Is the Measles Vaccination Discussion a Teachable Moment?

by Gary Berg-Cross

Fifteen years ago, the CDC was proud to announce victory over measles. More recently there is has been a creeping increase in measles outbreaks attributed in park to the growing number of parents have opted to not to have their children vaccinated. Fear is involved backed by an old claim that there is a link between vaccines and autism. I guess the small success of the flu shot this year also lowers the confidence that they work. And so we have this, according to the CDC, 1 in 12 children born in the United States is not being vaccinated as recommended. That's a huge percent for something the best science seems to say is effective and safe.

The measles vaccine dust up is what Adam Frank called a "teachable moment" for everyone as the anti-vax movement is suddenly thrown into the spotlight. Collectively, we can see the Disneyland outbreak and the various responses for what it could be — a wake up call for informed decisions and rational discussion about science denial and the relation of parental rights (freedom) and responsibility to the public at least.

Below is a portion of what Frank wrote on what he called living in "a strange moment of human history" :

We have this thing called science. Through its fruits (medicines, technology, etc.), many of us live lives fundamentally different from the tens of thousands of generations preceding us. At the same time, through science's unintended consequences, we have also changed the "natural" world in ways likely to pose daunting challenges to our ongoing "project of civilization." But strangest of all, in the midst of these profound changes, one growing response to the tough questions science raises in our lives has been to act as if it didn't exist.

I am, of course, talking about denial. The anti-vax movement, like climate change denialism, rests on the assumption that if you disagree with certain established scientific results you can just ignore them. You call the science lies — or claim the scientists have a political bias."

Indeed people ignore or trump science based on emotional feelings (fight or flight) vague values of freedom and such. So parent's get to chose is proclaimed as an absolute.  It has an ideological-religious fever to it. But on this issue of parent’s choice there is also the question of what is behind the choice and what is a good choice.Recently, NPR's Morning Edition had a 4 minute segment called The Psychology Behind Why Some Kids Go Unvaccinated. We could use some of what was said there as part of this teachable moment.

We can start by asking why do some people believe that these particular vaccinations are dangerous? Can’t they understand the facts?

It turns out that (some) telling parents that are afraid to vaccinate kids the facts makes them less likely to vaccinate them. It’s a general belief phenomena of the emotional brain we can demonstrate and understand to some degree.


Some of it is the near term pain vs. more distant or less obvious gain.  But also Dartmouth research by Brendan Nyhan was cited on the belief dynamics which challenge the teachable moment opportunity for some.


The frame of the research is the idea hat beliefs are shaped by pre-existing views, filtered by motivated reasoning (energized by Worry ) through loyalty to our group allegiance (tribe’s) belief.  For example, take groups and give them facts to show that Obama was born in the US. Some are not persuaded by that facts and believe that Obama was born in Africa. Who? Those who didn't like him to begin with. Not everyone is open to the facts, your ideology filters things and indeed can motivate people to use their thinking in a defensive way.


Once you believe in something strongly with emotions it is hard to debunk. And this theory of child vaccinations leading to autism has that rigidity. It came from a 1998 article in a good Journal, Lancet,

suggesting such a link, but the study was later retracted and has been widely discredited. It was, for example only an 11 kid sample and later couldn't be replicated and then the author was shown to have mad up the data. But it is hard to stop the meme. Especially when it is promoted by tribes with a megaphone.


The Morning Edition talked about the collective action dilemma – We can get a free ride sometimes when others do the hard work like with vaccinations. It means that I don’t have to deal with the risk and this is also called the tragedy of the commons. I’d say it is a general problem we face. Letting everybody act in their own self-interest isn't optimal although some believe that.

How to solve the dilemma?

Some cultures force or apply public-social pressure (e.g. You are a moron–if your child is not vaccinated I won’t invite her over for a play date.)


Social scientists think these (force and shame) are not the best ways. While a little social pressure is good, experts who have studied the psychology of the vaccine doubters say it's counterproductive to be accusatory — or even to try provide a little well-meaning education.



Below is some discussion of this from researchers as part of a different article:



"When you attack somebody's values, they get defensive," said risk communication expert David Ropeik. "It triggers an instinctive defensiveness that certainly doesn't change the mind of the vaccine-hesistant person."

And some of the criticism on cable television, social media and in mainstream newspapers and magazines is starting to look like bullying, Ropeik and other experts said.


"There are millions of people who are ambivalent to some degree. When they hear the people being picked on defend their views, that has the real prospect of turning some of those people against vaccines."


The anti-vaccine movement is nothing new. People have been questioning the safety and efficacy of vaccines for decades, especially once the illnesses the vaccines protect against started to disappear, and the risks of the vaccine began to loom larger when there was no backdrop of death and disease.


But simply telling people their views are stupid, or even not fully informed, will not work, said Dr. Brendan Nyhan of Dartmouth University (also cited in the NPR story).


"It could make the problem worse. Imagine what calling people selfish and dumb can do," Nyhan said. "If people call me selfish and dumb, it doesn't make me more open-minded, and I don't know why anyone would think otherwise in this case. I think it's really short-sighted. People enjoy lashing out at anti-vaccine folks, (but) it turns into an 'us versus them' thing."

Nyhan conducted a study last year with Freed that found that when they gave ambivalent parents facts that show vaccines do not cause autism, they were even less likely to vaccinate their kids than they were before.

"They are committed to that point of view. You can provoke a kind of backlash reaction if you are not careful," Nyhan said. "That is why it is important to test the messages that we use and avoid the counterproductive type of messaging seen in the wake of Disney."

Telling people they are wrong will just make them dig in their heels, said Nyhan.

"There is a psychological tendency called disconfirmation bias. Information we don't want to hear, we try very hard to reject it. That is especially true for beliefs that are central to our identity," he said.

Most Americans support vaccination. A survey from the Pew Research Center published last week found that 68 percent of American adults believe that vaccinations of children should be required, while 30 percent say that parents should be able to decide not to vaccinate their kids.

But groups such as the National Vaccine Information Center view and position themselves as courageous visionaries who challenge a flawed, mainstream point of view. Libertarian leaders such as Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., are taking on the issue of vaccination as a question of personal freedom.

Bottom line, how might we get people to vaccinate their kids?

Build relations and trust – acknowledge the fear and discuss it without force or shame.

And, of course, a similar approach may be useful for the secular and intellectual community on other issues.


Note- Adam Frank is a co-founder of the 13.7 blog, an astrophysics professor at the University of Rochester, a book author and a self-described "evangelist of science."

Playing on Dialogues

by Gary Berg-Cross

Atheists, skeptics and non-believers along with their issues are not often shown in a very positive light when presented to the public on either the big or small screens. They are often stereotyped as misanthropic, slightly angry doctors, "lost souls” clinging to unsatisfying rationality or perhaps something else distinctly attackable and mildly distasteful. A recent and notable exception is in the award-nominated biopic film The Theory of Everything (a theory on the birth and death of universe perhaps from “nothing”) which features seminal theoretical physicist-cosmologist Stephen Hawking.  

Hawking is a familiar stranger to most of us and wildly know author of A Brief History of Time, which is highlighted in the film along with his firm liberal and atheist stances.  It is impossible to ignore his never-give-in bravery in the face of illness and his honesty expressing controversial ideas.  His confidence and good, perhaps naughty, eye-twinkling humor while clashing with his Christian wife makes him very fully human.  These dialogues includes:

Wife "What's cosmology?"

Stephen "Religion for intelligent atheists."

Wife persisting but interestingly "What do cosmologists worship?"

Stephen "A single unifying equation that explains everything in the universe."

Later at  Stephen’s family home dinner includes "You've never said why you don't believe in God."

Stephen "A physicist can't allow his calculations to be muddled by belief in a supernatural creator,"

Wife gets the last word "Sounds less of an argument against God than against physicists."

His humble humanity makes it hard to generate that fear-disgust reaction in the heart of believers. It is great to see this cinematic approach to not only hard science but also secular human values.

Besides this movie we have locally at the Anacostia Playhouse Theatre, a Sharpstick Productions of three plays written by Harrison Murphy and directed by Jim Giradi that take on some of these atheist-religious debates. Called Red High Heels and running from Jan 15-24 we are offered 3 one-acts that helicopter over differing perspectives.  It's a dialog feast and more than one can take in with a single viewing, but hopefully it will stay around and let repeat visits.

We start at a Bar as a middle aged man is having (by chance - randomness is a theme is these, so expect some surprises all is not as usual) a very bad day.  He is joined by a younger man, perhaps a younger version of himself, full of fight and confidence. He counsels toughness from a youthful, peanut-eating perspective.  They are quickly joined by an older man/version, perhaps from our protagonist’s future self who underlines alternate perspectives and counsels a wisdom that is the residue of living, which allows us to understand what is really important.

Play 2, Vignettes, moves from this intimate setting to the more public and impersonal and often frustrating one of waiting in an airport.  We move from friendly counselling to pairs of people falling into arguments.  A wide range of types and generations are here, flawed people in recognizable situations, including a comic relief, story-telling grandpa that leads us on an improbably journey trying to entertain (impress?) his grandson, a business man having an argument via cell phone, a prof and daughter who are stumble into the most bonding conversation as she leaves for college, and a lay preacher and hiking enthusiast with a bit of Hawking’s light humor touch sparring with a hard-headed lawyer.  

These are morally ambiguous, conflicted characters, flawed but believable folk.  Various characters introduce us to their philosophic perspectives and how they make sense of the world.  It’s about path finding, staying on track, or belief in guiding forces, but their lives are all over the landscape and lunge off track as they are all lead into a plane to take them away on a new direction. Who is steering things anyway?

This sets the stage for the final play which finds new people on a new flight with a mysterious Blue Box. It's a bit of a Hitchcock macguffin-type plot appropriate for the mysterious atmospheres generated in the plays.  But a single discovery and the evidence in the Box prove if God exists or not.  You are invited to guess as to the nature of proof. Here the extremes of debate are represented by a new-style, no holds barred Atheist, as for no quarter in conflict with a judicial Theist giving no solace except to say that Faith is the answer. 

In between we hear from professionals (Psychologist, Philosopher, and Anthropologist) as well as a Zen Buddhist as they argue whether the box should be opened.  We hear them argue their perspective of the issues in short segments. Along the way the play explores ideas about objectivity and subjectivity in our perspective beliefs, how context affects even a philosopher’s views, how intellectual passions can lead to emotional ones and more. 

As in the Hawking movie you may not learn enough about Space Time Singularity or Black Holes to write a book after watching these plays but its about the clarity of the interdisciplinary arguments. You gain into the issues and how they are discussed. The play's cosmologist shows the passions that stir up person like Stephan Hawing and perhaps an Atheist partner.You may know enough to be wary of Schrodinger's cat and Pandora's box. 

As an extra feature after the plays there is a 20 minute talkback session to hear from the audience.  These are run by people who are astrophysicists or philosophers and the like.  I was the Psychologist representative for the opening night and our after play conversation might have gone on for an hour.  

Wrestling with Spiritual Concepts

By Gary Berg-Cross

Spirituality and religion are often conflated. In conversation there are terms like “soul” that gets used in each, but some freethinkers are bit more comfortable believing in some spiritual concepts than religious ones like god. This was recently discussed as part of a movement from religion to a non-god spirtual realm by the Nones.  Spirituality lacks a definitive definition, but the general idea is that it is a realm of existence set apart from the ordinary (think - the natural world as shown by science) and worthy of special attention. That is, more attention should be given to these special, transcendent ideas than the mundane, material world that science gives us. In a word spirituality leads us into a supernatural realm.

As the Wikipedia entry suggests, religion and spirituality were largely synonymous for a long time. But in about the 11th century this identity began to break. Spirituality began to denote the mental aspect of life, in between the material and sensual aspects of life and pure spirit. In other words a socio-psychological distinction began to be part of "spirituality" and indeed it might be considered the more foundational piece to explain religion. William Irwin Thompson puts it in a way that makes sense to me:

 "Religion is not identical with spirituality; rather religion is the form spirituality takes in civilization."

Sure, if we can agree on what those elements of spirituality are and that religion is a construct. 

One may follow this growing distinction through the Enlightenment and into 20^th century thinking as Psychology grew as a science and discussed spirituality in more scientific ways.

After World War II spirituality & religion were further distanced as more ideas on the nature of spirituality arose.  New humanistic discourse developed, which including things like existentialism, humanist psychology, but also the import of mystical and esoteric traditions and eastern religions such as Buddhism. Quite a blend of efforts to talk about topics like the true self, true life, free expression, mindfulness and meditation.

I find this a bit of a strange stew and while some of the common language of spirituality is now a distance from religious dogma, it can seem arbitrary and unscientific in the hands of layman but also the spiritually inclined. It provides perhaps too much of an easy frame to experiences and thus may hinder deeper understanding. Take the idea of soul.  We can use it as shorthand for some inner complexity. We might agree that Morgan Freeman has great "soul."  But I might think of that not as some indwelling spirit, but as great presence, a calm confidence etc.  It might be OK to use the soul-shorthand, for some open discussions. Sloppy use may mislead at times. An example is a new (killer) phone App called GPS for the Soul.  What is that about - some higher level of being?  No it uses the phone to monitor "stress" levels.  How?  It measures your pulse. Here we have the physical pulse standing in as a proxy for a mental concept of stress/good living, but labeled for the soul.  Discuss children.

And all too often we start to jump from a simple word sense to a huge image via a false analogy. Consider this one about soul that uses an image of life as if we’re all at a swimming pool, with the water in the pool standing in for a Pool of Spiritual Understanding. Some are fully in the pool and exhibit a large, spiritual soul, while others are along the sides of the pool, are just dangling their feet in, and still others are sitting out of the pool on the lounge chairs, just watching and listening. Horror! Explaining complex phenomena with untestable hunches is the slippery slope of spiritual concepts that frightens me.

Giving spirit the central role is to imply that we are NOT human beings on a spiritual journey, but instead, we are spiritual beings who just happen to be on a human journey. This idea of primary spiritual beings pulls us back to this early idea of a spiritual source of life, the breath of god, for example.  We started to break away from this idea centuries ago, but keep getting tripped up in sloppy thinking and trapped in vague terms that remain in the culture like "soul".

Sure there is great mystery in the mind, and some oceanic experience of some unexplained connection to a larger reality greater than oneself, but we should not allow loose talk to cloud our understanding or explain away phenomena that we still don’t understand by labeling them too readily and believing that we are really having a meaningful conversations using them. Here I’m thinking of phrases like spirituality as a way of life, an inner path, inner peace or the overuse of the terms love, wisdom, virtue & tolerance. We see language examples from people like Deepak Chopra:

"...we understand spirituality not as some kind of religious dogma or ideology but as the domain of awareness where we experience values like truth, goodness, beauty, love and compassion, and also intuition, creativity, insight and focused attention."   Deepak Chopra 

 We may all agree on the importance and great value of concepts like love, compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, responsibility, harmony, and a concern for others, but are these spiritual concepts or better framed of as part of our humanity and psychology?  Give me good scientific studies of selfishness and altruism and I see the Enlightenment still progressively at work.  

Biology is the science that studies life, but nobody has a precise, general definition of life. We are still learning about the subject but I don't speak in terms of life vitality or design rather than evolution.  We do make progress by making careful and empirical distinctions even in everyday life with our common sense vocabulary to describe our experience. To paraphrase Elbert Hubbard - the spiritual (aka supernatural) is the natural not yet understood.

Talk about it in vague Buddhist terms (harmony & order etc.) and I see a good conversation but little progress. Worse yet, perhaps, is to collapse too easily into a mysterious belief that there are things unknowable or that can’t be expressed in some form of language.  There may be some, since we are cognitively limited, but I think we are not close to practical limits and do not yet want to cede a large territory to something vaguely reifiied and called spirituality.

 Some see spirituality in everything, and want to "walk in the spirit." As a reaction against naive materialism, I may have sympathy for this. But I prefer to try the path via sciences like Psychology. It's a surer path to where we'd like to go and makes for interesting conversation along the empirical way.

 Images

Mindfulness: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/jan/22/how-to-meditate-mark-vernon

Bridging The Gap Between Psychology And Meditation: http://dailyheal.com/meditation-news/bridging-the-gap-between-psychology-and-meditation/

Mind control: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/cultivare/2013/07/relax-neuroscience-is-not-going-to-destroy-your-faith/

General Myers and His Endless War on Error

by Sarah Hippolitus

I usually avoid reading PZ Myers' work, as I don't care for the guy's point of view on atheism, but Sunday morning I thought what the hell, let's see what PZ's plan is to, as he puts it, "assault heaven and kill god." (Also James Croft of Harvard Humanists posted it, so I thought I better check this out -- there’s got to be something juicy here!) I've got to say his essay, Sunday Sacrilege: Sacking the City of God, pushed a hot button in me, well, more like ten. He's assaulting and killing something, but it's not the religious person's idea of heaven or god -- it's the atheist's chance of living in a religion-free world -- possibly even living safely in a world with religion -- as well as our social and political acceptance as a minority demographic. (And right after the Reason Rally! Pity.)

The first thing to note is the vitriolic language he uses, which is deliberate. Many (not all) of his loyal readers are angry atheists, and they need to be incited with regular feedings of fresh red meat. If I were a religious person and read some intellectual leader in the atheist community saying how he wanted to "assault heaven and kill god," I'd be alarmed by, and pissed off at, those angry atheists trying to ruin my life, and be ever more susceptible to church warnings that the atheists are out to get me.

In Chris Mooney's must-read essay, The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science, published in May 2011, he explains the crucial concept of "motivated reasoning," which is a scientifically-supported fact (it's science, PZ!) that explains why telling people they are wrong, when they have an emotional investment in being right, makes them cling harder to their beliefs. He quotes political scientist Arthur Lupia of the University of Michigan, "We push threatening information away; we pull friendly information close. We apply fight-or-flight reflexes not only to predators, but to data itself."

Mooney is careful to point out "that's not to suggest that we aren't also motivated to perceive the world accurately -- we are. Or that we never change our minds -- we do. It's just that we have other important goals besides accuracy -- including identity affirmation and protecting one's sense of self -- and often those make us highly resistant to changing our beliefs when the facts say they should."

This isn't hard to understand -- just think about fighting with your loved one. Tell them they are wrong, and you trigger their defense mechanisms, and it's as if they actually can't hear what you are saying, because at our core we are prideful, emotional beings. We take pride in our intelligence, and we are emotionally invested in many of our beliefs, most of all the belief that we are smart and have true beliefs! Also, studies show that when someone is insecure about their belief, and you try to spew facts at them, you'll get a big resistance, the same result as when they are convinced they are right. Why? The more emotional someone is about something, the less power any contrary facts have over them.

Mooney describes how when challenged, we may think we are reasoning, but we are actually rationalizing. He offers an analogy provided by psychology professor Jonathan Haidt, who also does great work on motivated reasoning: we think we are acting like scientists (reasoning), but we are actually acting like lawyers (rationalizing), trying to find evidence that supports our case.

Let's get back to PZ's plan to "kill god and assault heaven.” With that word choice, PZ knows he is being threatening, and not only does he not care, he likes it. PZ says:

I cannot blame them [god-believers] for being fearful; we are galloping towards the central ideas of their identity, and we aim to tear down their walls and replace their obsolete myths with change and something more vital.

Can't you just picture PZ and a cavalry of angry atheists riding through a battle field of Ancient Rome in full armor, carrying swords elegantly engraved with the word "science,” so they can literally attack their religious enemies?

He then asks the reader, "How will we sack the city of faith?"

Whoa, PZ! Now we are "sacking" communities of religious people? Theists everywhere: lock your doors! PZ and his cavalry are galloping to a city near you!

Regarding religion and god, he says he’s got the "idea-killer.” Sure he could have said "remedy,” "antidote,” "solution,” but those are positive words, and this is PZ, and he's such a badass.

Intentionally using militant language to keep his angry atheist fan base riled up, PZ says, "Science is our god-killer." Now on the one hand, he is right. The more science teaches us about how the natural world works, the more god gets written out of the story, or put another way, the more god loses credit as a natural explanation replaces a "god-explanation." What I take issue with is PZ’s claim that "science" is the answer by itself. Note that PZ is not talking about social sciences -- he is talking about physical/natural sciences. I say this because he incorporates nothing from psychology, sociology, or neuroscience into his viewpoint. Religious people hold on to god for the sake of their values, many of which secular folks share, and values can’t be fully derived from science, social or natural. The social sciences, which PZ has the least interest in, actually has the most power to “kill god” because they explain how civil societies are nurtured, and what values are most conducive to human flourishing, but PZ isn’t interested.

Look, I am a rational gal. I love science, especially psychology and neuroscience, which PZ seems to know little about. Science transformed our world for the better -- undeniable. Ignoring good science is tragic, and brings negative consequences for all. He seems to want to sell us a story that science is not only reality's best friend, but can be yours as well, as if science has a personal side.

Science bridges differences: I can find common ground with American scientists, Canadian scientists, Mexican scientists, Chinese scientists, Iranian scientists, Australian scientists. Maybe you aren’t a scientist, strictly speaking, but you’ve read the latest book by Dawkins or Hawking, or you love David Attenborough’s TV shows, or you’re a bird watcher or like weekend hiking in the Mountains. You are my people! We are one, united in an appreciation of the natural world!

Science bridges differences? I'm not a hippie, but I thought what bridges differences is love. Caring? Compassion? Humanism? Science theoretically can bridge differences in opinion if presented in a way that it can be received by another (as Mooney and Haidt are saying), but it doesn't bridge personal differences, not by itself. Science can't prescribe that we ought to be patient, loving, and forgiving towards each other, or that we ought to value science, by the way. Science can't tell us that friendship, care, and human rights, and science itself, are valuable.

(I'd like the reader to note PZ's vast network of community -- scientists from any country!)

The next section of PZ's blog is about the power of science to help us discover our world, which of course most people are quite aware of, yes, even the religious. He offers the elementary claim that science tells us what reality is, not what we want it to be (duh).

You know, I kinda wish peach pits actually cured cancer, but I think it’s more important to do the experiments and measure the results and see if they really do…because if they don’t, I think it would be a good idea for people to move on to more effective treatments.

Yes! That's why PZ can want science to kill religion and god all he wants, but the reality is that it only dismantles specific religious tenets -- theologians are waiting in the wings, paper and pen handy, ready to rewrite the religious tenets to keep up with scientific discoveries. The theologians can relax about one thing: science can never impact the idea of god by itself because that idea is designed to avoid science altogether -- it's called supernatural for a reason -- science on its own can never touch it. No matter what science reveals that is inconsistent with religious beliefs, theologians can always just rework them to make doctrine fit science's findings. They always have, and we have to wait and see if they'll ever give up this project. They might, but it won't be science that puts a stop to it -- it will be an alternative secular humanist community that demonstrates morality, love, compassion, tolerance, etc. PZ does surprise me when he touts community as a value near the end of his essay -- but don't get excited, it's for atheists only, and they must love science.

Not only are religious people not invited into PZ’s exclusive community for ideological reasons, but it’s also personal:

Now wait, there might be some people saying (not anyone here, of course) that that’s no fair. Maybe you’re a liberal Christian, and I’m picking on the extremists (although, when we’re talking about roughly half the United States being evolution-denying, drill-baby-drill, apocalypse-loving christians, it’s more accurate to say I’m describing a representative sample). Perhaps you’re a moderate, you support good science, education, and the environment, you just love Jesus or Mohammed, too.

I’m sorry, but I don’t like you. I’ll concede that you are doing less direct harm, and I will thank you for your support of shared causes, and I’ll also happily work alongside you in those causes, but I also think you are still doing indirect harm to foundational principles of a rational society.

"I'm sorry, but I don't like you."? Then, two thoughts later he says "I'll happily work alongside you. . ." Such insincere dribble -- I've got news for PZ: THEY DON'T WANT TO WORK ALONGSIDE YOU. Fun psychology fact: When you call that which people most sincerely and emotionally believe in stupid, they don't like it. (E.g., when he writes, “You believe in some outrageous bullshit.”) PZ just doesn't respect the social sciences like he does the "hard or physical sciences,” and it's a real shame.

As I alluded to already, PZ concludes with a list of values for atheists: truth, autonomy, and community. It's a sad little list of three because he says, “We’re a diverse group, and we never agree on everything.” Frankly, I think his list is so superficial and short because he's afraid to piss off any one of his atheist readers by providing anything substantial or specific. He says:

I have to be very careful to keep my description of values general, and be clear that I’m not dictating them to you, but describing what I see emerging as a consensus, because otherwise I’ll be pilloried by my own kind. We’re a pitiless bunch.

What a good reason to not state what you really value -- because your “own kind” (are you a different species from the religious person?) as you call it might censure you. How cowardly. And what kind of people are you hanging out with that would censure you for what you truly believe? Doesn’t sound like a friendly bunch I’d want to associate with.

Moreover, if he did list more values, we’d find that many of them would also be shared by religious people (the horror). That acknowledgement of consensus detracts from his project of demonizing the religious as morons. Yes, religious and secular people share common values: honesty, respect, forgiveness, patience, compassion, etc. They do so for the simple fact that we are all people. This fact actually supports the atheist's case that you don't need god to be good because religious or not, you'll have many of the same values (because we are all human beings with the same basic emotional needs.) So instead, leaving substantial values aside for fear of being “pilloried” for listing the “wrong ones” he settles on truth, autonomy, and community. Apparently “truth” is only an atheistic value. PZ asks, “Don’t Christians say they value truth, too? Unfortunately, they say it, but they don’t practice it.”

I’m not even a Christian, and I’m offended by this. He is not only accusing them of being stupid, but for being willfully so -- that’s quite the unfair overgeneralization.

His second value for atheists is autonomy. He says, “What that means, though, is that many atheists are nonconformists, boat-rockers, weirdos, and outcasts. And we like it that way. We are not sheep.”

Wait a minute. I may be a non-conformist, a boat-rocker, and a weirdo -- and I’m fine with those traits. But I don’t want to be an outcast. What kind of person “likes it that way”? That remark is so telling -- he “wants” us to be a separate group. So on the one hand he talks like he wants the religious to see the light of reason, and come join our atheist club, but how can he sincerely mean it if he flat out says that he likes being an outcast? If religion eventually goes away, he won’t be an outcast anymore -- so what does he actually want?

I'm glad “community” made his list of values, albeit last -- it came as a surprise after his stated pleasure with being an outcast. Of course, the reader should have already sniffed out that by "community" he means a tight in-group of religion-bashing friends of science. Paragraphs later he opens up his club to other oppressed minorities, feminists, and LGBT, as long as they are atheists and love science. Then he makes a very strange move when he announces:

Our ranks are swelling with fierce independent women who are changing us, making us stronger and louder, and standing up for their causes and making all of us fight for women’s rights, reproductive freedom, and equality of opportunity. This is atheism, too.

So now progressive political and social agendas equates to atheism? Where is he coming up with this stuff? He then says that if you are gay and want equal rights, you are an atheist: "Are you LGBT, wanting equality and social justice? You are atheism." Are all LGBT people really atheists?? I didn’t realize.

Is PZ unaware that many liberal Christians have long fought on such social justice issues too? What is this bizarre, historically-unsupported conflation of atheism with humanism/progressivism? So is it that real atheists have to agree with these social issues (although I will grant real humanists do, but that’s not his claim), and genuine LGBT and feminists have to be atheists too? Lack of belief in god does not get you anywhere but godless. You need humanism to give you a progressive stance on any political or social issue. (No, I don’t think anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage folks are real humanists.)

He says, "If you are a human being with real world concerns, who wants to change the world, who wants to contribute in a unique way that encourages those diverse views, then you should be one of us."

So get on the atheist bandwagon already! We’ve got it all figured out!

Let's move on to what PZ has to say about the value of community, even though he's already banished plenty of people from his. He acknowledges how "We are a social species, and we thrive in communities," but he just wants one community, one of atheists. Christians, Jews, and Muslims: he doesn't like you, remember? You live in that evil "city of faith." (But still, give him a call, and he'll happily work with you on some project or another, so he says. . . yet I thought he despised "interfaith" work. He’s given Chris Stedman of Harvard Humanists plenty of heat for his interfaith work.)

I think he really shows his charm (and by charm I mean creepiness) in which he sounds like an old testament prophet calling for the destruction of his peoples’ enemies:

I have a different metaphor for us, my brothers and sisters in atheism. We are not sheep; there are no shepherds here. I look out from this stage and I see 4000 pairs of hunter’s eyes, 4000 hunter’s minds, 4000 pairs of hunter’s hands. I see the primeval primate hunting band grown large and strong. I see us so confident in our strength that we laugh at our enemies. I see a people thinking and planning, fierce and focused, learning and building new tools to conquer new worlds.

You are not sheep. You, my brothers and sisters in atheism, are a fierce, coordinated hunting pack — men and women working together, and those other bastards have cause to fear us. So let’s do it: make them tremble as we demolish the city of god.

Look at this violent language, my goodness. We are wolves/hunters, going after bastards/sheep. Oh my. He wants religious people to TREMBLE now?? That's a battle cry if I ever heard one. What is the matter with this guy?! Well, he's a bully, and he gets off on it. Say things like we want to demolish the city of god, and see how far that gets atheists with political and social acceptance. Ah, but remember he doesn’t care about acceptance; in fact he doesn’t want it. PZ says:

Yesterday I was listening to our Christian protesters outside, and I thought, “Huh. So that’s what you get when you give a sheep a microphone, amplified bleating.” There they were, calling on everyone to deny the richness of human experience and join the flock in the narrow boring confines of the sheep pen, so mindless they didn’t even realize they were calling to the wolves.

Are we back in the state of nature? Wolves going after sheep. . . what kind of sick war is this? And why is it that science must cause war? Must the tribe with science on their side destroy the rest? We should all be worried about the psychology of warlike mentality.

Science is powerful and wonderful, but it is also cold and inhuman. I admire PZ's sincere passion for science, but don't let him sell you this idea that science club is the antidote to religion and god, as if science ought to completely fulfill everyone on some basic emotional level. It's one thing to tout science as the superior route to reality, which it is; it is quite another to say it's a cure-all for god. Something that is non-emotional (science) cannot kill something that is emotional (god).

Science isn't going to love you, make you feel purposeful or strong, make you feel connected to others, or give you hope when you are scared and feeling alone. I submit that without loving relationships and strong secular humanist communities and values, science cannot be the cure-all “god-killer.” Only simultaneously scientifically minded and humanist-minded secular communities can do it. The solution to religion and god is, and always has been, secular morality or secular humanism, which includes a naturalistic worldview and the supremacy of scientific method.

Secular humanist communities have to be more than just atheists convening to talk about why they are so much smarter and rational about religion and god (yes, we are right, religion is made up and god is a fantasy, and hooray for us). It’s fun to be right about it and all, but the glory wears off at some point, and you are left needing something that nurtures you because atheism doesn’t do that. Science doesn’t either.

Atheism has become a movement, and I’m proud to be a participant, but this is not enough. What we secular people desperately need is a strong humanist movement, and we need it now, before it's too late -- before PZ's cavalry arrives, and creates a chasm so wide between the religious and atheists that we've entirely alienated ourselves, which is never a good move for a minority group.

I've heard all the rationalizations for PZ style atheism -- "we're loud and proud and if the religious don't like to face reality, that's their problem." Actually, it is our problem because we don't want to lose separation of church and state (we are well on our way). And what isn’t helping are atheist messages about “killing god” and “assaulting heaven” and making the religious people "tremble" as the wolves eat their bloody sheep corpses, or whatever sick and twisted war fantasy PZ is into. In PZ's hands, the values fostered by science are the values of hateful war.

I don't want to be part of a hated minority. I want political and social acceptance, or at least civil toleration.

PZ is right to bring up communities, but the one he is offering is not appealing to the religious, and the problem is he knows that, and that's the point. But until we offer a community that unifies, that truly crosses secular and religious boundaries by focusing on a long list (more than 3) of shared humanist values, we are perpetually stuck with a zero-sum game with atheists on one side of the fence and the religious on the other. PZ knows this, and sadly that's how he wants it. All the same, minorities tend to not win at zero-sum games. Ah, but to be a real atheist we must not compromise, so we are told by the new atheists. I'm not saying we should keep quiet about our atheist beliefs -- I am an “out-atheist.” The new atheists like to try to trick us with false dichotomy that if we aren't confrontational then we are weak, or traitors to the cause.

Ah, but there is a middle ground. When a Christian asks you why you are an atheist, tell them. Hell, be the one to bring up your atheism first, but explain it in a non-threatening way (though it is difficult, and I struggle with it). Still, that is the only way that they may actually hear your reasoning. And don’t forget you are talking to someone who, like you, is both emotional and rational, and since they have emotional needs for god, you better speak to those first. The very first thing you must always do with an intellectual “opponent” is find some common ground. That’s just basic psychology. Always start a debate with a point you both agree on. The point of all this is to reason with the religious effectively, right? Well if you love science as much as PZ, you’ll want to reason in ways that the social sciences have demonstrated to be most effective.

I'm more hopeful than to believe that we are in an endless war on error. When a general recruits you for his army, be sure to question his strategy for winning first.

PZ asks for understanding that many atheists are angry. Religion makes me angry too, for the record. But I've learned that anger doesn't get you very far. Your opposition is still human. You'd better find some common ground with who you are angry with, if you ever hope to see the change you want.

Some Notes from John Shook’s’ Talk - "The Psychology of Religion, the Sociology of Theology, and the Humanist Strategic Response".

by Gary Berg-Cross

John Shook, author of The God Debates has much to say about the
public critics of religion, but at a recent WSH MDC chapter his
topic was “The Psychology of Religion, the Sociology of
Theology, and the Humanist Strategic Response". The talk was
partially inspired by Dan Dennett’s Breaking the Spell and
the new research advances to the scientific study of religion. One
expression of the idea is to: “study religion as a natural
phenomenon, as carefully as you might study the trajectory of a
baseball or the embryology of the mouse”. Recently,
the Center for Inquiry (CFI) held a conference called "Daniel Dennett and the
Scientific Study of Religion: A Celebration of the Fifth
Anniversary of Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural
Phenomenon. " Shook interviewed Dennett as part
of this workshop and this talk represented an update to
some the thinking in Dennett’s earlier book. Three type of
scientific studies have emerged those of brain, Behvipr
(cognition) & Belief (e.g.commitment) – as shown in the Picture at the top of this
Blog. Group practices, such as ritual conformity, can be seen as
connecting the Belief and behavior making it “ meaningful
belief” for such things as existential coping.

Only a small portion of these from Shook’s talk are covered in
these notes (and non of Lee's great food/snacks is available, for that you have
to come to the meetings), but an important point of departure concerns the
question of why religious belief phenomena happens. Why are
there religions? <As many have suggested there are
many explanations of why religion exists: as an

• explanation for what we don’t understand;


• psychological reaction to our lives and surroundings; as an expression of social needs;


• tool of the status quo to keep some people in power and others out;
  


• focus upon supernatural and “sacred” aspects of our lives; and


• evolutionary strategy for survival.

The old story is that such belief is based on some mixture of
fear, ignorance and mistake. The new view is a bit
different and argues that religious belief naturally
develops as part of human cognition. This makes sense when
we consider human curiosity mixed with such things as
reaction to tragedy within small group. Groups must
develop habits of correct conduct so we see the eventual
purposes of churches for group support. Deep
evolution of communication in human species from 1-2
million years ago, which allowed simple rituals which
religion evolved from and builds on. We’re not
sure when more organized beliefs to support group
dynamics arose as what we now think of as religion, but
a working guess is between 50 -100,000 yrs ago when
biological anthropologists and others speculate that a
superior narrative ability arose as a systematization of
earlier animism & magic into one with priests and
other baggage - a position of early researchers E.B. Tylor & James
Frazer. The good news is that religious evolution and
transformation is a step towards more intellectual
discovery. But this means more than disproving older theories that are
wrong if it is to lead to secularism. Among the points made and
argued in John’s talk were:

Brain Studies:

There is no religion brain or modules but religious thinking uses existing modules..
No amount of research helps provide evidence forsupernasturalism.But believers like that we see differences in brain activity during meditation and other quasi-religious
activities. It is really not surprising that we get brain activity responses that correlate with a
variety of unusual experiences.

Some will appeal to the brain as a direct cause of religion. But there are no pure brains. Brains are connected and encultured. It co-changes with culture.

And brains won't do everything, there are limits to what it does in isolation

But to do this the beliefs must conform to older universalmoral intuitions and must be able to explain some things in Why are the Gods of this era like us? Human-like error helps

Belief commitment:
There are consistencies between belief systems.

But belief correlates with error, sacrifice and risk are
problematic for believers and their supporters. How do such
systems survive?

The idea is that there are benefits/yields to consistent social benefits that
outweigh the downsides. So religions get social payoffs for
trust in some beliefs and committed behavior. They can get
away with false positive because we are not killed for false
belief like believing in spirits as we would about a belief
of wolves being in the woods.

Such beliefs helps groups get though hard times when there
are no rational solution.

But to do this the beliefs must conform to older universal moral intuitions and must be able to explain some things in some fashion.

So religions tend to use slightly, but only slightly, unnatural beings, usually anthropomorphic, like Gods that have human like qualities.

Stewart Elliot Guthrie argues that “Religion is Anthropomorphization Gone Awry”

They may employ naive psychology that most people have like the idea of
a mind without body. These are simple narratives and as
noted before seem to part of the human makeup.

Cultural anthropology is making progress on real roots of religion in terms of social
functions, animism, totenismm, ancestor worship (assuming
common ancestors), and magic to deal with problems. These
older ideas seem to have been systematized several thousand
years ago especially as part of “urbanization”.

As the river valley civilizations arose religion evolved like language.

Cities required shared duties and religion helped pass through the crisis of having
unrelated people living there by increased inclusiveness and
commonality. A group of people from diverse previously small
tribes are brought together as part if early city life. They
may then learn new skills - they may now be easily replaced
so they must learn skills. To conform they must converge
dialects and start to dress alike. They start to eat the
same foods from the same sources and they endure the same
hardships of living in close quarters (meeting many new
people each day), drought, shortages, prevent cheating etc
(See picture below). It takes quite a bit of work
to indoctrinate kids into all of this.

So early cities became
religious to handle high density and its problems. The Gods of religion had to evolve. People had
moved so were gods far away of not? Now they became gods for all people to relate people of different kinship.

This phenomena was seen early in Egypt & Dowism, but was an obvious solution
happened all around the world and was not a unique idea as was later claimed as part of Jewish
tradition. It had apath and polytheism was intermediate stage explaining how gods are related. The trend is seen from 3000 - 1000 BC where monotheism wipe out polytheism as an aid to managing
great empires.

During this time politics controls religion getting a lid on all them to help
perpetuate empire. Theology evolves to try to enhance
devotion with higher values that serve empire and religion.



With a common god the new urban masses have to becomes
‘fictitious kin’ to get along and make city life work.
Organized religion arose in these circumstances to serve
these needs. One of the new ideas is of a commonality to
humans, We are more than individual but we are also unique. A soul idea helps
explain that so religions start selling the idea of immortal
soul. It makes us we feel good as we are more than a small cog in big wheel of
city and empire, but there is always a tension, Do we have a soul capable of being punished?

John mentioned the work
of Scott Atran [Anthropologist, University of Michigan; Author of In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion and Pascal Boyer as people who help us understand some of the transition.

One of the important contemporary lessons that John argued is that religious
belief collapses when given social support. Evidence of this
is Western Europe is one phenomena that worries American
fundamentalists and explains some of their urgent efforts to
gain cultural influence and diminish secular influence.

Sociology can't say what theological religions are adaptive
or natural. It may have been in long past, but with cultural
change has forced a theological position.

John finished on some lessons for Ethical Secularist and these are shown in the
picture below. Lessons for humanists include the idea that
naturalism by itself can't handle ethics and that we need a
philosophy for modern morality and secular social justice to
relieve stress.

There was a spirited Q and A that followed including:

• Can science prove religion wrong?

• Sam Harris argument that science can provide morality.

• Harris bridges it with normative principles.


• Naturalism can serve, but not prove an ethics.

• How enlightened self interest serves group interest in a consequentialist
  stance

• How control by
  narratives comes in and precedes powerful rational thought

• Anthropomorphism
  of god vs animals.