Atheism For Dummies (For Dummies (Religion & Spirituality)) (98 page)

Follow Blogs, Pods, and Vlogs

Blogs, podcasts, and video logs online are the real way to keep up with the current goings-on in the freethought community. Some are happy to offend and spoiling for a fight; others want to give peace a chance. And of course there’s everything in between. Search these names for today’s voices of unbelief:

Chewing on the big issues:
Daylight Atheism, Atheist Ethicist, Greta Christina’s Blog, New Humanism, Skepchick, Rationally Speaking, Black Agenda Report, American Freethought podcast

Responding to the news of the day:
Friendly Atheist, Butterflies and Wheels, Blag Hag, Pharyngula, What Would JT Do?

Talking doubt to the camera:
Cristina Rad, Pat Condell, the Atheist Experience

The former Muslim perspective:
Maryam Namazie, AHA Foundation

In categories all their own:
Epiphenom — the science of religion and nonbelief, Symphony of Science videos, Why Won’t God Cure Amputees?, NonProphet Status

As always, this list is abbreviated. But go to almost any atheist or humanist blog and you can find a blogroll in the sidebar listing other recommended voices.

Listen to the Music

The British-Australian musician/comedian/atheist Tim Minchin got a shout in
Chapter 12
, but I really can’t talk about music and unbelief without mentioning Minchin one more time.

To hear a beautiful anthem for the humanist heart, go to YouTube and find Minchin’s song “White Wine in the Sun.” For some funny, fairly mild parodies of religious belief, find the songs “WoodyAllenJesus,” “The Good Book,” and “Peace Anthem for Palestine.” Need a little more spice? Listen to “My Neighbor’s Ass” (relax, it’s about the Tenth Commandment). And if you’re entirely unoffendable, check out “The Pope Song.”

For more laughs, find and enjoy the music of Roy Zimmerman. And for songs of hope, anger, and joy from the atheist perspective, there’s Shelley Segal’s
An Atheist Album.

Finally there’s the one song so simple, so beautiful, and with such universal appeal that people all around the world can’t stop singing it, even though it’s a dream of a world without religion: John Lennon’s “Imagine.”

Think about Thinking

Nothing has a greater potential to change the way you see yourself and the world than a good self-taught course in how people think. Discovering how the human brain has evolved, how ancient fears drive their behaviors and beliefs, and how confirmation bias affects people’s decision making and changes the way people see the world is fascinating (and a little scary).

Over the course of centuries, some great thinkers have developed the principles and tools of critical thinking so people can get past obstacles and see the world clearly when so inclined. These principles aren’t hard to understand, and they empower individuals — as consumers, as citizens, as parents, and as human beings.

How We Know What Isn’t So
by Thomas Gilovich (Free Press) and
Don’t Believe Everything You Think: The 6 Basic Mistakes We Make in Thinking
by Thomas Kida (Prometheus Books) are great introductions to the topic. Neither is written from an atheist perspective, but the principles they describe are the principles by which many atheists thought their way out of religion.

The books of Michael Shermer, including
Why People Believe Weird Things
(Holt) and
The Believing Brain
(Times Books),
are more specifically related to religious belief and disbelief — and come down on the side of the latter.

Be Touched by His Noodly Appendage

There’s no better peek you can get inside the head of atheism than the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. This fun and clever “belief system” was created in 2005 by a 20-something wiseacre named Bobby Henderson in response to the decision by the Kansas Board of Education to allow creationism to be taught alongside evolution in Kansas science classrooms. So glad to hear you’re teaching the controversy, said Henderson. But why stop there? You’ll also want to include my belief that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the world.

Originally intended as a one-shot parody with a point, FSMism (or Pastafarianism) is now its own full-blown religion, neither more nor less strange than any other, with its own scripture, founding myth, rituals, obsessions, loves and hates, and loopy logic. Chapters of the church have sprung up around the world, especially on college campuses. (For more on Pastafarianism, flip to
Chapter 12
.)

Read the Bible

Science fiction novelist and atheist Isaac Asimov once said that the Bible, properly read, is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived. “Properly read” means you read it yourself — don’t take cherry-picked verses from Reverend Lovejoy
or
from Christopher Hitchens. If the whole thing is too daunting, get a good start by reading just Genesis and Matthew, perhaps the two most influential books, then go from there. Read with an open mind, as if you’re encountering it for the first time. You won’t believe what you find. And you’ll get an unbeatable insight into the minds of those who’ve set it all aside.

To take it to the next level with dueling commentary, read the New International Version, with lots of explanatory footnotes from the Christian perspective, and consult the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible online for an entirely different slant.

Watch Letting Go of God

When I’m asked for the best intro to atheism, especially for non-atheists, I highly recommend Julia Sweeney’s funny, personal, brilliant monologue
Letting Go of God.
Available on DVD, this astonishing one-woman show begins as the actress/comedian describes her Catholic childhood. Far from hating and resenting it, Sweeney loved being Catholic. But many years later, a doorstep visit from two nice Mormon boys with an incredibly strange and upsetting theology gets her wondering whether her own belief system is really any better. She decides she wants more than anything to know the truth about the world and starts with a close look at her own church.

The bright, honest light doesn’t flatter the church she’s identified with all her life, and she starts circling out into other religions — first the usual suspects, then some less familiar Eastern faiths. And once again, the closer she looks, the worse it all appears.

Finally she begins a crash course in science — biology, astronomy, geology, and more — and the contrast is incredible. She eventually shows God the door, with tenderness but no regrets.

The two-hour masterpiece is never preachy or pushy. It’s one very human person’s process — moving, self-deprecating, hilarious — of letting go of God. You aren’t likely to find a better first glimpse of atheism (except the one you’re holding, of course).

Watch Other Movies That Challenge Beliefs or Explore a Natural Worldview

You can pop some other films into the queue that open a different, challenging window on religion. A few favorites include the following:

The Wizard of Oz:
You heard me. Frank Baum (who wrote the book) was a religious skeptic and Ethical Culturist. Yip Harburg (who wrote the screenplay and songs) was an atheist. It’s not hard to see the whole story as a parable about turning away from dependence on a god (the Wizard) and realizing all the brains, courage, heart, and home humanity seeks from God has always been right in their own hands. Atheism is all about paying attention to the man behind the curtain. (For much more, search online for
Wizard of Oz atheism
.)