Letters from Ummo

I could write about a lot of things this morning, given the current state of world affairs.  I could write about US policy in Syria.  I could write about whether the world should believe the ostensibly rational overtures from newly-elected Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, given that most of what came out of the previous president's mouth could have qualified him for mental evaluation.  I could write about the way the current session of congress has devolved into "If you don't give me my way, I'm gonna take my toys and go home."

Instead, I think I'll discuss a topic that I know is equally pressing to all of you:  What the hell is an "Ummite?"

The question comes up because of a link that a reader sent me, along with the question, "What do you make of this?"  The link turned out to be to the website "Ummo: Ummite Physics and Metaphysics."  And we get an answer to the initial question right away, although all it does is invite more questions:

The Ummites claim to have landed on Earth in March 1950, in the area of Digne. Three crafts brought a crew from the planet UMMO that set up a base (see the summary in the book by J-P PETIT), probably on the Peak of Blache, between Digne and La Javie, in the south of France. They spent a certain time analysing our habits, walked around Paris (and undoubtedly elsewhere), and avoided drawing attention to themselves. In 1965, Mr. Fernando SESMA, the organiser of a slightly esoteric Spanish "association" which claimed to be in contact with other extraterrestrials, begins receiving letters. Other recipients also receive some. Contact is lost in 1970, then is regained in 1987, and continues until 1993 (at least, we do not have letters possibly sent outside these periods) with other recipients, particularly in France. We currently have approximately 200 to 300 pages of texts written by the Ummites but it is possible that many other letters exist. In a 1988 letter, reference is made to the existence of 3,850 pages, copies of which having been sent to several individuals represent the equivalent of 160,000 pages.

So I started to look through the "texts" that allegedly come from the Ummites of Ummo, and were treated to passages like the following:

During a conversation which you had with my brother on which I depend: DEI 98, son of DEI 97, you asked him for information about travel and the concept of SPACE. The topic is complex as you shall see in the documents that we will give you gradually. Of course, before describing the types of feelings we feel when we travel in a OAWOOLEA UEWA OEMM (lenticular vessel for intra-galactic displacement) it is better that you have a more precise idea of our concept of SPACE.

Until now in the many reports and conversations, we had spoken about the IBOZOO UU without explaining their meaning, and had limited ourselves to translating this phoneme by "PHYSICAL POINT." We also resisted the temptation to add a mathematical demonstration closer to our WUUA WAAM (mathematics of physical space), because that would require an initiation on your part to the to our UWUUA IEES (tetravalent mathematical logic); it is to the detriment of the scientific rigour of the concepts that we expose to you. 

I... okay... what?

I was particularly interested in the "tetravalent mathematical logic" part, though, because logic is kind of a special interest of mine.  And a little further along, I found an explanation of it, if you can call it that:

There is a reason: when it comes to analysing the properties of space, the normal postulates of mathematical logic, which is familiar to you and to us besides, are not useful to us. As you know, formal logic accepts the criterion you name "law of of non-contradiction" (according to which any proposal is necessarily true or false). In our WUUA WAAM (mathematics of Physical Space) this postulate must be rejected. One then has recourse to a type of multivalent logic that our specialists call UUWUUA IES (logical tetravalent mathematics) according to which any proposal can adopt four values indifferently:

- AIOOYAA (TRUE - CORRECT)

- AIOOYEEDOO (FALSE, ABSURD)

- AIOOYA AMMIE (can be translated: True outside from The Waam)
 
- AIOOYAU (untranslatable in Earth language).

So not only do these aliens not use Earth logic, they also apparently speak the same language as Charlie Brown's teacher in the Peanuts cartoons.

I also found an artist's rendition of an Ummite, which I know you'll all want to see:

 So the Ummites look, basically, like Jean-Claude van Damme.

Now, so far, all we have is a wacky idea, and as we've seen over and over in this blog, wacky ideas are plentiful out there.  What impresses me is how massive this wacky idea is.  There is page after page of prose like this:

To say that the IBOZOO UU are like small spheres or " that between them exists a vacuum " or that they "are tangent within a dense space filled with IBOZOO UU," does not make sense. Such mental images are those which appear to an UUGEEYIE when one speaks to him for the first time on UMMO about the design of SPACE composed by the IBOZOO UU. Its childlike mentality, accustomed to familiar perceptions, tends to materialise this concept of IBOZOO UU and to assign an existence to it.

So someone -- perhaps J.-P. Petit, the French gentleman whose name is associated with the first "contact" with the Ummites, decades ago -- actually had to sit down and write hundreds of pages of this stuff, with all sorts of formulas and diagrams (you should check out the mathematical parts; I minored in math and my eyes crossed after the first paragraph).

We're talking about wingnuttery on a significant scale, here.

Anyhow, I encourage you to go to the link and look around.  It's well worth glancing through, even though most of it falls into the "clear as mud" department.  And as to whether any of it could be true, or even sane, my general reaction is "AIOOYEEDOO."

So thanks to the reader who sent the link, but in answer to the initial question, "What do you make of this?", I'm not entirely sure.  It's impressive, I'll say that, but beyond that, I was just kind of left shaking my head in disbelief.

Which, now that I think about it, is the same way that I responded to the current nonsense going on in congress.

It's the voodoo, I tells you!

I just found something new for the Do-It-Yourself crowd; a how-to for making your own voodoo doll.

The idea of voodoo dolls has been around for a long time, long before honest-to-Baron-Samedi voodoo made its way from Africa into the Caribbean, and later to Central America, South America, and the Gulf Coast.  The whole thing is a kind of sympathetic magic -- creating an image of someone, often incorporating something from the person into the image (hair or fingernail clippings were common), and then doing something to the image in the hopes that the real person would respond in kind.  It was by no means limited to the Afro-Caribbean voodoo tradition; similar practices have been found in many parts of the world.  And like most magic, a lot of it was centered around getting the person in question either to have sex with you or else die.

Funny how those two seem to come up pretty frequently in these discussions.

In any case, the whole concept has been around for a good while.  Consider the following picture of a voodoo doll that is at the Louvre (and I'm using the colloquial name even given that this isn't really voodoo in the strict sense), from 4th century Egypt:

(image courtesy of photographer Marie-Lan Nguyen and the Wikimedia Commons)

Check the pin placement.  Not too difficult to tell what this magician was after, is it?

In any case, we now have a DIY guide if you'd like to try the whole thing out for yourself.  Here are some highlights:

Since this is an authentic method, only naturally available items are used. All you need is two sticks, a string, strips of fabric, adhesive and something to stuff the doll with, such as grass, pine needles, etc. Also, if you want to dress up your doll you will require pieces of cloth, buttons, feathers, etc. Since the doll is intended to resemble a living person, it is best to use that person's own belongings to dress the doll. Once you have gathered the paraphernalia, here's how to make it: 

• Take a long stick and a short one. Place the short one perpendicular to the long stick about a quarter from the top of the long stick. Tie up the two sticks with a string in an X-motion. When done it will look like the image alongside.
•  The two ends of the short stick will be the doll's arms and the short end of the long stick will be its head, while its long end will be the body of the doll.
• Wrap your stuffings around the sticks: starting from the middle, then wounding around the head, then an arm, then back across another arm, then down to the middle and finally to the bottom.
• Cover the doll with pieces of fabric using glue and stitching to make them cling to the doll. But remember to keep some part of the stuffing exposed at the ends of the arms, the head and at the bottom.
• Give the doll a face. Stitch two beads or glue down two peas for the eyes and another bead for the mouth.
• Now dress up the doll. Since the voodoo dolls are intended to resemble somebody, you should use belongings of the person the doll is intended to resemble to dress the doll. You can even put a piece of that person's hair in the doll.

The next step is to baptize the doll in the name of the person you're trying to establish a link with.  You can consult the site for the exact words you're supposed to use.  Your doll is then ready to... um... use.

The writer seems to be having some misgivings at this point, because (s)he cautions, "(R)emember, using a doll for evil purposes has horrible consequences, since the person using the doll may suffer badly and even die for dark voodoo practices.  So you should never use voodoo dolls for anything wrong."  And later, (s)he puts in a rather comical disclaimer -- "Please note that I am not a vodouisan myself and this article is best read for informative purposes only.  Me or All About Occult will not bear any responsibility should you try to use the above mentioned method practically."

Righty-o.  We'll just let you completely off the hook, then.  But being fearless experimentalists, and also considering that the entirety of the foregoing is unadulterated horse waste, we here at Skeptophilia don't have the need for such disclaimers.  In fact, I not only give you my permission, I positively encourage you to make a voodoo doll with my image, and stick it full of pins.  I realize you don't have any of my hair or fingernail clippings (at least, I sincerely hope you don't, as that would be a little creepy), but maybe just having a reasonable facsimile of my fortunately rather unique face will be enough.  My photograph is over there in the right sidebar.  So have at it.  Feel free to skewer me, in effigy, to the wall, and I promise I'll post here to report any ruptured gall bladders or brain aneurysms I happen to suffer.

All in the name of the scientific method, you know.

Music from beyond the grave

What do you do if you get tired of those nasty old scientists insisting that your woo-woo claims pass the test of hard evidence?

You move your claims into the realm of the untestable.

That, at least, is the tactic employed by one Jennifer Whisper, an 83-year-old musician from San Diego, who says that she gets her music and lyrics from dead songwriters who have provided her with what they would have written, if they were still alive.

Whisper started out channeling music from the dead in the 1970s, and began at the top, with none other than George Gershwin, who introduced himself in a straightforward manner: "I heard a knock on the door and no one was there," Whisper said to a reporter from The Huffington Post.  "Then I heard a voice say, 'Hello Jenny! It's me, George Gershwin.'"

After recovering from her surprise, Gershwin dictated a song, "Love Is All There Is," to Whisper.  He's come back a bunch of times since then, she says, and she now has over a hundred posthumous compositions by Gershwin.

She also has channeled songs by Judy Garland, Johnny Mercer... and Jimi Hendrix.

Oh, and Whisper also says that she found out that Marilyn Monroe adopted JonBenet Ramsay after her death.  So that all ended happily enough.

The problem, of course, is that you can't exactly prove that she's not getting these songs from the dead.  This is a claim that is outside of what is even potentially testable.  If you're curious, though, Whisper has attracted the attention of musicians and musicologists -- and not in a good way.  One, Los Angeles-based studio musician Jim Briggs, has analyzed her alleged Gershwin composition "My Stars Above"and said that he's not buying her story.

It's amazing, Briggs said, that "My Stars Above" is way worse than you'd expect from a composer who's had 78 years to improve beyond where he was when he composed his masterpiece Porgy & Bess.   "If [Gershwin's] communicating musically from beyond the grave," Briggs said, "I can't believe that at no point did he suggest 'My Stars Above' be an instrumental."

It's also opened up some legal challenges for Whisper, but the ramifications of what she is doing are unprecedented -- and unclear.  She could potentially be violating the publicity rights of the people who hold the estates of the deceased composers, but even so, it's hard to know how a court would decide the case.  Joy Butler, an attorney specializing in copyright law, has said, "I've never run across a case like this.  But she'd have a hard time convincing a court."

So that's the latest from the world of the woo-woo, and yet another case of switching your tactics if the heat is on.  It's a shame, though, that Whisper hasn't gotten in touch with some older classical composers, because I'm passionately fond of J. S. Bach, and I'd love to know what he's doing these days.

Other than decomposing, that is.

Homeopathy for gunshot wounds

I was just thinking about a study I read about years ago, done by Charles Lord, Lee Ross, and Mark Lepper back in 1979.  Called "Biased assimilation and attitude polarization: The effects of prior theories on subsequently considered evidence," this study came to the following rather sobering conclusion:

People who hold strong opinions on complex social issues are likely to examine relevant empirical evidence in a biased manner.  They are apt to accept "confirming" evidence at face value while subjecting "disconfirming" evidence to critical evaluation, and, as a result, draw undue support for their initial positions from mixed or random empirical findings.  Thus, the result of exposing contending factions in a social dispute to an identical body of relevant empirical evidence may be not a narrowing of disagreement but rather an increase in polarization.  To test these assumptions, 48 undergraduates supporting and opposing capital punishment were exposed to 2 purported studies, one seemingly confirming and one seemingly disconfirming their existing beliefs about the deterrent efficacy of the death penalty.  As predicted, both proponents and opponents of capital punishment rated those results and procedures that confirmed their own beliefs to be the more convincing and probative ones, and they reported corresponding shifts in their beliefs as the various results and procedures were presented.  The net effect of such evaluations and opinion shifts was the postulated increase in attitude polarization.

Argument, then, doesn't change people's minds; it makes believers believe more strongly.

This is why, I think, the homeopaths have been doubling down on their rhetoric as of late.  The critics of homeopathy have been outspoken -- from James Randi's fiery takedown of homeopaths to "What's the Harm?", a running list of people who are documented to have been harmed or killed by taking homeopathic "remedies" rather than seeking conventional medical care.

All of this has, I think, contributed to a "siege mentality" amongst the practitioners of homeopathy, leading them to espouse ever more extreme views -- a result that Lord, Ross, and Lepper would not be surprised by, I think.  Take, as an example, this webpage, the work of John Benneth, a strident homeopath who claims therein that homeopathy doesn't just work for your standard-issue colds, flu, headache, and heartburn, it works for... damn near anything.

Think I'm kidding?  Here are a few of the things that Benneth wants to "treat" with homeopathy.

Child abuse:

30,000 or more children were left permanently physically disabled from abuse and neglect. Child abuse in the United States afflicts more children each year than leukemia, automobile accidents, and infectious diseases combined. With growing unemployment, incidents of abuse by jobless parents increased dramatically. Homeopathy could have helped with individualized constitutional treatments and a remedy such as Magnesium muriaticum.

Gunshot wounds:

In one year 85,000 Americans were wounded by firearms, of which 38,000 die, 2,600 children. Homeopathy could have helped with ledum pelustre , aconitum napellum, arnica Montana and individualized constitutional treatments.

Diabetes:

In one year, 160,000 Americans died from diabetes. Homeopathy could have helped with remedies such as Apoc. Carc. Kali-n. Squil. and Uran-n.

AIDS:

1,000,000 Americans were estimated to have AIDS as of 1996; over 250,000 died of it. Homeopathy could have helped with a remedy such as Carcinosin.

Mental illness and mental retardation:

In one year 255,000 Americans mentally ill or retarded Americans, released in recent years were in flophouses or wandering U.S. streets. Homeopathy could’ve helped with remedies such as Arg-n. Arn. Bor. Calc. Carb-v. Form. GRAPH. Hep. Hyos. Kali-c. Nat-m. Nit-ac. Nux-v. Petr. Ph-ac. PHOS. Plb. Psor. Puls. Ran-b. Rhus-t. Sep. Sil. Sulph. Tab. and Tarax.

The trauma of rape:

700,000 American women were raped, one every 45 seconds. Homeopathy could have helped with remedies such as Staphysagria, AIDS Cench. Kreos. LSD. Petr. Posit. Sep.

Elder abuse:

1,800,000 elderly Americans who live with their families were subjected to serious abuse such as forced confinement, underfeeding, and beatings. The mistreatment of elderly people by their children and other close relatives grew dramatically as economic conditions worsened. Homeopathy could’ve helped the victims in their recovery and the victimizers with their anger with remedies such as Nux-v, Cere-s. LSD. Posit. Salx-f. Staph.

Drug addiction:

In one year six and a half million (6,500,000) used heroin, crack, speed, PCP, cocaine or some other hard drug on a regular basis. Homeopathy could have helped with remedies such as Agar. Ant-c. Bry. Chin. COLOC. Hydr. Lach. NUX-V. Op. Ruta and Sulph, indicated in drug poisoning.

And finally, amazingly, child abduction:

150,000 American children are reported missing every year. 50,000 of these simply vanish. Their ages range from one year to mid-teens. According to the New York Times, “Some of these are dead, perhaps half of the John and Jane Does annually buried in this country are unidentified kids.” Homeopathy could have helped with individualized treatments. Homeopathy could have helped with remedies like Absin. Cimic. OP. Phos. Plb. Rhus-t. Staph. Stram., Falco-p, and Magnesium muriaticum .

Mad yet?  I hope so.  Benneth and his fellow purveyors of sugar pills have, as the opposition grows louder, grown louder themselves, making ever wilder claims about what their magic remedies can do for you.  And if you think that Benneth himself is just a lone voice, read the comments section on his webpage -- you'll find that the vast majority of them agree with him.  (I realize, of course, that this is a skewed sample -- the comments on the page represent those who (1) found Benneth's site, (2) read it all the way through, (3) felt motivated enough to write a response, and (4) Benneth himself didn't delete.  But still.)  Here's an example:

At the foundation of John’s extremely informative post, with statistics that should humble our allopathic arrogance, is that humans in an imbalanced condition are sick, damaged, damaging and in pain.

The arguments presented here , critical of JB’s information, deny, overlook or dismiss the philosophical proposal that healthy people do not become criminals and that healthy, victimized people can heal from their traumas. Socially, economically, emotionally, politically, physically and psychically, – health is a fundamental condition. Without it every outcome is a compensation and a handicap. Every solution We have lowered our expectations for health. Shame on us for acquiescing to the precepts of a patriarchal system that wants to keep us sick, sad and hopeless.

Right.  Because all of the "allopathic" (i.e. effective) doctors I know have, as their main career goal, keeping their patients "sick, sad, and hopeless."

I can only draw one positive message from all of this, and it comes from looking at the converse of Lord, Ross, and Lepper's main thesis; that the wild and desperate claims of the homeopaths are an indication that their anti-science, zero-evidence views are on the way out.  But "on the way out" and "gone" are two different things, and I can't help but wonder how many more lives will be lost before homeopathy joins the "four humors" model of human health in the dustbin of history.

The Masonic Red Cross vampire conspiracy

Well, I have reached the woo-woo equivalent of Nirvana.  I just ran across the single stupidest claim in the world.  This one beats the previous odds-on favorite, which was the medicines that you pay for online, and which then download directly into your body as you sit in front of your computer monitor.  Because of quantums, of course.  Everything woo-woo has to be because of quantums.

But nope.  That one is a weak second-place finisher by comparison to what showed up on the David Icke forums last week.  Are you ready?  Here we go:

You shouldn't participate in Red Cross blood drives.  Because the Red Cross is working hand-in-glove with the Masons, who then use most of the donated blood to drink in their Satanic, animal-sacrificing, devil-worshiping rituals.

If you don't believe me, here's the link.  But in case you're understandably reluctant to push David Icke's hit tracker up, and give him the impression that what he hosts on his website is even vaguely connected with reality, I will quote the relevant passages for you.

So we have all heard of the Red Cross, and how they hold blood drives around the world.

In America, many of these blood-drives occur at your local Masonic/Satanic Lodge.

We, as donors, are misled into believing that this donated blood will "saved the lives" of many people, and no doubt a LITTLE of this blood DOES help save lives. But there is something more sinister, more satanic, goin gon [sic] with these blood-drives than meets the eye.

Clearly, 90% of the donated blood is, literally, drank by Masons, Illuminati, and the Church, with about 5% going to help those who need it, the rest spoils before it's used.

Oh, clearly.  Do go on.

The Red Cross could care less if you live, and prefer that you die. But the demand for "fresh" blood by these Vampires is what started this whole blood donation thing. Think about it. Someone from your family needs blood, then a family member can donate within a few minutes. If there are no family members alive to donate, then a list a people willing to donate is/has been/still is, available. Nothing better that "super-fresh", minutes-old blood.

But you see, people like the Royals in the U.K., the scum buckets in The White House, Senate, Congress, your local Masonic Mayor, Police Chief, Masonic business owners....well, they drink blood like you and I drink beer.

Blood is the "life" in a body, and these vampires believe that drinking blood will keep them young (and other reasons).

The Red Cross. Feeding Masonic/Illuminati Vampires for decades. If you give to this Masonic controlled organization....STOP IT.

Righty-o.  And that explains why the Red Cross is always on the scene in disaster-stricken areas -- so they can find new and helpless victims.  To exsanguinate.  And then bring the fresh blood to the Masons, so they can drink it.

Mwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Initially, I hoped that this was just the work of one lone wacko, and that no one else could possibly believe it other than the delusional individual who wrote it.  So when I came across this post, I Googled "Masons Red Cross blood drinking rituals," thinking that I'd get "No Relevant Results," and would have my faith in humanity assuaged.

This turned out to be a mistake.  I got over 30,000 hits.  The first few not only implied that the Masons and the Red Cross were working together to deprive you of your life's blood, but that they were in cahoots with various combinations of the following, depending on which version you go for:

• the Vatican
• the Jews
• the Reptilians
• the Jesuits
• the Muslims
• the Bilderberg Group
• the Knights Templar
• the Rosicrucians

And I cannot help but think it is significant that the two ads on the webpage about the Masonic Red Cross Blood Drinking Conspiracy have to do with (1) removing "flouride" [sic] from your tap water because the government is trying to poison you, and (2) claims that the medical establishment has been wrong all along, and "cancer is a preventable fungus."

So.  Yeah.  I feel like this is sort of the mother lode, the most concentrated vein of sterling-pure stupidity ever discovered.  It almost makes me feel like my job as a blogger is over -- that anything I could say or do after this would be an anticlimax.

Of course, the problem is, saying "this is the dumbest idea ever conceived" is always a false statement, because no sooner do you say it than the woo-woos take it upon themselves to prove you wrong.  They take that kind of thing as a challenge.

But even so, I think they'll have a hard time beating this one.  

Sunday Assembly redux, and some thoughts about blind spots

I always know that some reconsideration is in order when I start getting "you're WRONG" posts from people who I, by all rights, should be agreeing with.

After my post yesterday on the Sunday Assembly -- the recently-formed "church for atheists" -- the comments started coming in hard and fast.  And these were not, for the most part, the kind of comments that make a blogger lean back, hands cupped behind head, and bask in the glow.

For those of you who didn't catch yesterday's post, the gist was that I suspected that the Sunday Assembly was going to be short-lived, because it's easier to form a long-term association around common belief than it is around common disbelief.  Well, the disagreement on that count was loud and clear.  Here is one comment I received:

I share your reluctance to go to something like the atheist church. I'm very happy to be solitary for the vast majority of the time, and when I do socialise I much prefer very small groups. But I don't agree with your take on social gatherings. I think that in any group situation, something will be needed to bring the group together initially but, very soon, the group becomes its own thing. People will go to church, slimming class, book club, whatever and then if they become friends they are just friends, and it immediately moves beyond that initial glue you mention. How they became friends becomes just a point in the past. Something like this could start out as a gathering of recent atheists who miss their old church trips, or long-term atheists who just want to meet people. But it would succeed or fail based on whether or not the people show up and become friends. If they do, then it would just become a regular get-together between friends who may well start to meet in other contexts. And if they do want to do some organised outreach activities, like the Atheist Community of Austin, then it should contribute to the pushback against religious claims and default assumptions in society. I think it's wrong to think of it as "basing a church around not believing in something", and much better to think of it as a gathering of people who have certain things in common. Unbelief in gods would be one thing, but atheists tend to have other things in common too.

There was also the following:

Perhaps its because I identify as an agnostic rather than an atheist, but I derive tremendous satisfaction from congregating (usually unintentionally) with other atheists and agnostics. As you may remember from school, I have a LOT to talk about, but it's usually challenging to engage people in conversation about religion and its impacts on the globe without provoking their defense mechanisms. It might be nice to walk into a room and recognize that many of the people there are likely to be rational, intelligent, and open-minded.

I think that humans have a fundamental need to form communities and social constructs, and that cohesive belief structures arise as an emergent property of these constructs.

If Eddie Izzard is to be believed, the Church of England isn't really much more than a Sunday social club at this point anyway. If someone extended an invitation to a social club that met weekly and gave me a wink and said "don't worry, no religious people allowed" I would probably jump at the opportunity.

And this:

Although it may be hard to imagine the godless moving beyond the conversation that there is no god, that is exactly what SA have managed. As their public charter states "We don’t do supernatural but we also won’t tell you you’re wrong if you do". The talks revolve around how to live a better life and how to help others, not belief systems or religion bashing. Speakers are different at every service so there are no central tenets to the talks beyond them all being advice from public speakers in a particular field: community workers, academics, doctors etc.

One may argue that they are proselytising that central message of 'Live better, help often, wonder more' and if that's the case, it's the best darn message I've ever heard being proselytised.

In my opinion, you should attend an assembly one day. Hang out at the back, don't join in and leave early. At least then you can write an informed blog on something you've actually experienced.

Well.  Like I said, when like-minded individuals are more-or-less unanimous in telling me that I got something completely wrong, I'm not just going to sit there with my fingers in my ears chanting, "la-la-la-la, not listening."

The whole thing reminded me of a conversation I had a week or so ago with a friend about blind spots.  She and I were discussing places in our lives where our unquestioned assumptions about how things work make us miss stuff that is obvious to others.  Everyone, my friend said (and I agree), has these blind spots; the thing is to try to become aware of yours.  It's unlikely that you will ever get rid of all of them, but we should work to fix the places where we aren't seeing clearly.  In the words of the wonderful Paul Brady song "The World Is What You Make It" -- "clean up them windows, let the sun shine through."

And it seems as if one of my blind spots has to do with what people get out of social interactions.  I wouldn't call myself antisocial -- but I am very shy, and extremely hesitant to speak up in social situations.  (This may come as a surprise, given how outspoken I am in written form.  All I can say is that writing gives me an outlet for my creative, thoughtful, and emotional side, and that I'm not nearly this voluble in person.  In fact, a friend of mine has described me as being the quietest person she knows.)

It's easy to slip into the blind spot that given a specific set of circumstances, everyone would react the same way you would -- and that seems to be what I did here.  Now I still doubt, even after the cogent and articulate responses I received from readers, that I personally would be inclined to join a Sunday Assembly, should one open up near me (which is unlikely, given that I live in the hinterlands).  But evidently, there are many other atheists who find such a thing extremely attractive, and even in my original post I was in no way trying to imply that they are wrong to feel that way.  The connections that would be established by meeting with other "godless heathens" (as one commenter put it) are apparently enough of a draw that the Sunday Assembly could well become a going concern, despite my prognostications of doom.

And, for the record, I would like to state that I think this is a good thing.  If my original post was read to mean that I somehow was hoping that the Sunday Assembly would fail, all I can say is that you should blame it on a lack of clarity in my writing and not on my actual intent.  It was simply hard for me to imagine a group of atheists getting together and then doing what I would do -- standing around, cow-eyed, waiting for someone else to say something -- week after week.

So I appreciate the correction, and am honestly glad that there are enough non-theists out there that this may spread to other areas.  And to anyone I offended or annoyed by my original post, I humbly apologize.  If a Sunday Assembly ever does open up near me, I promise to attend at least once, so I can have some first-hand experience before commenting further.

I might even try to talk to someone.

The First Church of Atheism

Some of you may have heard of the recent weird twist that has occurred in the world of non-theists -- the founding of an "atheist church."

Lest you think that I'm just being funny or hyperbolic, let me say up front that I'm not the one who is calling it that, although its founders have been studiously avoiding the term.  London atheists Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans purchased a deconsecrated church this January and have turned it into a spot for what they are calling the "Sunday Assembly," which they describe thusly:

Life can be tough... It is. Sometimes bad things happen to good people, we have moments of weakness or life just isn't fair.  We want The Sunday Assembly to be a house of love and compassion, where, no matter what your situation, you are welcomed, accepted and loved.

Which sounds like at least they have the right approach.  They have said that if they are successful -- which, thus far, they are, showing a 3000% growth rate in just under ten months -- they will open other Sunday Assemblies elsewhere in England.  Their stated goal is to create "a godless assembly in every town, village, and city that wants one."

As Harry Cheadle of Vice put it:

Since I'm an atheist, I'll base this claim on data: Studies have shown that those who go to church are happier, more optimistic, and healthier than others; attending religious services helps kids fight depression and by some (admittedly biased) accounts makes people more charitable.  Obviously most atheists won't have a very good time gathering at a church or synagogue or temple where everyone is devoted to praising and beseeching an imaginary being, but if you believe these studies, they could do with attending something like church.

Ian Dodd, cofounder of a similar assembly in Los Angeles, said wryly, "The church model has worked really well for a couple of thousand years.  What we're trying to do is hold on to the bath water while throwing out the baby Jesus."

The friend who sent me the news story about this movement ended his email with, "See you there next Sunday?"  My response -- after thanking him for the lead -- was "not very likely, sorry."  Which got me thinking why it was that I didn't find this idea immediately attractive.

You'd think I would, wouldn't you?  Getting together with a community of like-minded individuals, supporting each other in difficult times, discussing the ramifications of our beliefs (and lack thereof), and so on -- it all should be quite a draw for an "out" atheist like me.  And yet I can say with some assurance that if such a "congregation" started in my home town, I probably wouldn't attend.

Part of it is personal.  I am actually a very shy individual.  I'm intensely uncomfortable in large social groups.  At parties I'm much more likely to be the guy standing in the corner silently sipping a glass of scotch and watching the goings-on than I am the person at the center of attention.

Which is probably part of why I'm a writer, although it does make me wonder sometimes how I ended up in the teaching profession.

But it's more than that, and I think that the additional reasons are going to make it very unlikely that the Sunday Assemblies will succeed in the long-term.  And it has to do with what brings churchgoers together in the first place.

Churches cohere as institutions, I think, because of a commonality of belief and the shared acceptance of a set of core values.  Now, there can be disagreement about the details, and sometimes even serious argument; but there is a set of unquestioned assumptions at the basis of belief, and those are generally universal to all members.

It's hard to see how disbelief could provide the same kind of philosophical and social glue.  There are, after all, a great many more versions and gradations of disbelief than there are of belief.  If you think that Jesus rose from the dead to save us from original sin -- well, you can differ in the interpretation of what exactly that means, but the basic concept is the same for everyone.

But why do people disbelieve in that claim?  I know people who reject the central tenet of Christianity because (1) they don't like a lot of the Christians they know, and don't want to be associated with Christianity because of it; (2) they would rather there not be an all-knowing, all-seeing deity watching them and judging their actions; (3) they figure that if they believed, they'd be compelled to go to church, and like to have their Sundays free; and (4) they just don't give a damn about the whole argument, and prefer not to think about it at all.  All of the above consider themselves atheists -- and, frankly, I doubt they'd have much to say to one another about it.

As for me, of course, my objections to the core beliefs of religion come from a different source still -- the lack of evidence for religious belief.

So it's hard to see how you could base a "church" (or whatever you want to call it) around not believing in something.  It'd be a little like having a bunch of guys who get together every week so they can eat pizza and not watch football.

So my suspicion is that the whole thing will be short-lived, because groups need a common purpose to survive, not just a shared lack of identification.  There's only one common purpose I can think of that an atheist gathering could have that would induce them to hang together -- the purpose of proselytization.  Spreading the good word that there's no Good Word.  Sending out missionaries to induce religious people to deconvert.

And once again -- I have no interest whatsoever in this.  To me, belief (or disbelief) is an intensely personal decision.  I am, obviously, up front about my own atheism, and have no problem with describing how I arrived where I am philosophically.  On the other hand, by doing so I am honestly not trying to talk anyone into, or out of, anything.  Proselytization implies an unequal power structure -- "I know what is correct, and I will instruct you about it if you will just open your mind and listen."  There's an undercurrent of condescension there that I find repellent.  So I'd be happy to discuss what I think, with anyone who isn't inclined to pull out a machete when they find out I'm an atheist -- but I'm just really not into persuasion.

So I think I'll be staying home next Sunday.  Happy for you if you like this sort of thing, but not my cup of tea.