NYC Atheists Table Report #4

It's atheist tabling season again! Maybe I'll be able to squeeze out a few more reports this year. What's an atheist table you ask? You can click on the "table" tag on the left, or read the first one.

I arrived bright and early to set up at 10 AM. It was my first time setting up. In the past I usually did the "late" shift and helped tear down around 6 PM. It was too windy and a bit cold. I only stayed till about 1:30 since I had to skedaddle to eat lunch and get some work done.

The main characters were:

The "Other" Atheists
The Cabbie
The Vanilla Christians
The Stalin Quoter
Seth MacFarlane
The Deist
Cocoa Herpes Lady

As usual most of the people coming up to the table were either atheists, or supportive of church-state separation. Their positive comments and incessant agreeing doesn't make for interesting blog reports.

The "other" atheists were members of the Society for Ethical Culture. They set up a table nearby muscling in on our turf. The nerve! They didn't have a canopy though, which I envied a bit since it was a bit warmer to be in the sun.

Right behind our set up is part of Columbus Circle where taxis pull up. Sometimes the drivers talk to us. One cabbie was ranting to me about "the Church". I couldn't really understand what he was talking about, but I sensed he was anti-Catholic. He handed me a pamphlet titled "Does GOD Love You?" I didn't read it until now. It's a Q&A with lots of Bible verses. Aha, one question is "Should I attend a Church? Answer: Definitely Not!" Huh! A lot of it seems focused on the end of the world.

The Vanilla Christians were the most interesting to talk to. They were a youngish man and an oldish woman carrying Bibles. They were pretty friendly, but they wouldn't tell me what denomination they were or the name of their church. (Maybe they got the cabbie's pamphlet?) They were "just Christian". We had a pretty good argument about historical evidence and determining truth. They seemed a bit stuck on the circular reasoning of "God's word is the Bible. How do we know that? Because the Bible says so." etc. I also couldn't follow some of the woman's logic. At one point she said something along the lines of "If you think scientific evidence is so great, what about the scientists who showed evidence that abortion was good?" Um, what?

The Stalin Quoter was also what I call a "dive bomber", which are those people that swoop in with some religious sound bite then zoom away before we can give a pithy atheist response. He was hovering near the table reading one of the signs another member put up, when suddenly he pokes his head over the table with a big smile and says, "you know what Joe Stalin said? Joe Stalin said, 'may no one ever die in the name of religion again'". Then he walked away quick. Did Stalin say that? A brief search doesn't reveal anything like that, but who knows? What was the point of the quote? It wasn't the usual "Stalin was an atheist you know, neener neener" type of statement. Maybe they guy screwed up the quote.

Seth MacFarlane wasn't really Seth MacFarlane but there was a resemblance. This guy was a great speaker and debater. He got involved arguing with Vanilla Christians and later Cocoa Herpes lady. I had to shut up and listen since he was doing a much better job arguing than I was. Way to go Seth! The Deist was also there. I got nothing to say about him since I got hardly any complaints about deism. I could be a deist myself if pantheism wasn't so sexy. He had no love for the Christians though.

Cocoa Herpes lady was loud and incoherent. Seth was very patient with her, but I had to leave before they finished arguing. She claimed God cured her herpes because she ate a whole can of cocoa. Apparently you can't eat cocoa if you have herpes since it causes it to flare up. (You know, I'm not even going to google that.) She talked about the cocoa with her hands stretched about two feet apart so it must have been a very big can. She also said God teleported money into her pocket. I didn't know God was such a micro-manger, but who am I to doubt her testimony?

I wonder if any crazy things happened after I left. I always miss the good stuff!

Hey look, G-mail says I have 6666 MB left. Is that worse than 666? I thought Google did no evil.

Finally if you're bored you can read the latest long blog discussion I'm having at a Christian blog. We've debated before here.

A Blog Comment

A Google news alert came in today about a new book called A Letter to an Atheist Nation. I did a search for it, but instead found this post here criticizing the Sam Harris book A Letter to a Christian Nation. I couldn't resist responding to it so here is what I wrote:
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Hello, Google led me to your blog and it seems like I am the only atheist to have read this post so I will chime in here.

I found a few points to disagree with you in your review of Sam's book. Here we go:

1. You say books like Deuteronomy and Leviticus are irrelevant to the modern Christian life. I think the question Sam is raising is how could a loving god ever promote such barbaric rules in the first place? If Yahweh is perfect, how could he change his mind? It also seems like you are choosing to interpret the word "fulfill" in a non-standard way. To me the plain reading is Jesus came to support those laws. Finally a large portion of Christians still view laws from the Old Testament as very important and use it in support of their anti-homosexual agenda, and idolatry of the ten commandments.

2. Please give a link to your Dawkins quote. I can't find it. From the following article:

http://richarddawkins.net/article,473,Lets-Hope-Its-A-Lasting-Vogue,Richard-Dawkins

He did say, "Yet I believe I am correct that not a single one of the 535 members of Congress will admit to the fact. A good many have got to be lying, and who can blame them?"

I would hate to accuse you of fabricating a direct quote, so a link would be appreciated.

3. I'm not sure what to make of your criticism of science changing. That is the whole point of science's built-in self correcting system. And I think Christianity has changed a lot during the past 2000 years. For example modern Christians no longer have slaves, persecute Jews, or burn witches. But as Sam Harris has stated, is this thanks to the religion itself, or outside secular influences?

4. Your quote from 1 Timothy 1:9-11 seems to come from the NIV version of the Bible. The KJV says "menstealers", which are probably those slave traders that kidnap people to sell. Again this is Sam's point, you are cherry picking one dubious quote. You have to admit that the New Testament as a whole is not making any effort to stop slavery.

5. What do you think about your friend's quote about Gandhi?

6. I find it odd that you claim scientific theories like the Big Bang or evolution take faith. I don't have any faith in the Big Bang. There is evidence for it so it seems reasonable, but I am open to future correction. As a skeptic I have to judge each claim based on the evidence for it, and I choose not to believe anything based on faith.

7. Why do you want to believe in two impossible things? I'm not really sure what the point is of your last sentence.

Now to comment on the comments above:

To Joe: I am not going to disagree that some atheists are arrogant jerks. You can find bad apples in any bunch. As you are well aware there are plenty of bad apples among Christians as well. (See those Phelps people protesting at military funerals with posters saying "God Hates Fags". However, don't take criticism for "bashing". I think we should have the right to question all claims and religious ideas should not be exempt from questioning.

I'm not sure what you mean by God not being fair. Isn't fairness a part of justice? Shouldn't a perfect god be perfectly just? If you believe our legal systems have grown out of the moral law written in our hearts by Yahweh, then you should agree that the punishment should fit the crime. Purse snatchers don't get hanged and serial killers don't get fined $100.

To Max: As others have said, if atheism is a faith, then not collecting stamps is a hobby. Atheism is nothing more than the disbelief in god(s). No faith is involved. Does it take faith not to believe in unicorns or fairies? Atheism is the default position. The theist makes a positive claim and must provide evidence to support it. Either you agree and become a theist or you disagree and remain an atheist. Keep in mind I am talking about general atheism as a synonym for non-theism. There are strong atheist who do make positive claims saying no gods exist for which your argument might hold. However I am not one of those atheists and I have not met many so I think they are a minority in the atheist community. Even Dawkins rates himself a "6" on his scale of belief where "1" is a complete 100% sure theist, and a "7" is a complete 100% sure atheist. For most scientists belief is spread on a spectrum from highly likely to highly unlikely.

To Mark: I agree, many atheists are obsessed with god(s). I am one of them. I enjoy discussing theology and different possibilities of existence. These are big questions and it is natural to be curious about them. I certainly don't hate the idea of a god. I think it would be great if a god existed, but I just don't see the evidence for the kind of god described in the Christian religion. I am not sure why you need a god to be humble though. There are plenty of people out there smarter and more able than I so I can certainly be humble about that.

You also said atheists don't like being told what to believe, but isn't that true for anyone? Do you want to be told to believe in Allah or Buddha? Everyone wants to find truth their own way.

Most atheists just want to live in a free society where everyone can believe whatever they like as long as those beliefs don't hurt other people. We are not trying to take away your bibles or churches. However in a public forum such as the Internet expect your views to be challenged. These discussion are not persecution or hate filled attacks. At least, they are not supposed to be, but remember the Internet is full of fanatics of all flavors!

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I edited one grammatical typo since copying my comment to my blog here, but there are probably more!