12 Step for Atheists: An Interview with “Get Up” Author Bucky Sinister

Drug_cocktail

If you’re an atheist, and you have a problem with alcohol or other drugs, how do you get help?

The most widespread, most easily- accessible help available to alcoholics and other addicts is 12 Step programs, originally and most famously Alcoholics Anonymous. But while 12 Step groups are open to people of any religious persuasion — including atheists, agnostics, and other non-believers — the language of the program is heavily based in religion, and people who don’t believe in God may feel that they’re not welcome, or that the program doesn’t apply to them.

Getup

If that’s your excuse for not getting help — tough beans. Atheist author and poet Bucky Sinister has written a 12 Step guidebook with a clear message: You’re welcome into 12 Step, and the program applies to you. Get Up: A 12 Step Recovery Guide for Misfits, Freaks & Weirdos is a smart, funny, enlightening, eminently readable guide to 12 Step programs for anyone who feels like they don’t belong in 12 Step programs — including, although by no means limited to, non-believers.

Bucky is an atheist with a background in both fundamentalism and cult religion, and his atheism pervades his book in ways both overt and subtle. The philosophy in the book is surprisingly useful even if you’re not an alcoholic or addict, with an approach that’s both empathetic and hard-assed, and with helpful and entertaining analogies ranging from Joseph Campbell to the A-Team. We spoke recently about the book — a conversation that included higher powers, skeptical problems with 12 step, the war on drugs, Britney Spears, what makes good writing good, and more.

(Quick conflict of interest alert: Bucky is a friend and former co-worker of mine, and the company I work for, and where he used to work, sells the book.)

Greta: First, for people who aren’t familiar with your book, tell us a little bit about it — and what inspired you to write it.

Bucky: “Get Up” is the book I wish I’d had during my first year of sobriety. I revisited what all my fears, insecurities, and misconceptions of 12 Step Recovery were all about. The same problems I had a lot of other people have, and will have, therefore, it’s a good subject for a self help book.

Scarlet leter

Your atheism is very much present throughout this book. It’s not just in the section on The God Problem — it comes up again and again, and it seems like it’s one of the book’s central foundations and inspirations. Can you talk about that a bit? Did your atheism present any special challenges when you were first getting sober — and how does it work for you now?

12 Step is not a religious program, although the word “god” is used all over the place. The problem is that it was designed by Christian-minded people, and they didn’t have the vocabulary to describe it properly for the atheist. It’s like when someone says, “now don’t take this the wrong way,” then say something horribly offensive. The 12 Step pioneers really were trying to make things open to everyone.

In that vein, I’m curious: Why wasn’t “atheism” or “atheist” in the title? Again, the atheism is so pervasive throughout your book, so much a part of what informs it, and I’d think you’d want it to be the first thing that comes up when people Google “12-Step + atheist.” Why wasn’t it called, say, “Get Up: A 12-Step Guide to Recovery for Misfits, Freaks, Atheists, & Weirdos”?

The titling process was long and weird and I can’t remember the process. Sorry. We went over a bunch of them. I like your last title.

The main idea for the book, is that it should appeal to anyone who feels a bit like an outsider, or that the current programs don’t speak to them.

One of the things that struck me most strongly about “Get Up” is what a good read it is — funny, engaging, a real page- turner even if you’re not an alcoholic or an addict. Was that intentional? Were you hoping to illuminate this experience for non-addicts, or were you aiming solely to create a guide for alcoholics and addicts?

Oh, good. I wanted it to be a good read.

Without getting specific, most of my program’s official literature is poorly written. It’s an ordeal to get through. The reason for this is that people who are not writers wrote the books. It’s like reading someone’s first novel. It’s not that bad, but it’s not good either.

Chuck-klosterman-iv

I’ve read a lot of nonfiction about subjects I know nothing about. If it’s written well enough, it doesn’t matter. I recently read Chuck Klosterman’s IV. It’s all music writing, and it transcends the subject matter. His Britney Spears article is amazing, and I’ve never listened to one of her songs unless it was playing at the gym. I also read about sports I’ve never watched; I’ve read more pieces about boxing than I have seen boxing matches.

So yes, it’s intentional. The mark I wanted to reach is for the writing itself to be good, entertaining, enjoyable to read. That’s what keeps a self-help book from sounding preachy. It’s like what Bill Cosby used to say at the beginning of the Fat Albert cartoon: “This is Bill Cosby coming at you with music and fun, and if you’re not careful, you might learn something before it’s done.”

And I was surprised at how useful a lot of the advice was… even if you’re not an alcoholic or an addict. I’m not an addict or in recovery, but a lot of the advice for struggling writers and artists was dead-on, stuff I struggle with all the time. (The stuff about being consumed with envy of more successful writers really hit me: I do that, and it’s such a waste of time and energy.) Again, was that intentional? Or were you just aiming at an audience of people dealing with addiction?

All of the stuff in 12 Step programs is good advice. There’s a lot of things that seem obvious to well adjusted people. They learned it as children, or during the teenage or college years. I didn’t. I had abnormal parents and as soon as I should have been developing my teenage sense of socialization, I was getting loaded. Most addicts and alcoholics are missing some important part of development. 12 Step programs are diagnostic in the sense that in the course of following steps, you will find out what your Big Problem is. I think the step work would be good for anyone to do, but it’s hard, scary, and against your personal instinct. The only people who are motivated to go to such lengths are those of us who have hit bottom, and even then, most people don’t get through them.

Now for the hardball. There are a couple of questions that I know the atheists/ skeptics/ science- lovers reading this blog are going to want to see asked.

Addictiondependence1

The first: One of the criticisms of 12-Step is that so many of its proponents are so resistant to having it rigorously tested, to see how effective it really is. If alcoholism/ drug addiction really is an illness, the argument goes, then any treatment of it should be subjected to the same kind of careful scientific testing that any other medical treatment of any illness gets. Otherwise, you just have a lot of anecdotal
evidence, and confirmation bias, and counting the hits while ignoring the misses. But many 12-Step proponents are strongly resistant to this, and carefully- gathered statistics about what percentage of people who go into 12-Step stay clean and sober are lacking. What are your thoughts about that?

First off, I think addiction and alcoholism are symptoms of a greater problem. I don’t have any hard facts for this, it’s just my opinion. So I disagree with the idea that it’s a disease as such. But I can’t discount the disease angle either, so I usually don’t mention it.

I do think that there should be research into drugs that would reduce physical cravings for all the substances. There should be a new Methadone, an anti-crack, an anti-amphetamine. In just about every major city it will take you about two weeks to get in a Methadone program, but about half an hour to score heroin.

US_incarceration_timeline-clean

The war on drugs wasn’t on drugs, but on drug addicts and the poor. It only hurt those that used and the low-end dealers. That’s another rant. Do you know how hard it is to get into rehab and sober living environments? If half the war on drugs money had been spent on these two environments, San Francisco would have a tiny fraction of its homeless problem, and petty crimes would disappear. No one is smashing car windows for food money. Ugh. I’m ranting now. Back to the subject.

Okay. So one more in a similar vein: Another criticism of 12-Step that I’ve seen a lot in the skeptical community is how resistant so many 12-Step proponents are to the idea that any other treatment might be effective. What are your thoughts about that? Do you think 12-Step is the one best technique for recovery, or do you think different recovery techniques might work for different people?

Getting sober is one thing. Living sober is another. Living sober is much harder. You have to change your whole way of looking at life. 12 Step is free and accessible. That’s why I stuck with it despite my initial hesitations. I could afford nothing else. It’s a community-based healing system. I like that.

Clinical rehabilitation is the best way to get sober, under medical supervision. But once you leave, you need to live a different life. Your friends and loved ones likely don’t know what you’re going through or how to help you. I am much less of a burden on my friends with a community I’ve found to help me.

Praise

You have an interesting take on the whole “higher power” concept in “Get Up,” and I’d like to hear a little more about it. You make an interesting point in the book: that in 12-Step, the “higher power” theoretically isn’t limited to one religion and can be anything… and yet, as you put it, “The problem with all this is that all of the qualities ascribed to the 12-Step God only describe one God ever in the history of theology: the Protestant Christian God.” Can you talk about that for a bit? How much tinkering did you have to do with the steps to make it genuinely applicable to full-blown atheism?

I don’t believe in a deity. That’s the basis of my atheism. Very simple.

Like I said before, it [12-Step] was designed by Christian people, at least culturally they were. They exclude everyone but themselves if you take everything literally. Even Catholics are supposed forego the priest and other spiritual intermediaries, if you look at it from their viewpoint. They say god can be anything you want, but the qualities of god are such that you can communicate with it directly. That precludes (excludes?) a lot of religions.

If I were to believe in a god, I would not be so pretentious as to assume that I had direct contact with it or that it was even aware of my existence, much less was reading my thoughts on a continual basis.

There’s a few things that I have to translate, namely prayer.

Prayer. This to me is self affirmation. I’m talking to myself. Each time I “pray,” I’m reminding myself that I have resolved to lead a new life, even if it’s suddenly more difficult than it seems. For example, when I feel like I’m about to lose my temper, I say the serenity prayer to myself. It reminds me that I have to change the way I live to have a new life. Blowing up emotionally is directly related to my old life of being unhappy and miserable. I have to learn how to control my temper if I’m going to be the person that I want to be… who is my “god” in the prayer. Like I’m asking myself from the future to help me.

So on that topic: You talk in the book about how you personally interpret the “higher power” concept in 12-Step — for you, your “higher power” is your better self, your ideal self, the person you would most like to be. Can you talk about some other conceptions and interpretations of the “higher power,” ones that have worked for other atheists and non-believers?

Irony

Irony and metaphor have some kind of rule in my life. Irony, such as going to church basements for help with my addictions that rose from trauma suffered in church buildings, pops up throughout my day to day life. Metaphorically, I see things like a pigeon pecking at a cigarette butt, and think, that’s me, and suddenly I have an insight to how my day should work, or I get out of an emotional funk or whatever.

So I consider irony and metaphor higher powers as well. They exist outside of me, but not without my perception of them. Does that make sense or do I sound like a tinfoil hat wearing man now?

You don’t. I wouldn’t have thought of irony and metaphor as higher powers, but I can see how that might work.

And finally, a quick practical question: How do atheists find an atheist- friendly 12-Step group? And if they can’t — if they’re in a part of the country, say, where that’s really not an option — how would you suggest they deal with the religion question if they want to go into the program?

Be patient with the religious people. I think in a few hundred years, religion won’t be any more serious than what your favorite TV show is now. But we’re still in a phase of existence in which most people still aren’t ready to let go.

For those with some 12 Step experience, I’d strongly suggest starting a meeting. There are men’s meetings, women’s meetings, GLBT meetings, young people’s meetings… why? Because there are specific needs that can be met this way.

Not that you should exclude the religious from these meetings. You should just exclude the talk. And hold it somewhere that’s not in a church basement, please.

Bucky_Sinister_photo

Bucky Sinister is a spoken word artist who performs about 40 times a years at comedy clubs and theaters, primarily on the West Coast, but also around the country. He has published nine chapbooks and three full-length collections of poetry, the most recent being “All Blacked Out & Nowhere to Go.” His first full-length CD, “What Happens in Narnia, Stays in Narnia” was released in 2007. “Get Up: A 12 Step Recovery Guide for Misfits, Freaks & Weirdos” is available at Powell’s, Amazon, Last Gasp, and other fine booksellers everywhere. He can be contacted through his website, buckysinister.com. He also has a MySpace page with some good, funny audio clips of his stand-up comedy/ spoken word. “Get Up” is published by Conari Press, an imprint of Red Wheel/Weiser.

12 Step for Atheists: An Interview with “Get Up” Author Bucky Sinister
{advertisement}

Election Snippet: John McCain and Corporate Lobbyists

Today’s election snippet:

John McCain has worked hard to create an image of himself as an independent politician who isn’t connected with, or beholden to, the big- money, big-corporation special interests that are making American politics such a nightmare. He has said, “I’m the only one the special interests don’t give any money to.”

This piece on the Mother Jones blog details the deep and wide connections between John McCain and big corporate- interest lobbyists… in particular, lobbyists for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, late of the subprime mortgage debacle. Including several campaign staffers. Including a campaign staffer who was Fannie Mae’s head of lobbying. And including his actual campaign manager, who served as president of a lobbying association that fought to protect Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae from regulation.

And if you prefer your information in video form, here’s a video, also detailing the deep and wide connections between McCain and big corporate lobbyists. (Video below the fold.)

Continue reading “Election Snippet: John McCain and Corporate Lobbyists”

Election Snippet: John McCain and Corporate Lobbyists

A Patchwork of Income: Making a Living as an Artist

Writing

I had this revelation recently about making a living as a writer. It came to me kind of absurdly late in my career, given how obvious it’s now seeming. And it’s occurred to me that, if it took me almost twenty years to figure this revelation out, there might be some other struggling writers and artists who haven’t figured it out yet, either.

So I’m going to share the wealth. If you’re a writer — or any kind of artist — trying to make a living at it, here’s the advice I wish I’d gotten ten or fifteen years ago.

OceansEleven

For years, I’ve been thinking about making a living as a writer in terms of the One Big Score. The major- publisher book deal. The regular gig for the big-name magazine. That sort of thing.

And as a consequence, I’ve had a tendency to think of littler scores — moderate bits of income from smaller publishers — as a low priority. I’ve always been happy to get them, of course; but I’ve tended to look at the littler scores as stepping stones, ways to get my name more widely recognized, so I could make bigger and bigger scores… which would also be stepping stones, on my way to the One Big Score.

(I should know better. I’ve seen enough crime/ adventure movies to know how dumb it is to stake your life and career on One Big Score…)

But I realized recently — somewhat to my surprise — that I’m actually making a fair living as a writer. I’m not yet working full- time at it, or making my full living off of it. But I am making something that vaguely resembles real money — a substantial portion of my income, money that I use to pay actual bills and stuff — from my writing.

And it’s coming from lots of small and moderate -sized payments, from lots of small and moderate -sized publishers and sources.

In no particular order, it’s coming from:

Advertising income from my blog
Donations and subscriptions to my blog (thanks, everybody!)
Regular columns for online periodicals
One-time projects for anthologies or other publications
Royalties from book sales

(And I’m not counting the fact that about 75% of what I do in my day job is copywriting and book editing.)

Calculator

No one piece of this is hugely substantial. But it all adds up: not quite to an income, not yet anyway, but to a genuine part-time job. (And a nice side benefit of a patchwork income is that, if one piece of it falls through, it’s not a disaster. It’s a temporary annoyance.)

Oh. One more essential thing. (She said sneakily, saving the zinger for last.)

Many of these little pieces?

I wouldn’t have them if it weren’t for the blog.

Money

And not just the obvious pieces, either: the ads, the donations. Both of my current regular gigs for online publications — the Blowfish Blog gig and the FriendFinder/ Alt.com gig — I got, at least in part, because publishers or friends of publishers knew about my blog. Some of my anthology pieces and other one-time paid gigs are reprints of blog posts… and that’s becoming increasingly true as I build a larger body of work here. And the blog — and the fact that I can do ad trades with other blogs — is becoming one of the primary ways that I promote my books.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: If you’re writing, you have to blog. You just do. I — don’t look at me that way. Point that gun somewhere else. Get off the window ledge. I know that blogging is a time suck. I know that it feels like you’re giving away for free what you’re trying to make a living at. I know that a blog takes a lot of work to do right… and an insane amount of patience to stick with for long enough to get any kind of traffic and traction out of it.

But here’s what I’ve said before, and will say again: If you’re a writer in the early 21st century, and you don’t blog? It’s like being a pop musician in the mid 20th century, and refusing to let your songs be played on the radio. You’re denying yourself what is probably the single most powerful outlet currently available for publicizing your work.

That’s all something of a side point, though. It’s an important side point, and one I’ll continue to evangelize about; but it is a side point. So let me get back to the main point.

Which is this:

Patchwork quilt

Building a writing career, or any sort of artistic career, is very rarely about getting the One Big Break, scoring the One Big Score. It’s more like sewing a patchwork quilt. No one piece of a patchwork quilt is going to keep you warm… but all of them sewn together can do a pretty decent job of it.

By all means, keep trying for the Big Score. But don’t neglect the little scores while you’re at it. If you can get enough of them, the little scores can add up to a genuine career.

A Patchwork of Income: Making a Living as an Artist

Brief Blog Semi-Break/Open Thread

I’m going out of town for a long weekend, leaving Thursday and coming back Sunday. Our neighbors are looking after our home and our cats while we’re gone, but I may or may not have reliable Internet access. If I do, I’ll do a blog post or two; but if you don’t see me until Sunday or Monday, don’t be surprised.

In the meantime, talk amongst yourselves. Let’s pretend it’s a job interview. Where do you see yourself in five years? What do you think is your greatest weakness? And if you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?

Brief Blog Semi-Break/Open Thread

Tee Hee, You Said “Bonk”

Bonk
This review was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

If ever a book was tailor- made for me to enjoy, this is it.

I’m a huge science nerd. I’m a huge sex nerd. How could I not love a book called Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex?

Well, let me tell you how. Exactly.

First, I should disclaim for a brief moment: Bonk is not a terrible book. The subject matter — the history of the scientific study of sex, and some of the more interesting examples of its current state — is a compelling one, loaded with fascinating ideas both about sex itself and the appallingly/ entertainingly conflicted attitudes society has about it. And the author — Mary Roach, celebrated author of Stiff and Spook — is no slouch. She’s a thorough researcher and a clear, fun writer, adept at taking complicated and potentially boring scientific ideas and making them accessible to the lay reader.

Beavis_and_Butt-head

Please note that I refrained from making a childish, Beavis and Butthead- esque sex joke about the “lay” reader.

Which brings me to the problem.

The problem is this: The author’s attitude towards sex is annoyingly adolescent, bouncing back and forth between giggling and gross-out Especially when it comes to some of the more unusual or extreme sexual variations she’s writing about.

And that really gets up my nose. It’s irritating; it’s insulting to my intelligence… and it leads to some actual misinformation.

Take this. From the introduction, discussing the fact that she injected some of her personal experiences into the book:

My solution was to apply the stepdaughter test. I imagined Lily and Phoebe reading these passages, and I tried to write in a way that wouldn’t mortify them. Though I’ve surely failed that test, I remain hopeful that the rest of you won’t have reason to cringe. (p. 18)

Well… no. Why would I cringe? I’m reading a book about sex. Why would I cringe at descriptions of the author’s sexual experiences, or responses, or participation in sex studies?

In fact, I did cringe when reading this book. Repeatedly. But it wasn’t because the author was being too sexually explicit. It was because she was clearly cringing herself.

Or this:

One research team collected specimens of the expulsion [female ejaculate] and asked outsiders to characterize it. It is a testimony to the generosity of the human spirit that these volunteers both smelled and tasted the specimens. (p. 198)

Smart girls guide to the g spot

Hey, you know what? I have both smelled and tasted female ejaculate. And it didn't require any “generosity” on my part. I was, to put it mildly, happy to do it. Admittedly it wasn’t in a laboratory setting… but the point remains that not everybody would need to search for the generous spirit in their hearts in order to take part in this experiment. If Ms. Roach is grossed out by female ejaculate and would need to buck herself with a spirit of volunteerism in order to smell and taste it, that certainly doesn’t make her unqualified to be a sex writer… but her blithe assumption that everyone shares her reaction is a pretty big strike against her.

Or this:

I’m not saying there’s a link between Catholicism and sex toys. I’m just saying I’ve got a brand-new interpretation of Isiah 49:2 (“The Lord… hath made me a polished shaft”). (p. 216)

Tee hee. You said “shaft,” Beavis.

And my final example before I move on:

In one of the sections on erectile dysfunction, Roach has a fairly long and detailed discussion about cock rings. But the discussion focuses almost entirely on cock ring mishaps — trips to the emergency room and whatnot — resulting from too-tight cock rings made of too-rigid materials.

Cock ring

And nowhere in this odyssey of penile disaster does she mention that the majority of cock rings are flexible and removable: made of stretchy material such as leather or rubber, and fastening with snaps or laces or Velcro or some such for easy removal. If you read Bonk and had never heard of a cock ring before, you wouldn’t come away thinking, “Hm, interesting, that could be a nifty alternative to Viagra.” You’d come away thinking, “Who in their right mind would do something that stupid?” And you’d come away misinformed. I don’t know if Roach didn’t know about flexible/ removable cock rings, or if she simply chose not to mention them because the disasters were funnier. And I don’t much care. Either excuse is, well, inexcusable.

I understand that she’s trying to present her subject with humor. That’s not the problem. I’m all in favor of the humor, and have even been known to apply it to the topic of sex myself from time to time. But there are varieties of humor available to a writer other than adolescent fits of grossed-out giggles. And they’re rather more appropriate to sex writing… both for an adult writer, and for an adult audience. I hate, hate, hate sex writing by writers who seem embarrassed by their topic.

Technology of orgasm

It might be easier to talk about what this book does wrong by comparing it to a book that does it oh so right. The Technology of Orgasm: Hysteria, the Vibrator, and Women’s Sexual Satisfaction is hilarious. It had me laughing out loud on roughly every tenth page… a feat that Bonk almost never accomplished. And at no point in the book did I get even a whiff of a sense that the author was embarrassed by her topic. Quite the contrary. Rachel Maines approaches sex in general, and the history of vibrators in particular, with an earthy, blunt, clear-eyed gaze, and no embarrassment whatsoever.

And that absolutely does not interfere with her humor. Heck, it’s the foundation of it. Maines is vividly aware of how laughably absurd sex — and people’s reactions to it — can be. But she doesn’t find the very existence of sex to be the source of the laffs. Her humor isn’t the humor of discomfort. It’s not the unnerved giggle of an adolescent; making light of sex to dilute its importance, and making a show of being repulsed by it to deflect the powerful hold it has.

Roach’s humor in Bonk, alas, is exactly that.

And while it doesn’t make Bonk completely unworthy, it does turn it into an interesting but irritating book… when it could have been a great one. I have rarely opened a book with so much excitement and anticipation. And I have rarely closed it with so much frustration at the opportunity it missed.

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex. By Mary Roach. W.W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-06464-3. Hardcover. $24.95.

The Technology of Orgasm: Hysteria, the Vibrator, and Women’s Sexual Satisfaction. By Rachel P. Maines. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-801866-46-3. Trade paper. $17.95.

Tee Hee, You Said “Bonk”

Election Snippet: McCain on the Environment and Global Warming

Today’s election snippet:

John McCain on the environment.

McCain often talks a good talk about environmental issues. He’s no dummy, and he knows issues like global warming are important to voters. But according to this article in Salon.com:

All you have to do is look at his voting record. It reveals that McCain has long been one of the strongest opponents of clean energy in Congress, with a record matching that of James Inhofe, the most hardcore global-warming denier in the Senate, who comes from the heart of the oil patch in Oklahoma.

Read the whole article. It really is quite astonishing. For someone who so publicly prides himself on being a “straight talker” and a “maverick,” he sure does talk out of both sides of his mouth… and his voting record sure does line up with the hard-core conservative Republican Party.

Which is bad enough when it comes to things like abortion and gay rights.

But here’s the thing about global warming. If global warming doesn’t get handled, no other political issue will matter. If global warming doesn’t get handled — game over. The human race will be dead or in chaos, and issues like abortion and gay rights, health care and immigration, religious freedom and national defense, will be about as irrelevant as you can get.

And as much as we don’t need political leaders who deny global warming and pretend it isn’t important, we even more don’t need political leaders who deny that they deny it. We don’t need leaders who lead us to believe that they take global warming seriously and are planning to take real action… when, in reality, they’re voting with stinking rich oil companies to make them stinking richer, and blowing smoke up our asses.

Election Snippet: McCain on the Environment and Global Warming

Against Simultaneity: The Blowfish Blog

Please note: The piece that this post links to includes references to my personal sex life. Family members and others who don’t want to read about that stuff may want to skip this one.

Simultaneous orgasm

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. It’s about the ideal of sexual simultaneity, the idea that both partners in sex should get aroused and satisfied on more or less the same timeline… and how this ideal can screw up sex.

It’s titled Against Simultaneity, and here’s the teaser:

My first problem: Women and men tend not to have the same patterns and timetables of arousal and satisfaction. Women generally take longer: to get aroused in the first place, as well as to reach orgasm. We have our compensations, of course, in the form of multiple orgasm — but even that means that we take more time.

So if you’re a hetero couple trying to ride the “arousal and climax” train together, one of two things is likely to happen. The man has to try to rein in his pleasure so he doesn’t arrive before his partner. Or the woman never arrives at all.

Or, in the worst case scenario, both.

And while holding off on climax can certainly increase your own pleasure as well as your partner’s, there’s a point at which it stops being a deliciously prolonged tease that works you up into a frenzy… and starts becoming a chore, a mental exercise that detaches you from your body and your partner and the pleasures of the here and now.

Fuck that noise.

(And yes, for the purposes of this piece, I am assuming heterosexuality… for reasons I explain in the post.)

To find out what my other problems are with the ideal of simultaneity — and what I propose as an alternative — read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

Against Simultaneity: The Blowfish Blog

Election Snippet: Nobel Scientists for Obama

In this video, Marty Chalfie, one of this year’s winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, explains why he — along with 61 other Nobel Laureates in science — is supporting Barack Obama.

I’ll be talking more in future Election Snippets about the role of science in this election… and the respect, or lack thereof, that the candidates have shown towards science. But I need to post and run today, so today, it’s just the video.

Video below the fold. Enjoy!

Continue reading “Election Snippet: Nobel Scientists for Obama”

Election Snippet: Nobel Scientists for Obama

What Convinced You? A Non-Belief Summary… and an Atheist Game Plan

Noreligion

What convinces non-believers to reject religion and embrace non-belief?

A couple weeks back, I took a survey here in this blog, asking, “If you’re a non-believer in religion, and you used to be a believer — what changed your mind?”

I found the answers fascinating: touching, funny, heartbreaking, thoughtful. (Thanks so much to everyone who contributed!) And I think they provide, not only a window into the process of deconversion… but a game plan for those of us who want to help the process along. Whether you’re actively trying to help deconvert people and increase the amount of atheism in the world — or are simply trying to create a more atheist- friendly world where people who are doubting their faith feel safer becoming atheists if that’s what’s right for them — knowing how and why people deconvert is useful information to have.

I do realize that this isn’t really a statistically useful sampling, btw. It’s too small, and it’s too skewed. (“People who read Greta Christina’s Blog” is not necessarily representative of all non-believers, as much as I would like it to be.) I’d love to see a really good, large study of non-believers and how they got that way. But as a place to start, and in tandem with other atheist blogs who are doing similar polls, it’ll do for now.

FYI, I got 43 deconversion stories in this survey, including my own. But many people listed more than one cause for their non-belief. Hence, the total number of causes is going to add up to a lot more than 43.

Out of 43 deconversion stories, here’s what people gave as the main causes for their loss of belief.

Thinker

Just thinking about it: 30.

Talking to atheists/ skeptics, or reading atheist/ skeptical writing: 24.

Talking to religious leaders and teachers (pastors, priests, etc.) — or reading apologetics — and finding atrocities, inaccuracies, inconsistencies, absurdities, hypocrisies, sloppy thinking, and/or unacceptable moral views: 14. (This includes asking questions of religious leaders and teachers, and not getting satisfactory answers.)

Reading the Bible — or whatever the sacred text is of their religion — and finding atrocities, inaccuracies, inconsistencies, absurdities, hypocrisies, sloppy thinking, and/or unacceptable moral views: 9.

I want to take a moment to break down “just thinking about it” in a little more detail. It’s the biggest category by a fair amount. And the thinking processes that people describe are ideas I see in the atheosphere all the time… which makes me think we need to keep on getting those ideas out into the world.

So here is a quick- and- dirty summary of the “just thinking about it” ideas that made people begin, or end up, leaving their religion. (Again, because many people listed more than one idea, the total will add up to a lot more than 30.)

Bible-against-itself

Historical/ scientific inaccuracy, internal inconsistency, or just plain absurdity, of religious beliefs: 16

Immorality, unfairness, or other troubling aspects of religious beliefs: 14

Dishonest, hypocritical, or other bad behavior by religious believers or leaders: 11

Not seeing good evidence/ arguments for religion, and/or seeing it as improbable: 10

Phantoms in the brain

Science as a better explanation for X (consciousness, life, religious experiences, whatever) than religion: 10

Emotional experience — simply didn’t feel the faith: 5

Seeing religion as a human creation: 4

Seeing bad things happening, not consistent with belief in a good God: 4

Seeing harm done by religion: 4

Diversity of religious beliefs; different faiths with incompatible views: 4

Insufficiency of religion to offer comfort or other things it promises: 3

Realizing that “I only believed because it’s what I was taught”: 2

Rejection of religious authority: 2

And I want to break down the “talking to atheists” one as well… since it’s sort of the Big Question on the table. Because it turns out that there are lots of different ways that encounters with atheists and atheist ideas can help believers leave their belief behind. (Again, some people mentioned more than one cause, so the sum of the parts will add up to more than the whole).

God delusion

Specific atheist arguments or ideas: 16

Exposure to general skepticism, critical thinking, and/or the scientific method: 11

Simply knowing, or being exposed to, atheists or other non- believers; realizing that non-belief was an option: 7

Encountering atheism or other non-belief and realizing, “Yes, that’s me”: 5

Seeing that atheists not only exist, but can be happy people with moral/ meaningful/ non- guilt- ridden lives: 3

Seeing terms such as “atheist” or “agnostic” accurately defined: 3

And there’s something else I noticed: In the stories people told about losing their religion? The “reading/ talking to atheists” part often came at the end of the story. It isn’t what gave them doubt in the first place… but it’s what sealed the deal. (The phrase “final nail in the coffin” came up more than once.)

So here are the lessons I’m taking from this exercise, the lessons I hope other atheists will find useful as well. If we want to help people deconvert — or simply make it a world in which people find it easier and safer to do so — here’s what we need to do:

Coming out day haring

Come out. Often, simply encountering atheists and atheist ideas, or being exposed to skepticism and methods of critical thinking, can be a big factor in deconversion. And knowing about the existence of other atheists — especially other good, happy atheists — can help people feel like they have a safe place to land once they take that step. (The analogy with coming out as gay/ lesbian/ bi/ trans is inevitable…)

Don’t expect your arguments to deconvert anyone overnight. That rarely happens. Don’t think of yourself as dynamite under the foundations; think of yourself as water wearing away the rock.

Don’t expect to deconvert a strong true believer. Meeting atheists, encountering atheist ideas and arguments… these things can have an effect on believers. But they tend to have an effect in the end stage of deconversion — not at the beginning. The initial cracks of doubt tend to come from within: from people considering their beliefs, and having doubts about whether those beliefs are moral, or consistent with reality, or even consistent with themselves. We can help widen those cracks… but it seems like we rarely, if ever, make them happen in the first place.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t engage with strong true believers. The engagement can help strengthen your own arguments and clarify your own thinking. And if the engagement is happening in any sort of public setting — an online discussion thread, say — it may have an effect on other people following the argument… even if they’re not saying anything.

Christopher.Hitchens-The.Portable.Atheist

Arguments can have an effect. This one surprised me. I know how stubbornly resistant to evidence and reason religious belief can be. I know how frustrating it can be to debate with believers who ultimately don’t seem to value reason. But out of 24 non-believers who said that encountering atheists or atheist ideas was part of their deconversion process, 16 said they were at least partly persuaded by specific atheist arguments or ideas. That’s three out of four. And that’s 16 out of the grand total of 43 deconversions — more than one out of three.

Again, we often come in at the tail end of the process instead of at the beginning. But that’s an important part. Don’t dismiss it.

On the other hand, no one argument or idea is going to convince everybody. We’re not going to find a magic bullet, the One Good Argument that convinces everyone to deconvert. Different people find different arguments and ideas compelling. We have to keep presenting all of them.

Expose people, not just to specific arguments against religion, but to methods of skeptical, critical, and scientific thinking. While specific arguments can help people complete the process of deconversion, people need to start the process on their own. However, having critical thinking tools can help that process begin — as well as helping it come to its conclusion.

Encourage people to read the Bible, or whatever the sacred text is of their religion. For lots of people, the loss of their belief began by examining more closely what they supposedly believed, and being either intellectually baffled or morally repulsed. (Julia Sweeney’s performance piece, “Letting Go of God,” is a perfect example of this.) Let’s encourage more people to do it.

Finally, and most importantly:

Happy

Don’t despair.

What we’re doing can work. It is working.

What we’re doing can feel frustrating to the point of futility. Religious belief is often extremely stubborn. It is often extremely resistant to reason and evidence. It is often armored with a wide variety of armors against criticism… and indeed, against the very idea that it can and should be subject to criticism. Trying to persuade people that their religious belief is a mistaken hypothesis about the world — even trying to get people to see their religious belief as a hypothesis at all, one which should be able to stand up on its own against other hypotheses — can feel like shouting into the wind.

ScarletLetter.svg

But what we’re doing can work. Rates of non-belief have been going up dramatically in the U.S., even in just the last few years. And in parts of the world — specifically Europe — non- belief is so common that in some countries it’s more common than belief.

And look again at the replies to the original post. See how many times people said, “Finally I was persuaded by The God Delusion… finally I was persuaded by Daniel Dennett… finally I was persuaded by something someone said on an internet discussion group… finally I was persuaded by something I read on this blog.” What we’re doing can work. It is working.

So let’s keep it up.

What Convinced You? A Non-Belief Summary… and an Atheist Game Plan