On ablism, poster children and "curism"

Most of his post will be a comment I posted in response to another reader's comment on this article about ablist language.

On a similar theme, this article about poster children and depictions of people with disabilities, which outlines the trouble with some approaches to charity fund raising, which I touched on in the comment re-posted below.

At least one former poster-child when on to protest the MDA telethon (there's a documentary about it) and I'm feeling like doing the same thing, given some of Jerry Lewis' ablist comments.

Edit: Here's something marginally relevant to these posts about ablism (about a very disturbing argument made by Peter Singer).

On a related note, here's a great post I randomly found at the blog "Planet of the Blind"--a beautiful and insightful read. And in the spirit of looking at the positive in all this ablist bullshit, check out this video on disabled pride.



Here's the comment I replied to and my response:

So should doctors stop trying to find a cure for disabilities because that implies it's better not to have the disability? it's not like they're trying to make a pill to *make* you blind, because being blind is so awesome and empowering, right? They only want to cure it. That's so ableist.

If you consider Jerry Lewis and the MDA (muscular dystrophy association) telethon, for example, it becomes evident why there are issues with this.

They portray kids with muscular dystrophy (nevermind that folks like me, going on 28, have it too) as though they have a fate worse than death. They do this to raise money for a CURE! Because obviously the most important thing is a cure, because look at how terrible and hellish these kids' lives are! Jerry's an awful great guy to help us wretched cripples out (note my sarcasm--Jerry Lewis has made some pretty disgustingly ablist comments).

Certainly it's sad that many people barely get through adolescence with the severe forms of MD, but touting this single narrative makes it seem like MD must make everyone's life not worth living, or a living hell. It makes us sound monolithic and tragic, which is part of the problem with how our society views disability.

Let me add that the MDA does not focus 100% of their resources on a cure--only a lot of them--and they do some other good things like helping with treatment and doctor visits (btw, the notices they send to *us* don't ignore that there are adults with MD).

I think my point is, there are things to improve people lives *besides* curing every disability that it would be nice if people would feel as willing to fund to help people now--access for people with disabilities, adaptive equipment, etc. Instead, people get angry about these things, for example, when having to wait for wheelchair users to get on the bus and then move seats.

Anyway, to focus solely on a cure at the expense of people who have the disability *now* is part of the problem. The thing about cures is, if people *want* to be cured, that's great to work on curing their ailment! It's the removal of agency, "you will be cured", with a side of "so you can stop dragging everyone else down" that is really offensive. Using "lame" to convey badness is just moldy sprinkles on the rotten cake that is ablism.

So the point isn't that disabilities are all OK just how they are (that's a personal issue, and at the very least most of us do require adaptive solutions to cope with the difficulties they present). The point is that there are already disabled people here, cures and treatments in many cases may be a long way off, and the lives of people who are here are also important and deserving of respect as full human beings, not just inspiration or a word you can rely on to convey that something is "bad", because, you know, being lame, etc is the worst thing ever.

Dis-ease

Last week I went to an event at Hidmo, an Eritrean restaurant in Seattle's Central District with great community involvement--an open mic night about pain, oriented toward people with sickle cell disease, but open to all. I didn't talk much to anyone there, friends included, especially because I was tired and lost in thought. But the people I did speak with briefly on the way out were extremely kind and welcoming. I hope I see them again.

It was a good experience for me, and I think for everyone, but it made me even more aware of my whiteness than I've ever been. Then it allowed me to stop thinking about it. This was clearly in response to educating myself on issues of race, privilege and whiteness, but also to thinking more about other types of "minority" groups--including the one I belong to: people with physical disabilities.

But the first thing that happened: a black woman kindly moved her daughter to another seat to make room for me. I didn't ask, being awkward and unsure of where to sit, but I was sure to thank her. I do often encounter people moving for me because I walk with a cane, and I'm generally grateful. But it's hard not to think about it when there's a connotation of white male privilege right in the face of a woman of color. It was also a reminder that you can't actually disentangle things like race and abledness.

This started me off feeling very awkward about entering the place with two other white people. (my partner, M, and my friend, H). I'm always hesitant to speak, but this made me more so. White men, in open forums, almost always dominate time and speak more than other people. Classroom discussions, whatever. So in spaces of mixed anything (gender/race/class), I feel it's very important not to dominate discussion or take up time that someone else could use (white men have had centuries in which to do this--give someone else a chance already! Anyone who wants to argue that this isn't true, by the way, is already engaging in apologism for the silencing of women, people of color, and many others).

I started off just trying to not act like an entitled white person entering a space filled with people of color, something I've been reading more about and making more effort to be aware of. I think I mostly succeeded.
(Note: It's certainly not the same feeling a black person must get when being surrounded by white people. For one, that happens a lot more often; for two, the history of racist violence just isn't there for white people--no matter how nervous we might get thanks to the unfounded fears and prejudices we pick up in our racist society.)

In spite of the beginning, the way race and disability intersected became powerful. In some ways it heightened my awareness of my whiteness, but in many ways the night took me beyond the realms of race and color, distractions from the fact that we're all just people. That we share some common pain. Some, but not all.

And gradually, I was overwhelmed with pain. My own pain wasn't the big deal--it was the pain of sickle cell disease that occupied my thoughts--a disease I knew only a little bit about, before this night. I could relate to a lot of it as someone with Muscular dystrophy (in the case of my fairly mild Becker's MD, it's something I think of as a condition or impairment, more than a disease). Some of the people who spoke were not performers, per se, but shared with us their experiences, which had as much impact as anything else could. Some were certainly practiced performers, and damn good, I thought. One man was "put up to" writing something by his wife last minute--it was also damn good.

For something that I started out knowing only from a vague description, this night had a huge impact on me.
I was worried about taking time away from others (and more generally about getting in front of people), but later I I realized that by saying just a few words, I could have showed solidarity beyond sitting at the back of the restaurant. My friend, H, did so, and I'm glad for that (even if she forgot what she originally meant to say!). I think it served to remind us all that some people with chronic medical conditions should be aware of each other--disability affects all groups of people, and ultimately we're all part of the same struggle despite different needs and symptoms. It's a reminder that we're not alone.

Maybe in the future, I'll be less apprehensive about speaking, but I was weirdly reminded of the few occasions I tried to speak in Mormon church meetings as a kid--which didn't help. Or maybe, in the future, I'll defer to others. I don't think either way is necessarily wrong, but I am content with what I did.

It pulled me away from any tendency for narcissism. I do deal with pain. It's not as bad as fibromyalgia (which H has) or sickle cell, but I could relate to what a lot of the men and women who stood up shared their experiences with us. Hospitalization is common for people with sickle cell, which is not the case for me. But I could understand the lack of energy, not being able to do some things, sometimes. Not always being able to predict what you can or cannot do, not knowing how tired you'll be. These are familiar things.

This event made me think. It made me feel. It made me human, made me empathize and relate to others I didn't know, or even really know about. It was a dose of humanity I didn't know I needed.

The most shocking result for me was that I realized how long it had been since I contacted a friend I made on the internet who I'm pretty sure was affected by sickle cell. I wonder how she is, and I found myself regretting not being better about staying in touch with people. It's hard to reconcile leaving the past in the dust with this kind of feeling. I had plenty in common with this friend. And really, socializing over the internet kept me alive for some years, until I was better able to socialize with other people face to face (I had a number of emotional issues that made it difficult, and my departure from Mormonism didn't help with people I wanted to interact with. Anxiety made college difficult). I hope she's doing well, now, and maybe I should find out.

I'm thankful to everyone who put that event at Hidmo together. It wasn't for me, but it was good for me. It doesn't have to be for me to free me. If it makes others free--our brothers and sisters free--it frees the rest of us, too.

This infuriates me (a.k.a., fuck the Mormon church)

[Note: this post vents a lot of my anger (language!), but also details some of the homophobia and sexphobia that pervade Mormon culture. For the record, I don't begrudge individual Mormons their religion in general, as they don't all agree with church policies--but I do think they're accountable for belonging to and supporting an organization that is dishonest, exports bigotry and firmly believes in marginalizing many minority groups. Also, in case any Mormons read this, I reserve the right to remove your comments arbitrarily, if I think you're acting like a shower.]

8: The Mormon Proposition is on YouTube. I watched it earlier. I yelled at the computer screen a lot. I'm not going to detail the documentary too much, but it got a reaction out of me, and I think that's what the filmmakers were after.

It details the covert but pivotal involvement of the Mormon church in passing proposition 8 in California, banning same-sex marriage. While they tried to maintain a low profile (as they did in Hawaii before), they contributed funds, volunteers, you name it. (They initially claimed only $2,000 in expenditures until someone filed a complaint; then they admitted to spending more like $200,000--and I doubt if that's a full accounting.)

I was raised Mormon. Half of my immediate family is still actively Mormon. I recently resigned from their church (though I'm waiting for them to finish with their own convoluted internal process and mark me as a "non-member").

Frankly, this film and the entire Prop 8 debacle make me want to have nothing to do with my family members who are still Mormon, knowing how they feel about gay marriage--especially if they gave money to this campaign. Maybe that's just a knee-jerk reaction, but if any of them supported this (as their leaders exhorted all Mormons to do), I'm not sure I can suppress my disgust, or do anything but leave them in the dust. (It seems a bit late to ask, but maybe I will.)

Back to the documentary: the smiling-faced shiny-bright-happy-people way in which these mother fuckers recite lines about religious freedom pisses me off--as if imposing their beliefs on others is somehow 'religious freedom'.

Personally, I don't think the Mormons give a shit about religious freedom for anyone but themselves, at the institutional level--regardless of what individual members may think. They tried to establish an independent,  theocratic state and failed (partially). They only dropped polygamy (officially) to get statehood, because the U.S. wouldn't have them marrying as they saw fit. I think that given half the chance, the church wouldn't hesitate to restrict and encroach upon the religious freedoms of others--provided it would leave theirs intact (see the above link).

So I'm not terribly surprised by things like this, except in the way they're exporting their anti-gay agenda. And given how legitimate and honest I was raised to believe the church was, the covert nature and broad extent of their political involvement in these marriage propositions does surprise me, somewhat. It's hard to believe that this doesn't violate the requirements for a non-profit tax exemption (see page 5). They more or less set up a front in the form of a coalition (mostly Mormons with some token Catholics, etc) and used that to do their dirty work.

They also talk in the most callous and patronizing way possible directly to the faces of LGBT/queer people about how they are just confused, emotionally stunted--in other words, they erase their experience and any legitimacy to their claims for equal rights, and tlak down to them like children. They are the ones who decide who is legitimate. Whose experience to believe, who determines which identities are legitimate. Straight white people (notably men) have, as the dominant group in America, been doing this kind of thing for centuries. It's clear what tradition the Mormons hail from: one of control and domination, despite the fact that the same tradition oppressed them, in their infancy. Now, the Mormons have fastidiously grabbed onto what legitimacy they've obtained and used it against others.

I'm not shocked, given their patriarchal hierarchy, belief in a direct pipeline to god via their prophet and their history of racism (they didn't allow black men to hold the "priesthood" until 1978, if I recall the date correctly, despite the "but early Mormons were abolitionists!" horseshit I was taught as a child. Joseph Smith believed slavery would end when god wished it).

Talking down to queer people is part of a larger pattern, I feel. The Mormon leadership talks down to the members as though they were children, frequently--a symptom of top-down Truth. Almost anyone who's had confrontations and doubts about the church is chided for not having a "testimony", and not being faithful enough. People investigating the church are told if they haven't felt the spirit when reading the book of Mormon, they aren't living purely enough (yes, convincing people to join involves convincing them that they have to change to even be aware of the truth). They alone know the truth, and therefore how you should feel about it (in everything). Despite the fact that there are many Mormons who can think for themselves (within certain parameters that don't violate the fundamental beliefs of the religion), the institution is extremely authoritarian in this regard.

Their rhetoric makes it sound otherwise, but they aren't only erasing and silencing individual experiences, but families as well. And not just gay couples (which they say cannot be families), but their parents, siblings, etc--that gay folks have families is something they ignore. They deny that non-hetero couple who love each other can be family--and appear ignorant that such couples can and do have children.

I feel that such rhetoric makes it abundantly clear what their goal is: despite saying "religious freedom" out the other side of their mouth at the same time, what they want to control other people's lives--in contrast to how they control their members, this is being applied to people who have not consented to their authority at all. They want to determine what is a legitimate "family" (based of course on their own strange religious beliefs), and impose this upon the rest of us.

It's very clear that they feel threatened, although given their rejection of non-hetero orientations, it's sometimes hard to see how they are personally affected. Clearly, they don't want gayness to be legitimized. But what is it about LGBT people that they find so threatening that they must pump cash and effort into banning gay marriage?

Sex is the simple answer. Mormons are against all forms of extramarital sex (even heavily petting your fiance is discouraged--this has been know to cause some wedding dates to move up). Being gay (especially when marriage is outlawed by asshole religious groups) equates to premarital sex, and of course, all homophobes can think about is sodomy (which of course is not all gay sex! Also: misnomer. I recall that in Sodom, they basically wanted to rape god and his angels, but gladly accepted Lots daughters instead). I wrote "premarital", but in the Mormon view, "extra-marital" is more accurate, since "pre" implies that there could be a post-marriage state for gay folks.

This is all about controlling people, especially young people, and keeping them chaste and "pure", because of course, nobody wants a licked cupcake (or gum that's been chewed--that's a commonly employed metaphor for people who aren't virgins--sorry, converts to the church! The kids are more important than you). This talk about defending their way of life is semi-accurate, but I would say they're definitely on the offensive. Last time I checked, nobody was trying to gay marry Mormons against their will. This was a preemptive strike in a war on the "permissive"culture that is perhaps typified by homosexuality.

So it's again no wonder that they treat those who profess to same-sex attraction as lost little children (even when they aren't children--at least, when they aren't simply cut off from all contact and kicked out). Most of their chastity rhetoric is focused on young people prior to adulthood--which of course results in sex-negative attitudes and in some cases (like mine) some extra screwed up emotions around sex and relationships (thanks guys), which take (took me) awhile to get over.

I'm digressing a bit, but the sex-negative culture of the church is evidently incompatible with anything but sex between a married man and woman.

Mormon leaders have been out as homophobes as long as gay issues have been discussed in the public sphere ("Gays have a problem" said a recent CEO president of their church), perhaps because their divine revelations odd ideas of "god's plan" leave no room for people who don't fit the norm (this is covered in the documentary). They only have square holes, and triangular pegs won't fit in them.

It's certainly a catch-22 though: you can be gay, you just can't act on your attraction at all (for life--I think it can be hard to wait for marriage, let alone forever to get it on). You can be treated. You're also still expected to marry the opposite sex and have children (I don't even want to know how much more terrible Mormon culture is for trans, intersex or genderqueer folks than American culture already is in general). I suppose if you believe that people can change sexual orientations by coercion (all evidence thus far says they can't), that sex for anything but procreation is bad, and that homosex(ual sex) is just a sinful, sinful choice, then the rest follows.

So fuck them. The organization, and especially those members who explicitly and monetarily supported this act of hate. Ttheir views on homosexuality and an array of other issues are harming and killing people (Utah has the leading suicide rate for males ate 16-24, I think it was). (If you watch the documentary, you'll see one case of this being exploited by the family of the deceased for Mormon PR ops.)

I still haven't digested this fully, but my anger has subsided, somewhat. People who fight against the liberties of LGBT folks speak and act like they're in a vacuum. They act like the people their actions harm are isolated clusters of promiscuous disgust rather than human beings. things to be castigated, discarded, removed. "Treated".

But they're not. These are friends, neighbors and family members. People who live and love, who feel joy and pain. These are people I live with. These are people., no matter what you might think you can do to diminish that truth.


[Here are the links for all of the videos on YoutTube]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8wE2A7_bOA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSeV80hZECM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvnTGnGqHjI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1Kaa9Uozoo&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVya-qas8Us&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vg1oyTAlP8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYaeGkI3yLM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-Yo_Jq-toA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Dxt7Kj5-0U&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjS0HH8_dZw&feature=related

[Note: I don't exactly have a readership here, but I'm not sure where a transcript or captioning can be had, for any people with hearing or visual impairments. I would hope the DVD has captions, though.]

[on a somewhat related topic, a pretty good interrogation of the Mormon "Proclamation on the Family" http://www.lds-mormon.com/potf.shtml]

Racist Shit I've Said

Sometimes I wonder if the random, non-malicious but nevertheless privileged and bigoted statements that have escaped my mouth before I had much awareness of racial issues haunts me sometimes, and makes me wonder: do people associate this with me, anymore? Do they realize how much my views have changed, or if they see a change, do they just think I learned to shut my racist mouth? Probably neither is the case, but I don't know. It's embarrassing to remember, but most cases where I've unintentionally or ignorantly spoken racism, it's been a learning experience on how not to be racist.

A couple examples--the only incidents I can think of, actually, but they may not be the only racial faux pas I've made:

• Something to the effect that none of us there was not white--oops, my sister-in-law is chileña, with Mapuche heritage (the indigenous people of the area). Of course, the fact that her skin is fairly pale does mean she's probably less discriminated against, and I mentioned this, but I only really thought about this after the stupid racist comment, and then co-opted it--not to mention co-opting her identity as being 'basically white', which I doubt anyone whose ancestors were victims of the conquistadores is pleased with, when it happens. I'm not sure I could have saved any face in front of someone with darker skin--and I probably still would have said it, which is mildly disturbing. I guess at the time, I was suffering from race being an elephant in the room rather than actually being aware of it in a benign and positive way (specifically, native with light skin who can be mistaken for white). I can't claim to be perfect on that front now, but I'm far ahead of where I used to be, and getting better about it all the time.
• Another time was something against Asians--specifically I guess it would have been the Vietnamese, since it was something about "five dolla sucky sucky", bringing to mind a scene in Full Metal Jacket (maybe it's a direct quote?) . Probably the worst thing about this is that it came into my mind on the way to a Thai restaurant with some degree of perceived relatedness--oops, Asia fail! I may have realized that part immediately after the fact, but I don't know if I really by my then-raciallly-unconscious mind. I was called on this by my (white) friends, and I'm glad, although I kind of realized in some sense that it was bad as I said it. Good thing nobody Asian was within earshot to be offended by my ignorance (sorry, Asians!). Kind of mortifying to think I ever thought things like this at all, in any case.
• This one was something I said in complete innocence. I described a character's power on the show Heroes as "Monkey see, monkey do". She could learn to do basically anything just by watching. Aaaand she was black. My brother said something like, "wow, that's pretty racist". First of all, what a stupid slur--surely it goes back to the idiotic notion that Africans are 'less evolved', which is ridiculous (even in light of the out-of-Africa hypothesis, there's really no such thing as 'more evolved' people, more like 'adapted to another environment'. This whole time white and Asian people and everyone else has been adapting and evolving? Yeah, so have African people). In my mind, people are generally 'monkeys', no one race more than any other, a la The Prophecy, Christopher Walken. He uses it as a slur against all humans, being a very misanthropic version of the angel Gabriel. A friend of mine in college also used the term to refer to humans in general. So this is where I was coming from, in terms of how I might have used the word "monkey" even aside from the phrase I uttered in this unfortunate context. Second of all...I think there was a second of all. I suppose second of all, I protest my innocence. It's unfortunate I was unaware of the unfortunate connotations of my choice of words, but least it wasn't born from sheer racial insensitivity, like the other examples. Again, there was nobody I offended who was black, but sorry, black people!

The bizarre thing about all this, looking back, is the fact that I went to a pretty diverse high school. A pretty large portion of people was Asian, specifically, but even the cliquishness of high school was somewhat reduced, and in my perception at least, the more popular groups of kids crossed racial lines (hell, even I sat at what I would call one of the more affluent but mostly non-jock tables, at times--which is weird, in terms of social ability, I was a complete outcast, but I knew these people from classes and spent a small amount of time awkwardly sitting with them instead of awkwardly sitting with some Mormon people I knew from the 6am Mormon seminary class).

So there I was for four years, and apparently, if I learned anything about race, I still had a very long way to go. I suppose this is common, especially for someone who grew up Mormon and in Seattle suburbs (read: surrounded by other white people most of the time).

I try not to judge myself too harshly, as high school was hard enough on me socially. I had such a hard time interacting with people without being nervous, that it's a miracle I had any social contact at all, though what I did have in terms of friends was basically enough to make me merely awkward instead of terrified. I was still often terrified.

 Another point: I also didn't learn much about other races, ethnicities, etc, in college. I can cite some of the same social problems, but at least the couple anthropology classes I took demonstrated reasons why racism was so ridiculous, and gave me a good basis for evaluating nonsense racist ideas at large in society. Given some of these, my comments recounted above are pretty innocuous--to be clear, I don't feel a pronounced sense of guilt over them, just mortification at the embarrassment I have occasionally been to myself.

It's really only recently that I've really read about and internalized the perspectives of people of color. In some ways, I can make analogy to the way I've occasionally been treated due to my condition (I'm smelling a post entitled, "Ablist Shit Other People Have Said"--the only strong example I can think of is being greeted with "hey gimpy!" by a bus driver).

Mostly though, the thing I've been learning is how different things are when people are faced directly with racism. Anyone who faces oppression or discrimination will have a unique experience and unique problems based on the particular prejudices they're up against, but I try in every way I can to understand and appreciate what they go through, be they minorities, women, LGBT, disabled, homeless, or part any other marginalized group (not to mention people who fit into several such groupings), so I can stop being part of the problem.

And with any luck--stealthy racist words willing--stop saying racist shit! If I can't avoid it at all times (everyone makes mistakes), I've at least learned how to apologize and move on.

Edit: I'll try and add links to articles and such that I've found to be informative on confronting racism

"You Lie!" - and Health Insurance

I have mixed feelings about the bill itself (there's some good, a bit of bad, and a lot of ugly in there, check it out at a glance), but I can't really take the pres' words at all seriously.

Special interests didn't play into this? What about deals the Whitehouse made with the industry? Health care is now a "guarantee"? There is a lot of expanded coverage, but I still don't feel this is entirely accurate. It will still cost--and people with medical conditions or low income are going to feel it the most, especially if according to the government's standards, they don't qualify for help--and the situation for people with "medical problems" seems sketchy until 2014, and possibly beyond.

Now there are a lot of expanded subsidies, additional help for low income people, including coverage for people up to 133% of the national poverty level (regional differences in cost of living, anyone??), and subsidies for people up to 4 times the federal poverty level. The states will also be required to expand medicare eligibility

So it appears that this will cut down on people with no coverage (supposed to go from 83% to 94% insured), but it's hard to evaluate what the exact effects will be. A lot of it seems to be good, and hopefully it plays out that way. As long as I'm employed at MS, I'll be in good shape, but I'm not sure how much this will help M, since she doesn't receive any employer benefits. I guess we'll see what happens.

I'm also curious to see what will happen with the lawsuit some state attorneys general (including Washington's own Rob McKenna) are bringing in regards to the constitutionality of a mandate to buy something from private companies. It doesn't escape me that adding a public, optional insurance plan would mitigate this issue, and that a single-payer setup would eliminate the issue altogether. Somewhat ironic that these were taken off the table in favor of more complex plans that simply favored the status quo and nasty insurance companies who don't have to compete in a real market. Their market just got that much more surreal--what a weird "compromise" that was.

Too bad in the 70's, when the republicans were proposing some good health care reform, the democrats decided they wouldn't go along with it because . Now the democrats hardly went along with the democratic health reform plan. They're more republicans than the republicans used to be, now that the nominal republicans have lost their minds.

Hopefully any kinks in the new legislation are figured out without too much pain, but I very much doubt that'll be the case. What I'd really hate is for a knee-jerk election of Republicans this fall turn this over before we really know how it's going to work. They claim this bill is fiscally irresponsible, but the deficit reduction in the bill is significant, but the Republicans seem to have no idea how to reign it in. They haven't given much sign of departing from Bush's approach of tax less, spend more.

assorted comments on atheism

[Originally posted as a comment here]

I think a lot of people misunderstand agnosticism, and therefore atheism.

Agnosticism is the position that something cannot be certainly known, although generally when people speak of being agnostic, they do only mean they are agnostic regarding the existence of god.

In my experience, most “agnostics” are agnostic atheists: they don’t believe in any gods, but they admit that they can’t know that there is no god. You could also be an agnostic theist, and I think many reasonable people who believe in a god accept that they could be wrong about it, but they choose to go with their faith anyway.

I would say that the several types involved in most discussions of the existence of god are as follows:

1) “strong” atheism: I know there is no god
2) “weak” atheism: I believe there is no god
3) “agnostic”: I’m not sure if there’s a god
4) “weak” theist: I believe there is a god
5) “strong” theist: I know there is a god

You can grade these in terms of tolerance, often. 3 would be tolerant of most positions (barring extremism), 2 and 4 allow for some uncertainty and probably tolerate each other best. Using the term loosely, 1 and 5 are “gnostic” positions, and generally not very tolerant of disagreement or waffling.

Of course, plenty of people who agree with 1 and 5 think of it as merely a personal issue, and are perfectly willing to tolerate dissent–much of it is a matter of temperament and social attitudes about tolerance, freedom, etc. On the other hand, the more “aggressive” atheists and religious fundamentalists fall under these categories.

You could class 1-3 as atheist (or at least secular) positions because they don’t promote a god, but because society (in the US at least) is mostly theistic, 3-5 are essentially the status quo–3 only because it doesn’t rock the boat of 4 and 5 too much. Arguably, this is the reason for the term “agnostic” being used as it is–it’s used by people who don’t feel particularly invested in belief/argument for or against god. 3 often sets itself in opposition to 1 and 5: it’s like the ‘opposite’ of extremism.

I would say in attempting to define “atheist”, it’s done either by agreement or opposition, based on one’s agenda.

1-2 will tend to set it up in terms of logic, burden of proof etc, because evidence and reason are typically what matter to people who believe 1-2, and this is extended to the realm of the supernatural.

5 (and at times, 4) will try to frame it as an issue of faith, because they see faith as overriding evidence and logic in importance, at least with regards to a deity.

Atheists are generally trying to get a foothold in a world full of faith and religion using evidence and reason, while theists are generally framing the atheist position in terms of faith and belief, because to do otherwise would be to concede that maybe the atheists are right about the lack of evidence. Essentially, each side is playing a different game, and consequently uses a different definition.

I see it like this: a theist has faith in two sets of knowledge: 1) small f ‘faith’ (confidence) in their interpretation of perceptions and evidence they have encountered and 2) big F ‘Faith’ that the evidence points to god–which is generally where a ‘leap of faith’ is made.

Loosely speaking, (1) relates to how gnostic vs. agnostic your position is, while (2) relates to whether you’re theist or atheist. It’s like confidence in your data vs. confidence in the results you obtained using that data.
To be atheist, you only have to disagree about the meaning or interpretation of the extant data, which means you don’t need big-F-Faith to be an atheist, while you do need it to be a theist.

It’s annoying when religious folk argue that atheism takes faith, because they (at least smarter religious folks) seem to acknowledge that there’s a ‘leap of faith’ that happens when you decide to believe in something that’s not seen. It follows, then, that someone who doesn’t believe in the unseen has made no such leap.

Therefore, in attaining their (un)belief, even the most vehemently avowed atheist hasn’t undergone a similar process of ‘faith’ to even a very level-headed believer in god.

Free

[Followup to Hunted]

I was stalked, but only by ghosts.

None of these apparitions had a substance, and so with light they were destroyed--they evaporated under scrutiny.

My fear now looks silly in retrospect, but I still feel like I've finally done what I needed to do for a long time. To shake my worries and doubts about the direction my life has taken. To free my mind from whatever would limit it. Free not so much from a Church but from myself, from the crippled feelings I developed while in it and breaking away from it.

The most dread feeling, my largest specter, the one that came up in place of the supposed sense of spiritual inspiration and truth I should have felt--when confronted with articles of the Mormon faith. When confronted with their idea of Jesus, or with their interpretation of a terrible god who loves you. I dreaded this, and for ages had no idea what it meant.

So I finally screwed up enough courage and brought this long-denied feeling to light. Was it a still small voice trying to bring me back? Was it a seed of knowledge that I'd abandoned the truth? Was it the love of my family or savior, calling me back to a righteous path?

I needed to know. I let the feeling come, finally, without fearing the consequences.

It was my confidence. It was the ability to hold my head high without judging others. My own strength has been sapped all these years by something good that was placed in me as a child. Turning away from things that child believed, things that child was told by adults, I allowed this spark of goodness to become a nagging doubt about where my life was headed. Inspiration--which I never could identify with a holy spirit without discovering it was simply my own feelings (real or imagined).

Denying this feeling, which I thought had something to do with a heavenly father or Joseph Smith or Jesus Christ or eternal family--perhaps this has been the source of my pain. This was the last thing I was suppressing, the last thing from which I had dissociated my conscious mind, back in those dark years when that was my coping mechanism.

A well of uncertainty from which so much more anxiety sprung--I unburied it and let it drain out.

Does this mean I'm really free? Perhaps it was the first step to finishing this process, but it felt like the last step I needed to take to attain self-knowledge. The path continues, and there are more things to be done to recover, but this was the big step. This was the beginning of the end for the last vestiges of Mormonism within me.





I'm not sure what I was afraid of--perhaps it was only my fear that I wasn't free from that religion, bottled up over years.

Hunted

Sometimes I feel like I'm being stalked. Strange, distant and coldly calculating eyes are upon me, housed in no human awareness or intelligence.

This is not a person seeking to harm me, nor a powerful predator hoping to hunt me down for an easy meal. I'm stalked by Book of Mormon stories. I'm stalked by a past that continues to exert an influence even from a distance.

An upbringing, going well beyond family and into the very social environment that was my crucible.

Is it any wonder, with my budding logical side fighting to reconcile the many contradictions and ill-logic of a world-twisting, mind-bending religion, that I turned out as I did? A young adult with emotional problems, social problems, trying to find a spot where I would fit? As if I didn't enter this world with problems enough. It sometimes amazes me how long it took to scrape together any friends, and how hard it is to replace the lost feeling of community I knew as a child. The feelings of certainty that still appeal to my baser side, like a distant siren song--and it's not wax in my ears protecting me.

Ironically, my emotional problems may have been my salvation.

There's nothing as all-surrounding, pressuring embracing as a ward of Mormon faithfuls, and their invisible friends the "inactive members", that I've yet encountered. Not to mention the idea of their god, their heavenly father. The one they know loves them, that loves them to say they know their church is true when they "bury" any semblance of reliable testimony under a heap of rubbish.

In truth, I think my very nature abhorred Mormonism from the beginning. Or at the very least, spaced-out kid that I was, I was enough on my own wavelength to avoid being programmed to any strong degree with Mormon thoughts. Mormon awareness. Mormon dogma.

How my parents could be a party to this religion, I don't believe I can understand. Do they simply not see all the fear? The contradictions? I always did have a case of scruples--like Martin Luther, surely a sign of hidden doubts. But my parents were always much more casual about obeying. I suppose it's one way to avoid losing one's mind over the many mistakes one can make when trying to aspire to Mormon perfection.

The Western Apache have a concept, "stalking with stories". It hit hardest the Apaches who had lost their way, lived among whites, far from the tribe and its home lands. Apache lands are full of stories and meaning, woven straight into the landscape. When they hear a place's name, they hear a story, they hear their people's culture and mores: it strikes them: they have lost their way. They feel shame. They feel distant from their real identities.

In some ways, I feel this is how I'm being stalked. It describes my feeling to an astonishingly accurate degree--hearing or recalling tales of Mormon fiction, Mormon-interpreted Bible verse, children's songs asserting gnostic faith: it's as if I'm being shot with arrows, to use an Apache analogy.

None have hit so far. Not one time have I been unable to see the fears and doubts they instilled about the secular, "temporal" world, for what they are. These are the things that keep people on the path, that control people. Those doubtful thoughts, they're the whisperings of Satan. You are deceived. Indeed, anything counter to their Truth is Satan--there is no neutral ground.

Oddly, these are post hoc observations. They didn't drive me away--the sheer implausibility of what this religion--what all religion--proclaims did the heavy lifting for me. It was just a matter of time before reason, or perhaps intuitive understanding, had chipped away enough of the foundation for it to crumble in my mind.

Still hunted by deep-seated lessons taught while away from parents, lessons taught by older white men, songs taught by smiling happy women, rhymes and reasons that come to mind at random.

Yet this is what it feels like to be free. Am I?

Admittedly, I am not continually assailed. But as I sort out the fragments of my once broken mind, the jagged remnants of the Mormon mindset I demolished, memories from childhood Sundays filter back to me, just as all the pieces of other, less subtle traumas manifest.

These simply come in a sweet and sunny guise. Happy thoughts, happily turning away from where my life has led me and back toward the ubiquitous spiritual realms of demons and angels said to surround the prime material, the temporal plane.

I can no longer run. Armed with weapons of the mind, I must confront my stalker.

[aftermath: Free]

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Here are some I'm using for my desktop:

• http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100308.html
• http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100307.html
• http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100301.html

And some more:

• http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100216.html
• http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100303.html 
• http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100302.html

Also, a video tour of the known universe

Disability Blog Links

Links to selected blog posts by fellow disabled folks:

• One in Seven
• The Right Not to Work
• Disablism and Fat Hatred
• On Being Disabled

Not quite about disability, but quite good:

• Sex and gender