Steve Worden's Apology

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Dardedar
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Steve Worden's Apology

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The Washington County Observer has posted our summary response and Worden's reply which he entitled An Apology.

This was to be each of our sides giving our summary statements but Mr. Worden was given an advance copy of our response so he had the advantage of being able to respond to our points and introduce new information. I went through his article piece by piece at our August meeting but will now do so again with more detail and references for the benefit of those who couldn't make the meeting. I think responding to these common misunderstandings Mr. Worden continually passes along actually provides a useful opportunity to teach even if Mr. Worden insists on not learning the basis for his mistakes.

Let's begin:

Part One of Three.
Steve Worden:
First off, I apologize for offending the Fayetteville Freethinkers. I would like readers to know how I read the sign on I-540. If one were to put up a large billboard asking “Good without Dogs? Millions Are,” one might reasonably conclude that its sponsor was voicing an “a-canine-ist” sentiment (being “without dogs”). When I saw the sign “Good without God? Millions are,” I read it as voicing an atheist sentiment, given that the word “atheism” comes from the ancient Greek, “a” (without) “theos” (gods). That’s how I read the sign.
DAR
I think there is one tiny part that Mr. Worden is sincerely sorry about in these exchanges (the atheist children celebrating genocide with crayon drawings), but this isn't it. I see his point here. The sign certainly refers to those who are "without God." When I said he "misread our sign" I was referring to the intent of the sign and who it was directed to. It was an advertisement for those who are in some sense without God, often called freethinkers, humanists, etc.,. This is not Mr. Worden. Clearly Mr. Worden took it as an against God message. A common mistake. I don't have dogs, and am "good without dogs" but that doesn't mean I am against dogs or against other people having them (unless they bite me). Likewise, I don't have a God, and am "good without God" but that doesn't mean I am against God or against other people having gods (unless they have a deleterious effect on my society). And there's the rub. Religion very often, (not always) does have a very bad effect on society. See 9/11, see Art Hobson's article here. But we'll get to that in a moment.
WORDEN:
More importantly, based upon social scientific data I found the sign’s message somewhat misleading in two ways:
DAR
Now this is an important concern. Our seven word sign is misleading, in not just one but two ways? We will want to look at this in some detail. We really do not want to have a sign that is misleading. Is Worden right?
WORDEN
(1) compared to believers, people without God are generally not really all that “good” in the sense that they tend to be less happy[1], less healthy[2], live shorter lives[3], earn less money[4], are more apt to be involved in deviance[5], and more apt to be unmarried young white men[6], and ending up having children that are less well-educated[7] and more involved in delinquency and crime[8], and... [numbers inserted]
DAR
This is the same song Worden has sung from the beginning. And it's one I have heard all my life from the evangelicals around me. Rather than consider whether the claims of a particular religion are actually true, we are asked to believe that participation in the religion has certain side benefits. All along I've said this is entirely irrelevant to the most important question regarding any religion and that is, are the claims of the religion true? If not then how is this not living a life of hypocrisy? Worden is talking about supposed societal benefits of religious behavior while us philosopher/freethinker types are interested in the actual truth of the matter. I don't disbelieve the claims of the Jehovah's Witnesses because it will effect my income or make me more or less healthy, I disbelieve them because they are objectively, astonishingly, false.

Before we go through each of his eight unreferenced assertions let's acknowledge Worden's obvious intent here. Why is he saying this? Is he trying to provide a reason to be religious? Of course he is. He is a religion booster. That's his job at the newspaper. This is why he took such offense with our sign that made two very mundane, and entirely true, claims:

1) millions of people are good, and
2) they are good without God.

At the meeting a questioner pointed out that my dismissing Worden's list of supposed "not good" attributes of the irreligious, as irrelevant, is not a response to his argument. Okay, once we realize and acknowledge that Worden's supposed side benefits have nothing whatsoever to do with the most important question, the actual veracity of religious claims, I am more than happy to move on to the accuracy of his assertions about societal side benefits of religion (and I did). Realize what this means. Every single one of Worden's eight, cherry-picked, unreferenced swipes at unbelievers could be exactly 100% true and this would have exactly zero to say about the truth of the claims made by the religion in question. Mormon's may have the very best stats in each one of those categories but it would not follow from this that Mormonism is true.

Worden's main mistake. Worden is equivocating with the word good here. Readers of the sign will bring their own sense or definition of "good" but it's pretty clear that it is understood in the sense of morally good. That gets rid of almost all of Worden's list right there. If someone is "less happy" or "less educated" or makes "less money" or "lives a shorter life" we do not look at a person with such attributes as "not good." That would be absurd. But this is exactly what Worden asks us to do here. The only two, of his eight that could apply in some sense of morally "good" would be his #5 and #8. That is, more involved in "deviance," and for the children of unbelievers, more likely to be involved in "delinquency and crime." He provides no reference or definition of deviance and since many religious people consider alternative lifestyles "deviant" I am apt to take that one with a grain of salt. That leaves "delinquency and crime," but only for the children of unbelievers. Even if true, that doesn't leave much of Worden's list does it? And why only the children? Apparently the actually unbelievers themselves are less involved in crime or we can be confident that it would have be included in Worden's list.

Better yet, let's use the following example to show just how absurd Worden's list is as a measurement of people being "good." Let's consider this question:

How many of Worden's cherry picked attributes apply to Arkansans?

Let's see:
less happy[1],
DAR
Arkansas scores fifth from the bottom in happiness That may not be "good" compared with a higher score but does it make the fine citizens of Arkansas "not good?" Of course not. Can we see the equivocation now?
(pssst. the more secular states are more happy)
less healthy[2],
DAR
Arkansas comes in 37th in health. This means Arkansans are more likely to be "less healthy." That fact may not be "good" but does it make Arkansans "not good?" Of course not. See the equivocation now? (pssst. the more secular states are more healthy)
live shorter lives[3],
DAR
Oops, Arkansas comes in fourth worst in mortality per 1,000. That's not good but it doesn't make Arkansans "not good." Is Worden thinking of packing his bags? (pssst. the more secular states have lower death rates)
earn less money[4],
DAR
Don't look now, Arkansas comes in sixth from last. That can't be "good" can it? Is Worden ready to condemn Arkansans as "not good" because we earn less? Or is it becoming more obvious that he is equivocating on the word "good?"
(pssst. people in the more secular states earn more money)
are more apt to be involved in deviance[5],
DAR
Left handed people are certainly deviant from the norm. Without a definition it's not clear what he means here. But if he will try to define it I will be glad to find out how Arkansas ranks. Don't get your hopes up. Having some familiarity with how sexual deviance follows the most zealously religious (for instance religious states consume the most porn), I have very little doubt that the most conservative and religious states will fail this litmus test too.
And notice how this game causes the guilt by association fallacy to kick in here. Let's say unbelievers, or Arkansas residents were more "apt to be involved in deviance." Does this make you, as an individual more likely to partake because you either became an unbeliever or moved to Arkansas? No. If you don't like deviance, don't partake in it. Arkansas has the eighth highest smoking rate in the nation, did I put myself at the risk of contracting the habit of smoking because I moved here as an adult? Of course not.
and more apt to be unmarried young white men[6],
DAR
Why this would be included in a list of things that is supposed to be evidence of "not good" is not at all clear. I don't know anyone that considers the categories of unmarried, young, white or male as being not good! What a ridiculous claim. Why is this included in a list of "not good" attributes?
and ending up having children that are less well-educated[7]
DAR
Like many of these, I doubt that this one is true but let's pretend it is. In this study of 21 education based variables attempting to find the "Smartest State" Arkansas came in 50th. Oops, that can't be good. Now I live in Arkansas so I am probably too stupid to know how many states there really are but I am pretty sure coming in 50th is somewhere near the bottom and probably not "good." If you don't like that analysis, here is another one. Arkansas ties for second to last. (pssst. the more secular states have higher education levels).

There's just one more:
and more involved in delinquency and crime[8],
DAR
In the categories of property crime and violent crime Arkansas comes in 11th worst in both.

I hope Worden's equivocation is crystal clear for everyone to see. If Worden thinks our sign was "misleading" because it claimed that people can be good without God then to be consistent he must take similar offense if a sign were to say:

"Are you a good Arkansan? Millions are."

How could Worden agree with this sign? Wouldn't it be "misleading?" However, Worden would probably agree with this sign, very few people wouldn't. Yet each of his carefully chosen unreferenced attributes he tries to throw at unbelievers apply to a far greater degree to the very state he lives in. And many more uncharitable attributes could be listed if one were to go to the trouble of cherry picking them. Of course another list of attributes could be selected making the state look quite nice.

Incidentally, Worden should be careful using this silly line of argument because it turns around and bites him. Arkansas ranks as the third most religious state in the nation. If you want to see states performing well in the above mentioned categories one will consistently find the more secular, less religious states beating the pants off of the religious states. The least religious? Vermont. The most religious state? Mississippi. As already referenced many times (but Mr. Worden has not shown any sign of learning from or responding to the actual substance of our rebuttals) societal dysfunction is STRONGLY correlated with religiosity. Likewise, societies performing at a high level of function correlate very strongly with populations that are more secular. This is true at the national level and the state level.

Part two and three follow below.

D.
-------------------
"Among nations as a whole, and on a personal basis, levels of religiosity and creationism tend to decline as income levels rise" (Pew 2002; Norris and Inglehart 2004; Gallup 2005b 2006a,) --LINK

"The analyses of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Study 1) and the General Social Surveys (Study 2) show that adolescent and adult intelligence significantly increases adult liberalism, atheism, and men’s (but not women’s) value on sexual exclusivity." --ibid

"The question of religious belief among US scientists has been debated since early in the century. Our latest survey finds that, among the top natural scientists, disbelief is greater than ever—almost total." --ibid
"I'm not a skeptic because I want to believe, I'm a skeptic because I want to know." --Michael Shermer
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Re: Steve Worden's Apology

Post by Dardedar »

Part Two of Three.

Let's do a little more unpacking and look at Mr. Worden's very first undesirable attribute that makes unbelievers not good. He says unbelievers tend to be "less happy." Is that true? No. We informed Mr. Worden of this months ago in our very first response. He didn't bother to investigate but rather went on an emotional rant against our source, Free Inquiry magazine. This time I will print it out for him. First, a little background on the study in question:
Amherst, NY (August 5, 2009)—The best statistical portrait yet available of atheists, agnostics, humanists and other nonreligious Americans, based on data collected from nearly 6,000 respondents, has just been published in Free Inquiry magazine (Vol. 29, No. 5, pps. 41-45). Luke Galen, an associate professor at Grand Valley State University (Grand Rapids, Mich.), reported on the Non-Religious Identification Survey (NRIS),...

“NRIS is the first study of its type to direct a full range of sociological survey questions to a population of ‘nones,’ as they have come to be known,”... (“Nones” identify with no religious tradition.) “For decades, pollsters and social scientists have used surveys to measure the religious beliefs and attitudes of believers… there’s data on the nonreligious too, but it’s far skimpier and suffers from having been collected accidentally.”
That is to say, unbelievers were considered "by catch" and all thrown in together with no consideration of degrees of belief.
This new survey reports that confident nonbelievers are more emotionally healthy with respect to “fence sitters” or religious doubters, shows that “spirituals” report less satisfaction with their lives than those who identify with other self-labels, and suggests that the common assumption that greater religiosity relates to greater happiness and life satisfaction is not quite true.
The study is available here (PDF)

It's conclusion:
“…in contrast to many general population studies, the present study allows
the ability to distinguish degrees of nonbelief, yielding interesting
results. Confident nonbelievers such as atheists were more emotionally well-adjusted relative to tentative nonbelievers;…
The present study indicates that the common assumption of greater religiosity
relating to greater happiness and satisfaction is overly simplistic.
Many of the nonreligious, particularly those involved with an increasingly visible movement or community characterized
by stronger varieties of nonbelief, are actually as well adjusted
and satisfied as the highly religious, with those uncertain of their beliefs showing more distress.”
Let's now include the article by Tom Flynn that was referenced our first response (and was handed out at our August freethinker meeting).

Sorry for the small print. Notice the charts especially. Life satisfaction is very similar among believers and unbelievers. Higher scores are correlated with certainty of belief not the belief itself.

Image

Image

Mr. Worden would do well to deal with the actual data rather than dismiss it because it was referred to in Free Inquiry magazine (the genetic fallacy).

Let's examine now, as we did at the meeting, some of the happiest countries on the planet and consider how religiosity may correlate with it. In the following, the number is the rank of "happiness" (as defined in the survey) and the number in parenthesis (for the Euro countries) is the percentage of the population that affirms a belief in god (except as noted for non Euro countries).

1 Denmark (31%)
2 Finland (41%)
3 Norway (32%)
4 Sweden (23%)
4 Netherlands (34%)
6 Costa Rica
6 New Zealand (28% atheist/agnostic)
8 Canada (16% no religion)
8 Israel (1/3 secular)
8 Australia (19% no religion)
8 Switzerland (48%)
12 Panama
12 Brazil
14 United States (16% no religion)
14 Austria (54%)
16 Belgium (43%)
17 United Kingdom (38%)
18 Mexico

This is from a Gallup World Poll that surveyed "thousands of respondents in 155 countries, between 2005 and 2009." See the article here.

Using the data from here I put the percentage of the population that state "they believe in a god," in parenthesis. As anyone can see, these most happy countries that rank highest on the list show extraordinarily high levels of population that do not affirm a belief in god. When we look at the happiest countries on earth we find them to be chock full of unbelievers and overwhelming "without god." (pssst... They are also the most socially functional countries on earth).

Now let's move on to Mr. Worden's #2 reason why he thinks our seven word sign was misleading:
Worden
(2) only a very small number of people actually are truly atheistic (without God).
DAR
Apparently he didn't like the word "millions." This is the exact same error Mr. Worden has made from the very beginning, and he's still completely wrong. Before he was only considering those who use the very narrow title "atheist." It is good to see he has correctly widened it to include those who are "without God." This demolishes his claim. Is it wrong or misleading to say there are millions in the US who are "without God?" as Worden claims? Not even close. Note:

A 2008 Gallup poll showed that 6% of the US population believed that no god or universal spirit exists. See source data here. Careful readers will also note that only 78% affirm a belief in God, but let's just work with the 6% that affirm "no god or universal spirit exists." It doesn't get more "without god" than that. Six percent of the adult population (250 million) would be about 15 million people, give or take.

If we were to use the much larger 22% who chose not to select the option of "believe in God" in this survey we get 55 million people.

Our claim on the sign was "Millions are." Our sign was exactly right. Mr. Worden's #2 reason for why our sign is misleading is found to be like his first, completely and utterly false.

Part three to follow...
"I'm not a skeptic because I want to believe, I'm a skeptic because I want to know." --Michael Shermer
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Re: Steve Worden's Apology

Post by Dardedar »

Part Three of Three

As was referenced at the August meeting, let's consider the growth of unbelief in America over the decades:

In 1968, 3% of Americans had “no religious preference.”

By 1990, this percentage grew to 8% (14 million people).

In 2001, the NIS Survey found that 14%, more than 29 million adults, did not identify with any religion. Now it’s 16%. This represents nearly 40 million adult Americans.

Let's examine the remainder of Mr. Worden's article:
WORDEN
I further noted that based upon research conducted over the past 30 years, it seems that people who claim to be irreligious are more likely than believers to embrace paranormal and occult beliefs such as astrology, fortune-telling, Bigfoot, and UFOs.
I will refer now to Doug Krueger's excellent response in his Letter to the Editor that the Washington County Observer didn't print (Mr. Worden received a copy).
DOUG wrote:
“He [Worden] cites a 2005 Gallup survey as his evidence. But page 45 of that study, “American Piety in the 21st Century,” shows that those without religion have less belief in the paranormal than the average religious believer, not more. So when Worden says that that the irreligious are much more likely than the religious to believe in the paranormal, he’s wildly inaccurate.”
Let's put aside for the moment the fact that this is a ridiculous unscientific poll for reasons already explained. Here is the chart in question:

Image

Worden is making a simple mistake and he still fails to correct his error even when it's pointed out to him repeatedly. When you use his very own source and average the different religions, belief in the paranormal by "the nones" is less than the average of believers. So if Mr. Worden wanted to be accurate he would have written:

"people who claim to be irreligious are LESS likely than believers to embrace paranormal."

He stated this more carefully in his first article by the way, so he is just being sloppy now. More importantly, (as pointed out in our first and second response) Mr. Worden's mistake is to cherry pick the evangelical category and pretend that their long list of paranormal beliefs (see the Bible for hundreds of examples) are to be given special status and not included as "paranormal." That's absurd of course but even if we were to allow that as well, is he really not aware why the evangelicals would score low for belief in the paranormal? Really? It's a competing superstition/religion. When evangelicals do admit something is going on with demons or ghosts or mediums or Big Foot they often attribute it to demonic, occult activity. That's not allowed, it's forbidden. Evangelical Christian book stores have entire sections devoted to warning of the dangers of the occult, mediums, New Age and all it's trappings. They don't do this because they don't believe in that stuff, they do this because they consider it a competing, enemy, supernatural worldview. If Worden doesn't know this then he doesn't know much about what evangelicals believe.
WORDEN
"Christopher Bader and Carson Mencken summarized their research in the book, What Americans Really Believe: “The findings are clear and strong. Traditional Christian religion greatly decreases credulity as measured by beliefs in the occult and the paranormal.”
DAR
Worden should read the source material himself and not be tricked by the slippery language employed by these fellows who are devoted to promoting their evangelical religion. They are using "traditional religion" as code word for "evangelical" (the authentic Christianity) and their claim fails for the above noted reasons. And let's not forget that this study in question is bogus anyway, for reasons explained to Worden repeatedly here and and here.
WORDEN
At no time did I insist that Fayetteville Freethinkers are less likely to be happy, healthy, etc., or more likely to be deviant or believing in UFO’s.
DAR
This claim is ludicrous on it's face. I'll remind Mr. Worden that he entitled his first article, in reference to our group and our sign, "Beacon for Bigfoot." Observe:

Image

He entitled his article this because, as he tried to make the case then (and apparently still can't help himself now), he wants his readers to believe that the members of our regions largest skeptics club, the Fayetteville Freethinkers, are more likely to believe in Big Foot than his religious friends. And he bases this ridiculous claim upon an unscientific poll, put out by two religious organizations (Baylor and The Templeton Foundation), a poll that he clearly hasn't even bothered to read himself!

Since the beginning Mr. Worden has referred to us with a mishmash of assorted labels. After the difference between "atheist" and "freethinker" was explained to him in our first response he then went on in his second article to refer to us as atheists eleven times. It is without question that he has tried to pin a higher level of belief in the paranormal upon us, no matter whether he is calling us free-thinkers(sic), unbelievers, nones, without god or atheists. He just did it again above. Please stop insulting our intelligence, it's getting embarrassing.
WORDEN
"I assume that [the Fayetteville freethinkers] are interested as I am in not simply scoring debating points,..."
DAR
Perhaps if Mr. Worden's claims were true, instead of demonstrably false, he would be more interested in seeing how the debate score is going.
WORDEN
"...[interested as I am] in honestly looking at the growing body of literature in social science, not just a study here or there, but an entire emerging research tradition that points to the positive value of religion."
DAR
I hope Mr. Worden is as interested in looking at the growing body of literature that shows religion correlates very strongly with the most sick and dysfunctional societies. As one bumper sticker puts it "Want one Nation Under God? See Iran." If Mr. Worden wants to look at the happiest countries with the least amount of societal dysfunction due to "per capita homicide, incarceration, juvenile mortality, gonorrhea and syphilis infections, teenage abortions, adolescent pregnancies, marriage duration, income disparity, poverty, work hours, overexploitation of resources, and income inequality," (article here), then he will need to look to the countries having firm majorities that do not affirm a belief in God.

Again, from the above mentioned study:
"The United States is an extreme outlier, being both exceedingly dysfunctional and exceedingly religious. The correlation between religiosity and dysfunctionality is quite strong throughout all 17 nations, with the most religious nations (the United States, followed distantly by Ireland and Italy) being the most socially dysfunctional and the most secular nations (Sweden, Japan, Denmark, and France) being the most socially successful.” --ibid
Mr. Worden should set aside the pseudo-science peddled by his fundamentalist authors and evangelical foundations and consider the science that doesn't conform to what may be comforting to believe. Being a sociologist perhaps he could even do some research himself.
WORDEN
"We should follow the example of the former champion of English atheism, Antony Flew, who changed his mind and wrote the recent book, There Is a God, solely because of his commitment “to follow the evidence wherever it leads.”
DAR
Aside from the utter absurdity of suggesting that the question of whether a God exists (or not) could ever in any way hinge upon the personal beliefs of a single individual, it is clear that evangelicals have used the elderly (now recently deceased) Mr. Flew in a most manipulative way here. As one author summed up this error in thinking: "the Socratic maxim so dear to Flew’s heart is not to follow the man; it is instead to follow the argument." But rather than being a philosopher giving persuasive arguments in a new book, this whole Flew event is instead an embarrassing example of Christian exploitation.

Observe:
The horrific exploitation of an old man
Most of what you really need to know about this book is contained in the New York Times Magazine article, "The Turning of an Atheist." It makes clear that Flew did not write the book, his memory has declined to the point where he is incapable of understanding the issues discussed in it, and is in fact being cynically exploited by religious propagandists.”
Link
Excerpt from the New York Times article, "The Turning of an Atheist", November 4, 2007...
In "There Is a God," Flew quotes extensively from a conversation he had with Leftow, a professor at Oxford. So I asked Flew, "Do you know Brian Leftow?"

"No," he said. "I don't think I do."

"Do you know the work of the philosopher John Leslie?" Leslie is discussed extensively in the book.

Flew paused, seeming unsure. "I think he's quite good." But he said he did not remember the specifics of Leslie's work.

"Have you ever run across the philosopher Paul Davies?" In his book, Flew calls Paul Davies "arguably the most influential contemporary expositor of modern science."

"I'm afraid this is a spectacle of my not remembering!"

He said this with a laugh. When we began the interview, he warned me, with merry self-deprecation, that he suffers from "nominal aphasia," or the inability to reproduce names. But he forgot more than names. He didn't remember talking with Paul Kurtz about his introduction to "God and Philosophy" just two years ago. There were words in his book, like "abiogenesis," that now he could not define. When I asked about Gary Habermas, who told me that he and Flew had been friends for 22 years and exchanged "dozens" of letters, Flew said, "He and I met at a debate, I think." I pointed out to him that in his earlier philosophical work he argued that the mere concept of God was incoherent, so if he was now a theist, he must reject huge chunks of his old philosophy. "Yes, maybe there's a major inconsistency there," he said, seeming grateful for my insight. And he seemed generally uninterested in the content of his book - he spent far more time talking about the dangers of unchecked Muslim immigration and his embrace of the anti-E.U. United Kingdom Independence Party.

As he himself conceded, he had not written his book.

"This is really Roy's doing," he said, before I had even figured out a polite way to ask. "He showed it to me, and I said O.K. I'm too old for this kind of work!"

When I asked Varghese, he freely admitted that the book was his idea and that he had done all the original writing for it. But he made the book sound like more of a joint effort - slightly more, anyway. "There was stuff he had written before, and some of that was adapted to this," Varghese said. "There is stuff he'd written to me in correspondence, and I organized a lot of it. And I had interviews with him. So those three elements went into it. Oh, and I exposed him to certain authors and got his views on them. We pulled it together. And then to make it more reader-friendly, HarperCollins had a more popular author go through it."

So even the ghostwriter had a ghostwriter: Bob Hostetler, an evangelical pastor and author from Ohio, rewrote many passages, especially in the section that narrates Flew's childhood. With three authors, how much Flew was left in the book?"
Another excerpt regarding a letter Mr. Flew wrote to historian Richard Carrier:
Flew retracts, rather poignantly, praise he had offered for one of Gary Habermas's books: "The statement which I most regret making during the last few months was the one about Habermas's book on the alleged resurrection of Jesus bar Joseph. I completely forgot Hume's to my mind decisive argument against all evidence for the miraculous. A sign of physical decline." --New York Times
In case it needs to be pointed out, a philosopher saying they forgot Hume's argument against evidence for the miraculous would be like a professional classical pianist saying they forgot Beethoven wrote Moonlight Sonata. Instead of an example of a brilliant philosopher "following the evidence where it leads" we have a cynical attempt by evangelicals to use the name of an elderly and ailing philosopher to ghost write a bunch of really bad, warmed over Christian apologetic material. Specific examples provided upon request.
WORDEN
I am sorry for having mocked the Fayetteville Freethinkers for suggesting what atheist church services might look like with the “Little Atheists.”
DAR
Mr. Worden refers here to when he suggested that if we had children at some kind of atheist church service we might have them draw crayon drawings of some act of genocide against religious believers. I think this part of his apology is sincere and we accept it warmly.
WORDEN
"I never thought of the FF as dangerous, Commies, Nazis, etc. In fact, I believe that they add a valuable service to our community by challenging religious people to stand up for what they believe."
DAR
Mr. Worden did not call us dangerous but the jokes about Commies, Nazis and genocide might have reasonably led people (such as Linda Farrell) to think that he did.

I am very glad that Mr. Worden appreciates the valuable service we freethinkers provide to the community by continually challenging religious people to stand up, and defend what they believe, whether they be a pastor, a pew sitter, or a professor/columnist who loses his way while attempting to go after a group of freethinkers who have the audacity to put seven words, on a sign, for a month.

Darrel Henschell.
-----------------------------
ps. One little nit I mentioned at the meeting but won't take the time to debunk now is the unfortunate fact of Worden even joking about freethinkers being Nazis. This is where he quipped that if we were to sing as a group "we would have a rousing chorus of something like 'Springtime for Hitler and Germany"' (a reference to the musical "The Producers"). This attempt to associate atheists and Nazis is a common, juvenile mistake and it's disappointing to see a highly educated professor of sociology peddle such a falsehood. Soon the Fayetteville Freethinkers will have a tract coming out knocking down this unfortunate (and commonly repeated) example of historical revisionism. Hitler and his Nazis, were openly and explicitly, Christian.
"I'm not a skeptic because I want to believe, I'm a skeptic because I want to know." --Michael Shermer
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Re: Steve Worden's Apology

Post by Dardedar »

Well that's my 5,422 word rebuttal to Worden's 500 word article. No stone unturned I suppose.

I'll be sending out the meeting summary shortly with links to this. Feed back and pointing out any obvious clunkers would be appreciated (especially by Mr. Worden).
"I'm not a skeptic because I want to believe, I'm a skeptic because I want to know." --Michael Shermer
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Re: Steve Worden's Apology

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Response to feedback. Didn't get permission so I will keep it anonymous and paraphrase/summarize:
<<Would have liked to have seen references for his claims such as children of those who don't believe in god being less educated>>
DAR
Yes, that would have been nice but perhaps too much detail for a newspaper column to reference each claim. I don't doubt that he could provide secondary references for most of these. Some of them may even be true. The one you refer to here is most likely not true with regard to atheists. I took the path of arguing that those things listed (except #5 and #8), are not at all relevant to considering people "good."

In this instance Mr. Worden chose to describe those with the above attributes as being "without god" but in these exchanges he has been incredibly sloppy with his categories, at times substituting "unbeliever" or "atheist" or "nones" or "without god" or "freethinker" as if they can all go in the same pot (like it or not, "without god" is a much more broad category than those who chose the title "atheist"). In this latest he clearly states he is not applying these attributes to us freethinkers but that's hardly plausible at this point. He's done it from the beginning. And when I corrected him on the most absurd category, belief in Bigfoot, by pointing to our record of teaching/debunking paranormal claims (and specifically Bigfoot) he insisted that that was unscientific, anecdotal, and we must "look to the best science" which shows... we are unbelievers and thus go in the "have higher belief in paranormal" pot.

It's a safe bet that none of the attributes he lists would apply to the narrow category of those who strictly use the title atheist. His polls are actually referring to the much broader "by catch" category of "unbeliever." Unbelievers in what? Traditional religion. Nor is it likely that any of them would apply to those who choose the title "Freethinker" (I could be wrong, perhaps clean living Mormons live longer or have health benefits). Here is what's going on. His polls will typically have a side category (the by catch) of "other" or "none" or "unchurched" and this will catch all of the non-traditionalists who do not identify with Christianity or the mainstream religions. This includes a great number of spiritualist types, New Age, etcetera. These of course have a high degree of belief in the paranormal.

As the Free Inquiry article posted mentions, it is the case that church goers have historically correlated well with with some desirable life qualities such as longevity or health. This isn't in the least important to me for reasons stated in my response. If the claims of the JW's or Amish are true I want to believe them for that reason not because of these purported "side benefits." Likewise, if their claims/beliefs are false, I will disbelieve them for that reason, irregardless of good or bad attributes. The idea that this could be a reason to believe should be anathema to a philosopher interested in the pursuit of wisdom and truth.

I don't want to fall into the trap of playing the game that these side attributes have anything to do with reasons to believe but it may be useful to show how easy it is to cherry pick and give counter examples. While snooping around today I found these list of attributes which are said to apply to the specific and very narrow category of those claiming the title "atheist." It's doubtful that any of the polls Worden refers to bother to measure the small category of atheist.

"High levels of organic atheism are strongly correlated with high levels of societal health, such as low homicide rates, low poverty rates, low infant mortality rates, and low illiteracy rates, as well as high levels of educational attainment, per capita income, and gender equality." (Source: The Cambridge Companion to Atheism) LINK

[snip]

D.
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Re: Steve Worden's Apology

Post by Dardedar »

Footnote to the rebuttal above:

Skeptic Magazine, vol 14, #4, 2009.

When Faith Healing Kills
Christian Healing v. Scientific Medicine

Kenneth W. Krause

Excerpt:

"Even so, a handful of modern-day, prayer-healing Christian apologists have attempted in vain to employ the rational methods of science to verify the success of religious involvement generally and religious supplication in particular. Harold Koenig, director of Duke University's Center for Spirituality, Theology, and Health, for example, alleged that churchgoers tended to be healthier than non-churchgoers. Unfortunately, according to Richard P. Sloan, Columbia University professor of behavioral medicine and author of Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine (St. Martin's 2006), Koenig and others have consistently ignored even the most basic scientific standards, failing to control for obvious "confounders," including the genetic and behavioral traits of their subjects, and refusing to correct for "multiple comparisons," thereby ignoring the statistical distinction between "chance" and "real" findings. Indeed, Sloan surmises, what these authors' studies in fact demonstrate is "how weak the evidence actually is." --pg. 47.

Found the article posted online here
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Re: Steve Worden's Apology

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Oh no, don't look now, more correlations with atheist attributes. From Psychology Today:

***
The real reason atheists have higher IQs

Is atheism a sign of intelligence?
Published on May 4, 2010
by Nigel Barber, Ph.D.

Recent posts have proposed convoluted theories accounting for why atheists score higher on IQ tests than religious people. There is a much simpler explanation. Like a lot of correlations of this type, it is probably less exciting than it appears.

Atheists are probably more intelligent than religious people because they benefit from many social conditions that happen to be correlated with loss of religious belief. When one looks at this phenomenon from the point of view of comparisons between countries, it is not hard to figure out possible reasons that more intelligent countries have more atheists as Richard Lynn (2009) reported. Here are some. Highly religious countries:

Are poorer.
They are less urbanized.
Have lower levels of education.
They have less exposure to electronic media that increase intelligence (Barber, 2006).
Experience a heavier load of infectious diseases that impair brain function.
Suffer more from low birth weights.
Have worse child nutrition.
Do a poor job of controlling environmental pollutants such as lead that reduce IQ.

Given that each of these factors are recognized causes of low IQ scores (Barber 2005), there is little mystery about why religious countries score lower on IQ tests. Of course, the same phenomena are relevant to comparisons within a country, although within-country differences in these factors are generally smaller. Even so, the wealthier individuals in a country experience life differently than the poorer ones, developing higher IQ scores and greater religious skepticism.

[snip]

That's most of it but the rest is here Psycology Today

References
Barber, N. (2005). Educational and ecological correlates of IQ: A cross-national investigation. Intelligence, 33, 273-284.
Barber, N. (2006). Is the effect of national wealth on academic achievement mediated by mass media and computers? Cross-Cultural Research, 40, 130-151.
Lynn, R., Harvey, J., & Nyborg, H. (2009). Intelligence predicts atheism across 137 nations. Intelligence, 37, 11-15.
"I'm not a skeptic because I want to believe, I'm a skeptic because I want to know." --Michael Shermer
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