Naked Negative Emotions

by Gary Berg-Cross

A pundit on the political scene recently summarized today’s conflict of raw emotions and suggested (I paraphrase) that Hate & Anger was winning out over Love and Happiness while Fear over Hope. These battle of opposites may be so, although dichotomizes are often a simplification that hides important complexities (see my discussion of Binary Thinking). Certainly this sports-game metaphorical judgment of winners and losers seems disturbing. We might also apply other psychological state ideas like apathy and cynicism in the political sphere. I guess there is more mention of this although since they aren’t binary ideas they don’t have as easy a comparison of one going up and thus the other down a zero sum game.

More broadly our system seems not to be handling distressful social and cultural problems, such as school, office and church shootings or racial and ethnic tensions.  It is easy to be on the negative side of emotions but we might more systematically expand that observation of what is abroad in the emotional and attitudinal space of the nation.  

Discrete emotion theory developed 2 decades or so ago (Fogel and friends) assumes that psychological states & emotions are phylogenetically adapted to serve the basic function of survival. That is, they are like a skill such as language learning and planning. Human emotions like reasoning serves a human purpose. 

And like a tree growing from a small acorn we might conceptualize them unfold from simpler states – feeling good or bad, being energized or not. Seeing a bear gets one energized. That’s basic for survival. Arousal is a primitive state as is its unaroused, relaxed state. If seeing a bear generates enough fear we may run away and survive. Babies have both but emotions can build on these as they develop. Being a social animal as well as one that can be eaten by bears some complex emotions like parental love are largely social in nature but are central to babies hence society surviving. There is developmental support for the idea that emotional expression like language expressions emerges, driven by maturation of the central nervous system but also social interaction.  Human children learn rules that modify and modulate emotional expression and behavior.  Simple experiments to test the theory reveal surprising results.  When people are told to hold a pencil between their teeth for some period of time (this uses the facial muscles involved with smiling) they afterwards reported feeling happy!  Discrete emotion theory, mentioned earlier, proposes functional values for each emotion, suggesting that patterns of particular neural activity in the brain causes the associated, subjective changes in feeling, but also in behavior. Behavioral changes make the theory testable.  These behaviors can be as simple as distinct sets of facial, vocal, respiratory, skin (measurable galvanicly), and muscular responses

During childhood certain repetitive emotional experiences, say anger situations, can develop traits and biases that will be a strong factor in interpersonal relationships later in adulthood. 

So it is bad for us as a culture if indeed Hate & Anger are winning out over Love and Happiness while Fear is dominating Hope.  Cultural systems can favor some emotions over others. An economic system that has a central base of fear and greed may be heading for a bit on trouble.  Sure fear is a core emotion, but so is happiness. Greed is more complex, although we can see kids hugging toys to preserve comfort and happiness.  Guilt is used by  cultures, including religious ones, as a balance on greed. Mary share your toys!

Indeed some negative emotions like resentment may act as moral checks on drives like greed.  It’s a question of balance. So hearing a binary contest of greed versus generosity just seems to be simplifying things too much.

But to be sure in the contemporary atmosphere the end result of emphasizing a negative emotion like fear or anger is to produce people and groups whose trait is being in the state of fear, or frustration or anger for long periods.  That’s unbalanced and bad for reasoning which usually requires some middle ground between excited and relaxed. 

Another opportunity to address "Whether atheists are angry, and if so why?"

By Gary Berg-Cross

"Why are atheists so angry?" is a perennial question. If you do a Google search on that phrase you get 279,000 hits!! This includes the Greta Christina Skepticon 4 talk on whether Atheists are angry & intolerant on YouTube. One might think that Greta's book, Why Are You Atheists So Angry?: 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless answered it, but it remains a popular topic and offers atheists a chance to explain themselves and their thoughts to a wider audience.

Every major publication offers an opportunity. A Sam Harris publication stirs the pot and you get him Debating with Dennis Prager using email exchanges. (Prager is a nationally syndicated talk radio host who trumpets the virtues of the Judeo-Christian tradition)… .

More recently P J Murphy posted a little article on Reddit in response to an earlier one that asked that question again - "Why are atheists so angry?" It's a pretty thoughtful & fact based response framed but with some emotion. I thought it worth sharing.

You can read the posting and its responses at Reddit, but I've copied his post below.


"... A little while back, Ricardo posted a question. It was a simple question, "Why are atheists so angry?", but the post soon evolved into a 100-comment slugfest. I guess he touched a nerve, even if some of the posts were off-topic. I was going to post to it, but I would have got in at the 94 comment mark, and given that the post would be very personal, I decided to answer at length in this note, instead. I didn't want to get lost in the static. For those who don't know me well, let me tell you a little secret. I am an Atheist. That doesn't mean that I hate God, or Jesus, it simply means that I have not been presented with sufficient compelling evidence to conclude that either exists. The same goes for Thor, Odin, Jupiter, Poseidon, Ra, Mithra, Shiva, Zeus, Venus, and all the rest. I don't believe that The Bible, The Torah, The Koran, or any other religious text has much basis in fact. I am explicitly not saying that there are not moral lessons and guidelines to be found in these texts. What I am saying is that I am not convinced that God created the Universe in 6 days, and that stories of Noah's flood have little basis in fact. I don't believe in Heaven, and I don't believe in Hell. (Actually, I do believe in hell. I have worked for Labour Ready.) I don't believe that there is a mighty, omnipotent and omniscient being who is perfectly willing to condemn me to an eternity of torment because I refuse to worship him.
Frankly, I think religion is a load of crap, and was invented by bronze-age cultures that didn't have the slightest clue was was causing the things that were happening around them. Locusts? Floods? Droughts? Diseases? We must have pissed off somebody pretty powerful. If we suck up to him, maybe he'll make things better. I could pepper this note with a bazillion quotes from history, but the best one is still from Seneca, a Roman senator: "Religion is regarded by the Common People as true, by the Wise as false, and by the Powerful as useful"

There is another, by Epicurus: "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
If he is both able and willing?
Then whence comes evil?
If he is neither able, nor willing
Then why call him God?" It can't be argued that religion has had an impact on human society, from its beginning, to the current time. I could recite episodes throughout history where religion has had an influence on our development. These influences have not always been beneficial, especially to those who have been "influenced". But that was then, and this is now. Ricardo asked, "Why are atheists so angry?" and I will tell you why I, an atheist, am angry. I am angry that, in Brazil, in March 2012, an 11-year-old-girl was taken by her mother to a doctor, who performed an abortion. Apparently, she had become pregnant with twins, as a result of sexual abuse at the hands of her stepfather. He had been fucking her since she was six years old. If she had carried the babies to term, both the twins and the girl would have died. The Catholic church in Brazil excommunicated the girl, her mother, and the doctor, but not the stepfather. After an outcry, the Vatican in Rome upheld the excommunication. But they still refused to excommunicate the stepfather. His sins weren't serious enough to warrant excommunication.
I am angry that, in 2012, a man in Singapore faces 2.5 years in prison for writing "God does not exist" on Facebook. There are six state-sanctioned religions. Atheism is not an option, it's a crime.
I am angry that Jessica Alquist, a 16-year-old girl fought to have a Christian prayer banner taken off the wall of her public school, and had her Facebook, Twitter, and telephone flooded with the most vile and reprehensible filth, generated by so-called Christians. Death threats, saying she should be raped, really, it drops the jaw just to read some of it. For so-called Christians to advocate the immediate murder of all atheists is a little overboard, in my opinion, but certainly not without its examples in history.
I am angry that polls reveal that voters would not elect an atheist to public office. I am even angrier that at least 15 states have laws on the books that prevent atheists from even running for public office. I am angry that the Roman Catholic Church, the only religion with its own goddamned COUNTRY, is so embroiled in money laundering that the scandalous nature of their finances boggles the mind. Nothing new here, folks.
I am angry That that same Catholic Church has engaged has engaged in a decades, perhaps centuries, long coverup of the systematic sexual abuse of little boys. "Just a few bad apples," they say. Well fuck you, and fuck your apples. If you're an apple vendor, it's up to YOU to find those bad apples and throw them out of the barrel. But don't bury the bad apples at the bottom of the barrel, and tell me that the barrel looks good when viewed from above.
I am angry that Islam has conditioned men to believe that women are livestock. There was a Western journalist who was covering the situation in Egypt who was mobbed, stripped and groped by a crowd of Egyptian men. When she went to the police she was treated with indifference, as in "you must have been asking for it". Fuck you, fuck your Burkhas, fuck your attitude toward women. Then again, what can you expect from a religion founded by a man who married a six-year-old? Although, to Mohammed's credit, he waited until she was nine to actually have sex with her.
I am angry that there are people who want prayer brought back into the schools....but not any prayer, just Christian prayer. I am angry that they want their Abrahamic creationist mythology taught with the same credence as evolutionary fact. I am angry that they want to perpetuate their methodology of indoctrination of children in a public and secular school system. Fuck that. Fuck your Creationist Museum, that portrays Jesus riding a raptor. There's an interesting rodeo event for you. Ride a raptor, and if he throws you before 8 seconds, he gets to eat you.

But, I am not completely angry. I am grateful that I can identify as an Atheist in 2012, and not have to worry about being tortured, having my property confiscated, and having my books burned. I am grateful that I will not be shunned, outcast, sent away from family, home, and employment. I am grateful that, even though I am an atheist, I can find someone who will sell me food and clothing, and rent me a warm place to sleep. I am grateful that I can YouTube video recordings of lectures by Dawkins without worry of the Church Police kicking down my door and dragging me away. Did you know that George Carlin would have been burnt at the stake as few as 400 years ago? Did you know that the Catholic Church finally got around to admitting that Galileo had a point, and that the Earth really does revolve around the Sun? They did, they really admitted it. in 1992. I am happy, almost ecstatic, that I am present at the time that humanity finally sheds the shackles of superstition. I am delighted to see the consternation of the power structure of religion quaking in its boots as their membership and their finances dwindle. It fills me with optimism as the youth of our race turn their backs on centuries of oppressive mythology and instead embrace the precepts of knowledge and fact. Religion is a small island of superstition, fear, and control, and I smile as the tide of logical thought, knowledge and fact rises to force it under the waves. So, Ricardo, I have to say that I am angry as I look out the side windows. I am angry as I look out the rear-view mirror. But when I look down the road, I am happy, because I see all religions taking their rightful place amongst the discredited mythology of ancient Egypt, Rome, and Greece. And when Yahweh and Allah dine with Zeus it shall be a glorious day, indeed." P. J. Murphy

The Anger, Frustration, Disappointment and Disgust Spectrum

by Gary Berg-Cross

Speakers at the recent Reason Rally provided a bushel of views on current topics often from different perspectives and with different tones. At one end some focused on a positive, diplomatic tone making an easily palliative case for more reason in our affairs. This plays well in the mainstream media, or at least it can. Others employed a humorous-ironic approach that makes for good sound bites, but ridicule and mockery may make some religious fundamentalists more entrenched in their beliefs. Still others like, Greta Christina & new Atheist Richard Dawkins were at the more challenging end. They touch on anger and confrontation in part. These 2 contrasting soft, strategic-diplomatic versus hard-confrontational stances represent an important difference of opinion in the atheist/non-theist movement. It’s been evident on this Blog on discussion such as the God Virus, where Edd Doerr argued that we humanists need to work with a broad spectrum of people, some of whom bear assorted religious labels. From his experience a key to the long term vision of a more humanistic world is a more diplomatic approach since you will never persuade anyone to your point of view by ridiculing them or treating them with contempt. What he stresses is:

“found in these words: strategy, strategy, strategy, timing, sequence, framing, prioritizing. A bull in a china shop approach, like that of Madalyn O'Hair is what is really counterproductive.”

Matt Goldstein (Explicit Atheist), commenting on this blog, is more like the Dawkins and Christina end, which sees a need not to accept irrational beliefs. Dawkins has put it thusly: “It is not a good strategy to accept intolerance because it is widespread.” We can argue about things like intolerance without insulting
the believers. This comes across as a bit more reasoned than Rally organizer David Silverman’s loud, naked call for "zero tolerance" for anyone who disagrees with or insults atheism. His simple message is, "Stand your ground!"

It was interesting to see how the talks at the Rally (and later follow ups in the media such as Up with Chris Hayes) addressed these alternative ideas. Greta Christina, prominent atheist & LGBT issues blogger & frequent Secular Student Alliance and the Center for Inquiry speaker, takes a confrontational stance, but like Matt has some nuance. On NPR she said, “I’m not sure it is to atheists’ benefit to always present a kinder, gentler face.”

Her talk took, on what seemed a personal challenge to explain to the Public as a whole why exactly atheists seem angry and outraged at times. This was in effect an abstract from her new book Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off The Godless. Some in the media see this as a non-starter, but if they paid attention to her talk you can see that she argued smoothly and pivoted from a list of complaints to an explanation
for the deeper feelings - most non-theist’s “anger” is less about religious belief than injustice. She argued, in paraphrase, that the public misunderstands the basis of our nuanced motivation:

“We atheists aren't angry because we're selfish, or bitter, or joyless. We atheists are angry because we have compassion. We atheists are angry because we have a sense of justice. We see millions get harmed by religious culture and our hearts go out to them. We are motivated to do something about it. That’s not because there is something wrong with us, it is because there is something right with us. “

Dawkins, as always is eloquent (“Evolution is not just true, it's beautiful”), but like Hitchens feels it important if not necessary to take a strong stand and organize the troops against are real dangers that flow from some outrageous beliefs. He encourages people not just to take intellectual issue with religious teachings, and accept them innocently but to show "contempt" for it and to "ridicule" religious belief. But like Greta he deepens the ideas noting that:

“He doesn’t despise religious people. I despise what they stand for.”

By this he might mean some of the positions of interference and counter productivity that Greta lists such as fighting the teaching of evolution.

Certainly this debate and discussion will go on and there is merit in the contrasting positions. One point that I would make builds on Greta discussion on the roots of what she called atheist anger. I see it as more than an anger emotion. When some religious person uses words to an ancient book to castigate a group I have many thoughts as well as emotions. And there is a spectrum of them depending on what I think. I am disappointed of course and hope for progress over time. I may be terrified that people actually believe the things they claim to believe and the implications of this based on movements. I may be disgusted with their choices and mockery of things like evolutionary and climate science. Rather than angry I’m often just plain sad about the state of people’s epistemological affairs of perception pushing aside reality.