Peace Corps

I'm getting ready to head off on my next adventure. I am currently working on a graduate degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. As my practicum I have chosen to do a program through the Peace Corps. On October 5th I will be leaving to spend the next 27 months in Samoa.

In my research on Samoan culture I have found that it is a very religious society. According to the U.S. State Department's International Religious Freedom Report 2007:

Nearly 100 percent of the population is Christian. The 2001 census revealed the following distribution of Christian groups: Congregational Christian, 34.8 percent; Roman Catholic, 19.6 percent; Methodist, 15 percent; the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), 12.7 percent; Assemblies of God, 6.6 percent; and Seventh-day Adventist, 3.5 percent. These statistics reflected continual growth in the number and size of Mormons and Assemblies of God and a relative decline in the membership of the historically larger denominations. The following groups constitute less than 5 percent of the population: Nazarene, Anglican, Congregational Church of Jesus, Worship Centre, Jehovah's Witnesses, Full Gospel, Peace Chapel, Elim Church, Voice of Christ, and Baptist.

 The importance of religion in Samoan society may have an effect on Peace Corps Volunteers as we will be expected to respect local customs. This doesn't necessarily mean we will be forced to participate in religious activities. However, doing so would probably help us gain the respect of our neighbors, coworkers, and other community members. In the Peace Corps's welcome book for new volunteers to Samoa they address the issue as follows:

Possible Religious Issues for Volunteers
Since Samoa is a Christian country, Volunteers may face the tag of being non-church going or an atheist if they do not attend church on Sundays, which can affect their acceptance into a village and thus their ability to succeed with all three of Peace Corps‘ goals. Sunday observance in Samoa is enforced, especially within the villages. Volunteers, despite their religious beliefs or affiliations, often find that participation in certain church services or activities, like singing in the choir, are useful for community integration and can be viewed as another aspect of the cross-cultural experience. For those who do not attend church services, you should refrain from any activities outside or inside the home that may be interpreted as being disrespectful of the holy day. Probably the biggest complaint Volunteers have about religion in Samoa is not having to go to church on Sundays, but the large donations made by villagers, including the poorer families, to support their local church and pastor. Volunteers often believe that the money donated to the church is more needed by families for things such as improved nutrition, better education of their children, home improvements, business development, etc. or needed to support the village school and village improvement projects. Although some Samoans also are starting to agree with this sentiment, Volunteers must recognize that this matter is very sensitive and should refrain from making their thoughts public in their village

I definitely feel like this will be an issue I will need to give myself a place to write about. I figure that this would be a perfect place to do so.

Same-sex Marriage and Free Will

Writing about same-sex marriage is never easy for me. As a gay man it should be rather important to me, and in many ways it is. The difficulty is in the fact that I don't really support the civil institution of marriage. I don't see why any government should be in the business of telling its citizens how to construct their relationships. More confusing still is when I hear people who argue for smaller government also arguing for new laws and constitutional amendments that specifically ban the freedom of a person to choose with whom to share her or his life. It doesn't take much time to clear this up, though.

If you know someone who is opposed to same-sex marriage ask her or him to give you a reason for their opposition that does not involve religion—a purely secular reason. My guess is they won't be able to do it. The closest I have heard is conjecture as to the financial interest aligned with marriage. Not only does this not seem practical to me—I haven't read any research on the topic—but I strongly doubt that the average person who opposes same-sex marriage does so for such a reason. (Not to mention that this issue is often put up to public vote and isn't decided by lawmakers per se.) 


The reason almost always (I say almost to cover my ass as I am more inclined to forgo the word entirely) is a moral one based on the individual's religion which more often then not in the US is Christian. Now, some of my friends might be prompted to address the biblical stance on same-sex relationship citing research on Mosaic law and the writings of Paul. While I find such discussions interesting, I don't really care about these discussions in relation to contemporary same-sex marriage debates because, frankly, they don't matter at all. The average Christian hasn't even read the bible let alone researched the writings of Paul, ancient Hebrew etymology, or sociopolitical landscapes of biblical times—that isn't the source of their opposition. (If you want to argue with a theologian or biblical historian it might be useful but it is not the aggregate of their votes which are deciding this ballot measure from state to state.) Their opposition comes from morality.

Enter the Christian concept of free will. Any discussion of morality with a Christian will likely result in a debate about free will. Without free will, morality is meaningless. If someone or something else is making your decisions for you or if you are simply incapable of decision then you are amoral. If the Christian believes that god opposes same-sex marriages and believes that god give us free will without which morality is meaningless how then can she or he oppose same-sex marriage?


If you believe your god gave me the right to choose right from wrong how dare you take my (supposedly) god-given free will from me?

The most useless word? continuted

I wanted to respond to the comment posted on my post The most useless word? because I want to clarify my stance. Where I take issue with the term "spiritual" or "spirituality" is in its relation to how people view atheism.

The term spiritual does little more than muddy up the waters of what could be a simpler dialog. When we are talking about belief in a god or gods we are necessarily talking about a dichotomy: either you accept the claim "god exists" to be true or you do not. There is no middle ground there is not "stepping stone" on which to rest. Where, for example, is the halfway point between yes and not-yes?

It may help at this point to use a piece of ordinary paper--the kind you use to (sparingly) print from your computer. Now draw a circle on that paper. At the top edge label the paper "Does god exist?" Within the circle write yes. Outside of the circle would be labelled not-yes. Not-yes includes everything that is not yes: maybe, I don't know, I don't care, I'm not sure, I guess so, etc.

I want to use this concept to talk about the idea of spiritual as a "stepping stone" in two ways. First, if one uses spiritual to describe "an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of their being" then they aren't talking about religion but rather self-discovery. While I still find it useless in this context I will refrain from going into detail on my thoughts about its use here.

The second way I'd like to use the concept of yes and not-yes is in regards to religion. Religion speaks to the belief in a god or gods. Therefore, if someone asks you if you are religious or inquire as to which religion you affiliate yourself and your answer is "I am spiritual" you have not really answered the question. My next question to you would be, "Do you believe in a god or gods?" which would really be a restatement of the first question. In this case there is not middle ground between whether or not one believes in a god(s). Either you believe that a god or gods exist or you do not believe a god or gods exist. Keep in mind that if your answer is ANYTHING but a resounding yes then you are an Atheist.

I would like to talk about what Atheism is in more detail but first I would also like to point out that it has been my experience (tell me if yours is different) that people tend to use the term spiritual almost exclusively in the following phrase: I'm not religious; I'm spiritual. If you have ever said this you are an Atheist. If you've ever spoken with someone who has said this you have spoken with an Atheist.

Contrary to popular belief, Atheism is not the belief that no gods exist. That would be a claim that would need to be supported by evidence. Atheism is the rejection of the claim that a god or gods exist as unsubstantiated by evidence. Imagine I flip a coin and hold it in my fist. Then, I tell you that the coin is facing heads up. I ask if you believe me. If you say "No" are you then saying that you believe the coin is heads down or are you simply saying that you don't have enough evidence to believe my claim?

This is why anything that is not a yes in the above situation is Atheism. If more people understood that this is what Atheism is, nothing more or less, I think the number of Atheists would skyrocket.

I hope that makes my stance on the term spiritual clearer.

Thanks for reading (and commenting!)

Zach

The most useless word?

What is the purpose of language? Why did language develop in the first place? These questions can seem difficult to answer and I wouldn't begin to claim to know the answer. However, we can make some broad assumptions--language was developed, at least partially, if not completely, to help us understand and categorize our thoughts and feelings and, perhaps more importantly, to share our thoughts and feelings with other people.

Wikipedia offers a figure of 6,912 current living languages (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinct_language) although it continues, in this article, to suggest that "90% of the circa 7,000 languages currently spoken in the world will have become extinct by 2050" . Language has evolved into a jungle of various combinations of sounds, grammatical nuances, and regional dialects. All of these variations communicate, to varying degrees of efficiency, ideas. But, I believe one word in the English species of language is profoundly less efficient than its linguistic cousins.

When asked what my beliefs are or what religion I am, I almost always hesitate. I want the words I choose to truly express my thoughts. Over the course of my life I have identified myself as Lutheran, Christian, Agnostic, Atheist, Agnostic-Atheist, Militant Atheist, Humanist, and, at times, spiritual. I still identify with many of these--even Christian when being asked about cultural religion. But, I have a particular problem with the last identity in the list, spiritual.

The term spiritual or spirituality offers me precisely zero information about what a person who claims that identity actually believes. If you were to ask me what religion I was I could, hypothetically, give any number of responses. For the most part, whatever response I give would trigger some sort of idea: Christian--Jesus Christ/the Trinity, Muslim--Mohammed/Allah, Jewish--Yahweh (YHWH), etc. But what comes to mind when someone says "spiritual"? Perhaps some sort of "new age" (perhaps just a synonym for spiritual) philosophy on life comes to mind but, then, what is the philosophy? What do spiritual people believe that separates them as a group from other religious thought?

I think there are reasons why people choose to identify as spiritual and not something more specific: it offers a neutral position for a person to take in the often heated and controversial discussions around religion. It offers a space where you can be both theist or atheist depending upon the crowd you are with and the semantic acrobatics you are willing to perform. I can imagine the spiritual person thinking, "I don't accept the claims of [insert religion here] but I don't want people to think I'm an Atheist." If this is how you think, congratulations, you are an Atheist at least in regard to that religion. Generally speaking, when someone identifies oneself as spiritual I more or less assume they are an atheist but just don't know it yet. Until you have identified what you do believe I think it is fair to assume that you don't believe (accept as true) any religion and that you are an atheist. That is the problem with the word spiritual: it doesn't tell me what you believe.

I am willing to accept that the term may offer some meaning to the individual or to a small group of people but only after they have agreed on what it is that actually do believe and have called spirituality.

Why not forgo the inherent confusion with an identity as convoluted as spiritual?

As always, I am interested in your thoughts.

Thanks for reading,

Zach

In the beginning

In my last post I asked how people believe the universe came into existence. I thought I might give my take on it.

I grew up as a member of the Wisconsin Synod Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS). I was taught many things about how this synod felt the universe was created. I was taught that God (who I only later learned was named Yahweh or Elohim) quite literally created the universe out of absolutely nothing in seven (7) days. Everything you or I can see, hear, touch, smell, or taste was brought into existence by this omnipotent being.

When I was in elementary school, I remember being fascinated with dinosaurs--many middle school children are, I suppose. I recall having to write a paper on these ancient earth-dwellers. When it came time to explain the existence of fossilized dinosaur bones, I asked my father for help. His response was interesting. It was certainly not a unique opinion among Young-Earth Creationist Christians. He told me to write that God put the bones in the Earth to test us. God had created the Earth with a trap, more or less.

This brings me to my difficulty with accepting creation stories including, and especially, the Christian account. To accept this creation story I think one would have to accept the Christian God as an immoral character who not only will send people to his prison of eternal torture, but who wants to send people there.

There is so much in the universe that this god would have to have created to intentionally trap people after having given them the tool needed to be caught by his traps--a mind. According to this belief, God created us with inquisitive minds. He made it possible (probable?) for us to explore the world around us. He gave us reasoning skills which we could use to understand the world around us. Then, he placed artifacts throughout the universe that would suggest that there are purely natural explanations for the origins of the universe and life. Afterward, we learn that this god requires us to believe in him and worship him and if we do not he will torture us for eternity. For eternity. If that god didn't want people to go to this place of torture then why did he create these traps? Why wouldn't he make his existence as creator completely unquestionable? These traps are immoral. If I created something and I didn't want it to be tortured I wouldn't also create traps for it, make up rules about what would cause it to be tortured, or even created a torture chamber in the first place.

I do understand that these points do not show that this god doesn't exist and, therefore, didn't create the universe. They only say that if these claims are true then that god is an ass. (If that offends you please understand that I think that anybody who threatens torture, who tortures anybody else for any amount of time, and especially anybody who would do it for eternity is an ass). I do reject creationist claims, though.

Now, if I do not accept creationist claims about the origins of the universe, what do I accept? I think that the best explanation that humans have developed is the "Big Bang". I am not a scientist. I am not an expert in physics. However, this explanation has something that no creation story has: observable evidence. To be clear, when I say "observable" I do not only mean things that we can see with our eyes but rather anything that we can measure using our senses. I am willing to hear about evidence for creation. Sadly, to date the only "evidence" I have seen isn't evidence in reality. What science does is looks at phenomenon--the existence of the universe--and tries to make explanations based on those observations. Pseudoscience (how most/all creationist theories I have seen, including Intelligent Design, would be classified) offers the explanation first and then looks for evidence to support that claim. That is not the path to truth.

Basically, I believe what the evidence points to: universal expansion from a singularity (Big Bang). I reject creationist claims because there is no evidence that I have been presented with that would suggest them.

Do you have evidence for creation? Please share it with me!

Gotta start somewhere...

I've been meaning to write this blog for sometime now. I would like to create a space for family, friends, and even strangers to hear more about my atheism and what it means to me. Additionally, I am hoping to hear criticism, gain new perspectives, learn, and grow from theists and atheists alike. As many people in my life know I am quite a loud atheist--I even refer to myself as a militant atheist. This position itself has led to some quarrels between myself and people in my life.

I want to make it more clear what and how I believe or disbelieve. I hope to embrace and promote reason, logic, and scientific inquiry. I want to know what you believe and why you believe it. Furthermore, I would like to know why you think anyone else should believe what you believe.

In my opinion, the best way to get to truth is through open, public discourse and criticism. So, please, ask me questions. Answer my questions. Debate me. Praise me. Ridicule me. I want to hear it all.

In the vein of getting started I would like to open up a discussion about the origins of the Universe. What do you believe to be the origins of the Universe? Do you believe that a being more powerful than us wished it into existence? Do you believe there are natural explanations of the origins of the Universe and that a creative entity is not necessary? Are you somewhere in the middle? Please feel free to comment or email me: wegner.zach@gmail.com

Thanks for reading!