things like that!” To that I have one article to say: I hear you but I ain’t buying. (Also: the vast majority of hardcore Christians don’t accept this argument when applied to Islam.) What’s more, there are explicit indications that this guy was a Christian.

I remember after Mother Teresa died, a lot of born again Christians claimed that they didn’t know if she was going to heaven. If she had that “born again” experience (indigestion?) then she went; if not, she didn’t because no amount of good works makes up for that special personal relationship that God demands one have with Jesus. It works the other way around. Maybe the the shooter was just having a bad day. Maybe he held God in his heart and got it back right before he died. Maybe he’s playing pool, talking smack, and chillin’ with Jesus at this very moment. And if that doesn’t make him a Christian, I don’t know what else does. I can tell you this: if I died right now, there would be no arguement—I’d be in hell, how ever you wish to define it.

So Robertson can take his ignorant attack and shove it where the savior don’t shine. One of the best things about not believing in heaven is that I know Robertson will soon be dead and forgotten. There will be no bar where there is nothing happening and yet is so much fun.[2] We can file his obituary under W for wasted lives of privilege. But perhaps he can take solace in the fact that his hate speech will live on in countless other Good Christian Men.

[1] I still don’t feel very comfortable with that word. One thing I do know is that there is no such thing as God the entity. Theism implies that one believes that there is some thing that exists that needs worshiping. This is clearly not the case. There are, however, profound spiritual questions, which I’m afraid most religions only obfuscate.

[2] It is hard to imagine that nothing at all, could be so exciting, could be this much fun:

Great song. Studio version is better. David Byrne is a dick. Just saying.

Jonathan Chait has a good article this morning about how Romney’s entire campaign is based upon a lie. He starts by noting that Obama’s campaign is not exactly snow white: his attacks on outsourcing as simplistic and perhaps even misleading. I would add that they are somewhat hypocritical, because Obama basically agrees with Romney on this issue. (Reason number 5382 to not like Obama.) But Romney’s campaign is based on making this election a referendum on the economy and Obama’s handling of it.

Chait shows that in 2004, Romney argued that Bush should not be held accountable for the bad economy. If it is true that Bush was not responsible for the bad economy then—Chait believes he was not—then Obama is even less responsible for the current economy. I would argue that Bush was responsible for the economy (at least to some degree) because he was able to get his policies passed; Obama has been stymied—especially during the last two years.

We know that Obama at least disagrees with Romney’s idea of what should be done about the economy. Romney’s whole argument is that the voters should judge the President entirely responsible for the economy—and that’s all. And we know that isn’t what Romney really believes.

What I find most interesting is how the entire Republican chattering class is whining about all of Obama’s attacks on Romney. They are in effect saying, “Obama should only talk inside our frame for the campaign!” Susan Del Percio is an excellent example of this, “This campaign is a referendum on the economy!” Really?! This reminds me of those who said all through the 2008 campaign that the central issue of that campaign should be Jeremiah Wright.

The difference is that in 2008, it was only those on the fringe who publicly complained that if Obama wasn’t talking about what McCain wanted to talk about, Obama was being unfair. In 2012, it is the whole Republican establishment that is saying this.

I got into bed this evening and put on Lizard Kings: On the Trail of the Monitor Lizard, a NATO program about this very intelligent genus of lizards that includes the Komodo dragon. This reminded me of an old Bob and Ray routine that is one of the funniest things ever. So I got out of bed and listened to it. But I couldn’t go to bed without sharing it with all of you.

Good night!

Update (19 August 2012 4:20 pm)

I just noticed that this album was directed by Joseph Hardy who directed the original Off Broadway production of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown and Broadway production of Play it Again, Sam.

I am gone all day today at the Museum of Natural History. But not this one:

It costs 30 bucks for 6 hours! Oh well.