Bless her Little Heart

It's one of those phrases that can mean so many things-- kind of like "praying for you".

Had an interesting discussion this morning with someone who just really, really failed to get it. It began, as most warm mornings with a clear blue sky when the calendar reads 9/11 do, with a discussion of how we reacted on that day. One person said it was her last day as a Christian. Another chimed in quickly to say she would pray for her.

Now, there are quite a few kinds of prayers. Some are grounded in empathy or grief. They are an expression of the deepest wishes a human being could possibly have that a bad situation will improve, that pain will be healed, and that good things will happen in the wake of horror. They are the silent agonizing thoughts that desperately hope for intervention from some force outside of the natural world to make things better, like the ones I and every other even remotely "spiritual" person in the world had as they watched the twin towers crashing down into rubble eleven years ago. They are usually private. When they are shared, they are often shared from a position of humility in the face of something huge, not knowing if they will be answered, or even heard.

I may take some flack for this, but atheists have them, too. We are tiny clusters of very old and well organized stardust, and our lives are over in a brief flash in human history. They don't even register in the long view of time. The ultimately inconsequential truth of our fleeting existence does not mean that we don't hurt for humanity as a whole when we see suffering on the scale that we saw it eleven years ago, or that we do not want to make the world a better place.

When tragedy strikes, we bypass the supernatural part. We talk with our friends. We write to leave a record of what we feel, not always knowing if anyone will hear or care, and not always in the public eye. I don't think it's too far off to say our blogs and our journals and our hopes to be that change we want to see in the world are our secular prayers. I recognize these things for what they are-- our hopes, our dreams, and (when we act on them) our legacy to future generations. They are the glue that holds society together and causes us to reach out to one another for support and comfort when we need it, and to give it when and where we can. We are, in a very real sense, little more than what we share with one another. We grow when we confront what we might otherwise hide from ourselves.

Some prayers, on the other hand, are less noble. Call them "selfish prayers": the prayer of an exasperated mother that an overtired child will go to sleep; the prayer that a sticky work situation will be go away after a good night's sleep; or the prayer that an unexpected windfall or the kindness of others will help solve financial problems. (More on that later.) Atheists have these thoughts too, but tend to handle the day-to-day trials and tribulations from a strictly pragmatic approach. We look for advice from our friends, family, social networks, doctors, and lawyers. We bring meals to our sick friends. We argue for what's right and hope it finds a receptive audience. I'm not saying that people who appeal to a supernatural power do these things any more or less than atheists do. We just cut out the thoughts directed towards the middle man when we do them.

But there is that final kind of prayer... the kind of prayer that atheists get from believers who are sad to hear that we have "lost" our faith. Call it a "pity prayer", or an evangelical prayer. It's the kind of prayer that asserts one Truth, and flatly rejects the possibility that this truth may be wrong. It's the kind of prayer that assumes those "other" belief systems are wrong, and many if not all of the world's problems would be solved if only everyone would convert to the True way of thinking. It's the kind of prayer that condescends, while simultaneously demanding respect.

Atheists have these sorts of sentimental wishes, too, when it comes to religion. In the past, we were sometimes silent out of fear we would be killed, beaten, burned as witches, or simply cast aside by society. To be very clear, that's still a risk today. We are social animals, and callous rejection and judgment based on religious beliefs or lack thereof can cause real pain. Or, you know, risk of death if enough people don't react to actual persecution loudly enough. I'm going to call it what it is, self-righteous garbage of the most dangerous sort. We mourn the atheists in foxholes who have died protecting the people who cause that pain, and we get angry when their very existence is denied, belittled, or ignored. This attempt to claim a monopoly on the moral high ground is base tribalism, and does not play well with others.

Don't like it when we deliver a dose of reality? Then, please, hear our "prayer".

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As an important aside, if you like the pendant, and you want one, click the pic. The proceeds are being used by the artist to help fund a custody battle for his daughter, after being totally cut off from all contact for far too long. Earlier this year, he had to fight against a move to terminate his parental rights. Why? Because he's an atheist, and the grandparents didn't want their grandchild exposed to that. That little girl who loves her daddy is who I think of when I hear the phrase "attacks on religious freedom", and the back story here might help explain my particularly strident mood today. The discussion I mentioned at the beginning of the post? Yeah, it happened on his Facebook page. Please feel free to share with your friends. At $10 a piece, they won't pay off the lawyer, but every little bit helps.

Conventional Wisdom

Ah, the conventions. That time of year when the parties reach out to their respective bases and fire up those boots on the ground. One thing you can always rely on in the wake of confetti and outrageous bar tabs that follow a convention; nothing of substance will have been said. So many crazy hats! So many convoluted twisty strings of earnest soundbytes and zingers! Such a very small chance that anyone will actually change their mind under the mind-numbing deluge of fluffy feel good slogans mixed with dire warnings about the evil that is the other side. After all, those people who are "undecided" at this point in the election cycle are just too busy to be bothered by politics or too fed up to care. Or at least, that's what conventional wisdom tells us. And who am I to argue with that?

Actually, as a skeptic, it's kind of a way of life. I also try to avoid generalizations about large groups of people precisely because large groups of people contain individuals. Some of those undecided and independent voters who research their choices carefully and cast purple ballots are pretty damned smart. You may be one of them. If you are, you might enjoy wonk-extraordinaire David Gewirtz's diary of an undecided voter (GOP version). (I'll tackle his equally amusing take on the DNC's dog and pony show next time out). Both of them are worth a read in full, but if you haven't got the time for that, I'll break down some of the highlights and my reactions to them.

On Paul Ryan:

He says the Romney ticket's goal is to create 12 million new jobs over the next four years. That's a high bar, but it's far from enough. We have about 23 million Americans out of work. Worse, about 2 million new workers enter the workforce each year. So, over the course of a 4-year term, of the 12 million jobs Ryan discussed, only about 4 million of those would be available for the current 23 million out of work. It's not nearly enough.

Given the fact that Paul Ryan draws inspiration from Ayn Rand's Utopian view of the free market, I think it's safe to assume he's not interested in adding to the federal payroll as any part of that jobs plan. Shrinking the public sector seems more likely, and that translates to less money going into the middle class. Those firefighters, teachers, police officers, and bureaucrats buy things. They have families to support. They stop buying things when they get "cut back", and start relying on government aid and student loans.

And yes, I know that the President forges a budget from the depths of his character, and the VP is just a tiebreaker in the Senate or a President-on-deck in the event of a national tragedy. Still, I operate under the informed conclusion that Romney's political convictions, even with all of his experience as a leader in the world of business, find their truest expression in the final line of Bohemian Rhapsody. The Romney that ran against Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts and implemented the pilot program for Obamacare is a far cry from the guy flying around the country today. Ryan's potential influence in his administration is something I weigh a bit more heavily than I would have if Gingrich had won the primaries.

On Romney:

Romney described five steps to creating those jobs, but one thing he didn't mention was population. Romney has five kids and 18 grandchildren, and so, in this regard, he's contributing to the problem -- rather than helping it. My detailed mathematical models showed that without some attention paid to reducing population, the jobs situation will continue to grow worse.

Excellent point. Gewirtz fails to draw the logical followup here, and that's a shame. This is precisely the area where economics and social issues are joined at the hip. Or, more accurately, they're joined at the uterus. Both Romney and Ryan oppose abortion for any reason other than rape, incest, or the mother's health. Ryan opposes it even in the event of rape or incest.

I'm stopping for a moment to collect my rage and let it go. See, that Buddhist stuff really works! Moving forward, then.

Regardless of how you feel about limiting access to abortion from a moral standpoint, the pro-life platform in general presents some real problems for our economic stability as a nation. Pair it with opposition to birth control measures like the IUD and birth control pills, and we have a recipe for a government mandated population explosion here. (Unless, of course, people stop having sex for anything other than procreation. Think that's likely? Yeah, neither do I.) Nothing erodes the middle class and puts people who otherwise would have been just barely making it into a position where federal and state aid become necessary more than unexpected children. Nothing keeps them there like increasing the odds that they will have more. This is not how you grow a struggling economy.

On God:

....

This is somewhat surprising, because if you listened to any of the RNC at all, it was kind of hard to miss the fact that God was definitely speaking from the stage through the rhetoric of the people who know him best. He wasn't quite the keynote speaker, but everyone there sure did talk about Him a lot. They seemed quite focused on letting the American people know, once and for all, that the values of this nation are the values of the holy and most righteous among us; and if you don't agree with that, you are lacking the core guiding principle that makes our nation great. Psychology Today even did an article about it.

In the process, they alienated plenty of people whose number one voting issue is the separation of church and state. They contributed, once again, to the common misconception that the atheists among you are just about as trustworthy as rapists. Which is a shame, really. I don't eat babies, I don't worship Satan, and I don't appreciate it when people who want to run my government imply that my philosophical convictions are in any way shape or form stunted.

I won't vote for you if that's the way you feel about me, and I just hope my friends and family don't believe it when you tell those lies. E pluribus unum, bitches.