Thinking Unenslaved

I want to thank all our contributors and co-hosts for a great show last night. The content selected was wonderful, and sparked some great discussions. We even managed to gang up a little bit on Zach, but we still love him, and as usual, the conversation was diverse even between a bunch of people who basically agree.

So, that means it’s linky-link time!

Me and The Gang:

• Dawnne Gee ~ @Synthaetica | Until Again | un:enslaved
• Kile Jones ~ {no twitter, sniff} | Kile Jones | State of Formation (contributor)
• Paul Fidalgo ~ @PaulFidalgo | Near Earth Object | music
• Zach Garland ~ @Zachsmind | ~vyou | ~blogspot

Guest Callers:

• Guy ~ @TheGuyGD / @AtheistsStudio
• Packard ~ @PackardSonic

Selected Articles:

I’ve created gawd.us links to these, which are the same as bit.ly links, by the way. That way I can give you guys “metrics” on the “tremendous clickthroughs” you’ll get from being linked here….

1. @TheGuyGD ~ Watson Vs. House M.D.
2. @PackardSonic ~ Mooove it right along
3. @PaulFidalgo ~ Un-Americanizing Atheists
4. @JenTheHumanist ~ Humanism Does not equal Atheism
5. @rnistuk ~ What to do with the Religion Sized Hole in Your Life when You Become an Atheist…
6. @Pribbzilla ~ Let’s begin this conversation

The March Blog Party Episode is below (this is really the “most recent” episode player ~ they don’t make one for each episode):

On next Wednesday’s segment of Thinking Unenslaved, I’m holding a small contest for blog submissions on the topics noted below. Our panel will read the entries aloud and discuss (no, not necessarily eviscerate if we don’t agree) them on the air in our Round Table format. We’ll choose one (possibly two if it’s too close to decide) recent blog post from the following categories:

Submission Categories:

• Atheism (note: this category is not open to Agnosticism)
• (Secular) Humanism
• Religion
• Sociology
• Philosophy

Minimum Requirements for Consideration:

• Article is “recent” (December 1, 2010 or later ~ exception might be made in deference to kick-ass authorship)
• Article is comprised of at least 600 words
• Article contents contain at least 75% unquoted content

Pretty simple, huh? Authors of the blogs chosen will be asked to come on the show. Show participation is not mandatory. There is no monetary award for being chosen. Submission Guidelines and Deadline:

• Submit link(s) to blog post(s) in the comments on the Segment Website
• Maximum of 5 links per contestant
• Deadline Tuesday, February 22, 2011 at 10pm EST.
• Selections will be announced Wednesday, February 23, 2011 by 10am EST.

Join us Wednesday night for some unique and dynamic show content

Last week, we concluded our discussion of Secular Humanism in Western Society. Unfortunately (and as is often the case), the discussion really got going just as the show was ending. Ryan (@NewYorkCreator) joined in with Zach, Paul and myself in a conversation that actually extended well past the end of the show.

So, at Ryan and Zach’s request, we’re going to have another Round Table this week, but a slightly different format. As many of us co-hosts as are available are going to dial in Wednesday night, along with Ryan (and hopefully @AntitheistAngie). We’re going to cover a lot of hot-button topics for between us, and may or may not take callers as time permits. I’m hoping that Zach, Ryan and I can somewhat replicate our post-show discussion from last week. It got pretty interesting.

Some things we’re planning on discussing include, but are in no way limited to:

• Anti-abortion politics
• Intelligent Design education
• Free speech versus verbal masturbation
• Draw Muhammad Day
• Atheist Morality

The last topic there is a segue to next week’s show. I’m setting up an interview with Martin Pribble in regards to a recent poll on about.com which he was leading until it got pharyngulated. The poll results are now meaningless, as they do not inherently reflect the about.com readership, nor do they necessarily accurately reflect the beliefs of those who take the poll as much as they reflect the ability of poll-takers to submit the voting form several times just to make PZ Myers look more popular than he really is. Don’t get me wrong, I have much respect for the man and even consider myself a fan of his. And while online polls are inherently flawed in concept, there’s no benefit for us to prey upon each other even in the most innocuous of forms.

Last week, our Round Table discussion was largely devoted to this same subject, but there were several questions/scenarios I’d left on another computer and sadly didn’t bring to the discussion. As well, this is a fairly broad subject with far-reaching implications, and the 47 minutes or so we spent on it last week really didn’t do the topic justice. So, this week, Kile and I will talk about this some more.

Some of the sub-topics we’ll discuss tonight include a) Moving beyond the impact of religion on the Arts, b) Social services without religion (or, uncompelled social services), c) Is it possible to teach strict humanism in education when historical examples mostly involve religious motivation d) Is not Secular Humanism just as likely to fall victim to the vagaries of human character as religion.

The list above is by no means everything we intend to discuss. Zach and Paul will join us if they can, and may well have their own questions for Kile, too.

Please join us for another interesting and dynamic segment of our ongoing discussion on secularism, humanism and atheism in society at 10pm Eastern Standard Time this Wednesday, February 9th here on BlogTalkRadio.

Tonight’s show is another round table with Kile, Paul, Zach and myself. The general theme is Secularism in Western Society: I’m hopeful that we can … er … “faithfully” represent the European perspective and not make the mistake of equating “western society” with “the silly stuff we Americans do.” Perhaps we’ll get lucky and have one of our European friends dial into the live show.

I’ll be twitter-begging for participants throughout the next couple of days. Other topics we may also address include: the problem with religious-based public education, and relationships between theists and non-theists. Please listen in for a lively discussion of pertinent topics this Wednesday night at 10pm EST. We’d love to take questions and comments from persons of alternative points of view, so don’t be bashful! Give as a call and join in the discussion!

This week, I’ve planned a “solo” show, which is actually designed to elicit callers-in. Yeah, I’m sneaky like that! You’re stuck with me, in other words, but you’re not really just stuck with me. Luckily, though, thanks to the not-so-mysterious workings of my brain, my famously notorious co-hosts will probably be dialing in anyway. That’s because I’m focusing the show recent articles by some of my favorite bloggers, a couple of whom are, guess what….Paul and Kile!

As I set up the show, I have selected recent contributions from Paul Fidalgo ( http://bit.ly/fpRvbO ), Martin Pribble ( http://bit.ly/gGE4Va ), and Kile Jones ( http://gawd.us/hEl7Lx ). I’ve asked these contributors to dial in while I’m discussing their content. Martin may not be able to join us since he’s in Australia, though.

A good portion of the show will be a follow-up to the end of last week’s show, which we didn’t get enough time to spend on. I’m working on cleaning up the “management” portion of what I do, but in the mean-time, I felt the combined topics of Raising Hellions and Atheist Evangelism (under the general umbrella of Teaching Atheism) were worthy of more formative discussion. The articles I’ve selected play heavily into this topic.

Please join me at 10pm EST this Wednesday for a healthy discussion of these topics!

This week, I’ve planned a “solo” show, which is actually designed to elicit callers-in. Yeah, I’m sneaky like that! You’re stuck with me, in other words, but you’re not really just stuck with me.

Thinking Unenslaved: Blog Talking

Luckily, though, thanks to the not-so-mysterious workings of my brain, my famously notorious co-hosts will probably be dialing in anyway. That’s because I’m focusing the show recent articles by some of my favorite bloggers, a couple of whom are, guess what….Paul and Kile!

As I set up the show, I have selected recent contributions from Paul Fidalgo, Martin Pribble, and Kile Jones, plus a recent YouTube video from Antitheist Angie. I’ve asked these contributors to dial in while I’m discussing their content. Martin may not be able to join us since he’s in Australia, though.

(I’m at work right now and can’t get to the locations of all the links I need to put into here. I’ll edit this post this evening with the links ~ sorry! ~ dg)

A good portion of the show will be a follow-up to the end of last week’s show, which we didn’t get enough time to spend on. I’m working on cleaning up the “management” portion of what I do, but in the mean-time, I felt the combined topics of Raising Hellions and Atheist Evangelism (under the general umbrella of Teaching Atheism) were worthy of more formative discussion. The articles I’ve selected play heavily into this topic.

Please join me at 10pm EST this Wednesday for a healthy discussion of these topics!

Last week’s show was a great trial run of our round-table format. I think everyone really enjoyed it, and even though we didn’t keep strictly to time constraints, we learned a lot from Kile, and had a great set of discussions. I’m really looking forward to having more round-table discussions in the future.

The most recent show streams are below.

Tonight, we’ll have our first round-table discussion! Three topics have been suggested, so the format will be as follows:

Kile will start with “secularism and religion in a liberal democracy” and how that works within the framework of the Establishment Clause and Free Enterprise. This should lead to some lively discussion between the panelists, and segue’s nicely into an anecdotal discussion on the “theification” of American and British politics at all levels of government (and its accompanying deification of conservative politicians), presented by yours truly. From there, we’ll get into Paul’s topic of “teaching atheism” from the parental perspective, which will probably naturally transition on its own into any of several directions.

The expected format is for each of us to present our thoughts on our chosen topics for 5-10 minutes, followed by a round-table discussion between the panelists for another 15-20 minutes, and then take callers before moving on to the next topic. If we have no callers on a particular subject, we’ll simply move on.

I’m really excited about tonight’s show and the subjects we’ll be covering. This is a great opportunity to talk to all the co-hosts together (I *think* Zach will be there, too, I just didn’t get a topic from him and there’s plenty here to work with), so I’m hoping we’ll have some good callers with differing opinions on the subject matter.

Please join us at 10pm Eastern for a lively discussion!

Ah, it’s good to be back! I apologize for the long hiatus, but I had to work my way through some things, most of which had to do with doing too much. In the week before the show, I’ll be frantically working on getting some things together (like a piece of intro music and some interstitial stuff that I’ve been threatening to do for the past fiscal quarter), but to be quite honest, the simple act of the getting the show scheduled for next Wednesday is a cathartic act in and of itself. I’m truly looking forward to it.

Wednesday is the day after the first Day of Ones for this eleventy-ish year (if you ignore the glaring “20″), which I suppose makes it fitting for a solo show with some very special guests. We’ll do some one-on-one conversations with persons whom I feel are influential in our world, taking on subject matter that is currently pertinent to the Atheist, Humanist, and Secularist communities. I’ll update this description with details when they’re solidified with my guests: I hope to have @Zachsmind, Paul Fidalgo, and Kile Jones with me, which, I suppose, means I should probably invite them!

Please note: “Thinking Unenslaved” is now an hour earlier: 10pm Eastern, and after a recent split vote on whether to continue on Wednesdays or switch to Sundays, I cast the tie-breaker and decided for Wednesdays. I pulled it back by an hour because I no longer dedicate Wednesday afternoons to my kids: we get to see each other frequently throughout the week, now.

I’ve spent the past several days listening to various skeptic, atheist, and agnostic audio podcasts. A few of them were quite entertaining (Brian Dunning is excellent, for example), while (what was to me) a surprising amount appeared to consist largely of insider information to small, specific sub-communities of individuals. In a tweet I posted in the middle of that research, I bemoaned our lack of an appreciable foothold in that medium. Indeed, I was rather disappointed about this at first, until I remembered what a great group of skeptics, atheists, and agnostics we have on YouTube, and whose reach is literally millions.

Now, as much as I love people like Thuderf00t, AntitheistAngie, ZOMGitsCriss, Zinnia Jones, The Thinking Atheist, and many others, the problem I have with YouTube is the reliance on visual cues, overlays, and the like, to communicate ideas. There’s nothing wrong with this at all (in fact, as a photographer, I naturally LOVE it), but what about the viewer or listener with too much to do to sit around watching videos? What about the person who’d like to put a podcast on while doing chores, or driving around town? To be explicit, what about the kind of person who could listen attentively, but not watch? Communications that rely on visual content to convey meaning either miss this type of listener, or the listener fails to completely benefit from the medium.

I’ve struggled with this for a long time, actually. Very early on, when I started becoming involved in the ThinkAtheist Radio Show (formerly on TalkShoe and BlogTalkRadio), I contemplated switching it to a video-format, YouTube-based show. Several things stood in the way of that (not the least of which was the lack of time), and ultimately, I was rather fond of the general format of our show: free-form, unscripted live talk. Obviously, I chose not to vary from that format.

As I said, there are a few audio podcasts that I really like: Skepchick, Skeptoid, Freethought Radio, The Atheist Experience, and others, but these also have their quirks. Freethought Radio in particular rather disappoints me: These are good, intelligent people, but the format is over-commercialized, and the participants, at least in the few shows I’ve listened to, appear to be so committed to “staying on time” and “sticking to the point” that their interviews can be stilted, one-sided, interruptive, and often have an annoying tendency to sound far more patronizing to the interviewee than informative or instructive to the audience.

To be clear, I must point out that Skepchick and Skeptoid don’t fall into the description I just gave (that was for Freethought Radio alone). I love their shows, and just wanted to make sure I linked to them.

To refrain from picking on shows from organizations that I otherwise admire, suffice it to say that I find myself in that position where I listen to something (even several somethings) and I realize the opportunities missed, the messages not delivered, the discourse left behind, and it reminds me that the emotions engendered by sitting around and noticing that could be better served by my getting off my ass and doing something about it. Not that I believe I would consistently do better, but I’d certainly try. And I’ve had much encouragement of late to do so.

As well, our guests on the old ThinkAtheist Radio Show had this interesting tendency to ask us if they could come back on for another interview, and this held true for the very short run I did with my own show. Our shows were dynamic, and a modicum of topic-wandering was not only welcome, but expected. There was no agenda for us as interviewers to keep in context: I’d have been just as happy (from a show perspective) if one of our participants suddenly announced his or her undying fealty to Jebus as I would if we had spent 60 minutes talking about his or her escape from organized religion. But the bottom line for me is that my guests enjoyed what I did well enough to ask to come back. I was obviously doing something right.

I halted my own show largely for a reason that has now resolved itself. That reason essentially boiled down to time. When I stopped the show, I was doing 12-16 hours/week at our TaeKwonDo academy, 10-18 hours/week on the soccer fields, and whatever time I could get with my children, atop a typical 40-50 hour work-week. For other health reasons, I’ve had to stop doing TaeKwonDo, and now that we’re in the winter months, soccer is only 2-8 hours/week, and I’ve already let the various administrations know that I can do as many games in the future as I’ve done in the past. I’m kind of enjoying having time to myself, and to date, and those kinds of things.

And I’ve discovered that I miss doing the show. Which is funny, because for a while there, I wasn’t missing it at all. Time works wonders, I guess.

So, at the repeated prompting of a few friends, and a general round of acceptance from the community at large, I’m reviving Synthaetic Synapse as Think Unenslaved. I’m waiting on some new equipment, and I’m setting up some intro and interstitial music, and even some commercial plugs for communities of which I’m a member and national organizations of whom I’m fond. I’m lining up some occasional co-hosts and guests, and putting a bit more organization around the show as a whole. I’ll consider reopening communications with ThinkAtheist (I re-subscribed to the site last week) and seeing if they’d like to “sponsor” the show (without pay), but I will retain my independence regardless. The show format will be very much as it always was: which means that there will be three major classifications of shows.

1. Co-hosted show: Myself and a co-host would cover international, national, and local news related to the atheist/agnostic/freethought community as a whole. The topics selected will lead to discussion between the two hosts. We’ll limit that segment to approximately one hour, and have similar material prepared for the second hour should callers not fill up the second segment.

2. Solo show: This is where I diatribe on one subject or another for a while (this may either be live or in a pre-recorded/edited/prepared format and replayed). Related to that subject, I’ll have a live guest or two with subject-matter expertise on that and related topics. This segment will last 60-90 minutes, with an open-phones segment at the end.

3. Round-table show: This is a pure round-table format, possibly with a co-host/moderator, and with multiple (3-4) guests on hot-button topics of interest. The round table will spend 15-20 minutes per topic on up to six topics, taking callers for one or two questions during each segment, and solving all the world’s problems in a single two-hour show.

I anticipate kicking off the new show over the first weekend of December, 2010. Check back on this site for updates over the next few weeks, and be sure to follow my Twitter and Facebook posts for show times and additional information. I’ll continue to run the show from it’s current location at Blog Talk Radio, but un:enslaved will serve up supplemental information, associated content, the show archive, and those types of things too.

Some of you know there was a bit of an incident a couple of nights ago between myself and another outspoken Atheist, who also promotes herself as a Humanist. This happened on Twitter, in the public stream. It was highly unproductive, and rather unfortunate. But it was the proverbial “last straw” for me in terms of accepting as “directive” what I feel to be a highly destructive approach to ourselves as Atheists when interacting with Theists, and if my inability to let that subject go makes me immature and/or intolerant in some people’s eyes, then more people than the handful who unfollowed me due to that event need to unfollow me.

The situation with that person goes far deeper than what was exemplified on Twitter, and it has thus been difficult for me to let it go on that level as well. I’m not going to bring that in the discussion tonight, but since that little confluence of actions has led to a minor separation between some of us on Twitter, I think that ideological separation is a valid subject to broach here.

Luckily, I’d already invited Kile Jones on tonight’s show. I can’t think of a better, more thoughtful and considerate person with whom to discuss these matters. So, following on a little bit from last week’s show on Humanism, Secularism, and Atheism, Kile and I will be discussing the potential dangers in all three of those philosophical approaches, and hopefully, we’ll talk about some strategies for those of us with different approaches to our interactions with Theists and Religionists. My discussions with Kile are always insightful, and I dare say even inspirational. I’ve managed to swing all the way from being a bit reticent to do a show tonight, to being completely stoked. I look forward to a great time with Kile, and those of you who choose to dial in!

Please join me tonight at 11PM EDT/10 CDT/8 PDT for “Thinking Freely: Overrated By Some” with Kile Jones.

the following was originally published at my personal blog before i “resurrected” this one this past Oestre-tide. because i was rolling like that at the time. This is probably a more appropriate category for this blog, however, so consider this a kick-off to a new series.

---

Abraham: Hey, son, let’s take a walk.
Isaac: Cool, dad. I’m tired of driving everywhere, anyway.
Abraham: Great. Hey, grab that bag for me?
Isaac: Sure, dad. What’s in this thing?
Abraham: We call it “Awesomesauce,” son.
Isaac: Can I try some?
Abraham: Hahahahaha…No.
….
Trudge, trudge. Gulp. Trudge, trudge. Gulp.
….
more trudging, gulping.
….
Abraham: Ah, let’s rest here for a bit.
Isaac: Good idea, dad. You’re pretty much all over the trail.
Abraham: Don’t be a punk, smartass. Why don’t you go get me some wood?
Isaac: Why do you want some…
Abraham: DON’T ASK ME QUESTIONS, BITCH! GET THE DAMNED STICKS!
….
Rummage, rummage, rummage.
Elsewhere…swig, gulp, fart.
Carry, drop, sigh, rummage.
Isaac: Is that enough yet, pops?
Abraham: You stop when I tell you to stop, boy.
Isaac: {sigh}
Abraham: Don’t you sigh at me, boy! I’ll beat you so hard your momma loses teeth!
….
rummage, carry, drop, sigh, rummage.
swig, gulp, fart.
etc.
….
Isaac: Dad. There’s no more sticks within a three mile radius. Is that enough?
Abraham: Shit…thassalotta sticks, boy. What the hell ya doin?
Isaac: DAD! You TOLD me to get the sticks!
Abraham: Did not!
Isaac: Did too!
Abraham: Son, donchu be tellin me what I did and didn’t do.
Isaac: ….
Abraham: Go get th’goat, boy.
Isaac: What goat?
Abraham: Nebbermind. I’ll get th’goat. You stack up these sticks real nice for a fire.
Isaac: Gah. Yessir.
….
(sound of Abraham peeing somewhere not far off)
grumble, stack. grumble, stack. sigh. grumble.
enter Abraham, sans goat, scowling.
Isaac: What’s wrong, dad?
Abraham: Nuttin’.
Isaac: Aw, c’mon, dad…the goat get away?
Abraham: Yeah, that, an’ I’m outta booze.
Isaac: Outta what?
Abraham: Awesomesauce.
Isaac: Oh. So what’re we gonna do?
Abraham: Uh…I’m thinkin…nap-time.
Isaac: Sounds good to me, I’m tired after all this work!
Abraham: Stop yer ‘plainin, boy! Shaddup’n lay down on them there sticks.
Isaac: Do what?
Abraham: You go ahead and lay on th’sticks. Looks comfy. I’ll jist curl up over here….
Isaac: On the sticks? You’re serious?
Abraham: Yes, I’m serious.
Isaac: The sticks where we were gonna sacrifice the goat.
Abraham: Well….yeah.
Isaac: On the pile of flammable wood.
Abraham: Yes!
Isaac: Made for a sacrifice.
Abraham: YES!
Isaac: Where things….die.
Abraham: Get on the sticks, boy, and don’ gimme no more’f yer damn lip!
Isaac: {sigh}
….
shuffle. climb. {sigh}
….
time passes.
….
Abraham: You sleepin, boy?
….
Abraham: You ‘wake, boy?
….
Abraham: Dammit.
….
shuffle, shuffle.
….
Isaac: DAD! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING WITH THAT KNIFE?!?!?!
Abraham: Ummmm….
Isaac: HOLY SHIT, YOU FUCKIN DRUNK BASTARD!!!!
Abraham: Aw, I was just kiddin’, kiddo. C’mon….don’t be such a prick.
Isaac: Jesus, man.
Abraham: C’mon, git down. Let’s go home.
Isaac: Gahhhhhh…..
….
trudge, trudge, trudge.
….
Isaac: Dad?
Abraham: Yeah?
Isaac: You’re the best daddy ever!

Reminder: ThinkAtheist.com Weekend Podcast on September 6, 10p Eastern. This Sunday’s general topic is Traditionalism. We’ll discuss several forms of traditionalism that are pervasive in our lives, especially these minor forms of religious traditionalism that are quite transparently fixed in our secular lives. There’s a possibility that Dr. Frink will be with us, so keep your fingers crossed! ThinkAtheist.com members: Please RSVP on the event page linked above!

---

NEXT: Un:Enslaved contributor and fellow twitter-whore, @MovingToMontana, has designed something that every card-carrying atheist needs: the card to actually carry. Download yours today, tonight, or at some other convenient time for you. I’ll eventually get that link into the sidebar, too.

---

and lastly….what i actually came here to do today….

Look. I’m fine if you want toworship a non-existent “God”, even if your only real reason for doing so is the gross combination of “that’s what you’ve been told to do” and “that’s the emotional crutch you need to have.” Really, it’s okay.

But. Each and every abrahamic religion is premised upon one common concept: FAITH. Without faith, your religion has no meaning, no purpose, no relevance whatsoever. And, functionally speaking, faith is the opposite of fact. So when you start spouting elements of your faith as fact, you have ceased contributing to the formative discussion. And worse, when you spout the “God is Love” stuff, you actively undermine the entire premise of your own faith.

Think about that for a minute. This isn’t a new argument from the atheist standpoint, but this is the exact problem with every abrahamic religion: your God is NOT “Love”. Your God is not even nice. Your God, according to your own Holy Books, is an insensitive, insecure, vituperative ass, wholly and exclusively interested in exactly one thing: the undying devotion and ego-massaging of vast numbers of human beings.

And what’s REALLY ironic about that is the fact (the proven, irrefutable fact), that the God described in your Holy Books is actually just a construct of human thinking. The irony is nearly overwhelming. You ultimately choose to believe in an imaginary God because certain persons from the Bronze Age who sought a slightly more insidious way to control the population (as opposed to simple, direct militarism) made up some quaint fairy tales for you to believe in. And worse than that, a lot of those stories are far from “quaint”. According to your Holy Books, your God is responsible for the deaths of millions, directly ordered the rape and murder of hundreds of thousands of women and children, and even struck down his own people for being as gullible as he supposedly made them.

Yeah, I know, you’ll cast that all aside and argue at me with the other self-contradictory stories from your book of fairy tales. And that’s okay. Just understand that when that’s all you do, when that’s the sum and total of your apparent ability to form cohesive thought, it becomes increasingly difficult for me to swallow the condescension. And yes, when you willfully confuse the concepts of faith and fact, I don’t even try.

It’s Tuesday, folks, and you all know what that means! That’s right, it’s time for me to ramble semi-uncontrollably on several potentially-related-but-probably-not subjects. Yes, yes, welcome to the mental ramblings of a forty-something untreated ADHD sufferer/channeler/user/whatever.

Okay, actually, you probably didn’t see that one coming, but it’s about time I started some sort of meme over here, so T.M.R. (Tuesday Morning Rambling) it is! Besides, TMR is almost like TMI, but all piratey and shit. Truly, what could be better?

1. So, speaking of piratey things, I want to thank Cap’N Dyke for keeping me listed as her official “Snarkalopicus” (see her sidebar) despite my long absence from snarky things here, there, and really most anywhere other than Twitter.

2. Actually, related to the previous, be advised I am still working on fleshing out the blogroll over here. I’m being very prudent this time, however, and selecting those whom I already very much admire, whether I knew them from previous blog incarnations and have been reading them all along, or whether I met them more recently on Twitter. To be perfectly honest, to be in my blogroll here should “mean a lot”. Current listings constitute less than 5% of those whom I at least skim on a regular basis, and these ones, I read every posting every day. They are golden. Subscribe to their feeds!

3. If you, or anyone you know, are looking for someone with a couple of decades’ experience in Software Development from the Quality Assurance perspective, please put them in touch with me. Being who and what I am, I try to keep my professional life somewhat distinct from most of my online presences, and I would truly be peeved for this to stand in the way of that. Discretion is recommended.

4. Tune in this Sunday to the ThinkAtheist.com Weekend Podcast hosted by yours truly. Since it’s Labor Day weekend, I fully expect drunken discourse on virtually any topic under the sun, but the theme for the night is traditionalism.

5. Do you Twitter naked? Good for you!

6. I’m genuinely curious: How many of you are using social networks such as Twitter to find like-minded people in your local areas for friendship or romance? Is the process successful? And if it is, do you tweet to these friends/relations more or less since you found them? Answers in the comments if you would please be so kind.

7. Same question as the above, without regard to local proximity. In other words, if you use Twitter, etc to find friends/romance, is it all about location, location, location, or are you willing to move around a bit? Again, answers in the comments if you would please be so kind.

8. Do you blog naked? You fucking sicko! Put some damn clothes on!

9. Nine is actually the loneliest number. If you don’t know why, you don’t need to ask.

10. You all realize, of course, that what we really need is a national health care system, don’t you? Of course you did. Let’s make it happen, folks.

11. I see in the stats that some of you have begun browsing or even pulling feeds based on my categories/topics. That’s cool, but pulling in my old posts from the otherwhirled pretty much screwed all that up. After I get my favorite folks into the blogroll, many of the categories, and a lot of the tags, will be munged together a bit. too many is too distracting. You have been warned, hah.

Alright, that’s it for now. Peace, out, and remember, be careful out there ‘mong them xtians!

the next in my mini-vlog series at twitcam.com.

there is an element to social networking that some of us refer to as “the pretendy”. in essence, “the pretendy” is the fact that we never really know how much pretense lies behind what we place behind our online personas. not that total honesty is necessary or required, but when it comes to judging the quality of our interactions, “the pretendy” works from both directions and obfuscates things. i simply encourage you to give that some consideration.

In case the object below doesn’t play well, you can also view it at twitcam.com

in preparation for turning this site over to something that suits me a bit better, i have begun toying with some mini-vlogging over at twitcam.com.

This series of vlogs is about how atheists conduct ourselves on Twitter. Not that i think i need to tell anyone what to do, but because i’m a patttern-recognition guy, and i see certain patterns that lead to certain thoughts. i’m simply sharing those thoughts.

In case the object below doesn’t play well, you can also view it at twitcam.com

Yes, “unenslaved” is a metaphor.

I have no delusions, illusions, or conclusions that the type of “slavery” I refer to when using this metaphor in any remote way correlates to the various forms of tribal, racial, and societal forms of slavery which have been committed upon people throughout humanity’s inglorious history. By using the word “unenslaved”, my intention is not to demean anyone who is, or has ever been, subjected to the crime we commonly refer to as slavery.

That having been said, I want to apologize for the dearth of posts over the past nine days. for what it’s worth, I was in the hospital with pneumonia from June 11-15, and sick for several days before that. It was the first time—ever—that I have been brought so low, and that’s including being quite sickly as a toddler, shot in combat in Panama, and having sustained back injuries during Desert Storm, along with the relatively typical respiratory issues from the same. At 42 years of age, I’m still young enough to be grossly opposed to feeling helpless. It was not a fun week, and I’m still not at 100% yet.

Now, why my guest bloggers didn’t do anything, I can’t tell you. Lazy bums they are, off with their own domains and such! Bums, I tell you! BUMS!

Anyway, let me take a moment hear to explain what this site is REALLY about.

When I started unenslaved.com, the thoughts in my head revolved around many subjects, ranging from a simple celebration of not being bound by traditionalism, religion, and other forms of social oppression through to wanting to be a resource for people who are in the process of freeing themselves from the various forms of institutionalized social repression (which includes some forms of education, religion and sociological circumstances). Ultimately, I think I’ve settled on the former, with a willingness to help those who want it, in terms of the latter. As well, if something I manage to bust out happens to pique someone’s interest to the point that they begin to at least toy with changing the way they think, then I would be a happy man indeed. This is also why I’ve invited others to post here: more opportunities to get more neurons firing, after all.

You should be aware that I, and my guest-bloggers (at least I believe I can safely speak for them on this level), are all smart-asses, but we are are passionate about the things we have come to know as true. For myself, as a “de-convert” of original Christian upbringing, I often have a difficult time not belittling those whose thinking is woefully clouded by delusion, because my de-conversion was a function of my personal maturation process. While I have every intention of continuing my patented smartassery, I also intend to improve upon not talking like a smarmy asshat, or even internally believing that I’m “better” than someone else who lives under the veil of delusion. I doubt I’ll be perfect at it, but I’ll honestly try.

Anything else, after all, would be me imposing a particularly insidious form of mental slavery on myself: a belief that I am “better” simply because I corrected an error. Such things don’t truly make anyone better, they just make one less gullible. Just as many bad things can happen by virtue of one’s transfixed skepticism as by virtue of one’s gullibility, after all.

So here’s the challenge: I hope that those of us that blog here will continually challenge ourselves and each other to be true to the premise above: We are not inherently better than anyone else. Now, we might be better at some things than certain other people: things like critical thinking, analysis, etc. But we’re not inherently better, or more superior at least I don’t believe we necessarily are. Let us educate without belittlement, and let us communicate without condescension. I realize this is no easy task. The easy stuff isn’t really worth doing, though.

The challenge for those who come here to read these things is to at the very least attempt to be non-judgmental. You are neither expected to nor desired to agree with everything we put out to be read. You are certainly not expected to think like we do, believe what we believe, or frankly to be as self-reliant as we are.

Some are going to read that as a sidelong put-down, but that’s not the intent of that statement. Most people who believe in a deity are actually not quite as self-reliant as they tend to envision themselves. This is precisely where communications tend to get bogged down. The only thing I ask is that we make honest attempts to communicate as opposed to simply vociferating, pontificating, and jumping feet-first into the ad-hominem grab-bag of oneupmanship.

Thanks for your time.

The following was originally posted at the otherwhirled and Mock, Paper, Scissors on April 7, 2007 in support of the original Blogswarm Against Theocracy. This short series of posts is still pertinent today, I believe.

---

Sit back, grab a beer or a glass of wine, turn the lights down, put on some quiet music, and imagine with me for a moment:

Imagine a world where people of diverse ideas can discuss important topics without burning straw men. . . .a world in which our natural, innate curiosity is shared by adult members of all political and idealogical persuasions. . . .a world in which it is by no means satisfying to glance at a thing—an idea, a principle, a philosophy—and consider it known. . . .a world in which a dismissive attitude towards the things which question one’s sense of normality, emotional security, or even personality, would be a foreign concept.

Imagine a world, in other words, devoid of the vagaries of all those things which have become the hallmarks of neoconservative philosophy: hypocrisy, duplicity, intolerance, sanctimony, deceit, guile, pretense, and sciolism.

Now, take a sip of whatever that is you chose to drink for this, and bear with me, because I’m about to address something that most, if not all, of us participating in this Blog Against Theocracy have been tap-dancing around, to our collective detriment. For in our attempt to be respectful and considerate, we have left this relatively indefensible word, “theocracy”, dangling out there, ripe for the picking. After all, there is, to all perception, no overt movement to set aside the First Amendment, so when we use this word “theocracy”, it is easily dismissible by those invested with a solopsism so self-definitive that they truly do not understand the relevance of differing opinion. And as a result, our mission is undermined at the outset, victim to the sciolistic tendencies of evangelicals, who honestly believe that in cursorily perusing a few posts relating to this endeavor, they understand not only our mission, but our impetus and our history.

And I’m very sorry, but there’s really only one religion in America which attempts to suborn the separation of Church and State instead of confronting it directly. I don’t need to name it. Theirs is a facile stance for argument, you understand, because it inherently makes all counter-arguments reactionary, and our being reactionary is something the more juvenile among them take great pride in pointing out.

Another sip, if you will, because I must beg your patient indulgence in explaining this.

I know that I was very clear [ed: Clean Cut Kid went dark in early 2008], when I announced on Clean Cut Kid, that I would be participating in this endeavor. I said:

---

I believe that this is an important endeavor to support, and please note the careful wording of the intention behind this movement. We are not anti-religious, or even necessarily predisposed against any particular relgion. [sic, sorry]

---

So, shortly thereafter, one of South Dakota’s most extreme voices signs on with this as rebuttal. Go ahead, click the link and read the whole thing; it’ll open in another window for you. An excerpt follows.

---

Oh, they included a description of what it is they’re against. It isn’t any stuff that constitutes a theocracy, but they’re apparently so repulsed even a whiff of Christian beliefs being expressed publicly or informing public policy that they’re calling it “theocracy”:

* religious discrimination (not sure what this means–disparaging those who worship government?)
* end-of-life care (i.e. kill the disabled and infirm at will)
* reproductive health decisions without legal restraint (i.e. kill your baby if it interferes with your sexual fulfillment)
* academic integrity (i.e. vehemently reject anything the Bible says, no matter how much scientific sense it makes, in favor of anything that fits an atheistic worldview, no matter how little sense it makes)
* sound science (i.e. embrace naturalism)
* respect for all families (i.e. whether they’re a family or not, let them call themselves one, because feeling good trumps all facts or truths)
* the right to worship, or not (a right guaranteed and enjoyed by all Americans, unless you are a Christian who wants to express your faith in public)

---

Did you catch all that in the full post? The dismissiveness, obviously barren of any investigation (let alone concern) whatsoever into whatever it is we’re talking about as “theocracy”? The deliberate rendering of an anti-theocratic stance as anti-Christian. The placating tone of one who not only firmly believes what he believes, but who is palpably unappreciative of the fact that SOMETHING might be going on in the world that could at the very least be construed as sowing the seeds of religious hegemony? And why should he be appreciative of it? If a theocratic state is eventually founded on his principles, then the right thing would obviously have been done. There are many points on which his post could be rebutted, and not the least important of those would be the fact that many of those participating in this endeavor are religious individuals. He’s got digg on his blog, so you can agree or disagree with him on your own accord.

But my point here is not what or how Bob thinks. Far from it, for Bob and everyone else are quite welcome to their own thoughts. Bob is merely an example of how certain people think, or fail to think. I don’t even care that he is a devout Christian, for even more fundamental than that, Bob is a sciolist. That is, one who indulges himself in superficial knowledgability, both to his own detriment, and to ours. A rational discussion on this subject cannot actually be held with sciolists, for they do little but utter rhetoric while pretending such utterance invests them not only with holiness, but with the right to expect all others to subscribe to their belief in what is holy. Sciolists will skim over a dissenting writing, or worse yet, just hear about it, and presume that not only can they rationally refute it, but that they can also argue the dissenting point and play “devil’s advocate”.

It is in this way that our discussion of the imminent theocracy in America is immediately curtailed, for when we talk, or write, or post, we are precluded from effective communication by the very act of intentional, willful, directed ignorance—sciolism, in more succinct terms. And as long as Bob and people like him indulge themselves in this sanctimonious pretense of understanding things which they dismissively ignore and impugn, we will continue to have to operate on the same level as political extremists. And what is most aggravating about that is the fact that working to protect the First Amendment is at least philosophically as centrist as one can be.

Oh, by all means. You need another drink? No worries. I’ll wait for you. Like I said, this will take a while.

Next: the roots of sciolism ~ {these posts are all mirrored at Mock, Paper, Scissors, by the way}

<Technorati Tag: blog against theocracy>

greetings.

i am Synthaetica. i have blogged in many places, under at least a few names, to the point where i felt enslaved by the practice of blogging. my participation in such places was sporadic at best, and those places largely just served to piss me off about how much i didn’t get done.

as well, the reason why i tended to fail at those endeavors was because their focus was never quite solidified. sure, i love photography, but not with the same frenzied passion that so many do, so i’d wander off on other tangents. and i also love being a smartass, but at 40-something the constant acerbity sets my own teeth on edge. not to mention that the one-trick-pony approach was pretty lame when the trick was essentially photo-caption snark. well before the last elections, i managed to burn myself out on that.

so from the outset, this site is something a little different. you’ll find that my being a smartass is a little difficult to avoid, but it won’t consume what i do here. the intent of this site is to address my true passions, which are, summarily:

• working against the establishment, especially the indirect enforcement of supporting legislation, of a theocratic state
• fighting against all forms of religious involvement, entanglement, and decision-making in the realm of public education
• offering insight to those people who want to receive it, regarding the process of disassociating oneself from delusional thinking in terms of religious beliefs, spirituality, and emotional dependency.

so, that’s what this is about. this takes up from where i only briefly touched upon in the written form, on a few occasions, at the otherwhirled. i hope you enjoy it as much as i believe i will.