Factonista » Max Jackson

Dogmatic Atheism

Max Jackson — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 05:10:19 +0000

I started my secularist career as a Hitchens exegete, picking up “god is not Great” on a whim and immediately becoming engrossed by every word. Inspired, I began picking fights with some relatively harmless Christians from my old high school. These are the kids who play the acoustic guitar and bongos at CRU(Campus Crusade’s hip new moniker), peaceful but irritating in their own way. The Facebook note wars were exhilarating for me, meeting kind but weak arguments with the most eloquent venom that I could muster.

This lasted all summer, and when college rolled around Campus Freethought Alliance gave me an excellent vent for my anti-religious ire. I loved nothing more than to chew up any and all of the well-meaning but ignorant Christians that were unfortunate enough to get in my line of sight. I glared at those I saw with crosses around their necks and Bible verses tattood on their arms. I judged a person’s merit as a person based solely on whether or not they subscribed to popular religious dogma.

Gradually, I began to realize that I was a complete and total hypocrite. I was blasting those who disagreed with me, eagerly and hurtfully, without even giving a thought to the idea that I might be wrong myself. I didn’t critically examine my beliefs at all, even while passionately calling for the religious to do the same. I immediately and spitefully rejected any views that did not confirm or support my own.

As I was gradually waking up to this fact, a few things happened to catalyze the process. My girlfriend Leah took me to her old home in Boston for a week, where I saw things that made my jaw drop. I saw the word “evolution” frankly utilized all over the place in the Boston Aquarium, without fear of public outcry. I saw a gay flag stamped on the sign of a Baptist church, an institution that I associate with the worst ignorance and bigotry here in the South. I got the idea that if I started going off about the importance of critically examining beliefs, people would react with puzzlement that I thought there was a special need to promote critical thinking at all.

I returned home a different man. I had tasted the North East, and to this day I am thirsty for more. Up there, religion stood amputated of its worst qualities, of what made me detest it in the South. The perspective forced me to re-evaluate my own beliefs, as I now saw them. No longer boldly and absolutely positive in my “belief in the absence of a god,” I had to refine my understanding of human knowledge and what exactly it was that I was fighting.

I understood then that religion was and is not the problem. Dogma is the problem, and dogmatic religion is a symptom of what I view as a critical fault in human psychology. Everyone has a bit of the dogmatic inside of them, but it wasn’t until I opened my perspective that I realized that Atheism is not necessarily Freethought. We Atheists like to think of scientific naturalism as the inevitable conclusion of free inquiry, but we often forget that our models of the universe are based on what limited information we each individually have experienced in our own lifetimes. I used to consider the religious to be far less intelligent than myself, for in my eyes they were clearly either too stupid or too deluded to see things my way*.

I watched a clip of Richard Dawkins on the “O’Reilly Factor.” during which Dawkins was grilled on the moral efficacy of Atheism. I didn’t like his response, as I felt it missed the point entirely; rather than attempting to immunize Atheism as a moral determinant, I felt that he should have pointed out what Hitchens almost got at in “god is not Great;” the issue is not religion, but dogma. Much of the worst atrocities of the last century were committed not under the banner of a religious ideology, but a political dogma instead.

I feel that this is something we must all remember, every day. Being an atheist does not automatically make one smarter or more rational than any believer. I am proud of my atheism not just because I feel that it is a more accurate perception of objective reality, but because my arrival here came as the result of relentless introspection and merciless inquiry. My faith, or lack there-of, has survived a trip into and out of dogmatism.**

Here are some questions:

Can we really maintain objectivity, especially in the face of the rather rabid attacks we may face in public debate?

Which should we promote more? Free inquiry or Secular Humanism?

Webster Cook Impeached Without Due Process

Max Jackson — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 01:37:49 +0000

For legality’s sake, I’m going to start this with a disclaimer: The views contained within this article are mine and mine alone, and do not represent those of Webster Cook or his affiliates in any way unless otherwise specified.

On Thursday, August 28^th, Webster Cook was formally impeached and removed from his position as Senator. This represents the culmination of many weeks of arduous legal battles and emotional turmoil for Webster and his family, and Webster is left with a permanent stain on his record after an impeachment hearing that was nonobjective and patently farcical.

Those unfamiliar with the situation should learn more here.

During the week between summer classes and Fall semester, the Speaker of the Senate, President Pro Tempore and Legislative, Judicial, & Rules Committee(LJR) chairman met privately with key witnesses to question them about the incident. These conversations were transcribed and presented during the Thursday hearing as evidence. The witnesses were not under oath at the time, and later analysis found that there were numerous discrepancies between the transcriptions and the conversations themselves.

According to the Impeachment Statutes here at UCF, the defendant is explicitly guaranteed the right to cross-examine witnesses. Webster was not granted this opportunity. He wasn’t even informed that the conversations were going to be used in his hearing until the night before, giving him no time to review the evidence or examine the witnesses himself.

The Impeachment Statutes also guarantee the defendant the right to refute the charges presented against him or her, but Webster was blatantly denied this as well. The hearing was scheduled to end at 11:00 PM, and at 10:53 a senator made a motion to table debate and immediately move into voting procedures. Robert’s Rules of Order gave this motion precedence. When Webster protested, he was flatly denied the opportunity to refute the charges, being curtly informed that “we don’t have time for that.”

It seemed as though all of the senators there had an agenda. Those who were not actively attempting to destroy him appeared more interested in getting an early start on Labor Day weekend.

Webster now stands stripped of his title, picking up the pieces after a minor incident was inflated and sensationalized onto the national stage. The impeachment proceedings reeked of both indifference to Webster’s human dignity and biased intent to sacrifice his future to placate a public hungry for his blood after the ridiculous spectacle surrounding his incident.

Regrettably, such incidences of questionable integrity within college student government associations are anything but rare. In high school, student political proceedings are at least superficially monitored by responsible adults whose job it is to ensure that the rules are followed and that things stay clean. Once college rolls around, the political corruption starts; those who aren’t just in it for graduate school application padding quickly find that they can deviously pursue their own ends with impunity. There are a dedicated few, though, a few who seek to challenge the norm and facilitate progress towards a greater good.

These few are quickly punished. Webster has long been a passionate, outspoken critic of giving public money to dogmatic organizations, both religiously affiliated and not.

Here’s a quick primer:

Each UCF student pays an “Activity and Services Fee,” to the tune of $12 per credit hour. This money then goes to student government for allocation.

Explicitly religious student groups received $75,000 of public money last year alone.

Few raise an eyebrow at this, if they even care to know about it. Many senators at UCF spend their meetings batting balls of paper around, doodling, whispering casual conversation to one another, and generally being ineffective, one senator (not Webster) tells me. During one financial allocation hearing, one awe-inspiringly brilliant senator expressed credulity at the legitimacy of allowing a group of 40 people to decide things for the entire student population.

Isn’t that the very nature of the Senate?

This general level of incompetence was certainly reflected in Webster’s impeachment hearing; “it was like they were making it up as they went along,” Webster later told me. Webster’s father was also there, powerlessly left to watch as the committee flagrantly disregarded the rules. The senators didn’t even officially debate the issue, instead just dutifully following the recommendation of the LJR committee.

Interestingly, the LJR committee is comprised of just seven people, four of whom are Catholics. It is up to each individual to recuse themselves from a potential conflict of interest. Not surprisingly, none did.

Webster had a thoughtfully written statement prepared to refute the charges, but as already mentioned, he was denied this right. The three who arranged the clandestine meeting with the witnesses did so by completely disregarding the direction of the Impeachment Statutes. Webster was not allowed to cross-examine these witnesses prior to the hearing. Such are but a few examples of the mockery of justice that was Webster’s hearing.

Now, Webster is doing everything in his power to fight for his rights and do what he can to clean up this situation.

Those wishing to help Webster out are more than welcome to contact our SGA Chief Justice Jordan Axelrod at 407-823-4721 or at sga_cjus@mail.ucf.edu

Editors Note: For the back story to Crackergate, please consult the following articles:

Political Untouchables

Max Jackson — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 05:02:25 +0000

I’ll admit it. I had caught Obama fever.

It started when my girlfriend’s mother gave me a copy of Dreams from my Father, Obama’s bestselling 1996 biography. Reading it got me very excited about Obama’s candidacy, and once it became clear that it was going to be a contest between Obama and McCain I enthusiastically threw my support behind Obama. A McCain presidency promises a fresh social conservative in the Supreme Court following Justice Stevens’ imminent departure, something that, as a freethought activist, I felt I had to oppose. Meanwhile, Obama has been explicit in several speeches about his staunch support of church-state separation. To me, the choice was obvious.

Then my wake-up call came, in the form of Obama promising to promote and enhance faith-based initiatives across the country. I was shaken; was there any candidate who could help us progress as a society, who would not actively promote conformity to mainstream religious modes?

The answer is simply no. This election is noteworthy, among many other things, for the fact that the Evangelical Christian bloc is up for grabs for the first time in recent memory. They carried Bush II to victory in the 2000 and 2004 elections, swinging states like Ohio into the Red and helping him capture the White House. However, the evangelicals are not as excited about McCain as they were Bush II, and both camps know that they have to mobilize to target this very motivated group of voters. The first real appearance of the two candidates together was the recent Saddleback Church forum, hosted by celebrity evangelist pastor Rick Warren. Before they debated on real issues, they instead got on-stage in front of the nation and tried to out-Christian each other, jumping through the Judeo-Christian hoops to prove that they are Christian leaders who will lead a Christian nation with Christian values towards a Christian world.

As an non-believer and a secular freethought activist, this sickens me. Many who decry the role of religion in Middle Eastern politics passionately advocate a Christian stranglehold on our own government, the worst of which we have seen since Bush II came into office. Christianity disproportionately dominates our government, unreflective of the true nature of the American religious demographic: anywhere from 4%-14% of Americans(depending on who you ask) consider themselves to be non-believers, not including many who keep their mouths shut about their disbelief. Despite this fact, one has to ask: where are the non-religious politicians? Well, here’s one, and he’s not the first; California Gov. Culbert Olson, a Democrat who served from 1939 to 1943, declared his atheism as well. But these men “came out” close to or after the end of their political careers, when they had little left to lose by such an admission. It would seem as though the non-believer is among the last of the political outcasts; the Democratic Party has a black man running for president with a Catholic as his running mate, and it came narrowly close to nominating a woman. A Jewish man was a Vice Presidential candidate in the 2000 election. The Democratic party openly supports civil unions for homosexuals. Yet, for all of its talk, the “party of inclusiveness” shuns those whose worldview tends toward the skeptical.

Given the current socio-political landscape, this makes bitter sense. To formally recognize non-believers as a political entity would be instant suicide for any political party. The best that we can hope to do is to vote for someone who would hurt our cause less, and in this case, the choice is clearly Obama. However, it is a regrettable choice, one that hurts more and more with each election cycle as we grow as a subset of the population while facing the same political disenfranchisement year after year. Perhaps someday the non-believers will know the joy of having a real say in politics, like women, minorities and soon homosexuals. Until then, we’ll fight the good fight until the world considers our voice a legitimate one.