Professor J. Anderson Thomson on Why We Believe

This is a great talk by Professor J. Anderson Thomson from the American Atheist convention in Atlanta, Georgia in 2009, which addresses ideas of human evolution, the mind’s coping mechanisms, and the way religion probably evolved with us as a by-product of social mechanisms which emerged within us.

Watch and enjoy!

Lovingdoubt Interview – Prominent People Project

This is the second in a series of interviews with  people who are prominent in the worlds of atheism, science, skepticism and rational thought.

This interview is with one of YouTube’s most prominent atheists and skeptics, Stephanie (AKA Lovingdoubt). Her videos are powerful, moving and poignant, and leaves the viewer thinking about the personal aspects of religion and faith, and how these affect us as individuals. Her YouTube videos have attracted nearly a quarter of a million hits, and as you watch them you are presented with a gradual unfolding of one person’s journey from the insistence of belief in God, to the rational position of disbelief.

Lovingdoubt is very interested in the human brain, and what it is within us all that makes us want to believe, or feel the need to believe, in the supernatural and a higher being.

This interview was conducted via email in October 2010.

 

Stephanie (AKA Lovingdoubt)

 

AC: I have found my blogging to be one of the greatest learning experiences of my life. For instance, if I don’t know something but think it would be useful for my blogs, I like to search out information and then transfer my new knowledge into my writings. Has the experience of making your YouTube videos increased your knowledge about your life and position on religion and the universe, or has it remained relatively unchanged since you realised that you don’t believe in God or religion?

LD: There is so much I’ve learned from being involved on YouTube. I love hearing other’s opinions and I learn a lot from watching people’s videos. I also learn a great deal about making my own. When I publish a video, I get so much feedback, good and bad. This has really helped me learn a lot. I feel I’ve had some opinions changed and refined overtime, but it’s been very subtle.

AC: You have over 6000 subscribers on your YouTube channel. What do you think makes your channel so popular? What is the main reason that you make these videos?

LD: What makes me popular? Well, I’m very fortunate that atheism is a popular topic on YouTube. I think that is a major contributing factor. I also think being female makes me stand out from the crowd a bit. Other than that, I simply work hard on the videos I make and hope people find them interesting. Since I have an audience, I must be doing something right.

AC: The United States is one of the most outwardly religious countries in the world, and yet we see a growing trend among people to renounce their faiths in favour of more secular or atheistic ideals. Recent articles have emerged which state that of all the people in the USA, atheists are the most knowledgeable about what religion really means. What do you make of this? Can you see a growing trend, or is it simply that people without religious faith are less afraid to make themselves known?

LD: I can’t say I’m surprised about the survey. Most atheists/non-believers I know came to their position from research, although this certainly doesn’t apply to everyone. I do see a growing trend away from religion in the United States. Most religions are losing numbers and non-belief is on the rise. On the other hand, there are fundamentalist Christian religions that have a lot of power and influence in politics right now, so it’s a very strange time in United States politics.

AC: You have spoken before in your YouTube videos about your brain injury. Can you step us through what happened, and the effect this had on your faith if any? Was this a pivotal moment, or do you see it as just a step toward the person you are now?

LD: I sustained a head injury from a car accident in June 2009. I can’t really tell you the details of the accident because I don’t remember it. The injury did have an effect on my faith, but I do think I would have become an atheist even without the accident.

The injury simply sped up the process since I had time off work to do a lot studying. There is one major impact that my brain injury had on my religious ideas. I spent a lot of time reading about brain injuries when I was trying to understand my own. After reading about and experiencing various symptoms of a brain injury, it really changed my idea of a soul. I think humans want to believe their sense of “self” is consistent, but having my brain injured taught me that this is not the case. There isn’t some stable soul within us. Who we are is dependent on our brain. I will be going through this cohesively on my video blog.

AC: I am a firm believer that everything we perceive about our world and our universe is received and interpreted by the brain. Every day we see advances in the understanding of how the brain works, whether it be from ideas around mirror neurons or the “god-centre” in the brain. You’re very interested in psychology and the workings of the brain, right? What do you find most fascinating about the human brain and the human mind?

LD: It’s tough to pick one thing. There are very few subjects regarding the human brain that don’t fascinate me. I really enjoy studying how people thinking and reason using their brain. I also like studying various problems that can occur in the brain and the effect they have. Perhaps that is why I’ve always have been drawn to the mental health field.

AC: Many people while growing up find themselves searching for a place in society; some find it in sport, some in art and some through religion. Your religious faith was strong earlier in your life, but you have also mentioned that you found yourself “testing the waters” of other religious faiths. Do you think that maybe this dissatisfaction with different religions was a hint that religion wasn’t actually for you?

Many people don’t realize this, but I rejected religion pretty early in life. I always valued learning and skepticism, even though I was young. I was 14 or so when I decided I thought the concept of god, especially one outlined by a religion, was man made. Even though I had decent reasons, they weren’t very well-developed at that age. I went through a period of my life where I went through a lot of hardship and felt unhappy with my life. I had a need to feel loved, appreciated and special. Religion met that emotional need for a period of time. The problem is I was never able to rid myself of that inner skeptic. Perhaps that is the biggest reason I couldn’t hold on to religion permanently, no matter how badly I wanted to at the time.

AC: Sam Harris once said “I see religion as a sort-of failed science” and then goes on to tell how religion was all humans had to make sense of the world at the time of their inception. I tend to agree with him. We can also see, as time goes on, with ideas and discoveries in science the “God-Gap” seems to get smaller and smaller. I believe this has made the religious leaders very nervous. What do you think about this?

LD: I agree with you. There is a trend away from organized religion, and one major factor in this could be the discoveries in science. I think some religious leaders have handled this better than others. I’m certainly not telepathic, so I can’t say much beyond what various leaders have been quoted to say.

AC: You have spoken in your videos about your husband and you speak very highly of him. Does he share your views about religion?

LD: He and I have very similar views, but it hasn’t always been that way. When I became an atheist, he was still a Christian. I was afraid of driving him away once I told him I was an atheist, but he was very open to my views. He wanted to understand why I now believed differently, so I started explaining myself over a period of time. At the same time, he started doing some research of his own. It was only a few months before he wasn’t a Christian. For six months after this, he considered himself a deist. Then, one day, he told me he was an atheist. I honestly didn’t care that much at that point, as long as we were able to accept and love each other for who we were.

AC: I know that when people leave faiths they can be shunned by the immediate religious communities and families. Did you feel this when you announced you no longer believe? Is your family religious? Did you feel a certain amount of distancing by those around you?

LD: This was one area I was very lucky in. I do have extended family that is disappointed in me, but I was not shunned. My parents are very secular. My mother is a theist, but not religious in any way. My dad used to be an atheist, but is now a deist. As you can imagine, things were actually more awkward when I was religious with them. They’ve always accepted me. I don’t talk to people from church anymore. It’s not that I wouldn’t talk to them, it’s just I wasn’t that close to very many people there.

AC: For many people, the discovery that they don’t believe can be extremely difficult. If you had one message for those who are suffering through the throes of doubt about religion and faith, what would it be?

LD: Well, I would say that I know what it’s like to be terrified of doubt, but for me, facing my doubts was the best thing I’ve ever done. Learning to follow truth rather than my own desires is a difficult lesson to learn, but it was worth it for me. It’s frightening to doubt when one has been taught it’s sinful, but I believe that real truth can stand up to scrutiny. Now I’m not afraid to have any of my beliefs and ideas questioned. I am a much stronger, happier, and balanced person for that.

AC: You’re also very theatrical in your videos, sometimes sinister, sometimes just plain fun-loving. What types of videos do you enjoy making the most? Which bring you the most satisfaction? Are you a theatrical person in your daily life?

I think I’m a very expressive person in real life, so I think I represent myself how I am. I enjoy being silly in my videos, but I really enjoy doing the serious videos best. There aren’t very many people in my real life that enjoy discussing a lot of the issues I discuss in my videos, so it’s a wonderful outlet. Also, I started my YouTube channel to help others, and when I do my serious videos, I hope to accomplish that.

AC: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for interviewing me for your blog!

Stephanie’s YouTube channel can be found here. Make sure you dig through the older videos, it’s well worth the time. Thank you so much Stephanie for taking the time to answer these questions.

Vox Populi 3 – The Realistic Future

Welcome to the third in the series of “Vox Populi” articles on my blog, where I ask for your feedback and thoughts on a given topic. Hope you enjoy these short topical pieces, and please leave your feedback in the comments.

Topic 3: The Human Future

I tend to see myself as a slightly pessimistic Extropian, but with my pessimism based in realism. However I still think we need to strive forward.

Michio Kaku has a lot to say on this subject. In one interview by George Noory, the interviewer says something along the lines of “It always seems like a race between self-destruction on the one hand, and Type 1 Status on the other.” I tend to agree. We are racing toward self-destruction, but at the same time are making advances toward the longevity of humanity and the planet at the same time. Which will win? Well it really depends upon a lot of things.

However along with my pessimistic extropian ideals comes a healthy dose of optimism, but only when I see the “ifs” than need to be satisfied. For instance, nuclear fusion, solar power, geothermal and wind-power, if harnessed in the right combination could result in an inexhaustible source of energy for nearly free, and with this would allow us to leap forward on a technological scale without further damaging the atmosphere with carbon based pollutants.

While we make advances in medicine, we also negate common causes of death, which leads to lower mortality rates from given diseases. Humans can now be fertile well into their forties (but not always successfully). If we cure cancer we could stop a certain form of suffering in humans. But by giving people a longer life of  better “standard”, we also allow for more people to be born, thereby increasing the possibility of population growth.

Religion has played a role in the views of the future also, and there are several things I would point at to illustrate this. One of the problems with religion and belief is that the doctrines of religious belief stand in opposition to the very real need humanity has to face about our future. There are even those who believe that The Rapture is a very real thing, that the faithful will be swept up into heaven, and all the heathens and non-believers will be left behind on Earth to fend for themselves, abandoned by God. What sort of incentive does this give one to strive for betterment of humanity? To give up on striving, and to place your future in a god is like having no want for the future at all, except for the false future of the afterlife. “The Rapture is not an exit strategy.”

Catholicism’s ban on abortion and contraception is counter-intuitive to viewing the needs of the future, as well as allowing for the spread among the world’s poorest people of HIV/AIDS. And it is precisely the places where the poorest are denied birth control, that there is a very real need to curb population growth based on very real resource shortages.

Religion is one of the main reasons I tend to err on the side of realism, for religion is irrational and disruptive, and sometimes dangerous, and is not going anywhere any time soon.

The main problem that I see with optimism is this; if we move blindly forward with an optimism that suggests that everything will be ok, we are denying the reality of the situation, and may ignore many of the realistic problem we face.

What do you think about the future? Are you optimistic? Do you think the extropian idea of the exponential betterment of humanity is possible? Is it even feasible?