Diary Archive 2006

Well, the general public consensus (of two and possibly three people) is that, while I'm very nice in person, in written discussions I'm a bitch. This may very likely be true and I think I know why.

In person, for one thing, I don't hear everything a person says. I imagine that's typical. We tend to hear something that either piques our interest or makes us want to respond and we stop listening while thinking about it. In email, I read everything you say. And I tend to respond to all of it. Maybe it's a good thing that we don't usually hear everything people say.

Also, in person, I can't spot all of a person's logical fallacies and hypocritical statements. Some I catch on to, most hit me later while rethinking the conversation, but I'm sure there are a few I never hear. But, in writing, they are clear as day. And I respond to them because I think I'm supposed to. I think it's the polite thing to do to parse what you've said and tell you why I think it's not right. I mean, we are having a discussion aren't we?

Third, in person, I'm more likely to let you intimidate me, bully me, patronize me, and dismiss me. I don't like confrontation. I hate talking, really, because later, I'll just go over it in my head and realize how stupid I sounded and promise myself to keep quiet the next time.

But, in writing, I am confident. I know how to use the written word. I know how to find just the right words to express my thoughts. Best of all, I have time to rethink everything: my position, my feelings, my logic, your words, and the entire conversation to that point. So, I won't shrink away from a challenge. If you try to dispense your vast knowledge and I find something amiss, I will let you know.

I rarely get personal. My detractors would have you think otherwise. But I can remember many of these arguments in which I have had to hold my tongue as the aggressor gets personal and antagonistic. But, unfortunately, I am not a saint. I finally flip out and lose my temper. And I guess the thing is that when I get mean, you have finally seen mean. Again, knowing how to use words is really fabulous when you want to insult someone. I know how to do that very well.

But then, certain people act as if they've done absolutely nothing to deserve such a reaction from me and cry foul. And I get a written finger-wagging. I know personalities like that very well, I'm afraid. They gnaw and needle and push and push until they get the reaction they want from you; and then they turn it all around so that you look bad.

It's pretty easy with me, because I do write well. I do sound rather confident, I imagine. And I don't put little smileys after everything I say or put a question mark after virtually every statement I make so I can claim I didn't mean it. And I'm far from perfect which is apparently a bad thing. I tend to apologize pretty quickly, which only makes me look more guilty. Why is it that if you apologize for one thing, people think you were wrong about everything?

People have a really hard time reading what someone has actually written; for that matter, they have a hard time hearing what someone has actually said. And once you've misunderstood someone, for some reason, it is almost impossible to accept that you have, admit it, and correct yourself. But the worst offense, is after you've totally pissed the person off beyond recognition as the nice person you know "in-person," you have the gall to say that it's all their fault.

Every bad thing they have said about you (you misinterpret everything they've said, for instance, or you've gotten personal), you turn around and say, no, no, you didn't do that, they did it. Some people are like that--walls.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that I'm nice in person because in person I'm a wimp. And I'm not nice in email because I stand up for myself. And just like people don't really want to know what you think, people don't really want to discuss anything with you. What people want is for you to agree with them.

Not everyone, of course. You can recognize the people who do like discussion. They hear you. They let you know that they've heard you. They let you know that they have understood your position by explaining it back to you. They treat it thoughtfully. They do not dismiss you casually as if you don't know what you're talking about. They don't keep trying to claim you've said something you haven't, they don't act like they have all the right answers. But the best thing about these people--the thing I would like to emulate--is that if you do not treat them in kind, they will not talk to you anymore.

I, on the other hand, keep at it, until I'm fighting to maintain my own composure. I need to stop expecting people to be smart, rational, thoughtful, and tolerant. Because so few of them actually are.

Darn, I was wrong. We actually had a wonderful turnout for the SCFA Thanksgiving Potluck and Book Discussion. Let me count in my head here... .... I count fifteen with myself... but there may have been one or two more whom I'm forgetting. (Is 'whom' correct there?)

It was a lot of fun. I'd love to see a good turnout like that for our solstice party. We'll see.

So, I've stepped back a bit from the feral cat colony. I honestly just don't have the time. I'm homeschooling two of my kids, one of them at high school level; I'm still trying to write; I take ballet and tap lessons; and then there's all the usual...cooking, baking bread (mmmm...finally started again after a long time), crochet and sewing, etc. I just don't have time for the stress and heartache of the ferals. But then I feel guilty. So, I'm sure I'll be back soon. Don't worry, all you cat lovers out there, the colony has two other caregivers, so I'm not completely abandoning them.

For this month's Freely Speaking, I wrote an opinion piece about Christmas and how I just love it. You'll be able to read it once the newsletter has been posted at the SCFA website.

Oh, how silly of me. I forgot. I have signed a contract with The Disinformation Co. Ltd. for publication of an essay to be included in Russ Kick's newest edition on religion. It's going to be called: Everything You Know About God is Wrong. I was thrilled when I heard from Mr. Kick. I already own his Abuse Your Illusions book.

The weather is cooling; the mornings are chilly and crisp. This is the only time I can tolerate Florida living and it doesn't last nearly long enough. This fresh dip in temperature is not guaranteed to last a season, but comes in spurts between hot spells. Still, it's much better than the long stretch of unbearable heat day after day March through September.

I'm not so depressed of late, I'm happy to report. The cure, it seems, is to busy myself with more productive pursuits. I do some fiction writing; crochet; tending to a feral cat colony; but more importantly, with Space Coast Freethought Association, I am focusing on our positive activities instead of trying to "rally the troops."

The "troops" it seems, don't give a damn. So, I have given up on them. If they want to wake from their slumber and do something about the sorry state of the wall that was supposed to separate religion and government, let them. But they'll have to figure it all out on their own now.

Of course, they don't give much of a damn about positive activities either. We're going to Disney World's Magic Kingdom on October 21. If any of the SCFA folks are going, I don't know about it. As far as I can tell, it's just my family and a family of Humanists from Tampa who will attend.

Same goes for our First Amendment Rally, our International Atheism Day picnic, our monthly socials. There are about 7 of us who show up to these things regularly. Nobody else cares. It makes you wonder about atheists, doesn't it?

I mean, on the one hand, they complain that there aren't enough social activities offered in atheist groups. We're all about fighting for the wall of separation. We have over 90 people on our email list and a couple dozen dues-paying members. But we get 7 at a social?

I'm reading two books right now. The God Delusion, by Dawkins and The New History of the World by Roberts. We're having an SCFA social in November during which we will discuss Dawkins book--the seven of us.

On July 6, I had a letter published in Florida Today in which I said this: "Theocrats must think they've hit on a winning strategy. They get their religion into our government under the guise of secularism, and then use their victory to further their religious cause."

I was talking about Florida's official adoption of "In God We Trust" as our state motto. Theocrats get around doing crap like that by saying that God, in this context, isn't religious, it's patriotic. Same with the Pledge of Allegiance: Saying we're a nation under God in no way makes the patriotic exercise into a religious one.

But then theocrats, or their army of drones, come at us with nonsense like, "Our nation was founded on Christianity; why else would we have our God in our motto and in our Pledge!" So, it's a win-win strategy for them, and we all lose.

And sure enough, today, we find this letter by Thelma Craigie in Florida Today.

On July 1, SCFA hosted a First Amendment Rally at City Hall in Palm Bay. We had a public reading of the Constitution of the United States. You'd think that would draw out a lot of people; but it didn't. There were some, though. And a lot of people want us to do it again, so we probably will.

Last Saturday, April 8, I spent the day at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Brevard for a seminar on the Separation of Church and State. I was a little disappointed at the turn-out, about 35 people; but others I spoke to were pleased. I suppose I'm still depressed. It bothers me that so few people are concerned about the state of our nation, especially as it relates to separation.

I gave a short speech about the idea from the atheist perspective. I think it went fairly well.

A whole month has passed since I last wrote. I'm afraid that may be the norm for a while. I have been pretty depressed. Things look very bleak from here. The religious and superstitious have control of this country and I fear we will lose more and more of our freedoms. Too many people think that last sentence wreaks of radicalism and hysteria...but unfortunately those sentiments come from two camps: those who like what's going on, and those who want to keep their heads in the sand.

I generally spend about an hour or more each morning, reading articles on separation and religion issues, looking for good candidates to post to the Space Coast Freethought Association's news list. All too often I have subjected myself to articles denigrating atheists and freedom. I also read editorials and letters in a large number of Florida newspapers for the Florida Writes for the Wall letter-writing campaign. These chores depress me, upset me, sometimes anger me. Sometimes my entire day can be colored by a mean-spirited letter to an editor.

It's not always the negative viewpoints that bother me. I'm currently reading Sam Harris' book, The End of Faith. While it's refreshing to read a viewpoint that mirrors my own with regard to religion, the facts he lays out for me scare me. I do not have his optimism for our future.

So, I've backed away a bit. I'm dropping off debate email lists, skipping negative articles, failing to completely read negative letters before posting them to the Florida Writes list, and abandoning my attempt at a daily current events blog. I'm going back to fiction for my daily indulgence in avoiding housework, instead of the fight against the inertia toward fascism that, in my opinion, can not be won until the majority in this country wakes up.

I receive the strangest mail. This story started with letters to editors in some Florida papers. I received a few emails that contained nothing but cut-and-pasted web pages. After the first, I responded asking the sender why he sent it to me. And later, I told him if he'd like to discuss something that would be great, but I really wanted him to stop with the cutting and pasting of these large documents and filling up my inbox.

He wrote back and said: "Maybe we didn't want to read your junk in the Winter Haven news chief and Lakeland Ledger either so I'm giving you what I believe. Jesus is Lord!! So remember, you started it."

Okay. So, I started it by getting published in the paper. Whatever. We went back and forth and came to what I thought was an understanding. He wouldn't bother me anymore. But then he sent me another email. I'm not complaining really; I don't mind if people want to talk. He didn't, after all, just send another web page.

-----Original Message-----
From: deleted to protect the delusional
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2006 10:03 AM
To: Dianna Narciso
Subject: God

Mr. M*****,

I hadn't realized we had "started something" to end, but all right…we'll end it. I certainly appreciate being "given" the last word, but I always get the last word when I want it. I have two blogs filled with last words.

Anyway, back to ending this.

I do not, nor did I ever, care what you or anyone else believes. I'm sure I never said you should not believe whatever you wish. You are free to continue to believe in your gods and your holy book. I have always only demanded that you respect the rights of conscience for everyone else on this planet, and in this country, by keeping religion and government separate.

I am not surprised anymore when I am insulted by Christians. I've grown used to it over the years. The typical response to being called a fool by a Christian is to quote Jesus back to him: Matthew 5:22. But they always have a witty rationalization for why it's okay for them to do what Jesus asks them not to. I'll ignore the "sweetie" remark, as that may be attributable to some misogynist tendency on your part that may or may not be (though likely is) related to your religion.

You also insult me when you snidely claim that I would pretend an intelligence greater than Darwin, Newton or Einstein. You mean to call me vain, I suppose. Not knowing me, I suppose you say such a thing because I do not believe in god, and those men, supposedly, did.

Certainly Darwin was a theist. He remained a believer of sorts even after his work on the Beagle. But he was not a Christian. Newton, certainly was as far as I recall.

Einstein was not a religious man and said as much:

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." - Albert Einstein in Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas (Einstein's secretary) and Banesh Hoffman, and published by Princeton University Press.

But the point you were trying to make illustrates very well the difference between you and me, and between science and religion. Science does not work like religion. In religion, you have great men who speak for gods. They tell you what to think and everything they say is held dear. Science does not respect every word out of the mouths of great scientists merely because they say it, and because they are great scientists. Science respects the things great scientists say that can be shown to be factual.

So, what Darwin, Newton, or Einstein said is meaningless in the debate over religion, science and human origins. It just doesn't matter what they believed. It only matters what can be tested and shown to be factual.

But, just to show you that people are so much more complicated than you would apparently like them to be, here is Darwin, from his autobiography, Recollections of the Development of my Mind and Character, 1876:

"....During these two years (March 1837 - January 1839) I was led to think much about religion. Whilst on board the Beagle I was quite orthodox, and I remember being heartily laughed at by several officers (though themselves orthodox) for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of morality. I suppose it was the novelty of the argument that amused them. But I had gradually come by this time (i.e. 1836 to 1839) to see the Old Testament, from its manifestly false history of the world, with the Tower of Babel, the rain-bow as a sign, &c., &c., and from its attributing to God the feelings of a revengeful tyrant, was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos, or the beliefs of any barbarian....
....Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted for a single second that my conclusion was correct. I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so, the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother, and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished.
And this is a damnable doctrine...."

As to the quote you offered by Darwin on the development of the eye, I must apologize to you profusely. You have been duped...badly. There are people in this world who, like you, very much believe that there is a God and he had a son and he wrote a book called the Bible. And they are willing to say anything to get other people to believe it, too. They are even willing to lie. Perhaps, like St. Paul, they believe that lying for God is okay. (Romans 3:7)

If you had read Darwin's The Origin of Species yourself, you would know that Darwin, throughout his work, posed rhetorical situations regarding the impossibility of this or that by natural selection, only to continue to explain in what way natural selection could, in fact, explain it. After making the rhetorical claim you quoted about the eye, Darwin goes on to say:

"When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certainly the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered as subversive of the theory."

Read the whole chapter yourself here:

http://www.tbi.univie.ac.at/Origin/origin_6.html#xtocid1864548

And scientists have gained a lot more information since Darwin's day. Darwin didn't know anything about genetics, for example. The study of genetics has gone on to shape and mature Darwin's theory of natural selection.

So, I suppose this ends it. Here is where it stands: Some people believe that the Christian God exists. Whenever they get information that seems to discredit science, they use it. But they are wrong. They are wrong for one of two reasons. Either they have not bothered to educate themselves about the science they denigrate and do not understand, or they refuse to accept whatever evidence they come across in that study because it defies their cherished belief.

But either way, they are willfully blind.

Sincerely,

Dianna Narciso

It took me a while, but now I'd like to respond to this blog by Danny Carlton, in which he calls me and the Musgroves Vampires. Carlton quotes an Associated Press article giving the basic details of the lawsuit against Brevard County over allowing graduations to take place in a church. Then he says:

"So according to Judge Gregory Presnell bigotry and intolerance is constitutional?!? Since when? How much harm would it do these kids to see a cross or a Bible from a distance. What, are they vampires?"

Considering that Carlton is a deeply religious man, I find his insulting comments unsurprising (while at the same time feeling more respect for former President Jimmy Carter, another deeply religious man whose book I am reading, who would probably agree with the judge in this case).

Point 1: Judge Presnell did not say that bigotry and intolerance are constitutional. Carlton's obfuscation is blatant and bizarre. The lawsuit was not about bigotry or intolerance; it was about separation of religion and government. The government can not compel any person to visit a church. By holding the solemn and important ceremony of graduation in a church, students and their families were compelled to choose between entering a house of Christian worship or missing this event.

[Let's discuss voting in churches here to nip in the bud the arguments from those chomping at the bit: by law, churches opening their doors to voters must cover religious symbols. Also, voting absentee or early in little way renders the act any less patriotic, while graduating with one's class in cap and gown imbues the ceremony with import and grants lifetime memories to the student and parents. Graduation from high school is a once-in-a-lifetime event.]

The government is not allowed to invite students to churches. Judges have already agreed that when assemblies are held in schools, the presenters are not allowed to invite the students to a church afterward, or to any event that is religious. Why? Because the school authorizes the assembly and by allowing the presenters to invite the students to a religious event, even held outside school hours and off school property, the school is thereby authorizing the religious invitation. And government schools can't do that. They have no business inviting our children to attend religious events.

Graduation is similar. When the school program is held in a house of worship, on an altar, in front of an enormous cross, the school is giving the appearance of endorsing Christianity. And not all parents will be comfortable watching their children receiving diplomas against the backdrop of a religious symbol. Certainly not all students will feel welcome in that venue. Religion is divisive. Keep it out of government and government schools.

So, this has nothing to do with bigotry or intolerance, except that directed toward the Musgroves and myself for standing up for the rights of all students and their parents to be free from religious coercion by the government.

Point 2: How much harm would it do these kids to see a cross or a Bible from a distance? (That, Mr. Carlton, is not your call. It is my decision what my children will learn regarding your cross and holy book.) But again, Carlton's obfuscation is desperate. This is not about our kids seeing a cross or Bible "from a distance." This is about being compelled to enter a house of worship for a solemn and important ceremony and enjoying a life-changing moment on an altar in front of an enormous Christian cross.

Point 3: No, we're not Vampires. Seeing a cross or a Bible doesn't hurt us. If you can not understand why it is wrong to take a secular ceremony and move it to a church, I don't know if there is any hope for you on this issue. But think about it this way: